Ideology: The Terror of Permissive Biopolitics
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2013-11-27 · 1:59:05 · 17,181 words
psychoanalysisideologyreligion-theologyhegel-dialecticscommunism-socialismliberalism-political-correctnessrevolution-violenceecology-climatesexuality-gendercinema-art-culturehistory
This talk, delivered as a lecture/seminar with audience Q&A, centers on the psychoanalytic concept of the super-ego, which Žižek approaches through theology (Aquinas on the saints enjoying hell's punishments), a Slovenian communist-era film, and examples of ritualized collective violence. He argues that enjoyment is never spontaneous but always learned and performed for the Other's gaze, that the super-ego's double injunction ('do it' beneath its prohibition) structures ideology today via ecology, political correctness, and charity discourse. The Q&A ranges across Syriza and leftist strategy, Benjamin's divine violence, Lenin, the death drive, and Christian theology.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 16
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “patriotic bourgeoisie”
An old Maoist term Žižek deploys ironically to defend Syriza's gradualist strategy against pseudo-radical critics who accuse him of social-democratic capitulation.
A reading of religious texts in which God is not an omnipotent master but trembles with uncertainty about his own existence, as in Kierkegaard's image of God as a constitutional monarch.
The excess of pleasure beyond a baseline satisfaction, illustrated by Aquinas's claim that the saints' beatitude must be supplemented by witnessing the damned's suffering.
Used here as the object-cause of envy: happiness cannot function without this excess of seeing the other suffer, suggesting enjoyment is structured around the other's loss.
The obscene underside that is officially prohibited but secretly constitutive of an institution's identity, the transgression that the system needs and tacitly permits.
as “discursive paradox”
The moment when one discourse, while remaining what it is, begins to mimic another, producing absurd scenes such as communists demanding a miracle be recognized for patriotic economic reasons.
Enjoyment that is not spontaneous but acquired through imitation and ritual, from smoking and drinking to sex and collective violence.
The symbolic authority whose double game, officially prohibiting, secretly commanding transgression, must be navigated for a subject to act, as illustrated by the Slovenian film.
Freud's term for the paradoxical satisfaction provided by punishment, reinterpreted here as originating not in masochism but in the constitutive guilt of being a legal subject.
Benjamin's term for the founding violence of legal orders, the obscene underside whose guilt is transposed onto subjects to keep the law's own violence invisible.
Althusser's formula of ideology hailing individuals into subjects, which Žižek inverts via Balibar: super-ego interpellates subjects into individuals by confronting each with unique personal guilt.
as “indebted subjectivity”
Lazzarato's concept (cited approvingly) of a subject constituted by endless guilt-debt, which Žižek links to the super-ego logic of ecology, charity, and political correctness discourse.
as “death drive as immortality”
Žižek redefines the death drive not as a pull toward annihilation but as what insists beyond life and death, the 'undead' that keeps returning, exemplified by the Terminator's 'I'll be back.'
Benjamin's concept of violence that is an end in itself rather than an instrument for achieving a goal, which Žižek defends against liberal attempts to sanitize it into symbolic rupture.
Freudian-Lacanian temporal structure in which the symbolic weight of the past is constantly altered by the present, which Žižek links to quantum physics as a model of open ontology.
as “super-ego”
The psychic agency that paradoxically intensifies guilt the more one obeys it, because its official prohibition conceals an obscene injunction to violate that prohibition.
Stories he reaches for 3
Thomas Aquinas argues in the Summa Theologica that the blessed in heaven are permitted, indeed need, to watch the suffering of the damned so that their own beatitude may be 'more delightful.' Žižek reads this as evidence that happiness requires a surplus enjoyment of the other's misery.
“Nothing should be denied the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their beatitude... they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.”
The serial killings and rapes of factory women in Ciudad Juárez are not private pathologies but collectively ritualized acts with no arrests despite widespread knowledge. What police systematically suppress is recognition of the social-symbolic character of these crimes.
“it's a strictly ritualized thing. They follow a ritual. It's a collective act, symbolic performance.”
Kierkegaard describes a God who trembles waiting for theologians to prove his existence, like a constitutional monarch uncertain whether parliament will ratify his powers. Žižek calls this 'materialist theology': the supreme power doubting its own existence.
“God is here like a constitutional monarch, trembling like will the assembly agree to his powers”
Works invoked 11
Used via Freud to illustrate constitutive shared guilt and the figure of the criminal as redeemer; Žižek is intrigued by the unfinished sequel in which Alyosha becomes a terrorist.
Summa Theologica book
Quoted extensively for Aquinas's argument that the blessed must see the damned's suffering; Žižek treats it as a key text revealing the logic of surplus enjoyment and the Freudian reversal.
Project X film
Described as 'a shitty movie of course, only movies that I like'; used to illustrate paternal authority's hidden invitation to transgress.
The classroom scene (pupils riot only when teacher approaches) is Žižek's favorite illustration of super-ego: transgression is performed for authority, not against it.
Žižek's 'favorite' of the obscene self-help genre; gives detailed practical instructions for identity erasure including Social Security number acquisition.
The Terminator film
Described as a 'disgusting movie' but Schwarzenegger's 'I'll be back' is the purest expression of the death drive as immortal insistence beyond life and death.
Beau Geste film
1938 Hollywood film with Gary Cooper; used to illustrate the sacrificial logic of stealing to protect the illusion of the big Other's potency.
Series of 'obscene self-help guides' that mirror official self-help form but for antisocial behavior; Žižek holds them up as the inherent transgressive underside of the self-help genre.
Dostoevsky and Parricide essay
Freud's study of Dostoevsky; Žižek quotes it at length on collective guilt for the father's murder and the criminal as redeemer.
Feminicide book
A Semiotext(e) publication giving detailed description of the Ciudad Juárez killings; cited for the ritualized character of the violence.
First post-communist Slovenian film (1957); central case study for the entire talk's argument about super-ego structure and the big Other's double game.
People invoked 30
Frantz Fanon positive
Mentioned as needing rehabilitation in his original violent form, against the Bhabha-style sanitization.
Vladimir Lenin positive
Praised for 'jumping into the abyss' in 1917; also cited for early 1920s realism about backwardness and learning from big capitalists, a nuance against those who invoke Lenin only for revolutionary purity.
John Bosco positive
Cited alongside Aquinas: Bosco's version has the damned also able to see heavenly joy, which adds to their suffering, used to elaborate surplus enjoyment.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited for the claim that pleasure is on the side of the servant not the master (against Hegel), and for the idea that the master must leave a secret niche unseen; also linked to the death drive and objet a.
Louis Althusser positive
His formula of ideological interpellation (individuals into subjects) is invoked only to be reversed by Balibar's super-ego formula.
Gilles Deleuze positive
Cited with approval for opposing the conflation of sadism and masochism into 'sado-masochism' and for conceptualizing death drive outside super-ego and masochism.
Richard Bernstein negative
Mentioned as attacking Žižek in a book on violence for allegedly celebrating brutal violence; Žižek dismisses this as a misreading.
Arundhati Roy positive
Cited with full sympathy on the Indian gang rape scandal: her point that the real systemic violence against women (Mumbai prostitution rings) receives no public outcry is used to criticize ideological selective outrage.
Judith Butler negative
Said to be 'not clear' on divine violence, and accused of writing that divine violence is a symbolic shift where no one is physically hurt, a sanitization Žižek rejects.
Nadya Tolokonnikova negative
Described as genuinely heroic but intellectually mistaken: her 'children of Dionysus' framing misreads Pussy Riot's acts as spontaneous carnival, missing that their real message is that Putin himself is the obscenity.
Étienne Balibar positive
Cited for the reversal of Althusser: super-ego interpellates subjects into individuals rather than individuals into subjects.
Alain Badiou positive
Jokingly mentioned as someone Žižek would want 'arrested' if he were a bourgeois saboteur (ironic); the interlocutor in turn jokes about arresting Badiou.
Alexis Tsipras positive
Defended against leftist attacks; his demonization across Europe is seen as a sign that he represents a genuine opening.
Bernard-Henri Lévy negative
Žižek says 'I don't like very much' and reports BHL admitted Mitterrand's France helped the Hutus kill Tutsis in Rwanda for francophone geopolitical reasons.
Homi Jehangir Bhabha negative
Accused of making Fanon 'aseptic and politically correct', analogous to how liberals water down Benjamin.
Leon Trotsky negative
Žižek is critical: Trotsky was too in love with his own charisma, failed to build after 1924, did 'dirty work' for Lenin, and had no real clear alternative to Stalin, a 'model of how to screw things up.'
Bob Avakian negative
Žižek wrote an introduction to one of his books but criticizes the cult of personality around him and says his texts do not justify the genius status claimed.
Cited for the concept of 'patriotic bourgeoisie' and for the irony of a Chinese anniversary film portraying Mao as already anticipating capitalist restoration.
Walter Benjamin positive
Defended against liberal sanitization; Žižek insists Benjamin's divine violence involves actual lethal brutality and that his mythic/divine violence distinction is key to understanding the law's founding crime.
Søren Kierkegaard positive
Cited for a passage mocking a medieval theologian's proof of God's existence, producing the image of God as trembling constitutional monarch, Žižek's 'materialist theology.'
Niels Bohr positive
Implicitly on the winning side of the Bohr-Einstein debate on quantum indeterminacy, which Žižek uses to support open ontology.
Croatian communist politician who reportedly gave a press conference telling jokes about his own stupidity (Sistine Chapel/cappelle confusion) as part of the desperate late-communist strategy of appropriating transgression.
Described as 'manager in chief of American imperialism' with no illusions, but credits him for touching something genuinely traumatic in US ideology with universal healthcare.
Sigmund Freud positive
Central theoretical reference throughout; Žižek draws on the Strafbedürfnis, the Dostoevsky essay, the myth of the primordial father, crowd psychology (church vs. army), and the super-ego paradox.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Referenced for the master-servant dialectic (which Lacan is said to correct), for knowing 'what dies on the cross is God of beyond,' and for dialectical thinking generally.
Simon Critchley negative
Attacked for reinscribing Benjamin's divine violence into liberal coordinates, reading it as 'a little bit of violence when there is no other way,' which Žižek says is the opposite of Benjamin's meaning.
Albert Einstein negative
His 'God doesn't cheat' formula is used as the foil; Žižek's materialist inversion is that God is constantly ontologically cheated.
Thomas Aquinas positive
Quoted extensively from Summa Theologica on the saints watching the damned suffer; Žižek uses his argumentation to reveal the surplus enjoyment structure and the Freudian reversal of cause and rationalization.
Maurizio Lazzarato positive
His concept of the 'indebted man' is cited as providing the general structure of super-ego subjectivity as constituted by endless guilt-debt.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky positive
Analyzed via Freud's Dostoevsky and Parricide: the criminal as redeemer who bears collective guilt; also surprised appreciation that Alyosha was to become a revolutionary terrorist in the unfinished sequel.
What it argues
super-ego as double injunction: official prohibition concealing obscene command to enjoyenjoyment as learned and performed for the Other's gaze, never spontaneousinherent transgression as constitutive underside of law and social institutionsideological guilt-individualization through ecology, political correctness, and charitythe criminal as redeemer who bears collective guiltcrowd formation as escape from super-ego guilt structuredivine violence, Benjamin, and the watering-down of revolutionary thought
Dialectical moves 11
“The more you obey the commands of the super-ego the more you are guilty; if you are innocent you are even more guilty.”
The super-ego's double bind means compliance increases guilt rather than resolving it, because the real injunction is to transgress.
“If there is no God then everything is prohibited—a totally regulated permissive hedonist community is the most controlled of all.”
Žižek inverts the Dostoevskyian formula: the absence of divine authority does not produce freedom but rather hyper-regulation of every detail of conduct.
“The moment we become really guilty—brutal nationalists doing horrible things—we experience ourselves as innocent.”
The more one is factually guilty the more one feels subjectively innocent, because crowd/nationalist formation dissolves the super-ego guilt structure.
“Enjoying divine justice effectively functions as a rationalization, the moral cover-up for sadistically enjoying the neighbor's eternal suffering.”
What Aquinas presents as the cause (admiring divine justice) is actually the effect that rationalizes the real drive: sadistic pleasure at the other's pain.
“The criminal is almost a redeemer who has taken on himself the guilt which must have otherwise been born by others; we can only be innocent because another one did it for us.”
Innocence before the law is parasitic on the criminal's act: legal subjects are constituted through the crime they did not commit but desired.
“What dies on the cross is not Jesus Christ but God of beyond—any transcendent guarantee.”
The crucifixion signals the death of a guaranteeing divinity, not the sacrifice of a person, and the Holy Spirit is the name for collective freedom without a transcendent master.
“Death drive is Freud's name for immortality. The undead who are not alive but paradoxically also not dead—that's the death drive.”
Žižek inverts the common reading: the death drive is not about wanting to die but about an insistence that persists beyond both life and death.
“Beneath the apparently modest humility of Western liberal guilt ('we are always to blame') lies an extreme arrogance: only we Westerners are truly free universal agents.”
Endless self-flagellation for colonial sins paradoxically reasserts Western exceptionalism by treating non-Western peoples as mere victims of Western actions.
“We are hypocrites who pretend to enjoy illicit sex while secretly preferring chastity—the opposite of what we usually say.”
The Slovenian film reverses the standard hypocrite: instead of pretending virtue while sinning, the girl performs sin while remaining virtuous, to force the big Other to openly command her.
“The lesson of quantum physics is: yes, God does not cheat, but God is constantly cheated.”
The materialist answer to Einstein reverses the formula: reality beneath the wave-function collapse is open, so the 'view from nowhere' is always outmaneuvered by what happens just beneath the surface.
“Super-ego interpellates subjects into individuals—the reverse of Althusser's formula that ideology interpellates individuals into subjects.”
Where ideology makes individuals into subjects of a collective, super-ego isolates each subject into a unique individual confronted alone with their guilt.
Claims 15
asserts
The super-ego's true injunction is to enjoy/transgress precisely what it officially prohibits, so that one is guilty whether one obeys or violates the prohibition.super-ego
asserts
Enjoyment—from smoking and drinking to sex and collective violence—is never spontaneous but always an acquired, imitated, ritualized performance directed at the Other's gaze.enjoyment and jouissance
asserts
The ecological, politically correct, and charity discourses of contemporary society function as super-ego ideology by individualizing guilt and diverting attention from systemic structural critique.ideology and political correctness
asserts
Pedophilia in the Catholic Church is not an accidental deviation of individual priests but constitutes part of the Church's obscene institutional identity, just as ritualized gang violence is part of local gang culture.inherent transgression and institutions
reframes
Crowd/nationalist formation is a false escape from the super-ego guilt structure, not a genuine alternative, because it merely makes one 'really guilty' in order to feel innocent.nationalism and crowd formation
asserts
Liberals who constantly self-examine for Islamophobia or racism reproduce a patronizing Eurocentrism that denies the Other the status of a responsible adult agent.Western liberal guilt and Eurocentrism
asserts
Syriza's gradualist demands (clean state apparatus, modest reforms) are genuinely revolutionary in the Greek context because realizing them requires more radical measures.Syriza and leftist strategy
asserts
Ultra-radical leftist critics of Syriza, who demand pure avant-garde revolution, serve the same function as if they were paid by bourgeois-fascist committees to ensure nothing changes.pseudo-radical leftism
asserts
The death drive is Freud's name for a form of immortality—an insistence beyond life and death—not a wish for self-annihilation, and it should not be identified with super-ego or masochism.death drive
asserts
Benjamin's divine violence is actual lethal violence and should be defended against liberal attempts to sanitize it into a symbolic rupture where no one is hurt.Benjamin's divine violence
asserts
The Christian message is that what dies on the cross is not Jesus but God-as-transcendent-guarantee, and the Holy Spirit signifies that no higher power will return—freedom is the gift.Christianity and materialism
asserts
Being a legal subject means being constituted as a potential criminal through shared guilt at the foundational crime (parricide), which is why innocence before the law entails the deepest guilt.law, guilt, and subjectivity
reframes
Pleasure is on the side of the servant, not the master, in Hegel's master-servant dialectic, because the master lives in anxiety while the servant enjoys secret niches of transgression.Hegel's master-servant dialectic
asserts
The super-ego interpellates subjects into individuals (Balibar's reversal of Althusser), addressing each person uniquely with guilt and responsibility rather than dissolving individuality into the crowd.super-ego and ideology
asserts
What is repressed by police and public discourse in ritualized violent crimes (Ciudad Juárez, Vancouver Native women) is not their brutality but their collective, ritualistic, symbolic character.ritualized violence and ideology
Quotes 15
“The more you obey the commands of the super-ego the more you are guilty. The super-ego is basically saying in any case you are guilty.”Slavoj Žižek · super-ego's paradoxical double bind
“It is not the crime which causes the guilt feeling and punishment, it is the need to be punished which generates guilt feeling and gives birth to criminal intentions.”Slavoj Žižek · Strafbedürfnis: punishment precedes crime
“A subject of law is by definition a potential criminal.”Slavoj Žižek · legal subjectivity constituted through guilt
“Happiness doesn't function without this excess of seeing the other suffer.”Slavoj Žižek · envy and surplus enjoyment
“It's more satisfying to see the other suffering than your own happiness.”Slavoj Žižek · primacy of envy over positive enjoyment
“The transgressive commotion that annoys the teacher is effectively directed at him. It is not spontaneous amusement but something performed for the teacher.”Slavoj Žižek · transgression as performance for authority
“The more you try not to offend Muslims the more they claim we offend them. The more they play this super-ego role.”Slavoj Žižek · Western liberal guilt as super-ego trap
“If you are liberal and prohibit me to assert my peculiar identity like you know if I organize dancing some German or English dances it's almost you are a fascist. Did you notice how if we assert our particular culture we are a fascist if the others do it it's emancipation.”Slavoj Žižek · asymmetry of permitted identity politics
“The ultimate racist fantasy of leftist liberals is that we can at least be the ultimate bad guys.”Slavoj Žižek · Western liberal guilt as inverted Eurocentrism
“What dies on the cross it's not Jesus Christ it's as Hegel knew it it's God of beyond. What dies on the cross is any transcendent guarantee.”Slavoj Žižek · materialist reading of the crucifixion
“Death drive is something which insists beyond life and death... death drive if anything is Freudian name for immortality.”Slavoj Žižek · death drive as immortality, not self-destruction
“Benjamin says divine violence is an instrument without an end. The whole point of divine violence is that it's not an instrument for achieving a goal.”Slavoj Žižek · divine violence as end in itself, not means
“To demand small modest things, like a clean efficient state apparatus, is a revolutionary thing to do and involves, if you really want to realize it, much more radical measures.”Slavoj Žižek · modest demands as revolutionary entry point
“Sex must be unhealthy you must be feeling the world should fall apart at the horrors that I'm doing you know.”Slavoj Žižek · guilt as constitutive of genuine sexual experience
“The God doesn't see what happens just beneath the surface—God is constantly ontologically cheated.”Slavoj Žižek · quantum indeterminacy as open ontology against Einstein
Transcript 11 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Does it work? Yes. No, you know why I don't want to wait? Because if I begin while some people are still coming in, then I make them feel guilty a little bit and I get an psychological advantage, you know? It's always, I mean, that's how I was taught when secret police, communist secret police trained me how to terrorize people, at least people think. Okay, now today is a big disappointment because I will, two days ago it was really I got totally confused, I was tired, I jumped from one topic to the other, now today it will be much more boring because I will really do something that I hate to do, I will really systematically go into the notion of super-ego in a boring way, maybe repeating some stuff that you already know, but it will be much more systematic and so on. Okay, so who are the people, well there will not be enough people to feel guilty I [unintelligible]. No, okay whatever. Okay, I will nonetheless begin so that we don't lose time. Have patience. This will be almost no improvisation. I would like to begin with a case I already mentioned here but I would like to elaborate it more in detail. You told me you will not be here because I wanted to make fun of you, but now you are here, I cannot, my God. You will still make fun. No, no. No, let me nonetheless begin with a three minutes in honoring Kosta's political improvisation when some leftists attack me, you know there is some stupid message on the net like, Žižek supports the social-democratic turn of Syriza or whatever. You know what they, again, you know what they don't see that, first, they attack me for supporting bourgeoisie, they attack me for the term patriotic bourgeoisie. But they didn't get the irony. And the joke is that they pretend to be Maoists. You know that this is an old Maoist term. When Mao took over, he said, we must unconditionally get on our side the patriotic bourgeoisie. And even, did you see, ah, if you want to do a cultural analysis, you should see, you know in China every ten years they shoot a movie every, I mean, at every ten years anniversary decade of '49 of the communist takeover, they shoot a movie, a history of how communists take over, no, Civil War in China, revolution, whatever you call it. And then the joke is that you should see the last one, how the last one from how obviously they learn their lesson from Hollywood. They got all the big stars that we even in the West know for these small roles, you know. Like when a progressive bourgeois journalist interviews Mao, he is Jackie Chan, of course, you know. And then Mao answers blah blah blah he is immediately seduced, then, you know that beautiful young actress, there are two beauties there, Gong Li now the older one and Zhang Ziyi the young one. She at the end after communist takeover she is seen with a couple of women debating with Mao what should be the new communist flag. And it's almost eroticized, like she makes a proposal and then Mao looks at her with obvious desire, yes, I support the young comrade, this is a good proposal and so on. But the reason I'm saying this is that there is a wonderful comical scene, for me comical, where obviously, you know, they want to instrumentalize the past to justify the present, of course. The present is what? The rule of capital, capitalism. So it's a wonderful scene, I mean, it would take too much time for me to show it to you. It's Mao after, after Red Army takes over Beijing, Mao walks along a street with a couple of guards and sees a tobacco store, no, and asks his guard, can you jump in, let's go in, I want to buy my favorite cigarettes, no. And then the guard tells him, sorry comrade Mao, this chain is owned by a rich capitalist and he escaped, it doesn't work. And then Mao says, are you trying to tell me that now I cannot even buy in Beijing my favorite cigarettes? And then Mao says, the Deng Xiaoping thought, listen, now we communists took over, but even if it takes decades, at some point we will have to bring back capitalists. You know, like Mao already knew everything in advance. I like that, you know. So what I'm saying is that this stupid accusation, social-democratic turn and so on, they really don't know how a process of change starts. I mean, you never begin with the big revolution. You begin with the small step, with a demand which may appear normal and then you get caught into the process. You know, like we want this. But then you discover if you really want this, we have also to change that and so on and so on. In concrete Greek situation, that's the point. To to demand small modest things, like a clean efficient state apparatus, is a revolutionary thing to do and involves, if you really want to realize it, much more radical measures. So I think that it's a very comfortable position to be radical and claim we want to wait for the pure, pure position when an avant-garde party will take over. I claim this is the most comfortable position which makes it sure that absolutely nothing will happen. Or to be extremely brutal, I wonder if you agree Kosta. The types who, those idiots who approach Syriza for being too revisionist, no, we need clear avant-garde organization, let's say the two of us, if we were to be together heading some secret bourgeois fascist committee which has certain money at its disposal, of whom to bribe among the leftists to make it sure that nothing will happen, I would have immediately financed those pseudo-radical leftists. You know, which is why, I don't know if you know the situation in United States, that new
Does it work? Yes. No, you know why I don't want to wait? Because if I begin while some people are still coming in, then I make them feel guilty a little bit and I get an psychological advantage, you know? It's always, I mean, that's how I was taught when secret police, communist secret police trained me how to terrorize people, at least people think. Okay, now today is a big disappointment because I will, two days ago it was really I got totally confused, I was tired, I jumped from one topic to the other, now today it will be much more boring because I will really do something that I hate to do, I will really systematically go into the notion of super-ego in a boring way, maybe repeating some stuff that you already know, but it will be much more systematic and so on. Okay, so who are the people, well there will not be enough people to feel guilty I [unintelligible]. No, okay whatever. Okay, I will nonetheless begin so that we don't lose time. Have patience. This will be almost no improvisation. I would like to begin with a case I already mentioned here but I would like to elaborate it more in detail. You told me you will not be here because I wanted to make fun of you, but now you are here, I cannot, my God. You will still make fun. No, no. No, let me nonetheless begin with a three minutes in honoring Kosta's political improvisation when some leftists attack me, you know there is some stupid message on the net like, Žižek supports the social-democratic turn of Syriza or whatever. You know what they, again, you know what they don't see that, first, they attack me for supporting bourgeoisie, they attack me for the term patriotic bourgeoisie. But they didn't get the irony. And the joke is that they pretend to be Maoists. You know that this is an old Maoist term. When Mao took over, he said, we must unconditionally get on our side the patriotic bourgeoisie. And even, did you see, ah, if you want to do a cultural analysis, you should see, you know in China every ten years they shoot a movie every, I mean, at every ten years anniversary decade of '49 of the communist takeover, they shoot a movie, a history of how communists take over, no, Civil War in China, revolution, whatever you call it. And then the joke is that you should see the last one, how the last one from how obviously they learn their lesson from Hollywood. They got all the big stars that we even in the West know for these small roles, you know. Like when a progressive bourgeois journalist interviews Mao, he is Jackie Chan, of course, you know. And then Mao answers blah blah blah he is immediately seduced, then, you know that beautiful young actress, there are two beauties there, Gong Li now the older one and Zhang Ziyi the young one. She at the end after communist takeover she is seen with a couple of women debating with Mao what should be the new communist flag. And it's almost eroticized, like she makes a proposal and then Mao looks at her with obvious desire, yes, I support the young comrade, this is a good proposal and so on. But the reason I'm saying this is that there is a wonderful comical scene, for me comical, where obviously, you know, they want to instrumentalize the past to justify the present, of course. The present is what? The rule of capital, capitalism. So it's a wonderful scene, I mean, it would take too much time for me to show it to you. It's Mao after, after Red Army takes over Beijing, Mao walks along a street with a couple of guards and sees a tobacco store, no, and asks his guard, can you jump in, let's go in, I want to buy my favorite cigarettes, no. And then the guard tells him, sorry comrade Mao, this chain is owned by a rich capitalist and he escaped, it doesn't work. And then Mao says, are you trying to tell me that now I cannot even buy in Beijing my favorite cigarettes? And then Mao says, the Deng Xiaoping thought, listen, now we communists took over, but even if it takes decades, at some point we will have to bring back capitalists. You know, like Mao already knew everything in advance. I like that, you know. So what I'm saying is that this stupid accusation, social-democratic turn and so on, they really don't know how a process of change starts. I mean, you never begin with the big revolution. You begin with the small step, with a demand which may appear normal and then you get caught into the process. You know, like we want this. But then you discover if you really want this, we have also to change that and so on and so on. In concrete Greek situation, that's the point. To to demand small modest things, like a clean efficient state apparatus, is a revolutionary thing to do and involves, if you really want to realize it, much more radical measures. So I think that it's a very comfortable position to be radical and claim we want to wait for the pure, pure position when an avant-garde party will take over. I claim this is the most comfortable position which makes it sure that absolutely nothing will happen. Or to be extremely brutal, I wonder if you agree Kosta. The types who, those idiots who approach Syriza for being too revisionist, no, we need clear avant-garde organization, let's say the two of us, if we were to be together heading some secret bourgeois fascist committee which has certain money at its disposal, of whom to bribe among the leftists to make it sure that nothing will happen, I would have immediately financed those pseudo-radical leftists. You know, which is why, I don't know if you know the situation in United States, that new
unknown
revolutionary arrest Badiou for what he says. Sorry? And arrest Badiou.
revolutionary arrest Badiou for what he says. Sorry? And arrest Badiou.
Slavoj Žižek
No, you are not evil enough, that's why I suspect your social democracy. I want to terrorize him so that, you know, you arrest his son blah blah, so then I want Alain to come voluntarily up and confess, you know. You just exert a little bit of pressure, like you know, ah, you have a son, really, that's interesting, you know. You know when a policeman tells you this, it can be much worse than if a policeman just beats you directly, no. Just oh you have a nice daughter or something like that, then you confess everything, you know. Okay, sorry, let me go on seriously now. In his no, because again what I worry is that I agree here with you. Are we aware what a unique thing happened in Greece? There were protests all around Europe. Nowhere else was it possible from this wild protest, okay, not wild, wild simply in the sense of a little bit chaotic and so on, to transform there into a minimally organized party. And it has a unique chance, and to ruin this on an account of some orthodoxy of this is not radical communist revolution is madness. But let me now really begin. I would like to begin with theology and more and more I'm interested in theology. Like I don't know if I already talked about this the last time I was here, but for example recently I found in Kierkegaard an incredible passage where he mocks but is obviously fascinated by some medieval theologian who claims that that he can prove, okay the situation is this one, I will not go into who says this. The idea is that for God to truly exist, intelligent sophisticated theologians have to prove his existence, you know so that as it were God is trembling there, oh my God, what if they prove that I don't exist, will I disappear or whatever. So and then Kierkegaard has a wonderful metaphor, he says God is here like a constitutional monarch, trembling like will, will the assembly agree to his powers as a as a constitutional monarch or whatever. So I like this idea, the supreme power trembling like no, do I really exist, doubting if he exists at all. This would be what I call materialist theology. But let me go into much more perverse waters. In his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas draw the conclusion that the blessed in the kingdom of heaven up there will see the punishments of the damned in order that their bliss be more delightful for them. And St. John Bosco another theologian draw the same conclusion but in the opposite direction. The damned in hell will also be able to see the joy of those in heaven which will add to their suffering. Here are their well worth reading Aquinas's two formulations of this claim. They are both from Summa Theologica from third part question if you want references. First quote, "Nothing should be denied the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their beatitude. Wherefore, in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned." Or second passage, "That the saints may enjoy the beatitude more thoroughly and give more abundant thanks for it to God, a perfect sight of the punishment of the damned is granted to them." End of quote. Aquinas of course is well aware of possible obscene implications of this, I mean because basically the good souls in heaven find pleasure in observing the terrible suffering of other souls which is not exactly a Christian feeling of mercy. But he proceeds in two lines here, Aquinas. First, he begins by the thesis that in heaven the blessed will enjoy full illumination of their minds and knowledge is also a blessing and perfection which should not be denied to the saints. So if the saints in heaven were to be ignorant of the damned, this would be a denial of the blessing of knowledge. Consequently the saints in heaven will possess a greater knowledge including a greater knowledge of hell, even seeing it. It's tricky but maybe it works. But next problem: good Christians should feel pity when they see suffering. Will the blessed in heaven also feel pity for the torments of the damned? Aquinas: No, they will not feel pity, is grounded in a very tricky hair-splitting argumentation. Here is another quote, "Seeing the punishment of the wicked, the righteous ones have no pity. Whoever pities another shares somewhat in his unhappiness, but the blessed cannot share in anyone's unhappiness, therefore they do not pity the afflictions of the damned." Then there is the second line of argumentation: Aquinas tries to refute the notion that the blessed in heaven gain joy from the punishment of the damned in a direct obscene direct obscene way. He introduces here a distinction between two modes of enjoying a thing. Again the last quote from Aquinas: "A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First, directly, when one rejoices a thing in a thing as such and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Second, indirectly, by reason of something annexed to it and it is in this way that the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of divine justice and their own deliverance which will fill them with joy. And thus the divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed, while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly." End of quote. The problem of this explanation is of course that the relationship between the two levels is effectively turned around. Enjoying divine justice effectively functions as a rationalization, the moral cover-up for sadistically enjoying the neighbor's eternal suffering. You see my point, Aquinas says okay you don't enjoy suffering as such but you see in it the majesty of divine justice and that's what really fills you with pleasure. But there is always a Freudian suspicion that what if it is the other way around, you know? What that if you pretend that you just think, maybe even sincerely, I just admire the divine justice but really is the sadistic pleasure at the other's suffering. Again, what makes Aquinas's formulation suspicious is the surplus enjoyment it introduces. As if the simple pleasure of living in the bliss of heaven is not enough and has to be supplemented by an additional surplus enjoyment of being allowed to take a look at another's suffering. Only in this way the blessed souls as Aquinas wrote, I repeat it, "may enjoy their beatitude more thoroughly." So again, the idea is that you see, it's the idea is that it's a suspicion which is wonderfully true that heaven may be a little bit boring, you know, and to spice it up, you know, like like you need a little bit of hell. Like we can clearly imagine here a scene in heaven. Some blessed souls start to complain that the nectar they were served was not as tasty as the last time, that the blissful life up there is rather boring after all. And then an angel serving them would snap back, you don't like it here, ah take a look at how life is down there at the other end and maybe you will see how lucky you are up here. So there is always this type of suspicion. But my favorite dream here a scene would have been to imagine the exact opposite of John Bosco's vision. And I think this is the libidinal truth of all of it. The true scene which underlines all this variation is imagine life in hell as what it really is, I claim: intense pleasurable life, orgies and so on whatever you want. Only the problem is that you do this secretly back in hell, no? And then from time to time when the devil's administrators of hell learn that the blessed soul from heaven will control them, will be allowed to look at them, they briefly they they collect gather the damned souls and tell them, listen guys, we have fun here but those up shouldn't know it so can you for half an hour pretend that you suffer, do those gestures to satisfy them up and then the fun goes on and so on, you know? That's the truth of it I think. But again, what we find here and that's the whole logic of envy, of object a and so on that happiness doesn't function without this excess of seeing the other suffer. And I claim that most of us, if we bring this tension to extreme and pose a dilemma, okay, what would you prefer: to have just your happiness without knowing of the suffering of the others or just to see the other suffer but you deprived of your happiness? I claim that almost all of us would effectively choose the second option. It's more satisfying to see the other suffering than your own happiness. Next paradox by way of which I will approach super-ego. I heard that now they are reunited Monty Python and that performance was sold out in like seconds and so on. Okay, to celebrate them I would like to describe to you very briefly my favorite scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. You know that episode where they see the sexual education in future, no, where like teacher the teacher is addressing the class and asking this is always my favorite scene, asking the pupils okay you stand up, three ways to arouse vagina. And the guy starts to stutter oh oh and then the teacher tells him ah you didn't practice this yesterday evening what were you doing instead of preparing stupidities like this. But but I want to begin with the just with the very beginning of this episode. It shows pupils in a class awaiting for the teacher to arrive. They are bored, sitting at their benches, yawning, staring in the air. Then one of them, of the pupils standing close to the door shouts, the teacher is coming. And then the pupils explode into wild activity, you know, shouting, throwing papers around and shaking their tables and so on. All the stuff pupils in a class are supposed to do when the teacher is absent. You know, this is the nice subversion of the standard scene that we imagine. Pupils are wild in a class then the teacher enters they have to calm down. No, this is the libidinal truth. Without the presence of the teacher's gaze the pupils are just bored, they don't know what to do. And when they learn that the the teacher is approaching, they they stage the protest. You know where I witnessed something of this, this may be a very a very problematic political point for you but I think it's a wonderful story. A friend, a Slovenian journalist told me that one, no I didn't mention it two days ago, I'm getting confused, in Palestine in what is south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, no? Okay, this was in a time when it was much less tension than now, those Clinton years where it looked as if maybe there will be peace. And in north of Bethlehem on the main road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is a monument to some Israeli I don't know historical heroine whatever. The point is although this was Palestinian territory controlled by PLO, that monument was guarded by Israeli soldiers. And there were daily demonstrations, the Palestinian youth throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. And it was just a daily ritual. Okay so my friend a Slovenian journalist who was very much on Palestinian side of course was told by a Palestinian, if you want to see what truly goes on come there one hour earlier. He came there at ten at eleven and he saw you can imagine what, Palestinian young people and Israeli soldiers talking, exchanging cigarettes and so on. And then somebody shouted CNN is coming and they okay sorry we step back, they started to throw some stones. Then the guy shouted half an hour later CNN is leaving and then they said okay we see you tomorrow again thanks. I mean it was a wonderful ritual I think, you know. And the sad thing is that today that's the true tension when unfortunately these rituals no longer go on. So what these what such scenes make clear is that, now I am returning to the scene from Monty Python, that the transgressive commotion that annoys the teacher is effectively directed at him. It is not spontaneous amusement but something performed for the teacher. You know where, I'm sorry if I repeat myself but I really want to go through this perverse logic which sustains super-ego. A movie that I maybe mentioned not two days ago but a year ago when I was here, I really like it more and more I saw it again with my son, it's a shitty movie of course only movies that I like. Did you see Project X? No it was a modest hit a year and a half ago. It's story which is basically based on a real event. It happened also around year and a half, two years ago in Belgium, very mysterious. A local girl in some shitty small city there, probably if I refer to what I think wasn't I saying this here two days ago, you know, probably the daughter of one of those farmers who were signaling the Germans you know with whatever with laundry how they just put on her website that she wants to have a party if some of her friends want to join it. And I'm not dreaming, this was I saw it on TV report, this was reported in all media. You know what happened the same evening? to people came. The whole city was under siege. And something similar happens here, Project X. A couple of nerds want to organize a party to raise their status in their high school. And then of course thousands of people arrive and it's a sacred event, a modern sacred event, a kind of a sacred orgy. But something else I want to emphasize here. Before the evening they do this in the private house of one of the boys and his father because his father goes for a weekend trip with mother. And father tells him, listen, strictly maximum five friends don't touch my car everything should happen in the living room don't enter other rooms. Of course then there are people there, the car is burned, five houses are burned, police intervenes. Now comes the crucial thing. Then next day father comes home and something wonderful happens. Father says to the son, listen, you did a horrible thing you will have to work years repaying the debt, but I must tell you something, you did it, I didn't think you have the guts to do it. You know, and I think that this is how authentic paternal authority, even traditional one works. It it pretends to prohibit it but it allows you a niche, you know. Like it's a call: do it, violate it. And I think, and I think I even then gathered in one of my texts some historical examples of this. Like I read in a book about Catherine the Great, the Russian Empress, no. How once her servant informed her that her other servants are stealing liquors and expensive candy and she says of course I know it, I just pretend not to notice it, I know it, that's how I keep them at their place, you know. This is I think a nice, I don't have time to develop it fully now but this is in what sense Lacan in his critique of Hegel is right to claim that in the dialectic of master and servant the pleasure is on the side of the servant. That Hegel is wrong who thinks the servant just works, the master enjoys. No, the master's enjoyment is full of anxiety. You know, the master all the time worries and looks at the slave like did I convince the servant by my dignity. And the only enjoyment are those niches where the slave like where the slave thinks he can enjoy out of the master's gaze. But the whole point of this enjoyment is that you annoy you think you annoy the master, you think you treat the master and so on and so on. And according to some theologians, maybe I'm going too far here but I read it in some books. This is how they interpret the mysterious exact formulation in Commandments, you know. Don't celebrate other gods. But as I was told by my Israeli friends, it's not just this, the commandment says don't celebrate other gods in my presence. This is crucial, you know. It's as if what do you do back in your home it's your business just not publicly in my presence. And again, I think that this is how Lacan I don't have it here in a wonderful passage claims that it's absolutely crucial for the traditional master's gaze to leave a space, a secret niche where his message to the servant is I don't see and I don't want to know I don't want to see what you are doing there. And I claim among other things that that in communism they they mastered perfectly this art. These unseen pleasure were political jokes, no. And I think that up to a point it's not as direct as that but it's an interesting paranoia that there were rumors persistent rumors in Soviet Union in my country, ex-Yugoslavia, that there is an ultra secret department of the secret police where they fabricate these joke to keep the population happy, you know, like better they are telling the jokes against us. And I must say some of these jokes are not mega funny but they do have spirit. I almost prefer I think that I don't mean it this time as the joke but seriously. I think that maybe the greatest cultural fiasco lost of the fall of communism was the disappearance of these intelligent political jokes. And it's incredibly I don't know if I already told you this one how well they elaborated you have even different variations for example maybe you know this one I'm sorry. A Yugoslavian politician who was supposed to be stupid, he visits Germany and the train passes, you know, the city close to Frankfurt, Baden-Baden, no? And there are even two versions. One is he asks what for a city is this his guide. The German guide says Baden-Baden. You know what the Yugoslavian politician answers: I'm not an idiot you don't have to tell me two times, you know. But there is even a better version, I learned it recently that the the Yugoslavian politician asks a German politician, which city are you coming from? He says Baden-Baden. So the Yugoslavian idiot thought then that for the Germans you have to tell it two times and then when the other guy asks him, from which city you are coming, he says Belgrade-Belgrade, you know like as if okay in Germany you tell it twice. I mean there were there were so it was such an art and I think again that the relationship was very ambiguous. Of course you were arrested for telling them but it was clearly an immanent transgression. The message was, you know, you were arrested if you were to quote the Bible, the Old Testament, if you were telling jokes in front in the face of Jehovah or Stalin or whoever, no. If you did it this which is why which is okay, of course you have then these cheap jokes which react to this fact the idea is that when Honecker is German met Willy Brandt, was it Schmidt? I think it was still Brandt, doesn't matter. That Brandt Willy Brandt told told him oh I connect I what are you what is your hobby no no. Honecker asked Brandt what is your hobby. Willy Brandt says I collect jokes about me. And you know what Honecker answers: I collect people in my prison who are telling jokes about me and so on you know. But but nonetheless, again, it's absolutely crucial and this was I think the sublime moment when a regime falls apart what was an inherent transgression but a transgression which nonetheless you know it remained a transgression although it was part of the system. In utter despair, I remember in Yugoslavia somewhere from '85 '86 on, in utter because they saw the writing on the wall, the sign our rule is over so to regain or retain at least popularity they mobilized this transgression and you had an incredible thing you had politicians, especially from Croatia, interesting, who were publicly reporting telling jokes about themselves. Like I couldn't believe it, once a Croat politician forgot his name what is Mika Špiljak or who visited Rome and then came back and at a press conference to journalists you know journalists expected the usual boring you know I met the Italian representatives and we concluded oh further friendship between our nations all the bullshit, no. He started by telling the whole series of jokes very stupid one but I like them, of course making fun of his stupidity, you know. Because you know that Sistine Chapel, Chapel it's also cappelle, Chapel like Cappelle and you know in in Italy and Austria, cappelle means also you find this if you know classical music like Dresden-Leipziger Stadt-Cappelle, cappelle means a small orchestra no. And okay then for example he said there was a mess in Italy. First they told me to go and to go and see Sistine Chapel but I call all the cafeteria nowhere was playing the Sistine Chapel no. Then he said they told me to visit Marriage of Figaro. I called all the churches Figaro was nowhere getting married and so on you like. But you know the obscenity was that the guy himself you know it was a very desperate strategy where you directly bring out the hidden underside no. It was the same, I'm sorry if I repeat myself but you are too young to even hear them you know projecting them. For example, the nicest point of this obscenity was in Slovenia in the last years of communism when you know in the 70s already there was this miracle even now it still goes on, Međugorje, Virgin Mary appearing. It was a mega miracle, for some years it was second largest pilgrimage site after Lourdes, no. Okay there Virgin Mary the usual bullshit no and the the Bosnian communists, this was still communist era were simply stupid with no business sense you know. They said no we don't want to support and they made a most stupid thing you can imagine. Because Italian travel agencies took over and earned about at least billion dollars. It was plain stupidity. My Slovene communists were already totally business oriented and they were furious at Bosnians like my God the country is in a crisis do business. So then, I'm sorry if you know the story, then the miracle happened. Close to Ljubljana, between Ljubljana and Ljubljana Airport, Ljubljana capital of Slovenia at some crossing there was also a small statue of Mary and this statue started to do what they are paid to do supposed to do, no know moving a little bit some tears of blood and so on. And the communists jumped of joy. My God, we will teach the Bosnians how you do it, they immediately hired architect the plan, built a big hotel, theological seminary, all was done. But then a catastrophe happened. The local priest said no this is superstition this is not a miracle. And then I have it at home then a miracle happened. In the official weekly, the most official of the communist party, this priest was attacked for non-patriotic behavior like wait a minute he's supposed to support our economy to help country it's a miracle what with this atheist atheist bullshit there and so on you know. This is for me the moment of miracle when you get this how should put this this discursive paradox where one discourse still remains what it is but starts to imitate how should put it you know like wants to accommodate to the another discourse and then you get this ridiculous scenes of communists demanding to and so on. But if you think that this is an exception, Chinese today are doing the same you know that they have a polemic who will be about they you have Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama no. Panchen Lama is crucial because when this Dalai Lama dies who will be the new one? And the vote of the other Lama is crucial. So there are now two Panchen Lamas. One the Dalai Lama recognizes and another one in China. They claim that this is the true reincarnation. And this Chinese Panchen Lama what a miracle was was born of course in a high nomenclature communist family and so on no. Okay so you know I couldn't stop laughing a Chinese friend gave me the official Chinese text translated it to me. You know what's their accusation of Dalai Lama is that no they faked it there Dalai Lama the communist one there were the real miracles and then they enumerate them you know like when immediately after falling out of her mother's womb he already recited Buddha and so on whatever no. But I like it so and now my favorite story I'm sorry if I repeat myself happened of this inconsistency of discourses in Slovenia I'm sorry if you know the story, late 80s when communists were totally desperate knowing that they are losing power, radio student independent radio station as invited for an interview an old communist cadre real great you know the real old cadre. And this guy was desperate. He only was able to speak his stupid official jargon. But the same time he desperately tried to please the young people he knows he must appear friendly to them. So they were merciless, I was totally on the side of this old communist because he was desperate. And they asked him, what about sexuality? Do you make and this directly. And he desperately tried to please the young people but the only language he was able to speak was the communist jargon. So he was telling something like touching women between their legs is a great instigation for my constructing socialism and so on you know. Total obscenities like this you know like the only language he was able to but I think these are the most beautiful moments. These are the moments of the political sublime. So let me go on. The same obscenity holds the general rule which I already mentioned here but I want to develop now a little bit more systematically is that our most intense forms of enjoyment are not spontaneous outbursts but something learned by imitation, an acquired taste. My first example: recall your first experience of smoking or drinking a hard liquor. As a rule admit it, it was an unpleasant experience. You know, like you are with maybe an older friend who tells you do you know what adults are doing you know they drink this and okay he offers you whiskey. Your first reaction admit it is bleh like it's bitter and so on. And cigarette it's the same, like an older colleague offers a young boy a cigarette and he starts to smoke and says ptooie but this is horrible, then you acquire it, it's not spontaneous. Spontaneous is to drink stupid fruit juices or or milk or whatever. Gradually you learn to enjoy it. I claim it's even something of the same order in Coke. I remember my first and then I'm systematically asking my friends: do you remember your first experience with Coke, Coca-Cola? And all of them admitted it, they were told especially in provincial countries or communist you know that's the American drink and so on and then you learn to enjoy it. What is a directly and I to go to the end I claim that it's the same with sex. What is a directly pleasurable is just some stupid rhythmically squeezing yourself maybe masturbation and so on but to enjoy a full act of copulation more than a simple good masturbation is not natural I claim. It's you have to learn it. And again as I already mentioned the last time I think, a similar lesson can be learned from swearing. It may appear that when in the middle of a polite conversation you get really mad you cannot hold back anymore your frustration and you explode like fuck it I have enough of it and so on. But I claim it's not so, as already mentioned it here, I have a ritual with some of my good friends. After we met we meet, we engage for the first five minutes in ritualized sessions of rough tasteless swearing and offending each other, like screw your mother up her ass whatever you want. Then after some minutes we get tired. We acknowledge with a brief nod that this boring ritual is over and okay the duty is over now we can talk kind people that we are and so on and so on. And I think this is a rule that transgressions are not spontaneous. And that's maybe in the background of my polemic, polemic friendly exchange with that Pussy Riot Nadya Tolokonnikova no. I take her very seriously, she is heroic but I claim she underestimates her own heroism in the sense that you know I violently disagree with her famous line which is now quoted, we are children of Dionysus and so on or what. You know I think it's a catastrophic mistake to read the Pussy Riot acts as you know, we have a stiff hierarchic structure, we need a fresh air of outbursts of spontaneity and so on and so on. No, the point is not to re-establish the balance. The point is not that Putin stands for hierarchic order. The point is that hierarchic order is a bad hierarchic order you know. The point is how to change that order. It's not just that balance between. And I claim that she is not aware of what Pussy Riot are really doing. They are not simply bringing in fresh air of provocation, carnival into hierarchic structure. No, their message is you Putin who pretend to be a dignified ruler, you're a clown, you're an obscenity. Because they specifically criticized the link between church and power in Russia. Like remember what they shouted during that provocation in I don't know which church it was directed at the at the how is it called whatever the boss of the of the Patriarch yes shouting Patriarch Alexy or what, believe more in God believe less in Putin and so on and so on. So I think you totally miss the point if you look at it as a simple fresh air of provocation. No, the thesis is that they in the power are the provocation, they are the carnival, they are the they are the obscenity. But let me go on. Now we should apply my next point this lesson also to forms of collective violence like gang rapes and killings. One of the terrifying effects of the fact that today we have different levels of social life like we can have in the same country ultra-modern industry and old patriarchal forms of family is the rise of the violence against women. Not just random violence but systematic violence, violence specific to a certain social context, violence which follows a pattern. Even in India I claim that would be my first example. You remember about a year ago or even less there was the great outcry when five guys in a bus raped a girl. I was opposed to that outburst to that public outrage, don't misunderstand me, not because I think oh the girl deserved it. But but Arundhati Roy with whom I fully sympathize, the Indian writer, made it clear that why such a great outcry about that simply because the guys were from the lower caste poor. If you want to see violence against women she wrote my God go to a whorehouse in in in in Mumbai Bombay and you will see hundreds times more terrible horrors. Do you know that there is a systematic link between Mumbai prostitution rings and poor families in the north of India or in Nepal? They are selling poor farmers there in total despair are selling girls from five years on old to be directly used either used in in in bordellos or sold to individuals. Like everyone knows about it and oh where is the outcry when five poor guys do that. So I think but another point I want to emphasize which is crucial for me. For example I want now to go more in detail into an example that I already mentioned maybe here a year ago, the serial killings of women in Ciudad Juárez at the border of Texas. The point is that these are not just private pathologies but a ritualized activity part of the subculture of local gangs. Because first I mean there is a by Semiitext a book I forgot the author published called *Feminicide* or what which gives a pretty terrifying detailed description of it. The point is that Ciudad Juárez is the capital of this fast assembling industry you know, parts parts manufacture I don't know where in some Chinese Gulag or whatever, no, they just put them together there and up. So they need a lot of not heavily educated workforce so there are many single women there employed. For them it's nonetheless a chance, they are not well paid but at least they earn their living they are autonomous free young women. And this of course is a provocation for male chauvinist logic. So as if to punish them for their independence it happens serially like a couple of dozens cases per year at least and it's pretty even for my bad taste pretty disgusting. Usually it's to people who do it, first it's the gang rape then the slow cutting killing like first with scissors they cut off her breast it's this sub. Why why am I mentioning this? Because when they police investigates ah the first irony. Basically it's a matter of common knowledge everybody knows who are these gangs not one person was arrested for these crimes. And we are talking about dozens of women every year. The only one not arrested but killed was a mother who inquired too much into what happened to her daughter. The the important thing again is that if the police investigates it it what that's crucial. It systematically overlooks, ignores what? Not the brutality of the crime but its let's call it social symbolic ritualized dimension. They desperately try to make it a case of individual pathology, oh that crazy guy that crazy drunk guy did it whatever. What is censored is the collective ritualized character. The you see the link with the stupid jokes that I was telling before, this is not a young people getting drunk and doing a horrible rape or whatever like in their spontaneous violence. No, it's a strictly ritualized thing. They follow a ritual. It's a collective act, symbolic performance. The same thing, now you will say haha it's easy for me to make fun of Mexicans, what about more civilized North. Canada close to Vancouver well you have something similar going on although Canadians like to boast that they are you know they are the part of civilized Europe in America kind of a social-democratic paradise. No, close to Vancouver there are some Native American Indian whatever I prefer to call them Indian Indian reservations. And there also it's practically ritualized young people young white people kidnap a girl from a reservation, torture her and drop her kill her rape her of course and drop her dead just inside the reservation. And when the police investigates it they systematically try to direct investigation into oh it was probably a dissolute family father mother is a whore father is a drug addict whatever you know. What they neglect is not again the brutality of the crime but the social symbolic dimension of it. They try to make it just a kind of a natural decadence you know crazy poor families okay explosion of violence but the point is it's not this, it's a collective act. Again what is repressed for the public gaze is not the cruel brutality of the act but precisely its cultural ritualistic character of a symbolic custom. It's absolutely crucial to insist on this point. These violent acts they are part of our culture, they are the dark side of our culture they are symbolic rituals. They are not just some brutality exploding. The same perverted social ritual logic is at work in the cases of course my eternal example of pedophilia which shatters the Catholic Church. When the church representatives insist that these cases deplorable as they are are church's internal problem and they display great reluctance to collaborate with police they are in a way right. The pedophilia of Catholic priests is not something that concerns merely the persons who because of accidental reasons of private history happen to be pedophiles. It is a phenomenon which concerns Catholic Church as such. You know what I'm trying to say. In the same way that part of the adult culture precisely as a symbolic structure in Ciudad Juárez are these obscure rituals of torturing raping killing the poor girls, in exactly the same way it's crucial to insist that pedophilia it's not just because okay as with every commu- community of course some people are pedophiles and so on. No, it's the obscene underground part of the church's identity. Now you will tell me how do you know it? Well it's absolutely clear if nothing else from the way the church reacts to it. Absolutely protecting them like there were numerous scandals in Slovenia where till recently church was absolutely like there were a couple of cases where parents when they learned that a local priest is systematically raping their small boy, they went to the bishop to a higher authority. And the first thing that the bishop told them is that they should absolutely talk to no one about it, that if they did it they commit a mortal sin. And then they they simply transferred the priest to another part of Slovenia where of course he went on doing on the same thing. What I'm claiming is that this is where for me today critique of ideology begins. To be aware how what may appear as a criminal deviation or whatever how these obscene phenomena are part of symbolic identity of our institutions. And I've written a lot about it at different levels. For example you cannot imagine a traditional conservative American university without all those all those fraternities sororities with all their obscene rituals and so on and so on. I even read once an amusing text after after Abu Ghraib that how what they were doing there to Iraqis is basically the same rituals that they do to new students to in the rituals of their admission and so on and so on. Or with Ku Klux Klan and so on. Another thing I want to mention here and this is really amusing for me at least is how the same attitude emerges in and I like them in the domain of self-help guides. There also we have the official self-help guides you know like how to win new friends how to all the official stuff. But do you know I have some of them that there is a whole series there are some publishers doing them of let's say the the the obscene guides with which imitate the form of these self-help guides but in a slightly more obscene like *Cheaters Always Prosper*, *Advanced Backstabbing and Mud-slinging Techniques*, *Revenge Tactics*, *Spy on Your Spouse* and so on. I have a couple of them and they are very well written. It's for example how to ruin someone your best friend maybe with with rumors without getting caught and so on. My favorite one is of course and I have it: *How to Disappear Completely*. I mean it gives a detailed of how you should prepare your disappearance for example first how you get a in United States the crucial is to get a Social Security number no? How to get this how to go on then and so on and it's it's a wonderful book to read. I mean it works. So now let me go to a step further here. This inherent inconsistency of our ideological or even legal order is not limited just to these obscene phenomena. I think that there is a kind of a necessary inconsistency in our legal structures legal in our legal order itself. Let me quote an example which I mentioned a couple of times in my books, of contemporary China. How do official Chinese communist theorists react when confronted with obvious contradictions? Like a communist party which still legitimizes itself in Marxist terms but renounces Marxism basic premise: the workers self-organization. I think my experience was, and of course tasteless guy as I am, whenever I'm in China I ask this especially when I'm dealing with official philosophers. I ask them these questions and I notice how they mobilize all the resources of traditional Chinese politeness, you know. Basically quite a great number of them I was surprised look around and like you know like why are you it's not polite to ask this question, you know it's as if some impolite secret that you shouldn't mention publicly. And so again why why politeness? Because clearly when you okay they try to give you some stupid answers. Like one answer it was so stupid that I almost appreciated it was when I told them you pretend to be a communist country and and but you strictly prohibit trade unions self- worker self-organization and you support capitalism now. You know one guy answered me in the following way I loved it. He said you are confusing you are confusing leftism with Marxism as science. Leftism talks about working class but Marxism is a science of social development. And Marxism as a science of social development tells us that at the present stage the best instrument to develop China is capitalism. So as okay this stupidities they tell you. But but in a more in a more interesting then there is quite honest opposite attempt. They claim just for historical reason we keep the term communism we are Confucians. They quote you that even in their programmatic statements the goal is no longer called communism but harmonious society or whatever. But the typical answer nonetheless is again politeness. They let you know that even openly one guy told me privately, of course it's true what you are saying. But when you are visiting a friendly country it's not polite to draw attention to such inconsistencies you know. Like you should politely ignore we should politely ignore them. Then I consciously played an idiot and asked them but why don't you formalize this? Why don't you simply say publicly, like it's prohibited to ask in what sense we are a communist country or whatever, no? And then what I wanted to and I did achieve it basically is to force them of course to come as close as possible to this statement that it's not only that something is prohibited but prohibition itself is prohibited. So you know what I mean like it's not only that it's prohibited to ask but in what sense China is communist. But even you cannot even like directly formulate this prohibition. When you ask in China is this still a communist country in what sense, no one will answer you sorry it's prohibited to ask this question, you know. We we have prohibitions which are themselves prohibited. And they are just what happens here? And I say this with all respect. Because this what I will say now refers to what I still see as a potential emancipatory dimension of Islam. And if some of you know it better you can correct me but the way I read from some French leftist Islamic friends is the following. Don't you have a certain ritual, okay I'll put it like this. The origin of mythic of Arab Muslim is supposed to be Hagar, that slave girl with whom Abraham had a son. And then the son became the original where for Western racism the bad guy but nonetheless God intervened and saved and wasn't there a famous scene, isn't this part of the ritual when you go to to Hajj or how it to that pilgrimage, that you have to run between two rocks or some weird ritual like that. And it's clear that this ritual is a mythic repetition of Hagar wandering in desert and so on. The point is what? The point is that this story is never directly mentioned in Quran. It's just enacted, you know it's something has to remain unmentioned implicit support and you enact it in a ritual. I find nothing problematic here. Okay but back to so back to China. I often quote this a title in one report in when I was in Japan, the Japan Times there was a wonderful article called *Even What's Secret is a Secret in China*. Namely someone a local dissident was informing media about some ecological local catastrophes and so on and he was arrested. And then his lawyer asked why is he arrested. Which laws did he break? Like what no? The answer was it's a state secret. Namely not what he disclosed but even the laws that he violated were not were not to be were not to be mentioned. And now I come and now I come slowly to the topic of the super-ego. Have a little bit of patience because I've chosen as my big example something very weird. The first Slovene post-communist film. Post-communist in the it's from It's a sentimental love melodrama, it was the first part was shot even in '53. It was as it were the the liberal opening. Because till that point all Slovene films were either critique of previous society or celebrating partisans you know. This was the first film basically the message to the young people was you have the right to you you can have some fun. Everything is not ideology you are allowed your jokes and so on and so on. It was like symbolic point of opening. So the film I'm talking about it's called in Slovene *Ne čakaj na maj*, *Don't Wait for the Month of May*. It tells the story of a couple of students who are passionately in love with each other. Her name is Vesna she is the daughter of a severe high school mathematics professor, a widower who lives with his unmarried sister, an old spinster maid who never had sex. He, the lover of the girl Vesna is Samo, an amateur sport plane's pilot. Here is the much simplified plot of the film. When the two go onto a short skiing vacation together with a group of friends, Vesna's father, worried about the dangers of a vacation away from her family, asks his spinster sister to accompany his daughter and to keep an eye on her. Supposed to be the gatekeeper the old lady of course ends up typical comedy as the one who brings the lovers together. After some misunderstandings which cause jealousy, the couple finds itself alone but they merely exchange some kisses. Vesna doesn't want to engage in full sex since she wants a lifelong connection, not just a brief affair. But after they return home, Vesna tells her father that she wants to marry. Father sternly prohibits marriage till the couple finishes their studies. Vesna then elaborates a plan. She leaves fall traces indicating that she is already pregnant. For example she as if accidentally forgets on her bed a book on pregnancy or she pretends to have morning sickness and so on and then escapes with Samo with her love. When her father as well as their noisy neighbors learn the news, rumors explode about how and they all complain how promiscuous the young generation is, how they lack elementary moral restraints and so on. Gradually nonetheless father and his sister break down and prepare with joy for the marriage of their daughter and for the child, buying a small bed and so on. Then however when they are all gathered in front of their house, Vesna and Samo, the two lovers, unexpectedly return home telling them that there is no pregnancy since they didn't use the opportunity being alone in the mountains for illicit sexual pleasures. And now comes a wonderful point. The same gossipy neighbors and stern moralists who till that point were saying what a terrible young generation they use every opportunity to have sex. Now they totally shift their cards and start with dismissive sneer say things like you see the boy didn't even use his opportunity I knew all the time he is of no use you cannot even count on today's generation and so on and so on, you know. Even Vesna's father reacts in a disappointed way he the conservative disciplinarian. When Samo's the boy's the lover's mother drops by, she he the great disciplinarian shouts at her what kind of son did you raise he didn't he didn't even know how to get my daughter pregnant. He is not worthy of her and so on and so on. Then you have something wonderful. The couple of lover runs away from this confusion they go on the plane this small sport plane and there Vesna whispers into his eye some words that we don't hear and the end of the film. Of course one can guess these words are now you can fuck me or something like this no. But but what I like here is how the strategy of the girl in faking her pregnancy is pretty complex. Its goal is not just to bring her family to accept her marriage by way of confronting them with a fake fait accompli. It concerns also the inner psychic economy of the couple's love relationship. How to bring themselves to perform sexual act. That is to say it is evident that Vesna doesn't want to follow the path of the simple transgression of violating the norm imposed by the father. Her strategy is not okay we'll do it and then we'll violate the paternal or injunction and then the father will have to accept it to avoid the scandal you know like I'm pregnant I have to get married. No, she doesn't want to defy the big other, his authority. What she wants is not only to have sex within legitimate coordinates, that's why she rejects sex before marriage, but even more perversely she wants to be forced into sex by the very authority whose function is to prohibit it. So in this way she does the opposite of what young lovers usually do. Instead of keeping the appearance of chastity and engaging in sex discreetly out of other's view, she engenders the false appearance of illicit sex while in reality persisting in chastity. The premise is that we are not hypocrites who pretend to be pure and chaste but secretly engage in full sex. On the contrary, we are hypocrites who pretend to enjoy illicit sex while secretly preferring chastity. I found this a wonderful reversal and I'm tempted to act like this. Isn't it wonderful that in front of others yeah I fucked her whatever and then you go home and read Hegel's logic or whatever that brings true pleasure, you know. So the false appearance of illicit pleasures generates obscene expectations which are disappointed. And at this point the girl can finally engage in sex obeying the obscene injunction of the big other. Why? Because again all this function only if we have the big other which plays the double game. Officially it tells you no sex, secretly it tells you but do it, violate it. And what Vesna wants to do is to have this implicit order openly, no? She said no I want the big other openly to tell me what are you waiting get fucked you know and then I will do it. It's a wonderful strategy. This strategy again lays bare the ambiguity of the paternal authority. It forces the authority to openly display its obscene underside. At the same time it demonstrates how a successful sexual act is not just a matter of intimate passions but has to be mediated through the big other of some symbolic authority. Now let me return for a moment to the film's climactic moment when the couple of lovers Vesna and Samo escape their families. The you you I mentioned them you remember the moralistic neighbors whose main business is to poke their noses into other people's affairs. They began to spread rumors that the girl is pregnant they condemned the couple's immoral way of life. The couple returns home and then when it's clear that they did not engage in illegal illegitimate sex, the same gossipy neighbors react critically like you see the boy didn't even use his opportunity I knew all the time he's of no real use and so on and so on. This reaction of the gossipy neighbors again provides a perfect example of how super-ego works. It exerts pressure to impose sexual constraints to impede sexual contact. However beneath this surface appearance its true injunction is do it, enjoy it, I want you to do precisely what I am prohibiting you to do. In other words you are guilty if you violate the prohibition but you are even more guilty if you obey it which explains the super-ego paradox formulated clearly by Freud: the more you obey the commands of the super-ego the more you are guilty. Freud brings this fundamental ambiguity of the super-ego agency when you violate the moral standard you are guilty, when you don't use the opportunity to violate it you are even more guilty. To the extreme: the super-ego is basically saying in any case you are guilty. Now let me complicate where are we sorry yes we have time. Let me complicate matters a little bit more. This constitutive guilt which cuts across the terms of the alternative, if you are guilty you are guilty if you are innocent you are even more guilty, accounts for another reversal of common sense which concerns what Freud called Strafbedürfnis, the need to be punished, the weird satisfaction provided by a painful punishment. It is not the crime which causes the guilt feeling and punishment, it is the need to be punished which generates guilt feeling and gives birth to criminal intentions. Where then does this original need to be punished come from? Instead of grounding it directly in some kind of primordial masochism striving for pleasure in pain, Freud proposes a more complex scenario which concerns his basic matrix of socialization of entering a legal order. It is you know the myth of the primordial father. It is not only that in a pseudo-Hegelian way the legal order needs occasional transgressions, crimes in order to assert its authority through punishing the perpetrators. All of us, also those who never perpetrated any crime, are constituted as legal subjects through being considered as potential criminals. And that's the underlying thesis. It's much more refined than that apparently simple story you know like in our fantasies we killed our fathers or whatever. The idea is that to be a legal subject subjected to legal order means to be potentially in your desire a criminal. Freud elaborated this scenario in his well-known analysis of Dostoevsky's *Karamazov Brothers* in which a group of brothers is as you all know suspected of killing their father, an obvious almost a figure of primordial father, an obscene enjoying father. Here is a quote a pretty nice quote a longer one I'm sorry from Karamazov Brothers sorry from Freud study Dostoevsky and parricide. I quote from Freud: "It is a matter of indifference who actually committed the crime. Psychology is only concerned to know who desired it emotionally and who welcomed it when it was done. And for that reason all of the brothers except the contrasted figure of Alyosha..." but I don't buy here Freud you know that's nonetheless a little bit of sympathy I have for Dostoevsky. Do you know that *Karamazov Brothers* is an unfinished novel? No? And you know they found notes of what would have gone on? You know what Alyosha the pure saint would become? Sorry? Almost yes a terrorist a terrorist yes a revolutionary terrorist no so ah ah ah maybe he wasn't totally bad Dostoevsky you know okay. But so they are all equally guilty the impulsive sensualist Dimitri, the skeptical cynic Ivan Karamazov and the epileptic criminal, I think that half illegitimate brother Smerdyakov. In the *Brothers Karamazov* there is one particularly revealing scene we all know it. In the course of his talk with Dimitri, Father Zosima, the old saint figure, recognizes that Dimitri is prepared to commit suicide and he bows down at his feet. It is impossible this can only mean that the holy man is rejecting the temptation to despise or detest the murderer and he humbles himself before him. So Dostoevsky's sympathy for the criminal is boundless. It goes beyond pity which the unhappy wretched person has a right to. A criminal is for Dostoevsky almost a redeemer, someone who has taken on himself the guilt which must have otherwise born by others. There is no longer any need for one to murder since he has already murdered. You see what's Dostoevsky's logic, let's say we all desire father's death and the one who does it does it for all of us. We can only that's Dostoevsky's paradox, we can only be innocent in the eyes of law because another one did it for us. In so far as the primordial crime, the murder of the obscene father is constitutive of the social body kept together by some law, the definition of an innocent subject of the law is: someone who no longer needs to kill since another one the sacred murderer already did it for him, realizing his desire. We are thus incorporated into a legal order through crime and guilt. A subject of law is by definition a potential criminal. This shared guilt which constitutes the universality of legal citizens brings us back to this idea that that the law itself has to be prohibited. What has to remain prohibited is the criminal underside of the law the what Benjamin would have called not divine but mythic violence of its instauration. This prohibition works by way of transposing pressure onto the subject. The subject has to be perceived as a priori guilty in order to maintain invisible the guilt obscene violence of the law itself. However in order to function this transposition has to assume two forms. First, we have the guilty subject who effectively committed the crime and then we have the innocent bystanders who profited from the crime since the criminal's act delivered them from the need to murder. In this sense as Freud wrote it, the criminal is almost a redeemer who has taken on himself the guilt which must have otherwise been born by others. By committing a crime he sacrifices himself for the benefit of the other. In order, so the notion of let me do here a short improvisation on the notion of sacrifice. The notion of sacrifice usually associated with Lacanian psychoanalysis is that of a gesture that enacts the disavowal of the impotence of the big other. Like I mean you find this like it's better for me to be guilty than to disclose the impotence of the big other. As you probably know this was usually the logic of Stalinist show trials, no what privately they told you is admit guilt in this way the party the party remains pure. I want to tell you another story that I used in some of my books but which I think is a perfect example of this sacrificial logic. There even two versions of it namely of *Beau Geste* a classic imperial melodrama, there was a film from '38 in Hollywood with Gary Cooper and then I think recently there was a BBC or Granada I don't know remake. But it's a wonderful story. It's a story about three brothers living with a rich aunt and all of a sudden the aunt wants to show them some extremely very valuable necklace and for a second light light goes out and a necklace disappear. It's clear that one of the three brothers had to steal it. And next day all three brothers disappear and they go to foreign legion blah blah and then at the end of the film I will not go into it we learn the mystery. The guy Gary Cooper character in the first version, the guy who did it saw one day before when this good aunt was visited by her evil brother or the that the brother demands from her to pay an old debt to give to him this necklace. At the same time he learned this Gary Cooper character that the necklace is a fake, that the aunt is already deeply indebted and well it would have been a scandal you know when she would try to repay her debt but it would become clear that the necklace so he thinks out of love how to save the aunt by stealing it. Because by stealing it the myth would remain that it was worth. You know, you steal something why? Not because it's worth but precisely to create the false impression that it was worth stealing. By stealing it you prevent the disclosure that it was worthless to steal. Then let me go on. There is then apart from this guilt, the virtual guilt of the innocent bystanders of the collective which profited from the necessary crime. The Freudian paradox: the more you are innocent the more you are guilty, holds for them. The more they are innocent of the actual crime the more they are guilty for enjoying its fruits without paying the price for them. Here super-ego pressure enters, capitalizing on this guilt in a very specific way. The super-ego pressure does not squash the subject's individuality. Its effect is not to immerse the subject into a crowd where his individuality is dissolved. On the contrary and here I refer to Étienne Balibar who proposed this reversal. You know standard classical Althusser's formula how the how ideology interpellates individuals into subjects. Balibar's formula is that super-ego interpellates subjects into individuals. In what sense? Super-ego addresses me as a unique individual, confronting me with my guilt and responsibility. Don't escape into generalities, don't resort to circumstances. Look deep into your heart and ask yourself: where did you fail with regard to your duties? This is why super-ego pressure gives rise to anxiety. In the eyes of the super-ego I am alone, there is no big other behind which I can hide. And I am guilty as charged because the very position of being charged makes me formally guilty. If I plead my innocence it only signals my additional guilt for denying guilt. Now you will say these are these are exaggerated speculations what has this to do with our actual experience. Ah, I think that precisely today's society functions like this. It exemplifies perfectly this type of super-ego individualization. Ecology, political correctness, poverty up to indebtedness being in debt in general. How does predominant ecological discourse address us? Precisely as a priori guilty, indebted to mother nature. Under the constant pressure of super-ego agency which addresses us in our individuality: what did you do today to repay your debt to nature? Did you put all newspapers into a proper recycle bin? Did you put all the bottles of beer or cans of Coke in a separate recycle bin? Did you use your car where you could have used a bike or some means of public transportation? Did you use air conditioning instead of just opening wide your windows and so on and so on. You see this is today's super-ego, just this endless deep probing did you do all your duty? And why is this ideology? I claim it's ideology because precisely it obfuscates you from looking my God in this way you know when you said what about society big companies? Ah the answer of social super-ego is oh who are you to talk about society in general? What about you? Did you do this? Did you do that? And so on. It's a perfect ideological machinery. And again as I just said the ideological stakes of such individualization are easily discernible. I get lost in my own self-examination instead of raising much more pertinent global questions about our entire industrial civilization. The same goes I claim for the endless politically correct self-examination. Was my look at the flight attendant too intrusive and sexually offensive? Did I use any words with a possible sexist undertone while addressing her and so on and so on. And you know, this is also what I think it's false in this white middle class endless probing into ourselves. Was I secretly racist? Did I use when I spoke with my African-American friend when I mentioned I don't know when I mentioned that black door black window, did it have a potential, you know like the basic point is it's really I met some of these like the more you probe into yourself the more you try to clarify bring out your guilt it's an endless task, the more you are guilty. And my point is that there is something fundamentally wrong about this. So let's go on. The you know where you can see the lie of it. How when you probe into yourself in this super-ego way how self-criticism is mixed with joy when you discover that your joke was no innocent like oh I got it, you see there also I was a little bit politically incorrect or whatever and so on and so on. As for charity. Recall how we are all the time bombarded by messages destined to make us feel guilty for our comfortable way of life while children are starving in Somalia, they are dying unnecessarily from easily curable diseases. Messages which simultaneously offer an easy way out, like you can make a difference, give five dollars monthly to an anonymous black orphan and you will make someone happy and so on and so on. Again the ideological underpinning is here easily discernible. Maurizio Lazzarato's notion of indebted man provides a general structure of subjectivity as indebted subjectivity, as depth this endless guilt depth constituting me. So now comes the conclusion. The the message of is here is that how can we get rid of this guilt? Precisely by fundamentalism, by crowd formation. So crowd formation is not a super-ego formation I claim. It's precisely a wild way to step out of this structure of guilt. In a crowd formation we we encounter a kind of the return of the repressed of the mythic violence and anxiety and guilt disappear. Anxiety and guilt disappear. Which is why I claim that, and that's the miracle that I spoke with some people in a strange way they didn't know who I was, who were violent nationalists. And they really embody this super-ego paradox because their message was in so far as we were guilty, sorry in so far as we tried to be let's call it politically correct, decent, we felt more and more guilty. The moment we become brutal nationalists, that is to say and that's what I add, the moment we become really guilty in the sense of really doing horrible things we experience ourselves as innocent. So again the more you are really guilty the more you are innocent. And here I claim, I will tell you something horrible here now, here this is what I find wrong about this eternal Western guilt or are we Islamophobic? You know like are there and so on and so on. I claim that this is again another super-ego pressure felt by like you know oh did we offend Muslims in this way in that way and so on and so on. And I claim that that this is why it's a strange game going on here like the more we try not to offend Muslims the more they claim we offend them. The more they play this super-ego role oh you apparently respect us but you remember what you said this and so on and so on. It's the same it's the same endless process. So okay I will tell you an example from Turkey when I was there. You know they I was there a week or two after Europe after in Switzerland they have that referendum prohibiting the building of mosques no? Sorry of minarets only, yes of minarets no? And they were all oh my God we see we see the falsity of Europe, Europe is racist blah blah blah. And then I did an interview with some TV station news where the guy asked me no how do you comment this like he expected from me some big critical comment you know we see now the hypocrisy of Europe and so on. But was it you Bülent or another Turkish friend who told me but wait a minute, in Turkey we have a law which prohibits the building of any new non-Muslim church objects with the exception of historical renovation of historical monuments. So you know and after the TV show I told this to the guy who interviewed me but wait a minute why were you asking me this when obviously you have a much harsher law? Like the corresponding law would have been I don't know to allow building churches but prohibit Catholic churches church towers no? And he didn't have a good answer, he went into they all all the time when you catch racists they all the time claim you the you should look at it in concrete circumstances that the circumstances are different. I have no doubts that if they were to catch somehow years old whatever Hitler in some Argentinian or Peruvian jungle and accuse him of Holocaust he would have said you shouldn't tear Holocaust out of its concrete circumstances conditions no they are. But what I am saying is just that with all my respect from Islam don't misunderstand it. I just think that this eternal fear that we are Islamophobic is not the right way. It makes us more and more guilty and as Freud always emphasized guilt is always justified. We are guilty because this procedure is false. It doesn't really clear us. You know, like for me it's just it's the same in the same way as politically correct obsession with was I a sexist and so on, I think just in an inverted way reproduces sexism and so on and so on. Okay, to be very vulgar for me, the right way out of sexual harassment is not to instantly ask you know to a girl whom you're trying or a man or a dog whatever I'm open here whom you're trying to seduce you know like did you did I offend you or whatever, but the art is to do it even openly in a vulgar way but you you know the point is not to get caught in this vicious cycle of probing into it was I because okay no let me not get lost into this. What I simply wanted to say is that is that this endless self-probing is for me just an inverted form maybe the most violent form today of Eurocentrism. Because you know a radically politically correct guy, you know what his answer would have been probably to this Turkish. He would have said yes but they are victims of history they are exploited by us so they have the right to while we as white men a priori guilty we blah blah. So but you know what's the secret presupposition of this? It's that the other is so stupid that they are simply victims of circumstances while did you notice how this defense of our Western guilt really reproduces the old cliché that only we Western people have the access to proper universality. We are fully responsible free agents. Which is why you know it's the same I probably already told you this story. The the same problem when I noticed in the United States how which ethnic group is allowed to assert its peculiar peculiar ethnic identity. If Native Americans do it it's perfect. If blacks do it it's okay. Then things get so-so. If Italians do it aha. If but then if like wasps white Anglo-Saxon Protestants do it it's fascism oh you are not allowed to. Now I'm saying that this guilt of us like they are allowed to because they were oppressed we were in this is false guilt because prohibiting me to assert my peculiar identity like you know if I organize dancing some German or English dances it's almost you are a fascist. Did you notice how if we assert our particular culture we are a fascist if the others do it it's emancipation. Now I am not a right-winger would say you see this is why political correctness is not right this is why like you know the white intelligent white racist anti-immigrant argumentation is we just want the same things as you multiculturalists are ready to allow to the blacks you know. We want in the same way that we should protect black Jewish Arab whatever Muslim identity why don't we whites have the right to protect our identity? No, of course I reject this. But what I'm saying is that in this prohibiting us to assert our identity it's only a parently modesty. The obverse of this modesty is an extreme arrogance. It's that we don't have the right to assert our identity because we are universal. We are universal and as such we can save the others we can see where we are guilty and so on. This is why I also see a humiliating aspect in you know how whenever there is a horrible thing going on in some African country the first reaction of leftist white liberals is oh it must be the effect of colonization you know. Like they were all so glad in the case of Rwanda and in that case to avoid a misunderstanding it was totally true in Rwanda that the key was the colonization. Who was the boss there, the Dutch I don't know who but the point is that the the Hutus and Tutsis, Tutsis I think were privileged English speaking by and it's true that even the violence was directly triggered. It's a very dark story, even a guy whom I don't like very much you can see why. Bernard-Henri Lévy. I asked him after one round table, tell me Mitterrand and Bernard-Henri Lévy was friendly Mitterrand. Mitterrand Rwanda. He said guilty. The French openly helped who were the bad guys Hutus or who the majority to kill the Tutsis, you know. It was horrible why because Hutus were more francophone no they see this as a chance to widen the French domain there. But what I'm saying is this that this blaming Europeans their colonial machinations whenever in Africa something horrible happens. Okay, first I agree that we have to bring this out absolutely. But you know what worries me that beneath it it's the same patronizing attitude. As if if we no longer can be burden of the white man you know we at least can be the if we no longer can be exemplary good men civilizing others it's as if the ultimate racist fantasy of leftist liberals is that we can at least be the immediately I finish we can at least be the ultimate bad guys, you know. Like like beneath this denial that it was their guilt it's simply a denial that they can be a responsible agents. They are like children they are controlled by by circumstances it's our machinations, it's an extreme arrogance beneath this. So again I think that the true respect for Muslims is to treat them as adult people and openly criticize them. Otherwise this constant fear of homophobia you are patronizing them. And again the only way to treat the Africans is to treat them as adult responsible people not to play this disgusting game ooh it must be ah we are always guilty and so on and so on. Okay maybe I talk too much it's you do. The states is any less a false polarization than what Lenin faced in a much more titanic struggle where millions of people are shooting each other, workers called on by the left to go and fight each other and shoot each other down. Lenin jumped into the abyss. It was not some gradual step-by-step thing. He jumped into the abyss and says "this is the communist spirit". That's what you need to do. To hell with Obama he's the manager in chief of American imperialism. Okay, we take point, but we're not discussing communism today. You know we were discussing also other things. And we have discussed communism so many times so let's get on with it. No no no but wait a minute, I would nonetheless like to. First that debate, you know, it was simply that I didn't have any other talks this spring in New York I was ill and so on. I will do it but you know what worries me a little bit because I know Raymond I talked with some others. I also want to control the conditions of that debate. I don't want to step in with people into a staged event which is obviously organized to I don't know as a kind of a triumph of. I want to debate with him on equal terms, which means I don't want to enter an event I want to know how that event was organized, who was called, who was invited and so on and so on. Sorry I am not ready to do an event like that. Point two why point two why why do you think that debate is so mega mega crucial or whatever? I I have I have pro- I have ser- with all my sympathy I wrote an introduction to the book by Avakian you maybe remember and so on. But sorry I will tell you something of a common sense now. The way they build his cult of personality, the way they celebrate him. I'm sorry, I read his texts, he is not at the level of that. He is not a genius he pretends to be. Well then come and say it. Okay okay thank you thank you. No no no but nonetheless to talk now about Obama and so on but you see that's the problem. Of course I agree with you we should exit the false binaries and so on. But all I'm saying about Obama and I have no illusions about him that with universal healthcare he touched a point which is a disturbing point. And we should prolong that debate because I claim that in American ideological constellation obviously universal healthcare touches something which is traumatic for it. And that's the way you enter the public space otherwise you are an elitist party of people waiting for the big revolution. I'm not saying I'm not saying we should we should simply accept Obama's terms Obama's terms of the debate but you should grab something. As to Syriza, listen, the fact is that Tsipras is demonized all around Europe. Which means I don't care if he sincere or not but that's an opening. And as to Lenin oh my God I can tell you stories there. Yes Lenin jumped into the abyss. But you know that then in the early 20s do you follow Lenin there, he he said we are such a backward country forget communism all we can do now is our duty is to bring, he was very Eurocentric, Western civilization into Russia and his preferred company were big capitalists. At some point he even said we should learn from big capitalists our main enemy are small bourgeois with that so Lenin read him read him read him. It's extremely interesting reading Lenin's and some who are definitely no I know some proper theory why wait no no no but wait a minute okay okay sorry sorry sorry let me go to okay the first one you know the also of course had Trotsky to do the dirty work for him. Yeah but wait a minute you know what's for me the problem the problem with Trotsky I mean I'm there almost I read detailed books you know what interest me Trotsky from '24 till And it's a model of how to screw things up frankly. I mean he was first so in love with himself, he simply believed in his charisma you know and I will you know like he will show himself in the people and he even he was really sorry to use for the 20th time that metaphor Trotsky was like already in '24 he was you know that stupid metaphor that I always use a cat above the precipice he just didn't notice it. I mean it was a model of how not to do it. Not to mention the point that Trotsky is cheating a little bit in the sense that if you look at his Trotsky's texts in the 20s sorry in the early 20s do you really think that Trotsky had a clear alternative? The conflict was Stalin I know at that point was on the right wing Stalin was with Bukharin you know. Okay but let's not lose time on this I admit it. Let's go to theory. Okay when you mentioned super-ego death drive sado-masochism and so on and so on. First I would distinguished here things I think that this circularity of this is a good question namely I would not put a sign of equation between super-ego and death drive. I here follow Deleuze and even Lacan here I think Lacan I don't think he reduces death drive to super-ego. I think that there is a certain repetitive dynamics of death drive which absolutely shouldn't be reduced to super-ego. As to what you said about say this masochism Deleuze's contribution and I'm on Deleuze's side I must say is that they are not a symmetrical couple. He is opposed to the term sado-masochism. so again okay let's not go with it into detail the point the point is I think how to rehabil- not rehabilitate how to conceptualize death drive outside even all outside not only of super-ego but even outside of terms of masochism and so on and so on. I think this is crucial. And that's what I try to do it for example even in philosophical terms linking it to linking it to super-ego and so on and so on. I think that death drive basically for me has absolutely nothing the key for me is what I always repeat that if you really read close even Freud you see that death drive if anything is Freudian name for immortality. Death drive is not all that bullshit ooh I want to disappear whatever. No death drive is something which insists beyond life and death. Which is why I always repeat if you want to learn about death drive read I'm sorry to tell you this obscenity read Stephen King horror novels about the undead. The undead are pure figure of death drive. The undead who are not alive but paradoxically also not dead who are the living dead. That's the death drive. Something that goes on and on and on. And if anything I think the expression political of death drive is for me you know when let's say revolution is losing but then somebody says no even like Schwarzenegger sorry disgusting movie terminator you know when he says but I will be back but I will be back you know this eternal return undeadness. This is death drive. Death drive is hope and so on. Okay sorry then then the last one I mean the the second one about that no also yes Lenin and sorry what was the other one Lenin and Žižek against Žižek. Yeah but I didn't
No, you are not evil enough, that's why I suspect your social democracy. I want to terrorize him so that, you know, you arrest his son blah blah, so then I want Alain to come voluntarily up and confess, you know. You just exert a little bit of pressure, like you know, ah, you have a son, really, that's interesting, you know. You know when a policeman tells you this, it can be much worse than if a policeman just beats you directly, no. Just oh you have a nice daughter or something like that, then you confess everything, you know. Okay, sorry, let me go on seriously now. In his no, because again what I worry is that I agree here with you. Are we aware what a unique thing happened in Greece? There were protests all around Europe. Nowhere else was it possible from this wild protest, okay, not wild, wild simply in the sense of a little bit chaotic and so on, to transform there into a minimally organized party. And it has a unique chance, and to ruin this on an account of some orthodoxy of this is not radical communist revolution is madness. But let me now really begin. I would like to begin with theology and more and more I'm interested in theology. Like I don't know if I already talked about this the last time I was here, but for example recently I found in Kierkegaard an incredible passage where he mocks but is obviously fascinated by some medieval theologian who claims that that he can prove, okay the situation is this one, I will not go into who says this. The idea is that for God to truly exist, intelligent sophisticated theologians have to prove his existence, you know so that as it were God is trembling there, oh my God, what if they prove that I don't exist, will I disappear or whatever. So and then Kierkegaard has a wonderful metaphor, he says God is here like a constitutional monarch, trembling like will, will the assembly agree to his powers as a as a constitutional monarch or whatever. So I like this idea, the supreme power trembling like no, do I really exist, doubting if he exists at all. This would be what I call materialist theology. But let me go into much more perverse waters. In his Summa Theologica, Thomas Aquinas draw the conclusion that the blessed in the kingdom of heaven up there will see the punishments of the damned in order that their bliss be more delightful for them. And St. John Bosco another theologian draw the same conclusion but in the opposite direction. The damned in hell will also be able to see the joy of those in heaven which will add to their suffering. Here are their well worth reading Aquinas's two formulations of this claim. They are both from Summa Theologica from third part question if you want references. First quote, "Nothing should be denied the blessed that belongs to the perfection of their beatitude. Wherefore, in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned." Or second passage, "That the saints may enjoy the beatitude more thoroughly and give more abundant thanks for it to God, a perfect sight of the punishment of the damned is granted to them." End of quote. Aquinas of course is well aware of possible obscene implications of this, I mean because basically the good souls in heaven find pleasure in observing the terrible suffering of other souls which is not exactly a Christian feeling of mercy. But he proceeds in two lines here, Aquinas. First, he begins by the thesis that in heaven the blessed will enjoy full illumination of their minds and knowledge is also a blessing and perfection which should not be denied to the saints. So if the saints in heaven were to be ignorant of the damned, this would be a denial of the blessing of knowledge. Consequently the saints in heaven will possess a greater knowledge including a greater knowledge of hell, even seeing it. It's tricky but maybe it works. But next problem: good Christians should feel pity when they see suffering. Will the blessed in heaven also feel pity for the torments of the damned? Aquinas: No, they will not feel pity, is grounded in a very tricky hair-splitting argumentation. Here is another quote, "Seeing the punishment of the wicked, the righteous ones have no pity. Whoever pities another shares somewhat in his unhappiness, but the blessed cannot share in anyone's unhappiness, therefore they do not pity the afflictions of the damned." Then there is the second line of argumentation: Aquinas tries to refute the notion that the blessed in heaven gain joy from the punishment of the damned in a direct obscene direct obscene way. He introduces here a distinction between two modes of enjoying a thing. Again the last quote from Aquinas: "A thing may be a matter of rejoicing in two ways. First, directly, when one rejoices a thing in a thing as such and thus the saints will not rejoice in the punishment of the wicked. Second, indirectly, by reason of something annexed to it and it is in this way that the saints will rejoice in the punishment of the wicked, by considering therein the order of divine justice and their own deliverance which will fill them with joy. And thus the divine justice and their own deliverance will be the direct cause of the joy of the blessed, while the punishment of the damned will cause it indirectly." End of quote. The problem of this explanation is of course that the relationship between the two levels is effectively turned around. Enjoying divine justice effectively functions as a rationalization, the moral cover-up for sadistically enjoying the neighbor's eternal suffering. You see my point, Aquinas says okay you don't enjoy suffering as such but you see in it the majesty of divine justice and that's what really fills you with pleasure. But there is always a Freudian suspicion that what if it is the other way around, you know? What that if you pretend that you just think, maybe even sincerely, I just admire the divine justice but really is the sadistic pleasure at the other's suffering. Again, what makes Aquinas's formulation suspicious is the surplus enjoyment it introduces. As if the simple pleasure of living in the bliss of heaven is not enough and has to be supplemented by an additional surplus enjoyment of being allowed to take a look at another's suffering. Only in this way the blessed souls as Aquinas wrote, I repeat it, "may enjoy their beatitude more thoroughly." So again, the idea is that you see, it's the idea is that it's a suspicion which is wonderfully true that heaven may be a little bit boring, you know, and to spice it up, you know, like like you need a little bit of hell. Like we can clearly imagine here a scene in heaven. Some blessed souls start to complain that the nectar they were served was not as tasty as the last time, that the blissful life up there is rather boring after all. And then an angel serving them would snap back, you don't like it here, ah take a look at how life is down there at the other end and maybe you will see how lucky you are up here. So there is always this type of suspicion. But my favorite dream here a scene would have been to imagine the exact opposite of John Bosco's vision. And I think this is the libidinal truth of all of it. The true scene which underlines all this variation is imagine life in hell as what it really is, I claim: intense pleasurable life, orgies and so on whatever you want. Only the problem is that you do this secretly back in hell, no? And then from time to time when the devil's administrators of hell learn that the blessed soul from heaven will control them, will be allowed to look at them, they briefly they they collect gather the damned souls and tell them, listen guys, we have fun here but those up shouldn't know it so can you for half an hour pretend that you suffer, do those gestures to satisfy them up and then the fun goes on and so on, you know? That's the truth of it I think. But again, what we find here and that's the whole logic of envy, of object a and so on that happiness doesn't function without this excess of seeing the other suffer. And I claim that most of us, if we bring this tension to extreme and pose a dilemma, okay, what would you prefer: to have just your happiness without knowing of the suffering of the others or just to see the other suffer but you deprived of your happiness? I claim that almost all of us would effectively choose the second option. It's more satisfying to see the other suffering than your own happiness. Next paradox by way of which I will approach super-ego. I heard that now they are reunited Monty Python and that performance was sold out in like seconds and so on. Okay, to celebrate them I would like to describe to you very briefly my favorite scene from Monty Python's Meaning of Life. You know that episode where they see the sexual education in future, no, where like teacher the teacher is addressing the class and asking this is always my favorite scene, asking the pupils okay you stand up, three ways to arouse vagina. And the guy starts to stutter oh oh and then the teacher tells him ah you didn't practice this yesterday evening what were you doing instead of preparing stupidities like this. But but I want to begin with the just with the very beginning of this episode. It shows pupils in a class awaiting for the teacher to arrive. They are bored, sitting at their benches, yawning, staring in the air. Then one of them, of the pupils standing close to the door shouts, the teacher is coming. And then the pupils explode into wild activity, you know, shouting, throwing papers around and shaking their tables and so on. All the stuff pupils in a class are supposed to do when the teacher is absent. You know, this is the nice subversion of the standard scene that we imagine. Pupils are wild in a class then the teacher enters they have to calm down. No, this is the libidinal truth. Without the presence of the teacher's gaze the pupils are just bored, they don't know what to do. And when they learn that the the teacher is approaching, they they stage the protest. You know where I witnessed something of this, this may be a very a very problematic political point for you but I think it's a wonderful story. A friend, a Slovenian journalist told me that one, no I didn't mention it two days ago, I'm getting confused, in Palestine in what is south of Jerusalem, Bethlehem, no? Okay, this was in a time when it was much less tension than now, those Clinton years where it looked as if maybe there will be peace. And in north of Bethlehem on the main road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem there is a monument to some Israeli I don't know historical heroine whatever. The point is although this was Palestinian territory controlled by PLO, that monument was guarded by Israeli soldiers. And there were daily demonstrations, the Palestinian youth throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. And it was just a daily ritual. Okay so my friend a Slovenian journalist who was very much on Palestinian side of course was told by a Palestinian, if you want to see what truly goes on come there one hour earlier. He came there at ten at eleven and he saw you can imagine what, Palestinian young people and Israeli soldiers talking, exchanging cigarettes and so on. And then somebody shouted CNN is coming and they okay sorry we step back, they started to throw some stones. Then the guy shouted half an hour later CNN is leaving and then they said okay we see you tomorrow again thanks. I mean it was a wonderful ritual I think, you know. And the sad thing is that today that's the true tension when unfortunately these rituals no longer go on. So what these what such scenes make clear is that, now I am returning to the scene from Monty Python, that the transgressive commotion that annoys the teacher is effectively directed at him. It is not spontaneous amusement but something performed for the teacher. You know where, I'm sorry if I repeat myself but I really want to go through this perverse logic which sustains super-ego. A movie that I maybe mentioned not two days ago but a year ago when I was here, I really like it more and more I saw it again with my son, it's a shitty movie of course only movies that I like. Did you see Project X? No it was a modest hit a year and a half ago. It's story which is basically based on a real event. It happened also around year and a half, two years ago in Belgium, very mysterious. A local girl in some shitty small city there, probably if I refer to what I think wasn't I saying this here two days ago, you know, probably the daughter of one of those farmers who were signaling the Germans you know with whatever with laundry how they just put on her website that she wants to have a party if some of her friends want to join it. And I'm not dreaming, this was I saw it on TV report, this was reported in all media. You know what happened the same evening? to people came. The whole city was under siege. And something similar happens here, Project X. A couple of nerds want to organize a party to raise their status in their high school. And then of course thousands of people arrive and it's a sacred event, a modern sacred event, a kind of a sacred orgy. But something else I want to emphasize here. Before the evening they do this in the private house of one of the boys and his father because his father goes for a weekend trip with mother. And father tells him, listen, strictly maximum five friends don't touch my car everything should happen in the living room don't enter other rooms. Of course then there are people there, the car is burned, five houses are burned, police intervenes. Now comes the crucial thing. Then next day father comes home and something wonderful happens. Father says to the son, listen, you did a horrible thing you will have to work years repaying the debt, but I must tell you something, you did it, I didn't think you have the guts to do it. You know, and I think that this is how authentic paternal authority, even traditional one works. It it pretends to prohibit it but it allows you a niche, you know. Like it's a call: do it, violate it. And I think, and I think I even then gathered in one of my texts some historical examples of this. Like I read in a book about Catherine the Great, the Russian Empress, no. How once her servant informed her that her other servants are stealing liquors and expensive candy and she says of course I know it, I just pretend not to notice it, I know it, that's how I keep them at their place, you know. This is I think a nice, I don't have time to develop it fully now but this is in what sense Lacan in his critique of Hegel is right to claim that in the dialectic of master and servant the pleasure is on the side of the servant. That Hegel is wrong who thinks the servant just works, the master enjoys. No, the master's enjoyment is full of anxiety. You know, the master all the time worries and looks at the slave like did I convince the servant by my dignity. And the only enjoyment are those niches where the slave like where the slave thinks he can enjoy out of the master's gaze. But the whole point of this enjoyment is that you annoy you think you annoy the master, you think you treat the master and so on and so on. And according to some theologians, maybe I'm going too far here but I read it in some books. This is how they interpret the mysterious exact formulation in Commandments, you know. Don't celebrate other gods. But as I was told by my Israeli friends, it's not just this, the commandment says don't celebrate other gods in my presence. This is crucial, you know. It's as if what do you do back in your home it's your business just not publicly in my presence. And again, I think that this is how Lacan I don't have it here in a wonderful passage claims that it's absolutely crucial for the traditional master's gaze to leave a space, a secret niche where his message to the servant is I don't see and I don't want to know I don't want to see what you are doing there. And I claim among other things that that in communism they they mastered perfectly this art. These unseen pleasure were political jokes, no. And I think that up to a point it's not as direct as that but it's an interesting paranoia that there were rumors persistent rumors in Soviet Union in my country, ex-Yugoslavia, that there is an ultra secret department of the secret police where they fabricate these joke to keep the population happy, you know, like better they are telling the jokes against us. And I must say some of these jokes are not mega funny but they do have spirit. I almost prefer I think that I don't mean it this time as the joke but seriously. I think that maybe the greatest cultural fiasco lost of the fall of communism was the disappearance of these intelligent political jokes. And it's incredibly I don't know if I already told you this one how well they elaborated you have even different variations for example maybe you know this one I'm sorry. A Yugoslavian politician who was supposed to be stupid, he visits Germany and the train passes, you know, the city close to Frankfurt, Baden-Baden, no? And there are even two versions. One is he asks what for a city is this his guide. The German guide says Baden-Baden. You know what the Yugoslavian politician answers: I'm not an idiot you don't have to tell me two times, you know. But there is even a better version, I learned it recently that the the Yugoslavian politician asks a German politician, which city are you coming from? He says Baden-Baden. So the Yugoslavian idiot thought then that for the Germans you have to tell it two times and then when the other guy asks him, from which city you are coming, he says Belgrade-Belgrade, you know like as if okay in Germany you tell it twice. I mean there were there were so it was such an art and I think again that the relationship was very ambiguous. Of course you were arrested for telling them but it was clearly an immanent transgression. The message was, you know, you were arrested if you were to quote the Bible, the Old Testament, if you were telling jokes in front in the face of Jehovah or Stalin or whoever, no. If you did it this which is why which is okay, of course you have then these cheap jokes which react to this fact the idea is that when Honecker is German met Willy Brandt, was it Schmidt? I think it was still Brandt, doesn't matter. That Brandt Willy Brandt told told him oh I connect I what are you what is your hobby no no. Honecker asked Brandt what is your hobby. Willy Brandt says I collect jokes about me. And you know what Honecker answers: I collect people in my prison who are telling jokes about me and so on you know. But but nonetheless, again, it's absolutely crucial and this was I think the sublime moment when a regime falls apart what was an inherent transgression but a transgression which nonetheless you know it remained a transgression although it was part of the system. In utter despair, I remember in Yugoslavia somewhere from '85 '86 on, in utter because they saw the writing on the wall, the sign our rule is over so to regain or retain at least popularity they mobilized this transgression and you had an incredible thing you had politicians, especially from Croatia, interesting, who were publicly reporting telling jokes about themselves. Like I couldn't believe it, once a Croat politician forgot his name what is Mika Špiljak or who visited Rome and then came back and at a press conference to journalists you know journalists expected the usual boring you know I met the Italian representatives and we concluded oh further friendship between our nations all the bullshit, no. He started by telling the whole series of jokes very stupid one but I like them, of course making fun of his stupidity, you know. Because you know that Sistine Chapel, Chapel it's also cappelle, Chapel like Cappelle and you know in in Italy and Austria, cappelle means also you find this if you know classical music like Dresden-Leipziger Stadt-Cappelle, cappelle means a small orchestra no. And okay then for example he said there was a mess in Italy. First they told me to go and to go and see Sistine Chapel but I call all the cafeteria nowhere was playing the Sistine Chapel no. Then he said they told me to visit Marriage of Figaro. I called all the churches Figaro was nowhere getting married and so on you like. But you know the obscenity was that the guy himself you know it was a very desperate strategy where you directly bring out the hidden underside no. It was the same, I'm sorry if I repeat myself but you are too young to even hear them you know projecting them. For example, the nicest point of this obscenity was in Slovenia in the last years of communism when you know in the 70s already there was this miracle even now it still goes on, Međugorje, Virgin Mary appearing. It was a mega miracle, for some years it was second largest pilgrimage site after Lourdes, no. Okay there Virgin Mary the usual bullshit no and the the Bosnian communists, this was still communist era were simply stupid with no business sense you know. They said no we don't want to support and they made a most stupid thing you can imagine. Because Italian travel agencies took over and earned about at least billion dollars. It was plain stupidity. My Slovene communists were already totally business oriented and they were furious at Bosnians like my God the country is in a crisis do business. So then, I'm sorry if you know the story, then the miracle happened. Close to Ljubljana, between Ljubljana and Ljubljana Airport, Ljubljana capital of Slovenia at some crossing there was also a small statue of Mary and this statue started to do what they are paid to do supposed to do, no know moving a little bit some tears of blood and so on. And the communists jumped of joy. My God, we will teach the Bosnians how you do it, they immediately hired architect the plan, built a big hotel, theological seminary, all was done. But then a catastrophe happened. The local priest said no this is superstition this is not a miracle. And then I have it at home then a miracle happened. In the official weekly, the most official of the communist party, this priest was attacked for non-patriotic behavior like wait a minute he's supposed to support our economy to help country it's a miracle what with this atheist atheist bullshit there and so on you know. This is for me the moment of miracle when you get this how should put this this discursive paradox where one discourse still remains what it is but starts to imitate how should put it you know like wants to accommodate to the another discourse and then you get this ridiculous scenes of communists demanding to and so on. But if you think that this is an exception, Chinese today are doing the same you know that they have a polemic who will be about they you have Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama no. Panchen Lama is crucial because when this Dalai Lama dies who will be the new one? And the vote of the other Lama is crucial. So there are now two Panchen Lamas. One the Dalai Lama recognizes and another one in China. They claim that this is the true reincarnation. And this Chinese Panchen Lama what a miracle was was born of course in a high nomenclature communist family and so on no. Okay so you know I couldn't stop laughing a Chinese friend gave me the official Chinese text translated it to me. You know what's their accusation of Dalai Lama is that no they faked it there Dalai Lama the communist one there were the real miracles and then they enumerate them you know like when immediately after falling out of her mother's womb he already recited Buddha and so on whatever no. But I like it so and now my favorite story I'm sorry if I repeat myself happened of this inconsistency of discourses in Slovenia I'm sorry if you know the story, late 80s when communists were totally desperate knowing that they are losing power, radio student independent radio station as invited for an interview an old communist cadre real great you know the real old cadre. And this guy was desperate. He only was able to speak his stupid official jargon. But the same time he desperately tried to please the young people he knows he must appear friendly to them. So they were merciless, I was totally on the side of this old communist because he was desperate. And they asked him, what about sexuality? Do you make and this directly. And he desperately tried to please the young people but the only language he was able to speak was the communist jargon. So he was telling something like touching women between their legs is a great instigation for my constructing socialism and so on you know. Total obscenities like this you know like the only language he was able to but I think these are the most beautiful moments. These are the moments of the political sublime. So let me go on. The same obscenity holds the general rule which I already mentioned here but I want to develop now a little bit more systematically is that our most intense forms of enjoyment are not spontaneous outbursts but something learned by imitation, an acquired taste. My first example: recall your first experience of smoking or drinking a hard liquor. As a rule admit it, it was an unpleasant experience. You know, like you are with maybe an older friend who tells you do you know what adults are doing you know they drink this and okay he offers you whiskey. Your first reaction admit it is bleh like it's bitter and so on. And cigarette it's the same, like an older colleague offers a young boy a cigarette and he starts to smoke and says ptooie but this is horrible, then you acquire it, it's not spontaneous. Spontaneous is to drink stupid fruit juices or or milk or whatever. Gradually you learn to enjoy it. I claim it's even something of the same order in Coke. I remember my first and then I'm systematically asking my friends: do you remember your first experience with Coke, Coca-Cola? And all of them admitted it, they were told especially in provincial countries or communist you know that's the American drink and so on and then you learn to enjoy it. What is a directly and I to go to the end I claim that it's the same with sex. What is a directly pleasurable is just some stupid rhythmically squeezing yourself maybe masturbation and so on but to enjoy a full act of copulation more than a simple good masturbation is not natural I claim. It's you have to learn it. And again as I already mentioned the last time I think, a similar lesson can be learned from swearing. It may appear that when in the middle of a polite conversation you get really mad you cannot hold back anymore your frustration and you explode like fuck it I have enough of it and so on. But I claim it's not so, as already mentioned it here, I have a ritual with some of my good friends. After we met we meet, we engage for the first five minutes in ritualized sessions of rough tasteless swearing and offending each other, like screw your mother up her ass whatever you want. Then after some minutes we get tired. We acknowledge with a brief nod that this boring ritual is over and okay the duty is over now we can talk kind people that we are and so on and so on. And I think this is a rule that transgressions are not spontaneous. And that's maybe in the background of my polemic, polemic friendly exchange with that Pussy Riot Nadya Tolokonnikova no. I take her very seriously, she is heroic but I claim she underestimates her own heroism in the sense that you know I violently disagree with her famous line which is now quoted, we are children of Dionysus and so on or what. You know I think it's a catastrophic mistake to read the Pussy Riot acts as you know, we have a stiff hierarchic structure, we need a fresh air of outbursts of spontaneity and so on and so on. No, the point is not to re-establish the balance. The point is not that Putin stands for hierarchic order. The point is that hierarchic order is a bad hierarchic order you know. The point is how to change that order. It's not just that balance between. And I claim that she is not aware of what Pussy Riot are really doing. They are not simply bringing in fresh air of provocation, carnival into hierarchic structure. No, their message is you Putin who pretend to be a dignified ruler, you're a clown, you're an obscenity. Because they specifically criticized the link between church and power in Russia. Like remember what they shouted during that provocation in I don't know which church it was directed at the at the how is it called whatever the boss of the of the Patriarch yes shouting Patriarch Alexy or what, believe more in God believe less in Putin and so on and so on. So I think you totally miss the point if you look at it as a simple fresh air of provocation. No, the thesis is that they in the power are the provocation, they are the carnival, they are the they are the obscenity. But let me go on. Now we should apply my next point this lesson also to forms of collective violence like gang rapes and killings. One of the terrifying effects of the fact that today we have different levels of social life like we can have in the same country ultra-modern industry and old patriarchal forms of family is the rise of the violence against women. Not just random violence but systematic violence, violence specific to a certain social context, violence which follows a pattern. Even in India I claim that would be my first example. You remember about a year ago or even less there was the great outcry when five guys in a bus raped a girl. I was opposed to that outburst to that public outrage, don't misunderstand me, not because I think oh the girl deserved it. But but Arundhati Roy with whom I fully sympathize, the Indian writer, made it clear that why such a great outcry about that simply because the guys were from the lower caste poor. If you want to see violence against women she wrote my God go to a whorehouse in in in in Mumbai Bombay and you will see hundreds times more terrible horrors. Do you know that there is a systematic link between Mumbai prostitution rings and poor families in the north of India or in Nepal? They are selling poor farmers there in total despair are selling girls from five years on old to be directly used either used in in in bordellos or sold to individuals. Like everyone knows about it and oh where is the outcry when five poor guys do that. So I think but another point I want to emphasize which is crucial for me. For example I want now to go more in detail into an example that I already mentioned maybe here a year ago, the serial killings of women in Ciudad Juárez at the border of Texas. The point is that these are not just private pathologies but a ritualized activity part of the subculture of local gangs. Because first I mean there is a by Semiitext a book I forgot the author published called *Feminicide* or what which gives a pretty terrifying detailed description of it. The point is that Ciudad Juárez is the capital of this fast assembling industry you know, parts parts manufacture I don't know where in some Chinese Gulag or whatever, no, they just put them together there and up. So they need a lot of not heavily educated workforce so there are many single women there employed. For them it's nonetheless a chance, they are not well paid but at least they earn their living they are autonomous free young women. And this of course is a provocation for male chauvinist logic. So as if to punish them for their independence it happens serially like a couple of dozens cases per year at least and it's pretty even for my bad taste pretty disgusting. Usually it's to people who do it, first it's the gang rape then the slow cutting killing like first with scissors they cut off her breast it's this sub. Why why am I mentioning this? Because when they police investigates ah the first irony. Basically it's a matter of common knowledge everybody knows who are these gangs not one person was arrested for these crimes. And we are talking about dozens of women every year. The only one not arrested but killed was a mother who inquired too much into what happened to her daughter. The the important thing again is that if the police investigates it it what that's crucial. It systematically overlooks, ignores what? Not the brutality of the crime but its let's call it social symbolic ritualized dimension. They desperately try to make it a case of individual pathology, oh that crazy guy that crazy drunk guy did it whatever. What is censored is the collective ritualized character. The you see the link with the stupid jokes that I was telling before, this is not a young people getting drunk and doing a horrible rape or whatever like in their spontaneous violence. No, it's a strictly ritualized thing. They follow a ritual. It's a collective act, symbolic performance. The same thing, now you will say haha it's easy for me to make fun of Mexicans, what about more civilized North. Canada close to Vancouver well you have something similar going on although Canadians like to boast that they are you know they are the part of civilized Europe in America kind of a social-democratic paradise. No, close to Vancouver there are some Native American Indian whatever I prefer to call them Indian Indian reservations. And there also it's practically ritualized young people young white people kidnap a girl from a reservation, torture her and drop her kill her rape her of course and drop her dead just inside the reservation. And when the police investigates it they systematically try to direct investigation into oh it was probably a dissolute family father mother is a whore father is a drug addict whatever you know. What they neglect is not again the brutality of the crime but the social symbolic dimension of it. They try to make it just a kind of a natural decadence you know crazy poor families okay explosion of violence but the point is it's not this, it's a collective act. Again what is repressed for the public gaze is not the cruel brutality of the act but precisely its cultural ritualistic character of a symbolic custom. It's absolutely crucial to insist on this point. These violent acts they are part of our culture, they are the dark side of our culture they are symbolic rituals. They are not just some brutality exploding. The same perverted social ritual logic is at work in the cases of course my eternal example of pedophilia which shatters the Catholic Church. When the church representatives insist that these cases deplorable as they are are church's internal problem and they display great reluctance to collaborate with police they are in a way right. The pedophilia of Catholic priests is not something that concerns merely the persons who because of accidental reasons of private history happen to be pedophiles. It is a phenomenon which concerns Catholic Church as such. You know what I'm trying to say. In the same way that part of the adult culture precisely as a symbolic structure in Ciudad Juárez are these obscure rituals of torturing raping killing the poor girls, in exactly the same way it's crucial to insist that pedophilia it's not just because okay as with every commu- community of course some people are pedophiles and so on. No, it's the obscene underground part of the church's identity. Now you will tell me how do you know it? Well it's absolutely clear if nothing else from the way the church reacts to it. Absolutely protecting them like there were numerous scandals in Slovenia where till recently church was absolutely like there were a couple of cases where parents when they learned that a local priest is systematically raping their small boy, they went to the bishop to a higher authority. And the first thing that the bishop told them is that they should absolutely talk to no one about it, that if they did it they commit a mortal sin. And then they they simply transferred the priest to another part of Slovenia where of course he went on doing on the same thing. What I'm claiming is that this is where for me today critique of ideology begins. To be aware how what may appear as a criminal deviation or whatever how these obscene phenomena are part of symbolic identity of our institutions. And I've written a lot about it at different levels. For example you cannot imagine a traditional conservative American university without all those all those fraternities sororities with all their obscene rituals and so on and so on. I even read once an amusing text after after Abu Ghraib that how what they were doing there to Iraqis is basically the same rituals that they do to new students to in the rituals of their admission and so on and so on. Or with Ku Klux Klan and so on. Another thing I want to mention here and this is really amusing for me at least is how the same attitude emerges in and I like them in the domain of self-help guides. There also we have the official self-help guides you know like how to win new friends how to all the official stuff. But do you know I have some of them that there is a whole series there are some publishers doing them of let's say the the the obscene guides with which imitate the form of these self-help guides but in a slightly more obscene like *Cheaters Always Prosper*, *Advanced Backstabbing and Mud-slinging Techniques*, *Revenge Tactics*, *Spy on Your Spouse* and so on. I have a couple of them and they are very well written. It's for example how to ruin someone your best friend maybe with with rumors without getting caught and so on. My favorite one is of course and I have it: *How to Disappear Completely*. I mean it gives a detailed of how you should prepare your disappearance for example first how you get a in United States the crucial is to get a Social Security number no? How to get this how to go on then and so on and it's it's a wonderful book to read. I mean it works. So now let me go to a step further here. This inherent inconsistency of our ideological or even legal order is not limited just to these obscene phenomena. I think that there is a kind of a necessary inconsistency in our legal structures legal in our legal order itself. Let me quote an example which I mentioned a couple of times in my books, of contemporary China. How do official Chinese communist theorists react when confronted with obvious contradictions? Like a communist party which still legitimizes itself in Marxist terms but renounces Marxism basic premise: the workers self-organization. I think my experience was, and of course tasteless guy as I am, whenever I'm in China I ask this especially when I'm dealing with official philosophers. I ask them these questions and I notice how they mobilize all the resources of traditional Chinese politeness, you know. Basically quite a great number of them I was surprised look around and like you know like why are you it's not polite to ask this question, you know it's as if some impolite secret that you shouldn't mention publicly. And so again why why politeness? Because clearly when you okay they try to give you some stupid answers. Like one answer it was so stupid that I almost appreciated it was when I told them you pretend to be a communist country and and but you strictly prohibit trade unions self- worker self-organization and you support capitalism now. You know one guy answered me in the following way I loved it. He said you are confusing you are confusing leftism with Marxism as science. Leftism talks about working class but Marxism is a science of social development. And Marxism as a science of social development tells us that at the present stage the best instrument to develop China is capitalism. So as okay this stupidities they tell you. But but in a more in a more interesting then there is quite honest opposite attempt. They claim just for historical reason we keep the term communism we are Confucians. They quote you that even in their programmatic statements the goal is no longer called communism but harmonious society or whatever. But the typical answer nonetheless is again politeness. They let you know that even openly one guy told me privately, of course it's true what you are saying. But when you are visiting a friendly country it's not polite to draw attention to such inconsistencies you know. Like you should politely ignore we should politely ignore them. Then I consciously played an idiot and asked them but why don't you formalize this? Why don't you simply say publicly, like it's prohibited to ask in what sense we are a communist country or whatever, no? And then what I wanted to and I did achieve it basically is to force them of course to come as close as possible to this statement that it's not only that something is prohibited but prohibition itself is prohibited. So you know what I mean like it's not only that it's prohibited to ask but in what sense China is communist. But even you cannot even like directly formulate this prohibition. When you ask in China is this still a communist country in what sense, no one will answer you sorry it's prohibited to ask this question, you know. We we have prohibitions which are themselves prohibited. And they are just what happens here? And I say this with all respect. Because this what I will say now refers to what I still see as a potential emancipatory dimension of Islam. And if some of you know it better you can correct me but the way I read from some French leftist Islamic friends is the following. Don't you have a certain ritual, okay I'll put it like this. The origin of mythic of Arab Muslim is supposed to be Hagar, that slave girl with whom Abraham had a son. And then the son became the original where for Western racism the bad guy but nonetheless God intervened and saved and wasn't there a famous scene, isn't this part of the ritual when you go to to Hajj or how it to that pilgrimage, that you have to run between two rocks or some weird ritual like that. And it's clear that this ritual is a mythic repetition of Hagar wandering in desert and so on. The point is what? The point is that this story is never directly mentioned in Quran. It's just enacted, you know it's something has to remain unmentioned implicit support and you enact it in a ritual. I find nothing problematic here. Okay but back to so back to China. I often quote this a title in one report in when I was in Japan, the Japan Times there was a wonderful article called *Even What's Secret is a Secret in China*. Namely someone a local dissident was informing media about some ecological local catastrophes and so on and he was arrested. And then his lawyer asked why is he arrested. Which laws did he break? Like what no? The answer was it's a state secret. Namely not what he disclosed but even the laws that he violated were not were not to be were not to be mentioned. And now I come and now I come slowly to the topic of the super-ego. Have a little bit of patience because I've chosen as my big example something very weird. The first Slovene post-communist film. Post-communist in the it's from It's a sentimental love melodrama, it was the first part was shot even in '53. It was as it were the the liberal opening. Because till that point all Slovene films were either critique of previous society or celebrating partisans you know. This was the first film basically the message to the young people was you have the right to you you can have some fun. Everything is not ideology you are allowed your jokes and so on and so on. It was like symbolic point of opening. So the film I'm talking about it's called in Slovene *Ne čakaj na maj*, *Don't Wait for the Month of May*. It tells the story of a couple of students who are passionately in love with each other. Her name is Vesna she is the daughter of a severe high school mathematics professor, a widower who lives with his unmarried sister, an old spinster maid who never had sex. He, the lover of the girl Vesna is Samo, an amateur sport plane's pilot. Here is the much simplified plot of the film. When the two go onto a short skiing vacation together with a group of friends, Vesna's father, worried about the dangers of a vacation away from her family, asks his spinster sister to accompany his daughter and to keep an eye on her. Supposed to be the gatekeeper the old lady of course ends up typical comedy as the one who brings the lovers together. After some misunderstandings which cause jealousy, the couple finds itself alone but they merely exchange some kisses. Vesna doesn't want to engage in full sex since she wants a lifelong connection, not just a brief affair. But after they return home, Vesna tells her father that she wants to marry. Father sternly prohibits marriage till the couple finishes their studies. Vesna then elaborates a plan. She leaves fall traces indicating that she is already pregnant. For example she as if accidentally forgets on her bed a book on pregnancy or she pretends to have morning sickness and so on and then escapes with Samo with her love. When her father as well as their noisy neighbors learn the news, rumors explode about how and they all complain how promiscuous the young generation is, how they lack elementary moral restraints and so on. Gradually nonetheless father and his sister break down and prepare with joy for the marriage of their daughter and for the child, buying a small bed and so on. Then however when they are all gathered in front of their house, Vesna and Samo, the two lovers, unexpectedly return home telling them that there is no pregnancy since they didn't use the opportunity being alone in the mountains for illicit sexual pleasures. And now comes a wonderful point. The same gossipy neighbors and stern moralists who till that point were saying what a terrible young generation they use every opportunity to have sex. Now they totally shift their cards and start with dismissive sneer say things like you see the boy didn't even use his opportunity I knew all the time he is of no use you cannot even count on today's generation and so on and so on, you know. Even Vesna's father reacts in a disappointed way he the conservative disciplinarian. When Samo's the boy's the lover's mother drops by, she he the great disciplinarian shouts at her what kind of son did you raise he didn't he didn't even know how to get my daughter pregnant. He is not worthy of her and so on and so on. Then you have something wonderful. The couple of lover runs away from this confusion they go on the plane this small sport plane and there Vesna whispers into his eye some words that we don't hear and the end of the film. Of course one can guess these words are now you can fuck me or something like this no. But but what I like here is how the strategy of the girl in faking her pregnancy is pretty complex. Its goal is not just to bring her family to accept her marriage by way of confronting them with a fake fait accompli. It concerns also the inner psychic economy of the couple's love relationship. How to bring themselves to perform sexual act. That is to say it is evident that Vesna doesn't want to follow the path of the simple transgression of violating the norm imposed by the father. Her strategy is not okay we'll do it and then we'll violate the paternal or injunction and then the father will have to accept it to avoid the scandal you know like I'm pregnant I have to get married. No, she doesn't want to defy the big other, his authority. What she wants is not only to have sex within legitimate coordinates, that's why she rejects sex before marriage, but even more perversely she wants to be forced into sex by the very authority whose function is to prohibit it. So in this way she does the opposite of what young lovers usually do. Instead of keeping the appearance of chastity and engaging in sex discreetly out of other's view, she engenders the false appearance of illicit sex while in reality persisting in chastity. The premise is that we are not hypocrites who pretend to be pure and chaste but secretly engage in full sex. On the contrary, we are hypocrites who pretend to enjoy illicit sex while secretly preferring chastity. I found this a wonderful reversal and I'm tempted to act like this. Isn't it wonderful that in front of others yeah I fucked her whatever and then you go home and read Hegel's logic or whatever that brings true pleasure, you know. So the false appearance of illicit pleasures generates obscene expectations which are disappointed. And at this point the girl can finally engage in sex obeying the obscene injunction of the big other. Why? Because again all this function only if we have the big other which plays the double game. Officially it tells you no sex, secretly it tells you but do it, violate it. And what Vesna wants to do is to have this implicit order openly, no? She said no I want the big other openly to tell me what are you waiting get fucked you know and then I will do it. It's a wonderful strategy. This strategy again lays bare the ambiguity of the paternal authority. It forces the authority to openly display its obscene underside. At the same time it demonstrates how a successful sexual act is not just a matter of intimate passions but has to be mediated through the big other of some symbolic authority. Now let me return for a moment to the film's climactic moment when the couple of lovers Vesna and Samo escape their families. The you you I mentioned them you remember the moralistic neighbors whose main business is to poke their noses into other people's affairs. They began to spread rumors that the girl is pregnant they condemned the couple's immoral way of life. The couple returns home and then when it's clear that they did not engage in illegal illegitimate sex, the same gossipy neighbors react critically like you see the boy didn't even use his opportunity I knew all the time he's of no real use and so on and so on. This reaction of the gossipy neighbors again provides a perfect example of how super-ego works. It exerts pressure to impose sexual constraints to impede sexual contact. However beneath this surface appearance its true injunction is do it, enjoy it, I want you to do precisely what I am prohibiting you to do. In other words you are guilty if you violate the prohibition but you are even more guilty if you obey it which explains the super-ego paradox formulated clearly by Freud: the more you obey the commands of the super-ego the more you are guilty. Freud brings this fundamental ambiguity of the super-ego agency when you violate the moral standard you are guilty, when you don't use the opportunity to violate it you are even more guilty. To the extreme: the super-ego is basically saying in any case you are guilty. Now let me complicate where are we sorry yes we have time. Let me complicate matters a little bit more. This constitutive guilt which cuts across the terms of the alternative, if you are guilty you are guilty if you are innocent you are even more guilty, accounts for another reversal of common sense which concerns what Freud called Strafbedürfnis, the need to be punished, the weird satisfaction provided by a painful punishment. It is not the crime which causes the guilt feeling and punishment, it is the need to be punished which generates guilt feeling and gives birth to criminal intentions. Where then does this original need to be punished come from? Instead of grounding it directly in some kind of primordial masochism striving for pleasure in pain, Freud proposes a more complex scenario which concerns his basic matrix of socialization of entering a legal order. It is you know the myth of the primordial father. It is not only that in a pseudo-Hegelian way the legal order needs occasional transgressions, crimes in order to assert its authority through punishing the perpetrators. All of us, also those who never perpetrated any crime, are constituted as legal subjects through being considered as potential criminals. And that's the underlying thesis. It's much more refined than that apparently simple story you know like in our fantasies we killed our fathers or whatever. The idea is that to be a legal subject subjected to legal order means to be potentially in your desire a criminal. Freud elaborated this scenario in his well-known analysis of Dostoevsky's *Karamazov Brothers* in which a group of brothers is as you all know suspected of killing their father, an obvious almost a figure of primordial father, an obscene enjoying father. Here is a quote a pretty nice quote a longer one I'm sorry from Karamazov Brothers sorry from Freud study Dostoevsky and parricide. I quote from Freud: "It is a matter of indifference who actually committed the crime. Psychology is only concerned to know who desired it emotionally and who welcomed it when it was done. And for that reason all of the brothers except the contrasted figure of Alyosha..." but I don't buy here Freud you know that's nonetheless a little bit of sympathy I have for Dostoevsky. Do you know that *Karamazov Brothers* is an unfinished novel? No? And you know they found notes of what would have gone on? You know what Alyosha the pure saint would become? Sorry? Almost yes a terrorist a terrorist yes a revolutionary terrorist no so ah ah ah maybe he wasn't totally bad Dostoevsky you know okay. But so they are all equally guilty the impulsive sensualist Dimitri, the skeptical cynic Ivan Karamazov and the epileptic criminal, I think that half illegitimate brother Smerdyakov. In the *Brothers Karamazov* there is one particularly revealing scene we all know it. In the course of his talk with Dimitri, Father Zosima, the old saint figure, recognizes that Dimitri is prepared to commit suicide and he bows down at his feet. It is impossible this can only mean that the holy man is rejecting the temptation to despise or detest the murderer and he humbles himself before him. So Dostoevsky's sympathy for the criminal is boundless. It goes beyond pity which the unhappy wretched person has a right to. A criminal is for Dostoevsky almost a redeemer, someone who has taken on himself the guilt which must have otherwise born by others. There is no longer any need for one to murder since he has already murdered. You see what's Dostoevsky's logic, let's say we all desire father's death and the one who does it does it for all of us. We can only that's Dostoevsky's paradox, we can only be innocent in the eyes of law because another one did it for us. In so far as the primordial crime, the murder of the obscene father is constitutive of the social body kept together by some law, the definition of an innocent subject of the law is: someone who no longer needs to kill since another one the sacred murderer already did it for him, realizing his desire. We are thus incorporated into a legal order through crime and guilt. A subject of law is by definition a potential criminal. This shared guilt which constitutes the universality of legal citizens brings us back to this idea that that the law itself has to be prohibited. What has to remain prohibited is the criminal underside of the law the what Benjamin would have called not divine but mythic violence of its instauration. This prohibition works by way of transposing pressure onto the subject. The subject has to be perceived as a priori guilty in order to maintain invisible the guilt obscene violence of the law itself. However in order to function this transposition has to assume two forms. First, we have the guilty subject who effectively committed the crime and then we have the innocent bystanders who profited from the crime since the criminal's act delivered them from the need to murder. In this sense as Freud wrote it, the criminal is almost a redeemer who has taken on himself the guilt which must have otherwise been born by others. By committing a crime he sacrifices himself for the benefit of the other. In order, so the notion of let me do here a short improvisation on the notion of sacrifice. The notion of sacrifice usually associated with Lacanian psychoanalysis is that of a gesture that enacts the disavowal of the impotence of the big other. Like I mean you find this like it's better for me to be guilty than to disclose the impotence of the big other. As you probably know this was usually the logic of Stalinist show trials, no what privately they told you is admit guilt in this way the party the party remains pure. I want to tell you another story that I used in some of my books but which I think is a perfect example of this sacrificial logic. There even two versions of it namely of *Beau Geste* a classic imperial melodrama, there was a film from '38 in Hollywood with Gary Cooper and then I think recently there was a BBC or Granada I don't know remake. But it's a wonderful story. It's a story about three brothers living with a rich aunt and all of a sudden the aunt wants to show them some extremely very valuable necklace and for a second light light goes out and a necklace disappear. It's clear that one of the three brothers had to steal it. And next day all three brothers disappear and they go to foreign legion blah blah and then at the end of the film I will not go into it we learn the mystery. The guy Gary Cooper character in the first version, the guy who did it saw one day before when this good aunt was visited by her evil brother or the that the brother demands from her to pay an old debt to give to him this necklace. At the same time he learned this Gary Cooper character that the necklace is a fake, that the aunt is already deeply indebted and well it would have been a scandal you know when she would try to repay her debt but it would become clear that the necklace so he thinks out of love how to save the aunt by stealing it. Because by stealing it the myth would remain that it was worth. You know, you steal something why? Not because it's worth but precisely to create the false impression that it was worth stealing. By stealing it you prevent the disclosure that it was worthless to steal. Then let me go on. There is then apart from this guilt, the virtual guilt of the innocent bystanders of the collective which profited from the necessary crime. The Freudian paradox: the more you are innocent the more you are guilty, holds for them. The more they are innocent of the actual crime the more they are guilty for enjoying its fruits without paying the price for them. Here super-ego pressure enters, capitalizing on this guilt in a very specific way. The super-ego pressure does not squash the subject's individuality. Its effect is not to immerse the subject into a crowd where his individuality is dissolved. On the contrary and here I refer to Étienne Balibar who proposed this reversal. You know standard classical Althusser's formula how the how ideology interpellates individuals into subjects. Balibar's formula is that super-ego interpellates subjects into individuals. In what sense? Super-ego addresses me as a unique individual, confronting me with my guilt and responsibility. Don't escape into generalities, don't resort to circumstances. Look deep into your heart and ask yourself: where did you fail with regard to your duties? This is why super-ego pressure gives rise to anxiety. In the eyes of the super-ego I am alone, there is no big other behind which I can hide. And I am guilty as charged because the very position of being charged makes me formally guilty. If I plead my innocence it only signals my additional guilt for denying guilt. Now you will say these are these are exaggerated speculations what has this to do with our actual experience. Ah, I think that precisely today's society functions like this. It exemplifies perfectly this type of super-ego individualization. Ecology, political correctness, poverty up to indebtedness being in debt in general. How does predominant ecological discourse address us? Precisely as a priori guilty, indebted to mother nature. Under the constant pressure of super-ego agency which addresses us in our individuality: what did you do today to repay your debt to nature? Did you put all newspapers into a proper recycle bin? Did you put all the bottles of beer or cans of Coke in a separate recycle bin? Did you use your car where you could have used a bike or some means of public transportation? Did you use air conditioning instead of just opening wide your windows and so on and so on. You see this is today's super-ego, just this endless deep probing did you do all your duty? And why is this ideology? I claim it's ideology because precisely it obfuscates you from looking my God in this way you know when you said what about society big companies? Ah the answer of social super-ego is oh who are you to talk about society in general? What about you? Did you do this? Did you do that? And so on. It's a perfect ideological machinery. And again as I just said the ideological stakes of such individualization are easily discernible. I get lost in my own self-examination instead of raising much more pertinent global questions about our entire industrial civilization. The same goes I claim for the endless politically correct self-examination. Was my look at the flight attendant too intrusive and sexually offensive? Did I use any words with a possible sexist undertone while addressing her and so on and so on. And you know, this is also what I think it's false in this white middle class endless probing into ourselves. Was I secretly racist? Did I use when I spoke with my African-American friend when I mentioned I don't know when I mentioned that black door black window, did it have a potential, you know like the basic point is it's really I met some of these like the more you probe into yourself the more you try to clarify bring out your guilt it's an endless task, the more you are guilty. And my point is that there is something fundamentally wrong about this. So let's go on. The you know where you can see the lie of it. How when you probe into yourself in this super-ego way how self-criticism is mixed with joy when you discover that your joke was no innocent like oh I got it, you see there also I was a little bit politically incorrect or whatever and so on and so on. As for charity. Recall how we are all the time bombarded by messages destined to make us feel guilty for our comfortable way of life while children are starving in Somalia, they are dying unnecessarily from easily curable diseases. Messages which simultaneously offer an easy way out, like you can make a difference, give five dollars monthly to an anonymous black orphan and you will make someone happy and so on and so on. Again the ideological underpinning is here easily discernible. Maurizio Lazzarato's notion of indebted man provides a general structure of subjectivity as indebted subjectivity, as depth this endless guilt depth constituting me. So now comes the conclusion. The the message of is here is that how can we get rid of this guilt? Precisely by fundamentalism, by crowd formation. So crowd formation is not a super-ego formation I claim. It's precisely a wild way to step out of this structure of guilt. In a crowd formation we we encounter a kind of the return of the repressed of the mythic violence and anxiety and guilt disappear. Anxiety and guilt disappear. Which is why I claim that, and that's the miracle that I spoke with some people in a strange way they didn't know who I was, who were violent nationalists. And they really embody this super-ego paradox because their message was in so far as we were guilty, sorry in so far as we tried to be let's call it politically correct, decent, we felt more and more guilty. The moment we become brutal nationalists, that is to say and that's what I add, the moment we become really guilty in the sense of really doing horrible things we experience ourselves as innocent. So again the more you are really guilty the more you are innocent. And here I claim, I will tell you something horrible here now, here this is what I find wrong about this eternal Western guilt or are we Islamophobic? You know like are there and so on and so on. I claim that this is again another super-ego pressure felt by like you know oh did we offend Muslims in this way in that way and so on and so on. And I claim that that this is why it's a strange game going on here like the more we try not to offend Muslims the more they claim we offend them. The more they play this super-ego role oh you apparently respect us but you remember what you said this and so on and so on. It's the same it's the same endless process. So okay I will tell you an example from Turkey when I was there. You know they I was there a week or two after Europe after in Switzerland they have that referendum prohibiting the building of mosques no? Sorry of minarets only, yes of minarets no? And they were all oh my God we see we see the falsity of Europe, Europe is racist blah blah blah. And then I did an interview with some TV station news where the guy asked me no how do you comment this like he expected from me some big critical comment you know we see now the hypocrisy of Europe and so on. But was it you Bülent or another Turkish friend who told me but wait a minute, in Turkey we have a law which prohibits the building of any new non-Muslim church objects with the exception of historical renovation of historical monuments. So you know and after the TV show I told this to the guy who interviewed me but wait a minute why were you asking me this when obviously you have a much harsher law? Like the corresponding law would have been I don't know to allow building churches but prohibit Catholic churches church towers no? And he didn't have a good answer, he went into they all all the time when you catch racists they all the time claim you the you should look at it in concrete circumstances that the circumstances are different. I have no doubts that if they were to catch somehow years old whatever Hitler in some Argentinian or Peruvian jungle and accuse him of Holocaust he would have said you shouldn't tear Holocaust out of its concrete circumstances conditions no they are. But what I am saying is just that with all my respect from Islam don't misunderstand it. I just think that this eternal fear that we are Islamophobic is not the right way. It makes us more and more guilty and as Freud always emphasized guilt is always justified. We are guilty because this procedure is false. It doesn't really clear us. You know, like for me it's just it's the same in the same way as politically correct obsession with was I a sexist and so on, I think just in an inverted way reproduces sexism and so on and so on. Okay, to be very vulgar for me, the right way out of sexual harassment is not to instantly ask you know to a girl whom you're trying or a man or a dog whatever I'm open here whom you're trying to seduce you know like did you did I offend you or whatever, but the art is to do it even openly in a vulgar way but you you know the point is not to get caught in this vicious cycle of probing into it was I because okay no let me not get lost into this. What I simply wanted to say is that is that this endless self-probing is for me just an inverted form maybe the most violent form today of Eurocentrism. Because you know a radically politically correct guy, you know what his answer would have been probably to this Turkish. He would have said yes but they are victims of history they are exploited by us so they have the right to while we as white men a priori guilty we blah blah. So but you know what's the secret presupposition of this? It's that the other is so stupid that they are simply victims of circumstances while did you notice how this defense of our Western guilt really reproduces the old cliché that only we Western people have the access to proper universality. We are fully responsible free agents. Which is why you know it's the same I probably already told you this story. The the same problem when I noticed in the United States how which ethnic group is allowed to assert its peculiar peculiar ethnic identity. If Native Americans do it it's perfect. If blacks do it it's okay. Then things get so-so. If Italians do it aha. If but then if like wasps white Anglo-Saxon Protestants do it it's fascism oh you are not allowed to. Now I'm saying that this guilt of us like they are allowed to because they were oppressed we were in this is false guilt because prohibiting me to assert my peculiar identity like you know if I organize dancing some German or English dances it's almost you are a fascist. Did you notice how if we assert our particular culture we are a fascist if the others do it it's emancipation. Now I am not a right-winger would say you see this is why political correctness is not right this is why like you know the white intelligent white racist anti-immigrant argumentation is we just want the same things as you multiculturalists are ready to allow to the blacks you know. We want in the same way that we should protect black Jewish Arab whatever Muslim identity why don't we whites have the right to protect our identity? No, of course I reject this. But what I'm saying is that in this prohibiting us to assert our identity it's only a parently modesty. The obverse of this modesty is an extreme arrogance. It's that we don't have the right to assert our identity because we are universal. We are universal and as such we can save the others we can see where we are guilty and so on. This is why I also see a humiliating aspect in you know how whenever there is a horrible thing going on in some African country the first reaction of leftist white liberals is oh it must be the effect of colonization you know. Like they were all so glad in the case of Rwanda and in that case to avoid a misunderstanding it was totally true in Rwanda that the key was the colonization. Who was the boss there, the Dutch I don't know who but the point is that the the Hutus and Tutsis, Tutsis I think were privileged English speaking by and it's true that even the violence was directly triggered. It's a very dark story, even a guy whom I don't like very much you can see why. Bernard-Henri Lévy. I asked him after one round table, tell me Mitterrand and Bernard-Henri Lévy was friendly Mitterrand. Mitterrand Rwanda. He said guilty. The French openly helped who were the bad guys Hutus or who the majority to kill the Tutsis, you know. It was horrible why because Hutus were more francophone no they see this as a chance to widen the French domain there. But what I'm saying is this that this blaming Europeans their colonial machinations whenever in Africa something horrible happens. Okay, first I agree that we have to bring this out absolutely. But you know what worries me that beneath it it's the same patronizing attitude. As if if we no longer can be burden of the white man you know we at least can be the if we no longer can be exemplary good men civilizing others it's as if the ultimate racist fantasy of leftist liberals is that we can at least be the immediately I finish we can at least be the ultimate bad guys, you know. Like like beneath this denial that it was their guilt it's simply a denial that they can be a responsible agents. They are like children they are controlled by by circumstances it's our machinations, it's an extreme arrogance beneath this. So again I think that the true respect for Muslims is to treat them as adult people and openly criticize them. Otherwise this constant fear of homophobia you are patronizing them. And again the only way to treat the Africans is to treat them as adult responsible people not to play this disgusting game ooh it must be ah we are always guilty and so on and so on. Okay maybe I talk too much it's you do. The states is any less a false polarization than what Lenin faced in a much more titanic struggle where millions of people are shooting each other, workers called on by the left to go and fight each other and shoot each other down. Lenin jumped into the abyss. It was not some gradual step-by-step thing. He jumped into the abyss and says "this is the communist spirit". That's what you need to do. To hell with Obama he's the manager in chief of American imperialism. Okay, we take point, but we're not discussing communism today. You know we were discussing also other things. And we have discussed communism so many times so let's get on with it. No no no but wait a minute, I would nonetheless like to. First that debate, you know, it was simply that I didn't have any other talks this spring in New York I was ill and so on. I will do it but you know what worries me a little bit because I know Raymond I talked with some others. I also want to control the conditions of that debate. I don't want to step in with people into a staged event which is obviously organized to I don't know as a kind of a triumph of. I want to debate with him on equal terms, which means I don't want to enter an event I want to know how that event was organized, who was called, who was invited and so on and so on. Sorry I am not ready to do an event like that. Point two why point two why why do you think that debate is so mega mega crucial or whatever? I I have I have pro- I have ser- with all my sympathy I wrote an introduction to the book by Avakian you maybe remember and so on. But sorry I will tell you something of a common sense now. The way they build his cult of personality, the way they celebrate him. I'm sorry, I read his texts, he is not at the level of that. He is not a genius he pretends to be. Well then come and say it. Okay okay thank you thank you. No no no but nonetheless to talk now about Obama and so on but you see that's the problem. Of course I agree with you we should exit the false binaries and so on. But all I'm saying about Obama and I have no illusions about him that with universal healthcare he touched a point which is a disturbing point. And we should prolong that debate because I claim that in American ideological constellation obviously universal healthcare touches something which is traumatic for it. And that's the way you enter the public space otherwise you are an elitist party of people waiting for the big revolution. I'm not saying I'm not saying we should we should simply accept Obama's terms Obama's terms of the debate but you should grab something. As to Syriza, listen, the fact is that Tsipras is demonized all around Europe. Which means I don't care if he sincere or not but that's an opening. And as to Lenin oh my God I can tell you stories there. Yes Lenin jumped into the abyss. But you know that then in the early 20s do you follow Lenin there, he he said we are such a backward country forget communism all we can do now is our duty is to bring, he was very Eurocentric, Western civilization into Russia and his preferred company were big capitalists. At some point he even said we should learn from big capitalists our main enemy are small bourgeois with that so Lenin read him read him read him. It's extremely interesting reading Lenin's and some who are definitely no I know some proper theory why wait no no no but wait a minute okay okay sorry sorry sorry let me go to okay the first one you know the also of course had Trotsky to do the dirty work for him. Yeah but wait a minute you know what's for me the problem the problem with Trotsky I mean I'm there almost I read detailed books you know what interest me Trotsky from '24 till And it's a model of how to screw things up frankly. I mean he was first so in love with himself, he simply believed in his charisma you know and I will you know like he will show himself in the people and he even he was really sorry to use for the 20th time that metaphor Trotsky was like already in '24 he was you know that stupid metaphor that I always use a cat above the precipice he just didn't notice it. I mean it was a model of how not to do it. Not to mention the point that Trotsky is cheating a little bit in the sense that if you look at his Trotsky's texts in the 20s sorry in the early 20s do you really think that Trotsky had a clear alternative? The conflict was Stalin I know at that point was on the right wing Stalin was with Bukharin you know. Okay but let's not lose time on this I admit it. Let's go to theory. Okay when you mentioned super-ego death drive sado-masochism and so on and so on. First I would distinguished here things I think that this circularity of this is a good question namely I would not put a sign of equation between super-ego and death drive. I here follow Deleuze and even Lacan here I think Lacan I don't think he reduces death drive to super-ego. I think that there is a certain repetitive dynamics of death drive which absolutely shouldn't be reduced to super-ego. As to what you said about say this masochism Deleuze's contribution and I'm on Deleuze's side I must say is that they are not a symmetrical couple. He is opposed to the term sado-masochism. so again okay let's not go with it into detail the point the point is I think how to rehabil- not rehabilitate how to conceptualize death drive outside even all outside not only of super-ego but even outside of terms of masochism and so on and so on. I think this is crucial. And that's what I try to do it for example even in philosophical terms linking it to linking it to super-ego and so on and so on. I think that death drive basically for me has absolutely nothing the key for me is what I always repeat that if you really read close even Freud you see that death drive if anything is Freudian name for immortality. Death drive is not all that bullshit ooh I want to disappear whatever. No death drive is something which insists beyond life and death. Which is why I always repeat if you want to learn about death drive read I'm sorry to tell you this obscenity read Stephen King horror novels about the undead. The undead are pure figure of death drive. The undead who are not alive but paradoxically also not dead who are the living dead. That's the death drive. Something that goes on and on and on. And if anything I think the expression political of death drive is for me you know when let's say revolution is losing but then somebody says no even like Schwarzenegger sorry disgusting movie terminator you know when he says but I will be back but I will be back you know this eternal return undeadness. This is death drive. Death drive is hope and so on. Okay sorry then then the last one I mean the the second one about that no also yes Lenin and sorry what was the other one Lenin and Žižek against Žižek. Yeah but I didn't
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quite ah sorry what was the precise more precise you see when you ask me did you summarize in one sentence what your whole ideology is you know? Ah yeah. Yeah first about this political theology you know let me nonetheless make this absolutely clear I'm a materialist unconditionally I ah so I I it's not that I'm playing jokes
quite ah sorry what was the precise more precise you see when you ask me did you summarize in one sentence what your whole ideology is you know? Ah yeah. Yeah first about this political theology you know let me nonetheless make this absolutely clear I'm a materialist unconditionally I ah so I I it's not that I'm playing jokes
Slavoj Žižek
when I write about Christianity and so on but for me the message of Christianity is precisely what dies on the cross I repeat it it's not Jesus Christ it's as Hegel knew it it's God of beyond. What dies on the cross is any transcendent guarantee. What dies on the cross is the idea there is a higher power which is controlling us and so on and this is how I read Holy Spirit. In Christianity what happens after Jesus Christ's death it's not oh he went away but don't worry too much he will come back. No nothing will come back. I read literally those lines in I don't know which which New Testament text where Jesus Christ said when they asked him how will we know that you come back you know when there is love among two of you I'm here. Nothing will happen. The the whole point of Christianity is to see to see in this utter defeat of Christ's death already a chance for freedom. You know my syllogism of Christianity would have been this one. Let's say you are totally at a loss. You say God died on the cross what can I do now? I have no guidance I don't know what to do. You know what's the Christian answer not be patient father is up there he no the Christian answer is but do you know what you said now? I am alone I don't have this is freedom and this is divine gift for you it's freedom you know. Nothing changes. It's not that God comes and so it's only in this way that I speak about Christianity. As to the and oh yes sorry when you mentioned Benjamin no why and Schmidt I think it's absolutely crucial to avoid all problems nonetheless to strictly distinguish what Benjamin called divine violence from all that Schmidt topic you know of of... yeah yeah that's thinking about temporality yeah. Yeah yeah that's thinking about temporality of political theology as opposed to a rupture that would be intriguing. What what okay here we would have to go more into what do into being more precise because for me the basic paradox of temporality is an Freudian temporality begins like this is retroactivity you know is how the past itself of course not in a naive
when I write about Christianity and so on but for me the message of Christianity is precisely what dies on the cross I repeat it it's not Jesus Christ it's as Hegel knew it it's God of beyond. What dies on the cross is any transcendent guarantee. What dies on the cross is the idea there is a higher power which is controlling us and so on and this is how I read Holy Spirit. In Christianity what happens after Jesus Christ's death it's not oh he went away but don't worry too much he will come back. No nothing will come back. I read literally those lines in I don't know which which New Testament text where Jesus Christ said when they asked him how will we know that you come back you know when there is love among two of you I'm here. Nothing will happen. The the whole point of Christianity is to see to see in this utter defeat of Christ's death already a chance for freedom. You know my syllogism of Christianity would have been this one. Let's say you are totally at a loss. You say God died on the cross what can I do now? I have no guidance I don't know what to do. You know what's the Christian answer not be patient father is up there he no the Christian answer is but do you know what you said now? I am alone I don't have this is freedom and this is divine gift for you it's freedom you know. Nothing changes. It's not that God comes and so it's only in this way that I speak about Christianity. As to the and oh yes sorry when you mentioned Benjamin no why and Schmidt I think it's absolutely crucial to avoid all problems nonetheless to strictly distinguish what Benjamin called divine violence from all that Schmidt topic you know of of... yeah yeah that's thinking about temporality yeah. Yeah yeah that's thinking about temporality of political theology as opposed to a rupture that would be intriguing. What what okay here we would have to go more into what do into being more precise because for me the basic paradox of temporality is an Freudian temporality begins like this is retroactivity you know is how the past itself of course not in a naive
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mystical
mystical
Slavoj Žižek
sense but the symbolic weight of the past can be can be constantly changed. And for me the key point is how to read it. The only way to read it is if you that's what I always repeat that's why I'm so fascinated by quantum physics because it's the first model that I see of an open ontology. Open in a more radical sense that simply the work of creation is not finished. Which is why to give you an indication of what I mean. Recently this came to me you know this idea you know these polemics behind behind between Niels Bohr and Einstein. You know when Einstein said God doesn't cheat like we should rely on some basic laws of nature and so on. But I think that here enters the most beautiful ontological consequent part of quantum physics which is how you can ontologically cheat you know in the sense that you do something but before it's registered you can profit from it and then in other words to put it like this. If you take into account that we have after the wave function collapse the constituted reality but prior to it is quantum virtual reality what what quantum physics allows for and if we claim that God is the one who sees it all the way it is then the materialist ironically of course answer to Einstein would have been that the lesson of quantum physics is yes God does not cheat but God is constantly cheated. You know God doesn't see what happens just beneath the surface God is constantly ontologically cheated and so on. So nonetheless so you know why because no let me just this is an important political point. Often I'm attacked the last time by Richard Bernstein in a book on violence that I celebrate some brutal violence and so on. You know what annoys me and here I'm probably solitary with you you know what annoys me with this secretly liberal pseudo-leftist friends of Benjamin. Benjamin is today incorporated but a kind of aseptic Benjamin you know they all look how to read his notion of divine violence and they want to make it some sublime event nobody is hurt no physical violence. I'm sorry read Benjamin whatever he means we can debate about it by divine violence but he means violence where people are killed extreme brutality and so on. And of course this all started with Homi Bhabha I think what Homi Bhabha did with a similar thing with Fanon you know how to to make an aseptic politically correct Fanon not too violent and so on. And again it's the same I even Judith Butler is not clear here. I think she wrote somewhere that there is a paradox of some symbolic shift where no one is hurt no physical violence that's how she tries to reread divine violence and the the way to squeeze out of the harsh revolutionary commitment of Benjamin is incredible like in his polemics against me Simon Critchley tries to totally brutally reinscribes Benjamin's divine violence into liberal coordinates. He reads it as when there is no other way you have to apply a little bit of violence. But this is the standard liberal defense you know like try not to be violent but when there is no other way do it. But in this way for him violence is a problematic instrument which we should apply when there is no other way. But wait a minute Benjamin says exactly the opposite he says divine violence is an instrument without an end. The whole point of divine violence is that it's not you know like we are in a revolutionary process we have there some soldiers of the enemy oh my God maybe we will have to shoot them or whatever no. It's totally wrong this is not Benjamin. It's incredibly how watered down how how like I think Benjamin and Fanon would have been two thinkers who needs rehabilitation today in what they originally were against this no this political correct guys you know they want some kind of a revolution where no one will suffer somehow there will be a big shift and this shift will be so radical that nothing will in reality happen you know just some big but we have to again to return to return to Benjamin here. Okay shall we take another couple of questions or it's
sense but the symbolic weight of the past can be can be constantly changed. And for me the key point is how to read it. The only way to read it is if you that's what I always repeat that's why I'm so fascinated by quantum physics because it's the first model that I see of an open ontology. Open in a more radical sense that simply the work of creation is not finished. Which is why to give you an indication of what I mean. Recently this came to me you know this idea you know these polemics behind behind between Niels Bohr and Einstein. You know when Einstein said God doesn't cheat like we should rely on some basic laws of nature and so on. But I think that here enters the most beautiful ontological consequent part of quantum physics which is how you can ontologically cheat you know in the sense that you do something but before it's registered you can profit from it and then in other words to put it like this. If you take into account that we have after the wave function collapse the constituted reality but prior to it is quantum virtual reality what what quantum physics allows for and if we claim that God is the one who sees it all the way it is then the materialist ironically of course answer to Einstein would have been that the lesson of quantum physics is yes God does not cheat but God is constantly cheated. You know God doesn't see what happens just beneath the surface God is constantly ontologically cheated and so on. So nonetheless so you know why because no let me just this is an important political point. Often I'm attacked the last time by Richard Bernstein in a book on violence that I celebrate some brutal violence and so on. You know what annoys me and here I'm probably solitary with you you know what annoys me with this secretly liberal pseudo-leftist friends of Benjamin. Benjamin is today incorporated but a kind of aseptic Benjamin you know they all look how to read his notion of divine violence and they want to make it some sublime event nobody is hurt no physical violence. I'm sorry read Benjamin whatever he means we can debate about it by divine violence but he means violence where people are killed extreme brutality and so on. And of course this all started with Homi Bhabha I think what Homi Bhabha did with a similar thing with Fanon you know how to to make an aseptic politically correct Fanon not too violent and so on. And again it's the same I even Judith Butler is not clear here. I think she wrote somewhere that there is a paradox of some symbolic shift where no one is hurt no physical violence that's how she tries to reread divine violence and the the way to squeeze out of the harsh revolutionary commitment of Benjamin is incredible like in his polemics against me Simon Critchley tries to totally brutally reinscribes Benjamin's divine violence into liberal coordinates. He reads it as when there is no other way you have to apply a little bit of violence. But this is the standard liberal defense you know like try not to be violent but when there is no other way do it. But in this way for him violence is a problematic instrument which we should apply when there is no other way. But wait a minute Benjamin says exactly the opposite he says divine violence is an instrument without an end. The whole point of divine violence is that it's not you know like we are in a revolutionary process we have there some soldiers of the enemy oh my God maybe we will have to shoot them or whatever no. It's totally wrong this is not Benjamin. It's incredibly how watered down how how like I think Benjamin and Fanon would have been two thinkers who needs rehabilitation today in what they originally were against this no this political correct guys you know they want some kind of a revolution where no one will suffer somehow there will be a big shift and this shift will be so radical that nothing will in reality happen you know just some big but we have to again to return to return to Benjamin here. Okay shall we take another couple of questions or it's
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o'clock.
o'clock.
Slavoj Žižek
It's o'clock. One question. One question hahahahahaha. The gentleman in the back has been asking for some time. Can you keep it short please. Very short very specific you said the way out of the super-ego guilt trap was through crowd formation. No no but the false way out I'm not [unintelligible]. Ah okay so oh my God I'm not crazy yes okay then can you take this example of nationalism then I was asking is there a kind of non-negative way. No no no no because you know the problem with nationalism what shocked me when I met those racists brutals probably those guys that I met in Belgrade once were even doing the weekend trips to Bosnia to do some killing. What shocked me is how innocent they sounded no. It's as if you become a nationalist to be and I already told this story it may interest you what shocked me is how nicely they with their practice refuted the standard liberal theory that these new ethnic fundamentalists are primitive guys who are afraid of the new freedoms of our developed capitalist world you know and they are afraid of this self-responsibility and they escape back into some primitive ethnic identity. No, the way they described to me their situation was wonderful was on the contrary. They experience the politically correct permissive developed society as too oppressive in vulgar sense. They told me what society is this I cannot smoke in public I cannot beat my wife I cannot rape a girl. It's horrible everything is regulated. I go to Bosnia I can do whatever I want you know. It's a so it's the opposite it's for them it's this and and this again brings me back to that Dostoevsky eternal Dostoevsky point you know that the truth of our society is if as Lacan turned it around if there is no God then everything is prohibited in the sense that can you imagine anything more in detail regulated than a politically correct hedonist community you know okay you can do whatever you want sexual practices but you know healthy sex jogging and so on and so on it's a totally it's a totally regulated life. The truth of our permissivity I already quoted this when I flew across the Atlantic I read in *Hemispheres* United magazine appraising sex and healthy sex and they claim you know like if you often make love it will turn your muscles and your it's good for heart circulation they even went to if you give deep French kisses your muscles here will be firmer and when old you will not be dripping saliva and so on I mean this is horrible this is horrible this healthy sex you know. Sex must be unhealthy you must be feeling
It's o'clock. One question. One question hahahahahaha. The gentleman in the back has been asking for some time. Can you keep it short please. Very short very specific you said the way out of the super-ego guilt trap was through crowd formation. No no but the false way out I'm not [unintelligible]. Ah okay so oh my God I'm not crazy yes okay then can you take this example of nationalism then I was asking is there a kind of non-negative way. No no no no because you know the problem with nationalism what shocked me when I met those racists brutals probably those guys that I met in Belgrade once were even doing the weekend trips to Bosnia to do some killing. What shocked me is how innocent they sounded no. It's as if you become a nationalist to be and I already told this story it may interest you what shocked me is how nicely they with their practice refuted the standard liberal theory that these new ethnic fundamentalists are primitive guys who are afraid of the new freedoms of our developed capitalist world you know and they are afraid of this self-responsibility and they escape back into some primitive ethnic identity. No, the way they described to me their situation was wonderful was on the contrary. They experience the politically correct permissive developed society as too oppressive in vulgar sense. They told me what society is this I cannot smoke in public I cannot beat my wife I cannot rape a girl. It's horrible everything is regulated. I go to Bosnia I can do whatever I want you know. It's a so it's the opposite it's for them it's this and and this again brings me back to that Dostoevsky eternal Dostoevsky point you know that the truth of our society is if as Lacan turned it around if there is no God then everything is prohibited in the sense that can you imagine anything more in detail regulated than a politically correct hedonist community you know okay you can do whatever you want sexual practices but you know healthy sex jogging and so on and so on it's a totally it's a totally regulated life. The truth of our permissivity I already quoted this when I flew across the Atlantic I read in *Hemispheres* United magazine appraising sex and healthy sex and they claim you know like if you often make love it will turn your muscles and your it's good for heart circulation they even went to if you give deep French kisses your muscles here will be firmer and when old you will not be dripping saliva and so on I mean this is horrible this is horrible this healthy sex you know. Sex must be unhealthy you must be feeling
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terribly guilty like
terribly guilty like
Slavoj Žižek
the world should fall apart at the horrors that I'm doing you know. Okay sorry. Yeah yeah like yeah but this is not the crowd in the Freudian sense. Ah here here I'm a quite naive Marxist leftist and claim what Freud is describing in his crowd formation this immersion into unity and so on and so on this is there are crowds and crowds because let's be very specific Freud gives two examples maybe that's how I would begin with it. Remember that Freud gives two examples of artificial crowds church and the army. And he treats them as the same while I think there is a crucial opposition there. Church is a totally different type hierarchic organized, army is an egalitarian crowd. I think you have class struggle there. I am for the army against the church but that's here.
the world should fall apart at the horrors that I'm doing you know. Okay sorry. Yeah yeah like yeah but this is not the crowd in the Freudian sense. Ah here here I'm a quite naive Marxist leftist and claim what Freud is describing in his crowd formation this immersion into unity and so on and so on this is there are crowds and crowds because let's be very specific Freud gives two examples maybe that's how I would begin with it. Remember that Freud gives two examples of artificial crowds church and the army. And he treats them as the same while I think there is a crucial opposition there. Church is a totally different type hierarchic organized, army is an egalitarian crowd. I think you have class struggle there. I am for the army against the church but that's here.