Žižek's father dying, no deathbed reconciliation
anecdote · personal/autobiographical ·
retold in 9 talks
When Žižek's father died in hospital, he was called in the morning, said 'will you take care of the corpse? Thanks' and continued writing his book, never experiencing the expected sentimental regret of not embracing him.
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 9
“will you take care of the corpse? thanks, yes, boom, and i continue writing my book.”
“he sat down and said oh I'm tired come here to me why don't you just babble talk something it doesn't matter what just”6:33 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 5pub. 2018-11-28 · 2:04:45
“will you take care of the corpse, thanks, yes, boom and I continue writing my book. Never did I have this moment of oh dad why didn't I embrace you”
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
Rey Chow2Hans Magnus Enzensberger2Alasdair MacIntyre2Damien Hirst2Marcus Aurelius2Hal Foster2Edmund Burke2Friedrich Hayek2
alongside works
Every retelling 9
When Žižek's father died in hospital, he was called in the morning, said 'will you take care of the corpse? Thanks' and continued writing his book, never experiencing the expected sentimental regret of not embracing him., illustrating authentic passivity,pseudo-activity
6:33 Slavoj Žižek Masterclass: Jacques Lacan: A Lateral Introduction. Part 5pub. 2018-11-28 · 2:04:45
Žižek recalls his father returning from work and openly telling young Slavoj to just babble, anything, so as not to be in silence. He found this humiliating; the truth of Brief Encounter is the heroine should say to her friend 'just go on talking, it doesn't matter what.', illustrating Brief Encounter: prattling friend as husband's stand-in,structure of confessional address
Žižek recounts that when his father died he received a phone call from the hospital, said 'will you take care of the corpse, thanks,' and returned to writing his book. He says he never experienced the belated mourning of 'why didn't I embrace him', invoking a Christian Holy Spirit community as his real family., illustrating Holy Spirit as community replacing biological family,atheist materialism
Žižek recalls his father, a self-described open democratic liberal, telling him privately such vulgar anti-gay jokes that they still appear in his nightmares, used as evidence of genuine progress since May '68., illustrating legacy of '68,liberalism-political-correctness
Žižek's mother secretly enjoyed babysitting but expressed that love only as constant complaint about the burden; when Žižek stopped sending the grandson, she was desperate, deprived of her only mode of enjoyment., illustrating jouissance,complaint as enjoyment,deprivation of the precious object
2:00:03 Why Radical Politics Needs Philosophy? A Masterclass With Slavoj Zizek. Day 12023-11-21 · 2:21:23
Žižek's mother, after a Jewish friend left, noted that she had counted money 'strangely intensely', revealing covert antisemitism beneath apparent friendship., illustrating displacement of antisemitism,racism without belief