JOE Interview: Boris Johnson, Jo Cox, Greta Thunberg
Interview · zizekpodcast.com ·
2019-09-26 · 1:02:03 · 8,470 words
psychoanalysissexuality-genderideologyecology-climateliberalism-political-correctnessfascism-populismdemocracygeopolitics-wartechnology-ai-cyberspacehegel-dialecticsphilosophy-generalhistory
In this wide-ranging interview conducted in London, Žižek discusses his book 'Sex and the Failed Absolute', arguing that human sexuality is defined by failure and impossibility rather than fulfillment, and that this structure of productive failure underlies creativity, love, and spiritual experience generally. He then moves to contemporary politics, the alt-right's 'repressive desublimation', left political correctness, the Corbyn and Sanders phenomena, the debate with Jordan Peterson, and his critique of the 'toxic masculinity' concept. The final third addresses three crises: ecological collapse (surveying five ideological responses to it), digital surveillance and neural interfaces, and the refugee crisis, with a concluding reflection on the breakup of Yugoslavia and parallels to Brexit.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 14
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek redefines it not as divine transcendence but as the unconditional, that which you cannot resist, encountered through failure, impossibility, and sexual passion rather than ecstatic experience.
as “sexuality as failure”
Human sexuality, unlike animal mating, is always linked to impossibility and failure; what we call love or erotic passion is the art of organizing failure, and this structure is what makes it a metaphysical event.
Underlying the discussion of sexuality as failure and of repressive desublimation: the enjoyment that does not simply satisfy but operates through obstacles, impossibility, and transgression.
Badiou's concept, invoked by Žižek to describe any eruption that breaks the routine reproduction of daily life, including erotic passion as the founding erotic event underwriting all other high-level experiences.
Žižek adapts Badiou's concept of the Event to sexuality: a passionate falling-in-love that irrupts into and disrupts everyday life, grounding all higher-order spiritual and political experiences.
as “obscene solidarity”
The alt-right's strategy of using vulgar, indecent speech to signal to 'ordinary people' that the politicians are 'basically like them', forging affective identification through shared transgression.
Borrowed from the Frankfurt School (Adorno/Marcuse): the loosening of libidinal inhibitions that nonetheless intensifies rather than relieves oppression, exemplified here by Boris Johnson's vulgar populism.
Implicitly present in the discussion of Lacan's inversion of Dostoevsky: if God (the big Other) exists as a fundamentalist guarantee, everything becomes permitted to those acting as its instruments.
Žižek subjects it to ideological critique: he argues the category medicalizes a social-ideological problem, covertly promotes a stereotypically feminine ideal of dialogue and collaboration that fits global capitalism, and inadvertently produces a new conformist ethics.
The structure 'I know very well, but…': acknowledging a threat (like ecological crisis) at the cognitive level while doing nothing, using the acknowledgment itself as an excuse for inaction.
as “ideology critique”
Žižek practices it across multiple domains, ecological discourse, toxic masculinity, refugee humanitarianism, Chernobyl series, unmasking how apparently critical or compassionate gestures serve systemic reproduction.
as “personalized guilt”
An ideological operation in which systemic ecological critique is deflected by redirecting responsibility onto individual consumer behavior (recycling, separating waste), thereby both sabotaging systemic critique and offering an easy personal absolution.
as “the wired brain”
Žižek's term for the emerging condition of direct brain-digital interfacing (Neuralink etc.) that erases the distance between subject and external world, enabling new forms of control he considers a 'mega game changer'.
Fredric Jameson's phrase invoked by Žižek to describe liberal dystopias (e.g. The Handmaid's Tale) that project a nightmare future to reassure audiences that the present liberal order is still acceptable, without asking why fundamentalism is strengthening now.
Stories he reaches for 7
Žižek's friend catastrophe theorist Dupuy was present as part of a European delegation two days after Fukushima; for hours there was total panic as the Japanese government feared evacuating the entire Tokyo region, illustrating why capitalism and national frameworks are insufficient for ecological catastrophe.
“the Japanese government thought that the entire Tokyo area, million people will have to be evacuated”
The great achievements of French cuisine, Camembert, Champagne, originated in accidents and failures of the production process; this illustrates the general structure of human creativity as productive failure.
“you wanted to make an ordinary cheese, you were too sloppy, it got rotten, and you said oh my god we now got Camembert”
European 'Waldsterben' (forest death) panic of the 1980s predicted total forest loss; forests are now more extensive than at any point in the past century, cited to caution against too-simple catastrophism while insisting the ecological crisis is real and more complex.
“the big slogan in Europe was Waldsterben, forests are dying...forests there are now more forests than at any point in the last hundred years”
Congo, a failed state run by warlords who nonetheless sell its minerals seamlessly to global capital, is Žižek's emblem of how state collapse and capitalist integration are not opposites but mutually reinforcing.
“Congo is for me the metaphor of where we are today. On the one hand a rogue state warlords ruling...on the other hand country fully integrated...into global capitalism”
Hugh Grant's stumbling, interrupted love declaration is paradoxically more convincing as authentic precisely because of its failures; a smooth declaration would seem rehearsed and artificial.
“his love declaration is meant to sound authentic precisely through the failure itself”
While Soviet officials publicly declared Kiev safe after Chernobyl, they immediately sent their own families away, a perfect illustration of ideological bad faith and fetishist disavowal.
“the official Soviet line was no danger in Kiev...but you know that the entire nomenklatura instantly sent their children and families far away”
The communist nomenklatura, sensing the end of socialist legitimacy, intuitively grasped that playing the nationalist card was their only way to retain power, Milošević as the paradigm case, and the moment Yugoslavia effectively died.
“the communist nomenklatura saw the end of the system. And they grasped...that the only way for them to retain legitimacy was to play the nationalist card”
Works invoked 6
Identified as a liberal dystopia exemplifying 'nostalgia for the present', projecting a nightmare theocratic future to reassure audiences about current liberal society without asking why fundamentalism is actually gaining strength now.
Žižek explicitly says he hates this film and hates both Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell, but uses the famous love-declaration scene as his key illustration of sexuality as organized failure.
Žižek's own book, the ostensible subject of the interview; described as returning to big metaphysical questions about the Absolute, reality, and sexuality as productive failure.
A book Žižek mentions he is finishing, on Hegel and direct brain-digital interfacing (Neuralink etc.) as a civilizational game-changer and new form of control.
Chernobyl tv
Žižek dislikes the HBO series for its ideological function: by attributing Chernobyl to Soviet sloppiness it reassures viewers that the nuclear danger belongs to the past, obscuring that safety risks persist in capitalism (Fukushima, Three Mile Island).
Nagle's analysis of the alt-right's appropriation of transgressive speech is cited approvingly as the source of Žižek's account of the right's 'repressive desublimation' strategy.
People invoked 27
Treated as the paradigm of nomenklatura nationalist reconversion, the moment Milošević took over was the moment Yugoslavia effectively died, even before the wars began.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy positive
Described as a 'very perspicuous catastrophe theorist' and good friend; his firsthand account from the Fukushima aftermath is used to illustrate why capitalism is insufficient for ecological catastrophe.
Cited as offering a radical materialist version of contact with the Absolute through radical destruction, contrasted with Žižek's own account via sexuality and failure.
Susan Sarandon positive
Cited approvingly for her argument that Hillary Clinton would likely have bombed Iran and North Korea, supporting Žižek's point that Trump is not the worst possible outcome from a foreign policy perspective.
Theodor W. Adorno positive
Mentioned as one possible origin of the Frankfurt School concept of repressive desublimation, which Žižek deploys to analyze Boris Johnson and the alt-right.
Jacques Lacan positive
Invoked for the inversion of Dostoevsky ('if there is God, everything is permitted'), and as the source of analytical tools for understanding repressive desublimation, totalitarianism, and sexual paradoxes.
Held up as the purest example of repressive desublimation, vulgar and transgressive in a way that maintains full oppression, and his Jo Cox Brexit comment treated as exemplarily obscene.
Cited with a kind of grim credit for his TV warnings that Libya would descend into chaos without him, used to illustrate how Western intervention created the refugee crisis.
German philosopher friend at Dundee University cited as an example of academics subject to university sensitivity training on permissible jokes.
Described as an 'ethical catastrophe' and 'cunning opportunist' but not the worst possible outcome; Žižek argues Trump paradoxically opened space for a genuine left pole and that the Democratic establishment is re-electing him.
Jeremy Corbyn positive
Held up as an example of left decency working as political strategy; his lack of charisma was paradoxically a strength because people perceived him as genuinely decent against Tory obscenity.
Alain Badiou positive
Žižek approvingly borrows Badiou's concept of the Event to ground his notion of the erotic event; cites Badiou's analysis of femininity in state repression and an anecdote about his adopted son before a female judge.
John Bolton negative
Cited as the kind of radical conservative who would be worse than Trump from a foreign policy standpoint, the unnamed establishment alternative Žižek fears.
Fredric Jameson positive
The phrase 'nostalgia for the present' is attributed to Jameson and borrowed by Žižek to critique liberal dystopias like The Handmaid's Tale.
Bernie Sanders positive
Cited as having drawn voters who would otherwise have voted for Trump, not Hillary's base, through his decency and authentic left message; part of the same political opening Trump inadvertently created.
Samuel Beckett positive
His motto 'fail again, fail better' is used as the signature formulation of sexuality and creativity as organized failure; an anecdote places the young Beckett as adolescent sexual counselor.
Supported Varoufakis's DiEM project but disagrees with his naive trust in direct democracy, pointing out that a referendum on refugees in Germany would now produce far harsher results than current policy.
Pablo Iglesias Posse negative
Cited as the voice of Podemos's left-populist 'forget about ideology, listen to ordinary people' approach, which Žižek argues hits a ceiling when real power decisions must be made.
Angela Nagle positive
Credited for the analysis of how the alt-right re-appropriated transgressive/vulgar speech as a political strategy while the left retreated into political correctness.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez positive
Cited alongside Bernie Sanders as part of the left pole that Žižek argues could not have emerged without the unsettling effect of Trump on hegemonic consensus.
His post-election vulgar declaration ('now it's our turn to fuck the whore') is the central example of right-wing obscene solidarity and cynical contempt for democratic norms.
Greta Thunberg positive
Praised for her autistic directness and refusal of dialogic femininity, held up as an example of effective political speech that embodies what is falsely pathologized as 'toxic masculinity'.
Herbert Marcuse positive
Co-credited with Adorno as possible originator of the concept of repressive desublimation that Žižek finds useful for contemporary analysis.
Jordan Peterson negative
Žižek acknowledges a grain of truth in Peterson's critique of victimization but sees him as an ideologist; the Toronto debate was a strategic choice to show left can be civilized, Žižek's secret goal was to address Peterson's fans and show the left does strength better.
Joe Biden negative
Cited as the kind of establishment Democrat candidate whose nomination is essentially doing everything possible to re-elect Trump.
Sigmund Freud positive
Cited for the insight that intense sexuality is the metaphysical moment, that passionate love disrupts the ordinary reproduction of daily life, used to ground the book's central argument.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky negative
Žižek explicitly says he is not a fan; targets Dostoevsky's 'if there is no God, everything is permitted' as totally wrong, Lacan's inversion is held to be correct instead.
What it argues
sexuality as productive failure and contact with the absoluterepressive desublimation and the alt-right's obscene solidarityleft political correctness vs. decency as political strategyfive ideological modes of dealing with ecological crisisdigital surveillance and the wired brainrefugee crisis and humanitarian mystificationthe breakup of Yugoslavia and Milošević's nationalist turn
Dialectical moves 10
“If there is God, then everything is permitted — it is precisely with God that everything is permitted, because those acting as God's instruments cannot be opposed.”
Inverts Dostoevsky's famous claim: the existence of God licenses unlimited transgression rather than restraining it, as seen in religious fundamentalism.
“Far from being low biological, our intense sexuality is the metaphysical moment — it is the interruption that cuts short daily life.”
Inverts the common view of sexuality as merely animal/biological by identifying passionate sexuality as precisely the site of metaphysical rupture.
“The true contact with the Absolute is not ecstatic transcendence but a mode of failure — the unconditional encountered through impossibility.”
Recasts the Absolute not as a mystical beyond but as what irrupts through the structure of failure in sexuality and creativity.
“Repressive desublimation: you are vulgar and direct, but all the oppression remains — it is even worse oppression.”
The Frankfurt School concept applied to Boris Johnson: apparent liberation from formal dignity intensifies rather than undermines domination.
“The only place you need psychoanalysis to understand the Yugoslav wars is to analyze the stupidity of Western Europe — not the Balkan madness.”
Reverses the Orientalist trope that Balkan violence is irrational and requires psychoanalytic decoding; locates the irrationality in Western diplomatic failure.
“You are controlled precisely when you think you are exercising your full freedom — surfing the web, buying things.”
The highest moment of apparent freedom in liberal digital society is actually the most complete moment of surveillance and control.
“Far from being a critique of masculinity, toxic masculinity covertly installs a masculine cliché about women — it is a masculine fantasy of femininity dressed as feminist critique.”
The very concept meant to attack masculine norms reproduces a gendered stereotype by defining the feminine as inherently dialogic and non-confrontational.
“If earth is our mother, it's a dirty bitch of a mother — there is no natural balance to which we can return.”
Turns the eco-romantic image of nurturing Mother Nature against itself by pointing to the catastrophic pre-human geological violence that produced our fossil fuels.
“Sexual liberation gave rise not to freer sexuality but to new obstacles and oppressions — never were there more impotence and frigidity than in our permissive era.”
Permissiveness paradoxically intensifies sexual dysfunction, confirming that desire operates through prohibition rather than simply needing its removal.
“Things can always get a little bit worse even if they are really bad — Trump is not the worst.”
Refuses the liberal framing of Trump as the absolute limit of evil; Democratic establishment alternatives (Biden, Bolton-style interventionism) could produce worse outcomes.
Claims 28
asserts
Human sexuality is defined not by fulfillment but by an inherent impossibility and failure, and it is through this failure that we touch something unconditional, which Žižek calls the Absolute.sexuality and the Absolute
asserts
The structure of productive failure — organizing rather than eliminating failure — is the basis of human creativity generally, from French cuisine to love declarations.creativity and failure
asserts
Passionate falling-in-love is a metaphysical interruption of daily life, and all higher spiritual, scientific, and political experiences are grounded in this erotic-event structure.sexuality as grounding metaphysical experience
asserts
The alt-right has appropriated the subversive mode of vulgar, transgressive speech to forge an obscene solidarity with 'ordinary people', while the left retreated into tightly controlled political correctness.alt-right and political language
asserts
The left should position itself as the true moral majority, confronting right-wing obscenity with a politics of minimum decency rather than either prudishness or matching vulgarity.left political strategy
asserts
Corbyn's perceived personal decency — not charisma — was the real source of Labour's surprising relative success.Jeremy Corbyn and Labour
asserts
Lacan's reversal of Dostoevsky — 'if there is God, then everything is permitted' — correctly diagnoses how fundamentalist theism licenses unlimited violence, against Dostoevsky's claim that without God everything is permitted.religion and ethics
asserts
Sexual liberation and permissiveness paradoxically gave rise to new forms of impotence and frigidity rather than freer sexuality, confirming psychoanalytic logic over naive liberationist expectations.sexual liberation and its discontents
rejects
The concept of 'toxic masculinity' is a mystification: it medicalizes a social-ideological phenomenon, covertly installs a stereotypical feminine ideal of dialogue and non-confrontation, and fits capitalism's current ideological needs.toxic masculinity
asserts
Greta Thunberg's appeal lies precisely in her 'toxic' refusal of dialogic femininity — her autistic directness and aggression are what make her ecological message effective.Greta Thunberg and femininity
asserts
The fashionable image of femininity as gentle, dialogic, and collaborative is an ideological construct that fits global capitalism and functions as a new form of conformist ethics.ideology of femininity and capitalism
asserts
There are five dominant ideological modes of dealing with ecological crisis — denial, market/tax solutions, faith in science, return-to-nature anti-anthropocentrism, and personalized guilt — all of which are inadequate or actively mystifying.ecological ideology
asserts
Ecology cannot be solved within capitalism alone; it requires large-scale international coordination that current institutions are unable to provide.ecological crisis and capitalism
reframes
The ecological problem is not primarily global average warming but the growing extremity and uneven distribution of climate disruption, which already constitutes a permanent catastrophe for many Third World countries.the nature of ecological crisis
asserts
The personalized-guilt ideology of ecological responsibility (recycle your cans) simultaneously sabotages systemic critique and provides an easy individual absolution.personalized ecological guilt
rejects
There is no natural balance to which humanity can return; the pre-human earth was itself a site of catastrophe, and the 'mother nature' myth is ideological.ecological anti-anthropocentrism
asserts
Direct neural-digital interfacing (the 'wired brain') is a civilizational game-changer that enables new and more insidious forms of control than either Soviet totalitarianism or current Western digital surveillance.technology and control
asserts
In Western liberal societies you are controlled most completely precisely when you believe you are exercising maximum freedom — surfing the web, making consumer choices.digital surveillance and freedom
reframes
The refugee crisis should not be framed as a humanitarian question (open or close borders) but requires intervention into the geopolitical and economic conditions that produce refugees in the first place.refugee crisis
asserts
The humanitarian framing of the refugee crisis cynically pits two groups of poor people against each other, while leaving liberal elites feeling morally superior.humanitarian discourse and class
rejects
The Chernobyl TV series ideologically scapegoats Soviet bureaucracy when in fact Soviet safety standards were comparably high and the accident occurred during a safety test — the same nuclear risks persist in capitalist contexts (Fukushima, Three Mile Island).Chernobyl TV series and ideology
rejects
The Handmaid's Tale and similar liberal dystopias function as 'nostalgia for the present': by projecting horror into a hypothetical future they reassure audiences about the current order and prevent asking why fundamentalism is growing now.liberal dystopias
asserts
Trump, though an ethical catastrophe, has paradoxically unsettled the hegemonic consensus and opened space for a genuine left pole (Sanders, AOC) that would not have emerged otherwise.Trump and the left
asserts
The Democratic Party establishment is doing everything possible to ensure Trump's re-election by running candidates like Biden instead of genuine alternatives.US Democratic Party
asserts
Yugoslavia was effectively dead the moment Milošević took power, because the communist nomenklatura's embrace of nationalism as a substitute legitimacy made the disintegration inevitable regardless of Slovene or Croatian secession.Yugoslavia's collapse
asserts
The Yugoslav wars could have been prevented by timely, modest international intervention; psychoanalysis is needed not to understand 'Balkan madness' but to understand the stupidity of Western European diplomacy.Yugoslav wars and Western responsibility
asserts
Left populism (Podemos, Syriza-adjacent models) reaches a ceiling: once near power, it must impose unpopular measures and can no longer rely on simply listening to ordinary people.left populism
reframes
Science itself is not a neutral answer to ecological crisis because it is partially captured by the logic of capital; yet we cannot feel the ecological threat without science.science and ecology
Quotes 12
“Try again, fail again, fail better.”Slavoj Žižek · sexuality and creativity as organized failure
“If earth is our mother it's a dirty bitch of a mother.”Slavoj Žižek · rejection of eco-romantic nature worship
“You are controlled precisely when you think that you are exercising your full freedom. What can be more free than surfing the web, buying things — you are controlled there.”Slavoj Žižek · digital surveillance and the illusion of liberal freedom
“If there is God then everything is permitted. Because if there is God in this strong sense, fundamentalist sense, and I act as his instrument, then who can oppose the will of God.”Slavoj Žižek · Lacan's inversion of Dostoevsky: God licenses transgression
“Things can always get a little bit worse even if they are really bad. Trump is not the worst.”Slavoj Žižek · political realism against liberal Trump-obsession
“The problem is not global warming as such. The problem is the distribution of it — extremes are growing, you don't get only more heat, you also get more cold.”Slavoj Žižek · reframing ecological crisis as distributional extremism not average warming
“Boris Johnson is repressive desublimation at its purest. It's desublimation — you are vulgar directly — but all the oppression remains there.”Slavoj Žižek · repressive desublimation and right-wing populism
“Even the hardline communist states managed disintegration like Soviet Union, Czech Republic and Slovakia much better than we. That was the tragedy of Yugoslavia.”Slavoj Žižek · Yugoslavia's uniquely catastrophic disintegration
“I have a nostalgia for the good old communist totalitarianism where you knew that you were controlled.”Slavoj Žižek · ironic nostalgia highlighting the opacity of contemporary digital control
“The only place you need psychoanalysis is to analyze the stupidity of Western Europe — there where you need psychoanalysis.”Slavoj Žižek · inversion of Orientalist 'Balkan madness' trope
“Never there was so much impotence, frigidity and so on — we live in a permissive era but these paradoxes show things turn into their own opposite.”Slavoj Žižek · sexual liberation producing new unfreedoms
“No matter how much you look up you will never see the ozone hole, it's a scientific construct. So that's the paradox — even to feel the ecological threat you need science.”Slavoj Žižek · science as necessary but insufficient response to ecological crisis
Transcript 19 turns
unknown
Slavoj Žižek, thanks for taking the time to join us. The pleasure is mine. Thanks. Your book, Sex and the Failed Absolute, you're here to talk about it. Tell us about it. What's it about?
Slavoj Žižek, thanks for taking the time to join us. The pleasure is mine. Thanks. Your book, Sex and the Failed Absolute, you're here to talk about it. Tell us about it. What's it about?
Slavoj Žižek
That's the irony of it. It's not a political book or even a book about actual topics. I'm tempted more and more to return to big metaphysical questions. Quite in a quite naive way, like is there an absolute, what do we mean by it, what is the ultimate nature of reality and so on and so on. Something interesting was going on in philosophy in the last three, four decades. All these let's call them naively big metaphysical questions were left to natural sciences or cognitive sciences. Today, if you want to ask a question, is the, does our universe, does it have a limit or is it endless, you ask quantum cosmology. If you want to know do we have a free will or not, you ask evolutionary biologists or cognitive scientists and so on. I think philosophy got caught in this deconstructionist historicist mode, analyze discourse strategies and so on and so on. And in a quite naive way I try to approach this problem in the book. But I'm still, I'm not turning spiritual. I'm a radical materialist and so on. So I begin in a quite naive way. What do you usually mean with contact with the absolute is usually for most of the people is some kind of a transcendent ecstatic divine experience. I of course discount that. Then you have Marquis de Sade's radical materialist version. Since all reality changes all the time, everything that, that, that, that is generated falls apart, absolute destruction is the only, our only contact with the absolute. Then you get other versions and so on. And I propose but all depends on what do you mean by absolute. I propose a very simple crazy answer, that is sexuality. But be careful here, not in this dissolute sense, a good [unintelligible] where you are all in it, that's where I feel absolute. No, what interests me about sexuality, human sexuality, as opposed to animal mating, it's precisely that it's always linked to an impossibility, to a failure. And I think we experience something like an absolute, and by absolute I simply mean something unconditional, that you cannot resist, you that's it, through a certain mode of failure. And then I try to elaborate this failures and so on already, for example, maybe this will amuse some of the people, the examples that I give, I think, so in the book. I hate the movie, incidentally it's Four Weddings and a Funeral. You know, Hugh Grant declaring love to Andie MacDowell. Again, to avoid a misunderstanding, I hate both of them. But you know that famous point when he declares love to her, famous scene, and of course, in his own affected way, it's not authentic of course, he stumbles all the time, fails to interrupt himself. But nonetheless, the, the paradox is that the, his love declaration is meant to sound, I will not say sound authentic, precisely through the failure itself. If he were to be able to simply give a smoothly running declaration, you would have said he was trained like this, it's artificial and so on and so on. Okay, this is love, not sex. But I think, and I try to again develop through many examples and so on, I think that ultimately with sexuality it's the same. It's how to organize your failure. And you know what, one of the most famous lines of Samuel Beckett: Try again, fail again, fail better. Do you know that when he was young as a psychologist, Beckett, the real Beckett, was doing some work as helping adolescents in sexual troubles and so on. So I always try to imagine how he got an insight into this paradox. Let me give you another example that I like to use, it's also in the book I think. Why French cuisine for some people, not for me, so great. As a French guy explained to me, because all the big things of French cuisine are generated in a failure. Like, you wanted to make an ordinary cheese, you were too sloppy, it got rotten, and you said oh my god we now got Camembert, all those bad smelling cheese. Or, you were doing wine, wine, you did something wrong with fermentation, oh we got Champagne and so on. I think that this is even I would have said the structure of our human creativity. And so my, I'm again not an idealist metaphysician, my experience is this one. The great thing about human beings is things happen to you in a good sense which shatter you, it's shocking, you know like you, you are immobilized, my god that's the real thing. And that not work as old-time Marxists would have claimed that sexuality, passionate love works like this. Are people aware for example how difficult it is today, that's why it's no longer fashionable, to feel real sexual passion, not this one night stands and so on, all virtual sex. Imagine you lead a nice life. You lead a nice life. You drink with friends, maybe one night stand here and there whatever, and then you passionately fall in love. All your peaceful reproduction of daily life is ruined, you are obsessed by it and so on and so on. And that's already an insight which you find in Freud. How far from being low biological and so on, our intense sexuality is the metaphysical moment. Metaphysical in the sense of something happened which disturbs, cuts short whatever, interrupts your daily rhythm. And I think then, now it may sound a little bit crazy what I'm saying, now it is developed in the book, how all our other let's call them high level spiritual experiences, scientific knowledge, even political practice and so on are grounded, this is what my friend Alain Badiou calls event, are grounded in erotic event. In the sense of it's not life as usual, it's an interruption. So moving away from the book then, right here at the moment in London, it's interesting to hear you mention politics because a question that we're discussing at the moment is the relationship between language and reality. So for example, you've been called the most dangerous philosopher in the West before. Which was meant as an insult. Yes, and a lot of people in the UK at the moment have been talking about the language used in Parliament as being dangerous. I know, I know. You know, it may surprise you, although I am almost always a little bit obscene and so on, I nonetheless think that one should be very careful here. I believe in appearances. You know why? Because I've written about it. When I was young, very young, revolution and so on, the idea was that those in power speak this false dignified language, patriotism, values and so on, and it was considered subversive to use the F-word
That's the irony of it. It's not a political book or even a book about actual topics. I'm tempted more and more to return to big metaphysical questions. Quite in a quite naive way, like is there an absolute, what do we mean by it, what is the ultimate nature of reality and so on and so on. Something interesting was going on in philosophy in the last three, four decades. All these let's call them naively big metaphysical questions were left to natural sciences or cognitive sciences. Today, if you want to ask a question, is the, does our universe, does it have a limit or is it endless, you ask quantum cosmology. If you want to know do we have a free will or not, you ask evolutionary biologists or cognitive scientists and so on. I think philosophy got caught in this deconstructionist historicist mode, analyze discourse strategies and so on and so on. And in a quite naive way I try to approach this problem in the book. But I'm still, I'm not turning spiritual. I'm a radical materialist and so on. So I begin in a quite naive way. What do you usually mean with contact with the absolute is usually for most of the people is some kind of a transcendent ecstatic divine experience. I of course discount that. Then you have Marquis de Sade's radical materialist version. Since all reality changes all the time, everything that, that, that, that is generated falls apart, absolute destruction is the only, our only contact with the absolute. Then you get other versions and so on. And I propose but all depends on what do you mean by absolute. I propose a very simple crazy answer, that is sexuality. But be careful here, not in this dissolute sense, a good [unintelligible] where you are all in it, that's where I feel absolute. No, what interests me about sexuality, human sexuality, as opposed to animal mating, it's precisely that it's always linked to an impossibility, to a failure. And I think we experience something like an absolute, and by absolute I simply mean something unconditional, that you cannot resist, you that's it, through a certain mode of failure. And then I try to elaborate this failures and so on already, for example, maybe this will amuse some of the people, the examples that I give, I think, so in the book. I hate the movie, incidentally it's Four Weddings and a Funeral. You know, Hugh Grant declaring love to Andie MacDowell. Again, to avoid a misunderstanding, I hate both of them. But you know that famous point when he declares love to her, famous scene, and of course, in his own affected way, it's not authentic of course, he stumbles all the time, fails to interrupt himself. But nonetheless, the, the paradox is that the, his love declaration is meant to sound, I will not say sound authentic, precisely through the failure itself. If he were to be able to simply give a smoothly running declaration, you would have said he was trained like this, it's artificial and so on and so on. Okay, this is love, not sex. But I think, and I try to again develop through many examples and so on, I think that ultimately with sexuality it's the same. It's how to organize your failure. And you know what, one of the most famous lines of Samuel Beckett: Try again, fail again, fail better. Do you know that when he was young as a psychologist, Beckett, the real Beckett, was doing some work as helping adolescents in sexual troubles and so on. So I always try to imagine how he got an insight into this paradox. Let me give you another example that I like to use, it's also in the book I think. Why French cuisine for some people, not for me, so great. As a French guy explained to me, because all the big things of French cuisine are generated in a failure. Like, you wanted to make an ordinary cheese, you were too sloppy, it got rotten, and you said oh my god we now got Camembert, all those bad smelling cheese. Or, you were doing wine, wine, you did something wrong with fermentation, oh we got Champagne and so on. I think that this is even I would have said the structure of our human creativity. And so my, I'm again not an idealist metaphysician, my experience is this one. The great thing about human beings is things happen to you in a good sense which shatter you, it's shocking, you know like you, you are immobilized, my god that's the real thing. And that not work as old-time Marxists would have claimed that sexuality, passionate love works like this. Are people aware for example how difficult it is today, that's why it's no longer fashionable, to feel real sexual passion, not this one night stands and so on, all virtual sex. Imagine you lead a nice life. You lead a nice life. You drink with friends, maybe one night stand here and there whatever, and then you passionately fall in love. All your peaceful reproduction of daily life is ruined, you are obsessed by it and so on and so on. And that's already an insight which you find in Freud. How far from being low biological and so on, our intense sexuality is the metaphysical moment. Metaphysical in the sense of something happened which disturbs, cuts short whatever, interrupts your daily rhythm. And I think then, now it may sound a little bit crazy what I'm saying, now it is developed in the book, how all our other let's call them high level spiritual experiences, scientific knowledge, even political practice and so on are grounded, this is what my friend Alain Badiou calls event, are grounded in erotic event. In the sense of it's not life as usual, it's an interruption. So moving away from the book then, right here at the moment in London, it's interesting to hear you mention politics because a question that we're discussing at the moment is the relationship between language and reality. So for example, you've been called the most dangerous philosopher in the West before. Which was meant as an insult. Yes, and a lot of people in the UK at the moment have been talking about the language used in Parliament as being dangerous. I know, I know. You know, it may surprise you, although I am almost always a little bit obscene and so on, I nonetheless think that one should be very careful here. I believe in appearances. You know why? Because I've written about it. When I was young, very young, revolution and so on, the idea was that those in power speak this false dignified language, patriotism, values and so on, and it was considered subversive to use the F-word
unknown
publicly, to talk dirty as if you are subverting the established authorities. But as a you should get her here, the Irish theorist analyst who now lives in Brooklyn- Angela Nagle? Yes, yes, yes. As she developed in a nice way, I not always but here I agree with her basically. Strange thing happened with alt-right and so on now. They triumphantly re-appropriated this dirty, indecent, shameless way of talking, and as a reaction it's a
publicly, to talk dirty as if you are subverting the established authorities. But as a you should get her here, the Irish theorist analyst who now lives in Brooklyn- Angela Nagle? Yes, yes, yes. As she developed in a nice way, I not always but here I agree with her basically. Strange thing happened with alt-right and so on now. They triumphantly re-appropriated this dirty, indecent, shameless way of talking, and as a reaction it's a
unknown
catastrophe. The left moved into tightly controlled political correctness so that you have to worry
catastrophe. The left moved into tightly controlled political correctness so that you have to worry
Slavoj Žižek
all the time about was it insulting if I use this
all the time about was it insulting if I use this
unknown
expression, that expression and so on. Some of the friends here are telling me at different universities. The last one was my friend the German
expression, that expression and so on. Some of the friends here are telling me at different universities. The last one was my friend the German
Slavoj Žižek
philosopher Frank Ruda who works at Dundee University now, that all professors have their obligatory classes, sensitivity training they call them on specifically what kind of jokes you are allowed to use not to offend anybody and so on and so on. So, aware of all this, I think that maybe, not in any prudish way and so on, but nonetheless, maybe just maybe the left should adopt this position of I would be quite manipulative here of we are the true moral majority today. And if you ask me, you know that the right-wingers are the true as it's obvious now with Trump, with Boris Johnson. Isn't the big shock that again and again you think they reached the limit how low they can go. Like now, Boris Johnson two days ago with the Jo Cox or whatever, the best tribute to her would be to do Brexit, which is an incredibly cruel, tasteless irony. Or what Trump is seriously doing and so on. You know what is so depressing, that here liberals made a mistake. You remember in Trump's electoral campaign before he was elected, again and again the left, left-liberal not true leftist critics claimed now he is finished. He as they put it often, repeatedly, shot himself into his own knee. No, it didn't hurt him. I think this is the most dangerous part of the alt-right, that they establish a kind of obscene solidarity with so-called ordinary people. You see, we are basically like you, you see we are common people vulgar like you and so on and so on and so on. And in some of my books, I forgot in which one, there are too many I know, I develop of how how many people who even pretend to be authentic Christian conservatives and so on do this. I don't know if, okay, my guys who listen to us now probably will not know, I was told by my Polish friends and then I checked it, it's all true on the web, you can see the clip and so on. Kaczyński, the real master of Poland today, Catholic conservative, was asked in one of the previous elections when his party won, he was asked what's your plan, how will you govern. And his answer was in very vulgar Polish Teraz, kurwa, my, which means to translate it descriptively, now it's our turn to fuck the whore. It's a vulgar military expression, you know this archetypal scene, it gives me creeps, a prostitute, soldiers waiting in line and then oh now it's my turn to and everybody was shocked. They thought it's a mistake and he insisted on no that's what I meant and so on like what he meant was of course our plan is to take full advantage of ruling to do it and so on. So what should the answer from the left be? I think that I'm, it's not the, but what I'm, I'll put it more in a conditional way, I should be tempted to say that we shouldn't be afraid to give this message to the people and in a refined way I think Jeremy Corbyn was doing it. Because you know Corbyn is not even as especially, why did he in the last big elections did although Labour party didn't win surprisingly well. I think people ordinary people sensed how in contrast to all those Tory guys obscene twisting words, he was simply perceived as a decent guy. Don't underestimate this. Paradoxically his very lack of mega charm, charisma, was part of his strength. And I wouldn't be afraid I almost liked what was happening in the last days in parliament and so on where we saw the real distinction. It's not dignified conservatives, no, Labours are people with minimum of decency, shame and so on and so on. This thing happened in a nice way in my own country already some years ago. We had the debate about same-sex marriages and all that stuff, and a member of our party, of my ex-party no longer, a lady argued for same-sex marriages. And then a conservative nationalist member of parliament did something in the style of Trump or Boris Johnson. He said publicly with of course an evil smile is this woman a woman at all. We should call a doctor, he used these words, to inspect her between her legs and see what kind of strange organs she has there and so on. And then come the moment of truth. It was so clear camera was jumping and so on. The right side of the parliament they simply took it as a joke, they laughed like crazy and so on. The left part it's not even that they protested, they couldn't believe their ears, they were just embarrassed and so on. You know like you don't do this. I think I know it's a problematic thesis and so on but I think the left has a unique chance to get quite many new voters by telling them you see now the right wingers if you worry about moral decay, obscenity, sorry it's the right wingers who are this. I already advised this to my friends when I was young, advised who was I to advise them, with Ronald Reagan and afterwards when the Republican motto was family values. And the usual left reaction was yes but some people are excluded, this is a patriarchal notion, what about what about gay marriages and so on. And my idea was to follow also another line because in the experience of many ordinary Americans, as a friend of mine sociologist told me, if you look closely you see that Reaganomics with its catastrophe of the whole workplace culture and structure was changed, many new women employed because the husband was unemployed and all that. That Reaganomics did did more to ruin family values than all the gay or whatever propaganda together. So of course we shouldn't in any sense played homophobic cards, but don't be afraid to address these modest ordinary decent people whose point is simply that they worry about minimum decency and so on, how to survive. Let's not be afraid. Maybe you find this problematic, but I think we should not be afraid to do it and again I think that precisely part of the we will see what is happening now. I'm don't know the situation well enough in here in the UK with Labour party. I think that nonetheless unfortunately their indecision avoiding to take clear position it's pretty catastrophic. Because isn't the big rule of politics, even if I'm very cynical, even if you don't know what you want at least act as if you do know pretend and so on and so on. This was pretty catastrophic. But in spite of this the relative revival of Labour party under Corbyn, this was a beautiful surprise. Everybody thought oh a left lunatic is in power, they will be marginalized. No, they did well. It's also up to a point because of this. And I have another this playing on the common people's decency and it's the same, I know I didn't met him by pure chance I know people around him because very strangely Burlington, Vermont is one of the few places in America where my friends Lacanian cultural theorists are in power. They run at least one university department. So I often go there and Burlington is the seat of Bernie Sanders. Yes. No, and they told me that he is that's the true secret of his success, not that he will seduce those who would otherwise vote for Hillary Clinton and so on and so on. He got people who otherwise would have voted for Trump. What do you think the significance of Lacanian psychoanalysis is at the moment in the modern world? I don't believe in immediate practical efficiency, like to be a to be a successful leftist politician you need to read Lacan. But I think that things that we are witnessing today which can at least partially be covered by the notion coined already by I don't know who it was of the old Frankfurt School, Adorno or Marcuse, crucial notion of repressive desublimation. You desublimate, you get direct vulgar, but it's not liberating. It's even worse oppression. That's, if you need want one example, Boris Johnson is repressive desublimation at its purest. It's desublimation you are vulgar directly but all the oppression remains there. And these are the paradoxes today. For example what I learned from Lacan for our analysis is how totally wrong Dostoevsky was. It's one of the big things that I hate about, I'm not a fan of Dostoevsky. When he said you know, okay he one of his heroes, with Dostoevsky it's always more ambiguous, if there is no God then everything is permitted. And Lacan turned this around. No, if there is God then everything is permitted. Because if there is God in this strong sense, fundamentalist sense, there is God and I act as his instrument, then who can oppose the will of God, everything is permitted. And so all these paradoxes of for example how does so-called, I don't like the term it's too general things are much more refined, how does totalitarianism work, how ordinary people are seduced into it. Or even the other side of the same phenomenon. Why did sexual liberation permissivity at least relative permissivity, why did it not bring more free spontaneous fully enjoyable sexuality but obviously gave rise to new to new obstacles, oppressions, because we live in permissive era but at the same time everybody knows never there was so much impotence, frigidity and so on and so on. All these paradoxes psychoanalysis can do it, because we live in crazy times when again things turn into their own opposite. Absolutely, and you tested those ideas in your reading of Marx against Jordan Peterson recently in a debate. Sorry against... Jordan Peterson, Jordan B. Peterson. Yeah but I think that was another thing. Let me explain because many leftists are telling me why were you so friendly towards him you should have cut his balls. No, I knew what I was doing. My point was because he is painting all the time leftists his enemies as some kind of political correct fanatics and so on, and I want to show how no sorry you can be a nice civilized guy and so on, you can get the message through. And my secret goal and proudly I can say I from the reactions that I got I succeeded, is that my secret message was to his fans. Quite frank, it was of course I disagree with Jordan Peterson but there is as it's always with efficient ideologists a grain of truth in what he is saying. Like I agree often with him when he criticizes this simple victimization, become responsible, stand on your own legs and so on and so on. And my message to them was sorry, we left wingers can do this even better than conservatives. We our this is my secret political projects. We are not those whining liberal leftists whose point is yes we are all victims and we all need psychological advice. No, we also like strong personalities strong not in a masculine sense but strong. And I go here to the end. I you know where I got a lot of hatred. I I you know when it was that notion rendered fashionable it brought me many enemies you remember that polemics about toxic masculinity. Many of my leftist friends oh big victory for feminism, I'm opposed to that notion. I'm all for women's rights and so on, but look closely at this notion. First what it does, toxic masculinity what we mean by it, violence of men against women. Toxic so-called toxic masculinity is now a medical category. So instead of and it was proposed as a category by psychological association. And you know in United States where we you should never forget their health industry it's two to three times the defense industry, it's the strongest branch. So when something is admitted recognized as a medical category, it means billions of dollars in new pills, health and so on. So what I'm saying is that that's the first mystification. The the something which is obviously a social ideological category. If I beat my wife or women, it's not simply a psychological illness. It can be but mostly it's a form of brutal ideology. And you know it's a social ideological foundations. That's the first mystification. The second mystification that I didn't like is if you read closely the definition of toxic masculinity. It's done even in gender neutral terms. The claim is that men mostly when they are in a difficult situation instead of talking with others friends friendly they withdraw into themselves and react, decide to act alone in a radical way even if it will hurt them. But sorry, in many situations you need to act like this it's called simply courage, my god. You know and so I think that the secret trick of this category of toxic
philosopher Frank Ruda who works at Dundee University now, that all professors have their obligatory classes, sensitivity training they call them on specifically what kind of jokes you are allowed to use not to offend anybody and so on and so on. So, aware of all this, I think that maybe, not in any prudish way and so on, but nonetheless, maybe just maybe the left should adopt this position of I would be quite manipulative here of we are the true moral majority today. And if you ask me, you know that the right-wingers are the true as it's obvious now with Trump, with Boris Johnson. Isn't the big shock that again and again you think they reached the limit how low they can go. Like now, Boris Johnson two days ago with the Jo Cox or whatever, the best tribute to her would be to do Brexit, which is an incredibly cruel, tasteless irony. Or what Trump is seriously doing and so on. You know what is so depressing, that here liberals made a mistake. You remember in Trump's electoral campaign before he was elected, again and again the left, left-liberal not true leftist critics claimed now he is finished. He as they put it often, repeatedly, shot himself into his own knee. No, it didn't hurt him. I think this is the most dangerous part of the alt-right, that they establish a kind of obscene solidarity with so-called ordinary people. You see, we are basically like you, you see we are common people vulgar like you and so on and so on and so on. And in some of my books, I forgot in which one, there are too many I know, I develop of how how many people who even pretend to be authentic Christian conservatives and so on do this. I don't know if, okay, my guys who listen to us now probably will not know, I was told by my Polish friends and then I checked it, it's all true on the web, you can see the clip and so on. Kaczyński, the real master of Poland today, Catholic conservative, was asked in one of the previous elections when his party won, he was asked what's your plan, how will you govern. And his answer was in very vulgar Polish Teraz, kurwa, my, which means to translate it descriptively, now it's our turn to fuck the whore. It's a vulgar military expression, you know this archetypal scene, it gives me creeps, a prostitute, soldiers waiting in line and then oh now it's my turn to and everybody was shocked. They thought it's a mistake and he insisted on no that's what I meant and so on like what he meant was of course our plan is to take full advantage of ruling to do it and so on. So what should the answer from the left be? I think that I'm, it's not the, but what I'm, I'll put it more in a conditional way, I should be tempted to say that we shouldn't be afraid to give this message to the people and in a refined way I think Jeremy Corbyn was doing it. Because you know Corbyn is not even as especially, why did he in the last big elections did although Labour party didn't win surprisingly well. I think people ordinary people sensed how in contrast to all those Tory guys obscene twisting words, he was simply perceived as a decent guy. Don't underestimate this. Paradoxically his very lack of mega charm, charisma, was part of his strength. And I wouldn't be afraid I almost liked what was happening in the last days in parliament and so on where we saw the real distinction. It's not dignified conservatives, no, Labours are people with minimum of decency, shame and so on and so on. This thing happened in a nice way in my own country already some years ago. We had the debate about same-sex marriages and all that stuff, and a member of our party, of my ex-party no longer, a lady argued for same-sex marriages. And then a conservative nationalist member of parliament did something in the style of Trump or Boris Johnson. He said publicly with of course an evil smile is this woman a woman at all. We should call a doctor, he used these words, to inspect her between her legs and see what kind of strange organs she has there and so on. And then come the moment of truth. It was so clear camera was jumping and so on. The right side of the parliament they simply took it as a joke, they laughed like crazy and so on. The left part it's not even that they protested, they couldn't believe their ears, they were just embarrassed and so on. You know like you don't do this. I think I know it's a problematic thesis and so on but I think the left has a unique chance to get quite many new voters by telling them you see now the right wingers if you worry about moral decay, obscenity, sorry it's the right wingers who are this. I already advised this to my friends when I was young, advised who was I to advise them, with Ronald Reagan and afterwards when the Republican motto was family values. And the usual left reaction was yes but some people are excluded, this is a patriarchal notion, what about what about gay marriages and so on. And my idea was to follow also another line because in the experience of many ordinary Americans, as a friend of mine sociologist told me, if you look closely you see that Reaganomics with its catastrophe of the whole workplace culture and structure was changed, many new women employed because the husband was unemployed and all that. That Reaganomics did did more to ruin family values than all the gay or whatever propaganda together. So of course we shouldn't in any sense played homophobic cards, but don't be afraid to address these modest ordinary decent people whose point is simply that they worry about minimum decency and so on, how to survive. Let's not be afraid. Maybe you find this problematic, but I think we should not be afraid to do it and again I think that precisely part of the we will see what is happening now. I'm don't know the situation well enough in here in the UK with Labour party. I think that nonetheless unfortunately their indecision avoiding to take clear position it's pretty catastrophic. Because isn't the big rule of politics, even if I'm very cynical, even if you don't know what you want at least act as if you do know pretend and so on and so on. This was pretty catastrophic. But in spite of this the relative revival of Labour party under Corbyn, this was a beautiful surprise. Everybody thought oh a left lunatic is in power, they will be marginalized. No, they did well. It's also up to a point because of this. And I have another this playing on the common people's decency and it's the same, I know I didn't met him by pure chance I know people around him because very strangely Burlington, Vermont is one of the few places in America where my friends Lacanian cultural theorists are in power. They run at least one university department. So I often go there and Burlington is the seat of Bernie Sanders. Yes. No, and they told me that he is that's the true secret of his success, not that he will seduce those who would otherwise vote for Hillary Clinton and so on and so on. He got people who otherwise would have voted for Trump. What do you think the significance of Lacanian psychoanalysis is at the moment in the modern world? I don't believe in immediate practical efficiency, like to be a to be a successful leftist politician you need to read Lacan. But I think that things that we are witnessing today which can at least partially be covered by the notion coined already by I don't know who it was of the old Frankfurt School, Adorno or Marcuse, crucial notion of repressive desublimation. You desublimate, you get direct vulgar, but it's not liberating. It's even worse oppression. That's, if you need want one example, Boris Johnson is repressive desublimation at its purest. It's desublimation you are vulgar directly but all the oppression remains there. And these are the paradoxes today. For example what I learned from Lacan for our analysis is how totally wrong Dostoevsky was. It's one of the big things that I hate about, I'm not a fan of Dostoevsky. When he said you know, okay he one of his heroes, with Dostoevsky it's always more ambiguous, if there is no God then everything is permitted. And Lacan turned this around. No, if there is God then everything is permitted. Because if there is God in this strong sense, fundamentalist sense, there is God and I act as his instrument, then who can oppose the will of God, everything is permitted. And so all these paradoxes of for example how does so-called, I don't like the term it's too general things are much more refined, how does totalitarianism work, how ordinary people are seduced into it. Or even the other side of the same phenomenon. Why did sexual liberation permissivity at least relative permissivity, why did it not bring more free spontaneous fully enjoyable sexuality but obviously gave rise to new to new obstacles, oppressions, because we live in permissive era but at the same time everybody knows never there was so much impotence, frigidity and so on and so on. All these paradoxes psychoanalysis can do it, because we live in crazy times when again things turn into their own opposite. Absolutely, and you tested those ideas in your reading of Marx against Jordan Peterson recently in a debate. Sorry against... Jordan Peterson, Jordan B. Peterson. Yeah but I think that was another thing. Let me explain because many leftists are telling me why were you so friendly towards him you should have cut his balls. No, I knew what I was doing. My point was because he is painting all the time leftists his enemies as some kind of political correct fanatics and so on, and I want to show how no sorry you can be a nice civilized guy and so on, you can get the message through. And my secret goal and proudly I can say I from the reactions that I got I succeeded, is that my secret message was to his fans. Quite frank, it was of course I disagree with Jordan Peterson but there is as it's always with efficient ideologists a grain of truth in what he is saying. Like I agree often with him when he criticizes this simple victimization, become responsible, stand on your own legs and so on and so on. And my message to them was sorry, we left wingers can do this even better than conservatives. We our this is my secret political projects. We are not those whining liberal leftists whose point is yes we are all victims and we all need psychological advice. No, we also like strong personalities strong not in a masculine sense but strong. And I go here to the end. I you know where I got a lot of hatred. I I you know when it was that notion rendered fashionable it brought me many enemies you remember that polemics about toxic masculinity. Many of my leftist friends oh big victory for feminism, I'm opposed to that notion. I'm all for women's rights and so on, but look closely at this notion. First what it does, toxic masculinity what we mean by it, violence of men against women. Toxic so-called toxic masculinity is now a medical category. So instead of and it was proposed as a category by psychological association. And you know in United States where we you should never forget their health industry it's two to three times the defense industry, it's the strongest branch. So when something is admitted recognized as a medical category, it means billions of dollars in new pills, health and so on. So what I'm saying is that that's the first mystification. The the something which is obviously a social ideological category. If I beat my wife or women, it's not simply a psychological illness. It can be but mostly it's a form of brutal ideology. And you know it's a social ideological foundations. That's the first mystification. The second mystification that I didn't like is if you read closely the definition of toxic masculinity. It's done even in gender neutral terms. The claim is that men mostly when they are in a difficult situation instead of talking with others friends friendly they withdraw into themselves and react, decide to act alone in a radical way even if it will hurt them. But sorry, in many situations you need to act like this it's called simply courage, my god. You know and so I think that the secret trick of this category of toxic
unknown
masculinity is to promote a very precise I'm almost tempted to say masculine cliché about women. Women like dialogue they're they are friendly non-violent and so on and so on. Sorry to jump but maybe this will be of some
masculinity is to promote a very precise I'm almost tempted to say masculine cliché about women. Women like dialogue they're they are friendly non-violent and so on and so on. Sorry to jump but maybe this will be of some
Slavoj Žižek
interest to our listeners. That's why I in spite of I'm afraid a little bit we should be manipulated or how, but that's what I like about Greta Thunberg that girl. She is if there ever was a person who speaks with a certain hatred with almost I would say what they call toxic masculinity, it's her. Autistic and so on, we need autistic women like that. Because her message is a beautiful one nonetheless correct. She is not saying we should understand more and so on, she doesn't pretend to know. Her message is just science is telling us clearly many things. And our usual reply is this what I would have called fetishist disavowal: I know very well but... We know but you cannot solve it so easily we have to be patient and then we do nothing. And her message is simply take science seriously. Act do it seriously and she is telling this in a very violent brutal even way, that's what I like about her. She's not this caricatural woman you know like soft let's have a dialogue, no fuck you what dialogue act and so on, you know that's the women that I like. And you think that's why a lot of the criticism she receives is typically from older men? Yes, yes. Not only and also from mostly men who pretend to be pro-feminine but secretly what they try to install is a certain still a male chauvinist notion of you know this is for every self-respecting male chauvinist today. They will never crit- they will even celebrate women, they will say we men are too violent, too aggressive, we want to dominate nature, women they have more a dialogic relationship, collaboration and so on and so on. I think in a subtle way under this false celebration of femininity a new form of conformist ethics is installed. As my friend Alain Badiou developed in today's state repression, a certain manipulated figure of femininity plays a crucial role. Like Badiou had an adopted son who had some minor trouble with drugs crime, minor crime and so on. And then he was put in front of a judge and he noticed how the way oppressive apparatuses dealt it's usually the investigator or judge is a woman understanding but nonetheless full figure of authority and even in business and so on, you know. So again what is so fashionable today is to construct a certain image of femininity which is ideological construct. As you know more gentle, dialogic, interactive and so on and so on, which fits perfectly today's global capitalism. Let's never forget that even when today's capitalism is still patriarchal, it nonetheless constructs a certain figure of femininity which fits it perfectly. So you see that's what we should do as critique of ideology today. Let's not get caught into this trap toxic masculinity what. Let's analyze it precisely. What is sold to us as a critique of toxic masculinity. What image of femininity is subtly imposed on us in this way. To bring it back to climate change and Greta Thunberg. Do you think that climate change, the ecological collapse of our planet, do you think that is the most significant political crisis that we face because we open this interview... I think we have three crisis nonetheless. One is ecology but as I emphasized also with my unfortunate debate with Jordan Peterson and so on, it's nonetheless important not to fall into this trap of all this how should I call it pre-emptive too fast fascination with a catastrophe. The example that I mentioned even in Toronto in that debate. I remember when I was younger some years ago, the big slogan in Europe was Waldsterben, forests are dying. And you had all the charts saying you know precisely in our time Europe will be without forests and so on. As we know now forests there are now more forests than at any point in the last hundred years. But I'm not saying absolutely not that we are don't live in extremely dangerous times. I'm just saying that it's not the process is very complex and this is what makes it even more dangerous. It's not so transparent clear and so on. For example at another point I tempted horror horror lynch me if you want to agree with Jordan Peterson when he said that publicly and later he told me he would worry more about what goes on in the depth of the sea than we focus too much on the air. The you know those coral reefs dying in and also we even don't know this maybe because you know we all know about this link chain of food and plankton going we cannot even imagine what's going on there. Because you know I think that we should maybe change the formula, the problem is not global warming as such. This is one aspect and then you can always play with statistics
interest to our listeners. That's why I in spite of I'm afraid a little bit we should be manipulated or how, but that's what I like about Greta Thunberg that girl. She is if there ever was a person who speaks with a certain hatred with almost I would say what they call toxic masculinity, it's her. Autistic and so on, we need autistic women like that. Because her message is a beautiful one nonetheless correct. She is not saying we should understand more and so on, she doesn't pretend to know. Her message is just science is telling us clearly many things. And our usual reply is this what I would have called fetishist disavowal: I know very well but... We know but you cannot solve it so easily we have to be patient and then we do nothing. And her message is simply take science seriously. Act do it seriously and she is telling this in a very violent brutal even way, that's what I like about her. She's not this caricatural woman you know like soft let's have a dialogue, no fuck you what dialogue act and so on, you know that's the women that I like. And you think that's why a lot of the criticism she receives is typically from older men? Yes, yes. Not only and also from mostly men who pretend to be pro-feminine but secretly what they try to install is a certain still a male chauvinist notion of you know this is for every self-respecting male chauvinist today. They will never crit- they will even celebrate women, they will say we men are too violent, too aggressive, we want to dominate nature, women they have more a dialogic relationship, collaboration and so on and so on. I think in a subtle way under this false celebration of femininity a new form of conformist ethics is installed. As my friend Alain Badiou developed in today's state repression, a certain manipulated figure of femininity plays a crucial role. Like Badiou had an adopted son who had some minor trouble with drugs crime, minor crime and so on. And then he was put in front of a judge and he noticed how the way oppressive apparatuses dealt it's usually the investigator or judge is a woman understanding but nonetheless full figure of authority and even in business and so on, you know. So again what is so fashionable today is to construct a certain image of femininity which is ideological construct. As you know more gentle, dialogic, interactive and so on and so on, which fits perfectly today's global capitalism. Let's never forget that even when today's capitalism is still patriarchal, it nonetheless constructs a certain figure of femininity which fits it perfectly. So you see that's what we should do as critique of ideology today. Let's not get caught into this trap toxic masculinity what. Let's analyze it precisely. What is sold to us as a critique of toxic masculinity. What image of femininity is subtly imposed on us in this way. To bring it back to climate change and Greta Thunberg. Do you think that climate change, the ecological collapse of our planet, do you think that is the most significant political crisis that we face because we open this interview... I think we have three crisis nonetheless. One is ecology but as I emphasized also with my unfortunate debate with Jordan Peterson and so on, it's nonetheless important not to fall into this trap of all this how should I call it pre-emptive too fast fascination with a catastrophe. The example that I mentioned even in Toronto in that debate. I remember when I was younger some years ago, the big slogan in Europe was Waldsterben, forests are dying. And you had all the charts saying you know precisely in our time Europe will be without forests and so on. As we know now forests there are now more forests than at any point in the last hundred years. But I'm not saying absolutely not that we are don't live in extremely dangerous times. I'm just saying that it's not the process is very complex and this is what makes it even more dangerous. It's not so transparent clear and so on. For example at another point I tempted horror horror lynch me if you want to agree with Jordan Peterson when he said that publicly and later he told me he would worry more about what goes on in the depth of the sea than we focus too much on the air. The you know those coral reefs dying in and also we even don't know this maybe because you know we all know about this link chain of food and plankton going we cannot even imagine what's going on there. Because you know I think that we should maybe change the formula, the problem is not global warming as such. This is one aspect and then you can always play with statistics
unknown
and so what it's half a it's half a degree more. The problem is the distribution of it how we all know and
and so what it's half a it's half a degree more. The problem is the distribution of it how we all know and
Slavoj Žižek
we witness it how extremes are growing, you don't get only more heat you also get more cold and so on you get. So the moment you play with average you can say but nothing horrible is happening. No, the distribution is a problem. You know what's our problem is also that we look at it from our western perspective where for us catastrophes so-called terrorist attacks or we have an earthquake or not even with us many, you have a tornado, you have a storm. Okay, it's over and so on. But many third world countries you have practically a permanent drought. You have a permanent for them it's no longer we are approaching ecological catastrophe, we are already in it. And now I will make my second point. It's so important that precisely in so far as we recognize ecological threat, how serious it is, it's also a big topic of ideology today. And in one of my texts I don't know probably my listeners don't know it, I tried even to categorize four five forms of ideology. First is the of ecological ideological way to deal with ecological threats. First one is the obvious one, you know it's the first one is Donald Trump. You deny it. It's not serious we can ignore it. Nature will fix itself. Obviously it doesn't work. You know what would be a good counter move here, what we should do. To show how those who propagate this idea, they themselves don't really follow it. Like a friend from New Zealand told me, you know all those rich guys who claim it's not serious blah blah blah. Just look at the property market in New Zealand because the idea is they are far away they will not feel it. They had now to limit prohibit foreigners buying houses there. All the millionaires want a nice big house waiting for them there in New. So it's the same tragedy as with Chernobyl. Incidentally I didn't
we witness it how extremes are growing, you don't get only more heat you also get more cold and so on you get. So the moment you play with average you can say but nothing horrible is happening. No, the distribution is a problem. You know what's our problem is also that we look at it from our western perspective where for us catastrophes so-called terrorist attacks or we have an earthquake or not even with us many, you have a tornado, you have a storm. Okay, it's over and so on. But many third world countries you have practically a permanent drought. You have a permanent for them it's no longer we are approaching ecological catastrophe, we are already in it. And now I will make my second point. It's so important that precisely in so far as we recognize ecological threat, how serious it is, it's also a big topic of ideology today. And in one of my texts I don't know probably my listeners don't know it, I tried even to categorize four five forms of ideology. First is the of ecological ideological way to deal with ecological threats. First one is the obvious one, you know it's the first one is Donald Trump. You deny it. It's not serious we can ignore it. Nature will fix itself. Obviously it doesn't work. You know what would be a good counter move here, what we should do. To show how those who propagate this idea, they themselves don't really follow it. Like a friend from New Zealand told me, you know all those rich guys who claim it's not serious blah blah blah. Just look at the property market in New Zealand because the idea is they are far away they will not feel it. They had now to limit prohibit foreigners buying houses there. All the millionaires want a nice big house waiting for them there in New. So it's the same tragedy as with Chernobyl. Incidentally I didn't
unknown
like the series, it's too ideological. But one detail which makes me most sad when Chernobyl took place, I was there, I'm old enough is that you know the official Russian or Soviet line was no danger in Kiev everything okay. Yeah but you know that the entire nomenklatura who were claiming they were claiming
like the series, it's too ideological. But one detail which makes me most sad when Chernobyl took place, I was there, I'm old enough is that you know the official Russian or Soviet line was no danger in Kiev everything okay. Yeah but you know that the entire nomenklatura who were claiming they were claiming
Slavoj Žižek
this publicly instantly send their children and families far away and so on. So okay we this is the falsity of this but let's say the first line is denial. The second line is is capital in through capitalism we can solve it through taxing polluters and so on and so on. Well precisely I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, of course we should limit them prohibit tax and so on. But with real catastrophes like Fukushima you cannot it's no you need to act instantly in a much more coordinated way. You can do certain thing within capitalism but we need a much larger international cooperation. I always mention this example my good friend Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a very perspicuous catastrophe theorist. He was there as part of European delegation in Fukushima two days after and he told me that for a couple of hours there was total panic. The Japanese government thought that the entire Tokyo area, million people will have to be evacuated. And what if something like this does happen? We need international cooperation. Where will these people go? Okay, if you think in a naive rational way, it's clear what's the solution. Let's make a deal with Russia, there are still vast domains getting warmer now in northern north-eastern Siberia. Yeah but we don't have international bodies which could do this. So capitalism is not enough. Third thing is science, believe in science. Science will solve it. No, it's I don't even want to lose words with this because you know science is not neutral today. Science is caught in the logic of capital. Of course we need science, one cannot emphasize this enough. Because you know the problem with ecological crisis is that science science even to feel it you need science. Like I remember now the big thing is global warming, but years ago you remember it was ozone hole. Well no matter no matter how much you look up you will never see the ozone hole, it's a scientific construct. So that's the paradox. Even if the science we have today is partially for being misused by different technologies responsible we need science but science is not the full answer, it's social change. Next now we are getting forward. The two most tricky forms, the next one is this naive naive step out of anthropocentrism. The idea is we humanity became too arrogant, we have to respect more mother nature, return to balance. I'm fanatically against this solution. First as I always repeat it's my old slogan you must know it, if earth is our mother it's a dirty bitch of a mother. Just think about coal and oil, our still main sources of energy. Can you even imagine what kind of catastrophes on our earth should have happened in pre-human past so that we have so no here I'm even more of a pessimist in the sense that there is no natural balance to which we can return. And the last I will stop I will not talk endlessly, the last problem nightmarish for me is this and this is ecological ideology at its purest. The answer of the system is personalized guilt. Let's say you are a leftist who criticizes big companies, lack of state regulation, and then ideology comes not personally of course and tells you: but who are you to criticize it? Did you do all your duty? Did you separate all Coca-Cola cans? Did you recycle all your newspapers? It's a wonderful operation. Because on the one hand it sabotages your criticism of social system, it makes you personal responsible, and in at the same moment in the same move it offers you an easy way out. Don't worry, recycle Coke cans and you did your duty for mother nature and so on and so on. So there are so many traps here, but the next problem I see here and that's why I have a to conclude this line big distrust in populism. If you take ecological crisis seriously, and I do absolutely, the situation is again so serious that now I will say something horrible for some of my leftist friends, it's not that ordinary people are stupid, they are not no more stupid than we theorists. But they also basically don't know. I no longer have this old Maoist belief if you as an intellectual are confused listen to the ordinary people you will get some authentic wisdom. What if you don't get there also at a loss? So the solution to ecology is not simply more democracy. No, people have to be enlightened many more things have to happen. Always this I even had a very friendly misunderstanding with my good friend Varoufakis, his DiEM project I supported them. But you know his point is we need real authentic democracy people represented. I told him okay but if you put immigration refugees to vote, there was a bright moment four five years ago when it's a great moment for Germany when of Germans were for more refugees that they can. No longer. If you do democracy in this naive sense, referendum let's ask the people, you would get much harsher anti-immigrant policy than today. And I learned this from my Slovene colleagues who were in Brussels from government circles. They told me that and this is one good argument for Brussels. When they have these closed committees debating refugees, they were much more pro-refugee than when speaking publicly. Because if you supported refugees publicly it was not popular in their own country and so on. So you know that's the very sad thing for me today. We are in an open situation and there is no simple solution, that's my problem with so-called left populism. This was the great moment of Podemos, listen to the ordinary people to their forget about ideology as Iglesias the guy said you know of Podemos, forget about left right that's all bullshit listen. Yeah but this goes only up to a certain point. Then when you are on the edge of taking power, when you have to impose measures, sorry populist game no longer works. You have to decide, you have to sometimes even to impose unpopular measures. So let me just go through very quickly it will not be so long. This is the first point, ecology. Second point digital control. Also I'm now it may be interest people just finishing a new book, I'm crazy, on Hegel and the Wired Brain. Not just Neuralink but this is I think the big thing happening today. More and more we are succeeding we who are we scientists in directly linking our brain with the digital universe. And this I think is the mega game changer. We are literally losing our distance towards the external world. Okay, there are even religious versions of this singularity we will all be part of some mega artificial intelligence. But what will this mean? Also new forms of controlled we are already so much controlled and so on and so on. I see this as a mega problem. Usually in our liberal media you focus on China. Yes, Chinese communist everybody has already some patriotic patriotic number what is your social status and so on. Yeah, we are doing the same in our western free countries only in a little bit more refined but maybe even more efficient way. Don't you think that this is the problem today? I almost have a nostalgia for the good old communist totalitarianism where you knew that you were controlled. You know like you talked on a phone you heard a sound oh they are listening to me or you turned back oh that guy is following me. Today the tragedy is that you are controlled precisely when you think that you are exercising your full freedom. What can be more free than surfing the web, buying thing establishing contact blah blah blah. You are controlled there. I think that and that's why I'm still a communist I can say, that this problem the same as ecology can be solved neither by market nor by state. Some new international solidarity, but not this moral solidarity with a certain executive power is needed. And the third one of course, the problem of the refugees. People often think that I even don't like this term it's patronizing I know. But you know why I oppose this simple humanitarian approach. Oh open our gates and so on. First I think it's a cunning trick by those in power because in this way you cook up you instigate a conflict between two groups of poor people: ordinary people our own who feel underprivileged like oh they have all the money for refugees not for us unemployed here, and the poor refugees. And nothing makes liberals feel better than this. The poor people fighting each other and then you feel the enlightened one against your own working class or unemployed and so on. So I think that the crucial thing is to move the the mystification is to formulate the problem as a humanitarian one. You know like people are wait and they're starving will will we open our hearts or not. No, we should move one step back and start to intervene into the situation which gave birth to refugees. Like where are all those humanists now with what goes on now in Yemen? Here refugees are created. American attack on Iraq, what goes on in Syria, Libya. All the glory goes here even to Gaddafi. Were you watching TV in the last days when Gaddafi still made some interviews? Well he said really are you crazy, you know what will happen in Libya if you overthrow me and so on. Not to mention places of horror like Congo which is an absolute nightmare, a state which doesn't function, local warlords but local warlords dealing with companies selling them all the minerals. Congo is for me the metaphor of where we are today. On the one hand a rogue state warlords ruling no public order almost, on the other hand country fully integrated as such, no contradiction here into global capitalism. So all I'm saying is let's begin acting at this level. Otherwise you get involved in so many contradiction. For example my other problem with refugees is are you aware what big business this is? Are you aware that smugglers turn around according to some estimates at least billion dollars? And that's what what this is what I would have worried. Okay there are also families children and so on, but most of the refugees are now young aggressive people who had enough money to pay. Usually it costs to come from Syria or wherever there to western Europe, it costs around I think. A certain amount to get to Turkey then a certain amount to be smuggled into southern Italy wherever and so on and so on. And so the true problem, I read a very good analysis are those who are left behind there. Those are how should I say, those are active and so on those who reach Europe. Look at those, the pro- in other words the solution is not let's open our hearts and everybody should come to Europe. If you do this you will get a populist revolt in Europe and so on it's a catastrophe. We have to I know this may sound utopian but if we will not begin to change maybe even first with modest measures to change the system international geopolitical economic relations and so on. For example I was ashamed of my... I'm going to have to have time for one more question. I'm going to have to come in, I'm sorry. Please do it, do it. Yeah, I need you to change your, I'll be ironic now, I need you now to change your outfit into leather to be my Domina and to whip me. Oh lord. Okay, sure. It feels like a long time ago now but you mentioned Chernobyl as something that you didn't like in western culture. TV series I'm talking now about. Yes, no absolutely. I want to ask you what you do like. No no absolutely, what you do like, what do you enjoy? Well it's well-made series. I liked the approach of how they portrayed it through this experience of selected groups of ordinary people, all that and so on and so on. What I didn't like is the underlying thesis: it's all the sloppiness of clumsiness of Soviet bureaucracy. It's definitely not. Because first as we learned from Fukushima for Three Mile Island and so on Three Mile whatever in Pennsylvania or where before Chernobyl happened accident and so on and so on. The problem is still with us. It is again another ideological operation Chernobyl the TV series to make you feel well. Oh... Is that your phone? Forget about it, yes. You know the message is yeah, of course it was horrible but oh it was the old Soviet Union you know and so on. The true story is much more subtle and paradoxical. I read a very good scientific analysis very critical of Soviet Union, but it throws a totally new light on it. It shows that you know all the honor goes here to Soviet bureaucracy, they were fully aware of the dangers. And they were testing all the time. Don't testing making tests and so on because they were aware of the danger. Don't forget the crucial fact that the accident happened during a testing. You know. If they were to do nothing just ignore the danger nothing would have happened. So it's much more paradoxical complex complex situation. No no no they were even if you measure the safety standards they were much higher than those of Japan in Fukushima and so on. No, but what I especially don't like is again it's a little like the reason I don't like I think Independent published digitally only a column on Handmaid's Tale. I hate these liberal dystopias where I think they are what I call borrowing the phrase from my friend Fred Jameson, nostalgia for the present. All this nightmarish vision of Republic of Gilead, it's basically to make you feel well but we are not yet there. We are in our wonderful liberal still permissive society, we have gay marriages, abortion whatever. But they never raise the true question which is: how come then that they are winning? What is wrong with our liberal permissive societies that fundamentalists are getting stronger and stronger. And this is the big misunderstanding. I'm not for Trump I'm not crazy but I find suspicious this obsession with Donald Trump. No sorry the tru- Do you think do you think Trump will win again? Well I hope not but I will say something very cynical. Obviously the Democratic Party, not the left wing, the establishment is doing all possible to make him re-elected. Against somebody like Joe Biden he has quite serious he has quite serious chances to win again. And on the other hand, not that I have any Trump is an ethical catastrophe and so on, but I think he is nonetheless a
this publicly instantly send their children and families far away and so on. So okay we this is the falsity of this but let's say the first line is denial. The second line is is capital in through capitalism we can solve it through taxing polluters and so on and so on. Well precisely I'm not saying we shouldn't do it, of course we should limit them prohibit tax and so on. But with real catastrophes like Fukushima you cannot it's no you need to act instantly in a much more coordinated way. You can do certain thing within capitalism but we need a much larger international cooperation. I always mention this example my good friend Jean-Pierre Dupuy, a very perspicuous catastrophe theorist. He was there as part of European delegation in Fukushima two days after and he told me that for a couple of hours there was total panic. The Japanese government thought that the entire Tokyo area, million people will have to be evacuated. And what if something like this does happen? We need international cooperation. Where will these people go? Okay, if you think in a naive rational way, it's clear what's the solution. Let's make a deal with Russia, there are still vast domains getting warmer now in northern north-eastern Siberia. Yeah but we don't have international bodies which could do this. So capitalism is not enough. Third thing is science, believe in science. Science will solve it. No, it's I don't even want to lose words with this because you know science is not neutral today. Science is caught in the logic of capital. Of course we need science, one cannot emphasize this enough. Because you know the problem with ecological crisis is that science science even to feel it you need science. Like I remember now the big thing is global warming, but years ago you remember it was ozone hole. Well no matter no matter how much you look up you will never see the ozone hole, it's a scientific construct. So that's the paradox. Even if the science we have today is partially for being misused by different technologies responsible we need science but science is not the full answer, it's social change. Next now we are getting forward. The two most tricky forms, the next one is this naive naive step out of anthropocentrism. The idea is we humanity became too arrogant, we have to respect more mother nature, return to balance. I'm fanatically against this solution. First as I always repeat it's my old slogan you must know it, if earth is our mother it's a dirty bitch of a mother. Just think about coal and oil, our still main sources of energy. Can you even imagine what kind of catastrophes on our earth should have happened in pre-human past so that we have so no here I'm even more of a pessimist in the sense that there is no natural balance to which we can return. And the last I will stop I will not talk endlessly, the last problem nightmarish for me is this and this is ecological ideology at its purest. The answer of the system is personalized guilt. Let's say you are a leftist who criticizes big companies, lack of state regulation, and then ideology comes not personally of course and tells you: but who are you to criticize it? Did you do all your duty? Did you separate all Coca-Cola cans? Did you recycle all your newspapers? It's a wonderful operation. Because on the one hand it sabotages your criticism of social system, it makes you personal responsible, and in at the same moment in the same move it offers you an easy way out. Don't worry, recycle Coke cans and you did your duty for mother nature and so on and so on. So there are so many traps here, but the next problem I see here and that's why I have a to conclude this line big distrust in populism. If you take ecological crisis seriously, and I do absolutely, the situation is again so serious that now I will say something horrible for some of my leftist friends, it's not that ordinary people are stupid, they are not no more stupid than we theorists. But they also basically don't know. I no longer have this old Maoist belief if you as an intellectual are confused listen to the ordinary people you will get some authentic wisdom. What if you don't get there also at a loss? So the solution to ecology is not simply more democracy. No, people have to be enlightened many more things have to happen. Always this I even had a very friendly misunderstanding with my good friend Varoufakis, his DiEM project I supported them. But you know his point is we need real authentic democracy people represented. I told him okay but if you put immigration refugees to vote, there was a bright moment four five years ago when it's a great moment for Germany when of Germans were for more refugees that they can. No longer. If you do democracy in this naive sense, referendum let's ask the people, you would get much harsher anti-immigrant policy than today. And I learned this from my Slovene colleagues who were in Brussels from government circles. They told me that and this is one good argument for Brussels. When they have these closed committees debating refugees, they were much more pro-refugee than when speaking publicly. Because if you supported refugees publicly it was not popular in their own country and so on. So you know that's the very sad thing for me today. We are in an open situation and there is no simple solution, that's my problem with so-called left populism. This was the great moment of Podemos, listen to the ordinary people to their forget about ideology as Iglesias the guy said you know of Podemos, forget about left right that's all bullshit listen. Yeah but this goes only up to a certain point. Then when you are on the edge of taking power, when you have to impose measures, sorry populist game no longer works. You have to decide, you have to sometimes even to impose unpopular measures. So let me just go through very quickly it will not be so long. This is the first point, ecology. Second point digital control. Also I'm now it may be interest people just finishing a new book, I'm crazy, on Hegel and the Wired Brain. Not just Neuralink but this is I think the big thing happening today. More and more we are succeeding we who are we scientists in directly linking our brain with the digital universe. And this I think is the mega game changer. We are literally losing our distance towards the external world. Okay, there are even religious versions of this singularity we will all be part of some mega artificial intelligence. But what will this mean? Also new forms of controlled we are already so much controlled and so on and so on. I see this as a mega problem. Usually in our liberal media you focus on China. Yes, Chinese communist everybody has already some patriotic patriotic number what is your social status and so on. Yeah, we are doing the same in our western free countries only in a little bit more refined but maybe even more efficient way. Don't you think that this is the problem today? I almost have a nostalgia for the good old communist totalitarianism where you knew that you were controlled. You know like you talked on a phone you heard a sound oh they are listening to me or you turned back oh that guy is following me. Today the tragedy is that you are controlled precisely when you think that you are exercising your full freedom. What can be more free than surfing the web, buying thing establishing contact blah blah blah. You are controlled there. I think that and that's why I'm still a communist I can say, that this problem the same as ecology can be solved neither by market nor by state. Some new international solidarity, but not this moral solidarity with a certain executive power is needed. And the third one of course, the problem of the refugees. People often think that I even don't like this term it's patronizing I know. But you know why I oppose this simple humanitarian approach. Oh open our gates and so on. First I think it's a cunning trick by those in power because in this way you cook up you instigate a conflict between two groups of poor people: ordinary people our own who feel underprivileged like oh they have all the money for refugees not for us unemployed here, and the poor refugees. And nothing makes liberals feel better than this. The poor people fighting each other and then you feel the enlightened one against your own working class or unemployed and so on. So I think that the crucial thing is to move the the mystification is to formulate the problem as a humanitarian one. You know like people are wait and they're starving will will we open our hearts or not. No, we should move one step back and start to intervene into the situation which gave birth to refugees. Like where are all those humanists now with what goes on now in Yemen? Here refugees are created. American attack on Iraq, what goes on in Syria, Libya. All the glory goes here even to Gaddafi. Were you watching TV in the last days when Gaddafi still made some interviews? Well he said really are you crazy, you know what will happen in Libya if you overthrow me and so on. Not to mention places of horror like Congo which is an absolute nightmare, a state which doesn't function, local warlords but local warlords dealing with companies selling them all the minerals. Congo is for me the metaphor of where we are today. On the one hand a rogue state warlords ruling no public order almost, on the other hand country fully integrated as such, no contradiction here into global capitalism. So all I'm saying is let's begin acting at this level. Otherwise you get involved in so many contradiction. For example my other problem with refugees is are you aware what big business this is? Are you aware that smugglers turn around according to some estimates at least billion dollars? And that's what what this is what I would have worried. Okay there are also families children and so on, but most of the refugees are now young aggressive people who had enough money to pay. Usually it costs to come from Syria or wherever there to western Europe, it costs around I think. A certain amount to get to Turkey then a certain amount to be smuggled into southern Italy wherever and so on and so on. And so the true problem, I read a very good analysis are those who are left behind there. Those are how should I say, those are active and so on those who reach Europe. Look at those, the pro- in other words the solution is not let's open our hearts and everybody should come to Europe. If you do this you will get a populist revolt in Europe and so on it's a catastrophe. We have to I know this may sound utopian but if we will not begin to change maybe even first with modest measures to change the system international geopolitical economic relations and so on. For example I was ashamed of my... I'm going to have to have time for one more question. I'm going to have to come in, I'm sorry. Please do it, do it. Yeah, I need you to change your, I'll be ironic now, I need you now to change your outfit into leather to be my Domina and to whip me. Oh lord. Okay, sure. It feels like a long time ago now but you mentioned Chernobyl as something that you didn't like in western culture. TV series I'm talking now about. Yes, no absolutely. I want to ask you what you do like. No no absolutely, what you do like, what do you enjoy? Well it's well-made series. I liked the approach of how they portrayed it through this experience of selected groups of ordinary people, all that and so on and so on. What I didn't like is the underlying thesis: it's all the sloppiness of clumsiness of Soviet bureaucracy. It's definitely not. Because first as we learned from Fukushima for Three Mile Island and so on Three Mile whatever in Pennsylvania or where before Chernobyl happened accident and so on and so on. The problem is still with us. It is again another ideological operation Chernobyl the TV series to make you feel well. Oh... Is that your phone? Forget about it, yes. You know the message is yeah, of course it was horrible but oh it was the old Soviet Union you know and so on. The true story is much more subtle and paradoxical. I read a very good scientific analysis very critical of Soviet Union, but it throws a totally new light on it. It shows that you know all the honor goes here to Soviet bureaucracy, they were fully aware of the dangers. And they were testing all the time. Don't testing making tests and so on because they were aware of the danger. Don't forget the crucial fact that the accident happened during a testing. You know. If they were to do nothing just ignore the danger nothing would have happened. So it's much more paradoxical complex complex situation. No no no they were even if you measure the safety standards they were much higher than those of Japan in Fukushima and so on. No, but what I especially don't like is again it's a little like the reason I don't like I think Independent published digitally only a column on Handmaid's Tale. I hate these liberal dystopias where I think they are what I call borrowing the phrase from my friend Fred Jameson, nostalgia for the present. All this nightmarish vision of Republic of Gilead, it's basically to make you feel well but we are not yet there. We are in our wonderful liberal still permissive society, we have gay marriages, abortion whatever. But they never raise the true question which is: how come then that they are winning? What is wrong with our liberal permissive societies that fundamentalists are getting stronger and stronger. And this is the big misunderstanding. I'm not for Trump I'm not crazy but I find suspicious this obsession with Donald Trump. No sorry the tru- Do you think do you think Trump will win again? Well I hope not but I will say something very cynical. Obviously the Democratic Party, not the left wing, the establishment is doing all possible to make him re-elected. Against somebody like Joe Biden he has quite serious he has quite serious chances to win again. And on the other hand, not that I have any Trump is an ethical catastrophe and so on, but I think he is nonetheless a
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cunning
cunning
Slavoj Žižek
opportunist. And what is one of the interesting phenomena now in the United States, don't you think it's this subtle
opportunist. And what is one of the interesting phenomena now in the United States, don't you think it's this subtle
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radical conservative like John Bolton growing criticism of him. They noticed something, that Trump talks a lot but even from a conservative standpoint. Did he attack Iran? No. Maybe he will, no. Did he attack
radical conservative like John Bolton growing criticism of him. They noticed something, that Trump talks a lot but even from a conservative standpoint. Did he attack Iran? No. Maybe he will, no. Did he attack
Slavoj Žižek
North Korea? No, he is friendly with. Did so that my not friend but I respect her greatly she was lampasted prohibit excommunicated, Susan Sarandon, who was fanatically the actress you know who was fanatically for Bernie Sanders and got disgusted by what by the way Hillary I think this was the main reason of the Democratic defeat, the way they crushed Bernie Sanders. And then I know some of them many voters were just disgusted by it. But what I what I want to say is that is that the reason I said ironically of course vote for Trump, no, is that and it happened what up to a point what I hoped for, is that Trump nonetheless unsettled disturbed the hegemonic consensus and opened up the space for the left pole to do the same. My hypothesis is no democratic socialism, Bernie Sanders and so on, Alexandria Octavio-Cortez, it' part of the same process that wouldn't have happened without Trump. And my fear is that if the wrong Democrat wins like Biden or who it will be back to the old establishment. And that's the worst thing that can happen because it means somebody more John Bolton like you know. Trump horrible as it may sound, I can that's my lesson from living under communism when I was young. Things can always get a little bit worse even if they are really bad. Trump is not the worst. So Susan Sarandon, yes. She said something quite intelligent. She says but are you aware that probably Hillary would have already bombed Iran and and North Korea even maybe, because traditionally Democrats are much more interventionists in the United States. So don't fall into this fascination negative fascination by Trump as the ultimate evil. He is a nightmare like ethically, ethico-politically, vulgarity and so on and so on. But he is not the worst thing that I can imagine. Just finally, I want this is slightly unconnected, but I want to ask you if you thought what parallels if any there are between formerly Yugoslavia and the breakup of it and what's happening at the moment in the UK now with the United Kingdom and the discussion around Brexit. I think there is some important difference. That's why I never supported the breakup of Yugoslavia by to don't mourn it. Because you know the problem is this one. My basic reading is that the civil war in the early 90s was the moment of truth. All the tensions just kept under lid, kept under control exploded there. All that was wrong, the antagonisms just kept under control in socialist Yugoslavia exploded. So I will put it like this. I think Yugoslavia was really dead the moment Milošević took over. I don't blame the Serbs. What Milošević means to me is a certain logic which means to put it very simply, communist nomenklatura saw the end of the system. And they grasped with some kind of primitive intuitive cunningness that the only way for them to retain legitimacy was to play the nationalist card. So already at that point the game was over. You don't have to wait for Slovene secession or whatever. I was there, I never supported it but I saw the logic. Slovene secession wasn't even a national it was as simple as that for of the people. It was: we see the war coming, every idiot saw it. Let's get out to avoid being caught into it. It was okay you can say egotism, but it was not full nationalism. So I think that Yugoslavia was nothing very specific here, it was part of the same process like the caricatural model of this process are those southern Soviet ex-Soviet republics, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan where usually the old KGB boss then proclaims himself a new religious leader, natural savior or whatever and so on and so on. So here I disagree with my leftist friends who nonetheless mourn Yugoslavia and so on said couldn't you remain together. No, it was too late. The moment Milošević was there, it was we overthrow Milošević or it's over or it's over. And there were some attempts in some party circles to do this but simply, I know that and I don't like them but the Slovene Communist tried like crazy to build coalition before so-called free elections late 80s. They tried together Bosnians,
North Korea? No, he is friendly with. Did so that my not friend but I respect her greatly she was lampasted prohibit excommunicated, Susan Sarandon, who was fanatically the actress you know who was fanatically for Bernie Sanders and got disgusted by what by the way Hillary I think this was the main reason of the Democratic defeat, the way they crushed Bernie Sanders. And then I know some of them many voters were just disgusted by it. But what I what I want to say is that is that the reason I said ironically of course vote for Trump, no, is that and it happened what up to a point what I hoped for, is that Trump nonetheless unsettled disturbed the hegemonic consensus and opened up the space for the left pole to do the same. My hypothesis is no democratic socialism, Bernie Sanders and so on, Alexandria Octavio-Cortez, it' part of the same process that wouldn't have happened without Trump. And my fear is that if the wrong Democrat wins like Biden or who it will be back to the old establishment. And that's the worst thing that can happen because it means somebody more John Bolton like you know. Trump horrible as it may sound, I can that's my lesson from living under communism when I was young. Things can always get a little bit worse even if they are really bad. Trump is not the worst. So Susan Sarandon, yes. She said something quite intelligent. She says but are you aware that probably Hillary would have already bombed Iran and and North Korea even maybe, because traditionally Democrats are much more interventionists in the United States. So don't fall into this fascination negative fascination by Trump as the ultimate evil. He is a nightmare like ethically, ethico-politically, vulgarity and so on and so on. But he is not the worst thing that I can imagine. Just finally, I want this is slightly unconnected, but I want to ask you if you thought what parallels if any there are between formerly Yugoslavia and the breakup of it and what's happening at the moment in the UK now with the United Kingdom and the discussion around Brexit. I think there is some important difference. That's why I never supported the breakup of Yugoslavia by to don't mourn it. Because you know the problem is this one. My basic reading is that the civil war in the early 90s was the moment of truth. All the tensions just kept under lid, kept under control exploded there. All that was wrong, the antagonisms just kept under control in socialist Yugoslavia exploded. So I will put it like this. I think Yugoslavia was really dead the moment Milošević took over. I don't blame the Serbs. What Milošević means to me is a certain logic which means to put it very simply, communist nomenklatura saw the end of the system. And they grasped with some kind of primitive intuitive cunningness that the only way for them to retain legitimacy was to play the nationalist card. So already at that point the game was over. You don't have to wait for Slovene secession or whatever. I was there, I never supported it but I saw the logic. Slovene secession wasn't even a national it was as simple as that for of the people. It was: we see the war coming, every idiot saw it. Let's get out to avoid being caught into it. It was okay you can say egotism, but it was not full nationalism. So I think that Yugoslavia was nothing very specific here, it was part of the same process like the caricatural model of this process are those southern Soviet ex-Soviet republics, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan where usually the old KGB boss then proclaims himself a new religious leader, natural savior or whatever and so on and so on. So here I disagree with my leftist friends who nonetheless mourn Yugoslavia and so on said couldn't you remain together. No, it was too late. The moment Milošević was there, it was we overthrow Milošević or it's over or it's over. And there were some attempts in some party circles to do this but simply, I know that and I don't like them but the Slovene Communist tried like crazy to build coalition before so-called free elections late 80s. They tried together Bosnians,
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Macedonians, Croats and so on. But they were too scared. They the only solution the last hope for Yugoslavia was a kind of was a coalition of majority of republics against Serbia. Not Serbia as Serbs
Macedonians, Croats and so on. But they were too scared. They the only solution the last hope for Yugoslavia was a kind of was a coalition of majority of republics against Serbia. Not Serbia as Serbs
Slavoj Žižek
but Serbia as Milošević. And the West didn't see this clearly. The main culprit is here United States. United States were obsessed by the idea is to to retain stability in a certain region you need a strong local power there. And they counted on even Serbia like Serbia is the strongest unit there nation, we need strong Serbia to guarantee stabili- this was a catastrophic decision and so on and so on. So I think was that war necessary, no absolutely not. Even I think with a more rational diplomatic maybe even military pressure it could have been prevented. When the war started serious one, Slovenia was a small thing and so on. In Croatia especially in Bosnia, a small-scale international intervention just to set up the rules could have prevented it the war. When friends were telling me there are such strange things going on there, you need psychoanalysis to understand the Balkan madness. No, I they say it's simple brutal survival ego- you don't need- the only place you need psychoanalysis is to analyze the stupidity of Western Europe, how they- there where you need psychoanalysis and so on. It was sad because again the big lesson for we Yugoslavia thought we are the most liberal capitalism we will do it better. No, even the hardline communist states manage disintegration like Soviet Union, Czech Republic and Slovakia much better than we. That was the tragedy of it. With good firm international pressure, and by international I don't mean United States, I mean why not United States in cooperation with maybe Russia or whomever it could have been prevented the war. Slavoj Žižek, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm grateful to you to allow a madman like me. Danke very much. Thanks.
but Serbia as Milošević. And the West didn't see this clearly. The main culprit is here United States. United States were obsessed by the idea is to to retain stability in a certain region you need a strong local power there. And they counted on even Serbia like Serbia is the strongest unit there nation, we need strong Serbia to guarantee stabili- this was a catastrophic decision and so on and so on. So I think was that war necessary, no absolutely not. Even I think with a more rational diplomatic maybe even military pressure it could have been prevented. When the war started serious one, Slovenia was a small thing and so on. In Croatia especially in Bosnia, a small-scale international intervention just to set up the rules could have prevented it the war. When friends were telling me there are such strange things going on there, you need psychoanalysis to understand the Balkan madness. No, I they say it's simple brutal survival ego- you don't need- the only place you need psychoanalysis is to analyze the stupidity of Western Europe, how they- there where you need psychoanalysis and so on. It was sad because again the big lesson for we Yugoslavia thought we are the most liberal capitalism we will do it better. No, even the hardline communist states manage disintegration like Soviet Union, Czech Republic and Slovakia much better than we. That was the tragedy of it. With good firm international pressure, and by international I don't mean United States, I mean why not United States in cooperation with maybe Russia or whomever it could have been prevented the war. Slavoj Žižek, thank you so much for taking the time. I'm grateful to you to allow a madman like me. Danke very much. Thanks.