Ideology Between Fetish and Symptom
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2009-05 · 1:22:36 · 12,118 words
ideologypsychoanalysishegel-dialecticsrace-antisemitismfascism-populismreligion-theologycapitalismeveryday-lifehistoryliberalism-political-correctnesscinema-art-culturegeopolitics-war
Delivered in Pristina (Kosovo), this talk is a wide-ranging lecture on how ideology operates in post-ideological times, structured around the psychoanalytic opposition between fetish and symptom. Žižek argues that everyday objects and practices (toilets, floor numbering, Land Rovers, sexual disclosure customs) are saturated with ideological presuppositions, before developing a distinction between 'permissive cynical fetishism' and 'fundamentalist populist fetishism' exemplified by anti-Semitism. The talk concludes with an analysis of objective belief, the idea that one can 'believe without believing,' enacted in practice, illustrated through the Niels Bohr horseshoe anecdote, the Yugoslav/Tito chicken joke, Marx's commodity fetishism, and Žižek's reading of Christ's cry of abandonment as the moment God himself knows he does not exist.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 18
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Used via Badiou to designate the conservative, opportunistic deep France whose representative figure is Pétain, as opposed to the revolutionary France that erupts every thirty or forty years.
as “zero counted as one”
Žižek's formulation of the Hegelian-Lacanian insight that any counting must already presuppose a void (zero) that counts as a positive element; the Warsaw hotel that goes 0→2 illustrates this correctly.
as “big Other”
Lacanian concept invoked to explain why zero must count as one in floor-numbering: the big Other is the symbolic substance that must already be presupposed for counting to begin.
A partial lie that sustains the global truth, allowing the subject to disavow an unbearable reality while continuing to function, the mechanism Žižek contrasts with the symptom.
The moment where a repressed partial truth returns to undermine the ideological lie in which the subject lives.
Žižek's term for the fetish object that the cynic secretly holds sacred in order to sustain functioning in a brutal reality, generalised from the literal hamster in his friend's grief story.
Žižek's ironic label for the fake Dalai Lama-style oriental spiritualism adopted by ultra-rich digital capitalists as an ideological 'hamster' that lets them disavow the brutal reality of their economic activity.
as “symptomatic reading”
The critical-Marxist practice of reading an ideology's explicit universal claims against their hidden exceptions, what is asserted (all men are equal) versus what the exceptions reveal (women, foreigners, criminals are not).
A mode of ideology (paradigmatically anti-Semitism) in which a legitimate desire (resistance to exploitation) is displaced onto a scapegoat figure that functions as a master signifier, making the ideological structure resistant to rational critique.
A mode of ideology typical of affluent societies in which public cynicism (orgies, promiscuity, market brutality) coexists with a secret sacred object, the 'hamster', that the subject guards as its authentic core.
Paraphrase of the classical Marxist formula: anti-Semitism channels genuine resentment of capitalist exploitation but displaces it onto a scapegoat, making critique structurally impossible from within the ideology.
as “objective belief”
Belief that is enacted in practice regardless of subjective conviction, 'it works even if you don't believe in it', illustrated by Niels Bohr's horseshoe and the chicken-doesn't-know structure.
as “disavowal (Verleugnung)”
The fetishist logic of 'Je sais bien, mais quand même', I know very well, but nevertheless I act as if I do not know; illustrated by the friend who strokes a hamster while his wife is dying.
A name (e.g. 'the Jew' in anti-Semitism) that creates the thing it names by condensing and masking an inconsistent set of social fears, analogous to the shark in Jaws.
as “the chicken who shouldn't know”
A structural formula for collective disavowal in which a powerful figure (Tito, a parent, God) must be kept ignorant of a destabilising truth, so that a fiction can be maintained long enough for consequences to be deferred.
Marx's concept, re-read by Žižek as locating the illusion not in false consciousness but in practice itself: subjects know money is a social relation but act as if it has magical properties.
as “how things really appear to you”
A third epistemic category Žižek introduces to complicate the standard ideology/reality distinction: what fetishism conceals is not how things really are, but the level at which they really appear to you, the level of enacted illusion.
as “Christian atheist”
Žižek's self-description, derived from Chesterton: he dwells within Christianity because it contains the moment where God himself knows he does not exist (Christ's cry of dereliction), making it the religion of atheism.
Stories he reaches for 11
A scientist visiting Bohr's country house notices a horseshoe above the door and asks if Bohr believes in superstition. Bohr says no, he's a scientist, but he keeps it because 'I'm told it works even if you don't believe in it.' Žižek takes this as the formula of modern objective belief.
“Of course I don't, I'm not an idiot, I'm a scientist... I'm told it works even if you don't believe in it.”
Three theological friends try to convince Job his suffering has meaning (punishment, divine test). Job refuses not by claiming innocence but by refusing meaning itself. God finally arrives not to justify suffering but to overwhelm Job with creation's magnificence, parallel to Woody Allen's Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall.
“Job does not insist I am not guilty, he just insists on I don't accept that my suffering has any meaning.”
The animated film simultaneously deploys and mocks orientalist mythology (destiny, kung fu, sacred mission), yet the ideology still functions despite the self-irony. Žižek uses this as a paradigm of how postmodern ironic distance does not neutralize ideology.
“In spite of making fun all the time of it, ideology still functions. In a mysterious way belief functions even if we don't believe in them.”
Asked in a TV interview whether his first sexual partner was a man or a woman, Gore Vidal replied 'I was too polite to ask.' Žižek uses this as the formula for true universality that transcends identity-disclosure culture.
“He said, I was too polite to ask”
The shark in Spielberg's Jaws condenses in one figure all the inconsistent anxieties of American citizens (ecological catastrophe, immigrants, corporate exploitation), just as the figure of the Jew in Nazi ideology condensed all German fears. The naive question 'what does the shark really stand for?' is the wrong question.
“The shark in a way condenses in one figure all these inconsistent fears.”
A psychiatric patient cured of his delusion that he is a grain of corn immediately runs back to the hospital; when asked why, he says 'I know I'm a man, but does the chicken know?' Žižek reads this as the structure of objective belief: subjective knowledge is insufficient, the Other must also know.
“I know, but does the chicken know that I am no longer corn?”
At a Harvard dinner, the moderating professor asks each guest to state their sexual orientation. Žižek initially finds it offensive but then uses it to compare American Protestant disclosure culture with European toplessness: both are ways to set distance rather than open up.
“The very fact of saying it publicly means, but I keep my intimacy to myself, it's of no concern to you.”
American hotels skip the 13th floor to avoid bad luck, as if God is so stupid he cannot count. A Slovenian lady paints over her house number for the same reason but finds it 'doesn't work,' revealing that proper luck requires bureaucratic state sanction, a richer notion of the big Other.
“This is a more interesting notion of God and fate that you cannot cheat God so easily. God only respects it if it's done properly, bureaucratically done.”
A friend whose young wife died of cancer appeared unnervingly calm, always stroking a hamster she had loved. A year later when the hamster died, he instantly broke down and attempted suicide. Žižek uses this as the clinical model of fetishist disavowal: the hamster allowed him to deny that his wife was dead.
“Where is your hamster? I claim that all cynics have, if you look closely... a hamster.”
A Polish joke mocks the communist claim that socialism synthesises all historical achievements: from primitive society it took primitivism, from antiquity slavery, from feudalism domination, from capitalism exploitation, and from socialism it took the name.
“From pre-class society it took primitivism... from socialism it took the name.”
Ultra-rich digital capitalists (Bill Gates type) adopt Dalai Lama-style oriental spiritualism as their 'hamster', a fetish that lets them disavow the brutal reality of what they actually do in the market.
“One big ideological hamster today is in the West among enlightened capitalists, what I ironically call Western Buddhism.”
Works invoked 13
Capital book
The chapter on commodity fetishism is quoted directly and reread as the key to understanding how ideology functions through practice rather than consciousness.
The Parallax View book
Žižek's own book, referenced as the source of the Niels Bohr horseshoe anecdote.
The Book of Job other
Called 'the greatest single text' of the three Abrahamic religions for Job's refusal to accept that suffering has meaning; read as anticipating Christian atheism and Žižek's own position.
Angels and Demons film
Mentioned as the first thing Žižek asked about upon arriving in Pristina, interested in it as a cultural symptom/diagnosis, no further analysis given.
Kung Fu Panda film
Called 'pure ideology' and 'stupid'; used as a paradigm of fetishist ironic disavowal where self-mocking orientalism still functions ideologically.
The Dark Knight film
Called 'boring' and 'disgusting' ideologically; its lesson that society needs a founding lie to maintain order is identified as dangerous and congenial to Bush-era conservatism.
Jaws film
Spielberg's film used to illustrate how the master signifier condenses inconsistent social fears; the 'naive false question' of what the shark symbolises is rejected in favour of asking why society needs such a figure.
Annie Hall film
The Marshall McLuhan cameo scene is called 'wonderful' and used as analogy for God's intervention in the Book of Job.
The Ticklish Subject book
Žižek's own book; cited for its analysis of why the master signifier (the Jew) must be understood structurally rather than empirically.
Button other
Short story by Patricia Highsmith; a 'beautiful' example of cynical fetishism, the protagonist keeps a button from a man he murdered as a fetish that sustains his everyday functioning.
Badiou's book on Sarkozy; cited approvingly for the thesis that Pétain, not revolutionary heroes, represents la France profonde.
Eric Santner's book on German ideology, described as 'wonderful'; cited to establish Santner's credentials before the beach anecdote.
A fabricated issue produced by Japanese Brazilians showing MacArthur surrendering to the Emperor; used to illustrate the paradox of disavowal, they knew it was a lie because they had to fabricate the evidence.
People invoked 19
Mentioned in passing as a great admirer of Jaws, before the thought is interrupted.
Identified as the politician who perfected the formula of communist nomenclature surviving by playing the nationalist card; blamed for exploiting a crisis rather than creating it.
Alenka Zupančič positive
Described as Žižek's Slovene colleague; her analysis applying the chicken/corn joke to religion (does God know he doesn't exist?) is cited approvingly.
Gore Vidal positive
His TV interview answer 'I was too polite to ask' is taken as the ideal formula for handling sexual identity questions, universality without compulsory disclosure.
Jacques Lacan positive
Invoked for the formula on jealousy (pathological even when factually true), the concept of the master signifier, the big Other, and Lacanian psychoanalysis throughout.
G. K. Chesterton positive
Called Žižek's 'favorite theologian'; his analysis of Christianity is used to ground the idea that for a brief moment God himself knows he does not exist.
Appears only through the Annie Hall scene where he corrects a misquoter; used as structural analogy for God correcting Job's friends.
Woody Allen positive
The Marshall McLuhan scene in Annie Hall is called 'wonderful' and used as an analogy for God's intervention at the climax of the Book of Job.
Ex-friend, former Slovenian dissident and minister of interior, whom Žižek now thinks 'should be arrested'; used only for the anecdote about the unlucky house number.
Patricia Highsmith positive
Called the greatest detective writer of the 20th century; her short story 'The Button' is used as a textbook example of cynical fetishism.
Alain Badiou positive
Described as Žižek's best friend; his book on Sarkozy is cited approvingly for its thesis that Pétain represents 'la France profonde.'
Used as the paradigmatic example of the ultra-rich capitalist who adopts Western Buddhism as an ideological hamster to disavow his brutal market activity.
Eric Santner positive
Described as a very good Jewish theological thinker close to psychoanalysis, author of My Own Private Germany; used anecdotally in the Slovenian beach episode.
Cited via Badiou as the true embodiment of 'la France profonde', conservative, opportunistic France, as opposed to revolutionary France.
Cited as another 'chicken who shouldn't know' during the Chinese famine of the late 1950s, based on his personal doctor's memoirs.
Niels Bohr positive
The horseshoe anecdote is described as 'the best formula of how ideology functions today in a cynical mode'; cited from The Parallax View.
Wilhelm Reich negative
Dismissed as a 'naive leftist' who believed permissivity and sexual openness were emancipatory, contrasted with Žižek's own position.
Karl Marx positive
Capital's chapter on commodity fetishism is extensively analysed and re-read as locating illusion in practice rather than consciousness; the 'Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es' formula is central.
Used as the real-world instance of 'the chicken who shouldn't know': leadership decided not to inform him of the economic crisis so he would die happy, with catastrophic consequences.
What it argues
fetish vs. symptom as two modes of ideological functioningideology embedded in everyday life and mundane objectscynical reason and objective/disavowed beliefanti-Semitism as the master-signifier condensing inconsistent social fearsthe 'chicken who shouldn't know' — structural disavowal in politics and ordinary lifeWestern Buddhism as ideological hamster for ruthless capitalistscommodity fetishism and the illusion located in practice, not consciousness
Dialectical moves 11
“In both cases—American sexual disclosure and European toplessness—opening is another way to set a distance.”
What appears as openness or liberation is structurally the same as reserve; the reversal shows that more exposure does not equal less restraint.
“The moment you want to be purely utilitarian, it is utilitarian in an ideological way.”
The very attempt to escape ideology (wearing practical stone-wash jeans, growing an unkempt beard) is already a semiotic signal and thus ideological.
“Far from being ideology at the level of grand ideas, today ideology survives at the most elementary everyday level of kitchens, toilets and manners.”
The apparent end of ideology signals its deeper penetration into the fabric of daily life.
“Fetish is a lie which allows you to sustain the brutality of social reality; symptom is the truth which undermines the lie in which you live.”
The standard assumption that truth liberates and illusion oppresses is inverted: the fetish-lie is what makes functioning possible; the truth-symptom is what destroys.
“In the opposition between doing and thinking what you are doing, the illusion is in doing.”
Marx's formula reversed: ideology is not false consciousness but false practice, subjects can think correctly while their actions enact the illusion.
“What you are not aware of when you are in fetishism is not how things really are, but how things really appear to you.”
A third epistemic category, how things really appear, is introduced as the locus of ideological mystification, beyond the simple true/apparent binary.
“The moment you start to count, you must count zero as one—so the one should already be two.”
The Hegelian dialectical insight that any symbolic act of counting presupposes a prior void that must itself count, generating an irreducible gap in any series.
“You become truly anti-Semitic not when you say Jews are dirty and exploitative, but when you say they are dirty and exploitative because they are Jews.”
True anti-Semitism is not a list of prejudices but the inversion that makes Jewishness the mysterious causal X behind all the attributed properties, the master signifier.
“In liberal ideology the lie is hidden behind a good surface; in fascist populism it is the opposite—the lie is on the surface, the legitimate goal is hidden behind it.”
The two ideological structures are structural mirrors: critique must move in opposite directions to undo them.
“I'm a Christian atheist: in Christianity, for a brief moment God himself knows that he does not exist.”
Christianity is re-read not as superstition to be overcome but as the religion that already contains the atheist insight within itself, at the moment of the cross.
“Does the chicken know that I am no longer corn? I know, but does the chicken know?”
Subjective knowledge is insufficient; the efficacy of belief depends on what the Other (the big Other, the chicken) is assumed to know, a structure of externalized belief.
Claims 21
asserts
Everyday objects and domestic arrangements (toilets, kitchen layouts, floor numbering) are never purely utilitarian but always embed ideological presuppositions.ideology in everyday life
asserts
We live today in post-ideological ideology: the age of explicit grand ideologies is over, but ideology survives precisely at the level of everyday practices and fetishes.post-ideological ideology
asserts
The basic opposition for understanding contemporary ideology is not true vs. false consciousness but fetish vs. symptom.theory of ideology
asserts
Marx's 'they don't know it but they are doing it' should be read as locating the illusion in doing (practice), not in consciousness—fetishism is in action, not in thought.commodity fetishism / Marx
asserts
Commodity fetishism is not a superstructural ideology but an illusion lodged in the heart of economic reality itself, which is why Marx never calls it ideology.Marx's commodity fetishism
asserts
There are two structurally distinct forms of contemporary fetishism: permissive cynical fetishism (typical of affluent liberal societies) and fundamentalist populist fetishism (paradigmatically anti-Semitism).typology of fetishism
asserts
Liberal symptomatic ideology has the lie hidden beneath a good surface (universal equality concealing exploitation), whereas fascist/populist fetishist ideology has the lie on the surface (the Jew) concealing a legitimate goal (anti-exploitation).liberal vs. fascist ideological structure
asserts
Debating anti-Semitism at the level of facts is already a capitulation, because the relevant question is not whether the Jewish stereotype is true but why Nazism needs the figure of the Jew to function.critique of anti-Semitism
asserts
Fundamentalist fetishism is structurally more resistant to rational critique than liberal symptomatic ideology, because it cannot be dislodged by pointing to empirical counterexamples.resistance of fascist ideology to critique
asserts
All cynics have an 'ideological hamster'—a sacred object they secretly maintain in order to sustain their ruthless realism; pure cynicism is always a failure.cynical reason / fetishism
asserts
Western Buddhism (Dalai Lama-style oriental spiritualism among the ultra-rich) functions as an ideological hamster that disavows the brutal reality of capitalist activity.Western Buddhism / capitalist ideology
asserts
Modern belief operates as objective belief enacted in practice: it works even if you don't believe in it subjectively, as illustrated by Niels Bohr's horseshoe.structure of contemporary belief
asserts
Yugoslavia collapsed partly because its leadership deliberately kept Tito (the 'chicken') ignorant of the economic crisis, deferring it until his death and allowing it to explode far worse.Yugoslav disintegration / Tito
asserts
Milošević did not cause Yugoslav disintegration through nationalist passion but rather exploited a pre-existing economic and legitimation crisis by playing the nationalist card.Milošević / Yugoslav wars
rejects
The leftist position that Arab anti-Semitism is a transient confusion that will eventually give way to anti-imperialism fails for the same reason the argument that 'Hitler's true target was capitalism' fails.left apologetics for anti-Semitism
asserts
The Cathars' crusade, not the Yugoslav wars, is the true European arch-model of ethnic cleansing, which Western powers should be reminded of before lecturing Balkan nations on tolerance.Western hypocrisy / Balkan politics
asserts
The Dark Knight is ideologically dangerous because it asserts that lying is a necessary social principle, not merely a pragmatic compromise.The Dark Knight / ideology in cinema
asserts
In Christianity, for a brief moment God himself knows he does not exist—Christ's cry of dereliction is the founding moment of a true atheism within religion.Christianity / atheism / the Book of Job
asserts
Job's greatness is that he refuses to accept that his suffering has any deeper meaning, thus rejecting religious theodicy before God even answers.Book of Job / theodicy
reframes
The disclosure of sexual orientation at an American academic dinner and European female toplessness are structurally equivalent: both openings are another way to set a distance.American vs. European sexual culture
asserts
The use of the term 'ethnicity' rather than 'nation' by Western powers is an implicit censorship that denies full sovereignty to certain peoples.Western linguistic imperialism / sovereignty
Quotes 20
“In both cases opening is another way to set a distance.”Slavoj Žižek · American sexual disclosure and European toplessness as equivalent forms of distance
“Even when you want to give a signal, I am just I don't care, I'm utilitarian, it's a signal. You are already caught in ideology.”Slavoj Žižek · the impossibility of a purely utilitarian gesture
“Symptom is the moment where truth returns, where the whole field is that of a lie. Fetish is on the contrary a partial lie which sustains the global truth.”Slavoj Žižek · definition of symptom vs. fetish
“I know very well my wife is dead, but I deny it. Je sais bien, mais quand même.”Slavoj Žižek · fetishist disavowal
“Where is your hamster? I claim that all cynics have, if you look closely... a hamster.”Slavoj Žižek · the ideological hamster — every cynic has a secret sacred object
“Fetish is a lie which allows you to sustain the brutality of social reality. Symptom is the truth which undermines the lie in which you live.”Slavoj Žižek · asymmetry of fetish and symptom
“Of course I don't believe in it, I'm not an idiot, I'm a scientist... I'm told it works even if you don't believe in it.”Slavoj Žižek · Niels Bohr's horseshoe — objective belief
“In the opposition between doing and thinking what you are doing, the illusion is in doing.”Slavoj Žižek · Marx on commodity fetishism — illusion is in practice not consciousness
“What you are not aware of when you are in fetishism is not how things really are, but how things really appear to you.”Slavoj Žižek · the third epistemic category — how things really appear
“Maybe Yugoslavia disappeared because a chicken wasn't allowed to know. The chicken was Tito.”Slavoj Žižek · Tito as the chicken — structural disavowal and Yugoslav collapse
“I know, but does the chicken know that I am no longer corn?”Slavoj Žižek · objective belief — what matters is what the Other knows
“I am a Christian atheist. Because in Christianity for a brief moment God himself knows that he doesn't exist.”Slavoj Žižek · Christian atheism — Christ's dereliction as atheism within religion
“Anti-Semitism is socialism of the poor, or rather of the stupid.”Slavoj Žižek · anti-Semitism as displaced anti-capitalism
“You become truly anti-Semitic when you say they are dirty, exploitative because they are Jews—as if being a Jew is the mysterious X behind which explains all of it.”Slavoj Žižek · the logic of the master signifier in anti-Semitism
“The moment you start to count, you must count zero as one. So the one should already be two. And this is what Hegelian dialectics is about.”Slavoj Žižek · zero counted as one — Hegelian dialectics
“A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”Slavoj Žižek · Marx on commodity fetishism — the everyday is the mysterious
“Yes but does God know that he doesn't exist?”Slavoj Žižek · objective belief applied to atheism — the Other must also know
“Job does not insist I am not guilty, he just insists: I don't accept that my suffering has any meaning.”Slavoj Žižek · Job's refusal of theodicy
“He said, I was too polite to ask. That's the attitude we need.”Slavoj Žižek · Gore Vidal on sexual identity — universality without disclosure
“From socialism it took the name. I think exactly the same holds for anti-Semitism: from Jews it took the name.”Slavoj Žižek · master signifier as empty name that creates the thing
Transcript 1 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Alain Badiou is my best friend. A Frenchman, but he wrote a very good book, *De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom?*, *Of What Sarkozy, the President, Is the Name*. Where he just draws attention to some simple facts which are: we, when we hear of France, we all think about French Revolution, equality, great enthusiastic movements, you know, but this is France which explodes every, I would say, thirty, forty years. In between, the France is a very opportunistic, conservative country. The thesis of Badiou is that if there is a figure which stands for what we call *la France profonde*, the deep France, this traditional, it's Maréchal Pétain. It’s this type of... So in other words, I was sad not to say even much more bad things. So example, for example, when French or other Westerners, but in this case French, come here and teach you about tolerance and civilization, no, tell them simply like, you know, I'm sorry, but till now we were following, we here, all of you, and of us, Serbs, Albanians, we were following the other example of France, you know, like Cathar, you know that, this was the greatest brutal crusade. This is the arch-model of ethnic cleansing when under the pressure of the French king, you know, when was this, I think 12th century, they organized a crusade against the Cathars in Languedoc in the south. And this was like much more violent than the crusades in, in... to the Holy Land, which were all of a comedy as we know, no? My favorite crusade is, I think, the second one, where they stop on the way in Constantinople and rob it and then they went home, like why go further, no? But you know how that crusade functioned, like they were really simply killing them all. And if you want a formula of obscene theological ethnic killing, it is provided by one of the archbishops who was a crucial person, probably you know the story of the crusade, a city, Cathar city, surrender to the French Vatican forces, and people around, I think, and even the military were not so hard, the military came to that bishop, I'm sorry, don't know his name, but you find this in every history of Cathar crusade, no, he came to the archbishop who was the, how should I put it, the politcommissar, ideological leader, and asking what to do. The bishop says kill them all. But then the general, brutal soldier said, but wait a minute, around half of them are probably not Cathars but our guys still. And you know the famous answer, "*Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens*," kill them all, God will already distinguish them as dead who are ours, who are not, no? So you know, don't let yourself be blackmailed by civilized West. You should exactly give them the opposite message. Yes, we have bad sides, we kill and so on, when we do this, we imitate you. Get a little bit of arrogance, my god. So when I was talking with friends today, we had a nice idea about that poster which was mentioned yesterday, you know, a cat and the dog and why can’t you live together, they do, no? It would be nice if you do it, I put money into it, my god, to do an alternative poster which you then put on the walls where this one is side by side, the same shot just like, I don't know how big the scene it, like probably it would be enough some meters behind. Imagine camera moving back and you see all the trainers and whips, you know, to keep to keep the dog and the cat the way it is. That's the truth, you know, the trainers behind, who are them. So again, the my favorite, and it shocked my friends, now this will be very brutal, I warn you, but I think it's the moment of truth in it. In one of my early book I used it when there was, this was earlier war, I think in Bosnia. There was a, maybe you know the story, there was a roundtable on Austrian TV, yeah, it’s a funny story, isn't it the one? Where three people were there: a Bosnian, I mean Bosniak, a Serb, and some stupid Austrian ecologist, pacifist, whatever. And then the Bosniak and Serb were okay within their nationalist logic both, but at least within that logic arguing, you know, one say no, this land is ours because of that, blah blah, doesn't matter. The point is that at a certain point the ecologist, pacifist, thinking he did something deep, you know, like turned to both of them and said, but but why are you hating each other, why didn't you just say basically we love each other and let's live in peace and so on? And then something unique happens, which gives me a little bit of hope that maybe we in Balkan are not totally lost. For a brief moment you could see a kind of solidarity of the Bosniak and the Serb exchanging a glance like, who is this idiot? What is he talking about? And I think the only hope of us is these two getting together, let's get rid of that ecologist pacifist and we will do something with our with our life, no? Okay, let's go on. So we are here at the topic now a little bit more serious of so-called cultural differences. They are interesting, we should study them, but not to mystify them into some kind of deeper truth, you know, what is your, what is my true identity. If you study them you discover wonderful things about, nothing deep, but nonetheless crucial about how national, ethnic, whatever identities are structured. And while I had a debate with my friends this afternoon, you drew my attention to a wonderful fact, I wasn't aware of it, how another term of censorship that those highly developed countries, so-called civilized, impose of us is to use the term ethnicity, no? Like you know, we are all equal, but some are true nations, the other are ethnicities, you know, as ethnicity you are not allowed to have a fully sovereign nation-state and so on. You see this is I think another implicit censorship models. So again, about these differences, they are interesting because today you hear again and again the age of ideology’s over, we live in post-ideological times and so on. Well, it is precisely this what I will comment a little bit on today, focusing on different modes that ideology survives today. But I would like to begin with a little improvisation on this cultural cultural difference. A year ago I was in the United States, in Harvard, I hate this big arrogant American universities because they think they are the center of the world, but at least in social sciences really nothing interesting is happening there. If you want to go to study to United States, forget Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, they are dead. They just think they are the center of the world. Much more interesting things happens happen here and there in small departments. Okay, but what happened there? Something very interesting in an obscene way. After the talk we had dinner and we didn't know each other, mostly unknown to each other, guests, professors, some older students, and the old professor who moderated, invited us, moderated dinner, said at the beginning, okay, can please, some of us, each of you present itself, stating first, name and workplace, second, what he or she is working on, orientation, and third, sexual orientation. No, I was a little bit shocked by that, like, fuck off, what's this to you, no? But then something interesting came to my mind, how it's too easy to accuse Americans of, you know, they like to come open more and more, to publicly confess their secret sex orientations, whatever. But that it's not as simple as that. In Europe, that in Europe, we, it's not that we are just more dignified, it’s just they set the limit of decency, what you can publicly confess or not, differently. I, so it's not that Americans are more vulgar, they confess everything. I remember two years ago, a friend of mine, it’s nothing undignified what he did, I even can call him, a very good Jewish theological thinker close to psychoanalysis, Eric Santner, who wrote or wonderful book on German ideology, *My Own Private Germany*. He visited me in Slovenia and we went to do something that I really hate, to Slovene beach there. And I don't know how it is here, okay, it's nothing here because, haha, you don't have a beach, you will you will have it when you will unite with Albania, no, but you don't yet have it, no? In Slovenia, probably also here, it's totally liberated, practically most of the women are topless, no? It's considered simply neutral, normal. To be a little bit male chauvinist, if you are not topless it's not because you are ashamed, but because you are old, ugly and don't want to, no? And the problem was that this guy I noticed he felt so, and to avoid a misunderstanding, Eric Santner, my friend, he is not in any way sexually, socially repressed, no no, he is normal, open, even slightly promiscuous. But nonetheless he was terribly oppressed, you know, like all the time kind of this was too much for him, like you see a breast there, you turn another breast like... So this, this is I think an interesting point, how for us, you see, we both have our restraints, let's not blame Americans who they are vulgar. We just set the standard or set the limit at a different point. In both cases I think it's not simply that one is more open than the other. In both cases opening is another way to set a distance. If in Europe a woman goes topless, the message is not, come and fuck me or what. The message is, fuck you, I can do it, but you have no chance, you know, if... that's why I support it, not because I'm a male chauvinist and want to see, but because I know what this means. It means you absolutely, this gives you no right or whatever, you know, I am so strong that I can afford even this without giving you any cheap sexual signals or what. In United States it's the same, but it's more typical for their Protestant attitude. There, you can confess, say, but in this way, you know, you just confess it, but how should I put it, the very fact of saying it publicly means, but I keep my intimacy to myself, it's of no concern to you. You just abstractly say, I don't know, I'm bisexual or whatever, and it's you totally, how should I put it, it's in a way almost I would say slightly depressing because you totally desexualize sexuality itself. You turn it into another item to report, how should I put it, no? So again, I'm not a naive Wilhelm Reich leftist who claims, you know, let's open it, permissivity and so on. My formula that I really like would have been maybe the formula of, you know, the American writer Gore Vidal. He is relatively well known. Okay. Once he is bisexual, and once he was asked, it's his famous TV interview, he was asked, who was your first sexual partner, a man or a woman? He gave a perfect answer. He said, I was too polite to ask, you know, before. That's the attitude we need. I mean, you know what I mean, that's what I was aiming at yesterday. I totally believe in universality, not in this, I have my culture, you have your culture, how do we know that we ever understand each other? Well, when we have a common struggle, we quickly understand each other. But, but this private domain, sexual identities and so on, that's different. So what can we learn from this? Another thing. I wonder if you, if some of you were lucky enough, and I say this without any irony because United States is a great country, at least interesting to see. If you were lucky enough to visit United States, at least big cities, I say at least because obviously only in big cities you get hotels with high many floors, like more than You will see why. I noticed a strange phenomenon there. That, maybe you noticed it again if you were there, they skip the 13th floor. They do Like, for obvious reason, 13s is a bad luck, who will live there. But what interests me is not this fact, but what a naive notion of God or fate this implies. Like as if God doesn't know that is really you know what I mean? It implies a total... I mean is God so stupid that you will... Like, there is a similar story from Slovenia which happened, my ex-friend, I underline three times ex because now I think he should be arrested, Igor Bavčar, who was head of that famous committee for liberation, dissident, whatever, told me that when he became after elections the minister of interior, and this was still the early populist phase of democracy, so people addressed with all their difficulties the politicians. And she got a report from an old lady living on number in a suburban house. And she wrote him a letter claiming that strange things happened to her. Three times his house was broken into, the windows were broken, a continuous series of misfortunes. And she she told the minister she thinks that this must be bad luck because of the number So could she, he, the minister, she was asking him, arrange to change the street number, no? To I don't know, 11a or or what, no? And then he told her, the minister, because then he called her back and told her, why don't you simply paint, do it yourself, without bureaucracy. Paint, I mean with black painting, cover and paint or whatever. And the lady told him, I already did it, but it doesn't work, you know, how should I put it, no? Like, this is a more interesting notion of God and fate that you cannot cheat God so easily, you know. God only respects it if it's done properly, bureaucratically done, you know. It must be the state decision, how should I put it, no? You cannot just... Americans don't get this, I claim. They think their logic is if you do it as in the hotels, no? But now let let me be more serious. This is what we would have called the lack the lack of tradition of collective substance. American think that all form of collectivity is just expression of individuality, which is why basically it doesn't matter, you can put it there, and so on. Because I think this has to be linked to another strange thing that I noticed there. In Europe now, don't embarrass me, I don't know how it is here, but what I saw in these two days in your hotels, you are here like the most of Europe. That is to say, you start with ground floor which is zero, and then first floor is already one up and so on. Probably you know that in United States of America they count differently. They start with one. So first floor means no stairs, you just enter, and you go up. The problem is the same here I think, they don't know what is zero. They, to put it in totally abstract terms, for them zero doesn't already count as one, how should I put it. Because zero which counts as one is precisely what in Lacanian psychoanalysis we call the big other, the substance. They immediately start counting. So which is the correct solution? I'm not saying Americans are wrong. I found the correct solution in Poland, Warsaw, where I was incidentally, I came practically from there here five days ago. In a big hotel where I was staying I discovered the right solution. And this will bring me to the conclusion, if I will have time of today's talk, something about Alain Badiou, our friend, French philosopher and his ontology. You know how do they have it in in Warsaw, at least in the hotel where I was. They start with zero. Of course, because zero is ground floor, you don't... But then they immediately go from zero to two. And I had a nice philosophical lesson from an old gentleman who was, how do you call it, the janitor, the guy who in expensive hotels, it's too undignified for you to press the buttons so there is and I asked him why this, and he gave me a, my god, a perfect philosophically correct answer. He says, the ground floor should be zero because there are no floors, of course it's zero. But, wonderful formulation, he said, but the moment you start to count, you must count zero as one. So the one should already be two. And this is what Hegelian dialectics is about. If you understand this... I just yesterday read in a newspaper another thing which to give you an idea what I'm aiming at. You know in the old, old days there were in these dancing small cafeterias the so-called jukeboxes, you know. A-part, you put on in coins music. I learned that you know what they had in some American cafeterias in the 50s? Let's say you were a guest in that cafeteria and wanted a little bit of peace. They had a disc, a short one, this how... which had only silence recorded. So you put a coin and you, you know, this is like zero counted for one. It wasn't simply silence. It was a song which functioned as silence, how should I put it. So you must have this, how should I put it, you must have this short-circuit in order for things to function. So again, why am I mentioning this apart from telling bad jokes as usual? I mention this because, you know, when people tell you, oh, end of ideology and so on. Of course, maybe, I'm not even so sure about that. For most people we no longer play the game of big ideologies, you sacrifice your life for it, but nonetheless our everyday life, the way the most elementary phenomena, kitchens and so on, rituals are structured, you find there a whole network of what one cannot call but ideological presuppositions. Probably everybody knows here, so I will very shortly repeat myself, you know that my example because of which everybody laughs at me, no, you know it: the toilets. Did you travel to the, if you travel to the West, let's say you travel the three countries, Germany, France, Anglo-Saxon world. Be careful, observe the toilets. You will see the be... I simplified it a little bit, but it is like this. French toilets are that you have, my god, it's good that French ambassador is not here now. French toilets are so that the hole is in the back. So that when you produce shit, it falls immediately into the hole with water, disappears as soon as possible. Go to United States, you will see a different toilet, which is basically full of water, so that the shit floats there beneath. No, no, this is not the worst. The worst are the traditional German toilets, which are disappearing, which are without water, I mean, not being full. But the hole is in front. So that when you produce shit, it is as it were displayed there to smell, to reflect and so on. This is this old ritual, that in the morning you inspect your shit for worms, for possible whatever. Okay, now I, I asked many of my friends, but listen, what's the origin of this? I even some architect friend gave me two books on, yes, on structure of toilets. And it's incredible how each nation argues simply in a pragmatic way. Like the Americans say this is the most practical way, you know, the French basically the same. So what does this mean? Then I started to think a little bit and came to the only solution that I found. I'm not saying it's true, I'm not saying it's the best, I'm saying it's the only solution that I found. Going back to philosophy, I remember that, you know, around Hegel's time the idea emerged in Western Europe of so-called European Trinity. Three key European nations: Germany, France, England, Anglo-Saxon world. The idea is that each of them privileges a certain political domain, sorry, a certain social domain and a certain political orientation. French are left and left, revolutionary, and they are political. Their big thing is politics. Anglo-Saxon world is of course economy and moderate middle pragmatic. Germans are conservative and *Dichtung und Denken*, thoughts, thinking, reflecting and so on. And then, my god, it did strike me, that's it! Listen. The French one: shit liquidated, disappear as soon as... Radical! The British one: pragmatic. Pragmatic, float a little bit, we get rid. The German: metaphysical conservative, let's reflect upon it, see and so on. I'm sorry to tell you but, ridiculous as it is, I spoke al... coming two weeks ago, I'm still in jet lag that's why I'm so confused, I was in Australia and I spoke there with architects and they admitted to me, knowing this piece of mine, that that's the best explanation they found. I mean, even if it's of course I simplified it a little bit, but the lesson I want to give to you is the following one: that even when you look at the most elementary disposition in a house, where is kitchen, how is the toilet structured, how are the corridors related to rooms, do you go through from one room directly to the other, corridor... this can never be accounted for, explained, how should I put it, in a direct utilitarian way. There is always some, how should I put it, some, one cannot but call it in the strong sense of the term, ideological reference in order to explain it. At this level, and then we can go on, on, on, from manners, how we say hello to each other. For example years ago I read a much more much more modest, non-obscene but nonetheless interesting analysis of how the kitchen is structured typically in Denmark and in Sweden. There is some mystery about how where you push things when you wash them, dishes, and how where you put them to dry, and again it's clear analysis that there is a whole semiotic system in it. You cannot just ground it in... no? So now you will tell me, but nonetheless there are some things which are simply utilitarian. Of course there are, of course ultimately you must go to the toilet, you must wash the dishes or whatever. But the problem is that you never get rid of this ideological excess because even if it is utilitarian, it is still utilitarian in a precisely when you want to be purely utilitarian, it's utilitarian in a, in an ideological way. What do I want to say by this? Let's say why do people wear, it's the most stupid classical example, why do people wear this used stone jeans? It's not simply that you want to be practical utilitarian, no bullshit with complicated dress, but semiotics is already in it. You want to signal as a meaning that you want to be utilitarian, you know? To bring this attitude to the its ridiculous climax, I have some unfortunate friends whom I hate for this, no it's not you, sorry, yours is longer, who have a big, you know there is a high art in the West among degenerate intellectuals to have a short beard which appears unkept. But you have to spend half an hour every morning to, you know, produce, you know, you get my point here, even when you want to give a signal, I am just I don't care, I'm utilitarian, it's a signal. You are already caught in ideology. And that's how I noticed that your beloved, whatever they are called, Umpic or what stupid, they like this Land Rovers, no? I wonder if this is again not a little bit of ideology in it. Like you are a normal country, why normal, not normal cars? What I suspect is that there is a little bit of this, you know, where do you really need Land Rovers? In these wild countries where you are among animals and so on. Do they, do they not signal a little bit maybe, you know, that... Because for example I have a friend in Slovenia, ex-friend, again I have many ex-friends in Slovenia, who is, was a great doctor and he lives close to the center of Ljubljana and worked in Ljubljana Hospital. He has a Land Rover. It's clear why. Not because he needs it, but because he wants to signal that, you see, I'm an authentic wild man, not degenerate with these soft city cars and so on and so on, no? That's, that's where you find ideology. At this level we are more than ever in ideology. At this everyday level where, although again they are the most innocent practices, ideology is at work in them. So how does this ideology function? Now, as I promised you, there will be maybe, maybe a little bit, but not a lot, a joke or two, but now enough fun. Let's do at least a little bit of theory, serious theory. In I claim that the basic opposition which helps us a lot to understand how ideology functions today is the opposition between fetish and symptom. This is the psychoanalytic opposition. I will not go in detail into it. Just let me give you a very broad abstract definition. To put it very simply, symptom is a partial truth which, symptom is the moment where truth returns, where the whole field is that of a lie. You live in a false universe, symptom is where the excluded repressed truth is returning. Fetish is almost the opposite. Now, I know I'm giving here a very simplified version and okay, you have to trust me that I know the whole story, no? Fetish is on the contrary a partial lie which sustains the global truth. What do I mean by this? Let me give you a simple example of symptom. Let me go now to maybe this will even found an echo to some of your unfortunate experiences. Now I'm not kidding here. A something, sorry, a something horrible happened, let me clarify through an example. Something horrible happened some years ago, even more, to a friend of mine. It's one of these really horrible stories, not nice, uh to cut a long story short, even now it's a little bit traumatic for me to go into it. He was very much in love with his wife. They were young and, you know the usual story. The wife feels a slight pain in the breast, goes to doctor, ah-ha, cancer, in three months you are dead, no? So she was dead in three months. And what happened then? My friend reacted in a fetishist way. The symptomatic way would be what? To repress it. To, I don't know, throw himself into work or whatever, try to forget it, seeking adventures with other women, whatever. But then the repressed would have returned, you know. Whatever you do, somehow it reminds you of what you are trying to forget, like if you forgive me, it’s in my nature, small obscenities, like you know those proverbial story about an adolescent who, in order to forget his sexual pain being unable to seduce girls, takes refuge in mathematics. But then even there he cannot escape it, you know, he gets a homework you know, like how much energy, this is more physics, is released when two bodies hit each other and so on, you know? Whatever you do, or like you have a cone, how much geometry, how much volume you need to fill in a cone or whatever. Whatever you do, this would be the symptom logic. You try to forget, the truth comes back all the time as it were. But my friend did something totally different. His logic was a fetishist one, which was what? He... and we were surprised, his friends, because my god, he was able to talk in a totally cold way, normally, about his wife's slow progress of dying, without any trauma. We were thinking, my god, is this guy a monster or he didn't really love her, but is secretly glad to get rid of her or what, like absolutely no problem. Then it took us a couple of months to discover the key to it. All, do you also have them, are you degenerate enough, to, degeneration means development, to have this totally disgusting for me habit of having as home pet animals, how do you call them, hamsters, you know, the small... Yeah, okay. All the time he was talking about his wife, he was playing in with his hands in lab with a small hamster, who was the favorite pet object of his wife. And it’s clear that the hamster functioned as a fetish, an element which allowed him to de facto disavow, suspend his knowledge that the wife is dead. You know it was this typical what in psychoanalysis we call fetishist, in German *Verleugnung*, disavowal. *Désaveu*, not the negation, don't confuse them, in French, which means the logic is "*Je sais bien, mais quand même*," I know very well, but. I know very well my wife is dead, but I deny it. That is to say, you can talk about it but in a distanced way, how should I put it, emotionally, symbolically, you don't really accept it. Now you will say what I'm saying now is the worst amateur psychoanalysis. How do I know this is true? Unfortunately, we got a proof a year later, because as you probably know, hamsters are very vulnerable, they don't live, don't have a long life. So a year, ah, no wonder you, because every my second friend in Germany has a hamster, you know this, they are very popular there. Ah really? Okay. No, sorry. What I wanted to say, yeah, is that, okay, this hamster died a year later, and my friend instantly got a total breakdown, tried seriously, he was seriously making suicide attempts, so he had to be hospitalized immediately. So you see how it worked. He didn't repress it. He accepted it but in a neutralized way. And why do I mention this? I claim that when today, and they like to be, people pretend to be cynics, you know, like, haha, I don't care, brutal reality, I accept it, you should always ask the realist, I have no illusions, okay, okay, where is your hamster? You know, like, I claim that all cynics have, if you look closely, for example, this hamster can be, for example, today many adults, I'm now talking about sexual morality, pretend to be brutally permissive open, you know, group orgies, whatever, promiscuity. Usually the hamster is their child. They are totally horrified by the idea of their child learning about it, no? Literally, if the child learns, all their universe collapses. Somebody must not know. They need, they need a naive gaze as it were outside. Or, one big ideological hamster today, I claim, is in the West among enlightened capitalists, what I ironically call Western Buddhism. This kind of a fake Dalai Lama oriental spiritualism. Why is it the hamster? Because it, let's say you are a brutal athletic businessman, playing the market game, brutal and so on. Of course, if you pretend to be human at the same time, you cannot function in this way. So your hamster becomes, it’s incidentally I read in an analysis that while working classes are still Catholic, Christian, the majority of ultra-rich, especially they are the new Bill Gates type digital rich, are mostly some kind of enlightened Dalai Lama oriental Buddhists, how should I put it, no? Why? Because the message is, you know our reality is virtual, how should I put it, no? So what I'm saying is that while they pretend to be aware that market or their economic ruthless activity doesn't really matter, deep, this is how probably Bill Gates experiences himself. Oh the vanity of my billions, I really want to help the poor, the children now, and so on. But I claim reality is the opposite. This is a hamster, they use this to disavow the fact that their reality is what in there doing, not in this fake fake spiritualities and so on and so on. So again, my argument against cynicism is that it doesn't work in its very ruthless brutality, like typical cynic says, listen, who cares about love, what matters is pleasure, money, power. You know, this brutal realism always fails, it’s too naive. All cynics need if something that is sacred. They usually don't want even to talk publicly about it. Like in my book, the example, it’s a beautiful one, of this cynical fetish that I usually quote is, you know, Patricia Highsmith. I think the greatest detective writer of the 20th century. She wrote a wonderful short story called *The Button*. Button, like what I don't have. It’s about a miserable New York middle class guy who is relatively successful in life, happily married. The problem is that his child is a Mongoloid, how do you call it this, really retarded. Okay, it's politically incorrect term. Sorry? Ah, yeah, you are more political. No, I am brutal here. Yeah, Mongoloid, sorry, the furthest I will go is member of the country between Russia and China, you know, if this makes it more politically correct, no. Political correctness is not my good side. Okay. What I want to say is that so, really handicapped child, you know, just smiles stupidly, cannot even talk normally. So out of total despair one evening he goes out, sees a homeless guy alone in the street who approaches him asking him some money, and all his frustrated fury explodes. He beats this guy to death, takes one button, put him put it into his pocket and his life is changed. From that one on, this is his fetish. At least once I did strike back, and this, whenever then from then on, whenever he is desperate at his child, he just touches the button, okay, I did strike back once, it’s not hopeless, and the paradox is that even his relation to his child gets much better, he can educate it a little bit and so on and so on. So you see how differently they function. Fetish is a lie which allows you to sustain the brutality of social reality. So on the contrary symptom is the truth which undermines the lie in which you live. In this sense you know, don't underestimate the fetishists. They are not idiots. They are not people who, I don't know, are fixed on a on a leg and then think only about that or not. They can be extremely realist because fetish allows them not to be too much affected by it. So again, this is, these are the two basic coordinates where my idea is that the traditional ideology functioned as symptom in a symptomatic way. Like, you had the general propositions, all men are equal, and then upon a close analysis you find symptoms which belied it. Like you know this classical Marxist analysis. All men are equal, but then you look closely and you see that in this apparently general definition, some men are more equal than others, how should I put it. All of a sudden you see that all are equal but women are not really as equal as men, children are not, foreigners are not, primitives so-called, criminals are not, and so on and at the end not many of them remain. No... so here you do the symptomatic reading. When a liberal tells you human rights, this is the standard Marxist praxis, no, to demonstrate how secretly in this apparently universal definition a certain strata, sex, whatever is privileged. Like as every, and they are right here, as every member of oriental countries would have will tell you, the very list of West European human rights accentuates individual choice at the expense of collective identity, so it already implies a certain individualistic society. It’s not really neutral. Or then we can go into sexuality, although there things are more tricky I think. More tricky in the sense that, you know, for example one of, and I think this is bad feminism, one of the feminist critiques of human rights is that they rationalize the subject too much, they emphasize reason at the expense of emotional ties and in this sense they privilege masculine against feminine identity. But I think if you accept this you buy another terrifying cliché which I think is, from my experience, maybe I live in a crazy society, but among the people who I know, men are crazy rational, you know what I mean, women so... you know what I mean, you privilege already certain cliché here. So but okay, doesn't matter. What I'm saying is that this would be the classical functioning of ideology. Today more and more we are getting the fetishist functioning. Cynicism, public cynicism connected with this secret fetishist belief. Now I will, but here we should develop things further and introduce two types of fetishism. I think it's crucial to distinguish them. We have first this, let's call it permissive cynical fetishism. This is I claim typical of highly developed societies, no? Like you are cynical, orgies whatever, but you have your secret which in your eyes makes you authentic. You know this is typical brutal rich men’s. Like, I exploit you, beat you, and then but secretly oh but I'm really doing for my son, for my family, I'm secretly good, whatever. Okay. But there is another kind of much more brutal fetishism which is recently gaining ground, so-called, let's call it potentially fascist populist fetishism. Its basic form but now it's universalized is anti-anti-Semitism. How does this one function in contrast with classical liberal ideology? It's very interesting how is the opposition structured. With classical liberal ideology, again, it's that symptomatic logic. That is to say what you can reproach to it is that its universality is a false universality. Again as I told you when they talk about equality and human rights, you can show by detailed analysis how this neutral universal human rights are not really as universal as they appear that secretly some is privileged and so on and so on. With let's take now a typical example of this fundamentalist populist fetishist logic, anti-Semitism. There, to put it in very simple terms, you have basically a reference to, let's call it social antagonism, class struggle. And to save the notion of organic community, you project, displace, as it were, the origin of evil, instability, into an intruding outsider, no? Like you say it's all fault of the Jews. In this sense you you avoid the fundamental fact that that it's our society itself which is in itself antagonistic and so on and so on. What is the difference between these two? Ah, if you listen to me carefully, even if you didn't, you got it. To put it in very naive moralistic terms, in the first case, liberal symptomatic functioning, we have, I am putting it in very naive, the good true side is on the surface, hidden beneath it is the bad side, to put it very naively. That is to say, explicit ideology is equality, justice, who wouldn't agree with it. But then if you look closely what is behind it, it's exploitation, women are underprivileged, other races, and so on and so on. So you have to argue in a critical way against the apparent false universality, against the appearance for the hidden truth beneath. With fascist anti-Semitic populism, it's the opposite. It is the ultimate goal, to put it naively, which is a good one. Okay, a good one. Like antagonistic struggle against exploitation. The lie is at the surface, that that as the cause of this antagonism, a Jew is picked out. So you got it, how should I put it, in the first case the progress is from appearance to what is behind, like you say universal human rights, I say ha-ha, what is hidden behind is... On the other hand it's the opposite. I say, Jews are responsible. You tell me, sorry that I... but I gave you the more honorable, less disgusting position. You tell me, but don't you see that when you are attacking Jews, you are really attacking, I don't know, financial exploitation and so on? And you are just targeting the wrong guy, as it were, no? But your ultimate goal is... Okay, this is the classical Marxist still valid I think, even liberals would agree with it, analysis of fascism. You know this old formula which is correct one, that anti-Semitism is socialism of the poor, or rather of the stupid, you know? Those people who feel spontaneous aversion against capitalist exploitation and so on but find the easy way to put the blame on the scapegoat, on the Jews. Now why am I mentioning this? Because something very interesting of which psychoanalysis can teach us a lot happens here. Although one would have thought that it is much easier to undermine the second position, like if I am anti-Semitic, it should be relatively easy, should have been for you to teach me but can't you see when you talk about the Jews you are really projecting onto them what is... Jews are just an empty vehicle, container, for all that is wrong in our society. It seems evident to us who are not in it. But as experience teaches us and psychoanalytic theory can provide reasons, it's the opposite. That is to say if you are, now you are again the good guy, I'm not that, let's say you are a naive liberal. I try to convince you but can't you see your universal rights a good idea but and so on. Usually if you are an honest liberal, it will be relatively easy to convince you, no? You will say oh my god, yes, maybe. And then you will either become a more social liberal or we should do something, yes, to really include women, no? Although it's I found it difficult you in this role, no? Or or you will go into cynicism, no? You will say wait a minute, I'm aware this is enlightened cynical liberalism where you say this is more natural... when you will say something like, oh I know, but listen, we cannot really afford true equality. People need something to be duped, lie is necessary as a social principle. Now you think I exaggerate here. Ha-ha, look at films. Why was *The Dark Knight*, did you see it? I didn't, it's boring, I just saw the beginning and the end. But nonetheless, this the last Batman film, yeah. Why it's so interesting? Oh my god, it’s a disgusting film because, you know, it's very dangerous ideologically. No wonder people around Ronald Reagan, sorry around George Bush, President, I read liked it. You know what happens at the end? At the end, lie is asserted as a fundamental social principle. That public prosecutor who is the hero fighting the Mafia, is discovered to be himself a murderer. And then Batman offers himself to take this murders upon himself, saying if we say to the people the truth, that the big public figure was himself a murderer, this will undermine the trust of the people into legal system. So I will do it. So it's a very sad lesson of the film. The lesson is we need lie to maintain public order and so on and so on. No no, and incidentally if you want, but I will come to this later, how much we can learn from Hollywood in the sense of getting from Hollywood films a diagnosis of what goes on. Which is why, but I will be too tired, admit it my god, the first thing I told you, asked you after coming to Pristina two days ago is where does *Angels Demons* play, no? If I can see it, no. I'm just interested in what... how it because another, even purer example. Did you see it, I did times, but I'm not crazy, because of my small son who likes it. Did you see that stupid cartoon *Kung Fu Panda*? Pure ideology. Why? Just this is this fetishist ironic disavowal at its purest. How does the film function? Just remember. You know, okay I will not bore you, the story is some big fat bear, Panda, wants to become a top kung fu warrior. And on the one hand you have all this oriental mystique, fate, mythology, kung fu, fate, being chosen, destiny, sacred mission. At the same time the film makes fun all the time of its own orientalist ideology. But you know what's so interesting? That in spite of making fun all the time of it, ideology still functions. And that's where we are today. In a mysterious way belief functions, our beliefs function even if we don't believe in them, how should I put it. You know who, I quote him in my last book, which I hope you didn't read so I can repeat the story, that *Parallax View*, a wonderful anecdote. Did I mention it yesterday, Niels Bohr? I didn't, I hope. Okay. Good. You know Niels Bohr, quantum physics, Copenhagen. There is a wonderful anecdote about him, I think which is the best formula of how ideology functions today in a cynical mode. Niels Bohr was had a house in the country outside Copenhagen and he was visited there by a friend, another scientist, who was surprised to see above the entrance to Niels Bohr's house a horseshoe, which I don't know how it is here among you aborigines in your tribal society or what, but in my tribe, no, or central European tribes, horseshoe should bring luck, you know. And the scientist friend was surprised, listen, do you really believe in this superstitious bullshit? Niels Bohr replied perfectly. He says, of course I don't, I'm not an idiot, I'm a scientist. Then the friend asks, but then why do you have it? Niels Bohr says, oh I'm told it works even if you don't believe in it. That's, I claim, this is the modern belief. We no longer, few people believe, no? But we behave as if. So again, the problem is that we have this two types of fetishism. First, the open fundamentalist fetishist disavowal, fundamentalist, which is let's say anti-Semitism, but even there the mechanism is much more refined than it may appear. Let me give you a provocative statement to make it clear what I want to say. Let's say now please play a bad guy a little bit. Let's say you are a Nazi, a totally neutral description, let's say you're anti-Semitic Nazi. Let's say that we debate anti-Semitism. I try to convince you. I tell you, listen, but can't you see Jews are not, Jews are not, Jews are not so bad or whatever, no? And then we start to debate how Jews real are. I claim the moment I, we start to debate in this sense, I, I as a good liberal, you are the bad guy, I I already sold my soul to the devil. Why? Because the moment I accept this debate, the result is always reality is mixed. Like and I shocked some American friends when I claimed this, but it's like you will say, I will say why do you claim Jews are financially exploiting us? Where let's be open, probably some Jews were very rich in Germany and were in this sense exploiting Germans. So you, you would be able to claim wait a minute, maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but you cannot say it's totally not true. Or, or one of another standard topic of German Nazi anti-Semitism was that the Jews control our media. You will be able to say, which is true, of the journalists were Jews. So what can I say? You will say Jews are seducing our German women. Well I hope they did, how should I put it, among others not only... You know what I mean, the moment you accept the debate at the level of facts, you, I, this I, I I I confuse the terrain. Why? Because when you here see the Jewish, sorry the Nazi anti-Semitic image of a Jew, the true question is not: are Jews really like that? That's not the question. The question is: why does Nazism need this figure of the Jew to function, to sustain its ideological edifice, independently of true or not? I follow here Jacques Lacan who proposed a wonderful formula, crazy, he said, it’s a little bit male chauvinist that I don't, that's why I don't like it, but it's a wonderful formula. The formula is that even if, let's say a husband is jealous, uh with a suspicion that his wife is sleeping around with other men. Even if all his suspicions are factually true, his jealousy is still a pathological fact. Why? Because the true problem is not: is it true? But why did he need this pathological fixation on jealousy to sustain its psychic stability. It may be one theory a little bit too naive I think, psychoanalytic, is suppressed homosexuality. This is the standard, I think, Freudian reading of jealousy, no? Let's say let's say I am jealous at my wife sleeping with you, but my true, sorry to be again personal, don't take it as a direct advance, but my true reproach is why did you choose her and not me, how should I put it. You know what I mean, that is displaced displaced homosexual jealousy, no? So why did you choose her instead of me? Okay, sort it later. Sorry. So let's go on. In this sense, you know, in this sense you get my point, in this is the problem of anti-Semitism. So then, to shock some of my American friends I went to the end and said, God forbid it’s not true, but even if all, okay almost all, there are things which are madness, open madness, like this idea 19th... You know, here you can see another lesson, how delicate category of belief is today, as we saw in the case of Niels Bohr and all... to believe in something, you should always be careful at what level do we believe, what does it mean to believe? For example, recently a friend sent me from Brazil an incredible book. The book about Japanese community at the end of the World War II in Brazil. You know what happened there? The there were about I think of them, Japanese in Brazil in And the defeat of Japan was such a shock, sorry, such a shock for them that around half of them, even a little bit more, simply denied it. This couldn't have happened. And they claim that in reality Japan won and that United States are just propagating this news around the world to avoid a scandal. They even, I have the reproductions, this is madness, in '46 they falsified, fabricated a special issue of *Life* magazine with the cover photo of General MacArthur kneeling down beneath the Japanese emperor, admitting defeat and so on. Now what is so mysterious here? Obviously they were fanatically convinced but of superiority of Japan, but at the same time at some level they must have known that it is a lie because they fabricated it. You see the absolute the ambiguity of belief. And I claim it’s it’s the same with anti-Semitism. One should be very precise how it functions. Because you know from socialism I remember from Poland a wonderful cynical joke referring to you know this old communist claim that socialist society unites is a synthesis of all that was best in the past history, no? And the joke goes like this. Yes, our socialism is the synthesis of all the greatest achievements of the past: from pre-class society it took barbari... it took primitivism, from ancient Greek society it took it took slavery, from feudal society it took brutal domination, from capitalism it took exploitation, and now comes the pearl, from socialism it took the name. I think exactly the same I hope you got the point holds for anti-Semitism. From the anti-Semitic figure of the Jew: from from from rich bankers it took exploitation, from I don't know amusement industry it took this stupid commercial culture, and so on and so on, and from Jews it took the name. That is to say, that's how what we call in psychoanalytic theory, Lacanian theory, the master signifier functions. It's a name which in a way creates the thing by masking the inconsistency of references. How do I make this... let me take you an the my last another example. You saw, you are too young but maybe you saw it on DVD, that Spielberg classic his first mega hit *Jaws*. You know about a shark, the killing, no? Okay. Now of course the naive false question is what does the shark stand for? The shark killing people there, what does it symbolize? And there were many leftist analysis which perceived it as a rightist symbol: like shark stands for third world immigrants, the danger of nature, whatever. But you can also give it the opposite reading. Do you know that Fidel Castro is a great admirer of... But what I want to say is that all these readings are wrong because the true question is not what does it truly mean. It means all of this, all these inconsistent fears. Imagine me an ordinary citizen in the United States, which ha-ha thank god I'm not, I I fear nature, tornado, ecological catastrophe. I fear immigrants, normal racism, everyday racism. I fear being exploited by big companies, whatever. And the shark in a way condenses in one figure all these inconsistent fears. In the same way as for example in Germany of the 20s and 1930s, ordinary German after the military defeat and crisis, they feared financial exploitation, they national humiliation, what they saw as sexual degradation, all this explosion of free sexuality. And the Jew became a figure which somehow a symbol which united all these fears. Which is why, as I develop in my book which I think is at least translated into Croat, *Škakljivi subjekt*, I think it was the title, *The Ticklish Subject*. Yeah... yeah, which is why how should I put it, it's not enough I hope you will get it to be truly anti-Semitic if you say and I'm not saying you should say this, no, but just to give you the logic, if you say Jews are dirty, speculating, exploiting us, and so on. This is still a normal racist prejudice. You become truly anti-Semitic when you turn this around and when you say they are dirty, exploitative because they are Jews. You know, as if being a Jew is the mysterious X behind which as it were explains all of it. This is the logic of the logic of fetishism at its purest. Now okay, since I say I will be a little bit shorter, no, but it looks we will have to make a historical compromise between short and long. Let me just go because I would like to nonetheless to go with a couple of crucial points. Because as I said, it's much more difficult to convince a fetishist, a fundamentalist fetishist. This is why I must, with all my sympathy for Palestinians, my god, I was three times in Ramallah, I gave talks there and so on. But I don't agree with some of my leftist friends who claim, you know, even when some of the Arabs appear anti-Semitic, we should understand this, they they were so brutally disturbed by the Israeli invasion that okay, and then they claim this is just the first phase, sooner or later they will see that their true enemy is not the Jew but I don't know imperialism or whatever. I claim this second what if this second moment never happens, how should I put it? I don't because, you know, if if they tried to convinced me when I had debates with them in Ramallah that, you know, ordinary people are confused they are against the Jews, but give them some time and they will see that their true target is... but sorry, but you can say the same about Hitler. His true target was capitalism, he was just confused and attacked the Jews. It doesn't work here this how should I call it logic of enlightenment. Now comes the concluding part where I would like to focus on how belief function. I would like to go a little bit more into this, let's call it Niels Bohr paradox of how we can, how should I put it, believe objectively. You don't have to believe, you can believe without believing. You believe in your practice. There is a joke which you all know, and maybe you even know how I read it, but I will read it a little bit differently today. I promise you this is a last joke that I will repeat today. You must know it, which I think exemplifies this wonderfully. Do you know that joke about a stupid guy who thought he was a a grain of corn, how do you say this, *kukuruz*, corn. A grain of corn, and you know, you know the story. He was finally cured, left out of psychiatric hospital, and came immediately running back. Psychiatrist asked him why, he says because I saw a chicken, I was afraid the chicken will eat me, you know. Psychiatrist: but you know that you are now human. He says, I know, but does the chicken know that I am no longer corn, but... Now you may laugh at it as a joke, but sorry, can I tell you something to provoke you to the utmost, and I think I mentioned this in a different context yesterday, you know that maybe Yugoslavia disappeared because a chicken wasn't allowed to know. You know what I mean by this? The chicken was Tito. I think I mentioned this yesterday, that I read in some memoirs that nomenclature around Tito knew already in '72, '73 that the economic situation is horrible and that sooner or later something will have to be done. This something of course would and did involve fall of the standard of living and so on. And what I read in this, I even don't know who the author is, one of these old Serb guys who now want to get some money selling memoirs, that then the top nomenclature around Tito came to the conclusion that, but my god if we make this public Tito is old, he will die unhappy. So it was a kind of a collective conclusion that Tito should not be told, so let us postpone the crisis till Tito dies and then allow to explode it. And this is what happened throughout the 70s. Somehow the artificial half-welfare was sustained, as you probably know the price was tremendous debt, and then years later the crisis exploded, much worse crisis with with combined with greater debt and so on. And again why? And then that's how it began. I don't think that the later crisis have had anything to do with any nationalist passions. Milošević was simply the first to use as already improvised yesterday I think to use to use to use this crisis presented a problem to communist nomenclature, no? How to legitimize itself, and the only option, almost the only, not quite, was to play the nationalist card, no? And Milošević perfected this formula: nomenclature can survive if it makes a pact with great writers and all those horrors and so on. But look at the fundamental paradox, which is again literally it was the structure of this joke, Tito was a chicken who shouldn't yet know. And and now so that you will not only say that I use this although this is not comic but also a very tragical, only comical examples, what about another example from our everyday life, so that you will not think that I'm only making fun or what? You know, isn't it that let me take even a very noble example, let's say I have cancer, of course I hope is not true, you never know, I would of course I if I will be strong enough if I were to be strong enough I would try not to tell this to my children and so on, you know, I will try precisely to not let them know. So you have this structure of maintaining appearance, the chicken shouldn't know, which lasts quite a long time. This chicken shouldn't know logic you find it also with the in the process of so-called Potemkin's villages, you know. I don't know how it was here but I know in Slovenia, when it was known that Tito will visit a certain village, you know, the street was paved... the this logic of Potemkin's village where the leader is the chicken who shouldn't know was brought to its extreme I heard towards the end of the 50s in China, when there was hunger, and Mao Zedong said I read this in a very anti-Maoist book, those memoirs by his personal doctor, that Mao Zedong was even happy he loved children he was a good guy no no making it making it making it good no like... okay now. So what I wanted to say here is which is the underlying structure here. Now to finish I want to convert you a little bit to Marxism. I claim that *The Capital* of Marx is still actual at this level, especially that old-fashioned nobody reads it today chapter on so-called commodity fetishism. What is Marx saying there? Something very precise. He is not saying that fetishism is our illusory misperception of how things really are. He's saying the exact opposite. Look, look... here is the very first two sentences of that subchapter, you know towards the end of the chapter one of *Capital*, *Commodity Fetishism and Its Secret*. It's a well-known passage but listen to it: "A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." Are you aware what Marx is saying here? One would expect him, practicing critique of ideology, to start with a mysterious phenomenon, religious, fantasy, and then to to demystify it, to demonstrate how what appears to us some metaphysical sacred phenomenon is really generated by process whatever. Here, he's saying almost the opposite. He says: No, what appears an everyday common object, the analysis, the critique for Marx, the first step of critique is not like the glorious Enver Hoxha decided in when was it the early 60s to totally abolish religion. Okay, then it's not a criticize religion, you first have to even discover religion where people don't see. What does Marx mean here? Where is commodity fetishism for Marx? Let's very briefly distinguish, you know the famous formula of Marx of ideology in *Capital* where he says in German: "*Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es*," they don't know it but they are doing it. Now the primitive reading is: Of course, people do one thing and they live in illusion, so they think another thing. Like I'm doing something but I am not aware what I'm really doing, so the truth is in what I'm doing, I have a false representation of what I'm doing. But if you read really in a nice way Marx, you will see that he means the opposite. In the opposition between doing and thinking what you are doing, the illusion is in doing. Marx's thesis to simplify it is the following one: An ordinary subject in capitalist in a capitalist society is not a fetishist in the sense that I think money is something magic, no! An ordinary bourgeois subject is a kind of a British-minded utilitarian nominalist. He thinks money is just a kind of item sign which gives me right to a certain part of social product, nothing mysterious about it. Where is fetishism? It is in what you do when you interact. When you interact you interact as if you think that, you know, you practice your illusions, even if you are not aware of them. Your true belief is enacted in what you are doing. So it's a very nice paradox. That let's say you think that money is just a social phenomenon, and money really is a social phenomenon, but nonetheless you live in a lie because there is a certain level in between. So you have here a wonderfully dialectical complication where it's not enough to distinguish between how things really are and how they appear to you. There is a third category of paradoxically how things *really* appear to you, how should I put it, you know? What you are not aware when you are in fetishism is not how things really are, but how things really appear to you. Let me give you a simpler example from psychoanalysis, very primitive one. An an ordinary adolescent thinks his father is a jerk, impotent, idiot and so on. it is true, I claim. So he thinks this and the father really is that. Nonetheless he lives in a illusion. How can you detect this illusion? Observe him when he really interacts with his father and you will see a much more complex attitude of feeling of guilt, respect and so on. So again, he thinks something about his father, his father really is that, but there is a third level which determines his activity and so on and so on. Because of this complication, Marx never, interestingly enough, uses the term ideology for commodity fetishism. Because, you know, Marx likes to dismiss ideology as superstructure, but commodity fetishism is a strange ideology which is not superstructure but it's in the very heart of the economic reality itself. So what I'm trying to say here is that the structure here gets so complex. Why? Because in a similar way I claim our atheism functions today. We are... we can paraphrase as did my Slovene colleague Alenka Zupančič in her analysis of precisely of of the role of belief today, she applies this joke on a chicken to the problem of religion, and she says, she gives a wonderful example. She says, let's imagine an a society of enlightened atheist terror where a certain person is submitted to this ideological pressure and is finally convinced not to believe in God, there is no God, God doesn't exist. Then he is dismissed and he comes running back and say that he is afraid of being punished by God. Then they told you but you know now that God doesn't exist. He answers, yes but does God know that he doesn't exist, you know. And I claim this is now a long story, this is why I dwell so long in Christianity as an atheist. I am a when people ask me what are you, I claim I'm a Christian atheist. Because as my favorite theologian Gilbert Keith Chesterton developed, in Christianity for a brief moment God himself knows that he doesn't exist. You have this moment, you remember that crucial moment of Christianity where you know on the cross this Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, you know where Christ, the dying Christ addresses God, Father, Father, why have you abandoned me? This is a great problem for theologians. Every time that I debate with a priest or whatever I ask him a simple question: How are we to read these lines of Christ? Are they does it mean that Christ really was in despair? Or does it mean that it was just a spectacle for us humans? Now both possibilities are a catastrophe. Because if Christ it was only to impress humans, then we have a very obscene version of Christianity as basically God wanted to impress humans and stage a spectacle of the suffering of his son, but in reality it was all a joke and the son knew, okay let's pretend that I suffer but hi dad in ten minutes I will be back up with you. So but if Christ really thought he is lost, then don't forget Christ is not a symbol, a Messiah, Christ *is* a living God. So God himself was desperate. For a brief moment... let me go on. So so the origin, if you want to have the best of Christianity that we need or even of this, the founding texts of all three religions of the book, Christianity, Islam, Judaism is for me the Book of Job, the guy who was screwed up and lost everything by God. Job, you know, in the Old Testament. Why is this so shocking? This is I think the greatest text single, because what happens there? Read it really closely. You know the story. This I think we should dismiss this, this is probably some pagan joke later inserted, the beginning is wonderful but it's too cynical. Remember that after dinner, drinking coffee whatever, God and Devil debate, God says ha-ha I have one who is totally faithful to me and then God makes a bet with Devil. But let's forget this. What happens is this: Okay, things go back for bad for Job, no? He loses and it's nice to read the Bible in this series, it’s an he loses his goats, his cows, his wife and so on, no? That's the Bible at his best in this series. But the crucial thing is that then he is desperate. Then three ideologists come. Remember three theological friends. What do they try? They try to convince him each of them that his suffering has some deeper meaning. That's all. The first one tells him basically God is just, so if you suffer you must have done something even if you don't know what, you must be guilty. The second one gives a different story, God is testing you, you will be rewarded and so on. And incidentally this is the mystery here you see the limitation of the Bible, at the end Job is restored all, no? But what happens with his wife and daughters and so on who died, no? They somehow they disappear from the picture, no? They are not restored. Okay but let me go on. So and Job, what is the greatness of Job? You have to read carefully the Bible, the Book of Job, he does not insist I am not guilty, he just insists on I don't accept that my suffering has any meaning. You know, he rejects this religious justification of, oh if you suffer it has a deeper meaning and so on and so on. So then comes the most beautiful moment when God arrives, you know, he says something wonderful and this is I think the greatness of Judaism. Basically God arrives and intervenes, it's a little bit like did you see that wonderful scene in *Annie Hall*, Woody Allen, where at the beginning of the film they wait in line, Woody Allen character and his friend and debate some theoretical point of Marshall McLuhan and then Marshall McLuhan comes and says, no you are totally wrong.
Alain Badiou is my best friend. A Frenchman, but he wrote a very good book, *De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom?*, *Of What Sarkozy, the President, Is the Name*. Where he just draws attention to some simple facts which are: we, when we hear of France, we all think about French Revolution, equality, great enthusiastic movements, you know, but this is France which explodes every, I would say, thirty, forty years. In between, the France is a very opportunistic, conservative country. The thesis of Badiou is that if there is a figure which stands for what we call *la France profonde*, the deep France, this traditional, it's Maréchal Pétain. It’s this type of... So in other words, I was sad not to say even much more bad things. So example, for example, when French or other Westerners, but in this case French, come here and teach you about tolerance and civilization, no, tell them simply like, you know, I'm sorry, but till now we were following, we here, all of you, and of us, Serbs, Albanians, we were following the other example of France, you know, like Cathar, you know that, this was the greatest brutal crusade. This is the arch-model of ethnic cleansing when under the pressure of the French king, you know, when was this, I think 12th century, they organized a crusade against the Cathars in Languedoc in the south. And this was like much more violent than the crusades in, in... to the Holy Land, which were all of a comedy as we know, no? My favorite crusade is, I think, the second one, where they stop on the way in Constantinople and rob it and then they went home, like why go further, no? But you know how that crusade functioned, like they were really simply killing them all. And if you want a formula of obscene theological ethnic killing, it is provided by one of the archbishops who was a crucial person, probably you know the story of the crusade, a city, Cathar city, surrender to the French Vatican forces, and people around, I think, and even the military were not so hard, the military came to that bishop, I'm sorry, don't know his name, but you find this in every history of Cathar crusade, no, he came to the archbishop who was the, how should I put it, the politcommissar, ideological leader, and asking what to do. The bishop says kill them all. But then the general, brutal soldier said, but wait a minute, around half of them are probably not Cathars but our guys still. And you know the famous answer, "*Tuez-les tous, Dieu reconnaîtra les siens*," kill them all, God will already distinguish them as dead who are ours, who are not, no? So you know, don't let yourself be blackmailed by civilized West. You should exactly give them the opposite message. Yes, we have bad sides, we kill and so on, when we do this, we imitate you. Get a little bit of arrogance, my god. So when I was talking with friends today, we had a nice idea about that poster which was mentioned yesterday, you know, a cat and the dog and why can’t you live together, they do, no? It would be nice if you do it, I put money into it, my god, to do an alternative poster which you then put on the walls where this one is side by side, the same shot just like, I don't know how big the scene it, like probably it would be enough some meters behind. Imagine camera moving back and you see all the trainers and whips, you know, to keep to keep the dog and the cat the way it is. That's the truth, you know, the trainers behind, who are them. So again, the my favorite, and it shocked my friends, now this will be very brutal, I warn you, but I think it's the moment of truth in it. In one of my early book I used it when there was, this was earlier war, I think in Bosnia. There was a, maybe you know the story, there was a roundtable on Austrian TV, yeah, it’s a funny story, isn't it the one? Where three people were there: a Bosnian, I mean Bosniak, a Serb, and some stupid Austrian ecologist, pacifist, whatever. And then the Bosniak and Serb were okay within their nationalist logic both, but at least within that logic arguing, you know, one say no, this land is ours because of that, blah blah, doesn't matter. The point is that at a certain point the ecologist, pacifist, thinking he did something deep, you know, like turned to both of them and said, but but why are you hating each other, why didn't you just say basically we love each other and let's live in peace and so on? And then something unique happens, which gives me a little bit of hope that maybe we in Balkan are not totally lost. For a brief moment you could see a kind of solidarity of the Bosniak and the Serb exchanging a glance like, who is this idiot? What is he talking about? And I think the only hope of us is these two getting together, let's get rid of that ecologist pacifist and we will do something with our with our life, no? Okay, let's go on. So we are here at the topic now a little bit more serious of so-called cultural differences. They are interesting, we should study them, but not to mystify them into some kind of deeper truth, you know, what is your, what is my true identity. If you study them you discover wonderful things about, nothing deep, but nonetheless crucial about how national, ethnic, whatever identities are structured. And while I had a debate with my friends this afternoon, you drew my attention to a wonderful fact, I wasn't aware of it, how another term of censorship that those highly developed countries, so-called civilized, impose of us is to use the term ethnicity, no? Like you know, we are all equal, but some are true nations, the other are ethnicities, you know, as ethnicity you are not allowed to have a fully sovereign nation-state and so on. You see this is I think another implicit censorship models. So again, about these differences, they are interesting because today you hear again and again the age of ideology’s over, we live in post-ideological times and so on. Well, it is precisely this what I will comment a little bit on today, focusing on different modes that ideology survives today. But I would like to begin with a little improvisation on this cultural cultural difference. A year ago I was in the United States, in Harvard, I hate this big arrogant American universities because they think they are the center of the world, but at least in social sciences really nothing interesting is happening there. If you want to go to study to United States, forget Columbia, Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, they are dead. They just think they are the center of the world. Much more interesting things happens happen here and there in small departments. Okay, but what happened there? Something very interesting in an obscene way. After the talk we had dinner and we didn't know each other, mostly unknown to each other, guests, professors, some older students, and the old professor who moderated, invited us, moderated dinner, said at the beginning, okay, can please, some of us, each of you present itself, stating first, name and workplace, second, what he or she is working on, orientation, and third, sexual orientation. No, I was a little bit shocked by that, like, fuck off, what's this to you, no? But then something interesting came to my mind, how it's too easy to accuse Americans of, you know, they like to come open more and more, to publicly confess their secret sex orientations, whatever. But that it's not as simple as that. In Europe, that in Europe, we, it's not that we are just more dignified, it’s just they set the limit of decency, what you can publicly confess or not, differently. I, so it's not that Americans are more vulgar, they confess everything. I remember two years ago, a friend of mine, it’s nothing undignified what he did, I even can call him, a very good Jewish theological thinker close to psychoanalysis, Eric Santner, who wrote or wonderful book on German ideology, *My Own Private Germany*. He visited me in Slovenia and we went to do something that I really hate, to Slovene beach there. And I don't know how it is here, okay, it's nothing here because, haha, you don't have a beach, you will you will have it when you will unite with Albania, no, but you don't yet have it, no? In Slovenia, probably also here, it's totally liberated, practically most of the women are topless, no? It's considered simply neutral, normal. To be a little bit male chauvinist, if you are not topless it's not because you are ashamed, but because you are old, ugly and don't want to, no? And the problem was that this guy I noticed he felt so, and to avoid a misunderstanding, Eric Santner, my friend, he is not in any way sexually, socially repressed, no no, he is normal, open, even slightly promiscuous. But nonetheless he was terribly oppressed, you know, like all the time kind of this was too much for him, like you see a breast there, you turn another breast like... So this, this is I think an interesting point, how for us, you see, we both have our restraints, let's not blame Americans who they are vulgar. We just set the standard or set the limit at a different point. In both cases I think it's not simply that one is more open than the other. In both cases opening is another way to set a distance. If in Europe a woman goes topless, the message is not, come and fuck me or what. The message is, fuck you, I can do it, but you have no chance, you know, if... that's why I support it, not because I'm a male chauvinist and want to see, but because I know what this means. It means you absolutely, this gives you no right or whatever, you know, I am so strong that I can afford even this without giving you any cheap sexual signals or what. In United States it's the same, but it's more typical for their Protestant attitude. There, you can confess, say, but in this way, you know, you just confess it, but how should I put it, the very fact of saying it publicly means, but I keep my intimacy to myself, it's of no concern to you. You just abstractly say, I don't know, I'm bisexual or whatever, and it's you totally, how should I put it, it's in a way almost I would say slightly depressing because you totally desexualize sexuality itself. You turn it into another item to report, how should I put it, no? So again, I'm not a naive Wilhelm Reich leftist who claims, you know, let's open it, permissivity and so on. My formula that I really like would have been maybe the formula of, you know, the American writer Gore Vidal. He is relatively well known. Okay. Once he is bisexual, and once he was asked, it's his famous TV interview, he was asked, who was your first sexual partner, a man or a woman? He gave a perfect answer. He said, I was too polite to ask, you know, before. That's the attitude we need. I mean, you know what I mean, that's what I was aiming at yesterday. I totally believe in universality, not in this, I have my culture, you have your culture, how do we know that we ever understand each other? Well, when we have a common struggle, we quickly understand each other. But, but this private domain, sexual identities and so on, that's different. So what can we learn from this? Another thing. I wonder if you, if some of you were lucky enough, and I say this without any irony because United States is a great country, at least interesting to see. If you were lucky enough to visit United States, at least big cities, I say at least because obviously only in big cities you get hotels with high many floors, like more than You will see why. I noticed a strange phenomenon there. That, maybe you noticed it again if you were there, they skip the 13th floor. They do Like, for obvious reason, 13s is a bad luck, who will live there. But what interests me is not this fact, but what a naive notion of God or fate this implies. Like as if God doesn't know that is really you know what I mean? It implies a total... I mean is God so stupid that you will... Like, there is a similar story from Slovenia which happened, my ex-friend, I underline three times ex because now I think he should be arrested, Igor Bavčar, who was head of that famous committee for liberation, dissident, whatever, told me that when he became after elections the minister of interior, and this was still the early populist phase of democracy, so people addressed with all their difficulties the politicians. And she got a report from an old lady living on number in a suburban house. And she wrote him a letter claiming that strange things happened to her. Three times his house was broken into, the windows were broken, a continuous series of misfortunes. And she she told the minister she thinks that this must be bad luck because of the number So could she, he, the minister, she was asking him, arrange to change the street number, no? To I don't know, 11a or or what, no? And then he told her, the minister, because then he called her back and told her, why don't you simply paint, do it yourself, without bureaucracy. Paint, I mean with black painting, cover and paint or whatever. And the lady told him, I already did it, but it doesn't work, you know, how should I put it, no? Like, this is a more interesting notion of God and fate that you cannot cheat God so easily, you know. God only respects it if it's done properly, bureaucratically done, you know. It must be the state decision, how should I put it, no? You cannot just... Americans don't get this, I claim. They think their logic is if you do it as in the hotels, no? But now let let me be more serious. This is what we would have called the lack the lack of tradition of collective substance. American think that all form of collectivity is just expression of individuality, which is why basically it doesn't matter, you can put it there, and so on. Because I think this has to be linked to another strange thing that I noticed there. In Europe now, don't embarrass me, I don't know how it is here, but what I saw in these two days in your hotels, you are here like the most of Europe. That is to say, you start with ground floor which is zero, and then first floor is already one up and so on. Probably you know that in United States of America they count differently. They start with one. So first floor means no stairs, you just enter, and you go up. The problem is the same here I think, they don't know what is zero. They, to put it in totally abstract terms, for them zero doesn't already count as one, how should I put it. Because zero which counts as one is precisely what in Lacanian psychoanalysis we call the big other, the substance. They immediately start counting. So which is the correct solution? I'm not saying Americans are wrong. I found the correct solution in Poland, Warsaw, where I was incidentally, I came practically from there here five days ago. In a big hotel where I was staying I discovered the right solution. And this will bring me to the conclusion, if I will have time of today's talk, something about Alain Badiou, our friend, French philosopher and his ontology. You know how do they have it in in Warsaw, at least in the hotel where I was. They start with zero. Of course, because zero is ground floor, you don't... But then they immediately go from zero to two. And I had a nice philosophical lesson from an old gentleman who was, how do you call it, the janitor, the guy who in expensive hotels, it's too undignified for you to press the buttons so there is and I asked him why this, and he gave me a, my god, a perfect philosophically correct answer. He says, the ground floor should be zero because there are no floors, of course it's zero. But, wonderful formulation, he said, but the moment you start to count, you must count zero as one. So the one should already be two. And this is what Hegelian dialectics is about. If you understand this... I just yesterday read in a newspaper another thing which to give you an idea what I'm aiming at. You know in the old, old days there were in these dancing small cafeterias the so-called jukeboxes, you know. A-part, you put on in coins music. I learned that you know what they had in some American cafeterias in the 50s? Let's say you were a guest in that cafeteria and wanted a little bit of peace. They had a disc, a short one, this how... which had only silence recorded. So you put a coin and you, you know, this is like zero counted for one. It wasn't simply silence. It was a song which functioned as silence, how should I put it. So you must have this, how should I put it, you must have this short-circuit in order for things to function. So again, why am I mentioning this apart from telling bad jokes as usual? I mention this because, you know, when people tell you, oh, end of ideology and so on. Of course, maybe, I'm not even so sure about that. For most people we no longer play the game of big ideologies, you sacrifice your life for it, but nonetheless our everyday life, the way the most elementary phenomena, kitchens and so on, rituals are structured, you find there a whole network of what one cannot call but ideological presuppositions. Probably everybody knows here, so I will very shortly repeat myself, you know that my example because of which everybody laughs at me, no, you know it: the toilets. Did you travel to the, if you travel to the West, let's say you travel the three countries, Germany, France, Anglo-Saxon world. Be careful, observe the toilets. You will see the be... I simplified it a little bit, but it is like this. French toilets are that you have, my god, it's good that French ambassador is not here now. French toilets are so that the hole is in the back. So that when you produce shit, it falls immediately into the hole with water, disappears as soon as possible. Go to United States, you will see a different toilet, which is basically full of water, so that the shit floats there beneath. No, no, this is not the worst. The worst are the traditional German toilets, which are disappearing, which are without water, I mean, not being full. But the hole is in front. So that when you produce shit, it is as it were displayed there to smell, to reflect and so on. This is this old ritual, that in the morning you inspect your shit for worms, for possible whatever. Okay, now I, I asked many of my friends, but listen, what's the origin of this? I even some architect friend gave me two books on, yes, on structure of toilets. And it's incredible how each nation argues simply in a pragmatic way. Like the Americans say this is the most practical way, you know, the French basically the same. So what does this mean? Then I started to think a little bit and came to the only solution that I found. I'm not saying it's true, I'm not saying it's the best, I'm saying it's the only solution that I found. Going back to philosophy, I remember that, you know, around Hegel's time the idea emerged in Western Europe of so-called European Trinity. Three key European nations: Germany, France, England, Anglo-Saxon world. The idea is that each of them privileges a certain political domain, sorry, a certain social domain and a certain political orientation. French are left and left, revolutionary, and they are political. Their big thing is politics. Anglo-Saxon world is of course economy and moderate middle pragmatic. Germans are conservative and *Dichtung und Denken*, thoughts, thinking, reflecting and so on. And then, my god, it did strike me, that's it! Listen. The French one: shit liquidated, disappear as soon as... Radical! The British one: pragmatic. Pragmatic, float a little bit, we get rid. The German: metaphysical conservative, let's reflect upon it, see and so on. I'm sorry to tell you but, ridiculous as it is, I spoke al... coming two weeks ago, I'm still in jet lag that's why I'm so confused, I was in Australia and I spoke there with architects and they admitted to me, knowing this piece of mine, that that's the best explanation they found. I mean, even if it's of course I simplified it a little bit, but the lesson I want to give to you is the following one: that even when you look at the most elementary disposition in a house, where is kitchen, how is the toilet structured, how are the corridors related to rooms, do you go through from one room directly to the other, corridor... this can never be accounted for, explained, how should I put it, in a direct utilitarian way. There is always some, how should I put it, some, one cannot but call it in the strong sense of the term, ideological reference in order to explain it. At this level, and then we can go on, on, on, from manners, how we say hello to each other. For example years ago I read a much more much more modest, non-obscene but nonetheless interesting analysis of how the kitchen is structured typically in Denmark and in Sweden. There is some mystery about how where you push things when you wash them, dishes, and how where you put them to dry, and again it's clear analysis that there is a whole semiotic system in it. You cannot just ground it in... no? So now you will tell me, but nonetheless there are some things which are simply utilitarian. Of course there are, of course ultimately you must go to the toilet, you must wash the dishes or whatever. But the problem is that you never get rid of this ideological excess because even if it is utilitarian, it is still utilitarian in a precisely when you want to be purely utilitarian, it's utilitarian in a, in an ideological way. What do I want to say by this? Let's say why do people wear, it's the most stupid classical example, why do people wear this used stone jeans? It's not simply that you want to be practical utilitarian, no bullshit with complicated dress, but semiotics is already in it. You want to signal as a meaning that you want to be utilitarian, you know? To bring this attitude to the its ridiculous climax, I have some unfortunate friends whom I hate for this, no it's not you, sorry, yours is longer, who have a big, you know there is a high art in the West among degenerate intellectuals to have a short beard which appears unkept. But you have to spend half an hour every morning to, you know, produce, you know, you get my point here, even when you want to give a signal, I am just I don't care, I'm utilitarian, it's a signal. You are already caught in ideology. And that's how I noticed that your beloved, whatever they are called, Umpic or what stupid, they like this Land Rovers, no? I wonder if this is again not a little bit of ideology in it. Like you are a normal country, why normal, not normal cars? What I suspect is that there is a little bit of this, you know, where do you really need Land Rovers? In these wild countries where you are among animals and so on. Do they, do they not signal a little bit maybe, you know, that... Because for example I have a friend in Slovenia, ex-friend, again I have many ex-friends in Slovenia, who is, was a great doctor and he lives close to the center of Ljubljana and worked in Ljubljana Hospital. He has a Land Rover. It's clear why. Not because he needs it, but because he wants to signal that, you see, I'm an authentic wild man, not degenerate with these soft city cars and so on and so on, no? That's, that's where you find ideology. At this level we are more than ever in ideology. At this everyday level where, although again they are the most innocent practices, ideology is at work in them. So how does this ideology function? Now, as I promised you, there will be maybe, maybe a little bit, but not a lot, a joke or two, but now enough fun. Let's do at least a little bit of theory, serious theory. In I claim that the basic opposition which helps us a lot to understand how ideology functions today is the opposition between fetish and symptom. This is the psychoanalytic opposition. I will not go in detail into it. Just let me give you a very broad abstract definition. To put it very simply, symptom is a partial truth which, symptom is the moment where truth returns, where the whole field is that of a lie. You live in a false universe, symptom is where the excluded repressed truth is returning. Fetish is almost the opposite. Now, I know I'm giving here a very simplified version and okay, you have to trust me that I know the whole story, no? Fetish is on the contrary a partial lie which sustains the global truth. What do I mean by this? Let me give you a simple example of symptom. Let me go now to maybe this will even found an echo to some of your unfortunate experiences. Now I'm not kidding here. A something, sorry, a something horrible happened, let me clarify through an example. Something horrible happened some years ago, even more, to a friend of mine. It's one of these really horrible stories, not nice, uh to cut a long story short, even now it's a little bit traumatic for me to go into it. He was very much in love with his wife. They were young and, you know the usual story. The wife feels a slight pain in the breast, goes to doctor, ah-ha, cancer, in three months you are dead, no? So she was dead in three months. And what happened then? My friend reacted in a fetishist way. The symptomatic way would be what? To repress it. To, I don't know, throw himself into work or whatever, try to forget it, seeking adventures with other women, whatever. But then the repressed would have returned, you know. Whatever you do, somehow it reminds you of what you are trying to forget, like if you forgive me, it’s in my nature, small obscenities, like you know those proverbial story about an adolescent who, in order to forget his sexual pain being unable to seduce girls, takes refuge in mathematics. But then even there he cannot escape it, you know, he gets a homework you know, like how much energy, this is more physics, is released when two bodies hit each other and so on, you know? Whatever you do, or like you have a cone, how much geometry, how much volume you need to fill in a cone or whatever. Whatever you do, this would be the symptom logic. You try to forget, the truth comes back all the time as it were. But my friend did something totally different. His logic was a fetishist one, which was what? He... and we were surprised, his friends, because my god, he was able to talk in a totally cold way, normally, about his wife's slow progress of dying, without any trauma. We were thinking, my god, is this guy a monster or he didn't really love her, but is secretly glad to get rid of her or what, like absolutely no problem. Then it took us a couple of months to discover the key to it. All, do you also have them, are you degenerate enough, to, degeneration means development, to have this totally disgusting for me habit of having as home pet animals, how do you call them, hamsters, you know, the small... Yeah, okay. All the time he was talking about his wife, he was playing in with his hands in lab with a small hamster, who was the favorite pet object of his wife. And it’s clear that the hamster functioned as a fetish, an element which allowed him to de facto disavow, suspend his knowledge that the wife is dead. You know it was this typical what in psychoanalysis we call fetishist, in German *Verleugnung*, disavowal. *Désaveu*, not the negation, don't confuse them, in French, which means the logic is "*Je sais bien, mais quand même*," I know very well, but. I know very well my wife is dead, but I deny it. That is to say, you can talk about it but in a distanced way, how should I put it, emotionally, symbolically, you don't really accept it. Now you will say what I'm saying now is the worst amateur psychoanalysis. How do I know this is true? Unfortunately, we got a proof a year later, because as you probably know, hamsters are very vulnerable, they don't live, don't have a long life. So a year, ah, no wonder you, because every my second friend in Germany has a hamster, you know this, they are very popular there. Ah really? Okay. No, sorry. What I wanted to say, yeah, is that, okay, this hamster died a year later, and my friend instantly got a total breakdown, tried seriously, he was seriously making suicide attempts, so he had to be hospitalized immediately. So you see how it worked. He didn't repress it. He accepted it but in a neutralized way. And why do I mention this? I claim that when today, and they like to be, people pretend to be cynics, you know, like, haha, I don't care, brutal reality, I accept it, you should always ask the realist, I have no illusions, okay, okay, where is your hamster? You know, like, I claim that all cynics have, if you look closely, for example, this hamster can be, for example, today many adults, I'm now talking about sexual morality, pretend to be brutally permissive open, you know, group orgies, whatever, promiscuity. Usually the hamster is their child. They are totally horrified by the idea of their child learning about it, no? Literally, if the child learns, all their universe collapses. Somebody must not know. They need, they need a naive gaze as it were outside. Or, one big ideological hamster today, I claim, is in the West among enlightened capitalists, what I ironically call Western Buddhism. This kind of a fake Dalai Lama oriental spiritualism. Why is it the hamster? Because it, let's say you are a brutal athletic businessman, playing the market game, brutal and so on. Of course, if you pretend to be human at the same time, you cannot function in this way. So your hamster becomes, it’s incidentally I read in an analysis that while working classes are still Catholic, Christian, the majority of ultra-rich, especially they are the new Bill Gates type digital rich, are mostly some kind of enlightened Dalai Lama oriental Buddhists, how should I put it, no? Why? Because the message is, you know our reality is virtual, how should I put it, no? So what I'm saying is that while they pretend to be aware that market or their economic ruthless activity doesn't really matter, deep, this is how probably Bill Gates experiences himself. Oh the vanity of my billions, I really want to help the poor, the children now, and so on. But I claim reality is the opposite. This is a hamster, they use this to disavow the fact that their reality is what in there doing, not in this fake fake spiritualities and so on and so on. So again, my argument against cynicism is that it doesn't work in its very ruthless brutality, like typical cynic says, listen, who cares about love, what matters is pleasure, money, power. You know, this brutal realism always fails, it’s too naive. All cynics need if something that is sacred. They usually don't want even to talk publicly about it. Like in my book, the example, it’s a beautiful one, of this cynical fetish that I usually quote is, you know, Patricia Highsmith. I think the greatest detective writer of the 20th century. She wrote a wonderful short story called *The Button*. Button, like what I don't have. It’s about a miserable New York middle class guy who is relatively successful in life, happily married. The problem is that his child is a Mongoloid, how do you call it this, really retarded. Okay, it's politically incorrect term. Sorry? Ah, yeah, you are more political. No, I am brutal here. Yeah, Mongoloid, sorry, the furthest I will go is member of the country between Russia and China, you know, if this makes it more politically correct, no. Political correctness is not my good side. Okay. What I want to say is that so, really handicapped child, you know, just smiles stupidly, cannot even talk normally. So out of total despair one evening he goes out, sees a homeless guy alone in the street who approaches him asking him some money, and all his frustrated fury explodes. He beats this guy to death, takes one button, put him put it into his pocket and his life is changed. From that one on, this is his fetish. At least once I did strike back, and this, whenever then from then on, whenever he is desperate at his child, he just touches the button, okay, I did strike back once, it’s not hopeless, and the paradox is that even his relation to his child gets much better, he can educate it a little bit and so on and so on. So you see how differently they function. Fetish is a lie which allows you to sustain the brutality of social reality. So on the contrary symptom is the truth which undermines the lie in which you live. In this sense you know, don't underestimate the fetishists. They are not idiots. They are not people who, I don't know, are fixed on a on a leg and then think only about that or not. They can be extremely realist because fetish allows them not to be too much affected by it. So again, this is, these are the two basic coordinates where my idea is that the traditional ideology functioned as symptom in a symptomatic way. Like, you had the general propositions, all men are equal, and then upon a close analysis you find symptoms which belied it. Like you know this classical Marxist analysis. All men are equal, but then you look closely and you see that in this apparently general definition, some men are more equal than others, how should I put it. All of a sudden you see that all are equal but women are not really as equal as men, children are not, foreigners are not, primitives so-called, criminals are not, and so on and at the end not many of them remain. No... so here you do the symptomatic reading. When a liberal tells you human rights, this is the standard Marxist praxis, no, to demonstrate how secretly in this apparently universal definition a certain strata, sex, whatever is privileged. Like as every, and they are right here, as every member of oriental countries would have will tell you, the very list of West European human rights accentuates individual choice at the expense of collective identity, so it already implies a certain individualistic society. It’s not really neutral. Or then we can go into sexuality, although there things are more tricky I think. More tricky in the sense that, you know, for example one of, and I think this is bad feminism, one of the feminist critiques of human rights is that they rationalize the subject too much, they emphasize reason at the expense of emotional ties and in this sense they privilege masculine against feminine identity. But I think if you accept this you buy another terrifying cliché which I think is, from my experience, maybe I live in a crazy society, but among the people who I know, men are crazy rational, you know what I mean, women so... you know what I mean, you privilege already certain cliché here. So but okay, doesn't matter. What I'm saying is that this would be the classical functioning of ideology. Today more and more we are getting the fetishist functioning. Cynicism, public cynicism connected with this secret fetishist belief. Now I will, but here we should develop things further and introduce two types of fetishism. I think it's crucial to distinguish them. We have first this, let's call it permissive cynical fetishism. This is I claim typical of highly developed societies, no? Like you are cynical, orgies whatever, but you have your secret which in your eyes makes you authentic. You know this is typical brutal rich men’s. Like, I exploit you, beat you, and then but secretly oh but I'm really doing for my son, for my family, I'm secretly good, whatever. Okay. But there is another kind of much more brutal fetishism which is recently gaining ground, so-called, let's call it potentially fascist populist fetishism. Its basic form but now it's universalized is anti-anti-Semitism. How does this one function in contrast with classical liberal ideology? It's very interesting how is the opposition structured. With classical liberal ideology, again, it's that symptomatic logic. That is to say what you can reproach to it is that its universality is a false universality. Again as I told you when they talk about equality and human rights, you can show by detailed analysis how this neutral universal human rights are not really as universal as they appear that secretly some is privileged and so on and so on. With let's take now a typical example of this fundamentalist populist fetishist logic, anti-Semitism. There, to put it in very simple terms, you have basically a reference to, let's call it social antagonism, class struggle. And to save the notion of organic community, you project, displace, as it were, the origin of evil, instability, into an intruding outsider, no? Like you say it's all fault of the Jews. In this sense you you avoid the fundamental fact that that it's our society itself which is in itself antagonistic and so on and so on. What is the difference between these two? Ah, if you listen to me carefully, even if you didn't, you got it. To put it in very naive moralistic terms, in the first case, liberal symptomatic functioning, we have, I am putting it in very naive, the good true side is on the surface, hidden beneath it is the bad side, to put it very naively. That is to say, explicit ideology is equality, justice, who wouldn't agree with it. But then if you look closely what is behind it, it's exploitation, women are underprivileged, other races, and so on and so on. So you have to argue in a critical way against the apparent false universality, against the appearance for the hidden truth beneath. With fascist anti-Semitic populism, it's the opposite. It is the ultimate goal, to put it naively, which is a good one. Okay, a good one. Like antagonistic struggle against exploitation. The lie is at the surface, that that as the cause of this antagonism, a Jew is picked out. So you got it, how should I put it, in the first case the progress is from appearance to what is behind, like you say universal human rights, I say ha-ha, what is hidden behind is... On the other hand it's the opposite. I say, Jews are responsible. You tell me, sorry that I... but I gave you the more honorable, less disgusting position. You tell me, but don't you see that when you are attacking Jews, you are really attacking, I don't know, financial exploitation and so on? And you are just targeting the wrong guy, as it were, no? But your ultimate goal is... Okay, this is the classical Marxist still valid I think, even liberals would agree with it, analysis of fascism. You know this old formula which is correct one, that anti-Semitism is socialism of the poor, or rather of the stupid, you know? Those people who feel spontaneous aversion against capitalist exploitation and so on but find the easy way to put the blame on the scapegoat, on the Jews. Now why am I mentioning this? Because something very interesting of which psychoanalysis can teach us a lot happens here. Although one would have thought that it is much easier to undermine the second position, like if I am anti-Semitic, it should be relatively easy, should have been for you to teach me but can't you see when you talk about the Jews you are really projecting onto them what is... Jews are just an empty vehicle, container, for all that is wrong in our society. It seems evident to us who are not in it. But as experience teaches us and psychoanalytic theory can provide reasons, it's the opposite. That is to say if you are, now you are again the good guy, I'm not that, let's say you are a naive liberal. I try to convince you but can't you see your universal rights a good idea but and so on. Usually if you are an honest liberal, it will be relatively easy to convince you, no? You will say oh my god, yes, maybe. And then you will either become a more social liberal or we should do something, yes, to really include women, no? Although it's I found it difficult you in this role, no? Or or you will go into cynicism, no? You will say wait a minute, I'm aware this is enlightened cynical liberalism where you say this is more natural... when you will say something like, oh I know, but listen, we cannot really afford true equality. People need something to be duped, lie is necessary as a social principle. Now you think I exaggerate here. Ha-ha, look at films. Why was *The Dark Knight*, did you see it? I didn't, it's boring, I just saw the beginning and the end. But nonetheless, this the last Batman film, yeah. Why it's so interesting? Oh my god, it’s a disgusting film because, you know, it's very dangerous ideologically. No wonder people around Ronald Reagan, sorry around George Bush, President, I read liked it. You know what happens at the end? At the end, lie is asserted as a fundamental social principle. That public prosecutor who is the hero fighting the Mafia, is discovered to be himself a murderer. And then Batman offers himself to take this murders upon himself, saying if we say to the people the truth, that the big public figure was himself a murderer, this will undermine the trust of the people into legal system. So I will do it. So it's a very sad lesson of the film. The lesson is we need lie to maintain public order and so on and so on. No no, and incidentally if you want, but I will come to this later, how much we can learn from Hollywood in the sense of getting from Hollywood films a diagnosis of what goes on. Which is why, but I will be too tired, admit it my god, the first thing I told you, asked you after coming to Pristina two days ago is where does *Angels Demons* play, no? If I can see it, no. I'm just interested in what... how it because another, even purer example. Did you see it, I did times, but I'm not crazy, because of my small son who likes it. Did you see that stupid cartoon *Kung Fu Panda*? Pure ideology. Why? Just this is this fetishist ironic disavowal at its purest. How does the film function? Just remember. You know, okay I will not bore you, the story is some big fat bear, Panda, wants to become a top kung fu warrior. And on the one hand you have all this oriental mystique, fate, mythology, kung fu, fate, being chosen, destiny, sacred mission. At the same time the film makes fun all the time of its own orientalist ideology. But you know what's so interesting? That in spite of making fun all the time of it, ideology still functions. And that's where we are today. In a mysterious way belief functions, our beliefs function even if we don't believe in them, how should I put it. You know who, I quote him in my last book, which I hope you didn't read so I can repeat the story, that *Parallax View*, a wonderful anecdote. Did I mention it yesterday, Niels Bohr? I didn't, I hope. Okay. Good. You know Niels Bohr, quantum physics, Copenhagen. There is a wonderful anecdote about him, I think which is the best formula of how ideology functions today in a cynical mode. Niels Bohr was had a house in the country outside Copenhagen and he was visited there by a friend, another scientist, who was surprised to see above the entrance to Niels Bohr's house a horseshoe, which I don't know how it is here among you aborigines in your tribal society or what, but in my tribe, no, or central European tribes, horseshoe should bring luck, you know. And the scientist friend was surprised, listen, do you really believe in this superstitious bullshit? Niels Bohr replied perfectly. He says, of course I don't, I'm not an idiot, I'm a scientist. Then the friend asks, but then why do you have it? Niels Bohr says, oh I'm told it works even if you don't believe in it. That's, I claim, this is the modern belief. We no longer, few people believe, no? But we behave as if. So again, the problem is that we have this two types of fetishism. First, the open fundamentalist fetishist disavowal, fundamentalist, which is let's say anti-Semitism, but even there the mechanism is much more refined than it may appear. Let me give you a provocative statement to make it clear what I want to say. Let's say now please play a bad guy a little bit. Let's say you are a Nazi, a totally neutral description, let's say you're anti-Semitic Nazi. Let's say that we debate anti-Semitism. I try to convince you. I tell you, listen, but can't you see Jews are not, Jews are not, Jews are not so bad or whatever, no? And then we start to debate how Jews real are. I claim the moment I, we start to debate in this sense, I, I as a good liberal, you are the bad guy, I I already sold my soul to the devil. Why? Because the moment I accept this debate, the result is always reality is mixed. Like and I shocked some American friends when I claimed this, but it's like you will say, I will say why do you claim Jews are financially exploiting us? Where let's be open, probably some Jews were very rich in Germany and were in this sense exploiting Germans. So you, you would be able to claim wait a minute, maybe I exaggerate a little bit, but you cannot say it's totally not true. Or, or one of another standard topic of German Nazi anti-Semitism was that the Jews control our media. You will be able to say, which is true, of the journalists were Jews. So what can I say? You will say Jews are seducing our German women. Well I hope they did, how should I put it, among others not only... You know what I mean, the moment you accept the debate at the level of facts, you, I, this I, I I I confuse the terrain. Why? Because when you here see the Jewish, sorry the Nazi anti-Semitic image of a Jew, the true question is not: are Jews really like that? That's not the question. The question is: why does Nazism need this figure of the Jew to function, to sustain its ideological edifice, independently of true or not? I follow here Jacques Lacan who proposed a wonderful formula, crazy, he said, it’s a little bit male chauvinist that I don't, that's why I don't like it, but it's a wonderful formula. The formula is that even if, let's say a husband is jealous, uh with a suspicion that his wife is sleeping around with other men. Even if all his suspicions are factually true, his jealousy is still a pathological fact. Why? Because the true problem is not: is it true? But why did he need this pathological fixation on jealousy to sustain its psychic stability. It may be one theory a little bit too naive I think, psychoanalytic, is suppressed homosexuality. This is the standard, I think, Freudian reading of jealousy, no? Let's say let's say I am jealous at my wife sleeping with you, but my true, sorry to be again personal, don't take it as a direct advance, but my true reproach is why did you choose her and not me, how should I put it. You know what I mean, that is displaced displaced homosexual jealousy, no? So why did you choose her instead of me? Okay, sort it later. Sorry. So let's go on. In this sense, you know, in this sense you get my point, in this is the problem of anti-Semitism. So then, to shock some of my American friends I went to the end and said, God forbid it’s not true, but even if all, okay almost all, there are things which are madness, open madness, like this idea 19th... You know, here you can see another lesson, how delicate category of belief is today, as we saw in the case of Niels Bohr and all... to believe in something, you should always be careful at what level do we believe, what does it mean to believe? For example, recently a friend sent me from Brazil an incredible book. The book about Japanese community at the end of the World War II in Brazil. You know what happened there? The there were about I think of them, Japanese in Brazil in And the defeat of Japan was such a shock, sorry, such a shock for them that around half of them, even a little bit more, simply denied it. This couldn't have happened. And they claim that in reality Japan won and that United States are just propagating this news around the world to avoid a scandal. They even, I have the reproductions, this is madness, in '46 they falsified, fabricated a special issue of *Life* magazine with the cover photo of General MacArthur kneeling down beneath the Japanese emperor, admitting defeat and so on. Now what is so mysterious here? Obviously they were fanatically convinced but of superiority of Japan, but at the same time at some level they must have known that it is a lie because they fabricated it. You see the absolute the ambiguity of belief. And I claim it’s it’s the same with anti-Semitism. One should be very precise how it functions. Because you know from socialism I remember from Poland a wonderful cynical joke referring to you know this old communist claim that socialist society unites is a synthesis of all that was best in the past history, no? And the joke goes like this. Yes, our socialism is the synthesis of all the greatest achievements of the past: from pre-class society it took barbari... it took primitivism, from ancient Greek society it took it took slavery, from feudal society it took brutal domination, from capitalism it took exploitation, and now comes the pearl, from socialism it took the name. I think exactly the same I hope you got the point holds for anti-Semitism. From the anti-Semitic figure of the Jew: from from from rich bankers it took exploitation, from I don't know amusement industry it took this stupid commercial culture, and so on and so on, and from Jews it took the name. That is to say, that's how what we call in psychoanalytic theory, Lacanian theory, the master signifier functions. It's a name which in a way creates the thing by masking the inconsistency of references. How do I make this... let me take you an the my last another example. You saw, you are too young but maybe you saw it on DVD, that Spielberg classic his first mega hit *Jaws*. You know about a shark, the killing, no? Okay. Now of course the naive false question is what does the shark stand for? The shark killing people there, what does it symbolize? And there were many leftist analysis which perceived it as a rightist symbol: like shark stands for third world immigrants, the danger of nature, whatever. But you can also give it the opposite reading. Do you know that Fidel Castro is a great admirer of... But what I want to say is that all these readings are wrong because the true question is not what does it truly mean. It means all of this, all these inconsistent fears. Imagine me an ordinary citizen in the United States, which ha-ha thank god I'm not, I I fear nature, tornado, ecological catastrophe. I fear immigrants, normal racism, everyday racism. I fear being exploited by big companies, whatever. And the shark in a way condenses in one figure all these inconsistent fears. In the same way as for example in Germany of the 20s and 1930s, ordinary German after the military defeat and crisis, they feared financial exploitation, they national humiliation, what they saw as sexual degradation, all this explosion of free sexuality. And the Jew became a figure which somehow a symbol which united all these fears. Which is why, as I develop in my book which I think is at least translated into Croat, *Škakljivi subjekt*, I think it was the title, *The Ticklish Subject*. Yeah... yeah, which is why how should I put it, it's not enough I hope you will get it to be truly anti-Semitic if you say and I'm not saying you should say this, no, but just to give you the logic, if you say Jews are dirty, speculating, exploiting us, and so on. This is still a normal racist prejudice. You become truly anti-Semitic when you turn this around and when you say they are dirty, exploitative because they are Jews. You know, as if being a Jew is the mysterious X behind which as it were explains all of it. This is the logic of the logic of fetishism at its purest. Now okay, since I say I will be a little bit shorter, no, but it looks we will have to make a historical compromise between short and long. Let me just go because I would like to nonetheless to go with a couple of crucial points. Because as I said, it's much more difficult to convince a fetishist, a fundamentalist fetishist. This is why I must, with all my sympathy for Palestinians, my god, I was three times in Ramallah, I gave talks there and so on. But I don't agree with some of my leftist friends who claim, you know, even when some of the Arabs appear anti-Semitic, we should understand this, they they were so brutally disturbed by the Israeli invasion that okay, and then they claim this is just the first phase, sooner or later they will see that their true enemy is not the Jew but I don't know imperialism or whatever. I claim this second what if this second moment never happens, how should I put it? I don't because, you know, if if they tried to convinced me when I had debates with them in Ramallah that, you know, ordinary people are confused they are against the Jews, but give them some time and they will see that their true target is... but sorry, but you can say the same about Hitler. His true target was capitalism, he was just confused and attacked the Jews. It doesn't work here this how should I call it logic of enlightenment. Now comes the concluding part where I would like to focus on how belief function. I would like to go a little bit more into this, let's call it Niels Bohr paradox of how we can, how should I put it, believe objectively. You don't have to believe, you can believe without believing. You believe in your practice. There is a joke which you all know, and maybe you even know how I read it, but I will read it a little bit differently today. I promise you this is a last joke that I will repeat today. You must know it, which I think exemplifies this wonderfully. Do you know that joke about a stupid guy who thought he was a a grain of corn, how do you say this, *kukuruz*, corn. A grain of corn, and you know, you know the story. He was finally cured, left out of psychiatric hospital, and came immediately running back. Psychiatrist asked him why, he says because I saw a chicken, I was afraid the chicken will eat me, you know. Psychiatrist: but you know that you are now human. He says, I know, but does the chicken know that I am no longer corn, but... Now you may laugh at it as a joke, but sorry, can I tell you something to provoke you to the utmost, and I think I mentioned this in a different context yesterday, you know that maybe Yugoslavia disappeared because a chicken wasn't allowed to know. You know what I mean by this? The chicken was Tito. I think I mentioned this yesterday, that I read in some memoirs that nomenclature around Tito knew already in '72, '73 that the economic situation is horrible and that sooner or later something will have to be done. This something of course would and did involve fall of the standard of living and so on. And what I read in this, I even don't know who the author is, one of these old Serb guys who now want to get some money selling memoirs, that then the top nomenclature around Tito came to the conclusion that, but my god if we make this public Tito is old, he will die unhappy. So it was a kind of a collective conclusion that Tito should not be told, so let us postpone the crisis till Tito dies and then allow to explode it. And this is what happened throughout the 70s. Somehow the artificial half-welfare was sustained, as you probably know the price was tremendous debt, and then years later the crisis exploded, much worse crisis with with combined with greater debt and so on. And again why? And then that's how it began. I don't think that the later crisis have had anything to do with any nationalist passions. Milošević was simply the first to use as already improvised yesterday I think to use to use to use this crisis presented a problem to communist nomenclature, no? How to legitimize itself, and the only option, almost the only, not quite, was to play the nationalist card, no? And Milošević perfected this formula: nomenclature can survive if it makes a pact with great writers and all those horrors and so on. But look at the fundamental paradox, which is again literally it was the structure of this joke, Tito was a chicken who shouldn't yet know. And and now so that you will not only say that I use this although this is not comic but also a very tragical, only comical examples, what about another example from our everyday life, so that you will not think that I'm only making fun or what? You know, isn't it that let me take even a very noble example, let's say I have cancer, of course I hope is not true, you never know, I would of course I if I will be strong enough if I were to be strong enough I would try not to tell this to my children and so on, you know, I will try precisely to not let them know. So you have this structure of maintaining appearance, the chicken shouldn't know, which lasts quite a long time. This chicken shouldn't know logic you find it also with the in the process of so-called Potemkin's villages, you know. I don't know how it was here but I know in Slovenia, when it was known that Tito will visit a certain village, you know, the street was paved... the this logic of Potemkin's village where the leader is the chicken who shouldn't know was brought to its extreme I heard towards the end of the 50s in China, when there was hunger, and Mao Zedong said I read this in a very anti-Maoist book, those memoirs by his personal doctor, that Mao Zedong was even happy he loved children he was a good guy no no making it making it making it good no like... okay now. So what I wanted to say here is which is the underlying structure here. Now to finish I want to convert you a little bit to Marxism. I claim that *The Capital* of Marx is still actual at this level, especially that old-fashioned nobody reads it today chapter on so-called commodity fetishism. What is Marx saying there? Something very precise. He is not saying that fetishism is our illusory misperception of how things really are. He's saying the exact opposite. Look, look... here is the very first two sentences of that subchapter, you know towards the end of the chapter one of *Capital*, *Commodity Fetishism and Its Secret*. It's a well-known passage but listen to it: "A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties." Are you aware what Marx is saying here? One would expect him, practicing critique of ideology, to start with a mysterious phenomenon, religious, fantasy, and then to to demystify it, to demonstrate how what appears to us some metaphysical sacred phenomenon is really generated by process whatever. Here, he's saying almost the opposite. He says: No, what appears an everyday common object, the analysis, the critique for Marx, the first step of critique is not like the glorious Enver Hoxha decided in when was it the early 60s to totally abolish religion. Okay, then it's not a criticize religion, you first have to even discover religion where people don't see. What does Marx mean here? Where is commodity fetishism for Marx? Let's very briefly distinguish, you know the famous formula of Marx of ideology in *Capital* where he says in German: "*Sie wissen das nicht, aber sie tun es*," they don't know it but they are doing it. Now the primitive reading is: Of course, people do one thing and they live in illusion, so they think another thing. Like I'm doing something but I am not aware what I'm really doing, so the truth is in what I'm doing, I have a false representation of what I'm doing. But if you read really in a nice way Marx, you will see that he means the opposite. In the opposition between doing and thinking what you are doing, the illusion is in doing. Marx's thesis to simplify it is the following one: An ordinary subject in capitalist in a capitalist society is not a fetishist in the sense that I think money is something magic, no! An ordinary bourgeois subject is a kind of a British-minded utilitarian nominalist. He thinks money is just a kind of item sign which gives me right to a certain part of social product, nothing mysterious about it. Where is fetishism? It is in what you do when you interact. When you interact you interact as if you think that, you know, you practice your illusions, even if you are not aware of them. Your true belief is enacted in what you are doing. So it's a very nice paradox. That let's say you think that money is just a social phenomenon, and money really is a social phenomenon, but nonetheless you live in a lie because there is a certain level in between. So you have here a wonderfully dialectical complication where it's not enough to distinguish between how things really are and how they appear to you. There is a third category of paradoxically how things *really* appear to you, how should I put it, you know? What you are not aware when you are in fetishism is not how things really are, but how things really appear to you. Let me give you a simpler example from psychoanalysis, very primitive one. An an ordinary adolescent thinks his father is a jerk, impotent, idiot and so on. it is true, I claim. So he thinks this and the father really is that. Nonetheless he lives in a illusion. How can you detect this illusion? Observe him when he really interacts with his father and you will see a much more complex attitude of feeling of guilt, respect and so on. So again, he thinks something about his father, his father really is that, but there is a third level which determines his activity and so on and so on. Because of this complication, Marx never, interestingly enough, uses the term ideology for commodity fetishism. Because, you know, Marx likes to dismiss ideology as superstructure, but commodity fetishism is a strange ideology which is not superstructure but it's in the very heart of the economic reality itself. So what I'm trying to say here is that the structure here gets so complex. Why? Because in a similar way I claim our atheism functions today. We are... we can paraphrase as did my Slovene colleague Alenka Zupančič in her analysis of precisely of of the role of belief today, she applies this joke on a chicken to the problem of religion, and she says, she gives a wonderful example. She says, let's imagine an a society of enlightened atheist terror where a certain person is submitted to this ideological pressure and is finally convinced not to believe in God, there is no God, God doesn't exist. Then he is dismissed and he comes running back and say that he is afraid of being punished by God. Then they told you but you know now that God doesn't exist. He answers, yes but does God know that he doesn't exist, you know. And I claim this is now a long story, this is why I dwell so long in Christianity as an atheist. I am a when people ask me what are you, I claim I'm a Christian atheist. Because as my favorite theologian Gilbert Keith Chesterton developed, in Christianity for a brief moment God himself knows that he doesn't exist. You have this moment, you remember that crucial moment of Christianity where you know on the cross this Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, you know where Christ, the dying Christ addresses God, Father, Father, why have you abandoned me? This is a great problem for theologians. Every time that I debate with a priest or whatever I ask him a simple question: How are we to read these lines of Christ? Are they does it mean that Christ really was in despair? Or does it mean that it was just a spectacle for us humans? Now both possibilities are a catastrophe. Because if Christ it was only to impress humans, then we have a very obscene version of Christianity as basically God wanted to impress humans and stage a spectacle of the suffering of his son, but in reality it was all a joke and the son knew, okay let's pretend that I suffer but hi dad in ten minutes I will be back up with you. So but if Christ really thought he is lost, then don't forget Christ is not a symbol, a Messiah, Christ *is* a living God. So God himself was desperate. For a brief moment... let me go on. So so the origin, if you want to have the best of Christianity that we need or even of this, the founding texts of all three religions of the book, Christianity, Islam, Judaism is for me the Book of Job, the guy who was screwed up and lost everything by God. Job, you know, in the Old Testament. Why is this so shocking? This is I think the greatest text single, because what happens there? Read it really closely. You know the story. This I think we should dismiss this, this is probably some pagan joke later inserted, the beginning is wonderful but it's too cynical. Remember that after dinner, drinking coffee whatever, God and Devil debate, God says ha-ha I have one who is totally faithful to me and then God makes a bet with Devil. But let's forget this. What happens is this: Okay, things go back for bad for Job, no? He loses and it's nice to read the Bible in this series, it’s an he loses his goats, his cows, his wife and so on, no? That's the Bible at his best in this series. But the crucial thing is that then he is desperate. Then three ideologists come. Remember three theological friends. What do they try? They try to convince him each of them that his suffering has some deeper meaning. That's all. The first one tells him basically God is just, so if you suffer you must have done something even if you don't know what, you must be guilty. The second one gives a different story, God is testing you, you will be rewarded and so on. And incidentally this is the mystery here you see the limitation of the Bible, at the end Job is restored all, no? But what happens with his wife and daughters and so on who died, no? They somehow they disappear from the picture, no? They are not restored. Okay but let me go on. So and Job, what is the greatness of Job? You have to read carefully the Bible, the Book of Job, he does not insist I am not guilty, he just insists on I don't accept that my suffering has any meaning. You know, he rejects this religious justification of, oh if you suffer it has a deeper meaning and so on and so on. So then comes the most beautiful moment when God arrives, you know, he says something wonderful and this is I think the greatness of Judaism. Basically God arrives and intervenes, it's a little bit like did you see that wonderful scene in *Annie Hall*, Woody Allen, where at the beginning of the film they wait in line, Woody Allen character and his friend and debate some theoretical point of Marshall McLuhan and then Marshall McLuhan comes and says, no you are totally wrong.