Niels Bohr's horseshoe
anecdote ·
retold in 55 talks
Niels Bohr had a horseshoe on his country-house door; when a scientist friend asked why a scientist would keep a superstitious charm, Bohr answered 'I was told it works even if you don't believe in it', Žižek's model for ideology today.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 50
“of course i don't believe it, i'm a scientist, but i was told it works even if you don't believe in it.”
“Of course I'm a scientist, I don't believe in it. But I was told that it works even if you don't believe in it. That's ideology heute.”
“god doesn't play dice... don't tell god what to do”
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, 6 jobsuses
cynical reason
×23
subject supposed to believe
×15
commodity fetishism
×7
ideology as non-ideology
×6
interpassivity
×6
the big Other
×5
Its cast and sources
populated by
Niels Bohr42Paul Veyne9Blaise Pascal11G. K. Chesterton16Søren Kierkegaard17Peter Sloterdijk16Brian Victoria7Robert Pfaller9
alongside works
Every retelling 51
12:45 Optimism or Pessimism? | Slavoj Žižek Meets Yanis Varoufakis on the Future (Part 4)2024-12-23 · 21:39
Niels Bohr had a horseshoe on his country-house door; when a scientist friend asked why a scientist would keep a superstitious charm, Bohr answered 'I was told it works even if you don't believe in it', Žižek's model for ideology today., illustrating ideology as practiced non-belief
Niels Bohr has a horseshoe above his door to ward off evil spirits. A friend asks how a scientist can be superstitious. Bohr replies: 'I don't believe in it, but I was told it works even if you don't believe in it.' Žižek uses this to define ideology today., illustrating ideology,cynical reason,belief without belief
1:10:44 Slavoj Žižek & Sean Carroll: Quantum Physics, the Multiverse, and Time Travel | RP #1182023-07-23 · 1:48:39
Einstein's 'God does not play dice' is reinterpreted: God is not a personal deity but the cosmic order. Bohr's retort 'Don't tell God what to do' opens the path for quantum uncertainty., illustrating science-physics,big other
1:11:04 XLII Sigmund Freud Lecture by Slavoj Žižek: Theology, Negativity, and the Death-Drive2015 · 1:49:50
Physicist Niels Bohr keeps a superstitious horseshoe above his door. When asked why, he replies that he doesn't believe in it, but believes it works even if he doesn't believe in it., illustrating interpassivity,ideology
A friend finds a horseshoe over Bohr's door and asks if he believes in it. Bohr: 'Of course not, I'm a scientist.' Friend: 'Then why do you have it?' Bohr: 'Because I was told it works even if you don't believe in it.', the perfect formula for how ideology functions today., illustrating ideology without belief,objective belief,subject supposed to believe
A friend visiting Niels Bohr sees a horseshoe above the door (a superstition against evil spirits) and asks if the scientist believes in it. Bohr answers he doesn't believe in it, but keeps it because 'I heard it works even if you don't believe in it.' Žižek uses this to illustrate how ideology functions today via cynical belief., illustrating cynical belief,objective belief,ideology