chocolate laxative
example · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 8 talks
Žižek claims he bought in California a product where chocolate, normally associated with constipation, functions as a laxative: the poison is its own cure. He uses this as an ironic emblem of charity under capitalism, where the same system that generates poverty 'cures' it through philanthropy.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 7
“It exists as a product, I bought it in California myself. It's... we all know that the association of chocolate is of course constipation, but there you can buy chocolate which works as a laxative.”
“In California, I bought it recently: a chocolate laxative.”
“The ultimate example I encountered recently in California…is a chocolate laxative. And there it says, as a propaganda, 'Do you have still constipation? Eat more of this chocolate.'”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Colin Powell3Daniel Paul Schreber1Jean Clavreul1Stephen Heath1Michelle Pfeiffer1Daniel Day-Lewis1Audrey Hepburn1Shirley MacLaine1
alongside works
Every retelling 7
Žižek claims he bought in California a product where chocolate, normally associated with constipation, functions as a laxative: the poison is its own cure. He uses this as an ironic emblem of charity under capitalism, where the same system that generates poverty 'cures' it through philanthropy., illustrating chocolate laxative,charity as depoliticization,ideology
A 'vulgar' product bought in California: a chocolate laxative. It encapsulates the logic of 'X without Y' by combining the pleasure of chocolate with the function of a laxative, removing the usual side effect (constipation) while keeping the form., illustrating X without Y
Žižek cites a California chocolate laxative as the emblem of late-capitalist hedonism: 'eat more chocolate to cure your constipation', the harmful thing is already its own antidote, pleasure and cure coincide., illustrating thing as its own counteragent,hedonism combining pleasure with constraint,superego as injunction to enjoy
31:43 Vintage Slavoj Zizek Predicts the Future Need for the Phantasmic Guise #web3 #reality #crypto2004-06-08 · 1:56:12
Žižek's personal anecdote about buying a chocolate laxative in California, which he uses to explain how capitalism works: you can do 'dirty' speculation (chocolate) if you offset it with charity (laxative)., illustrating decaffeinated coffee / decaf logic
A chocolate-flavoured laxative bought in California epitomises the logic of decaffeinated enjoyment, you get the form of the pleasure (chocolate) combined with its exact opposite effect., illustrating decaffeinated enjoyment,ideology of consumption
A California product, chocolate laxative, encapsulates the paradox of the thing as its own remedy: the pleasure and the cure for excess of pleasure are combined in one object., illustrating products deprived of their malignant property,permissive society,coincidence of opposites