In Conversation with Jonathan Derbyshire
Discussion · zizekpodcast.com ·
2012-06-12 · 1:56:53 · 17,042 words
with Julian Assange
hegel-dialecticspsychoanalysiscommunism-socialismideologydemocracycapitalismliberalism-political-correctnessrevolution-violencetechnology-ai-cyberspacecinema-art-culturephilosophy-generalgeopolitics-warsexuality-gender
A public conversation between Žižek and Jonathan Derbyshire at Central Saint Martins, held to mark the launch of Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. Žižek defends Hegel as the philosopher of radical contingency and absolute knowing-as-limit, connects Hegel and Lacan against liberal appropriations of both, and situates this reading in an analysis of contemporary left politics, Occupy Wall Street, Syriza, and the impotence of the traditional Left in the current crisis. The talk ranges into biogenetics, the authoritarian market state, national identity under globalization, and the disappearance of passionate sex from popular culture as symptoms of a controlled hedonist ideology.
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
Žižek uses the psychoanalytic concept to describe how simplified caricatures of Plato, Descartes, and Hegel protect us from the genuinely traumatic insights those philosophers actually discovered.
as “the unhintergehbar (the unpassable background)”
Heidegger's term, that which you cannot go behind, used by Žižek to explain transcendentalism: for Heidegger, Ereignis is the ultimate horizon of disclosure that cannot itself be questioned.
as “transcendental historicism”
Žižek's critical name for dominant continental philosophy, the view that all one can do is describe the hermeneutic horizon within which questions arise, without asking direct ontological questions about reality.
Žižek's label for the shared gesture of all major philosophical traditions (Heidegger, Derrida, Marx, analytic philosophy) whereby each presents its own break as the first genuine departure from a totalized, deficient past.
Reread against caricature: for Žižek, Hegel's absolute knowing is not omniscient closure but the historical limit, at each epoch you reach the edge of what can be thought, and that limit is the openness to what is to come.
as “avenir vs futur”
Žižek distinguishes the French futur (continuation of the same) from avenir (to-come, radical break) to argue that Hegel has no futur but is the philosopher of avenir, of genuine openness to the unprecedented.
as “liberal Hegelianism”
The recent reading of Hegel centered on Anerkennung (recognition), which Žižek regards as a domestication of Hegel's radical negativity analogous to liberal Lacanianism.
Žižek's ironic label for late Lacan's struggle to organize the psychoanalytic school without a master signifier or master figure, a failed but crucial attempt to constitute a social space egalitarianly.
as “subtraction (Badiou)”
Badiou's concept of authentic politics as withdrawal from the state, which Žižek critiques as providing a comfortable safe position that avoids the hard question of actually seizing and reorganizing power.
Žižek's ironic label for the moment of principled refusal, 'I would prefer not to', which he sees as the true message of Occupy Wall Street: a double negative insight targeting capitalism as such and the inadequacy of existing democratic mechanisms.
Žižek's term for the academic-leftist posture of demanding impossible radical change from a safe distance, knowing the demand will amount to nothing, thus preserving one's radical credentials without risk.
Žižek argues the crucial problems today, ecology, intellectual property, biogenetics, are problems of the commons, which is why he retains the word communism: these are structurally communist problems.
Used in the political register: protest movements must eventually coalesce around new master signifiers and concrete programmatic answers, not remain at the level of horizontal refusal.
as “superego pressure”
Žižek applies the Freudian superego, an impossible demand structured in advance around the subject's failure, to describe Europe's austerity impositions on Greece: demands known to be unachievable, designed to produce and exploit failure.
as “conflictual universality”
Against multicultural 'UNESCO solidarity,' Žižek proposes universality achieved through shared political struggle, the solidarity felt at Tahrir Square that cuts across cultural difference without erasing it.
The ruling ideology of today is not excess but regulated pleasure: coffee without caffeine, safe sex, prescribed positions for lovemaking, enjoyment that is always already pre-neutralized of its disruptive potential.
Stories he reaches for 4
A dating agency advertises 'find yourself in love without the fall', promising to protect clients from the traumatic vulnerability of falling in love. Žižek uses this as evidence that the ruling ideology now pathologizes the very structure of genuine erotic attachment.
“I saw some publicity wonderful which says: we will allow you to dating agency to find yourself in love without the fall.”
Žižek observes that Quantum of Solace is the first Bond film without sex at the end, connecting this to The Da Vinci Code's chaste Jesus-couple and Dan Brown generally, a sign that controlled hedonism has replaced genuine erotic transgression even in popular entertainment.
“Here is the first James Bond without sex at the end... I claim that the logic is let's have sex up there with the holy couple of God to cover up the fact that there is no sex here.”
Žižek holds up Obama's Affordable Care Act as a model of effective left politics: a realistic, concrete demand that nonetheless strikes at the ideological foundation of American freedom-of-choice ideology.
“Healthcare, universal healthcare. I know that the result is a total compromise. But can you just imagine what kind of a traumatic sore point this was for the American establishment.”
Bill Clinton's response to Occupy Wall Street was what boxing calls 'clinching', come together, debate, translate protest into concrete measures. Žižek argues this was precisely the wrong move because any positive proposals would have been framed in the enemy's language.
“the reaction of benevolent liberals like Bill Clinton was what in box is called clinching: oh fine let's come together let's debate how can we translate your protest into concrete measures.”
Works invoked 14
The Da Vinci Code film
Used as evidence for controlled hedonism: no sex between Langdon and the descendant of Jesus; the holy couple functions to cover up the absence of real sex.
Žižek's first UK book; described as an 'immense provocation' containing a defense of Hegel.
Quantum of Solace film
Cited as the first Bond film without sex at the end, symptom of the disappearance of erotic transgression from popular culture.
Adorno and Horkheimer's most radical answer, that totalitarianism was already present in prehistoric magical practices, is cited as the logical endpoint of the genealogy-of-catastrophe game, which Žižek finds ultimately meaningless.
Predecessor documentary by Sophie Fiennes, referenced as context for the new film.
Angels and Demons film
Sex present in Brown's novel but erased in the film adaptation; cited as further evidence of Hollywood's move toward desexualized popular culture.
Brazil film
Praised as one of the first works to portray the coming authoritarian-comical society, not fascism but crazy, comic, with bureaucratic excess, with Berlusconi as its first political instantiation.
Its second edition marks one of the two dates defining the story of German Idealism Žižek tells in Less Than Nothing.
Empire book
Hardt and Negri's book, cited as an example of the waiting-for-the-event messianism where marginal multitudes will eventually condense and take over.
Forthcoming documentary directed by Sophie Fiennes; covers The Sound of Music, Titanic, Bond films.
Lenin's worst work, admired by Popper, both share a naive realist 'reality is out there' position that Žižek opposes.
Žižek's own book being launched; describes it as a lifetime's work, a 'desperate attempt' to think with Hegel but beyond Hegel.
Robert Solomon's book; Žižek endorses its reading of absolute knowing as historical limit rather than omniscience.
A Left without a Future essay
T.J. Clark's New Left Review text; Žižek finds its basic double insight, demonstration of the Left's defeat and the need to abandon revolutionary messianism, quite sympathetic, though draws different practical conclusions.
People invoked 34
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri negative
Cited as an example of the 'Terracotta Army' messianism, the belief that the multitudes will at some point condense and take over the social body.
Robert Solomon positive
Cited as 'pretty good' (with disagreements) for his book In the Spirit of Hegel; Žižek endorses his reading of absolute knowing as the acknowledgment of historical limit rather than omniscience.
Žižek expresses personal dislike ('frigid bitch,' agreeing with Darian Leader) while citing her observation that at a certain moment 'human nature changed' as relevant to biogenetics.
Cited as the first step toward a Brazil-style authoritarian-comical market society; evidence that the new authoritarianism is not Asiatic but universal.
Jacques Derrida positive
Žižek respectfully disagrees with Derrida's reading of Hegel as closure, citing Derrida's own ambivalence, he once said Hegel was closest to différance, and Catherine Malabou's near-conversion of Derrida.
Vladimir Lenin positive
Žižek accepts Lenin's greatness dialectically, not dismissing Stalin as a simple deviation, and cites late Lacan's struggle to organize the psychoanalytic school without a master as 'Leninist writings.'
Cited as the conservative model for liberal Lacanianism: don't analyze illusions too closely, don't disturb appearances, things can only get worse.
Jacques Lacan positive
Used as an instrument to read Hegel; Žižek defends a radical non-liberal Lacan against Jacques-Alain Miller's liberal appropriation.
Gilles Deleuze positive
Cited alongside Lacan as an example of a philosopher who resists the move of exclusionary totalization, not claiming all predecessors were idiots.
Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens negative
James Bond is his agent: Bond's function is to eliminate the industrial working class so Giddens can proceed with Third Way postmodern theory.
Terry Gilliam positive
Praised for Brazil as one of the first works to portray the new authoritarian-comical society that is neither traditional fascism nor liberal democracy.
Alain Badiou positive
Described as 'my friend'; Žižek agrees with Badiou's diagnosis of anti-Platonism but critiques his concept of subtraction (authentic politics outside the state) as providing a comfortable safe position.
Alexis Tsipras positive
Žižek met him in Greece, admires his pragmatic courage in entering power despite the depth of the crisis, and endorses Syriza's self-understanding as cleaning up after others' dreams.
Tariq Ali negative
Cited as representative of fashionable disappointment with Obama as a 'traitor'; Žižek dissents and still admires Obama's healthcare achievement.
Werner Heisenberg negative
Žižek follows Bohr against Heisenberg: Heisenberg's reading of the uncertainty principle is merely epistemological, missing its radical ontological implication.
Catherine Malabou positive
Described as a 'wonderful' French Hegelian (student of Derrida) whose book on Hegel almost converted Derrida; Derrida's foreword shows this near-conversion.
T. J. Clark positive
Žižek endorses Clark's New Left Review essay 'A Left without a Future' on the defeat of the traditional Left and the need to abandon the waiting-for-the-event structure, though draws different conclusions.
Michel Foucault positive
Briefly cited for the elegant formulation that Western philosophy is all possible versions of anti-Platonism.
Pierre Legendre negative
Representative of conservative Lacanianism: the view that normality requires paternal authority and today's permissiveness causes narcissistic violence.
Martin Heidegger positive
Used to explain the transcendental horizon (unhintergehbar / Ereignis) and its 20th-century dominance; Žižek partly agrees with Meillassoux's diagnosis of Heideggerian transcendentalism.
Christine Lagarde negative
Found hypocritical for lecturing Greeks about tax evasion while herself not paying taxes; exemplifies the moralizing superego structure of European austerity.
Described as 'my great friend'; showed Žižek the New Democracy attack on him as Tsipras's 'secret mentor.'
Jacques-Alain Miller negative
Officially designated inheritor of Lacan to whom Žižek owes his introduction to Lacan, but whose liberal Lacanianism (enlightened cynicism about necessary illusions, counsel against intervention) Žižek now sharply opposes.
Cited approvingly for sharing Žižek's negative view of Virginia Woolf.
Quentin Meillassoux negative
Žižek agrees with Meillassoux's diagnosis of 20th-century transcendentalism but rejects speculative realism's solution as falling back into naive pre-Kantian objectivism.
Niels Bohr positive
Endorsed over Heisenberg: Bohr reads quantum indeterminacy ontologically (reality itself is incomplete) rather than merely epistemologically (we cannot measure both complementary features).
Described as embodying the 'ultimate tragedy': the racist Front National leader staged multicultural embraces while coding antisemitism as anti-cosmopolitan-capitalism, filling the Left's abandoned working-class constituency.
Rosa Luxemburg positive
Cited approvingly for the insight that the right revolutionary moment never simply arrives but emerges through repeated premature attempts and failures.
Dan Brown negative
Used as evidence of controlled hedonism in popular culture: The Da Vinci Code posits a divine sexual union to cover up the absence of real sex in the narrative.
Karl Popper negative
Cited as the paradigm of political anti-Platonism (Plato as father of totalitarianism) and as a naive realist who paradoxically shared Lenin's worst epistemological assumptions in Materialism and Empiriocriticism.
Karl Marx positive
Accepted as a great thinker but criticized for being more idealist than Hegel: Marx grants historical agents privileged access to future necessity.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Central subject of the talk; Žižek reads Hegel as philosopher of radical contingency, absolute knowing as limit, and avenir, against all caricatures of him as totalizing systematizer.
Simon Critchley negative
Named obliquely as 'he who shall remain nameless'; Žižek rejects his spiritualization of revolt, abandonment of the radical project, and misreading of Žižek as counseling passive waiting.
Immanuel Kant positive
The transcendental turn makes Hegel possible; Žižek reads Kant's epistemological limits as ontological cracks in the real once transposed by Hegel.
What it argues
Hegel as philosopher of radical contingency and absolute knowing as limitLiberal appropriations of Hegel and Lacan and Žižek's rejection of themOccupy Wall Street and the impotence of the contemporary LeftSyriza and pragmatic radicalism in the Greek crisisAuthoritarian market capitalism and the China modelBiogenetics and neurological warfare as class issueControlled hedonism and the disappearance of passionate love from ideology
Dialectical moves 9
“Hegel is paradoxically more open to contingency than Marx; for Hegel there is no future (futur) because there is avenir — the to-come.”
The supposedly conservative systematizer Hegel is in fact more open to radical rupture than Marx, who over-determines historical necessity.
“Absolute knowing is not opposed to historicism — it is historicism brought to its most radical extreme.”
What looks like the closure of absolute knowledge is actually the acknowledgment of the historical limit as openness.
“The true illusion is not that there will be radical change; the true illusion is that things can go on indefinitely with minor adjustments.”
Conservative common sense presents gradualism as realism, but the genuine illusion is the belief that the current system is sustainable.
“Communism is a nice master signifier precisely because it reminds you all the time how wrong things can go — you are playing with fire.”
The trauma attached to the word communism is an argument for keeping it, not against: it encodes a permanent self-warning.
“Europe's austerity demands on Greece have the structure of the superego: impossible demands that take failure into account in advance, whose true aim is to organize and exploit that failure.”
What presents itself as moral discipline (pay your debts) is structurally a sadistic trap designed to humiliate.
“Globalization does not dissolve particular identities — it is strictly correlative to the assertion of particular identities.”
The apparent contradiction between global capitalism and nationalist/ethnic identity is resolved: they produce each other.
“Far from being subversive, sexual experimentation and hedonism are the ruling ideology today; it is passionate love and real sex that have become almost subversive.”
The supposed transgression of libertine sexuality is the norm; genuine intimacy and erotic vulnerability are the actual threat to the system.
“To be truly pragmatic today you must be radical to a certain point — the opposition between radical and pragmatic measures becomes obsolete.”
Given the depth of the crisis, realism demands positions that appear radical; moderate pragmatism is in fact the more idealist posture.
“The predominant image of Hegel that people react against is a screen memory — it protects us from what Hegel really discovered.”
Anti-Hegelianism fights a caricature; genuine engagement with Hegel would be far more unsettling.
Claims 20
asserts
The popular images of Plato, Descartes, and Hegel are screen memories that protect us from the genuinely traumatic insights those philosophers discovered; the task is to see through these caricatures.history of philosophy
reframes
Hegel's absolute knowing is not omniscient closure but historicism at its most radical extreme: the acknowledgment that this is where we are now, with genuine openness beyond.Hegel's absolute knowing
asserts
Hegel is paradoxically more materialist than Marx because he refuses to grant historical agents privileged access to historical necessity pointing toward the future.Hegel vs. Marx on historical knowledge
asserts
All post-Hegelian reversals — turning to production, will, or positive foundation — are attempts to avoid what Hegel saw: something so difficult and monstrous that it traumatized the whole subsequent period.post-Hegelian philosophy
asserts
Quantum indeterminacy is best read ontologically (following Bohr rather than Heisenberg): reality itself is incomplete, not merely our knowledge of it.quantum physics and ontology
rejects
Liberal Lacanianism (Miller's orientation) wrongly reduces politics to enlightened cynicism about necessary illusions, counseling non-intervention on the model of Burke.liberal Lacanianism / Jacques-Alain Miller
asserts
Occupy Wall Street's true achievement was a double negative insight: targeting capitalism as such and demonstrating that existing democratic mechanisms cannot address it.Occupy Wall Street
asserts
The Left has proven its total impotence during the current crisis: the long-awaited revolutionary moment arrived and produced only vague Keynesianism.contemporary Left
asserts
The true illusion is not that radical change will come but that things can go on indefinitely with minor austerity adjustments; we are approaching a zero point.limits of capitalism
asserts
A new form of authoritarian market capitalism exemplified by China no longer inherently generates demand for democracy, ending the historical pattern where capitalist development produced democratization.capitalism and democracy / China model
asserts
Europe's austerity demands on Greece have the structure of the psychoanalytic superego: impossible demands structured around the debtor's guaranteed failure.European austerity / Greece
asserts
Economic globalization does not produce cultural homogenization but rather its supplement: the intensification of fixed particular cultural identities.globalization and cultural identity
asserts
Authentic universality is conflictual universality — solidarity in shared struggle — not multicultural celebration of diversity.universality and multiculturalism
rejects
The 'Terracotta Army' waiting-for-the-event structure of the radical Left — expecting a moment when the authentic proletariat awakens — must be abandoned.revolutionary messianism / Left strategy
asserts
Passionate love and sex are becoming genuinely subversive in a society whose ruling ideology is controlled, healthy, regulated hedonism.sexuality and ideology
reframes
The correct answer to biogenetic challenges is neither humanist horror nor posthumanist enthusiasm, but modest attention to the stakes — especially the class dimension of genetic modification.biogenetics and technology
asserts
Communism is worth retaining as a political name because it reminds its adherents how badly things can go wrong — it is a master signifier that keeps the danger visible.communist name / left politics
rejects
Speculative realists (Meillassoux, Harman, Brassier) fall back into a naive pre-Kantian objectivism that bypasses rather than overcomes the transcendental problem.speculative realism
asserts
Syriza's pragmatic courage — entering power fully aware of their constraints — is the correct model for left politics, superior to the comfortable position of permanent outside resistance.Syriza / left strategy
asserts
Liberalism originally performed something genuinely valuable by constructing shared political space across opposed religious commitments; that modest achievement should be acknowledged even by the radical Left.liberalism
Quotes 14
“There is no philosopher more open to things to come than Hegel.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegel as philosopher of avenir / radical contingency
“Absolute knowing is not opposed to historicism, but it's historicism brought to its most radical extreme. It's: that's the limit.”Slavoj Žižek · reinterpretation of Hegel's absolute knowing
“I even think Hegel is more materialist quite seriously than Marx.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegel more materialist than Marx
“The true illusion is not ooh there will be a radical change. The true illusion is that things can go on indefinitely only if we do a little bit of austerity.”Slavoj Žižek · the real illusion is gradualism / sustainability of capitalism
“Isn't it nice to have as your master signifier a term which reminds you all the time how wrong can things go?”Slavoj Žižek · argument for retaining the word communism
“We are not the dreamers, we will have to clean the shit which remained after after the other people's dreams.”Slavoj Žižek · Tsipras / Syriza on pragmatic radicalism
“Every reasonable being knows love is the ultimate catastrophe.”Slavoj Žižek · love as ontological rupture vs. controlled hedonism
“We have coffee but without caffeine, you have sex but safe sex. Sex is in if it's healthy.”Slavoj Žižek · controlled / decaffeinated hedonism
“You must be radical to a certain point just to be truly pragmatic.”Slavoj Žižek · radicalism as the condition of genuine pragmatism
“The pressure on Greeks by Europe clearly has the structure of what in psychoanalysis is called superego... an impossible demand... the authority takes into account in advance that you will fail.”Slavoj Žižek · European austerity as superego structure
“I simply find horrifying this shame of — you know like it's like the new Left is playing the James Bond films game.”Slavoj Žižek · Third-Way Left's erasure of working class via Bond-style action
“The predominant image of a philosopher, what people react to, is what in psychoanalysis we call Deckerinnerung, screen memory.”Slavoj Žižek · screen memory blocking access to traumatic philosophical core
“Globalization is strictly correlative for me to assertion of particular identities.”Slavoj Žižek · globalization strengthens rather than dissolves particularism
“If you think seriously about protecting liberal values, freedom, dignity, whatever they are, only an alliance with radical Left can do it.”Slavoj Žižek · radical Left as necessary defender of liberal values
Transcript 82 turns
unknown
Good evening everyone and very warm welcome to our platform theater here at Central Saint Martins. I'm Jane Rapley and I'm the head of college here and tonight's occasion is one of the latest in a series that has perhaps experienced the Olympic-like rush for tickets. So there's been a bit of a scramble so it's great to see you all here and a very popular and special event that we're very pleased to host here. Before we do that there's some important thank yous that I have to make. Well this evening is the inaugural event of our relationship with the New Statesman and we expect that this will be the first of at least one annual lecture that we will do with the New Statesman plus I hope some other things that we will do together. So we're very very pleased and excited about that. And we're delighted that their editor of culture Jonathan Derbyshire is going to join us in conversation with Slavoj Žižek. And we particularly would like to thank Adam Bowie and Rosalind Goates for working with Peter Cleak to make this evening happen. We're also here to celebrate the Verso’s publication of Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, something that Žižek claims is a lifetime's work. And we're thrilled to be launching this masterwork at Central Saint Martins and are very grateful to Sarah Shinn and everyone at Verso for collaborating with us on that. And in a similar vein we'd like to thank Henry Lord of Icon Books. saw the release of a Slavoj Žižek: A Graphic Guide as part of their Introducing series and it's an edition illustrated by Piero and written by the leader of our MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy, Christopher Kul-Want. Appropriately, London's oldest radical bookshop and our new friends at King's Cross, Housmans, are running a store in the theater foyer that I'm sure you noticed as you came in where a selection of Žižek's publications have been generously discounted by both publishers especially for this event. So please do take advantage of that and Žižek has kindly agreed to sign some copies following the talk presenting a rare opportunity to meet the man in person. Now I'm going to hand over to Chris Kul-Want who's going to introduce our speakers tonight. Thank you very much.
Good evening everyone and very warm welcome to our platform theater here at Central Saint Martins. I'm Jane Rapley and I'm the head of college here and tonight's occasion is one of the latest in a series that has perhaps experienced the Olympic-like rush for tickets. So there's been a bit of a scramble so it's great to see you all here and a very popular and special event that we're very pleased to host here. Before we do that there's some important thank yous that I have to make. Well this evening is the inaugural event of our relationship with the New Statesman and we expect that this will be the first of at least one annual lecture that we will do with the New Statesman plus I hope some other things that we will do together. So we're very very pleased and excited about that. And we're delighted that their editor of culture Jonathan Derbyshire is going to join us in conversation with Slavoj Žižek. And we particularly would like to thank Adam Bowie and Rosalind Goates for working with Peter Cleak to make this evening happen. We're also here to celebrate the Verso’s publication of Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, something that Žižek claims is a lifetime's work. And we're thrilled to be launching this masterwork at Central Saint Martins and are very grateful to Sarah Shinn and everyone at Verso for collaborating with us on that. And in a similar vein we'd like to thank Henry Lord of Icon Books. saw the release of a Slavoj Žižek: A Graphic Guide as part of their Introducing series and it's an edition illustrated by Piero and written by the leader of our MRes Art: Theory and Philosophy, Christopher Kul-Want. Appropriately, London's oldest radical bookshop and our new friends at King's Cross, Housmans, are running a store in the theater foyer that I'm sure you noticed as you came in where a selection of Žižek's publications have been generously discounted by both publishers especially for this event. So please do take advantage of that and Žižek has kindly agreed to sign some copies following the talk presenting a rare opportunity to meet the man in person. Now I'm going to hand over to Chris Kul-Want who's going to introduce our speakers tonight. Thank you very much.
unknown
Hello everyone. Good evening. It’s very nice to see you all. I'm sure you're as excited as we are about this forthcoming event. I am going to just say a few words of introduction after which Slavoj Žižek and Jonathan Derbyshire, who is the cultural editor of the New Statesman, will be in conversation. Something in the region like an hour I think they'd like to speak after which there will be a question and answer session. And I'm very pleased to say that we've got wonderful lighting here so we haven't got that kind of peering into the dark situation. We can have some kind of sense of dialogue and participation between you and the speakers. So we're very privileged this evening to have the renowned philosopher, political thinker, and activist Slavoj Žižek speaking here at the college. His visit marks a number of particular occasions and events both here at Central Saint Martins and in the publishing field. Jane has already spoken to you about the collaboration with the New Statesman in hosting future events presenting leading thinkers and writers today. Over the past decade or so Žižek has gained an increasingly high profile within not just academia but also within the media in the UK. And the New Statesman has been one of a number of major outlets in this regard for Žižek's writings. So it's very appropriate that he should be opening this series. As you know this is the first year that we have been based here at the King’s Cross building. We're just drawing to the end of our first academic year in
Hello everyone. Good evening. It’s very nice to see you all. I'm sure you're as excited as we are about this forthcoming event. I am going to just say a few words of introduction after which Slavoj Žižek and Jonathan Derbyshire, who is the cultural editor of the New Statesman, will be in conversation. Something in the region like an hour I think they'd like to speak after which there will be a question and answer session. And I'm very pleased to say that we've got wonderful lighting here so we haven't got that kind of peering into the dark situation. We can have some kind of sense of dialogue and participation between you and the speakers. So we're very privileged this evening to have the renowned philosopher, political thinker, and activist Slavoj Žižek speaking here at the college. His visit marks a number of particular occasions and events both here at Central Saint Martins and in the publishing field. Jane has already spoken to you about the collaboration with the New Statesman in hosting future events presenting leading thinkers and writers today. Over the past decade or so Žižek has gained an increasingly high profile within not just academia but also within the media in the UK. And the New Statesman has been one of a number of major outlets in this regard for Žižek's writings. So it's very appropriate that he should be opening this series. As you know this is the first year that we have been based here at the King’s Cross building. We're just drawing to the end of our first academic year in
unknown
this building. And the building has allowed us to develop quite a number of new ventures and projects including in the school of art, in my own school of art department, a research culture with a Master's course in Art: Theory and Philosophy. And so it's especially apposite to the developing research area and interest that we have here at the college to have Slavoj Žižek, a prominent philosopher, here this evening. At the same time this is also an occasion to mark Žižek's work with two new ventures of his own. The first is a forthcoming documentary soon to be released, A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, a sequel to the, I know many of you will probably already know, the Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, directed by Sophie Fiennes, that was written and presented in Žižek's inimitable, wry fashion. Very ably aided incidentally by reworkings of famous film sets including the basement in Psycho, the hotel rooms in Vertigo and The Conversation as well as the famous scene from The Matrix. Fiennes' editing and intercutting of scenes was especially notable with Žižek either inserting himself into certain famous film scenes or actually impersonating particular lead actors and even actresses. Žižek’s a comparatively broad figure sitting in for the beautiful Kim Novak was particularly memorable in this regard. Apparently the new documentary dealing with films ranging from The Sound of Music, Žižek and Julie Andrews, Titanic, and the Bond movies promises more in this vein. The second of Žižek's recent projects that we're celebrating this evening is the publication by Verso of his new book Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. And this will form part of the subject of Jonathan's discussion with Žižek this evening. A labor of love as well as of revaluation with respect to previous aspects of thinking by the author, Žižek has been wanting to write this book on Hegel for some time. Indeed in a sense this has been a project that has been in process of development at least since the publication of Žižek's first book in the UK, The Sublime Object of Ideology. In between this book and the present one no less than books have been published of Žižek's writings in English. All of which have engaged in their different ways with the perennial influences of on the one hand the Marxist intellectual tradition and on the other hand Lacanian psychoanalysis. Both of which have been straddled by the long shadow of the philosopher Hegel. Now through his new book this shadow in a sense has become deeper yet richer, furthering the dialogue in Žižek's thinking with Lacan and other thinkers both contemporary and historical. What characterizes Žižek's thinking and this book is no exception is not just the sheer range of subjects and issues, philosophical, political, cultural, with which he is familiar, but also his remarkably deft way of analyzing these subjects. Informed by a dialectical method that looks at issues from a series of contrasting and opposing angles, Žižek consistently produces novel and frequently surprising insights and arguments. Much of Žižek's project is concerned with the study of ideology and the tacit forms this takes in contemporary society around the Oedipal imperative to be morally upright and in contrast the postmodern injunction and exhortation to enjoy. An ideological shift that Žižek has been particularly acute in identifying. In his book on Hegel Žižek focuses upon the particular ideological and simplifying tendency to seek solutions and answers in the face of often uneven and rapidly changing historical circumstances, revolutionary events, and political developments. Hegel's project in the early 19th century at the dawn of modernity attempted to face up to these complexities. And this is something which Žižek feels Hegel handled with exceptional virtuosity although at times he left open certain gaps and aporias in his philosophy and arguments. But even these gaps and aporias Žižek proposes are significant, leading him to suggest that it's Hegel, at least as much as Marx, who has the vision and the appropriately flexible as well as flawed
this building. And the building has allowed us to develop quite a number of new ventures and projects including in the school of art, in my own school of art department, a research culture with a Master's course in Art: Theory and Philosophy. And so it's especially apposite to the developing research area and interest that we have here at the college to have Slavoj Žižek, a prominent philosopher, here this evening. At the same time this is also an occasion to mark Žižek's work with two new ventures of his own. The first is a forthcoming documentary soon to be released, A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, a sequel to the, I know many of you will probably already know, the Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, directed by Sophie Fiennes, that was written and presented in Žižek's inimitable, wry fashion. Very ably aided incidentally by reworkings of famous film sets including the basement in Psycho, the hotel rooms in Vertigo and The Conversation as well as the famous scene from The Matrix. Fiennes' editing and intercutting of scenes was especially notable with Žižek either inserting himself into certain famous film scenes or actually impersonating particular lead actors and even actresses. Žižek’s a comparatively broad figure sitting in for the beautiful Kim Novak was particularly memorable in this regard. Apparently the new documentary dealing with films ranging from The Sound of Music, Žižek and Julie Andrews, Titanic, and the Bond movies promises more in this vein. The second of Žižek's recent projects that we're celebrating this evening is the publication by Verso of his new book Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism. And this will form part of the subject of Jonathan's discussion with Žižek this evening. A labor of love as well as of revaluation with respect to previous aspects of thinking by the author, Žižek has been wanting to write this book on Hegel for some time. Indeed in a sense this has been a project that has been in process of development at least since the publication of Žižek's first book in the UK, The Sublime Object of Ideology. In between this book and the present one no less than books have been published of Žižek's writings in English. All of which have engaged in their different ways with the perennial influences of on the one hand the Marxist intellectual tradition and on the other hand Lacanian psychoanalysis. Both of which have been straddled by the long shadow of the philosopher Hegel. Now through his new book this shadow in a sense has become deeper yet richer, furthering the dialogue in Žižek's thinking with Lacan and other thinkers both contemporary and historical. What characterizes Žižek's thinking and this book is no exception is not just the sheer range of subjects and issues, philosophical, political, cultural, with which he is familiar, but also his remarkably deft way of analyzing these subjects. Informed by a dialectical method that looks at issues from a series of contrasting and opposing angles, Žižek consistently produces novel and frequently surprising insights and arguments. Much of Žižek's project is concerned with the study of ideology and the tacit forms this takes in contemporary society around the Oedipal imperative to be morally upright and in contrast the postmodern injunction and exhortation to enjoy. An ideological shift that Žižek has been particularly acute in identifying. In his book on Hegel Žižek focuses upon the particular ideological and simplifying tendency to seek solutions and answers in the face of often uneven and rapidly changing historical circumstances, revolutionary events, and political developments. Hegel's project in the early 19th century at the dawn of modernity attempted to face up to these complexities. And this is something which Žižek feels Hegel handled with exceptional virtuosity although at times he left open certain gaps and aporias in his philosophy and arguments. But even these gaps and aporias Žižek proposes are significant, leading him to suggest that it's Hegel, at least as much as Marx, who has the vision and the appropriately flexible as well as flawed
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qualities as a thinker to suit our own times of change and potential ruptures today. So on this, or perhaps not, but no doubt many other philosophical and contemporary matters, please welcome Jonathan Derbyshire and Slavoj Žižek. I'm sorry for this. It will not be like, you remember that famous scene in Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera where instead of talking the three of them just go drinking water? Hope not. Well good evening everyone. The New Statesman is delighted to be hosting an event here in this wonderful space. I think my chairpersonly duties have already been carried out with that fulsome introduction. Although it’s customary at events like this Slavoj to say of one's interlocutor, even if they're as eminent as you, that they require no introduction. In your case that’s that’s true. You've written too many books for me to try and list here. And I noticed in fact that you've you've given up trying to do so on the jacket of your your books. On the jacket of Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, one reads the following legend, and I think this will suffice as an introduction: "Slavoj Žižek was born, writes books, and will die." I have an so what in California they call attitude problem with this, you know? Because once I was really pissed at some another publisher where, you know, what I hate is that sometimes they want you also to add a personal paragraph, you know, like Miss Patricia Highsmith. Miss Highsmith paints and grows flowers or whatever, no. So just to provoke them then I proposed something like: In his free time Mr. Žižek, you know, watches child pornography and is pulling wings of butterflies or whatever, no. I just hate this. So I thought, as everyone knows, as you also, this is a maybe even too arrogant paraphrase of the famous line on Heidegger on Aristotle, yes. So I know this so that you will not think that. Now I first came across your work Slavoj when I was an undergraduate in the first flush of an infatuation with French philosophy, with thinkers like Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, all of whom defined themselves in one way or another against Hegel. And then appearing out of nowhere was this book by this mysterious Slovenian with a... From the wild part of Europe where you do ethnic cleansing and rapes, yes and so on, yeah. Sorry, this may interest, I will immediately stop. Do you know that how serious this myth was that when I published the next book by Verso with my friends, everything you ever wanted to know about Lacan but didn't dare to ask Hitchcock, on the other way around, in American campuses, I'm not kidding, there really was the predominant opinion that we don't exist. That this is the practical joke of some French intellectuals, you know. Like that it’s like Ruritania or all those countries. Sorry, please. And the book the book that I was referring to is The Sublime Object of Ideology, which appeared like an immense provocation because among other things it was a defense of a defense of Hegel who was, certainly in the circles I moved in as an undergraduate, persona non grata, philosophy non grata might one might say. So one of the things I'm
qualities as a thinker to suit our own times of change and potential ruptures today. So on this, or perhaps not, but no doubt many other philosophical and contemporary matters, please welcome Jonathan Derbyshire and Slavoj Žižek. I'm sorry for this. It will not be like, you remember that famous scene in Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera where instead of talking the three of them just go drinking water? Hope not. Well good evening everyone. The New Statesman is delighted to be hosting an event here in this wonderful space. I think my chairpersonly duties have already been carried out with that fulsome introduction. Although it’s customary at events like this Slavoj to say of one's interlocutor, even if they're as eminent as you, that they require no introduction. In your case that’s that’s true. You've written too many books for me to try and list here. And I noticed in fact that you've you've given up trying to do so on the jacket of your your books. On the jacket of Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism, one reads the following legend, and I think this will suffice as an introduction: "Slavoj Žižek was born, writes books, and will die." I have an so what in California they call attitude problem with this, you know? Because once I was really pissed at some another publisher where, you know, what I hate is that sometimes they want you also to add a personal paragraph, you know, like Miss Patricia Highsmith. Miss Highsmith paints and grows flowers or whatever, no. So just to provoke them then I proposed something like: In his free time Mr. Žižek, you know, watches child pornography and is pulling wings of butterflies or whatever, no. I just hate this. So I thought, as everyone knows, as you also, this is a maybe even too arrogant paraphrase of the famous line on Heidegger on Aristotle, yes. So I know this so that you will not think that. Now I first came across your work Slavoj when I was an undergraduate in the first flush of an infatuation with French philosophy, with thinkers like Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard, all of whom defined themselves in one way or another against Hegel. And then appearing out of nowhere was this book by this mysterious Slovenian with a... From the wild part of Europe where you do ethnic cleansing and rapes, yes and so on, yeah. Sorry, this may interest, I will immediately stop. Do you know that how serious this myth was that when I published the next book by Verso with my friends, everything you ever wanted to know about Lacan but didn't dare to ask Hitchcock, on the other way around, in American campuses, I'm not kidding, there really was the predominant opinion that we don't exist. That this is the practical joke of some French intellectuals, you know. Like that it’s like Ruritania or all those countries. Sorry, please. And the book the book that I was referring to is The Sublime Object of Ideology, which appeared like an immense provocation because among other things it was a defense of a defense of Hegel who was, certainly in the circles I moved in as an undergraduate, persona non grata, philosophy non grata might one might say. So one of the things I'm
Slavoj Žižek
going to talk to Slavoj this evening about is is Hegel. But we won't talk just about Hegel, which may come as a relief to some of you. And that not least because Slavoj philosophy for Hegel is its own age comprehended in thought. And that's a conception of philosophy to which I think you you subscribe. But let's start with Hegel and see
going to talk to Slavoj this evening about is is Hegel. But we won't talk just about Hegel, which may come as a relief to some of you. And that not least because Slavoj philosophy for Hegel is its own age comprehended in thought. And that's a conception of philosophy to which I think you you subscribe. But let's start with Hegel and see
Julian Assange
where the conversation the conversation takes us. You start the book by asking a very simple question: Why do we focus on Hegel today? And what does it mean, you ask, to be a Hegelian bearing in mind the radically changed historical constellation? So why Hegel? I think the same question is even more actual today, I'm sad to say, over years later. You know why? Because I will be very dogmatic, please be my domina cut me short if I talk too much as usual. You know, Hegel is for me one of the three key philosophers: Plato, Descartes, Hegel. Why? For a very simple structural reason. Did you notice how each of these three philosophers defined defines a whole epoch which comes after him but in a negative way? Like as Michel Foucault put it so nicely, one of the ways to define Western philosophy is all possible versions of anti-Platonism,
where the conversation the conversation takes us. You start the book by asking a very simple question: Why do we focus on Hegel today? And what does it mean, you ask, to be a Hegelian bearing in mind the radically changed historical constellation? So why Hegel? I think the same question is even more actual today, I'm sad to say, over years later. You know why? Because I will be very dogmatic, please be my domina cut me short if I talk too much as usual. You know, Hegel is for me one of the three key philosophers: Plato, Descartes, Hegel. Why? For a very simple structural reason. Did you notice how each of these three philosophers defined defines a whole epoch which comes after him but in a negative way? Like as Michel Foucault put it so nicely, one of the ways to define Western philosophy is all possible versions of anti-Platonism,
Slavoj Žižek
no. All of them how: stoics do it in one way, Aristotle in another way and so on. And it’s incredible my friend Alain Badiou developed this how even today you have a whole panoply of anti-Platonism. You have political anti-Platonism: Popper and so on, Levinas, you know, like from Plato to NATO, Plato the father of totalitarianism and so on. You have analytical philosophy anti-Platonism, like Plato idealist, no, nominalism. You have you have the Marxist anti-Platonism: Plato the first philosopher of the ruling class and so on. You have the vitalist anti-Platonism. So again, to go quickly on, the same goes for Descartes. Isn't practically all modern philosophy a history of different rejections overcomings of Descartes? And finally Hegel is the ultimate example of this. No one is ready to be a Hegelian, everyone wants to mark some distance, you know. Like my thesis in all three cases, especially in the Hegel case, is a very simple one: that in each of these three cases what we are getting as the
no. All of them how: stoics do it in one way, Aristotle in another way and so on. And it’s incredible my friend Alain Badiou developed this how even today you have a whole panoply of anti-Platonism. You have political anti-Platonism: Popper and so on, Levinas, you know, like from Plato to NATO, Plato the father of totalitarianism and so on. You have analytical philosophy anti-Platonism, like Plato idealist, no, nominalism. You have you have the Marxist anti-Platonism: Plato the first philosopher of the ruling class and so on. You have the vitalist anti-Platonism. So again, to go quickly on, the same goes for Descartes. Isn't practically all modern philosophy a history of different rejections overcomings of Descartes? And finally Hegel is the ultimate example of this. No one is ready to be a Hegelian, everyone wants to mark some distance, you know. Like my thesis in all three cases, especially in the Hegel case, is a very simple one: that in each of these three cases what we are getting as the
Julian Assange
predominant image of a philosopher, what people react to, is what in psychoanalysis we call Deckerinnerung, screen memory. A kind of a easy simplified image which protects us from something much more unsettling, traumatic that these philosophers really discover. So that the thing to do is to go back and see through this screen memory. Okay, I will not now lose time of what you find in Plato. I think Plato is
predominant image of a philosopher, what people react to, is what in psychoanalysis we call Deckerinnerung, screen memory. A kind of a easy simplified image which protects us from something much more unsettling, traumatic that these philosophers really discover. So that the thing to do is to go back and see through this screen memory. Okay, I will not now lose time of what you find in Plato. I think Plato is
Slavoj Žižek
basically a philosopher of traumatic encounter. Like, you know, you are an ordinary guy like Socrates something idea is something that you traumatically encounter, another dimension enters. Descartes is the first who desubstantialized philosophy introduced as Derrida knew madness into philosophy. And Hegel for me is the ultimate philosopher. And that's why I like what you quoted that this is the mystery of Hegel. You quoted this philosophy is its own time conceived in thought. All the problem of reading Hegel I think can be condensed resumed in this problem in this simple apparent contrast. How can you bring this
basically a philosopher of traumatic encounter. Like, you know, you are an ordinary guy like Socrates something idea is something that you traumatically encounter, another dimension enters. Descartes is the first who desubstantialized philosophy introduced as Derrida knew madness into philosophy. And Hegel for me is the ultimate philosopher. And that's why I like what you quoted that this is the mystery of Hegel. You quoted this philosophy is its own time conceived in thought. All the problem of reading Hegel I think can be condensed resumed in this problem in this simple apparent contrast. How can you bring this
Julian Assange
obviously relativizing historicist thesis with what is most traumatic for most of people in Hegel: with his claim to absolute knowing. Like you know that's the caricature of Hegel. There was a crazy guy in Prussia or later the end Berlin who thought he knows everything, he can read the mind of God and so on and so on. And what I'm claiming is that maybe both poles are wrong. Neither was Hegel a simple historicist nor does his absolute knowing mean simply some access to the absolute beyond history. But Hegel occupies, or so you argue, a distinctive place in the history of philosophy in the way that Plato and and Descartes don't. It's a kind of hinge point in the history of philosophy. Now you say something and I'd like you to unpack this if you can. You say that the Hegelian moment or in fact the moment of German idealism, as you say there are there are two dates that define the story you're telling in this book, which is when the second edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was
obviously relativizing historicist thesis with what is most traumatic for most of people in Hegel: with his claim to absolute knowing. Like you know that's the caricature of Hegel. There was a crazy guy in Prussia or later the end Berlin who thought he knows everything, he can read the mind of God and so on and so on. And what I'm claiming is that maybe both poles are wrong. Neither was Hegel a simple historicist nor does his absolute knowing mean simply some access to the absolute beyond history. But Hegel occupies, or so you argue, a distinctive place in the history of philosophy in the way that Plato and and Descartes don't. It's a kind of hinge point in the history of philosophy. Now you say something and I'd like you to unpack this if you can. You say that the Hegelian moment or in fact the moment of German idealism, as you say there are there are two dates that define the story you're telling in this book, which is when the second edition of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason was
Slavoj Žižek
published and when Hegel died. So what’s significant about that moment is, you say, it's the moment where philosophy appears as such. Now that’s a slightly gnomic statement which I'd like you to to unpack. Does that mean that it’s the moment that philosophy became self-conscious? And conscious and and acquired a way of talking about its own history, because that's one of the things we learn from Hegel is a way of talking about history? Here this is where I, although I deeply appreciate them, by them I mean so-called speculative realists, this new move started with Quentin Meillassoux and then all the others, Graham Harman, Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant and so on, this this is I think where we disagree. That is to say for me philosophy as such is transcendental. Philosophy before Kant was in a certain way for me in a way too naive. They simply thought reality is out there, let's see how reality is structured and so on and so on. We of course can read as Heidegger did, Plato, Aristotle in this transcendental hermeneutic way but it's an anachronistic reading. So this is what we find there, what we find after, mostly I claim, is a series of misunderstandings of Hegel. So crazy as it may sound, but what one of the things I try to do in this volume which as you may have noticed is called Less Than Nothing, but it certainly weighs more than nothing, no. And I don't think Hegel ever wrote a book, maybe the Greater Logic approaches this in bulk. Not quite, it's pages. Okay what I wanted to say is that my idea is a very simple one that we should, it's not that we should stay with Hegel. The whole second part of the book is a desperate attempt, I'm not even totally satisfied with it, to think with Hegel but beyond Hegel. What I'm saying is that all these post-Hegelian reversals, rejection of idealism, let's turn to some fixed positive foundation: a production process for Marx, willing for Schopenhauer, late Schelling and so on, are ways to avoid something that Hegel saw. That Hegel's true insight in something so difficult and monstrous to accept that it’s a trauma for all the post-Hegelian period. So to move forward we have to go back and confront what Hegel effectively did. I want to come to the question of what it is you're trying to think with Hegel today because among other things this what you call your repetition of Hegel—you're not simply going back to Hegel, you're repeating Hegel and doing something different—the stakes of your repetition of Hegel are political and I think people will want to hear what you have to say on that score in a moment. But let's just try and fill in some of this history with the and satisfy ourselves that we understand where Hegel belongs in the history of philosophy. Because a lot of the book is devoted to working that out. So you say that it's Kant's transcendental turn in philosophy that makes Hegel possible. So Kant turned turned philosophy's attention to the conditions of of possible experience as we know. So what is it that takes Hegel beyond Kant? And I think you you seem to be saying that in what we get in Hegel is a transposition of what in Kant are epistemological insights into an ontological register. That's to say that what Kant sees as imperfections of knowledge, Hegel sees as as you say cracks in the real, in the thing itself. Could you say something a bit more about that? Maybe maybe I will use an example which I quite like although I'm not sure if I got things correctly, namely the last chapter of the book, yes it is the last, 14th on quantum physics. I claim that this is also what makes quantum physics so breathtaking. Its ontological consequences which as we all know even today are not clear. And I think the key is how do you read this complementarity and so on or uncertainty principle.
published and when Hegel died. So what’s significant about that moment is, you say, it's the moment where philosophy appears as such. Now that’s a slightly gnomic statement which I'd like you to to unpack. Does that mean that it’s the moment that philosophy became self-conscious? And conscious and and acquired a way of talking about its own history, because that's one of the things we learn from Hegel is a way of talking about history? Here this is where I, although I deeply appreciate them, by them I mean so-called speculative realists, this new move started with Quentin Meillassoux and then all the others, Graham Harman, Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant and so on, this this is I think where we disagree. That is to say for me philosophy as such is transcendental. Philosophy before Kant was in a certain way for me in a way too naive. They simply thought reality is out there, let's see how reality is structured and so on and so on. We of course can read as Heidegger did, Plato, Aristotle in this transcendental hermeneutic way but it's an anachronistic reading. So this is what we find there, what we find after, mostly I claim, is a series of misunderstandings of Hegel. So crazy as it may sound, but what one of the things I try to do in this volume which as you may have noticed is called Less Than Nothing, but it certainly weighs more than nothing, no. And I don't think Hegel ever wrote a book, maybe the Greater Logic approaches this in bulk. Not quite, it's pages. Okay what I wanted to say is that my idea is a very simple one that we should, it's not that we should stay with Hegel. The whole second part of the book is a desperate attempt, I'm not even totally satisfied with it, to think with Hegel but beyond Hegel. What I'm saying is that all these post-Hegelian reversals, rejection of idealism, let's turn to some fixed positive foundation: a production process for Marx, willing for Schopenhauer, late Schelling and so on, are ways to avoid something that Hegel saw. That Hegel's true insight in something so difficult and monstrous to accept that it’s a trauma for all the post-Hegelian period. So to move forward we have to go back and confront what Hegel effectively did. I want to come to the question of what it is you're trying to think with Hegel today because among other things this what you call your repetition of Hegel—you're not simply going back to Hegel, you're repeating Hegel and doing something different—the stakes of your repetition of Hegel are political and I think people will want to hear what you have to say on that score in a moment. But let's just try and fill in some of this history with the and satisfy ourselves that we understand where Hegel belongs in the history of philosophy. Because a lot of the book is devoted to working that out. So you say that it's Kant's transcendental turn in philosophy that makes Hegel possible. So Kant turned turned philosophy's attention to the conditions of of possible experience as we know. So what is it that takes Hegel beyond Kant? And I think you you seem to be saying that in what we get in Hegel is a transposition of what in Kant are epistemological insights into an ontological register. That's to say that what Kant sees as imperfections of knowledge, Hegel sees as as you say cracks in the real, in the thing itself. Could you say something a bit more about that? Maybe maybe I will use an example which I quite like although I'm not sure if I got things correctly, namely the last chapter of the book, yes it is the last, 14th on quantum physics. I claim that this is also what makes quantum physics so breathtaking. Its ontological consequences which as we all know even today are not clear. And I think the key is how do you read this complementarity and so on or uncertainty principle.
Julian Assange
Here I think we should follow Niels Bohr against Heisenberg, you know. When Heisenberg reads it as simple basically as a simple epistemological limitation. We cannot measure the two complementary features, let's say position and movement whatever, no, sorry velocity and position whatever, we cannot measure them at the same time. If we measure one we don't get the other. But Niels Bohr is saying something much more radical. Not only that we cannot measure them but that in itself as it were reality is incomplete. You know, if I may very briefly repeat a story which is I think perfect, I use it here I took it from some introduction to philosophy written by someone who probably really hates Hegel, Nicholas Fern. Imagine imagine how is a computer game universe structured. It's not completely programmed. For example you play a game which I have to endlessly watch my small son playing Call of Duty and so on and for example you have in the background a house, but the interior of that house often is not programmed. Why
Here I think we should follow Niels Bohr against Heisenberg, you know. When Heisenberg reads it as simple basically as a simple epistemological limitation. We cannot measure the two complementary features, let's say position and movement whatever, no, sorry velocity and position whatever, we cannot measure them at the same time. If we measure one we don't get the other. But Niels Bohr is saying something much more radical. Not only that we cannot measure them but that in itself as it were reality is incomplete. You know, if I may very briefly repeat a story which is I think perfect, I use it here I took it from some introduction to philosophy written by someone who probably really hates Hegel, Nicholas Fern. Imagine imagine how is a computer game universe structured. It's not completely programmed. For example you play a game which I have to endlessly watch my small son playing Call of Duty and so on and for example you have in the background a house, but the interior of that house often is not programmed. Why
Slavoj Žižek
not? Because simply it's not part of the game that you can enter it or you have a a mountain in the back. You know you cannot say, okay you can say within the fiction, but in the reality of the game even you can't say oh if we were to go close to that mountain we will see in detail. No, that mountain only exists in this blurred not fully realized way. So the idea that I like of Nicholas Fern is to make the comparison between this paradox of incompletely programmed reality and quantum physics. Claiming that in the same way as we are not supposed for example to approach a mountain in the background of the game, if of course it’s not part of the game, in the same way and I like this idea, in the same way we have quantum indeterminacy or incompleteness because to put it bluntly God underestimated us. God created the world and he thought wait a minute, humans are too stupid to move beyond the atom. So I will stop programming it there. We were unfortunately a little bit too bright, you
not? Because simply it's not part of the game that you can enter it or you have a a mountain in the back. You know you cannot say, okay you can say within the fiction, but in the reality of the game even you can't say oh if we were to go close to that mountain we will see in detail. No, that mountain only exists in this blurred not fully realized way. So the idea that I like of Nicholas Fern is to make the comparison between this paradox of incompletely programmed reality and quantum physics. Claiming that in the same way as we are not supposed for example to approach a mountain in the background of the game, if of course it’s not part of the game, in the same way and I like this idea, in the same way we have quantum indeterminacy or incompleteness because to put it bluntly God underestimated us. God created the world and he thought wait a minute, humans are too stupid to move beyond the atom. So I will stop programming it there. We were unfortunately a little bit too bright, you
Julian Assange
know, and moved beyond atom and ah-ah, you didn't program it completely there. You know like that it's the same
know, and moved beyond atom and ah-ah, you didn't program it completely there. You know like that it's the same
Slavoj Žižek
incompleteness. But now comes the crucial point. Of course I'm an atheist. So is it possible to think this incompleteness without God? You know to think a reality as incomplete without some divine mind, its perspective and so on and so forth. Is this a version of the question for example that Heidegger asks: how we think human finitude as other than a lack or? Yeah but Heidegger is here an interesting, I really hate you because you are asking tough but the real question. Can you ask me something like which movie did you see last or whatever? Sorry, you're asking good questions. Exactly. You know why is Heidegger crucial for me here? Because what we witnessed, here I agree with Quentin Meillassoux, in the 20th century is the triumph of, of course Heidegger would have rejected this term but I think it's still if properly read
incompleteness. But now comes the crucial point. Of course I'm an atheist. So is it possible to think this incompleteness without God? You know to think a reality as incomplete without some divine mind, its perspective and so on and so forth. Is this a version of the question for example that Heidegger asks: how we think human finitude as other than a lack or? Yeah but Heidegger is here an interesting, I really hate you because you are asking tough but the real question. Can you ask me something like which movie did you see last or whatever? Sorry, you're asking good questions. Exactly. You know why is Heidegger crucial for me here? Because what we witnessed, here I agree with Quentin Meillassoux, in the 20th century is the triumph of, of course Heidegger would have rejected this term but I think it's still if properly read
Julian Assange
appropriate, transcendentalism. This means and this may sound paradoxical since Heidegger always emphasized the ontological dimension, this means that ultimately we cannot ask this direct naive question: Does the table exist? Do I have a soul? and so on. All we can do is to ask: within what hermeneutic horizon do things appear in such a way that we can ask this question? You know, for Heidegger the Germans have this wonderful world, unhintergehbar, means you cannot go behind. For Heidegger this unhintergehbar thing is what he calls Ereignis, the event of a disclosure of being. The way the basic way things are disclosed to us. And epocally, historically right. In medieval times nature meant hierarchic meaningful order. In modernity as we know nature becomes this gray endless universe, no values just reality, values are only in our mind and so on and so on. So for Heidegger we cannot go further. It's meaningless because the ultimate cor- like when even when science like quantum physics tries to analyze Big Bang, the origin of our universe, a Heideggerian would have said: but in order to approach in this way the question, being has already, reality to put it naively, has already to be disclosed to you in a certain way. And it's incredible to what extent this attitude becomes our daily bread. For example, okay this is much more vulgar than Heidegger, but
appropriate, transcendentalism. This means and this may sound paradoxical since Heidegger always emphasized the ontological dimension, this means that ultimately we cannot ask this direct naive question: Does the table exist? Do I have a soul? and so on. All we can do is to ask: within what hermeneutic horizon do things appear in such a way that we can ask this question? You know, for Heidegger the Germans have this wonderful world, unhintergehbar, means you cannot go behind. For Heidegger this unhintergehbar thing is what he calls Ereignis, the event of a disclosure of being. The way the basic way things are disclosed to us. And epocally, historically right. In medieval times nature meant hierarchic meaningful order. In modernity as we know nature becomes this gray endless universe, no values just reality, values are only in our mind and so on and so on. So for Heidegger we cannot go further. It's meaningless because the ultimate cor- like when even when science like quantum physics tries to analyze Big Bang, the origin of our universe, a Heideggerian would have said: but in order to approach in this way the question, being has already, reality to put it naively, has already to be disclosed to you in a certain way. And it's incredible to what extent this attitude becomes our daily bread. For example, okay this is much more vulgar than Heidegger, but
Slavoj Žižek
the predominant form of so-called continental French philosophy in the last decades was something that I'm tempted to call a historicist discourse theory. Like for a typical contemporary continental so-called philosopher, if you ask me does a human being have a soul, I would say wait a minute, all that I can tell you is to describe an episteme, the field within which such a question can even be raised. You know all we can do is this. And my big problem is again is this enough? Can we move beyond the transcendental? And for me Hegel, Lacan, what I'm struggling with is a way to say yes we can but without falling into simple, and for me here Quentin Meillassoux and speculative realists are precisely too naive realists, without falling into pre-Kantian objectivism. No, we should avoid this naivety of reality is out there. This paradoxical point where Lenin at his worst material and empiriocriticism meets Karl Popper, who it's interesting to know, great liberal critique of communism but he admired Lenin's worst work, Materialism and Empirio-criticism. You know, this idea of reality is out there, we endlessly approach it and so on and so on. So how can we really break out of the transcendental horizon? The answer for me is Hegel, Lacan and so on and so on. Um so the the upshot of what you've just said is that you're not a continental philosopher, which is... No in some sense, I no, sorry. I'm not a continental philosopher in this sense of transcendental historicism. On the other hand but I am also not in the sense of I try to be more productively eclectic, not in a stupid way. I note this in some of my books. Did you notice how, and this is almost typical of continental philosophy in all its versions. Let's take Marx, let's take Derrida, let's take Heidegger, let's take analytical philosophy. With all their differences they share something that I don't know how to call it, exclusionary totalization. Each of them describes his work or his orientation as a crucial cut, break, which allows him to totalize all previous philosophy as one big, okay maybe not il- for example for Heidegger all thinking hitherto is metaphysics and his philosophy breaks with metaphysics. For Derrida metaphysics of presence. For Marxist ideological idealism or whatever, for Derrida again. For analytical philosophy it’s again philosophy which is not yet sci- I don't accept this. I'm here on the side of Lacan or maybe Gilles Deleuze who try not to proceed in this negative totalization like all guys till me even if very bright were basically idiots and only I finally see it the way it really is. But don't you get a version of that in the story that Hegel tells about the history of philosophy? Because the history of philosophy for Hegel is is a preparation for speculative idealism, isn't it? Yeah but what does Hegel's speculative idealism mean? It's not that now he finally knows all. Because you know... This is important isn't it because this is a very common misconception about what Hegel's project was. You know, just look at Hegel's work. When at the very final point of his system, the end of his lectures on the history of philosophy when as a good idealist of course he ends up with his own system, no, which is conclusion of it all, he says this is where we are today for the time being. He even doubly
the predominant form of so-called continental French philosophy in the last decades was something that I'm tempted to call a historicist discourse theory. Like for a typical contemporary continental so-called philosopher, if you ask me does a human being have a soul, I would say wait a minute, all that I can tell you is to describe an episteme, the field within which such a question can even be raised. You know all we can do is this. And my big problem is again is this enough? Can we move beyond the transcendental? And for me Hegel, Lacan, what I'm struggling with is a way to say yes we can but without falling into simple, and for me here Quentin Meillassoux and speculative realists are precisely too naive realists, without falling into pre-Kantian objectivism. No, we should avoid this naivety of reality is out there. This paradoxical point where Lenin at his worst material and empiriocriticism meets Karl Popper, who it's interesting to know, great liberal critique of communism but he admired Lenin's worst work, Materialism and Empirio-criticism. You know, this idea of reality is out there, we endlessly approach it and so on and so on. So how can we really break out of the transcendental horizon? The answer for me is Hegel, Lacan and so on and so on. Um so the the upshot of what you've just said is that you're not a continental philosopher, which is... No in some sense, I no, sorry. I'm not a continental philosopher in this sense of transcendental historicism. On the other hand but I am also not in the sense of I try to be more productively eclectic, not in a stupid way. I note this in some of my books. Did you notice how, and this is almost typical of continental philosophy in all its versions. Let's take Marx, let's take Derrida, let's take Heidegger, let's take analytical philosophy. With all their differences they share something that I don't know how to call it, exclusionary totalization. Each of them describes his work or his orientation as a crucial cut, break, which allows him to totalize all previous philosophy as one big, okay maybe not il- for example for Heidegger all thinking hitherto is metaphysics and his philosophy breaks with metaphysics. For Derrida metaphysics of presence. For Marxist ideological idealism or whatever, for Derrida again. For analytical philosophy it’s again philosophy which is not yet sci- I don't accept this. I'm here on the side of Lacan or maybe Gilles Deleuze who try not to proceed in this negative totalization like all guys till me even if very bright were basically idiots and only I finally see it the way it really is. But don't you get a version of that in the story that Hegel tells about the history of philosophy? Because the history of philosophy for Hegel is is a preparation for speculative idealism, isn't it? Yeah but what does Hegel's speculative idealism mean? It's not that now he finally knows all. Because you know... This is important isn't it because this is a very common misconception about what Hegel's project was. You know, just look at Hegel's work. When at the very final point of his system, the end of his lectures on the history of philosophy when as a good idealist of course he ends up with his own system, no, which is conclusion of it all, he says this is where we are today for the time being. He even doubly
unknown
relativizes it. Or for example when he talks in his philosophy of history. It's not so bad if you consider that Hegel
relativizes it. Or for example when he talks in his philosophy of history. It's not so bad if you consider that Hegel
Slavoj Žižek
wrote this in When he talks about United States of America and then about Russia, he said we cannot yet develop a full philosophical history of these countries because their century, not so bad to say it in their century will be the 20th century. These countries did not yet, or in his most maligned part, philosophy of nature, quite often he says we can't say it, we don't know it enough. So I claim, I here follow a pretty good, I don't always agree with him but he's not an idiot, Robert Solomon who wrote a book in the spirit of Hegel, where he says: What if what Hegel calls absolute knowing is precisely the opposite of this absolute opening I know it all? Is that at every historical period you simply if you go to the end you as it were reach the limit. So that absolute knowing is not opposed to historicism, but it's historicism brought to its most radical extreme. It’s: that's the limit. And precisely as such Hegel I think opens up a space for otherness. Hegel's point is not we now know it all. Hegel's point is this is where we can be now, what is out there is an openness. Which is why I even think Hegel is more materialist quite seriously than Marx. Marx went a step further, Marx thought that we as historical agents, at least the privileged ones, proletarians, communists, have access to some historical necessity which points even towards the future. Like how out of the contradictions of the present society we have at least the possibility of communist society. So that you can know history even in the future and then you can act as an agent of this knowledge. For Hegel this is too idealist. And I think that paradoxically Hegel is here more open to contingency. I like to use here with this I will finish don't worry. I think that for Hegel there is no future but I like very much I discovered this by chance, you know how in French at least and only in a couple of other languages I don't know in English, you have two words for future. You have futur like future and then you have avenir, venir, to come. But they are not the same. Future means also can mean the continuation of the- like once and future king, the same idiot. Avenir, to come, points towards a radical break, its true openness. So I claim yes for Hegel there is no future because there is avenir. There is no philosopher more open to things to come than Hegel. So if all one knows of Hegel is what one's read in the pages of Derrida, this this Hegel is unrecognizable. This is a Hegel of radical contingency. Yeah but wait wait wait. Here I respectfully disagree with Derrida because Derrida was terribly to the end struggling with Hegel. On the one hand obviously Hegel should have been the absolute other of Derrida. Everything is in a closure, everything finds its place, no opening, no contingency. But Derrida was not an idiot. He knew all the time that it's not as simple as that, you know. So Derrida is- for example which is why it's so interesting to read that wonderful book by French lady Hegelian Catherine Malabou... Student of Derrida's. Yes student of Derrida's to which Derrida wrote a wonderful review of this book which is translated in English version I think published with Princeton University Press as Foreword. Don't mention other publishers by the way, this is a Verso... I sorry yeah yeah. Okay Princeton is just small guys will be squashed by Verso in two three years. Okay, sorry. Seriously, where you can see how she almost converted Derrida. All these big traumas but is Hegel really simply the ultimate metaphysician of presence? Already in his early work Derrida when asked: is there one philosopher in all the history of philosophy who is closest to your différance? The answer was automatic: Hegel. I mentioned earlier the the political stakes of this book and of this re-reading of of Hegel and I want to move the conversation on
wrote this in When he talks about United States of America and then about Russia, he said we cannot yet develop a full philosophical history of these countries because their century, not so bad to say it in their century will be the 20th century. These countries did not yet, or in his most maligned part, philosophy of nature, quite often he says we can't say it, we don't know it enough. So I claim, I here follow a pretty good, I don't always agree with him but he's not an idiot, Robert Solomon who wrote a book in the spirit of Hegel, where he says: What if what Hegel calls absolute knowing is precisely the opposite of this absolute opening I know it all? Is that at every historical period you simply if you go to the end you as it were reach the limit. So that absolute knowing is not opposed to historicism, but it's historicism brought to its most radical extreme. It’s: that's the limit. And precisely as such Hegel I think opens up a space for otherness. Hegel's point is not we now know it all. Hegel's point is this is where we can be now, what is out there is an openness. Which is why I even think Hegel is more materialist quite seriously than Marx. Marx went a step further, Marx thought that we as historical agents, at least the privileged ones, proletarians, communists, have access to some historical necessity which points even towards the future. Like how out of the contradictions of the present society we have at least the possibility of communist society. So that you can know history even in the future and then you can act as an agent of this knowledge. For Hegel this is too idealist. And I think that paradoxically Hegel is here more open to contingency. I like to use here with this I will finish don't worry. I think that for Hegel there is no future but I like very much I discovered this by chance, you know how in French at least and only in a couple of other languages I don't know in English, you have two words for future. You have futur like future and then you have avenir, venir, to come. But they are not the same. Future means also can mean the continuation of the- like once and future king, the same idiot. Avenir, to come, points towards a radical break, its true openness. So I claim yes for Hegel there is no future because there is avenir. There is no philosopher more open to things to come than Hegel. So if all one knows of Hegel is what one's read in the pages of Derrida, this this Hegel is unrecognizable. This is a Hegel of radical contingency. Yeah but wait wait wait. Here I respectfully disagree with Derrida because Derrida was terribly to the end struggling with Hegel. On the one hand obviously Hegel should have been the absolute other of Derrida. Everything is in a closure, everything finds its place, no opening, no contingency. But Derrida was not an idiot. He knew all the time that it's not as simple as that, you know. So Derrida is- for example which is why it's so interesting to read that wonderful book by French lady Hegelian Catherine Malabou... Student of Derrida's. Yes student of Derrida's to which Derrida wrote a wonderful review of this book which is translated in English version I think published with Princeton University Press as Foreword. Don't mention other publishers by the way, this is a Verso... I sorry yeah yeah. Okay Princeton is just small guys will be squashed by Verso in two three years. Okay, sorry. Seriously, where you can see how she almost converted Derrida. All these big traumas but is Hegel really simply the ultimate metaphysician of presence? Already in his early work Derrida when asked: is there one philosopher in all the history of philosophy who is closest to your différance? The answer was automatic: Hegel. I mentioned earlier the the political stakes of this book and of this re-reading of of Hegel and I want to move the conversation on
Julian Assange
onto that score now. Um central to this the political aspects of
onto that score now. Um central to this the political aspects of
Slavoj Žižek
the book is your connection of Hegel with Lacan. Where Lacan is just an instrument for me to read Hegel, I openly admit. Um now one of the things you get from Lacan is the following, I'm going to read a passage from the book, you say: "Lacan unveiled the illusions on which capitalist reality as well as its false transgressions are based." So the question then is what for you Hegel adds to Lacan. And it seems to me that for for you it's a refusal of Lacan's conclusion that we are condemned to domination, that there is no horizon beyond... This is an extremely tricky question my god I really hate you even more than I thought possible because you are really asking the crucial question, you know what I mean. This is the key, yes. And I think things are here traumatically undecided for me because you know Lacan was not always moving in this direction. There are even elements of a and incidentally here Lacan is again a wonderful parallel similar to Hegel. You know that you have two main figures of Hegel till recently: conservative Hegelians, where you British did did years ago and more some horrible job, you know McTaggart, Bradley and so on, that is to say Hegel as the philosopher of the hierarchic organic order. And then radical leftist negativity as revolution blah blah blah approach to Hegel. The new thing in the last decades is a liberal Hegel. Hegel of recognition of Anerkennung. Yeah Hegel of Anerkennung, recognition. And it's so interesting that exactly the same with Lacan. Traditionally there
the book is your connection of Hegel with Lacan. Where Lacan is just an instrument for me to read Hegel, I openly admit. Um now one of the things you get from Lacan is the following, I'm going to read a passage from the book, you say: "Lacan unveiled the illusions on which capitalist reality as well as its false transgressions are based." So the question then is what for you Hegel adds to Lacan. And it seems to me that for for you it's a refusal of Lacan's conclusion that we are condemned to domination, that there is no horizon beyond... This is an extremely tricky question my god I really hate you even more than I thought possible because you are really asking the crucial question, you know what I mean. This is the key, yes. And I think things are here traumatically undecided for me because you know Lacan was not always moving in this direction. There are even elements of a and incidentally here Lacan is again a wonderful parallel similar to Hegel. You know that you have two main figures of Hegel till recently: conservative Hegelians, where you British did did years ago and more some horrible job, you know McTaggart, Bradley and so on, that is to say Hegel as the philosopher of the hierarchic organic order. And then radical leftist negativity as revolution blah blah blah approach to Hegel. The new thing in the last decades is a liberal Hegel. Hegel of recognition of Anerkennung. Yeah Hegel of Anerkennung, recognition. And it's so interesting that exactly the same with Lacan. Traditionally there
Julian Assange
was a conservative Lacan, you know, the line which Lacan was never there but he had some pupils whose claim was: the condition of normality is normal paternal authority, Pierre Legendre if the name tells
was a conservative Lacan, you know, the line which Lacan was never there but he had some pupils whose claim was: the condition of normality is normal paternal authority, Pierre Legendre if the name tells
Slavoj Žižek
you anything, is the condition of normality is paternal authority, symbolic law. The problem of today's permissive society is paternal authority is disappearing so we have instability, outbursts, narcissistic violence and so on and so forth so the only thing that can save us is return to paternal authority. On the other hand we had from the very beginning a kind of a radical left Lacanianism like all young Turkish Lacanians at that point 60s 70s were Maoists at that point. Unfortunately what is emerging now in exact homology with Hegel is liberal Lacanianism. And here I part ways with a guy to whom I owe almost all, he introduced me to Lacan, Lacan's officially designated inheritor Jacques-Alain Miller who unfortunately now moves in this direction. The theory is this one: every social field is based on imaginary symbolic identifications, illusions and so on. Politics is a sphere of illusions. All we can do is a: accept the necessity of these illusions and here Miller even goes to the end in this cynical attitude of some conservative thinkers like your great critic of French Revolution Burke. Yes, like you know illusions may be wrong but don't mess, don't analyze them too closely, if you disturb the illusions there will be social like better not to know too much about some things and so on. So the idea is: okay let's not let's not try to do too much, remember if you are too radical in politics you just bring chaos. For example Miller even gave a concrete example of Italy, a modest one, totally wrong I think. It started with, you remember years ago, Mani Pulite, the clean hands, that emergence against the corruption of the political establishment which ruined Christian democracy. Eh you got Berlusconi. His message: you see don't mess with appearances things can only get worse. So it’s a kind of a enlightened cynical attitude. I don't think this is the only Lacan. If nothing else I admire late Lacan's ramblings on how to organize the Freudian school. I call this ironically his Leninist writings. Because he failed but it's an extremely important struggle of precisely how to construct a social space, in this case the space of a group society collective of psychoanalysts, without the master signifier, without the master figure. He was terribly struggling with this and this this is even today for us the key emancipatory problem. Because the big conservative element motive is what: you can have your stupid Tahrir Square or what but the day after things will return to normal. Do they have to? Is there a chance for egalitarian society? Not just to explode from time to time but you know to stabilize itself as it were into a new order. So there's a parallel here between your rejection of liberal Lacanianism and the critique that you've been developing for the past five years or so of certain attempts to develop a politics of resistance. I'm thinking in particular of your controversy with Simon Critchley. I don't know the name that you mentioned but okay, yeah, I mean ontologically I don't know, I know who you are mentioning. I deny the existence, sorry. You reject what you call the spiritualization of revolt and the abandonment of the radical emancipatory project in favor of a politics of the lesser of the lesser evil. Yeah but okay this is one problem but the problem I had with the if I may speak the language of Harry Potter the one who whose name shouldn't be named or whatever. He should remain nameless. He should remain nameless, yes, is another one, it’s even a part of a friendly
you anything, is the condition of normality is paternal authority, symbolic law. The problem of today's permissive society is paternal authority is disappearing so we have instability, outbursts, narcissistic violence and so on and so forth so the only thing that can save us is return to paternal authority. On the other hand we had from the very beginning a kind of a radical left Lacanianism like all young Turkish Lacanians at that point 60s 70s were Maoists at that point. Unfortunately what is emerging now in exact homology with Hegel is liberal Lacanianism. And here I part ways with a guy to whom I owe almost all, he introduced me to Lacan, Lacan's officially designated inheritor Jacques-Alain Miller who unfortunately now moves in this direction. The theory is this one: every social field is based on imaginary symbolic identifications, illusions and so on. Politics is a sphere of illusions. All we can do is a: accept the necessity of these illusions and here Miller even goes to the end in this cynical attitude of some conservative thinkers like your great critic of French Revolution Burke. Yes, like you know illusions may be wrong but don't mess, don't analyze them too closely, if you disturb the illusions there will be social like better not to know too much about some things and so on. So the idea is: okay let's not let's not try to do too much, remember if you are too radical in politics you just bring chaos. For example Miller even gave a concrete example of Italy, a modest one, totally wrong I think. It started with, you remember years ago, Mani Pulite, the clean hands, that emergence against the corruption of the political establishment which ruined Christian democracy. Eh you got Berlusconi. His message: you see don't mess with appearances things can only get worse. So it’s a kind of a enlightened cynical attitude. I don't think this is the only Lacan. If nothing else I admire late Lacan's ramblings on how to organize the Freudian school. I call this ironically his Leninist writings. Because he failed but it's an extremely important struggle of precisely how to construct a social space, in this case the space of a group society collective of psychoanalysts, without the master signifier, without the master figure. He was terribly struggling with this and this this is even today for us the key emancipatory problem. Because the big conservative element motive is what: you can have your stupid Tahrir Square or what but the day after things will return to normal. Do they have to? Is there a chance for egalitarian society? Not just to explode from time to time but you know to stabilize itself as it were into a new order. So there's a parallel here between your rejection of liberal Lacanianism and the critique that you've been developing for the past five years or so of certain attempts to develop a politics of resistance. I'm thinking in particular of your controversy with Simon Critchley. I don't know the name that you mentioned but okay, yeah, I mean ontologically I don't know, I know who you are mentioning. I deny the existence, sorry. You reject what you call the spiritualization of revolt and the abandonment of the radical emancipatory project in favor of a politics of the lesser of the lesser evil. Yeah but okay this is one problem but the problem I had with the if I may speak the language of Harry Potter the one who whose name shouldn't be named or whatever. He should remain nameless. He should remain nameless, yes, is another one, it’s even a part of a friendly
Julian Assange
dialogue with my otherwise good friend Alain Badiou. What I didn't like in that orientation is this idea that a: the state is here to stay, state apparatus, capitalism and so on. But b: authentic politics has to
dialogue with my otherwise good friend Alain Badiou. What I didn't like in that orientation is this idea that a: the state is here to stay, state apparatus, capitalism and so on. But b: authentic politics has to
Slavoj Žižek
take place outside state. So authentic politics should not get engaged in power but just withdraw from state matter. Badiou calls this subtraction. Subtract itself, resist but not risk- like then you find with those whose name should not be mentioned even, you know, thoughts like don't resist, don't strike back with violence originally because if you do it then you end up in mimesis being even, you know, you become the same as they are. Now this for me a very interesting thought so in we should have said Hitler is horrible but don't resist him it's mimesis if we strike back we will and so on. So again my point is that I cannot, what I don't like is this, I see here an opening for a very comfortable safe position. I can be in my safe position resisting and when somebody asks me: okay how would you have done it, do you have a plan- oh sorry sorry this would mean mimesis I became like state power and so on and so on. I'm here believe in heroically intervening whatever wherever you can. Which is why and that's why I stopped that polemics with the name whose name should be. Because you know he all the time painted this ridiculous even psychological portrait of me: I propose just to sit and wait for some radical violent moment. No, I said in the quote that he likes to quote, I said sometimes doing nothing is the most subversive thing to do. Sometimes. And my attitude here is extremely pragmatic.
take place outside state. So authentic politics should not get engaged in power but just withdraw from state matter. Badiou calls this subtraction. Subtract itself, resist but not risk- like then you find with those whose name should not be mentioned even, you know, thoughts like don't resist, don't strike back with violence originally because if you do it then you end up in mimesis being even, you know, you become the same as they are. Now this for me a very interesting thought so in we should have said Hitler is horrible but don't resist him it's mimesis if we strike back we will and so on. So again my point is that I cannot, what I don't like is this, I see here an opening for a very comfortable safe position. I can be in my safe position resisting and when somebody asks me: okay how would you have done it, do you have a plan- oh sorry sorry this would mean mimesis I became like state power and so on and so on. I'm here believe in heroically intervening whatever wherever you can. Which is why and that's why I stopped that polemics with the name whose name should be. Because you know he all the time painted this ridiculous even psychological portrait of me: I propose just to sit and wait for some radical violent moment. No, I said in the quote that he likes to quote, I said sometimes doing nothing is the most subversive thing to do. Sometimes. And my attitude here is extremely pragmatic.
Julian Assange
Sometimes when whatever you do will be reintegrated without provoking any real change, the most even threatening thing to do is to reject dialogue. And I was deeply confirmed in this by Occupy Wall Street. You know the reaction of benevolent liberals like Bill Clinton was what in box is called
Sometimes when whatever you do will be reintegrated without provoking any real change, the most even threatening thing to do is to reject dialogue. And I was deeply confirmed in this by Occupy Wall Street. You know the reaction of benevolent liberals like Bill Clinton was what in box is called
Slavoj Žižek
clinching: oh fine let's come together let's debate how can we translate your protest into concrete measures. But this wasn't a time
clinching: oh fine let's come together let's debate how can we translate your protest into concrete measures. But this wasn't a time
Julian Assange
to do that because in today's field whatever positive proposals would have been you only can speak- it was only possible there to speak the language of the enemy. So this is this: sometimes in wars tense situation you have to like against Hitler if I may be pathetic, of course you have to strike with all brutal violence you can imagine. Sometimes I'm very pragmatic here. The only thing to
to do that because in today's field whatever positive proposals would have been you only can speak- it was only possible there to speak the language of the enemy. So this is this: sometimes in wars tense situation you have to like against Hitler if I may be pathetic, of course you have to strike with all brutal violence you can imagine. Sometimes I'm very pragmatic here. The only thing to
Slavoj Žižek
do I hope we all agree are strategically well-chosen par- they may even appear minor particular gestures. Let me give you one example and then I stop, it's interesting. It's so fashionable today Tariq Ali and so on to make fun of Obama. Ooh the traitor and so on. I still have a sympathy for Obama. Why? Because first you know why disappointment? It’s as if these guys thought that what Obama will introduce socialism to the United States or whatever. Why do I still have an appreciation of Obama? Healthcare, universal healthcare. I know that the result is a total compromise. But can you just imagine what kind of a traumatic sore point this was for the American establishment if even now they brought it to the Supreme Court and so on. Why? Why is this an excellent example? Because on the one hand it obviously disturbs the very foundation of let's call it naively popular American ideology, no. Which is freedom of choice and so on, not seeing how freedom of choice is meaningful only against the background of a well-regulated state apparatus, social customs and so on and so on. But at the same time, that's why I like it, it's not an impossible demand, you know, in the sense of let's do something crazy radically communist. It's something very realistic which can be done. There is universal healthcare in Canada, in Scandinavian countries, even somewhere else. So this is for me maybe the also one of the great models of how to act. Act: pose a demand which is very realistic, local, but who knows what the global at least ideological consequences will be. Spoken like a true social democrat. Sorry? Spoken like a true social democrat. No because I think that at the- I first let me tell you something clearly because maybe this was the wrong impression which I often provoked with my I admit I like to provoke and I got into trouble, you know, like when I said the problem with Hitler was that he wasn't violent enough. There were some misunderstandings. That’s because your your critics, including he who shall remain nameless, um they dismiss you as a nostalgist for political violence, for dictatorship and so on. So perhaps you can address those critics. I find this a little bit ironic in view of my past where for opposing communist regime my god I was four five years unemployed and so on and so on. I was never allowed to teach in my country. Let's forget this. What I want to say is this: a: even with liberalism I'm not as blindly critical as it may appear. Look liberalism originally, and I will never forget this in a good sense, did something wonderful which was, remember the concrete historical circumstances: liberalism was the answer originally if I remember correctly to a desperate predicament of European religious wars. And it tries to answer the question how even if our basic metaphysical religious commitments, which were not just worldview commitments but concrete commitments about how to organize your life, they are opposed more or less radically, how can we nonetheless live together? How to construct a shared space? So this modest liberalism which kind of again emphasizes the modesty finitude of our predicament, nothing bad about it. The same thing with social democracy. I mean I will say something which will disappoint maybe some of the leftists. And I will say that with all the criticism we can make of it and with all the points about how this dependent on colonial exploitation. But nonetheless can you imagine any period in the history of humanity where such a large percentage of people did live such lead such relatively prosperous, safe, and free lives as in social-democratic Western Europe in the last years? My problem here is that these times are over. This is why I'm precisely not nostalgic neither for Stalinism which failed miserably. I still accept the greatness of Lenin but in a dialectical way. By dialectical I mean I don't play these stupid games, Lenin was good then Stalin screwed it up, you know, and then you can go to the end and say if only Lenin were to survive five years more and made a pact with with Trotsky, ooh we would have what, a thriving social-democratic Soviet Union or what? But so again in the same sense we have to accept that
do I hope we all agree are strategically well-chosen par- they may even appear minor particular gestures. Let me give you one example and then I stop, it's interesting. It's so fashionable today Tariq Ali and so on to make fun of Obama. Ooh the traitor and so on. I still have a sympathy for Obama. Why? Because first you know why disappointment? It’s as if these guys thought that what Obama will introduce socialism to the United States or whatever. Why do I still have an appreciation of Obama? Healthcare, universal healthcare. I know that the result is a total compromise. But can you just imagine what kind of a traumatic sore point this was for the American establishment if even now they brought it to the Supreme Court and so on. Why? Why is this an excellent example? Because on the one hand it obviously disturbs the very foundation of let's call it naively popular American ideology, no. Which is freedom of choice and so on, not seeing how freedom of choice is meaningful only against the background of a well-regulated state apparatus, social customs and so on and so on. But at the same time, that's why I like it, it's not an impossible demand, you know, in the sense of let's do something crazy radically communist. It's something very realistic which can be done. There is universal healthcare in Canada, in Scandinavian countries, even somewhere else. So this is for me maybe the also one of the great models of how to act. Act: pose a demand which is very realistic, local, but who knows what the global at least ideological consequences will be. Spoken like a true social democrat. Sorry? Spoken like a true social democrat. No because I think that at the- I first let me tell you something clearly because maybe this was the wrong impression which I often provoked with my I admit I like to provoke and I got into trouble, you know, like when I said the problem with Hitler was that he wasn't violent enough. There were some misunderstandings. That’s because your your critics, including he who shall remain nameless, um they dismiss you as a nostalgist for political violence, for dictatorship and so on. So perhaps you can address those critics. I find this a little bit ironic in view of my past where for opposing communist regime my god I was four five years unemployed and so on and so on. I was never allowed to teach in my country. Let's forget this. What I want to say is this: a: even with liberalism I'm not as blindly critical as it may appear. Look liberalism originally, and I will never forget this in a good sense, did something wonderful which was, remember the concrete historical circumstances: liberalism was the answer originally if I remember correctly to a desperate predicament of European religious wars. And it tries to answer the question how even if our basic metaphysical religious commitments, which were not just worldview commitments but concrete commitments about how to organize your life, they are opposed more or less radically, how can we nonetheless live together? How to construct a shared space? So this modest liberalism which kind of again emphasizes the modesty finitude of our predicament, nothing bad about it. The same thing with social democracy. I mean I will say something which will disappoint maybe some of the leftists. And I will say that with all the criticism we can make of it and with all the points about how this dependent on colonial exploitation. But nonetheless can you imagine any period in the history of humanity where such a large percentage of people did live such lead such relatively prosperous, safe, and free lives as in social-democratic Western Europe in the last years? My problem here is that these times are over. This is why I'm precisely not nostalgic neither for Stalinism which failed miserably. I still accept the greatness of Lenin but in a dialectical way. By dialectical I mean I don't play these stupid games, Lenin was good then Stalin screwed it up, you know, and then you can go to the end and say if only Lenin were to survive five years more and made a pact with with Trotsky, ooh we would have what, a thriving social-democratic Soviet Union or what? But so again in the same sense we have to accept that
Julian Assange
although and this is the true historical tragedy it's easy to say Soviet Union had a great chance Stalin screwed it up. It's also easy to demonize it from the very beginning, you know, this game of no totalitarianism was already there and then you can move back and back. It was already in Lenin, it was already
although and this is the true historical tragedy it's easy to say Soviet Union had a great chance Stalin screwed it up. It's also easy to demonize it from the very beginning, you know, this game of no totalitarianism was already there and then you can move back and back. It was already in Lenin, it was already
Slavoj Žižek
in Marx, it was already in Rousseau. Then you- and then yes you can go back for Sloterdijk it was
in Marx, it was already in Rousseau. Then you- and then yes you can go back for Sloterdijk it was
Julian Assange
already in Christianity. For Adorno and some others it was already in Plato. The most radical answer here with which I tend to agree but it makes me drop the entire line is Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment, which was already there at the
already in Christianity. For Adorno and some others it was already in Plato. The most radical answer here with which I tend to agree but it makes me drop the entire line is Adorno and Horkheimer in Dialectic of Enlightenment, which was already there at the
Slavoj Žižek
very beginning of the first pre-historic magical practices, you know. It's meaningless. What I'm saying is that what is really difficult to think is that on the one hand it is undoubted, you just have to read really good histories, that October Revolution was not a coup d'état of three four guys there. It was an authentic explosion of emancipatory energy. How to think the inner logic which gave birth out of this process to Stalinism without renouncing- you know this is the true historical tragedy. And this is the- my only soft point with Stalinism. No mercy for Stalinism. What I simply claim is that you don't find the same tragic aspect in Nazism. You cannot say Nazism was originally a great emancipatory project, Hitler just screwed it up whatever. No, Nazism is much more vulgar. There were bad guys, Hitler and his friends, who said if we take power we will do some bad horrible things and look what happened. They took power and they did really did these horrible bad things. You cannot say the same- you have an authentic tragic split in Bolshevik movement. That's my only point. Can we go back to the more recent, as you put it, explosions of emancipatory energy? Let's talk a bit more about the Occupy movement which you alluded to earlier. At the end of the book you you write the following, and this reads to me like a measured critique of Occupy Wall Street. You write: "While it's thrilling to enjoy the pleasures of horizontal organization..." in quotation marks, "of protesting crowds with their egalitarian solidarity and free open-ended debates, these debates will have to coalesce not only around some new master signifiers but also in concrete answers to the old Leninist question: 'What is to be done?'" Can you um yeah develop that critique of Occupy? No again this is- now I will give you sorry to talk like this my party line, no. A: I fully really fully supported support and engage in Occupy Wall Street. But I think it's the what I call ironically already in my parallax view, Bartleby point. The message is: I would prefer not to. The insight of Wall Street is a double negative insight. And it’s very important. On the one hand isn't it clear that the insight is that in contrast to earlier protests where they were usually one-issue protests, you know against war in Iraq, racism, whatever, here we have for the first time in last decades a big protest movement which targets the capitalist system as such. The premise was there is some structural fault, problem with the capitalist system as such and even more importantly I claim the second point: that not against democracy as such but that the existing institutional democratic mechanisms that we have are not strong enough to deal with this problem. What I didn't find, and I think we shouldn't even look in in Occupy Wall Street, is positive answers. The moment you look for that, I'm sorry to tell you I was there in Wall Street, in Frankfurt, in Amsterdam, somewhere else, you get platitudes. You get like "Money should serve people, people should not serve money." Well as I put it in all brutal with all possible brutal acerbic irony, Hitler would have immediately fully agreed with this and so on. You know all this general stuff, especially I was suspicious about the critique of financial capitalism. The problem is not this. The problem is what happened more generally in today's capitalism as such that made this role of banks possible. Especially I'm opposed to any moralism. Sorry but bankers always were greedy and so on. You know the problem is not to make bankers more honest or whatever, no. The problem is to reorganize society so that bankers will be given just maybe a little bit less opportunity to to realize their greed. So which is why although I again agree with Occupy Wall Street, but I'm always obsessed with this what we call the morning after, the day after. You know for me these big enthusiastic moments we all cry, one million people there on the square and so on, come relatively cheap. The true they happen it's wonderful but the true test is: what will really change when afterwards things as we usually say return to normal? Will there be any changes felt there? If no, then we are in this sad cynical cyclical worldview where from time to time people explode but then things return to normal more or less and so on and so on. Which is why not out of any fashionable tendencies I went to Greece eight days ago, I fully supported Syriza and so on. I admire their heroism. They know that their situation is almost without hope. They don't have enough people cadre to do it properly. But what I like is precisely that they didn't adopt this resistance, state is non-authentic position. They know their situation is terrifying. You have two big parties which brought corruption into Greece, clientelism and so on. And you have this unheard-of paradox. I hope you noticed it that while the West is repeating this stupid, you know, Greeks are lazy people who don't pay taxes and so on. And it was especially ironic to hear, how is she called Christine Lagarde to say this. It was
very beginning of the first pre-historic magical practices, you know. It's meaningless. What I'm saying is that what is really difficult to think is that on the one hand it is undoubted, you just have to read really good histories, that October Revolution was not a coup d'état of three four guys there. It was an authentic explosion of emancipatory energy. How to think the inner logic which gave birth out of this process to Stalinism without renouncing- you know this is the true historical tragedy. And this is the- my only soft point with Stalinism. No mercy for Stalinism. What I simply claim is that you don't find the same tragic aspect in Nazism. You cannot say Nazism was originally a great emancipatory project, Hitler just screwed it up whatever. No, Nazism is much more vulgar. There were bad guys, Hitler and his friends, who said if we take power we will do some bad horrible things and look what happened. They took power and they did really did these horrible bad things. You cannot say the same- you have an authentic tragic split in Bolshevik movement. That's my only point. Can we go back to the more recent, as you put it, explosions of emancipatory energy? Let's talk a bit more about the Occupy movement which you alluded to earlier. At the end of the book you you write the following, and this reads to me like a measured critique of Occupy Wall Street. You write: "While it's thrilling to enjoy the pleasures of horizontal organization..." in quotation marks, "of protesting crowds with their egalitarian solidarity and free open-ended debates, these debates will have to coalesce not only around some new master signifiers but also in concrete answers to the old Leninist question: 'What is to be done?'" Can you um yeah develop that critique of Occupy? No again this is- now I will give you sorry to talk like this my party line, no. A: I fully really fully supported support and engage in Occupy Wall Street. But I think it's the what I call ironically already in my parallax view, Bartleby point. The message is: I would prefer not to. The insight of Wall Street is a double negative insight. And it’s very important. On the one hand isn't it clear that the insight is that in contrast to earlier protests where they were usually one-issue protests, you know against war in Iraq, racism, whatever, here we have for the first time in last decades a big protest movement which targets the capitalist system as such. The premise was there is some structural fault, problem with the capitalist system as such and even more importantly I claim the second point: that not against democracy as such but that the existing institutional democratic mechanisms that we have are not strong enough to deal with this problem. What I didn't find, and I think we shouldn't even look in in Occupy Wall Street, is positive answers. The moment you look for that, I'm sorry to tell you I was there in Wall Street, in Frankfurt, in Amsterdam, somewhere else, you get platitudes. You get like "Money should serve people, people should not serve money." Well as I put it in all brutal with all possible brutal acerbic irony, Hitler would have immediately fully agreed with this and so on. You know all this general stuff, especially I was suspicious about the critique of financial capitalism. The problem is not this. The problem is what happened more generally in today's capitalism as such that made this role of banks possible. Especially I'm opposed to any moralism. Sorry but bankers always were greedy and so on. You know the problem is not to make bankers more honest or whatever, no. The problem is to reorganize society so that bankers will be given just maybe a little bit less opportunity to to realize their greed. So which is why although I again agree with Occupy Wall Street, but I'm always obsessed with this what we call the morning after, the day after. You know for me these big enthusiastic moments we all cry, one million people there on the square and so on, come relatively cheap. The true they happen it's wonderful but the true test is: what will really change when afterwards things as we usually say return to normal? Will there be any changes felt there? If no, then we are in this sad cynical cyclical worldview where from time to time people explode but then things return to normal more or less and so on and so on. Which is why not out of any fashionable tendencies I went to Greece eight days ago, I fully supported Syriza and so on. I admire their heroism. They know that their situation is almost without hope. They don't have enough people cadre to do it properly. But what I like is precisely that they didn't adopt this resistance, state is non-authentic position. They know their situation is terrifying. You have two big parties which brought corruption into Greece, clientelism and so on. And you have this unheard-of paradox. I hope you noticed it that while the West is repeating this stupid, you know, Greeks are lazy people who don't pay taxes and so on. And it was especially ironic to hear, how is she called Christine Lagarde to say this. It was
Julian Assange
recently the Guardian which discovered that she is
recently the Guardian which discovered that she is
Slavoj Žižek
not paying taxes, she's not. No, but what I want to say is that but then the same West, you know appalled at Greek's laziness, cheating and so on, whom does the West openly brutally even support in the elections? Pasok and New Democracy, the two parties which embody this corruption. The history of Greece in the last decades is the history of these two parties exchanging power and they brought this
not paying taxes, she's not. No, but what I want to say is that but then the same West, you know appalled at Greek's laziness, cheating and so on, whom does the West openly brutally even support in the elections? Pasok and New Democracy, the two parties which embody this corruption. The history of Greece in the last decades is the history of these two parties exchanging power and they brought this
Julian Assange
corruption. And so again I admire Syri- Syriza for instead of adopting this comfortable position, you know
corruption. And so again I admire Syri- Syriza for instead of adopting this comfortable position, you know
Slavoj Žižek
like we stay outside we just resist, we posit impossible demands and so on, no, they had the courage to do it. Being fully aware in what deep shit they are. I admire this, sorry. Um so the the upshot of what you've just said is that you're not a continental philosopher, which is... No in some sense, I no, sorry. I'm not a continental philosopher in this sense of transcendental historicism. On the other hand but I am also not in the sense of I try to be more productively eclectic, not in a stupid way. I note this in some of my books. Did you notice how, and this is almost typical of continental philosophy in all its versions. Let's take Marx, let's take Derrida, let's take Heidegger, let's take analytical philosophy. With all their differences they share something that I don't know how to call it, exclusionary totalization. Each of them describes his work or his orientation as a crucial cut, break, which allows him to totalize all previous philosophy as one big, okay maybe not il- for example for Heidegger all thinking hitherto is metaphysics and his philosophy breaks with metaphysics. For Derrida metaphysics of presence. For Marxist ideological idealism or whatever, for Derrida again. For analytical philosophy it’s again philosophy which is not yet sci- I don't accept this. I'm here on the side of Lacan or maybe Gilles Deleuze who try not to proceed in this negative totalization like all guys till me even if very bright were basically idiots and only I finally see it the way it really is. But don't you get a version of that in the story that Hegel tells about the history of philosophy? Because the history of philosophy for Hegel is is a preparation for speculative idealism, isn't it? Yeah but what does Hegel's speculative idealism mean? It's not that now he finally knows all. Because you know... This is important isn't it because this is a very common misconception about what Hegel's project was. You know, just look at Hegel's work. When at the very final point of his system, the end of his lectures on the history of philosophy when as a good idealist of course he ends up with his own system, no, which is conclusion of it all, he says this is where we are today for the time being. He even doubly relativizes it. Or for example when he talks in his philosophy of history. It's not so bad if you consider that Hegel wrote this in When he talks about United States of America and then about Russia, he said we cannot yet develop a full philosophical history of these countries because their century, not so bad to say it in their century will be the 20th century. These countries did not yet, or in his most maligned part, philosophy of nature, quite often he says we can't say it, we don't know it enough. So I claim, I here follow a pretty good, I don't always agree with him but he's not an idiot, Robert Solomon who wrote a book in the spirit of Hegel, where he says: What if what Hegel calls absolute knowing is precisely the opposite of this absolute opening I know it all? Is that at every historical period you simply if you go to the end you as it were reach the limit. So that absolute knowing is not opposed to historicism, but it's historicism brought to its most radical extreme. It’s: that's the limit. And precisely as such Hegel I think opens up a space for otherness. Hegel's point is not we now know it all. Hegel's point is this is where we can be now, what is out there is an openness. Which is why I even think Hegel is more materialist quite seriously than Marx. Marx went a step further, Marx thought that we as historical agents, at least the privileged ones, proletarians, communists, have access to some historical necessity which points even towards the future. Like how out of the contradictions of the present
like we stay outside we just resist, we posit impossible demands and so on, no, they had the courage to do it. Being fully aware in what deep shit they are. I admire this, sorry. Um so the the upshot of what you've just said is that you're not a continental philosopher, which is... No in some sense, I no, sorry. I'm not a continental philosopher in this sense of transcendental historicism. On the other hand but I am also not in the sense of I try to be more productively eclectic, not in a stupid way. I note this in some of my books. Did you notice how, and this is almost typical of continental philosophy in all its versions. Let's take Marx, let's take Derrida, let's take Heidegger, let's take analytical philosophy. With all their differences they share something that I don't know how to call it, exclusionary totalization. Each of them describes his work or his orientation as a crucial cut, break, which allows him to totalize all previous philosophy as one big, okay maybe not il- for example for Heidegger all thinking hitherto is metaphysics and his philosophy breaks with metaphysics. For Derrida metaphysics of presence. For Marxist ideological idealism or whatever, for Derrida again. For analytical philosophy it’s again philosophy which is not yet sci- I don't accept this. I'm here on the side of Lacan or maybe Gilles Deleuze who try not to proceed in this negative totalization like all guys till me even if very bright were basically idiots and only I finally see it the way it really is. But don't you get a version of that in the story that Hegel tells about the history of philosophy? Because the history of philosophy for Hegel is is a preparation for speculative idealism, isn't it? Yeah but what does Hegel's speculative idealism mean? It's not that now he finally knows all. Because you know... This is important isn't it because this is a very common misconception about what Hegel's project was. You know, just look at Hegel's work. When at the very final point of his system, the end of his lectures on the history of philosophy when as a good idealist of course he ends up with his own system, no, which is conclusion of it all, he says this is where we are today for the time being. He even doubly relativizes it. Or for example when he talks in his philosophy of history. It's not so bad if you consider that Hegel wrote this in When he talks about United States of America and then about Russia, he said we cannot yet develop a full philosophical history of these countries because their century, not so bad to say it in their century will be the 20th century. These countries did not yet, or in his most maligned part, philosophy of nature, quite often he says we can't say it, we don't know it enough. So I claim, I here follow a pretty good, I don't always agree with him but he's not an idiot, Robert Solomon who wrote a book in the spirit of Hegel, where he says: What if what Hegel calls absolute knowing is precisely the opposite of this absolute opening I know it all? Is that at every historical period you simply if you go to the end you as it were reach the limit. So that absolute knowing is not opposed to historicism, but it's historicism brought to its most radical extreme. It’s: that's the limit. And precisely as such Hegel I think opens up a space for otherness. Hegel's point is not we now know it all. Hegel's point is this is where we can be now, what is out there is an openness. Which is why I even think Hegel is more materialist quite seriously than Marx. Marx went a step further, Marx thought that we as historical agents, at least the privileged ones, proletarians, communists, have access to some historical necessity which points even towards the future. Like how out of the contradictions of the present
Julian Assange
society we have at least the possibility of communist society. So that you can know history even in the future and then you can act as an agent of this knowledge. For Hegel this is too idealist. And I think that paradoxically Hegel is here more open to contingency. I like to use here with this I will finish don't worry. I think that for Hegel there is no future but I like very much I discovered this
society we have at least the possibility of communist society. So that you can know history even in the future and then you can act as an agent of this knowledge. For Hegel this is too idealist. And I think that paradoxically Hegel is here more open to contingency. I like to use here with this I will finish don't worry. I think that for Hegel there is no future but I like very much I discovered this
Slavoj Žižek
by chance, you know how in French at least and only in a couple of other languages
by chance, you know how in French at least and only in a couple of other languages
Julian Assange
I don't know in English, you have two words for future. You have futur like future and then you have avenir, venir, to come. But they are not the same. Future means also can mean the continuation of the- like once and future king, the same idiot.
I don't know in English, you have two words for future. You have futur like future and then you have avenir, venir, to come. But they are not the same. Future means also can mean the continuation of the- like once and future king, the same idiot.
Slavoj Žižek
Avenir, to come, points towards a radical break, its true openness. So I claim yes for Hegel there is no future because there is avenir. There is no philosopher more open to things to come than Hegel. If you want a proof of how radical this move is, you know who is the most ferocious wild opponent of Syriza and Democratic Left? Ah, the KKE, the Greek Communist party, which is a pretty strong one, gets to and it's the last authentic Stalinist party of serious par- like I saw it, I couldn't believe with my eyes, they still regularly reprint Stalin's complete works as their Bible and for them the traitor is not Gorbachev ruining Soviet Union, the traitor is Khrushchev for his and so on. So now comes the paradox: the communists hate so much Syriza that they are ready even there are signs to make a pact with New Democracy. As they did it often in the last decades, their idea is: the situation is not yet mature enough. We have to wait for a pure revolutionary situation when workers will take over, blah blah blah. It’s like the PCF in '68. Yeah, yeah. But here I am, a partisan in spite of all her illusions of Rosa Luxemburg, no, who said, you know if you wait for the right moment the right moment will never arrive. The right moment is emerges through repeated premature attempts, failures and so on and so on. Which is why, just to conclude, again many leftists will maybe hate me for that. I found in its basic tendency, there are many details that I don't agree, quite sympathetic the text published in I think it's still the last issue if it's still the last of New Left Review by T.J. Clark, a Left without a future. I think his basic double insight: a: that are we aware that the main result of this unrest of the last couple of years is an incredible demonstration of the defeat at least of the traditional Left? That is to say till or when we lived in relative prosperity and so on, at least we in some Western countries, the typical leftist attitude was the Cassandra attitude, no: ah this prosperity is just a false illusion, you will see the crisis will emerge, there will be chaos, then it will be our moment. Now more or less exactly this happened. There is universal crisis and so on and we have protests, even violent protests here and there, and the Left if anything totally proved its impotence. I'm sorry but I didn't see any except from some vague Keynesianism like let's control financial capital and so on. Now the moment has come when the Left should have come and say: you see the unrest is everywhere, now we will take the role of organizing... So there's no political economy. Yeah, yeah. This and second thing where I agree with T.J. Clark, although I don't draw the same conclusions as he does, is that the Left till now in all its versions, radical Left, was playing this game of how to put it: waiting for the event, you know. Now we may be marginal but there will be a moment when finally the authentic working class will awaken and this will be the event. Like even at the end of the Empire, Hardt and Negri claim this: okay now we have just marginal multitudes but the moment will come that multitudes will condense and erase the state and well took over the entire social body. So this waiting for the event, as T.J. Clark wonderfully uses this very nasty metaphor, it’s just as if there is an subterranean Terracotta Army of true proletarian warriors and let's be patient and wait for them to awaken and you know. I agree with him that sorry this moment will never happen. We have to abandon it. And here you should be careful what T.J. Clark is saying. He is not saying in this social-democratic in the bad sense opportunism: this means there will nothing serious will happen we can- no no he says there will probably be chaos, disorder, we cannot even imagine what can happen. But this awakening, this big awakening moment will not happen. Now the conclusion here I differ from him a little bit. The conclusion for me is not so let's just engage in short-term social-democratic politics. Why not? Because I'm a little bit more of a pessimist. I think that nonetheless the lesson of the last years is that, again as I always repeat it, the true illusion is not ooh there will be a radical change. The true illusion is that things can go on indefinitely only if we do a little bit of austerity, a little bit of this some- somehow we can imagine to survive. I think for a series of reasons, from ecology to the immanent structure of capitalism, to biogenetics and so on and so on, we are approaching a zero point. This zero point can be postponed whatever but things cannot go on indefinitely the way they do. I mean if we don't do anything things will change. My thesis is simply that we are slowly already approaching a new, whatever you call it we don't even have a name, expert rule authoritarian whatever society which again we should not simply use the old phrases. It will not be new fascism or whatever. It will be, again here I want with all sincerity without any irony bow deeply and express my admiration of your British artistic cinema genius, one of the first to get this point was Terry Gilliam in the film Brazil. You know this wonderful portrayal of a future society which is authoritarian but at the same time it's not this traditional fascism, no, it's crazy even a little bit comical and I think Berlusconi was the first step towards the rule of Brazil. No there will be other Brazil guys. So we're talking about a sort of authoritarian market state. Yeah and again as I always repeat it, this is for me what is truly unsettling in China. And again I wish them all the well it's that till now again give to the devil what one should admit to the devil. Till now one can reasonably claim that whenever capitalism was given a chance to develop even if it demanded years of dictatorship, once things start to run it always generated a strong demand for democracy. What I'm afraid is that this time is over. That countries like China, Singapore, and more and more others signal that there is a new type of capitalism which absolutely should not be dismissed as something Asiatic, no. If it's simply Asiatic then Berlusconi is an Asiatic figure. Okay maybe I have doubts, no. But what I mean is that a capitalism which is if anything even more dynamic, creative, destructive than our Western liberal capitalism but which I wouldn't be here too hopeful for those who wait for another Tiananmen. I don't think it immanently needs democracy to function. Now this is the pro- so again my message to liberals is not you liberal traitors. My message is if you think seriously about protecting liberal values, freedom, dignity, whatever they are, only an alliance with radical Left can do it. I think on that point with that chastening analysis of the present juncture is a good place to stop. Um we will... I'm really grateful for your good questions. I mean... Thank you. We will invite questions from the audience but first I’d like you to join me in thanking Slavoj. I’m grateful for your one thing to you and all the others. Because there I get in in Joseph Goebbels mood of drawing the gun that no one used the expression I think so at least the Elvis of cultural theory, you know. I’m deeply grateful for that. Slavoj Žižek everybody. I hope it was clear, I mean, I still up- my God what more can you do I was I supported Syriza, I know when violence is needed. For example to be very clear: in India when I was, I met the Naxalite Maoists around Hyderabad and I support them. I think that there much more tough violence is needed. So no no I'm not a a softy here, you know what I mean. But I'm just a brutal realist. Don't- can I just to finish to make this point which is crucial clear: what I claimed is that there is also something that I cannot but call principled opportunism. You pretend to be radical and because secretly you know very well that in today's constellation this amounts to nothing, you know. And this is what academics like. Academics like a revolution but radical one, but it should happen far, you know. Let- so that you can here pursue your academic career like Cuba, Vietnam, today Venezuela and so on. You know like I think I quoted him Jean-Jacques Rousseau provided a wonderful well she said that philosophers that I know love Tartars because this she didn't mean Tartars steak but the people or Mongols because this makes it easier for them to ignore the plight of the poor here in front of their doors, no. So this is my point: I mean realistic but not in the pragmatic sense just, but realistic in sense how can we really start get things moving but of course with- and this is also the reason can I just do this and then why because I'm often asked this obvious as I ironically refer to it PR public relations question. Many people tell me okay if I look closely what you propose it's not so crazy. I agree with it no mostly of it but why do you stick to this crazy word communism? It's bad you will not mobilize people in this way. Well I have even three four answers to this. This may be suspicious because when you have too many answers it means- but the first one would have been there still is some tradition clearly identified as part of communism which I think is precious. And I don't mean by this early Bolshevism of this but things like for example Spartacus peasant rebellions, you know this radical millenarian rebellions. Sorry I'm not ready to in the style of Nick Cohen and others you know to dismiss them as proto-totalitarian. There is something great in this authentic popular outburst. Second thing: as I always claim the problem that I see today is communist problem in the sense that all the crucial problems today I see are problems of commons: ecology our commons, intellectual property our this is the problem. The third one: I don't have a better word with all the trauma associated to this term all other names that offer themselves can be instantly reappropriated. Democracy: ah ah it can mean anything you want. Socialism: my god Hitler will- and so on. Justice: which justice, you know, and so on and so on. And the last reason which I like most: we know we are approaching dangerous times. It's not easy to do things, maybe we will have to do large sometimes even violent things and to avoid what I hate the term but just to use it as a kind of a wrong
Avenir, to come, points towards a radical break, its true openness. So I claim yes for Hegel there is no future because there is avenir. There is no philosopher more open to things to come than Hegel. If you want a proof of how radical this move is, you know who is the most ferocious wild opponent of Syriza and Democratic Left? Ah, the KKE, the Greek Communist party, which is a pretty strong one, gets to and it's the last authentic Stalinist party of serious par- like I saw it, I couldn't believe with my eyes, they still regularly reprint Stalin's complete works as their Bible and for them the traitor is not Gorbachev ruining Soviet Union, the traitor is Khrushchev for his and so on. So now comes the paradox: the communists hate so much Syriza that they are ready even there are signs to make a pact with New Democracy. As they did it often in the last decades, their idea is: the situation is not yet mature enough. We have to wait for a pure revolutionary situation when workers will take over, blah blah blah. It’s like the PCF in '68. Yeah, yeah. But here I am, a partisan in spite of all her illusions of Rosa Luxemburg, no, who said, you know if you wait for the right moment the right moment will never arrive. The right moment is emerges through repeated premature attempts, failures and so on and so on. Which is why, just to conclude, again many leftists will maybe hate me for that. I found in its basic tendency, there are many details that I don't agree, quite sympathetic the text published in I think it's still the last issue if it's still the last of New Left Review by T.J. Clark, a Left without a future. I think his basic double insight: a: that are we aware that the main result of this unrest of the last couple of years is an incredible demonstration of the defeat at least of the traditional Left? That is to say till or when we lived in relative prosperity and so on, at least we in some Western countries, the typical leftist attitude was the Cassandra attitude, no: ah this prosperity is just a false illusion, you will see the crisis will emerge, there will be chaos, then it will be our moment. Now more or less exactly this happened. There is universal crisis and so on and we have protests, even violent protests here and there, and the Left if anything totally proved its impotence. I'm sorry but I didn't see any except from some vague Keynesianism like let's control financial capital and so on. Now the moment has come when the Left should have come and say: you see the unrest is everywhere, now we will take the role of organizing... So there's no political economy. Yeah, yeah. This and second thing where I agree with T.J. Clark, although I don't draw the same conclusions as he does, is that the Left till now in all its versions, radical Left, was playing this game of how to put it: waiting for the event, you know. Now we may be marginal but there will be a moment when finally the authentic working class will awaken and this will be the event. Like even at the end of the Empire, Hardt and Negri claim this: okay now we have just marginal multitudes but the moment will come that multitudes will condense and erase the state and well took over the entire social body. So this waiting for the event, as T.J. Clark wonderfully uses this very nasty metaphor, it’s just as if there is an subterranean Terracotta Army of true proletarian warriors and let's be patient and wait for them to awaken and you know. I agree with him that sorry this moment will never happen. We have to abandon it. And here you should be careful what T.J. Clark is saying. He is not saying in this social-democratic in the bad sense opportunism: this means there will nothing serious will happen we can- no no he says there will probably be chaos, disorder, we cannot even imagine what can happen. But this awakening, this big awakening moment will not happen. Now the conclusion here I differ from him a little bit. The conclusion for me is not so let's just engage in short-term social-democratic politics. Why not? Because I'm a little bit more of a pessimist. I think that nonetheless the lesson of the last years is that, again as I always repeat it, the true illusion is not ooh there will be a radical change. The true illusion is that things can go on indefinitely only if we do a little bit of austerity, a little bit of this some- somehow we can imagine to survive. I think for a series of reasons, from ecology to the immanent structure of capitalism, to biogenetics and so on and so on, we are approaching a zero point. This zero point can be postponed whatever but things cannot go on indefinitely the way they do. I mean if we don't do anything things will change. My thesis is simply that we are slowly already approaching a new, whatever you call it we don't even have a name, expert rule authoritarian whatever society which again we should not simply use the old phrases. It will not be new fascism or whatever. It will be, again here I want with all sincerity without any irony bow deeply and express my admiration of your British artistic cinema genius, one of the first to get this point was Terry Gilliam in the film Brazil. You know this wonderful portrayal of a future society which is authoritarian but at the same time it's not this traditional fascism, no, it's crazy even a little bit comical and I think Berlusconi was the first step towards the rule of Brazil. No there will be other Brazil guys. So we're talking about a sort of authoritarian market state. Yeah and again as I always repeat it, this is for me what is truly unsettling in China. And again I wish them all the well it's that till now again give to the devil what one should admit to the devil. Till now one can reasonably claim that whenever capitalism was given a chance to develop even if it demanded years of dictatorship, once things start to run it always generated a strong demand for democracy. What I'm afraid is that this time is over. That countries like China, Singapore, and more and more others signal that there is a new type of capitalism which absolutely should not be dismissed as something Asiatic, no. If it's simply Asiatic then Berlusconi is an Asiatic figure. Okay maybe I have doubts, no. But what I mean is that a capitalism which is if anything even more dynamic, creative, destructive than our Western liberal capitalism but which I wouldn't be here too hopeful for those who wait for another Tiananmen. I don't think it immanently needs democracy to function. Now this is the pro- so again my message to liberals is not you liberal traitors. My message is if you think seriously about protecting liberal values, freedom, dignity, whatever they are, only an alliance with radical Left can do it. I think on that point with that chastening analysis of the present juncture is a good place to stop. Um we will... I'm really grateful for your good questions. I mean... Thank you. We will invite questions from the audience but first I’d like you to join me in thanking Slavoj. I’m grateful for your one thing to you and all the others. Because there I get in in Joseph Goebbels mood of drawing the gun that no one used the expression I think so at least the Elvis of cultural theory, you know. I’m deeply grateful for that. Slavoj Žižek everybody. I hope it was clear, I mean, I still up- my God what more can you do I was I supported Syriza, I know when violence is needed. For example to be very clear: in India when I was, I met the Naxalite Maoists around Hyderabad and I support them. I think that there much more tough violence is needed. So no no I'm not a a softy here, you know what I mean. But I'm just a brutal realist. Don't- can I just to finish to make this point which is crucial clear: what I claimed is that there is also something that I cannot but call principled opportunism. You pretend to be radical and because secretly you know very well that in today's constellation this amounts to nothing, you know. And this is what academics like. Academics like a revolution but radical one, but it should happen far, you know. Let- so that you can here pursue your academic career like Cuba, Vietnam, today Venezuela and so on. You know like I think I quoted him Jean-Jacques Rousseau provided a wonderful well she said that philosophers that I know love Tartars because this she didn't mean Tartars steak but the people or Mongols because this makes it easier for them to ignore the plight of the poor here in front of their doors, no. So this is my point: I mean realistic but not in the pragmatic sense just, but realistic in sense how can we really start get things moving but of course with- and this is also the reason can I just do this and then why because I'm often asked this obvious as I ironically refer to it PR public relations question. Many people tell me okay if I look closely what you propose it's not so crazy. I agree with it no mostly of it but why do you stick to this crazy word communism? It's bad you will not mobilize people in this way. Well I have even three four answers to this. This may be suspicious because when you have too many answers it means- but the first one would have been there still is some tradition clearly identified as part of communism which I think is precious. And I don't mean by this early Bolshevism of this but things like for example Spartacus peasant rebellions, you know this radical millenarian rebellions. Sorry I'm not ready to in the style of Nick Cohen and others you know to dismiss them as proto-totalitarian. There is something great in this authentic popular outburst. Second thing: as I always claim the problem that I see today is communist problem in the sense that all the crucial problems today I see are problems of commons: ecology our commons, intellectual property our this is the problem. The third one: I don't have a better word with all the trauma associated to this term all other names that offer themselves can be instantly reappropriated. Democracy: ah ah it can mean anything you want. Socialism: my god Hitler will- and so on. Justice: which justice, you know, and so on and so on. And the last reason which I like most: we know we are approaching dangerous times. It's not easy to do things, maybe we will have to do large sometimes even violent things and to avoid what I hate the term but just to use it as a kind of a wrong
unknown
but nonetheless signal totalitarian temptation. So it
but nonetheless signal totalitarian temptation. So it
Slavoj Žižek
may sound cynical but I mean it in a deadly serious way. Isn't it nice to have as your master signifier a term which reminds you all the time how wrong can things go? You know like that you are all the time aware that you are playing with fire. For these four reasons I'm still a communist. Thank you. Any questions? Don't disappoint me! Don't fall for such cheap tricks rhetorical. Are you didn't do your Stalinist job distributing questions before? No I didn't. There's one there is. Please. I hope the mic will work because I have. Hi there. Um this might be a bit of a non sequitur so I apologize if it is but you mentioned in as part of the unnamed coming disaster of of you mentioned biogenetics briefly. Maybe that was for no particular reason but could you would you mind elaborating on that? I mean it seems if there is a kind of technological element to the way things are heading. Do you have particular... Sorry I didn't hear all the words so basically what was the point of my reference to biogenetics. Yes. Okay. No I can- you know why this interests me? Because on the one hand the more that I learn about it the more I see it as
may sound cynical but I mean it in a deadly serious way. Isn't it nice to have as your master signifier a term which reminds you all the time how wrong can things go? You know like that you are all the time aware that you are playing with fire. For these four reasons I'm still a communist. Thank you. Any questions? Don't disappoint me! Don't fall for such cheap tricks rhetorical. Are you didn't do your Stalinist job distributing questions before? No I didn't. There's one there is. Please. I hope the mic will work because I have. Hi there. Um this might be a bit of a non sequitur so I apologize if it is but you mentioned in as part of the unnamed coming disaster of of you mentioned biogenetics briefly. Maybe that was for no particular reason but could you would you mind elaborating on that? I mean it seems if there is a kind of technological element to the way things are heading. Do you have particular... Sorry I didn't hear all the words so basically what was the point of my reference to biogenetics. Yes. Okay. No I can- you know why this interests me? Because on the one hand the more that I learn about it the more I see it as
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I hate this word but I don't have a better word, a challenge. In the sense that you know Virginia Woolf, I don't like her she was
I hate this word but I don't have a better word, a challenge. In the sense that you know Virginia Woolf, I don't like her she was
Slavoj Žižek
a frigid bitch I agree with Darian Leader
a frigid bitch I agree with Darian Leader
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that Daphne du Maurier is
that Daphne du Maurier is
Slavoj Žižek
much better writer than Virginia, but she used I think, I even don't know apropos what event in didn't she say famously something like: at this day human nature changed. And I think that something like this is happening today. The moment and the moment is not only approaching, it's up to a point here where two thing will happen: a: it will be possible to with different biochemical or genetic or
much better writer than Virginia, but she used I think, I even don't know apropos what event in didn't she say famously something like: at this day human nature changed. And I think that something like this is happening today. The moment and the moment is not only approaching, it's up to a point here where two thing will happen: a: it will be possible to with different biochemical or genetic or
unknown
whatever neuronal interventions to directly steer influence our thought process processes or basic characteristics. Like if you don't believe me, okay this is an eccentric madness
whatever neuronal interventions to directly steer influence our thought process processes or basic characteristics. Like if you don't believe me, okay this is an eccentric madness
Slavoj Žižek
but it's good to read it: go to Google and put in DARPA, you know it? D-A-R-P-A. This is a big public research program by FBI, CIA, whatever, I don't know which agency, which aims at and money is already wildly spent on it. The program is this one: how to describe not at the level of meaning but at the neuronal level what happens in your brain when you accept some ideology. Of course the official idea is how do people become fundamentalists. And with the express aim to then block people from becoming fundamentalists, not by arguments or whatever, but by a direct neuronal intervention. Now I find this, I'm not a classical humanist, I will not say terrifying, but I will say definitely something new, you know. That you fight ideology not by propaganda, not even by external violence, but simply by directly naturalizing it, a certain ideological attitude into your brain processes and then trying to regulate these processes. Second thing, this is at their beginning but don't underestimate it, this perspective of a direct link between inside and outside. In the sense of you know for example today in a very primitive form but it is here, they can already wire your brain and make a computer understand some basic orders and so that then this can be attached to a robot and like you can literally move objects with your mind. Like you here in London did it I think it was presented some two years ago, some wheelchair for crippled people or how do they say politically correct, movement challenged people. The idea is that you don't even need Stephen Hawking's finger. No you just sit you think forward it goes forward. Okay my problem here is it looks nice you are like God you think it happens. The problem is that what goes out also goes in, no, like they can only influence you here and I okay I will not lose time here to talk too much. All I want to say is nonetheless that these things are now much more already being developed than you think. For example it’s not only one aspect of new warfare is emerging now like these drones. The other one is psychological warfare but again no longer in the old sense of you know propaganda, even brainwashing. For example I know for sure that all
but it's good to read it: go to Google and put in DARPA, you know it? D-A-R-P-A. This is a big public research program by FBI, CIA, whatever, I don't know which agency, which aims at and money is already wildly spent on it. The program is this one: how to describe not at the level of meaning but at the neuronal level what happens in your brain when you accept some ideology. Of course the official idea is how do people become fundamentalists. And with the express aim to then block people from becoming fundamentalists, not by arguments or whatever, but by a direct neuronal intervention. Now I find this, I'm not a classical humanist, I will not say terrifying, but I will say definitely something new, you know. That you fight ideology not by propaganda, not even by external violence, but simply by directly naturalizing it, a certain ideological attitude into your brain processes and then trying to regulate these processes. Second thing, this is at their beginning but don't underestimate it, this perspective of a direct link between inside and outside. In the sense of you know for example today in a very primitive form but it is here, they can already wire your brain and make a computer understand some basic orders and so that then this can be attached to a robot and like you can literally move objects with your mind. Like you here in London did it I think it was presented some two years ago, some wheelchair for crippled people or how do they say politically correct, movement challenged people. The idea is that you don't even need Stephen Hawking's finger. No you just sit you think forward it goes forward. Okay my problem here is it looks nice you are like God you think it happens. The problem is that what goes out also goes in, no, like they can only influence you here and I okay I will not lose time here to talk too much. All I want to say is nonetheless that these things are now much more already being developed than you think. For example it’s not only one aspect of new warfare is emerging now like these drones. The other one is psychological warfare but again no longer in the old sense of you know propaganda, even brainwashing. For example I know for sure that all
unknown
major powers, United States, China and so
major powers, United States, China and so
Slavoj Žižek
on, are already very far in this very simple direction: they established that when you are in panic and fear your brain emits certain electromagnetic waves. They already succeeded in reproducing these waves and I was told it works quite nicely. Like let's say I'm a soldier fighting you, I don't fight, I press a button this area is covered by those waves and you are all literally starting to shit out of fear in panic and so on. So I'm not here painting a pessimistic picture. I try to avoid both extremes: one is this humanist, no, ooh we are in we will we will all become robot, the end of humanity. The other one is this Ray Kurzweil and others ooh posthuman new era. I'm just saying very modestly we have to think what are the consequences, what are the stakes, what are the possible problems. For example one thing that it's clear here is how biogenetic is more and more already becoming a class issue. On the one hand you have the privileged for which there will be clinics to do
on, are already very far in this very simple direction: they established that when you are in panic and fear your brain emits certain electromagnetic waves. They already succeeded in reproducing these waves and I was told it works quite nicely. Like let's say I'm a soldier fighting you, I don't fight, I press a button this area is covered by those waves and you are all literally starting to shit out of fear in panic and so on. So I'm not here painting a pessimistic picture. I try to avoid both extremes: one is this humanist, no, ooh we are in we will we will all become robot, the end of humanity. The other one is this Ray Kurzweil and others ooh posthuman new era. I'm just saying very modestly we have to think what are the consequences, what are the stakes, what are the possible problems. For example one thing that it's clear here is how biogenetic is more and more already becoming a class issue. On the one hand you have the privileged for which there will be clinics to do
unknown
whatever
whatever
Slavoj Žižek
you want with your child blah blah blah. And this is the other part of China: I was told that
you want with your child blah blah blah. And this is the other part of China: I was told that
unknown
there are
there are
Slavoj Žižek
already a dozen or so clinics in the suburb of Shanghai
already a dozen or so clinics in the suburb of Shanghai
unknown
where
where
Slavoj Žižek
rich people from the West come to
rich people from the West come to
unknown
have their children genetically modified and so on and so on. On the other hand for ordinary people is the idea of mass genetic control and so on which sorry I always repeat this but I find it crucial. When I was in Beijing I was given a program of genetic whatever subdivision of Chinese Academy of Sciences where they say openly: the goal of development of biogenetics in China is to regulate to the profit of Chinese people of course physical and psychological properties of the people. So I'm not saying now ooh horror horror. I'm saying something is happening, we have to think what this means. The stakes
have their children genetically modified and so on and so on. On the other hand for ordinary people is the idea of mass genetic control and so on which sorry I always repeat this but I find it crucial. When I was in Beijing I was given a program of genetic whatever subdivision of Chinese Academy of Sciences where they say openly: the goal of development of biogenetics in China is to regulate to the profit of Chinese people of course physical and psychological properties of the people. So I'm not saying now ooh horror horror. I'm saying something is happening, we have to think what this means. The stakes
Slavoj Žižek
are high. It’s very modest. Is there another another question? I'm Greek and... You are Greek? Yes. Yeah. Where do you stand then? Sorry? Where do you stand? So I’ll tell you now. Most of my friends want to vote for either they are disappointed with New Democracy or Pasok and they want to vote something else like Stefanos Manos, who has been and Dora Bakoyannis, who basically were part of the New Democracy and since the 1980s they openly wanted to privatize anything down to public toilets. So I've been trying to tell them why they should vote for Syriza. And what I realize is that I'm not sure it's what they want. What I'm saying is that in order for these governments in order for these governments to work, you have to have a mentality where every day you get involved, you worry about what's happening in politics and you're willing to to to go against the government that the party that you already voted in in four years if they disappoint you. I think that most people want to be secure rather than free. And this is an old really old question that goes back to ancient Greece. Do you think that people want to be free or secure? No I'm a open pessimist here, I don't have any illusions. Why do we try to deprive them this right of being secure? No what I'm- I'm not sure I'm sorry it's purely vocal maybe I have at my age some problems. I'm not sure I got all the implications of what you said but what I would say is this: I talked my god with Alexis Tsipras there, we had a long the boss of Syriza, we had a long of conversation and I warned him- I mean he also knows he is not an idiot I mean that like you cannot count of some kind of a constant ecstatic mobilization. The great majority of the people even if they will be at some point either enthusiastically for Syriza or ready to give them support, you know people as you said they want peace, security, they want to see the results when things return to the normal. But what I got is an interesting answer. What they told me is that, you know, and I believe them from what I heard about their program and so on: look this was I think that the image in the media, these are some lunatic leftists who will now just abandon Europe, go out and so on, this is not true. They are systematically painted like it. Why? Because it makes me so sad because I think that probably they will lose for this reason. I read one of the most disgusting texts in my life in one of the last issues of maybe you know it, Forbes magazine, where the title is like: Let the Greeks have Communism, no. And the idea is this one: Greeks dream about a radical change, what Europe should do is throw them out, put a cordon, break all connection with them, and then literally it’s formulated like this: sit down, relax, and enjoy. The country in chaos, starvation and so on, and then the conclusion of the text is quite brutal. The point is to use Greece to give to anyone who dreams about some kind of a radical progressive change a lesson for once and all: this is what you get if you play with us. You know. And again they are aware of this and their problem is I spoke, they don't perceive them- themselves as radical lunatics. For them and I totally agree with them, lunacy was in power till now in Greece. Lunacy is in Brussels, I mean it literally. Did you notice two strange things about the- and I'm a well-known I call myself ironically progressive racist, no. Like I like to make fun of people but I include my own people into it, no. This is what I dream makes it progressive, no. So what I wanted to say is that, okay Greeks lazy whatever. But two things bother me about, first I think this is even geographically not true. You know what this means, it’s very primitive almost racist reasoning: look look at Greek countryside. It's rocks, very little earth, mountains, you have to work like crazy to- you know what I mean. Like even if we accept this immanently racist topic that some people are lazy by nature, I don't think Greeks are the right candidate. But more seriously two things are strange from Europe. Did you notice how all these austerity measures, rescheduling the debt that they are doing again and again, something very weird is happening logically or mass psychologically. We, they, all know that these plans are illusions. Either Greeks will not repay the debts, it will not work, and nonetheless they cling to them. Like it's they cling to it although they know it’s an illusion that it will not work in this way. Second thing connected to this, did you notice how the pressure on Greeks by Europe clearly has the structure of what in psychoanalysis is called superego. Superego as opposed to I'm saying it naively authentic morality, moral law. Why? What characterizes superego for Freud? First it’s an impossible demand. It's so harsh that the authority which bombards you with this demand knows and takes into account in advance that you will fail. And the whole point is then to mock you whatever to organize your failure. I think this is absolutely clearly what is what is going on here.
are high. It’s very modest. Is there another another question? I'm Greek and... You are Greek? Yes. Yeah. Where do you stand then? Sorry? Where do you stand? So I’ll tell you now. Most of my friends want to vote for either they are disappointed with New Democracy or Pasok and they want to vote something else like Stefanos Manos, who has been and Dora Bakoyannis, who basically were part of the New Democracy and since the 1980s they openly wanted to privatize anything down to public toilets. So I've been trying to tell them why they should vote for Syriza. And what I realize is that I'm not sure it's what they want. What I'm saying is that in order for these governments in order for these governments to work, you have to have a mentality where every day you get involved, you worry about what's happening in politics and you're willing to to to go against the government that the party that you already voted in in four years if they disappoint you. I think that most people want to be secure rather than free. And this is an old really old question that goes back to ancient Greece. Do you think that people want to be free or secure? No I'm a open pessimist here, I don't have any illusions. Why do we try to deprive them this right of being secure? No what I'm- I'm not sure I'm sorry it's purely vocal maybe I have at my age some problems. I'm not sure I got all the implications of what you said but what I would say is this: I talked my god with Alexis Tsipras there, we had a long the boss of Syriza, we had a long of conversation and I warned him- I mean he also knows he is not an idiot I mean that like you cannot count of some kind of a constant ecstatic mobilization. The great majority of the people even if they will be at some point either enthusiastically for Syriza or ready to give them support, you know people as you said they want peace, security, they want to see the results when things return to the normal. But what I got is an interesting answer. What they told me is that, you know, and I believe them from what I heard about their program and so on: look this was I think that the image in the media, these are some lunatic leftists who will now just abandon Europe, go out and so on, this is not true. They are systematically painted like it. Why? Because it makes me so sad because I think that probably they will lose for this reason. I read one of the most disgusting texts in my life in one of the last issues of maybe you know it, Forbes magazine, where the title is like: Let the Greeks have Communism, no. And the idea is this one: Greeks dream about a radical change, what Europe should do is throw them out, put a cordon, break all connection with them, and then literally it’s formulated like this: sit down, relax, and enjoy. The country in chaos, starvation and so on, and then the conclusion of the text is quite brutal. The point is to use Greece to give to anyone who dreams about some kind of a radical progressive change a lesson for once and all: this is what you get if you play with us. You know. And again they are aware of this and their problem is I spoke, they don't perceive them- themselves as radical lunatics. For them and I totally agree with them, lunacy was in power till now in Greece. Lunacy is in Brussels, I mean it literally. Did you notice two strange things about the- and I'm a well-known I call myself ironically progressive racist, no. Like I like to make fun of people but I include my own people into it, no. This is what I dream makes it progressive, no. So what I wanted to say is that, okay Greeks lazy whatever. But two things bother me about, first I think this is even geographically not true. You know what this means, it’s very primitive almost racist reasoning: look look at Greek countryside. It's rocks, very little earth, mountains, you have to work like crazy to- you know what I mean. Like even if we accept this immanently racist topic that some people are lazy by nature, I don't think Greeks are the right candidate. But more seriously two things are strange from Europe. Did you notice how all these austerity measures, rescheduling the debt that they are doing again and again, something very weird is happening logically or mass psychologically. We, they, all know that these plans are illusions. Either Greeks will not repay the debts, it will not work, and nonetheless they cling to them. Like it's they cling to it although they know it’s an illusion that it will not work in this way. Second thing connected to this, did you notice how the pressure on Greeks by Europe clearly has the structure of what in psychoanalysis is called superego. Superego as opposed to I'm saying it naively authentic morality, moral law. Why? What characterizes superego for Freud? First it’s an impossible demand. It's so harsh that the authority which bombards you with this demand knows and takes into account in advance that you will fail. And the whole point is then to mock you whatever to organize your failure. I think this is absolutely clearly what is what is going on here.
unknown
So again the dreams, illusions
So again the dreams, illusions
Slavoj Žižek
are there. The way the impression I got and it
are there. The way the impression I got and it
unknown
was a beautiful impression for Syriza is it's not when moderate social democrats failed we need authentic revolution, dictatorship. No, it’s somebody has to bring a little bit of common sense. First by cutting off their point of stopping austerity plan is not fuck it no we want billions more we just want to spend is that just to admit that we all know that this will not work. They are ready to suffer. Alexis Tsipras told me he has no illusion there will be hard time, you know, it’s not that Syriza will print money or whatever. But it's just their point is very simple one: the politics imposed now on Greece precisely because and here they gave me a good answer, it's not that they they don't play these patriotic games, you know, which basically right-wingers are playing, although also some Left. These tasteless metaphors: Germans are occupying us again like in when did they I don't know and so on all that stuff. No, they admit openly that they are also guilty. They just say: my god if you really think we are guilty, why do you then support again guys who who embody this guilt? They see very honestly their task of even more important than economy they told me: what
was a beautiful impression for Syriza is it's not when moderate social democrats failed we need authentic revolution, dictatorship. No, it’s somebody has to bring a little bit of common sense. First by cutting off their point of stopping austerity plan is not fuck it no we want billions more we just want to spend is that just to admit that we all know that this will not work. They are ready to suffer. Alexis Tsipras told me he has no illusion there will be hard time, you know, it’s not that Syriza will print money or whatever. But it's just their point is very simple one: the politics imposed now on Greece precisely because and here they gave me a good answer, it's not that they they don't play these patriotic games, you know, which basically right-wingers are playing, although also some Left. These tasteless metaphors: Germans are occupying us again like in when did they I don't know and so on all that stuff. No, they admit openly that they are also guilty. They just say: my god if you really think we are guilty, why do you then support again guys who who embody this guilt? They see very honestly their task of even more important than economy they told me: what
Slavoj Žižek
Greece needs is not a Marxist
Greece needs is not a Marxist
unknown
revolution in the standard sense of abolishing the state
revolution in the standard sense of abolishing the state
Slavoj Žižek
but it's to try to bring a little bit more functional less clientelist state apparatus. For example things like this and not just violent nationalizations but very selective. Tsipras told me wonderfully how we will have to do some nationalizations but maybe even some local privatizations. Who knows? They are very pragmatic at this level. And they have no illusions, they are sincerely pro-European. They know we cannot survive without Europe, he told me. Tsipras and another which can again at all levels I admire this how should I call it pragmatic spirit which how to put it they know in a way not that they are lost, they know that they are their task is not to bring glorious revolutionary time but to bring common sense and clean the shit after the others. Or as they put it to me: we are not the dreamers, we will have to clean the shit which remained after after the other people's dreams, you know. So again I think it's a wonderful moment when the opposition between radical measures or pragmatic measures becomes obsolete in a way. You must be radical to a certain point just just to be truly pragmatic. Which is why again the pressure on them is incredible like even I since I was there the last Sunday, Costas Douzinas my great friend showed it to me on their site New Democracy attacked me yesterday from being a secret mentor of Tsipras which is crazy I met him once, but even more for already giving him instruction how to introduce police terror and dictatorship into Greece. Which is ridiculous because the true tragedy of of Syriza and their other part the New Democracy not the New Democracy the the New Left or whatever is that they told me openly: you know they are in their structure the typical marginal leftist party used to four five percent, all of a sudden they exploded into I don't know maybe even more at the elections. Now I will sound as a Stalinist I know but I say like if they by a chance will be able to co-form or form together with others the government, where are the cadre? Are they they are aware that they will confront the enemy? Not the capital but the clientelist state apparatus. How to do this, how to even start doing this you know they don't have enough people and so on. They I- but I admire their heroics instead of saying let's withdraw and resist or whatever, no, they have the courage to do it. Being fully aware in what deep shit they are. I admire this, sorry. I think we probably got time for one very quick question because Slavoj is also going to sign some books outside afterwards. Do you remember agreeing to do that? Uh I unfortunately I remember, yeah yeah. Um maybe we should carry the conversation by or on by the book art. No but let's do one more, yes, because if there is a thing I hate is that when people if there will be people wait in line and then an idiot comes and says I don't have a book to sign but I would really like to ask you a question. And then some nightmare thing comes like "In your book on page you say this about Lacan, but on page of Écrits Lacan says something different. Could you briefly improvise about that?" At that point I say yes maybe we should not yet abolish death penalty, you know. Hi. Can I- I’ve got the mic. It’s up here. Uh just you mentioned something that I wanted to ask anyway, it's about the racist stereotypes that lately are coming out of all the media and also that we get across in our day-to-day encounters with the rest of the people. I mean I- I'm I was born in the 80s, so when I was a teen... Sorry I didn't get it, he was one of in his- I was born in the 80s. In the 80s, yes sorry. And I'm Greek too, but that's beside the point. Yeah. And we grew up during the 90s as teens where everybody tried to convince us that you know all of Europe is getting together and you know there are no borders anymore, that we travel around, the Erasmus program was very important for us and we had a lot of leaflets given out to teachers that you know we're all together. Is there a question? Yes, but- sorry I was just describing. Excuse me. And now you see that all of this breaks down very quickly and even if this Left thing that is happening in Greece grows, at the same time you can feel the animosity between the different countries. The Greeks are especially not happy with the Germans, the Germans are not happy with us and that happens between all the countries, the Spanish, the stereotypes all of that. Do you see that this can get, you know, we can overcome that or is it going to get worse? Because in my mind it just gets worse because people just want to get back in their shells. Thank you. I see you know what would be for me this doesn't really answer your question but the starting point is that there is something fundamentally wrong in this approach Greeks, Germans and so on. If we reason in this way we will never arrive at a universality. I think the only authentic universality is conflictual universality, universality of struggle. There is a struggle going on in Greece. In different form the same struggle is going on in Germany. The same struggle is going on in France, here and there. And what I'm claiming is that the only way to overcome this: we Greeks, Germans, how- is to establish a solidarity but not this UNESCO solidarity: our culture is great, our culture is great, let's enjoy each other and so on. But again solidarity of struggle. If we don't if there is no solidarity between what progressive Greeks are fighting for, what I hope some Germans will fight for or whatever then we are lost I claim. But again you see my point, I'm absolutely for universality but for universality of shared solidarity in struggle. And I think it works. Look this is what I found as I wrote about it so magic and I don't think it can be dismissed as some kind of imaginary illusion in Tahrir Square. You know we saw there hundreds of thousands of people fighting for something. I mean demonstrating for something and all of a sudden and I don't think this is an illusion, all that bullshit multiculturalist fake multiculti about but do we understand them, what if they move in a different culture, what if they mean something else, it became in a way momentarily obsolete. Solidarity in struggle was here. And again I know cynical conservatives will say yeah yeah that was just the illusion. No it wasn't an illusion. And if we don't find a way to operationalize, how should I put it, this type of solidarity then we are wrong. You know why? Because in this is another problematic point by me. In in contrast to people who thinks today's global capitalism is American monocultural, we all should look at Hollywood movies and so on, no I claim that economic globalization, universalization finds its natural supplement in fixed cultural identities. So that even if they are mixed they somehow retain their identity. In other words in a global universe it's not that we will all be eating hamburgers. No it is that each of us will stick to its traditional identity which will give us a falsely secure position to fight even more brutally
but it's to try to bring a little bit more functional less clientelist state apparatus. For example things like this and not just violent nationalizations but very selective. Tsipras told me wonderfully how we will have to do some nationalizations but maybe even some local privatizations. Who knows? They are very pragmatic at this level. And they have no illusions, they are sincerely pro-European. They know we cannot survive without Europe, he told me. Tsipras and another which can again at all levels I admire this how should I call it pragmatic spirit which how to put it they know in a way not that they are lost, they know that they are their task is not to bring glorious revolutionary time but to bring common sense and clean the shit after the others. Or as they put it to me: we are not the dreamers, we will have to clean the shit which remained after after the other people's dreams, you know. So again I think it's a wonderful moment when the opposition between radical measures or pragmatic measures becomes obsolete in a way. You must be radical to a certain point just just to be truly pragmatic. Which is why again the pressure on them is incredible like even I since I was there the last Sunday, Costas Douzinas my great friend showed it to me on their site New Democracy attacked me yesterday from being a secret mentor of Tsipras which is crazy I met him once, but even more for already giving him instruction how to introduce police terror and dictatorship into Greece. Which is ridiculous because the true tragedy of of Syriza and their other part the New Democracy not the New Democracy the the New Left or whatever is that they told me openly: you know they are in their structure the typical marginal leftist party used to four five percent, all of a sudden they exploded into I don't know maybe even more at the elections. Now I will sound as a Stalinist I know but I say like if they by a chance will be able to co-form or form together with others the government, where are the cadre? Are they they are aware that they will confront the enemy? Not the capital but the clientelist state apparatus. How to do this, how to even start doing this you know they don't have enough people and so on. They I- but I admire their heroics instead of saying let's withdraw and resist or whatever, no, they have the courage to do it. Being fully aware in what deep shit they are. I admire this, sorry. I think we probably got time for one very quick question because Slavoj is also going to sign some books outside afterwards. Do you remember agreeing to do that? Uh I unfortunately I remember, yeah yeah. Um maybe we should carry the conversation by or on by the book art. No but let's do one more, yes, because if there is a thing I hate is that when people if there will be people wait in line and then an idiot comes and says I don't have a book to sign but I would really like to ask you a question. And then some nightmare thing comes like "In your book on page you say this about Lacan, but on page of Écrits Lacan says something different. Could you briefly improvise about that?" At that point I say yes maybe we should not yet abolish death penalty, you know. Hi. Can I- I’ve got the mic. It’s up here. Uh just you mentioned something that I wanted to ask anyway, it's about the racist stereotypes that lately are coming out of all the media and also that we get across in our day-to-day encounters with the rest of the people. I mean I- I'm I was born in the 80s, so when I was a teen... Sorry I didn't get it, he was one of in his- I was born in the 80s. In the 80s, yes sorry. And I'm Greek too, but that's beside the point. Yeah. And we grew up during the 90s as teens where everybody tried to convince us that you know all of Europe is getting together and you know there are no borders anymore, that we travel around, the Erasmus program was very important for us and we had a lot of leaflets given out to teachers that you know we're all together. Is there a question? Yes, but- sorry I was just describing. Excuse me. And now you see that all of this breaks down very quickly and even if this Left thing that is happening in Greece grows, at the same time you can feel the animosity between the different countries. The Greeks are especially not happy with the Germans, the Germans are not happy with us and that happens between all the countries, the Spanish, the stereotypes all of that. Do you see that this can get, you know, we can overcome that or is it going to get worse? Because in my mind it just gets worse because people just want to get back in their shells. Thank you. I see you know what would be for me this doesn't really answer your question but the starting point is that there is something fundamentally wrong in this approach Greeks, Germans and so on. If we reason in this way we will never arrive at a universality. I think the only authentic universality is conflictual universality, universality of struggle. There is a struggle going on in Greece. In different form the same struggle is going on in Germany. The same struggle is going on in France, here and there. And what I'm claiming is that the only way to overcome this: we Greeks, Germans, how- is to establish a solidarity but not this UNESCO solidarity: our culture is great, our culture is great, let's enjoy each other and so on. But again solidarity of struggle. If we don't if there is no solidarity between what progressive Greeks are fighting for, what I hope some Germans will fight for or whatever then we are lost I claim. But again you see my point, I'm absolutely for universality but for universality of shared solidarity in struggle. And I think it works. Look this is what I found as I wrote about it so magic and I don't think it can be dismissed as some kind of imaginary illusion in Tahrir Square. You know we saw there hundreds of thousands of people fighting for something. I mean demonstrating for something and all of a sudden and I don't think this is an illusion, all that bullshit multiculturalist fake multiculti about but do we understand them, what if they move in a different culture, what if they mean something else, it became in a way momentarily obsolete. Solidarity in struggle was here. And again I know cynical conservatives will say yeah yeah that was just the illusion. No it wasn't an illusion. And if we don't find a way to operationalize, how should I put it, this type of solidarity then we are wrong. You know why? Because in this is another problematic point by me. In in contrast to people who thinks today's global capitalism is American monocultural, we all should look at Hollywood movies and so on, no I claim that economic globalization, universalization finds its natural supplement in fixed cultural identities. So that even if they are mixed they somehow retain their identity. In other words in a global universe it's not that we will all be eating hamburgers. No it is that each of us will stick to its traditional identity which will give us a falsely secure position to fight even more brutally
Julian Assange
in in the global market and so on and so on. This is why this is why again I think that it is catastrophic to fight
in in the global market and so on and so on. This is why this is why again I think that it is catastrophic to fight
Slavoj Žižek
globalization with a reference
globalization with a reference
Julian Assange
to our particular identity threatened
to our particular identity threatened
Slavoj Žižek
by it. No globalization if anything is strengthening local identities. For example let me come here to United Kingdom. It's for me strictly a sign of United Kingdom entering the global era that you have that you have Wales and Scotland, at least Scotland more and more moving towards independence. Globalization is strictly correlative for me to assertion of particular identities. This is totally wrong, even some right-wingers got it nicely I like this.
by it. No globalization if anything is strengthening local identities. For example let me come here to United Kingdom. It's for me strictly a sign of United Kingdom entering the global era that you have that you have Wales and Scotland, at least Scotland more and more moving towards independence. Globalization is strictly correlative for me to assertion of particular identities. This is totally wrong, even some right-wingers got it nicely I like this.
Julian Assange
You
You
unknown
know that when I was young right-wingers' formula was better red than dead. No? You know what is now some right-wingers told me their formula? Better red than eating hamburgers. Or the way they explain it to me: communism was our enemy, but it was our enemy nonetheless against the background of a shared front. We both have principle blah blah blah. But this liberal capitalist
know that when I was young right-wingers' formula was better red than dead. No? You know what is now some right-wingers told me their formula? Better red than eating hamburgers. Or the way they explain it to me: communism was our enemy, but it was our enemy nonetheless against the background of a shared front. We both have principle blah blah blah. But this liberal capitalist
Slavoj Žižek
hedonism which
hedonism which
unknown
undermines our identity this is the ultimate enemy, no. I suppose you see this in say the Front National in France rethinking its chauvinism as anti-globalization. Yeah precisely the wrong approach. Although again as I always emphasize there is a tragic point to it which is: hopefully now a new Left will change at least a little bit things. But did you notice how in
undermines our identity this is the ultimate enemy, no. I suppose you see this in say the Front National in France rethinking its chauvinism as anti-globalization. Yeah precisely the wrong approach. Although again as I always emphasize there is a tragic point to it which is: hopefully now a new Left will change at least a little bit things. But did you notice how in
Julian Assange
the
the
Slavoj Žižek
last
last
unknown
decades this moderate Left, New Labour or socialist in France, one things one thing they fear more than, if I may use a plastic British Bram Stoker metaphor, more than vampire fears garlic, which is to be in any way associated with the old-fashioned working class. They love to present themselves as friends of new dynamic digital capitalists whatever. So then the result you have is that Le Pen at least in France apart from some small
decades this moderate Left, New Labour or socialist in France, one things one thing they fear more than, if I may use a plastic British Bram Stoker metaphor, more than vampire fears garlic, which is to be in any way associated with the old-fashioned working class. They love to present themselves as friends of new dynamic digital capitalists whatever. So then the result you have is that Le Pen at least in France apart from some small
unknown
leftist
leftist
Slavoj Žižek
still now at least now it may be different I'm not so sure. At least I put it like this years ago, Le Pen's Front National was the only serious serious in the simple quantitative sense of over political force which openly appealed to the working class. And Le Pen went pretty far here. Some years ago I watched on TV one of the congress of report on congress of Front National where you know what Le Pen did? Le Pen, the racist, he brought on stage a Jew, a black guy, and a Muslim Arab. And he embraced them all, Le Pen. And then he said: look at them, they are no less French than I am. And then he went on the true enemy is the- now comes secret anti-semitism and so on- the true enemy is the cosmopolitan ruthless cosmopolitan capitalism and so on all that on that. This I find the ultimate tragedy. And you know this tragedy, we don't have time to go into it, has many aspects. Like this is why for example I have problem with a certain type of political correctness. Because its silent class presupposition is as a rule despised despised middle-class making fun of of- like when an enlightened upper middle-class American feminist attacks patriarchal attitudes in like of cases what she has in mind is poor Spanish or other working class where as we all know husbands are beating wives and so on and so on. Much less you have this authentic feminism where the problems are for example working conditions of Spanish women without regular employment in California which are horrible and so on and so on. But you know this in other words I think that I I simply find horrifying this shame of- you know like it’s like the it's like the the new Left is playing the the James Bond films game. Which is what for me, I always claim that James Bond must be an agent of Anthony Giddens or someone like that, you know why? Did you notice as I put it in my one of my old books what happens in a typical James Bond film? It's the only side that I remember in Hollywood well you see real manual production process. It's when James Bond penetrates the enemy’s fortress and then as a rule it's very comical detail like Goldfinger, the boss, instead of immediately, the arch-criminal, instead of immediately shooting him, is an almost element of social realism, takes him on a tour and explains him the production process, no. And then the function of James Bond is strictly Anthony Giddens' function: to make this remainder of physical labor explode so that then James Bond can call Anthony Giddens: hi I did it, working class no longer exist, you can go on with your postmodern theory or whatever, you know. I mean it's so clear. Now it’s getting a little bit better, like the last James Bond is politically relatively progressive, like basically James Bond saves Evo Morales, Bolivia, from from some international company and I like this being presenting itself as ecological company
still now at least now it may be different I'm not so sure. At least I put it like this years ago, Le Pen's Front National was the only serious serious in the simple quantitative sense of over political force which openly appealed to the working class. And Le Pen went pretty far here. Some years ago I watched on TV one of the congress of report on congress of Front National where you know what Le Pen did? Le Pen, the racist, he brought on stage a Jew, a black guy, and a Muslim Arab. And he embraced them all, Le Pen. And then he said: look at them, they are no less French than I am. And then he went on the true enemy is the- now comes secret anti-semitism and so on- the true enemy is the cosmopolitan ruthless cosmopolitan capitalism and so on all that on that. This I find the ultimate tragedy. And you know this tragedy, we don't have time to go into it, has many aspects. Like this is why for example I have problem with a certain type of political correctness. Because its silent class presupposition is as a rule despised despised middle-class making fun of of- like when an enlightened upper middle-class American feminist attacks patriarchal attitudes in like of cases what she has in mind is poor Spanish or other working class where as we all know husbands are beating wives and so on and so on. Much less you have this authentic feminism where the problems are for example working conditions of Spanish women without regular employment in California which are horrible and so on and so on. But you know this in other words I think that I I simply find horrifying this shame of- you know like it’s like the it's like the the new Left is playing the the James Bond films game. Which is what for me, I always claim that James Bond must be an agent of Anthony Giddens or someone like that, you know why? Did you notice as I put it in my one of my old books what happens in a typical James Bond film? It's the only side that I remember in Hollywood well you see real manual production process. It's when James Bond penetrates the enemy’s fortress and then as a rule it's very comical detail like Goldfinger, the boss, instead of immediately, the arch-criminal, instead of immediately shooting him, is an almost element of social realism, takes him on a tour and explains him the production process, no. And then the function of James Bond is strictly Anthony Giddens' function: to make this remainder of physical labor explode so that then James Bond can call Anthony Giddens: hi I did it, working class no longer exist, you can go on with your postmodern theory or whatever, you know. I mean it's so clear. Now it’s getting a little bit better, like the last James Bond is politically relatively progressive, like basically James Bond saves Evo Morales, Bolivia, from from some international company and I like this being presenting itself as ecological company
Julian Assange
but really we you know. But another thing worries me there to conclude. Did you notice something for me terrifying? Did you notice that the last James Bond, Quantum of Solace, is
but really we you know. But another thing worries me there to conclude. Did you notice something for me terrifying? Did you notice that the last James Bond, Quantum of Solace, is
Slavoj Žižek
the first James Bond without sex at the end. The regular feature of all James Bonds till now was at the end finally they are together and they do it, with all the paradoxes, you know, like usually then they discover that they are observed by a satellite or whatever. Here is the first James Bond without sex at the end. And it's not only James Bond. Did you notice the same in now I'm really much lower than James Bond, some of the films I like there, now I'm really in this my Goebbels mood again, like maybe Goebbels was right, Göring with the revolver... No no it's not revolver, it’s Goebbels burning the books, no. And what I'm saying is that like if you take Dan Brown books and film based of Dan Brown, maybe we should say that the Nazis were wrong to burning books but not because burning books in it itself wrong, just they were burning the wrong books, you know what I mean. Like I'm quite ready to burn some. Why? Because did you notice how sex is disappearing there? Already The Da Vinci Code, no sex between Robert Langdon and the grand-grand-grand-granddaughter of Jesus Christ. Not only this, I'm even ready to say that the whole function of Jesus Christ involved in sex, you know that the secret is that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and the secret is was every idiot knows that they were married, no. That I claim that the logic is let's have sex up there with the holy couple of God to cover up the fact that there is no sex here. No couple. And then things get even more mysterious with the last Dan Brown film, Angels Demons. You know what is the mystery there? There is sex in the book still, Vittoria Vetra the Italian scientist and Langdon make love like crazy at the end. But not in the movie! Where are we? In the good old times of my youth we were saying Hollywood added sex to make it more commercial. Now Hollywood is erasing sex. And I don't like this, not because I'm a sex maniac, but quite seriously. Because I think if you just allow me to conclude it my old joke, because the way our societies are structured now, more and more this predominant hedonist narcissistic ideology, really passionate sex and love are more and more becoming almost something subversive. The idea is the predominant mode of ideology today is not even monotheism, it is it is: it's a social game, you should be just true to yourself, experiment, try this try that and so on. So that like okay to repeat the story very quickly that I often repeat my friend Alain Badiou draw my attention to it and then I found the same example in France- sorry in United States. You know this verb that we use: to fall. You know that mating dating agencies now I found already four five examples regularly refer to it. Like I saw some publicity wonderful which says: we will allow you to dating agency to find yourself in love without the fall. So not falling. The idea is the following one: fall is this you know I walk along the street oh my god I see you traumatically, we should be protected from this you know. No fall. No you know this vulnerability of falling in love. Like all of a sudden- I mean every reasonable being knows love is the ultimate catastrophe. Imagine yourself not in love. You have a happy life, one one-night stand one one-night date here there, you drink with friends. Then you fall terribly in love. Your entire universe is totally perturbed and so on. So I I really mean this that I no longer believe in all that bullshit, you know, that there is something subversive in experimenting changing part- no that's the ruling ideology today. More and more we don't even live in hedonist times. We live in limited controlled hedonist times. You have coffee but without caffeine, you have sex but safe sex. Sex is in if it’s healthy. You know what I mean by this? I almost killed myself. The most depressive text that I read in the last month is in Hemispheres when I flew from United States where there is a long text there two three pages praising sex. But how my God I wanted to kill myself. They say make intensely love and they even prescribe positions because it's very good for your heart, the blood, for your muscles if you change positions and so on. Then they even prescribe you how to kiss: if you do deep kisses they claim it’s very good to develop these muscles so that when you are old saliva will not drip out or whatever. That's that's reality. It's not more and more excessive pleasure, excessive love whatever are perceived as a threat. And this is why I'm returning now to smoking. I don't smoke and I agree but I found always something suspicious in this, you know, how this obsession with smoking as if if you smoke you are a murderer. I was at a party in United States where a friend of mine, I will not name him but it's not the one who I don't name yeah. Another friend of mine real friend wanted to smoke and this guy said no way. My friend wanted to go to the street. American professor said no way, not even in the street because then our neighbors will see that we have a friend who is a smoker, it would ruin us. And then after this they started to distribute hard drugs, you know, that's okay, no. But not smoke, no. But did you notice then how it goes on and on. Like Hollywood, who smokes today still in Hollywood? Mostly terrorists when they are nervous to blow themselves up or whatever strictly and so on. And did you notice also how on cigarette packs it gets worse and worse. First it was just smoking may endanger your health, then it was smoking kills. More brutal, now in some countries, in mine you do, you have these larger and larger photos you know cancerous bodies, operations, you know. And then you get even these concrete inscriptions, no. And my only reaction is a stupid joke that I in Greece I was told this joke, that a Greek guy goes to a store and asks for a certain cigarette. He looks at it and it says smoking brings cancer. He says give me another cigarette. Then it says smoking can cause heart attack. No no. Then the third cigarette it says smoking brings impotence. And he says okay give me the first one. It's still better, you know. Stop. I think... Thank you very much. So from Hegel to Dan Brown and the semiotics of cigarette packets. Slavoj is going to be signing books outside afterwards and it’s your choice
the first James Bond without sex at the end. The regular feature of all James Bonds till now was at the end finally they are together and they do it, with all the paradoxes, you know, like usually then they discover that they are observed by a satellite or whatever. Here is the first James Bond without sex at the end. And it's not only James Bond. Did you notice the same in now I'm really much lower than James Bond, some of the films I like there, now I'm really in this my Goebbels mood again, like maybe Goebbels was right, Göring with the revolver... No no it's not revolver, it’s Goebbels burning the books, no. And what I'm saying is that like if you take Dan Brown books and film based of Dan Brown, maybe we should say that the Nazis were wrong to burning books but not because burning books in it itself wrong, just they were burning the wrong books, you know what I mean. Like I'm quite ready to burn some. Why? Because did you notice how sex is disappearing there? Already The Da Vinci Code, no sex between Robert Langdon and the grand-grand-grand-granddaughter of Jesus Christ. Not only this, I'm even ready to say that the whole function of Jesus Christ involved in sex, you know that the secret is that Jesus Christ married Mary Magdalene and the secret is was every idiot knows that they were married, no. That I claim that the logic is let's have sex up there with the holy couple of God to cover up the fact that there is no sex here. No couple. And then things get even more mysterious with the last Dan Brown film, Angels Demons. You know what is the mystery there? There is sex in the book still, Vittoria Vetra the Italian scientist and Langdon make love like crazy at the end. But not in the movie! Where are we? In the good old times of my youth we were saying Hollywood added sex to make it more commercial. Now Hollywood is erasing sex. And I don't like this, not because I'm a sex maniac, but quite seriously. Because I think if you just allow me to conclude it my old joke, because the way our societies are structured now, more and more this predominant hedonist narcissistic ideology, really passionate sex and love are more and more becoming almost something subversive. The idea is the predominant mode of ideology today is not even monotheism, it is it is: it's a social game, you should be just true to yourself, experiment, try this try that and so on. So that like okay to repeat the story very quickly that I often repeat my friend Alain Badiou draw my attention to it and then I found the same example in France- sorry in United States. You know this verb that we use: to fall. You know that mating dating agencies now I found already four five examples regularly refer to it. Like I saw some publicity wonderful which says: we will allow you to dating agency to find yourself in love without the fall. So not falling. The idea is the following one: fall is this you know I walk along the street oh my god I see you traumatically, we should be protected from this you know. No fall. No you know this vulnerability of falling in love. Like all of a sudden- I mean every reasonable being knows love is the ultimate catastrophe. Imagine yourself not in love. You have a happy life, one one-night stand one one-night date here there, you drink with friends. Then you fall terribly in love. Your entire universe is totally perturbed and so on. So I I really mean this that I no longer believe in all that bullshit, you know, that there is something subversive in experimenting changing part- no that's the ruling ideology today. More and more we don't even live in hedonist times. We live in limited controlled hedonist times. You have coffee but without caffeine, you have sex but safe sex. Sex is in if it’s healthy. You know what I mean by this? I almost killed myself. The most depressive text that I read in the last month is in Hemispheres when I flew from United States where there is a long text there two three pages praising sex. But how my God I wanted to kill myself. They say make intensely love and they even prescribe positions because it's very good for your heart, the blood, for your muscles if you change positions and so on. Then they even prescribe you how to kiss: if you do deep kisses they claim it’s very good to develop these muscles so that when you are old saliva will not drip out or whatever. That's that's reality. It's not more and more excessive pleasure, excessive love whatever are perceived as a threat. And this is why I'm returning now to smoking. I don't smoke and I agree but I found always something suspicious in this, you know, how this obsession with smoking as if if you smoke you are a murderer. I was at a party in United States where a friend of mine, I will not name him but it's not the one who I don't name yeah. Another friend of mine real friend wanted to smoke and this guy said no way. My friend wanted to go to the street. American professor said no way, not even in the street because then our neighbors will see that we have a friend who is a smoker, it would ruin us. And then after this they started to distribute hard drugs, you know, that's okay, no. But not smoke, no. But did you notice then how it goes on and on. Like Hollywood, who smokes today still in Hollywood? Mostly terrorists when they are nervous to blow themselves up or whatever strictly and so on. And did you notice also how on cigarette packs it gets worse and worse. First it was just smoking may endanger your health, then it was smoking kills. More brutal, now in some countries, in mine you do, you have these larger and larger photos you know cancerous bodies, operations, you know. And then you get even these concrete inscriptions, no. And my only reaction is a stupid joke that I in Greece I was told this joke, that a Greek guy goes to a store and asks for a certain cigarette. He looks at it and it says smoking brings cancer. He says give me another cigarette. Then it says smoking can cause heart attack. No no. Then the third cigarette it says smoking brings impotence. And he says okay give me the first one. It's still better, you know. Stop. I think... Thank you very much. So from Hegel to Dan Brown and the semiotics of cigarette packets. Slavoj is going to be signing books outside afterwards and it’s your choice
unknown
either cross or... Thank you very
either cross or... Thank you very
Slavoj Žižek
much.
much.