Is Sexuality Compatible with Human Rights? with Jean-Claude Milner
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2018-06-27 · 2:01:41 · 13,682 words
sexuality-genderliberalism-political-correctnesspsychoanalysisideologycapitalismfascism-populismrevolution-violencerace-antisemitismphilosophy-generaleveryday-life
A panel discussion responding to the Weinstein affair and the MeToo movement, featuring Jean-Claude Milner and Slavoj Žižek. Milner opens by arguing that MeToo implicitly adopts a structural (rather than objective) distinction between sexual weakness and strength, analogous to Marx's analysis of surplus value, making consent structurally irrelevant. Žižek agrees on the Trump/MeToo mirroring dynamic, defends the idea that sexuality is inherently 'unjust' and resists political-correct regulation, and explores the paradox of alt-right incels invoking human-rights language. The discussion broadens into Lacanian theory of the Real, sexual difference, the Frankfurt School antisemitism myth, and the role of implicit rules in institutions.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 17
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “jouissance / enjoyment”
Used in the Lucretius/Kant reading: the sexual act is a fundamental suffering because each partner seeks enjoyment but finds only a brief tension-discharge rather than full satisfaction.
as “surplus value (Mehrwert)”
The value created by the worker's labour-power that is never symmetrically compensated by wages, used here to show that 'free' consent in labour, and by analogy in sex, can mask structural coercion.
The MeToo movement's implicit logic, in which sexual life is governed by a class antagonism between structurally strong (men) and structurally weak (women), defined not in economic terms but in terms of structural position.
as “structural weakness / structural force”
A position in a social structure (e.g. woman, worker) that is weak or strong independently of any individual's objective material power, analogous to Marx's distinction between formal contract and real exploitation.
Jean-Claude Milner's two historically dominant representations: fusion (two become one) and use (one body uses the other as a tool), which he maps onto war and peace in Trump's politics.
as “fornication contract”
Žižek's ironic label (borrowed from Kant's 'contractus fornicationis') for the bureaucratic pre-sex consent contracts that reduce sexuality to a one-night-stand commercial transaction.
The far-right conspiracy myth, analysed by Žižek, claiming that the Frankfurt School was a communist plot to destroy European Christian civilization from within by promoting sexual liberation and multiculturalism.
A social category Žižek uses as a limit-case: men who are simultaneously white-supremacist hierarchists and who invoke human-rights logic to demand state redistribution of sexual partners, illustrating how oppositional discourses mirror each other.
Jordan Peterson's proposal, and its more radical incel variant, that institutionally enforced pair-bonding would simultaneously raise fertility and reduce male violence, which Žižek presents as a paradoxically communist demand emerging from the alt-right.
as “Möbius strip logic”
Žižek's figure for how apparently opposed positions (e.g. white-supremacist hierarchy and human-rights egalitarianism) secretly share a continuous surface, traversing one side lands you on the other.
as “implicit meta-rules”
The unwritten rules about how to apply explicit rules, which actually sustain any social institution; Žižek argues Trump's genius is systematically violating these second-order norms.
Žižek's formula (attributed to Samuel Goldwyn) for the revolutionary task: not to be original but to make gestures that become new social clichés, to found new implicit norms.
as “sexual difference as lack in language”
Alenka Zupančič's (and Lacan's) argument, discussed by Žižek, that sexual difference emerges from a constitutive lack in the signifying system, the absence of the sexual relationship at the level of the symbolic, rather than from discursive construction.
as “objectivization vs. subjectivization”
Against the feminist complaint of 'objectivization,' Žižek insists the victim of sadism is not objectivized but hyper-subjectivized, the sadist wants to see suffering and despair, not a passive object.
For Žižek/Lacan, not an external wild chaos beyond the symbolic but the immanent point of failure and antagonism within symbolization itself, 'une impasse de formalisation'.
Žižek's gloss on Lacan: the subject exists only as the failure to fully articulate itself in the symbolic order, subjectivity is the remainder, the plus, that exceeds all symbolic determination.
as “sexuality as formal category”
Žižek's claim that sexuality is not a natural given but is constituted through cultural-symbolic complications, failure, and detour, without this formal coating it would be mere animal coupling.
Stories he reaches for 3
After reading that his films had too many clichés, producer Samuel Goldwyn sent a memo demanding 'new clichés', which Žižek takes as the true formula for revolutionary politics: not originality but founding new clichés/implicit norms.
“He wrote a memo to his scenario department: 'We urgently need new clichés!' ...The true art of revolutionary social life is not to be original—every idiot can be that—but to make gesture will become new clichés.”
At the Lushan Conference after the Great Leap Forward's millions of deaths, Mao's call for self-criticism ended with a metaphor about shitting and farting to feel better, illustrating an uncanny gap between the gravity of an event and the vulgarity that erupts in its framing.
“'It's like when you need to shit, shit, it will make you feel better. When you have wind in you, fart, do it.' ...Isn't it a little bit weird where you are talking about self-criticism for causing the death of millions?”
When asked his program, Polish PiS leader Kaczyński said 'Teraz kurwa my' (a vulgar military phrase meaning 'Now it's our turn to screw the whore'), and rather than retracting it, kept repeating it, illustrating a structural moment when private vulgarity enters public political speech.
“'Teraz kurwa my', which is a very vulgar expression from military... it means 'Now it's our turn to screw the whore'. He went on repeating it, it became a legend.”
Works invoked 6
Encore (Seminar XX) book
Lacan's seminar cited for the formula 'le réel c'est une impasse de formalisation', the Real as an immanent impasse of symbolization, not an external chaos.
Fifty Shades of Grey film
Žižek couldn't read the novel (too vulgar) but defends it as emancipatory: it depicts a woman who controls the masochist game from within apparent submission, raising the question of coercion as constitutive of pleasure.
Kant's text from which Milner and Žižek draw the 'fornication contract' argument and the example of a wife calling police because her escaped husband took part of her property.
Adrienne Rich's essay mentioned by Jacqueline Rose as the origin of the radical feminist argument that structural inequality makes consent impossible, predating MeToo by four decades.
A 10-hour antisemitic documentary that fully rehabilitates Hitler; Žižek finds it deeply disturbing but uses it as a limit-case to show where today's right-wing populism logically leads.
The Holy Family book
Marx's early text, cited by Žižek for its praise of the injustice and madness of love and sexual passion, supporting the view that sexuality resists rational egalitarian regulation.
People invoked 31
The Monica Lewinsky case is used by Žižek to illustrate how power can be constitutive of desire rather than merely corrupting consent.
Mentioned in connection with the French letter opposing MeToo (signed by prominent French women); Žižek says he partially agrees with the spirit of the letter's defence of female sexual agency.
Claire Denis positive
Mentioned by a discussant as a filmmaker who makes the point about everyday harassment and everyday injustice of women, which Žižek endorses as the more important question beyond the Weinstein spectacle.
Appears in Žižek's satirical fantasy about Trump being invited to Pyongyang for a mass socialist parade, illustrating the affinity between authoritarian spectacle and Trump's desires.
Julia C Mitchell positive
Cited by audience member Jacqueline Rose for 'the ugly undertone of sexual difference', something inherent in sexual differentiation that leads to abuse.
Alenka Zupančič positive
Her book on psychoanalysis and sexuality is cited: the task of psychoanalysis is to restore sex in its dimension of the Real; sexual difference arises from a lack in language, against Judith Butler's discursive account.
Named as the primary antisemitic scapegoat behind the conspiracy theory that Jewish financiers orchestrated mass immigration to destroy Europe.
Mentioned as a target of the antisemitic conspiracy theory in Europa: The Last Battle, which claims the Frankfurt School was a communist Jewish plot to destroy European culture.
Mentioned as openly praising the Italian coalition of Northern League and Five Stars on CNN as a model of what Trump's movement wants globally, a right+left anti-establishment alliance.
Jacques Lacan positive
Key authority on the Real as 'une impasse de formalisation', on the subject as constituted by failure, and on the impossibility of the sexual relationship at the symbolic level.
Judith Butler negative
Mentioned as Zupančič's explicit polemical target: Butler's view that sexual difference is a result of discursive construction is rejected in favour of the Lacanian account of an irreducible real stumbling block.
Donald Trump positive
Žižek argues Trump paradoxically 'understood' MeToo better than most by systematically denying structural weakness; analyses his violation of institutional meta-rules as a form of political genius, while being alarmed by it.
Named alongside MacKinnon and Adrienne Rich as founders of the radical feminist argument that structural inequality renders consent irrelevant.
Mentioned by audience member Jacqueline Rose as the author of 'Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence' (1970s), the original radical feminist argument that consent is structurally impossible.
Appears as the object of Trump's dominant-male gesture (dusting his shoulder), used to illustrate how Trump enacts sexual-political domination in international relations.
Jean-Claude Milner positive
Co-panellist; Žižek responds warmly to his Marxist-structuralist framework for analysing MeToo and endorses his core distinction between structural and objective weakness/strength.
Cited as the 'key figure' in the antisemitic Europa documentary's narrative, allegedly financed by Jewish bankers in New York to carry out the October Revolution.
Named alongside Foucault and Sartre as signatory of the 1972 incest manifesto.
Named among the signatories of the 1972 French manifesto for abolishing the prohibition of incest, used by Žižek to demonstrate historical discontinuity in sexual politics.
Lucretius positive
Jean-Claude Milner cites Lucretius as the first theorist of the fusion model of sexuality: sex is fundamentally suffering because unlike eating or drinking it never achieves full fusion.
Harvey Weinstein positive
Central case study for the whole discussion; Žižek condemns him morally but uses his case to argue that the MeToo model built around him (a Hollywood predator) neglects the everyday structural abuse suffered by millions of women in ordinary marriages.
Used as an example of vulgarity entering public political speech: his 'Teraz kurwa my' statement is a structural parallel to Trump's rule-breaking.
Cited for the Lushan Conference self-criticism speech where he used flatulence metaphors while addressing millions of deaths, an example of uncanny vulgarity erupting in official political language.
Jordan Peterson negative
Critiqued as the theorist behind incel-adjacent 'enforced monogamy' proposals; Žižek notes Peterson argues hierarchy is natural (via lobsters and African tribes) while simultaneously proposing what amounts to state redistribution of women.
Samuel Goldwyn positive
Praised as 'a true genius of America' for the memo demanding 'new clichés', which Žižek adopts as the formula for revolutionary political practice.
Referenced by audience member Jacqueline Rose as the source (along with Andrea Dworkin and Adrienne Rich) of the radical feminist position that consent is never truly consent, antedating MeToo by decades.
Alongside Adorno, named as a Frankfurt School figure falsely accused in the 'cultural Marxism' conspiracy myth.
Karl Marx positive
Invoked repeatedly: surplus value analysis as the model for understanding structural coercion beneath formal consent; also cited from The Holy Family praising the injustice and madness of love.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Mentioned briefly as a figure who was shocked by Kant's brutal egalitarian account of marriage; and implicitly present in the dialectical structure of the whole argument.
Immanuel Kant positive
Discussed at length: the 'fornication contract' (contractus fornicationis), marriage as mutual use of sexual organs, and the idea that without a contract the sexual act is a crime against humanity; Žižek finds it provocatively useful.
Named alongside Foucault and Guattari as signatories of the 1972 incest manifesto.
What it argues
structural vs. objective weakness in sexual politicsconsent and its limits under power asymmetryMeToo and Trump as two faces of the same coinsexuality as inherently unjust and resistant to political regulationincel paradox: white supremacists invoking human rightsLacanian Real as immanent failure of symbolizationimplicit meta-rules sustaining explicit institutional norms
Dialectical moves 9
“The only political leader who truly understood the MeToo movement is Donald Trump — he understood it by systematically denying its central insight.”
The dialectical inversion: the person most opposed to structural weakness is the one who most clearly grasps what it means, because he spends all his energy refuting it.
“The worst nightmare of anti-communist propaganda — that communists would socialize and redistribute women — is now emerging from the heart of the American alt-right and justifying itself on human rights.”
The most extreme right-wing position secretly reproduces the most caricatured version of communist demand, revealing the hidden identity of opposites.
“In matters of sexuality, my position is the exact reversal of these crazy ugly guys — which doesn't mean I'm not ugly.”
Žižek reverses the incel demand: accept universality of human rights in social life, but concede defeat and accept injustice in the domain of sexuality itself.
“It wasn't just prohibited to criticize Stalin — it was even more prohibited to say publicly that you were not allowed to criticize Stalin.”
The meta-rule is more binding than the rule itself; violating the second-order prohibition is more dangerous than violating the first-order one, and Trump exploits exactly this asymmetry.
“Reference to your weakness can itself become a way to assert your power — especially in American academia.”
The victim position, intended to signal structural weakness, can be weaponized to silence opponents, inverting the relationship between weakness and power.
“The sadist doesn't objectivize you — a true sadist hyper-subjectivizes you: the sadist wants to see your suffering, your despair.”
The feminist complaint about 'objectivization' misidentifies the mechanism of domination; the oppressor needs the victim's subjectivity, not its absence.
“It's like in a Möbius strip: you go on one side, bam, all of a sudden you are on the other side — how come the most brutal white supremacist discourse all of a sudden needs human rights?”
Structural topology reveals that apparently opposed positions (racial hierarchy and egalitarian rights) share a continuous surface and secretly presuppose each other.
“The genius of transgender theory is that the '+' in LGBTQ+ is not just empirical — you can be directly the plus. Subjectivity itself is this plus.”
The 'plus' that seems a mere placeholder for unnamed identities turns out to name the structure of subjectivity itself, the excess that exceeds every identity category.
“The bureaucratic fornication-contract negotiation works — but only by failure: at a certain point you laugh and that laughter is the sexualization.”
Sexuality is not destroyed by explicit rule-following but is paradoxically erotized through the breakdown and absurdity of the very rules meant to govern it.
Claims 15
asserts
The MeToo movement implicitly treats every heterosexual act as structurally a rape, because the distinction between consented sex and rape becomes one of degree rather than of nature once structural weakness supplants objective weakness.MeToo movement's implicit logic · unknown
asserts
Consent is rendered structurally irrelevant in the MeToo framework in the same way that a worker's free consent to a labour contract is structurally coerced in Marxist analysis.consent under structural power asymmetry · unknown
asserts
Trump and the MeToo movement are two faces of the same coin — they form a mutually reinforcing discursive space, each serving as the other's ideal enemy.Trump and MeToo
asserts
Sexuality is immanently unjust and one must 'concede defeat' to it — the logic of rights and equality cannot and should not be directly applied to sexual desire.sexuality and justice
asserts
The greatest achievement of 1960s sexual liberation was the sexually active woman — not protection from objectivization but the right to actively seduce, demand, and control the game.sexual liberation
asserts
Incels represent a paradox in which the most brutal white-supremacist, hierarchical discourse suddenly needs human-rights language and a communist-style redistribution logic to assert its sexual demands.incel/alt-right paradox
asserts
The far-right documentary 'Europa: The Last Battle' is not merely an exaggeration of today's right-wing populism but its logical endpoint — what you get when you follow the line of thought to the end.right-wing antisemitism and populism
asserts
The Real is not an external chaos beyond the symbolic but is totally immanent to it — it is the symbolic's own internal point of failure and antagonism.Lacanian Real
rejects
Attempts to purify sexual desire of its politically over-determined, 'corrupt' elements risk producing politically correct commissars who prescribe which desires are permissible.political regulation of desire
rejects
Gender, not class, is the principal organizing category today — a claim Žižek rejects as absolutely wrong.gender vs. class as primary category
asserts
Sexual harassment language often masks a deeper fear of the desiring other and the neighbor's proximity, making 'harassment' an ideologically ambiguous term.harassment discourse
asserts
Sexuality without cultural-symbolic complication and failure — the 'form' that erotizes — would not be sexuality at all but mere animal coupling.sexuality and cultural form
asserts
Trump's political genius lies in violating the implicit meta-rules that sustain explicit institutional norms — rules whose transgression is more forbidden than breaking the explicit rules themselves.Trump and institutional norms
asserts
European countries have no ideological or cultural autonomy with respect to the United States — what happens there will come to Europe with a time delay.US cultural hegemony · unknown
reframes
Sexual desire constituted in a field of power should be analysed politically, but directly regulating which desires are acceptable leads to a dangerous commissar logic.politically constituted desire
Quotes 12
“Trump aims to be the whole world's Weinstein.”unknown · Trump as global sexual-political dominator
“It wasn't just prohibited to criticize Stalin. It was prohibited even more to say publicly that you are not allowed to criticize Stalin.”Slavoj Žižek · implicit meta-rules; second-order prohibition
“We urgently need new clichés! ...The true art of revolutionary social life is not to be original—every idiot can be that—but to make gesture will become new clichés.”Slavoj Žižek · revolutionary politics as founding new implicit norms
“It's like in a Möbius strip, you go on one side, bam, all of a sudden you are on the other side. How come that the most brutal white supremacist discourse all of a sudden needs human rights?”Slavoj Žižek · Möbius strip logic of incel paradox
“I don't think there is a pure desire which remains when you take away all the nastiest stuff in ourselves, racist desires, humiliating the weak and so on.”Slavoj Žižek · rejection of the fantasy of purified desire
“Le réel c'est une impasse de formalisation. The real is totally immanent to the symbolic, it's its immanent limitation, point of failure, antagonism.”Slavoj Žižek · Lacanian Real as immanent impasse
“Subject fails to fully articulate itself in symbolic, and this failure is the subject. Subject exists only as a failure.”Slavoj Žižek · subject as failure in symbolization
“The genius of some of transgender theorists is to see that this plus is not just empirical... subjectivity itself is this plus.”Slavoj Žižek · subjectivity as the irreducible plus beyond identity categories
“Sexuality is for me a very formal category. Animal sexuality itself should be sexualized through these complications.”Slavoj Žižek · sexuality constituted through formal complication
“Him being such a powerful man was absolutely constitutive of her desire for him. And it's hypocritical to say 'No, you should go to some politically correct...'”Slavoj Žižek · power as constitutive of desire, not merely corrupting it
“In matters of sexuality, they demand from the state a new enforced distribution of women... this worst dream, which never happened in Soviet Union, is now emerging in the middle of American alt-right.”Slavoj Žižek · incel demand as involuntary Marxism
“I also think that in some sense, even if it's not in this radical sense, of course I'm not a Trumpist... concede defeat in matters of sexuality. Sexuality is for me in some sense immanently unjust.”Slavoj Žižek · sexuality as inherently unjust domain
Transcript 84 turns
unknown
Fundamentally, my talk will represent a sort of reaction to the Weinstein affair. I think it is much more important than, well, of course the scandal itself is important, but it has a further meaning. It changes the way we represent the sexual act in society. Historically speaking, there are two important ways of representing the sexual act. One, the model of fusion of the bodies. Two bodies at the beginning become one. The second model is a model of use. One body uses the other body in order to reach pleasure or enjoyment or procreation or simply as a tool. The first model has been explained with a striking brutality by the Latin poet Lucretius, first century before Christ. His argument goes as follows: the fusion of bodies would be possible if the sexual act was similar to drinking or eating. But that's not the case. That's the reason why the sexual act is fundamentally a suffering. Each partner is seeking enjoyment and experiences a complete lack of enjoyment, hardly compensated by a brief instant of pleasure. Very brief instant of pleasure, not of enjoyment. A sort of disposition of tension, let's say. Very curiously, this model was taken again by Kant, who says openly that the sexual act has cannibalism as its ideal. It's fundamentally savage, inhuman. Happily, civilization may put some limits to it, essentially marriage in Kant's conception. In both Lucretius and Kant, the relationship is strictly symmetrical. The man is not more or less cannibal than the woman, and the reverse. The woman is as cannibal as the man. Well, you know, things like wounds, the hickies and things like that are in Lucretius' and Kant's mind an allusion to devoration. The second model is presently the most current. Kant develops it also, so two models are present in Kant. In that model, it's also symmetrical. Man uses the body of the woman; the woman uses the body of the man. In both cases, the subject denies his own humanity for two reasons. First reason: each of them denies their own humanity because they accept to make objects of themselves, comparable to, I don't know, a pillow or a knife or something like that. Second reason: each of them denies its own humanity by using the other as a pillow or a knife or anything like that. The only possibility in Kant's view for each of them to recuperate their humanity is to conclude a contract. Each partner is willingly accepting to become a thing because exactly at the same instant the other guarantees that they will not consider the first partner as a thing. That's what in Kant's view is allowed by marriage, and only by marriage. Marriage is a contract where each of them recuperates its own humanity. In other words, it's not said as explicitly by Kant, but without marriage, the sexual act is a crime against humanity. In fact, it's the first and foremost crime against humanity. Here again, both in the problem and in the solution, symmetry, reciprocity, and simultaneity are of the essence. But since Kant, something happened. In fact, Marx. Because Marx for the first time had a reflection about usage. And his conclusion was that usage can never be symmetrical. When one uses a tool—a glass, a bottle, a knife—he
Fundamentally, my talk will represent a sort of reaction to the Weinstein affair. I think it is much more important than, well, of course the scandal itself is important, but it has a further meaning. It changes the way we represent the sexual act in society. Historically speaking, there are two important ways of representing the sexual act. One, the model of fusion of the bodies. Two bodies at the beginning become one. The second model is a model of use. One body uses the other body in order to reach pleasure or enjoyment or procreation or simply as a tool. The first model has been explained with a striking brutality by the Latin poet Lucretius, first century before Christ. His argument goes as follows: the fusion of bodies would be possible if the sexual act was similar to drinking or eating. But that's not the case. That's the reason why the sexual act is fundamentally a suffering. Each partner is seeking enjoyment and experiences a complete lack of enjoyment, hardly compensated by a brief instant of pleasure. Very brief instant of pleasure, not of enjoyment. A sort of disposition of tension, let's say. Very curiously, this model was taken again by Kant, who says openly that the sexual act has cannibalism as its ideal. It's fundamentally savage, inhuman. Happily, civilization may put some limits to it, essentially marriage in Kant's conception. In both Lucretius and Kant, the relationship is strictly symmetrical. The man is not more or less cannibal than the woman, and the reverse. The woman is as cannibal as the man. Well, you know, things like wounds, the hickies and things like that are in Lucretius' and Kant's mind an allusion to devoration. The second model is presently the most current. Kant develops it also, so two models are present in Kant. In that model, it's also symmetrical. Man uses the body of the woman; the woman uses the body of the man. In both cases, the subject denies his own humanity for two reasons. First reason: each of them denies their own humanity because they accept to make objects of themselves, comparable to, I don't know, a pillow or a knife or something like that. Second reason: each of them denies its own humanity by using the other as a pillow or a knife or anything like that. The only possibility in Kant's view for each of them to recuperate their humanity is to conclude a contract. Each partner is willingly accepting to become a thing because exactly at the same instant the other guarantees that they will not consider the first partner as a thing. That's what in Kant's view is allowed by marriage, and only by marriage. Marriage is a contract where each of them recuperates its own humanity. In other words, it's not said as explicitly by Kant, but without marriage, the sexual act is a crime against humanity. In fact, it's the first and foremost crime against humanity. Here again, both in the problem and in the solution, symmetry, reciprocity, and simultaneity are of the essence. But since Kant, something happened. In fact, Marx. Because Marx for the first time had a reflection about usage. And his conclusion was that usage can never be symmetrical. When one uses a tool—a glass, a bottle, a knife—he
unknown
makes himself the master of this tool. In the same way, the employer, by using the Arbeitskraft, force of work of the worker, becomes the master of this worker. Of course, apparently, there is a contract. Apparently, the worker is free to propose, to sell in fact, his own time of work in exchange of a certain amount of money. And in classical economy, this contract was supposed to be not only formally legal, but materially equal, symmetrical, simultaneous, and reciprocal. But Marx shows that the free consent on the part of the worker is only apparent. Apparently free. When he is selling his time of work, the worker doesn't know that he is selling something else, namely his force of work, which is able to create value. And this created value, this Mehrwert, plus-value in French—what is it in English? Surplus value. This surplus value is never symmetrically paid by any amount of money. So the time is paid by an amount of money, but not the surplus value that is created during that time of work. What appears to me in the Weinstein affair is that spontaneously, the sexual act is now thought of as a radical unequality, either social unequality or purely occasional unequality—physical force, prestige, and so on. If you think in those terms, the question of consent on the part of the weakest partner has no importance anymore. Exactly as in Marx's argument, the weakest of the two may believe to have been free in accepting the exchange, but in fact, that weakness corrupts their very acceptance. Even if the weakest partner has said yes, I consent, I'm willing, and even though that partner is very sincere, the fact that this weakest partner is objectively the weakest doesn't change with the consent. In the same way in Marx, the employee in sentimental novels, the employee may be sincerely devoted to the master. He may love his master. He may think of his master as a weak being, delicate, fragile. But on the other hand, this sincerity doesn't change the fact that the employee is socially the weakest one in the relationship. So the relationship between master and employee is according to Marx intrinsically a violence, whatever the appearance of sweetness may prevail. It seems to me that a new step, moreover, has been made with the Weinstein affair. It's not only the fact that the consent becomes irrelevant—it's an essential part of the MeToo movement, the fact that consent is irrelevant because under the appearance of consent there may be a violence, even though the subject does not recognize that violence as such. That's a very important part. But by doing so, the MeToo movement, not explicitly but let's say potentially, is taking a new approach. The distinction between weak and strong is not, as it was, objectively defined in terms of objective material force, physical force, objective material wealth, objective material influence, social prestige, and so on and so on. In fact, the distinction between weak and strong among partners is becoming structural. Women are structurally weak as opposed to men, whether they are objectively weak or not. In the same way that in Marx's approach, the proletariat was structurally weak although it was
makes himself the master of this tool. In the same way, the employer, by using the Arbeitskraft, force of work of the worker, becomes the master of this worker. Of course, apparently, there is a contract. Apparently, the worker is free to propose, to sell in fact, his own time of work in exchange of a certain amount of money. And in classical economy, this contract was supposed to be not only formally legal, but materially equal, symmetrical, simultaneous, and reciprocal. But Marx shows that the free consent on the part of the worker is only apparent. Apparently free. When he is selling his time of work, the worker doesn't know that he is selling something else, namely his force of work, which is able to create value. And this created value, this Mehrwert, plus-value in French—what is it in English? Surplus value. This surplus value is never symmetrically paid by any amount of money. So the time is paid by an amount of money, but not the surplus value that is created during that time of work. What appears to me in the Weinstein affair is that spontaneously, the sexual act is now thought of as a radical unequality, either social unequality or purely occasional unequality—physical force, prestige, and so on. If you think in those terms, the question of consent on the part of the weakest partner has no importance anymore. Exactly as in Marx's argument, the weakest of the two may believe to have been free in accepting the exchange, but in fact, that weakness corrupts their very acceptance. Even if the weakest partner has said yes, I consent, I'm willing, and even though that partner is very sincere, the fact that this weakest partner is objectively the weakest doesn't change with the consent. In the same way in Marx, the employee in sentimental novels, the employee may be sincerely devoted to the master. He may love his master. He may think of his master as a weak being, delicate, fragile. But on the other hand, this sincerity doesn't change the fact that the employee is socially the weakest one in the relationship. So the relationship between master and employee is according to Marx intrinsically a violence, whatever the appearance of sweetness may prevail. It seems to me that a new step, moreover, has been made with the Weinstein affair. It's not only the fact that the consent becomes irrelevant—it's an essential part of the MeToo movement, the fact that consent is irrelevant because under the appearance of consent there may be a violence, even though the subject does not recognize that violence as such. That's a very important part. But by doing so, the MeToo movement, not explicitly but let's say potentially, is taking a new approach. The distinction between weak and strong is not, as it was, objectively defined in terms of objective material force, physical force, objective material wealth, objective material influence, social prestige, and so on and so on. In fact, the distinction between weak and strong among partners is becoming structural. Women are structurally weak as opposed to men, whether they are objectively weak or not. In the same way that in Marx's approach, the proletariat was structurally weak although it was
unknown
materially strong. The connection between structural weakness with objective material force is an essential dimension of the Marxist approach. And of course, the business, let's say, of the revolutionaries is to make this distinction work in such a way that the structural weakness may be abolished and become a structural force. The aim is to put into coincidence structural force and material force, structural weakness and material weakness, or with transformation of structural weakness into structural force by the revolutionary work. Consequently, going back to the sexual act, every sexual act where a woman is implied with a man, whether or not she had consented to it, whether or not she has found pleasure in it, whether or not she took the initiative, whether or not she has no complaint, let's say, in fact, it's the use by a structurally strong partner of a structurally weak partner. So whatever happened in the anecdote, this act, this sexual act, is structurally a rape. Till now, there was a difference of nature between a consented sexual act and rape. Now it seems that a new perspective appears where the difference is only a difference of degree, and a difference of degree that is becoming more and more tenuous. In the same way that the difference of degree between the appropriation of the working force and the theft was for a long time thought of as a difference of nature, and since Marx, it is considered as a difference of degree. A difference of degree that tends to be imperceptible. But if that is the approach, that means that humankind is radically separated, structurally separated between the structurally strong and the structurally weak. It's not true anymore that you can say human beings are born and remain free and equal in rights, because they're born—maybe not born, it's a question of gender, so I won't—but they, at least what is clear, they do not remain, whatever happens, they do not remain equal in rights because of this structural difference between weak and strong, which has nothing to do with objective and material weakness and strength. Mankind is divided in two. When the sexual act is concerned, the structurally strong must be immediately suspected to have abused of their strength. The principle according to which the doubt is beneficial to the accused party doesn't hold anymore. The notion of fair trial is irrelevant, as is irrelevant the possibility for a worker to engage a procedure against his boss as long as the contract is legally correct. I mean, no judge would accept the argument that no legal contract is fundamentally unequal. The struggle against capitalism cannot be, I mean at the end, cannot be a judiciary matter. In the same way, of course, there will be a trial in Weinstein's case. But those who complain that the matter has already been settled by the media, the opinion, they are right. But they do not take into account that they are right because of a shift in the defining of weakness and strength, the defining of sexual partnership as such. If I may express myself in purely Marxist terms, I would say that as in economy, sexual life is now governed by a class struggle, even though the sexual
materially strong. The connection between structural weakness with objective material force is an essential dimension of the Marxist approach. And of course, the business, let's say, of the revolutionaries is to make this distinction work in such a way that the structural weakness may be abolished and become a structural force. The aim is to put into coincidence structural force and material force, structural weakness and material weakness, or with transformation of structural weakness into structural force by the revolutionary work. Consequently, going back to the sexual act, every sexual act where a woman is implied with a man, whether or not she had consented to it, whether or not she has found pleasure in it, whether or not she took the initiative, whether or not she has no complaint, let's say, in fact, it's the use by a structurally strong partner of a structurally weak partner. So whatever happened in the anecdote, this act, this sexual act, is structurally a rape. Till now, there was a difference of nature between a consented sexual act and rape. Now it seems that a new perspective appears where the difference is only a difference of degree, and a difference of degree that is becoming more and more tenuous. In the same way that the difference of degree between the appropriation of the working force and the theft was for a long time thought of as a difference of nature, and since Marx, it is considered as a difference of degree. A difference of degree that tends to be imperceptible. But if that is the approach, that means that humankind is radically separated, structurally separated between the structurally strong and the structurally weak. It's not true anymore that you can say human beings are born and remain free and equal in rights, because they're born—maybe not born, it's a question of gender, so I won't—but they, at least what is clear, they do not remain, whatever happens, they do not remain equal in rights because of this structural difference between weak and strong, which has nothing to do with objective and material weakness and strength. Mankind is divided in two. When the sexual act is concerned, the structurally strong must be immediately suspected to have abused of their strength. The principle according to which the doubt is beneficial to the accused party doesn't hold anymore. The notion of fair trial is irrelevant, as is irrelevant the possibility for a worker to engage a procedure against his boss as long as the contract is legally correct. I mean, no judge would accept the argument that no legal contract is fundamentally unequal. The struggle against capitalism cannot be, I mean at the end, cannot be a judiciary matter. In the same way, of course, there will be a trial in Weinstein's case. But those who complain that the matter has already been settled by the media, the opinion, they are right. But they do not take into account that they are right because of a shift in the defining of weakness and strength, the defining of sexual partnership as such. If I may express myself in purely Marxist terms, I would say that as in economy, sexual life is now governed by a class struggle, even though the sexual
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classes are not defined in economy terms, but in terms of structural force and structural weakness. The MeToo movement may be summarized as follows: structural weakness must become an objective force. Objective force does not today affect structural weakness. Even though women as a sexual class win the case against Weinstein, they are still remaining structurally weak. I won't go further, but just a passing remark: my analysis relies on a fundamental principle of structuralism, linguistic structuralism, the disjunction of objective qualities and structural features. Of course, in the present state of society, the structurally strong are men versus women. But of course, that's not the case if you take the sexual act between an adult, either woman or man, and a child or a minor. In that case, even in the law, the minor is considered as structurally weak, even though he may be—what may happen when a minor is or 17—stronger materially than the sexual partner, the older partner. The general question should be raised now. If you believe in human rights, does that mean that human rights only apply to one partner, to one sexual partner at the same time? I mean, it's not possible to apply human rights to both partners. They apply only to the weakest, structurally weakest partner. In that case, that means that the sexual act modifies radically the interpretation of human rights. Freud would have said that the reason for that is that sexuality in itself is exterior to civilization. He expressed himself in this way in So sexuality in itself has no sense of rights, because rights are a part of civilization and civilization is, in fact, a way of defining rights. As a conclusion, I would say that the only political leader who has captured the significance of the Weinstein case is, in my mind, Donald Trump. He has quite understood the importance of the question of the division and difference between structural force and weakness and objective weakness and strength. He spends his time in denying repeatedly that there are structurally weak classes, weak persons, weak individuals. He denies that so repeatedly that I conclude that he has understood what is at stake. The only definition admissible for force and weakness in Trump's mind is purely objective. The migrants, he says, are considered by liberals to be structurally weak. And as structurally weak, they are entitled, they're the only ones to be entitled—as opposed to the US government, I mean—they are the only one to be entitled to have rights, human rights. The answer, Trump's answer, is that no, migrants—since structural weakness doesn't exist—let us consider objective material force and weakness. And the answer is that migrants are potentially destined to be objectively stronger. Hence the necessity to act very quickly against them, before this possibility of objective strength crystallizes. And the best tactics is not only to act quickly, but to aim among migrants at those who are at the same time objectively and structurally the weakest among the structurally weak—I mean, those who are considered as structurally weak by the liberals. And who are those who are at the same time objectively and structurally the weakest among the structurally weak? The children. Hence the necessity, the logical and practical necessity for Trump, to aim at the children. In more general terms, I would say that it's not only a
classes are not defined in economy terms, but in terms of structural force and structural weakness. The MeToo movement may be summarized as follows: structural weakness must become an objective force. Objective force does not today affect structural weakness. Even though women as a sexual class win the case against Weinstein, they are still remaining structurally weak. I won't go further, but just a passing remark: my analysis relies on a fundamental principle of structuralism, linguistic structuralism, the disjunction of objective qualities and structural features. Of course, in the present state of society, the structurally strong are men versus women. But of course, that's not the case if you take the sexual act between an adult, either woman or man, and a child or a minor. In that case, even in the law, the minor is considered as structurally weak, even though he may be—what may happen when a minor is or 17—stronger materially than the sexual partner, the older partner. The general question should be raised now. If you believe in human rights, does that mean that human rights only apply to one partner, to one sexual partner at the same time? I mean, it's not possible to apply human rights to both partners. They apply only to the weakest, structurally weakest partner. In that case, that means that the sexual act modifies radically the interpretation of human rights. Freud would have said that the reason for that is that sexuality in itself is exterior to civilization. He expressed himself in this way in So sexuality in itself has no sense of rights, because rights are a part of civilization and civilization is, in fact, a way of defining rights. As a conclusion, I would say that the only political leader who has captured the significance of the Weinstein case is, in my mind, Donald Trump. He has quite understood the importance of the question of the division and difference between structural force and weakness and objective weakness and strength. He spends his time in denying repeatedly that there are structurally weak classes, weak persons, weak individuals. He denies that so repeatedly that I conclude that he has understood what is at stake. The only definition admissible for force and weakness in Trump's mind is purely objective. The migrants, he says, are considered by liberals to be structurally weak. And as structurally weak, they are entitled, they're the only ones to be entitled—as opposed to the US government, I mean—they are the only one to be entitled to have rights, human rights. The answer, Trump's answer, is that no, migrants—since structural weakness doesn't exist—let us consider objective material force and weakness. And the answer is that migrants are potentially destined to be objectively stronger. Hence the necessity to act very quickly against them, before this possibility of objective strength crystallizes. And the best tactics is not only to act quickly, but to aim among migrants at those who are at the same time objectively and structurally the weakest among the structurally weak—I mean, those who are considered as structurally weak by the liberals. And who are those who are at the same time objectively and structurally the weakest among the structurally weak? The children. Hence the necessity, the logical and practical necessity for Trump, to aim at the children. In more general terms, I would say that it's not only a
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question of structural versus objective strength and weakness. In more general terms, I think that he conceives politics in a strict analogy with the two representations of the sexual act. I remind you of these two conceptions. Either two become one by the abolition of one of the two—in political term, that is called war—or two remains two, one using the other. In Trump's political language, that is called peace. If you look closely at the dealings with North Korea, you see that the two patterns were used successively. The first pattern was a pattern of one, namely United States and North Korea, the original two will become one. That is, United States will destroy North Korea. And after a certain time, it appeared that the two may remain two, at the condition that the US government is able to use North Korea for a certain aim. If it appears that usage is impossible, then you will go back to the first model. To be, to summarize my position, I would say that Trump aims to be the whole world's Weinstein. And of course, he is confident that as opposed to women, no country outside United States will admit to be structurally weak. So he has a free field for his conception of politics. That's my conclusion. Thank you. We've all read so much about the MeToo movement, but this was like—I think that's the only thing anyone should read about it. And now I'm thinking, I'm thinking, you know, someone like me that comes from a little country like Cyprus that's been bossed around for decades, I think Cyprus should start saying "Me too, Me too" and start a country-wide movement. First what we'll do is Slavoj will respond and then we'll open it up to the audience. No, I will directly—I have my own small—I have lots of questions, I'm not such a good Stalinist, although I would like to be, to be able to prepare my response even before knowing what you will say. This was possible only at the high point of socialist democracy in Moscow. No, first I must say how proud I am, absolutely seriously, to be here. Can I interrupt you? Sorry, you've been interrupting me, so I can do that. Sorry, there are so many people sitting on the steps and there's empty seats at the front. So do come along. There's empty seats, yeah. You don't have to sit on the steps for the whole of the event. Especially here in the first row and so on. No one wants to be near us. Yeah, but I got it, yes. Okay, I still, so that we don't lose time, you can still move, I'm not bothered by that. First I just wanted to say how proud I am to be here, because—are okay—those of you who know United States, can you imagine such an intervention at an American campus and then him surviving it? I claim immediately there would have been—because I for a much more modest indications only already experienced that—they call security guards or as a threat to public. And places where something like
question of structural versus objective strength and weakness. In more general terms, I think that he conceives politics in a strict analogy with the two representations of the sexual act. I remind you of these two conceptions. Either two become one by the abolition of one of the two—in political term, that is called war—or two remains two, one using the other. In Trump's political language, that is called peace. If you look closely at the dealings with North Korea, you see that the two patterns were used successively. The first pattern was a pattern of one, namely United States and North Korea, the original two will become one. That is, United States will destroy North Korea. And after a certain time, it appeared that the two may remain two, at the condition that the US government is able to use North Korea for a certain aim. If it appears that usage is impossible, then you will go back to the first model. To be, to summarize my position, I would say that Trump aims to be the whole world's Weinstein. And of course, he is confident that as opposed to women, no country outside United States will admit to be structurally weak. So he has a free field for his conception of politics. That's my conclusion. Thank you. We've all read so much about the MeToo movement, but this was like—I think that's the only thing anyone should read about it. And now I'm thinking, I'm thinking, you know, someone like me that comes from a little country like Cyprus that's been bossed around for decades, I think Cyprus should start saying "Me too, Me too" and start a country-wide movement. First what we'll do is Slavoj will respond and then we'll open it up to the audience. No, I will directly—I have my own small—I have lots of questions, I'm not such a good Stalinist, although I would like to be, to be able to prepare my response even before knowing what you will say. This was possible only at the high point of socialist democracy in Moscow. No, first I must say how proud I am, absolutely seriously, to be here. Can I interrupt you? Sorry, you've been interrupting me, so I can do that. Sorry, there are so many people sitting on the steps and there's empty seats at the front. So do come along. There's empty seats, yeah. You don't have to sit on the steps for the whole of the event. Especially here in the first row and so on. No one wants to be near us. Yeah, but I got it, yes. Okay, I still, so that we don't lose time, you can still move, I'm not bothered by that. First I just wanted to say how proud I am to be here, because—are okay—those of you who know United States, can you imagine such an intervention at an American campus and then him surviving it? I claim immediately there would have been—because I for a much more modest indications only already experienced that—they call security guards or as a threat to public. And places where something like
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this is possible to talk like this are important. Second point, before I go to my piece, I would just like to react positively of course to a couple of points. You know where only I would qualify a little bit your status. What I find so provocative in Kant is that he doesn't speak about mutual use of persons, but of organs, parts of the person. He says marriage is a contract of two persons, adult and so on, for the mutual use of their sexual organs. And he's very strict here in a way which you cannot even imagine. Did he mean it in a slightly ironic way or not? In his *Metaphysik der Sitten*, *Rechtslehre*, the pure teaching on rights, he evokes the example a husband escapes from home. And he asks, does the wife have the right to call police to bring him back? He says yes, but not because of any moral consideration, marriage spiritual, no, because he run away with part of her property. So he goes and I think that although this was a shock already to Hegel and so on, but you know that there is a whole school of Kantian feminists today who like this brutal egalitarian, non-sentimental approach. And as you already pointed out, they are equal. The second thing, what nonetheless surprises me is how—although I totally subscribe to your analysis—but how, at least with the majority of new feminist wave, they reject at least explicitly this Marxist obvious lesson. Contract, free contract, can also be a form of coercion. Not only this, but with many of them, in at least I know, I've seen them in Sweden, in United States and so on, they think that the solution is contract. It's not a marriage contract, but it is what Kant, he uses an obscene term like *fornicationis*, the fornication contract. Like basically it's one-night stand contract. Like I need someone, to be sure that we are equal, we both sign a contract. And it's a complex contract, it's not just "we both want to do it". You have to declare there that you don't have AIDS, you have to declare there your religion not to hit and like—and then you have to in some contracts, you even have—I've seen them, it's wonderful, it's bureaucracy—you have to specify the limits, like anal penetration: no, or whatever and so on. And it shocks me how many of them, as if although they pretend to be leftists or whatever, as if they haven't heard of this. And another ridiculous detail that I've noticed. What you mentioned, how coercion, it's not enough consent. It can still be a coercion. But then I did ask some of them, radical MeToo, I've met them in New York. Okay, but unfortunately in our societies, the fact is that, I'm sorry to be vulgar, millions of people of both sexes are searching partners still and want to do it. So if even a yes is not enough, it's not enough that no means no, it can be still a coerced yes, how then do you do it? And it's so proving your point, it's so ridiculous because the only answer I got from them is "It must be a really enthusiastic yes". And I cannot imagine a more vulgar humiliating thing for the woman. Let me give you an example which I like to use
this is possible to talk like this are important. Second point, before I go to my piece, I would just like to react positively of course to a couple of points. You know where only I would qualify a little bit your status. What I find so provocative in Kant is that he doesn't speak about mutual use of persons, but of organs, parts of the person. He says marriage is a contract of two persons, adult and so on, for the mutual use of their sexual organs. And he's very strict here in a way which you cannot even imagine. Did he mean it in a slightly ironic way or not? In his *Metaphysik der Sitten*, *Rechtslehre*, the pure teaching on rights, he evokes the example a husband escapes from home. And he asks, does the wife have the right to call police to bring him back? He says yes, but not because of any moral consideration, marriage spiritual, no, because he run away with part of her property. So he goes and I think that although this was a shock already to Hegel and so on, but you know that there is a whole school of Kantian feminists today who like this brutal egalitarian, non-sentimental approach. And as you already pointed out, they are equal. The second thing, what nonetheless surprises me is how—although I totally subscribe to your analysis—but how, at least with the majority of new feminist wave, they reject at least explicitly this Marxist obvious lesson. Contract, free contract, can also be a form of coercion. Not only this, but with many of them, in at least I know, I've seen them in Sweden, in United States and so on, they think that the solution is contract. It's not a marriage contract, but it is what Kant, he uses an obscene term like *fornicationis*, the fornication contract. Like basically it's one-night stand contract. Like I need someone, to be sure that we are equal, we both sign a contract. And it's a complex contract, it's not just "we both want to do it". You have to declare there that you don't have AIDS, you have to declare there your religion not to hit and like—and then you have to in some contracts, you even have—I've seen them, it's wonderful, it's bureaucracy—you have to specify the limits, like anal penetration: no, or whatever and so on. And it shocks me how many of them, as if although they pretend to be leftists or whatever, as if they haven't heard of this. And another ridiculous detail that I've noticed. What you mentioned, how coercion, it's not enough consent. It can still be a coercion. But then I did ask some of them, radical MeToo, I've met them in New York. Okay, but unfortunately in our societies, the fact is that, I'm sorry to be vulgar, millions of people of both sexes are searching partners still and want to do it. So if even a yes is not enough, it's not enough that no means no, it can be still a coerced yes, how then do you do it? And it's so proving your point, it's so ridiculous because the only answer I got from them is "It must be a really enthusiastic yes". And I cannot imagine a more vulgar humiliating thing for the woman. Let me give you an example which I like to use
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because it's distasteful, which is why I like to use it. Imagine you are a woman, you see a nice man, you have all the right my god to trying to seduce him. But let's imagine the man is very shy, afraid of and doesn't answer. So what should you do? Jump in front of him, "Yes, please f- me! Yes, please!" or whatever? I mean the problem cannot be solved at this level. Also, what I like very much in what you said is this historical dimension that something new emerged. I always explode when people put things in a line of continuity and say you see the same struggle, '68 goes on. I think I already mentioned, if not in my class then in my past visits here, you must remember it from our youth, didn't in '72, wasn't there in France a big public manifesto for abolishing the prohibition of incest? And it was signed by all big names. Name them: Sartre, Guattari, Foucault, all of them, which claims that sexual liberation will only be achieved when even this last barrier, adult-children—and they were very specific—also parents-their children, when everybody can do it with everybody. Can you even imagine something like this today? So it's not one simple continuity of sexual liberation, there are tremendous changes. Okay, now allow me please—it will not be more than a quarter of an hour—my line of thought. I want to do something which I think comes close to what Jean-Claude was doing. I want to take an apparently extreme
because it's distasteful, which is why I like to use it. Imagine you are a woman, you see a nice man, you have all the right my god to trying to seduce him. But let's imagine the man is very shy, afraid of and doesn't answer. So what should you do? Jump in front of him, "Yes, please f- me! Yes, please!" or whatever? I mean the problem cannot be solved at this level. Also, what I like very much in what you said is this historical dimension that something new emerged. I always explode when people put things in a line of continuity and say you see the same struggle, '68 goes on. I think I already mentioned, if not in my class then in my past visits here, you must remember it from our youth, didn't in '72, wasn't there in France a big public manifesto for abolishing the prohibition of incest? And it was signed by all big names. Name them: Sartre, Guattari, Foucault, all of them, which claims that sexual liberation will only be achieved when even this last barrier, adult-children—and they were very specific—also parents-their children, when everybody can do it with everybody. Can you even imagine something like this today? So it's not one simple continuity of sexual liberation, there are tremendous changes. Okay, now allow me please—it will not be more than a quarter of an hour—my line of thought. I want to do something which I think comes close to what Jean-Claude was doing. I want to take an apparently extreme
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example, rather
example, rather
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two of them, but to prove a point that they are not just stretching imagination too far, but they are a kind of a—in a structural matrix—the extreme point to understand what is happening, you have to evoke them, although they are an extreme case. Let me begin with a case which doesn't directly concern sexuality but which makes me really depressed. Everyone who is troubled by the new anti-immigrant populism should make the effort to watch—did you see it? You can download it on Pirate Bay—*Europa: The Last Battle*. It's a 10-hour documentary on the fate of 20th century, and it's no longer that still anti-Nazi bullshit and so on, it's simply open antisemitic attack on the entire Left. Jews were at it from the very beginning. 20th century was dominated by Jewish bankers, Judaism stood behind communism, you know all those myths. The key figure is Trotsky, who when he was in New York in was there financed, given money by Jewish bankers to do the revolution. And then Jews directly financed the October Revolution to deal a mortal, to deal a blow to Russia, a staunch defendant of Christianity. Hitler was a peaceful patriot who after being democratically elected changed Germany from devastated land to a welfare country with the highest living standard in the world, so Jews declared war on him and so on and so on. And then you have—it's wonderful—you have critical theory there, Adorno, Horkheimer, with the idea that, you
two of them, but to prove a point that they are not just stretching imagination too far, but they are a kind of a—in a structural matrix—the extreme point to understand what is happening, you have to evoke them, although they are an extreme case. Let me begin with a case which doesn't directly concern sexuality but which makes me really depressed. Everyone who is troubled by the new anti-immigrant populism should make the effort to watch—did you see it? You can download it on Pirate Bay—*Europa: The Last Battle*. It's a 10-hour documentary on the fate of 20th century, and it's no longer that still anti-Nazi bullshit and so on, it's simply open antisemitic attack on the entire Left. Jews were at it from the very beginning. 20th century was dominated by Jewish bankers, Judaism stood behind communism, you know all those myths. The key figure is Trotsky, who when he was in New York in was there financed, given money by Jewish bankers to do the revolution. And then Jews directly financed the October Revolution to deal a mortal, to deal a blow to Russia, a staunch defendant of Christianity. Hitler was a peaceful patriot who after being democratically elected changed Germany from devastated land to a welfare country with the highest living standard in the world, so Jews declared war on him and so on and so on. And then you have—it's wonderful—you have critical theory there, Adorno, Horkheimer, with the idea that, you
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know
know
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this right-wing myth, that when communists saw in that there will not
this right-wing myth, that when communists saw in that there will not
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be a Pan-European revolution, they said let's step back and first ruin Europe spiritually. Christianity, family values and so on. That's why—I like this horror because I try to imagine it concretely—that communist center in Moscow directly created Frankfurt School. I mean, can you imagine Stalin deciding, you know, like "Oh my god, Adorno, he sounds interesting, let's give him some money to develop" and so on? And then we come to this notion of "cultural Marxism" as the ultimate horror which is against the communist plot. And now things get most interesting when we reach now the wave of immigration. There you get something which is quite incredible, what I cannot but call antisemitic—not even antisemitic Zionism, it's direct antisemitism. There idea is this one: "Yes, immigrants are coming. But they are only the visible part. We fear them, we see them, but behind them are of course the Jews." And one of the names is here Soros and so on. So in a typical way, they claim that the entire Middle East conflict between state of Israel and Palestinians is a fake to dupe us. Christian Western people, they are really working together to destroy Europe. And it's—I mean it's absolutely full rehabilitation of Hitler and it ends up quite shamelessly with how only Hitler, a new Hitler, can save us. The problem is I think this is not just an exaggeration. Of course if you say to today's populists "Oh you're exaggerating, we are not like that"—it's I think just their line of thought brought to the end. For example in my country, Slovenia, we have a debate where right-wing nationalists want to rehabilitate those Slovene guards who with the German help fought partisans resistance in World War II. And they use this tricky logic, the same is used I think in some Baltic countries, where they say "Okay, it was a tough choice. Germans were bad, but communist partisans were a greater threat, so they did the heroic tragic choice, putting their nation first, they are the true heroes." No, you see, it's no longer that in the first stage right-wingers just said "We suffered all, partisans are not clean, we should measure them with the same stick." No, no, no, now they are already moving forward: they were the true heroes. And my idea is, why don't you then go to the end and say the same about Hitler? He may do something problematically, but he wants to save Europe against Bolshevism, he fought the right battle, he is the true hero. I quite seriously I think that this is what we are gradually approaching. So now to go to my example. With human rights, obviously the problem is where do you set the limit. I am for expanding them and so on and so on, but let me give you an example. I learned about it, I have documents, I'm a fanatic like KGB, you always put documents for further use. You know that there is already a movement which claims that our university system, because in it—if it is
be a Pan-European revolution, they said let's step back and first ruin Europe spiritually. Christianity, family values and so on. That's why—I like this horror because I try to imagine it concretely—that communist center in Moscow directly created Frankfurt School. I mean, can you imagine Stalin deciding, you know, like "Oh my god, Adorno, he sounds interesting, let's give him some money to develop" and so on? And then we come to this notion of "cultural Marxism" as the ultimate horror which is against the communist plot. And now things get most interesting when we reach now the wave of immigration. There you get something which is quite incredible, what I cannot but call antisemitic—not even antisemitic Zionism, it's direct antisemitism. There idea is this one: "Yes, immigrants are coming. But they are only the visible part. We fear them, we see them, but behind them are of course the Jews." And one of the names is here Soros and so on. So in a typical way, they claim that the entire Middle East conflict between state of Israel and Palestinians is a fake to dupe us. Christian Western people, they are really working together to destroy Europe. And it's—I mean it's absolutely full rehabilitation of Hitler and it ends up quite shamelessly with how only Hitler, a new Hitler, can save us. The problem is I think this is not just an exaggeration. Of course if you say to today's populists "Oh you're exaggerating, we are not like that"—it's I think just their line of thought brought to the end. For example in my country, Slovenia, we have a debate where right-wing nationalists want to rehabilitate those Slovene guards who with the German help fought partisans resistance in World War II. And they use this tricky logic, the same is used I think in some Baltic countries, where they say "Okay, it was a tough choice. Germans were bad, but communist partisans were a greater threat, so they did the heroic tragic choice, putting their nation first, they are the true heroes." No, you see, it's no longer that in the first stage right-wingers just said "We suffered all, partisans are not clean, we should measure them with the same stick." No, no, no, now they are already moving forward: they were the true heroes. And my idea is, why don't you then go to the end and say the same about Hitler? He may do something problematically, but he wants to save Europe against Bolshevism, he fought the right battle, he is the true hero. I quite seriously I think that this is what we are gradually approaching. So now to go to my example. With human rights, obviously the problem is where do you set the limit. I am for expanding them and so on and so on, but let me give you an example. I learned about it, I have documents, I'm a fanatic like KGB, you always put documents for further use. You know that there is already a movement which claims that our university system, because in it—if it is
Slavoj Žižek
just—intelligent people,
just—intelligent people,
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people who are good at their job have greater success. So they claim this is the violation of human rights of stupid people. So you have already in some campuses a system where if you prove that you are—with IQ test, you go to a psychiatrist—that you are stupid, they claim this is not—this doesn't depend on you, this is mostly so they think—mostly genetics, biology and partially bad education, you are not responsible for it. Why should you be given, not be given the same chance? So you already have special measures. If you are in this category of—of course they don't use this term stupid, probably something like
people who are good at their job have greater success. So they claim this is the violation of human rights of stupid people. So you have already in some campuses a system where if you prove that you are—with IQ test, you go to a psychiatrist—that you are stupid, they claim this is not—this doesn't depend on you, this is mostly so they think—mostly genetics, biology and partially bad education, you are not responsible for it. Why should you be given, not be given the same chance? So you already have special measures. If you are in this category of—of course they don't use this term stupid, probably something like
Slavoj Žižek
"intelligence challenged" whatever—that then it's very difficult for the professor to—to say that you didn't pass the exam. A professor must go through special effort for you, it's practically made impossible to do. So you can go in all this direction. In some other countries already there was a serious movement—somewhere in the south even, I would expect this more from California or the
"intelligence challenged" whatever—that then it's very difficult for the professor to—to say that you didn't pass the exam. A professor must go through special effort for you, it's practically made impossible to do. So you can go in all this direction. In some other countries already there was a serious movement—somewhere in the south even, I would expect this more from California or the
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crazy around Seattle, North-West—that ugly people made a similar move. They claim that in the same way that we give priority, if all other conditions are the same, to Blacks, other races, we should do it also for ugly people because they are—okay, they
crazy around Seattle, North-West—that ugly people made a similar move. They claim that in the same way that we give priority, if all other conditions are the same, to Blacks, other races, we should do it also for ugly people because they are—okay, they
Slavoj Žižek
are—they are—they are structurally weaker and so on and so on. So I, to conclude, I will not talk too long, I want to take an example, my own, which I enjoy immensely. They are idiots of my type. Did you hear in the United States it's now—it's marginal, but don't joke, there are hundreds of thousands of so-called incels, involuntary celibates. These are white—they identify this—ugly people who are fat whatever, who cannot get beautiful women. And they—that's so interesting, that's the paradox I want to draw your attention to—they otherwise don't like the discourse of human rights. They claim this is—they follow Jordan Peterson here, although to be fair, Jordan Peterson doesn't support them. They claim hierarchy is natural. You know Jordan Peterson so wonderfully develops this with strange example where he passes from African tribes to lobsters and so on proving how equality doesn't work and so on. So they are all for hierarchy, they're white supremacist against black, against women and so on. But what's so interesting is precisely what you mentioned with this structural weakness and so on. But they claim that they occupy this position of structural weakness. They are not this strong masculine white heroes. They in a weird game, they proudly display their ugliness, weakness and so on, furious at women, society is not just. So now I'm finally coming to my paradox. The paradox is that although they are absolutely against egalitarian human rights and so on, there must be hierarchy and so on, they make an exception. In matters of sexuality, they demand—of course they will not get it—they demand from the state a new enforced distribution of women, which will give also them women to have. They claim this is a big injustice. And although he would not go so far, because what I find so ironic is that the mega models of alt-right right-wingers here all of a sudden become the most vulgar communists. They never existed but I remember how one of the rumors against Soviet Union was that in communism, what did it mean "abolishing marriage" as a private deal? It means communists are socializing women. And women will be distributed to us. Isn't it ironic that this worst dream, which of course never happened in Soviet Union, I mean as reality of what communists are, is now emerging in the A: in the middle of American alt-right movement racist, and B: justifying itself on human rights. They claim the fact that some men are beautiful and so on gives them advantage. And now comes Jordan Peterson who, not in this rough form state distribution, but in enforced form supports them. Because he said that because of this imbalance, only beautiful men can get more women, this is the reason for A: low—how do you call it—low fertility, not enough children born in our society. You get here immediately those racist undertones, which means that the others will come who are more potent, Asians, Blacks whatever. So we will with enforced monogamy—which means that, now it depends how far you go, Jordan Peterson just said we need an ideological shift, social pressure, more radical ones advocate direct state redistribution of women—they claim we will solve two problems: A: lowering this fertility rate whatever, and B: violence of men. Their idea is that—it's wonderful, I like this perverted logic—when violent white men all of a sudden start to look objectively at themselves and talk like social workers and say, "You know, violence is where society pushed us, this is the result of objective social conditions" and so on and so on. So Jordan Peterson claims we will at the same time, since all, every man will get a woman, we will solve two problems: fertility will explode, more children will be, population will rise and violence will go down. So what I see here, to really conclude so that I don't get too much time, is what interests me is this paradox. It's like in a Möbius strip, you go on one side, bam, all of a sudden you are on the other side. How come that the most brutal white supremacist discourse all of a sudden needs human rights? I—okay, it's clear, it's crazy logic—but I think that we should be very careful here in the sense that—it all depends, you've written wonderful pages on your book on revolution and elsewhere about immigrants—like we, I am not a conservative who claims human rights should have a limit and so on and so on. But in some sense, even if it's not in this radical sense, of course I'm not a Trumpist that you mentioned—I think that there is some—I think that my position, okay, is the exact reversal of these crazy ugly guys, which doesn't mean I'm not ugly but it's nice—my position is precisely: yes, in social life universality of human rights, but aspect of of course cases of rape power and so on, but concede defeat in matters of sexuality. Sexuality is for me in some sense immanently unjust. There is no justice there. Somebody gets the beautiful woman, somebody gets the beautiful man and so on and so on. You cannot talk about—you cannot apply here the logic of obscene MeToo, in the sense of "you got that beautiful lady, MeToo, I want her also" and so on. It doesn't function. The ones who use this language are again extreme—okay, populist, not extreme for the time being—right-wingers. I am always interested why, because it's not just Trump, when—why—because one of the Trump revolutions is that a certain way to talk which was till now reserved to private, you know, like after the talk we go to a cafeteria and then all your racist prejudices, bad taste jokes explode. But Trump is more and more bringing this out into the public. For example, when he named some countries "shit-hole countries" and so on and so on. And so it always interests me, what happens in those structural moments when such vulgarity becomes acceptable. It's also, as you would have put it with Weinstein, it's a structural change. For example, I hope you know this story, Kaczyński, the de facto boss of Poland. Already when his party was first to take power, I don't know how many years ago, something strange happened, unexpected. He, when he was asked what is his program, he said—I hope if there are some people who speak Polish here I pronounce in the right way—"Teraz kurwa my", which is a very vulgar expression from military I think, it means "Now it's our turn to screw the whore". You know, when soldiers wait in line, no? Like the idea was of course forget about program, now it's us. But what was so shocking was that people first thought that this is just a momentary slip and so on. No! He went on repeating it, it became a legend and so on. And you as all of us an old Maoist, do you remember the same moment? I mean we were all, my god, this is you know like all—all—all Germans were in the late thirties Nazis, okay we have a different faith, no? Do you remember that famous Lushan Conference at the end of the Great Leap Forward? Where Mao—there were millions who died not necessarily, involuntary death—and Mao convoked a big conference to do self-criticism. And he said yes, I'm the most responsible but we have to go through self-criticism. And then you should read it, the last paragraph is shocking. Because he make—I with all my bad taste, I was—I was shocked. He said "It's like when you need to shit, shit, it will make you feel better. When you have wind in you, fart, do it, it will make you feel better. So let's do it." Isn't it a little bit weird where you are talking about self-criticism for causing the death of millions of people, the metaphor comes to you of those flatulence activities and so on? Why—why—why does this happen? So to conclude, more and more I think following your line that it's not simply Trump versus MeToo political correctness, that in some sense, my god, they are the mirror of each other, they belong—they belong together, I think, the way they do it. And we have to break the entire thing. So again, to give you a brutal answer, I think with sexuality we have to concede—and if you want to be Marxist, my god, even Marx I think in in—in one of those early writings, *The Holy Family* or whatever, he praises this injustice and madness of love and sexual passion like, it comes it goes, you cannot do it and so on and so on. So of course there are other things to decide here like what—what do we understand with human rights? What do we understand by equality and so on and so on. But I—but I still—and I don't think that the situation is determined. For example, I can well imagine a society where women are—we are not yet there—in the position of power and sex act is not experienced as men exerting power but as men serving women. You have to do it to satisfy her, she demands it and so on and so on. It can work, so I see the situation as completely open. But I agree with you we are here in the time of incredible changes. Sorry, too much. Let's go on. Great, thank you so much. I think maybe he should reply or what and then we play democracy, no? Like then. Yeah, yeah, because you reply to him, so yeah, Jean-Claude, if you want to respond to breaking through Trump and political correctness at the same time. What program do we have? Was very—very interesting to have all these examples. Some of them I knew, some—some others I didn't—didn't know, not—not exactly in the same, with the same precision. So thank you—thank you for that. I think we—we may agree on the—on the fact that you have a sort of a relationship between—between, well, Trump as a sort of incarnation of—of a structural—individual incarnation of a structural change in—in—in politics and especially US politics, and the MeToo movement, like the sort of the two faces of—of the same—same coin, which doesn't mean that it's the same image on the two faces, on the contrary, the two faces are—are quite different in terms of representation, but they are the two faces of the same—the same coin. And it seems to me that there was no necessity for that. I mean, it could—imagine, for instance, what everyone thought plausible—imagine Hillary Clinton being President—President of United States just now. You—you would not have this—this—these two faces of the same coin, you would have one face of—of a certain coin. And so to some extent, it's—it's a completely haphazard event, the fact that Trump won the election. But this haphazard event creates the conditions for a very important structural change both in terms of representations of the sexual act and in terms of representations of what are the eventual—the possible limits in political expression. The idea that Trump promotes is that there are no limits. There are no limits, so human rights are not a limit in political expressions, US Constitution is not a limit for political—political expression or even decision, big institutions like CIA or FBI or IRS, that are in fact really the—the pillars of the—of the US society for—for Trump are no—are—do not limit anything. And that goes, I think, with—with the fact that he considers that as opposed to the MeToo—the MeToo movement, there is no sense in speaking of structural weakness as opposed to material weakness and force. There is only material force and weakness. And in fact, material weakness doesn't exist as such, it's only the result of the—the use of material force. And so if you combine use of material force as a sort—sort of end and beginning of political action on the one hand, and on the other hand the fact there are no limits at all in language, in decisions, in institutional analysis, then you have something—something that in the history of United States and in history of the Western world is—is quite new. I don't want to—to expand, but it would be very interesting to—to draw a sharp distinction between the savageness of Hitlerian power and the—the other type of savageness of—of the Trumpian—of the Trumpian power. There—there is a deep—deep difference, but we won't discuss that now, I'm just indicating—indicating that, the novelty of—of what is happening is—is quite striking. Don't be afraid. Just one small remark, clarification, when you said what Trump is doing, no limits. Recently I was at some stupid meeting where there was also a guy who was second in command when Tillerson was still foreign minister, boss of—and he told me how the American traditional state establishment experiences Trump. And it's a very nice point to understand life in institution in real life. You know, explicit rules are never enough. They're always sustained by implicit rules: how you do it, and so on and so on. And that's, I'm almost sorry, tempted to say with horror, the genius of Trump. He knows, for example, President makes certain decisions, speaks in a certain way. But it is expected that he will speak with a certain decency, that he will consult—it's not written as a rule. And Trump is a master to—to ignore all these implicit rules, which are absolutely basic. That's the big lesson of social ethics for me. Social explicit rules are never alone, they're always sustained by implicit rules. The big—to know the system, it's not enough to know its rules. You must know the implicit meta-rules of how to apply these rules. For example, permit me, and then I stop, my favorite joke which I use even with my class. Imagine, it's a dream, we are in Moscow, '37, I'm Stalin. Everybody has the right to dream. I give a speech. You applaud. Then there is a debate to the Central Committee. One of you says, "I don't agree with comrade Stalin, he made some mistakes here" and so on and so on. Okay, we know what this means, next day the big question will be who was the last to see that guy alive. Okay. But then another idiot raises his hand and says to the first guy, "Are you crazy? We are in Soviet Union, you are not expected to criticize Stalin like this!" My point is the second guy would disappear, would have disappeared even faster. It wasn't just prohibited to criticize Stalin. It was prohibited even more to say publicly that you are not allowed to criticize Stalin. And you know, Trump is breaking these secondary rules and that's why I am—I am really afraid, you know, like what if he will win a second time. The only chance I see in this "no limits", but maybe I'm too crazy optimist here, is that the new, whatever we call it, I still call it Left, but I'm more and more skeptical about that, will also use this new open space to propose its own new rules, you know? These rules automatically are—you know who is a true genius of America for me? You know him I hope, Samuel Goldwyn, the producer. And you know one of the legends, once he read in newspapers that there are too many old clichés in his films. And he wrote a memo to his scenario department: "We urgently need new clichés!" And that's true, he was right. The true art of revolutionary social life is not to be original—every idiot can be that—but to make gesture will become new clichés. That's the task today. I've spoken too much. Oh, thank you for that. I think we will open it up to the—is that Jacqueline at the end? Yeah, I think some people have to leave at half-six anyway. Yeah, because there's—there's another event the BI starts at half-six. Jacqueline? Yes. Thank you very much, I'm sorry to speak first because I have to go and chair at otherwise I would have loved to stay and hear what everyone has to say. And both those interventions were remarkable. But something I think was sort of missing. And I think what was missing was, oddly enough, psychoanalysis. Let me explain. It is not new, Jean-Claude Milner. This is not new what you have described. The idea that there is a structural weakness which means that there is never consent, which means that there is never equality, is called radical feminism, right? And it goes back to Adrienne Rich's amazing article "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" where she argued in the seventies that there was no such thing as consent. It is Catherine MacKinnon's position. It is Andrea Dworkin's position. We have had this for a very, very long time. That's the first thing I want to say. You were saying that Trump wants to be Weinstein. Slavoj was saying that they are flip sides, that MeToo and Trump are flip sides of the same coin. Those are two very different political statements, and I don't want to hear MeToo tarred with the brush of Trumpism as some pseudo-political correctness. I think we have to operate in three modes at once and in relationship to sexuality, human rights, and sexual harassment, and it's almost impossible to do it. One is: sexual harassment is unacceptable and must be stopped, right? That is the MeToo movement, that's all it's saying, bringing to the surface a form of structural abuse which has been systematic across Hollywood, across farm working, wherever you look. First: it must stop. Secondly: none of us fulfill the identities we are protesting against. That's the psychoanalytic move, which is to say that nobody is simply a man or a woman. So although there is a structural inequality at the level of lived experience and sexual abuse, there is also, and if this wasn't true we would be lost in the world, it would be finished, feminism would be finished—although that is true, nobody completely fulfills the identity that they are meant to fulfill. There are no simply men in the world, there are no simply women in the world. At the same time, and this is the third point: there is what Julia Mitchell calls the ugly undertone of sexual difference, right? There is something about the moment of sexual differentiation which corrupts itself and leads to abuse. So it seems to me this is a clear case of a political moment where we have to articulate all those truths at once and sort of come to terms with the mess that results as a consequence. But please don't equate MeToo with political correctness and with the other face of Donald Trump. And please don't say it's new, the idea that consent is never consent. That's been a fight within feminism for five decades now. But I love listening to you, thank you very much. Yes, thank you for—for this precision. I'm quite aware of the fact that the point I made was already made in feminist let us call even proto-feminist literature. But in the same way, Marx stated his analysis a long time ago. Nevertheless, it—it is interesting to point out the effectiveness of this analysis. In the case of what is happening now on the side of women, it seems to me that there is a mass movement as opposed to the situation where feminism was not a mass movement in—in Western countries in general. And this change is not purely quantitative, it's also qualitative, the fact that a certain type of idea are becoming the sort of fuel for—for a mass movement is in my mind something—something that changes the situation. So the same idea may be different between the period when it was not present in—in a mass movement and in the period where—where it is present in—in the mass movement. The same thing happened to—to Marx, I mean when he wrote his analysis in—in the middle of the 19th century, nobody knew about that and it became after that an element of a mass mobilization. But can I just briefly answer? I'm so sad because this is the eternal problem here that I—I also want to clarify things. The most problematic point: Trump, MeToo. Of course I'm not in any way equating them in the sense of they are politically, morally somehow two faces of the same in the sense that they are the same. I'm just—I must admit—I'm just a little bit more—and I know you can always say "But MeToo is doing reflection" and so on and so on, I know MeToo is not the same with political correctness and so on and so on. I'm just saying that for me some—they in a way form a certain space where they fit each other as target. And they are not the same and so on and so on. In what sense? In sense that Trump is almost the ideal enemy for MeToo, in a quite justified way, and MeToo is—in a broader sense—is the ideal enemy for Trump. And I don't have now, now time to go—I've written extensively on it, you may agree or not. But I think more and more that—okay, you can always say there are some other
are—they are—they are structurally weaker and so on and so on. So I, to conclude, I will not talk too long, I want to take an example, my own, which I enjoy immensely. They are idiots of my type. Did you hear in the United States it's now—it's marginal, but don't joke, there are hundreds of thousands of so-called incels, involuntary celibates. These are white—they identify this—ugly people who are fat whatever, who cannot get beautiful women. And they—that's so interesting, that's the paradox I want to draw your attention to—they otherwise don't like the discourse of human rights. They claim this is—they follow Jordan Peterson here, although to be fair, Jordan Peterson doesn't support them. They claim hierarchy is natural. You know Jordan Peterson so wonderfully develops this with strange example where he passes from African tribes to lobsters and so on proving how equality doesn't work and so on. So they are all for hierarchy, they're white supremacist against black, against women and so on. But what's so interesting is precisely what you mentioned with this structural weakness and so on. But they claim that they occupy this position of structural weakness. They are not this strong masculine white heroes. They in a weird game, they proudly display their ugliness, weakness and so on, furious at women, society is not just. So now I'm finally coming to my paradox. The paradox is that although they are absolutely against egalitarian human rights and so on, there must be hierarchy and so on, they make an exception. In matters of sexuality, they demand—of course they will not get it—they demand from the state a new enforced distribution of women, which will give also them women to have. They claim this is a big injustice. And although he would not go so far, because what I find so ironic is that the mega models of alt-right right-wingers here all of a sudden become the most vulgar communists. They never existed but I remember how one of the rumors against Soviet Union was that in communism, what did it mean "abolishing marriage" as a private deal? It means communists are socializing women. And women will be distributed to us. Isn't it ironic that this worst dream, which of course never happened in Soviet Union, I mean as reality of what communists are, is now emerging in the A: in the middle of American alt-right movement racist, and B: justifying itself on human rights. They claim the fact that some men are beautiful and so on gives them advantage. And now comes Jordan Peterson who, not in this rough form state distribution, but in enforced form supports them. Because he said that because of this imbalance, only beautiful men can get more women, this is the reason for A: low—how do you call it—low fertility, not enough children born in our society. You get here immediately those racist undertones, which means that the others will come who are more potent, Asians, Blacks whatever. So we will with enforced monogamy—which means that, now it depends how far you go, Jordan Peterson just said we need an ideological shift, social pressure, more radical ones advocate direct state redistribution of women—they claim we will solve two problems: A: lowering this fertility rate whatever, and B: violence of men. Their idea is that—it's wonderful, I like this perverted logic—when violent white men all of a sudden start to look objectively at themselves and talk like social workers and say, "You know, violence is where society pushed us, this is the result of objective social conditions" and so on and so on. So Jordan Peterson claims we will at the same time, since all, every man will get a woman, we will solve two problems: fertility will explode, more children will be, population will rise and violence will go down. So what I see here, to really conclude so that I don't get too much time, is what interests me is this paradox. It's like in a Möbius strip, you go on one side, bam, all of a sudden you are on the other side. How come that the most brutal white supremacist discourse all of a sudden needs human rights? I—okay, it's clear, it's crazy logic—but I think that we should be very careful here in the sense that—it all depends, you've written wonderful pages on your book on revolution and elsewhere about immigrants—like we, I am not a conservative who claims human rights should have a limit and so on and so on. But in some sense, even if it's not in this radical sense, of course I'm not a Trumpist that you mentioned—I think that there is some—I think that my position, okay, is the exact reversal of these crazy ugly guys, which doesn't mean I'm not ugly but it's nice—my position is precisely: yes, in social life universality of human rights, but aspect of of course cases of rape power and so on, but concede defeat in matters of sexuality. Sexuality is for me in some sense immanently unjust. There is no justice there. Somebody gets the beautiful woman, somebody gets the beautiful man and so on and so on. You cannot talk about—you cannot apply here the logic of obscene MeToo, in the sense of "you got that beautiful lady, MeToo, I want her also" and so on. It doesn't function. The ones who use this language are again extreme—okay, populist, not extreme for the time being—right-wingers. I am always interested why, because it's not just Trump, when—why—because one of the Trump revolutions is that a certain way to talk which was till now reserved to private, you know, like after the talk we go to a cafeteria and then all your racist prejudices, bad taste jokes explode. But Trump is more and more bringing this out into the public. For example, when he named some countries "shit-hole countries" and so on and so on. And so it always interests me, what happens in those structural moments when such vulgarity becomes acceptable. It's also, as you would have put it with Weinstein, it's a structural change. For example, I hope you know this story, Kaczyński, the de facto boss of Poland. Already when his party was first to take power, I don't know how many years ago, something strange happened, unexpected. He, when he was asked what is his program, he said—I hope if there are some people who speak Polish here I pronounce in the right way—"Teraz kurwa my", which is a very vulgar expression from military I think, it means "Now it's our turn to screw the whore". You know, when soldiers wait in line, no? Like the idea was of course forget about program, now it's us. But what was so shocking was that people first thought that this is just a momentary slip and so on. No! He went on repeating it, it became a legend and so on. And you as all of us an old Maoist, do you remember the same moment? I mean we were all, my god, this is you know like all—all—all Germans were in the late thirties Nazis, okay we have a different faith, no? Do you remember that famous Lushan Conference at the end of the Great Leap Forward? Where Mao—there were millions who died not necessarily, involuntary death—and Mao convoked a big conference to do self-criticism. And he said yes, I'm the most responsible but we have to go through self-criticism. And then you should read it, the last paragraph is shocking. Because he make—I with all my bad taste, I was—I was shocked. He said "It's like when you need to shit, shit, it will make you feel better. When you have wind in you, fart, do it, it will make you feel better. So let's do it." Isn't it a little bit weird where you are talking about self-criticism for causing the death of millions of people, the metaphor comes to you of those flatulence activities and so on? Why—why—why does this happen? So to conclude, more and more I think following your line that it's not simply Trump versus MeToo political correctness, that in some sense, my god, they are the mirror of each other, they belong—they belong together, I think, the way they do it. And we have to break the entire thing. So again, to give you a brutal answer, I think with sexuality we have to concede—and if you want to be Marxist, my god, even Marx I think in in—in one of those early writings, *The Holy Family* or whatever, he praises this injustice and madness of love and sexual passion like, it comes it goes, you cannot do it and so on and so on. So of course there are other things to decide here like what—what do we understand with human rights? What do we understand by equality and so on and so on. But I—but I still—and I don't think that the situation is determined. For example, I can well imagine a society where women are—we are not yet there—in the position of power and sex act is not experienced as men exerting power but as men serving women. You have to do it to satisfy her, she demands it and so on and so on. It can work, so I see the situation as completely open. But I agree with you we are here in the time of incredible changes. Sorry, too much. Let's go on. Great, thank you so much. I think maybe he should reply or what and then we play democracy, no? Like then. Yeah, yeah, because you reply to him, so yeah, Jean-Claude, if you want to respond to breaking through Trump and political correctness at the same time. What program do we have? Was very—very interesting to have all these examples. Some of them I knew, some—some others I didn't—didn't know, not—not exactly in the same, with the same precision. So thank you—thank you for that. I think we—we may agree on the—on the fact that you have a sort of a relationship between—between, well, Trump as a sort of incarnation of—of a structural—individual incarnation of a structural change in—in—in politics and especially US politics, and the MeToo movement, like the sort of the two faces of—of the same—same coin, which doesn't mean that it's the same image on the two faces, on the contrary, the two faces are—are quite different in terms of representation, but they are the two faces of the same—the same coin. And it seems to me that there was no necessity for that. I mean, it could—imagine, for instance, what everyone thought plausible—imagine Hillary Clinton being President—President of United States just now. You—you would not have this—this—these two faces of the same coin, you would have one face of—of a certain coin. And so to some extent, it's—it's a completely haphazard event, the fact that Trump won the election. But this haphazard event creates the conditions for a very important structural change both in terms of representations of the sexual act and in terms of representations of what are the eventual—the possible limits in political expression. The idea that Trump promotes is that there are no limits. There are no limits, so human rights are not a limit in political expressions, US Constitution is not a limit for political—political expression or even decision, big institutions like CIA or FBI or IRS, that are in fact really the—the pillars of the—of the US society for—for Trump are no—are—do not limit anything. And that goes, I think, with—with the fact that he considers that as opposed to the MeToo—the MeToo movement, there is no sense in speaking of structural weakness as opposed to material weakness and force. There is only material force and weakness. And in fact, material weakness doesn't exist as such, it's only the result of the—the use of material force. And so if you combine use of material force as a sort—sort of end and beginning of political action on the one hand, and on the other hand the fact there are no limits at all in language, in decisions, in institutional analysis, then you have something—something that in the history of United States and in history of the Western world is—is quite new. I don't want to—to expand, but it would be very interesting to—to draw a sharp distinction between the savageness of Hitlerian power and the—the other type of savageness of—of the Trumpian—of the Trumpian power. There—there is a deep—deep difference, but we won't discuss that now, I'm just indicating—indicating that, the novelty of—of what is happening is—is quite striking. Don't be afraid. Just one small remark, clarification, when you said what Trump is doing, no limits. Recently I was at some stupid meeting where there was also a guy who was second in command when Tillerson was still foreign minister, boss of—and he told me how the American traditional state establishment experiences Trump. And it's a very nice point to understand life in institution in real life. You know, explicit rules are never enough. They're always sustained by implicit rules: how you do it, and so on and so on. And that's, I'm almost sorry, tempted to say with horror, the genius of Trump. He knows, for example, President makes certain decisions, speaks in a certain way. But it is expected that he will speak with a certain decency, that he will consult—it's not written as a rule. And Trump is a master to—to ignore all these implicit rules, which are absolutely basic. That's the big lesson of social ethics for me. Social explicit rules are never alone, they're always sustained by implicit rules. The big—to know the system, it's not enough to know its rules. You must know the implicit meta-rules of how to apply these rules. For example, permit me, and then I stop, my favorite joke which I use even with my class. Imagine, it's a dream, we are in Moscow, '37, I'm Stalin. Everybody has the right to dream. I give a speech. You applaud. Then there is a debate to the Central Committee. One of you says, "I don't agree with comrade Stalin, he made some mistakes here" and so on and so on. Okay, we know what this means, next day the big question will be who was the last to see that guy alive. Okay. But then another idiot raises his hand and says to the first guy, "Are you crazy? We are in Soviet Union, you are not expected to criticize Stalin like this!" My point is the second guy would disappear, would have disappeared even faster. It wasn't just prohibited to criticize Stalin. It was prohibited even more to say publicly that you are not allowed to criticize Stalin. And you know, Trump is breaking these secondary rules and that's why I am—I am really afraid, you know, like what if he will win a second time. The only chance I see in this "no limits", but maybe I'm too crazy optimist here, is that the new, whatever we call it, I still call it Left, but I'm more and more skeptical about that, will also use this new open space to propose its own new rules, you know? These rules automatically are—you know who is a true genius of America for me? You know him I hope, Samuel Goldwyn, the producer. And you know one of the legends, once he read in newspapers that there are too many old clichés in his films. And he wrote a memo to his scenario department: "We urgently need new clichés!" And that's true, he was right. The true art of revolutionary social life is not to be original—every idiot can be that—but to make gesture will become new clichés. That's the task today. I've spoken too much. Oh, thank you for that. I think we will open it up to the—is that Jacqueline at the end? Yeah, I think some people have to leave at half-six anyway. Yeah, because there's—there's another event the BI starts at half-six. Jacqueline? Yes. Thank you very much, I'm sorry to speak first because I have to go and chair at otherwise I would have loved to stay and hear what everyone has to say. And both those interventions were remarkable. But something I think was sort of missing. And I think what was missing was, oddly enough, psychoanalysis. Let me explain. It is not new, Jean-Claude Milner. This is not new what you have described. The idea that there is a structural weakness which means that there is never consent, which means that there is never equality, is called radical feminism, right? And it goes back to Adrienne Rich's amazing article "Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence" where she argued in the seventies that there was no such thing as consent. It is Catherine MacKinnon's position. It is Andrea Dworkin's position. We have had this for a very, very long time. That's the first thing I want to say. You were saying that Trump wants to be Weinstein. Slavoj was saying that they are flip sides, that MeToo and Trump are flip sides of the same coin. Those are two very different political statements, and I don't want to hear MeToo tarred with the brush of Trumpism as some pseudo-political correctness. I think we have to operate in three modes at once and in relationship to sexuality, human rights, and sexual harassment, and it's almost impossible to do it. One is: sexual harassment is unacceptable and must be stopped, right? That is the MeToo movement, that's all it's saying, bringing to the surface a form of structural abuse which has been systematic across Hollywood, across farm working, wherever you look. First: it must stop. Secondly: none of us fulfill the identities we are protesting against. That's the psychoanalytic move, which is to say that nobody is simply a man or a woman. So although there is a structural inequality at the level of lived experience and sexual abuse, there is also, and if this wasn't true we would be lost in the world, it would be finished, feminism would be finished—although that is true, nobody completely fulfills the identity that they are meant to fulfill. There are no simply men in the world, there are no simply women in the world. At the same time, and this is the third point: there is what Julia Mitchell calls the ugly undertone of sexual difference, right? There is something about the moment of sexual differentiation which corrupts itself and leads to abuse. So it seems to me this is a clear case of a political moment where we have to articulate all those truths at once and sort of come to terms with the mess that results as a consequence. But please don't equate MeToo with political correctness and with the other face of Donald Trump. And please don't say it's new, the idea that consent is never consent. That's been a fight within feminism for five decades now. But I love listening to you, thank you very much. Yes, thank you for—for this precision. I'm quite aware of the fact that the point I made was already made in feminist let us call even proto-feminist literature. But in the same way, Marx stated his analysis a long time ago. Nevertheless, it—it is interesting to point out the effectiveness of this analysis. In the case of what is happening now on the side of women, it seems to me that there is a mass movement as opposed to the situation where feminism was not a mass movement in—in Western countries in general. And this change is not purely quantitative, it's also qualitative, the fact that a certain type of idea are becoming the sort of fuel for—for a mass movement is in my mind something—something that changes the situation. So the same idea may be different between the period when it was not present in—in a mass movement and in the period where—where it is present in—in the mass movement. The same thing happened to—to Marx, I mean when he wrote his analysis in—in the middle of the 19th century, nobody knew about that and it became after that an element of a mass mobilization. But can I just briefly answer? I'm so sad because this is the eternal problem here that I—I also want to clarify things. The most problematic point: Trump, MeToo. Of course I'm not in any way equating them in the sense of they are politically, morally somehow two faces of the same in the sense that they are the same. I'm just—I must admit—I'm just a little bit more—and I know you can always say "But MeToo is doing reflection" and so on and so on, I know MeToo is not the same with political correctness and so on and so on. I'm just saying that for me some—they in a way form a certain space where they fit each other as target. And they are not the same and so on and so on. In what sense? In sense that Trump is almost the ideal enemy for MeToo, in a quite justified way, and MeToo is—in a broader sense—is the ideal enemy for Trump. And I don't have now, now time to go—I've written extensively on it, you may agree or not. But I think more and more that—okay, you can always say there are some other
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theories and so on and so on, but the way MeToo is predominantly
theories and so on and so on, but the way MeToo is predominantly
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present in the media, to cut it short, I find it problematic. I don't buy it. I don't think they approach—although yes of course you can always tell me but there are here there some and so on and so on. I think that—I think that we approach here even more fundamental problems like Jacqueline very nicely pointed out that I know that tradition, MacKinnon and so on and so on. I think that that is also an ideological vision. You cannot in any way—this idea that penetration as such makes sexuality violent—I don't make the same mistake as right-wingers are doing, and I'm not saying Jacqueline did it, she just referred to the distinction, but in the sense that all these ideas that sexual act is by nature, if it's the so-called heterosexual act, man penetrating women, I absolutely don't accept this quick jump from nature to social power or so on and so on. Of course it was social power and so on, but the great thing about
present in the media, to cut it short, I find it problematic. I don't buy it. I don't think they approach—although yes of course you can always tell me but there are here there some and so on and so on. I think that—I think that we approach here even more fundamental problems like Jacqueline very nicely pointed out that I know that tradition, MacKinnon and so on and so on. I think that that is also an ideological vision. You cannot in any way—this idea that penetration as such makes sexuality violent—I don't make the same mistake as right-wingers are doing, and I'm not saying Jacqueline did it, she just referred to the distinction, but in the sense that all these ideas that sexual act is by nature, if it's the so-called heterosexual act, man penetrating women, I absolutely don't accept this quick jump from nature to social power or so on and so on. Of course it was social power and so on, but the great thing about
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sexual revolution in the sixties, to which I do cling, is that you know what I would like more in feminist revolt? Instead of just this—this idea that you get, that women are under threat all the time, I would like to point out the great achievement for me of sixties. And this achievement is to which male chauvinists react in their violence. The achievement is that women are—should be allowed to play the active role. In the sense of, "Yes, I can be active, I can seduce, I am not the one waiting to be seduced" and so on. That's for me what really pisses off all types of fundamentalists. What horrifies them is a sexually active woman. In the sense of actively demanding, promoting, and so on and so on. That's what I—that's I think again the greatest—and here I think in—because you know—and I have a sorry, I have another problem here to provoke you. That's why I think it's basically wrong, this complaint, this became a term, "We women don't want to be objectivized." Sorry, but the victim, the slave is never objectivized simply, it's subjectivized in a terrifying way. A sadist, if it's a true sadist, doesn't objectivize you. A sadist doesn't just torture you, the sadist wants to see you suffering, wants to see your despair, that's what a sadist wants. So if by objectivization we mean a woman want to make herself—to attract men whatever—yes, I say objectivize yourself as much as you want, but control the game yourself. I'm talking too much, I'm sorry, we don't have time. There's another event that... okay, why don't two people who have to go... yeah, we take two... did you post a policeman there so that he can—take down all the names so that we get the traitors, you know? Yes. We have two questions, I'll take two at a time. So I've got a couple very quick questions to Slavoj Žižek. I thought your talk might engage with—and didn't—the question brought up by the Incel problem, which Amia Srinivasan has talked about, the right to sex. And that is the question of how is there a way of questioning sexual desire as constituted politically itself, not necessarily going to rights, but in some other way because otherwise you exclude the problem that has arisen that, for example, on dating websites you get overt racism in the adverts. And so your approach, which says sex is in some sense unjust inherently, doesn't allow us to question how sex might be—sexual desire itself might be constituted in a field of power, not just in enactment but at the moment of desire itself. Yeah, but sorry, very briefly—but you know what's the danger that I see
sexual revolution in the sixties, to which I do cling, is that you know what I would like more in feminist revolt? Instead of just this—this idea that you get, that women are under threat all the time, I would like to point out the great achievement for me of sixties. And this achievement is to which male chauvinists react in their violence. The achievement is that women are—should be allowed to play the active role. In the sense of, "Yes, I can be active, I can seduce, I am not the one waiting to be seduced" and so on. That's for me what really pisses off all types of fundamentalists. What horrifies them is a sexually active woman. In the sense of actively demanding, promoting, and so on and so on. That's what I—that's I think again the greatest—and here I think in—because you know—and I have a sorry, I have another problem here to provoke you. That's why I think it's basically wrong, this complaint, this became a term, "We women don't want to be objectivized." Sorry, but the victim, the slave is never objectivized simply, it's subjectivized in a terrifying way. A sadist, if it's a true sadist, doesn't objectivize you. A sadist doesn't just torture you, the sadist wants to see you suffering, wants to see your despair, that's what a sadist wants. So if by objectivization we mean a woman want to make herself—to attract men whatever—yes, I say objectivize yourself as much as you want, but control the game yourself. I'm talking too much, I'm sorry, we don't have time. There's another event that... okay, why don't two people who have to go... yeah, we take two... did you post a policeman there so that he can—take down all the names so that we get the traitors, you know? Yes. We have two questions, I'll take two at a time. So I've got a couple very quick questions to Slavoj Žižek. I thought your talk might engage with—and didn't—the question brought up by the Incel problem, which Amia Srinivasan has talked about, the right to sex. And that is the question of how is there a way of questioning sexual desire as constituted politically itself, not necessarily going to rights, but in some other way because otherwise you exclude the problem that has arisen that, for example, on dating websites you get overt racism in the adverts. And so your approach, which says sex is in some sense unjust inherently, doesn't allow us to question how sex might be—sexual desire itself might be constituted in a field of power, not just in enactment but at the moment of desire itself. Yeah, but sorry, very briefly—but you know what's the danger that I see
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in what you are saying here? Of course this is all true.
in what you are saying here? Of course this is all true.
Slavoj Žižek
And also this is what bothers me, for example, any sexual analyst will tell you, which I'm not: let's say a woman is coerced subtly, it appears as an objective contract but she is coerced into, even if she says freely yes. I'm sorry to say this, you will lynch me: what if being coerced is part of the pleasure for her? That's the lesson for me of, for example, I'm sorry to mention it, you will lynch me, *Fifty Shades of Grey* noir and so on. And I—I—I couldn't read the novel, it's too vulgar, but I think it's an emancipatory novel because that's the message of the novel. It's not "women want to be—want to suffer" and so on and so on. The masochist contract was traditionally men to symbolically pay for their power, want a domina to whip them and so on, but they control the game. I know, I know, but what I—what I'm saying now in—sorry, in what you were saying is that what I am afraid, really afraid—and correct me where I'm wrong—is that yes, but you know sexuality is perverted. What if I don't think there is a pure desire which remains when you take away all the nastiest stuff in ourselves, racist desires, humiliating the weak and so on and so on. I—this is what I don't believe in. That you take all the brutal social aspects and think "No, we will have some pure sex where two equals meet" and so on and so on. So you know where I see—and I experienced it, not me witnessing it—the danger I see is: I agree totally that we should do all this what you said, analyze the political power over-determination, how it forms sexual desire itself. What I'm terribly afraid is that at the end of this road is now that some politically correct jerks, not you, will even prescribe us how to desire, you know? I desire that woman, then a PC analyst will come and tell me, "Sorry, this desire for that woman was formed by your feeling of superiority, blah blah, sorry guy, it's off, in another guy." You know, I see this danger when you try to directly politically regulate. And it's happening! It's happening in practice in, for example, at a comical level. I came with my wife here who said, I don't know who—it may be a comedy for you—to England three, four years ago and she admired some movie actors. Of course in this banter sexual undertones, "Oh I would gladly do it with him." And she immediately was counter-reproached claiming "No, you are allowed to dream about"—I don't know at that point Irish actors, Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson were considered more—no, no, dream about
And also this is what bothers me, for example, any sexual analyst will tell you, which I'm not: let's say a woman is coerced subtly, it appears as an objective contract but she is coerced into, even if she says freely yes. I'm sorry to say this, you will lynch me: what if being coerced is part of the pleasure for her? That's the lesson for me of, for example, I'm sorry to mention it, you will lynch me, *Fifty Shades of Grey* noir and so on. And I—I—I couldn't read the novel, it's too vulgar, but I think it's an emancipatory novel because that's the message of the novel. It's not "women want to be—want to suffer" and so on and so on. The masochist contract was traditionally men to symbolically pay for their power, want a domina to whip them and so on, but they control the game. I know, I know, but what I—what I'm saying now in—sorry, in what you were saying is that what I am afraid, really afraid—and correct me where I'm wrong—is that yes, but you know sexuality is perverted. What if I don't think there is a pure desire which remains when you take away all the nastiest stuff in ourselves, racist desires, humiliating the weak and so on and so on. I—this is what I don't believe in. That you take all the brutal social aspects and think "No, we will have some pure sex where two equals meet" and so on and so on. So you know where I see—and I experienced it, not me witnessing it—the danger I see is: I agree totally that we should do all this what you said, analyze the political power over-determination, how it forms sexual desire itself. What I'm terribly afraid is that at the end of this road is now that some politically correct jerks, not you, will even prescribe us how to desire, you know? I desire that woman, then a PC analyst will come and tell me, "Sorry, this desire for that woman was formed by your feeling of superiority, blah blah, sorry guy, it's off, in another guy." You know, I see this danger when you try to directly politically regulate. And it's happening! It's happening in practice in, for example, at a comical level. I came with my wife here who said, I don't know who—it may be a comedy for you—to England three, four years ago and she admired some movie actors. Of course in this banter sexual undertones, "Oh I would gladly do it with him." And she immediately was counter-reproached claiming "No, you are allowed to dream about"—I don't know at that point Irish actors, Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson were considered more—no, no, dream about
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that, this is the wrong guy to dream about and so on. In
that, this is the wrong guy to dream about and so on. In
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France I experienced the same. I don't like—the lady, my god, she's—no, Emmanuelle Béart and another one. And I was told, "Yes, it's good
France I experienced the same. I don't like—the lady, my god, she's—no, Emmanuelle Béart and another one. And I was told, "Yes, it's good
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to dream about them, they are progressive, you know?" But we should accept the inner corruption
to dream about them, they are progressive, you know?" But we should accept the inner corruption
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of sex, if you want it
of sex, if you want it
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like this. So again I totally agree with you, you can do, but just don't make that fateful step into some kind of a politically correct commissar telling you "now it's okay to desire that woman or what". That's my fear, but I got your point, thanks. I want to ask a theoretical question but political too. I was reading the book by Alenka Zupančič and she said something like the task of psychoanalysis is to restore sex in its dimension of the real, what exactly why—by the way, so my question is what is the status of the real in this discussion because I yesterday talked—you told me something about Miller have some idea of the real but you think something about the real, I think Joan Copjec have another idea of the real, so what is the status of the real in this discussion if you can... It's a wonderful question but I'm afraid to enter into it now because it would have meant another minutes. I—all I'm saying is that what I insist on is that Lacanian real is not in any sense the Kantian thing in itself or something out of symbolic order, just some wild abyss of chaos whatever. The real is for me as Lacan puts it so beautifully in *Encore*, I think, "le réel c'est une impasse de formalisation" or whatever. The real exist is totally immanent to the symbolic, it's its immanent limitation, point of failure, antagonism and so on and so on. It's not that—don't go into this substantialist idea which is wrong, even Kant is in reality more subtle, that we have the symbolic order which tries to recapture some external real but it fails because the real is out there wild and so on. The real is totally immanent. But I'm sorry, I'm afraid to go into this now. It's also in relation to Alenka's book. I think her argument is basically sexual difference emerges through a lack in language, which is the lack of the signifier and the signifier of the lack. And if there is temporality in this argument, is—can we think sexual difference before language or is sexual difference something that emerges only through language? And how does that relate to the field of law because the field of law is also a field of language?
like this. So again I totally agree with you, you can do, but just don't make that fateful step into some kind of a politically correct commissar telling you "now it's okay to desire that woman or what". That's my fear, but I got your point, thanks. I want to ask a theoretical question but political too. I was reading the book by Alenka Zupančič and she said something like the task of psychoanalysis is to restore sex in its dimension of the real, what exactly why—by the way, so my question is what is the status of the real in this discussion because I yesterday talked—you told me something about Miller have some idea of the real but you think something about the real, I think Joan Copjec have another idea of the real, so what is the status of the real in this discussion if you can... It's a wonderful question but I'm afraid to enter into it now because it would have meant another minutes. I—all I'm saying is that what I insist on is that Lacanian real is not in any sense the Kantian thing in itself or something out of symbolic order, just some wild abyss of chaos whatever. The real is for me as Lacan puts it so beautifully in *Encore*, I think, "le réel c'est une impasse de formalisation" or whatever. The real exist is totally immanent to the symbolic, it's its immanent limitation, point of failure, antagonism and so on and so on. It's not that—don't go into this substantialist idea which is wrong, even Kant is in reality more subtle, that we have the symbolic order which tries to recapture some external real but it fails because the real is out there wild and so on. The real is totally immanent. But I'm sorry, I'm afraid to go into this now. It's also in relation to Alenka's book. I think her argument is basically sexual difference emerges through a lack in language, which is the lack of the signifier and the signifier of the lack. And if there is temporality in this argument, is—can we think sexual difference before language or is sexual difference something that emerges only through language? And how does that relate to the field of law because the field of law is also a field of language?
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Again,
Again,
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I'm afraid this is a very difficult, almost metaphysical topic, but I know what she
I'm afraid this is a very difficult, almost metaphysical topic, but I know what she
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means.
means.
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Her point is
Her point is
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not—her polemic is precisely against this discourse theory, her target explicitly is Judith Butler, that sexual difference is the result of discursive—discourse, discursive formation and so on. No, her point is simply that there is a stumbling block. But this—imagine a central point of failure. And all symbolization is a reaction to cope with this failure. But this—and here the only answer I can give you is circularity. Yes, all language reacts to a failure, but this failure is retroactively posited by language itself. It's not that—it's not that first we have some failure in nature and then we get language and so on and so on. It's—it's immanent. That's for me the greatness of Lacan, to see this. To see this how failure, how—even this is how I read Lacan's definition of subject. I was improvising about this today. Subject fails to fully articulate
not—her polemic is precisely against this discourse theory, her target explicitly is Judith Butler, that sexual difference is the result of discursive—discourse, discursive formation and so on. No, her point is simply that there is a stumbling block. But this—imagine a central point of failure. And all symbolization is a reaction to cope with this failure. But this—and here the only answer I can give you is circularity. Yes, all language reacts to a failure, but this failure is retroactively posited by language itself. It's not that—it's not that first we have some failure in nature and then we get language and so on and so on. It's—it's immanent. That's for me the greatness of Lacan, to see this. To see this how failure, how—even this is how I read Lacan's definition of subject. I was improvising about this today. Subject fails to fully articulate
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itself in symbolic, and this
itself in symbolic, and this
Slavoj Žižek
failure is the subject. Subject exists only as a failure. This is why I mentioned—and here so that you will not only say that I spit on them—the greatest achievement of transgender, this LGBTQ+. The genius of some of transgender theorists is to see that this plus is not just empirical. You know, it's not just "Okay, we have categories, who knows, maybe there are others, we should leave the space open". No, you can be directly the plus! Plus is not just a shorthand for—subjectivity itself is this plus. So again, I can only say to correct my impression, my deepest sympathy with all the transgender stuff and so on. But I'm sorry, my god, we cannot go into this. It's really hot and I was—can we open the door at the back? Is it possible? We need—I mean we don't have much longer anyway and there's a few questions, so I'll take a few at a time. Two now. I can even provoke you, sir. So thank you so much and my question is to Jean-Claude Milner. And the question is this. So you've mentioned throughout your talk—you made a big point of it—that there is a difference between structural difference, structural position and as you—you've said many times, it's not objective. So first of all my question is this, can this then be shifted in some way? So what does it really mean? So we know, I mean it's very simple to—to bring it to sort of practicalities in a higher educational situation, a professor having an affair with a student. This is now prohibited for sure and we know that. It's easier if the professor is a man and the student is a young woman. But what happens—and we know it's happening in New York, so it's not theoretical—what happens if the woman is an older woman and the student is—is—is a powerful man? But wait a minute. So my question is this. Or not a powerful man. Or not a powerful man. But what if he is quite powerful or not powerful. So how and what about—which sort of speaks to your question—what about if these people are people of different embodiments, different race, different color and different class? So which structure trumps—and excuse the the—the face—the other? What is it? So the structure of—for sure, because you mentioned a few times men and woman, of course with Weinstein it's very simple, these were aspiring actresses, something went wrong, sexual harassment sure, but it's not usually it's not so simple. Usually it's more complex. It's—it's never simple. I agree, it's never simple. And of course what—what I'm pointing out is a—is sort of framework. And in— can you shift this structure without a revolution is my question. I want to answer to—to your case. I mean, not in detail, but—but it's clear that for instance, think—it's an analogy—think of the O.J. Simpson trial, where—where the question of the structurally weak appeared in—in contradiction with the—with the material—material weak. And all this type of contradiction will appear very often in the case you mentioned of an older professor, a woman professor, having an affair with a younger student and so on and so on. Well, that—you will have many, many cases like—well, not many I don't know, but—it's impossible to say whether there will be numerous or not, but it's clear that you will have a contradiction in that case. And the fact that you have contradictions in the social representation is not a new novelty, it's always—so if the question is how—how would you deal with that, I—I cannot answer. I'm not in position to deal with that, I'm just saying well, I can predict that there will be cases like that, contradictions like that. The way it—they will be dealt with is something that cannot be predicted because the—you enter in—in a—in a—in a infinite—indefinite quantity of—of factors, but that—that's not—that's not in itself a novelty. But at the end of your question, you mentioned revolution. Could you
failure is the subject. Subject exists only as a failure. This is why I mentioned—and here so that you will not only say that I spit on them—the greatest achievement of transgender, this LGBTQ+. The genius of some of transgender theorists is to see that this plus is not just empirical. You know, it's not just "Okay, we have categories, who knows, maybe there are others, we should leave the space open". No, you can be directly the plus! Plus is not just a shorthand for—subjectivity itself is this plus. So again, I can only say to correct my impression, my deepest sympathy with all the transgender stuff and so on. But I'm sorry, my god, we cannot go into this. It's really hot and I was—can we open the door at the back? Is it possible? We need—I mean we don't have much longer anyway and there's a few questions, so I'll take a few at a time. Two now. I can even provoke you, sir. So thank you so much and my question is to Jean-Claude Milner. And the question is this. So you've mentioned throughout your talk—you made a big point of it—that there is a difference between structural difference, structural position and as you—you've said many times, it's not objective. So first of all my question is this, can this then be shifted in some way? So what does it really mean? So we know, I mean it's very simple to—to bring it to sort of practicalities in a higher educational situation, a professor having an affair with a student. This is now prohibited for sure and we know that. It's easier if the professor is a man and the student is a young woman. But what happens—and we know it's happening in New York, so it's not theoretical—what happens if the woman is an older woman and the student is—is—is a powerful man? But wait a minute. So my question is this. Or not a powerful man. Or not a powerful man. But what if he is quite powerful or not powerful. So how and what about—which sort of speaks to your question—what about if these people are people of different embodiments, different race, different color and different class? So which structure trumps—and excuse the the—the face—the other? What is it? So the structure of—for sure, because you mentioned a few times men and woman, of course with Weinstein it's very simple, these were aspiring actresses, something went wrong, sexual harassment sure, but it's not usually it's not so simple. Usually it's more complex. It's—it's never simple. I agree, it's never simple. And of course what—what I'm pointing out is a—is sort of framework. And in— can you shift this structure without a revolution is my question. I want to answer to—to your case. I mean, not in detail, but—but it's clear that for instance, think—it's an analogy—think of the O.J. Simpson trial, where—where the question of the structurally weak appeared in—in contradiction with the—with the material—material weak. And all this type of contradiction will appear very often in the case you mentioned of an older professor, a woman professor, having an affair with a younger student and so on and so on. Well, that—you will have many, many cases like—well, not many I don't know, but—it's impossible to say whether there will be numerous or not, but it's clear that you will have a contradiction in that case. And the fact that you have contradictions in the social representation is not a new novelty, it's always—so if the question is how—how would you deal with that, I—I cannot answer. I'm not in position to deal with that, I'm just saying well, I can predict that there will be cases like that, contradictions like that. The way it—they will be dealt with is something that cannot be predicted because the—you enter in—in a—in a—in a infinite—indefinite quantity of—of factors, but that—that's not—that's not in itself a novelty. But at the end of your question, you mentioned revolution. Could you
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precise your... I was just thinking about linguistics.
precise your... I was just thinking about linguistics.
Slavoj Žižek
You know, there are structures of a variety of sorts. In a sentence you could have a relationship between you know subject, object, subclause and so on within, if you take the
You know, there are structures of a variety of sorts. In a sentence you could have a relationship between you know subject, object, subclause and so on within, if you take the
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subclause, the relationship
subclause, the relationship
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between these words is different than if you look at the big structure. If I am—if I am a student, if I am a Žižek's
between these words is different than if you look at the big structure. If I am—if I am a student, if I am a Žižek's
Slavoj Žižek
student
student
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and I actually sort of was in a way, one could say, well, what happens if something happens between these two people? They are in a structure, she is a student, he is a professor, if they have an affair she clearly must be abused. Now can one not question it and say "Well wait a minute, but maybe she's a well known person in her own right, she's quite powerful anyway," so when—how do we define this structure? What, you know,
and I actually sort of was in a way, one could say, well, what happens if something happens between these two people? They are in a structure, she is a student, he is a professor, if they have an affair she clearly must be abused. Now can one not question it and say "Well wait a minute, but maybe she's a well known person in her own right, she's quite powerful anyway," so when—how do we define this structure? What, you know,
Slavoj Žižek
it's simple with Weinstein, it's not simple in other structures. My position was not that one. I mean, I'm not talking a departure from what happens empirically and then build up a structure. It seems to me that in—a question was raised about real—in my talk the question of real never appeared, because—because I was explicitly talking about representations, that is in fact imaginary representations and the imaginary representation of the sexual act. Not of the sexual desire and so on, I'm not saying anything about sexual desire, just about sexual act. And the fact that the sexual act should be represented in social representations is not new—I mentioned two models. And it—it is in that field that it seems to me that something is happening. And this something, it seems to me, is not connected with empirical cases but with representations. And after that, you go back with your system of representation to—to—to empirical facts. But that's generally the case—ideology doesn't begin with facts and build—build the contrary, you—you begin by ideology and you go to the facts after that. And—and of course, it never fits—ideology and facts never fit. So this is an ideological representation. I'm not saying it's wrong or true, it's just—I'm just saying it happens. Can I very briefly? Because I found your point so interesting. First, this what you also said, power and so on. Look, I had in my class the last year, there was a debate about you know Monica Lewinsky. She now also tried to join—to join MeToo, like Bill Clinton should have seen that she had a position of immense power, blah blah. But in a way, she doesn't have the right to say this because it's absolutely clear that him being such a powerful man was absolutely constitutive of her desire for him. And it's hypocritical to say "No, you should go to some politically correct"—you know what I mean? It's—here what I wanted is to say that things get complex. Second point, what you—it was I think not maybe perceived enough—one crucial point
it's simple with Weinstein, it's not simple in other structures. My position was not that one. I mean, I'm not talking a departure from what happens empirically and then build up a structure. It seems to me that in—a question was raised about real—in my talk the question of real never appeared, because—because I was explicitly talking about representations, that is in fact imaginary representations and the imaginary representation of the sexual act. Not of the sexual desire and so on, I'm not saying anything about sexual desire, just about sexual act. And the fact that the sexual act should be represented in social representations is not new—I mentioned two models. And it—it is in that field that it seems to me that something is happening. And this something, it seems to me, is not connected with empirical cases but with representations. And after that, you go back with your system of representation to—to—to empirical facts. But that's generally the case—ideology doesn't begin with facts and build—build the contrary, you—you begin by ideology and you go to the facts after that. And—and of course, it never fits—ideology and facts never fit. So this is an ideological representation. I'm not saying it's wrong or true, it's just—I'm just saying it happens. Can I very briefly? Because I found your point so interesting. First, this what you also said, power and so on. Look, I had in my class the last year, there was a debate about you know Monica Lewinsky. She now also tried to join—to join MeToo, like Bill Clinton should have seen that she had a position of immense power, blah blah. But in a way, she doesn't have the right to say this because it's absolutely clear that him being such a powerful man was absolutely constitutive of her desire for him. And it's hypocritical to say "No, you should go to some politically correct"—you know what I mean? It's—here what I wanted is to say that things get complex. Second point, what you—it was I think not maybe perceived enough—one crucial point
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you
you
Slavoj Žižek
made is that it's not simply structural strength and structural weakness. At some point, in some situations, reference to your weakness can in itself become a way to assert your power, especially if I may add in American academia. I experienced this all the time. Once I was involved in a debate—I think it was even NYU—and somebody told me, not "I don't agree
made is that it's not simply structural strength and structural weakness. At some point, in some situations, reference to your weakness can in itself become a way to assert your power, especially if I may add in American academia. I experienced this all the time. Once I was involved in a debate—I think it was even NYU—and somebody told me, not "I don't agree
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with
with
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you here and there," but "I'm a Black lesbian single mother and I don't agree with you." I was quite shocked because it wasn't done between the lines, but direct like "you cannot". And so I think that although there is a truth in it—I don't mock, there are victims—but you know,
you here and there," but "I'm a Black lesbian single mother and I don't agree with you." I was quite shocked because it wasn't done between the lines, but direct like "you cannot". And so I think that although there is a truth in it—I don't mock, there are victims—but you know,
Slavoj Žižek
in a certain social constellation it's always important for a movement to see which—I believe in this dialectic of there is always some concrete constellation or image which as Marx put it a propos production gives the color to universality. And that's one of my problems with MeToo: Weinstein. Okay, an aspiring actress was blackmailed, raped, I agree it all, it was horrible by him. But wait a minute, this was one unpleasant event and so on. Can you imagine the misery—now I will sound pathetic, but I mean it very sincerely—of millions of women for whom being misused is not once there on that day I had that horrible experience, who are daily softly abused by their husbands and so on, who have no way out, no media, who depend materially on him? So I would like more to hear about this
in a certain social constellation it's always important for a movement to see which—I believe in this dialectic of there is always some concrete constellation or image which as Marx put it a propos production gives the color to universality. And that's one of my problems with MeToo: Weinstein. Okay, an aspiring actress was blackmailed, raped, I agree it all, it was horrible by him. But wait a minute, this was one unpleasant event and so on. Can you imagine the misery—now I will sound pathetic, but I mean it very sincerely—of millions of women for whom being misused is not once there on that day I had that horrible experience, who are daily softly abused by their husbands and so on, who have no way out, no media, who depend materially on him? So I would like more to hear about this
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daily life misuse which is part of many, many marriages of women. And this—you know, I don't like that the model became Weinstein. He is a pig of course, but it's this—you know, the typical way we in the West generally perceive catastrophe. For us a catastrophe is "Oh, terrorist attack, bomb!" And then we do the mourning, we go on. What about other parts of the world in the Middle East and so on, where in Africa,
daily life misuse which is part of many, many marriages of women. And this—you know, I don't like that the model became Weinstein. He is a pig of course, but it's this—you know, the typical way we in the West generally perceive catastrophe. For us a catastrophe is "Oh, terrorist attack, bomb!" And then we do the mourning, we go on. What about other parts of the world in the Middle East and so on, where in Africa,
Slavoj Žižek
Congo, catastrophe is everyday life for years? So—and just the last remark to you, no wonder you spoke about older women, pupil, young man—that's your president, no? That's the great honor of France, no? That he happily—he happily realized this. Yeah. But the point you made about—yeah—the Weinstein case, I mean like the MeToo movement of course has been opposed in France in particular more spectacularly. But what you were saying about the everyday harassment and the everyday injustice of women, I mean Claire Denis, the French filmmaker, was making that point. But there's also the famous or infamous letter that French—Catherine Deneuve... You mean the Catherine Deneuve? Yeah, yeah. No, I'm not Catherine Deneuve, I must—I must sign it but then I don't agree... It's a very—but the—the driving force behind this letter—is—is the writer—a woman writer quite—quite well known, of course—what's her name? Her name is escaping me just now because immediate memory is something that goes away with—with youth. So— I remember it, I can't remember it either. Yeah. But what is interesting is that this—this woman writer—who is
Congo, catastrophe is everyday life for years? So—and just the last remark to you, no wonder you spoke about older women, pupil, young man—that's your president, no? That's the great honor of France, no? That he happily—he happily realized this. Yeah. But the point you made about—yeah—the Weinstein case, I mean like the MeToo movement of course has been opposed in France in particular more spectacularly. But what you were saying about the everyday harassment and the everyday injustice of women, I mean Claire Denis, the French filmmaker, was making that point. But there's also the famous or infamous letter that French—Catherine Deneuve... You mean the Catherine Deneuve? Yeah, yeah. No, I'm not Catherine Deneuve, I must—I must sign it but then I don't agree... It's a very—but the—the driving force behind this letter—is—is the writer—a woman writer quite—quite well known, of course—what's her name? Her name is escaping me just now because immediate memory is something that goes away with—with youth. So— I remember it, I can't remember it either. Yeah. But what is interesting is that this—this woman writer—who is
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well known in
well known in
Slavoj Žižek
her own right—is— representative of the fact
her own right—is— representative of the fact
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that women should
that women should
Slavoj Žižek
be sexually dominant and free. I mean, they choose their
be sexually dominant and free. I mean, they choose their
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partner, they choose their—their destiny and so on. And she believed and felt that in—putting women in the class of what I call structurally weak was in fact depriving them of this—of this freedom. Agency, yeah. Yeah, I really like your point about expanding this to on the international scene amongst countries, you know, and having countries sort of admit to the idea that actually we are weak, therefore you know, we're being harassed and oppressed by... Yeah, but—at the last thing, I promise. You know, in the same line as that Weinstein problem, I also think, you know, how does—we should ask this simple question: all the sexual contract debate before we jump into bed we should sign it and so on. But are we aware that this privileges secretly a certain mode of sexual exchange? It's basically: you are in some bar and want to do a one-night stand. I mean, and it makes me pretty—I am here an incurable romantic, how should I put it? I don't think that quick one-night stands, "Okay, I like you, I'm horny, sign a contract, let's do it," I wouldn't like to elevate this into the secret universal model of sexual exchange. And this doesn't mean that if it's a long term exchange there is no violence. No, maybe there is even more violence because in a one-night stand you can
partner, they choose their—their destiny and so on. And she believed and felt that in—putting women in the class of what I call structurally weak was in fact depriving them of this—of this freedom. Agency, yeah. Yeah, I really like your point about expanding this to on the international scene amongst countries, you know, and having countries sort of admit to the idea that actually we are weak, therefore you know, we're being harassed and oppressed by... Yeah, but—at the last thing, I promise. You know, in the same line as that Weinstein problem, I also think, you know, how does—we should ask this simple question: all the sexual contract debate before we jump into bed we should sign it and so on. But are we aware that this privileges secretly a certain mode of sexual exchange? It's basically: you are in some bar and want to do a one-night stand. I mean, and it makes me pretty—I am here an incurable romantic, how should I put it? I don't think that quick one-night stands, "Okay, I like you, I'm horny, sign a contract, let's do it," I wouldn't like to elevate this into the secret universal model of sexual exchange. And this doesn't mean that if it's a long term exchange there is no violence. No, maybe there is even more violence because in a one-night stand you can
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then
then
Slavoj Žižek
say, "Hi,
say, "Hi,
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I never
I never
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want to see you again," or whatever. But the true tragedy is
want to see you again," or whatever. But the true tragedy is
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if you engage in long term
if you engage in long term
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relationship but then you discover and so on and so on. Sorry, I... I think there's one last question... oh, two last questions. Okay, at the front. Oh, three! Can we take them all together because there's only... yeah. So my question is, does sexuality inherently resist this explicit recipe or rule? So you were talking about the contract of fornication and bureaucracy as some kind of intruder to this sphere of human practice that resists this explicit rule. But then in other parts of your work, you talk about—you evoke this example of a couple that has problems in their sex life and—you're evoking this—well, if they would write down on a piece of paper precisely, then that might work. So there is—I feel like there is a conflict there about these explicit rules: do they work in sex or not, does sexuality inherently resist this? Do we do what you said? Yes, I think so. Very short question to both of you if I may. Given your relationship to Marxism, how would you respond to this, I think, somewhat prevalent question that today the principal category—the organizing principle in terms of categories—is gender and not class? Absolutely wrong. When I am in power, for saying this, you will go to Gulag. Okay. No, I'm not supporting
relationship but then you discover and so on and so on. Sorry, I... I think there's one last question... oh, two last questions. Okay, at the front. Oh, three! Can we take them all together because there's only... yeah. So my question is, does sexuality inherently resist this explicit recipe or rule? So you were talking about the contract of fornication and bureaucracy as some kind of intruder to this sphere of human practice that resists this explicit rule. But then in other parts of your work, you talk about—you evoke this example of a couple that has problems in their sex life and—you're evoking this—well, if they would write down on a piece of paper precisely, then that might work. So there is—I feel like there is a conflict there about these explicit rules: do they work in sex or not, does sexuality inherently resist this? Do we do what you said? Yes, I think so. Very short question to both of you if I may. Given your relationship to Marxism, how would you respond to this, I think, somewhat prevalent question that today the principal category—the organizing principle in terms of categories—is gender and not class? Absolutely wrong. When I am in power, for saying this, you will go to Gulag. Okay. No, I'm not supporting
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it, I'm just saying that yeah, there might be... okay. Posing this, but the question is how— I'm sorry, I have no... you... One last question here. Why—why the fixation with the American scene? Is this a case of—is this a case of: is America an exaggeration, an aberration of the West or of Europe? Because this could be a case of: look at us nice Europeans, we look at the horror show, aren't they crazy? They are like, you know, we are—we are a little bit better than they are. And is this—isn't this a risky move, in—with such an obsession with America which is the—is the daily dish that we get in the media? Aren't
it, I'm just saying that yeah, there might be... okay. Posing this, but the question is how— I'm sorry, I have no... you... One last question here. Why—why the fixation with the American scene? Is this a case of—is this a case of: is America an exaggeration, an aberration of the West or of Europe? Because this could be a case of: look at us nice Europeans, we look at the horror show, aren't they crazy? They are like, you know, we are—we are a little bit better than they are. And is this—isn't this a risky move, in—with such an obsession with America which is the—is the daily dish that we get in the media? Aren't
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you guilty of narrowing down the scope of vision, but also the use of your examples and details, information, and disregarding precisely the whole collective suffering of those women suffering on a daily
you guilty of narrowing down the scope of vision, but also the use of your examples and details, information, and disregarding precisely the whole collective suffering of those women suffering on a daily
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basis by focusing on Weinstein and Trump and this type of thing? I answer very—very briefly to—not to the three question, but to two of them, because the first one was addressed specifically to Slavoj. If I understood clearly what your point was: that we argue in terms of gender and not in terms of class. Is that the problem? Yeah. Well, my point is that, in fact, the talk about gender, which is very prominent, is not relevant to what is happening now. If I insist about the Weinstein's case, it's precisely for that reason. It seems that the notion of gender doesn't capture anything that—that explains why the Weinstein's case creates such a scandal. With the notion of gender, what can you say? Except
basis by focusing on Weinstein and Trump and this type of thing? I answer very—very briefly to—not to the three question, but to two of them, because the first one was addressed specifically to Slavoj. If I understood clearly what your point was: that we argue in terms of gender and not in terms of class. Is that the problem? Yeah. Well, my point is that, in fact, the talk about gender, which is very prominent, is not relevant to what is happening now. If I insist about the Weinstein's case, it's precisely for that reason. It seems that the notion of gender doesn't capture anything that—that explains why the Weinstein's case creates such a scandal. With the notion of gender, what can you say? Except
Slavoj Žižek
repeat and translate in terms of gender what—what happened. And it seems to me precisely that it was my point, that the notion of structural—structurally weak and structurally strong was in fact a way of finding again a notion of class, except that it was not defined in—in economic terms. And I think with that, you're much more able to capture what is at stake in cases like Weinstein affair or harassment. I mean, it's not the same case, but it's connected since harassment is connected with something that involves the possibility of the sexual act, even though the sexual act may not be accomplished in itself. But the idea is that between sexual harassment and sexual act and rape, you have a continuity, a sort of gradation, differences not of nature but of degree. And about—about the question about United States. My own position is that there is no autonomy of European countries in general in terms of ideological representations with respect not to America but to United States. And I prefer always to say United States. America includes a lot of other countries. There is no cultural or ideological autonomy. So what happens in United States will come in the various countries of Europe with a difference of course between Great Britain who may become since the Brexit the 50th or 51st state of United States. I mean—God forbid! Well, it's possible. But it will happen more or less rapidly in countries like France, like Germany, like Italy and countries like that. So the—the cultural leadership of United States—it's not a question of deriding, I never deride what happens in United States. When I'm—when I'm talking about Trump, in fact I'm more deriding the other countries. For instance, I was quite struck by the fact that Trump behaved with President Macron, the French President, as a—let's say—dominant male would proceed with a—with a younger girl, dusting away... I don't think that it was the flakes, I think it was the traces of Trump's makeup, because you know he has a very unnatural color. And I think that when embracing Macron, well you had orange
repeat and translate in terms of gender what—what happened. And it seems to me precisely that it was my point, that the notion of structural—structurally weak and structurally strong was in fact a way of finding again a notion of class, except that it was not defined in—in economic terms. And I think with that, you're much more able to capture what is at stake in cases like Weinstein affair or harassment. I mean, it's not the same case, but it's connected since harassment is connected with something that involves the possibility of the sexual act, even though the sexual act may not be accomplished in itself. But the idea is that between sexual harassment and sexual act and rape, you have a continuity, a sort of gradation, differences not of nature but of degree. And about—about the question about United States. My own position is that there is no autonomy of European countries in general in terms of ideological representations with respect not to America but to United States. And I prefer always to say United States. America includes a lot of other countries. There is no cultural or ideological autonomy. So what happens in United States will come in the various countries of Europe with a difference of course between Great Britain who may become since the Brexit the 50th or 51st state of United States. I mean—God forbid! Well, it's possible. But it will happen more or less rapidly in countries like France, like Germany, like Italy and countries like that. So the—the cultural leadership of United States—it's not a question of deriding, I never deride what happens in United States. When I'm—when I'm talking about Trump, in fact I'm more deriding the other countries. For instance, I was quite struck by the fact that Trump behaved with President Macron, the French President, as a—let's say—dominant male would proceed with a—with a younger girl, dusting away... I don't think that it was the flakes, I think it was the traces of Trump's makeup, because you know he has a very unnatural color. And I think that when embracing Macron, well you had orange
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traces on the shoulder. I don't think it was flakes, but it's a gesture that an affectionate alpha male would have towards a younger—younger girl. So it seems to me—and that's also the reason why he is not at all close to Angela Merkel or Theresa May, because he knows that his own idea of the relationship in politics being in fact deeply
traces on the shoulder. I don't think it was flakes, but it's a gesture that an affectionate alpha male would have towards a younger—younger girl. So it seems to me—and that's also the reason why he is not at all close to Angela Merkel or Theresa May, because he knows that his own idea of the relationship in politics being in fact deeply
Slavoj Žižek
modeled on
modeled on
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sexual
sexual
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relationship, in that case he is not—he is not the winning partner, he cannot use the technique
relationship, in that case he is not—he is not the winning partner, he cannot use the technique
Slavoj Žižek
of seduction and
of seduction and
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things like that. I would be interested—I don't know if it will happen—by a meeting between Trump and the Pope. But the—the meeting between Macron and Trump, I remember it, you know another interpretation of the dusting of the dandruff or the orange powder was—you know, the gesture of what old gorillas do when a young gorilla enters the scene. So the old gorilla pretends to be solicitous of the young gorilla's welfare, but actually undermines him in the
things like that. I would be interested—I don't know if it will happen—by a meeting between Trump and the Pope. But the—the meeting between Macron and Trump, I remember it, you know another interpretation of the dusting of the dandruff or the orange powder was—you know, the gesture of what old gorillas do when a young gorilla enters the scene. So the old gorilla pretends to be solicitous of the young gorilla's welfare, but actually undermines him in the
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process, and this is what anthropologists have... That's true, but both—both explanations lead to the same result.
process, and this is what anthropologists have... That's true, but both—both explanations lead to the same result.
Slavoj Žižek
Exactly. All right, your turn. Very briefly. You always say very briefly. First, what fascinates me—I've written about it, I think they published it two days ago I don't know where digitally—what the dream I have about Trump and Kim Jong-un is that with Trump's well-known sympathy for military parades and so on in the United States, that maybe Trump already said that he will invite Kim to White House. What if then Kim will invite Trump back to Pyongyang and Kim will organize for Trump, you know, this big socialist parade with hundreds of thousands of people trained to form Trump and Kim portrait with
Exactly. All right, your turn. Very briefly. You always say very briefly. First, what fascinates me—I've written about it, I think they published it two days ago I don't know where digitally—what the dream I have about Trump and Kim Jong-un is that with Trump's well-known sympathy for military parades and so on in the United States, that maybe Trump already said that he will invite Kim to White House. What if then Kim will invite Trump back to Pyongyang and Kim will organize for Trump, you know, this big socialist parade with hundreds of thousands of people trained to form Trump and Kim portrait with
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all—with all those flags and so
all—with all those flags and so
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on, this mega spectacle? I think Trump will feel very well in that connection and so on. But more seriously about United States and so on. I agree with you, of course empirically things get more complex. I recently listened to an interview with Steve Bannon who praised the new Italian government and he slightly misrepresented it as the combination of anti-establishment Right (Northern League) and
on, this mega spectacle? I think Trump will feel very well in that connection and so on. But more seriously about United States and so on. I agree with you, of course empirically things get more complex. I recently listened to an interview with Steve Bannon who praised the new Italian government and he slightly misrepresented it as the combination of anti-establishment Right (Northern League) and
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anti-establishment Left (although I wouldn't agree here, the Five Stars). And says this quite openly on CNN. He said, "This is what we want." What Trump
anti-establishment Left (although I wouldn't agree here, the Five Stars). And says this quite openly on CNN. He said, "This is what we want." What Trump
Slavoj Žižek
really is about is
really is about is
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alt-right
alt-right
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together with Bernie Sanders. And so here, as Bannon said, maybe we in Europe are even with this disgusting Italian coalition a step forward. But I totally agree with you, don't underestimate culturally the absolute hegemony of American culture. Chinese fail here. I spoke with a friend who told me, you know, their mega spectacles like *Hero*, *House of Flying Daggers*, they tried to invade the Hollywood territory and make their own mega commercial movies, basically they conceded defeat, it didn't work. The last,
together with Bernie Sanders. And so here, as Bannon said, maybe we in Europe are even with this disgusting Italian coalition a step forward. But I totally agree with you, don't underestimate culturally the absolute hegemony of American culture. Chinese fail here. I spoke with a friend who told me, you know, their mega spectacles like *Hero*, *House of Flying Daggers*, they tried to invade the Hollywood territory and make their own mega commercial movies, basically they conceded defeat, it didn't work. The last,
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just two very short points. One is harassment. Of course I'm fanatically against harassment. But I think as I pointed out many times, it's a very ambiguous term. It's also an ideological term. Because I always see in
just two very short points. One is harassment. Of course I'm fanatically against harassment. But I think as I pointed out many times, it's a very ambiguous term. It's also an ideological term. Because I always see in
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harassment
harassment
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this
this
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fear of the neighbor. "Don't come too close to me." You know, it's fear of the desiring other. So for me, although harassment is usually formulated in terms of tolerance against violent intrusion, it often also means "I don't tolerate your proximity. Don't come too close to me." What you said about sexuality, I only think that—even the example that may go counter my general line, that if a couple is in trouble—my advice is bureaucratic. You have problems to connect with your wife, just don't follow some pseudo-Oriental bullshit. Don't say "forget about rules, just do it immediately." No! Do the opposite. Sit down and negotiate. "First I will kiss you there, no, I want first to put my finger there" and so on. But I'm not saying that this directly works. I'm saying that this works by failure, because what I'm counting on is that at a certain point you will laugh at each other and say, "My god, this is bullshit" and whatever. What I'm just saying is that I don't think that this—innuendos, inter- is not just a cultural complication of sexuality. This is the sexualization of life. This "to do it in an immediate way through nonsense, through failure" and so on, this is sexuality inscribed into the form itself. Otherwise, I don't know what we'll get, but sexuality without this cultural coating and so on is not sexuality for me. It's just some animal coupling and so on. So let me tell you a wonderful anecdote, very brief, that a friend told me. I love it. How he was at some conference flirting with a lady.
fear of the neighbor. "Don't come too close to me." You know, it's fear of the desiring other. So for me, although harassment is usually formulated in terms of tolerance against violent intrusion, it often also means "I don't tolerate your proximity. Don't come too close to me." What you said about sexuality, I only think that—even the example that may go counter my general line, that if a couple is in trouble—my advice is bureaucratic. You have problems to connect with your wife, just don't follow some pseudo-Oriental bullshit. Don't say "forget about rules, just do it immediately." No! Do the opposite. Sit down and negotiate. "First I will kiss you there, no, I want first to put my finger there" and so on. But I'm not saying that this directly works. I'm saying that this works by failure, because what I'm counting on is that at a certain point you will laugh at each other and say, "My god, this is bullshit" and whatever. What I'm just saying is that I don't think that this—innuendos, inter- is not just a cultural complication of sexuality. This is the sexualization of life. This "to do it in an immediate way through nonsense, through failure" and so on, this is sexuality inscribed into the form itself. Otherwise, I don't know what we'll get, but sexuality without this cultural coating and so on is not sexuality for me. It's just some animal coupling and so on. So let me tell you a wonderful anecdote, very brief, that a friend told me. I love it. How he was at some conference flirting with a lady.
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And it went on like this: they were officially debating theory. So he wanted to make a point and said, in an active way, "I want to approach things in this way." Then he—"Can I?"—and with his gestures, it was clear that—maybe she even didn't intend it—the point was "I want to approach you and grab you in this way" whatever. And the lady reacted wonderfully. She said, "Yes you can!" Then with a brief break, stop, continued, "Approach made the
And it went on like this: they were officially debating theory. So he wanted to make a point and said, in an active way, "I want to approach things in this way." Then he—"Can I?"—and with his gestures, it was clear that—maybe she even didn't intend it—the point was "I want to approach you and grab you in this way" whatever. And the lady reacted wonderfully. She said, "Yes you can!" Then with a brief break, stop, continued, "Approach made the
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theoretical point in this way." The beauty was that although if you read the transcript, it was just a debate about some theoretical
theoretical point in this way." The beauty was that although if you read the transcript, it was just a debate about some theoretical
Slavoj Žižek
point, all the—the pact was already made. And they ended up in bed and they are married now, if you want to... But you know what I see, it's like what I want to tell you is that how much you lose if you say "Okay, why didn't he tell her directly: I want to grab you, and she would—" no, you ruin it all! And this is not just a matter of cultural form. This form itself erotizes the situation. Sexuality is for me a very formal category. Animal sexuality itself should be sexualized through these complications. But I talk too much, sorry.
point, all the—the pact was already made. And they ended up in bed and they are married now, if you want to... But you know what I see, it's like what I want to tell you is that how much you lose if you say "Okay, why didn't he tell her directly: I want to grab you, and she would—" no, you ruin it all! And this is not just a matter of cultural form. This form itself erotizes the situation. Sexuality is for me a very formal category. Animal sexuality itself should be sexualized through these complications. But I talk too much, sorry.