Being and Subjectivity: Act and Evental Enthusiasm
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2012 · 1:22:32 · 11,737 words
hegel-dialecticspsychoanalysisphilosophy-generalcommunism-socialismideologydemocracyrevolution-violencesubjectivity
A seminar discussion in which Žižek and several interlocutors work through contested points between Badiou's ontology and Lacanian theory, focusing on the ontology of the event, the relationship between being, existence, and subject, and the status of multiplicity versus the 'barred one.' The conversation then turns to the theory of the political act, the role of the master signifier in evental politics, the critique of Foucaultian resistance, and the revolutionary potential (and limits) of contemporary political movements such as Occupy and the Arab Spring. Žižek defends a Hegelian-Lacanian position against what he sees as Badiou's residual Kantianism and against both Foucaultian pessimism and Negrian multitude optimism.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 30
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Lacanian term for the dissolution of the subject at the end of analysis; discussed in the context of subtraction as the support for a subject.
The binding of subject to signifying chain; discussed in the context of the gap between being and existence and Badiou's prohibition against suturing philosophy to one of its conditions.
Badiou's operation whereby the one emerges as an effect of counting rather than being originary; Žižek and interlocutors probe the two senses of one in Badiou.
Badiou's term (from Second Manifesto) for a body capable of becoming the material support of a subject through fidelity to an event.
as “multiplicity without one”
Žižek's formulation (developed with Alenka Zupančič) that multiplicity is primordial not as a brute given but because the one is impossible, so absence of the one is already inscribed in the multiple.
The impossible or failed one whose absence is inscribed into multiplicity from the start, so multiplicity is always 'multiplicity without one' carrying the mark of the one's impossibility.
as “Urverdrängung (primordial repression)”
Freud's concept invoked by Žižek via Lacan: primordial repression is the repression of the binary signifier, so there is originally only one signifier (male), making the second (female) a structural absence that returns as multiplicity.
as “sexual difference without yin-yang”
Žižek insists Lacan's theory of sexual difference has nothing to do with complementary cosmic principles: there is only one signifier (male) and woman's difference is the mark of its impossibility.
as “ontology of the event”
Žižek argues Badiou lacks an account of how worlds emerge from being and how events are grounded ontologically, not merely formally.
as “transcendental (of a world)”
In Badiou's Logics of Worlds, each world has a transcendental a priori that determines what exists within it; Žižek doubts worlds can exist outside language and subject.
Badiou's term for an element present in a world but lacking a place in the transcendental field that defines that world; Žižek equates it with the Lacanian symptomal point or what insists without existing.
Following Badiou and Hegel, existence is a category of essence, to exist is to appear within a world; what has no essence is but does not exist (subject and woman as key Lacanian examples).
Lacan's distinction between 'there is no' (more radical, the big Other) and 'does not exist' (transcendental in-existence, the subject, woman); Žižek follows Bruce Fink in stressing this difference.
Lacan's distinction whereby what does not exist (drive, subject) nonetheless insists, leaves traces in the symbolic, rather than appearing as a constituted presence.
Miller's Lacanian distinction: appearance is an appearance of something (pointing behind itself), while phenomenon is an appearance behind which there is nothing, a semblance over an abyss.
Some appearances are not subtractable epiphenomena; the appearance is so crucial for the consistency of what appears that removing it loses the thing itself.
as “subject as appearance without substance”
The subject has no deeper brain or material correlate, it is an effect of appearance itself, and removing the appearance does not reveal the thing but destroys it.
Hegelian concept of radical negation (Žižek's usage): the act as an Antigone-like movement through negation whereby old rules are dissolved and new libidinal reinvestment becomes possible.
Implicitly at stake in the discussion of enjoyment of symptoms and Miller's ironism, tolerating the symptom as a game rather than confronting the constitutive Lacanian gap.
For Badiou (and Žižek's reading), an event becomes an event only through its nomination, the name is not a label added after the fact but partly constitutive of eventality.
Alenka Zupančič's (and Žižek's) distinction from the master signifier: properly political nomination names the inconsistency of the big Other itself, whereas a master signifier de-eventualizes the event by restabilizing the symbolic.
Badiou's claim (endorsed by Žižek) that social existence not organized by a master is possible, dropping this collapses back into Miller's ironism where the master is ultimately accepted.
Freud's and Marx's shared insight: symptoms and crises are not malfunctions but necessary structural expressions of the antagonism constitutive of the system.
Žižek's critique of Laclau: populism locates the cause of failure in external bad actors (Jews, traitors, foreigners) rather than in the order itself, thus failing to name the constitutive antagonism.
Robert Pfaller's notion (cited approvingly) of the interpassive subject still caught within the matrices of the ruling situation, aligned here with Badiou's pre-evental atonal world.
as “logical arrogance”
Badiou's term for treating as a necessary consequence of an event what is not a consequence, Žižek associates it with the totalitarian mistake of imposing evental logic directly onto being.
as “forcing (forçage)”
Badiou's concept of imposing the logic of an event directly onto the order of being; Žižek reads Stalinism not as forcing a correct idea but as incorrectly nominating the antagonism in the first place.
as “point de capiton (quilting point)”
Master signifier that introduces a new order and organizes a field; Žižek and interlocutor debate whether Occupy/Tahrir were point de capiton or events, with Žižek noting the missing name.
A signifier that totalizes a field and provides a name around which subjects organize fidelity; Žižek argues we must not conflate it with S(A), since the latter names antagonism whereas the former domesticates it.
A revolution or uprising that lacks a unifying master signifier and therefore dissipates without restructuring the field, Žižek applies this to Occupy and uses the Mexican Revolution as a historical example.
Stories he reaches for 3
A waiter says he cannot bring coffee without cream, only coffee without milk, the joke asks: what is the 'without' here? Alenka Zupančič uses it against Badiou to illustrate that absence is not simple externality: the absent term structures the presence.
“I cannot bring you coffee without cream, I can only bring you coffee without milk. So what is it without?”
In Allen's parody of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky is missing as a named character but his absence returns as an explosion of Dostoevsky titles in one conversation, illustrating how the impossible binary signifier returns as excessive multiplicity.
“it is as if this absence of the name Dostoevsky returns in an exploding plurality... 'Did you meet that idiot?' 'Ah, you mean one of the Brothers Karamazov?'”
Pancho Villa and Zapata seized power in Mexico City, debated for a week or two without knowing what to do, and then went home, a historical example of a blank revolution without a master signifier.
“They occupied Mexico City. They had power. And you know what happened then? They were debating and talking for a week or two, they didn't know what to do and then they said, 'Let's go home.'”
Works invoked 15
Hegel's text; the conclusion of the Consciousness section (the curtain passage) is cited as the key statement on the void behind appearances and the constitutive role of the curtain.
Being and Event book
Badiou's main ontological work; Žižek argues it fails to account for the transition from inconsistent multiplicity to worlds.
Logics of Worlds book
Badiou's follow-up; Žižek argues it still does not explain why being organizes into worlds and that its transcendental coordinates already presuppose subjectivity.
Multitude book
Hardt and Negri's book; Žižek quotes the passage where they defer to miracle (San Francisco) to explain the transition from multitude-as-resistance to multitude-as-ruling.
The 'big triple orgy book' with Laclau and Butler; Žižek quotes Laclau's examples from it to make his critique of populism.
Love and Death film
Woody Allen's parody of Tolstoy/War and Peace; cited for the Dostoevsky titles scene as philosophical illustration of absence returning as multiplicity.
Foucault's early work; Žižek discusses its internal tension between the ambition to let madness speak and the structuralist claim that madness is an effect of disciplinary mechanisms.
Žižek claims it contains a reference to Kant's regulative idea that Badiou later denied, evidence for the Kantian residue in Badiou.
Praised for the concept of in-existence and the subjectivizable body; discussed as the source for 'this and that' as the new ontological question.
Theory of Subject book
Žižek considers this Badiou's best book, the true breakthrough, and that later great works are attempts to contain the monster unleashed there.
War and Peace book
Tolstoy's novel mentioned as the target of Allen's parody and as part of the Tolstoy-Dostoevsky pair illustrating absence of the binary signifier.
Freud's essay; mentioned by interlocutor as the source for Lacan's distinction between being qua being and being qua having.
Foucault's argument that power generates its own resistance is endorsed descriptively but Žižek criticises the pessimistic conclusion that the circle is closed.
Badiou's book; Žižek (via interlocutor) suggests it fetishizes the universality of Tahrir Square; Žižek does not share Badiou's naive optimism about these events.
Alenka Zupančič's book (only in Slovenian at time of talk, being translated); contains the most ferocious anti-Badiou critique; Žižek says it is better than his own work.
People invoked 29
Co-publishes with Badiou and co-directs a series with him; Žižek notes their theoretical couple concerns the status of sophism and the master signifier.
Alenka Zupančič positive
Part of the 'Slovenian troika'; Žižek repeatedly defers to her work (The Sexuated and Ontology, fifth-condition critique of Badiou) as better than his own and as the hardest-hitting anti-Badiou critique.
Jacques Derrida positive
Cited approvingly for his critique of Foucault's early claim to let madness itself speak, pointing out Foucault's internal tension.
Vladimir Lenin positive
Mentioned as having perceived October Revolution as a repetition of the French Revolution / Jacobins / Paris Commune.
Jacques Lacan positive
The primary theoretical anchor throughout; Žižek uses Lacanian categories (in-existence, insistence, il n'y a pas, existence, phenomenon) consistently to reframe and critique Badiou.
Mentioned for his ontological question of 'this and that' rather than 'why something than nothing'; ligne de fuite noted as a Deleuzian term.
Historical example of blank revolution: Villa and Zapata seized Mexico City but then left without knowing what to do.
Robert Pfaller positive
His concept of interpassivity is cited approvingly and aligned with Badiou's pre-evental atonal subject still caught within ruling matrices.
Judith Butler negative
Identified as fundamentally Foucaultian, unable to break out of the resistance/power deadlock, offering only marginal performative displacement.
Woody Allen positive
Žižek says 'I don't like Woody Allen' but cites the Love and Death Dostoevsky scene as 'Woody Allen at his best' and uses it as a philosophical example.
Bruno Bosteels positive
Belgian friend and interlocutor; drew Žižek's attention to Badiou's Theory of Subject and the Aeschylus/Sophocles opposition; Žižek jokes affectionately about his Belgian nationality.
Described as a young Italian Lacanian friend who takes the most radical position, there will always be a master signifier and obscene superego fantasy; Žižek disagrees with that conclusion.
Antonio Negri negative
Žižek had public and private debates with Negri in Berlin; argues that all of Negri's examples of multitude presuppose a well-functioning state, and the moment of multitude taking over is left to miracle (San Francisco / religious escape).
Alain Badiou negative
Described as a close friend ('a good friend of mine') whom Žižek treats with affectionate bluntness; intellectually Žižek mounts sustained critique of Badiou's ontology, theory of the event, nominalism, and his residual Kantianism.
Mentioned because Badiou's concept of 'world' as including rocks, animals, groups of stars is ironically aligned with what Engels called 'dialectics in nature.'
Adrian Johnston positive
Credited with an excellent friendly critique of Badiou showing the gap between his focus on event/fidelity and the neglected pre-evental strategy.
Bruce Fink positive
Credited with drawing attention to the strict Lacanian distinction between 'il n'y a pas' and 'il n'existe pas'.
Mladen Dolar positive
Third member of the 'Slovenian troika'; mentioned as sharing the position on multiplicity and the barred one.
Co-leader with Villa of the Mexican Revolution example of a blank revolution, power seized and then abandoned.
T. J. Clark positive
Quoted approvingly: described recent rebellions as blank revolutions that turn into nothing; uses the terracotta army image; Žižek says 'I like this guy' and agrees with his pessimism about a coming singular revolutionary event.
Michel Foucault negative
Žižek presents Foucault as oscillating between omnipotence-of-power (vol.1 History of Sexuality) and spaces of resistance (later work), neither offers a genuine rupture; the whole Foucaultian line is criticised.
Ernesto Laclau negative
Žižek critiques Laclau's populism as always a 'politics of failure' that locates antagonism in bad external actors rather than the structure itself; quotes their co-authored book.
Jacques-Alain Miller negative
Miller's 'ironist' approach, enjoying symptoms within capitalism's coordinates without radical rupture, is the position Žižek argues we must not fall back into by abandoning the communist hypothesis.
Karl Marx positive
Badiou criticised Marx's names (proletarian revolution, communism) as wrong nominations; Žižek himself endorses the Freud-Marx parallel on crises as structural truth.
Michael Hardt negative
Co-author of Multitudes with Negri; same critique applies, the transition from multitude-as-resistance to multitude-as-ruling-force is unexplained.
Paul the Apostle positive
Used as Badiou's key example of evental nomination: Paul provides the master signifier (redemption, eternal life) that constitutes Christianity as an event.
Sigmund Freud positive
Invoked for the claim about multiplicity in dreams as castration, for Urverdrängung as repression of the binary signifier, and as sharing with Marx the insight that symptoms are the truth of normality.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Repeatedly invoked as the model for the right ontology of appearance, against Kant's thing-in-itself; the Phenomenology of Spirit's 'curtain' passage is a key reference.
Immanuel Kant negative
The residual Kantian in Badiou is Žižek's main critical target; also cited for the definition 'human being is an animal who needs a master' and his regulative idea of reason.
What it argues
Badiou versus Lacan on being, existence, and subjectontology of the event and the problem of nominationmaster signifier and communist politicsmultiplicity, the barred one, and Lacanian sexual differenceFoucault's power/resistance deadlockblank revolutions and the absence of a unifying nameStalinist 'forcing' versus correct nomination of antagonism
Dialectical moves 9
“The true enigma is not how to see what's behind appearance, but why does the real begin to appear to itself?”
Žižek inverts the classic epistemological problem (pierce appearance to reach reality) into an ontological one: why does being develop self-appearance at all?
“Multiplicity is always already multiplicity without one — the one as absence is already here, as failed, as impossible.”
The reversal against Badiou: multiplicity is not simply prior to the one; the impossible one is inscribed from the start, making multiplicity the effect of the one's failure.
“Behind the curtain of appearances is just a void — what we find there is just what we put there. But this does not mean everything is just an appearance.”
Hegel's move beyond the Kantian thing-in-itself: the void behind the curtain is not relativism but the productive condition of appearance constituting reality.
“Lacan does not say 'il n'y a pas de femmes' — there are no women. He says 'la femme n'existe pas' — a woman does not exist. These are two entirely different negations.”
The distinction between non-existence and non-being: woman is present but lacks the essence required for transcendental existence in the symbolic, a more radical claim than mere absence.
“What doesn't exist insists — the drive doesn't exist, but the very definition of the drive is that it insists.”
Insistence is Lacan's name for the mode of being of what lacks transcendental existence, reversing the apparent absence of the drive into its most defining feature.
“Symptoms are not some malfunctioning — symptoms are the truth of normality.”
Freud-Marx parallel: crises and symptoms are not accidental disturbances but necessary structural revelations of the constitutive antagonism of a system.
“Power generates the very transgression it fights — resistance to power is just a means for power to reproduce itself more effectively.”
Foucault's move (endorsed critically by Žižek): far from being liberation, resistance is internal to power's self-reproduction, closing the circle against any genuine outside.
“The Stalinist mistake is not forcing a correct idea too brutally — it is that Stalin didn't nominate it correctly.”
Žižek rejects Badiou's 'logical arrogance' explanation of Stalinism: the problem was a wrong name for the antagonism, not excessive fidelity to a right idea.
“If you have a true idea, you force and enforce it as much as you want — the problem is not the forcing but the incorrect nomination.”
Reversal of the liberal critique of revolutionary terror: the issue is epistemic (wrong concept of the enemy) not moral (too much violence).
Claims 23
rejects
Badiou is inconsistent on being qua being as generic multiplicity, and the Slovenian troika (Žižek, Zupančič, Dolar) reject it in favor of an immanent two or multiplicity grounded in the impossibility of the one.Badiou's ontology of generic multiplicity
asserts
Multiplicity is always multiplicity without the one, not because the one is simply absent but because its absence is inscribed from the beginning — the one as failed and impossible is already present in multiplicity.ontology of multiplicity and the barred one
asserts
There is no world outside language and subject — Badiou's coordinates of a world (the point, transcendental, yes-no decision) are already the coordinates of a symbolic universe with subjectivity included.the ontological status of world in Badiou
rejects
Badiou has not in Logics of Worlds actually accounted for how worlds emerge from being — he announces the program but leaves the transition from inconsistent multiplicity to worlds unexplained.Badiou's ontology of worlds
asserts
For Lacan, the subject does not exist — it insists, leaving traces in existence; existence is a transcendental-essentialist category and the subject lacks the essence required for existence.Lacanian theory of the subject
asserts
The subject is an effect of appearance with no substance behind it — removing the appearance does not reveal a deeper reality but destroys the thing itself.the ontological status of the subject
reframes
Properly political nomination names the inconsistency of the big Other (S(A) barred), not a new master signifier — when the name of an event becomes a master signifier, the event is de-eventualized.event nomination and master signifier
reframes
Stalinism's error was not forcing a correct communist idea too brutally but nominating the antagonism incorrectly — the problem is wrong nomination, not logical arrogance.Stalinism and Badiou's concept of forcing
asserts
We must maintain the communist hypothesis that collective social bonds not organized by a master are possible — abandoning it collapses back into Miller's ironism.communist hypothesis and the master
rejects
Populist politics (Laclau) is always a politics of failure — it locates the obstacle in bad external actors rather than in the constitutive antagonism of the order itself.Laclau's populism
asserts
Foucault's first volume of History of Sexuality shows that power generates its own resistance, making resistance complicit in power's reproduction — there is no genuine outside.Foucault's theory of power and resistance
rejects
The term 'resistance' is inadequate for radical politics because it presupposes the big Other's permanence and limits agency to marginal ironic displacement.the Foucaultian language of resistance
rejects
Judith Butler's politics remains fundamentally Foucaultian: it cannot break out of the power/resistance deadlock and offers only spaces of resistance without genuine rupture.Judith Butler's political theory
asserts
Contemporary uprisings like Occupy and the Arab Spring are blank revolutions — they lack a unifying master signifier and therefore dissipate without restructuring the symbolic field.contemporary political movements
reframes
The metaphysical notion of a singular mega-revolutionary event may be wrong — we may need a different, non-teleological understanding of how authentic political events function.the concept of revolutionary event
asserts
For Marx, crises are not failures of capitalism but necessary appearances of its constitutive antagonism — the system reveals its truth in crisis.Marxist theory of crisis
asserts
Symptoms are the truth of normality, not local malfunctions — Freud and Marx share this insight against the idea that symptoms merely indicate something going wrong.Freud-Marx parallel on symptoms/crisis
reframes
Badiou's account of event nomination oscillates between a transcendental position (nomination is part of the event) and a postmodern one (event is traumatic excess that we fail to name properly).Badiou's theory of event and nomination
rejects
Negri's multitude examples all presuppose a well-functioning state guaranteeing law and order — the moment of multitude taking over the entire field is left to miracle.Hardt and Negri's theory of the multitude
asserts
Multiplicity in dreams is always a sign of castration — many phalluses in a dream means you don't have one, which is Freud's model for how multiplicity marks the blocked impossibility of the one.Freudian theory of multiplicity and castration
asserts
Alenka Zupančič's fifth-condition critique of Badiou — showing his opposition between presence and representation is itself anti-philosophical — is the hardest-hitting criticism of Badiou.Zupančič's critique of Badiou
reframes
Hegel's true enigma is not how to pierce appearances to reach the real but why the real begins to appear to itself — appearance to itself is the mystery, not the veil over reality.Hegelian philosophy of appearance
reframes
Enthusiasm rather than justice should be the fourth subjective attitude alongside courage, anxiety, and terror in Badiou's typology drawn from Aeschylus and Sophocles.Badiou's four affects and political subjectivity
Quotes 14
“The true enigma is not how to see what's the reality behind appearance, but why does the real begin to appear to itself?”Slavoj Žižek · Hegelian inversion of epistemology into ontology
“Multiplicity, present multiplicity, is always a mark of the blocked, sabotaged impossibility of the one.”Slavoj Žižek · barred one and multiplicity
“I claim that there is no world outside language and subject.”Slavoj Žižek · anti-Badiou claim on worlds and subjectivity
“Lacan does not say 'il n'y a pas de femmes,' there are no women. No, there are, 'il y a des femmes,' but 'la femme n'existe pas.' A woman doesn't exist.”Slavoj Žižek · Lacanian distinction between non-being and non-existence in sexual difference
“What doesn't exist insists. This is why Lacan can say drive doesn't exist, but the very definition of the drive is that it insists.”Slavoj Žižek · insistence vs. existence — the drive
“Symptoms are not some local malfunctionings — no, symptoms are the truth of normality.”Slavoj Žižek · Freud-Marx parallel: symptoms as structural truth
“I don't like, maybe I'm wrong, the term 'resistance'. Because you know, resistance has all this marginalist connotation of, 'the big other is there, we can just play the game, screw it a little bit.'”Slavoj Žižek · critique of Foucaultian resistance politics
“If you have a true idea, fuck it, you force and enforce it as much as you want. I mean something I cannot quite gather there.”Slavoj Žižek · Žižek's reversal of the critique of revolutionary forcing
“If we drop this [communist hypothesis] then we are back to Miller, you know. Ultimately we have to accept the master all we can do is just take it as a game not seriously.”Slavoj Žižek · communist hypothesis as the limit against ironism
“I claim that the failure is not in the order as such, it's an accidental corruption. No, and for me again, the event is to find a name which clearly locates the obstacle into the order itself.”Slavoj Žižek · event as correct nomination of structural antagonism vs. populist scapegoating
“Behind appearances is just a void. What we find there is just what we put there. But now comes the catch, without this you don't get Hegel or nothing.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegel on the void behind the curtain — not relativism
“What if there is an appearance which precisely as appearance is crucial for the consistency of that which appears? So that you take away the appearance and you then get the thing itself, you lose the thing itself.”Slavoj Žižek · appearance constitutive of reality — subject as irreducible semblance
“What if really we maybe this event as the big revolutionary event is not the right notion of event? Maybe events function in a different way, authentic political events.”Slavoj Žižek · questioning the messianic model of the revolutionary event
“I say all the possible bullshit in the big fat books, so it must be somewhere.”Slavoj Žižek · Žižek's self-deprecating humour about his own prolific writing
Transcript 68 turns
unknown
So that I may keep my word, I
So that I may keep my word, I
Slavoj Žižek
propose this, if you agree then. Because finally maybe, just maybe, although it's against my nature, it's time for me to keep my word, you know. What if then we do this? There were a couple of... okay, first there are the two traitors here, no? But then one or two others who also told me, so why don't we do it like this? You start, then maybe if anyone of you also has anything which is not totally stupid to say, you say it and then we debate. And don't be afraid if we... if the debate will, how should I put it, start to run, how do you call it, leerlauf in German, you know, running empty, meaningless? I have stuff to start talking about non-Buddhist stuff, something about politics. So is this generally acceptable for you? Okay, what can... on the other hand, now I will be so evil. Fuck you, what can you do? It's like... so it will be, no? Like, you can protest, it will not help. Okay, I'm sorry. Please. Now I will tell the two of you something which will appear as cynicism compared to how I talked too much and violated all the rules, but I'm ashamed to say this, but can you keep it to ten minutes each maximum? Oh, less. Yeah, yeah, less. Okay, just... you know, I'm afraid because, like, you know, it's like Hitler meeting someone and telling him how could you treat the Jewish boy in such a bad way, you know? I feel like that, you know what I mean, no? Okay, sorry. Please. So we'll talk and then you... or or maybe if anyone of you has some idea to say some wise thing, you know, or even, now I will be evil, racist, anti-Orientalist, to do some Buddhist bullshit, you know, like those Zen paradoxes, clap with one hand or whatever, you can also do that. I'm spending time, sorry, losing time. Please. You want to
propose this, if you agree then. Because finally maybe, just maybe, although it's against my nature, it's time for me to keep my word, you know. What if then we do this? There were a couple of... okay, first there are the two traitors here, no? But then one or two others who also told me, so why don't we do it like this? You start, then maybe if anyone of you also has anything which is not totally stupid to say, you say it and then we debate. And don't be afraid if we... if the debate will, how should I put it, start to run, how do you call it, leerlauf in German, you know, running empty, meaningless? I have stuff to start talking about non-Buddhist stuff, something about politics. So is this generally acceptable for you? Okay, what can... on the other hand, now I will be so evil. Fuck you, what can you do? It's like... so it will be, no? Like, you can protest, it will not help. Okay, I'm sorry. Please. Now I will tell the two of you something which will appear as cynicism compared to how I talked too much and violated all the rules, but I'm ashamed to say this, but can you keep it to ten minutes each maximum? Oh, less. Yeah, yeah, less. Okay, just... you know, I'm afraid because, like, you know, it's like Hitler meeting someone and telling him how could you treat the Jewish boy in such a bad way, you know? I feel like that, you know what I mean, no? Okay, sorry. Please. So we'll talk and then you... or or maybe if anyone of you has some idea to say some wise thing, you know, or even, now I will be evil, racist, anti-Orientalist, to do some Buddhist bullshit, you know, like those Zen paradoxes, clap with one hand or whatever, you can also do that. I'm spending time, sorry, losing time. Please. You want to
unknown
go? Yeah. And you can, you can also interrupt me. I kind of like... okay, I interrupt
go? Yeah. And you can, you can also interrupt me. I kind of like... okay, I interrupt
Slavoj Žižek
you now. I go on. No, sorry, sorry, let's go on, please. Don't provoke me, you are talking to a madman, always bear
you now. I go on. No, sorry, sorry, let's go on, please. Don't provoke me, you are talking to a madman, always bear
unknown
in mind. Okay. Okay, the ontology of the event that you say is missing in Badiou,
in mind. Okay. Okay, the ontology of the event that you say is missing in Badiou,
Slavoj Žižek
that's... did I say this? Sorry, I'm serious. Yes, you did. Yeah. In your big book, on page
that's... did I say this? Sorry, I'm serious. Yes, you did. Yeah. In your big book, on page
unknown
Ah, I know what I meant. Okay. "What is missing in Badiou is an ontology of the event," quote. Shit.
Ah, I know what I meant. Okay. "What is missing in Badiou is an ontology of the event," quote. Shit.
Slavoj Žižek
What are you? Where... from what country are you? United... yes. Are you... are you the daughter of some local policeman [unintelligible] pursuing terrorist terrorists or whatever? No, I'm sorry. I think I know what you mean. I'm very sorry. I will stop, please. Let's go on. Okay. But what is at stake for me concerns subtraction as thinking subtraction as the unity of being and appearing, or you could say the unicity
What are you? Where... from what country are you? United... yes. Are you... are you the daughter of some local policeman [unintelligible] pursuing terrorist terrorists or whatever? No, I'm sorry. I think I know what you mean. I'm very sorry. I will stop, please. Let's go on. Okay. But what is at stake for me concerns subtraction as thinking subtraction as the unity of being and appearing, or you could say the unicity
unknown
of the gap between being and appearing, that being subtraction and that also being existence, what is called existence. Yeah, addition, yeah, yeah. At stake is that subtraction as the support for a subject, or as you said, subjective destitution. Sorry, let me... I'm just interrupting just to make it clearer. Where do you see then in the gap between appearance and being the subject? What is subtracted from what? You said this. Now I will... no, I just... I just said subtraction, thinking subtraction as the material
of the gap between being and appearing, that being subtraction and that also being existence, what is called existence. Yeah, addition, yeah, yeah. At stake is that subtraction as the support for a subject, or as you said, subjective destitution. Sorry, let me... I'm just interrupting just to make it clearer. Where do you see then in the gap between appearance and being the subject? What is subtracted from what? You said this. Now I will... no, I just... I just said subtraction, thinking subtraction as the material
Slavoj Žižek
support. Like what Badiou... I'm
support. Like what Badiou... I'm
unknown
going to get to the subject in a little bit, but subtraction just as the support of a subject. And right now I mean just within dialectical materialism,
going to get to the subject in a little bit, but subtraction just as the support of a subject. And right now I mean just within dialectical materialism,
Slavoj Žižek
it seems that the support of subjectivity seems to be contradiction, existing subjectivity, that's why I'm focusing on you and how subtraction can be the support
it seems that the support of subjectivity seems to be contradiction, existing subjectivity, that's why I'm focusing on you and how subtraction can be the support
unknown
of a subject that exists. So existing subject and subtraction. Now, I think I wanted to point out I think there's an ambiguity concerning two senses of being that are said
of a subject that exists. So existing subject and subtraction. Now, I think I wanted to point out I think there's an ambiguity concerning two senses of being that are said
Slavoj Žižek
in Badiou or in Lacan, in
in Badiou or in Lacan, in
unknown
Lacan and you as well. And that's we have the being separate from appearing, the unicity of that being existence. But then there's also being qua being and appearing, but then you also have existence... excuse me, then you also have Lacan, there's the other order of being qua having, so there's being qua being separate from appearing, but then there's being qua having.
Lacan and you as well. And that's we have the being separate from appearing, the unicity of that being existence. But then there's also being qua being and appearing, but then you also have existence... excuse me, then you also have Lacan, there's the other order of being qua having, so there's being qua being separate from appearing, but then there's being qua having.
Slavoj Žižek
Qua having or opposed to having? Qua. Really? Because... sorry... being as having. Where do you find this in Lacan's text? Because what I remember only is, you know, when he speaks, this is his early theory of sexual difference, he says the man has it, penis, the woman is. I... you can correct...
Qua having or opposed to having? Qua. Really? Because... sorry... being as having. Where do you find this in Lacan's text? Because what I remember only is, you know, when he speaks, this is his early theory of sexual difference, he says the man has it, penis, the woman is. I... you can correct...
unknown
well it's in the... it's in the chapter... it's on Freud's "Die Verneinung". Ah, yes,
well it's in the... it's in the chapter... it's on Freud's "Die Verneinung". Ah, yes,
Slavoj Žižek
yes, yes. I get... I get what you are referring to, I get. Yeah. Yeah, I believe that's where it is. Yeah.
yes, yes. I get... I get what you are referring to, I get. Yeah. Yeah, I believe that's where it is. Yeah.
unknown
Well if there's not an ambiguity... well, let me... okay, let me just go on. The ambiguity of two orders of being. The being still separate from appearing, and then being qua having as separate from existence. And I think that's the root really of existence being separate from a subject because I thought the order of subjectivity too was of the order of the being qua having, having phallus, holder of phallus, being qua having subject. And it's actually that second gap, the gap between being and existence or being and subject that I think is best where the term suture comes in, but I didn't really want to go into suture. But I think what is sort of perpetuating that ambiguity, and this is I guess the ambiguity of subject, being, and existence, is... sorry, how
Well if there's not an ambiguity... well, let me... okay, let me just go on. The ambiguity of two orders of being. The being still separate from appearing, and then being qua having as separate from existence. And I think that's the root really of existence being separate from a subject because I thought the order of subjectivity too was of the order of the being qua having, having phallus, holder of phallus, being qua having subject. And it's actually that second gap, the gap between being and existence or being and subject that I think is best where the term suture comes in, but I didn't really want to go into suture. But I think what is sort of perpetuating that ambiguity, and this is I guess the ambiguity of subject, being, and existence, is... sorry, how
Slavoj Žižek
do you understand existence? In Badiou's sense, existence as transcendental phenomenal existence, existence is something which is in a world. Because if I got it correctly...
do you understand existence? In Badiou's sense, existence as transcendental phenomenal existence, existence is something which is in a world. Because if I got it correctly...
unknown
existence as "there is."
existence as "there is."
Slavoj Žižek
Yeah, but, but that's what I mean. Isn't this... I'm sorry to interrupt but just to clarify. I think that for Badiou, isn't existence as opposed to being something which is always existence within a world? Within a certain local transcendental... am I wrong? No, you're right. Yeah, no, that's right.
Yeah, but, but that's what I mean. Isn't this... I'm sorry to interrupt but just to clarify. I think that for Badiou, isn't existence as opposed to being something which is always existence within a world? Within a certain local transcendental... am I wrong? No, you're right. Yeah, no, that's right.
unknown
I just wanted to avoid using the term "world" because... I think honestly, just to be quite honest, I think "world" is probably one of the most, I think, unclear words in Badiou because when he uses "world", I think precisely he could use the word "subject" but he doesn't. I think Badiou... that's a longer... that's a part of my dissertation. Well let's... okay, okay. So we're talking about existence and being and subject. Now, what's going on in you, um, that I think is... I'm sorry. No, it's just pure evil. Okay. The problem of the strategy of making what is the appearance of Object a. That so... and we were talking about the asymmetry between the subject without object in Badiou and the subject supported on Object a. The... that order of appearing is like appearance equal to existence. But what you have there is the appearance of Object a. Isn't that not appearance itself? You
I just wanted to avoid using the term "world" because... I think honestly, just to be quite honest, I think "world" is probably one of the most, I think, unclear words in Badiou because when he uses "world", I think precisely he could use the word "subject" but he doesn't. I think Badiou... that's a longer... that's a part of my dissertation. Well let's... okay, okay. So we're talking about existence and being and subject. Now, what's going on in you, um, that I think is... I'm sorry. No, it's just pure evil. Okay. The problem of the strategy of making what is the appearance of Object a. That so... and we were talking about the asymmetry between the subject without object in Badiou and the subject supported on Object a. The... that order of appearing is like appearance equal to existence. But what you have there is the appearance of Object a. Isn't that not appearance itself? You
Slavoj Žižek
say "appearance itself" a lot. Yeah, okay. Well I'm just... I just... that is, oh, and what does that
say "appearance itself" a lot. Yeah, okay. Well I'm just... I just... that is, oh, and what does that
unknown
mean? Then I think this is precisely where strategically you're kind of aligning with Badiou's concept of in-existence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But so... so again here we still have the subject appearance itself being equal to in-existence. Problem: no subject exists still, subject does not exist. Yeah. And I guess I now I was thinking that might actually be the consequence of an ontology of the event, of being of the subject, because we still have these two
mean? Then I think this is precisely where strategically you're kind of aligning with Badiou's concept of in-existence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. But so... so again here we still have the subject appearance itself being equal to in-existence. Problem: no subject exists still, subject does not exist. Yeah. And I guess I now I was thinking that might actually be the consequence of an ontology of the event, of being of the subject, because we still have these two
unknown
orders of being that is really on top of separating a subject from existence. Yeah. Now, in Badiou, and I mean this is mostly from like the first and second manifesto of philosophy. But there's kind of a similar strategy like there's the two orders of being in Lacan, and then there's kind of, you know how Badiou in the, especially in the first manifesto, there's the same sort of strategy I think at work but it comes in the two orders of void: the void of being that must be kept separate from the void of truth. And you know, don't suture philosophy to one of its conditions. But we're getting to a point of ambiguity in Badiou and you can stop me, in Badiou and it really does precisely concern suturing philosophy to... and this is what Alenka talks about, the privileged status of love. So there's... I think that there is kind of an ambiguity in Badiou with respect to what being qua being is, being qua being as generic multiplicity. Yeah. But when he does kind of privilege the status of love, there is a bit of a being qua being as an immanent two. And I think already immanent two thought as efficacy I would just use interchangeably with, with subtraction as well. Okay, I'm starting to get off now. No, but so okay, so no I just wanted to bring that up strategically, the two orders of void's kind of paralleling with the two orders of being in Lacan. Now, there's also the ambiguity concerning the sense of one. The one: there's the one of the count-as-one but then there's the one of "the one is not." Do you, actually, do you understand those as two different senses of one? And this at two Alenka talks about. Absolutely. But please go. Yes. So good, you're with me then. There's still two orders of one going on here that are still legitimately thought as one. And, yeah, that's, that's what Alenka also talks about in the fifth condition where she react... and what's at stake is that as the status of state and representation for Badiou, blah blah blah we'd have to go there.
orders of being that is really on top of separating a subject from existence. Yeah. Now, in Badiou, and I mean this is mostly from like the first and second manifesto of philosophy. But there's kind of a similar strategy like there's the two orders of being in Lacan, and then there's kind of, you know how Badiou in the, especially in the first manifesto, there's the same sort of strategy I think at work but it comes in the two orders of void: the void of being that must be kept separate from the void of truth. And you know, don't suture philosophy to one of its conditions. But we're getting to a point of ambiguity in Badiou and you can stop me, in Badiou and it really does precisely concern suturing philosophy to... and this is what Alenka talks about, the privileged status of love. So there's... I think that there is kind of an ambiguity in Badiou with respect to what being qua being is, being qua being as generic multiplicity. Yeah. But when he does kind of privilege the status of love, there is a bit of a being qua being as an immanent two. And I think already immanent two thought as efficacy I would just use interchangeably with, with subtraction as well. Okay, I'm starting to get off now. No, but so okay, so no I just wanted to bring that up strategically, the two orders of void's kind of paralleling with the two orders of being in Lacan. Now, there's also the ambiguity concerning the sense of one. The one: there's the one of the count-as-one but then there's the one of "the one is not." Do you, actually, do you understand those as two different senses of one? And this at two Alenka talks about. Absolutely. But please go. Yes. So good, you're with me then. There's still two orders of one going on here that are still legitimately thought as one. And, yeah, that's, that's what Alenka also talks about in the fifth condition where she react... and what's at stake is that as the status of state and representation for Badiou, blah blah blah we'd have to go there.
Slavoj Žižek
Um. Incidentally, her text I think it's maybe better than mine, even I steal from her, rely from her, her this fifth condition, no? That's a great one. This is a great one, yes. This is I think one of the hardest hitting really good criticisms of Badiou. The whole point about how... I will immediately give you the word... how although Badiou violently opposes anti-philosophy, but to cut a long story short, Alenka's thesis is that the opposition on which Badiou nonetheless all the time relies between presence and representation... you know, this typically and this is typical anti-philosophical opposition. That we have an order of presence, and I'm not playing here Derrida but in the simple sense of real productive process, and there this is the scene of representation which never can and so on. I think we should drop this. I'm... okay, sorry, go on. Oh, okay. Um, yeah, and actually you know what Alenka said, I don't know if she said this in that article or the book, but even she said that she is abandoning, like she takes the immanent two as being qua being. She's no... she said she doesn't really uphold being as generic multiplicity anymore, but I don't know
Um. Incidentally, her text I think it's maybe better than mine, even I steal from her, rely from her, her this fifth condition, no? That's a great one. This is a great one, yes. This is I think one of the hardest hitting really good criticisms of Badiou. The whole point about how... I will immediately give you the word... how although Badiou violently opposes anti-philosophy, but to cut a long story short, Alenka's thesis is that the opposition on which Badiou nonetheless all the time relies between presence and representation... you know, this typically and this is typical anti-philosophical opposition. That we have an order of presence, and I'm not playing here Derrida but in the simple sense of real productive process, and there this is the scene of representation which never can and so on. I think we should drop this. I'm... okay, sorry, go on. Oh, okay. Um, yeah, and actually you know what Alenka said, I don't know if she said this in that article or the book, but even she said that she is abandoning, like she takes the immanent two as being qua being. She's no... she said she doesn't really uphold being as generic multiplicity anymore, but I don't know
unknown
if that's... no, no, that's crucial. Yeah, it is, right? No, no, we... we, by "we" I mean here, I don't want to appropriate her, she is often leading the way, but when I say "we" I mean the troika, the three Slovene gang: Mladen Dolar, Alenka and me. This is our party line, no. You're... you're with Alenka there, not
if that's... no, no, that's crucial. Yeah, it is, right? No, no, we... we, by "we" I mean here, I don't want to appropriate her, she is often leading the way, but when I say "we" I mean the troika, the three Slovene gang: Mladen Dolar, Alenka and me. This is our party line, no. You're... you're with Alenka there, not
unknown
being qua being as generic multiplicity?
being qua being as generic multiplicity?
Slavoj Žižek
Absolutely. I even say this, I don't know where,
Absolutely. I even say this, I don't know where,
unknown
somewhere. I mean I
somewhere. I mean I
Slavoj Žižek
say all the possible bullshit in the big fat books, so it must be somewhere.
say all the possible bullshit in the big fat books, so it must be somewhere.
unknown
Do you think, too, that even in Badiou though he... being qua being as generic multiplicity isn't really holding up especially when he starts talking about event.
Do you think, too, that even in Badiou though he... being qua being as generic multiplicity isn't really holding up especially when he starts talking about event.
Slavoj Žižek
No, I think he is inconsistent there.
No, I think he is inconsistent there.
unknown
Okay. That's... that's it or? Well that's a good... no, let me go a little bit further. That actually is a bit, but I do want to hear you talk more about this. But what the other thing I wanted to bring in, in Badiou, the *Second Manifesto*, which I think this is really such a wonderful concept and this is again it's the... you know, it's the status of in-existence and in-existence is the necessity of an event, is what he says. Yeah. Now, this is great. Okay. In... oh, and you quoted this in your book and I mentioned it once but you didn't actually quote this part. Badiou talks about the unicity of the in-existence. And you, I saw where you quoted the paragraph where Badiou quotes that and you left that little bit out of your quote. But okay, but why that's so, why the unicity of the in-existence is so significant is because that allows us to think being qua generic as a body. So Badiou is now really with in-existence. And then at the end of... yeah, and at the end of *Second Manifesto* is when he brings in the term some "subjectivizable body", which he does talk about in *Logics of Worlds*, but it hits home... this is time, I don't know, but the subjectivizable body in Badiou is right... what is it? Subjectivizable body. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's still again this concerning in-existence but in-existence thought as a body or the generic as a body like I just said.
Okay. That's... that's it or? Well that's a good... no, let me go a little bit further. That actually is a bit, but I do want to hear you talk more about this. But what the other thing I wanted to bring in, in Badiou, the *Second Manifesto*, which I think this is really such a wonderful concept and this is again it's the... you know, it's the status of in-existence and in-existence is the necessity of an event, is what he says. Yeah. Now, this is great. Okay. In... oh, and you quoted this in your book and I mentioned it once but you didn't actually quote this part. Badiou talks about the unicity of the in-existence. And you, I saw where you quoted the paragraph where Badiou quotes that and you left that little bit out of your quote. But okay, but why that's so, why the unicity of the in-existence is so significant is because that allows us to think being qua generic as a body. So Badiou is now really with in-existence. And then at the end of... yeah, and at the end of *Second Manifesto* is when he brings in the term some "subjectivizable body", which he does talk about in *Logics of Worlds*, but it hits home... this is time, I don't know, but the subjectivizable body in Badiou is right... what is it? Subjectivizable body. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's still again this concerning in-existence but in-existence thought as a body or the generic as a body like I just said.
Slavoj Žižek
And did you...
And did you...
unknown
and... also at the end of the *Second Manifesto*, where this is all building up... and I think what I'm kind of going with this is that it's... um, there... and you said there is no ontology of the event in Badiou but blah blah blah you might not have meant that. There could be an ontology of the event, but you said that's where Badiou is obscure. So we agree, I'm glad to hear that. Okay, also at the end of *Second Manifesto*, the true quest... the true question for Badiou becomes the "this and that" and it's no longer "why something than nothing" as it is for you. And that concerns more of saying it's the "this and that" said of existence rather than a "this and that" said of ones in appearance or ones in objects. But I think I'm just bringing that up more because I want to hear what you have to say about that being the crucial... no longer the crucial question of being separation of being in appearance or why something than nothing but the "this and that". And you remember that was also Deleuze's ontological question. Deleuze always said the true problem was the "this and that" distinction and it wasn't a "this and that" exclusively within appearance, but it was a "this and that" said of existence. So already accounting for the separation between being and appearance blah blah blah. Um. I think I already, I think I already, I think I already got to it. I wanted you to hear you just talk more about those ambiguities I talked about: the two beings, the two ones. Can we
and... also at the end of the *Second Manifesto*, where this is all building up... and I think what I'm kind of going with this is that it's... um, there... and you said there is no ontology of the event in Badiou but blah blah blah you might not have meant that. There could be an ontology of the event, but you said that's where Badiou is obscure. So we agree, I'm glad to hear that. Okay, also at the end of *Second Manifesto*, the true quest... the true question for Badiou becomes the "this and that" and it's no longer "why something than nothing" as it is for you. And that concerns more of saying it's the "this and that" said of existence rather than a "this and that" said of ones in appearance or ones in objects. But I think I'm just bringing that up more because I want to hear what you have to say about that being the crucial... no longer the crucial question of being separation of being in appearance or why something than nothing but the "this and that". And you remember that was also Deleuze's ontological question. Deleuze always said the true problem was the "this and that" distinction and it wasn't a "this and that" exclusively within appearance, but it was a "this and that" said of existence. So already accounting for the separation between being and appearance blah blah blah. Um. I think I already, I think I already, I think I already got to it. I wanted you to hear you just talk more about those ambiguities I talked about: the two beings, the two ones. Can we
Slavoj Žižek
do it... I'm sorry, please.
do it... I'm sorry, please.
unknown
No, I don't need to repeat myself, it's just repeating. No, no. What
No, I don't need to repeat myself, it's just repeating. No, no. What
Slavoj Žižek
about... could would you nonetheless then allow me, I promise promise on my mother's grave I will be short... then the other two... I'm simply getting old and senile and if others talk I will forget. I hope I will. So can I briefly reply to you and then... yeah, yeah. You know, um, okay, I mean fuck it, this is a nice difficult question, which means another three hours to fully answer. So I just will try to give in a very short way some coordinates just to, how do you call it, I cannot resist obscenity, just what they say in vulgar terms, you urinate a circle to mark your terrain, you know? Just to, you know, to where I stand. First, I want to return to that coffee, you know, some... this coffee, the joke they quoted. This is how Alenka in her last text against Badiou... she now published a wonderful book called *The Sexuated and Ontology*, unfortunately only in Slovene, she now is translating it in England, where there is a whole chapter of the most ferocious anti-Badiou critique and her point is, I simplify it very much, remember that joke: no, I don't want coffee without, I cannot bring you coffee without cream, I can only bring you coffee without milk. So what is it without? And now I will simplify it very much. For Badiou, as he emphasizes, one comes secondary. One is an operation. One is the effect of counting, while multiplicity is, to put it primitively, there out of the... from the very beginning, always already, multiplicity and void and so on, all that. For Alenka and me, the multiplicity... of course there is no original one, but this absence is inscribed into multiplicity from the very beginning. Multiplicity is always is, you got it, is multiplicity without one. But this doesn't mean simple externality like, we are multiple, fuck the one. It means the one as absence is already here, the one as failed, as impossible and so on and so on. In other words, I think she is here more Lacanian than even ontologically, to be very naive, the zero level is a barred one. There is no one, an absolute contradiction in Hegelian terms. And there is multiplicity because one cannot be one. That's her position also now. We, me and Mladen, brainwashed her from her Kantian... Kantian... Kantian revisionism, the weird... so let me give you, you know which example I like here? I often quote it in my books but it fits it... how, you know, we even refer... you know Freud says somewhere, and this is Freudian, just a tiny remark, that multiplicity in dreams is always a sign of castration. Like if you dream many phalluses, it means you don't have one, you know? And in this sense, multiplicity, present multiplicity, is always a mark of the blocked, sabotaged impossibility of the one. For example the example... although here it's not the one but the second. You know, I'm sorry for repeating myself, when Lacan claims that Urverdrängung, primordial repression, is the repression of the binary signifier. This is absolutely crucial for Lacan, because this is why Lacan's, and I will come to your point, Lacan's theory of sexual difference has nothing to do with any of this yin-yang cosmic principle bullshit. Precisely the idea is there is only one signifier: male. But this doesn't make women more but less, or rather why? The example I use is this one, a very ironic one, maybe you know it. You know, again, I don't like Woody Allen but there is an early movie by him, I think it's a parody of *Love and Death*, of Tolstoy's *War and Peace*, where, you know, the movie is a parody of Tolstoy. So of course if you know Russian literature, the eternal couple like yin and yang is Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, no? Dostoevsky is missing. But you know that there is a scene in the film, a wonderful one, where it is as if this absence of the name Dostoevsky returns in an exploding plurality and it's a wonderful joke, this is Woody Allen at his best, where the two two guys talk and in one conversation bring in all the Dostoevsky titles, you know. "Did you meet that idiot?" "Ah, you mean that one of the Brothers Karamazov?" "Yes, the one who wasn't punished for his crime and then went underground" and so on. You know, like this idea that too much and again, we are tempted to insist on this primacy of the barred one, of the impossible one. That there is no, that the one is, as it were... and there we get really Hegelian. Here Alenka has wonderful... that there are ones, of course, but the existing ones are an echo of their own impossibility, as it were. That why, okay, in a certain... or I'll put it in this way, and in a certain way Alenka is right. What there is is always originally multiplicity. But why do we then start to count to one? Precisely because in multiplicity is already marked, as it were, from the beginning by the lack or impossibility of the one. And, okay, I will be very... please, yeah. No, just two things more to go then you strike back. This also, what I meant if I remember it correctly with "in Badiou there is not an ontology of the event," where... I know how stupid this sounds, obviously there is not an ontology of event but there are over pages on... okay. What I meant is this one, that when he announced, if I remember it correctly, he Badiou, the program for his *Logics of Worlds*, his point was that in previous book he didn't, in *Being and Event*, he didn't really account for how a world emerges out of being and so on. I claim that in this book he also doesn't do it. That is to say, he says there is multiplicity in *Logics of Worlds* and then, I don't know from where, all of a sudden there are worlds. Now, although Badiou probably would have rejected this as a question, but what I always am asking him is why does being qua being, this pre-representative multiplicity, why does it organize itself into worlds? Worlds are in a way, he accepts this, worlds which appear. Worlds are modes of transcendental appearance. That's why he uses explicitly the term transcendental, like each of the worlds is characterized by its transcendental a priori which decides what... and I claim that this, let's call it Alenka's solution, that already the multiplicity from the very beginning is the multiplicity because the one is impossible, that this is the answer to why multiplicity precisely to fill in this gap has to appear to itself. You know what I mean? Like or I try to be here Hegelian, in what sense? As everybody knows who understands Hegel, Hegel is a genius. Why? Because for Hegel the problem is not this boring Kantian problem: we live in appearances, but can we reach the thing in itself, the real? For Hegel the problem is, I think I already improvised on this here, exactly the opposite one. The true enigma is: okay, there is being multiplicity out there, but why does being start to appear to itself? The true... so the true or even at the more naive level, the true enigma is not how to see what's the reality behind appearance, but why does the real begin to appear to itself? Let me go on here. Can I just really quickly... yeah. How is barred one... isn't that just... I mean the one is aligning perfectly with the word "subject". So you're still... I'm still after a subject that exists, but barred one, we still have barred subject. Wait a minute, let's go to this existence. That's the next thing I want to... I want to say there is a subject but there's no one. Yeah. So let me go through the other prob... another problem that I have with Badiou. Okay, I know first, let me be honest, I know that he tries to answer the question why world through some meditations on inconsistent multiplicity and so on and so on, that every... but it gets... okay. Second thing with Badiou, propos world. And here we have a true fight. We stand each of us on our own position. I remain old-fashioned transcendentalist and he is for me too much of a dialectical materialist there. Namely, the status of a world. I... it's very simple my position here. I... I think I already even mentioned this here... I claim that the determinations he uses, not only transcendental but when he mentions propos world "le point" (the point) as that minimum of yes-no and so on, I claim that all the coordinates are already the coordinates of a subjective of a universe of of let's call it naively symbolic universe with subjectivity included. That is to say, I claim that, to be very vulgar and brutal, there is no world outside language and subject. I claim that if you read Badiou closely, he uses terms like "le point," you know the point, this minimal decision, all the bullshit then you have to say
about... could would you nonetheless then allow me, I promise promise on my mother's grave I will be short... then the other two... I'm simply getting old and senile and if others talk I will forget. I hope I will. So can I briefly reply to you and then... yeah, yeah. You know, um, okay, I mean fuck it, this is a nice difficult question, which means another three hours to fully answer. So I just will try to give in a very short way some coordinates just to, how do you call it, I cannot resist obscenity, just what they say in vulgar terms, you urinate a circle to mark your terrain, you know? Just to, you know, to where I stand. First, I want to return to that coffee, you know, some... this coffee, the joke they quoted. This is how Alenka in her last text against Badiou... she now published a wonderful book called *The Sexuated and Ontology*, unfortunately only in Slovene, she now is translating it in England, where there is a whole chapter of the most ferocious anti-Badiou critique and her point is, I simplify it very much, remember that joke: no, I don't want coffee without, I cannot bring you coffee without cream, I can only bring you coffee without milk. So what is it without? And now I will simplify it very much. For Badiou, as he emphasizes, one comes secondary. One is an operation. One is the effect of counting, while multiplicity is, to put it primitively, there out of the... from the very beginning, always already, multiplicity and void and so on, all that. For Alenka and me, the multiplicity... of course there is no original one, but this absence is inscribed into multiplicity from the very beginning. Multiplicity is always is, you got it, is multiplicity without one. But this doesn't mean simple externality like, we are multiple, fuck the one. It means the one as absence is already here, the one as failed, as impossible and so on and so on. In other words, I think she is here more Lacanian than even ontologically, to be very naive, the zero level is a barred one. There is no one, an absolute contradiction in Hegelian terms. And there is multiplicity because one cannot be one. That's her position also now. We, me and Mladen, brainwashed her from her Kantian... Kantian... Kantian revisionism, the weird... so let me give you, you know which example I like here? I often quote it in my books but it fits it... how, you know, we even refer... you know Freud says somewhere, and this is Freudian, just a tiny remark, that multiplicity in dreams is always a sign of castration. Like if you dream many phalluses, it means you don't have one, you know? And in this sense, multiplicity, present multiplicity, is always a mark of the blocked, sabotaged impossibility of the one. For example the example... although here it's not the one but the second. You know, I'm sorry for repeating myself, when Lacan claims that Urverdrängung, primordial repression, is the repression of the binary signifier. This is absolutely crucial for Lacan, because this is why Lacan's, and I will come to your point, Lacan's theory of sexual difference has nothing to do with any of this yin-yang cosmic principle bullshit. Precisely the idea is there is only one signifier: male. But this doesn't make women more but less, or rather why? The example I use is this one, a very ironic one, maybe you know it. You know, again, I don't like Woody Allen but there is an early movie by him, I think it's a parody of *Love and Death*, of Tolstoy's *War and Peace*, where, you know, the movie is a parody of Tolstoy. So of course if you know Russian literature, the eternal couple like yin and yang is Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, no? Dostoevsky is missing. But you know that there is a scene in the film, a wonderful one, where it is as if this absence of the name Dostoevsky returns in an exploding plurality and it's a wonderful joke, this is Woody Allen at his best, where the two two guys talk and in one conversation bring in all the Dostoevsky titles, you know. "Did you meet that idiot?" "Ah, you mean that one of the Brothers Karamazov?" "Yes, the one who wasn't punished for his crime and then went underground" and so on. You know, like this idea that too much and again, we are tempted to insist on this primacy of the barred one, of the impossible one. That there is no, that the one is, as it were... and there we get really Hegelian. Here Alenka has wonderful... that there are ones, of course, but the existing ones are an echo of their own impossibility, as it were. That why, okay, in a certain... or I'll put it in this way, and in a certain way Alenka is right. What there is is always originally multiplicity. But why do we then start to count to one? Precisely because in multiplicity is already marked, as it were, from the beginning by the lack or impossibility of the one. And, okay, I will be very... please, yeah. No, just two things more to go then you strike back. This also, what I meant if I remember it correctly with "in Badiou there is not an ontology of the event," where... I know how stupid this sounds, obviously there is not an ontology of event but there are over pages on... okay. What I meant is this one, that when he announced, if I remember it correctly, he Badiou, the program for his *Logics of Worlds*, his point was that in previous book he didn't, in *Being and Event*, he didn't really account for how a world emerges out of being and so on. I claim that in this book he also doesn't do it. That is to say, he says there is multiplicity in *Logics of Worlds* and then, I don't know from where, all of a sudden there are worlds. Now, although Badiou probably would have rejected this as a question, but what I always am asking him is why does being qua being, this pre-representative multiplicity, why does it organize itself into worlds? Worlds are in a way, he accepts this, worlds which appear. Worlds are modes of transcendental appearance. That's why he uses explicitly the term transcendental, like each of the worlds is characterized by its transcendental a priori which decides what... and I claim that this, let's call it Alenka's solution, that already the multiplicity from the very beginning is the multiplicity because the one is impossible, that this is the answer to why multiplicity precisely to fill in this gap has to appear to itself. You know what I mean? Like or I try to be here Hegelian, in what sense? As everybody knows who understands Hegel, Hegel is a genius. Why? Because for Hegel the problem is not this boring Kantian problem: we live in appearances, but can we reach the thing in itself, the real? For Hegel the problem is, I think I already improvised on this here, exactly the opposite one. The true enigma is: okay, there is being multiplicity out there, but why does being start to appear to itself? The true... so the true or even at the more naive level, the true enigma is not how to see what's the reality behind appearance, but why does the real begin to appear to itself? Let me go on here. Can I just really quickly... yeah. How is barred one... isn't that just... I mean the one is aligning perfectly with the word "subject". So you're still... I'm still after a subject that exists, but barred one, we still have barred subject. Wait a minute, let's go to this existence. That's the next thing I want to... I want to say there is a subject but there's no one. Yeah. So let me go through the other prob... another problem that I have with Badiou. Okay, I know first, let me be honest, I know that he tries to answer the question why world through some meditations on inconsistent multiplicity and so on and so on, that every... but it gets... okay. Second thing with Badiou, propos world. And here we have a true fight. We stand each of us on our own position. I remain old-fashioned transcendentalist and he is for me too much of a dialectical materialist there. Namely, the status of a world. I... it's very simple my position here. I... I think I already even mentioned this here... I claim that the determinations he uses, not only transcendental but when he mentions propos world "le point" (the point) as that minimum of yes-no and so on, I claim that all the coordinates are already the coordinates of a subjective of a universe of of let's call it naively symbolic universe with subjectivity included. That is to say, I claim that, to be very vulgar and brutal, there is no world outside language and subject. I claim that if you read Badiou closely, he uses terms like "le point," you know the point, this minimal decision, all the bullshit then you have to say
unknown
yes-no or whatever. This is typical signifier operation. You don't find... and he absolutely fanatically insists, maybe he is right, I'm just trying honestly to present, that world is, as he ironically put
yes-no or whatever. This is typical signifier operation. You don't find... and he absolutely fanatically insists, maybe he is right, I'm just trying honestly to present, that world is, as he ironically put
Slavoj Žižek
it just to annoy me once, is a category of what Engels would have called dialectics in nature. That if you look at nature, animals, even rocks, a group of stars, whatever, all this can be a world. I have doubts about this. I doubt if this is a legitimate move. But let me go on. The problem of, the problem of appearance and so on. I don't know if I got you correctly there, being can appearance, but more Lacan than Badiou now, no? They... first with Lacan, as I already mentioned, when you talk about in-existence. Maybe I am wrong, but the way I read in-existence, I don't see any mystery there in Badiou. Isn't the in-existing moment precisely like proletarian within a social edifice? The moment of presence within a certain world, but presence which isn't covered by some transcendental existence, which just which doesn't have its proper place. It is included in but doesn't in the terms of the transcendental field which defines a world, it doesn't have a place, in this sense it doesn't exist. Now, I don't know how much, how far Badiou goes here, but for Lacan he is here almost a Hegelian, you know? Existence is absolutely not the same, as you know, as being. Existence is for Alenka, if I got it correctly as I already said before brutally interrupting you, existence is I think a transcendental determination, like for Kant: things exist within a certain world. For example we are in social-political world, you exist and you exist with more and more intensity the more you are recognized as within this transcendental space as a member of society or or whatever. So again, even Hegel has this distinction in a very nice way, when if you look at Hegel's Logic and Alenka is aware of this, he is bothered by this now I told him he liked this reference, that in Hegel existence is a category of essence. Existence is being which is the appearance of some essence. So for existence you already have to have an essence. What doesn't have an essence, is but doesn't exist. And now we become to Lacan. This is why for Lacan neither the subject exists nor the woman. And you should be very careful here. Lacan does not say, and Lacan knows what he's talking about at least here, "il n'y a pas de femmes," there are no women. No, there are, "il y a des femmes," but "la femme n'existe pas." A woman doesn't exist. Bruce Fink drew nicely attention in one work how one should strictly distinguish these two negations in Lacan. His "il n'y a pas," which is much more radical than "il n'existe pas." Lacan says "il n'y a pas de grand Autre," there is no big Other. He doesn't only say the big Other doesn't exist. The big Other as in-existence, this is already in transcendental space and so on and so on. So again, so again, what I claim is that... so again, maybe, I mean without any irony or whatever, I'm too tired to do that, maybe I didn't get close your luggage because this unique point of in-existence blah blah blah, is this not simply what Badiou calls sometimes the symptomal point, the surnumerary point, the point which in a way I think we should use here nicely Lacanian the Lacanian distinction between existence and insistence? Lacan's name for non-existence is what doesn't exist insists. This is why Lacan can say drive doesn't exist, but the very definition of the drive is that it insists. And again, in this precise sense, for Lacan subject doesn't exist, it just leaves traces in existence and so on and so on. As to what you said about being, having, appearance and so on. Now I will give you a very quick answer, maybe I am wrong or whatever, but I am tempted to say that subject is... no, Lacan and Miller develops here something very nice. He draws a nice distinction which I don't take care of enough, a little bit of self-criticism, between in strict Lacanian sense appearance and phenomenon. And it's a very nice almost Heideggerian point where Miller says the distinction is that appearance is an appearance of something, you know, we look behind what is appearing. A phenomenon is an appearance behind which there is nothing. You know, this is the beautiful Lacanian distinction between appearance of something and an appearance which just fills in the lack, which precisely the point is that there is nothing behind. You know all the examples, this eternal joke of Lacan that I refer to even more eternally repetitively: Zeuxis-Parrhasius, you know, those two Greek painters and like you know who will who will do a more realist painting and the winner paints a curtain and why does he win? Because the other guy comes and says okay now pull apart the curtain to see what you painted. But nothing here, you know it's just you know like appearance is something which sorry phenomenon is something which as it were evokes or raises the desire for something behind but there is nothing behind. It's an appearance in an abyss. And I would say that I would locate somewhere here the status of subject. Subject is for me an appearance, no substance. Here those who criticize brain scientists who said "oh but I look into your brain I find no subject," of course not idiot, there is no subject there, subject is an effect of appearance. But nonetheless this doesn't mean that subject is just an appearance of some deeper mechanisms and so on and so on. The mystery of the subject, and this is why I like with my primitive understanding quantum physics, is that you have... no I find a trace of this in a totally different way of course... it's that appearance is not a simple appearance which can be subtracted, like you know, things appear, let's take away the appearance and we get what things really are. What if there is an appearance which precisely as appearance is crucial for the consistency of that which appears? So that you take away the appearance and you then get the thing itself, you lose the thing itself. And I think the whole Freud turns on this. Maybe, sorry, this is my first answer. Now give me... imagine me as you know in American movies somebody beats a guy he lies down and then I like this, this is maybe a nice example of this surnumerary master signifier, the guy is down I beat him but the last gesture is always this unnecessary last kick into the head, you know, like, do this to me now. I, excuse me, sorry. You said before about appearance and then rejecting the thing in itself, isn't that Kantian? No, because Kant... ah, now we... no, Kant precisely... okay I'll put it like this, the ultimate Hegel knows this, the ultimate ambiguity is the ambiguity of Kantian Erscheinung, transcendental appearance. It is Kant cannot accept that it's appearance against the abyss of nothing. That's the problem with Kantian thing in itself. He still thinks there must be something substantial behind appearance, weak appearance. The Hegelian step is precisely is precisely no, Hegel already in his wonderful conclusion of the first part of *Phenomenology of Spirit*, Consciousness, you know, he says that of course appearances are like a curtain and there we look for something behind, but behind the curtain of appearances is just... okay to be more friendly, Hegel makes this Buddhist lesson, you know that: behind appearances is just a void. What we find there is just what we put there. But now comes the catch, without this you don't get Hegel or nothing. This does not mean that in the usual sense everything is just an appearance and so on. No, there still is real. It's not relativism. How? Okay, we can talk about it later. But I'm sorry, go on. Last kick into the head and then the green monster. Sorry. I don't know that I have a last kick. Okay, tell it... we'll do it like this, I promise you, I will be sincere here. Why don't we allow him and then if it comes to you, you can hit me when I will be laying down. Okay, please. Okay, so I want to move a little out of ontology and move into your theory of the act in relation to Badiou's event. Okay. Precisely looking at your last chapter "Political Suspension of the Ethical" and the chapter on "Enthusiasm into the Badiouian Event." Ah, just briefly. Sorry I interrupt you again. Do you know that here we had a beautiful act of friendship. I think I do this in chapter on Badiou. You remember how in his *Theory of Subject*, Badiou, it's a wonderful, if you ask me, and Badiou secretly I think knows it, I think his best book is *Theory of Subject*. And I think that yeah, that the true breakthrough is there and that all these later great works are like trying to catch up to contain the monster. Okay. Do you know how Bruno Bosteels drew my attention to that? Bosteels is a... if you think I am humiliating you, Bruno Bosteels being from Belgium, you should hear what I am how I am talking to him. My standard joke is he comes from Belgium, you know that Belgians are well-known for two things: good chocolates and pedophilia, but even these two are mediated because they use chocolate to seduce... okay, we love each other, in other words, no. And he drew my attention... no I'm serious now, sorry, to that, you know how in his wonderful reading of opposition between Aeschylus and Sophocles. Yeah, yeah. He opposes the couple of Sophocles, which is terror and anxiety, and the couple of to put it naively Orestia, which is courage and justice. And what I told him, and he was very friendly with Bosteels, is that you know all
it just to annoy me once, is a category of what Engels would have called dialectics in nature. That if you look at nature, animals, even rocks, a group of stars, whatever, all this can be a world. I have doubts about this. I doubt if this is a legitimate move. But let me go on. The problem of, the problem of appearance and so on. I don't know if I got you correctly there, being can appearance, but more Lacan than Badiou now, no? They... first with Lacan, as I already mentioned, when you talk about in-existence. Maybe I am wrong, but the way I read in-existence, I don't see any mystery there in Badiou. Isn't the in-existing moment precisely like proletarian within a social edifice? The moment of presence within a certain world, but presence which isn't covered by some transcendental existence, which just which doesn't have its proper place. It is included in but doesn't in the terms of the transcendental field which defines a world, it doesn't have a place, in this sense it doesn't exist. Now, I don't know how much, how far Badiou goes here, but for Lacan he is here almost a Hegelian, you know? Existence is absolutely not the same, as you know, as being. Existence is for Alenka, if I got it correctly as I already said before brutally interrupting you, existence is I think a transcendental determination, like for Kant: things exist within a certain world. For example we are in social-political world, you exist and you exist with more and more intensity the more you are recognized as within this transcendental space as a member of society or or whatever. So again, even Hegel has this distinction in a very nice way, when if you look at Hegel's Logic and Alenka is aware of this, he is bothered by this now I told him he liked this reference, that in Hegel existence is a category of essence. Existence is being which is the appearance of some essence. So for existence you already have to have an essence. What doesn't have an essence, is but doesn't exist. And now we become to Lacan. This is why for Lacan neither the subject exists nor the woman. And you should be very careful here. Lacan does not say, and Lacan knows what he's talking about at least here, "il n'y a pas de femmes," there are no women. No, there are, "il y a des femmes," but "la femme n'existe pas." A woman doesn't exist. Bruce Fink drew nicely attention in one work how one should strictly distinguish these two negations in Lacan. His "il n'y a pas," which is much more radical than "il n'existe pas." Lacan says "il n'y a pas de grand Autre," there is no big Other. He doesn't only say the big Other doesn't exist. The big Other as in-existence, this is already in transcendental space and so on and so on. So again, so again, what I claim is that... so again, maybe, I mean without any irony or whatever, I'm too tired to do that, maybe I didn't get close your luggage because this unique point of in-existence blah blah blah, is this not simply what Badiou calls sometimes the symptomal point, the surnumerary point, the point which in a way I think we should use here nicely Lacanian the Lacanian distinction between existence and insistence? Lacan's name for non-existence is what doesn't exist insists. This is why Lacan can say drive doesn't exist, but the very definition of the drive is that it insists. And again, in this precise sense, for Lacan subject doesn't exist, it just leaves traces in existence and so on and so on. As to what you said about being, having, appearance and so on. Now I will give you a very quick answer, maybe I am wrong or whatever, but I am tempted to say that subject is... no, Lacan and Miller develops here something very nice. He draws a nice distinction which I don't take care of enough, a little bit of self-criticism, between in strict Lacanian sense appearance and phenomenon. And it's a very nice almost Heideggerian point where Miller says the distinction is that appearance is an appearance of something, you know, we look behind what is appearing. A phenomenon is an appearance behind which there is nothing. You know, this is the beautiful Lacanian distinction between appearance of something and an appearance which just fills in the lack, which precisely the point is that there is nothing behind. You know all the examples, this eternal joke of Lacan that I refer to even more eternally repetitively: Zeuxis-Parrhasius, you know, those two Greek painters and like you know who will who will do a more realist painting and the winner paints a curtain and why does he win? Because the other guy comes and says okay now pull apart the curtain to see what you painted. But nothing here, you know it's just you know like appearance is something which sorry phenomenon is something which as it were evokes or raises the desire for something behind but there is nothing behind. It's an appearance in an abyss. And I would say that I would locate somewhere here the status of subject. Subject is for me an appearance, no substance. Here those who criticize brain scientists who said "oh but I look into your brain I find no subject," of course not idiot, there is no subject there, subject is an effect of appearance. But nonetheless this doesn't mean that subject is just an appearance of some deeper mechanisms and so on and so on. The mystery of the subject, and this is why I like with my primitive understanding quantum physics, is that you have... no I find a trace of this in a totally different way of course... it's that appearance is not a simple appearance which can be subtracted, like you know, things appear, let's take away the appearance and we get what things really are. What if there is an appearance which precisely as appearance is crucial for the consistency of that which appears? So that you take away the appearance and you then get the thing itself, you lose the thing itself. And I think the whole Freud turns on this. Maybe, sorry, this is my first answer. Now give me... imagine me as you know in American movies somebody beats a guy he lies down and then I like this, this is maybe a nice example of this surnumerary master signifier, the guy is down I beat him but the last gesture is always this unnecessary last kick into the head, you know, like, do this to me now. I, excuse me, sorry. You said before about appearance and then rejecting the thing in itself, isn't that Kantian? No, because Kant... ah, now we... no, Kant precisely... okay I'll put it like this, the ultimate Hegel knows this, the ultimate ambiguity is the ambiguity of Kantian Erscheinung, transcendental appearance. It is Kant cannot accept that it's appearance against the abyss of nothing. That's the problem with Kantian thing in itself. He still thinks there must be something substantial behind appearance, weak appearance. The Hegelian step is precisely is precisely no, Hegel already in his wonderful conclusion of the first part of *Phenomenology of Spirit*, Consciousness, you know, he says that of course appearances are like a curtain and there we look for something behind, but behind the curtain of appearances is just... okay to be more friendly, Hegel makes this Buddhist lesson, you know that: behind appearances is just a void. What we find there is just what we put there. But now comes the catch, without this you don't get Hegel or nothing. This does not mean that in the usual sense everything is just an appearance and so on. No, there still is real. It's not relativism. How? Okay, we can talk about it later. But I'm sorry, go on. Last kick into the head and then the green monster. Sorry. I don't know that I have a last kick. Okay, tell it... we'll do it like this, I promise you, I will be sincere here. Why don't we allow him and then if it comes to you, you can hit me when I will be laying down. Okay, please. Okay, so I want to move a little out of ontology and move into your theory of the act in relation to Badiou's event. Okay. Precisely looking at your last chapter "Political Suspension of the Ethical" and the chapter on "Enthusiasm into the Badiouian Event." Ah, just briefly. Sorry I interrupt you again. Do you know that here we had a beautiful act of friendship. I think I do this in chapter on Badiou. You remember how in his *Theory of Subject*, Badiou, it's a wonderful, if you ask me, and Badiou secretly I think knows it, I think his best book is *Theory of Subject*. And I think that yeah, that the true breakthrough is there and that all these later great works are like trying to catch up to contain the monster. Okay. Do you know how Bruno Bosteels drew my attention to that? Bosteels is a... if you think I am humiliating you, Bruno Bosteels being from Belgium, you should hear what I am how I am talking to him. My standard joke is he comes from Belgium, you know that Belgians are well-known for two things: good chocolates and pedophilia, but even these two are mediated because they use chocolate to seduce... okay, we love each other, in other words, no. And he drew my attention... no I'm serious now, sorry, to that, you know how in his wonderful reading of opposition between Aeschylus and Sophocles. Yeah, yeah. He opposes the couple of Sophocles, which is terror and anxiety, and the couple of to put it naively Orestia, which is courage and justice. And what I told him, and he was very friendly with Bosteels, is that you know all
unknown
other three, that is to say, courage, anxiety, terror are, I
other three, that is to say, courage, anxiety, terror are, I
Slavoj Žižek
wouldn't say psychological, but let's put it more neutrally subjective attitudes, you know. Like doesn't justice stick out? And I propose to replace justice with enthusiasm. Yeah. And he tempted he's tempted for Kantian reasons, right? For Kantian reasons. Yeah, but no, also at the much more commonsensical level, you know. For reasons of consistency. Yeah, because the idea is that... and I find another ambiguity there, he admitted it. What does terror mean here? He oscillates I claim between two meanings of terror. First it's the bad superego terror, in that case of Antigone-Sophocles represented by Creon, brutal state terror, but as Badiou as a Maoist Jacobin like me knows very well: fuck you, we also need our own terror, you know, like there definitely Alain is aware that there is always a terrorist aspect in subtraction politics, you know? So this is the other weakness I think of those four. So I'm sorry if I [unintelligible] but just that point how I see why because you don't... enthusiasm only now enthusiasm will be he told me the central category of his immanence of truth. Really? Okay. Okay. Sorry, please. Okay, so so I think you got you and Badiou both have a theory of the act, but there are important differences. For you, the act is a Hegelian night of the world. It's a a sort of Antigone-like movement through a process of negation whereby the there's the
wouldn't say psychological, but let's put it more neutrally subjective attitudes, you know. Like doesn't justice stick out? And I propose to replace justice with enthusiasm. Yeah. And he tempted he's tempted for Kantian reasons, right? For Kantian reasons. Yeah, but no, also at the much more commonsensical level, you know. For reasons of consistency. Yeah, because the idea is that... and I find another ambiguity there, he admitted it. What does terror mean here? He oscillates I claim between two meanings of terror. First it's the bad superego terror, in that case of Antigone-Sophocles represented by Creon, brutal state terror, but as Badiou as a Maoist Jacobin like me knows very well: fuck you, we also need our own terror, you know, like there definitely Alain is aware that there is always a terrorist aspect in subtraction politics, you know? So this is the other weakness I think of those four. So I'm sorry if I [unintelligible] but just that point how I see why because you don't... enthusiasm only now enthusiasm will be he told me the central category of his immanence of truth. Really? Okay. Okay. Sorry, please. Okay, so so I think you got you and Badiou both have a theory of the act, but there are important differences. For you, the act is a Hegelian night of the world. It's a a sort of Antigone-like movement through a process of negation whereby the there's the
unknown
new
new
Slavoj Žižek
rules are set vis-à-vis the subject towards the big other and a new libidinal reinvestment can take place. Now for Badiou, we see that an act is archio-political,
rules are set vis-à-vis the subject towards the big other and a new libidinal reinvestment can take place. Now for Badiou, we see that an act is archio-political,
unknown
as Adrian Johnston says, in the sense that it seeks to actually revolutionize humanity itself. So here we have a move as a Deleuzian-Nietzschean movement. My precise question is for a post-evental subjectivity, what's the role of psychoanalysis for Badiou? Precisely because the human animal is... you know, death
as Adrian Johnston says, in the sense that it seeks to actually revolutionize humanity itself. So here we have a move as a Deleuzian-Nietzschean movement. My precise question is for a post-evental subjectivity, what's the role of psychoanalysis for Badiou? Precisely because the human animal is... you know, death
Slavoj Žižek
drive is relegated to the human animal, right? So this links to your debate with Miller in his so-called, you know, ironist approach, which within the current coordinates of capitalism we can actually I don't know encourage the flourishing of idiosyncratic psychoanalytic sort of within singular communities, whereas your response to Miller is precisely that we need something more radical. There needs to be some sort of a confrontation with the Lacanian gap that is constitutive of the political as such. And obviously the solution is communism. Now, my point is if we envision a post-evental subjectivity of communism, are we simply reinscribing Miller's ironist approach to allowing enjoyment of symptoms in this new space? In that new space, what is the master signifier and precisely what is the role of master signifier for Badiou and for you? Okay. Shall I continue? Of course, yeah, yeah, please. No, no. I'm sorry I was just putting it... no, no, that's exactly because it seems to me that the the post the true evental subject for Badiou has four primary affects: love, politics, joy, pleasure, etc. This system to me seems as if it is post-psychoanalytic. Just to... you mean Badiou's. Badiou's precisely. And this I don't know I wouldn't characterize this as naive, but perhaps it is inclusive, I don't know. Okay, so that's my first question, which is on the role... can I maybe answer this first briefly and then you go on? Yeah, yeah, just so that I don't lose it. You know, one crucial point I even I think already hinted at it. It is that the way I see Badiou, as I already improvised about it I think, the problem of event, not act, is that Badiou himself seems for me to struggle about the relationship between event and its nomination. Sometimes he claims more radically transcendentally, event as I already improvised here, you know that nomination is part of the event, that is to say, event becomes event only through its nomination. But sometimes he adopts this more, I'm almost tempted to say he would have shot me for this, postmodern attitude that the event is some traumatic excess and then we try to but fail to find the proper name. For example it's here that he changed position with Marx. I'm very critical of Marx, I follow him here. He claims that a certain communist struggle is going on, but that the Marxian names for it, up to proletarian revolution, communism, are not good names, that we didn't nominate the event in a correct way. And this is in a way a crucial point. I mean because on the one hand, of course he sees this very well Badiou, there is the danger of this postmodern pseudo-Nietzschean pseudo-Nietzschean bullshit where Nietzsche
drive is relegated to the human animal, right? So this links to your debate with Miller in his so-called, you know, ironist approach, which within the current coordinates of capitalism we can actually I don't know encourage the flourishing of idiosyncratic psychoanalytic sort of within singular communities, whereas your response to Miller is precisely that we need something more radical. There needs to be some sort of a confrontation with the Lacanian gap that is constitutive of the political as such. And obviously the solution is communism. Now, my point is if we envision a post-evental subjectivity of communism, are we simply reinscribing Miller's ironist approach to allowing enjoyment of symptoms in this new space? In that new space, what is the master signifier and precisely what is the role of master signifier for Badiou and for you? Okay. Shall I continue? Of course, yeah, yeah, please. No, no. I'm sorry I was just putting it... no, no, that's exactly because it seems to me that the the post the true evental subject for Badiou has four primary affects: love, politics, joy, pleasure, etc. This system to me seems as if it is post-psychoanalytic. Just to... you mean Badiou's. Badiou's precisely. And this I don't know I wouldn't characterize this as naive, but perhaps it is inclusive, I don't know. Okay, so that's my first question, which is on the role... can I maybe answer this first briefly and then you go on? Yeah, yeah, just so that I don't lose it. You know, one crucial point I even I think already hinted at it. It is that the way I see Badiou, as I already improvised about it I think, the problem of event, not act, is that Badiou himself seems for me to struggle about the relationship between event and its nomination. Sometimes he claims more radically transcendentally, event as I already improvised here, you know that nomination is part of the event, that is to say, event becomes event only through its nomination. But sometimes he adopts this more, I'm almost tempted to say he would have shot me for this, postmodern attitude that the event is some traumatic excess and then we try to but fail to find the proper name. For example it's here that he changed position with Marx. I'm very critical of Marx, I follow him here. He claims that a certain communist struggle is going on, but that the Marxian names for it, up to proletarian revolution, communism, are not good names, that we didn't nominate the event in a correct way. And this is in a way a crucial point. I mean because on the one hand, of course he sees this very well Badiou, there is the danger of this postmodern pseudo-Nietzschean pseudo-Nietzschean bullshit where Nietzsche
unknown
becomes someone who you know, the real is the event horror and then we try to nominate it but it always fails blah blah. On the other hand, it's this Badiou celebrating the master signifier, which claims and here he even, this is if you want him to hate you, but he's a good friend of mine so I always told him, the only way to have a real friend is the one on whom you can spit humiliate him and he has to yeah yeah he has to take it nicely. Do you know his it's very interesting from this standpoint, the couple, no they are not lovers, no, no, no shitty insinuation of this, but the theoretical couple how they even co-publish two books they co-direct a series of Badiou and Barbara Cassin. It's really almost like sexual difference. Crucially it concerns the status of sophism and so on, but even more the master signifier, you know, because let me put it in this way, the Badiou who is the Badiou of master signifier is this type of masculine Badiou and he tends to dismiss his idea is this one: like to be very brutal we once talked, you we have the event of Christianity. But Christ himself was nonetheless still a kind of a feminine hysterical guy, he didn't really know what... and the master who provides the name is Saint Paul. You know, he provides the master signifier, redemption, Christ died, eternal life, all that. As we all know he provided the master signifier which created Christianity. And it's interesting as I already improvised it here I think to learn how far Badiou goes here. You know like in an interview with, this I will never pardon him politically, that he
becomes someone who you know, the real is the event horror and then we try to nominate it but it always fails blah blah. On the other hand, it's this Badiou celebrating the master signifier, which claims and here he even, this is if you want him to hate you, but he's a good friend of mine so I always told him, the only way to have a real friend is the one on whom you can spit humiliate him and he has to yeah yeah he has to take it nicely. Do you know his it's very interesting from this standpoint, the couple, no they are not lovers, no, no, no shitty insinuation of this, but the theoretical couple how they even co-publish two books they co-direct a series of Badiou and Barbara Cassin. It's really almost like sexual difference. Crucially it concerns the status of sophism and so on, but even more the master signifier, you know, because let me put it in this way, the Badiou who is the Badiou of master signifier is this type of masculine Badiou and he tends to dismiss his idea is this one: like to be very brutal we once talked, you we have the event of Christianity. But Christ himself was nonetheless still a kind of a feminine hysterical guy, he didn't really know what... and the master who provides the name is Saint Paul. You know, he provides the master signifier, redemption, Christ died, eternal life, all that. As we all know he provided the master signifier which created Christianity. And it's interesting as I already improvised it here I think to learn how far Badiou goes here. You know like in an interview with, this I will never pardon him politically, that he
unknown
made a book with Elizabeth Roudinesco, no? He made a book and a long interview with her where he has a big celebration of the master signifier, I don't know if I read you I'm so sad I don't have them here. It's pretty terrifying what he says there. He says something like that without a master, he almost refers to Kant you know, that famous definition of Kant which is a wonderful one: human being is an animal who needs a master, you know. That human animal without a master remains just a human animal. To become a subject you need a master, to educate you to blah blah blah. And he goes very far here, I love him for this, I love madness. He even, here I agree with him it's wonderful, you know you have to be Badiou to dare this. This is meant with a very precise political stake to rehabilitate the Marxist tradition of the so-called cult of personality: Che
made a book with Elizabeth Roudinesco, no? He made a book and a long interview with her where he has a big celebration of the master signifier, I don't know if I read you I'm so sad I don't have them here. It's pretty terrifying what he says there. He says something like that without a master, he almost refers to Kant you know, that famous definition of Kant which is a wonderful one: human being is an animal who needs a master, you know. That human animal without a master remains just a human animal. To become a subject you need a master, to educate you to blah blah blah. And he goes very far here, I love him for this, I love madness. He even, here I agree with him it's wonderful, you know you have to be Badiou to dare this. This is meant with a very precise political stake to rehabilitate the Marxist tradition of the so-called cult of personality: Che
Slavoj Žižek
Guevara, Stalin, Mao. He says okay,
Guevara, Stalin, Mao. He says okay,
unknown
it may be wrong those but
it may be wrong those but
Slavoj Žižek
basically we should accept this. We need precisely a name to become subjects. Neutral theory is not enough. We need a name, a master who as you said introduces a new order blah blah blah. Here I, first where is psychoanalysis? I know he oscillates here, sometimes he somehow links psychoanalysis with love, right? That's the place of psycho... but at the same time, when I ask him this simple mysterious question, his best example of the evental structure or structure of fidelity call is is religion, is St. Paul. So where does religion, religion he puts it clearly: we live in secular era, religion is not evental, we cannot take it seriously as an event. He qualifies it he says I just use Paul as an example of how the formal evental structure was. But how it was possible to happen there. So I think that this category of love is much more mysterious. What he did like, ah this I think is I think I have it in my book at the beginning, he loved that this when I linked the four German idealists to his four generic domains, you know, and claimed Kant is science, knowledge. You know, Kant defined his endeavor as to to provide the philosophy which would be at the Newtonian level. What kind of philosophy is compatible with modern Newtonian science? So Kant would be truth... Kant would be how do you call it philosophy linked to or whatever the condition of science. Fichte is clearly politics, Fichte's problem of freedom political act, politics. Schelling is art. I am not exaggerating because you know Schelling is as far as I know the only philosopher, I underline this, philosopher, not just artist, who claims the supreme medium of truth is art. Who openly claims that philosophy comes second as in... and Hegel is love. And we can say this because the category of love is central and so on and so on. But let me go on. So when you said Knight of the World and so on, here my difference would have been the following one. Here I see the difference. I think and again I'm so sad I will appear brutal exploiting again referring to Alenka. Fuck you, you cannot read it, it's only in Slovene, where she also she accepts Badiou's claim that event as the real in its brutality it's not enough, you need a nomination, you need to nominate the event. But she does something that Alain doesn't do it at least not clearly. She introduces here the distinction, although they are the same but the function is totally different, between master signifier and what Lacan calls S(A) barred signifier of the barred other. And for Alenka the event is this naming, when you provide the signifier of the inconsistency of the big other. When you name properly the antagonism the real which defines a certain field like class struggle or whatever. And the idea being that when this turns into a new master signifier you already de-eventalize it lose it and so on. This goes to another question that you raised. Like the furthest even furthest than Badiou here he goes that young Italian good friend of mine also Lacanian Lorenzo Chiesa who says fuck it there will always be master signifier obscene superego fantasy we cannot... okay but I have a problem with this. I claim that what Badiou calls the communist hypothesis, my god it must be a hypothesis that discourse of the master, the link to a master is not the ultimate social link, that there is a possibility of being together collectively which is not as it were sustained by a master. I think if we drop this then we are back to Miller, you know. Ultimately we have to accept the master all we can do is just take it as a game not seriously. So again, to be very precise, my solution would be that... let's say you have... you know what... let me put it clearly. Let's say a very naive example, but let's say a political system is in a crisis, no? And if we take this crisis in a pre-evental way, it means we describe it as you know: the system fails, blah blah blah. But the crucial point is when you make this almost I'm tempted to say Hegelian-Marxist turn and when you say: no, these failures, crises, are not simply failures of the system system in these failures the truth of the system appears. You know this is what people don't notice it often Freud and Marx share. For Marx, crises are not some malfunctioning of capitalism, in crises the basic antagonism of capitalism becomes visible, they are necessary. The same for Freud. Symptoms are not some local malfunctionings with... no, symptoms are the truth of normality. And so again to provide the name for this necessity, why why failures are structurally necessary because as it were the big other itself is failed. This would be for me an act of political nomination, when politics is based on this nomination. And here I had a big conflict with Ernesto Laclau because the problem I find, and he himself I quote him in the big triple orgy book, me Laclau and Judith Butler, namely Ernesto Laclau is for as we all know populism as the new name that we should use blah blah, but he himself quotes I think the example is from some populisms like British Chartists and Peronism and I deeply agree with him but to me it seems that he simply doesn't draw the consequences for me that populist politics is always the politics of failure. Like things are basically okay but some bad guys, Jews, traitors, foreigners, intrude that and screw it up. And he himself gives wonderful examples of for example the Chartists in England. This was their limitation. They claimed that the corrupted noblemen and new capitalist destroyed, corrupted the old order. You know that in other words, the crack, the failure is not in the order as such, it's an accidental corruption. So what is to do is to re-establish the proper order. No, and for me again, the event is to find a name like one of the names would have been I don't know social antagonism, class struggle, conflict which clearly locates the obstacle, the cause of failure into the order itself. And this is the same argument you have against the Foucaultian Agamben: resistance to dispositif versus I guess yours would be a more like a a radical... like that's actually a question I have from that last chapter, which is this positioning that you have towards the I guess you could say what Badiou calls the third generation Foucaultians that are simply seeking to operate within you know local sites of resistance to... yeah, but would you agree or not? Now we can talk also, you know I always worry that we are the three madmen here you know and that you are not interested. If you know a little bit about Michel Foucault and no irony in what I said, very sincere now, probably many of you at least you know better Foucault than me, I always thought that there is a big shift from *History of Sexuality* volume and volumes And that this tension is there already even in his early works on madness. It was very well described by Derrida, although I'm not dismissing Foucault, he is nonetheless the defense of his reading of Descartes is wonderfully done, but nonetheless. Namely, you know the oscillation that you find in early Foucault *Histoire de la folie* and so on is that on the one hand he says "I want to describe", he openly has this pathetics, Derrida quotes this "vaski", that till now madness was described only from the external standpoint of disciplinary mechanisms of power, scientist. I want, and this is of course where Derrida goes banana, orgasm, and he is right critically against him, he says that I want madness itself to speak. Not just how it is. But at the same time he makes it clear, that's the whole point of his history of madness, that madness substantially in itself is not an in-itself which is simply then described different way but that it's to put it bluntly madness in its reality is an effect of mechanisms of madness. And you know that's the whole point of Foucault's history of madness, you know how so-called madmen which were prior to modernity located clearly in the domain of hermeneutics. It was either you were a divine madman, wisdom spoke through you, or maybe you were devil-like witches spoke through you. But the point is that till modernity madness was clearly located into hermeneutics. Madmen are people through which some higher truth, which can also be very evil but nonetheless, speaks there. With modernity it becomes simply like positive science. Something went wrong with the brain blah blah, we incarcerate them and so on and so on. So I claim that you find even more this in his later works on power where... and correct me if I'm right, I'm not sure... but the way I see it is that in, um, what's the subtitle of *History of Sexuality* is it "volonté"? No. "Will to knowledge"? No. *Will to Knowledge*. Yeah, *La volonté de savoir*. Yeah. That there as it were in both, okay I put it in this way, in both cases, volume one and then all that care of self and so on, volumes two and three, the focus is on the tension or relationship between power and resistance as counter-power. But the whole accent of number one of is how power generates resistance to itself and resistance to power is just a means for power to reproduce itself more effectively. You know and Foucault gives also propos sexuality these examples which are wonderful, I read some of the texts, you know early Christian texts which tried to eradicate sin. They were the best sex manuals you can imagine, because you know the typical early second third century Christian text says "beware" and then they describe: if a girl pretends to be shameful, she says "no, no," but she loves at you in a way in which she apparently rejects you but this rejection is already an attempt, you know like they give you an entire wonderful classification of techniques. So again here or he he, you know Badiou goes so far as to say the man to be liberated that power itself generates the man to be liberated. So here the whole accent is of to use the naive term omnipotence of power. Resistance is part of power, the circle is closed here, at least in this volume. I don't find any space for great, how should I call it, activity of liberation or however we call it. It's simply the game is closed. Resistance is in advance incorporated and so on. Then all of a sudden, okay all of a sudden maybe not, in volume two and three he is looking at as it were islands, spaces of resistance, "ligne de fuite" to use but I think this is a precise Deleuzian term which shouldn't be used here, and he has all this, did you notice how here also Foucault rehabilitates the notion of subject?
basically we should accept this. We need precisely a name to become subjects. Neutral theory is not enough. We need a name, a master who as you said introduces a new order blah blah blah. Here I, first where is psychoanalysis? I know he oscillates here, sometimes he somehow links psychoanalysis with love, right? That's the place of psycho... but at the same time, when I ask him this simple mysterious question, his best example of the evental structure or structure of fidelity call is is religion, is St. Paul. So where does religion, religion he puts it clearly: we live in secular era, religion is not evental, we cannot take it seriously as an event. He qualifies it he says I just use Paul as an example of how the formal evental structure was. But how it was possible to happen there. So I think that this category of love is much more mysterious. What he did like, ah this I think is I think I have it in my book at the beginning, he loved that this when I linked the four German idealists to his four generic domains, you know, and claimed Kant is science, knowledge. You know, Kant defined his endeavor as to to provide the philosophy which would be at the Newtonian level. What kind of philosophy is compatible with modern Newtonian science? So Kant would be truth... Kant would be how do you call it philosophy linked to or whatever the condition of science. Fichte is clearly politics, Fichte's problem of freedom political act, politics. Schelling is art. I am not exaggerating because you know Schelling is as far as I know the only philosopher, I underline this, philosopher, not just artist, who claims the supreme medium of truth is art. Who openly claims that philosophy comes second as in... and Hegel is love. And we can say this because the category of love is central and so on and so on. But let me go on. So when you said Knight of the World and so on, here my difference would have been the following one. Here I see the difference. I think and again I'm so sad I will appear brutal exploiting again referring to Alenka. Fuck you, you cannot read it, it's only in Slovene, where she also she accepts Badiou's claim that event as the real in its brutality it's not enough, you need a nomination, you need to nominate the event. But she does something that Alain doesn't do it at least not clearly. She introduces here the distinction, although they are the same but the function is totally different, between master signifier and what Lacan calls S(A) barred signifier of the barred other. And for Alenka the event is this naming, when you provide the signifier of the inconsistency of the big other. When you name properly the antagonism the real which defines a certain field like class struggle or whatever. And the idea being that when this turns into a new master signifier you already de-eventalize it lose it and so on. This goes to another question that you raised. Like the furthest even furthest than Badiou here he goes that young Italian good friend of mine also Lacanian Lorenzo Chiesa who says fuck it there will always be master signifier obscene superego fantasy we cannot... okay but I have a problem with this. I claim that what Badiou calls the communist hypothesis, my god it must be a hypothesis that discourse of the master, the link to a master is not the ultimate social link, that there is a possibility of being together collectively which is not as it were sustained by a master. I think if we drop this then we are back to Miller, you know. Ultimately we have to accept the master all we can do is just take it as a game not seriously. So again, to be very precise, my solution would be that... let's say you have... you know what... let me put it clearly. Let's say a very naive example, but let's say a political system is in a crisis, no? And if we take this crisis in a pre-evental way, it means we describe it as you know: the system fails, blah blah blah. But the crucial point is when you make this almost I'm tempted to say Hegelian-Marxist turn and when you say: no, these failures, crises, are not simply failures of the system system in these failures the truth of the system appears. You know this is what people don't notice it often Freud and Marx share. For Marx, crises are not some malfunctioning of capitalism, in crises the basic antagonism of capitalism becomes visible, they are necessary. The same for Freud. Symptoms are not some local malfunctionings with... no, symptoms are the truth of normality. And so again to provide the name for this necessity, why why failures are structurally necessary because as it were the big other itself is failed. This would be for me an act of political nomination, when politics is based on this nomination. And here I had a big conflict with Ernesto Laclau because the problem I find, and he himself I quote him in the big triple orgy book, me Laclau and Judith Butler, namely Ernesto Laclau is for as we all know populism as the new name that we should use blah blah, but he himself quotes I think the example is from some populisms like British Chartists and Peronism and I deeply agree with him but to me it seems that he simply doesn't draw the consequences for me that populist politics is always the politics of failure. Like things are basically okay but some bad guys, Jews, traitors, foreigners, intrude that and screw it up. And he himself gives wonderful examples of for example the Chartists in England. This was their limitation. They claimed that the corrupted noblemen and new capitalist destroyed, corrupted the old order. You know that in other words, the crack, the failure is not in the order as such, it's an accidental corruption. So what is to do is to re-establish the proper order. No, and for me again, the event is to find a name like one of the names would have been I don't know social antagonism, class struggle, conflict which clearly locates the obstacle, the cause of failure into the order itself. And this is the same argument you have against the Foucaultian Agamben: resistance to dispositif versus I guess yours would be a more like a a radical... like that's actually a question I have from that last chapter, which is this positioning that you have towards the I guess you could say what Badiou calls the third generation Foucaultians that are simply seeking to operate within you know local sites of resistance to... yeah, but would you agree or not? Now we can talk also, you know I always worry that we are the three madmen here you know and that you are not interested. If you know a little bit about Michel Foucault and no irony in what I said, very sincere now, probably many of you at least you know better Foucault than me, I always thought that there is a big shift from *History of Sexuality* volume and volumes And that this tension is there already even in his early works on madness. It was very well described by Derrida, although I'm not dismissing Foucault, he is nonetheless the defense of his reading of Descartes is wonderfully done, but nonetheless. Namely, you know the oscillation that you find in early Foucault *Histoire de la folie* and so on is that on the one hand he says "I want to describe", he openly has this pathetics, Derrida quotes this "vaski", that till now madness was described only from the external standpoint of disciplinary mechanisms of power, scientist. I want, and this is of course where Derrida goes banana, orgasm, and he is right critically against him, he says that I want madness itself to speak. Not just how it is. But at the same time he makes it clear, that's the whole point of his history of madness, that madness substantially in itself is not an in-itself which is simply then described different way but that it's to put it bluntly madness in its reality is an effect of mechanisms of madness. And you know that's the whole point of Foucault's history of madness, you know how so-called madmen which were prior to modernity located clearly in the domain of hermeneutics. It was either you were a divine madman, wisdom spoke through you, or maybe you were devil-like witches spoke through you. But the point is that till modernity madness was clearly located into hermeneutics. Madmen are people through which some higher truth, which can also be very evil but nonetheless, speaks there. With modernity it becomes simply like positive science. Something went wrong with the brain blah blah, we incarcerate them and so on and so on. So I claim that you find even more this in his later works on power where... and correct me if I'm right, I'm not sure... but the way I see it is that in, um, what's the subtitle of *History of Sexuality* is it "volonté"? No. "Will to knowledge"? No. *Will to Knowledge*. Yeah, *La volonté de savoir*. Yeah. That there as it were in both, okay I put it in this way, in both cases, volume one and then all that care of self and so on, volumes two and three, the focus is on the tension or relationship between power and resistance as counter-power. But the whole accent of number one of is how power generates resistance to itself and resistance to power is just a means for power to reproduce itself more effectively. You know and Foucault gives also propos sexuality these examples which are wonderful, I read some of the texts, you know early Christian texts which tried to eradicate sin. They were the best sex manuals you can imagine, because you know the typical early second third century Christian text says "beware" and then they describe: if a girl pretends to be shameful, she says "no, no," but she loves at you in a way in which she apparently rejects you but this rejection is already an attempt, you know like they give you an entire wonderful classification of techniques. So again here or he he, you know Badiou goes so far as to say the man to be liberated that power itself generates the man to be liberated. So here the whole accent is of to use the naive term omnipotence of power. Resistance is part of power, the circle is closed here, at least in this volume. I don't find any space for great, how should I call it, activity of liberation or however we call it. It's simply the game is closed. Resistance is in advance incorporated and so on. Then all of a sudden, okay all of a sudden maybe not, in volume two and three he is looking at as it were islands, spaces of resistance, "ligne de fuite" to use but I think this is a precise Deleuzian term which shouldn't be used here, and he has all this, did you notice how here also Foucault rehabilitates the notion of subject?
unknown
Subject as technology of, which is not meant in a bad way. The idea is that through some kind of self-education, self-relating, you can acquire a distance resist. But here the accent is strictly on resistance, like we can resist blah blah, it's no longer this co-optive pessimism. And I find this is my problem with Judith Butler, you know. She always speaks the language of resistance, basically pessimist. In the sense of: the big other of power is here, we can just occupy spaces resist blah blah all that. But I don't see how she breaks out
Subject as technology of, which is not meant in a bad way. The idea is that through some kind of self-education, self-relating, you can acquire a distance resist. But here the accent is strictly on resistance, like we can resist blah blah, it's no longer this co-optive pessimism. And I find this is my problem with Judith Butler, you know. She always speaks the language of resistance, basically pessimist. In the sense of: the big other of power is here, we can just occupy spaces resist blah blah all that. But I don't see how she breaks out
Slavoj Žižek
of this Foucaultian dilemma. But what about if we play the early Foucault against the late Foucault and say: but how how is it that now we have resistances which are not just counter-power and as such part of repro... you know which is his big example of this, very nice one? He says: that's the big point of *History of Sexuality* volume one, no? That sexuality is not the expression of sex, but as he puts it: sex is an effect, real sex, how we do it, of the discourses we have on sexuality. And as he makes it clear there with these discourses he means he means disciplinary disciplinary disciplinary discourses. In other words, it's almost I would say a Paulinian, St. Paul, point about transgression, that every discourse of power generates the very transgression it fights. Okay, the problem for me is how to bring this... this is where I admit I disagree with all this, how do you call it, with all this Foucaultian line. I don't like, maybe I'm wrong, the term "resistance". Because you know, resistance has all this marginal marginalist rather connotation of, "Ooh the big other is there, we can just play the game, screw it a little bit, twist it and so on and so on." But basically, you know we can do a little bit of irony, displacement, performative fun, repetitiveness, but the system is out there. Sorry, you strike back. I talk too much. Last one. Um. I want to think your politics in relation to Badiou's subtractive model, precisely you you wrote "one cannot ever be sure in advance of what appears within the register in the space of visibility of the ruling ideology as a minor measure, which that actually minor measure may set in motion a process that will lead to the radical evental transformation of the whole field." So if we put that... sorry, just to interrupt but friendly. You know that here you quoted him before, Adrian Johnston. He wrote an excellent friendly internal just to ameliorate him critique of Badiou where I think he made wonderfully this point of how Badiou just focuses on event and then reactions to the event. Yeah. But then it can be this Badiou, I think it's he's not stupid what he's saying there that, without without claiming that we can simply plan an event. Yeah. But there is a whole pre-evental strategy. Yeah. Well it seems that your interpassive, your interpassive, you know the Robert Pfaller notion of the interpassive subject is almost commensurate with Badiou's pre-evental, you know atonal world, um, still caught within the matrices of the situation, the ruling situation. At the same time I've noticed that there seems to be this move of "we must gamble at ruptures within the the status, the state as such." But in the portion on ethics at the end of *Logics of Worlds*, he has this notion where he says, um, let me find the actual quote. "What corrupts a subject is the process of treating as a possible consequence of an event what is in fact not a consequence. In brief, it's a matter of logical arrogance for there is no reason why the intensity of existence should be identical to the totality of the world." So it seems that Badiou is, um, even more insistent on sort of playing the subtractive game. And my my response is simply where does this leave particularly in the West? And I honestly think that *The Rebirth of History* seems to almost fetishize almost this this moment of universality. And we were talking over lunch, is, even though Occupy didn't happen when he wrote that text, um, is universality opened from Tahrir Square and so on, would that be something that could be maybe the generic that was picked up by the "we are the Zuccotti Park, etc. Hmm? It's a very nice question. So let me go... let me go on here. There is a key theoretical problem for me here, but I will enter it later. And let me tell you that although I all ah who did, we all supported Tahrir Square, Occupy Wall Street and so on and so on. But I must say I don't share this Alain's naive optimism, it is the universal event blah blah blah. I'm... I think it's still open, you know? I'm ready to do something for which maybe Badiou would have criticized me as a kind of a almost postmodern relativist. I'm claiming that there are things which I'm ready to extend retroactive logic even here, and claim something happens and retroactively it can be decided if it is an event or not. Yeah well he seems to oscillate, arguing maybe it's a weak singularity by putting it in relation to in Europe where it yeah yeah some sort of like cobbled together uh thing in which had no nomination, there's no nomination. Yeah, yeah. So I think I think perhaps the two positions are commensurate, but I think where he gets naive is this notion of the breaking of the social bond and the generic that was experienced and so on. Yeah. I... I'm questionable. No, but you know what is absolutely important when you said this logical arrogance that everything is the consequence of, um, the misjudging of what is a... yeah yeah yeah. If I got it correctly and from the beginning I have problems here, for me this was almost the Kantian soft... ah here, in this room years ago when he was explaining the notion of forçage, forcing an event. And he used this category precisely propos Stalinism. For him forcing an event is to impose the logic of event as immediately the logic of being. And this for him of course is, for example Stalinism, this is already socialist state is the order of being and so on and so on. What I don't like is how here in this room and later he was very careful to cover his traces, you know I noticed how from the transcription of the test of the text of his speech that passage disappeared. But KGB comrade Alain and me we have our black book, you know? That he used the term "this is the totalitarian temptation, this logical arrogance," you know? I think there is something totally wrong in saying Stalin instead of treating Communist vision as more an evental, even sometimes Alain... really here I was a little bit mad at him because I once accused him that this idea, no logical arrogance, don't translate event immediately into the order of being, that this is his Kantian side, you know? That basically what he claims is that an event in its consequences
of this Foucaultian dilemma. But what about if we play the early Foucault against the late Foucault and say: but how how is it that now we have resistances which are not just counter-power and as such part of repro... you know which is his big example of this, very nice one? He says: that's the big point of *History of Sexuality* volume one, no? That sexuality is not the expression of sex, but as he puts it: sex is an effect, real sex, how we do it, of the discourses we have on sexuality. And as he makes it clear there with these discourses he means he means disciplinary disciplinary disciplinary discourses. In other words, it's almost I would say a Paulinian, St. Paul, point about transgression, that every discourse of power generates the very transgression it fights. Okay, the problem for me is how to bring this... this is where I admit I disagree with all this, how do you call it, with all this Foucaultian line. I don't like, maybe I'm wrong, the term "resistance". Because you know, resistance has all this marginal marginalist rather connotation of, "Ooh the big other is there, we can just play the game, screw it a little bit, twist it and so on and so on." But basically, you know we can do a little bit of irony, displacement, performative fun, repetitiveness, but the system is out there. Sorry, you strike back. I talk too much. Last one. Um. I want to think your politics in relation to Badiou's subtractive model, precisely you you wrote "one cannot ever be sure in advance of what appears within the register in the space of visibility of the ruling ideology as a minor measure, which that actually minor measure may set in motion a process that will lead to the radical evental transformation of the whole field." So if we put that... sorry, just to interrupt but friendly. You know that here you quoted him before, Adrian Johnston. He wrote an excellent friendly internal just to ameliorate him critique of Badiou where I think he made wonderfully this point of how Badiou just focuses on event and then reactions to the event. Yeah. But then it can be this Badiou, I think it's he's not stupid what he's saying there that, without without claiming that we can simply plan an event. Yeah. But there is a whole pre-evental strategy. Yeah. Well it seems that your interpassive, your interpassive, you know the Robert Pfaller notion of the interpassive subject is almost commensurate with Badiou's pre-evental, you know atonal world, um, still caught within the matrices of the situation, the ruling situation. At the same time I've noticed that there seems to be this move of "we must gamble at ruptures within the the status, the state as such." But in the portion on ethics at the end of *Logics of Worlds*, he has this notion where he says, um, let me find the actual quote. "What corrupts a subject is the process of treating as a possible consequence of an event what is in fact not a consequence. In brief, it's a matter of logical arrogance for there is no reason why the intensity of existence should be identical to the totality of the world." So it seems that Badiou is, um, even more insistent on sort of playing the subtractive game. And my my response is simply where does this leave particularly in the West? And I honestly think that *The Rebirth of History* seems to almost fetishize almost this this moment of universality. And we were talking over lunch, is, even though Occupy didn't happen when he wrote that text, um, is universality opened from Tahrir Square and so on, would that be something that could be maybe the generic that was picked up by the "we are the Zuccotti Park, etc. Hmm? It's a very nice question. So let me go... let me go on here. There is a key theoretical problem for me here, but I will enter it later. And let me tell you that although I all ah who did, we all supported Tahrir Square, Occupy Wall Street and so on and so on. But I must say I don't share this Alain's naive optimism, it is the universal event blah blah blah. I'm... I think it's still open, you know? I'm ready to do something for which maybe Badiou would have criticized me as a kind of a almost postmodern relativist. I'm claiming that there are things which I'm ready to extend retroactive logic even here, and claim something happens and retroactively it can be decided if it is an event or not. Yeah well he seems to oscillate, arguing maybe it's a weak singularity by putting it in relation to in Europe where it yeah yeah some sort of like cobbled together uh thing in which had no nomination, there's no nomination. Yeah, yeah. So I think I think perhaps the two positions are commensurate, but I think where he gets naive is this notion of the breaking of the social bond and the generic that was experienced and so on. Yeah. I... I'm questionable. No, but you know what is absolutely important when you said this logical arrogance that everything is the consequence of, um, the misjudging of what is a... yeah yeah yeah. If I got it correctly and from the beginning I have problems here, for me this was almost the Kantian soft... ah here, in this room years ago when he was explaining the notion of forçage, forcing an event. And he used this category precisely propos Stalinism. For him forcing an event is to impose the logic of event as immediately the logic of being. And this for him of course is, for example Stalinism, this is already socialist state is the order of being and so on and so on. What I don't like is how here in this room and later he was very careful to cover his traces, you know I noticed how from the transcription of the test of the text of his speech that passage disappeared. But KGB comrade Alain and me we have our black book, you know? That he used the term "this is the totalitarian temptation, this logical arrogance," you know? I think there is something totally wrong in saying Stalin instead of treating Communist vision as more an evental, even sometimes Alain... really here I was a little bit mad at him because I once accused him that this idea, no logical arrogance, don't translate event immediately into the order of being, that this is his Kantian side, you know? That basically what he claims is that an event in its consequences
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has more a what Kant would have put regulative use as an idea and that the Stalinist or this totalitarian
has more a what Kant would have put regulative use as an idea and that the Stalinist or this totalitarian
Slavoj Žižek
arrogant mistake is to take what is merely regulative as constitutive, directly structuring reality. And once he publicly attacked me and said this is totally wrong I misunderstood it never never did I use it. Well I didn't do it, he's my friend, but I was there fuck the book you mentioned. I think it's in one or two, I think it's *Manifesto for Philosophy He explicitly makes a reference to Kant's
arrogant mistake is to take what is merely regulative as constitutive, directly structuring reality. And once he publicly attacked me and said this is totally wrong I misunderstood it never never did I use it. Well I didn't do it, he's my friend, but I was there fuck the book you mentioned. I think it's in one or two, I think it's *Manifesto for Philosophy He explicitly makes a reference to Kant's
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regulative idea saying that you know the communist idea eventually's like a regulative idea and so on and so on. So what I'm saying is here I'm more a Hegelian in what sense? Okay. It's to explain horrors of Stalinism, it's too simple to claim almost that Stalin was too fanatically arrogantly faithful to the Communist idea, you know? Like he wanted to impose it too directly brutally. No! My point is that Stalin didn't nominated it correctly. I mean... what's the problem with forcing? If you have a true idea, fuck it, you force and enforce it as much as you want. I mean something I cannot quite I cannot quite gather there. No, now we will have to finish, but we will have the last two, you owe me kick into the head and if you have a concluding talk and if someone... like join the gang all of you if you want... ay, you didn't. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for myself because I only focus on this center-rightist and didn't take into account radical left, please, yeah. Well just coming back to this question, uh I see Occupy Wall Street and then Tahrir Square and the movements that
regulative idea saying that you know the communist idea eventually's like a regulative idea and so on and so on. So what I'm saying is here I'm more a Hegelian in what sense? Okay. It's to explain horrors of Stalinism, it's too simple to claim almost that Stalin was too fanatically arrogantly faithful to the Communist idea, you know? Like he wanted to impose it too directly brutally. No! My point is that Stalin didn't nominated it correctly. I mean... what's the problem with forcing? If you have a true idea, fuck it, you force and enforce it as much as you want. I mean something I cannot quite I cannot quite gather there. No, now we will have to finish, but we will have the last two, you owe me kick into the head and if you have a concluding talk and if someone... like join the gang all of you if you want... ay, you didn't. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for myself because I only focus on this center-rightist and didn't take into account radical left, please, yeah. Well just coming back to this question, uh I see Occupy Wall Street and then Tahrir Square and the movements that
Slavoj Žižek
were happening as what at the beginning of the course I call blank revolutions. Yeah. Uh as more as a point de capiton rather than an event. Really? In what sense? Because... sorry to counteract you immediately, but my problem is that in in so far as we call point de capiton that master signifier which introduces a new order. What would you say if I tell you wasn't point de capiton precisely missing? You know, things were happening,
were happening as what at the beginning of the course I call blank revolutions. Yeah. Uh as more as a point de capiton rather than an event. Really? In what sense? Because... sorry to counteract you immediately, but my problem is that in in so far as we call point de capiton that master signifier which introduces a new order. What would you say if I tell you wasn't point de capiton precisely missing? You know, things were happening,
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but we don't have one name which would organize... isn't it a little bit like that's why I like our movie stars? I love him, that's why I'm so brutal example yesterday because I like your term, I will use it and then you know how I will use it. You will get a small um remark. No. After I introduce the terms a friend of mine I noticed after finishing
but we don't have one name which would organize... isn't it a little bit like that's why I like our movie stars? I love him, that's why I'm so brutal example yesterday because I like your term, I will use it and then you know how I will use it. You will get a small um remark. No. After I introduce the terms a friend of mine I noticed after finishing
Slavoj Žižek
this book this is how we academics like... seriously, I love your term, again I forgot it, blank... blank revolution. Yeah. Didn't he provide a wonderful early example even the most tragic one? And yesterday evening I did go I did Google it and it's really, it's so tragic. This is maybe even already at the beginning before October Revolution, Mexican Revolution. You remember how he described it and I checked what happened? From the north Pancho Villa, from the south Zapata, they occupied Mexico City. They had power. And you know what happened then? They were debating and talking for a week or two, they didn't know what to do and then they said, "Let's go home." I mean it's so absurd you know there... and so again, please go on. Uh yes, because in my opinion what happened... I can't speak about Occupy because I'm not really into Occupy but I can speak of what's happening in in the Middle East. Yeah, at least. Well uh uh in the sense that uh you just said that they lack a master signifier in this point... more or less, yeah. No, but master signifier in this strict sense, you know, something that really restructures the whole field and totalizes it. Do you think they have it? I don't think so. I I think they have it, but they have it in a back to what we said yesterday as they they don't know that they know that they have it. Oh that's wonderful, can you can you make it more concrete, like? Yes, because because what they're in a way I think I believe that what they're calling in the name of, what they're calling themselves, what they're trying to do as as a revolution is not actually what they're standing for as a revolution and it's not the revolution needed or the event needed to have this change. And uh the realization of this will come after they realize again like in Mexico that they can't just do anything, they have to go home again. And then just uh if you want go back again and then uh sort of ready themselves for the second revolution which is the true revolution, which would be as again at one point in your book I think I don't remember who says this but then you quote him as saying that uh the October revolution is just a repetition of the French Revolution. No no, this was their own mythology, Lenin perceived it like this you know as repetition of even Badiou says this, Jacobins and later Paris Commune. Lenin always spoke in these terms. Sorry, so I think it's in this it's in this sense in my opinion. Yeah but you know where comes my pessimism? I am a radical leftist revolution all you want, but uh now we are coming back
this book this is how we academics like... seriously, I love your term, again I forgot it, blank... blank revolution. Yeah. Didn't he provide a wonderful early example even the most tragic one? And yesterday evening I did go I did Google it and it's really, it's so tragic. This is maybe even already at the beginning before October Revolution, Mexican Revolution. You remember how he described it and I checked what happened? From the north Pancho Villa, from the south Zapata, they occupied Mexico City. They had power. And you know what happened then? They were debating and talking for a week or two, they didn't know what to do and then they said, "Let's go home." I mean it's so absurd you know there... and so again, please go on. Uh yes, because in my opinion what happened... I can't speak about Occupy because I'm not really into Occupy but I can speak of what's happening in in the Middle East. Yeah, at least. Well uh uh in the sense that uh you just said that they lack a master signifier in this point... more or less, yeah. No, but master signifier in this strict sense, you know, something that really restructures the whole field and totalizes it. Do you think they have it? I don't think so. I I think they have it, but they have it in a back to what we said yesterday as they they don't know that they know that they have it. Oh that's wonderful, can you can you make it more concrete, like? Yes, because because what they're in a way I think I believe that what they're calling in the name of, what they're calling themselves, what they're trying to do as as a revolution is not actually what they're standing for as a revolution and it's not the revolution needed or the event needed to have this change. And uh the realization of this will come after they realize again like in Mexico that they can't just do anything, they have to go home again. And then just uh if you want go back again and then uh sort of ready themselves for the second revolution which is the true revolution, which would be as again at one point in your book I think I don't remember who says this but then you quote him as saying that uh the October revolution is just a repetition of the French Revolution. No no, this was their own mythology, Lenin perceived it like this you know as repetition of even Badiou says this, Jacobins and later Paris Commune. Lenin always spoke in these terms. Sorry, so I think it's in this it's in this sense in my opinion. Yeah but you know where comes my pessimism? I am a radical leftist revolution all you want, but uh now we are coming back
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to that guy whom I quoted, T.J. Clark, you know, who said these last couple of years were the greatest fiasco, like rebellions all around but as he said they turn out into blank
to that guy whom I quoted, T.J. Clark, you know, who said these last couple of years were the greatest fiasco, like rebellions all around but as he said they turn out into blank
Slavoj Žižek
revolutions, no? and so on and so on. Now what I'm tempted to say here is that what if and even and Clark develops this. He uses a wonderfully ironic reference to China, he says that even those pro-democratic anti-totalitarian leftists, they all act as if we should be ready they expect some big moment when finally not the Stalinist party, not the social-democratic uh corrupted combat, some the true working class of agents will stand up and finally it will be the authentic event, you know. He uses this wonderful phrase of how referring to China the the terracotta army proletarian which is waiting there will finally get up and I'm tempted to agree with him, what if... and even uh Negri and Hardt do this, they describe I had a nice maybe I repeated sorry I had a nice debate by them by him by Negri himself in Berlin later first public then private, where I asked him a simple question
revolutions, no? and so on and so on. Now what I'm tempted to say here is that what if and even and Clark develops this. He uses a wonderfully ironic reference to China, he says that even those pro-democratic anti-totalitarian leftists, they all act as if we should be ready they expect some big moment when finally not the Stalinist party, not the social-democratic uh corrupted combat, some the true working class of agents will stand up and finally it will be the authentic event, you know. He uses this wonderful phrase of how referring to China the the terracotta army proletarian which is waiting there will finally get up and I'm tempted to agree with him, what if... and even uh Negri and Hardt do this, they describe I had a nice maybe I repeated sorry I had a nice debate by them by him by Negri himself in Berlin later first public then private, where I asked him a simple question
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which is uh
which is uh
Slavoj Žižek
all his examples of multitude are examples which I claim inherently demand ask for a very well-functioning state which
all his examples of multitude are examples which I claim inherently demand ask for a very well-functioning state which
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guarantees law and order, you know? Then they always it's so mysterious at the end of the second volume I think *Multitudes*, they Hardt and Negri I quote this in my book or already in an old version, they say the moment will come where multitude will not be just this marginal resistance but will take over the entire field. And then they say: now we of course we cannot explain how this will happen because this is a philosophical book, no? They take a too easy way out, the only reference they give is San Francisco, you know, an escape into religion, like a miracle and so on. What if we have to drop this? What if really we maybe this event as the big
guarantees law and order, you know? Then they always it's so mysterious at the end of the second volume I think *Multitudes*, they Hardt and Negri I quote this in my book or already in an old version, they say the moment will come where multitude will not be just this marginal resistance but will take over the entire field. And then they say: now we of course we cannot explain how this will happen because this is a philosophical book, no? They take a too easy way out, the only reference they give is San Francisco, you know, an escape into religion, like a miracle and so on. What if we have to drop this? What if really we maybe this event as the big
Slavoj Žižek
revolutionary event is not the right notion of event. You know this metaphysical end of time, there will be a mega revolution and so on. Maybe maybe events function in a different way, authentic political events. Maybe and why do I like this guy? Again I repeat myself I know T.J. Clark. Because he says no this doesn't mean system is powerful it will go on function, it says I agree there'll be worse crisis, there will be wars, there will be chaos. What he's saying is that there will be no there will not be this magic moment where out of this chaos of revolt force a united organized by a new master signifier revolutionary agent will emerge, you know? Maybe we should change here the field. I don't want to be a rapist, the lady is here so maybe we should how do they call it in English, call it a day or at least call it an afternoon, no? and uh I will as I promised you tomorrow and later just give me some time so that I organize, we'll have time if nothing else we are here on Friday to go on, no? I'm sorry so my
revolutionary event is not the right notion of event. You know this metaphysical end of time, there will be a mega revolution and so on. Maybe maybe events function in a different way, authentic political events. Maybe and why do I like this guy? Again I repeat myself I know T.J. Clark. Because he says no this doesn't mean system is powerful it will go on function, it says I agree there'll be worse crisis, there will be wars, there will be chaos. What he's saying is that there will be no there will not be this magic moment where out of this chaos of revolt force a united organized by a new master signifier revolutionary agent will emerge, you know? Maybe we should change here the field. I don't want to be a rapist, the lady is here so maybe we should how do they call it in English, call it a day or at least call it an afternoon, no? and uh I will as I promised you tomorrow and later just give me some time so that I organize, we'll have time if nothing else we are here on Friday to go on, no? I'm sorry so my
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lady...
lady...