Life is a disease transmitted by sex

As told 4

“What is life? Life is a disease which is transmitted by sex and always ends in death.”
43:28 Radical Politics Today: Hegel’s Teaching2015-07-25 · 1:48:48

“'Life is a disease which is transmitted by sex and always ends with death.' It's the best definition of life.”
~28:51 The Flight of Minerva in the City of God2022-08-29 · 1:39:07

“Life is a disease transmitted by sex which always ends with death.”
24:24 What is freedom today?2022-05-27 · 1:39:42

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)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses

death drive ×3 four riders of the apocalypse ×2 jouissance ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by

Reinhold Niebuhr1 Robert Fisk1 Stathis Kouvélakis1 Timothy Snyder1 Victoria Nuland1 Norbert Elias1 Zhou Enlai2 François Jullien1

alongside works

Book of Revelation2 The Birth of a Nation [Birth of the Republic]1 Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of Judgment)1 The Need to Censor Our Dreams1 The Ghost (The Ghost Writer)1 The Atlantic (December 1944, Sartre essay)1 Fierté Européenne (European Pride)1 The Civilizing Process1

Told together with

40% January 6 Capitol riot as populist 'revolution' 2 shared talks 22% Zhou Enlai on the French Revolution 2 shared talks 20% Haiti: La Marseillaise and Polish soldiers 2 shared talks 17% Glasgow Climate Conference 2 shared talks 12% Stalinist prohibition of the prohibition 2 shared talks 4% coffee without cream / coffee without milk 2 shared talks

Every retelling 4

43:28 Radical Politics Today: Hegel’s Teaching2015-07-25 · 1:48:48

A Polish political joke: 'What is life? Life is a disease which is transmitted by sex and always ends in death.' Žižek calls it the best definition of life he knows., illustrating Eastern European political jokes,communist-era humor,melancholic spirituality

~28:51 The Flight of Minerva in the City of God2022-08-29 · 1:39:07

Žižek's favorite definition of life: 'Life is a disease which is transmitted by sex and always ends with death', attributed to Polish graffiti, used to distinguish ordinary biological death from the deeper technological threats to humanity., illustrating death drive,four riders of the apocalypse,ordinary vs existential death

24:24 What is freedom today?2022-05-27 · 1:39:42

Žižek cites his favorite Polish graffiti: 'Life is a disease transmitted by sex which always ends with death', deployed as an ironic definition of biological life before pivoting to a more radical sense of 'death.', illustrating death drive,dark humor,Four Riders of the Apocalypse

1:35:15 Universality: Kant, Hegel, Lacan, Marx2015-07-07 · 1:36:11

A Polish proverb/graffiti: 'Life is a disease which always ends in death and which is transmitted by sex.' Žižek presents it as the only completely correct definition of life., illustrating death drive,the human condition,jouissance