Cambridge Union
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2018-11-10 · 1:17:29 · 9,989 words
ideologypsychoanalysissubjectivitysexuality-genderliberalism-political-correctnessdemocracyreligion-theologyhegel-dialecticstechnology-ai-cyberspacerevolution-violencefascism-populismcommunism-socialismphilosophy-general
Žižek delivers a lecture at Cambridge (likely the Union) ranging across subjectivity, ideology critique, and contemporary politics. He begins with a Hegelian reinterpretation of the LGBT+ symbol, arguing that the 'plus' names radical subjectivity itself, the constitutive self-questioning that defines the human subject against pervert fixity. He then attacks populism, political correctness, and Jungian wisdom, before fielding Q&A on Jordan Peterson, Trump, identity politics, digital control, and revolutionary strategy, concluding with a Trotskyist thought experiment about seizing infrastructural 'knots' of modern state power.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 15
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “subject as plus”
Žižek reinterprets the '+' in LGBT+ as the position of radical subjectivity, the empty, unidentified remainder that refuses any fixed identity and constitutively questions it.
Althusserian mechanism by which ideology hails individuals into specific identities (woman, Muslim, feminist), which Žižek uses as the backdrop against which the hysterical 'plus' asserts itself.
The basic subjective posture of questioning the master's interpellation ('why am I what you say I am?'), which Žižek identifies as the constitutive stance of subjectivity as such.
as “perversion (as political position)”
The position of the subject who does not question their identity but acts as a perfect instrument of power, certain they know better than others what is good for them, the subjective structure of totalitarianism.
Implicitly present in the argument about 'who is this guy to say he is also nobody', the symbolic order that arbitrates who may claim universality.
as “plus-de-jouir (surplus enjoyment)”
Lacanian concept invoked to describe the libidinal profit white self-humiliating liberals gain from renouncing particular identity, their self-abasement grants them the position of universal judge.
as “victimhood as power”
The paradox whereby adopting the position of victim or the most marginal group enhances one's position in social power structures rather than diminishing it.
Žižek argues that ideology critique must be renewed beyond the old Marxist opium-of-the-people formula, treating ideology as the very texture of daily experience rather than an external imposition.
as “opium of the people (doubled)”
Žižek's update of Marx: the two new opiums of the people are (1) actual drugs/psychopharmaceuticals that prop up daily functioning, and (2) 'the people' itself, populism as ideological narcotic.
as “cupola (privileged universe)”
Žižek's term for the enclosed sphere of the global privileged from which whole countries and populations are excluded yet simultaneously integrated into capital (e.g., Congo).
as “authentically alienated society”
Žižek's counter-utopia: a well-functioning bureaucratic state where individuals are properly alienated (not immersed in communal micro-management), contrasted with the leftist communitarian fantasy.
as “cultural Marxism (as conspiracy theory)”
Žižek analyses 'cultural Marxism' not as a reality but as a right-wing conspiracy narrative, and argues that contemporary political correctness fails precisely because it is NOT Marxist, it displaces economic questions into cultural ones.
as “wisdom as opportunism”
Žižek's polemic concept: 'wisdom' is inherently empty because its proverbs can justify any outcome ex post facto, making it the opposite of genuine philosophical or ethical thought.
as “un-freedom experienced as freedom”
The signature form of contemporary ideology: precarious work, digital surveillance, and algorithmic control present themselves as liberation and self-reinvention, making domination invisible.
Žižek adapts Trotsky/Malaparte's idea that modern states have infrastructural nodes (electricity, water, railways, communications) whose seizure by small dedicated groups can paralyze the whole, a model for contemporary revolutionary strategy.
Stories he reaches for 4
British/American toilets float waste in water (pragmatic compromise), German toilets present it on a shelf for inspection (metaphysical contemplation), French toilets flush it away instantly (revolutionary liquidation). Žižek uses this to show that ideology persists in the most mundane design choices, invisible as such.
“German are poets and metaphysicians you know like observe shit analyze it”
When the audience applauds, Žižek tells them to wait until 'we old hardliners take power, then you will have to applaud a lot, so spare your energy for people's democracy.'
“wait a minute till we old hardliners left take power then you will have to applaud a lot so spare your energy for people's democracy”
Within days of winning a referendum against austerity, Syriza became 'perfect executors of the most brutal austerity.' Žižek treats this not as betrayal but as symptom of the left's genuine lack of any vision beyond critique.
“two three days after winning their anti-austerity referendum they adopted the stance of becoming a perfect executors of the most brutal austerity”
A woman asking a man 'why do you love me?' has no satisfactory answer: any list of reasons is not love; yet the reasons only make sense if you are already in love. This parallels religious faith, you only understand the reasons from inside belief.
“the moment you give reasons it's not love or it's much more delicate”
Works invoked 3
A recently read book (author forgotten) that investigates the self-justifying narratives Nazis told themselves; Žižek uses it to support his skepticism about empathetic 'understanding' of perpetrators.
Žižek describes it as a 'wonderful book' and uses Malaparte's account of Trotsky's seizure of infrastructure nodes as the central model for his proposal on contemporary revolutionary strategy.
Žižek mentions having published a recent piece there on digital control and ideology, calling it 'the only one who wants to publish me.'
People invoked 21
Vladimir Lenin positive
Mentioned in passing as part of Bolshevik leadership that was more conventional than Trotsky in thinking about revolution; also referenced in the conspiracy narrative about Comintern supposedly financing Frankfurt School.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited for plus-de-jouir (surplus enjoyment) to explain the libidinal profit of white liberal self-humiliation.
Louis Althusser positive
Cited for the concept of interpellation, the mechanism by which ideology hails individuals into identities, used as the backdrop for Žižek's argument about the subject as 'plus'.
Described as 'my enemy but a little bit more honest' than Peterson on facts about violence; Žižek uses Pinker's empirical rebuttal of Peterson's violence statistics but does not endorse Pinker's overall project.
Called 'a horror' personally, but dialectically described as the symptom and accelerator of liberal consensus collapse that may create the condition for a new political settlement.
Chantal Mouffe negative
Cited as an example of left populism ('left populism') that Žižek considers a mistaken formula, a too-simple solution that he refuses to adopt.
Antonio Negri negative
Mentioned alongside Hardt for the 'multitudes' concept as another example of a too-simple left formula that Žižek is skeptical of.
Curzio Malaparte positive
Former fascist turned communist, described as providing a 'wonderful book' on revolutionary coup technique. His account of Trotsky's seizure of infrastructure nodes is the basis for Žižek's contemporary revolutionary proposal.
Leon Trotsky positive
Described as 'the true master of the October Revolution' and a genius for conceiving seizure of infrastructural nodes. Žižek proposes a neo-Trotskyist strategy for digital-age revolution.
Bernie Sanders positive
Cited as an example of democratic socialism that would not have been possible without Trump's disruption of the liberal consensus.
Julian Assange positive
Žižek defends Assange despite his problematic statements about Russia, arguing that WikiLeaks' core achievement was exposing ideological control in supposedly free digital spaces.
Yanis Varoufakis negative
Called a 'good friend I admire.' Žižek sympathizes personally but disputes Varoufakis's faith in direct democracy at EU level, arguing that authentic popular opinion on refugees is more hostile than Brussels bureaucracy, making Varoufakis's 'two weeks of open debate' utopian.
Carl Jung negative
Mentioned as the model for Peterson's wisdom-dispensing approach, which Žižek rejects entirely as belonging to the 'stupidity' of wisdom.
Elizabeth Warren negative
Used as example of the structural identity between progressive victimhood politics and Nazi racial logic, both seek to establish identity credentials through genetic/blood ancestry.
Peter Sloterdijk positive
Described as 'my right-wing friend who is not an idiot.' Žižek endorses Sloterdijk's call for 'a new culture of discretion' as the right alternative to the liberal demand for mutual understanding.
Jordan Peterson negative
Called 'our great spiritual father' ironically. Žižek criticizes his pseudo-scientific naturalism (lobsters/animal hierarchies), his embrace of the 'cultural Marxism' conspiracy theory, and his Jungian wisdom-dispensing role. Initially had 'half-understanding' of Peterson's early trans-pronoun stance before Peterson 'catastrophe emerged.'
Winston Churchill positive
Cited as an example of genuinely listening to an enemy (Hitler, in the 1930s) and correctly identifying him as an authentic enemy, in contrast to the communitarian proverb that 'an enemy is someone we were not ready to listen to.'
Joseph Stalin negative
Referenced in the conspiracy theory about 'cultural Marxism' (which Žižek debunks), and in the joke about obligatory applause under 'people's democracy.'
Plato positive
Invoked as an anti-wisdom thinker whose core insight, the traumatic mega-experience that destabilizes everyday life, parallels Christianity and genuine philosophical thought.
Socrates positive
Described via Plato's portrait as a hysteric who stood immobilized in thought, embodying the anti-wisdom, destabilizing philosophical encounter.
Michael Hardt negative
Co-author of the 'multitudes' concept, mentioned as an example of an inadequate left formula.
What it argues
The subject as constitutive plus — radical self-questioning over fixed identityPerversion versus hysteria as political-subjective stancesCritique of populism and the disintegration of liberal consensusIdeology as un-freedom experienced as freedomWisdom as opportunism; anti-wisdom of Plato and ChristianityTrotskyist seizure of infrastructural nodes as model for contemporary revolutionSurplus enjoyment in self-humiliation and victimhood politics
Dialectical moves 8
“The plus in LGBT+ is not a residual catch-all for undiscovered identities — it is itself a position, the position of subjectivity as such.”
The seemingly trivial typographic remainder turns out to name the very structure of the subject: the constitutive non-identity that resists any positive interpellation.
“Far from being the radical face of freedom, perversion is the hidden face of domination.”
What appears as transgressive or liberatory (the pervert who goes all the way) is actually the subjective structure that makes power possible, since the pervert never questions but only executes.
“The two new opiums of the people are opium and the people.”
Marx's formula is dialectically reversed: the narcotic is now literal (psychopharmaceuticals propping up daily functioning) and the ideological narcotic is populism itself, 'the people' as ideological fantasy.
“The problem with political correctness is not that it is too Marxist but precisely that it is not Marxist.”
What presents itself as radical left politics actually abandons the Marxist terrain of economic power and class by displacing everything into cultural and identitarian registers.
“Wisdom is for me by definition stupidity.”
The reversal: accumulated practical wisdom is the most intellectually dishonest posture because its proverbs are purely retrospective and can justify any outcome, the very opposite of philosophical rigor.
“The problem of Stalinism was precisely that it never was able to establish a well-functioning bureaucracy.”
Against the left cliché that Stalinism was an excess of bureaucratic control, Žižek inverts: it was a failure of bureaucratization, hence the constant resort to terror and emergency.
“Your un-freedom [is] falsely experienced as a new form of freedom.”
The deepest ideological trick of late capitalism is not repression but inversion: the very forms of precarity and surveillance present themselves as liberation, making domination invisible.
“To understand a criminal means simply to listen to the myths he tells himself to justify what he is doing.”
The humanist impulse to 'understand' evil collapses into complicity: understanding here means reproducing the perpetrator's self-serving narrative rather than gaining any independent critical purchase.
Claims 20
reframes
The 'plus' in LGBT+ should be read not as an open empirical list of identities but as the position of radical subjectivity itself — the empty self-questioning that is constitutive of the human subject.LGBT+ identity politics and subjectivity
asserts
Perversion, not hysteria, is the subjective structure underlying domination and totalitarianism: the pervert knows better than others what is good for them and does not question their role.perversion as political structure
asserts
White liberal self-humiliation — the renunciation of particular identity on grounds of colonial guilt — secretly produces a surplus enjoyment and grants its practitioners a position of universal judgment over others.white liberal self-abasement and surplus enjoyment
asserts
The two new 'opiums of the people' are actual drugs/psychopharmaceuticals (which people now require to function) and 'the people' itself — i.e., populism.ideology critique / Marx's formula
rejects
Left populism is not an adequate response to the right because populism always constructs a personalized enemy and flatters popular opinion rather than subjecting it to ideological critique.left populism as strategy
reframes
Trump is not the enemy; the true enemy is the failure of the liberal democratic consensus of recent decades — Trump is a symptom and accelerator of its disintegration.Trump and the crisis of liberal democracy
asserts
No Bernie Sanders or democratic socialism without Trump — Trump's disruption of consensus creates the conditions for a genuinely new political settlement.the dialectical function of Trump
reframes
Political correctness fails not because it is too Marxist but precisely because it is not Marxist enough: it displaces questions of economic power and class into cultural-identitarian problems.political correctness and cultural Marxism
asserts
Wisdom is by definition opportunism and stupidity: its proverbs justify any outcome retrospectively and represent the opposite of genuine philosophical or ethical thought.wisdom vs. philosophy
asserts
Both Plato and Christianity are fundamentally anti-wisdom in that they affirm the traumatic, destabilizing event (love, religious conversion, philosophical insight) that disrupts the circular economy of prudence.Plato and Christianity vs. wisdom traditions
rejects
The preferred leftist utopia of non-alienated participatory community is a nightmare; the authentic political goal should be a well-functioning, genuinely alienated bureaucratic state.communitarian political utopia
reframes
The problem of Stalinism was precisely that it never succeeded in establishing a well-functioning bureaucracy, which is why it had to resort to permanent purges and emergency states.Stalinism
asserts
Today's most dangerous ideology operates by presenting new forms of un-freedom (precarious work, digital surveillance) as new forms of freedom and self-reinvention.contemporary ideology and digital control
reframes
To 'understand' a criminal or oppressor means only to listen to the self-justifying myths they tell themselves, not to access any deeper truth — radical understanding of evil is not a moral virtue.empathy, understanding enemies, ethics
asserts
Contemporary left lacks a genuine vision of what a post-liberal order would look like; Syriza's capitulation to austerity after winning an anti-austerity referendum is the emblematic symptom of this deadlock.the left's theoretical deadlock
rejects
Jordan Peterson's use of animal dominance hierarchies to justify human social arrangements leads logically to the conclusion that humanity itself — with its ideals of equality and freedom — is unnatural.Jordan Peterson's naturalist conservatism
asserts
Technologies are not inherently ideologically oriented but are always a battlefield; the key contemporary struggle is over who controls digital space.technology and ideology
asserts
Revolutionary strategy today should follow Trotsky's model of seizing key infrastructural nodes (electricity, communications, transport) rather than mobilizing mass popular gatherings.revolutionary strategy in the digital age
asserts
Our first task as intellectuals is not to propose solutions but to raise the right questions, since the way a problem is formulated is almost always already part of the mystification.the role of intellectuals and ideology critique
reframes
True tolerance is not mutual understanding but acceptance of irreducible otherness — one should resign oneself to not understanding the other, since one does not even understand oneself.tolerance and multiculturalism
Quotes 12
“Subject is a plus at its most basic. The moment you identify with a certain position to put it in clinical terms you fall into what is called pervert's position.”Slavoj Žižek · subjectivity as constitutive non-identity
“A pervert knows better than you what is good for you and like Stalinist communist we know better than people themselves what is good for the people.”Slavoj Žižek · perversion as structure of totalitarian domination
“The two new opiums of the people are opium and the people.”Slavoj Žižek · doubled opium formula — drugs and populism
“Wisdom is for me by definition stupidity.”Slavoj Žižek · anti-wisdom thesis
“The way we formulate a problem is as a rule already part of the mystification.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology critique — problem-formulation as mystification
“Your un-freedom experienced as falsely experienced as a new form of freedom. This is how it all works from late sixties onwards.”Slavoj Žižek · contemporary ideology as inverted unfreedom
“I would like to live in a nicely authentically alienated society.”Slavoj Žižek · alienated bureaucracy as positive political ideal
“The failure of political correctness is not that it's too fanatically Marxist — it's precisely that it's not Marxist.”Slavoj Žižek · political correctness as displacement of class onto culture
“To understand him means simply to listen to the myths that he this criminal is telling to himself to justify what he is doing.”Slavoj Žižek · the limits of empathetic understanding of perpetrators
“Maybe we should do the same today. Forget about MeToo Tahrir Square and so on.”Slavoj Žižek · Trotskyist infrastructure seizure over mass mobilization
“We need what my right-wing friend Peter Sloterdijk says a new culture of discretion.”Slavoj Žižek · tolerance as acceptance of irreducible otherness, not mutual understanding
“no Bernie Sanders and so on and so on no democratic socialist without Trump”Slavoj Žižek · Trump as dialectical condition of a new left consensus
Transcript 40 turns
Slavoj Žižek
I feel in such existential anxiety like you are there but I am talking to a void there you know. This is a little bit perplexing but I will survive. I just a brief improvisation because you know my anxiety uncertainty is that often I was invited to a philosophical debate and then big philosophical questions were like do we need another referendum for Brexit or whatever and so on. So what I will try to do to combine the two dimensions is precisely to begin with an abstract topic and show how it relates to philosophical notions because I think and that's my optimism no generally I'm a pessimist optimism for philosophy today with all the public debates even that we have the role of artificial intelligence ecology abortion and so on are we aware that these are all signs that traditional wisdoms no longer can help us that as ordinary people in our daily situation we have somehow to address philosophical questions which are by their nature philosophical. So let me give you two three examples one or two jokes in between and then a political conclusion from this. People think I oppose LGBT plus. I don't. I think properly understood this is something tremendously important but I want to draw your attention to one feature to this plus. You know the official formula is LGBT or I Q big this dogmatic disputes theological you know how many letters doesn't matter then you add plus. Now I am great admirer of English philosophy but nonetheless I don't quite agree with the tradition of British empiricism. So I will say that the usual reading of this plus is the empiricist reading. The idea is we should break out of the binary of just two big gender role masculine feminine there are other multiple positions they should be all equal so then some people even try to legislate it like City of New York proposed a list of or sexual positions butch trigender asexual and so on but they always worry my God what if we missed still some position what if somebody will come I am something else where is my place in it. So they simply being aware that there is no perfect classification full classification they add a plus as a sign of precaution let's be open if somebody else arrives. Now it may sound as a joke I forgot her name but it is in my book an Australian feminist LGBT theorist proposed a wonderful idea very Hegelian in my view that what if we do not read the plus LGBT Q whatever plus as and all others maybe not yet discovered what if we take this plus as a position of its own? I can be a plus and I think that to make a long story short if you want to hear the detailed argumentation read my book that subjectivity at its most radical what we call human subjectivity is such a plus. When I am offered in ideology many that's how ideology works for me basically in everyday life you are offered or as Louis Althusser put it interpulated into some identity you are a woman a feminist a theorist a Muslim a Christian whatever certain identity. The basic hysterical question is a question to the master figure who gives you your identity or delineates it why am I what you are telling me that I am? Or to quote Juliet from Romeo and Juliet why am I that name? This self questioning is basic and it can be shown nicely even in psychoanalytic practice that two things that first this questioning is constitutive of subjectivity. Subject is a plus at its most basic. The moment you identify with a certain position to put it in clinical terms you fall into what is called pervert's position. A pervert does not question himself. A pervert is a perfect instrument pervert knows politically that's why all totalitarians are perverts not in the sense of horrors that they are doing but in the sense of their basic subjective position. A pervert knows better than you what is good for you and like Stalinist communist we know better than people themselves what is good for the people and so on. So I'm saying that I don't have time to go into this very interesting domain of how the was here full of anti-feminist biases you know they despised I remember I was young I was there they despised hysteria oh this is just feminine you know just provoking a master you don't really want to get rid of the master but perversion goes to the end as even Freud once said very wrongly I think perverts actually do what hysterics also only dream about. I want to say that contrary to this perversion is always the hidden face of domination every social power needs perverts to do the work while this hysterical self-questioning again is the basic position of subjectivity defining subjectivity as such and okay I have to move very fast so I just with this ridiculous example I will just try to illustrate to you how my second point how hysteria is basically feminine in its nature. If you were in love I'm talking sorry for my male chauvinist bias in a traditional way man in love with a woman it happened to me always okay always I was in love two three times really not more that the woman asked me this you know question that most of men hate this tell me why do you love me? I think it's a very good question because there is no answer to it. The moment you give reasons it's not love or it's much more delicate. There are reasons to love but the only way to understand this reason is to already be in love. In love as in all existential engagements religion is the same it's not that you look around oh there are different religions I see here Islam Buddhism Christianity whatever and let's look around oh that one has the better argumentation or the best I will choose that one. This is not proper faith. Proper faith says only if you already believe you understand the reasons for it. So again what I want to say now I come to my first joke it's an old one maybe some of you know it but now I discovered a new aspect of it things are nonetheless here complicated because as self-questioning the subject is empty empty in the sense of not not not rooted in a particular identity by definition avoiding it. But this doesn't simply mean that subject is without object. The trick precisely with subjective positions which claim to be universal above divisions it's which is nonetheless the particular bias there. So now comes the joke I'm sure that you know it I hope I will at least surprise you by my reading. It's a wonderful joke told to me by a Jewish friend long ago where on Sabbath Saturday believers meet in a synagogue and first the great rabbi addresses God there and says oh my God I am nobody I am not worth of your attention and so on. Then a rich merchant stands up and says oh God I am also nobody I am not worthy of your attention you should despise me and so on. Then a poor ordinary Jew stands up and says modestly dear God I am also nobody. And then the rich merchant kicks the rabbi and says but who is this guy does he think that like us he can simply say that he is also nobody or what? You know now I will give you a surprising political example of this. We all know how white supremacists pretend to be universal but really this is standard topic how their universalism is false they secretly privilege certain way of life. But I found the same thing quite often with this typical figure of today's liberal left this radical anti-nationalist stance of we in the West are guilty of everything colonial crimes and so on whenever there is something wrong in the world it must be our guilt it is the effect of colonialism and so on. That's why it's quite comical detail I'm sorry if you know this story I will repeat it. I noticed how in the United States if you are perceived as totally marginal you are allowed to assert your identity. If Native Americans insist on it it's wonderful they resuscitate their dances and so on wisdoms and so on. Then with black people it's still okay. With Asians Japan China suspicions begin and the more you approach the West the more problematic this becomes if you are a WASP white Protestant whatever if you say I also want to assert my identity boom you are a fascist whatever. Now this is often true I am not simplifying the choice here. What I'm saying just is that quite often with white people who adopted this position we did so much crime we are the dominant that's why we should not assert our identity this self-humiliation renouncing your particular identity obviously produced what Jacques Lacan calls a plus-de-jouir a surplus enjoyment a kind of libidinal profit which is precisely the fact that they renounce particular identity gives them the position of universality from which they are allowed to judge others. Like in a debate with Native Americans white guy this happened to me years ago in Missoula Montana when an Indian person there Indian not in the sense of India in the sense of Native Americans and incidentally my Native American friends all prefer the term Indian. They claim Native American is racist like native so we are natural and you are cultural Americans or what as they told me sorry for this old joke if our name is Indians we are at least our name is at least a monument to white man's stupidity who thought they were in India. So the white guy immediately corrected them no this is racist don't do this and so on and so on. You know and it's the same a little bit I feel in today's predominant role in our ideological space of victimhood. Many people like to adopt the position of victimhood precisely to enhance to strengthen their position in social power structure and so on and so on. This happened I think it was in a way just for her to fail. Did you follow this two three weeks ago Elizabeth Warren the American feminist democratic figure played this game with I have some Cherokee blood and so on and so on. It was ridiculous. Is she aware that she did the same although in a totally opposite political sense but nonetheless formally she was doing the same thing as the Nazis my God trying to re-establish her credential by her genetic or whatever DNA analysis and so on and so on. And the right answer to her came not from Donald Trump who is disgusting from the Cherokee some tribal elders group who denounced her brutally as manipulator and so on and so on. Now my next point what kind of this may hurt some of you what kind of divinity would you associate with this notion of subject as questioning and so on and so on. Again I cannot go no time for details now but I would have said and here comes another joke a divinity which is and I think this is the deepest insight of some radical trends in Christianity a God who is not perfect a God who is literally because he is too good a little bit retarded imperfect. I will not go into it now I will tell you another joke and so that you will not think that I am a Zionist my God I am a BDS supporter I am just waiting when they will prohibit me to enter Israel but nonetheless they have excellent theological jokes one is this one I will tell it to it's very brutal joke but I love them because true jokes are brutal. Do you know that there is a whole subculture of Holocaust jokes in Judaism? Not they are not perverts who make fun of themselves. It's a subtle admission that when things are really horrible to play this tragic game with dignity is obscene. You can only do a joke so the joke goes like this to understand this joke you have to know sorry you have to know that one of the theological reactions to Holocaust is God died in Auschwitz. Too horrible is what happened there God couldn't have been there he couldn't have allowed it so God was absent God died in Auschwitz. Okay the joke goes like this a couple of victims who died in Auschwitz Jews are now in paradise of course and they're walking around there they sit on a bench on a nice field meadow in paradise and tell amuse each other with jokes. Jokes about their death in Auschwitz like one old Jew said to the other do you remember Jacob how was it when they dragged you toward the gas chamber? You slipped already before and broke your head so that you died before even you were touched by gas and they all laugh that was funny. Then God himself takes a break from his work and drops by and looks at them and says listen my friends I don't understand this joke of you. And now comes the absolutely sublime humor one of the Jews steps toward him puts his hand over God's shoulder and like patronizingly tells him don't worry you were not there so of course you cannot understand it and so on. You know what's so subversive here that what God cannot understand is not the horror of it it's the joke that we make out of it. I don't have time maybe later to go into it just to allow me to finish because I know that I have a very specific notion of temporality no and very briefly I think that although I am very critical towards many aspects of Marxism one thing we still should pursue today critique of ideology not in the traditional Marxist sense but in a new mode. Just to give you one of my slogans you know Marxist old definition of religion as the opium of the people. I think today we should drop it and propose another version. There are today maybe some of you heard this joke of mine the answer is obvious today there are two new opiums of the people and you can guess what they are opium and the people. First are you aware I read some American analysis to what extent at least in degenerate circles like ours academia that literally to percent of people to retain the normal functioning of their mind already rely on different form of drugs from ordinary daily drugs to more serious psychodrugs up to opium itself and so on and so on. It is as if without this resort to chemistry and biochemistry we are so destabilized we cannot function normally. The other opium of the people is the people itself. This is what precisely we call populism today. And for this reason I cannot go I am concluding now of course this is why I find problematic the idea of so-called leftist left populism that we should answer the right by our own populism you know why not because populism always has some feature it defines populism you simplify the situation by constructing a clear figure of the enemy and you connect with so-called anxieties cares of ordinary people. I think that this no longer I am a pessimist here works today. Let's take the United States. Okay you will say the enemy is Trump. No it is immediately but the enemy the true enemy cannot be personalized the true enemy is the failure of the liberal consensus in the last decades in the United States. Trump didn't fall from the moon onto the earth. He emerged as a result of certain failures of this predominant form of consensus because never forget this every functioning democracy is based on a consensus. You can have all the debates antagonisms but they always have to take place against the background of a certain basic agreement. These are and then we can find about is this the best way to help our society and so on and so on. That's why it's dangerous what is happening now not only but also in the United States. It's literally this consensus is disintegrating it's a kind of ideological civil war. So I the second thing I that reason that I doubt populism is and this will be the tragic point with which after a series of bad jokes I will conclude. You know traditional Marxism still relied on the idea that the unique chance of a revolutionary change is to connect what Marx thought it was the highest theoretical insight historical materialism the chance of revolution deep understanding of history with the concerns of and troubles of daily life of concrete people. That like what people experience as their deadlock resonates with the deepest insight proletarian revolution and so on and so on. I don't think we are at such a situation today. And I am not saying people ordinary people don't know it but we theorists do know it no we know even less but what I am saying is this for example my good friend I admire him we are very good friends Janis Varoufakis. His idea is we need real democracy in European Union not this alienated Brussels bureaucracy but people should no we should listen to more okay then I asked him and I never got so I claim I'm sorry a good answer I asked him but okay do you know that if we were to ask ordinary people today in Europe what do you think about immigrant threat refugees and so on about to percent would say fuck them I mean throw them out. And so paradoxically are you aware of this tragic situation that in spite of all blaming Brussels bureaucracy they were more open towards refugees than the authentic popular opinion and so on and so on. Okay Varoufakis's answer to me was because people are manipulated we need just two weeks of open debate. I told him are you crazy that's the ultimate utopia that somehow we will clear the table address the people with truth. No that's why we need critique of ideology today. Ideology is not something some outside external force that washes the brains of the people ideology is our daily experience. We are I will not repeat it because most of you know it but in one of my old classic analysis I even took the structure you all know it I know I will be short and conclude. I took the typical structure of British-American French and German toilets to make this point. You remember it how British or American toilets are full of water and shit after you produce it is floating there. German toilets have a hole but in front so that your shit falls back and stays there I'm not kidding I saw them then it's a ritual of inspecting smelling your shit you know are they and French is the hole is in the back so it disappears immediately shit. But isn't this what was called already in late 18th century the European trinity. British you are pragmatic economy let's do it compromise shit floats in water. French are revolutionary you know liquidate quickly the shit out. German are poets and metaphysicians you know like observe shit analyze it. And you know what you think it's a bad joke but I talked with architects and they confirmed this to me they say you cannot explain it with some rational pragmatic reasons. The only reason I ended up with this bad joke repeating myself is to let you know how although people claim oh the ideological era is behind us no we are perhaps more in ideology than ever. That's why our first task of public intellectuals intellectuals in general is not to propose solution don't fall into this trap. This is what authorities want we have a problem people are demonstrating how no our first task is to raise the right questions. The problem today is not answers but are we how when we see a problem the way we formulate a problem is as a rule already part of the mystification. Just think about all the ideologies projected into ecology beginning with this idea Mother Earth and we humans hurt distorted Mother Earth and so on and so on. Or even racism the idea that the main problem with racism is lack of tolerance. No this is typical cultural left which sees the problem as we should more understand each other and so on and so on. I totally oppose to this to provoke you to really finish my idea of an open democratic whatever you call it society is not there is an Iranian friend an African friend a Jewish friend a Latino American friend and we understand each other. No you resign yourself how can I understand them when I don't even understand myself. The the true task is tolerance precisely towards what you have to accept that it remains an otherness. We need what my right-wing friend who is not an idiot German Peter Sloterdijk says a new culture of discretion. And I think this is the only way to retain sanity in our crazy global world. Now comes the biggest surprise I finished really. Thank you very much. No stop stop you applaud too long. That's my standard traditional Stalinist joke wait a minute till we old hardliners left take power then you will have to applaud a lot so spare your energy for people's democracy then. Professor Zizek thank you so much for your time. Thank you I'm glad to be here. Let me tell you something no you know I always preferred Cambridge to Oxford. Oh wow you've won them over already. No I will tell you why Oxford is always associated by me to that more old-time conservative Latin speaking and I never forgot as a lover of Cromwell Charles the First Oxford was his bastion no to attack parliament and so on no. So and also I think in social theory humanities it's losing now. I don't know how it is with you but at least in new sciences no from quantum physics to bioengineering aren't you now more? And and social sciences as well so we are beating them across the board. Okay okay then I concede defeat but again I always also because Cambridge is even the romantically Oxford is just a big city with a university part. Cambridge is more like all of it university you know. Well feel free to come back. Okay so how it's going to work for the rest of the talk is I'm going to ask Professor Zizek some questions and then for the last to minutes... Slavoj please if you want to survive this evening don't ever call me again Professor Zizek. I was waiting for you to tell me. What did I do did I rape your mother in public to to humiliate me so much. I hope my mom's watching. Please call no because Slavoj when you call me Professor Zizek I look where is the professor here it cannot be me. Right Slavoj as you wish. Thank you. Okay so um Jordan Peterson was at the Union last week. I know our great spiritual father. And he said that um he hoped that the Democrats got badly beaten in the midterms so it would give them a kick up the arse effectively. And um you said in a recent interview with Owen Jones that you think that Clinton is a problem not Trump so I was wondering whether you agree with Professor Peterson and whether you think that the Democrats got the kick up the arse they needed this week in the elections. I am quite okay let's not lose too much time with this. I just wanted to say that I am quite convinced with some analysis which show that the reasons of this relative success only in the Senate of Republicans is the obvious incredible injustice of American electoral system for the Senate. You know the principle each state gets two senators. So you have a small state small by the number of population like I don't know Montana and so on which gets the same number of senators as California although California has around times more population. And it's strict do you know that Democrats nonetheless got some million more of the votes you know. But you know where do I more fundamentally disagree with Peterson. On the one hand it's not that I am for in any sense for Trump he is a horror. But maybe this is my wildly Leninist speculative brutal mind. I am always obsessed by this idea I don't blame them they can be well-meaning and so on that again as you said and I said the problem is the disintegration of this old centrist liberal democratic consensus. That and this is what is really in crisis. And I see Trump as somebody who further undermines this consensus and thus create a need and maybe even a chance for a new consensus. I claim no Bernie Sanders and so on and so on no democratic socialist without Trump. Now I know this is an extremely dangerous game because some idiots who criticized me at this point used this idea but this is the same as to say some crazy communists did say in it's better to have Hitler in power now the fronts are clear. No I am not saying this. It's a specific statement about United States for example I am not saying that you should get a Boris Johnson Prime Minister or France Marine Le Pen. European states are organized in a much more centralized different way. So back to Jordan
I feel in such existential anxiety like you are there but I am talking to a void there you know. This is a little bit perplexing but I will survive. I just a brief improvisation because you know my anxiety uncertainty is that often I was invited to a philosophical debate and then big philosophical questions were like do we need another referendum for Brexit or whatever and so on. So what I will try to do to combine the two dimensions is precisely to begin with an abstract topic and show how it relates to philosophical notions because I think and that's my optimism no generally I'm a pessimist optimism for philosophy today with all the public debates even that we have the role of artificial intelligence ecology abortion and so on are we aware that these are all signs that traditional wisdoms no longer can help us that as ordinary people in our daily situation we have somehow to address philosophical questions which are by their nature philosophical. So let me give you two three examples one or two jokes in between and then a political conclusion from this. People think I oppose LGBT plus. I don't. I think properly understood this is something tremendously important but I want to draw your attention to one feature to this plus. You know the official formula is LGBT or I Q big this dogmatic disputes theological you know how many letters doesn't matter then you add plus. Now I am great admirer of English philosophy but nonetheless I don't quite agree with the tradition of British empiricism. So I will say that the usual reading of this plus is the empiricist reading. The idea is we should break out of the binary of just two big gender role masculine feminine there are other multiple positions they should be all equal so then some people even try to legislate it like City of New York proposed a list of or sexual positions butch trigender asexual and so on but they always worry my God what if we missed still some position what if somebody will come I am something else where is my place in it. So they simply being aware that there is no perfect classification full classification they add a plus as a sign of precaution let's be open if somebody else arrives. Now it may sound as a joke I forgot her name but it is in my book an Australian feminist LGBT theorist proposed a wonderful idea very Hegelian in my view that what if we do not read the plus LGBT Q whatever plus as and all others maybe not yet discovered what if we take this plus as a position of its own? I can be a plus and I think that to make a long story short if you want to hear the detailed argumentation read my book that subjectivity at its most radical what we call human subjectivity is such a plus. When I am offered in ideology many that's how ideology works for me basically in everyday life you are offered or as Louis Althusser put it interpulated into some identity you are a woman a feminist a theorist a Muslim a Christian whatever certain identity. The basic hysterical question is a question to the master figure who gives you your identity or delineates it why am I what you are telling me that I am? Or to quote Juliet from Romeo and Juliet why am I that name? This self questioning is basic and it can be shown nicely even in psychoanalytic practice that two things that first this questioning is constitutive of subjectivity. Subject is a plus at its most basic. The moment you identify with a certain position to put it in clinical terms you fall into what is called pervert's position. A pervert does not question himself. A pervert is a perfect instrument pervert knows politically that's why all totalitarians are perverts not in the sense of horrors that they are doing but in the sense of their basic subjective position. A pervert knows better than you what is good for you and like Stalinist communist we know better than people themselves what is good for the people and so on. So I'm saying that I don't have time to go into this very interesting domain of how the was here full of anti-feminist biases you know they despised I remember I was young I was there they despised hysteria oh this is just feminine you know just provoking a master you don't really want to get rid of the master but perversion goes to the end as even Freud once said very wrongly I think perverts actually do what hysterics also only dream about. I want to say that contrary to this perversion is always the hidden face of domination every social power needs perverts to do the work while this hysterical self-questioning again is the basic position of subjectivity defining subjectivity as such and okay I have to move very fast so I just with this ridiculous example I will just try to illustrate to you how my second point how hysteria is basically feminine in its nature. If you were in love I'm talking sorry for my male chauvinist bias in a traditional way man in love with a woman it happened to me always okay always I was in love two three times really not more that the woman asked me this you know question that most of men hate this tell me why do you love me? I think it's a very good question because there is no answer to it. The moment you give reasons it's not love or it's much more delicate. There are reasons to love but the only way to understand this reason is to already be in love. In love as in all existential engagements religion is the same it's not that you look around oh there are different religions I see here Islam Buddhism Christianity whatever and let's look around oh that one has the better argumentation or the best I will choose that one. This is not proper faith. Proper faith says only if you already believe you understand the reasons for it. So again what I want to say now I come to my first joke it's an old one maybe some of you know it but now I discovered a new aspect of it things are nonetheless here complicated because as self-questioning the subject is empty empty in the sense of not not not rooted in a particular identity by definition avoiding it. But this doesn't simply mean that subject is without object. The trick precisely with subjective positions which claim to be universal above divisions it's which is nonetheless the particular bias there. So now comes the joke I'm sure that you know it I hope I will at least surprise you by my reading. It's a wonderful joke told to me by a Jewish friend long ago where on Sabbath Saturday believers meet in a synagogue and first the great rabbi addresses God there and says oh my God I am nobody I am not worth of your attention and so on. Then a rich merchant stands up and says oh God I am also nobody I am not worthy of your attention you should despise me and so on. Then a poor ordinary Jew stands up and says modestly dear God I am also nobody. And then the rich merchant kicks the rabbi and says but who is this guy does he think that like us he can simply say that he is also nobody or what? You know now I will give you a surprising political example of this. We all know how white supremacists pretend to be universal but really this is standard topic how their universalism is false they secretly privilege certain way of life. But I found the same thing quite often with this typical figure of today's liberal left this radical anti-nationalist stance of we in the West are guilty of everything colonial crimes and so on whenever there is something wrong in the world it must be our guilt it is the effect of colonialism and so on. That's why it's quite comical detail I'm sorry if you know this story I will repeat it. I noticed how in the United States if you are perceived as totally marginal you are allowed to assert your identity. If Native Americans insist on it it's wonderful they resuscitate their dances and so on wisdoms and so on. Then with black people it's still okay. With Asians Japan China suspicions begin and the more you approach the West the more problematic this becomes if you are a WASP white Protestant whatever if you say I also want to assert my identity boom you are a fascist whatever. Now this is often true I am not simplifying the choice here. What I'm saying just is that quite often with white people who adopted this position we did so much crime we are the dominant that's why we should not assert our identity this self-humiliation renouncing your particular identity obviously produced what Jacques Lacan calls a plus-de-jouir a surplus enjoyment a kind of libidinal profit which is precisely the fact that they renounce particular identity gives them the position of universality from which they are allowed to judge others. Like in a debate with Native Americans white guy this happened to me years ago in Missoula Montana when an Indian person there Indian not in the sense of India in the sense of Native Americans and incidentally my Native American friends all prefer the term Indian. They claim Native American is racist like native so we are natural and you are cultural Americans or what as they told me sorry for this old joke if our name is Indians we are at least our name is at least a monument to white man's stupidity who thought they were in India. So the white guy immediately corrected them no this is racist don't do this and so on and so on. You know and it's the same a little bit I feel in today's predominant role in our ideological space of victimhood. Many people like to adopt the position of victimhood precisely to enhance to strengthen their position in social power structure and so on and so on. This happened I think it was in a way just for her to fail. Did you follow this two three weeks ago Elizabeth Warren the American feminist democratic figure played this game with I have some Cherokee blood and so on and so on. It was ridiculous. Is she aware that she did the same although in a totally opposite political sense but nonetheless formally she was doing the same thing as the Nazis my God trying to re-establish her credential by her genetic or whatever DNA analysis and so on and so on. And the right answer to her came not from Donald Trump who is disgusting from the Cherokee some tribal elders group who denounced her brutally as manipulator and so on and so on. Now my next point what kind of this may hurt some of you what kind of divinity would you associate with this notion of subject as questioning and so on and so on. Again I cannot go no time for details now but I would have said and here comes another joke a divinity which is and I think this is the deepest insight of some radical trends in Christianity a God who is not perfect a God who is literally because he is too good a little bit retarded imperfect. I will not go into it now I will tell you another joke and so that you will not think that I am a Zionist my God I am a BDS supporter I am just waiting when they will prohibit me to enter Israel but nonetheless they have excellent theological jokes one is this one I will tell it to it's very brutal joke but I love them because true jokes are brutal. Do you know that there is a whole subculture of Holocaust jokes in Judaism? Not they are not perverts who make fun of themselves. It's a subtle admission that when things are really horrible to play this tragic game with dignity is obscene. You can only do a joke so the joke goes like this to understand this joke you have to know sorry you have to know that one of the theological reactions to Holocaust is God died in Auschwitz. Too horrible is what happened there God couldn't have been there he couldn't have allowed it so God was absent God died in Auschwitz. Okay the joke goes like this a couple of victims who died in Auschwitz Jews are now in paradise of course and they're walking around there they sit on a bench on a nice field meadow in paradise and tell amuse each other with jokes. Jokes about their death in Auschwitz like one old Jew said to the other do you remember Jacob how was it when they dragged you toward the gas chamber? You slipped already before and broke your head so that you died before even you were touched by gas and they all laugh that was funny. Then God himself takes a break from his work and drops by and looks at them and says listen my friends I don't understand this joke of you. And now comes the absolutely sublime humor one of the Jews steps toward him puts his hand over God's shoulder and like patronizingly tells him don't worry you were not there so of course you cannot understand it and so on. You know what's so subversive here that what God cannot understand is not the horror of it it's the joke that we make out of it. I don't have time maybe later to go into it just to allow me to finish because I know that I have a very specific notion of temporality no and very briefly I think that although I am very critical towards many aspects of Marxism one thing we still should pursue today critique of ideology not in the traditional Marxist sense but in a new mode. Just to give you one of my slogans you know Marxist old definition of religion as the opium of the people. I think today we should drop it and propose another version. There are today maybe some of you heard this joke of mine the answer is obvious today there are two new opiums of the people and you can guess what they are opium and the people. First are you aware I read some American analysis to what extent at least in degenerate circles like ours academia that literally to percent of people to retain the normal functioning of their mind already rely on different form of drugs from ordinary daily drugs to more serious psychodrugs up to opium itself and so on and so on. It is as if without this resort to chemistry and biochemistry we are so destabilized we cannot function normally. The other opium of the people is the people itself. This is what precisely we call populism today. And for this reason I cannot go I am concluding now of course this is why I find problematic the idea of so-called leftist left populism that we should answer the right by our own populism you know why not because populism always has some feature it defines populism you simplify the situation by constructing a clear figure of the enemy and you connect with so-called anxieties cares of ordinary people. I think that this no longer I am a pessimist here works today. Let's take the United States. Okay you will say the enemy is Trump. No it is immediately but the enemy the true enemy cannot be personalized the true enemy is the failure of the liberal consensus in the last decades in the United States. Trump didn't fall from the moon onto the earth. He emerged as a result of certain failures of this predominant form of consensus because never forget this every functioning democracy is based on a consensus. You can have all the debates antagonisms but they always have to take place against the background of a certain basic agreement. These are and then we can find about is this the best way to help our society and so on and so on. That's why it's dangerous what is happening now not only but also in the United States. It's literally this consensus is disintegrating it's a kind of ideological civil war. So I the second thing I that reason that I doubt populism is and this will be the tragic point with which after a series of bad jokes I will conclude. You know traditional Marxism still relied on the idea that the unique chance of a revolutionary change is to connect what Marx thought it was the highest theoretical insight historical materialism the chance of revolution deep understanding of history with the concerns of and troubles of daily life of concrete people. That like what people experience as their deadlock resonates with the deepest insight proletarian revolution and so on and so on. I don't think we are at such a situation today. And I am not saying people ordinary people don't know it but we theorists do know it no we know even less but what I am saying is this for example my good friend I admire him we are very good friends Janis Varoufakis. His idea is we need real democracy in European Union not this alienated Brussels bureaucracy but people should no we should listen to more okay then I asked him and I never got so I claim I'm sorry a good answer I asked him but okay do you know that if we were to ask ordinary people today in Europe what do you think about immigrant threat refugees and so on about to percent would say fuck them I mean throw them out. And so paradoxically are you aware of this tragic situation that in spite of all blaming Brussels bureaucracy they were more open towards refugees than the authentic popular opinion and so on and so on. Okay Varoufakis's answer to me was because people are manipulated we need just two weeks of open debate. I told him are you crazy that's the ultimate utopia that somehow we will clear the table address the people with truth. No that's why we need critique of ideology today. Ideology is not something some outside external force that washes the brains of the people ideology is our daily experience. We are I will not repeat it because most of you know it but in one of my old classic analysis I even took the structure you all know it I know I will be short and conclude. I took the typical structure of British-American French and German toilets to make this point. You remember it how British or American toilets are full of water and shit after you produce it is floating there. German toilets have a hole but in front so that your shit falls back and stays there I'm not kidding I saw them then it's a ritual of inspecting smelling your shit you know are they and French is the hole is in the back so it disappears immediately shit. But isn't this what was called already in late 18th century the European trinity. British you are pragmatic economy let's do it compromise shit floats in water. French are revolutionary you know liquidate quickly the shit out. German are poets and metaphysicians you know like observe shit analyze it. And you know what you think it's a bad joke but I talked with architects and they confirmed this to me they say you cannot explain it with some rational pragmatic reasons. The only reason I ended up with this bad joke repeating myself is to let you know how although people claim oh the ideological era is behind us no we are perhaps more in ideology than ever. That's why our first task of public intellectuals intellectuals in general is not to propose solution don't fall into this trap. This is what authorities want we have a problem people are demonstrating how no our first task is to raise the right questions. The problem today is not answers but are we how when we see a problem the way we formulate a problem is as a rule already part of the mystification. Just think about all the ideologies projected into ecology beginning with this idea Mother Earth and we humans hurt distorted Mother Earth and so on and so on. Or even racism the idea that the main problem with racism is lack of tolerance. No this is typical cultural left which sees the problem as we should more understand each other and so on and so on. I totally oppose to this to provoke you to really finish my idea of an open democratic whatever you call it society is not there is an Iranian friend an African friend a Jewish friend a Latino American friend and we understand each other. No you resign yourself how can I understand them when I don't even understand myself. The the true task is tolerance precisely towards what you have to accept that it remains an otherness. We need what my right-wing friend who is not an idiot German Peter Sloterdijk says a new culture of discretion. And I think this is the only way to retain sanity in our crazy global world. Now comes the biggest surprise I finished really. Thank you very much. No stop stop you applaud too long. That's my standard traditional Stalinist joke wait a minute till we old hardliners left take power then you will have to applaud a lot so spare your energy for people's democracy then. Professor Zizek thank you so much for your time. Thank you I'm glad to be here. Let me tell you something no you know I always preferred Cambridge to Oxford. Oh wow you've won them over already. No I will tell you why Oxford is always associated by me to that more old-time conservative Latin speaking and I never forgot as a lover of Cromwell Charles the First Oxford was his bastion no to attack parliament and so on no. So and also I think in social theory humanities it's losing now. I don't know how it is with you but at least in new sciences no from quantum physics to bioengineering aren't you now more? And and social sciences as well so we are beating them across the board. Okay okay then I concede defeat but again I always also because Cambridge is even the romantically Oxford is just a big city with a university part. Cambridge is more like all of it university you know. Well feel free to come back. Okay so how it's going to work for the rest of the talk is I'm going to ask Professor Zizek some questions and then for the last to minutes... Slavoj please if you want to survive this evening don't ever call me again Professor Zizek. I was waiting for you to tell me. What did I do did I rape your mother in public to to humiliate me so much. I hope my mom's watching. Please call no because Slavoj when you call me Professor Zizek I look where is the professor here it cannot be me. Right Slavoj as you wish. Thank you. Okay so um Jordan Peterson was at the Union last week. I know our great spiritual father. And he said that um he hoped that the Democrats got badly beaten in the midterms so it would give them a kick up the arse effectively. And um you said in a recent interview with Owen Jones that you think that Clinton is a problem not Trump so I was wondering whether you agree with Professor Peterson and whether you think that the Democrats got the kick up the arse they needed this week in the elections. I am quite okay let's not lose too much time with this. I just wanted to say that I am quite convinced with some analysis which show that the reasons of this relative success only in the Senate of Republicans is the obvious incredible injustice of American electoral system for the Senate. You know the principle each state gets two senators. So you have a small state small by the number of population like I don't know Montana and so on which gets the same number of senators as California although California has around times more population. And it's strict do you know that Democrats nonetheless got some million more of the votes you know. But you know where do I more fundamentally disagree with Peterson. On the one hand it's not that I am for in any sense for Trump he is a horror. But maybe this is my wildly Leninist speculative brutal mind. I am always obsessed by this idea I don't blame them they can be well-meaning and so on that again as you said and I said the problem is the disintegration of this old centrist liberal democratic consensus. That and this is what is really in crisis. And I see Trump as somebody who further undermines this consensus and thus create a need and maybe even a chance for a new consensus. I claim no Bernie Sanders and so on and so on no democratic socialist without Trump. Now I know this is an extremely dangerous game because some idiots who criticized me at this point used this idea but this is the same as to say some crazy communists did say in it's better to have Hitler in power now the fronts are clear. No I am not saying this. It's a specific statement about United States for example I am not saying that you should get a Boris Johnson Prime Minister or France Marine Le Pen. European states are organized in a much more centralized different way. So back to Jordan
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Peterson first I I think that with
Peterson first I I think that with
Slavoj Žižek
all his pseudo-scientific
all his pseudo-scientific
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references you know he cannot talk
references you know he cannot talk
Slavoj Žižek
about women and marriage without mentioning lobsters apes or whatever all of them that if you go to the end in this direction mirroring relations of domination among animals projecting them onto humans then we humans are doomed my God because humanity as such is unnatural. What is the idea of equality freedom and so on this is human madness and not only this I cannot go into this now but my first point is and I will quote here somebody who is also my enemy but a little bit more honest
about women and marriage without mentioning lobsters apes or whatever all of them that if you go to the end in this direction mirroring relations of domination among animals projecting them onto humans then we humans are doomed my God because humanity as such is unnatural. What is the idea of equality freedom and so on this is human madness and not only this I cannot go into this now but my first point is and I will quote here somebody who is also my enemy but a little bit more honest
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Steven Pinker so-called rational optimist. I saw on
Steven Pinker so-called rational optimist. I saw on
Slavoj Žižek
YouTube a debate between two of them where Jordan Peterson went strongly in this direction today there is so much violence and so on and then Steven Pinker said sorry your facts are totally wrong like no if you look at it globally with all the horror you have here those knife crimes and so on the last decades are still much better than any
YouTube a debate between two of them where Jordan Peterson went strongly in this direction today there is so much violence and so on and then Steven Pinker said sorry your facts are totally wrong like no if you look at it globally with all the horror you have here those knife crimes and so on the last decades are still much better than any
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time in history and so on and so on. So first I doubt many of his facts. As to his theories first I was not in the sense that he uses it but
time in history and so on and so on. So first I doubt many of his facts. As to his theories first I was not in the sense that he uses it but
Slavoj Žižek
I think at the beginning not that I liked him I think he became famous for his brutal reaction to some transgender people's idea he she ze it whatever. I don't agree with him but I think he did draw attention to some problems there. There I had not a sympathy but half understanding. Then catastrophe emerged when he fell into this stupid trap and
I think at the beginning not that I liked him I think he became famous for his brutal reaction to some transgender people's idea he she ze it whatever. I don't agree with him but I think he did draw attention to some problems there. There I had not a sympathy but half understanding. Then catastrophe emerged when he fell into this stupid trap and
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started to use the term which is today the main term of contemporary
started to use the term which is today the main term of contemporary
Slavoj Žižek
right cultural Marxism. And it would be so interesting
right cultural Marxism. And it would be so interesting
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I don't want to talk too much to follow to deploy in front of you the entire background of this nation it's incredible. There is a whole conspiracy theory narrative it goes like this after communist revolutions direct political failed in early twenties communist Comintern Lenin whoever was there Stalin decided
I don't want to talk too much to follow to deploy in front of you the entire background of this nation it's incredible. There is a whole conspiracy theory narrative it goes like this after communist revolutions direct political failed in early twenties communist Comintern Lenin whoever was there Stalin decided
Slavoj Žižek
that we failed because we underestimated the strength of the Christian moral convictions of Western people so we should
that we failed because we underestimated the strength of the Christian moral convictions of Western people so we should
unknown
first undermine them morally and this is why it's a beautiful theory I like it
first undermine them morally and this is why it's a beautiful theory I like it
unknown
through the detour of some Argentinian
through the detour of some Argentinian
Slavoj Žižek
millionaire they financed Frankfurt school Western Marxism which then culminates in today's in today's what they call cultural Marxism. Okay to cut a long story short I talk too much I know I'm totally opposed to this narrative. I think that today's political correctness and so on and so on its failure is not that it's too fanatically Marxist it's precisely that it's not Marxist. That is to say basic question of social power economy and so on it obfuscates these powers these questions sorry as cultural problems and so on and so on. Then there is the third moment I'm not giving you now full critique I cannot have just mapping the topic where I find him Peterson even more problematic his attitude he wants to be a wise guy wisdom giving advice to people Jung Jungian approach and so on and so on. Here I react like Goebbels I pull out my gun like I have such a distrust towards any form of wisdom. Wisdom is for me by definition stupidity. You know what is wisdom wisdom is totally opportunistic I'll give you a simple example in my country let's say you do something risky and you succeed then I can immediately comment on your success by five ten proverbs you know like we have a it rhymes nicely in Slovene only those who risk profit or whatever this type of a justifying risking. Then let's say you fail we have again a series of wonderful vulgar proverbs like my most popular one you cannot urinate against the wind you know and so on. This is wisdom is so deeply and I think the greatest of our two traditions at least European Plato ancient Greek philosophy or Christianity they're absolutely anti-wisdom. Jesus Christ is a madman I mean in this sense of socially disruptive and so on. You know if nothing else the traditional form of wisdom always thinks in circular terms what arises will fall down everything returns to dust and the notion of injustice is always the notion of somebody who should stick to his her their particular role gets caught in a hubris too much but balance have to be restored. This is the very opposite of Christianity and of Plato. The basic idea of Plato is Plato's idealism in this sense I'm a materialist idealist whatever that means is that you are go on in your daily life stupid daily life you search for pleasures then you have a mega experience religious philosophical even erotic love and your whole life is destabilized. Are we aware how non-organic traumatic brutal thing a true passionate love is. Again a vulgar example that I like to use let's say you are not in love you live your promiscuous life you drink with friends one night stand here there and so on then you fall in love all this stability is destroyed everything is focused onto something that's what's so great you find this in Christianity you find this also in other religions I don't want to go into it you find this in Plato's idealism you know Plato's basic reaction was the way Plato describes Socrates when he is thinking it's really like a hysteric reaction of this ah he just stood there immobilized and so on and so on. So I am for abstraction for violent difference for I am absolutely against any holistic approach. Okay. You're no doubt aware that on university campuses particularly in the UK and also increasingly in America we live in an age of identity politics and there's a concern among some on the left that identity politics undermines the development of a more universal and common humanity centered solidarity that is required and necessary to bring about a radically different economic epoch to that of contemporary capitalism so I was wondering whether you had any thoughts. Yes but again this is very sad that's why people claim I am popular no I am not and I know well why I am not. Books and authors who are truly popular always have at the end a simple effective formula like Chantal Mouffe now left populism you know before Negri and Hardt multitudes and so on and so on. I'm skeptical I know how much this hurts me but I don't want to propose this formula so while in principle I agree with this I'm very much critical towards those Marxists who think we can simply go on with praising proletariat. Who is today the possible agent of change if there will be a change I'm not sure. I think it's very dispersed we have dissatisfaction in educated circles like if you're a computer specialist or whatever and if you are not very lucky I don't know how it is here in my country Slovenia percent of people under already can get only precarious jobs and so on. You have unemployed you have so many other groups which are marginalized. You have then of course even whole countries which are out out of our what I call cupola out of privileged universe. But as such they are fully integrated into global capital take Congo which is one of the nightmares of today's world. Congo is totally integrated so many crucial minerals come from Congo but it's the state which is a non-operative state and mostly its local warlords dealing directly with Western corporations with of course full support or at least the international community is turning a blind eye and so on and so on. So I think that while of course miracles will happen I don't mean religious miracles I mean like who would have even for example that would be my ambiguity Syriza was a miracle it was the first time that a relatively radical left in very democratic clear way came to power. But what happens afterwards is so significant for me it's an it's like a symptom of the deadlock of today's left. They were elected as we know on the platform to oppose austerity and then you remember that referendum literally two three days after winning their anti-austerity referendum they adopted the stance of becoming a perfect executors of the most brutal austerity. And I don't think we can simply blame them like my radical leftist friends some of them traitors traitors no the situation is much more tragic. We we really lack a vision of what to to be very blunt it's not enough to criticize liberal left-leaning liberal democracy one has to also today okay okay we need more radical left but what will this left really do I have this basic problem is it simply I hate this formula that we need a democracy which more and more relies on active citizens and so on and so on. I think this is an bullshit empty formula. I love bureaucracy my idea of happiness is you live in a complex state and you don't have to worry you know this is for me nightmare what some of my leftist friends describe as paradise you live in a non-alienated local community and all the common things are debated together how to organize kindergartens water supply education I would would you really like to live in a society like that I would like to live in a nicely authentically alienated society. By alienation I mean I do my work of course from time to time one has to control those but I can rely on an invisible state bureaucracy that things basically function. Now people started to shout Stalinist Stalinist. No the problem of Stalinism was precisely that it never was ready able to establish a well-functioning bureaucracy that's why it has to have purges and emergency states all the time. I'm a believer my motto to the horror of my leftist friends is authentically alienated bureaucracy and like not we are all one we are all one in
millionaire they financed Frankfurt school Western Marxism which then culminates in today's in today's what they call cultural Marxism. Okay to cut a long story short I talk too much I know I'm totally opposed to this narrative. I think that today's political correctness and so on and so on its failure is not that it's too fanatically Marxist it's precisely that it's not Marxist. That is to say basic question of social power economy and so on it obfuscates these powers these questions sorry as cultural problems and so on and so on. Then there is the third moment I'm not giving you now full critique I cannot have just mapping the topic where I find him Peterson even more problematic his attitude he wants to be a wise guy wisdom giving advice to people Jung Jungian approach and so on and so on. Here I react like Goebbels I pull out my gun like I have such a distrust towards any form of wisdom. Wisdom is for me by definition stupidity. You know what is wisdom wisdom is totally opportunistic I'll give you a simple example in my country let's say you do something risky and you succeed then I can immediately comment on your success by five ten proverbs you know like we have a it rhymes nicely in Slovene only those who risk profit or whatever this type of a justifying risking. Then let's say you fail we have again a series of wonderful vulgar proverbs like my most popular one you cannot urinate against the wind you know and so on. This is wisdom is so deeply and I think the greatest of our two traditions at least European Plato ancient Greek philosophy or Christianity they're absolutely anti-wisdom. Jesus Christ is a madman I mean in this sense of socially disruptive and so on. You know if nothing else the traditional form of wisdom always thinks in circular terms what arises will fall down everything returns to dust and the notion of injustice is always the notion of somebody who should stick to his her their particular role gets caught in a hubris too much but balance have to be restored. This is the very opposite of Christianity and of Plato. The basic idea of Plato is Plato's idealism in this sense I'm a materialist idealist whatever that means is that you are go on in your daily life stupid daily life you search for pleasures then you have a mega experience religious philosophical even erotic love and your whole life is destabilized. Are we aware how non-organic traumatic brutal thing a true passionate love is. Again a vulgar example that I like to use let's say you are not in love you live your promiscuous life you drink with friends one night stand here there and so on then you fall in love all this stability is destroyed everything is focused onto something that's what's so great you find this in Christianity you find this also in other religions I don't want to go into it you find this in Plato's idealism you know Plato's basic reaction was the way Plato describes Socrates when he is thinking it's really like a hysteric reaction of this ah he just stood there immobilized and so on and so on. So I am for abstraction for violent difference for I am absolutely against any holistic approach. Okay. You're no doubt aware that on university campuses particularly in the UK and also increasingly in America we live in an age of identity politics and there's a concern among some on the left that identity politics undermines the development of a more universal and common humanity centered solidarity that is required and necessary to bring about a radically different economic epoch to that of contemporary capitalism so I was wondering whether you had any thoughts. Yes but again this is very sad that's why people claim I am popular no I am not and I know well why I am not. Books and authors who are truly popular always have at the end a simple effective formula like Chantal Mouffe now left populism you know before Negri and Hardt multitudes and so on and so on. I'm skeptical I know how much this hurts me but I don't want to propose this formula so while in principle I agree with this I'm very much critical towards those Marxists who think we can simply go on with praising proletariat. Who is today the possible agent of change if there will be a change I'm not sure. I think it's very dispersed we have dissatisfaction in educated circles like if you're a computer specialist or whatever and if you are not very lucky I don't know how it is here in my country Slovenia percent of people under already can get only precarious jobs and so on. You have unemployed you have so many other groups which are marginalized. You have then of course even whole countries which are out out of our what I call cupola out of privileged universe. But as such they are fully integrated into global capital take Congo which is one of the nightmares of today's world. Congo is totally integrated so many crucial minerals come from Congo but it's the state which is a non-operative state and mostly its local warlords dealing directly with Western corporations with of course full support or at least the international community is turning a blind eye and so on and so on. So I think that while of course miracles will happen I don't mean religious miracles I mean like who would have even for example that would be my ambiguity Syriza was a miracle it was the first time that a relatively radical left in very democratic clear way came to power. But what happens afterwards is so significant for me it's an it's like a symptom of the deadlock of today's left. They were elected as we know on the platform to oppose austerity and then you remember that referendum literally two three days after winning their anti-austerity referendum they adopted the stance of becoming a perfect executors of the most brutal austerity. And I don't think we can simply blame them like my radical leftist friends some of them traitors traitors no the situation is much more tragic. We we really lack a vision of what to to be very blunt it's not enough to criticize liberal left-leaning liberal democracy one has to also today okay okay we need more radical left but what will this left really do I have this basic problem is it simply I hate this formula that we need a democracy which more and more relies on active citizens and so on and so on. I think this is an bullshit empty formula. I love bureaucracy my idea of happiness is you live in a complex state and you don't have to worry you know this is for me nightmare what some of my leftist friends describe as paradise you live in a non-alienated local community and all the common things are debated together how to organize kindergartens water supply education I would would you really like to live in a society like that I would like to live in a nicely authentically alienated society. By alienation I mean I do my work of course from time to time one has to control those but I can rely on an invisible state bureaucracy that things basically function. Now people started to shout Stalinist Stalinist. No the problem of Stalinism was precisely that it never was ready able to establish a well-functioning bureaucracy that's why it has to have purges and emergency states all the time. I'm a believer my motto to the horror of my leftist friends is authentically alienated bureaucracy and like not we are all one we are all one in
unknown
abstract but concretely I want proper distances. Like let me tell you something brutal and I mean this as an existential attitude. No I'm I'm misanthropic I wouldn't like to be friends with many of you. Friendship is something and if you are honest friendship is something you really I
abstract but concretely I want proper distances. Like let me tell you something brutal and I mean this as an existential attitude. No I'm I'm misanthropic I wouldn't like to be friends with many of you. Friendship is something and if you are honest friendship is something you really I
Slavoj Žižek
even don't want if somebody comes to me oh you should understand me no I'm not interested in you and so on. And don't get caught into this moralistic liberal pressure we should understand each other you know which is oh sorry just to finish we know which is along these lines one of the most stupid proverbs wisdoms that I know it was popular by some of these new community communitarian ecologists an enemy is somebody to whom we were not ready to listen. Like the idea is clear somebody appears to us as an enemy but the moment you really are ready to hear his side maybe but in a very limited way I claim. Would you say that Hitler was our enemy because we were not ready to listen to him or what? No sorry. Okay I'm telling now telling you now something very limited well-known but nonetheless the greatness of Churchill was that he was listening he was listening to Hitler already in the early thirties and knew it. So you know we have to accept that there are authentic enemies where the point you know why I will tell you now why because and with this I conclude ethical no no sorry an ethical point important you know I don't let's look at a guy who does horrible things then a humanist comes and says but we should try to understand him why is he or she or they doing this. I'm saying yes and no because to understand him means simply to listen to the myths that he this criminal is telling to himself to justify what he is doing. Like in Brazil I read now a wonderful book about how the secret police which years ago there was they were seriously torturing political prisoners and so on you know what they did they invented their own new age religion a combination of pseudo-Buddhism and some Western mystical trends the message was this fake Buddhist message reality is not substantial reality outside is just a flow of phenomena the only thing that really matters is your inner experience and so on and so on. This even almost beautiful vision was what enabled them to torture but with a distance without getting caught in it. So I I think that all this is why I read a wonderful book recently forgot the author the title is *The Nazi Ethics* and it asks precisely this question we all know the horrors the Nazi did but what stories were they telling to themselves to justify in their eyes what they're doing. So in this sense I am much more of a skeptic. Professor Peterson said that he hoped that the Democrats got badly beaten in the midterms so it would give them a kick up the arse effectively and you said that you think Clinton is a problem not Trump so I was wondering whether you agree with Professor Peterson and whether you think the Democrats got the kick up the arse they
even don't want if somebody comes to me oh you should understand me no I'm not interested in you and so on. And don't get caught into this moralistic liberal pressure we should understand each other you know which is oh sorry just to finish we know which is along these lines one of the most stupid proverbs wisdoms that I know it was popular by some of these new community communitarian ecologists an enemy is somebody to whom we were not ready to listen. Like the idea is clear somebody appears to us as an enemy but the moment you really are ready to hear his side maybe but in a very limited way I claim. Would you say that Hitler was our enemy because we were not ready to listen to him or what? No sorry. Okay I'm telling now telling you now something very limited well-known but nonetheless the greatness of Churchill was that he was listening he was listening to Hitler already in the early thirties and knew it. So you know we have to accept that there are authentic enemies where the point you know why I will tell you now why because and with this I conclude ethical no no sorry an ethical point important you know I don't let's look at a guy who does horrible things then a humanist comes and says but we should try to understand him why is he or she or they doing this. I'm saying yes and no because to understand him means simply to listen to the myths that he this criminal is telling to himself to justify what he is doing. Like in Brazil I read now a wonderful book about how the secret police which years ago there was they were seriously torturing political prisoners and so on you know what they did they invented their own new age religion a combination of pseudo-Buddhism and some Western mystical trends the message was this fake Buddhist message reality is not substantial reality outside is just a flow of phenomena the only thing that really matters is your inner experience and so on and so on. This even almost beautiful vision was what enabled them to torture but with a distance without getting caught in it. So I I think that all this is why I read a wonderful book recently forgot the author the title is *The Nazi Ethics* and it asks precisely this question we all know the horrors the Nazi did but what stories were they telling to themselves to justify in their eyes what they're doing. So in this sense I am much more of a skeptic. Professor Peterson said that he hoped that the Democrats got badly beaten in the midterms so it would give them a kick up the arse effectively and you said that you think Clinton is a problem not Trump so I was wondering whether you agree with Professor Peterson and whether you think the Democrats got the kick up the arse they
unknown
needed. I am quite okay let's not lose too much time with this. I just wanted to say that I am quite convinced with some analysis which show that the reasons of this relative success only in the Senate of Republicans is the obvious incredible injustice of American electoral system for the Senate. You know the principle each state gets two senators so you have a small state
needed. I am quite okay let's not lose too much time with this. I just wanted to say that I am quite convinced with some analysis which show that the reasons of this relative success only in the Senate of Republicans is the obvious incredible injustice of American electoral system for the Senate. You know the principle each state gets two senators so you have a small state
Slavoj Žižek
small by the number of population like I don't know Montana and so on which gets the same number of senators as California although California has around times more population. And it's strict do you know that Democrats nonetheless got some million more of the votes you know. But you know where do I more fundamentally disagree with Peterson. On the one hand it's not that I am for in any sense for Trump he is a horror but maybe this is my wildly Leninist speculative brutal mind I am always obsessed by this idea I don't blame them they can be well-meaning and so on that again as you said and I said the problem is the disintegration of this old centrist liberal democratic consensus. That and this is what is really in crisis and I see Trump as somebody who further undermines this consensus and thus create a need and maybe even a chance for a new consensus. I claim no Bernie Sanders and so on and so on no democratic socialist without Trump. Now I know this is an extremely dangerous game because some idiots who criticized me at this point used this idea but this is the same as to say some crazy communists did say in it's better to have Hitler in power now the fronts are clear. No I am not saying this. It's a specific statement about United States for example I am not saying that you should get a Boris Johnson prime minister or France Marine Le Pen. European states are organized in a much more centralized different way. So back to Jordan Peterson first I I think that with all his pseudo-scientific references you know he cannot talk about women and marriage without mentioning lobsters apes or whatever all of them that if you go to the end in this direction mirroring relations of domination among animals projecting them onto humans then we humans are doomed my God because humanity as such is unnatural. What is the idea of equality freedom and so on this is human madness and not only this I cannot go into this now but my first point is and I will quote here somebody who is also my enemy but a little bit more honest Steven Pinker so-called rational optimist. I saw on YouTube a debate between two of them where Jordan Peterson went strongly in this direction today there is so much violence and so on and then Steven Pinker said sorry your facts are totally wrong like no if you look at it globally with all the horror you have here those knife crimes and so on the last decades are still much better than any time in history and so on and so on. So first I doubt many of his facts. As to his theories first I was not in the sense that he uses it but I think at the beginning not that I liked him I think he became famous for his brutal reaction to some transgender people's idea he she ze it whatever. I don't agree with him but I think he did draw attention to some problems there. There I had not a sympathy but half understanding. Then catastrophe emerged when he fell into this stupid trap and started to use the term which is today the main term of contemporary right cultural Marxism. And it would be so interesting I don't want to talk too much to follow to deploy in front of you the entire background of this nation it's incredible. There is a whole conspiracy theory narrative it goes like this after communist revolutions direct political failed in early twenties communist Comintern Lenin whoever was there Stalin decided that we failed because we underestimated the strength of the Christian moral convictions of Western people so we should first undermine them morally and this is why it's a beautiful theory I like it through the detour of some Argentinian millionaire they financed Frankfurt school Western Marxism which then culminates in today's in today's what they call cultural Marxism. Okay to cut a long story short I talk too much I know I'm totally opposed
small by the number of population like I don't know Montana and so on which gets the same number of senators as California although California has around times more population. And it's strict do you know that Democrats nonetheless got some million more of the votes you know. But you know where do I more fundamentally disagree with Peterson. On the one hand it's not that I am for in any sense for Trump he is a horror but maybe this is my wildly Leninist speculative brutal mind I am always obsessed by this idea I don't blame them they can be well-meaning and so on that again as you said and I said the problem is the disintegration of this old centrist liberal democratic consensus. That and this is what is really in crisis and I see Trump as somebody who further undermines this consensus and thus create a need and maybe even a chance for a new consensus. I claim no Bernie Sanders and so on and so on no democratic socialist without Trump. Now I know this is an extremely dangerous game because some idiots who criticized me at this point used this idea but this is the same as to say some crazy communists did say in it's better to have Hitler in power now the fronts are clear. No I am not saying this. It's a specific statement about United States for example I am not saying that you should get a Boris Johnson prime minister or France Marine Le Pen. European states are organized in a much more centralized different way. So back to Jordan Peterson first I I think that with all his pseudo-scientific references you know he cannot talk about women and marriage without mentioning lobsters apes or whatever all of them that if you go to the end in this direction mirroring relations of domination among animals projecting them onto humans then we humans are doomed my God because humanity as such is unnatural. What is the idea of equality freedom and so on this is human madness and not only this I cannot go into this now but my first point is and I will quote here somebody who is also my enemy but a little bit more honest Steven Pinker so-called rational optimist. I saw on YouTube a debate between two of them where Jordan Peterson went strongly in this direction today there is so much violence and so on and then Steven Pinker said sorry your facts are totally wrong like no if you look at it globally with all the horror you have here those knife crimes and so on the last decades are still much better than any time in history and so on and so on. So first I doubt many of his facts. As to his theories first I was not in the sense that he uses it but I think at the beginning not that I liked him I think he became famous for his brutal reaction to some transgender people's idea he she ze it whatever. I don't agree with him but I think he did draw attention to some problems there. There I had not a sympathy but half understanding. Then catastrophe emerged when he fell into this stupid trap and started to use the term which is today the main term of contemporary right cultural Marxism. And it would be so interesting I don't want to talk too much to follow to deploy in front of you the entire background of this nation it's incredible. There is a whole conspiracy theory narrative it goes like this after communist revolutions direct political failed in early twenties communist Comintern Lenin whoever was there Stalin decided that we failed because we underestimated the strength of the Christian moral convictions of Western people so we should first undermine them morally and this is why it's a beautiful theory I like it through the detour of some Argentinian millionaire they financed Frankfurt school Western Marxism which then culminates in today's in today's what they call cultural Marxism. Okay to cut a long story short I talk too much I know I'm totally opposed
unknown
to this narrative. I think that today's political correctness and so on and so on its
to this narrative. I think that today's political correctness and so on and so on its
Slavoj Žižek
failure is not that it's too fanatically Marxist it's precisely that it's not Marxist. That is to say basic question of social power economy and so on it obfuscates these powers these questions sorry as cultural problems and so on and so on. Then there is the third moment I'm not giving you now full critique I cannot have just mapping the topic where I find him Peterson even more problematic his attitude he wants to be a wise guy wisdom giving advice to people Jung Jungian approach and so on and so on. Here I react like Goebbels I pull out my gun like I have such a distrust towards any form of wisdom. Wisdom is for me by definition stupidity. You know what is wisdom wisdom is totally opportunistic I'll give you a simple example in my country let's say you do something risky and you succeed then I can immediately comment on your success by five ten proverbs you know like we have a it rhymes nicely in Slovene only those who risk profit or whatever this type of a justifying risking. Then let's say you fail we have again a series of wonderful vulgar proverbs like my most popular one you cannot urinate against the wind you know and so on. This is wisdom is so deeply and I think the greatest of our two traditions at least European Plato ancient Greek philosophy or Christianity they're absolutely anti-wisdom. Jesus Christ is a madman I mean in this sense of socially disruptive and so on. You know if nothing else the traditional form of wisdom always thinks in circular terms what arises will fall down everything returns to dust and the notion of injustice is always the notion of somebody who should stick to his her their particular role gets caught in a hubris too much but balance have to be restored. This is the very opposite of Christianity and of Plato. The basic idea of Plato is Plato's idealism in this sense I'm a materialist idealist whatever that means is that you are go on in your daily life stupid daily life you search for pleasures then you have a mega experience religious philosophical even erotic love and your whole life is destabilized. Are we aware how non-organic traumatic brutal thing a true passionate love is. Again a vulgar example that I like to use let's say you are not in love you live your promiscuous life you drink with friends one night stand here there and so on then you fall in love all this
failure is not that it's too fanatically Marxist it's precisely that it's not Marxist. That is to say basic question of social power economy and so on it obfuscates these powers these questions sorry as cultural problems and so on and so on. Then there is the third moment I'm not giving you now full critique I cannot have just mapping the topic where I find him Peterson even more problematic his attitude he wants to be a wise guy wisdom giving advice to people Jung Jungian approach and so on and so on. Here I react like Goebbels I pull out my gun like I have such a distrust towards any form of wisdom. Wisdom is for me by definition stupidity. You know what is wisdom wisdom is totally opportunistic I'll give you a simple example in my country let's say you do something risky and you succeed then I can immediately comment on your success by five ten proverbs you know like we have a it rhymes nicely in Slovene only those who risk profit or whatever this type of a justifying risking. Then let's say you fail we have again a series of wonderful vulgar proverbs like my most popular one you cannot urinate against the wind you know and so on. This is wisdom is so deeply and I think the greatest of our two traditions at least European Plato ancient Greek philosophy or Christianity they're absolutely anti-wisdom. Jesus Christ is a madman I mean in this sense of socially disruptive and so on. You know if nothing else the traditional form of wisdom always thinks in circular terms what arises will fall down everything returns to dust and the notion of injustice is always the notion of somebody who should stick to his her their particular role gets caught in a hubris too much but balance have to be restored. This is the very opposite of Christianity and of Plato. The basic idea of Plato is Plato's idealism in this sense I'm a materialist idealist whatever that means is that you are go on in your daily life stupid daily life you search for pleasures then you have a mega experience religious philosophical even erotic love and your whole life is destabilized. Are we aware how non-organic traumatic brutal thing a true passionate love is. Again a vulgar example that I like to use let's say you are not in love you live your promiscuous life you drink with friends one night stand here there and so on then you fall in love all this
unknown
stability is destroyed everything is
stability is destroyed everything is
Slavoj Žižek
focused onto something that's what's so great you find this in Christianity you find this also in other religions I don't want to go into it
focused onto something that's what's so great you find this in Christianity you find this also in other religions I don't want to go into it
unknown
you find this in Plato's idealism you know Plato's basic reaction was the way Plato describes Socrates when he is thinking it's
you find this in Plato's idealism you know Plato's basic reaction was the way Plato describes Socrates when he is thinking it's
Slavoj Žižek
really like a hysteric reaction of this ah he just stood there immobilized and so
really like a hysteric reaction of this ah he just stood there immobilized and so
unknown
on and so on. So I am for abstraction for violent difference for I am absolutely against any holistic approach. On university campuses we live in an age of identity politics and there's a concern that identity politics undermines the development of a more universal solidarity.
on and so on. So I am for abstraction for violent difference for I am absolutely against any holistic approach. On university campuses we live in an age of identity politics and there's a concern that identity politics undermines the development of a more universal solidarity.
Slavoj Žižek
Yes but again this is very sad that's why people claim I am popular no I am not and I know well why I am not. Books and authors who are truly popular always have at the end a simple effective formula like Chantal Mouffe now left populism you know before Negri and Hardt multitudes and so on and so on. I'm skeptical I know how much this hurts me but I don't want to propose this formula so while in principle I agree with this I'm very much critical towards those Marxists who think we can simply go on with praising proletariat. Who is today the possible agent of change if there will be a change I'm not sure. I think it's very dispersed we have dissatisfaction in educated circles like if you're a computer specialist or whatever and if you are not very lucky I don't know how it is here in my country Slovenia percent of people under already can get only precarious jobs and so on. You have unemployed you have so many other groups which are marginalized. You have then of course even whole countries which are out out of our what I call cupola out of privileged universe. But as such they are fully integrated into global capital take Congo which is one of the nightmares of today's world. Congo is totally integrated so many crucial minerals come from Congo but it's the state which is a non-operative state and mostly its local warlords dealing directly with Western corporations with of course full support or at least the international community is turning a blind eye and so on and so on. So I think that while of course miracles will happen I don't mean religious miracles I mean like who would have even for example that would be my ambiguity Syriza was a miracle it was the first time that a relatively radical left in very democratic clear way came to power. But what happens afterwards is so significant for me it's an it's like a symptom of the deadlock of today's left. They were elected as we know on the platform to oppose austerity and then you remember that referendum literally two three days after winning their anti-austerity referendum they adopted the stance of becoming a perfect executors of the most brutal austerity. And I don't think we can simply blame them like my radical leftist friends some of them traitors traitors no the situation is much more tragic. We we really lack a vision of what to to be very blunt it's not enough to criticize liberal left-leaning liberal democracy one has to also today okay okay we need more radical left but what will this left really do I have this basic problem is it simply I hate this formula that we need a democracy which more and more relies on active citizens and so on and so on. I think this is an bullshit empty formula. I love bureaucracy my idea of happiness is you live in a complex state and you don't have to worry you know this is for me nightmare what some of my leftist friends describe as paradise you live in a non-alienated local community and all the common things are debated together how to organize kindergartens water supply education I would would you really like to live in a society like that I would like to live in a nicely authentically alienated society. By alienation I mean I do my work of course from time to time one has to control those but I can rely on an invisible state bureaucracy that things basically function. Now people started to shout Stalinist Stalinist. No the problem of Stalinism was precisely that it never was ready able to establish a well-functioning bureaucracy that's why it has to have purges and emergency states all the time. I'm a believer my motto to the horror of my leftist friends is authentically alienated bureaucracy and like not we are all one we are all one in abstract but concretely I want proper distances. Like let me tell you something brutal and I mean this as an existential attitude. No I'm I'm misanthropic I wouldn't like to be friends with many of you. Friendship is something and if you are honest friendship is something you really I even don't want if somebody comes to me oh you should understand
Yes but again this is very sad that's why people claim I am popular no I am not and I know well why I am not. Books and authors who are truly popular always have at the end a simple effective formula like Chantal Mouffe now left populism you know before Negri and Hardt multitudes and so on and so on. I'm skeptical I know how much this hurts me but I don't want to propose this formula so while in principle I agree with this I'm very much critical towards those Marxists who think we can simply go on with praising proletariat. Who is today the possible agent of change if there will be a change I'm not sure. I think it's very dispersed we have dissatisfaction in educated circles like if you're a computer specialist or whatever and if you are not very lucky I don't know how it is here in my country Slovenia percent of people under already can get only precarious jobs and so on. You have unemployed you have so many other groups which are marginalized. You have then of course even whole countries which are out out of our what I call cupola out of privileged universe. But as such they are fully integrated into global capital take Congo which is one of the nightmares of today's world. Congo is totally integrated so many crucial minerals come from Congo but it's the state which is a non-operative state and mostly its local warlords dealing directly with Western corporations with of course full support or at least the international community is turning a blind eye and so on and so on. So I think that while of course miracles will happen I don't mean religious miracles I mean like who would have even for example that would be my ambiguity Syriza was a miracle it was the first time that a relatively radical left in very democratic clear way came to power. But what happens afterwards is so significant for me it's an it's like a symptom of the deadlock of today's left. They were elected as we know on the platform to oppose austerity and then you remember that referendum literally two three days after winning their anti-austerity referendum they adopted the stance of becoming a perfect executors of the most brutal austerity. And I don't think we can simply blame them like my radical leftist friends some of them traitors traitors no the situation is much more tragic. We we really lack a vision of what to to be very blunt it's not enough to criticize liberal left-leaning liberal democracy one has to also today okay okay we need more radical left but what will this left really do I have this basic problem is it simply I hate this formula that we need a democracy which more and more relies on active citizens and so on and so on. I think this is an bullshit empty formula. I love bureaucracy my idea of happiness is you live in a complex state and you don't have to worry you know this is for me nightmare what some of my leftist friends describe as paradise you live in a non-alienated local community and all the common things are debated together how to organize kindergartens water supply education I would would you really like to live in a society like that I would like to live in a nicely authentically alienated society. By alienation I mean I do my work of course from time to time one has to control those but I can rely on an invisible state bureaucracy that things basically function. Now people started to shout Stalinist Stalinist. No the problem of Stalinism was precisely that it never was ready able to establish a well-functioning bureaucracy that's why it has to have purges and emergency states all the time. I'm a believer my motto to the horror of my leftist friends is authentically alienated bureaucracy and like not we are all one we are all one in abstract but concretely I want proper distances. Like let me tell you something brutal and I mean this as an existential attitude. No I'm I'm misanthropic I wouldn't like to be friends with many of you. Friendship is something and if you are honest friendship is something you really I even don't want if somebody comes to me oh you should understand
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me no I'm not interested in you
me no I'm not interested in you
Slavoj Žižek
and so on. And don't get caught into this moralistic liberal pressure we should understand each other you know which is oh
and so on. And don't get caught into this moralistic liberal pressure we should understand each other you know which is oh
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sorry just to finish we know which is along these lines
sorry just to finish we know which is along these lines
Slavoj Žižek
one of the most stupid proverbs
one of the most stupid proverbs
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wisdoms that I know it was popular by some of these new community communitarian ecologists an enemy is somebody to whom we were not ready to listen. Like the idea is clear somebody appears to us as an enemy but the moment you really are ready to hear his side maybe but in a very limited way I claim. Would you say
wisdoms that I know it was popular by some of these new community communitarian ecologists an enemy is somebody to whom we were not ready to listen. Like the idea is clear somebody appears to us as an enemy but the moment you really are ready to hear his side maybe but in a very limited way I claim. Would you say
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that Hitler was our enemy because we were not ready to listen to him or what? No sorry. Okay I'm telling now telling you now something very limited well-known but nonetheless the greatness of Churchill was that he was listening he was listening to Hitler already in the early thirties and knew it. So you know we have to accept that there are authentic enemies where the point you know why I will tell you now why because and with this I conclude ethical no no sorry an ethical point important
that Hitler was our enemy because we were not ready to listen to him or what? No sorry. Okay I'm telling now telling you now something very limited well-known but nonetheless the greatness of Churchill was that he was listening he was listening to Hitler already in the early thirties and knew it. So you know we have to accept that there are authentic enemies where the point you know why I will tell you now why because and with this I conclude ethical no no sorry an ethical point important
Slavoj Žižek
you know I don't let's look at a guy who does horrible things then a humanist comes and says but we should try to understand him why is he or she or they doing this. I'm saying yes and no because to understand him means simply to listen to the myths that he this criminal is telling to himself to justify what he is doing. Like in Brazil I read now a wonderful book about how the secret police which years ago there was they were seriously torturing political prisoners and so on you know what they did they invented their own new age religion a combination of pseudo-Buddhism and some Western mystical trends the message was this fake Buddhist message reality is not substantial reality outside is just a flow of phenomena the only thing that really matters is your inner experience and so on and so on. This even almost beautiful vision was what enabled them to torture but with a distance without getting caught in it. So I I think that all this is why I read a wonderful book recently forgot the author the title is *The Nazi Ethics* and it asks precisely this question we all know the horrors the Nazi did but what stories were they telling to themselves to justify in their eyes what they're doing. So in this sense I am much more of a skeptic. What are your thoughts on the technology and algorithms behind online debates? I wouldn't put it direct I still in a very naive way believe that technologies are not in themselves ideologically oriented of course in some sense they are but they are always a battlefield. Like what is going on now is the big battlefield of who will control the digital space and this is especially important battle because if we can learn something from what goes on now that's why I still support with all the crazy things he did Julian Assange because people say why doesn't he criticize Putin more. My answer is that first I agree he said some stupid things about Russia and so on but you know the big breakthrough of WikiLeaks was for me not so much Russia China my God everybody knows they're controlled societies and so on. Ideology at its most dangerous today is and that's the magic of successful control through internet and other digital media that you are most controlled and softly regulated precisely when you perceive yourself as at the highest level of your freedom. What can be most free than just surfing the web this that and so on. That's ideology at its most dangerous to put it in someone somewhat pathetic terms your un-freedom experienced as falsely experienced as a new form of freedom. This is how it all works from late sixties onwards for example today you cannot even get a permanent job all the time anxiety precarious work then ideologists of new modernity come and tell you but don't you see that the fact that you don't have a permanent job is a new opportunity you are not alienated in a fixed position you can reinvent yourself every year again and again that's ideology at its most efficient. Not the
you know I don't let's look at a guy who does horrible things then a humanist comes and says but we should try to understand him why is he or she or they doing this. I'm saying yes and no because to understand him means simply to listen to the myths that he this criminal is telling to himself to justify what he is doing. Like in Brazil I read now a wonderful book about how the secret police which years ago there was they were seriously torturing political prisoners and so on you know what they did they invented their own new age religion a combination of pseudo-Buddhism and some Western mystical trends the message was this fake Buddhist message reality is not substantial reality outside is just a flow of phenomena the only thing that really matters is your inner experience and so on and so on. This even almost beautiful vision was what enabled them to torture but with a distance without getting caught in it. So I I think that all this is why I read a wonderful book recently forgot the author the title is *The Nazi Ethics* and it asks precisely this question we all know the horrors the Nazi did but what stories were they telling to themselves to justify in their eyes what they're doing. So in this sense I am much more of a skeptic. What are your thoughts on the technology and algorithms behind online debates? I wouldn't put it direct I still in a very naive way believe that technologies are not in themselves ideologically oriented of course in some sense they are but they are always a battlefield. Like what is going on now is the big battlefield of who will control the digital space and this is especially important battle because if we can learn something from what goes on now that's why I still support with all the crazy things he did Julian Assange because people say why doesn't he criticize Putin more. My answer is that first I agree he said some stupid things about Russia and so on but you know the big breakthrough of WikiLeaks was for me not so much Russia China my God everybody knows they're controlled societies and so on. Ideology at its most dangerous today is and that's the magic of successful control through internet and other digital media that you are most controlled and softly regulated precisely when you perceive yourself as at the highest level of your freedom. What can be most free than just surfing the web this that and so on. That's ideology at its most dangerous to put it in someone somewhat pathetic terms your un-freedom experienced as falsely experienced as a new form of freedom. This is how it all works from late sixties onwards for example today you cannot even get a permanent job all the time anxiety precarious work then ideologists of new modernity come and tell you but don't you see that the fact that you don't have a permanent job is a new opportunity you are not alienated in a fixed position you can reinvent yourself every year again and again that's ideology at its most efficient. Not the
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old authoritarian ideology you sub-ordinate but to make you see new forms of un-freedom as the
old authoritarian ideology you sub-ordinate but to make you see new forms of un-freedom as the
Slavoj Žižek
very form of new figures of un-freedom as the very form of freedom. In this sense I think the battles today are and that's are precisely for these invisible forms of control and the last text I wrote you can read it it's published in that very marginal American they're the only ones who want to publish me digital journal *Los Angeles Philosophical
very form of new figures of un-freedom as the very form of freedom. In this sense I think the battles today are and that's are precisely for these invisible forms of control and the last text I wrote you can read it it's published in that very marginal American they're the only ones who want to publish me digital journal *Los Angeles Philosophical
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Salon* at *Los Angeles Review of Books*. I read a wonderful book by Italian author who was a fascist then became a communist okay you will say the usual story of a Curzio Malaparte of the revolutionary coup d'etat technique immediately. And he says describes very convincingly how Trotsky who we know now was the true master of the October Revolution did it. Stalin and the majority of the politburo of the Bolsheviks even
Salon* at *Los Angeles Review of Books*. I read a wonderful book by Italian author who was a fascist then became a communist okay you will say the usual story of a Curzio Malaparte of the revolutionary coup d'etat technique immediately. And he says describes very convincingly how Trotsky who we know now was the true master of the October Revolution did it. Stalin and the majority of the politburo of the Bolsheviks even
Slavoj Žižek
Lenin was oscillating here still thought about revolution in the traditional way you gather of people they storm the palace the seat of government army headquarters. Trotsky got the point that a modern state has a couple of knots or key points of power which render possible its functioning and Trotsky said you do your revolution next day give me one night before for me to take over electricity water supply railway post offices and so on. And that was the surprise everybody knew newspapers were reporting oh Bolsheviks are preparing coup d'etat and the irony is that Kerensky knew it he was mobilizing soldiers and then you know Trotsky was here at least later he made mistakes he was a genius he said I needed less than people small groups people dedicated soldiers Bolsheviks and specialists. And you know what he was doing for example Ministry I think of electricity it was a building and it was so unprotected nobody expected it that his Bolsheviks were simply for days running up down the stairs there practicing it and people were just laughing what are these idiots doing it and then he did it in the night before he just took over these key points the state was immobilized. Maybe we should do the same today. Forget about MeToo Tahrir Square and so on. Those in power unfortunately know it. I was told by somebody who looks into it you know how the powers are getting ready to block the internet phone connections and so on and so on. We should think in these Trotskyean terms of neutralizing or because the first thing the power will do is again to disconnect us and in today's society without digital connections and so on we are lost. How to take over at that point. Nobody has to be killed and so on that's what I like in this idea people still sleep blah blah you just awaken it the power has gone you know. Sorry. I am grateful to you for tolerating my eccentricity. I am the one who
Lenin was oscillating here still thought about revolution in the traditional way you gather of people they storm the palace the seat of government army headquarters. Trotsky got the point that a modern state has a couple of knots or key points of power which render possible its functioning and Trotsky said you do your revolution next day give me one night before for me to take over electricity water supply railway post offices and so on. And that was the surprise everybody knew newspapers were reporting oh Bolsheviks are preparing coup d'etat and the irony is that Kerensky knew it he was mobilizing soldiers and then you know Trotsky was here at least later he made mistakes he was a genius he said I needed less than people small groups people dedicated soldiers Bolsheviks and specialists. And you know what he was doing for example Ministry I think of electricity it was a building and it was so unprotected nobody expected it that his Bolsheviks were simply for days running up down the stairs there practicing it and people were just laughing what are these idiots doing it and then he did it in the night before he just took over these key points the state was immobilized. Maybe we should do the same today. Forget about MeToo Tahrir Square and so on. Those in power unfortunately know it. I was told by somebody who looks into it you know how the powers are getting ready to block the internet phone connections and so on and so on. We should think in these Trotskyean terms of neutralizing or because the first thing the power will do is again to disconnect us and in today's society without digital connections and so on we are lost. How to take over at that point. Nobody has to be killed and so on that's what I like in this idea people still sleep blah blah you just awaken it the power has gone you know. Sorry. I am grateful to you for tolerating my eccentricity. I am the one who
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should be grateful. Give him a warm warm round of applause.
should be grateful. Give him a warm warm round of applause.