Sam Harris's Truth Pill
example · Sam Harris, The End of Faith ·
retold in 6 talks
Harris proposes a drug that induces inner suffering invisible from outside as a torture-free substitute; Žižek calls it 'decaffeinated torture,' analogous to coffee without caffeine, desire with its disturbing element removed.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 5
“What he proposes is basically decaffeinated torture... in the same way that we want coffee without caffeine, we want beer without alcohol.”
“A drug that would deliver both the instruments of torture and the instruments of the torture's utter concealment.”1:28:09 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 2pub. 2018-11-28 · 1:56:22
“A drug that would deliver both the instruments of torture and the instrument of their utter concealment.”
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
alongside works
Every retelling 5
Harris proposes a drug that induces inner suffering invisible from outside as a torture-free substitute; Žižek calls it 'decaffeinated torture,' analogous to coffee without caffeine, desire with its disturbing element removed., illustrating decaffeinated Other,decaffeinated torture,postmodern ideology
1:28:09 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 2pub. 2018-11-28 · 1:56:22
Harris imagines a drug that causes torture-induced paralysis and misery without the torturer witnessing the suffering, effectively erasing the neighbor., illustrating truth pill,chocolate laxative
Sam Harris’s proposal for a 'truth pill' that induces paralysis and misery while concealing the torture, allowing torturers to bypass empathy, which Žižek finds horrifying., illustrating truth pill
Harris imagines a drug producing all the epistemic results of torture while hiding the suffering from the torturer's consciousness; Žižek reads this as the torture equivalent of decaf coffee, a desire to abolish the neighbor's proximity., illustrating decaf torture / truth pill,chocolate laxative logic,the neighbor
In 'The End of Belief', Sam Harris proposes a pill that causes subjective suffering (making the subject confess) while appearing externally as a nap, 'decaffeinated torture'. Žižek argues this misses the Lacanian dimension of the neighbor as abyss., illustrating decaffeinated torture,neighbor as Thing,ethics / torture