Interview with Slavoj Zizek: Death Drive and Dialectics
Interview · Death Drive Dialectics ·
2023-07-22 · 1:25:13 · 10,481 words
hegel-dialecticspsychoanalysisideologycapitalismcommunism-socialismfascism-populismliberalism-political-correctnessrevolution-violenceecology-climatesexuality-gendertechnology-ai-cyberspacegeopolitics-wareconomicssubjectivityethicshistory
A Death Drive Dialectics interview in which Žižek elaborates his reading of Hegelian dialectics as the analysis of how a positive progressive idea, once actualized, turns out terribly wrong, and binds this to the death drive as a shattering radical negativity ("two faces of the same"). He diagnoses today's ideology as knowing the catastrophe while debating it so nothing is done, argues the liberal establishment (not the new populists) is the true opponent, and pivots through South Africa, the October Revolution, China, ecology, techno-feudalism, the Uber/precariat mystification, and global capitalism's pact with local elites. The closing moves to Lacan's formulas of sexuation, defending trans/non-binary experience as "our sexuality at its purest" against both biological determinism and liberal choice-talk.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 20
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Not a push toward self-destruction/Nirvana but a shattering radical negativity which persists beyond life and death, another name for undeadness.
Not an ultra-rational scheme guaranteeing synthesis/progress, but the analysis of how a positive idea, when actualized by a historical agent, turns out terribly wrong.
The beautiful paradox of today's ideology: talking endlessly about a catastrophe not to mobilize people but so that they remain immobilized.
as “Aufhebung / sublation”
Hegel's sublation does not eliminate the negative: madness remains to the end as a threat, it is not simply aufgehoben.
His linking of the two: dialectics is not simple progressive movement but shattering radical negativity, which is exactly what the death drive names.
His reading of Freud's death drive: a negativity which survives death itself, which insists, explicitly opposed to the Nirvana/Buddhist-peace reading Freud slips into.
His label for Trump as the ironic, relativist, paradoxical post-modern subject, reversing the expected association of post-modern irony with the left.
The fascist position: claiming ethical greatness lies in abandoning common decency to do horrible things for the nation; the pervert goes to the end where the hystic only complains.
Althusser's term: the social order locates you, telling you what you are (woman, wife, worker); hysteria is the questioning of this imposed symbolic identity.
The elementary form of critique of ideology: the question 'why am I what you say that I am?', doubt about the symbolic identity imposed by authority.
The identity imposed on the subject by authority/the state via interpellation; even a biological man must go through complicated symbolic processes to become symbolically a man.
as “era of unholy alliances”
His diagnosis of the present: anti-gay death-penalty laws presented as anti-colonialist, the new right stealing social protest, false struggles that demand we set things straight.
His image for how a true Hegelian alive today would respond to the catastrophes of modernity, going from one intellectual orgasm to another analyzing how things go wrong.
No longer direct mystification: at an abstract level you know the general truth (ecological catastrophe) but debate it so that nothing is really done.
His adopted persona to defend the bare bourgeois-democratic need for a public space not controlled by capital, even basic public values require the state.
Lacan's masculine/feminine are not identities but names for a deadlock: masculine = universality with an exception; feminine = no universal totality but no exception.
The first, non-binary form of sexuality, crazy fantasies that do not disappear at maturity but remain as the phantasmatic support of adult sexuality.
Trans people are our sexuality at its purest; sexuality is trans at its root because even 'normal' subjects must traverse infantile fantasies to attain any sexual position.
His claim to out-radicalize trans activism: against both biological determinism and liberal choice-talk, insisting sexuation is an unconscious, painful, contradictory process.
as “phantasmatic support (fantasy)”
Infantile sexuality persists as fantasy; human sexuality always needs a phantasmatic support, you don't desire the immediate partner but the fantasy scene.
Stories he reaches for 6
Uganda's death-penalty anti-gay law is presented in Putin-style journals as anti-colonialist resistance to LGBT+ imperialist neo-colonialism, a false struggle that demands we set things straight.
“LGBT+ and so on, this is imperialist, neo-colonial attempt to destroy our morality.”
In a letter Engels predicted a Pan-European war: Germany-Austria vs Russia, with France-England in the west, ~1 million dead, and that if Germany lost it would trigger another war in a decade or two.
“if Germany will lose this war, in a decade or two, Germany will trigger another war”
At a Harvard dinner each guest is asked to state sexual orientation; Žižek proposes swapping it for financial status, they happily say 'I was gay, now I'm bi' but recoil at stating their salary, which is the true intimacy.
“they were ready to talk 'Oh, I was gay, now I'm bi.' That's not a problem. The true intimacy is if you ask them how much property”
In the Encyclopedia's Philosophy of Spirit, Hegel derives humanity out of animal life via madness, disorientation, loss of instinctual roots; madness remains as a threat and re-explodes as war at the end of his system.
“madness remain to the end as a threat. It's not simply aufgehoben, sublated.”
Eve Wiseman reported a behind-the-scenes porn film in which the actor, losing erection mid-scene, asks for his iPhone to go onto Pornhub to get excited, proof that human sexuality needs a phantasmatic support, not pathology.
“Sorry, I'm losing erection, can somebody pass me my iPhone so that I go onto Pornhub to excite—”
January 6 realized an old leftist dream, people storming the seat of power, but done by the new right, who found the seat totally empty, exposing that power is not a single central point to seize.
“they get to the seat of power and it's totally empty.”
Works invoked 7
Antigone play
Deployed via Alenka Zupancic against the standard humanist/Butler reading: Antigone's point is the opposite of universal inclusion, she would let anyone but her brother rot.
More important than WikiLeaks: provides a wonderful definition of Google as the privatized version of the NSA, showing how closely the corporation and the state security apparatus are connected.
Third part, anthropology: humanity evolves out of animal life via madness; madness remains to the end as a threat, not simply aufgehoben, the locus of Hegel's death drive.
Available online in English translation; reports that only Trotsky understood the logic of revolution, seizing the infrastructure (electricity, train stations) rather than the main square.
Ends not with harmony but with the necessity of war, the self-destructive madness re-explodes at the very end of the system; philosophy can only grasp a system when it is already in its decay.
Her book on Antigone that 'annoyed everybody' by going against the standard humanist, Judith-Butler-style reading; Žižek recommends a tough third-degree questioning of Alenka on sexuation.
Sound of Freedom film
The liberal left is against it and Caviezel has QAnon links and 'is crazy,' but the thesis points to a real, massive systematic phenomenon of sexual exploitation that should be pushed further, not dismissed.
People invoked 35
Eva Wiseman positive
Guardian journalist who reported with horror the behind-the-scenes porn anecdote, used to illustrate the phantasmatic support of human sexuality.
Alenka Zupančič positive
The bright one; her book 'Let Them Rot' on Antigone goes against the standard humanist/Butler reading, Antigone's point is that for anyone but her brother she would let them rot; attacked and ignored for this.
Vladimir Lenin positive
The October Revolution was a genuine emancipatory event, not merely a coup; Stalinism was not a logical necessity of Leninism. Trotsky, not Lenin, truly understood the logic of revolution.
Xi Jinping negative
Not an idiot and aware of the problems, but Xi's model, capitalist dynamics under social control to avoid disintegration, comes uncannily close to a new form of fascism.
Rafael Trujillo negative
Long-time dictator of the Dominican Republic; carried out a radical ethnic cleansing of Haitians and late in life named it as the act he was most proud of, saving the country by a dirty, ethically unacceptable act.
The simple story that Deng wanted to liberalize is wrong; the deadlock is much deeper and more ambiguous.
Jacques Lacan positive
Formulas of sexuation are deployed to think trans/non-binary: masculine/feminine are names of a deadlock, not identities; the perverse position is contrasted with the hysteric's.
Louis Althusser positive
Žižek is critical of Althusser but credits him with seeing that ideology and power are a complex texture of social institutions, not a single point at the top; interpellation is used throughout.
Star of Sound of Freedom; linked to QAnon and 'he is crazy,' though Žižek uses the film to point to a real, massive phenomenon of sexual exploitation.
After the quashing of the Prigozhin revolt, Putin announced Russia would get more creative in using half-private armies, a symptom of decadence.
Judith Butler negative
Stand-in for the liberal 'oh, multiple sexualities' joy and for the standard humanist reading of Antigone as universal inclusion, both rejected by Žižek and by Alenka Zupancic.
Donald Trump negative
The post-modern joker, ironic, relativist, paradoxical; strictly a symptom of the failure of the mainstream liberal establishment, not its external opponent.
Justin Trudeau negative
Disappointing: did little against the brutal fracking and oil extraction ruining the land of indigenous people in Canada, despite his liberal image.
Jeff Bezos negative
Owns Amazon; one of the new figures who privatize the digital commons and claim to be mere mediators connecting customers and providers.
Curzio Malaparte positive
Italian writer who moved from fascism to communism; his book on revolutions reports that only Trotsky understood the logic of revolution, seize the infrastructure, not the main square.
Elon Musk negative
Declared in megalomaniac style that the fate of world democracy would be decided by his buying a big company, a symptom of the disappearing public space.
Leon Trotsky positive
Per Malaparte, Trotsky alone understood that revolution means seizing the infrastructure (electricity, train stations), not the main square, the substance, not the symbol.
Friedrich Engels positive
In a letter he predicted WWI in astonishing detail, the alliances, ~1M dead, and that a defeated Germany would trigger another war in a decade or two; 'a stroke of genius.'
Bernie Sanders positive
A relatively progressive figure who mobilizes the common decency / moral majority of ordinary people; saw clearly that abandoning this terrain to the enemy is a fatal mistake; his abortion-debate stance is endorsed.
Julian Assange positive
Half-forgotten today; more important than WikiLeaks is his book on Google, which defines Google as the privatized version of the NSA, a key analysis of new forms of control.
Friend with whom Žižek was at a Harvard round table six or seven years ago, the occasion for the sexual-orientation-vs-salary anecdote.
Heinrich Himmler negative
Cited for the Nazi logic that the Holocaust is horrible but true ethical greatness means abandoning common decency for the nation, the perverse position.
Bill Gates negative
Mega-corporation figure who privatizes part of the commons; even he can say 'in some sense I am a socialist,' which is exactly why 'socialist' is now a diluted, useless term.
Chris Hani positive
The communist figure in South Africa who, while supporting negotiations, was already giving warnings about their limits.
The brain of Xi's group; spent a year in the US fascinated by capitalist dynamics but alarmed by social disintegration, racism, sexism, the question was whether China could have the dynamism without the price.
Vladimir Putin negative
After crushing the Prigozhin revolt he announced more half-private armies, the deepest decadence; Uganda's anti-gay law is presented in his style as anti-colonialist.
Did Mandela really have a chance? The negotiations worked only because the threat of more radical violence stood behind them; the result was a new black ruling class joining the old white one.
Martin Luther King Jr. positive
The liberal myth that progress came through his negotiations is false: the relative reconciliation worked only because of the threat of much more radical black movements behind it.
Even conservatives like Bismarck introduced elementary healthcare, retirement, and women's votes, the 19th-century picture of gradual progress.
Joseph Stalin negative
Stalinism as the terrible wrong turn of October; Stalin was skeptical about the revolution's logic in any case.
Karl Marx positive
Marx's terms are used to describe how mega-corporations privatize part of our digital commons; invoked for the analysis of new global capitalism.
Sigmund Freud positive
Death drive is reread as undeadness against Freud's own Nirvana slip; infantile sexuality as non-binary fantasy that persists as phantasmatic support.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
The central reference of the talk: dialectics as how good ideas go wrong, anthropology (madness as origin of humanity), philosophy of history ending in war; Žižek admits Hegel's historical limitations but insists he is uniquely active for our time.
Lyndon B. Johnson positive
Maybe with all his compromises, Johnson was better than the much-celebrated Kennedy, a pragmatist who made a deal.
John F. Kennedy negative
Held up as the over-celebrated foil to Johnson: 'maybe with all his compromises, Lyndon Johnson was better than so much celebrated Kennedy.'
What it argues
Dialectics as the study of how good ideas go terribly wrong when actualizedDeath drive as the radical negativity that binds dialectics togetherHegel's madness as the origin of humanity, never fully sublatedToday's ideology: knowing the catastrophe while ensuring nothing is doneThe liberal establishment as the true opponent, not the new rightTechno-feudal privatization of the commons and the disappearing public spaceThe Uber/precariat mystification: permanent uncertainty sold as freedomHysteria as the elementary form of critique of ideology
Dialectical moves 12
“Death drive and dialectics are two faces of the same.”
Dialectics is not simple progressive movement but shattering radical negativity, which is precisely what the death drive names.
“A good, even progressive idea, when actualized, turns out terribly.”
The Hegelian inversion at the heart of dialectics: failure is internal to the idea's actualization, not a contingent accident.
“The beautiful paradox of talking a lot about something not to mobilize people, but quite the opposite, so that they remain immobilized.”
Today's ideology inverts speech into inaction: endless acknowledgment of catastrophe functions to ensure nothing is done.
“If there ever was a post-modern joker, it is Trump; if there ever was a moral-majority common-sense figure, it's Bernie Sanders.”
Reverses the expected political-theoretical attributions: the rightist embodies post-modern irony, the leftist embodies common decency.
“The big opponent is not the new populist, it is the liberal establishment itself.”
The apparent enemy (populism) is a symptom; the deeper opponent is the liberal center that produced it.
“The true intimacy today is not sexual orientation but financial status.”
Inverts what counts as private/secret: at a Harvard dinner people happily state sexuality but recoil from stating their salary.
“Hysteria is the elementary form of critique of ideology — not perversion.”
Reverses the '68 valuation: the hysteric's doubting question is subversive, while the pervert's going-to-the-end serves fascist power.
“Our sexuality is as such trans; trans people are our sexuality at its purest.”
Trans is not the exception but the truth of sexuality: every subject must traverse non-binary infantile fantasy to gain any sexual position.
“The wealth [of Congo] is their damnation.”
Inverts the resource intuition: precious natural resources don't help ordinary people but damn them, by funding warlords and Western extraction.
“Madness remains to the end as a threat — it's not simply aufgehoben, sublated.”
Sublation does not eliminate the negative: the madness out of which humanity emerges persists as a permanent threat, re-exploding as war.
“They get to the seat of power and it's totally empty.”
Power is not a single point at the top: seizing the center finds nothing, the real substance is the dispersed texture of infrastructure.
“Without culture, we are not even biologically functional.”
Inverts the biology/culture opposition: even to become biologically what one is requires symbolic-cultural mediation.
Claims 23
asserts
Hegel's dialectics is not a progressivist scheme guaranteeing synthesis but the analysis of how a positive progressive idea, once actualized, turns out terribly wrong.Hegelian dialectics
asserts
Death drive and dialectics are two faces of the same: dialectics is not simple progressive movement but shattering radical negativity.death drive and dialectics
asserts
The French Revolution had to turn into terror; terror was not one wrong option among others but an内在 necessity of the revolutionary idea.French Revolution (Hegel's reading)
rejects
It is not a logical necessity that Leninism evolved into Stalinism; the October Revolution was a genuine emancipatory event, and how it turned into Stalinism is the key enigma.Leninism → Stalinism
asserts
Today's ideology functions by knowing the catastrophe at an abstract level while debating it publicly so that nothing is really done — talking a lot in order to immobilize.contemporary ideology / ecology
asserts
The true opponent is the liberal establishment itself, not the new populists; Trump and the new right are strictly a symptom of the failure of the multicultural liberal establishment.liberal establishment vs. populism
rejects
The liberal myth that progress comes only through negotiation is false: in both South Africa and the US civil-rights cases, negotiations worked only because a threat of more radical violence stood behind them.negotiation vs. violence
asserts
Without the American occupation of Iraq there would have been no ISIS; Western intervention directly triggered the refugee explosion.geopolitics / ISIS
asserts
Xi's China comes uncannily close to a new form of fascism: keeping capitalist dynamics under social control to avoid social disintegration — the old fascist dream.China / new fascism
asserts
Hysteria, not perversion, is the elementary subversive form of critique of ideology; the '68 valuation of perversion over hysteria was a mistake.hysteria as critique of ideology
asserts
The new right has reinvented social protest (e.g. January 6); the left must not abandon the terrain of common decency and moral majority to them.new right social protest
asserts
Our sexuality is as such trans; trans people are our sexuality at its purest, because every sexual position requires traversing non-binary infantile fantasies.sexuality and trans
reframes
Sex is neither biological destiny nor free personal choice; it is an unconscious, painful, contradictory symbolic process — neither binary nor a matter of 'today I feel a woman.'sexuation against both biologism and choice-talk
asserts
Ecology cannot be solved locally; the global circulation of air demands much stronger obligatory international cooperation and stronger public bodies.ecology and global cooperation
rejects
The conservative call to restore paternal authority against sexual disorder is wrong; the Hegelian answer is an immanent critique of the neo-conservatives themselves, who are not what they claim to be.neo-conservatism and paternal authority
asserts
The public space is disappearing under neoliberalism; even basic bourgeois freedom requires a public space not controlled by capital, so privatizing prisons, schools, and state functions is the true horror.public space and neoliberalism
asserts
Uber/precariat ideology sells permanent uncertainty as freedom: you are treated as a small capitalist while being deprived of health insurance and security, and you experience other workers, not the company, as competitors.precariat and ideological mystification
asserts
Mega-corporations (Gates, Musk, Bezos) privatize part of our digital commons and are not in tension with the state apparatus — they are new forms of control continuous with it.techno-feudalism
reframes
On abortion, instead of prohibiting, address what pushes women to abortion (healthcare, poverty); the typical abortion patient is a poor working wife with children, not the conservative caricature.abortion debate
asserts
The reality of new global capitalism is Western big capital in pact with local elites (Angola, Congo); the wealth of natural resources is the people's damnation, not their help.global capitalism and the resource curse
asserts
Madness is the origin of humanity per Hegel's anthropology, and it remains to the end as a threat — not simply aufgehoben — re-exploding at the end of his system as the necessity of war.Hegel on madness and negativity
asserts
Iran's women's protest is hysteria in the best sense: it condenses general dissatisfaction and mobilized the entire social body in a way Western protests are unable to do.Iran women's protest
asserts
He is still basically a communist, not a socialist, because 'socialist' has been diluted into mere social responsibility — even Bill Gates can say 'in some sense I am a socialist.'communism vs. socialism
Quotes 18
“Death drive and dialectics are two faces of the same.”Slavoj Žižek · dialectics as negativity
“Death drive is paradoxically, if you read it closely even in Freud who introduced the notion, death drive is in some sense another name for undeadness. It's some negativity which survives death itself, which insists.”Slavoj Žižek · death drive as undeadness
“the beautiful paradox of talking a lot about something not to mobilize people, but quite the opposite too, so that they remain immobilized.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology today
“If there ever was a post-modern joker, it is Trump.”Slavoj Žižek · Trump as post-modern
“the big opponent are not the new populist, is the liberal establishment itself”Slavoj Žižek · liberal establishment as true enemy
“Hysteria is for me the elementary form of critique of ideology.”Slavoj Žižek · hysteria as critique
“madness remain to the end as a threat. It's not simply aufgehoben, sublated.”Slavoj Žižek · sublation doesn't eliminate negativity
“philosophy can only grasp a system when it is already in its decay.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegel on philosophy
“Ideology, power is not a single point on the top... If you go there, mostly you find nothing.”Slavoj Žižek · power as texture
“this is the ultimate obscenity—private prisons.”Slavoj Žižek · privatized violence
“I am still basically a communist, not a socialist.”Slavoj Žižek · communism vs socialism
“the permanent uncertainty, you live all the time in anxiety and so on, is presented to you as a new form of freedom.”Slavoj Žižek · precariat mystification
“the wealth is their damnation.”Slavoj Žižek · resource curse
“The true intimacy is if you ask them how much property, how much—”Slavoj Žižek · financial status as true secret
“Our sexuality is as such trans... they are our sexuality at its purest.”Slavoj Žižek · sexuality as trans
“I'm even more trans than trans”Slavoj Žižek · pushing trans further
“Without culture, we are not—not even biologically functional.”Slavoj Žižek · biology needs symbolic mediation
“Maybe you appear wiser speaking these short obscure sentences, but this is just a mask of senility, I claim.”Slavoj Žižek · aging and wisdom
Transcript 34 turns
unknown
Hello and welcome to another episode of Death Drive Dialectics. I'm Nicholas Tolliver, here with Tyler Marraz. Today we bring you a very special episode with a very special guest, Slavoj Zizek. Slavoj Zizek requires little introduction. He is a philosopher, a public intellectual, and author of many amazing books, including but not limited to The Sublime Object of Ideology, Parallax View, and Hegel in a Wired Brain. Zizek has been influential in the philosophical development of this YouTube channel and in our own understanding of psychoanalysis, ideology, and philosophy. We are a YouTube channel dedicated to making leftist theory more fun and more accessible, and we are inspired not only by the philosophical content of your work but also by its form. Your method of making the interesting ideas of important theorists such as Lacan and Hegel more accessible and more relevant to our current moment is something we take a lot of inspiration from. You are perhaps the most outspoken proponent of the two core facets of the philosophy that we are trying to develop: death drive and dialectics. We are very excited and we are deeply honored to have you on our channel. The honor is mine.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Death Drive Dialectics. I'm Nicholas Tolliver, here with Tyler Marraz. Today we bring you a very special episode with a very special guest, Slavoj Zizek. Slavoj Zizek requires little introduction. He is a philosopher, a public intellectual, and author of many amazing books, including but not limited to The Sublime Object of Ideology, Parallax View, and Hegel in a Wired Brain. Zizek has been influential in the philosophical development of this YouTube channel and in our own understanding of psychoanalysis, ideology, and philosophy. We are a YouTube channel dedicated to making leftist theory more fun and more accessible, and we are inspired not only by the philosophical content of your work but also by its form. Your method of making the interesting ideas of important theorists such as Lacan and Hegel more accessible and more relevant to our current moment is something we take a lot of inspiration from. You are perhaps the most outspoken proponent of the two core facets of the philosophy that we are trying to develop: death drive and dialectics. We are very excited and we are deeply honored to have you on our channel. The honor is mine.
Slavoj Žižek
I really mean it. It's—I'm sorry I'm not in a better shape subjectively, but you are, I think, almost, if I may put it like this, my ideal public. Because you are leftists and I hope you are open enough to self-criticism of the left. I think the left is making today—this is a more concrete political statement, we are not yet at the death drive—although if we understand the notion of death drive in the wrong way, common sense way, as "oh, something is pushing me to death, to self-destruction," no. Then I must say many things which happen in today's left do, in my view, express some kind of a, in this primitive non-theoretical sense, death drive. Like, what are they doing? Are they systematically destroying their base and so on? And it's our sacred—I will use even this term—sacred duty to go into it, not to lose time, shoot it.
I really mean it. It's—I'm sorry I'm not in a better shape subjectively, but you are, I think, almost, if I may put it like this, my ideal public. Because you are leftists and I hope you are open enough to self-criticism of the left. I think the left is making today—this is a more concrete political statement, we are not yet at the death drive—although if we understand the notion of death drive in the wrong way, common sense way, as "oh, something is pushing me to death, to self-destruction," no. Then I must say many things which happen in today's left do, in my view, express some kind of a, in this primitive non-theoretical sense, death drive. Like, what are they doing? Are they systematically destroying their base and so on? And it's our sacred—I will use even this term—sacred duty to go into it, not to lose time, shoot it.
unknown
Okay. Yeah. We're going into the first question. And again, we're going to—I think our general goal here is to start abstract-general and become more specific as questions go on. So relevant to what Nick just said, where our first question is concerning dialectics. So our question is: What is dialectics, your definition? And how exactly does your understanding of definition differ from other, perhaps mainstream definitions? What would you say is the core definition, your definition?
Okay. Yeah. We're going into the first question. And again, we're going to—I think our general goal here is to start abstract-general and become more specific as questions go on. So relevant to what Nick just said, where our first question is concerning dialectics. So our question is: What is dialectics, your definition? And how exactly does your understanding of definition differ from other, perhaps mainstream definitions? What would you say is the core definition, your definition?
Slavoj Žižek
It's too much to do it in a couple of minutes. I will just give you one hint that I find crucial. Why I am, in spite of Hegel's obvious historical limitation, so focused on Hegel? I will now briefly repeat points that I generally make. You know, there is with many critics of dialectics one big misunderstanding. As if dialectics is a kind of ultra-rational scheme which guarantees that no matter how bad things are, at the end there will be a kind of a synthesis, progress, higher level and so on. I think that if there is on the contrary, if there is something which makes Hegel unique and active for our time, is that Hegel's view was not this "no matter how bad things are, this is just a subordinated moment in general progress." If you look at Hegel's concrete analysis, they always focus on one point. I simplify it. There is a good idea, even progressive one, but then when you try to actualize—not you, you, but some historical agent—tries to actualize this idea, things go terribly wrong. Why? Hegel never plays this simple idealist game: "oh, the idea was good, just because of contingent circumstances things went wrong." And this is Hegel's big, big obsession. So it's not "it will turn good," but you begin with a positive idea, it turns out terribly. Hegel's big example, of course, is—and I don't agree with him here—is the French Revolution. It began with like equality and so on, it turned into terror. Although Hegel is here much more refined. His point is not terror was—was a wrong choice, there was another option. No, it had to turn into terror. So if let's play this stupidly utopian game. Let's say that if Hegel were, through some biological miracle, to stay alive till 1940s, '50s. I think he would have ultra-enjoyed it. He would have gone from one to another intellectual orgasm. In what sense? Look at the official history of the second half of the 19th century. Of course, around the world horrible things happened. All the holocausts in Africa, slaves, all the horrors of colonialism. The main two are Africa slavery and—never forget, this is such a traumatic event—the Opium Wars, the Western invasion of China. Are people—this wasn't just a limited invasion. Do you know that China was in 1820—not per capita, but in its overall product—by far the strongest country in the world? Three times United Kingdom—how was it at that point? British Empire, whatever we call it—product. In twenty years, China lost almost two thirds of its bruto product. Social chaos and so on. So back to—back to Hegel. I think that the general view is that we abstract from all this, slavery, what happens outside, and we limit ourselves to the Western Europe, or Europe in general, United States. And we perceive the second half of 19th century as a time of gradual progress. Things were getting better and better. And except for a short war here and there, like the French-Prussian War, Up to a point, very relatively, this was true. For example, even conservatives like Bismarck in Germany, they were the first to introduce elementary healthcare, retirement, women got votes and so on and so on. But then something happened which took by surprise not only of the public but even of social scientist: the Great War, World War I. And Hegel would have been, you see my point, obsessed by this. Era of progress, liberal ideal, what—how could then this happen? Because don't—I think we tend to overestimate World War II. It was a nightmare. But it was a consequence of World War I. You know who predicted this? I'm sorry if you already know the point, but I was surprised to read this of all people. He usually reduced to a big category, not so important maybe philosophically, but he was not an idiot. Marx's companion, Friedrich Engels. In a letter from I think in a stroke of a genius, very pragmatic, he said: "Europe is slowly drifting towards a Pan-European war." And then it was incredible what details he guessed. He said it will be Germany-Austria versus Russia and on the West France-England. And then he said the death toll will be around million. Today the official number is million thousand. Then he says maybe this will lead to a revolution in Russia. But now comes the big point. He then says, Engels, if Germany will lose this war, in a decade or two, Germany will trigger another war. You see, this would—would worry Hegel. What is wrong in this deceiving picture of slow progress, 19th century and so on? Always look at the dark under-side. And as a Hegelian, I'm now adding to this, this under-side can also be good, progressive. For example, the big point of liberals is: "history teaches us that true progress is done only by negotiations, never by violence." But maybe you know the name—I forgot the guy who wrote now a book, I read about it, where he claims that usually two cases of resolution of a tension through negotiations are mentioned: Martin Luther King, American struggle for black emancipation, and ANC in South Africa, Mandela. Let's leave open the question, were these two attempts really successful? Now in South Africa, we know that the crisis is terrible, growing. And if I—I hope you will not be mad if I improvise a little bit because this fascinates me. You know that around two weeks ago, I had one of the most depressing experiences. At Birkbeck College, there was a general debate at the end of the summer school and there was a lady, black lady from South Africa, very progressive, an old ANC fighter. And I asked her frankly, "Should I believe the Western media?" Like I wanted first-hand report on how are things there. And she told me something that—she told me something that totally depressed me. She told me that because of all this corruption, confusion, all—I will not go into the problems. She said, isn't this sad, that the—more and more among the black poor majority, poor blacks, the new sentiment is nostalgia for apartheid. [unintelligible] I wanted to kill—the idea is this one. That's how people perceive it. Because you know, you always change the past in memory, no? Their idea is that it was tough, but it was stable, we were even a little bit less poor than now. Plus since South Africa was a police state, there was a certain level of social security. Now, not only we are as poor as before, but there is explosive violence and so on and so on. You see, this is—this would be the focus of Hegel. How could things have gone so wrong? Or to go back to— This to me—oh, sorry to—to jump in there. This to me, like, kind of reminds me of the material conditions, that there is this, you know, contradiction, you know, within the idea itself. But then also these ideas run aground when it comes to navigating, you know, the economy. Especially with the ANC, you know, the ANC there was this, you know, revolution in terms of ending apartheid as a, you know, a system, but there was not the attempt to reform the economy in any meaningful way, uh, you know, to end private property, to redistribute, you know, in any sort of socialist manner. I agree. On the other hand, did Mandela have a—really a chance? I think he did, but you know what I mean by this? I knew people who knew the famous communist figure there, Chris Hani, who although basically supporting it through negotiations, uh, uh, uh, was already giving warnings about this. Yes, to be very brutal. Do you know that South Africa is today a country with the greatest, strongest social division between rich and poor? So all that effectively happened is that the old white ruling class was joined by a new black ruling class, which is very exclusive, a tiny minority of blacks. But what I want to say is not to go into these details. Just to point this out, that the guy—I'm sorry, whose name escaped me now—proved that it's not as simple as that. Rationalist solution: let's negotiate. Even these negotiations worked because behind them there was a threat: "Hey, we could get more violent." You know, without this hardliner, no white—white people wouldn't concede to what they conceded. You know, like—ANC and here, I think precisely the threat of violence played a positive role. And I think it was
It's too much to do it in a couple of minutes. I will just give you one hint that I find crucial. Why I am, in spite of Hegel's obvious historical limitation, so focused on Hegel? I will now briefly repeat points that I generally make. You know, there is with many critics of dialectics one big misunderstanding. As if dialectics is a kind of ultra-rational scheme which guarantees that no matter how bad things are, at the end there will be a kind of a synthesis, progress, higher level and so on. I think that if there is on the contrary, if there is something which makes Hegel unique and active for our time, is that Hegel's view was not this "no matter how bad things are, this is just a subordinated moment in general progress." If you look at Hegel's concrete analysis, they always focus on one point. I simplify it. There is a good idea, even progressive one, but then when you try to actualize—not you, you, but some historical agent—tries to actualize this idea, things go terribly wrong. Why? Hegel never plays this simple idealist game: "oh, the idea was good, just because of contingent circumstances things went wrong." And this is Hegel's big, big obsession. So it's not "it will turn good," but you begin with a positive idea, it turns out terribly. Hegel's big example, of course, is—and I don't agree with him here—is the French Revolution. It began with like equality and so on, it turned into terror. Although Hegel is here much more refined. His point is not terror was—was a wrong choice, there was another option. No, it had to turn into terror. So if let's play this stupidly utopian game. Let's say that if Hegel were, through some biological miracle, to stay alive till 1940s, '50s. I think he would have ultra-enjoyed it. He would have gone from one to another intellectual orgasm. In what sense? Look at the official history of the second half of the 19th century. Of course, around the world horrible things happened. All the holocausts in Africa, slaves, all the horrors of colonialism. The main two are Africa slavery and—never forget, this is such a traumatic event—the Opium Wars, the Western invasion of China. Are people—this wasn't just a limited invasion. Do you know that China was in 1820—not per capita, but in its overall product—by far the strongest country in the world? Three times United Kingdom—how was it at that point? British Empire, whatever we call it—product. In twenty years, China lost almost two thirds of its bruto product. Social chaos and so on. So back to—back to Hegel. I think that the general view is that we abstract from all this, slavery, what happens outside, and we limit ourselves to the Western Europe, or Europe in general, United States. And we perceive the second half of 19th century as a time of gradual progress. Things were getting better and better. And except for a short war here and there, like the French-Prussian War, Up to a point, very relatively, this was true. For example, even conservatives like Bismarck in Germany, they were the first to introduce elementary healthcare, retirement, women got votes and so on and so on. But then something happened which took by surprise not only of the public but even of social scientist: the Great War, World War I. And Hegel would have been, you see my point, obsessed by this. Era of progress, liberal ideal, what—how could then this happen? Because don't—I think we tend to overestimate World War II. It was a nightmare. But it was a consequence of World War I. You know who predicted this? I'm sorry if you already know the point, but I was surprised to read this of all people. He usually reduced to a big category, not so important maybe philosophically, but he was not an idiot. Marx's companion, Friedrich Engels. In a letter from I think in a stroke of a genius, very pragmatic, he said: "Europe is slowly drifting towards a Pan-European war." And then it was incredible what details he guessed. He said it will be Germany-Austria versus Russia and on the West France-England. And then he said the death toll will be around million. Today the official number is million thousand. Then he says maybe this will lead to a revolution in Russia. But now comes the big point. He then says, Engels, if Germany will lose this war, in a decade or two, Germany will trigger another war. You see, this would—would worry Hegel. What is wrong in this deceiving picture of slow progress, 19th century and so on? Always look at the dark under-side. And as a Hegelian, I'm now adding to this, this under-side can also be good, progressive. For example, the big point of liberals is: "history teaches us that true progress is done only by negotiations, never by violence." But maybe you know the name—I forgot the guy who wrote now a book, I read about it, where he claims that usually two cases of resolution of a tension through negotiations are mentioned: Martin Luther King, American struggle for black emancipation, and ANC in South Africa, Mandela. Let's leave open the question, were these two attempts really successful? Now in South Africa, we know that the crisis is terrible, growing. And if I—I hope you will not be mad if I improvise a little bit because this fascinates me. You know that around two weeks ago, I had one of the most depressing experiences. At Birkbeck College, there was a general debate at the end of the summer school and there was a lady, black lady from South Africa, very progressive, an old ANC fighter. And I asked her frankly, "Should I believe the Western media?" Like I wanted first-hand report on how are things there. And she told me something that—she told me something that totally depressed me. She told me that because of all this corruption, confusion, all—I will not go into the problems. She said, isn't this sad, that the—more and more among the black poor majority, poor blacks, the new sentiment is nostalgia for apartheid. [unintelligible] I wanted to kill—the idea is this one. That's how people perceive it. Because you know, you always change the past in memory, no? Their idea is that it was tough, but it was stable, we were even a little bit less poor than now. Plus since South Africa was a police state, there was a certain level of social security. Now, not only we are as poor as before, but there is explosive violence and so on and so on. You see, this is—this would be the focus of Hegel. How could things have gone so wrong? Or to go back to— This to me—oh, sorry to—to jump in there. This to me, like, kind of reminds me of the material conditions, that there is this, you know, contradiction, you know, within the idea itself. But then also these ideas run aground when it comes to navigating, you know, the economy. Especially with the ANC, you know, the ANC there was this, you know, revolution in terms of ending apartheid as a, you know, a system, but there was not the attempt to reform the economy in any meaningful way, uh, you know, to end private property, to redistribute, you know, in any sort of socialist manner. I agree. On the other hand, did Mandela have a—really a chance? I think he did, but you know what I mean by this? I knew people who knew the famous communist figure there, Chris Hani, who although basically supporting it through negotiations, uh, uh, uh, was already giving warnings about this. Yes, to be very brutal. Do you know that South Africa is today a country with the greatest, strongest social division between rich and poor? So all that effectively happened is that the old white ruling class was joined by a new black ruling class, which is very exclusive, a tiny minority of blacks. But what I want to say is not to go into these details. Just to point this out, that the guy—I'm sorry, whose name escaped me now—proved that it's not as simple as that. Rationalist solution: let's negotiate. Even these negotiations worked because behind them there was a threat: "Hey, we could get more violent." You know, without this hardliner, no white—white people wouldn't concede to what they conceded. You know, like—ANC and here, I think precisely the threat of violence played a positive role. And I think it was
unknown
the same in the United States. You may correct me if I'm wrong, but I think with this idealization which is false and misrepresentation, this recapturing by the ruling ideology of Martin Luther King. You know. Yes. It worked up to a certain point. And here it's very delicate. I think it even can be argued that maybe with all his compromises, Lyndon Johnson was better than so much celebrated Kennedy. You know, as a pragmatic, he made a deal. But what I want to say is that again, without the threat of all those much more radical black movements, I don't think this relative—we now see how false it was nonetheless—reconciliation would
the same in the United States. You may correct me if I'm wrong, but I think with this idealization which is false and misrepresentation, this recapturing by the ruling ideology of Martin Luther King. You know. Yes. It worked up to a certain point. And here it's very delicate. I think it even can be argued that maybe with all his compromises, Lyndon Johnson was better than so much celebrated Kennedy. You know, as a pragmatic, he made a deal. But what I want to say is that again, without the threat of all those much more radical black movements, I don't think this relative—we now see how false it was nonetheless—reconciliation would
Slavoj Žižek
have worked. This is also where a Hegelian approach would help. This would be maybe one of my definitions. When a certain movement wins, don't focus just on what happened and—but also take into account how there were other alternatives which remain in the background, but as such as a potential threat, were necessary condition here, in this case for the peaceful version to win. So in other terms, I think that you can only win a political battle in this very balanced way. But let me take my last example of what I see in dialectics. For example, October Revolution. I don't want to dismiss Lenin as just coup d'état, terrorist and so on. No. Whatever you say, and it's enough to see the explosion of modern art, social movement in Soviet Union in the 1920s, this was an emancipatory event. How then Stalinism? What went wrong? Uh, uh—again, to avoid a misunderstanding, I am not a liberal or conservative Western one who says, "Oh, it didn't matter. It was a logical necessity that Leninism should have evolved into Stalinism." No, it's not as simple as that, but nonetheless, that would have been the key enigma for Hegel. How can things turn so terribly wrong? And I think here Hegel would have been—sorry for this tasteless metaphor—in a permanent intellectual orgasm looking at what happens today, my God. You know. Like, what Hegel would be bothered is deeply is this strange new functioning of ideology, which is no longer a direct mystification. But you at some abstract level know the truth, general truth. Like, we are approaching a new catastrophe, ecological, social catastrophe, World War whatever. But nonetheless, we are, although we know it—so I am—don't worry about deniers, those who claim there is no ecological threat. I worry much more about those who admit it all the time, but say it, debate it publicly in such a way to make it sure that nothing will be really done. You know, that's the beautiful paradox of talking a lot about something not to mobilize people, but quite the opposite too, so that they remain immobilized. So Hegel—I'm not saying Hegel is simply a pessimist, but Hegel was always aware that if there is a historical progress, it's always through a repetition. Things go wrong, then the second time is the crucial time. And but this opens new questions. For example, do you have it—it's not a rhetorical question—do any of you have a notion even what is happening today in China? In China? You said— People's Republic? The big one, you know? Like for some—Tyler specifically. What—yeah, economically, politically. No, no. No, no. What I mean, Deng Xiaoping's reforms and today Xi reforms. Yeah, I—Post-Mao China. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Post-Mao, yeah. I don't think the simple story is Deng Xiaoping wanted to liberalize it but then and so on and so on. It was much more ambiguous and the deadlock is much deeper. I think that what Xi is doing now—Xi, the new leader for five years—in a way he—he is not an idiot. If you look at—I did—at his statements and so on, he is aware of the problems. That's why I even wrote a short text on Wang Huning, which is the brain of his group. He—you know that Wang Huning was in United States years ago for a whole year and he was fascinated by capitalist dynamics, but at the same time he saw all the problems of social disintegration, racism, sexism and so on. And so the problem was to put it very naively: can we have this—under quotation marks—good side of American dynamic without paying the price? I doubt this. But that was their crazy optimism. The danger I see is that it comes uncannily close to a new form of fascism. Because this is old fascist dream. To keep capitalist dynamics but under social control so that you avoid social disintegration and so on and so on. So uh—along this line I didn't, okay, provide any exact definition, but maybe I will go into it. I would like to link back to your initial question. Hegel's dialectics. You know, it's not true that in Hegel the end of the story is always good, happy. No. Hegel has—it's incredible if you read Hegel in detail, literally. Not under the shadow of all these wrong progressist readings. And you know who is today—I wonder if you would agree—the great enemy. Although some of them are personally my half-friends. These, let's call them, liberal Pittsburgh Hegelians. For whom Hegel is not so much metaphysics but more recognition is their big word. You know. Social recognition, reconciliation through recognition. But wait, wait, wait. The first thing to note is and here you find death drive already in Hegel. Hegel begins talking about humanity in his Encyclopedia, third part, Philosophy of Spirit. At the beginning it is what he calls, I think, anthropology. To be brutal, his point is how did humanity evolve out of animal social life. And you know what he begins with? Madness, in clinical sense. He said that it's a—and this is his name for—he said that one of the many who are saying that humans are disoriented animals. You lose these roots in instincts and so on and so on. You are disconnected. This is madness and then all so-called human culture, collaboration, emerges as a reaction to this madness. And what is so fascinating—read it—Hegel literally says: this doesn't mean that we all should become mad. But it means that madness remain to the end as a threat. It's not simply aufgehoben, sublated. It always remains as a threat. And don't forget that Hegel, here we should move beyond Hegel of course, at the very end of his system, his philosophy of history, when he describes his type of a ideal state for that time, he ends with war, with necessity of war. So this self-destructive madness explodes again. And what I find here so fascinating in Hegel is that—is that he knew very well that—that there will be horrors in history, blah, blah. He says literally that philosophy can only grasp a system when it is already in its decay. No plans for the future. But all that he does is nonetheless describe in his critique of liberal economy and so on the potential traps that he sees in the existing system. I think that this is needed again more than ever today. Because obviously the system in which we live is bringing us to a catastrophe. And the first step before we go into building some utopian plans is to see what really is wrong with this system. Its, as Hegel would have put it, fundamental contradiction. But back to your point. In this sense I think for Hegel death drive and dialectics are two faces of the same. Death drive means precisely that dialectic is not this some simple progressive movement and so on and so on. Death drive means this—means this shattering radical negativity, which at the same time I develop this in my books, I'm sure you know it—death drive is paradoxically, if you read it closely even in Freud who introduced the notion, death drive is in some sense another name for undeadness. It's some negativity which survives death itself, which insists. And again this was clear with Freud. Even if Freud was confused, he often slips back and reads death drive—he even once says this is Nirvana, this Buddhist eternal peace. No. Death drive is precisely a negativity which persists beyond life and death. And this is important today with all the temptations that we have for some new peaceful order and so on and so on. Death—we can only understand what goes on today at the level of social life. For example, let's move—I will stop immediately, don't you—excuse me. Let's move to social life, even sexuality. Isn't it a basic paradox today that on the one hand we allegedly live in an era of permissiveness, you know, you can do group, neither man nor whatever blah, blah. But at the same time frigidity and impotence are exploding. There are new politically correct rules and so on. We are, we are at a—we are in a deep mess. And what I want to avoid here as a Hegelian is the obvious conservative solution—even some Lacanians are tempted by it—that this disorder happens because we abandon paternal authority. So that a new more severe law, paternal authority is needed. The Hegelian answer to this would be again not just moral critique of this approach but—but an immanent analysis of neo-conservatives themselves who are not really what they claim to be. I often, I wonder if you would agree, like to use this example. Let's take one relatively—till now he is old, I don't know how he will turn out—uh, relatively progressive figure like Bernie Sanders and then Donald Trump. And let's apply to them this notion of—which is ridiculous but okay, it refers to something—you know, post-modern subject who is ironic, relativist, historicist, paradoxical. Sorry, if there ever was a post-modern joker, it is Trump. It is Trump. And if there ever was a person who in some sense embodies what I'm tempted to call nonetheless this moral majority common sense, it's Bernie Sanders, you know. He—he simply—I so—he simply tries to mobilize this whatever, if there still is something of this, this common decency of ordinary people for our cause. Bernie Sanders saw clearly that—that so clearly that if we abandon the topic of moral majority decency of common people as potentially conservative, we leave—we abandon a crucial terrain of battle and leave it to the enemy. We should say no, if by subversion you mean ethical decadence, obscenities and so on, sorry, we don't need more of this. We get from today's neo-conservatives more than enough of this. You see, in this direction I would have moved, where I would like to mention just another thing which I was recently studying, which really worries me ethically. In different like American neo-conservatives, some tendencies around Putin, European conservatives and so on, they are now doing something which I find ethically even and politically of course extremely dangerous, which is what? Uh, this authoritarian definition of—of true ethical greatness as something that should move beyond ordinary decency. Let me give you an example which maybe some of you know. Do you know who was Rafael Trujillo, the long-years dictator of Haiti? No, sorry, of Dominican Republic. Yes, uh—yeah, he did in five, maybe you know better, something absolutely horrible. He made a radical ethnic cleansing with army, killing dozens of thousand of Haitians who were illegal immigrants there. Not throwing them out, killing them and so on, uh, uh—it was pure ethnic cleansing. But you know what shocked me? When towards the end of his life Trujillo was asked what act of his as long-term long-time president makes him most proud. He says that purge. He says "I did a dirty thing, ethically unacceptable, but in this way I saved my country." This is a terrible idea which you find already in Nazis and so on. For example, they admit Holocaust is killing the Jews and others is horrible. But they say the true ethical greatness is that you abandon common decency and can do horrible things for the greatness of your nation. As Himmler said somewhere, "Any idiot can—" Sorry, please interrupt me. In a Lacanian sense it sounds like what you're describing is a perverse position. That—that the fascist occupies. Yes. That's why, that's very good what you mention. You know why? Because that's another problem. I see this as a mistake of when I was young I was already there, I'm an old guy, '68 Revolution and so on. This was the spontaneous in spite of all women's right progress problem of '68 movement. Hysteria was dismissed as feminine, hysterics just complain blah, blah, while perverts go to the end. No, I think that one cannot elevate enough hysteria as a subversive position. Hysteria is for me the elementary form of critique of ideology. What is the fundamental feminine hysterical reaction is? It is you are interpellated, as Louis Althusser would have put it, into a social position, the social order is locating you, telling you: "You are a woman, a wife, you are a worker, you are whatever." The hysterical question is "Why I am—why am I what you are saying that I am? Am I really a woman? Is it my nature? Why am I that?" It's this basic doubt about—about the symbolic identity imposed on me by authority, by the state. And I'm here in contact with many friends in Iran where they told me this is why this now they are strangling them but they claim it will still go on. I'm talking about this big protest triggered by—triggered by women. Incredibly important in Iran. In a way it's not—it is precisely this type of hysterical reaction in the best sense. "Sorry, why do we have to wear that stupid piece of cloth on our head? Tell me why we don't accept it." And the—the beauty of Iran as I've written about it, of Iranian protest, is that—is that they did what in the West we are obviously unable to do. Namely they—they—this women's protest emerged as a trigger point to mobilize the entire social body of protest. Men admitted, everybody admitted that this women's protest condenses the general non-satisfaction. This was an incredible achievement in clear contrast with our protests. Some of the—I totally support MeToo and so on, but I don't always like the direction where instead of aiming at social solidarity, they often introduce the logic of suspicion. "You claim this but wasn't that expression that you used a little bit anti-feminist and so on and so on." So as Bernie Sanders said nicely, in a debate about abortion—you must remember a couple of months ago—he said "I totally was always pro-abortion." But if I understood his argument correctly, I would put it now like this: yes, many people are against abortion. But what would I have done is not to compromise my position, not to say okay let's forget about this, but my dialogue with anti-abortionist would have been "Listen, we all agree abortion is not a nice thing. Let's rather focus on why are women making abortions." And then the things have to be get straight first at the level of facts. Where conservatives cheat is that they present abortion—you know, this is what we learn from Hegel—examples. What you propose as a typical example are never neutral. So they usually present those women who have as these career-oriented women, no family, career matters most to them, profession, promiscuous—this is simply not true. Women like this know how to take care [unintelligible]. Typical abortion is today a poor working wife, already has three, four children, cannot afford another one. So that would be my proposal to anti-abortion people. Instead of prohibiting anything, let's try to address what pushes people to abortion, which means better healthcare and so on, all those measures. You see that would be my approach here. Sorry. I really like your approach and I think it's very accurate in that, you know, it doesn't capture who the actual, you know, recipient of an abortion is. But I think those are precisely the people that the conservatives want to control. They want to control poor, black women [unintelligible]. And I think that's why anti-abortion is so aligned with this fascist position of, you know, controlling women more broadly, you know, to—so I think that they would, you know, in many ways they—they would totally disavow that, you know, they can't avow their— But there is another problem here which as a Hegelian I find it something that really depressed me along the same lines. The saddest thing today is, as I repeatedly pointed out, we live in an era of unholy alliances. I will give you an example. I followed it closely, I have friends there. It was in your media also, you remember, the—I think it was Uganda Parliament which adopted the toughest in the world anti-gay measures. Up to death penalty if you are caught in it. But what horrified me is—I did something that not many people do. I looked on the web their journals, in English newspapers. And you know what shocked me? How in Putin's—Putin, Russian president style—they presented their stance as anti-colonialist. They say "LGBT+ and so on, this is imperialist, neo-colonial attempt to destroy our morality. So the way to be really anti-colonialist is" and so on and so on. I think—and this is similar to what you said how the new right addresses—wants to control people and so on. Here we have the big task to set things straight. To avoid getting
have worked. This is also where a Hegelian approach would help. This would be maybe one of my definitions. When a certain movement wins, don't focus just on what happened and—but also take into account how there were other alternatives which remain in the background, but as such as a potential threat, were necessary condition here, in this case for the peaceful version to win. So in other terms, I think that you can only win a political battle in this very balanced way. But let me take my last example of what I see in dialectics. For example, October Revolution. I don't want to dismiss Lenin as just coup d'état, terrorist and so on. No. Whatever you say, and it's enough to see the explosion of modern art, social movement in Soviet Union in the 1920s, this was an emancipatory event. How then Stalinism? What went wrong? Uh, uh—again, to avoid a misunderstanding, I am not a liberal or conservative Western one who says, "Oh, it didn't matter. It was a logical necessity that Leninism should have evolved into Stalinism." No, it's not as simple as that, but nonetheless, that would have been the key enigma for Hegel. How can things turn so terribly wrong? And I think here Hegel would have been—sorry for this tasteless metaphor—in a permanent intellectual orgasm looking at what happens today, my God. You know. Like, what Hegel would be bothered is deeply is this strange new functioning of ideology, which is no longer a direct mystification. But you at some abstract level know the truth, general truth. Like, we are approaching a new catastrophe, ecological, social catastrophe, World War whatever. But nonetheless, we are, although we know it—so I am—don't worry about deniers, those who claim there is no ecological threat. I worry much more about those who admit it all the time, but say it, debate it publicly in such a way to make it sure that nothing will be really done. You know, that's the beautiful paradox of talking a lot about something not to mobilize people, but quite the opposite too, so that they remain immobilized. So Hegel—I'm not saying Hegel is simply a pessimist, but Hegel was always aware that if there is a historical progress, it's always through a repetition. Things go wrong, then the second time is the crucial time. And but this opens new questions. For example, do you have it—it's not a rhetorical question—do any of you have a notion even what is happening today in China? In China? You said— People's Republic? The big one, you know? Like for some—Tyler specifically. What—yeah, economically, politically. No, no. No, no. What I mean, Deng Xiaoping's reforms and today Xi reforms. Yeah, I—Post-Mao China. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Post-Mao, yeah. I don't think the simple story is Deng Xiaoping wanted to liberalize it but then and so on and so on. It was much more ambiguous and the deadlock is much deeper. I think that what Xi is doing now—Xi, the new leader for five years—in a way he—he is not an idiot. If you look at—I did—at his statements and so on, he is aware of the problems. That's why I even wrote a short text on Wang Huning, which is the brain of his group. He—you know that Wang Huning was in United States years ago for a whole year and he was fascinated by capitalist dynamics, but at the same time he saw all the problems of social disintegration, racism, sexism and so on. And so the problem was to put it very naively: can we have this—under quotation marks—good side of American dynamic without paying the price? I doubt this. But that was their crazy optimism. The danger I see is that it comes uncannily close to a new form of fascism. Because this is old fascist dream. To keep capitalist dynamics but under social control so that you avoid social disintegration and so on and so on. So uh—along this line I didn't, okay, provide any exact definition, but maybe I will go into it. I would like to link back to your initial question. Hegel's dialectics. You know, it's not true that in Hegel the end of the story is always good, happy. No. Hegel has—it's incredible if you read Hegel in detail, literally. Not under the shadow of all these wrong progressist readings. And you know who is today—I wonder if you would agree—the great enemy. Although some of them are personally my half-friends. These, let's call them, liberal Pittsburgh Hegelians. For whom Hegel is not so much metaphysics but more recognition is their big word. You know. Social recognition, reconciliation through recognition. But wait, wait, wait. The first thing to note is and here you find death drive already in Hegel. Hegel begins talking about humanity in his Encyclopedia, third part, Philosophy of Spirit. At the beginning it is what he calls, I think, anthropology. To be brutal, his point is how did humanity evolve out of animal social life. And you know what he begins with? Madness, in clinical sense. He said that it's a—and this is his name for—he said that one of the many who are saying that humans are disoriented animals. You lose these roots in instincts and so on and so on. You are disconnected. This is madness and then all so-called human culture, collaboration, emerges as a reaction to this madness. And what is so fascinating—read it—Hegel literally says: this doesn't mean that we all should become mad. But it means that madness remain to the end as a threat. It's not simply aufgehoben, sublated. It always remains as a threat. And don't forget that Hegel, here we should move beyond Hegel of course, at the very end of his system, his philosophy of history, when he describes his type of a ideal state for that time, he ends with war, with necessity of war. So this self-destructive madness explodes again. And what I find here so fascinating in Hegel is that—is that he knew very well that—that there will be horrors in history, blah, blah. He says literally that philosophy can only grasp a system when it is already in its decay. No plans for the future. But all that he does is nonetheless describe in his critique of liberal economy and so on the potential traps that he sees in the existing system. I think that this is needed again more than ever today. Because obviously the system in which we live is bringing us to a catastrophe. And the first step before we go into building some utopian plans is to see what really is wrong with this system. Its, as Hegel would have put it, fundamental contradiction. But back to your point. In this sense I think for Hegel death drive and dialectics are two faces of the same. Death drive means precisely that dialectic is not this some simple progressive movement and so on and so on. Death drive means this—means this shattering radical negativity, which at the same time I develop this in my books, I'm sure you know it—death drive is paradoxically, if you read it closely even in Freud who introduced the notion, death drive is in some sense another name for undeadness. It's some negativity which survives death itself, which insists. And again this was clear with Freud. Even if Freud was confused, he often slips back and reads death drive—he even once says this is Nirvana, this Buddhist eternal peace. No. Death drive is precisely a negativity which persists beyond life and death. And this is important today with all the temptations that we have for some new peaceful order and so on and so on. Death—we can only understand what goes on today at the level of social life. For example, let's move—I will stop immediately, don't you—excuse me. Let's move to social life, even sexuality. Isn't it a basic paradox today that on the one hand we allegedly live in an era of permissiveness, you know, you can do group, neither man nor whatever blah, blah. But at the same time frigidity and impotence are exploding. There are new politically correct rules and so on. We are, we are at a—we are in a deep mess. And what I want to avoid here as a Hegelian is the obvious conservative solution—even some Lacanians are tempted by it—that this disorder happens because we abandon paternal authority. So that a new more severe law, paternal authority is needed. The Hegelian answer to this would be again not just moral critique of this approach but—but an immanent analysis of neo-conservatives themselves who are not really what they claim to be. I often, I wonder if you would agree, like to use this example. Let's take one relatively—till now he is old, I don't know how he will turn out—uh, relatively progressive figure like Bernie Sanders and then Donald Trump. And let's apply to them this notion of—which is ridiculous but okay, it refers to something—you know, post-modern subject who is ironic, relativist, historicist, paradoxical. Sorry, if there ever was a post-modern joker, it is Trump. It is Trump. And if there ever was a person who in some sense embodies what I'm tempted to call nonetheless this moral majority common sense, it's Bernie Sanders, you know. He—he simply—I so—he simply tries to mobilize this whatever, if there still is something of this, this common decency of ordinary people for our cause. Bernie Sanders saw clearly that—that so clearly that if we abandon the topic of moral majority decency of common people as potentially conservative, we leave—we abandon a crucial terrain of battle and leave it to the enemy. We should say no, if by subversion you mean ethical decadence, obscenities and so on, sorry, we don't need more of this. We get from today's neo-conservatives more than enough of this. You see, in this direction I would have moved, where I would like to mention just another thing which I was recently studying, which really worries me ethically. In different like American neo-conservatives, some tendencies around Putin, European conservatives and so on, they are now doing something which I find ethically even and politically of course extremely dangerous, which is what? Uh, this authoritarian definition of—of true ethical greatness as something that should move beyond ordinary decency. Let me give you an example which maybe some of you know. Do you know who was Rafael Trujillo, the long-years dictator of Haiti? No, sorry, of Dominican Republic. Yes, uh—yeah, he did in five, maybe you know better, something absolutely horrible. He made a radical ethnic cleansing with army, killing dozens of thousand of Haitians who were illegal immigrants there. Not throwing them out, killing them and so on, uh, uh—it was pure ethnic cleansing. But you know what shocked me? When towards the end of his life Trujillo was asked what act of his as long-term long-time president makes him most proud. He says that purge. He says "I did a dirty thing, ethically unacceptable, but in this way I saved my country." This is a terrible idea which you find already in Nazis and so on. For example, they admit Holocaust is killing the Jews and others is horrible. But they say the true ethical greatness is that you abandon common decency and can do horrible things for the greatness of your nation. As Himmler said somewhere, "Any idiot can—" Sorry, please interrupt me. In a Lacanian sense it sounds like what you're describing is a perverse position. That—that the fascist occupies. Yes. That's why, that's very good what you mention. You know why? Because that's another problem. I see this as a mistake of when I was young I was already there, I'm an old guy, '68 Revolution and so on. This was the spontaneous in spite of all women's right progress problem of '68 movement. Hysteria was dismissed as feminine, hysterics just complain blah, blah, while perverts go to the end. No, I think that one cannot elevate enough hysteria as a subversive position. Hysteria is for me the elementary form of critique of ideology. What is the fundamental feminine hysterical reaction is? It is you are interpellated, as Louis Althusser would have put it, into a social position, the social order is locating you, telling you: "You are a woman, a wife, you are a worker, you are whatever." The hysterical question is "Why I am—why am I what you are saying that I am? Am I really a woman? Is it my nature? Why am I that?" It's this basic doubt about—about the symbolic identity imposed on me by authority, by the state. And I'm here in contact with many friends in Iran where they told me this is why this now they are strangling them but they claim it will still go on. I'm talking about this big protest triggered by—triggered by women. Incredibly important in Iran. In a way it's not—it is precisely this type of hysterical reaction in the best sense. "Sorry, why do we have to wear that stupid piece of cloth on our head? Tell me why we don't accept it." And the—the beauty of Iran as I've written about it, of Iranian protest, is that—is that they did what in the West we are obviously unable to do. Namely they—they—this women's protest emerged as a trigger point to mobilize the entire social body of protest. Men admitted, everybody admitted that this women's protest condenses the general non-satisfaction. This was an incredible achievement in clear contrast with our protests. Some of the—I totally support MeToo and so on, but I don't always like the direction where instead of aiming at social solidarity, they often introduce the logic of suspicion. "You claim this but wasn't that expression that you used a little bit anti-feminist and so on and so on." So as Bernie Sanders said nicely, in a debate about abortion—you must remember a couple of months ago—he said "I totally was always pro-abortion." But if I understood his argument correctly, I would put it now like this: yes, many people are against abortion. But what would I have done is not to compromise my position, not to say okay let's forget about this, but my dialogue with anti-abortionist would have been "Listen, we all agree abortion is not a nice thing. Let's rather focus on why are women making abortions." And then the things have to be get straight first at the level of facts. Where conservatives cheat is that they present abortion—you know, this is what we learn from Hegel—examples. What you propose as a typical example are never neutral. So they usually present those women who have as these career-oriented women, no family, career matters most to them, profession, promiscuous—this is simply not true. Women like this know how to take care [unintelligible]. Typical abortion is today a poor working wife, already has three, four children, cannot afford another one. So that would be my proposal to anti-abortion people. Instead of prohibiting anything, let's try to address what pushes people to abortion, which means better healthcare and so on, all those measures. You see that would be my approach here. Sorry. I really like your approach and I think it's very accurate in that, you know, it doesn't capture who the actual, you know, recipient of an abortion is. But I think those are precisely the people that the conservatives want to control. They want to control poor, black women [unintelligible]. And I think that's why anti-abortion is so aligned with this fascist position of, you know, controlling women more broadly, you know, to—so I think that they would, you know, in many ways they—they would totally disavow that, you know, they can't avow their— But there is another problem here which as a Hegelian I find it something that really depressed me along the same lines. The saddest thing today is, as I repeatedly pointed out, we live in an era of unholy alliances. I will give you an example. I followed it closely, I have friends there. It was in your media also, you remember, the—I think it was Uganda Parliament which adopted the toughest in the world anti-gay measures. Up to death penalty if you are caught in it. But what horrified me is—I did something that not many people do. I looked on the web their journals, in English newspapers. And you know what shocked me? How in Putin's—Putin, Russian president style—they presented their stance as anti-colonialist. They say "LGBT+ and so on, this is imperialist, neo-colonial attempt to destroy our morality. So the way to be really anti-colonialist is" and so on and so on. I think—and this is similar to what you said how the new right addresses—wants to control people and so on. Here we have the big task to set things straight. To avoid getting
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caught in these let's call them false struggles. You know. As if the big opposition is
caught in these let's call them false struggles. You know. As if the big opposition is
Slavoj Žižek
between Western liberalism and—and anti-gay or whatever all that. What—and this is our difficult situation, to put it more in Hegelian terms. Of course, would you agree with this? I'm asking you seriously. Of course, at some general level, of course, we have to sometimes make pacts with center-left liberals. When there is a feminist measure like abortion or gay rights, we support them. But not to the end. At the same time we should insist on the key question: where do people like Trump and others come from? They are strictly a symptom of the failure of this mainstream multicultural but pseudo-multicultural liberal establishment. You see what I mean? While strategically maybe making an alliance here and there, a propos concrete legislation, we should never forget that the big opponent are not the new populist, is the liberal establishment itself which—and if we forget this, then we get caught into—into this crazy situation where neo-conservatives are stealing our potential votes. But not only—I'm not talking only about votes. You know what's the most depressing thing? You can correct me if I'm wrong. I read some analysis of United States where they said it's so sad that years ago most, apart from in the south Ku Klux Klan and so on, but in many countries social movements were mostly left-liberal, this time in a good sense, like people protesting more rights and so on. Do you know that now the new right reinvented itself at the level of social protest? For example, another depressing things I'm—I wrote about it for me was the 6th of January two years ago, you remember? Something that was an old leftist dream. People storming the seat of power. Who did it? The new right. You know. Yeah. The storming of the capitol. You know. Also, you know, at the same time it was this absolute moment of failure because they—they get to the seat of power and it's totally empty. You know. They get to Congress and there's no one there. They—you know, it reminds me much of what you said about Trotsky and Lenin when they were talking about seizing the state and, you know, Lenin wanting to seize the palace and Trotsky saying, "No, seize the—the post office. Seize the—you know, the actual means of production." I think that's exactly what's missing from this struggle between the— Do you have this book? You get it online. Everybody should read it. Curzio Malaparte wrote a book about revolutions. I quote it, you get it online, English translation. Italian guy who was sympathetic to fascism first but then moved after World War II to communism. Uh, uh—he discovered this, that only Trotsky, even Lenin, really understood the logic of the revolution. Lenin and Kerensky, not to mention Stalin, who was skeptical about it, they were obsessed with this main square, big confrontation. And this is true, he reports, Malaparte, that Trotsky was training groups for days before. Because there was no big social control, he could do it. Like he said "Go to the ministry of electricity. Just see how you can seize that building. Go to the main station. Just see how." So when they decided tomorrow revolution, Trotsky stayed up all the night and then—that's the myth, but it's a beautiful—in the morning he came to Lenin and said "I did it. Now I go to sleep and you just formally finish it." You see, this is the lesson that I see also from Louis Althusser. I'm critical of him but he saw this clearly. Ideology, power is not a single point on the top. As you pointed out, Nicholas, nicely. If you go there, mostly you find nothing. To put it no? Ideology and power, this is a complex texture of social institution and so on and so on. And the true art of revolution is to occupy all this and then, if I'm permitted to repeat my ultra-old joke, those in power are like in that, you know, my old joke about from cartoons. A cat is already without ground under its feet and looks down, "Oh my God,"
between Western liberalism and—and anti-gay or whatever all that. What—and this is our difficult situation, to put it more in Hegelian terms. Of course, would you agree with this? I'm asking you seriously. Of course, at some general level, of course, we have to sometimes make pacts with center-left liberals. When there is a feminist measure like abortion or gay rights, we support them. But not to the end. At the same time we should insist on the key question: where do people like Trump and others come from? They are strictly a symptom of the failure of this mainstream multicultural but pseudo-multicultural liberal establishment. You see what I mean? While strategically maybe making an alliance here and there, a propos concrete legislation, we should never forget that the big opponent are not the new populist, is the liberal establishment itself which—and if we forget this, then we get caught into—into this crazy situation where neo-conservatives are stealing our potential votes. But not only—I'm not talking only about votes. You know what's the most depressing thing? You can correct me if I'm wrong. I read some analysis of United States where they said it's so sad that years ago most, apart from in the south Ku Klux Klan and so on, but in many countries social movements were mostly left-liberal, this time in a good sense, like people protesting more rights and so on. Do you know that now the new right reinvented itself at the level of social protest? For example, another depressing things I'm—I wrote about it for me was the 6th of January two years ago, you remember? Something that was an old leftist dream. People storming the seat of power. Who did it? The new right. You know. Yeah. The storming of the capitol. You know. Also, you know, at the same time it was this absolute moment of failure because they—they get to the seat of power and it's totally empty. You know. They get to Congress and there's no one there. They—you know, it reminds me much of what you said about Trotsky and Lenin when they were talking about seizing the state and, you know, Lenin wanting to seize the palace and Trotsky saying, "No, seize the—the post office. Seize the—you know, the actual means of production." I think that's exactly what's missing from this struggle between the— Do you have this book? You get it online. Everybody should read it. Curzio Malaparte wrote a book about revolutions. I quote it, you get it online, English translation. Italian guy who was sympathetic to fascism first but then moved after World War II to communism. Uh, uh—he discovered this, that only Trotsky, even Lenin, really understood the logic of the revolution. Lenin and Kerensky, not to mention Stalin, who was skeptical about it, they were obsessed with this main square, big confrontation. And this is true, he reports, Malaparte, that Trotsky was training groups for days before. Because there was no big social control, he could do it. Like he said "Go to the ministry of electricity. Just see how you can seize that building. Go to the main station. Just see how." So when they decided tomorrow revolution, Trotsky stayed up all the night and then—that's the myth, but it's a beautiful—in the morning he came to Lenin and said "I did it. Now I go to sleep and you just formally finish it." You see, this is the lesson that I see also from Louis Althusser. I'm critical of him but he saw this clearly. Ideology, power is not a single point on the top. As you pointed out, Nicholas, nicely. If you go there, mostly you find nothing. To put it no? Ideology and power, this is a complex texture of social institution and so on and so on. And the true art of revolution is to occupy all this and then, if I'm permitted to repeat my ultra-old joke, those in power are like in that, you know, my old joke about from cartoons. A cat is already without ground under its feet and looks down, "Oh my God,"
unknown
and falls down. You know. That's how the true—that's how the true revolution works. You first undermine, destroy the very substance, ground. And then in some sense the power collapses in—in itself. But we got lost. Please, I will discipline myself, ask me more questions. I was particularly interested in your point about Hegel being in perpetual intellectual orgasm had he been alive today— No, no.
and falls down. You know. That's how the true—that's how the true revolution works. You first undermine, destroy the very substance, ground. And then in some sense the power collapses in—in itself. But we got lost. Please, I will discipline myself, ask me more questions. I was particularly interested in your point about Hegel being in perpetual intellectual orgasm had he been alive today— No, no.
Slavoj Žižek
This was a tasteless idea of how I think Hegel, a true Hegelian alive today, would have been in perpetual intellectual orgasm. Well yeah, so my question I mean to ask pertains to that. What do you see as different in this system that you just mentioned, the system of ideology and of power, that—that Hegel would have reacted to so strongly as opposed to his own time? So how is ideology operating differently today? Or how—what has changed in how we internalize ideology? I will—I will here advocate a very maybe problematic notion. Let me put—give to you two, three points. The first one is I have here great debates with my friends and half-friends, although I don't buy the theory of neo-feudalism, you know, usually it's called techno-feudalism or what. But nonetheless it—it does grasp an important moment which is how these new figures—why are they so powerful? Bill Gates, Musk, all those guys? Because in Marx's terms they privatize part of our commons. Let's say the fact that we talk today. We are already part of some digital commons, but these digital commons are not public property. They are controlled by new corporations and—and again, if you buy books it's—who is that guy, my God, not Bill Gates, uh—who owns Amazon? Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos and so on. And uh—I think that first there is no tension between these mega-corporations and—and the state apparatus. Like the one who is half-forgotten today, unfortunately. I will do again something for him. Julian Assange. I think that more important than his WikiLeaks is his book on Google. Where he provides a wonderful definition of Google as the privatized version of NSA, National Security Agency or whatever. You know how closely the two are connected. And these are new forms of control. Uh, in what sense? Uh, I read recently again I forgot who developed this, a wonderful analysis, critique of—but not the standard critique—of these new forms of social control where they claim their origin is neo-liberalism. They are right in some sense. I think one should be very careful with this term neo-liberalism. First it's not true that public power is disappearing. Military and so on it's getting stronger and stronger. But the point is this one. Let me play a naive bourgeois intellectuals who—why not? Let's play the game. We want public—okay. The basic point of bourgeois freedom and it had a good point, it helped sometimes is that: to make capitalism tolerable, we need a public space which is not controlled by capital. Public meetings or public media and so on where you are not—you as a citizen are not reduced to your particular position, but you kind of as Hegel would have put it, directly move in the level of universality. This should especially also affect, for example, the use of violence. I think what is happening now in Russia. After quashing the Prigozhin revolt, I was shocked. Putin announced that no, there are many more these half-private armies and the Russia should be just more creative in using all of them, different, you know. That for me the end and the deepest decadence here. Now I'm talking simply as an honest bourgeois democrat. I hope you will agree is: isn't this for you—for me this is the ultimate obscenity—private prisons. This is horrible. Violence, prison means direct violence
This was a tasteless idea of how I think Hegel, a true Hegelian alive today, would have been in perpetual intellectual orgasm. Well yeah, so my question I mean to ask pertains to that. What do you see as different in this system that you just mentioned, the system of ideology and of power, that—that Hegel would have reacted to so strongly as opposed to his own time? So how is ideology operating differently today? Or how—what has changed in how we internalize ideology? I will—I will here advocate a very maybe problematic notion. Let me put—give to you two, three points. The first one is I have here great debates with my friends and half-friends, although I don't buy the theory of neo-feudalism, you know, usually it's called techno-feudalism or what. But nonetheless it—it does grasp an important moment which is how these new figures—why are they so powerful? Bill Gates, Musk, all those guys? Because in Marx's terms they privatize part of our commons. Let's say the fact that we talk today. We are already part of some digital commons, but these digital commons are not public property. They are controlled by new corporations and—and again, if you buy books it's—who is that guy, my God, not Bill Gates, uh—who owns Amazon? Jeff Bezos. Jeff Bezos and so on. And uh—I think that first there is no tension between these mega-corporations and—and the state apparatus. Like the one who is half-forgotten today, unfortunately. I will do again something for him. Julian Assange. I think that more important than his WikiLeaks is his book on Google. Where he provides a wonderful definition of Google as the privatized version of NSA, National Security Agency or whatever. You know how closely the two are connected. And these are new forms of control. Uh, in what sense? Uh, I read recently again I forgot who developed this, a wonderful analysis, critique of—but not the standard critique—of these new forms of social control where they claim their origin is neo-liberalism. They are right in some sense. I think one should be very careful with this term neo-liberalism. First it's not true that public power is disappearing. Military and so on it's getting stronger and stronger. But the point is this one. Let me play a naive bourgeois intellectuals who—why not? Let's play the game. We want public—okay. The basic point of bourgeois freedom and it had a good point, it helped sometimes is that: to make capitalism tolerable, we need a public space which is not controlled by capital. Public meetings or public media and so on where you are not—you as a citizen are not reduced to your particular position, but you kind of as Hegel would have put it, directly move in the level of universality. This should especially also affect, for example, the use of violence. I think what is happening now in Russia. After quashing the Prigozhin revolt, I was shocked. Putin announced that no, there are many more these half-private armies and the Russia should be just more creative in using all of them, different, you know. That for me the end and the deepest decadence here. Now I'm talking simply as an honest bourgeois democrat. I hope you will agree is: isn't this for you—for me this is the ultimate obscenity—private prisons. This is horrible. Violence, prison means direct violence
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onto your body. And to leave this to a private company which does it for profit obviously, it's a nightmare. It should be—I have even the same problem,
onto your body. And to leave this to a private company which does it for profit obviously, it's a nightmare. It should be—I have even the same problem,
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I'm here very state-oriented with public schools. I think I would put a limit to private schools because there are certain basic—now I'm talking even as an honest bourgeois liberal—basic public values, equality, democracy, access to knowledge, which should be guaranteed by the state. And the idea is this one. What happened with neo-liberalism some years ago when it all began, tendencies were already before, is that since the ideology was against state, the idea was to
I'm here very state-oriented with public schools. I think I would put a limit to private schools because there are certain basic—now I'm talking even as an honest bourgeois liberal—basic public values, equality, democracy, access to knowledge, which should be guaranteed by the state. And the idea is this one. What happened with neo-liberalism some years ago when it all began, tendencies were already before, is that since the ideology was against state, the idea was to
Slavoj Žižek
reduce state to another elected body which we voters finance. It's as if, no as they like to say, uh—voting is like buying something. We are buying efficient state administration and then if private companies can be more efficient, why not? And this is for me the true horror. That the public space is disappearing. Even in this good old bourgeois sense. There is less and less space which is genuinely public, which is not privatized. So this would be for me the first task where maybe we even can have a temporary coalition with some sincere liberals or whatever. You know, because I find this horrible. For example, do you remember when Elon Musk bought Google, no? He said in his typical megalomaniac style, I laughed, he said: "the world democracy will be decided now. If I succeed, there will be two—" but in what world do we live when somebody can even just imagine that him as a private individual, buying some big company, will decide the fate of democracy? It's a totally crazy world. Here we need to urgently rehabilitate strong social—and that's why I always emphasize this. I am still basically a communist, not a socialist. You know what's my problem with socialism? Of course nothing wrong, but you know, even Bill Gates said once, "in some sense I am a socialist." Socialist often, not always, but means today just "yeah, I have some social responsibility, we have to take care" and so on. But what is needed today—that's the lesson we should disseminate among the people—look at today's crisis: ecology. Not only we need stronger public bodies, but also much stronger obligatory in some sense international cooperation. Look, my example is even, you may know it, a pro-American one. You remember—I don't know where were you—two years ago the summer, in Seattle-Vancouver, almost degrees Celsius. No? But you cannot say they were guilty there. No. They even locally there had a relatively good ecological standard. The problem was that the
reduce state to another elected body which we voters finance. It's as if, no as they like to say, uh—voting is like buying something. We are buying efficient state administration and then if private companies can be more efficient, why not? And this is for me the true horror. That the public space is disappearing. Even in this good old bourgeois sense. There is less and less space which is genuinely public, which is not privatized. So this would be for me the first task where maybe we even can have a temporary coalition with some sincere liberals or whatever. You know, because I find this horrible. For example, do you remember when Elon Musk bought Google, no? He said in his typical megalomaniac style, I laughed, he said: "the world democracy will be decided now. If I succeed, there will be two—" but in what world do we live when somebody can even just imagine that him as a private individual, buying some big company, will decide the fate of democracy? It's a totally crazy world. Here we need to urgently rehabilitate strong social—and that's why I always emphasize this. I am still basically a communist, not a socialist. You know what's my problem with socialism? Of course nothing wrong, but you know, even Bill Gates said once, "in some sense I am a socialist." Socialist often, not always, but means today just "yeah, I have some social responsibility, we have to take care" and so on. But what is needed today—that's the lesson we should disseminate among the people—look at today's crisis: ecology. Not only we need stronger public bodies, but also much stronger obligatory in some sense international cooperation. Look, my example is even, you may know it, a pro-American one. You remember—I don't know where were you—two years ago the summer, in Seattle-Vancouver, almost degrees Celsius. No? But you cannot say they were guilty there. No. They even locally there had a relatively good ecological standard. The problem was that the
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whole circulation of air towards the north of the Northern Hemisphere is disturbed. So you cannot save
whole circulation of air towards the north of the Northern Hemisphere is disturbed. So you cannot save
Slavoj Žižek
it locally. Global cooperation is needed.
it locally. Global cooperation is needed.
unknown
It's the same I think with refugees. And here I often get misunderstood as if I'm against the refugees. No. I think that—and this cannot wait for years to come—that we should ask now the question: how did our political acts create the situation for this explosion of refugees? For example, without Soviet and then American intervention
It's the same I think with refugees. And here I often get misunderstood as if I'm against the refugees. No. I think that—and this cannot wait for years to come—that we should ask now the question: how did our political acts create the situation for this explosion of refugees? For example, without Soviet and then American intervention
Slavoj Žižek
in Iraq, there wouldn't have been ISIS. Without American occupation of Iraq, there wouldn't have been ISIS. In Syria also and so on. This is what directly triggered all this. In Africa where many refugees come, the point is that we often make fun of these African independent countries who corrupted new—new dictatorships and so on. But the formula of corruption is always the same. Look at the case which is the most tragic for me. Look at Angola. The communist left with Cuban help won years ago. And then the new caste emerged in tight collaboration with Western companies, oil. And more than two thirds of the income disappears. You remember a couple of years ago it was a wonderful crazy incident where a foreign corporation gave public in his reports how much money they give to Angolan government every year. It was I think billion. If you look into the state budget of Angola, it was only billion. So where did that go? No, this doesn't mean we were good, the Western companies, and Angola is corrupted. This means that precisely the two were connected. And it's the same formula in many other African countries and so on. That foreign—this is the reality of—of new global capitalism. The collaboration and they—that's the tragic thing. They can be in themselves even ex-communist, it doesn't matter. They're caught into this same trap. Western—I read the most Western big capital—uh, uh—in pact with local elites. Which is why the most tragic analysis I read is one of Congo, the big one, not Brazzaville, ex-Mobutu. Congo— Democratic Republic of Congo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's so sad what I read. That the attraction of Congo is all those very precious mines, not just diamonds. Some of those precious metals without which our computers wouldn't function and so on. And uh—this is how we have to understand that a clear economic analysis shows you that Congo is a failed state in the sense of relatively inefficient central government. Local warlords control one of these mining resource and make a direct deal with the Western company. State gets nothing, it's better. So this is so sad. Uh, the analysis is that: imagine Congo without all these natural resources. Probably for ordinary people things would have been much better. Instead of helping them, the wealth is their damnation. It pushes them into— Are you describing this, you know, this connection between, you know, imperialism on the one hand, you know, neo-colonial extraction and liberal democracy and corporate, you know, culture, you know? That on the one hand these corporations can be very clean and on the other hand, you know, they're most intimately connected with the negative externalities that they claim are totally separate. Yeah, yeah. But the problem is that to afford this, you have to—you have to corrupt the local elite, no? The clear example was this from what I learned through Julian Assange, because you know, the previous president a little bit more progressive of—was it Ecuador or what? Yes, uh—who had—that then with the new president, of course, again these foreign corporations were there allowed to on a gigantic level to spoil, to destroy natural resources and so on. Even here in spite of some local pact with relatively honest liberals or whatever. You know, because I was disappointed. I was told you must know better than me. I was disappointed by—by Trudeau in Canada. What did he do against this brutal—how do you call it—fracking, oil extraction and so on, which is ruining the land where the indigenous people are mostly, you know? He didn't do a lot there, you know? Okay, he did some good things, at least the records were set straight. This nightmare story. I was in contact with some of them. Do you know that not only the Catholic church but the—they were taking children from indigenous people claiming they are drug addicted, alcoholics, and put them into state schools. Yeah. And then you—did you—I couldn't believe it. This is not some as they say lunatic leftist analysis. This is the state Canadian report. You know what was in some of this internal school with [unintelligible] care for the child? You know what was the sexual exploitation rate there? Up to percent of the pupils were—this was a paradise—this was a paradise for—and here we should also answer. Did you notice this movie which, okay, the liberal left is against? And I know who Jim Caviezel is. I'm talking about Sound of Freedom, you know? Of course, this QAnon links and he is crazy. But on the other hand we should even push it further. It's not just the film's movie's thesis is that these are just some totally crazy corporate ultra-rich people. No. This sex—sexual exploitation, this is a massive systematic phenomenon. Go to India, go—go to everywhere. We should even I think begin again to talk about slavery today. I was recently—this is my bourgeois side. From time to time I like to visit some crazy wealthy country, but I'm a Marxist, I look at things. So years ago I was with my son, don't laugh at me, at my lowest moment, in Dubai. You know where I was for a couple of nights? I got a good price. In that Burj Al Arab. I was there, you weren't, blah, blah. Then I did a wonderful proper thing. I got friendly with my son with a Pakistani immigrant cab driver there. And he gave me the real description. For example, all this construction sites. No protection, workers are falling down, workers are half-slaves. They come from Nepal, from Bangladesh, and they are kept like slaves. And if they can they send home—because their families are not allowed to join them—$200 per month, it's considered good, a success. So all this glitter there is based on incredibly brutal—this is not even normal proletarian exploitation. This is night—this is nightmare. These are really, you know. Uh, the idea was that with post-modern capitalism, intellectual work and so on, that direct personal dependence up to neo-slavery or neo-feudalism is gradually disappearing. Like, let's say you are an Uber driver or a programmer, you even own your means of production usually, not often, a car, a PC, and formally you think you are free. "I make this contract, I make that contract." It's not true. This new digitalization gave a new boost to direct relations of personal dependence. They are growing today. It's not—this is for me the big ideological victory of today's capitalism. That this—let's take Uber or this new type of jobs which are just temporary. Isn't this ideal that you—that's ideological notion, that's the basic mystification—let's say you are an Uber driver who owns your own car. You are formally treated as: you are a small capitalist, you own your capital, you work when you want and so on. And then all the things which really deprive you of your rights are presented to you as your gains. Like you have no health insurance. They say "No problem, you are free to choose. You make a little bit of profit. Will you go to a holiday, health insurance, or will you take additional education or whatever?" You see how the mystification of this uh open jobs with no permanent employment is that the—the permanent uncertainty, you live all the time in anxiety and so on, is presented to you as a new form of freedom. There are no longer working classes. You are really just on a smaller scale a capitalist like us. And in the further bit of mystification, the company claims "We just put together customers and those who provide services. We are not capitalists, we are just pure mediators." Yeah. They don't produce anything, just logistics. Yeah. That—second thing, you don't even experience Uber, the company or other, like Amazon is saying the same. "We are just connecting publishers and people who—" that the sad thing is that for example if you are Uber driver, this is ingenious—I mean in horrible sense, this is so sad—you do not even experience as your competitors the company, but other workers. You know, like who will work more? Who will get more? And the company claims "We are nothing, we are just pure algorithmic providers" and so on and so on. On this we should focus, I think if you ask me. On this we should focus. On all these new, new forms which are mystified today more than ever. And I would say that in some sense the new right is often even more successful than a new left in mobilizing people at this level. You know, with their mantra of honest capitalists and workers against big corporations and so on. We shouldn't leave this terrain to them. And I think they have this notion of the return to the past. And I think what we're seeing now is this development from a proletariat to a precariat. I've heard it
in Iraq, there wouldn't have been ISIS. Without American occupation of Iraq, there wouldn't have been ISIS. In Syria also and so on. This is what directly triggered all this. In Africa where many refugees come, the point is that we often make fun of these African independent countries who corrupted new—new dictatorships and so on. But the formula of corruption is always the same. Look at the case which is the most tragic for me. Look at Angola. The communist left with Cuban help won years ago. And then the new caste emerged in tight collaboration with Western companies, oil. And more than two thirds of the income disappears. You remember a couple of years ago it was a wonderful crazy incident where a foreign corporation gave public in his reports how much money they give to Angolan government every year. It was I think billion. If you look into the state budget of Angola, it was only billion. So where did that go? No, this doesn't mean we were good, the Western companies, and Angola is corrupted. This means that precisely the two were connected. And it's the same formula in many other African countries and so on. That foreign—this is the reality of—of new global capitalism. The collaboration and they—that's the tragic thing. They can be in themselves even ex-communist, it doesn't matter. They're caught into this same trap. Western—I read the most Western big capital—uh, uh—in pact with local elites. Which is why the most tragic analysis I read is one of Congo, the big one, not Brazzaville, ex-Mobutu. Congo— Democratic Republic of Congo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's so sad what I read. That the attraction of Congo is all those very precious mines, not just diamonds. Some of those precious metals without which our computers wouldn't function and so on. And uh—this is how we have to understand that a clear economic analysis shows you that Congo is a failed state in the sense of relatively inefficient central government. Local warlords control one of these mining resource and make a direct deal with the Western company. State gets nothing, it's better. So this is so sad. Uh, the analysis is that: imagine Congo without all these natural resources. Probably for ordinary people things would have been much better. Instead of helping them, the wealth is their damnation. It pushes them into— Are you describing this, you know, this connection between, you know, imperialism on the one hand, you know, neo-colonial extraction and liberal democracy and corporate, you know, culture, you know? That on the one hand these corporations can be very clean and on the other hand, you know, they're most intimately connected with the negative externalities that they claim are totally separate. Yeah, yeah. But the problem is that to afford this, you have to—you have to corrupt the local elite, no? The clear example was this from what I learned through Julian Assange, because you know, the previous president a little bit more progressive of—was it Ecuador or what? Yes, uh—who had—that then with the new president, of course, again these foreign corporations were there allowed to on a gigantic level to spoil, to destroy natural resources and so on. Even here in spite of some local pact with relatively honest liberals or whatever. You know, because I was disappointed. I was told you must know better than me. I was disappointed by—by Trudeau in Canada. What did he do against this brutal—how do you call it—fracking, oil extraction and so on, which is ruining the land where the indigenous people are mostly, you know? He didn't do a lot there, you know? Okay, he did some good things, at least the records were set straight. This nightmare story. I was in contact with some of them. Do you know that not only the Catholic church but the—they were taking children from indigenous people claiming they are drug addicted, alcoholics, and put them into state schools. Yeah. And then you—did you—I couldn't believe it. This is not some as they say lunatic leftist analysis. This is the state Canadian report. You know what was in some of this internal school with [unintelligible] care for the child? You know what was the sexual exploitation rate there? Up to percent of the pupils were—this was a paradise—this was a paradise for—and here we should also answer. Did you notice this movie which, okay, the liberal left is against? And I know who Jim Caviezel is. I'm talking about Sound of Freedom, you know? Of course, this QAnon links and he is crazy. But on the other hand we should even push it further. It's not just the film's movie's thesis is that these are just some totally crazy corporate ultra-rich people. No. This sex—sexual exploitation, this is a massive systematic phenomenon. Go to India, go—go to everywhere. We should even I think begin again to talk about slavery today. I was recently—this is my bourgeois side. From time to time I like to visit some crazy wealthy country, but I'm a Marxist, I look at things. So years ago I was with my son, don't laugh at me, at my lowest moment, in Dubai. You know where I was for a couple of nights? I got a good price. In that Burj Al Arab. I was there, you weren't, blah, blah. Then I did a wonderful proper thing. I got friendly with my son with a Pakistani immigrant cab driver there. And he gave me the real description. For example, all this construction sites. No protection, workers are falling down, workers are half-slaves. They come from Nepal, from Bangladesh, and they are kept like slaves. And if they can they send home—because their families are not allowed to join them—$200 per month, it's considered good, a success. So all this glitter there is based on incredibly brutal—this is not even normal proletarian exploitation. This is night—this is nightmare. These are really, you know. Uh, the idea was that with post-modern capitalism, intellectual work and so on, that direct personal dependence up to neo-slavery or neo-feudalism is gradually disappearing. Like, let's say you are an Uber driver or a programmer, you even own your means of production usually, not often, a car, a PC, and formally you think you are free. "I make this contract, I make that contract." It's not true. This new digitalization gave a new boost to direct relations of personal dependence. They are growing today. It's not—this is for me the big ideological victory of today's capitalism. That this—let's take Uber or this new type of jobs which are just temporary. Isn't this ideal that you—that's ideological notion, that's the basic mystification—let's say you are an Uber driver who owns your own car. You are formally treated as: you are a small capitalist, you own your capital, you work when you want and so on. And then all the things which really deprive you of your rights are presented to you as your gains. Like you have no health insurance. They say "No problem, you are free to choose. You make a little bit of profit. Will you go to a holiday, health insurance, or will you take additional education or whatever?" You see how the mystification of this uh open jobs with no permanent employment is that the—the permanent uncertainty, you live all the time in anxiety and so on, is presented to you as a new form of freedom. There are no longer working classes. You are really just on a smaller scale a capitalist like us. And in the further bit of mystification, the company claims "We just put together customers and those who provide services. We are not capitalists, we are just pure mediators." Yeah. They don't produce anything, just logistics. Yeah. That—second thing, you don't even experience Uber, the company or other, like Amazon is saying the same. "We are just connecting publishers and people who—" that the sad thing is that for example if you are Uber driver, this is ingenious—I mean in horrible sense, this is so sad—you do not even experience as your competitors the company, but other workers. You know, like who will work more? Who will get more? And the company claims "We are nothing, we are just pure algorithmic providers" and so on and so on. On this we should focus, I think if you ask me. On this we should focus. On all these new, new forms which are mystified today more than ever. And I would say that in some sense the new right is often even more successful than a new left in mobilizing people at this level. You know, with their mantra of honest capitalists and workers against big corporations and so on. We shouldn't leave this terrain to them. And I think they have this notion of the return to the past. And I think what we're seeing now is this development from a proletariat to a precariat. I've heard it
unknown
described that way of isolated [unintelligible]. Yeah, but—but precariat is nonetheless different that it is masks a past, but a past masked or combined with ultra-modernity. In some sense you are totally free person, you do what you want and so on. It can be ideally presented as a new more egalitarian society where we all have the
described that way of isolated [unintelligible]. Yeah, but—but precariat is nonetheless different that it is masks a past, but a past masked or combined with ultra-modernity. In some sense you are totally free person, you do what you want and so on. It can be ideally presented as a new more egalitarian society where we all have the
Slavoj Žižek
same rights and so on and so on. It's—this is I think again if you ask me the danger and I don't know what are the percents, but in Slovenia, my own small country, almost half of all workforce is already precariat. In this temporary jobs and so on, you know. And here I think—here I think again that would be my formula. I wonder if you agree. My combination. On the one hand, yes, we should still insist on just more radical on these basically old social democratic values. Universal healthcare, universal free education, care for the old and so on and so on. Because people feel this. I don't know how it is in the states because you never had there, that's your system, a well-functioning public healthcare system. But all around Europe now, from my own country Slovenia to UK, even Germany. Like here in Slovenia, I'm here like I see there the main emergency entrance to the hospital. If it's not directly life-threatening like your arm is cut off or heart attack, you wait on average hours at an emergency. And then you know, like it's—we are brutally entering a new class society where there are people who have money, you can go to a private doctor, or you wait for the public service, but thousands die even in Slovenia because the public—like there was a whole scandal. An old lady had a knee problem and the doctor told her "Do you want to come to me privately? I can receive you tomorrow." The old lady said "I don't have money." He said "Okay then I will give you a date in a public healthcare." And he gave her, the old lady, an appointment—this was last year, 2022—in a certain date in September, even the precise hour, I think, in September 5th, This was a bad joke. You know. Like over ten years. And then the lady said "But at that point my leg will be finished. I will even cost more the state, I will be a total invalid. Now with a simple operation I could be functioning again." No, it's—it's very sad that this new how public services are, healthcare especially, are falling apart. There are countries like Norway where they still more or less function, but they are lucky. Not just luck. On the one hand they have still enough of gas, not so much oil, gas reserves, no? They have a big surplus. On the other hand you see how important ideological battles are there. I visited some leftists there and they told me that it's not that there was a concrete struggle. But through history there is an unwritten pact which—okay, they have a couple of millionaires, but now I'm not talking about property but about salary at a job. You know that in a company, even private, it's kind of a accepted public rule that the maximum difference gap between the lowest cleaning man or cleaning lady and the top executives should not be more than maybe And it's a wonderful example of this progressive in this case unwritten rules. It's simply accepted as a fact. You said they can't make more than seven times the lowest—the highest cannot make more than seven times— Yeah, it's not a written law, it's simply—this is even more precious—it's a publicly accepted unwritten rule. And people respect it. Okay, they respect it because they have enough money to give a decent salary also to the those who pay less and so on. But what I'm— It must be the opposite here in the US where it's an unwritten rule that you're supposed to make hundreds of times more than your lowest worker as a CEO. Not only this. I know—maybe this will amuse you, if you are slowly approaching to the end—a nice thing happened to me. I was with my friend Mladen Dolar at some stupid round table already six, seven years ago at Harvard University. Yeah, don't like it there. This is the seat of this corrupted liberalism theoretically. And after our debate we were invited to a dinner. Some professors, we didn't know each other. So we were asked each of us to state his or her education, like I'm a philosopher there, profession, where you work, and sexual orientation. And I said "I agree, but what if we replace sexual orientation with financial status? How much do you earn here and how much do you—" and I was shocked like they were ready to talk "Oh, I was gay, now I'm bi." That's not a problem. The true intimacy is if you ask them how much property, how much—like at most departments where even I work at a university, your personal salary is a secret, no? Mostly in many cases. At least in many private universities and so on. It's a matter of personal negotiation and so on, no? And I was shocked by the—sorry, yes. One thing I wanted to ask you, since you brought up sexuality, I have a totally unrelated question that I wanted to ask you. Yeah, I like it because I'm crazy like this. I make totally non-related jumps, yes. So I, um—I'm struggling to understand Lacan's formulas of sexuation. It's something I've been thinking about, we've been reading about. We're going to have
same rights and so on and so on. It's—this is I think again if you ask me the danger and I don't know what are the percents, but in Slovenia, my own small country, almost half of all workforce is already precariat. In this temporary jobs and so on, you know. And here I think—here I think again that would be my formula. I wonder if you agree. My combination. On the one hand, yes, we should still insist on just more radical on these basically old social democratic values. Universal healthcare, universal free education, care for the old and so on and so on. Because people feel this. I don't know how it is in the states because you never had there, that's your system, a well-functioning public healthcare system. But all around Europe now, from my own country Slovenia to UK, even Germany. Like here in Slovenia, I'm here like I see there the main emergency entrance to the hospital. If it's not directly life-threatening like your arm is cut off or heart attack, you wait on average hours at an emergency. And then you know, like it's—we are brutally entering a new class society where there are people who have money, you can go to a private doctor, or you wait for the public service, but thousands die even in Slovenia because the public—like there was a whole scandal. An old lady had a knee problem and the doctor told her "Do you want to come to me privately? I can receive you tomorrow." The old lady said "I don't have money." He said "Okay then I will give you a date in a public healthcare." And he gave her, the old lady, an appointment—this was last year, 2022—in a certain date in September, even the precise hour, I think, in September 5th, This was a bad joke. You know. Like over ten years. And then the lady said "But at that point my leg will be finished. I will even cost more the state, I will be a total invalid. Now with a simple operation I could be functioning again." No, it's—it's very sad that this new how public services are, healthcare especially, are falling apart. There are countries like Norway where they still more or less function, but they are lucky. Not just luck. On the one hand they have still enough of gas, not so much oil, gas reserves, no? They have a big surplus. On the other hand you see how important ideological battles are there. I visited some leftists there and they told me that it's not that there was a concrete struggle. But through history there is an unwritten pact which—okay, they have a couple of millionaires, but now I'm not talking about property but about salary at a job. You know that in a company, even private, it's kind of a accepted public rule that the maximum difference gap between the lowest cleaning man or cleaning lady and the top executives should not be more than maybe And it's a wonderful example of this progressive in this case unwritten rules. It's simply accepted as a fact. You said they can't make more than seven times the lowest—the highest cannot make more than seven times— Yeah, it's not a written law, it's simply—this is even more precious—it's a publicly accepted unwritten rule. And people respect it. Okay, they respect it because they have enough money to give a decent salary also to the those who pay less and so on. But what I'm— It must be the opposite here in the US where it's an unwritten rule that you're supposed to make hundreds of times more than your lowest worker as a CEO. Not only this. I know—maybe this will amuse you, if you are slowly approaching to the end—a nice thing happened to me. I was with my friend Mladen Dolar at some stupid round table already six, seven years ago at Harvard University. Yeah, don't like it there. This is the seat of this corrupted liberalism theoretically. And after our debate we were invited to a dinner. Some professors, we didn't know each other. So we were asked each of us to state his or her education, like I'm a philosopher there, profession, where you work, and sexual orientation. And I said "I agree, but what if we replace sexual orientation with financial status? How much do you earn here and how much do you—" and I was shocked like they were ready to talk "Oh, I was gay, now I'm bi." That's not a problem. The true intimacy is if you ask them how much property, how much—like at most departments where even I work at a university, your personal salary is a secret, no? Mostly in many cases. At least in many private universities and so on. It's a matter of personal negotiation and so on, no? And I was shocked by the—sorry, yes. One thing I wanted to ask you, since you brought up sexuality, I have a totally unrelated question that I wanted to ask you. Yeah, I like it because I'm crazy like this. I make totally non-related jumps, yes. So I, um—I'm struggling to understand Lacan's formulas of sexuation. It's something I've been thinking about, we've been reading about. We're going to have
unknown
Alenka Zupancic on next month and we're going to be talking with her about what is sex. Ah, that's wonderful. She is the bright one. She will rise over all of us I think, yeah.
Alenka Zupancic on next month and we're going to be talking with her about what is sex. Ah, that's wonderful. She is the bright one. She will rise over all of us I think, yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
Right. My question for you, um, is: how are Lacan's formulas of sexuation relevant for understanding non-binary and transgender experiences and gender diversity more generally? Oh, this—I can tell you, okay, I can give you a brief version of my line of argumentation. First these are not what Lacan designates masculine/feminine, these are not formulas of identity. These are just names of a certain deadlock. Because as you discovered, every designation—masculine formulas name a certain deadlock. Like the masculine one is there is universality but there is an exception. The feminine is there is no universal totality but there is no exception and so on. And so to go precisely here—it will not be directly connected with this—I think I can give you an answer. And I even lately when I was in London I gave a some talk, I think I have convinced at least even some LGBTQ+ and so on hardliners. You know where I don't agree with them? When they oppose those biological determinists, no? Sex is mostly a matter of your biological sexuality, uh, decided at birth. And then they claim no, sex is a cultural choice. Yes, but for me they come way too close to grasping this notion of choice as simply a matter of personal feeling. "I feel like a woman, today I feel a woman, tomorrow I will feel a man" and so on and so on. So the first thing to complicate here is: where is here Freud? Where is here the unconscious? Because the lesson of Freud is not that sex is biological but that our sexual identities are the result of a very complex, violent, brutal, ambiguous, contradictory social process. Let's say I am biologically a man. But this doesn't mean that I then simply say "Okay, why to go through all the trans trouble? I identify myself as a man." No, no. Even for biological man to become symbolically a man, you have to go through very complicated symbolic processes. Here for Freud enters, here you are already outside the binary, so-called infantile sexuality. Infantile sexuality, why is it crucial? Because it's the first form of sexuality, but it's not—it's not binary. These are just crazy fantasies. Like, if you permit me to bore you with maybe an example that you know. For example, I remember, my God, an intimacy. When I was young, four, five, six years old, I had a basic idea how children are made through sex. But I didn't know how exactly it functions, so for a year or two I thought—and many women later told me let's do like that, it's a wonderful dream—that each sex act you do to create a certain organ.
Right. My question for you, um, is: how are Lacan's formulas of sexuation relevant for understanding non-binary and transgender experiences and gender diversity more generally? Oh, this—I can tell you, okay, I can give you a brief version of my line of argumentation. First these are not what Lacan designates masculine/feminine, these are not formulas of identity. These are just names of a certain deadlock. Because as you discovered, every designation—masculine formulas name a certain deadlock. Like the masculine one is there is universality but there is an exception. The feminine is there is no universal totality but there is no exception and so on. And so to go precisely here—it will not be directly connected with this—I think I can give you an answer. And I even lately when I was in London I gave a some talk, I think I have convinced at least even some LGBTQ+ and so on hardliners. You know where I don't agree with them? When they oppose those biological determinists, no? Sex is mostly a matter of your biological sexuality, uh, decided at birth. And then they claim no, sex is a cultural choice. Yes, but for me they come way too close to grasping this notion of choice as simply a matter of personal feeling. "I feel like a woman, today I feel a woman, tomorrow I will feel a man" and so on and so on. So the first thing to complicate here is: where is here Freud? Where is here the unconscious? Because the lesson of Freud is not that sex is biological but that our sexual identities are the result of a very complex, violent, brutal, ambiguous, contradictory social process. Let's say I am biologically a man. But this doesn't mean that I then simply say "Okay, why to go through all the trans trouble? I identify myself as a man." No, no. Even for biological man to become symbolically a man, you have to go through very complicated symbolic processes. Here for Freud enters, here you are already outside the binary, so-called infantile sexuality. Infantile sexuality, why is it crucial? Because it's the first form of sexuality, but it's not—it's not binary. These are just crazy fantasies. Like, if you permit me to bore you with maybe an example that you know. For example, I remember, my God, an intimacy. When I was young, four, five, six years old, I had a basic idea how children are made through sex. But I didn't know how exactly it functions, so for a year or two I thought—and many women later told me let's do like that, it's a wonderful dream—that each sex act you do to create a certain organ.
unknown
Today we fuck to create the eyes, tomorrow
Today we fuck to create the eyes, tomorrow
Slavoj Žižek
for legs and so on. So it's a hard work for half a year, you know. You build slowly. But what I'm saying is this, that and Freud makes
for legs and so on. So it's a hard work for half a year, you know. You build slowly. But what I'm saying is this, that and Freud makes
unknown
this very clear. This infantile sexuality is not simply something which then once you enter
this very clear. This infantile sexuality is not simply something which then once you enter
Slavoj Žižek
maturity disappears. No. As fantasy it always remains. You need a phantasmatic support. Maybe you read this short text of mine, I'm sorry if I repeat an old example. It's my favorite. Eve Wiseman, a journalist from Guardian, reported with horror, but I think this is sexuality, how she was watching not a hardcore movie, but a movie about making hardcore movies. Where you see a camera, in front of the camera a guy—sorry to be vulgar—screwing a lady. Then in the middle of the scene the guy steps back and says "Sorry, I'm losing erection, can somebody pass me my iPhone so that I go onto Pornhub to excite—" isn't this crazy? Like you have there a woman excited—no, you need fantasy. And this is not pathology. This is how human sexuality is structured. The second
maturity disappears. No. As fantasy it always remains. You need a phantasmatic support. Maybe you read this short text of mine, I'm sorry if I repeat an old example. It's my favorite. Eve Wiseman, a journalist from Guardian, reported with horror, but I think this is sexuality, how she was watching not a hardcore movie, but a movie about making hardcore movies. Where you see a camera, in front of the camera a guy—sorry to be vulgar—screwing a lady. Then in the middle of the scene the guy steps back and says "Sorry, I'm losing erection, can somebody pass me my iPhone so that I go onto Pornhub to excite—" isn't this crazy? Like you have there a woman excited—no, you need fantasy. And this is not pathology. This is how human sexuality is structured. The second
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thing I would say here is that precisely because of these complications, each sexual position in this basic
thing I would say here is that precisely because of these complications, each sexual position in this basic
Slavoj Žižek
sense of established
sense of established
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in our binary order, masculine/feminine, is a form of blindness. Which is why for me LGBTQ+ whatever we call them, trans,
in our binary order, masculine/feminine, is a form of blindness. Which is why for me LGBTQ+ whatever we call them, trans,
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trans they are our sexuality at its purest. Our sexuality is as such trans in the sense that I explained about infantile sexuality. It's not just even with so-called under quotation marks normal people, it's not just you become what
trans they are our sexuality at its purest. Our sexuality is as such trans in the sense that I explained about infantile sexuality. It's not just even with so-called under quotation marks normal people, it's not just you become what
Slavoj Žižek
you biologically are if you are too lazy. No, you have to work hard to go trans through all the infantile sexuality fantasies which you will need to the end. And that—and that process is the sexuation. That process. Which again is not biologically predetermined, but also it's not free in this simple sense of "oh, today I feel a woman, tomorrow I will feel a man." It's basically unconscious process which can be very painful. You know, it may surprise you, but I know many uh, uh—trans people, no? And for them you know, it's not this Judith Butler joy, "oh multiple sexualities." For many of them it's a very painful experience. You know, not just because of the social oppression, but because again, you get caught into so many inconsistencies and so on. So in this sense I think I'm even more trans than trans because I don't think that we can even oppose biological sexuality and this—all these cultural choices. Without culture, we are not—not even biologically functional. To reconstruct us as—me as biological man, I need a lot of culture. It's even more— Well there's that—that fantasy support that you were talking about. Yeah, but not culture in the usual sense. Yeah, culture in the sense of social symbolic processes and so on and so on. Don't kill me now, I'm sweating like a pig, I have to stop. I'm so sorry. But at some point first I give you the whole right for good honest Stalinist censorship and point two, in a couple of months if you want we can do it again and point two, please give to Alenka a third degree in the police sense, tough questioning precisely about this, where LGBTQ is wrong and in what sense Lacan is not a binary. She developed this in a—in a wonderful way, which is why she is attacked and ignored here. You know her book, this—the previous one, okay still the last one—on Antigone, Let Them Rot. It annoyed everybody because she goes against this standard humanist reading, Judith Butler reading I claim, Antigone as a universal humanist. Everybody should be included, also those on the—no, that's liberal topic. Antigone's point is exactly the opposite. She said "If it were to be the question of my father, mother, son, I would let them rot. It's only because my brother." And why? Alenka gives a one—a wonderful explanation. So here I'm a—maybe a feminist not in theory but in practice. I think that the majority today of good interprets of Hegel and of Lacan are more and more women. They are our hope. So I'm now planning to organize at Birkbeck if possible a
you biologically are if you are too lazy. No, you have to work hard to go trans through all the infantile sexuality fantasies which you will need to the end. And that—and that process is the sexuation. That process. Which again is not biologically predetermined, but also it's not free in this simple sense of "oh, today I feel a woman, tomorrow I will feel a man." It's basically unconscious process which can be very painful. You know, it may surprise you, but I know many uh, uh—trans people, no? And for them you know, it's not this Judith Butler joy, "oh multiple sexualities." For many of them it's a very painful experience. You know, not just because of the social oppression, but because again, you get caught into so many inconsistencies and so on. So in this sense I think I'm even more trans than trans because I don't think that we can even oppose biological sexuality and this—all these cultural choices. Without culture, we are not—not even biologically functional. To reconstruct us as—me as biological man, I need a lot of culture. It's even more— Well there's that—that fantasy support that you were talking about. Yeah, but not culture in the usual sense. Yeah, culture in the sense of social symbolic processes and so on and so on. Don't kill me now, I'm sweating like a pig, I have to stop. I'm so sorry. But at some point first I give you the whole right for good honest Stalinist censorship and point two, in a couple of months if you want we can do it again and point two, please give to Alenka a third degree in the police sense, tough questioning precisely about this, where LGBTQ is wrong and in what sense Lacan is not a binary. She developed this in a—in a wonderful way, which is why she is attacked and ignored here. You know her book, this—the previous one, okay still the last one—on Antigone, Let Them Rot. It annoyed everybody because she goes against this standard humanist reading, Judith Butler reading I claim, Antigone as a universal humanist. Everybody should be included, also those on the—no, that's liberal topic. Antigone's point is exactly the opposite. She said "If it were to be the question of my father, mother, son, I would let them rot. It's only because my brother." And why? Alenka gives a one—a wonderful explanation. So here I'm a—maybe a feminist not in theory but in practice. I think that the majority today of good interprets of Hegel and of Lacan are more and more women. They are our hope. So I'm now planning to organize at Birkbeck if possible a
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conference on
conference on
Slavoj Žižek
Hegel and I was so glad to discover that I don't have to do in this political correct way "Are there enough women?" No, there will be too many women. I don't have a problem with that. I'm so sorry I'm collapsing because it's hot here. Thank you so much. I was very glad to do it. We meet again, just give me a couple of months if you need me, I'm always ready. And just you know that a month or two ago I was And I can tell you there is no great dignity in getting old. That's all I can say. It's not, you know,
Hegel and I was so glad to discover that I don't have to do in this political correct way "Are there enough women?" No, there will be too many women. I don't have a problem with that. I'm so sorry I'm collapsing because it's hot here. Thank you so much. I was very glad to do it. We meet again, just give me a couple of months if you need me, I'm always ready. And just you know that a month or two ago I was And I can tell you there is no great dignity in getting old. That's all I can say. It's not, you know,
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it's not you are getting
it's not you are getting
Slavoj Žižek
wiser. No. Maybe you appear wiser speaking these short obscure sentences, but this is just a mask of senility, I claim. Thank you very much friends. We keep in touch. Yes. Bye. Be well. Bye, I go, leave me.
wiser. No. Maybe you appear wiser speaking these short obscure sentences, but this is just a mask of senility, I claim. Thank you very much friends. We keep in touch. Yes. Bye. Be well. Bye, I go, leave me.