Hegel's 250th Anniversary: Too late? // Slavoj Žižek & Sven-Olov Wallenstein
Talk · Goethe-Institut Slowenien ·
2020-09-09 · 1:42:05 · 12,894 words
cinema-art-culturehegel-dialecticsideologypsychoanalysiscapitalismtechnology-ai-cyberspacegeopolitics-wareveryday-lifephilosophy-generalhistoryecology-climate
Žižek argues that great art and philosophy belong to a unique, irretrievable historical moment, introducing the concept of 'lateness' as a realist category. He explicitly disagrees with Judith Butler's interpretation of Hegel, specifically her vision that 'we are not yet there,' positioning her as his primary target in this segment despite maintaining personal goodwill. Žižek critiques Judith Butler’s and Robert Brandom’s readings of Hegel, arguing that Hegel’s logic requires beginning with vulgarity and failure rather than an optimistic reconciliation. He attacks Brandom’s notion of 'forgiving recollection' for failing to account for absolute evil, proposing instead a 'spirit of distrust' where ethical projects inevitably invert into their opposites. The talk concludes by applying this Hegelian framework to contemporary crises, suggesting that COVID-19, capital, and ideology function as viral entities, and that the current century is 'Hegelian' due to its pattern of catastrophic reversals. Žižek engages in a Q&A discussing Hegel's late style, contrasting it with liberal 'consensus' readings (Brandom/Pippin) and emphasizing negativity and conflict. He addresses the Holocaust's place in history, arguing against retroactive justification, and explores the unpredictability of 'Geist' as a virus, using the Oedipus prophecy and climate change as examples of self-fulfilling predictions. The talk concludes with a joke about a hotel wall mocking Hegel's philosophy.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 21
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
A realist category pointing to a unique historical moment of great art/philosophy that can never be retrieved or repeated.
as “imminent critique”
A pseudo-Hegelian notion (rejected by Rocío Zambrana) that critique is guided by normative criteria distilled from the socio-historical phenomenon itself.
A Hegelian vision attributed to Judith Butler, suggesting a future realization of the concept that Žižek rejects as insufficiently realist.
Hegel’s identification of the proletariat as the subject-object of history, which Butler misreads as a naive claim about social connection.
Hegel’s phrase 'the spirit is a bone' from the Phenomenology, used to illustrate the speculative unity of the highest truth and the lowest materialism (urination/insemination).
as “imminent temporality”
The Hegelian logic that one must begin with the 'wrong' or vulgar choice (urination/Terror) to reach the height; the path to truth is through failure.
Hegel’s description of history as a succession of horrors without a happy reconciliation, contradicting liberal readings of Hegel.
Robert Brandom’s central notion in his reading of Hegel, where the gap between actor and judge is overcome by mutual confession and reconciliation.
Bernard Williams’ concept, used by Žižek to explain how the outcome of an act retroactively determines its ethical meaning (e.g., a successful revolution becomes legal).
Žižek’s counter-concept to Brandom’s trust in future synthesis; the Hegian view that ethical projects inevitably fail and invert, requiring vigilance rather than trust.
as “Verkehrte Welt”
The 'topsy-turvy world' or realm of inversion, where things turn into their opposites, a key feature of Hegelian analysis of history.
Žižek’s speculative update of Hegel’s 'spirit is a bone,' arguing that the symbolic order/mind functions as a parasitic virus (meme/ideology) that hijacks the subject.
Lacan’s insight that the symbolic order is not a harmonic continuity but a parasitic entity that disrupts the natural animal existence.
An optic or way of reading (e.g., Beethoven) that is not merely biographical old age but a specific aesthetic mode of fragmentation and difficulty.
Hegel's achievement of introducing new clichés into philosophy, implying that true originality lies in reworking established forms rather than pure novelty.
A critique of contemporary Hegel scholarship (Anerkennung) that frames Hegel as a thinker of consensus and like-mindedness, ignoring conflict.
as “ontological minimization”
Žižek's label for the analytic/conservative Hegel reading (Brandom/Pippin) that reduces logic to a theory of discourse/consensus, stripping away metaphysical negativity.
The false Hegelian stance of standing 'on one's shoulder' to judge one's own horrible actions objectively, which Hegel prohibits.
The mechanism by which past events (like the Holocaust) are judged; once condemned, they cannot be retroactively justified as necessary.
The view that predictions cause the very events they predict (as in Oedipus), making the future attack us from the back.
as “Hegelian uncertainty”
The phenomenon where a predicted event (like a typhoon) is prevented by intervention, only for the prevention itself to cause the event.
Stories he reaches for 3
Producer Sam Goldwyn, seeing a complaint about too many clichés, orders 'new clichés,' illustrating that everyone can be original, and Hegel's achievement was introducing new clichés.
“We urgently need new clichés.”
Kant’s paradox that a revolution is illegal, but if it succeeds and establishes a new legal order, it becomes prohibited to rebel against it, showing how outcomes retroactively validate means.
“every revolution is to be condemned because you overthrow a legal power. But he says if the revolution wins and imposes a new legal order, then you are again prohibited to rebel against it.”
Žižek argues that predictions (like Oedipus's) cause the events they predict, and similarly, climate change predictions may cause the disasters they aim to prevent.
“if things will turn out bad, it they will turn out in Oedipus' way.”
Works invoked 11
Hegel’s work, central to the talk. Žižek defends it against Butler, emphasizing the 'Calvary of Spirit' and the necessity of Terror/failure.
Science of Logic book
Mentioned as one of Hegel’s last texts, alongside the critique of the English Reform Bill.
A Spirit of Trust book
Robert Brandom’s book on Hegel. Žižek critiques its central notion of 'forgiving recollection' for failing to account for absolute evil and for relying on naive trust.
Gurre-Lieder opera
Schönberg's massive work used in a joke to illustrate 'late style' as an optic.
Hegel's work (edited by Hotho) cited by an audience member regarding drama and Oedipus.
Moral Luck book
Bernard Williams’ book, cited for the concept that the outcome of an act determines its ethical meaning.
Beethoven's 9th Symphony opera
Analyzed for its 'Aber' (But) in the first movement and the chaotic 'Vulgarity' of the 4th movement.
One of Hegel’s last texts, where he expresses horror at egalitarian democracy.
Cited as the peak of Schelling’s work, contrasting with his late regression.
Sophocles' plays used to discuss 'Versöhnung' (reconciliation) and 'Aussöhnung' (reconciliation) in drama.
Winnetou book
A novel by Karl May, referenced by an audience member regarding the phrase 'Hau ich habe gesprochen'.
People invoked 35
Bernard Williams positive
Cited for the concept of 'moral luck,' which Žižek uses to explain how outcomes retroactively determine the ethical status of acts.
The editor of Hegel's 'Lectures on Aesthetics,' noted by an audience member.
Robert Pippin negative
Cited as a thinker of 'like-mindedness' and 'consensus,' representing the liberal reading of Hegel.
Oedipus positive
Used as a mythological example of 'Oedipal pessimism' where prediction causes the event.
Robert Brandom negative
Žižek critiques Brandom’s 'forgiving recollection' for failing to handle absolute evil (Hitler) and for relying on a naive trust in future synthesis rather than a 'spirit of distrust.'
Rocío Zambrana positive
A philosopher from Puerto Rico whose reading of Hegel via Adorno is praised for rejecting 'imminent critique' and focusing on the persistence of suffering.
Rudolf Eichmann negative
Used in a hypothetical anecdote to illustrate the 'false meta-language position' of claiming objective help in evil.
Theodor W. Adorno positive
Cited for his view that ethics (suffering, tension) is inscribed in the heart of ontology, contrary to positive ethics.
Arnold Schoenberg positive
Cited for his joke about orchestras being for 'stupid Americans' to illustrate 'late style' as an optic.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited for the insight that the 'big Other' (symbolic order) is a parasitic entity, not a harmonic continuity, which Žižek links to the virus metaphor.
Referenced via Foucault’s quote; Žižek argues the current century is Hegelian, not Deleuzian, due to its reversals.
Francis Fukuyama negative
Described as the 'greatest anti-Hegelian' because he believes global capitalism’s victory is the end of history, whereas Hegel sees self-division and splitting.
Daniel Dennett negative
Described as a 'cognitivist' thinker whose theory that mind is a virus/parasite is cited by Žižek, though Žižek distances himself from Dennett’s specific framework.
Judith Butler negative
Identified as Žižek's 'first target' for her speech on Hegel and her vision that 'we are not yet there'; Žižek states he personally has good relations with her.
Donald Trump positive
Žižek admires Trump’s 'subversive' honesty in admitting political motives (defunding post office), seeing it as a Hegelian moment of truth-telling against liberal expectations.
Referenced by an audience member via the character Winnetou; Žižek dismisses it briefly.
Ludwig van Beethoven positive
Cited as an exception where 'late style' does represent deep insight, contrasting with philosophy.
Mentioned as someone who acted as a 'prophet' for the future, which Žižek questions regarding Geist.
Adolf Hitler negative
Discussed in the context of the Holocaust and whether it belongs to 'history proper' or can be reconciled.
Bruno Latour positive
Cited for the prediction that COVID-19 is a 'modest dress rehearsal' for future biological crises.
Included in the hotel wall joke ('Dubidubidu') to mock the progression of philosophical statements.
Used in a hyperbolic metaphor ('Goebbels reaction') to describe Žižek’s feigned rage at Butler’s naive reading of Hegel.
Cited for a quote about Deleuze ('one day maybe the century will be Deleuzian'), which Žižek contrasts with his claim that 'our century now is Hegelian.'
Richard Dawkins negative
Cited for the concept of 'memes' as parasitic entities, which Žižek uses to argue that our symbolic order functions like a virus.
Martin Heidegger positive
Cited for his assessment of Schelling’s late work as a regression, used in a discussion about whether philosophers’ late styles represent deep insight or decay.
Krzysztof Kieślowski positive
A movie director Žižek likes, whose death is framed as 'on time' because his later work would have failed.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling negative
Cited by Heidegger as having a 'peak' in his middle period, with late Schelling being a 'regression,' used to discuss the myth of 'late style' in philosophy.
Samuel Goldwyn positive
Used as an example of 'apparent mistakes which were ingenious jokes' to illustrate the concept of 'new clichés'.
Friedrich Hölderlin positive
Cited for his specific use of 'Aber' (But) in his late style, which Žižek links to Beethoven's 9th.
Jürgen Habermas negative
Hegel is said to 'come off occasionally as Habermas' in liberal readings, focusing on consensus rather than negativity.
Žižek states he 'prefers Stalin' to Trotskyite critics, arguing that the criteria used to judge Stalin are implicated in the event itself.
Karl Marx positive
Cited for the metaphor of capital as a virus, though Žižek argues Marx is too 'productivist' compared to Hegel’s recognition of nature’s autonomy.
Cited in the hotel wall joke: 'to think is to be.'
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Žižek defends Hegel against liberal and Butlerian misreadings, arguing that Hegel’s true point is the necessity of failure, terror, and the 'Calvary of Spirit' without happy reconciliation.
Immanuel Kant positive
Cited for his paradoxical view on revolution: illegal in theory, but if successful, it becomes the new legal order, illustrating retroactive validation.
Transcript 66 turns
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Dober dan. Dobber dan, dobrodošli na Indigo festivalu, petem po vrsti. Dear guests, welcome to Ljubljana to the Indigo Festival and the seminar Years of Hegel. Now is too late, we said. Before, in previous editions, we talked about fear, lie and truth, who cares about us? In fact, nobody cares. What about rumors and so on? And now we thought it is too late. But maybe not. Maybe these discussions, concerts, performances, exhibitions, fair of coffee in our house and other events will tell us some other story, some other dimension. Now it's very important to think. Reflection, it's very important. Politicians just care about us, but we must care about us also. So thank you. We have very fine weather. We have excellent speakers. We have also Bara Kolenc here, and she is the president of Aufhebung Association, which is co-organizer of this festival. And here is director of the Goethe-Institut, who supported this very, very much. And thanks to all our collaborators, our team, all the people who make that this festival and this conference is possible. Thank you very much. Najprej v slovenščini, naj vas lepo pozdravim in takoj prešaltam na angleščino, da ne
Dober dan. Dobber dan, dobrodošli na Indigo festivalu, petem po vrsti. Dear guests, welcome to Ljubljana to the Indigo Festival and the seminar Years of Hegel. Now is too late, we said. Before, in previous editions, we talked about fear, lie and truth, who cares about us? In fact, nobody cares. What about rumors and so on? And now we thought it is too late. But maybe not. Maybe these discussions, concerts, performances, exhibitions, fair of coffee in our house and other events will tell us some other story, some other dimension. Now it's very important to think. Reflection, it's very important. Politicians just care about us, but we must care about us also. So thank you. We have very fine weather. We have excellent speakers. We have also Bara Kolenc here, and she is the president of Aufhebung Association, which is co-organizer of this festival. And here is director of the Goethe-Institut, who supported this very, very much. And thanks to all our collaborators, our team, all the people who make that this festival and this conference is possible. Thank you very much. Najprej v slovenščini, naj vas lepo pozdravim in takoj prešaltam na angleščino, da ne
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bo preveč time-consuming vse skupaj. Dear guests, dear visitors, dear friends of Hegel. Thank you for coming to this very special birthday party, International Philosophical Conference, Hegel's 250th Anniversary: Too Late. You are all very welcome in the name of the organizational committee. Hegel comes to his birthday party without protective mask and disinfectant. Is he too late? Or are we too late? Philosophy begins when the work is done, when the working day ends. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only when dusk falls. But is it possible that at some point reality finally overtakes the concept? Is too-lateness a diagnosis that cannot be rehabilitated? Or does everything actually only begin at a belated celebration or even an after-party? I want to thank everyone who helped to make this celebration happen, despite and in face of all the realities of the world at the moment. In the first place, I want to thank the organizers: Goethe-Institut Ljubljana, International Hegelian Association Aufhebung, Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana as part of the Indigo Festival and the City of Ljubljana, and co-organizers: Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana, Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Azil bookshop, the Razpotja magazine, Student Philosophical Society, Austrian Cultural Forum in Ljubljana and Slovenian Book Agency. However, special greetings also to our guests from Beirut, Nadia Abu El-Haj and Ray Brassier, who didn't manage to come due to the circumstances. Enjoy the event and the stream and join us also tomorrow. Now I will give the word to the director of Goethe-Institut Ljubljana, Dr. Arpad Zölter, who will introduce our guests. Hvala. Dober večer. Hvala, Bara. Hello everyone. Dear guests and friends of Hegel, it's great to see you. Thank you all for being here. It's a magnificent day, it's a wonderful evening. And I'm so thrilled, I'm honored, and it's my pleasure and it's really a delight to salute you here in Ljubljana on the magnificent Square of the French Revolution, which is so timely chosen for such a wonderful birthday party dedicated to reason, dedicated to free thinking and liberty. We are here to share the treasure box of German idealism with you, surrounded by Slovenian friends and experts to make the party even more cheerful. There is absolutely no need tonight for long and lavish introductions because there are Žižek T-shirts, there are Žižek records, and as a matter of fact, having talked to you Professor Žižek backstage about the White House, I'm very
bo preveč time-consuming vse skupaj. Dear guests, dear visitors, dear friends of Hegel. Thank you for coming to this very special birthday party, International Philosophical Conference, Hegel's 250th Anniversary: Too Late. You are all very welcome in the name of the organizational committee. Hegel comes to his birthday party without protective mask and disinfectant. Is he too late? Or are we too late? Philosophy begins when the work is done, when the working day ends. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only when dusk falls. But is it possible that at some point reality finally overtakes the concept? Is too-lateness a diagnosis that cannot be rehabilitated? Or does everything actually only begin at a belated celebration or even an after-party? I want to thank everyone who helped to make this celebration happen, despite and in face of all the realities of the world at the moment. In the first place, I want to thank the organizers: Goethe-Institut Ljubljana, International Hegelian Association Aufhebung, Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana as part of the Indigo Festival and the City of Ljubljana, and co-organizers: Faculty of Arts of the University of Ljubljana, Society for Theoretical Psychoanalysis, the Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Azil bookshop, the Razpotja magazine, Student Philosophical Society, Austrian Cultural Forum in Ljubljana and Slovenian Book Agency. However, special greetings also to our guests from Beirut, Nadia Abu El-Haj and Ray Brassier, who didn't manage to come due to the circumstances. Enjoy the event and the stream and join us also tomorrow. Now I will give the word to the director of Goethe-Institut Ljubljana, Dr. Arpad Zölter, who will introduce our guests. Hvala. Dober večer. Hvala, Bara. Hello everyone. Dear guests and friends of Hegel, it's great to see you. Thank you all for being here. It's a magnificent day, it's a wonderful evening. And I'm so thrilled, I'm honored, and it's my pleasure and it's really a delight to salute you here in Ljubljana on the magnificent Square of the French Revolution, which is so timely chosen for such a wonderful birthday party dedicated to reason, dedicated to free thinking and liberty. We are here to share the treasure box of German idealism with you, surrounded by Slovenian friends and experts to make the party even more cheerful. There is absolutely no need tonight for long and lavish introductions because there are Žižek T-shirts, there are Žižek records, and as a matter of fact, having talked to you Professor Žižek backstage about the White House, I'm very
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keen to get and
keen to get and
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wear one of your
wear one of your
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T-shirts. Not your T-shirt, a Žižek T-shirt, of course, of course. And there's an International Žižek Journal as you know, and there's an International Žižek Club, and he's been—it's all worthy of a popstar, of course—and he's been called by one opponent "the most dangerous philosopher in the entire West." I consider this to be a compliment. And he's also been called "the Elvis of cultural theory." This is even a greater compliment. Well guys, I got news for you: labels are for suitcases only. The other most prolific thinker who is with us is a dear friend of mine. We spent the last five years together. I wasn't wearing his T-shirts at all in Stockholm, because in Stockholm you need more than a T-shirt to wear, be sure of that, for most of the year. Professor Sven-Olov Wallenstein is a professor of philosophy at Södertörn University in Stockholm. I consider him somewhat of a resistance fighter, which you are. No need to deny it, my friend. Surrounded up north in the cold north of a Scandinavian territory dominated by analytic philosophy, there's one beacon on the hill. It's him. It is him. And to
T-shirts. Not your T-shirt, a Žižek T-shirt, of course, of course. And there's an International Žižek Journal as you know, and there's an International Žižek Club, and he's been—it's all worthy of a popstar, of course—and he's been called by one opponent "the most dangerous philosopher in the entire West." I consider this to be a compliment. And he's also been called "the Elvis of cultural theory." This is even a greater compliment. Well guys, I got news for you: labels are for suitcases only. The other most prolific thinker who is with us is a dear friend of mine. We spent the last five years together. I wasn't wearing his T-shirts at all in Stockholm, because in Stockholm you need more than a T-shirt to wear, be sure of that, for most of the year. Professor Sven-Olov Wallenstein is a professor of philosophy at Södertörn University in Stockholm. I consider him somewhat of a resistance fighter, which you are. No need to deny it, my friend. Surrounded up north in the cold north of a Scandinavian territory dominated by analytic philosophy, there's one beacon on the hill. It's him. It is him. And to
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mention all his publications would take too much time the entire evening, so I'll just bring one, one latest volume to your attention: "The Past, the Present and the Future of Critical Theory." He's just edited another doorstopper and we are all much looking forward. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, mein lieber Valle, jetzt auf Deutsch. Hey Valle, jette bra? The microphone is not yet switched on, we might do something about it and I'll continue with the speech while the techs are working on it. The floor is yours, oder viel schöner auf Deutsch, mein lieber Freund, du hast das Wort, von Kant über Adorno, über Hegel zu Beethoven and all the way back. Enjoy the evening. This will be provocative, entertaining, and most inspiring. Thank you very much. Hvala. Let's test it. I will say something simple like: keine Freiheit für die Feinde der Freiheit. Okay, I set my Stalinist motto. Yes, it worked. It works, okay, great. Mine worked, yeah. So, thank you, thank you Arpad. And so let's start. As Arpad mentioned, this is a great birthday party, but it has three guests in fact. Not only Hegel, but also Hölderlin and Beethoven. So I will try to address this constellation: Hegel, Hölderlin, Beethoven. And I'm doing that not just because they all have their birthdays this year, but also because I will address them from a certain point of view, which is the work of another German philosopher, Theodor Adorno, who in his great unfinished work called "Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music", he attempted to confront Beethoven with Hegel's philosophy. And he also introduced at very crucial points Hölderlin. So I will speak about this constellation, first reason. The second reason is that this theme for this conference is "Too Late", "zu spät". And in Adorno's interpretation of Beethoven, there is a very crucial concept called "Late Style", "Spätstil". So the idea of lateness also comes in here. So somehow I'm trying to tie together all the motifs for this conference. So, art's substance, Adorno writes in his, in another posthumous work, "Aesthetic Theory", "Art's substance could be its transitoriness. It is thinkable, and not merely an abstract possibility, that great music, a late development, ein spätes, was possible only during a limited phase of humanity." And quote. So this phrase appears in the beginning of the book, in a context of the discussion
mention all his publications would take too much time the entire evening, so I'll just bring one, one latest volume to your attention: "The Past, the Present and the Future of Critical Theory." He's just edited another doorstopper and we are all much looking forward. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, mein lieber Valle, jetzt auf Deutsch. Hey Valle, jette bra? The microphone is not yet switched on, we might do something about it and I'll continue with the speech while the techs are working on it. The floor is yours, oder viel schöner auf Deutsch, mein lieber Freund, du hast das Wort, von Kant über Adorno, über Hegel zu Beethoven and all the way back. Enjoy the evening. This will be provocative, entertaining, and most inspiring. Thank you very much. Hvala. Let's test it. I will say something simple like: keine Freiheit für die Feinde der Freiheit. Okay, I set my Stalinist motto. Yes, it worked. It works, okay, great. Mine worked, yeah. So, thank you, thank you Arpad. And so let's start. As Arpad mentioned, this is a great birthday party, but it has three guests in fact. Not only Hegel, but also Hölderlin and Beethoven. So I will try to address this constellation: Hegel, Hölderlin, Beethoven. And I'm doing that not just because they all have their birthdays this year, but also because I will address them from a certain point of view, which is the work of another German philosopher, Theodor Adorno, who in his great unfinished work called "Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music", he attempted to confront Beethoven with Hegel's philosophy. And he also introduced at very crucial points Hölderlin. So I will speak about this constellation, first reason. The second reason is that this theme for this conference is "Too Late", "zu spät". And in Adorno's interpretation of Beethoven, there is a very crucial concept called "Late Style", "Spätstil". So the idea of lateness also comes in here. So somehow I'm trying to tie together all the motifs for this conference. So, art's substance, Adorno writes in his, in another posthumous work, "Aesthetic Theory", "Art's substance could be its transitoriness. It is thinkable, and not merely an abstract possibility, that great music, a late development, ein spätes, was possible only during a limited phase of humanity." And quote. So this phrase appears in the beginning of the book, in a context of the discussion
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of Hegel's theory of art's historical nature and of why Hegel's historicizing of art as a moment in the history of spirit might be insufficient. So how should we understand this claim that art perhaps is possible only as something late, ein spätes? What is this lateness, which perhaps is a bit normalized, I think, by the standard English translation "a late development", which seems to put it in a kind of linear chronology? What is this lateness if we understand it as outside of the Hegelian theory of art as a thing of the past with respect to philosophy, to which Adorno surely did not subscribe? And might this lateness, in a way that seems to contradict the obvious meaning of the term, in fact be something that belongs not only to the present but also to the future? Does this lateness open up a kind of possibility? So put in terms of a somewhat crude alternative that I will hopefully come back to at the end, seems to be at least two senses of this idea of a late style or of lateness. The first is indicated by the passage I cited: great music, perhaps
of Hegel's theory of art's historical nature and of why Hegel's historicizing of art as a moment in the history of spirit might be insufficient. So how should we understand this claim that art perhaps is possible only as something late, ein spätes? What is this lateness, which perhaps is a bit normalized, I think, by the standard English translation "a late development", which seems to put it in a kind of linear chronology? What is this lateness if we understand it as outside of the Hegelian theory of art as a thing of the past with respect to philosophy, to which Adorno surely did not subscribe? And might this lateness, in a way that seems to contradict the obvious meaning of the term, in fact be something that belongs not only to the present but also to the future? Does this lateness open up a kind of possibility? So put in terms of a somewhat crude alternative that I will hopefully come back to at the end, seems to be at least two senses of this idea of a late style or of lateness. The first is indicated by the passage I cited: great music, perhaps
Slavoj Žižek
great art as such, and maybe also great philosophy, belongs to a unique historical moment that can never be retrieved. In this first version, the idea of lateness thus points
great art as such, and maybe also great philosophy, belongs to a unique historical moment that can never be retrieved. In this first version, the idea of lateness thus points
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to some historical singular event, ein Einmaligkeit, that condemns all that will follow to repeat, or more precisely, to unfold and radicalize a kind of logic of disintegration of this great monumental past, as Adorno says in his book "Negative Dialectics". And for Adorno, this is one of the basic features of modernity in philosophy as well as in the arts. There are many tendencies, but there's at least one such tendency in his work. So this is the first sense of the idea of something late. The second is that of a continually present possibility, which cannot be tied to any particular moment in time. So in this version, lateness discloses a dimension that belongs to an individual oeuvre just as such, and it also belongs and somehow points to a limit of art, a limit of art that is also its highest possibility, a limit that is always instantiated in precise historical moments but cannot be identified with any such historical moment. So, Beethoven. Before moving on to Adorno's particular writings on late style, we should note of course there is, there is the idea that there is something enigmatic in Beethoven's late work is not at all a perception unique to Adorno. And for many historians and musicologists of various creeds and theoretical persuasions, Beethoven's position in these pieces is a singular one. And as one musicologist, Michael Spitzer says, there's perhaps a kind of astral, astronomical sense to this lateness. And he says that the fact that Beethoven's work somehow curves the fabric of time, he says, is that Beethoven is so heavy that he bends light, as Michael Spitzer says in his book. So this idea of there being a late style in Beethoven is there in musicology, it is there surely in Thomas Mann, we know all the use that Thomas Mann made of this idea in his great book "Doctor Faustus", in for which Adorno of course also was a very important influence. And the idea that Beethoven's late piano sonatas, particularly Opus would somehow reach the limit of music, the limit of art, was a very key moment in Thomas Mann's novel "Doctor Faustus", although
to some historical singular event, ein Einmaligkeit, that condemns all that will follow to repeat, or more precisely, to unfold and radicalize a kind of logic of disintegration of this great monumental past, as Adorno says in his book "Negative Dialectics". And for Adorno, this is one of the basic features of modernity in philosophy as well as in the arts. There are many tendencies, but there's at least one such tendency in his work. So this is the first sense of the idea of something late. The second is that of a continually present possibility, which cannot be tied to any particular moment in time. So in this version, lateness discloses a dimension that belongs to an individual oeuvre just as such, and it also belongs and somehow points to a limit of art, a limit of art that is also its highest possibility, a limit that is always instantiated in precise historical moments but cannot be identified with any such historical moment. So, Beethoven. Before moving on to Adorno's particular writings on late style, we should note of course there is, there is the idea that there is something enigmatic in Beethoven's late work is not at all a perception unique to Adorno. And for many historians and musicologists of various creeds and theoretical persuasions, Beethoven's position in these pieces is a singular one. And as one musicologist, Michael Spitzer says, there's perhaps a kind of astral, astronomical sense to this lateness. And he says that the fact that Beethoven's work somehow curves the fabric of time, he says, is that Beethoven is so heavy that he bends light, as Michael Spitzer says in his book. So this idea of there being a late style in Beethoven is there in musicology, it is there surely in Thomas Mann, we know all the use that Thomas Mann made of this idea in his great book "Doctor Faustus", in for which Adorno of course also was a very important influence. And the idea that Beethoven's late piano sonatas, particularly Opus would somehow reach the limit of music, the limit of art, was a very key moment in Thomas Mann's novel "Doctor Faustus", although
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he interpreted it in a sense that somehow translated into an idea of something mystic, transcendent and spiritual, which I think at least is not precisely what Adorno meant with the idea of late style. So there is a whole culture of this idea of late style, and it is tied to certain moments in Beethoven. And we know that, as Jost Hermand points out in an interesting essay, when this piece, the piano sonata Opus was included in piano recitals in Germany in the late 40s and 50s, it was always placed last in the program. And it was forbidden—applause was forbidden, as if to underscore the work's wholly singular and unique position. So not just because of Adorno, but this idea of something late in Beethoven is a pervasive feature of certain theories of modernity. So, but I will look more specifically on Adorno's interpretation of it. And the key text will be one of the first texts that Adorno wrote on Beethoven, where he introduced this idea of late style, "Spätstil Beethovens", which was written in although published much, much later. And this text became, as it were, the first sketch for what he wanted to become a great systematic work, which was never finished, but was published posthumously under the title "Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music", "Beethoven: Philosophie der Musik", and which collects all the fragments and essays and notes that Adorno took throughout his life in order to somehow create this unified image of Beethoven and Beethoven's place in the history of music and the connection to Hegel, the connection to great German idealism. This book was never finished, which is perhaps symptomatic in some sense, but he wanted to cover all aspects of Beethoven, but also in some sense project Beethoven into his own work. And many of these fragments draw on the author's own childhood experience, in fact. The first fragment, number one, begins like this: "Reconstruct how I heard Beethoven as a child." This is the first fragment of the book. So in some sense, it's an also an autobiographical book. It is a key work in Adorno's philosophy of music and it was supposed to tie everything together. But of course it failed, as all such works do. And the fragments of this work are what remains. So but I will not attempt to tie all these features together, but I will look specifically at this text, the first sketch of because it contains virtually all the themes that would be developed later. So what then is late style? Late style, Adorno suggests, is not like a fruit that eventually becomes ripe. It resists being tasted, it is furrowed and ravaged, and in rejecting the unity demanded by classical aesthetics, it points to the power of history rather than to the idea of growth and maturity. It is a process, but it is not a process towards completion, or it is a process that tends towards a completion that puts all these categories that are implied in completion into a profound antagonism. So Adorno opposes the idea that this laceration of this breaking up of form would be connected to subjectivity. It is normally seen and many other authors who have used the idea of late style, Edward Said for instance, understands late style as a subjectivity that eventually towards the end breaks through the crust of form and imbues inherited notions of harmony with a singular dissonance, which can be related to some individual biography of the artist. But for Adorno, the inverse is true. The law of form, he says,
he interpreted it in a sense that somehow translated into an idea of something mystic, transcendent and spiritual, which I think at least is not precisely what Adorno meant with the idea of late style. So there is a whole culture of this idea of late style, and it is tied to certain moments in Beethoven. And we know that, as Jost Hermand points out in an interesting essay, when this piece, the piano sonata Opus was included in piano recitals in Germany in the late 40s and 50s, it was always placed last in the program. And it was forbidden—applause was forbidden, as if to underscore the work's wholly singular and unique position. So not just because of Adorno, but this idea of something late in Beethoven is a pervasive feature of certain theories of modernity. So, but I will look more specifically on Adorno's interpretation of it. And the key text will be one of the first texts that Adorno wrote on Beethoven, where he introduced this idea of late style, "Spätstil Beethovens", which was written in although published much, much later. And this text became, as it were, the first sketch for what he wanted to become a great systematic work, which was never finished, but was published posthumously under the title "Beethoven: The Philosophy of Music", "Beethoven: Philosophie der Musik", and which collects all the fragments and essays and notes that Adorno took throughout his life in order to somehow create this unified image of Beethoven and Beethoven's place in the history of music and the connection to Hegel, the connection to great German idealism. This book was never finished, which is perhaps symptomatic in some sense, but he wanted to cover all aspects of Beethoven, but also in some sense project Beethoven into his own work. And many of these fragments draw on the author's own childhood experience, in fact. The first fragment, number one, begins like this: "Reconstruct how I heard Beethoven as a child." This is the first fragment of the book. So in some sense, it's an also an autobiographical book. It is a key work in Adorno's philosophy of music and it was supposed to tie everything together. But of course it failed, as all such works do. And the fragments of this work are what remains. So but I will not attempt to tie all these features together, but I will look specifically at this text, the first sketch of because it contains virtually all the themes that would be developed later. So what then is late style? Late style, Adorno suggests, is not like a fruit that eventually becomes ripe. It resists being tasted, it is furrowed and ravaged, and in rejecting the unity demanded by classical aesthetics, it points to the power of history rather than to the idea of growth and maturity. It is a process, but it is not a process towards completion, or it is a process that tends towards a completion that puts all these categories that are implied in completion into a profound antagonism. So Adorno opposes the idea that this laceration of this breaking up of form would be connected to subjectivity. It is normally seen and many other authors who have used the idea of late style, Edward Said for instance, understands late style as a subjectivity that eventually towards the end breaks through the crust of form and imbues inherited notions of harmony with a singular dissonance, which can be related to some individual biography of the artist. But for Adorno, the inverse is true. The law of form, he says,
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here resists being subsumed by a subjective expression, and instead of a subjectivity that breaks forth, we encounter forms that are distance and seem devoid of expression. A form that, he says, has a certain relationship to death, but is not death as the completion of something, but is death as the emergence and the eruption of objectivity in the subject. So he places now this late style in a developmental line in Beethoven's work, because subjectivity is indeed there. It is first there in a Kantian fashion, not in order to disrupt form but to create form, as in Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". And so subjectivity in the Kantian moment are what constitute as it were the completion, the fullness of Beethoven's work, the classical Beethoven, the classical style of Beethoven. But then in a second moment, there is a profound questioning of subjectivity, beginning in Hegel, beginning in a dialogue with Hegel, but also going beyond Hegel. So the title of my talk, I didn't mention it, "Undoing Hegel from Within", is like the idea of contrasting or connecting Beethoven to Hegel in order to see how a certain Beethovenian moment, as it were, erupts and undoes Hegel. Not destroy Hegel, but opens Hegel up from within. So in at the center of late style, there is conventions. The conventions is and that is which that would distinguishes late style from Beethoven's middle period, which was in fact more subjective in the sense that it did not tolerate conventions that had not been broken down and integrated into the subjective dynamic. In the late style, they inversely appear almost as if naked, in a way that would have been totally unacceptable earlier. So these are conventions, he writes, in the state of ruin, although not in the sense of some psychological trauma or failure, rather they pose the question of subjectivity in a new fashion. It is true, as I said, this connection to death plays a certain part, but not as a theme of the work. Rather death discloses a law form and deprives us of the right to art, the right to the illusory quality of art, which is why death cannot become a theme. It is only given in these works in a broken form as an allegory, otherwise it becomes a deceptive metaphor for something. I think this is an aside to Heidegger in Adorno's writing. So if subjectivity disrupts the work in the late style, it is not in order to express itself but to shake off the appearance or semblance of subjectivity. Semblance is now this standard translation of Adorno's "Schein", and it's well, not entirely incorrect, semblance somehow disconnects from the whole Hegelian logic of essence and "Schein". So I think semblance is not wrong, but it obscures certain dimensions of the appearance, appearing perhaps, shining perhaps, be a translation of "Schein", I don't know. So it the proximity to death disrupts the semblance, the "Schein", the beautiful shining of the work of art as a totality in Beethoven's late work. So in this destruction of "Schein", the material, the musical material is as it were emancipated from the process of forming, and there is a profusion and overabundance of material, just as the conventions are left standing, to the effect that they themselves become expressive. Thus, Adorno suggests, this is the role of abbreviations in Beethoven, not to purify music of clichés, but to liberate them, to liberate clichés in their disparity, while still projecting
here resists being subsumed by a subjective expression, and instead of a subjectivity that breaks forth, we encounter forms that are distance and seem devoid of expression. A form that, he says, has a certain relationship to death, but is not death as the completion of something, but is death as the emergence and the eruption of objectivity in the subject. So he places now this late style in a developmental line in Beethoven's work, because subjectivity is indeed there. It is first there in a Kantian fashion, not in order to disrupt form but to create form, as in Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason". And so subjectivity in the Kantian moment are what constitute as it were the completion, the fullness of Beethoven's work, the classical Beethoven, the classical style of Beethoven. But then in a second moment, there is a profound questioning of subjectivity, beginning in Hegel, beginning in a dialogue with Hegel, but also going beyond Hegel. So the title of my talk, I didn't mention it, "Undoing Hegel from Within", is like the idea of contrasting or connecting Beethoven to Hegel in order to see how a certain Beethovenian moment, as it were, erupts and undoes Hegel. Not destroy Hegel, but opens Hegel up from within. So in at the center of late style, there is conventions. The conventions is and that is which that would distinguishes late style from Beethoven's middle period, which was in fact more subjective in the sense that it did not tolerate conventions that had not been broken down and integrated into the subjective dynamic. In the late style, they inversely appear almost as if naked, in a way that would have been totally unacceptable earlier. So these are conventions, he writes, in the state of ruin, although not in the sense of some psychological trauma or failure, rather they pose the question of subjectivity in a new fashion. It is true, as I said, this connection to death plays a certain part, but not as a theme of the work. Rather death discloses a law form and deprives us of the right to art, the right to the illusory quality of art, which is why death cannot become a theme. It is only given in these works in a broken form as an allegory, otherwise it becomes a deceptive metaphor for something. I think this is an aside to Heidegger in Adorno's writing. So if subjectivity disrupts the work in the late style, it is not in order to express itself but to shake off the appearance or semblance of subjectivity. Semblance is now this standard translation of Adorno's "Schein", and it's well, not entirely incorrect, semblance somehow disconnects from the whole Hegelian logic of essence and "Schein". So I think semblance is not wrong, but it obscures certain dimensions of the appearance, appearing perhaps, shining perhaps, be a translation of "Schein", I don't know. So it the proximity to death disrupts the semblance, the "Schein", the beautiful shining of the work of art as a totality in Beethoven's late work. So in this destruction of "Schein", the material, the musical material is as it were emancipated from the process of forming, and there is a profusion and overabundance of material, just as the conventions are left standing, to the effect that they themselves become expressive. Thus, Adorno suggests, this is the role of abbreviations in Beethoven, not to purify music of clichés, but to liberate them, to liberate clichés in their disparity, while still projecting
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some kind of intentions or oblique intentions onto them. For instance, the frequent crescendos and diminuendos that often appear independent of musical conventions in Beethoven's late piano sonatas, the fiorituras, the substitution of polyphonic things for thematic development, the absence of modulations in favor of abrupt transitions, the "Rückungen" of which Adorno speaks, you're like pushed out of something into another key. All testify Adorno claimed to this coming apart of intention and material which breaks forth in this late style. So if these late works can be taken as a kind of landscape, and Adorno often uses the image of the landscape, then Beethoven does not gather all of his details into one unified image, but rather he lights it up with a fire that ignites subjectivity, a spark transmitted between the extremes that remain in a state of tension. So subjectivity is what forces these extremes together, but only so as to itself appear as petrified, as a kind of emergence of subjectivity that petrifies subjectivity. And this is why the caesuras and the breaks are moments in a breaking through, a breaking out, a "Durchbruch", Adorno writes, which at once unifies the fragments but also tears them apart. So Beethoven's late work is at both subjective and objective, and the ruinous landscape is the objective moment. I'm now paraphrasing Adorno's very short but also very beautiful text. The ruin landscape is the objective moment, the light cast over it is a subjective moment, and what the late style does is to dissociate them, to tear these moments apart in time, but maybe in order to finally preserve them in eternity. So there is hope in Beethoven, he says in fragment Hope in Beethoven is so decisive, a secularized and therefore not neutralized category. The image of hope without the lie of religion, hope is the imageless image that specifically immediately belongs to this music, that is, it belongs to the late style in general. So there's a certain emergence of hope which is negated because of this fragmentation that is at once presented and held together, and the spark going between the ruinous fragments is what remains of hope. So these late works are catastrophes, he says, catastrophes, which should be understood in the etymological Greek sense, "katastrophe", the turning around or something, the turning around, the sudden moment of reversal and overturning. So there are two then important extra-musical references that take the idea of late style beyond the confines of an aesthetic or an analysis of a single artist: Kant and Hegel, and particularly Hegel's logic. And there's a lot of detailed discussions in this book and there's no time to do that, but I mean there are a lot of details where he really tries to connect the musical details to parts of Hegel's logic. The first is Hegel, the other one more incidentally, but I think in a very crucial way, Hölderlin's late poetry. So let us just say a few words on Hegel and then on Hölderlin and then I stop. So what is implied by this connection between Beethoven and Hegel? I mean there's a general question here, what is the relationship between music and concept? Music as a kind of sensuous appearing and concept as this conceptual more abstract moment. Obviously music is not simply identical to concepts, it has no direct reference. As Adorno says in one fragment, music is the logic of the
some kind of intentions or oblique intentions onto them. For instance, the frequent crescendos and diminuendos that often appear independent of musical conventions in Beethoven's late piano sonatas, the fiorituras, the substitution of polyphonic things for thematic development, the absence of modulations in favor of abrupt transitions, the "Rückungen" of which Adorno speaks, you're like pushed out of something into another key. All testify Adorno claimed to this coming apart of intention and material which breaks forth in this late style. So if these late works can be taken as a kind of landscape, and Adorno often uses the image of the landscape, then Beethoven does not gather all of his details into one unified image, but rather he lights it up with a fire that ignites subjectivity, a spark transmitted between the extremes that remain in a state of tension. So subjectivity is what forces these extremes together, but only so as to itself appear as petrified, as a kind of emergence of subjectivity that petrifies subjectivity. And this is why the caesuras and the breaks are moments in a breaking through, a breaking out, a "Durchbruch", Adorno writes, which at once unifies the fragments but also tears them apart. So Beethoven's late work is at both subjective and objective, and the ruinous landscape is the objective moment. I'm now paraphrasing Adorno's very short but also very beautiful text. The ruin landscape is the objective moment, the light cast over it is a subjective moment, and what the late style does is to dissociate them, to tear these moments apart in time, but maybe in order to finally preserve them in eternity. So there is hope in Beethoven, he says in fragment Hope in Beethoven is so decisive, a secularized and therefore not neutralized category. The image of hope without the lie of religion, hope is the imageless image that specifically immediately belongs to this music, that is, it belongs to the late style in general. So there's a certain emergence of hope which is negated because of this fragmentation that is at once presented and held together, and the spark going between the ruinous fragments is what remains of hope. So these late works are catastrophes, he says, catastrophes, which should be understood in the etymological Greek sense, "katastrophe", the turning around or something, the turning around, the sudden moment of reversal and overturning. So there are two then important extra-musical references that take the idea of late style beyond the confines of an aesthetic or an analysis of a single artist: Kant and Hegel, and particularly Hegel's logic. And there's a lot of detailed discussions in this book and there's no time to do that, but I mean there are a lot of details where he really tries to connect the musical details to parts of Hegel's logic. The first is Hegel, the other one more incidentally, but I think in a very crucial way, Hölderlin's late poetry. So let us just say a few words on Hegel and then on Hölderlin and then I stop. So what is implied by this connection between Beethoven and Hegel? I mean there's a general question here, what is the relationship between music and concept? Music as a kind of sensuous appearing and concept as this conceptual more abstract moment. Obviously music is not simply identical to concepts, it has no direct reference. As Adorno says in one fragment, music is the logic of the
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judgment-less synthesis, which is why the truth synthesis occurs in the interplay between subjectivity inherited forms and the matter of music is the history of accumulated conventions, and what Beethoven does in Adorno's reading is to treat these inherited conventions as materials that are sublated and made subjective in a kind of dialectical movement, the kind of movement of "Aufhebung" which occurs in, as he tries to show, very detailed analysis. So we noted that Adorno detects in Beethoven a move from a Kantian version of the concept in which it generates form out of a fixed subjectivity that accounts for the unity of experience, to a Hegelian version in which the concept has a movement of its own and inscribes the position of the early subject as a limited one, and where there is rather an experience of subjectivity. It's not subjective experience, but an experience of subjectivity as an object that emerges in the later works. So the Kantian movement corresponds to Beethoven's move into the second phase of his work, where tonality is brought back into subjectivity and the symphonies. Adorno says the symphonies, the great symphonies, even to the last one, are a great testament to this. It's very crucial for Adorno that it's actually the chamber music which presents the late style, not the great symphonic works or the great orchestral works. And the subsequent Hegelian step, where a full mediation of particular and universal is achieved, crowns the second phase, but it is then pursued into a third phase, which he calls the "Spätstil" or the late style, where it goes beyond the limits established in the second phase. And this is the crucial critical move, and it is here that Beethoven's singularity comes to the fore. And in a rather hyperbolic statement that summarizes this Beethoven's second phase, Adorno exclaims, this is fragment "In a sense similar to that in which there is only Hegel's philosophy, there is in the history of Western music only Beethoven." It's of course a slightly hyperbolic statement, but there is only Hegel, there is only Beethoven, and this encounter somehow will decide the meaning of the connection between music and philosophy and art and philosophy. And this is why it's important that he continues a bit later, he says that Beethoven is more Hegelian than Hegel. He thinks through Hegel and he moves beyond Hegel. He comes back to Hegel from the other side. So it is only through the late works of Beethoven, Adorno claims, that we see the limit of Hegel from the inside and the outside. So how should we understand this process then, where this totality is once achieved and broken down? In Hegel, the objective forms first become historicized and are set in motion. They're understood both as points of departure and results, just as individual and particular musical elements mean something only in and through their contradictory mediation through the whole. This, as I said, is the outcome of the second phase where Adorno writes, "the sensuous, non-qualified and yet in itself mediated, and that which sets the whole in motion is the motivic-thematic, and the spirit in the mediation is the totality of form." So for Adorno, tonality is as it were achieved and subjectivized and totalized and made into an object in Beethoven's second phase. But this worked-out synthesis is also the moment of untruth in this music, which is also in a sense points towards truth. The whole, the totality that seems to flow
judgment-less synthesis, which is why the truth synthesis occurs in the interplay between subjectivity inherited forms and the matter of music is the history of accumulated conventions, and what Beethoven does in Adorno's reading is to treat these inherited conventions as materials that are sublated and made subjective in a kind of dialectical movement, the kind of movement of "Aufhebung" which occurs in, as he tries to show, very detailed analysis. So we noted that Adorno detects in Beethoven a move from a Kantian version of the concept in which it generates form out of a fixed subjectivity that accounts for the unity of experience, to a Hegelian version in which the concept has a movement of its own and inscribes the position of the early subject as a limited one, and where there is rather an experience of subjectivity. It's not subjective experience, but an experience of subjectivity as an object that emerges in the later works. So the Kantian movement corresponds to Beethoven's move into the second phase of his work, where tonality is brought back into subjectivity and the symphonies. Adorno says the symphonies, the great symphonies, even to the last one, are a great testament to this. It's very crucial for Adorno that it's actually the chamber music which presents the late style, not the great symphonic works or the great orchestral works. And the subsequent Hegelian step, where a full mediation of particular and universal is achieved, crowns the second phase, but it is then pursued into a third phase, which he calls the "Spätstil" or the late style, where it goes beyond the limits established in the second phase. And this is the crucial critical move, and it is here that Beethoven's singularity comes to the fore. And in a rather hyperbolic statement that summarizes this Beethoven's second phase, Adorno exclaims, this is fragment "In a sense similar to that in which there is only Hegel's philosophy, there is in the history of Western music only Beethoven." It's of course a slightly hyperbolic statement, but there is only Hegel, there is only Beethoven, and this encounter somehow will decide the meaning of the connection between music and philosophy and art and philosophy. And this is why it's important that he continues a bit later, he says that Beethoven is more Hegelian than Hegel. He thinks through Hegel and he moves beyond Hegel. He comes back to Hegel from the other side. So it is only through the late works of Beethoven, Adorno claims, that we see the limit of Hegel from the inside and the outside. So how should we understand this process then, where this totality is once achieved and broken down? In Hegel, the objective forms first become historicized and are set in motion. They're understood both as points of departure and results, just as individual and particular musical elements mean something only in and through their contradictory mediation through the whole. This, as I said, is the outcome of the second phase where Adorno writes, "the sensuous, non-qualified and yet in itself mediated, and that which sets the whole in motion is the motivic-thematic, and the spirit in the mediation is the totality of form." So for Adorno, tonality is as it were achieved and subjectivized and totalized and made into an object in Beethoven's second phase. But this worked-out synthesis is also the moment of untruth in this music, which is also in a sense points towards truth. The whole, the totality that seems to flow
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seamlessly from the movement of the particular and yet is violently forced onto it, reflects the emergence of, as he, as Adorno says, of an administered society, a "verwaltete Welt", where all the individual moments are made to cohere through a violent totality. So but beyond this, and this is the key moment here and as a consequence of this interpretation, the supreme greatness or lateness lies in the next step where Beethoven unleashes the mimetic power inherent in the second phase and becomes, as he writes, more Hegelian than Hegel himself, pursuing a kind of negative dialectics with and against Hegel. And it's important to say that this is not a critique of Hegel, as Adorno would say much later, "rather than abandon metaphysics as a false theory, we must attempt to think systematicity, the metaphysical systems in a fractured form as constellations or micrologies," that is, as he writes in the final lines of "Negative Dialectics", "to follow metaphysics in the movement of its downfall", "im Augenblick ihres Sturzes". So thus, if Beethoven finally explodes the Hegelian model, he does not do so by opposing it to some other system, to some other philosophical or aesthetic theory, but from within, which is why his late style contains the seeds of an immanent critique that will become paradigmatic for modernism in the arts and philosophy. So if Hegel is the last moment of security, metaphysics thinking itself from the form of a system that would be able to ground itself, then this also corresponds to the summit of a classical style that he claims to derive particulars from form and form from particulars in a total mediation. Consequently, the downfall, or the eruption of the Hegelian system, not only signals a crisis for the possibility of metaphysics, but also a kind of opening towards modernism in the arts, which is why Hegel's aesthetics can be read as the last classical work and the first modernist work depending on how you perceive the cracks and fissures in the structure of his aesthetics. And which is why Beethoven's late style is not only the initial "envoi" of modernism, but it also in advance anticipates the impossibility of ever achieving again something like this classical unified style. So just then only a few words about Hölderlin. Do I still—am I short? Plenty? Okay, great. Just this on Hegel, then a few words on this other guy who has his birthday, Hölderlin. And the proximity to Hölderlin in the published text only comes across in a few passages, and perhaps in a somewhat inconclusive fashion. And Adorno mentions Adorno's work on tragedy, his remarks on "Oedipus", and some other text. He mentions Hölderlin's theory of the poetic caesura, so he somehow briefly alludes to some key themes in Hölderlin, but he doesn't develop it really. It is only in a late radio lecture from which was sublimely broadcast under the title "Avant-gardism of Old Men" or even "Retired People", "Avantgardismus der Greise", which is a very nice title, where he makes this connection explicit. He says in this radio lecture, "In these late works"—and this connection between Hölderlin and Beethoven—"the language of music or the material itself speaks, and the composing subject only properly speaks through the gaps in this language, perhaps not wholly dissimilarly to that which occurs with poetic
seamlessly from the movement of the particular and yet is violently forced onto it, reflects the emergence of, as he, as Adorno says, of an administered society, a "verwaltete Welt", where all the individual moments are made to cohere through a violent totality. So but beyond this, and this is the key moment here and as a consequence of this interpretation, the supreme greatness or lateness lies in the next step where Beethoven unleashes the mimetic power inherent in the second phase and becomes, as he writes, more Hegelian than Hegel himself, pursuing a kind of negative dialectics with and against Hegel. And it's important to say that this is not a critique of Hegel, as Adorno would say much later, "rather than abandon metaphysics as a false theory, we must attempt to think systematicity, the metaphysical systems in a fractured form as constellations or micrologies," that is, as he writes in the final lines of "Negative Dialectics", "to follow metaphysics in the movement of its downfall", "im Augenblick ihres Sturzes". So thus, if Beethoven finally explodes the Hegelian model, he does not do so by opposing it to some other system, to some other philosophical or aesthetic theory, but from within, which is why his late style contains the seeds of an immanent critique that will become paradigmatic for modernism in the arts and philosophy. So if Hegel is the last moment of security, metaphysics thinking itself from the form of a system that would be able to ground itself, then this also corresponds to the summit of a classical style that he claims to derive particulars from form and form from particulars in a total mediation. Consequently, the downfall, or the eruption of the Hegelian system, not only signals a crisis for the possibility of metaphysics, but also a kind of opening towards modernism in the arts, which is why Hegel's aesthetics can be read as the last classical work and the first modernist work depending on how you perceive the cracks and fissures in the structure of his aesthetics. And which is why Beethoven's late style is not only the initial "envoi" of modernism, but it also in advance anticipates the impossibility of ever achieving again something like this classical unified style. So just then only a few words about Hölderlin. Do I still—am I short? Plenty? Okay, great. Just this on Hegel, then a few words on this other guy who has his birthday, Hölderlin. And the proximity to Hölderlin in the published text only comes across in a few passages, and perhaps in a somewhat inconclusive fashion. And Adorno mentions Adorno's work on tragedy, his remarks on "Oedipus", and some other text. He mentions Hölderlin's theory of the poetic caesura, so he somehow briefly alludes to some key themes in Hölderlin, but he doesn't develop it really. It is only in a late radio lecture from which was sublimely broadcast under the title "Avant-gardism of Old Men" or even "Retired People", "Avantgardismus der Greise", which is a very nice title, where he makes this connection explicit. He says in this radio lecture, "In these late works"—and this connection between Hölderlin and Beethoven—"the language of music or the material itself speaks, and the composing subject only properly speaks through the gaps in this language, perhaps not wholly dissimilarly to that which occurs with poetic
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language
language
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in the late style of
in the late style of
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Hölderlin." So here he establishes the connection explicitly between Beethoven and Hölderlin. So I think one could make, if one wants to make this little bit more explicit, we can make a connection to an essay from which is called "Parataxis", where Hölderlin's encounter with language in many respects is discussed and analyzed in a way that is analogous to the reading of Beethoven's treatment of musical material. And Adorno writes that parataxis—parataxis which is opposed to the paratactic, the hypotactic—the hypotactic is a grammatical structure where sub-clauses are connected in a long chain, whereas a paratactic combines piece, piece, piece, piece like that. Parataxis, Adorno writes, in philosophy as in poetry points to a loosening of the joints, an unbinding of discourse, which is also a foregrounding of the materiality of discourse just in music as in poetry. And we find this kind of disjoint in many levels in Hölderlin's poetry. Of course theoretically in his writings on Greek tragedy, but also interestingly in his own level of poetic discourse, in the really aberrant use of logical connectives: "dann", "nämlich", "also", "weil", "of the", "then", "because". All these somehow almost like bureaucratic-sounding binders that occur in Hölderlin's poetry and no one ever knows how—I mean how do they connect, but they seem to imply logical conclusions but they don't. So there's a kind of unfixing of the jointure in Hölderlin's poetry, which Adorno perceives to be analogous to the unfixing of the binders in in in Beethoven's late work. So instead of binding his poems together, they cause them to fracture and they destroy the hierarchical links of hypotaxis and leaves us with a paratactic landscape of ruins. And Adorno writes in this essay "Parataxis": "With parataxis, we should not only think of the transition that juxtapose micrological shapes. Just as in music, the tendency takes hold of larger structures. In a way similar to Hegel, mediations of a vulgar type, a middle outside of the moments, should be eliminated as external and unessential, as is often the case in Beethoven's late style." And we of course know that Adorno would stress that mediation doesn't occur in the middle—mediation is not something that is a kind of compromise, but it occurs through the extremes. And in Hölderlin's poetry and in Beethoven's late style, this is further emphasized to the effect that these extremes become unbound. It is not a destruction of of of Hegel's logic, but it is as it were a loosening of the fixtures of Hegel's logic so that the different elements become the beginning to come apart. It is a unbinding of the whatever substance it is that holds Hegel's logic together—I don't know, some plasmatic sub-linguistic stratum that holds it together—which is somehow made to allow the elements to come apart, which produce this ruinous landscape that he speaks of in Hölderlin's poetry and in in in Beethoven's late music. And this is then not a catastrophe in the sense of something horrible. It is a catastrophe in the Greek sense of a turning around that makes it possible to conceive of another music, another poetry, and another philosophy. So this is why the moment of this late, ein spätes, is not just something that happened at one moment in time. It did happen, but it is not connected—so now coming back to the initial
Hölderlin." So here he establishes the connection explicitly between Beethoven and Hölderlin. So I think one could make, if one wants to make this little bit more explicit, we can make a connection to an essay from which is called "Parataxis", where Hölderlin's encounter with language in many respects is discussed and analyzed in a way that is analogous to the reading of Beethoven's treatment of musical material. And Adorno writes that parataxis—parataxis which is opposed to the paratactic, the hypotactic—the hypotactic is a grammatical structure where sub-clauses are connected in a long chain, whereas a paratactic combines piece, piece, piece, piece like that. Parataxis, Adorno writes, in philosophy as in poetry points to a loosening of the joints, an unbinding of discourse, which is also a foregrounding of the materiality of discourse just in music as in poetry. And we find this kind of disjoint in many levels in Hölderlin's poetry. Of course theoretically in his writings on Greek tragedy, but also interestingly in his own level of poetic discourse, in the really aberrant use of logical connectives: "dann", "nämlich", "also", "weil", "of the", "then", "because". All these somehow almost like bureaucratic-sounding binders that occur in Hölderlin's poetry and no one ever knows how—I mean how do they connect, but they seem to imply logical conclusions but they don't. So there's a kind of unfixing of the jointure in Hölderlin's poetry, which Adorno perceives to be analogous to the unfixing of the binders in in in Beethoven's late work. So instead of binding his poems together, they cause them to fracture and they destroy the hierarchical links of hypotaxis and leaves us with a paratactic landscape of ruins. And Adorno writes in this essay "Parataxis": "With parataxis, we should not only think of the transition that juxtapose micrological shapes. Just as in music, the tendency takes hold of larger structures. In a way similar to Hegel, mediations of a vulgar type, a middle outside of the moments, should be eliminated as external and unessential, as is often the case in Beethoven's late style." And we of course know that Adorno would stress that mediation doesn't occur in the middle—mediation is not something that is a kind of compromise, but it occurs through the extremes. And in Hölderlin's poetry and in Beethoven's late style, this is further emphasized to the effect that these extremes become unbound. It is not a destruction of of of Hegel's logic, but it is as it were a loosening of the fixtures of Hegel's logic so that the different elements become the beginning to come apart. It is a unbinding of the whatever substance it is that holds Hegel's logic together—I don't know, some plasmatic sub-linguistic stratum that holds it together—which is somehow made to allow the elements to come apart, which produce this ruinous landscape that he speaks of in Hölderlin's poetry and in in in Beethoven's late music. And this is then not a catastrophe in the sense of something horrible. It is a catastrophe in the Greek sense of a turning around that makes it possible to conceive of another music, another poetry, and another philosophy. So this is why the moment of this late, ein spätes, is not just something that happened at one moment in time. It did happen, but it is not connected—so now coming back to the initial
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here, the initial antinomy between lateness as occurring once and occurring all the time. And I think what Adorno wants to say is is that it is always connected to a certain moment in time but it can never be exhausted by any particular moment in time. And it is not connected to the biography of a certain author or poet or composer. It is the possibility that occurs at the end of a trajectory where art faces its limit, and philosophy and music or poetry a limit which is also a possibility. This is why lateness is neither before or after, so it's never too late in that sense. I'm not sure what is implied by the "zu spät", "too late". Is it too late for? Lateness is not a moment in time, but it is a fold that that gives us a different take on time. So that's it. Thank you. Okay, I only want to begin by quickly noting that I'm just sorry that I cannot react—I liked so much your speech, so my proposal would be f- off what I have to say and let's debate. Yeah, we debate later. Yeah, later. Yeah, okay. Now I have as usual too many things to say so let me begin. It will be very simple, elementary, repeating some stuff, but the basic message I hope will come true. The claim I want to defend is that Hegel is the philosopher most open to the future précisément because he explicitly prohibits any project of how our future should look. As he says, we all know it, towards the end of the preface to his Rechtsphilosophie, "like the owl of Minerva which takes off at dusk, philosophy can only paint grey on grey, it can only translate into a grey lifeless conceptual scheme a form of life which already reached its peak and is entering its decline, becoming grey itself." Now, the first thing to note here, and it's rarely noted, maybe you know others, I only know my philosophical opponent but otherwise friend Robert Pippin who noticed this that if Hegel was not a complete idiot, and let's hope he wasn't, then he knew that this has to hold also for his Rechtsphilosophie, that was he is presenting them, his let's call it ideal state with three estates, constitutional monarchy, it's not his vision, he is painting grey on grey there, trying to recapture a form of life which is already disintegrating. So to put it very brutally, this is why we should reject all those readings of Hegel, I think, maybe I'm wrong, which see in his thought an implicit model of a future society reconciled with itself, leaving behind the alienations of modernity. I call them ironically the "we are not yet there Hegelians". Like Marx was the first, and I'm here on Hegel's side. Marx thought Hegel got it right, the scheme of alienation, reconciliation, but he didn't yet see that it's only through the proletarian revolution that this will happen. Then we have, of course, Fukuyama. Hegel was right, but it's only today's liberal capitalism. There are even some, I go to the lowest of the lowest, these New Age singularity thinkers who think only with this Neuralink global machine where our minds will immediately communicate, what Hegel had
here, the initial antinomy between lateness as occurring once and occurring all the time. And I think what Adorno wants to say is is that it is always connected to a certain moment in time but it can never be exhausted by any particular moment in time. And it is not connected to the biography of a certain author or poet or composer. It is the possibility that occurs at the end of a trajectory where art faces its limit, and philosophy and music or poetry a limit which is also a possibility. This is why lateness is neither before or after, so it's never too late in that sense. I'm not sure what is implied by the "zu spät", "too late". Is it too late for? Lateness is not a moment in time, but it is a fold that that gives us a different take on time. So that's it. Thank you. Okay, I only want to begin by quickly noting that I'm just sorry that I cannot react—I liked so much your speech, so my proposal would be f- off what I have to say and let's debate. Yeah, we debate later. Yeah, later. Yeah, okay. Now I have as usual too many things to say so let me begin. It will be very simple, elementary, repeating some stuff, but the basic message I hope will come true. The claim I want to defend is that Hegel is the philosopher most open to the future précisément because he explicitly prohibits any project of how our future should look. As he says, we all know it, towards the end of the preface to his Rechtsphilosophie, "like the owl of Minerva which takes off at dusk, philosophy can only paint grey on grey, it can only translate into a grey lifeless conceptual scheme a form of life which already reached its peak and is entering its decline, becoming grey itself." Now, the first thing to note here, and it's rarely noted, maybe you know others, I only know my philosophical opponent but otherwise friend Robert Pippin who noticed this that if Hegel was not a complete idiot, and let's hope he wasn't, then he knew that this has to hold also for his Rechtsphilosophie, that was he is presenting them, his let's call it ideal state with three estates, constitutional monarchy, it's not his vision, he is painting grey on grey there, trying to recapture a form of life which is already disintegrating. So to put it very brutally, this is why we should reject all those readings of Hegel, I think, maybe I'm wrong, which see in his thought an implicit model of a future society reconciled with itself, leaving behind the alienations of modernity. I call them ironically the "we are not yet there Hegelians". Like Marx was the first, and I'm here on Hegel's side. Marx thought Hegel got it right, the scheme of alienation, reconciliation, but he didn't yet see that it's only through the proletarian revolution that this will happen. Then we have, of course, Fukuyama. Hegel was right, but it's only today's liberal capitalism. There are even some, I go to the lowest of the lowest, these New Age singularity thinkers who think only with this Neuralink global machine where our minds will immediately communicate, what Hegel had
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in mind as absolute knowing will become real, will finally become
in mind as absolute knowing will become real, will finally become
Slavoj Žižek
realist. And unfortunately, my first target, I here disagree although I'm personally in good relations with her, with Judith Butler, who this summer I think in a speech on Hegel also provides a vision of this "we are not yet there Hegel." Of course, the full vision
realist. And unfortunately, my first target, I here disagree although I'm personally in good relations with her, with Judith Butler, who this summer I think in a speech on Hegel also provides a vision of this "we are not yet there Hegel." Of course, the full vision
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of this is Lukács' Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein. Hegel just didn't see that what he in a mystified way called
of this is Lukács' Geschichte und Klassenbewusstsein. Hegel just didn't see that what he in a mystified way called
Slavoj Žižek
absolute spirit is proletariat as the subject-object of history. So here is a short paragraph from her speech. "In his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel shows us that we are not simply solitary creatures disconnected from one another, although he, Hegel, knows very well that we sometimes see ourselves precisely in that way." And so on and so on. I explode here. I almost have a Goebbels reaction like—because first one always has to ask this naive question: who exactly is that idiot who says that we are not simply solitary creatures disconnected from one another? The only philosopher I know who says this is Hegel himself. He posits this as a starting point which he then, of course, undermines through its imminent self-deployment. But what's the problem here? What does Judith Butler miss here? Let me recall the passage from Phenomenology in which after analyzing the infinite judgment of phrenology, "Der Geist ist ein Knochen", "the spirit is a bone," Hegel draws the parallel—I'm sorry, everybody knows this passage—with the double function of penis. As Hegel puts it, "in the same way that in penis nature ironically put together the highest and the lowest: insemination and urination," in the same way "Der Geist ist ein Knochen" is the most vulgar materialism but also the speculative, the highest speculative truth. Where does Judith Butler get it wrong? Hegel's point here—it's such a simple point but many people don't get it—it's not that, ah, if we are vulgar materialist atomists, we see only urination, a true speculative thinker, she's also insemination, the ha—no, Hegel point is that you have to begin with urination, with the vulgar point, that the only way to the height is to make the wrong choice. This is the imminent temporality of Hegel's logic. And this has important political consequences. For example, in Hegel's critique of Terror in after French Revolution, his point, my God, is not: oh, French went too far, instead of building an organic community of freedom, they have chosen abstract negativity of Terror. No, his—and his point is not the usual liberal critique of French Revolution: yes, but again, again You have to go through Terror. Only the Terror opens up the way for later, maybe it's not clear, reconciliation. And I think that's what Judith Butler doesn't see. She acts as if there are idiots who think we are individualist, blah blah, but we should be wise and see how we are all together and so on. No. Now you will say, but nonetheless at the end Hegel sees a reconciliation. I don't have time, I have only limited—no, he doesn't see any reconciliation. At the end, what you get, it's important, the last page of Phänomenologie des Geistes. Hegel said the whole history is Calvary, Calvarie des Geistes. It's just a succession of horrors. And it's totally wrong to read Hegel as if, but at the end—where, show me in Hegel that happy picture at the end? At the end of even Hegel's Rechtsphilosophie is the necessity of war. To undermine any idea that we will have this happy bürgerliche society reconciled. He said no, necessity of war. So let me go very quickly. I found one philosopher, we should have invited her but she is not yet known in Europe, a very intelligent and to be a sexist, I'm sorry, very nice lady from Puerto Rico who teaches I don't know where, Rocío—not Rocco—Rocío, it's a woman's name, Rocío Zambrana, who precisely with reference to Adorno proposed a wonderful reading of Hegel where she rejects this pseudo-Hegelian notion of imminent critique. She contrasts this idea of imminent critique to, I quote her, "a conception of critique that rather than being guided by normative criteria that can be distilled from the socio-historical phenomenon at hand is attuned to, following Adorno, the undiminished persistence of suffering that remains in a world which could be paradise here and now but can become hell itself tomorrow." So Zambrana sees in Hegel an ongoing critique which remains vigilant of the inversions of any normative criteria imminent to social reality. Her lesson is that when you—she knows what Habermas and others is saying, you need some normative criteria to criticize something, but she thinks that at the end these normative criteria also have to fall. So, quote again from her: "The object of critique not only remains the modes of suffering distinctive to a given form of life, but also the normative commitments implicated in these forms of suffering." So I think that we should be critical here. For example, I always dismissed, I prefer Stalin to them, those Trotskyite critics of October Revolution, you know, with this dream, at the beginning it had emancipatory potential, but then, and then comes their science fiction dream in the worst form. If only Lenin were to survive three years more and make the pact with Trotsky, we would have gotten what? I don't know. But certainly these very criteria by means of which Trotskyists judge Stalin are for me absolutely unconditionally implicated in it. Now I want to turn to the big target of my critique, and to this my title refers, Robert Brandom's mega over pages book called "A Spirit of Trust", a reading of Hegel, I will not go into details, I will just of Hegel's Phenomenology focus on the central notion which is for Brandom that of forgiving recollection, deployed in the chapter on Geist, spirit, in Hegel's Phenomenology. The gap that separates the acting subject and its severe judge is there according to Brandom overcome through their reconciliation when not only the agent confesses his sin, but the judge also confesses the unilaterality of his own position, his participation in what he condemns. Evil is also the gaze which sees evil everywhere round itself. First, I think that this notion of forgiving recollection is very useful today to make a politically incorrect mistake. If this is very good critique of today's political correctness. Politically correct critics of where they see racism, anti-feminism, never see the evil in their own gaze. It's always absolute judgment. You make one mistake, you say one wrong word, you are out forever. But back to Brandom, there are nonetheless I think clear limits to his, not Hegel's, notion of forgiving recollection. To be brutal in a simplified way, can we also recollectively forgive Hitler? And if the answer is no, is this because Hitler cannot be in this sense forgiven, or because we ourselves are not yet at the high enough level of ethical reflection to do it? The only way to avoid regression to a position of beautiful soul is to endorse the second option, that our castigation of Hitler as evil must be a reflexive determination of the evil that persists in ourselves. And this—this way to read recollect—to read forgiving recollection is very with regard to Hitler is very popular today. This is even in, as beloved American our President Trump would have put it, even in this sh-hole of a country, he used it for other there. Here in Slovenia all the right-wingers there, they say: yeah, yeah, Hitler made mistakes but he should be recollectively—recollectively forgiven because he was fighting although in a wrong exaggerated way the true enemy: big capital. It was just that this enemy was for him embodied in Jews, which in a way was wrong but even there they say, but Jews did control many finances and so on and so on and so on. So the problem here is this one. It is what would be totally non-Hegelian would be to draw a distinction between, how should I put it, crimes that can be recollectively forgiven, you did a mistake but you if we look at it from your context you meant it good, it was—and like real evil where something like this is not possible. Brandom is aware of this and here is his answer, quote: "Whose fault is it that the doing or some aspect of it is unforgivable, the doer or the forgiver? Is the failure that of the bad agent or that of the bad recollector?" So if we cannot pardon somebody in this recollective way, who is to blame? And he's quite consequent Brandom here and says that, I quote, "we should also acknowledge at least equal responsibility on the part of the unsuccessful forgiver." I ask a totally naive question: does this mean that when we condemn Hitler we should also say: yes, but we didn't reflect enough, our stance is—our stance is—our—or to quote Brandom, "one must trust that this recollective recognitive failure to, like the failure of the original sin, will be successfully forgiven by future assessors." So again, without mentioning these hard cases, his idea is that if we cannot forgive some historical event, it means that we are implicated in it and then he does something horrible Brandom, he moves into this spurious infinity. He said this means that our judgment is also relative, in the future there will be a broader perspective where they will know how to recollectively forgive it and so on and so on. There, for true Hegelian against Brandom there are other problems here. For example, what about recollection which is not forgiving but even harsher? What if in a certain society it's normal, I use the traditional examples, to do clitoridectomy, to have slaves and even the victims more or less agree with it? But now we come and not only don't forgive it to them, but make a harsh—make a harsh judgment. Now what would have been the Hegelian solution to this deadlock? I think that again we have to introduce logical temporality, the temporality of "will have been", that Hegel is the great thinker of a truth which is decided retroactively. And here is a nice quote, here I agree with him from Brandom: "Concrete practical forgiveness involves doing things to change what the consequences of the act turn out to be. One might trust one's successors to make it the case that once inadvertent revelation, one's sacrifice, or the decision to go to war was—was worthwhile." So his idea is that you do something bad but the meaning of your act is decided retroactively, it can be redeemed. Why—why doesn't Brandom here mention the opposite case, which is the truly Hegelian one which I like? The problem is not a bad guy does something bad but without knowing he leads to a—it leads to a good result. And I met in Israel some radical Zionists who rehabilitate Hitler in this way. They said he was bad but objectively without Holocaust there wouldn't have been a State of Israel. So recollective recognition their way. Hegel enjoys much more the opposite case: somebody does something with the highest intentions and so on and everything goes wrong. I think that what we need to introduce here is a notion which you don't find it literally in Hegel but I think is Hegelian in spirit. Bernard Williams wrote a book on it, he called it moral luck. You do something and it depends on the outcome of how it will be judged. The most beautiful example I found of this is Kant's political philosophy, where he says every revolution is to be condemned because you overthrow a legal power. But he says if the revolution wins and imposes a new legal order, then you are again prohibited to rebel against it. If it succeeds, its imminent ethical status changes. Kant says this openly. I will not bore you with it. I will just say that the problem with Brandom I see here is that although he admits this retrospective necessity, Brandom reads Hegel beautifully here. Hegelian development is not linear but it's things take a certain turn and retroactively an event which is in itself contingent creates its own necessary conditions. Things retroactively become necessary. But where I don't trust Trump—sorry, Trump, Trump I trust—no no, I have—Amancep, five-ten minutes just—ten, perfect. Okay, very quickly. You know where Trump is almost a Hegelian? He did something lately which I really admire. I'm so tired of these stupidities that Trump is lying all the time. No, he's true in a horrible sense. Subversive character is that he also tells the truth where you don't expect it. A week ago he was criticized for defunding post office. And you know these intelligent liberal critics wanted to catch him that he is really doing this to have less dem- and they ask him why are you doing this? You know what Trump said? "It's obvious. I want less Democrats to vote." You know, like, he says the truth precisely when you would have expected it would hurt him. But let me go on. So back to Brandom. Brandom has this and I don't think this is imminent to Hegel. Brandom has this trust in future, in the sense that, okay, I am now reading Hegel the way Hegel was reading past philosophy, trying to introduce meaning into totality, retrospectively totalizing it and so on. I'm doing this to Hegel to make it actual for our time, but somebody else undoubtedly will be doing this for me and so on and so on. But why? I think that what Hegel means with Versöhnung is something much more radical. It's not that even if we don't find peace now, we have to have trust that with further progress there will be a total synthesis and so on and so on. No, the Hegelian motto is rather what I would have called, again against Brandom, the spirit of distrust. Hegel's basic procedure—and just look at his philosophy of history or whatever—it's always the same story. Something begins well with the best intentions and then everything goes wrong. You have revolution, you have terror then. You have in Phänomenologie des Geistes when he speaks of medieval times, you have serving the king, honor, it turns into flattery. One thing you can be always sure with Hegel is don't trust any ethical project. It's not that we shouldn't do them, we don't have a choice, but the only way to gain something is through the failure and then in a reaction to the failure. So for me, the true forgiveness is not Hegelian, is not this trust into the future, but it is precisely this trust that in some future things will turn out better and so on and so on. No, Hegel, that's why Hegel, I think you know that I quote this all the time, I think Michel Foucault wrote about Deleuze: "Un jour, peut-être, le siècle sera deleuzien," one day maybe the century will be Deleuzian. Our century now is Hegelian. Why? Because we are again and again witnessing these reversals. Not only is the 20th century out of scope for Hegel, Hegel would have loved it. He would have analyzed how—remember second part of 19th century in Europe, not elsewhere. Time of progress gradually women got the voting right, retirement funds, health, it got better, then you get World War I. Total catastrophe. Hegel would have, I can see him also almost in an orgasmic intellectual effort, demonstrate—or October Revolution: it began nice, global emancipation, ah, a certain comrade from Georgia, Stalin, comes and gives another turn to it. And even today, Hegel is never a guy of happy ending. He would have been—Fukuyama is the greatest anti-Hegelian you can imagine. Hegel's definition is when a certain movement, tendency like global capitalism wins, it self-divides, it splits, it's the end. So I think that this is where we should look. And now if you where should look for at a Hegelian how we should look at our contemporary times, this imminent reversal of things, it's really what the Englishmen have this wonderful term for: "Verkehrte Welt", topsy-turvy world. This reversal and then how only in a repetition later as a—as a—as a collateral damage as we say today, maybe something good will emerge. So three minutes. I want just to make a point, three minutes, yes, but in a dialectical sense, not linear time and so on. Yeah yeah. I—what I already published, maybe even in Slovene I am confused, I think that Hegel also offers the best way to think COVID. No, idiots—if you suspect that some of your friends are idiots, tell them, I think that Hegel is a rational thinker where everything is systematized, all history leads to human progress and so on. So Hegel cannot think something like COVID. He can. Because first Hegel has—Hegel is much more autonomous in the sense of admitting the autonomy of nature than Marx. Marx is too much productivist. For Marx silently always presupposes: nature is out there to be exploited productively by us. For Hegel, nature is absolutely its spirit in its otherness, absolute externality. An asteroid can hit earth and it's a wonderful dialectical synthesis of necessity and contingency. From the standpoint of nature it would be necessary. We can even probably measure when it will hit Earth. But from the standpoint of human history it's contingent in the sense it has no deeper meaning, punishment or whatever. And I think it's the same with COVID. What would have been Hegel's reaction to COVID? Not just this pessimism, "oh, we just see how helpless we are" and so on. As already developed somewhere, I think that Hegel would be intrigued by something else. What if today's formula of "Der Geist ist ein Knochen" is "Der Geist ist ein Virus"? That is to say, it shocked me when I read this, it's not a joke. Look at the top, top, measured by the wrong standards, cognitivist—I wouldn't call them philosophers, thinkers today: Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins. Their explicit theory—I'm not reading between the lines—is that mind, our thinking, our symbolic order is a virus. It's not an organic part of our identity, it's a parasitic entity which makes us do crazy things, act against our interest, an idea obsesses you, it makes you ruin yourself and so on. That in this strict sense of a parasitic entity, that's the whole point of Dawkins' notion of meme like genes, memes, that our mind works as a virus. And now I'm getting closer to my terrain, Jacques Lacan knew this when he says the big Other is parasitizing of us, there is no harmonic continuity between human animal and the symbolic order. It's a parasitic entity. So I think that in this sense our future will be very interesting because all the big struggles that we have today are viral struggles. Our mind is a virus and with crazy ideologies, false scientific ideology, religious fundamentalism, it is winning, destroying us. The biological virus, not just COVID-19—wait a little bit, there will be others. In five years, I predict, at least ten from now, COVID will be, as Bruno Latour said, a modest dress rehearsal for what is coming. And, of course, an old Marxist metaphor: capital is a virus. It's a virus in the sense of a virtual entity which like a virus just in an expanded way reproduces itself and doesn't care for the price we pay. So yes, our century will be Hegelian. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. Now I have a question for you if I may. Just go for it. No no, but it will be—I was really—I didn't bluff rhetorically. I really—first question, when you went into—it's very naive humanist almost question—when you say late style and so on, you know, you know what always bothers me? It's not directly your topic, but very close to it. What do you think about philosophers' late styles? Because I think there are—I was always against this mystique of, in the late style when they are close to death there is some deep insight. Yes, with Beethoven one cannot but agree. But for example in philosophy: Schelling. I think Heidegger is right: the peak of Schelling was Freiheitsschrift, Weltalter and so on, and the late Schelling is a regression. Even my beloved Lacan: the last ten years were a, if you ask me, the deadlock. So—so what—this is a game, but I think it's a productive game. What would you say, because Hegel died, well, from was it a virus or not a virus, but—cholera. Cholera, yes. What if Hegel were to live another ten-fifteen years? How would he have reacted? Because we both know, you probably better than me, that—or am I correct, correct me if I am wrong—that the last text that Hegel wrote was a critique of English Reform Bill. Was it—okay, maybe it was—also this second introduction to the science of logic. Ah yeah, yeah, yeah. But the text where he sees too much egalitarian democracy—he was horrified at it. So what would—what would Hegel have done here? And just another one, I absolutely admire what you said about clichés. I repeat my old joke, do you know Sam Goldwyn, the great producer? Was well known for his apparent mistakes which were ingenious jokes. Like once allegedly he read in the newspapers that in his films there are too many old clichés. You know what he wrote to his scenario department? "We urgently need new clichés." Yeah. And he was absolutely right. Every idiot can be original, no? And maybe this is Hegel's greatest achievement, to introduce into philosophy new clichés. But now if you just permit me, I will be very brief—two—so did Hegel have his speculation, maybe die at the right moment? Because there are also guys for whom one can say, thanks God that they died on time. For example, the movie director that we all like, Kieślowski. His new trilogy would have been—it wouldn't work. But the last one, then I stop. 9th Symphony Beethoven. Maybe there is something that's difficult to reconcile with Hegel. Would you—I had just two sub-questions, very short. The first one is what I like, here I totally agree with you with Hölderlin, is that his specific—you know it better than me—use of "Aber", but. "Aber", but, usually comes after. It's raining, "aber dennoch", but nonetheless it's a beautiful day. But Hölderlin often in his Spätstil begins with "Aber". Yeah. And I think this is the beginning of first Satz movement, which is my favorite of Hegel's—Beethoven's 9th Symphony, it's "Aber". He begins as Hölderlin with "Aber". Would you agree? You are free to say yes, not to say no. Sorry, just the second, would you agree or not with my reading which I took from some introduction that it can also be saved, the fourth movement of the ninth? All idiots focus on that European anthem, but what happens when this spectacular part is over? Vulgarity enters: Marcia Turca, ordinary, and then it's total chaos, it doesn't find balance. Valle? Yes, they say did you read Winnetou Karl May? No. There at the end, this novel—Slavoj!—there the hero says "Hau ikhabe gesprochen", so that's what I say, I spoke. Okay. Wallenstein, you said did Hegel die at the right moment. Well, I mean if—No he didn't, I am not sure, that's a question. No, I know. But I mean—the idea of late style does not have to do necessarily with biography in the sense of being old. I guess it would normally occur when you're old, not when you're years old, obviously. But I mean there are a lot of philosophers who never get old in that sense. I mean late style is not something that pertains to your biography. I know, I know, of course. Yeah. It's an optic. So in that sense—yeah yeah, of course, exactly. It's a way of reading Beethoven, it's not something that happens later than something else and—just one sentence, it will not be long. You know that Schönberg—Schönberg, Schönberg. Schönberg, Schönberg. Schönberg, yeah. You know that Schönberg said when he was old that all that you have to say in music can be said with maximum six-seven instruments, that you need orchestras only for the stupid Americans to understand it. And then somebody asked him, "But what about your Gurre-Lieder which are like six-seven hundred?" He said, "It's no problem. It's just a chamber work for six hundred people." No. So I really think that this hits, that I would like to find moments like this in Beethoven also. Sorry. I am—Don't be sorry. Do you have an immediate answer? No. I have a question for Slavoj, which I think has to do with, you know, Hegel scholarship in the vast sense. I mean you're obviously—I read—I haven't read Brandom's new book, but I read earlier stuff. And now you have been polemically against Brandom, but also others in that tradition. And and I think in a certain way, I don't know if
absolute spirit is proletariat as the subject-object of history. So here is a short paragraph from her speech. "In his Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel shows us that we are not simply solitary creatures disconnected from one another, although he, Hegel, knows very well that we sometimes see ourselves precisely in that way." And so on and so on. I explode here. I almost have a Goebbels reaction like—because first one always has to ask this naive question: who exactly is that idiot who says that we are not simply solitary creatures disconnected from one another? The only philosopher I know who says this is Hegel himself. He posits this as a starting point which he then, of course, undermines through its imminent self-deployment. But what's the problem here? What does Judith Butler miss here? Let me recall the passage from Phenomenology in which after analyzing the infinite judgment of phrenology, "Der Geist ist ein Knochen", "the spirit is a bone," Hegel draws the parallel—I'm sorry, everybody knows this passage—with the double function of penis. As Hegel puts it, "in the same way that in penis nature ironically put together the highest and the lowest: insemination and urination," in the same way "Der Geist ist ein Knochen" is the most vulgar materialism but also the speculative, the highest speculative truth. Where does Judith Butler get it wrong? Hegel's point here—it's such a simple point but many people don't get it—it's not that, ah, if we are vulgar materialist atomists, we see only urination, a true speculative thinker, she's also insemination, the ha—no, Hegel point is that you have to begin with urination, with the vulgar point, that the only way to the height is to make the wrong choice. This is the imminent temporality of Hegel's logic. And this has important political consequences. For example, in Hegel's critique of Terror in after French Revolution, his point, my God, is not: oh, French went too far, instead of building an organic community of freedom, they have chosen abstract negativity of Terror. No, his—and his point is not the usual liberal critique of French Revolution: yes, but again, again You have to go through Terror. Only the Terror opens up the way for later, maybe it's not clear, reconciliation. And I think that's what Judith Butler doesn't see. She acts as if there are idiots who think we are individualist, blah blah, but we should be wise and see how we are all together and so on. No. Now you will say, but nonetheless at the end Hegel sees a reconciliation. I don't have time, I have only limited—no, he doesn't see any reconciliation. At the end, what you get, it's important, the last page of Phänomenologie des Geistes. Hegel said the whole history is Calvary, Calvarie des Geistes. It's just a succession of horrors. And it's totally wrong to read Hegel as if, but at the end—where, show me in Hegel that happy picture at the end? At the end of even Hegel's Rechtsphilosophie is the necessity of war. To undermine any idea that we will have this happy bürgerliche society reconciled. He said no, necessity of war. So let me go very quickly. I found one philosopher, we should have invited her but she is not yet known in Europe, a very intelligent and to be a sexist, I'm sorry, very nice lady from Puerto Rico who teaches I don't know where, Rocío—not Rocco—Rocío, it's a woman's name, Rocío Zambrana, who precisely with reference to Adorno proposed a wonderful reading of Hegel where she rejects this pseudo-Hegelian notion of imminent critique. She contrasts this idea of imminent critique to, I quote her, "a conception of critique that rather than being guided by normative criteria that can be distilled from the socio-historical phenomenon at hand is attuned to, following Adorno, the undiminished persistence of suffering that remains in a world which could be paradise here and now but can become hell itself tomorrow." So Zambrana sees in Hegel an ongoing critique which remains vigilant of the inversions of any normative criteria imminent to social reality. Her lesson is that when you—she knows what Habermas and others is saying, you need some normative criteria to criticize something, but she thinks that at the end these normative criteria also have to fall. So, quote again from her: "The object of critique not only remains the modes of suffering distinctive to a given form of life, but also the normative commitments implicated in these forms of suffering." So I think that we should be critical here. For example, I always dismissed, I prefer Stalin to them, those Trotskyite critics of October Revolution, you know, with this dream, at the beginning it had emancipatory potential, but then, and then comes their science fiction dream in the worst form. If only Lenin were to survive three years more and make the pact with Trotsky, we would have gotten what? I don't know. But certainly these very criteria by means of which Trotskyists judge Stalin are for me absolutely unconditionally implicated in it. Now I want to turn to the big target of my critique, and to this my title refers, Robert Brandom's mega over pages book called "A Spirit of Trust", a reading of Hegel, I will not go into details, I will just of Hegel's Phenomenology focus on the central notion which is for Brandom that of forgiving recollection, deployed in the chapter on Geist, spirit, in Hegel's Phenomenology. The gap that separates the acting subject and its severe judge is there according to Brandom overcome through their reconciliation when not only the agent confesses his sin, but the judge also confesses the unilaterality of his own position, his participation in what he condemns. Evil is also the gaze which sees evil everywhere round itself. First, I think that this notion of forgiving recollection is very useful today to make a politically incorrect mistake. If this is very good critique of today's political correctness. Politically correct critics of where they see racism, anti-feminism, never see the evil in their own gaze. It's always absolute judgment. You make one mistake, you say one wrong word, you are out forever. But back to Brandom, there are nonetheless I think clear limits to his, not Hegel's, notion of forgiving recollection. To be brutal in a simplified way, can we also recollectively forgive Hitler? And if the answer is no, is this because Hitler cannot be in this sense forgiven, or because we ourselves are not yet at the high enough level of ethical reflection to do it? The only way to avoid regression to a position of beautiful soul is to endorse the second option, that our castigation of Hitler as evil must be a reflexive determination of the evil that persists in ourselves. And this—this way to read recollect—to read forgiving recollection is very with regard to Hitler is very popular today. This is even in, as beloved American our President Trump would have put it, even in this sh-hole of a country, he used it for other there. Here in Slovenia all the right-wingers there, they say: yeah, yeah, Hitler made mistakes but he should be recollectively—recollectively forgiven because he was fighting although in a wrong exaggerated way the true enemy: big capital. It was just that this enemy was for him embodied in Jews, which in a way was wrong but even there they say, but Jews did control many finances and so on and so on and so on. So the problem here is this one. It is what would be totally non-Hegelian would be to draw a distinction between, how should I put it, crimes that can be recollectively forgiven, you did a mistake but you if we look at it from your context you meant it good, it was—and like real evil where something like this is not possible. Brandom is aware of this and here is his answer, quote: "Whose fault is it that the doing or some aspect of it is unforgivable, the doer or the forgiver? Is the failure that of the bad agent or that of the bad recollector?" So if we cannot pardon somebody in this recollective way, who is to blame? And he's quite consequent Brandom here and says that, I quote, "we should also acknowledge at least equal responsibility on the part of the unsuccessful forgiver." I ask a totally naive question: does this mean that when we condemn Hitler we should also say: yes, but we didn't reflect enough, our stance is—our stance is—our—or to quote Brandom, "one must trust that this recollective recognitive failure to, like the failure of the original sin, will be successfully forgiven by future assessors." So again, without mentioning these hard cases, his idea is that if we cannot forgive some historical event, it means that we are implicated in it and then he does something horrible Brandom, he moves into this spurious infinity. He said this means that our judgment is also relative, in the future there will be a broader perspective where they will know how to recollectively forgive it and so on and so on. There, for true Hegelian against Brandom there are other problems here. For example, what about recollection which is not forgiving but even harsher? What if in a certain society it's normal, I use the traditional examples, to do clitoridectomy, to have slaves and even the victims more or less agree with it? But now we come and not only don't forgive it to them, but make a harsh—make a harsh judgment. Now what would have been the Hegelian solution to this deadlock? I think that again we have to introduce logical temporality, the temporality of "will have been", that Hegel is the great thinker of a truth which is decided retroactively. And here is a nice quote, here I agree with him from Brandom: "Concrete practical forgiveness involves doing things to change what the consequences of the act turn out to be. One might trust one's successors to make it the case that once inadvertent revelation, one's sacrifice, or the decision to go to war was—was worthwhile." So his idea is that you do something bad but the meaning of your act is decided retroactively, it can be redeemed. Why—why doesn't Brandom here mention the opposite case, which is the truly Hegelian one which I like? The problem is not a bad guy does something bad but without knowing he leads to a—it leads to a good result. And I met in Israel some radical Zionists who rehabilitate Hitler in this way. They said he was bad but objectively without Holocaust there wouldn't have been a State of Israel. So recollective recognition their way. Hegel enjoys much more the opposite case: somebody does something with the highest intentions and so on and everything goes wrong. I think that what we need to introduce here is a notion which you don't find it literally in Hegel but I think is Hegelian in spirit. Bernard Williams wrote a book on it, he called it moral luck. You do something and it depends on the outcome of how it will be judged. The most beautiful example I found of this is Kant's political philosophy, where he says every revolution is to be condemned because you overthrow a legal power. But he says if the revolution wins and imposes a new legal order, then you are again prohibited to rebel against it. If it succeeds, its imminent ethical status changes. Kant says this openly. I will not bore you with it. I will just say that the problem with Brandom I see here is that although he admits this retrospective necessity, Brandom reads Hegel beautifully here. Hegelian development is not linear but it's things take a certain turn and retroactively an event which is in itself contingent creates its own necessary conditions. Things retroactively become necessary. But where I don't trust Trump—sorry, Trump, Trump I trust—no no, I have—Amancep, five-ten minutes just—ten, perfect. Okay, very quickly. You know where Trump is almost a Hegelian? He did something lately which I really admire. I'm so tired of these stupidities that Trump is lying all the time. No, he's true in a horrible sense. Subversive character is that he also tells the truth where you don't expect it. A week ago he was criticized for defunding post office. And you know these intelligent liberal critics wanted to catch him that he is really doing this to have less dem- and they ask him why are you doing this? You know what Trump said? "It's obvious. I want less Democrats to vote." You know, like, he says the truth precisely when you would have expected it would hurt him. But let me go on. So back to Brandom. Brandom has this and I don't think this is imminent to Hegel. Brandom has this trust in future, in the sense that, okay, I am now reading Hegel the way Hegel was reading past philosophy, trying to introduce meaning into totality, retrospectively totalizing it and so on. I'm doing this to Hegel to make it actual for our time, but somebody else undoubtedly will be doing this for me and so on and so on. But why? I think that what Hegel means with Versöhnung is something much more radical. It's not that even if we don't find peace now, we have to have trust that with further progress there will be a total synthesis and so on and so on. No, the Hegelian motto is rather what I would have called, again against Brandom, the spirit of distrust. Hegel's basic procedure—and just look at his philosophy of history or whatever—it's always the same story. Something begins well with the best intentions and then everything goes wrong. You have revolution, you have terror then. You have in Phänomenologie des Geistes when he speaks of medieval times, you have serving the king, honor, it turns into flattery. One thing you can be always sure with Hegel is don't trust any ethical project. It's not that we shouldn't do them, we don't have a choice, but the only way to gain something is through the failure and then in a reaction to the failure. So for me, the true forgiveness is not Hegelian, is not this trust into the future, but it is precisely this trust that in some future things will turn out better and so on and so on. No, Hegel, that's why Hegel, I think you know that I quote this all the time, I think Michel Foucault wrote about Deleuze: "Un jour, peut-être, le siècle sera deleuzien," one day maybe the century will be Deleuzian. Our century now is Hegelian. Why? Because we are again and again witnessing these reversals. Not only is the 20th century out of scope for Hegel, Hegel would have loved it. He would have analyzed how—remember second part of 19th century in Europe, not elsewhere. Time of progress gradually women got the voting right, retirement funds, health, it got better, then you get World War I. Total catastrophe. Hegel would have, I can see him also almost in an orgasmic intellectual effort, demonstrate—or October Revolution: it began nice, global emancipation, ah, a certain comrade from Georgia, Stalin, comes and gives another turn to it. And even today, Hegel is never a guy of happy ending. He would have been—Fukuyama is the greatest anti-Hegelian you can imagine. Hegel's definition is when a certain movement, tendency like global capitalism wins, it self-divides, it splits, it's the end. So I think that this is where we should look. And now if you where should look for at a Hegelian how we should look at our contemporary times, this imminent reversal of things, it's really what the Englishmen have this wonderful term for: "Verkehrte Welt", topsy-turvy world. This reversal and then how only in a repetition later as a—as a—as a collateral damage as we say today, maybe something good will emerge. So three minutes. I want just to make a point, three minutes, yes, but in a dialectical sense, not linear time and so on. Yeah yeah. I—what I already published, maybe even in Slovene I am confused, I think that Hegel also offers the best way to think COVID. No, idiots—if you suspect that some of your friends are idiots, tell them, I think that Hegel is a rational thinker where everything is systematized, all history leads to human progress and so on. So Hegel cannot think something like COVID. He can. Because first Hegel has—Hegel is much more autonomous in the sense of admitting the autonomy of nature than Marx. Marx is too much productivist. For Marx silently always presupposes: nature is out there to be exploited productively by us. For Hegel, nature is absolutely its spirit in its otherness, absolute externality. An asteroid can hit earth and it's a wonderful dialectical synthesis of necessity and contingency. From the standpoint of nature it would be necessary. We can even probably measure when it will hit Earth. But from the standpoint of human history it's contingent in the sense it has no deeper meaning, punishment or whatever. And I think it's the same with COVID. What would have been Hegel's reaction to COVID? Not just this pessimism, "oh, we just see how helpless we are" and so on. As already developed somewhere, I think that Hegel would be intrigued by something else. What if today's formula of "Der Geist ist ein Knochen" is "Der Geist ist ein Virus"? That is to say, it shocked me when I read this, it's not a joke. Look at the top, top, measured by the wrong standards, cognitivist—I wouldn't call them philosophers, thinkers today: Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins. Their explicit theory—I'm not reading between the lines—is that mind, our thinking, our symbolic order is a virus. It's not an organic part of our identity, it's a parasitic entity which makes us do crazy things, act against our interest, an idea obsesses you, it makes you ruin yourself and so on. That in this strict sense of a parasitic entity, that's the whole point of Dawkins' notion of meme like genes, memes, that our mind works as a virus. And now I'm getting closer to my terrain, Jacques Lacan knew this when he says the big Other is parasitizing of us, there is no harmonic continuity between human animal and the symbolic order. It's a parasitic entity. So I think that in this sense our future will be very interesting because all the big struggles that we have today are viral struggles. Our mind is a virus and with crazy ideologies, false scientific ideology, religious fundamentalism, it is winning, destroying us. The biological virus, not just COVID-19—wait a little bit, there will be others. In five years, I predict, at least ten from now, COVID will be, as Bruno Latour said, a modest dress rehearsal for what is coming. And, of course, an old Marxist metaphor: capital is a virus. It's a virus in the sense of a virtual entity which like a virus just in an expanded way reproduces itself and doesn't care for the price we pay. So yes, our century will be Hegelian. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thanks. Now I have a question for you if I may. Just go for it. No no, but it will be—I was really—I didn't bluff rhetorically. I really—first question, when you went into—it's very naive humanist almost question—when you say late style and so on, you know, you know what always bothers me? It's not directly your topic, but very close to it. What do you think about philosophers' late styles? Because I think there are—I was always against this mystique of, in the late style when they are close to death there is some deep insight. Yes, with Beethoven one cannot but agree. But for example in philosophy: Schelling. I think Heidegger is right: the peak of Schelling was Freiheitsschrift, Weltalter and so on, and the late Schelling is a regression. Even my beloved Lacan: the last ten years were a, if you ask me, the deadlock. So—so what—this is a game, but I think it's a productive game. What would you say, because Hegel died, well, from was it a virus or not a virus, but—cholera. Cholera, yes. What if Hegel were to live another ten-fifteen years? How would he have reacted? Because we both know, you probably better than me, that—or am I correct, correct me if I am wrong—that the last text that Hegel wrote was a critique of English Reform Bill. Was it—okay, maybe it was—also this second introduction to the science of logic. Ah yeah, yeah, yeah. But the text where he sees too much egalitarian democracy—he was horrified at it. So what would—what would Hegel have done here? And just another one, I absolutely admire what you said about clichés. I repeat my old joke, do you know Sam Goldwyn, the great producer? Was well known for his apparent mistakes which were ingenious jokes. Like once allegedly he read in the newspapers that in his films there are too many old clichés. You know what he wrote to his scenario department? "We urgently need new clichés." Yeah. And he was absolutely right. Every idiot can be original, no? And maybe this is Hegel's greatest achievement, to introduce into philosophy new clichés. But now if you just permit me, I will be very brief—two—so did Hegel have his speculation, maybe die at the right moment? Because there are also guys for whom one can say, thanks God that they died on time. For example, the movie director that we all like, Kieślowski. His new trilogy would have been—it wouldn't work. But the last one, then I stop. 9th Symphony Beethoven. Maybe there is something that's difficult to reconcile with Hegel. Would you—I had just two sub-questions, very short. The first one is what I like, here I totally agree with you with Hölderlin, is that his specific—you know it better than me—use of "Aber", but. "Aber", but, usually comes after. It's raining, "aber dennoch", but nonetheless it's a beautiful day. But Hölderlin often in his Spätstil begins with "Aber". Yeah. And I think this is the beginning of first Satz movement, which is my favorite of Hegel's—Beethoven's 9th Symphony, it's "Aber". He begins as Hölderlin with "Aber". Would you agree? You are free to say yes, not to say no. Sorry, just the second, would you agree or not with my reading which I took from some introduction that it can also be saved, the fourth movement of the ninth? All idiots focus on that European anthem, but what happens when this spectacular part is over? Vulgarity enters: Marcia Turca, ordinary, and then it's total chaos, it doesn't find balance. Valle? Yes, they say did you read Winnetou Karl May? No. There at the end, this novel—Slavoj!—there the hero says "Hau ikhabe gesprochen", so that's what I say, I spoke. Okay. Wallenstein, you said did Hegel die at the right moment. Well, I mean if—No he didn't, I am not sure, that's a question. No, I know. But I mean—the idea of late style does not have to do necessarily with biography in the sense of being old. I guess it would normally occur when you're old, not when you're years old, obviously. But I mean there are a lot of philosophers who never get old in that sense. I mean late style is not something that pertains to your biography. I know, I know, of course. Yeah. It's an optic. So in that sense—yeah yeah, of course, exactly. It's a way of reading Beethoven, it's not something that happens later than something else and—just one sentence, it will not be long. You know that Schönberg—Schönberg, Schönberg. Schönberg, Schönberg. Schönberg, yeah. You know that Schönberg said when he was old that all that you have to say in music can be said with maximum six-seven instruments, that you need orchestras only for the stupid Americans to understand it. And then somebody asked him, "But what about your Gurre-Lieder which are like six-seven hundred?" He said, "It's no problem. It's just a chamber work for six hundred people." No. So I really think that this hits, that I would like to find moments like this in Beethoven also. Sorry. I am—Don't be sorry. Do you have an immediate answer? No. I have a question for Slavoj, which I think has to do with, you know, Hegel scholarship in the vast sense. I mean you're obviously—I read—I haven't read Brandom's new book, but I read earlier stuff. And now you have been polemically against Brandom, but also others in that tradition. And and I think in a certain way, I don't know if
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you
Slavoj Žižek
have any opinion on this, but I mean the way that Hegel is now being reread in analytic philosophy and he is now—there's a certain need to reintegrate Hegel. And and this has also produced a certain picture of Hegel. Hegel, as Pippin would say, the thinker of like-mindedness and the sense of a kind of consensus, a kind of consensus formation. I think "A Spirit of Trust" would be part of that. Recognition, Anerkennung is the word. Yeah, is the word, the big word. Yeah. So you're actually now what you're seeing now is is if the century will be Hegelian, there will also be a split between I don't know if there are left or right Hegelians, but the two versions of Hegel. I mean your version of Hegel and the Brandom version of Hegel. Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see what I'm getting at? That there's a split in the way one reads Hegel. Yes, but it's not just Brandom. Isn't this the big news of the last decades? Till years ago approximately, Hegelians were either moderate conservatives—moderate, can be very, but nonetheless—or radical leftists who just oh, negativity, whatever revolution. And what happens now is simply the explosion of liberal
have any opinion on this, but I mean the way that Hegel is now being reread in analytic philosophy and he is now—there's a certain need to reintegrate Hegel. And and this has also produced a certain picture of Hegel. Hegel, as Pippin would say, the thinker of like-mindedness and the sense of a kind of consensus, a kind of consensus formation. I think "A Spirit of Trust" would be part of that. Recognition, Anerkennung is the word. Yeah, is the word, the big word. Yeah. So you're actually now what you're seeing now is is if the century will be Hegelian, there will also be a split between I don't know if there are left or right Hegelians, but the two versions of Hegel. I mean your version of Hegel and the Brandom version of Hegel. Do you see what I'm saying? Do you see what I'm getting at? That there's a split in the way one reads Hegel. Yes, but it's not just Brandom. Isn't this the big news of the last decades? Till years ago approximately, Hegelians were either moderate conservatives—moderate, can be very, but nonetheless—or radical leftists who just oh, negativity, whatever revolution. And what happens now is simply the explosion of liberal
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Hegel. Which has, would you agree, two main characteristics. One is this emphasis on
Hegel. Which has, would you agree, two main characteristics. One is this emphasis on
Slavoj Žižek
Anerkennung, this liberal ethical vision of mutual recognition. And the other is what I call it is ontological minimization. Like logic is not really a general, I use naive word, view of the world. It's just a kind of a general theory of discourse, all modes of arguing and so on and so on. I think and you can feel with some of them—it I'm not opposed to this tendency as such because there is something good in it, but—namely this desperate need to normalize Hegel. Hegel is not just bluffing, we can prove you that he has something real to say about our world. I don't feel—I don't feel—I don't feel this need. No. Okay, we have another minutes and I think we should—But you owe me more, I mean attack me more. I—No no, I'm not attacking you. I mean obviously I sense you belong to one side of that—Which side am I then? On your side. Oh! But—it's not that I agree with you necessarily, but I think both camps are pretty big, so they contain their inner inner differences. No, but I always objected to this idea of like-mindedness and the way that, to put it bluntly, you know, the metaphysical dimension of Hegel simply disappears and becomes this theory of consensus and intersubjectivity and communication. He comes off occasionally as Habermas really. And I don't think that's Hegel because I mean the stress on negativity and crisis and conflict and division is simply somehow simply disappears. Yes, and would you agree with my central—my central point is that what Hegel means by reconciliation is not overcoming of conflicts, but you reconcile yourself with the necessity of the conflict. Yeah, but I mean as you're saying, this kind of retroactive justification of what happens, I mean you didn't quote me exactly, but I mean the final lines of the Rechtsphilosophie, "die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht", "the world history is the world court" or the final
Anerkennung, this liberal ethical vision of mutual recognition. And the other is what I call it is ontological minimization. Like logic is not really a general, I use naive word, view of the world. It's just a kind of a general theory of discourse, all modes of arguing and so on and so on. I think and you can feel with some of them—it I'm not opposed to this tendency as such because there is something good in it, but—namely this desperate need to normalize Hegel. Hegel is not just bluffing, we can prove you that he has something real to say about our world. I don't feel—I don't feel—I don't feel this need. No. Okay, we have another minutes and I think we should—But you owe me more, I mean attack me more. I—No no, I'm not attacking you. I mean obviously I sense you belong to one side of that—Which side am I then? On your side. Oh! But—it's not that I agree with you necessarily, but I think both camps are pretty big, so they contain their inner inner differences. No, but I always objected to this idea of like-mindedness and the way that, to put it bluntly, you know, the metaphysical dimension of Hegel simply disappears and becomes this theory of consensus and intersubjectivity and communication. He comes off occasionally as Habermas really. And I don't think that's Hegel because I mean the stress on negativity and crisis and conflict and division is simply somehow simply disappears. Yes, and would you agree with my central—my central point is that what Hegel means by reconciliation is not overcoming of conflicts, but you reconcile yourself with the necessity of the conflict. Yeah, but I mean as you're saying, this kind of retroactive justification of what happens, I mean you didn't quote me exactly, but I mean the final lines of the Rechtsphilosophie, "die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht", "the world history is the world court" or the final
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court will
court will
Slavoj Žižek
be only history. So beyond the state, there are the interstate situation which is never to be resolved because there is no
be only history. So beyond the state, there are the interstate situation which is never to be resolved because there is no
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norm to be had. Can I just add something which would interest maybe you but also all of us? Hegel is also often reproached as you know stupid speculation schemes. No, Hegel the only guy in Marxism, I wonder if you knew this, who had the same incredible sense for common sense in the best sense, empirical judgments is—no, you would not expect it—not Marx, Engels. Okay. Hegel, look at his introduction to Weltgeschichte, philosophy. There, when he touches—this was in early 1820s—when he speaks about America and Russia, Russia, he says, "it's too early to talk about these countries, next century will be theirs." Quite a good empirical judgment. But Engels beats him. You know where? He wrote in a letter—it's uncanny to what details he predicted World War I. He said it is coming, he said it will be Germany on two fronts. Then he said two things which are shocking.
norm to be had. Can I just add something which would interest maybe you but also all of us? Hegel is also often reproached as you know stupid speculation schemes. No, Hegel the only guy in Marxism, I wonder if you knew this, who had the same incredible sense for common sense in the best sense, empirical judgments is—no, you would not expect it—not Marx, Engels. Okay. Hegel, look at his introduction to Weltgeschichte, philosophy. There, when he touches—this was in early 1820s—when he speaks about America and Russia, Russia, he says, "it's too early to talk about these countries, next century will be theirs." Quite a good empirical judgment. But Engels beats him. You know where? He wrote in a letter—it's uncanny to what details he predicted World War I. He said it is coming, he said it will be Germany on two fronts. Then he said two things which are shocking.
Slavoj Žižek
First
First
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thing he says, "Germany," he says, "there will be around million dead." You know what's now official number? million thousand. Second, he said, "probably the West will survive but in Russia there will be a revolution," and then he says, Engels, "if Germany loses, probably a decade or two later there will be another world war." So no no, Marxists are not only those crazy idiots. They—and don't you find in Hegel also this when he speaks about empirical things, he is not an idiot, my God. No no, but I think in some sense, I mean Hegel was the first philosopher to experience the necessity of of thinking the empirical, of thinking the contingent, the factual, and and not to explain it explain it away through the general, but to develop the
thing he says, "Germany," he says, "there will be around million dead." You know what's now official number? million thousand. Second, he said, "probably the West will survive but in Russia there will be a revolution," and then he says, Engels, "if Germany loses, probably a decade or two later there will be another world war." So no no, Marxists are not only those crazy idiots. They—and don't you find in Hegel also this when he speaks about empirical things, he is not an idiot, my God. No no, but I think in some sense, I mean Hegel was the first philosopher to experience the necessity of of thinking the empirical, of thinking the contingent, the factual, and and not to explain it explain it away through the general, but to develop the
Slavoj Žižek
general out of the particular. I mean I think this is I mean regardless of what he writes about marriage or economy or art, I would say he's the first philosopher to truly look at artworks. I mean which is what I'm working on, you know. But would you agree with something which nonetheless if I were to choose between Hegel and Marx, it's Hegel, but nonetheless at one point it's obvious that and this is objective because of
general out of the particular. I mean I think this is I mean regardless of what he writes about marriage or economy or art, I would say he's the first philosopher to truly look at artworks. I mean which is what I'm working on, you know. But would you agree with something which nonetheless if I were to choose between Hegel and Marx, it's Hegel, but nonetheless at one point it's obvious that and this is objective because of
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economic
economic
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development. What Marx saw is precisely the Hegelian aspect of capital. Capital as some—Hegel didn't see it. His economic model was still individual artisans exchanging. That's what Marx did very seriously. Absolutely agree. Okay, if there is a question from the audience or an attack, just please go for it. There is a microphone or just raise your hand. But you can also ask simple questions like: how can you be so bright and at the same time so amusing or some neutral question like that, you know? Or—yeah. Please, please seriously, please. Please, a question. Okay, Grega. Will you come here? Are you Slovene because ich kann Deutsch sprechen, das geht—Ah ja, okay okay. I can—I can it try, try also on Deutsch to pose, but I will
development. What Marx saw is precisely the Hegelian aspect of capital. Capital as some—Hegel didn't see it. His economic model was still individual artisans exchanging. That's what Marx did very seriously. Absolutely agree. Okay, if there is a question from the audience or an attack, just please go for it. There is a microphone or just raise your hand. But you can also ask simple questions like: how can you be so bright and at the same time so amusing or some neutral question like that, you know? Or—yeah. Please, please seriously, please. Please, a question. Okay, Grega. Will you come here? Are you Slovene because ich kann Deutsch sprechen, das geht—Ah ja, okay okay. I can—I can it try, try also on Deutsch to pose, but I will
Slavoj Žižek
not. I will do
not. I will do
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it in English. So this is—Bara asked me to ask a question, so here it goes. But it—it's a serious question that—it's a serious question for me and it mostly goes to Slavoj's talk. And the question is I'm not entirely certain what Hegel would do with the Holocaust.
it in English. So this is—Bara asked me to ask a question, so here it goes. But it—it's a serious question that—it's a serious question for me and it mostly goes to Slavoj's talk. And the question is I'm not entirely certain what Hegel would do with the Holocaust.
Slavoj Žižek
Because at—you know, just coming from your talk, at on one hand, of course it's just a historical necessity like—I mean there's been genocides before, you know, this is not the final genocide, whatever. But on the other hand, you know, as soon as you would admit some sort of historical necessity of Holocaust, of Hitler and so on, it seems—it seems as though you would also admit to something that you opposed in your talk very vigorously, it seems that you would also accept that somehow at some point there is a Versöhnung, there is some sort of reconciliation with Hitler, if you want, with—with—with Holocaust, with its historical necessity. So I'm not exactly sure whether Holocaust belongs to history proper or not. It's—it's very nice question and I'm not bluffing because it was bothering me also. I wrote now a ten
Because at—you know, just coming from your talk, at on one hand, of course it's just a historical necessity like—I mean there's been genocides before, you know, this is not the final genocide, whatever. But on the other hand, you know, as soon as you would admit some sort of historical necessity of Holocaust, of Hitler and so on, it seems—it seems as though you would also admit to something that you opposed in your talk very vigorously, it seems that you would also accept that somehow at some point there is a Versöhnung, there is some sort of reconciliation with Hitler, if you want, with—with—with Holocaust, with its historical necessity. So I'm not exactly sure whether Holocaust belongs to history proper or not. It's—it's very nice question and I'm not bluffing because it was bothering me also. I wrote now a ten
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pages text
pages text
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on it, I will not know where I will publish it. Because you know where—which aspect brought this to me? Do you remember some stupid American right-wing Republican senator tried to justify slavery that the fathers of the nation allowed for slavery? He said this was a necessary compromise précisément
on it, I will not know where I will publish it. Because you know where—which aspect brought this to me? Do you remember some stupid American right-wing Republican senator tried to justify slavery that the fathers of the nation allowed for slavery? He said this was a necessary compromise précisément
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to bring a country which will then abolish slavery. And then all the left exploded. But I'm sorry, Marx, isn't Marx saying exactly the same in his text, he is there much more than Hegel even brutally pragmatist, in
to bring a country which will then abolish slavery. And then all the left exploded. But I'm sorry, Marx, isn't Marx saying exactly the same in his text, he is there much more than Hegel even brutally pragmatist, in
Slavoj Žižek
his famous text for some American New York Herald on—on—on effects of
his famous text for some American New York Herald on—on—on effects of
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the British
the British
Slavoj Žižek
colonial
colonial
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rule in India. He says: yes, horrors, genocide, but in the long term it brought progress and so on and so on. And what I think is that here we have what I would have called in my jargon a parallax. That is to say we absolutely should avoid, and I agree with you, this conclusion so in some sense it's—becomes ethically acceptable. Like I always have a very dirty imagination. My
rule in India. He says: yes, horrors, genocide, but in the long term it brought progress and so on and so on. And what I think is that here we have what I would have called in my jargon a parallax. That is to say we absolutely should avoid, and I agree with you, this conclusion so in some sense it's—becomes ethically acceptable. Like I always have a very dirty imagination. My
Slavoj Žižek
imagination is Israelis capture some somebody like Eichmann—no, they did, no—and they ask him what why did you do it, and what he tells them? "But I wanted to help you. I had to do this so that you finally got your state, you know. Objectively I helped." And I think that there is something absolutely false in this meta-language position of, this is what Hegel prohibits: this pure objective knowledge. I do something horrible, then I as it were stand up on my shoulder and judge it objectively, no? This is why we have—I think Hegelian vision it's not simply historicist relativism in the sense of there is an objective view, although Hegel sometimes sounds like this. But I think it's crucial to here also introduce retroactivity. Like once Holocaust is condemned, you cannot say but at that point you can understand it from its conditions. No, it becomes retroactively totally
imagination is Israelis capture some somebody like Eichmann—no, they did, no—and they ask him what why did you do it, and what he tells them? "But I wanted to help you. I had to do this so that you finally got your state, you know. Objectively I helped." And I think that there is something absolutely false in this meta-language position of, this is what Hegel prohibits: this pure objective knowledge. I do something horrible, then I as it were stand up on my shoulder and judge it objectively, no? This is why we have—I think Hegelian vision it's not simply historicist relativism in the sense of there is an objective view, although Hegel sometimes sounds like this. But I think it's crucial to here also introduce retroactivity. Like once Holocaust is condemned, you cannot say but at that point you can understand it from its conditions. No, it becomes retroactively totally
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evil. And it not just subjectively. I take very seriously this category of—this category of retroactivity and this is my reproach to certain Stalinist-style Marxists. They talk as if—that's why Hegel would not be this type of a Marxist. True Stalinist Marxists, they think they know the laws of history and then they can say: it's maybe horrible what I'm doing but I'm
evil. And it not just subjectively. I take very seriously this category of—this category of retroactivity and this is my reproach to certain Stalinist-style Marxists. They talk as if—that's why Hegel would not be this type of a Marxist. True Stalinist Marxists, they think they know the laws of history and then they can say: it's maybe horrible what I'm doing but I'm
Slavoj Žižek
just you know fulfilling the necessity and so on. No, with Hegel the ethical dimension, not in the Habermasian sense of positive ethics, but in the sense of Adorno more suffering, tension, ethics is inscribed in the heart of ontology itself. It's a much more paradoxical—paradoxical solution. This is why there is, I claim, from our human standpoint even an element
just you know fulfilling the necessity and so on. No, with Hegel the ethical dimension, not in the Habermasian sense of positive ethics, but in the sense of Adorno more suffering, tension, ethics is inscribed in the heart of ontology itself. It's a much more paradoxical—paradoxical solution. This is why there is, I claim, from our human standpoint even an element
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of truth from our human standpoint in what Kant says where he says that God created
of truth from our human standpoint in what Kant says where he says that God created
Slavoj Žižek
the world so that we humans have a space to fight between good and evil, you know? Of course this is
the world so that we humans have a space to fight between good and evil, you know? Of course this is
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factually not true, but from our human
factually not true, but from our human
Slavoj Žižek
standpoint it is like this. So I agree, this
standpoint it is like this. So I agree, this
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is a very complex question because while avoiding abstract moralism, "now we know the truth", we should not simply relativize it. For example, some feminist wrote, maybe you know it was in the media, very intelligently that: are we aware that till I would say at least late 19th century, most of the f- activity, sexual acts would be measured by today's standards counted as rape? And I think it's wrong to say: yeah, but you shouldn't apply our criteria backwards. It's much more complex. In some sense, yes we should do it. I believe as a radical Hegelian in this retroactivity of truth. Hegel is not a historicist in the sense that to understand a phenomenon you have to be there. My idea was always my standard topic: it's not in order to understand Shakespeare you have to know all
is a very complex question because while avoiding abstract moralism, "now we know the truth", we should not simply relativize it. For example, some feminist wrote, maybe you know it was in the media, very intelligently that: are we aware that till I would say at least late 19th century, most of the f- activity, sexual acts would be measured by today's standards counted as rape? And I think it's wrong to say: yeah, but you shouldn't apply our criteria backwards. It's much more complex. In some sense, yes we should do it. I believe as a radical Hegelian in this retroactivity of truth. Hegel is not a historicist in the sense that to understand a phenomenon you have to be there. My idea was always my standard topic: it's not in order to understand Shakespeare you have to know all
Slavoj Žižek
about Elizabethan England, no it's the opposite I think: in order to if you want to understand anything about Elizabethan England, read Shakespeare. And we can understand today Shakespeare much better than he did himself. Okay, sorry. So to bring our discussion to the end because we need to finish in a couple of minutes, I would like to also bring us back to our topic, the too-lateness, and I would pose a question which is a very naive, stupid question. You said Geist is a virus. And virus is something that mutates, that's it actually unpredictable in a way, but also—so I'm questioning you and both of you, can we predict something about this virus nevertheless? So can we become prophets for a minute like Engels was, not and maybe someone retroactively in years will say: yeah, but Žižek said and Wallenstein said that you know—So my question is if Geist is a virus which is spreading today, will the future become like a Hegelian future that will attack us from the back and we cannot predict or even think of what will happen? Or can we be—like maybe an epidemiologist and predict something for for the future? This is the final question. I mean are you asking whether we can we can predict how thought or philosophy will evolve in the future? Is that it? Not philosophy, I mean philosophy, Geist, world, whatever. And maybe the question is not only if we can predict or not, but what will be the prediction if it's possible. I'm here an Oedipal pessimist. By Oedipal I mean this, that if things will turn out bad, it they will turn out in Oedipus' way. Remember that in Oedipus, nothing would have happened without prediction. If Oedipus' parents were not to be told "this guy will screw you mother and kill you father," nothing would have happened, they would have been a happy family. It's précisément because of the prediction, and so that's—I am afraid that something like this will happen and it's already at a certain level happening. For example, the most horrible news that I read is that, you know all these mega-typhoons that we are getting now. The first one was in Bangladesh and Bengal. You know we were also glad satellite images, oh my God, no longer those gray flecks, it's—yeah, but this decrease in pollution, air, opened up the space for—so you know, now this is for me the Hegelian uncertainty. You know something will happen, it's predicted, you try to prevent it, in this way that will happen. Can I just add, you know, even though the text, the actual text in the "Lectures on Aesthetics" is not Hegel himself, it's Hotho, we know that. Sorry, which? The text of the lectures on "Lectures on Aesthetics", "Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik" by Hegel. Yeah yeah. He actually speaks there about Oedipus a couple of times, specifically in the latter last section on drama on the development of drama. He says, you know, if—of course you have the crime and you have the the atrocities with—But then again in the end he reached Versöhnung in the "Oedipus at Colonus". So it was actually Aussöhnung and Versöhnung, he uses both terms. I'm sorry for that. Ah! Do you really—now I rely to my
about Elizabethan England, no it's the opposite I think: in order to if you want to understand anything about Elizabethan England, read Shakespeare. And we can understand today Shakespeare much better than he did himself. Okay, sorry. So to bring our discussion to the end because we need to finish in a couple of minutes, I would like to also bring us back to our topic, the too-lateness, and I would pose a question which is a very naive, stupid question. You said Geist is a virus. And virus is something that mutates, that's it actually unpredictable in a way, but also—so I'm questioning you and both of you, can we predict something about this virus nevertheless? So can we become prophets for a minute like Engels was, not and maybe someone retroactively in years will say: yeah, but Žižek said and Wallenstein said that you know—So my question is if Geist is a virus which is spreading today, will the future become like a Hegelian future that will attack us from the back and we cannot predict or even think of what will happen? Or can we be—like maybe an epidemiologist and predict something for for the future? This is the final question. I mean are you asking whether we can we can predict how thought or philosophy will evolve in the future? Is that it? Not philosophy, I mean philosophy, Geist, world, whatever. And maybe the question is not only if we can predict or not, but what will be the prediction if it's possible. I'm here an Oedipal pessimist. By Oedipal I mean this, that if things will turn out bad, it they will turn out in Oedipus' way. Remember that in Oedipus, nothing would have happened without prediction. If Oedipus' parents were not to be told "this guy will screw you mother and kill you father," nothing would have happened, they would have been a happy family. It's précisément because of the prediction, and so that's—I am afraid that something like this will happen and it's already at a certain level happening. For example, the most horrible news that I read is that, you know all these mega-typhoons that we are getting now. The first one was in Bangladesh and Bengal. You know we were also glad satellite images, oh my God, no longer those gray flecks, it's—yeah, but this decrease in pollution, air, opened up the space for—so you know, now this is for me the Hegelian uncertainty. You know something will happen, it's predicted, you try to prevent it, in this way that will happen. Can I just add, you know, even though the text, the actual text in the "Lectures on Aesthetics" is not Hegel himself, it's Hotho, we know that. Sorry, which? The text of the lectures on "Lectures on Aesthetics", "Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik" by Hegel. Yeah yeah. He actually speaks there about Oedipus a couple of times, specifically in the latter last section on drama on the development of drama. He says, you know, if—of course you have the crime and you have the the atrocities with—But then again in the end he reached Versöhnung in the "Oedipus at Colonus". So it was actually Aussöhnung and Versöhnung, he uses both terms. I'm sorry for that. Ah! Do you really—now I rely to my
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good friend who draw my attention to it, Mladen Dolar, who draw my attention to it, then I went to read Sophocles, otherwise
good friend who draw my attention to it, Mladen Dolar, who draw my attention to it, then I went to read Sophocles, otherwise
Slavoj Žižek
I prefer Wikipedia and so on. Okay. Okay, so—no no, very important, very briefly. But do you know "Oedipus at"—what kind of
I prefer Wikipedia and so on. Okay. Okay, so—no no, very important, very briefly. But do you know "Oedipus at"—what kind of
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Versöhnung is that? First, Hegel is here empirically wrong. At the end of "König Ödipus", the first tragedy, he doesn't say "Oh my tragic fault, I admit", he admits nothing. But in the later version, in "Oedipus at Colonus", yeah, there he is a happy man reconciled with himself because he knows what he wants, he manipulates, "I want revenge, I want to screw up", he is finally a happy guy
Versöhnung is that? First, Hegel is here empirically wrong. At the end of "König Ödipus", the first tragedy, he doesn't say "Oh my tragic fault, I admit", he admits nothing. But in the later version, in "Oedipus at Colonus", yeah, there he is a happy man reconciled with himself because he knows what he wants, he manipulates, "I want revenge, I want to screw up", he is finally a happy guy
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who knows what he wants: to bring harm to his city. In this sense it's a very weird Versöhnung. Yeah, but
who knows what he wants: to bring harm to his city. In this sense it's a very weird Versöhnung. Yeah, but
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isn't—this is not what Hegel claims. What Hegel is saying that he's saying we should—not like many people say, he's not the first Christian,
isn't—this is not what Hegel claims. What Hegel is saying that he's saying we should—not like many people say, he's not the first Christian,
Slavoj Žižek
but he is almost a Christian. That is the argument. Okay. Now your last word, last word. What would be your last word? And then we finish. Oh my God, I have no idea. You can be silent. You can be silent. Oh my God, this is—Okay, no last words. No. No, okay. I can have—I was in a hotel on Slovene coast using those stupid vouchers that we got and there was a writing on the wall which seems to me a mockery of a wrong Hegel. It goes like this: "Descartes says: to think is to be. Descartes says: to think is to be. To think is to be." "No, sorry,
but he is almost a Christian. That is the argument. Okay. Now your last word, last word. What would be your last word? And then we finish. Oh my God, I have no idea. You can be silent. You can be silent. Oh my God, this is—Okay, no last words. No. No, okay. I can have—I was in a hotel on Slovene coast using those stupid vouchers that we got and there was a writing on the wall which seems to me a mockery of a wrong Hegel. It goes like this: "Descartes says: to think is to be. Descartes says: to think is to be. To think is to be." "No, sorry,
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to—to do is to be," you
to—to do is to be," you
Slavoj Žižek
know? "Kant says: to be is to do." Then Frank Sinatra says: "Dubidubidu." You know that right? Okay,
know? "Kant says: to be is to do." Then Frank Sinatra says: "Dubidubidu." You know that right? Okay,
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thank you.
thank you.
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That's
That's
Slavoj Žižek
not true Hegel. Okay. Okay, okay,
not true Hegel. Okay. Okay, okay,
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so welcome tomorrow. The program is on Indigo's webpage and Goethe-Institut webpage. And tomorrow there is an event at here, at the same scale, the same composition, other
so welcome tomorrow. The program is on Indigo's webpage and Goethe-Institut webpage. And tomorrow there is an event at here, at the same scale, the same composition, other
Slavoj Žižek
guests. When will be in English? Welcome. Where? Is it? No Adorno, I know your—books, I take the speech. Oh my God, I would love to have.
guests. When will be in English? Welcome. Where? Is it? No Adorno, I know your—books, I take the speech. Oh my God, I would love to have.