Fidel Castro / fidelity to castration
joke · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 9 talks
Žižek tells the Cuban he is describing the psychoanalytic 'movement of castration', boasting loss as authenticity, and notes it is no accident their leader is called 'Fidel Castro': fidelity to castration.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 9
“no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro like fidelity to castration”
“no wonder that your leader is called Fidel Castro, fidelity to castration. You are castrated in total poverty but you remain faithful to him.”
“that's why your leader is called fidel castro. fidelity to castration.”6:01 Our World Is Coming To An End | Aaron Bastani Meets Slavoj Žižek | Downstreampub. 2023-11-05 · 1:40:47
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
Willy Brandt2Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe2Michael Sorkin2Fidel Castro6François Balmès2Ayn Rand3Jakob Ammann1Colonel Francis Younghusband1
alongside works
State and Revolution2The Little Book of Hollywood Clichés (Roger Ebert)1Lacan Seminar 6 (Le désir et son interprétation)1The Seminar on the Object of Psychoanalysis1Logic of Fantasy (Logique du fantasme)1From Anxiety to Encore1The Dream of Irma's Injection1Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism1
Every retelling 9
Žižek tells the Cuban he is describing the psychoanalytic 'movement of castration', boasting loss as authenticity, and notes it is no accident their leader is called 'Fidel Castro': fidelity to castration., illustrating movement of castration,fidelity to castration
In Cuba Žižek meets a pro-Castro man who proudly displays ruined buildings as proof of fidelity to the revolution; Žižek notes that the leader's name encodes the condition, Fidel = fidelity, Castro = castration., illustrating fidelity to castration,ideology,selling failure as success
6:01 Our World Is Coming To An End | Aaron Bastani Meets Slavoj Žižek | Downstreampub. 2023-11-05 · 1:40:47
A tasteless joke he was banned for in Cuba: 'Fidel Castro' means fidelity to castration, even if we castrate ourselves, we remain faithful to the cause., illustrating the perverted pride in misery as proof of greatness,leftist martyrdom
Žižek recounts telling Cuban audiences that their pride in economic suffering is a form of castration-fidelity, and that their leader's name, Fidel Castro, encodes this perfectly: fidelity to castration., illustrating fidelity to castration,left authenticism as self-defeating,technocratic socialism
Žižek recounts going to Cuba as a tourist, turning on the TV for a nap break to find Castro giving what he announced as 'five minutes of remarks'; five hours later Castro was still going. Žižek uses this to apologize in advance for talking too much and to invite interruptions., illustrating talking too much,performative contradiction of brevity
Žižek's communist friends call him 'Fidel' because, like Fidel Castro, he promises 'just five minutes of remarks' and then goes on for five hours., illustrating self-deprecating humor,communist rhetoric