Against Recognition: A Critique of the Liberal Reading of Hegel
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2015-12-02 · 2:04:35 · 13,954 words
geopolitics-warideologyhegel-dialecticsrevolution-violenceliberalism-political-correctnessdemocracysexuality-genderrace-antisemitismreligion-theologyfascism-populismpsychoanalysisphilosophy-generalhistory
Žižek opens a multi-day seminar series with an extended political digression instead of the planned Brandom-Hegel lecture, covering the refugee crisis and the EU-Turkey deal, the Israel-Palestine conflict and knife attacks, violence against women across different cultures, and the limits of liberal democracy. He then outlines his upcoming lectures on Robert Brandom's domestication of Hegel, Schiller's proto-fascism, and theology/politics. The talk concludes with a Q&A in which Jacqueline Rose and audience members push back on his discussion of violence, leading to an exchange on what is politically speakable, European values, and the limits of hermeneutic empathy with the other.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 17
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “liberal Hegel / third-way Hegel”
Žižek's label for the academic trend that replaces both conservative and revolutionary readings of Hegel with a neither/nor 'third way' focused on epistemology, recognition, and democratic legitimacy, typified by Pittsburgh Hegelians.
Žižek notes that liberal Hegelians (including Brandom's Pittsburgh school) reduce Hegel to a philosopher of mutual recognition, but points out that Hegel's own most prominent uses of recognition are deeply 'unpleasant', e.g., the defense of the death penalty as recognition of the condemned as a full responsible subject.
as “aestheticization of politics”
Žižek deploys this concept (from Benjamin/Lacoue-Labarthe/Nancy) to analyze Schiller's 'Das Lied von der Glocke' as a proto-fascist vision of community feeling organized around a bell-casting ritual.
Implicitly present in Žižek's argument that ideology is a 'hard material practice' that persists regardless of theoretical enlightenment, echoing the Marxist concept he routinely deploys.
Žižek invokes Marx's point that ideological mystification persists even when one is theoretically enlightened about it, to argue that telling people the truth does not automatically change behavior or ideology.
as “the symptom (psychoanalytic)”
Žižek uses Freud's discovery that correct interpretation does not dissolve the symptom to argue that political enlightenment alone cannot change ideological behavior, something more material has to be done.
Terms from South African journalism that Žižek cites (via Jacqueline Rose's LRB piece on the Pistorius trial) to designate the epidemic of women killed by partners, used to argue that violence against women must be addressed even within broader humanitarian crises.
as “sexual difference counter-revolution”
Žižek's phrase for the global reassertion of male dominance and the subordination of women as a central political question, shared across Putin, Mugabe, Boko Haram, and others despite their ideological differences.
as “sexually correct populism”
Žižek's term for Pim Fortuyn's anti-immigrant politics that mobilized feminist and gay constituencies against Muslims by framing Islam as uniquely threatening to women's and gay rights, a politically correct racism.
Following Benjamin, Žižek uses divine violence to mean violence that is not a means to a preconceived end but a pure manifestation of rage, distinct from both strategic terrorist violence and symbolic gesture, exemplified by Palestinian knife attacks and Paris suburban car-burnings.
as “instrumental violence”
Violence deployed as a means toward a strategic or ideological goal, which Žižek contrasts with divine violence; religious fundamentalist terrorism is for him instrumental, not divine.
Žižek's earlier characterization of the 2011 UK riots, which he here retracts in favor of reading them as closer to divine violence, a manifestation of rage without programmatic content.
Žižek uses the apartheid Bantustans, invented pseudo-sovereign homelands for black South Africans on barren land, as a structural analogy for Netanyahu's proposed two-state solution, which would confine Palestinians to isolated, militarily controlled enclaves.
Žižek's critical label for the liberal-humanitarian strategy of resolving political conflicts by humanizing the other through storytelling and empathy, which he rejects as patronizing and politically naive.
Žižek redefines respect for immigrants as respect for a radical other you may never understand, not as the patronizing gesture of discovering shared humanity beneath cultural difference.
Žižek's counter to the 'clash of civilizations' thesis: the answer is not mutual understanding between civilizations but solidarity across the internal class/emancipatory struggles that cut through each.
Žižek's dismissive term for the multicultural ideology that declares all cultures equally great and calls for mutual understanding, which he contrasts with the genuine leftist strategy of finding shared struggles within each civilization.
Stories he reaches for 4
During a raid on a Palestinian house, an Israeli soldier heard the mother call her daughter by the same name as his own daughter and stepped forward to bond over this shared humanity, which Žižek finds the most disgusting possible liberal gesture, a 'we are all the same beneath our skin' that obscures the structural violence.
“'You see my daughter oh we have the same daughter'. I found this the most disgusting thing you can imagine.”
The 2005 Paris banlieue riots, in which protesters burned their own mosques and cultural centers along with cars, had no program or Islamist agenda, a pure manifestation of rage, for Žižek a paradigm case of divine violence.
“The first thing that protesters in Paris suburb burned were their own mosques, cultural centers and so on cars, they didn't have any program.”
Hegel's paradoxical argument that capital punishment honors the criminal by treating him as a fully responsible autonomous agent; prohibiting it is condescending because it treats the murderer as a victim of circumstances.
“Hegel's crazy idea is that by death penalty you treat the accused, the condemned, you recognize him or her as a full human being, responsible.”
Bosnian women who had been serially raped during the war received a letter from American feminists asking (in a Butlerian vein) whether they thought women had an eternal feminine essence or a performatively enacted identity, a grotesque mismatch of register that Žižek uses to illustrate how Western feminist theory can be a form of neo-colonial insensitivity.
“Do you think that women have an eternal feminine essence or do you think that woman's identity is the result of performatively enacted practices of repetition?”
Works invoked 7
Brandom's detailed commentary on the Phenomenology is Žižek's main target for the following day's lecture; the text itself is treated with reverence even as its domesticated reading is attacked.
Referenced in the Q&A by the chairperson (likely Rose) as the key work in which Žižek develops the deep intractable components of political, social, and psychic identification, the context for his point on ideology's material persistence.
Critique of Violence essay
Žižek treats Benjamin's essay as the key theoretical resource for understanding divine violence; defends the literal violent reading and uses Werner Kraft's diary entry to establish Benjamin's mature identification of divine violence with class struggle.
Žižek calls it 'the best short poetic résumé of fascism that I know': a proto-fascist vision of patriarchal order, blame of women ('laughing hyenas') for the French Revolution, and aesthetic community forged around a church bell. He plans a lecture on it.
Don Carlos play
Žižek reads Schiller's play as a crucial moment for understanding the transformation of authority in early modernity: the weak king replaced by the post-traditional authority of the blind Great Inquisitor.
Žižek acknowledges it as a 'wonderful piece of consequent thinking' but argues it gentrifies Hegel by reducing him to an epistemological/discursive theorist and abandoning ontology and the genuinely subversive content.
Schiller's first hit play, where revolutionary terror comes from male bonding (Karl Moor's robber band) rather than women, the opposite of his later 'Lied von der Glocke'; Žižek traces Schiller's trajectory from this to proto-fascism.
People invoked 37
Caroline von Schlegel positive
Later married Schelling; a Jacobin leftist who reportedly laughed so hard reading Schiller's 'Lied von der Glocke' that she fell off her chair, proposed by Žižek as the model for Schiller's 'laughing hyenas'.
Conchita Wurst positive
The Austrian Eurovision-winning transvestite whose victory provoked a fierce Russian media campaign and Putin's Biblical condemnation, cited as a trigger of the sexual-difference counter-revolution.
Primo Levi positive
Žižek cites Levi's reflection that a Nazi torturer told him 'nobody will believe us' to justify his own choice to describe the Canadian murder case in graphic detail, to make the unbelievable believable.
Sami Khatib positive
Palestinian Benjamin scholar and organizer of the Ramallah Walter Benjamin conference; found the Werner Kraft diary entry clarifying Benjamin's mature view of divine violence as class struggle.
Udi Aloni positive
Žižek's friend, Jewish Israeli activist filmmaker who was banned from Birzeit University; organized a concert with a Palestinian rapper who was attacked by Western leftists for criticizing honor killings.
Robert Mugabe negative
Cited for his UN speech claiming gay rights are Western colonialist propaganda, part of the global sexual-difference counter-revolution.
Robert Brandom negative
Žižek credits his Phenomenology commentary as a 'wonderful piece of consequent thinking' but argues it gentrifies Hegel by stripping ontology and reducing him to a discursive epistemologist.
Žižek notes the irony that Saddam's secular regime allowed a large Christian community and women to hold public roles; the US invasion nominally to liberate women achieved the opposite.
Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe positive
Co-cited with Nancy on the thesis that fascism's intellectual origin lies in aestheticization of politics.
Žižek points out that Karajan was an actual Nazi party member who denounced people, yet history unfairly fixates on Furtwängler.
Mentioned at the close when Žižek's interlocutor (Rose) notes his forthcoming book on motherhood and asks if it relates to Kristeva; Žižek denies it but then concedes her work on Europeanness is relevant.
Werner Kraft positive
Friend of Benjamin; his diary records a conversation in which Benjamin retroactively identifies divine violence with class struggle, cited by Žižek as key evidence.
Judith Butler negative
Implicitly mocked via the American feminist letter to Bosnian rape survivors asking whether women have eternal essence or performatively enacted identities, a 'vulgarized Judith Butler question' grotesquely misapplied.
Friedrich Schiller negative
Žižek calls him a 'great writer' but reads 'Das Lied von der Glocke' as the best short poetic résumé of fascism, and his trajectory as a conclusion of proto-fascism arrived at via aesthetic deadlocks.
Pim Fortuyn negative
Dutch anti-immigrant populist who was openly gay and mobilized feminists and gays against Muslims, cited as the paradigm case of 'politically correct populism'.
Jacqueline Rose positive
Žižek opens by praising her LRB piece on the Pistorius trial as 'breathtaking wonderful'; she is the interlocutor for the seminar and pushes back on him in the Q&A.
Nigel Farage negative
Žižek met him at the BBC and dismisses him as 'a complete clown', not a serious new political leader.
Julian Assange positive
Žižek met him the day before the talk; notes he is 'slowly getting desperate'; cites Wikileaks material confirming Israel-Saudi Arabia secret meetings against Iran.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan negative
Žižek argues Erdoğan uses the flow of refugees as leverage against Europe (opening the pipe) while covertly supporting ISIS and bombing Kurds who are the only real anti-ISIS force.
Yanis Varoufakis negative
Žižek calls him 'this guy really believes in democracy', meant as a gentle critique; he argues Varoufakis's democratic-transparency proposals would have made EU austerity negotiations worse, not better.
Sarah Palin negative
Used via a satirical hoax interview in which she demands Native Americans return to 'Nativia', Žižek treats the hoax as more real than its fictional status suggests.
W. J. T. Mitchell positive
Žižek cites his friend from Critical Inquiry to illustrate the dilemma of divine violence: Mitchell's son was beaten at an integrated Chicago school, requiring individual protection while not condemning the attackers.
Benjamin Netanyahu negative
Žižek criticizes his Holocaust-inversion story (blaming the Mufti), his government ministers' Bible-based land claims, and his two-state proposals as structurally equivalent to Bantustans.
Jean-Luc Nancy positive
Cited, along with Lacoue-Labarthe, as arguing that aestheticization of politics is one intellectual origin of fascism, a view Žižek broadly endorses.
Angela Merkel positive
Žižek supports her call to admit refugees and defends her decision as justified even against majority opinion.
Žižek defends him against lazy conflation with Nazism; he stepped down in 1934, tried to save Jewish musicians, and never joined the party, unlike Karajan.
Her Nobel Prize chances were ruined by disclosure of a brief, harmless Stasi reporting period, while Heiner Müller's deeper involvement was forgiven, cited as an example of anti-feminist double standards.
More deeply involved with the Stasi than Christa Wolf but pardoned due to 'masculine arrogance', an illustration of gendered double standards in the de-Stasification of the GDR.
Walter Benjamin positive
Žižek uses Benjamin's 'divine violence' from 'Critique of Violence' as the central theoretical lens for the Palestinian knife attacks and Paris riots, defending the literal violent reading against liberal domestication.
Cited as evidence that Saddam's Iraq was formally secular: an Iraqi Christian served as foreign minister and public face of the regime.
Vladimir Putin negative
Cited as part of the global sexual-difference counter-revolution, mocking Conchita Wurst's Eurovision win and invoking the Bible against gender non-conformity.
Karl Popper negative
Cited as the exemplar of liberals who dismiss Hegel as a dangerous totalitarian or nihilist.
Karl Marx positive
Invoked for his insight that commodity fetishism persists even after theoretical enlightenment, used to argue that political transparency and education alone cannot change ideology.
René Descartes positive
Invoked via a female pupil of Descartes who praised the Cogito for having no sex, used to illustrate the radical desexualization of the subject in European modernity as the basis for gender equality.
Sigmund Freud positive
Cited for his discovery that correct interpretation does not dissolve the symptom, parallel to the political point that telling people the truth doesn't change ideology.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Žižek defends the subversive-ontological Hegel against liberal and conservative domestications, planning dedicated lectures on Brandom, Schiller, and theology.
Simon Critchley negative
Žižek accuses Critchley of totally misreading Benjamin by treating divine violence as a reluctant last-resort strategic option rather than a pure manifestation.
What it argues
divine violence as manifestation of rage versus instrumental violencethe EU-Turkey refugee deal as ethico-political catastropheliberal and conservative domestications of Hegelthe 'war on terror' as ideological cover for supporting ISIS sponsorssexual difference counter-revolution across Putin, Boko Haram, Mugabethe limits of hermeneutic empathy and multicultural toleranceSchiller's aestheticization of politics as proto-fascism
Dialectical moves 10
“The biggest threat to Europe are not immigrants but the anti-immigrant right-wing defenders of Europe”
The supposed defenders of European values are the true destroyers of what Europe stands for.
“Far from being a sublime symbolic gesture, divine violence means real lethal killing—one kills like one kills an ox in a slaughterhouse”
Liberals domesticate Benjamin's divine violence into something bloodless, but Benjamin explicitly meant actual killing in class struggle.
“Death penalty is not a punishment but recognition—by executing the condemned you treat him as a full responsible human being”
Hegel's counterintuitive reversal: the most extreme punishment is at the same time the highest form of recognition of the subject's autonomy.
“The Soviet abolition of death penalty immediately gave rise to 'preventive measures'—execution renamed as something other than death penalty”
The dialectical trick: abolishing a category does not abolish the practice; it just renames it, which is arguably worse.
“We should not understand the other—the only real understanding is shared struggle”
The hermeneutic project of understanding the other is inverted: genuine solidarity comes not from empathy across difference but from alignment within a common struggle.
“True respect is not accepting someone despite not understanding them but respecting the radical other you do not understand”
Liberal tolerance that 'understands' the other is patronizing; genuine respect leaves the other opaque.
“The formula for a relationship is not that it survives when you tolerate what is intolerable—it survives when you know you cannot tolerate it”
Tolerance is not the ground of love; what sustains a relationship is the acknowledgment that the other's opacity or difference is genuinely unbearable, yet one remains.
“American invasion of Iraq to liberate women resulted in women being more oppressed and Christians disappearing”
Liberal interventionism produces the exact opposite of its emancipatory justification.
“Inner experience and self-narrated stories are not the truth but the fundamental lie”
Against humanist hermeneutics: the self-representation of agents, whether oppressors or the oppressed, is the ideological cover for what they actually do, not the key to understanding them.
“The 'war on terror' is not failing because it goes too far; it fails because it is not being taken seriously”
The standard critique (too much violence breeds more terror) misses the point: the real problem is the structural complicity with terror's actual sponsors.
Claims 22
asserts
The EU-Turkey refugee deal is a straightforward bribe that represents one of the greatest ethico-political catastrophes in recent European history.EU refugee policy / Turkey deal
asserts
Western powers do not seriously pursue the war on terror because they simultaneously maintain alliances with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the main sponsors of ISIS.war on terror / Western hypocrisy
asserts
There are situations where one has the right to override democratic majority opinion—Merkel's refugee decision was one such case.democracy / limits of majoritarianism
asserts
Ideology is a hard material practice that persists even after theoretical enlightenment, which is why political transparency alone cannot change people's positions.ideology / limits of rational persuasion
asserts
The Palestinian knife attacks, like the Paris suburban car-burnings, are best understood as divine violence—manifestations of rage without strategic goal—and while one must physically resist them one has no right to simply condemn them.divine violence / Israeli-Palestinian conflict
rejects
Benjamin's 'divine violence' is not a sublime symbolic gesture but designates real lethal violence in the context of class struggle.liberal domestication of Benjamin's concept of divine violence
rejects
Simon Critchley totally misreads Benjamin by treating divine violence as a desperate but ultimately strategic option for achieving political ends.Critchley's reading of Benjamin
rejects
The 2011 UK riots were not merely consumerist riots but closer to divine violence, and his earlier characterization of them as consumerist was wrong.his own earlier analysis of UK riots
reframes
The immediate export of Western feminism and human-rights discourse to other contexts can function as a tool of ideological neo-colonialism, but this does not mean we should postpone discussion of honor killings or women's rights in Muslim contexts.feminism / neo-colonialism tension
asserts
A global sexual-difference counter-revolution is underway, reasserting male dominance as a central ethico-political question, and the left must confront this directly rather than deferring it.sexual difference / global patriarchal reassertion
asserts
Schiller's 'Das Lied von der Glocke' is the best short poetic résumé of fascism, exemplifying aestheticization of politics and blame of women as the source of revolutionary disorder.Schiller / proto-fascism / aestheticization of politics
rejects
Robert Brandom's reading of Hegel is a gentrification that sacrifices Hegel's genuinely subversive and ontological content in favor of a domesticated epistemological/discursive theorist.Brandom / Pittsburgh Hegelians
rejects
The liberal reading of Hegel as a philosopher of mutual recognition ignores the most important and 'unpleasant' Hegelian uses of recognition, such as the defense of the death penalty.liberal Hegel / recognition
asserts
The US invasion of Iraq, despite feminist justifications, resulted in greater oppression of women and the near-elimination of Iraq's Christian minority—the opposite of its stated goals.US intervention in Iraq / liberal imperialism
asserts
Netanyahu's two-state solution is structurally analogous to apartheid Bantustans—mock autonomy over barren isolated enclaves.Israeli-Palestinian conflict / two-state solution
rejects
True respect for immigrants means respecting them as radical others you may never understand, not discovering shared humanity beneath cultural difference.liberal multiculturalism / humanizing the other
reframes
The answer to the clash of civilizations is not mutual understanding between civilizations but bringing together the clashes within each civilization.clash of civilizations / multiculturalism
asserts
Secular feminism, gay rights, and the full right of atheism emerged distinctively from European modernity and are worth defending as such, even at the risk of appearing Eurocentric.European values / secularism / Eurocentrism
asserts
The only serious threat to Europe is the anti-immigrant right-wing movement, not immigrants or Islam.European identity / far right
rejects
The wisdom 'an enemy is someone whose story you have not heard' is the most disgusting wisdom he knows, because understanding the other's story can make them even more of an enemy.hermeneutic empathy / liberal narrative politics
asserts
Inner experience and self-narrated stories are the fundamental lie, not the truth—we construct stories to justify the horrors we commit.inner experience / narrative self-justification
asserts
Relationships survive not when you tolerate what is intolerable about the other but when you know you cannot tolerate it.love / tolerance / the other
Quotes 14
“There are situations where you have the right to say fuck democracy. I mean to impose to do something in every way possible even if it goes against the will of the majority.”Slavoj Žižek · limits of democracy / majoritarianism
“Divine violence is not related as a means to a preconceived end, it is not a means but a manifestation.”Slavoj Žižek · Benjamin's divine violence
“The most disgusting wisdom that I know is the wisdom of an enemy is someone whose story you have not heard.”Slavoj Žižek · rejection of hermeneutic empathy
“Inner experience is not the moment of truth. It is the fundamental lie. We are telling stories to somehow justify the horrors that we are doing.”Slavoj Žižek · critique of self-narration / ideology
“The true respect is the respect for the radical other whom you don't understand. That's the true acceptance of immigrants.”Slavoj Žižek · radical otherness vs. liberal humanization
“Our answer to clash of civilizations should not be mutual understanding of civilizations but there is clash within each civilization.”Slavoj Žižek · class struggle vs. civilizational clash
“The relationship survives when you know you cannot tolerate it. That's the formula I was looking for.”Slavoj Žižek · love / tolerance / the intolerable other
“The biggest, the only serious threat to Europe are the anti-immigrant right-wing defenders of Europe.”Slavoj Žižek · right-wing as true destroyer of Europe
“They don't mean seriously the war on terror. What war on terror is going on when they tolerate Turkey which as everyone knows is half supporting the Islamic State?”Slavoj Žižek · war on terror as ideological cover
“Ideology is a real hard material practice to put it like this. It really works in everyday life. My God all these guys obviously they didn't read Marx.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology as material practice / limits of enlightenment
“You cannot justify and nobody even tries to justify them through some political strategy. It's a desperate strategy which is just a manifestation of rage. And we have no right to simply condemn it.”Slavoj Žižek · divine violence / the limits of condemnation
“I even still now it looks to me ridiculous how can something like that happen? I thought that without me shocking you it wouldn't have worked.”Slavoj Žižek · the ethics of narrating atrocity
“Show me another part of the world where you can do this openly. Like secular rights… I know I appear Eurocentric but show me.”Slavoj Žižek · defense of European secular legacy
“Cogito doesn't have a sex. The universe is not sexualized. European modernity is something else much more radical.”Slavoj Žižek · Cartesian subject / European feminism
Transcript 33 turns
Slavoj Žižek
You know, I'm trying to cut short applause for her, not her, me, me, I'm here me, me. Sorry, sorry. No but now seriously enough of this bad taste joke. I will begin with precisely one of the aspects of my great appreciation of Jacqueline's work. I hope all of you did read, it was published when, two three weeks ago, your wonderful comment in London Review of Books about all the racial violence against women implication of that Pistorius trial in South Africa. I find this simply a breathtaking wonderful text. But I will just tell you frankly in what way I intend to cheat. The original plan was today Brandom Hegel, tomorrow Schiller Aesthetics, and the last day more theology and so on, or politics it doesn't matter. I decided nonetheless in view of all these latest political events and so on to do today mostly some political comments, reactions, reflections and then move towards death drive, a little bit of my new variations on my eternal eternal sorry topic Lacan Hegel. Then tomorrow it's the boring part but I love it, it's you know who is Robert Brandom, the high priest of these so-called Pittsburgh Hegelians. It's basically analytic philosophy Habermasian way to try to redeem Hegel. And what I will comment is a book, and this is very generous of Brandom that he made available on the web for free. It's a book detailed commentary of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. While I deeply appreciate his works, is a wonderful piece of consequent thinking and so on and so on, I nonetheless think that it how should I put it misses the point of Hegel. That's a kind of gentrification domestication of Hegel. For example and I like this example, you know I'm now probably repeating myself I mentioned this here. Something interesting is happening with Hegel in the last decades. Till around I would say maybe years ago there were two Hegels. The conservative Hegel embodied precisely in the British tradition around and so on, Hegel as kind of a warning against the the too much liberal freedom of bourgeois society, this conservative proto-fascist Hegel. And the leftist revolutionary Hegel. Liberals were mostly against Hegel, dismissing him either as a dangerous nihilist or as a dangerous totalitarian. By liberals I mean of course Karl Popper but not only him, for whom again Hegel is the proverbial bad guy. What is happening in the last decades is that precisely this, let's call it with an irony of course, third way Hegel. Hegel who is neither conservative nor revolutionary is almost occupying the leading place in at least Western academic debates. The liberal Hegel and as I developed in my books, two aspects of this like now I'm giving you the shibboleth or the to feed your Stalinist instincts how do you recognize these enemies, no? It's two features. The first one is the the much more modest reading of Hegel. The idea is forget about Hegelian ontology, metaphysics and so on, what Hegel is doing is simply to providing a kind of a general epistemology or description of or all possible ways of rational argumentation. And forget about ontology, theology and so on, it's simply methodological Hegel. Hegel as a general discursive theorist. All possible modes of argumentation, all possible modes we can describe the world. The other aspect is and here you recognize liberal Hegelians, recognition. Hegel is perceived, and that's the liberal reading of Hegel, as the one who pursues in his political work but not only there, the idea of full mutual recognition. Freedom means mutual recognition. Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe some of you know better and you should correct me, but I find it so interesting that there are a couple of crucial places where you may disagree or disagree with Hegel, but where he clearly and in a central way refers to recognition, but again in a weird unpleasant way. And none of these guys mentions this. Like the whole Hegelian argument for in defense of death penalty is based on recognition. Hegel's crazy idea is that by death penalty you treat the accused, the condemned, you recognize him or her as a full human being, responsible. Hegel's idea is that if you prohibit death penalty then you are not really recognizing the murderer because you are treating him not as an autonomous agent but as a victim of circumstances and so on and so on. Now there are okay I will not enter into do I agree here with Hegel or not. I'm just saying that there is maybe one thing which moderately works for Hegel which is that it's interesting to note how many regimes which prohibited death penalty did continue to execute people but just renaming it. Like even October Revolution is not clear here. One of the first thing that October Revolution did is of course abolish death penalty. Then immediately in in the Civil War they caught some white counter-revolutionary generals they shot them. And all the Western liberals were enraged. But didn't you abolish death penalty? How can you do this? The answer of Soviet Union, sorry this is my Stalinist pleasure I like it, it was a wonderful one. But this wasn't a death penalty, this was just preventive measure. Like it has nothing to do with death penalty and so on. It was or they claim educational measure but don't what I was saying is that you know this is a model of what for this liberal reading of Hegel to work how much you lose. About this tomorrow. And the last day I think you know the problem with Schiller is okay maybe I already even mentioned this the last time that I was here. Schiller interests me because he ended up as a proto-fascist. I think although I don't totally agree with him with Jean-Luc Nancy or it was the other guy they were friends Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe that one of the at least intellectual origins of fascism is aestheticization of politics. You know for example you find it directly in his famous letter to Furtwängler. Furtwängler you know the great conductor, national conservative but nonetheless more or less an honest guy. And I cannot resist improvising on this like it's so unjust history how whenever people say classical music conducting and Nazism they mention Furtwängler. Wait a minute why not Karajan? Who was an infinitely worse guy. Karajan was member of the Nazi party. He used his influence to denounce other people and so on. Furtwängler was kind of honest conservative who did the thing. He stepped down in '34, he tried he thought that he will be able with his influence to save the Jews even in Berliner Philharmoniker. When it didn't work he stepped down and he remained the symbol. It's the same in literature maybe even with a twist of anti-feminism at the end of German Democratic Republic. Two of their greatest writers icons were Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller. Heiner Müller was much more involved with Stasi. But to him everything was pardoned. While they only caught Christa Wolf writing for half a year some reports she had to but everything was rendered public and it's clear that she denounced no one, her reports were so useless that after half a year the Stasi simply stopped any pressure on her. No, it ruined her chances of Nobel Prize. Everyone knows this. While Heiner Müller you know with his daring masculine arrogance did it. But what I back to this. Why is Schiller interesting? Because he is nonetheless a great writer and at the end comes you should read it you find very smooth English translation simply on the web, The Song on the Bell is the translation, Das Lied von der Glocke whatever. It's the best short poetic résumé of fascism that I know. It describes an ideal patriarchal society which is clearly based on sexual division. You know all these men goes around to bring spoils to conquer foreign countries, woman stays at home, take cares of home, everything is nice. Then people go crazy, French Revolution and he openly refers there is no doubt to French Revolution because he says liberté, égalité, fraternité and the mob goes crazy, everything goes wrong. But it's very interesting that he Schiller blames women. As if the source of French Revolution was that women no longer were satisfied with their role of properly staying at home taking care there but become a wonderful title, Laughing Hyenas. And then finally men reestablish their authority and then comes the bell. Because then you have a long proto-fascist description of the production of a bell, of a big church bell and how this brings people together. It's pure aestheticization of politics, this feeling of community and everything is in order again. No wonder that this song although it's strange to imagine why Schiller was at the same time celebrated as the great poet of freedom. But from Schiller's time through Bismarck Germany through the Nazi times in a strange way even in German Democratic Republic this song was celebrated as the ultimate of German attitude. And I am glad to tell you that I think that when Schiller speaks about blames all the misfortunes of French Revolution on crazy women, and women the definition of a crazy woman is the woman who is no longer controlled by benevolent paternal authority, they run amok and they laugh like crazy. And I think I identified maybe the model of this madness. It's of course my beloved Caroline von Schlegel who later married Schelling. She was pretty much to the left, Jacobin, and she reports in one of her letters that when she and her friends were reading this poem by Schiller they had to laugh so much that they fell on ground down from their chair and so on. It was absolutely a primordial hatred between of them. But what I'm telling you is this, I think that that lecture on Schiller that I planned for tomorrow works only with if you were to know the texts. Because what is so interesting is how Schiller arrived at this point. His proto-fascism was a conclusion and in this way he tried to resolve some deadlocks. But since he is nonetheless a great writer these deadlocks are very interesting. Like if you want to do more Schiller read it you can get it very good translation free on the web, his play Don Carlos where you have something extraordinary happening which is I think crucial for the genesis of fascism. A weak king broken down and at the end this wonderful figure of the Great Inquisitor. Blind man who controls everything, he is this post-traditional authority. Enters and forces the king to sacrifice his son and so on and so on. I think it's a crucial moment in defining what happens with authority in early modern society, how standard patriarchal authority is replaced with another type of authority. And then you can show it in a nice way how out of all these deadlocks the only way open to Schiller was was kind of a proto-fascist vision of aestheticized of aestheticized politics. Because what's so weird is that Schiller's first mega-hit play Die Räuber, The Robbers, there it's on the contrary male bonding which is blamed. You know Karl Moor the hero establishes a group of robbers who are fighting they want a social revolution and in this way he betrays his love. The woman so the woman is on the side of family and order and the origin of revolutionary terror is male bonding not controlled by feminine feminine gentleness, sympathy and so on, humility and so on. But how did he come, that was interest me, from here to to the Lied the song on the bell where again it's women as laughing hyenas who are the source of evil. It's a wonderful line. So but again for this to work you have to read the texts. So what I will do then on the last day, now two days from now on Friday, after going in detail tomorrow through Brandom. Don't be too afraid because I will be talking about very concrete things, analysis which even refer to our experience and so on. And my point is precise because you know why I'm so traumatized by Brandom. Because basically I find attractive what he is doing. What he is doing is in a way what I sometimes try to do it, to show in the terms of our common sense reasoning how Hegel makes sense. He want to break out of the Hegelian jargon. But I think he sacrifices too much. The Hegel that we get there it's a Hegel where what is really crazy subversive in Hegel disappears. So this tomorrow. And then and then the last day I will do something on theology and politics some new stuff which will reflect on what will happen but it's a failed event I must inform you I'm a pessimist. Directly from here on Saturday I fly to Tel Aviv I go to Ramallah the alternate Walter Benjamin conference. But it didn't turn out most of the people who promised to be there cancelled in the last minute and there is a very sad tension which makes me depressive here at work. Namely Palestinians some of them I respect their wish wanted to do just another political event protesting Israeli oppression and so on. While I totally agree with it because what is happening now in Israel is like it's simply you know if you think that Arabs are religious fundamentalists wait go to Israel. I mean like recently I read that three ministers in Netanyahu government now openly declare that we should stop this game of two-state solution, West Bank is ours. Why? Because it says so in the Bible. I mean are we aware what they are saying? Like if this is not religious fundamentalism then I don't know what religious fundamentalism means. And then you have other did you read about these moments crazy statements, I almost like them, when Netanyahu recently said in an interview that it wasn't really Hitler who is responsible of the Holocaust, that Hitler just, it's serious it's not a joke, that Hitler just wanted to throw the Jews out. But that Mufti Husseini whatever the leader of Palestinians who effectively met Hitler but not at that point, a little bit later Netanyahu cheats but nonetheless that's Netanyahu's stories, was afraid that throwing the Jews out meant this is that they will come to Palestine. So the story totally invented is that Netanyahu told sorry Hitler told to Husseini I want to throw Jews out, then Husseini told him okay but where will they go, to us to Palestine? And that Hitler replied okay but what should I do with the Jews? And then that Husseini said burn them. And that this gave to Netanyahu the idea of sorry to Hitler the idea of but what I like so much and here you get the good side of my Jewish friends. My leftist Jewish friends then invented a whole series of stories bringing this logic to the end and I love it. Like one of them claimed that they discovered some new manuscripts ancient of course with some illustrations where it's clear that when Pontius Pilate condemns Christ to to to to to death that there is a figure like Mohammed whispering to Pontius Pilate this you know that. Like already there not the Jews the the Muslims proto-Muslims they didn't yet exist were there and so on. No the situation is is the situation is really tragic because as a reaction to this then because this conference was supposed to take place at Birzeit University in Ramallah. Part of it will but unfortunately I'm really sad about this. As a reaction to the renewed Israeli violence, the Birzeit University gave a hint at organizers that Israeli Jews will not be allowed to enter the university. Now I find this crazy and I understand it but I find it very sad. For example my friend Udi Aloni was prohibited to enter to enter the university there. And even I maybe already mentioned it here it's there is an even sadder much more sad event taking place there where I will try to no okay not now but when Udi Aloni maybe already told you this story now it's all confirmed organized a concert in I think at Columbia or at some place of a Palestinian rapper singer very popular who also plays a central role in Udi's new film. And this singer did a song on criticizing honor killings among Palestinians. And this singer and Udi were attacked by allegedly hardline Western leftists at Columbia that why mention this, this means supporting Zionism. In the sense of you know if honor killings happen there they are in reality the effect of Zionist occupation we shouldn't talk about this now and so on and so on. And of course the singer was shocked because he was accused of not mentioning ignoring Israeli occupation and Udi. But this is madness I'm sorry these two guys were arrested a couple of times by Israeli police they're doing nothing but this. And what instead of us being glad that with regard to honor killings we are not doing our Western patronizing thing you know primitive Palestinians, no, they have already their own fight. And these are the same people who also fight Israeli pressure and so on. We should be glad about it. No when you get such things and now I will go even more into pessimism, sorry I cannot avoid these comments. For example I think a big catastrophe political happened a couple of days ago you saw the news I don't know how widely it was reported here in the UK. But I think it's one of the greatest ethico-political catastrophes of Europe. European Union made a deal with Turkey. Basically it's pure bribery. It's we pay you money if you stop the flow of the refugees. The point is that as my friends immediately noticed it's almost the what what Erdogan is doing the Turkish boss it's almost the opposite of what Putin is doing. Putin is punishing Europe by how do you call it closing cutting off the flow of of gas, of turning off the pipe if Europe if he doesn't like Europe. Erdogan threatens to open the pipe of refugees. And it's pure deal. They promise to Erdogan first as a first installment billion billion of euros, then a better treatment in Europe, all of it just to close off get rid of the flow of refugees. And then that's what makes me furious. Then they talk about war on terror. You know the usual reaction to Paris attacks was this left humanism. Oh my God why war on terror? We cannot just fight terror by terror, this just brings more terror and so on. Okay there is some element of truth in it. But I plea for a much more radical approach. It's obvious that they don't mean seriously the war on terror. What war on terror is going on when they tolerate Turkey which as everyone knows is half supporting the Islamic State? And it's not even secret now. Did you notice it was in the newspapers a small note that the chief of the Turkish secret police who is as if by chance the brother of Erdogan already made a public statement claiming that the Islamic State nonetheless expresses the will of the people, international community should should recognize it, start dialogue and so on and so on. And we make a deal with Turkey. It's also clear what Turkey did. Turkey used this pact with the West of fighting the terror but what they're really bombing the Turks are the Kurds. And the Kurds are the only ones who are really fighting the Islamic State seriously. So again I'm much more tempted to play this game you know. You talk about war on terror while making pact with Turkey, Saudi Arabia who are discreetly the main supporters of ISIS and so on. Like what is going on here? It's not it's just this demonizing of ISIS but all the conditions all those who support ISIS are getting a preferential treatment against the only forces which are seriously fighting ISIS. And also although some people accused me of almost turning a European nationalist and so on but I am not, I'm just for organized reception of refugees precisely to prevent racist hatred and so on. And what is happening now in this way of making these dirty deals with Turkey I claim it's a total ethico-political catastrophe. You see that's the problem. It's not that they are too fanatic war on war on terror pushing it too far. No the problem is they are not taking it seriously. It's madness. You talk about war on terror and then discreetly you make pacts with those who effectively support it. It's all well documented. Although now he denies it publicly but everybody knows it my Kurdish friends told me. You know we find this in the media that ISIS is selling oil and surviving by oil. Sorry but ISIS Islamic State is landlocked. How does it sell oil? How does it come to to the sea? Through Turkey. Everybody knows it and so on. You know like it's it's it's such a deep how should I put it ethical disorientation, you know. And also this is my problem with the left. That they avoid the difficult questions. For example, I don't know if you already know this story, it was maybe published somewhere, recently I gave an interview for Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German daily, and then at the end they asked me to answer to some readers' questions. And there was one question which found an incredible echo, hundreds of people replied to it agreeing with the guy. It was a simple question. I claim to be democratic and I support Angela Merkel in that call you know, refugees you should come. But isn't it absolutely clear that the majority of Germans are against too many immigrants? So and the decision to allow immigrants in hundreds of thousand to come in is a serious big decision. Wasn't this a paradigmatic anti-democratic decision? Why didn't they why didn't they ask the German people what they want? You know my answer to this is a very cynical one. It's no, democracy at least if by democracy we mean what we have now de facto as a ruling system should not be the absolute limit. There are situations where you have the right to say fuck democracy. I mean to impose to do something in every way possible even if it goes against the the will of the majority or whatever and so on and so on. That was if some of you were stupid enough to listen to that orgy that we had me, Varoufakis and Assange. That's also my problem with Varoufakis. This guy really believes in democracy you know. I don't. Like if you watched it you noticed where there was a gentle misunderstanding between the two of us. His idea was democratize Europe how? For example all the sessions of those mysterious European community bodies, all the sessions should be publicly transmitted. Well he thinks that what? I think that what if the result were to be even worse if you don't change many other things? Like for example I know at least how what representatives of my state Slovenia and some others who play here very bad role will be. Because the majority opinion in most post-communist East European countries is screw the Greeks we are more poor why should we help the lazy Greeks. If the negotiations there were to be public they would have been even more against Greece to please their populist constituency back in their country. And also Varoufakis' counterpoint was because my other simple point was okay let's say we are that committee which whose meetings are now secret. Okay we make it public. It's clear what I would have done, let's say that I am the evil guy. I call a discreet private meeting one day before and we make all the decisions the majority. Then Varoufakis said but this is illegal. No it's not even necessarily illegal. You know what's my point? My point is that people are not a priori good in the sense of you know if you just tell them the truth. No. Ideology is a real hard material practice to put it like this. It really works in everyday life. My God all these guys obviously they didn't read Marx. Remember what already Marx knew when he says that commodity fetishism remains even if you theoretically totally enlightened it and so on and so on. You know this is very interesting because it's the same problem as the one Freud was facing when he discovered that after his early enthusiasm that you can have a perfect interpretation, the patient even pretends at least to accept it, but the symptom persists. Something more has to be done. And it's it's the same it's the same here. I understand not agree I understand ordinary people when you take into account how they experience situation and so on. And that's why not because I'm in any way against the refugees I plea for talking and not because I'm in any way Islamophobic. I think we should talk openly about these things because I had a big debate in Berlin two weeks ago where I was attacked by the idea that but why do I focus now on women's rights in Muslim society, now we have the humanitarian problem of thousands of refugees, can we put this to a later time? I see this as a shortcut to catastrophe. Precisely now we should talk about it. Of course, that's the whole point, not in the racist way. But we should talk about all this openly. And also of course also in a way which criticizes us. That is to say it's not enough to say the way Muslims treat women predominantly if it is predominantly I don't know it's unacceptable for us. Immediately one should mention our counterpart which is at least okay maybe not as bad but yes it's the same category. Like if nothing else Catholic pedophilia in the Catholic Church. We but about all this we should talk openly. If not, if we if we continue this simple this political correct left-wing you know like my main argument again ah the argument against me I loved it were triple three arguments. The first one was this one. It's not the appropriate moment to talk about this. I disagree with this you know why? Because we I'm again my whole point is of course we are also to blame, we are even ultimately to blame. But there is a tendency going on independently of Islam in the world which I find very worrying. Which is that sexual difference is reasserted, and by sexual difference I mean the subordination of women to men, is reemerging as the central ethico-political question for some people. And this goes from Putin to Mugabe to others and so on. This is what I find so strange about for example a movement like Boko Haram. This should give us to think that you have a movement which really wants to revolutionize society but the basic premise of this woman is Boko Haram which vaguely translated so as told mean no Western education for women de facto meaning. So isn't this something strange and this bring us even back to Schiller I mean no? That the the basic political question becomes how and the saddest thing I know this is false but that's how it functions is that because as some friends you this may surprise you but I have even friends in in Nigeria and they told me what's so tricky about Boko Haram is that their logic is formally an anti-colonialist anti-imperialist one. They claim imperialism is not just economy it's also destructive cultural influence. And the basis of this destructive cultural influence is the feminist propaganda which destroys the natural hierarchy and this way threatens to dissolve all of society. In the same way similar way this the story goes on then to Mugabe who made recently a speech in United Nations claiming that gay rights are basically Western colonialist propaganda. And don't jump now too quickly to conclusion. My point is just not here to make fun of primitive Africans or whatever. The point is of course that up to a point this is true. I mean we should not forget what happened for example in Iraq that to their disgrace many American centrist liberal feminists supported American aggression attack on Iraq claiming that at least it will liberate women there. And the irony is wonderful as you probably know, the opposite happened. That is to say whatever you are saying and that's the sad thing that is happening. Whatever you say about and I don't like them in any way Saddam I don't like it because you know we tend to forget that before he was overthrown and a couple of years before Saddam was de facto the big American ally there. Don't you remember the war against Iran? Where United States not only provided Iraq with poisonous gases but even provided the Iraqi army with satellite photographs to know where to use. The Americans only protested when Saddam used some gases against his own people but not when he used them against Iranians. This was for me a mega. Here I agree I even wrote a couple of years ago a text which maybe now I would not put it, give Iranian nukes a chance. Where I told them of course Iranians are traumatized. You remember the war. Iraq after Khomeini revolution Saddam thought okay now it's a chance Iran is in chaos, he clearly invaded Iran. I don't remember any Western non-aligned whichever party which clearly stated this. All the calls for peace started to arise when Iraq started to lose the war. Then all of a sudden oh my God but war is not the solution and so on and so on. So what I'm saying is that no but whatever we say about Saddam and Assad they are horror, yes. Do you know that these were the only two Middle East states which were at least formally secular? And this meant something like as already mentioned it here even I think Tariq Aziz the Saddam's foreign minister, the public face of his regime, he was an Iraqi Christian. You know what was the main result social result of American occupation of Iraq? They dissolved the army, police fell apart, Muslim militias took over public order. So there were under Saddam million of Christians there, now most of them emigrated. And point two women's role is much more diminished. So this is a wonderful irony. United States a Christian country in some sense invades Iraq to liberate women and so on and the result is exactly the opposite one. Women are more oppressed plus Christians disappear from the country. So again you know don't accept this is for me the beginning of critical thinking, don't accept the terms of the debate like war on terror. You should always question but is it really this what is going on? Frankly I don't know what is going on. I only know that it's definitely not some kind of a simple war on terror. I met yesterday my good friend I'm mentioning this not to boast but to remind you that he is still alive because he is slowly getting desperate Julian Assange who told me that now again he got some material that they will publish but nobody cares what now Wikileaks are publishing which clearly reconfirms what we already knew from some documents that in spite of their official opposition Israeli and Saudi Arabia representatives are all the time meeting with the task of how how to contain Iran. So who is fighting whom there? Another thing that worries me is it's clear now that bombing will not do the job. So they are now trying to organize some independent Sunni forces to occupy that era, there will be some kind of even if by proxies military occupation. And then I see even for world peace a great danger. What will happen then with Assad regime? Will they not be tempted these independent forces to move into Assad what will then the Russians do there and so on? Again I think that whatever is going on it's absolutely not some kind of a simple now we have an enemy war on terror and so on and so on. Even Israel, this is a subtle thing to note, how Israel never really unequivocally condemned the Islamic State. There are even some very obscure links with Israel I mean this was I don't know if I already told you this story this was a big scandal in Israel no when they discovered that Israeli army is basically helping Al-Qaeda. Why? Because in the south of Lebanon the part one part is called on Israeli border by Al-Qaeda the other part by by Hezbollah. And since Israeli fear more Hezbollah and since Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda are fighting of course they are helping Al-Qaeda there. I mean some Israeli photographer even they had shots of how they are giving them arms, treating their wounded and so on and so on. So again don't it's simply that the situation is obscure who knows what, absolutely we should reject the terms of what is happening. The second thing I wanted to say, maybe you know this line I've written about it but I don't know where it was published in in English I think only on the website of Newsweek which is one of the few still ready to publish me because I'm now prohibited in Guardian and so on and so on. Ah to be fair they do invite me still but I don't even reply them to appear open, but you know with what topics? This kind of a social way of life topic like a year ago I got a letter from email from Guardian: 'Professor would you care to answer the question why do you wear a beard? How does it help your creativity?' and so on. You know this is a systematic move to this like who cares about politics, lifestyle and so on and so on. Okay but let me go on. So now I'm approaching the topic of violence and so on. My big reaction to this latest Paris killings is again of course we condemn them but but is not that we should understand them and so on. But is that we should really condemn them. Not just again use this as a kind of a pathetic spectacle of solidarity of all of us free democratic civilized people against the murderous Muslim monster or monster or whatever. Because ah I want to tell you this although it's anecdotal my God I hope I'm not losing too much time I am but what the hell. You know that I made a statement apropos Charlie Hebdo killings where a journalist in my own country Slovenia asked me what do you think about those Paris murders. And okay I was a little bit fast but I said listen the truly disgusting thing was that photo opportunity you know when you had all the world leaders holding hands and hopefully this is sometimes God is benevolent and allows this there was a photographer yards behind taking in the whole scene. You know there was no crowd on the top of which there were all those world leaders. There was simply just leaders and three four lines of obviously secret policemen behind them that's why all the shows were shots were close it was pure photo opportunity. And I said listen if you already want to shoot somebody it would be much better to shoot those politicians there for their hypocrisy. Ah the Slovenian right-wing press is now systematically for two months attacking me seriously this is not a joke what I will tell you now, demanding that I be prosecuted for terrorism because they claim since I call for the murder of those politicians and since François Hollande was among them and since François Hollande was also on that stadium in Paris so what the this latest attacks in Paris are they just executed my comment. So I am not only justifying them I even co-organized them. And they are quite serious they wrote an appeal to Slovene public prosecution like we already have terrorists in our midst why am I not prosecuted, they informed French embassy that France should start should start proceedings against me for instigating ter so we live in crazy times but that's not important we all knew this. Now a little bit more serious stuff. What I've written about is I remember a comment on Slovene TV TV which was simple but deeply justified I claim. After a Paris attack they asked one of the refugees what does he think about it. Of course they want him to join this universal solidarity and he said something simple stupidly simple but very nice. He said we deeply sympathize with Paris victims but you see this is what we are running from. And then he made a nice comment he said you see for you this is a singular event oh my God attack. But what for you is a singular event once a year is for us daily life. Now you understand what we are running from. And this brings me to point I made long ago isn't this the first thing that we should note. There are exceptions I simplify it. But the big difference between the West we who live under this cupola of human rights relative welfare and so on, for us terrorist attacks are momentary brutal disruptions of of of of of normal everyday life. Life goes on boom things explode then you have solidarity normal life is gradually established and so on and so on. But again the horror of what goes on in many countries outside Europe is that brutal violence is simply a fact of life. It's not an exception, this is their daily life. So I claim that we should the first thing is that we should when we talk about violence we should become aware and draw all the consequences from this tension. For us it's just momentary disruptions even if they are relatively big one like September 11th but nonetheless life then returns to normal in the sense of yes we do the work of mourning we do all the stuff but it's over like it's a momentary event. While in those countries many countries it's just goes on. And then from here we should go on to all the levels of violence that still pervade around the world. For example and here I want to go to Jacqueline's wonderful text on Pistorius where she pointed out how Pistorius' killing of his girlfriend has to be read against the complex background of white men's fear of black violence as well as of the widespread terrible reality of violence against women. A quote from Jacqueline's text: 'Every four minutes in South Africa a woman or a girl often a teenager sometimes a child is reported raped. And every eight hours a woman is killed by her partner.' The phenomenon has a name in South Africa intimate femicide. Or as the journalist Margie Oxford calls the repeated killing of women across the country serial femicide. And the reason I admire Jacqueline's text is that she avoids in a masterful way both wrong procedures here. The one would have been to play the European arrogance you see these black people the moment you give them freedom they start killing their own women this hypocritical deploring of the third world violence. And the other again the opposite of course is to claim that this condemning violence there is just a neo-colonialist game of blaming them and so on and so on. The first thing to bear in mind is again the presence of violence also even although we may appear to live in highly developed countries with even ethical development women's protection feminism and so on and so on. But are we aware what is going on now even in some developed countries? Like recently I learned a terrifying thing that maybe some of you read about it I was told it was a big news there where there in Canada. A Native American okay politically incorrect term Indian prostitute was killed by a white customer. The way she was killed is not very unpleasant. He put a long knife into her vagina and started turning around and cutting and so on. Now comes the double scandal. The first part of the scandal all this was confirmed nobody denied this. He was set free, he was not the jury set him free. How? Now comes the horror it's so depressing I warn you it's really depressing. The the defense did something unheard of. As part of their defense material they have shown to the jury the torso of the dead woman. Lower part obviously they cut it into two of the body up to her knees with all the wounds. I mean can you imagine how disgusting this was? And what shows an incredible level of anti-feminist racism is how nobody protested since this was a native woman. You know it was con and then can you imagine the absolutely disgusting procedure of the defense lawyer: 'You see here my customer moved his knife here' and so on. It was really this half-rotten lower part of the body there. The defense was that it was all part of a kinky slightly perverted sexual game which ran out of control. That it wasn't a murder that this customer that was his defense: 'I made a deal with her it was a market contract that I can softly put a knife into her vagina she accepted it and then we started to play and that I warned her it will be weird sex so even when she started to bleed I thought it's still part of the contract' because that was the disgusting defense, because she was well known to accept customers with weird desires and then the game simply ran out of control but it was mostly her guilt by provoking me and so on and so on. So you see the horror. I mean it was absolutely no doubt what happened nobody disputed this. And because this is what shocked me this is for me the most depressing part of this report. That one would have been thought that if you show literally part of the body there I half-rotten and so on you can't imagine cut I be with sorry but here I am an abstract humanist that with normal people this should give rise to some kind of sympathy for her: 'My God this was once a young beautiful woman look what's what became of her now'. No it convinced the jury against her. Can you imagine what kind of deeply racist and anti-feminist stance had to be at work there if they were able even to swallow this the half-rotten feminine torso and not out of because you know that's what shocked me. First when I heard this report my reaction was that probably prosecution did this to arouse sympathy: 'Now we will show you it will be disgusting but now we will show you what the murderer did it'. No it wasn't it worked against. Can you imagine what a thick set of anti-feminist and so on racist because it's crucial that the girl was a native American. You know what extent of again this racist presupposition and so on all this all this implies. So again coming back to my main point. I am aware of the immense tension here and danger of cultural imperialism neo-colonialism and so on. And I'm sorry if I'm repeating an old story but I am well aware of this danger from my old sources in ex ex-Yugoslavia, probably you know the story when in the early 90s in Bosnia women raped women established some society association and some American feminists contacted them and people still laugh about it even now years later in Bosnia. I was told by some Bosnian friends. Because the activists mocked how they got a letter from an American feminist group trying to establish contact. And the letter was so insensitive like there were desperate women there serially raped and so on. And the questions that the Americans addressed to them was I am not kidding like the first question was like a vulgarized Judith Butler question. Like: 'Do you think that women have an eternal feminine essence or do you think that that woman's identity is the result of performatively enacted practices of repetition?' you know like women just look there. Of course these are incidental theoretically pertinent question but I claim to put it in this way it's just beyond description for me. So I am well aware how the immediate export of Western feminism and individual human rights can serve as a tool of ideological economic neo-colonialism. But at the same time I claim that and it's quite incredible how up to a point as a reaction to the latest gains in you know gay marriages, abortions and so on we have this as it were sexual difference counter-revolution. It's not just Boko Haram, it's it's not just Mugabe against gays, it's even Putin. You remember I know I mention it here that story when that Austrian transvestite Conchita Wurst I it's disgusting I don't like it but when she won Eurovision there was an incredible campaign in Russian media claiming ah is this new Europe a bearded woman? And then with open like even Putin said somewhere that I thought in the Bible it says that there are women and men, what entity is this now and so on and so on. So this recourse to to this recourse to sexual difference and the whole art of politics I claim that's all I'm saying is to is to is to bring these struggles somehow together. What I I mean I know that we should avoid our Western anti sorry feminism the point is avoid in the sense of not simply directly mechanically applying it to it. But I don't accept the logic of now it's a big battle for example for human for for for refugees and so on and so on so let's not mention that now. The strategy should be to even reject the idea that there is a competition between the two of them. It should be somehow done as part of the same struggle. If we don't do it then we we run the danger of what happened a couple of years ago I don't know if you remember it when a right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn was killed. But he was an interesting populist, he was what I'm almost tempted to call a politically correct populist. He was anti-immigrant but his activity was a he was openly gay and his activity was precisely a kind of a politically correct rejection of Muslims. Because unfortunately some Muslims in in Holland in Netherlands were effectively attacking gays. And you know he succeeded to mobilize gays and feminists on anti-immigrant base. So I only claim all I claim is that this is effectively a a complex situation and that you cannot resolve it in an easy way. Then let's go on my God this was meant to be a short introduction but let me go on. Okay let me I wanted to do something about divine violence I don't have time now I will try to cut it short because I will talk about this in Ramallah next week. My idea is that I try to locate what what happens now with these latest attacks with knives in Israel. I in no way agree with them but one has to say a couple of things and my source here is not some Al-Qaeda information service. It's simply whatever there remains of half-honest Israeli press Haaretz and so on, even in New York Times you find here and there news about this. But do you know that there is it's not only that Palestinians out of despair attack with knives Israelis I mean Jews in Israel, Palestinians are also Israelis many of them, and then of course understandably Israeli Jews counter-attack. What about not just passive bureaucratic harassment but the level of violence on the West Bank? Nobody talks about this. My God it's daily violence like you know that every year when there is a season of harvest season, settlers are burning are burning olive trees, they are poisoning wells of water, even burning mosques, killings go on regularly, for example recently I think there was some trial in Israel where they even know who were settlers who burned some Palestinian family and somehow they squeezed nothing happens they found a way out and so on and so on. So again the first thing to reject is that Israelis just want peace. First I would say of course Israelis want peace. My God in the same way that Germans when they occupied France they wanted peace. Every occupying force wants peace because it it it got what it wanted so peace means we the world at lea but even this is not true. I mean it's not it's not the the Israeli image is it's peace then Israeli provocations sorry Palestinian provocations trigger our retaliation. No it's not that, it's permanent violence there. But what interests me is this, and this is a thing that I really find sad. How what is now happening with this knife attacks is effectively close to something that Walter Benjamin calls divine violence. And he defines it in a in a very precise way. He defines divine violence as violence which is I quote Benjamin: 'not related as a means to a preconceived end, it is not a means but a manifestation'. So again divine violence is not what we today call religious violence justified by some fundamentalism. No because that is still instrumental violence. You do this to terrorize the enemy to achieve a certain goal or whatever. But for this is where incidentally in his attack on me I claim Simon Critchley totally misreads Benjamin where he reads divine violence in the sense of kind of a desperate strategy. Like sometimes although we should reject violence but sometimes when there really is no other way in order to achieve your goal freedom you have to do a little bit of violence. No this is exactly what Benjamin does not mean. He means violence which is like a manifestation of rage without any strategic or whatever instrumental justification. And my Palestinian and aha there is another tendency with Benjamin I like to smash it because you know Benjamin is today a good guy untouchable. So the problem for those politically correct Western liberal friends of Benjamin is how to neutralize divine violence. How to make it some kind of a sublime symbolic gesture, nobody is really hurt and so on. No no no sorry Benjamin is already from the examples that he quotes in his Critique of Violence short early text it's clear what he means. And my friend Sami Khatib, Palestinian specialist of Benjamin the organizer of that conference, found in a friend of Benjamin Werner Kraft in Werner Kraft's diary an entry from May 20th where Kraft reports on his conversation with Benjamin. He is asking Benjamin how he relates today more than a decade later to his notion of divine violence, Critique of Violence. Look what Benjamin answered quote: 'A just right, it's gerechtes Recht, a just right, is what serves the oppressed in class struggle. Class struggle is the center of all philosophical questions including the highest ones. What he Benjamin earlier called divine violence was an empty spot, a liminal notion, a relative idea. Now he knows that it is class struggle. Violence which is justified has nothing to do with a sanction. It doesn't add anything to the thing, it is without a sensible image like for example the crown of a king and so on. One can kill when one does it in this way like one kills an ox in a slaughterhouse. The just war at the end of the article on violence, class struggle and so on and so on'. So whatever you say Benjamin wasn't gentle here. He really meant violence. He didn't mean some sublime gesture of a great no where we all cry in solidarity and so on. So how to read it? Here I am a I will and then I will of course immediately answer your counter-question. But but my reaction here is first that yes we do have examples of divine violence today. There were elements of it and I'm here correcting my false judgment. You remember that riots in the UK a couple of years ago? And I wrote a text with which I no longer agree where I accused them of consumerist riots. Just no I think it's maybe closer to divine violence. Or especially years ago you remember those cars burning in the suburbs of Paris. What was so mysterious it fits Benjamin it was just a manifestation of rage. It didn't have any clear goal. First they thought it's Islamism. No it was not. The first thing that protesters in Paris suburb burned were their own mosques, cultural centers and so on and so on cars, they didn't have any program and so on and so on. And I think it's similar with this knife attacks in Israel. There is no there is no secret terrorist political program behind it and so on. It's just a manifestation of zero level let's call it manifestation of rage. And now comes the crucial point at least for me. You will ask tell me but nonetheless we should be opposed to it. Here I in a non it's not justice. Here I maybe you'll be surprised by but my by my position. In some sense of course we should oppose it like fuck you if I were to find myself threatened by a crazy mob I would probably run away like hell or even shoot back. But you see the fine point. But nonetheless I have no right to simply condemn them. That's crucial. It's the same problem as my friend maybe you know the story I'm sorry Tom Mitchell, Critical Inquiry guy, told me he had this problem. He lives in that wealthy area south of Chicago University of Chicago campus and north from the campus is a black ghetto. Louis Farrakhan lives there and Muslim blacks and so on. So he wanted to be politically correct and he sent his son to a high school on the borderline between college area and ghetto. And then after three four weeks he didn't know what to do his son came home at least twice a week with a with a broken nose, without a tooth and so on and so on. And he saw the problem. The problem is that on the one hand of course it would be crazy to demand of him: 'No you should sacrifice your son for a higher solidarity with the blacks' and so on. So of course as an individual you protect your son. But at the same time and that's crucial you have no right to simply condemn the blacks. This is also for me an aspect of divine violence. You should rather ask yourself and this divine violence so that you will not misunderstand me, in no way I do think that terrorist attacks are divine violence. No no no they are not just a manifestation. I'm not in any way justifying them, we should condemn them. But with these desperate acts like attack with knives. Listen you cannot justify and nobody even tries to justify them in through some political strategy fear and so on of of Palestinian fear installing fear into Israelis. They all know if you ask them that it's a desperate strategy of it's a desperate strategy which is just a manifestation of rage. And we have no right to simply condemn it. And you will say but then what to do? You have to fight it if you are caught in it. I mean you will not say there please kill me yes we historically wronged you or whatever. But that's the that's the authentic historical tragedy for me you know. That that's our contradiction us of white men. Of course physically you protect yourself. But at the same time you have no right to dismiss the violence which you suffered as simple injustice of a monstrous other and so on and so on. You should rather question what kind of a society is this where the only way to articulate not even articulate express your rage is through this type of divine violence. I will just go if I can a little bit further. Okay I will do a short report on what I wanted to say but I didn't. Recently something wonderful happened, it was reported I know it was a hoax then, on September 7th Sarah Palin gave an interview to Fox News where she told the interviewer quote: 'I love immigrants but like Donald Trump I just think we have too darn many in this country. Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, they are changing up the cultural mix in the United States. I think we should go home we should go to some of these people and just ask them: Would you mind going home, would you mind giving us our country back?' Then this guy Steve Doocy tell told her: 'Sarah you know I love you and I think it's a great idea with regard to Mexicans but where are the Native Americans supposed to go? They don't really have a place to go back to do they?' Sarah replied: 'Well I think they should because they are called remember Native Americans I think they should go back to Nativia or whatever they come from. The liberal media treats Native Americans like they are gods as if they have just have some sort of automatic right to be in this country. But I say if they can't learn to get off those horses and start speaking American then they should be sent home to Nativia too.' Now of course it's too beautiful to be true. It was an intelligent hoax. But I claim this hoax is a reality. It was a reality maybe also somewhere else. It was a reality up to a point in Canada where they constituted these reservations as their version of Nativia. Nativias exist, maybe Sarah Palin is a hoax but reality is not. And the greatest example of Nativia is of course Bantustans in the apartheid South Africa. You know remember what madness were Bantustans? The South African government selected picked I think around percent of the worst country no minerals fertile and simply they made them pseudo-autonomous sovereign states and informed the black people this is your true home. You are from there. And now this is a wonderful mixture of this postmodern contingency everything is constructed and the rudest can you imagine a black person who lives from times immemorial his family I don't know over in Johannesburg and then he is informed: 'Cuckoo good news we found your real home you come from that' and he goes there is just desert nothing and so on and so on. And I claim that if you read Netanyahu's speech where he described his position for the two-state solution is basically Bantustans no? What he is ready but even that will not be the case is to take some isolated parts of the West Bank which will be totally controlled by by by the Israeli army and give them this type of mock autonomy or whatever. But now the last point which again I think is crucial to say. Maybe with this I will conclude and we go tomorrow into death drive and so on concerning the refugees. Now this is consciously problematic but believe me I mean it in an extremely positive way. I'm sick and tired of this postmodern narrativization which basically tells the following story. Immigrants or the poor the other, they are good people you just have to listen to their story to learn to listen to them and so on. You have to understand them and then you will see they're humans like us. I'm totally opposed to this. You know why? And I even this is positive phenomenon I read in Guardian or where that now with some Syrian families in Glasgow or somewhere in Scotland that they are doing this organizing meetings six families and you know of Syrians. Okay it works but I warn you it works only up to the certain point. My point is the following one which was masterfully formulated long ago by some leftist critic of Frank Capra films, you know these pseudo-leftist dramas melodramas about the poor people which all had this patronizing attitude. The poor people are wonderful human beings you just have to understand them open your heart to them. And then this cynical wonderful leftist I forgot who he was theorist said: 'Okay but then what if you discover that they are not like you, that they are really not like you then you can kill them or whatever'. And my point here is the following one that class differences even cultural differences are real differences. It's not you know that oh we just have to open our heart to the other and we discover we are all the same people and so on and so on. First I want to repeat the old point that I already made a couple of times here about the most disgusting wisdom that I know is the wisdom of an enemy is someone whose story you have not heard. Like you know you fetishize the enemy. No I totally opposed to it. Just think about it. So it's good to learn Hitler was our enemy because you know we didn't open ourselves to hear his side of the story about antisemitism maybe. No it's not only that if you hear his story it's a pretty disgusting story. It's the situation is even more tricky. I don't think the truth of Hitler is the story he was telling. The truth of Hitler was the horrors he was doing. And I don't think I mean for every crime that you do you can construct a wonderful story. For every killing you do you can construct a wonderful narrative of how you are really I don't know what protecting the larger human rights and so on and so on. So it's not only that there are stories which if you understand the other story he is even more your enemy. It's simply that the the this when somebody opens up himself or herself or themselves to you. It's not the truth. It's not the truth. Like just think about classical example oppression of women. No good patriarchal master will tell you I am oppressing women, but whatever you know the bullshit. I am protecting them from the evils of the world, it's me who is the real victim by and so on and so on whatever. So again I don't think that this inner experience is the moment of truth. No it's the fundamental lie. We are telling stories to somehow justify if we are doing it the horrors that we are doing. That's why I also I know you are nervous but give me five minutes more on. I knew this that's why I said this. No just as point more. For example this is why I reject this we are all humans beneath our skin. When I was in Israel maybe you again know the story a horrible thing happened for me. A special Israeli unit entered a house Palestinian house looking for the father of the family who was allegedly a terrorist. And then there were only mother and some children in the apartment and of course they were all in a panic because military special police brutally entered the house and mother called a daughter who was crying: 'Come here come here' and her name. And one of the attackers Israeli soldiers discovered that that girl has the same name as his own daughter.
You know, I'm trying to cut short applause for her, not her, me, me, I'm here me, me. Sorry, sorry. No but now seriously enough of this bad taste joke. I will begin with precisely one of the aspects of my great appreciation of Jacqueline's work. I hope all of you did read, it was published when, two three weeks ago, your wonderful comment in London Review of Books about all the racial violence against women implication of that Pistorius trial in South Africa. I find this simply a breathtaking wonderful text. But I will just tell you frankly in what way I intend to cheat. The original plan was today Brandom Hegel, tomorrow Schiller Aesthetics, and the last day more theology and so on, or politics it doesn't matter. I decided nonetheless in view of all these latest political events and so on to do today mostly some political comments, reactions, reflections and then move towards death drive, a little bit of my new variations on my eternal eternal sorry topic Lacan Hegel. Then tomorrow it's the boring part but I love it, it's you know who is Robert Brandom, the high priest of these so-called Pittsburgh Hegelians. It's basically analytic philosophy Habermasian way to try to redeem Hegel. And what I will comment is a book, and this is very generous of Brandom that he made available on the web for free. It's a book detailed commentary of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. While I deeply appreciate his works, is a wonderful piece of consequent thinking and so on and so on, I nonetheless think that it how should I put it misses the point of Hegel. That's a kind of gentrification domestication of Hegel. For example and I like this example, you know I'm now probably repeating myself I mentioned this here. Something interesting is happening with Hegel in the last decades. Till around I would say maybe years ago there were two Hegels. The conservative Hegel embodied precisely in the British tradition around and so on, Hegel as kind of a warning against the the too much liberal freedom of bourgeois society, this conservative proto-fascist Hegel. And the leftist revolutionary Hegel. Liberals were mostly against Hegel, dismissing him either as a dangerous nihilist or as a dangerous totalitarian. By liberals I mean of course Karl Popper but not only him, for whom again Hegel is the proverbial bad guy. What is happening in the last decades is that precisely this, let's call it with an irony of course, third way Hegel. Hegel who is neither conservative nor revolutionary is almost occupying the leading place in at least Western academic debates. The liberal Hegel and as I developed in my books, two aspects of this like now I'm giving you the shibboleth or the to feed your Stalinist instincts how do you recognize these enemies, no? It's two features. The first one is the the much more modest reading of Hegel. The idea is forget about Hegelian ontology, metaphysics and so on, what Hegel is doing is simply to providing a kind of a general epistemology or description of or all possible ways of rational argumentation. And forget about ontology, theology and so on, it's simply methodological Hegel. Hegel as a general discursive theorist. All possible modes of argumentation, all possible modes we can describe the world. The other aspect is and here you recognize liberal Hegelians, recognition. Hegel is perceived, and that's the liberal reading of Hegel, as the one who pursues in his political work but not only there, the idea of full mutual recognition. Freedom means mutual recognition. Now maybe I'm wrong, maybe some of you know better and you should correct me, but I find it so interesting that there are a couple of crucial places where you may disagree or disagree with Hegel, but where he clearly and in a central way refers to recognition, but again in a weird unpleasant way. And none of these guys mentions this. Like the whole Hegelian argument for in defense of death penalty is based on recognition. Hegel's crazy idea is that by death penalty you treat the accused, the condemned, you recognize him or her as a full human being, responsible. Hegel's idea is that if you prohibit death penalty then you are not really recognizing the murderer because you are treating him not as an autonomous agent but as a victim of circumstances and so on and so on. Now there are okay I will not enter into do I agree here with Hegel or not. I'm just saying that there is maybe one thing which moderately works for Hegel which is that it's interesting to note how many regimes which prohibited death penalty did continue to execute people but just renaming it. Like even October Revolution is not clear here. One of the first thing that October Revolution did is of course abolish death penalty. Then immediately in in the Civil War they caught some white counter-revolutionary generals they shot them. And all the Western liberals were enraged. But didn't you abolish death penalty? How can you do this? The answer of Soviet Union, sorry this is my Stalinist pleasure I like it, it was a wonderful one. But this wasn't a death penalty, this was just preventive measure. Like it has nothing to do with death penalty and so on. It was or they claim educational measure but don't what I was saying is that you know this is a model of what for this liberal reading of Hegel to work how much you lose. About this tomorrow. And the last day I think you know the problem with Schiller is okay maybe I already even mentioned this the last time that I was here. Schiller interests me because he ended up as a proto-fascist. I think although I don't totally agree with him with Jean-Luc Nancy or it was the other guy they were friends Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe that one of the at least intellectual origins of fascism is aestheticization of politics. You know for example you find it directly in his famous letter to Furtwängler. Furtwängler you know the great conductor, national conservative but nonetheless more or less an honest guy. And I cannot resist improvising on this like it's so unjust history how whenever people say classical music conducting and Nazism they mention Furtwängler. Wait a minute why not Karajan? Who was an infinitely worse guy. Karajan was member of the Nazi party. He used his influence to denounce other people and so on. Furtwängler was kind of honest conservative who did the thing. He stepped down in '34, he tried he thought that he will be able with his influence to save the Jews even in Berliner Philharmoniker. When it didn't work he stepped down and he remained the symbol. It's the same in literature maybe even with a twist of anti-feminism at the end of German Democratic Republic. Two of their greatest writers icons were Christa Wolf and Heiner Müller. Heiner Müller was much more involved with Stasi. But to him everything was pardoned. While they only caught Christa Wolf writing for half a year some reports she had to but everything was rendered public and it's clear that she denounced no one, her reports were so useless that after half a year the Stasi simply stopped any pressure on her. No, it ruined her chances of Nobel Prize. Everyone knows this. While Heiner Müller you know with his daring masculine arrogance did it. But what I back to this. Why is Schiller interesting? Because he is nonetheless a great writer and at the end comes you should read it you find very smooth English translation simply on the web, The Song on the Bell is the translation, Das Lied von der Glocke whatever. It's the best short poetic résumé of fascism that I know. It describes an ideal patriarchal society which is clearly based on sexual division. You know all these men goes around to bring spoils to conquer foreign countries, woman stays at home, take cares of home, everything is nice. Then people go crazy, French Revolution and he openly refers there is no doubt to French Revolution because he says liberté, égalité, fraternité and the mob goes crazy, everything goes wrong. But it's very interesting that he Schiller blames women. As if the source of French Revolution was that women no longer were satisfied with their role of properly staying at home taking care there but become a wonderful title, Laughing Hyenas. And then finally men reestablish their authority and then comes the bell. Because then you have a long proto-fascist description of the production of a bell, of a big church bell and how this brings people together. It's pure aestheticization of politics, this feeling of community and everything is in order again. No wonder that this song although it's strange to imagine why Schiller was at the same time celebrated as the great poet of freedom. But from Schiller's time through Bismarck Germany through the Nazi times in a strange way even in German Democratic Republic this song was celebrated as the ultimate of German attitude. And I am glad to tell you that I think that when Schiller speaks about blames all the misfortunes of French Revolution on crazy women, and women the definition of a crazy woman is the woman who is no longer controlled by benevolent paternal authority, they run amok and they laugh like crazy. And I think I identified maybe the model of this madness. It's of course my beloved Caroline von Schlegel who later married Schelling. She was pretty much to the left, Jacobin, and she reports in one of her letters that when she and her friends were reading this poem by Schiller they had to laugh so much that they fell on ground down from their chair and so on. It was absolutely a primordial hatred between of them. But what I'm telling you is this, I think that that lecture on Schiller that I planned for tomorrow works only with if you were to know the texts. Because what is so interesting is how Schiller arrived at this point. His proto-fascism was a conclusion and in this way he tried to resolve some deadlocks. But since he is nonetheless a great writer these deadlocks are very interesting. Like if you want to do more Schiller read it you can get it very good translation free on the web, his play Don Carlos where you have something extraordinary happening which is I think crucial for the genesis of fascism. A weak king broken down and at the end this wonderful figure of the Great Inquisitor. Blind man who controls everything, he is this post-traditional authority. Enters and forces the king to sacrifice his son and so on and so on. I think it's a crucial moment in defining what happens with authority in early modern society, how standard patriarchal authority is replaced with another type of authority. And then you can show it in a nice way how out of all these deadlocks the only way open to Schiller was was kind of a proto-fascist vision of aestheticized of aestheticized politics. Because what's so weird is that Schiller's first mega-hit play Die Räuber, The Robbers, there it's on the contrary male bonding which is blamed. You know Karl Moor the hero establishes a group of robbers who are fighting they want a social revolution and in this way he betrays his love. The woman so the woman is on the side of family and order and the origin of revolutionary terror is male bonding not controlled by feminine feminine gentleness, sympathy and so on, humility and so on. But how did he come, that was interest me, from here to to the Lied the song on the bell where again it's women as laughing hyenas who are the source of evil. It's a wonderful line. So but again for this to work you have to read the texts. So what I will do then on the last day, now two days from now on Friday, after going in detail tomorrow through Brandom. Don't be too afraid because I will be talking about very concrete things, analysis which even refer to our experience and so on. And my point is precise because you know why I'm so traumatized by Brandom. Because basically I find attractive what he is doing. What he is doing is in a way what I sometimes try to do it, to show in the terms of our common sense reasoning how Hegel makes sense. He want to break out of the Hegelian jargon. But I think he sacrifices too much. The Hegel that we get there it's a Hegel where what is really crazy subversive in Hegel disappears. So this tomorrow. And then and then the last day I will do something on theology and politics some new stuff which will reflect on what will happen but it's a failed event I must inform you I'm a pessimist. Directly from here on Saturday I fly to Tel Aviv I go to Ramallah the alternate Walter Benjamin conference. But it didn't turn out most of the people who promised to be there cancelled in the last minute and there is a very sad tension which makes me depressive here at work. Namely Palestinians some of them I respect their wish wanted to do just another political event protesting Israeli oppression and so on. While I totally agree with it because what is happening now in Israel is like it's simply you know if you think that Arabs are religious fundamentalists wait go to Israel. I mean like recently I read that three ministers in Netanyahu government now openly declare that we should stop this game of two-state solution, West Bank is ours. Why? Because it says so in the Bible. I mean are we aware what they are saying? Like if this is not religious fundamentalism then I don't know what religious fundamentalism means. And then you have other did you read about these moments crazy statements, I almost like them, when Netanyahu recently said in an interview that it wasn't really Hitler who is responsible of the Holocaust, that Hitler just, it's serious it's not a joke, that Hitler just wanted to throw the Jews out. But that Mufti Husseini whatever the leader of Palestinians who effectively met Hitler but not at that point, a little bit later Netanyahu cheats but nonetheless that's Netanyahu's stories, was afraid that throwing the Jews out meant this is that they will come to Palestine. So the story totally invented is that Netanyahu told sorry Hitler told to Husseini I want to throw Jews out, then Husseini told him okay but where will they go, to us to Palestine? And that Hitler replied okay but what should I do with the Jews? And then that Husseini said burn them. And that this gave to Netanyahu the idea of sorry to Hitler the idea of but what I like so much and here you get the good side of my Jewish friends. My leftist Jewish friends then invented a whole series of stories bringing this logic to the end and I love it. Like one of them claimed that they discovered some new manuscripts ancient of course with some illustrations where it's clear that when Pontius Pilate condemns Christ to to to to to death that there is a figure like Mohammed whispering to Pontius Pilate this you know that. Like already there not the Jews the the Muslims proto-Muslims they didn't yet exist were there and so on. No the situation is is the situation is really tragic because as a reaction to this then because this conference was supposed to take place at Birzeit University in Ramallah. Part of it will but unfortunately I'm really sad about this. As a reaction to the renewed Israeli violence, the Birzeit University gave a hint at organizers that Israeli Jews will not be allowed to enter the university. Now I find this crazy and I understand it but I find it very sad. For example my friend Udi Aloni was prohibited to enter to enter the university there. And even I maybe already mentioned it here it's there is an even sadder much more sad event taking place there where I will try to no okay not now but when Udi Aloni maybe already told you this story now it's all confirmed organized a concert in I think at Columbia or at some place of a Palestinian rapper singer very popular who also plays a central role in Udi's new film. And this singer did a song on criticizing honor killings among Palestinians. And this singer and Udi were attacked by allegedly hardline Western leftists at Columbia that why mention this, this means supporting Zionism. In the sense of you know if honor killings happen there they are in reality the effect of Zionist occupation we shouldn't talk about this now and so on and so on. And of course the singer was shocked because he was accused of not mentioning ignoring Israeli occupation and Udi. But this is madness I'm sorry these two guys were arrested a couple of times by Israeli police they're doing nothing but this. And what instead of us being glad that with regard to honor killings we are not doing our Western patronizing thing you know primitive Palestinians, no, they have already their own fight. And these are the same people who also fight Israeli pressure and so on. We should be glad about it. No when you get such things and now I will go even more into pessimism, sorry I cannot avoid these comments. For example I think a big catastrophe political happened a couple of days ago you saw the news I don't know how widely it was reported here in the UK. But I think it's one of the greatest ethico-political catastrophes of Europe. European Union made a deal with Turkey. Basically it's pure bribery. It's we pay you money if you stop the flow of the refugees. The point is that as my friends immediately noticed it's almost the what what Erdogan is doing the Turkish boss it's almost the opposite of what Putin is doing. Putin is punishing Europe by how do you call it closing cutting off the flow of of gas, of turning off the pipe if Europe if he doesn't like Europe. Erdogan threatens to open the pipe of refugees. And it's pure deal. They promise to Erdogan first as a first installment billion billion of euros, then a better treatment in Europe, all of it just to close off get rid of the flow of refugees. And then that's what makes me furious. Then they talk about war on terror. You know the usual reaction to Paris attacks was this left humanism. Oh my God why war on terror? We cannot just fight terror by terror, this just brings more terror and so on. Okay there is some element of truth in it. But I plea for a much more radical approach. It's obvious that they don't mean seriously the war on terror. What war on terror is going on when they tolerate Turkey which as everyone knows is half supporting the Islamic State? And it's not even secret now. Did you notice it was in the newspapers a small note that the chief of the Turkish secret police who is as if by chance the brother of Erdogan already made a public statement claiming that the Islamic State nonetheless expresses the will of the people, international community should should recognize it, start dialogue and so on and so on. And we make a deal with Turkey. It's also clear what Turkey did. Turkey used this pact with the West of fighting the terror but what they're really bombing the Turks are the Kurds. And the Kurds are the only ones who are really fighting the Islamic State seriously. So again I'm much more tempted to play this game you know. You talk about war on terror while making pact with Turkey, Saudi Arabia who are discreetly the main supporters of ISIS and so on. Like what is going on here? It's not it's just this demonizing of ISIS but all the conditions all those who support ISIS are getting a preferential treatment against the only forces which are seriously fighting ISIS. And also although some people accused me of almost turning a European nationalist and so on but I am not, I'm just for organized reception of refugees precisely to prevent racist hatred and so on. And what is happening now in this way of making these dirty deals with Turkey I claim it's a total ethico-political catastrophe. You see that's the problem. It's not that they are too fanatic war on war on terror pushing it too far. No the problem is they are not taking it seriously. It's madness. You talk about war on terror and then discreetly you make pacts with those who effectively support it. It's all well documented. Although now he denies it publicly but everybody knows it my Kurdish friends told me. You know we find this in the media that ISIS is selling oil and surviving by oil. Sorry but ISIS Islamic State is landlocked. How does it sell oil? How does it come to to the sea? Through Turkey. Everybody knows it and so on. You know like it's it's it's such a deep how should I put it ethical disorientation, you know. And also this is my problem with the left. That they avoid the difficult questions. For example, I don't know if you already know this story, it was maybe published somewhere, recently I gave an interview for Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German daily, and then at the end they asked me to answer to some readers' questions. And there was one question which found an incredible echo, hundreds of people replied to it agreeing with the guy. It was a simple question. I claim to be democratic and I support Angela Merkel in that call you know, refugees you should come. But isn't it absolutely clear that the majority of Germans are against too many immigrants? So and the decision to allow immigrants in hundreds of thousand to come in is a serious big decision. Wasn't this a paradigmatic anti-democratic decision? Why didn't they why didn't they ask the German people what they want? You know my answer to this is a very cynical one. It's no, democracy at least if by democracy we mean what we have now de facto as a ruling system should not be the absolute limit. There are situations where you have the right to say fuck democracy. I mean to impose to do something in every way possible even if it goes against the the will of the majority or whatever and so on and so on. That was if some of you were stupid enough to listen to that orgy that we had me, Varoufakis and Assange. That's also my problem with Varoufakis. This guy really believes in democracy you know. I don't. Like if you watched it you noticed where there was a gentle misunderstanding between the two of us. His idea was democratize Europe how? For example all the sessions of those mysterious European community bodies, all the sessions should be publicly transmitted. Well he thinks that what? I think that what if the result were to be even worse if you don't change many other things? Like for example I know at least how what representatives of my state Slovenia and some others who play here very bad role will be. Because the majority opinion in most post-communist East European countries is screw the Greeks we are more poor why should we help the lazy Greeks. If the negotiations there were to be public they would have been even more against Greece to please their populist constituency back in their country. And also Varoufakis' counterpoint was because my other simple point was okay let's say we are that committee which whose meetings are now secret. Okay we make it public. It's clear what I would have done, let's say that I am the evil guy. I call a discreet private meeting one day before and we make all the decisions the majority. Then Varoufakis said but this is illegal. No it's not even necessarily illegal. You know what's my point? My point is that people are not a priori good in the sense of you know if you just tell them the truth. No. Ideology is a real hard material practice to put it like this. It really works in everyday life. My God all these guys obviously they didn't read Marx. Remember what already Marx knew when he says that commodity fetishism remains even if you theoretically totally enlightened it and so on and so on. You know this is very interesting because it's the same problem as the one Freud was facing when he discovered that after his early enthusiasm that you can have a perfect interpretation, the patient even pretends at least to accept it, but the symptom persists. Something more has to be done. And it's it's the same it's the same here. I understand not agree I understand ordinary people when you take into account how they experience situation and so on. And that's why not because I'm in any way against the refugees I plea for talking and not because I'm in any way Islamophobic. I think we should talk openly about these things because I had a big debate in Berlin two weeks ago where I was attacked by the idea that but why do I focus now on women's rights in Muslim society, now we have the humanitarian problem of thousands of refugees, can we put this to a later time? I see this as a shortcut to catastrophe. Precisely now we should talk about it. Of course, that's the whole point, not in the racist way. But we should talk about all this openly. And also of course also in a way which criticizes us. That is to say it's not enough to say the way Muslims treat women predominantly if it is predominantly I don't know it's unacceptable for us. Immediately one should mention our counterpart which is at least okay maybe not as bad but yes it's the same category. Like if nothing else Catholic pedophilia in the Catholic Church. We but about all this we should talk openly. If not, if we if we continue this simple this political correct left-wing you know like my main argument again ah the argument against me I loved it were triple three arguments. The first one was this one. It's not the appropriate moment to talk about this. I disagree with this you know why? Because we I'm again my whole point is of course we are also to blame, we are even ultimately to blame. But there is a tendency going on independently of Islam in the world which I find very worrying. Which is that sexual difference is reasserted, and by sexual difference I mean the subordination of women to men, is reemerging as the central ethico-political question for some people. And this goes from Putin to Mugabe to others and so on. This is what I find so strange about for example a movement like Boko Haram. This should give us to think that you have a movement which really wants to revolutionize society but the basic premise of this woman is Boko Haram which vaguely translated so as told mean no Western education for women de facto meaning. So isn't this something strange and this bring us even back to Schiller I mean no? That the the basic political question becomes how and the saddest thing I know this is false but that's how it functions is that because as some friends you this may surprise you but I have even friends in in Nigeria and they told me what's so tricky about Boko Haram is that their logic is formally an anti-colonialist anti-imperialist one. They claim imperialism is not just economy it's also destructive cultural influence. And the basis of this destructive cultural influence is the feminist propaganda which destroys the natural hierarchy and this way threatens to dissolve all of society. In the same way similar way this the story goes on then to Mugabe who made recently a speech in United Nations claiming that gay rights are basically Western colonialist propaganda. And don't jump now too quickly to conclusion. My point is just not here to make fun of primitive Africans or whatever. The point is of course that up to a point this is true. I mean we should not forget what happened for example in Iraq that to their disgrace many American centrist liberal feminists supported American aggression attack on Iraq claiming that at least it will liberate women there. And the irony is wonderful as you probably know, the opposite happened. That is to say whatever you are saying and that's the sad thing that is happening. Whatever you say about and I don't like them in any way Saddam I don't like it because you know we tend to forget that before he was overthrown and a couple of years before Saddam was de facto the big American ally there. Don't you remember the war against Iran? Where United States not only provided Iraq with poisonous gases but even provided the Iraqi army with satellite photographs to know where to use. The Americans only protested when Saddam used some gases against his own people but not when he used them against Iranians. This was for me a mega. Here I agree I even wrote a couple of years ago a text which maybe now I would not put it, give Iranian nukes a chance. Where I told them of course Iranians are traumatized. You remember the war. Iraq after Khomeini revolution Saddam thought okay now it's a chance Iran is in chaos, he clearly invaded Iran. I don't remember any Western non-aligned whichever party which clearly stated this. All the calls for peace started to arise when Iraq started to lose the war. Then all of a sudden oh my God but war is not the solution and so on and so on. So what I'm saying is that no but whatever we say about Saddam and Assad they are horror, yes. Do you know that these were the only two Middle East states which were at least formally secular? And this meant something like as already mentioned it here even I think Tariq Aziz the Saddam's foreign minister, the public face of his regime, he was an Iraqi Christian. You know what was the main result social result of American occupation of Iraq? They dissolved the army, police fell apart, Muslim militias took over public order. So there were under Saddam million of Christians there, now most of them emigrated. And point two women's role is much more diminished. So this is a wonderful irony. United States a Christian country in some sense invades Iraq to liberate women and so on and the result is exactly the opposite one. Women are more oppressed plus Christians disappear from the country. So again you know don't accept this is for me the beginning of critical thinking, don't accept the terms of the debate like war on terror. You should always question but is it really this what is going on? Frankly I don't know what is going on. I only know that it's definitely not some kind of a simple war on terror. I met yesterday my good friend I'm mentioning this not to boast but to remind you that he is still alive because he is slowly getting desperate Julian Assange who told me that now again he got some material that they will publish but nobody cares what now Wikileaks are publishing which clearly reconfirms what we already knew from some documents that in spite of their official opposition Israeli and Saudi Arabia representatives are all the time meeting with the task of how how to contain Iran. So who is fighting whom there? Another thing that worries me is it's clear now that bombing will not do the job. So they are now trying to organize some independent Sunni forces to occupy that era, there will be some kind of even if by proxies military occupation. And then I see even for world peace a great danger. What will happen then with Assad regime? Will they not be tempted these independent forces to move into Assad what will then the Russians do there and so on? Again I think that whatever is going on it's absolutely not some kind of a simple now we have an enemy war on terror and so on and so on. Even Israel, this is a subtle thing to note, how Israel never really unequivocally condemned the Islamic State. There are even some very obscure links with Israel I mean this was I don't know if I already told you this story this was a big scandal in Israel no when they discovered that Israeli army is basically helping Al-Qaeda. Why? Because in the south of Lebanon the part one part is called on Israeli border by Al-Qaeda the other part by by Hezbollah. And since Israeli fear more Hezbollah and since Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda are fighting of course they are helping Al-Qaeda there. I mean some Israeli photographer even they had shots of how they are giving them arms, treating their wounded and so on and so on. So again don't it's simply that the situation is obscure who knows what, absolutely we should reject the terms of what is happening. The second thing I wanted to say, maybe you know this line I've written about it but I don't know where it was published in in English I think only on the website of Newsweek which is one of the few still ready to publish me because I'm now prohibited in Guardian and so on and so on. Ah to be fair they do invite me still but I don't even reply them to appear open, but you know with what topics? This kind of a social way of life topic like a year ago I got a letter from email from Guardian: 'Professor would you care to answer the question why do you wear a beard? How does it help your creativity?' and so on. You know this is a systematic move to this like who cares about politics, lifestyle and so on and so on. Okay but let me go on. So now I'm approaching the topic of violence and so on. My big reaction to this latest Paris killings is again of course we condemn them but but is not that we should understand them and so on. But is that we should really condemn them. Not just again use this as a kind of a pathetic spectacle of solidarity of all of us free democratic civilized people against the murderous Muslim monster or monster or whatever. Because ah I want to tell you this although it's anecdotal my God I hope I'm not losing too much time I am but what the hell. You know that I made a statement apropos Charlie Hebdo killings where a journalist in my own country Slovenia asked me what do you think about those Paris murders. And okay I was a little bit fast but I said listen the truly disgusting thing was that photo opportunity you know when you had all the world leaders holding hands and hopefully this is sometimes God is benevolent and allows this there was a photographer yards behind taking in the whole scene. You know there was no crowd on the top of which there were all those world leaders. There was simply just leaders and three four lines of obviously secret policemen behind them that's why all the shows were shots were close it was pure photo opportunity. And I said listen if you already want to shoot somebody it would be much better to shoot those politicians there for their hypocrisy. Ah the Slovenian right-wing press is now systematically for two months attacking me seriously this is not a joke what I will tell you now, demanding that I be prosecuted for terrorism because they claim since I call for the murder of those politicians and since François Hollande was among them and since François Hollande was also on that stadium in Paris so what the this latest attacks in Paris are they just executed my comment. So I am not only justifying them I even co-organized them. And they are quite serious they wrote an appeal to Slovene public prosecution like we already have terrorists in our midst why am I not prosecuted, they informed French embassy that France should start should start proceedings against me for instigating ter so we live in crazy times but that's not important we all knew this. Now a little bit more serious stuff. What I've written about is I remember a comment on Slovene TV TV which was simple but deeply justified I claim. After a Paris attack they asked one of the refugees what does he think about it. Of course they want him to join this universal solidarity and he said something simple stupidly simple but very nice. He said we deeply sympathize with Paris victims but you see this is what we are running from. And then he made a nice comment he said you see for you this is a singular event oh my God attack. But what for you is a singular event once a year is for us daily life. Now you understand what we are running from. And this brings me to point I made long ago isn't this the first thing that we should note. There are exceptions I simplify it. But the big difference between the West we who live under this cupola of human rights relative welfare and so on, for us terrorist attacks are momentary brutal disruptions of of of of of normal everyday life. Life goes on boom things explode then you have solidarity normal life is gradually established and so on and so on. But again the horror of what goes on in many countries outside Europe is that brutal violence is simply a fact of life. It's not an exception, this is their daily life. So I claim that we should the first thing is that we should when we talk about violence we should become aware and draw all the consequences from this tension. For us it's just momentary disruptions even if they are relatively big one like September 11th but nonetheless life then returns to normal in the sense of yes we do the work of mourning we do all the stuff but it's over like it's a momentary event. While in those countries many countries it's just goes on. And then from here we should go on to all the levels of violence that still pervade around the world. For example and here I want to go to Jacqueline's wonderful text on Pistorius where she pointed out how Pistorius' killing of his girlfriend has to be read against the complex background of white men's fear of black violence as well as of the widespread terrible reality of violence against women. A quote from Jacqueline's text: 'Every four minutes in South Africa a woman or a girl often a teenager sometimes a child is reported raped. And every eight hours a woman is killed by her partner.' The phenomenon has a name in South Africa intimate femicide. Or as the journalist Margie Oxford calls the repeated killing of women across the country serial femicide. And the reason I admire Jacqueline's text is that she avoids in a masterful way both wrong procedures here. The one would have been to play the European arrogance you see these black people the moment you give them freedom they start killing their own women this hypocritical deploring of the third world violence. And the other again the opposite of course is to claim that this condemning violence there is just a neo-colonialist game of blaming them and so on and so on. The first thing to bear in mind is again the presence of violence also even although we may appear to live in highly developed countries with even ethical development women's protection feminism and so on and so on. But are we aware what is going on now even in some developed countries? Like recently I learned a terrifying thing that maybe some of you read about it I was told it was a big news there where there in Canada. A Native American okay politically incorrect term Indian prostitute was killed by a white customer. The way she was killed is not very unpleasant. He put a long knife into her vagina and started turning around and cutting and so on. Now comes the double scandal. The first part of the scandal all this was confirmed nobody denied this. He was set free, he was not the jury set him free. How? Now comes the horror it's so depressing I warn you it's really depressing. The the defense did something unheard of. As part of their defense material they have shown to the jury the torso of the dead woman. Lower part obviously they cut it into two of the body up to her knees with all the wounds. I mean can you imagine how disgusting this was? And what shows an incredible level of anti-feminist racism is how nobody protested since this was a native woman. You know it was con and then can you imagine the absolutely disgusting procedure of the defense lawyer: 'You see here my customer moved his knife here' and so on. It was really this half-rotten lower part of the body there. The defense was that it was all part of a kinky slightly perverted sexual game which ran out of control. That it wasn't a murder that this customer that was his defense: 'I made a deal with her it was a market contract that I can softly put a knife into her vagina she accepted it and then we started to play and that I warned her it will be weird sex so even when she started to bleed I thought it's still part of the contract' because that was the disgusting defense, because she was well known to accept customers with weird desires and then the game simply ran out of control but it was mostly her guilt by provoking me and so on and so on. So you see the horror. I mean it was absolutely no doubt what happened nobody disputed this. And because this is what shocked me this is for me the most depressing part of this report. That one would have been thought that if you show literally part of the body there I half-rotten and so on you can't imagine cut I be with sorry but here I am an abstract humanist that with normal people this should give rise to some kind of sympathy for her: 'My God this was once a young beautiful woman look what's what became of her now'. No it convinced the jury against her. Can you imagine what kind of deeply racist and anti-feminist stance had to be at work there if they were able even to swallow this the half-rotten feminine torso and not out of because you know that's what shocked me. First when I heard this report my reaction was that probably prosecution did this to arouse sympathy: 'Now we will show you it will be disgusting but now we will show you what the murderer did it'. No it wasn't it worked against. Can you imagine what a thick set of anti-feminist and so on racist because it's crucial that the girl was a native American. You know what extent of again this racist presupposition and so on all this all this implies. So again coming back to my main point. I am aware of the immense tension here and danger of cultural imperialism neo-colonialism and so on. And I'm sorry if I'm repeating an old story but I am well aware of this danger from my old sources in ex ex-Yugoslavia, probably you know the story when in the early 90s in Bosnia women raped women established some society association and some American feminists contacted them and people still laugh about it even now years later in Bosnia. I was told by some Bosnian friends. Because the activists mocked how they got a letter from an American feminist group trying to establish contact. And the letter was so insensitive like there were desperate women there serially raped and so on. And the questions that the Americans addressed to them was I am not kidding like the first question was like a vulgarized Judith Butler question. Like: 'Do you think that women have an eternal feminine essence or do you think that that woman's identity is the result of performatively enacted practices of repetition?' you know like women just look there. Of course these are incidental theoretically pertinent question but I claim to put it in this way it's just beyond description for me. So I am well aware how the immediate export of Western feminism and individual human rights can serve as a tool of ideological economic neo-colonialism. But at the same time I claim that and it's quite incredible how up to a point as a reaction to the latest gains in you know gay marriages, abortions and so on we have this as it were sexual difference counter-revolution. It's not just Boko Haram, it's it's not just Mugabe against gays, it's even Putin. You remember I know I mention it here that story when that Austrian transvestite Conchita Wurst I it's disgusting I don't like it but when she won Eurovision there was an incredible campaign in Russian media claiming ah is this new Europe a bearded woman? And then with open like even Putin said somewhere that I thought in the Bible it says that there are women and men, what entity is this now and so on and so on. So this recourse to to this recourse to sexual difference and the whole art of politics I claim that's all I'm saying is to is to is to bring these struggles somehow together. What I I mean I know that we should avoid our Western anti sorry feminism the point is avoid in the sense of not simply directly mechanically applying it to it. But I don't accept the logic of now it's a big battle for example for human for for for refugees and so on and so on so let's not mention that now. The strategy should be to even reject the idea that there is a competition between the two of them. It should be somehow done as part of the same struggle. If we don't do it then we we run the danger of what happened a couple of years ago I don't know if you remember it when a right-wing populist Pim Fortuyn was killed. But he was an interesting populist, he was what I'm almost tempted to call a politically correct populist. He was anti-immigrant but his activity was a he was openly gay and his activity was precisely a kind of a politically correct rejection of Muslims. Because unfortunately some Muslims in in Holland in Netherlands were effectively attacking gays. And you know he succeeded to mobilize gays and feminists on anti-immigrant base. So I only claim all I claim is that this is effectively a a complex situation and that you cannot resolve it in an easy way. Then let's go on my God this was meant to be a short introduction but let me go on. Okay let me I wanted to do something about divine violence I don't have time now I will try to cut it short because I will talk about this in Ramallah next week. My idea is that I try to locate what what happens now with these latest attacks with knives in Israel. I in no way agree with them but one has to say a couple of things and my source here is not some Al-Qaeda information service. It's simply whatever there remains of half-honest Israeli press Haaretz and so on, even in New York Times you find here and there news about this. But do you know that there is it's not only that Palestinians out of despair attack with knives Israelis I mean Jews in Israel, Palestinians are also Israelis many of them, and then of course understandably Israeli Jews counter-attack. What about not just passive bureaucratic harassment but the level of violence on the West Bank? Nobody talks about this. My God it's daily violence like you know that every year when there is a season of harvest season, settlers are burning are burning olive trees, they are poisoning wells of water, even burning mosques, killings go on regularly, for example recently I think there was some trial in Israel where they even know who were settlers who burned some Palestinian family and somehow they squeezed nothing happens they found a way out and so on and so on. So again the first thing to reject is that Israelis just want peace. First I would say of course Israelis want peace. My God in the same way that Germans when they occupied France they wanted peace. Every occupying force wants peace because it it it got what it wanted so peace means we the world at lea but even this is not true. I mean it's not it's not the the Israeli image is it's peace then Israeli provocations sorry Palestinian provocations trigger our retaliation. No it's not that, it's permanent violence there. But what interests me is this, and this is a thing that I really find sad. How what is now happening with this knife attacks is effectively close to something that Walter Benjamin calls divine violence. And he defines it in a in a very precise way. He defines divine violence as violence which is I quote Benjamin: 'not related as a means to a preconceived end, it is not a means but a manifestation'. So again divine violence is not what we today call religious violence justified by some fundamentalism. No because that is still instrumental violence. You do this to terrorize the enemy to achieve a certain goal or whatever. But for this is where incidentally in his attack on me I claim Simon Critchley totally misreads Benjamin where he reads divine violence in the sense of kind of a desperate strategy. Like sometimes although we should reject violence but sometimes when there really is no other way in order to achieve your goal freedom you have to do a little bit of violence. No this is exactly what Benjamin does not mean. He means violence which is like a manifestation of rage without any strategic or whatever instrumental justification. And my Palestinian and aha there is another tendency with Benjamin I like to smash it because you know Benjamin is today a good guy untouchable. So the problem for those politically correct Western liberal friends of Benjamin is how to neutralize divine violence. How to make it some kind of a sublime symbolic gesture, nobody is really hurt and so on. No no no sorry Benjamin is already from the examples that he quotes in his Critique of Violence short early text it's clear what he means. And my friend Sami Khatib, Palestinian specialist of Benjamin the organizer of that conference, found in a friend of Benjamin Werner Kraft in Werner Kraft's diary an entry from May 20th where Kraft reports on his conversation with Benjamin. He is asking Benjamin how he relates today more than a decade later to his notion of divine violence, Critique of Violence. Look what Benjamin answered quote: 'A just right, it's gerechtes Recht, a just right, is what serves the oppressed in class struggle. Class struggle is the center of all philosophical questions including the highest ones. What he Benjamin earlier called divine violence was an empty spot, a liminal notion, a relative idea. Now he knows that it is class struggle. Violence which is justified has nothing to do with a sanction. It doesn't add anything to the thing, it is without a sensible image like for example the crown of a king and so on. One can kill when one does it in this way like one kills an ox in a slaughterhouse. The just war at the end of the article on violence, class struggle and so on and so on'. So whatever you say Benjamin wasn't gentle here. He really meant violence. He didn't mean some sublime gesture of a great no where we all cry in solidarity and so on. So how to read it? Here I am a I will and then I will of course immediately answer your counter-question. But but my reaction here is first that yes we do have examples of divine violence today. There were elements of it and I'm here correcting my false judgment. You remember that riots in the UK a couple of years ago? And I wrote a text with which I no longer agree where I accused them of consumerist riots. Just no I think it's maybe closer to divine violence. Or especially years ago you remember those cars burning in the suburbs of Paris. What was so mysterious it fits Benjamin it was just a manifestation of rage. It didn't have any clear goal. First they thought it's Islamism. No it was not. The first thing that protesters in Paris suburb burned were their own mosques, cultural centers and so on and so on cars, they didn't have any program and so on and so on. And I think it's similar with this knife attacks in Israel. There is no there is no secret terrorist political program behind it and so on. It's just a manifestation of zero level let's call it manifestation of rage. And now comes the crucial point at least for me. You will ask tell me but nonetheless we should be opposed to it. Here I in a non it's not justice. Here I maybe you'll be surprised by but my by my position. In some sense of course we should oppose it like fuck you if I were to find myself threatened by a crazy mob I would probably run away like hell or even shoot back. But you see the fine point. But nonetheless I have no right to simply condemn them. That's crucial. It's the same problem as my friend maybe you know the story I'm sorry Tom Mitchell, Critical Inquiry guy, told me he had this problem. He lives in that wealthy area south of Chicago University of Chicago campus and north from the campus is a black ghetto. Louis Farrakhan lives there and Muslim blacks and so on. So he wanted to be politically correct and he sent his son to a high school on the borderline between college area and ghetto. And then after three four weeks he didn't know what to do his son came home at least twice a week with a with a broken nose, without a tooth and so on and so on. And he saw the problem. The problem is that on the one hand of course it would be crazy to demand of him: 'No you should sacrifice your son for a higher solidarity with the blacks' and so on. So of course as an individual you protect your son. But at the same time and that's crucial you have no right to simply condemn the blacks. This is also for me an aspect of divine violence. You should rather ask yourself and this divine violence so that you will not misunderstand me, in no way I do think that terrorist attacks are divine violence. No no no they are not just a manifestation. I'm not in any way justifying them, we should condemn them. But with these desperate acts like attack with knives. Listen you cannot justify and nobody even tries to justify them in through some political strategy fear and so on of of Palestinian fear installing fear into Israelis. They all know if you ask them that it's a desperate strategy of it's a desperate strategy which is just a manifestation of rage. And we have no right to simply condemn it. And you will say but then what to do? You have to fight it if you are caught in it. I mean you will not say there please kill me yes we historically wronged you or whatever. But that's the that's the authentic historical tragedy for me you know. That that's our contradiction us of white men. Of course physically you protect yourself. But at the same time you have no right to dismiss the violence which you suffered as simple injustice of a monstrous other and so on and so on. You should rather question what kind of a society is this where the only way to articulate not even articulate express your rage is through this type of divine violence. I will just go if I can a little bit further. Okay I will do a short report on what I wanted to say but I didn't. Recently something wonderful happened, it was reported I know it was a hoax then, on September 7th Sarah Palin gave an interview to Fox News where she told the interviewer quote: 'I love immigrants but like Donald Trump I just think we have too darn many in this country. Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, they are changing up the cultural mix in the United States. I think we should go home we should go to some of these people and just ask them: Would you mind going home, would you mind giving us our country back?' Then this guy Steve Doocy tell told her: 'Sarah you know I love you and I think it's a great idea with regard to Mexicans but where are the Native Americans supposed to go? They don't really have a place to go back to do they?' Sarah replied: 'Well I think they should because they are called remember Native Americans I think they should go back to Nativia or whatever they come from. The liberal media treats Native Americans like they are gods as if they have just have some sort of automatic right to be in this country. But I say if they can't learn to get off those horses and start speaking American then they should be sent home to Nativia too.' Now of course it's too beautiful to be true. It was an intelligent hoax. But I claim this hoax is a reality. It was a reality maybe also somewhere else. It was a reality up to a point in Canada where they constituted these reservations as their version of Nativia. Nativias exist, maybe Sarah Palin is a hoax but reality is not. And the greatest example of Nativia is of course Bantustans in the apartheid South Africa. You know remember what madness were Bantustans? The South African government selected picked I think around percent of the worst country no minerals fertile and simply they made them pseudo-autonomous sovereign states and informed the black people this is your true home. You are from there. And now this is a wonderful mixture of this postmodern contingency everything is constructed and the rudest can you imagine a black person who lives from times immemorial his family I don't know over in Johannesburg and then he is informed: 'Cuckoo good news we found your real home you come from that' and he goes there is just desert nothing and so on and so on. And I claim that if you read Netanyahu's speech where he described his position for the two-state solution is basically Bantustans no? What he is ready but even that will not be the case is to take some isolated parts of the West Bank which will be totally controlled by by by the Israeli army and give them this type of mock autonomy or whatever. But now the last point which again I think is crucial to say. Maybe with this I will conclude and we go tomorrow into death drive and so on concerning the refugees. Now this is consciously problematic but believe me I mean it in an extremely positive way. I'm sick and tired of this postmodern narrativization which basically tells the following story. Immigrants or the poor the other, they are good people you just have to listen to their story to learn to listen to them and so on. You have to understand them and then you will see they're humans like us. I'm totally opposed to this. You know why? And I even this is positive phenomenon I read in Guardian or where that now with some Syrian families in Glasgow or somewhere in Scotland that they are doing this organizing meetings six families and you know of Syrians. Okay it works but I warn you it works only up to the certain point. My point is the following one which was masterfully formulated long ago by some leftist critic of Frank Capra films, you know these pseudo-leftist dramas melodramas about the poor people which all had this patronizing attitude. The poor people are wonderful human beings you just have to understand them open your heart to them. And then this cynical wonderful leftist I forgot who he was theorist said: 'Okay but then what if you discover that they are not like you, that they are really not like you then you can kill them or whatever'. And my point here is the following one that class differences even cultural differences are real differences. It's not you know that oh we just have to open our heart to the other and we discover we are all the same people and so on and so on. First I want to repeat the old point that I already made a couple of times here about the most disgusting wisdom that I know is the wisdom of an enemy is someone whose story you have not heard. Like you know you fetishize the enemy. No I totally opposed to it. Just think about it. So it's good to learn Hitler was our enemy because you know we didn't open ourselves to hear his side of the story about antisemitism maybe. No it's not only that if you hear his story it's a pretty disgusting story. It's the situation is even more tricky. I don't think the truth of Hitler is the story he was telling. The truth of Hitler was the horrors he was doing. And I don't think I mean for every crime that you do you can construct a wonderful story. For every killing you do you can construct a wonderful narrative of how you are really I don't know what protecting the larger human rights and so on and so on. So it's not only that there are stories which if you understand the other story he is even more your enemy. It's simply that the the this when somebody opens up himself or herself or themselves to you. It's not the truth. It's not the truth. Like just think about classical example oppression of women. No good patriarchal master will tell you I am oppressing women, but whatever you know the bullshit. I am protecting them from the evils of the world, it's me who is the real victim by and so on and so on whatever. So again I don't think that this inner experience is the moment of truth. No it's the fundamental lie. We are telling stories to somehow justify if we are doing it the horrors that we are doing. That's why I also I know you are nervous but give me five minutes more on. I knew this that's why I said this. No just as point more. For example this is why I reject this we are all humans beneath our skin. When I was in Israel maybe you again know the story a horrible thing happened for me. A special Israeli unit entered a house Palestinian house looking for the father of the family who was allegedly a terrorist. And then there were only mother and some children in the apartment and of course they were all in a panic because military special police brutally entered the house and mother called a daughter who was crying: 'Come here come here' and her name. And one of the attackers Israeli soldiers discovered that that girl has the same name as his own daughter.
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And he stepped forward
And he stepped forward
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and
and
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showed to the mother: 'You see my
showed to the mother: 'You see my
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daughter oh we have the same daughter'. I found this the most disgusting thing you can imagine. Like: 'Oh we maybe we are attacking you now but deep in we are' and so on and so on. No I think the true respect for immigrants is I respect you even if I don't accept your story. I don't think we should patronize them into this ridiculous. No of course there are rapists among them. But there are rapists rapists among us and so on. Maybe we will never understand each other. But I don't want to live in a society where we understand everyone and so on. The true respect is the respect for the radical other whom you don't understand. And this is I think absolutely crucial. That's the true acceptance of immigrants. That you know we need superficial rules clichés of tolerance and so on even with even if we do not understand each other. And again I think that again I don't have time. Okay now at some point I have to I have to stop but it's so sad because I have to stop. Okay I will stop. But I you see you see my point. I think that if we play this hermeneutic game of
daughter oh we have the same daughter'. I found this the most disgusting thing you can imagine. Like: 'Oh we maybe we are attacking you now but deep in we are' and so on and so on. No I think the true respect for immigrants is I respect you even if I don't accept your story. I don't think we should patronize them into this ridiculous. No of course there are rapists among them. But there are rapists rapists among us and so on. Maybe we will never understand each other. But I don't want to live in a society where we understand everyone and so on. The true respect is the respect for the radical other whom you don't understand. And this is I think absolutely crucial. That's the true acceptance of immigrants. That you know we need superficial rules clichés of tolerance and so on even with even if we do not understand each other. And again I think that again I don't have time. Okay now at some point I have to I have to stop but it's so sad because I have to stop. Okay I will stop. But I you see you see my point. I think that if we play this hermeneutic game of
Slavoj Žižek
understanding
understanding
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and so on and so on. It's wrong. The only understanding can so we cannot talk with them? We can. But I repeat my old story. The only chance of understanding is struggle. Not struggle with them but we share the same struggle. That's the understanding. Otherwise we are in this shitty UNESCO territory. You know those disgusting UNESCO books. All human cultures are great, this culture that no. Our answer to clash of civilizations should not be mutual understanding of civilizations but there is clash within each civilization. And to bring together in a line these clashes. Sorry I. Okay Slavoj thank you. It is sad to stop you but you do have two more days here. And I think we're all very aware that my introduction was slightly off-key because we have not yet heard about Hegel. Okay I'm going to open it up for discussion
and so on and so on. It's wrong. The only understanding can so we cannot talk with them? We can. But I repeat my old story. The only chance of understanding is struggle. Not struggle with them but we share the same struggle. That's the understanding. Otherwise we are in this shitty UNESCO territory. You know those disgusting UNESCO books. All human cultures are great, this culture that no. Our answer to clash of civilizations should not be mutual understanding of civilizations but there is clash within each civilization. And to bring together in a line these clashes. Sorry I. Okay Slavoj thank you. It is sad to stop you but you do have two more days here. And I think we're all very aware that my introduction was slightly off-key because we have not yet heard about Hegel. Okay I'm going to open it up for discussion
Slavoj Žižek
but I just first of all just wanted to pick out a few of the things that I've heard Slavoj say today and the extent to which a number of them have had since this is central to his project a psychoanalytic resonance. 'Frankly I don't really know what is going on, the situation is obscure and who knows what.' Which is to say that always in sight is
but I just first of all just wanted to pick out a few of the things that I've heard Slavoj say today and the extent to which a number of them have had since this is central to his project a psychoanalytic resonance. 'Frankly I don't really know what is going on, the situation is obscure and who knows what.' Which is to say that always in sight is
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thinking,
thinking,
Slavoj Žižek
there's the limits of the knowledge of what he says. Alright, so I think that's important. I was also very interested in the reference to the interpretation in the analytic scenario which is radically ineffective. And it's ineffective because it hasn't touched on the core of the belief. And I felt in that point you were continuing your work on the sublime object of ideology and its sort of its deep and intractable components of political social and psychic identification.
there's the limits of the knowledge of what he says. Alright, so I think that's important. I was also very interested in the reference to the interpretation in the analytic scenario which is radically ineffective. And it's ineffective because it hasn't touched on the core of the belief. And I felt in that point you were continuing your work on the sublime object of ideology and its sort of its deep and intractable components of political social and psychic identification.
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I think it's very
I think it's very
Slavoj Žižek
important today
important today
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that you have insisted as you often do that people are not a priori good and that people do not speak the truth. But not the other, we also. Yeah yeah yeah absolutely clearly. I felt you trod on very tricky and difficult ground and I'm going to open it up for people to say. That's what interests me now. What of course what interests you. About um what can and can't be spoken like
that you have insisted as you often do that people are not a priori good and that people do not speak the truth. But not the other, we also. Yeah yeah yeah absolutely clearly. I felt you trod on very tricky and difficult ground and I'm going to open it up for people to say. That's what interests me now. What of course what interests you. About um what can and can't be spoken like
Slavoj Žižek
honor killing in Palestinian societies and the way that can lead to a kind of a will to silence, that this is not the moment. And as a feminist who for years have heard from the left: 'We'll have the revol we'll have the revolution and then we'll deal with women's liberation.' This is a song that I feel I've heard over and over again. However if Do you think these songs these songs I hope not. Of course I didn't sing this song, of course I didn't sing this song. But if we're talking about what can politically and politically not be spoken and what can politically and can politically not be performed. I would say that your moment of performing partly the Canadian attack on the Native American prostitute went over the limit for me.
honor killing in Palestinian societies and the way that can lead to a kind of a will to silence, that this is not the moment. And as a feminist who for years have heard from the left: 'We'll have the revol we'll have the revolution and then we'll deal with women's liberation.' This is a song that I feel I've heard over and over again. However if Do you think these songs these songs I hope not. Of course I didn't sing this song, of course I didn't sing this song. But if we're talking about what can politically and politically not be spoken and what can politically and can politically not be performed. I would say that your moment of performing partly the Canadian attack on the Native American prostitute went over the limit for me.
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Okay. Really? That's interesting. For me. All right. So that but I want to not make that just an attack on you but open up the question of the limits of what is speakable and what is bearable. And how indeed and you're absolutely right and I thank you for
Okay. Really? That's interesting. For me. All right. So that but I want to not make that just an attack on you but open up the question of the limits of what is speakable and what is bearable. And how indeed and you're absolutely right and I thank you for
Slavoj Žižek
your references to Bantu in the bathroom how to talk about violence against women must be one of the
your references to Bantu in the bathroom how to talk about violence against women must be one of the
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most
most
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difficult and searching questions of our time. Very interesting what you were saying about divine violence because when you were talking about the absolute
difficult and searching questions of our time. Very interesting what you were saying about divine violence because when you were talking about the absolute
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interminable presence of violence on the West Bank as a daily occurrence and they That's crucial yeah. Crucial yeah. And then you cut to divine violence and for one ghastly
interminable presence of violence on the West Bank as a daily occurrence and they That's crucial yeah. Crucial yeah. And then you cut to divine violence and for one ghastly
Slavoj Žižek
moment I thought you were making which is simply a manifestation. I realized you were talking about the knife attacks. That's what you were collecting to the class struggle and I know that for many people who read you and write about you it is the transition between the manifestation of rage and the organization of the struggle against injustice which is the hardest thing to theorize. Okay so I'm just going to stop there and I'm going to invite people to ask questions and. But can I just briefly we will have time. No because this it's I okay I'll put it like this. Maybe we have here I hope simply a different strategy. Sorry but I'm not bluffing now you know I'm not always just joking and bluffing. This is for me a very serious point what you mentioned now. Because it came you see this is the feminine evil it came from a totally unexpected direction. That you know I I am well aware of a even I have my limits like let me put it in this way. If I were to have a photo of what happened in that courtroom you would not share it. I would not show it. That's my limit believe me no. That's too much. although but my point is only this one. I simply thought that you know like what Primo Levi says that famous conversation that a Nazi torturer in Auschwitz tells him nobody will believe us and so on. I had the same problem. But my idea was I have to shock you with this because it's so crazy that if I don't tell you nobody could even imagine that something like this can happen. Because I even still now it looks to me ridiculous how can something like that happen? Can you imagine I will not say it again it's too disgusting. You know it really literally happened in a courtroom. I mean it was so I thought that without me shocking you it wouldn't have worked. You have to be shocked and then to ask what type of Okay I I take that point I just want to say no no but I wanted to counterattack in a minute. The piece on Bantu in the bathroom is being published by the Guardian Africa. And halfway down the piece I noticed they had a picture of Pistorius on his stumps in the courtroom and I immediately emailed them back and said I don't want you to use that picture okay. I don't want you to use it, that was a humiliating of the man in the courtroom never mind what I say about him he should be in jail right. I'm hoping the appeal tomorrow which is going to be decided tomorrow will send him down for years. I said never mind you don't show that image. Okay you can now counterattack but we must not make it just No no no no counterattack because maybe I was wrong no no you you made me seriously doubt you know. Think about it. Well it's a question it's a question. No sorry another thing sorry but I have to this is so important because I this is a wonderful topic. This is why I hate you. In the sense of loving you in the sense of you are too bright for your own good sometimes you know what I mean. You ask the right aggressive questions. And I like the point that you made here that you know I hated in Charlie Hebdo reaction we in the West we can make fun of everything. No there are things which shouldn't be and we have to openly accept this debate it what is it not because you know we shouldn't simply play this idea you there are even some prohibitions which can be deeply justified you know. It's not that you can like again the one I mentioned although it's too overexploited because it's I don't even agree fully with it. But all those liberals who claimed oh but we can make fun of everything. Fuck you make fun of Holocaust and you will see how long you will survive. Nobody would have published it and not saying this is not right but let's not play this game of with us you can talk about everything. No you cannot and it's good that you cannot. Okay. My friend and I used to have a list a book we were going to publish of things that men would only ever say to women. And top of the list was 'I love it when you're I love a good argument.' And second on the list was 'You look beautiful when you're angry.' And third on the list was now going to be 'You're too bright for your own good.' Okay. Yeah okay we opened we opened the floor please. No but this is usual American racist low-class approach to intellectuals no. When you make a convincing Oh it is
moment I thought you were making which is simply a manifestation. I realized you were talking about the knife attacks. That's what you were collecting to the class struggle and I know that for many people who read you and write about you it is the transition between the manifestation of rage and the organization of the struggle against injustice which is the hardest thing to theorize. Okay so I'm just going to stop there and I'm going to invite people to ask questions and. But can I just briefly we will have time. No because this it's I okay I'll put it like this. Maybe we have here I hope simply a different strategy. Sorry but I'm not bluffing now you know I'm not always just joking and bluffing. This is for me a very serious point what you mentioned now. Because it came you see this is the feminine evil it came from a totally unexpected direction. That you know I I am well aware of a even I have my limits like let me put it in this way. If I were to have a photo of what happened in that courtroom you would not share it. I would not show it. That's my limit believe me no. That's too much. although but my point is only this one. I simply thought that you know like what Primo Levi says that famous conversation that a Nazi torturer in Auschwitz tells him nobody will believe us and so on. I had the same problem. But my idea was I have to shock you with this because it's so crazy that if I don't tell you nobody could even imagine that something like this can happen. Because I even still now it looks to me ridiculous how can something like that happen? Can you imagine I will not say it again it's too disgusting. You know it really literally happened in a courtroom. I mean it was so I thought that without me shocking you it wouldn't have worked. You have to be shocked and then to ask what type of Okay I I take that point I just want to say no no but I wanted to counterattack in a minute. The piece on Bantu in the bathroom is being published by the Guardian Africa. And halfway down the piece I noticed they had a picture of Pistorius on his stumps in the courtroom and I immediately emailed them back and said I don't want you to use that picture okay. I don't want you to use it, that was a humiliating of the man in the courtroom never mind what I say about him he should be in jail right. I'm hoping the appeal tomorrow which is going to be decided tomorrow will send him down for years. I said never mind you don't show that image. Okay you can now counterattack but we must not make it just No no no no counterattack because maybe I was wrong no no you you made me seriously doubt you know. Think about it. Well it's a question it's a question. No sorry another thing sorry but I have to this is so important because I this is a wonderful topic. This is why I hate you. In the sense of loving you in the sense of you are too bright for your own good sometimes you know what I mean. You ask the right aggressive questions. And I like the point that you made here that you know I hated in Charlie Hebdo reaction we in the West we can make fun of everything. No there are things which shouldn't be and we have to openly accept this debate it what is it not because you know we shouldn't simply play this idea you there are even some prohibitions which can be deeply justified you know. It's not that you can like again the one I mentioned although it's too overexploited because it's I don't even agree fully with it. But all those liberals who claimed oh but we can make fun of everything. Fuck you make fun of Holocaust and you will see how long you will survive. Nobody would have published it and not saying this is not right but let's not play this game of with us you can talk about everything. No you cannot and it's good that you cannot. Okay. My friend and I used to have a list a book we were going to publish of things that men would only ever say to women. And top of the list was 'I love it when you're I love a good argument.' And second on the list was 'You look beautiful when you're angry.' And third on the list was now going to be 'You're too bright for your own good.' Okay. Yeah okay we opened we opened the floor please. No but this is usual American racist low-class approach to intellectuals no. When you make a convincing Oh it is
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true.
true.
Slavoj Žižek
I remember some
I remember some
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American once saying to me she's too cerebral
American once saying to me she's too cerebral
Slavoj Žižek
for the point. Yes okay. Please. The
for the point. Yes okay. Please. The
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guy with
guy with
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black shirt. No sorry whatever the other one the other two. Who? The guy with black shirt. Oh yeah okay. Sorry to make it personal the neo-fascist you look okay but I also okay. Sorry. Žižek some Scotland well welcome some refugees two weeks ago. Yes. And a lot of those refugees they were told that
black shirt. No sorry whatever the other one the other two. Who? The guy with black shirt. Oh yeah okay. Sorry to make it personal the neo-fascist you look okay but I also okay. Sorry. Žižek some Scotland well welcome some refugees two weeks ago. Yes. And a lot of those refugees they were told that
Slavoj Žižek
they should have to accept the values of this country. Which values? That's the problem. Yeah and then and then some things that sometimes I do not understand the arrogance of Europe. Because sometimes I keep thinking if those values they were put in a can and they were added flavors and they were sold would the Europeans buy those values I mean from the refugees as for example every day in Europe or even here in United in United Kingdom loads and loads of people eat Chinese food, Indian food. Yeah. And then actually I do not understand what values they are trying to defend when actually United Kingdom or even Europe it is a mixture of values from Asia from Africa and from so many other places. And then what is it that Europe fear actually being mixed to the culture of nations that are not at the same economic levels as they are? No I I I see your problem and I think I precisely have an answer. Yes it's very important to attack the right-wingers, to answer them. Because if this was your implication maybe it wasn't I totally agree to make my formal statement I always repeat it. The Europe is in danger. But the biggest the only serious threat to Europe are the anti-immigrant right-wing defenders of Europe. Europe with I don't know from Le Pen to okay UKIP I almost like them because they are clowns. You know that I have strange friends I met once at BBC my good friend how is the idiot called boss of UKIP Farage, oh please Farage yes. And I'm sorry to tell you if you have some secret right-wing hopes but he is not the new leader he is a clown. Oh he's a complete clown. Yeah complete clown though. But what I'm saying is that this is the true end of Europe. But you know still maybe this is so problematic for me. I will say this that what you describe as this mixture and how to do in this mixture there is isn't at least now we can of course play the game of but this was not the reality of Europe and so on and so on. But I not only this but listen let's be frank feminine rights and so on secularism and so on. Show me another now I hate myself I really appear Eurocentric but show me another part of the world where you can do this openly. Like secular rights. In United States I don't know how high you can go up if you publicly declare yourself an atheist. I think already a
they should have to accept the values of this country. Which values? That's the problem. Yeah and then and then some things that sometimes I do not understand the arrogance of Europe. Because sometimes I keep thinking if those values they were put in a can and they were added flavors and they were sold would the Europeans buy those values I mean from the refugees as for example every day in Europe or even here in United in United Kingdom loads and loads of people eat Chinese food, Indian food. Yeah. And then actually I do not understand what values they are trying to defend when actually United Kingdom or even Europe it is a mixture of values from Asia from Africa and from so many other places. And then what is it that Europe fear actually being mixed to the culture of nations that are not at the same economic levels as they are? No I I I see your problem and I think I precisely have an answer. Yes it's very important to attack the right-wingers, to answer them. Because if this was your implication maybe it wasn't I totally agree to make my formal statement I always repeat it. The Europe is in danger. But the biggest the only serious threat to Europe are the anti-immigrant right-wing defenders of Europe. Europe with I don't know from Le Pen to okay UKIP I almost like them because they are clowns. You know that I have strange friends I met once at BBC my good friend how is the idiot called boss of UKIP Farage, oh please Farage yes. And I'm sorry to tell you if you have some secret right-wing hopes but he is not the new leader he is a clown. Oh he's a complete clown. Yeah complete clown though. But what I'm saying is that this is the true end of Europe. But you know still maybe this is so problematic for me. I will say this that what you describe as this mixture and how to do in this mixture there is isn't at least now we can of course play the game of but this was not the reality of Europe and so on and so on. But I not only this but listen let's be frank feminine rights and so on secularism and so on. Show me another now I hate myself I really appear Eurocentric but show me another part of the world where you can do this openly. Like secular rights. In United States I don't know how high you can go up if you publicly declare yourself an atheist. I think already a
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governor you cannot be. I somewhere heard but it's a mythic rumor that there is one member of Congress who openly says that he is an atheist. But even that I'm not sure of you know. So you see my point. I'm I'm just saying that I agree with you we should be very specific. For me the greatest legacy of Europe among others is a not just tolerance of religions
governor you cannot be. I somewhere heard but it's a mythic rumor that there is one member of Congress who openly says that he is an atheist. But even that I'm not sure of you know. So you see my point. I'm I'm just saying that I agree with you we should be very specific. For me the greatest legacy of Europe among others is a not just tolerance of religions
Slavoj Žižek
but full right of secularism. And that's for example a debate I had with a Muslim friend. He is still a friend. He told me very nicely I as a Muslim I want to be respected not in spite of the fact that I'm a Muslim you know like okay you are a Muslim that's your private madness but you're I want to be respected for what I am as a Muslim. I told him okay but are you ready to respect me for the very fact that I am an atheist? It was problematic. He somehow you know because then I did a daring thing and he laughed. I told him are you really a Muslim? You know because one of the most beautiful ah I know my stuff here passages in Koran is where it says let the one who believe choose belief let the one who don't believe choose unbelief. That's people's freedom and so on. No no no there is I'm well aware of a different much more tolerant listen I for as from ex-Yugoslavia I know the tolerant side of Islam. Listen when the war started in the last one in '91 we all of a sudden discovered that the only serious Jewish community in ex-Yugoslavia was in Sarajevo. Why? Because it was the Muslim part no. We Christians defender of Judaism we threw them out long ago in I don't know 16th century or whatever. So what I'm saying is that when we speak today about egalitarianism, emancipation, woman rights, women's rights, gay marriage all that stuff, wouldn't you agree that this somehow emerged from Europe? I claim and I studied it that of course they claim you have woman they also position of women in other cultures is also highly appreciated. Yes but I want to take a close look at how. You know like when they appreciate highly women it's usually in this stupid way of you know cosmic principle yin yang the women also and so on. But European modernity is something else much more radical. It's not that we have two groups two cosmic principles and they should be kept in balance or that Jungian stuff. It's simply that the universe is not sexualized and as a woman feminine pupil of Descartes said, already in Descartes' life asked why do you like Descartes because Cogito, cogito doesn't have a sex and so on. Okay it's problematic if truly. So I think that again we should just be aware how the very terms here I challenge you which we use to criticize Eurocentrism and we should is part of European tradition. Okay thank you. Two more seminars tomorrow and the day after. Julia Eisner will be chairing. Thank you. Not Maria? Maria says she didn't want to speak. Oh Maria are you chairing tomorrow? Yeah. Oh great. Julia? No no no. I don't ask you, I order you. Whoo okay. No I'm kidding that's great. Don't be too bright
but full right of secularism. And that's for example a debate I had with a Muslim friend. He is still a friend. He told me very nicely I as a Muslim I want to be respected not in spite of the fact that I'm a Muslim you know like okay you are a Muslim that's your private madness but you're I want to be respected for what I am as a Muslim. I told him okay but are you ready to respect me for the very fact that I am an atheist? It was problematic. He somehow you know because then I did a daring thing and he laughed. I told him are you really a Muslim? You know because one of the most beautiful ah I know my stuff here passages in Koran is where it says let the one who believe choose belief let the one who don't believe choose unbelief. That's people's freedom and so on. No no no there is I'm well aware of a different much more tolerant listen I for as from ex-Yugoslavia I know the tolerant side of Islam. Listen when the war started in the last one in '91 we all of a sudden discovered that the only serious Jewish community in ex-Yugoslavia was in Sarajevo. Why? Because it was the Muslim part no. We Christians defender of Judaism we threw them out long ago in I don't know 16th century or whatever. So what I'm saying is that when we speak today about egalitarianism, emancipation, woman rights, women's rights, gay marriage all that stuff, wouldn't you agree that this somehow emerged from Europe? I claim and I studied it that of course they claim you have woman they also position of women in other cultures is also highly appreciated. Yes but I want to take a close look at how. You know like when they appreciate highly women it's usually in this stupid way of you know cosmic principle yin yang the women also and so on. But European modernity is something else much more radical. It's not that we have two groups two cosmic principles and they should be kept in balance or that Jungian stuff. It's simply that the universe is not sexualized and as a woman feminine pupil of Descartes said, already in Descartes' life asked why do you like Descartes because Cogito, cogito doesn't have a sex and so on. Okay it's problematic if truly. So I think that again we should just be aware how the very terms here I challenge you which we use to criticize Eurocentrism and we should is part of European tradition. Okay thank you. Two more seminars tomorrow and the day after. Julia Eisner will be chairing. Thank you. Not Maria? Maria says she didn't want to speak. Oh Maria are you chairing tomorrow? Yeah. Oh great. Julia? No no no. I don't ask you, I order you. Whoo okay. No I'm kidding that's great. Don't be too bright
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for your
for your
Slavoj Žižek
own
own
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good so that I annoy annoy her again. Thank you all. Thank you and thanks to Slavoj. But I want wait a minute just one more thing I want to ask you what is your next book? I hope you will answer democratically without democratic forces of compulsion like torture and so on. One on motherhood, one on violence. I hope the motherhood one is not Julia Kristeva. Of course not. No that's what I that's what I thought. Although your stuff on
good so that I annoy annoy her again. Thank you all. Thank you and thanks to Slavoj. But I want wait a minute just one more thing I want to ask you what is your next book? I hope you will answer democratically without democratic forces of compulsion like torture and so on. One on motherhood, one on violence. I hope the motherhood one is not Julia Kristeva. Of course not. No that's what I that's what I thought. Although your stuff on
Slavoj Žižek
Europe is very much what she says about the Europeanness of a certain tradition. I never thought I'd hear you say that. Oh my God that's maybe I should rethink it a little. No but I'm well aware that I'm walking on a very on a very thin water there you know. But I'm I'm aren't you afraid that we are opening the the space with this easy pseudo-leftist tolerance for horrible thing. I'm really you said about tolerating the other that's what I always say about a relationship. It's not when the relationship survives if you tolerate what is intolerable about the other person. The relationship survives when you know you cannot tolerate it. That's do you write an any where about it? Because I would like okay I will put it. Write it down and send. Yeah yeah yeah please because this is it's so crucial. The formula I was looking for. Give me your email I don't think I'm up to date.
Europe is very much what she says about the Europeanness of a certain tradition. I never thought I'd hear you say that. Oh my God that's maybe I should rethink it a little. No but I'm well aware that I'm walking on a very on a very thin water there you know. But I'm I'm aren't you afraid that we are opening the the space with this easy pseudo-leftist tolerance for horrible thing. I'm really you said about tolerating the other that's what I always say about a relationship. It's not when the relationship survives if you tolerate what is intolerable about the other person. The relationship survives when you know you cannot tolerate it. That's do you write an any where about it? Because I would like okay I will put it. Write it down and send. Yeah yeah yeah please because this is it's so crucial. The formula I was looking for. Give me your email I don't think I'm up to date.