Like a Thief in the Night: A Question of Manners
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2018-03-09 · 1:54:02 · 14,715 words
cinema-art-culturesexuality-genderpsychoanalysisideologyfascism-populismliberalism-political-correctnessethicsphilosophy-general
Žižek opens with a meditation on Ernst Lubitsch's dark anti-Nazi comedy To Be or Not to Be, arguing that comedy, not tragedy, is sometimes the only honest response to extreme horror, because tragedy falsely restores dignity to victims who were systematically dehumanized. He then develops a connected argument about the relationship between law and its obscene transgression (using an ashtray marked 'smoking prohibited' and the Yugoslav army example), contending that perversion is not emancipatory but is the secret underside of power. The bulk of the talk addresses the Me Too movement: Žižek defends psychoanalytic ambiguity against what he sees as an overly legalistic and feeling-based framework, arguing that 'feeling' is not the ultimate truth of the subject and that genuine female emancipation requires subjective agency rather than victimhood. A long Q&A with Jacqueline Miller and the audience probes limits of these arguments, touching on Monica Lewinsky, Jordan Peterson, Lacanian clinical ethics, and the ontological status of sexuality.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 20
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek's political metaphor drawn from his facial paresis: the muscles of leftist revolt (crowd movements, protests) appear immobilized but the problem is the nerves (theory, new vision); yet the only way to revitalize the nerves is by moving the muscles, practice precedes theory.
His argument that when victims are so thoroughly dehumanized (as in Auschwitz) that they can no longer be tragic heroes, staging their fate as tragedy is a false restoration of dignity, comedy, including brutal dark humor, is the more truthful response.
as “hysteria as truly subversive”
Against the 1960s dismissal of hysteria in favour of perversion, Žižek argues (following Freud and Lacan) that the hysteric's questioning of the master is the genuinely subversive position, while the pervert merely re-enacts power's obscene complement.
His claim that enacting the secret underside (the transgression, the perversion) does not subvert power but is constitutive of it; every power edifice needs a secret pervert, making perversion conservative rather than radical.
as “law and its obscene underside”
Žižek's thesis that every explicit prohibition comes packaged with its built-in transgression (the ashtray that says 'no smoking', the lecture on international law followed immediately by instructions on how to shoot parachuters), forming a closed ideological circle.
The symbolic order whose prohibitions are openly displayed alongside their built-in transgressions, as in the Skopje ashtray inscribed 'smoking prohibited.'
The obscene enjoyment that the text of explicit transgression is meant to mask: the real libidinal charge resides in the marginal, unspeakable detail rather than in overt transgression.
Lacan's term (distinct from symptom) for the condensed kernel of jouissance, the tiny traumatic detail (e.g. the finger in the ass) that the subject cannot articulate and which is the true unconscious point, not the 'dirty talk' overlay.
Lacan's logical asymmetry between masculine (universal with constitutive exception) and feminine (non-all, no exception) structures of subjectivity, illustrated by the Miranda/lover misunderstanding in Sex and the City.
Lacan's feminine logical structure in which there is no single exception that founds the universal, exemplified by Miranda's 'say everything without worrying about exceptions,' contrasted with the masculine universal-with-exception.
The obscene 'extra', the 'rat-tat-tat' lyrics or the finger in the ass detail, that elevates mere animal copulation into eroticized experience and which is simultaneously the most embarrassing and most charged element.
as “Aufhebung / dialectical mediation”
Invoked implicitly through the Lubitsch examples: mediation does not merely negate immediacy but preserves and elevates it, just as the detour through form eroticizes what direct statement would de-eroticize.
Žižek's Lubitsch-derived principle that the detour or indirect form (not saying directly) does not merely conceal but actively produces erotic charge, the 'no coffee / I haven't got any' structure is constitutive of desire, not just polite.
Following Deleuze on Sacher-Masoch, Žižek argues there is no symmetry between sadism and masochism: the masochist writes and controls the scenario, making the so-called victim the real director, he sees an emancipatory dimension in Fifty Shades of Grey precisely here.
as “enthusiastic yes-yes-yes”
Žižek's ironic citation of the affirmative-consent formula, which he critiques not as going too far but as not going far enough, since it creates new forms of ambiguity and can be weaponized as emotional violence (arousing a partner then withdrawing).
as “sexuality as contact with the absolute”
His provocative ontological thesis (sketched at the end): sexuality in the Lacanian sense, the constitutive antagonism, the incompleteness of reality, is humanity's privileged encounter with what he calls the absolute, not in a mystical sense but as the basic ontological crack in reality.
Referenced implicitly in the context of the industrialized torture apparatus (ball-squashers mass-produced in camps) as the institutionalization of destructive excess beyond any practical purpose.
His anti-identitarian psychoanalytic claim that subjective feeling, including a woman's feeling of violation or comfort, is not the ultimate measure of truth; the unconscious often inverts the felt experience (victims who feel good are in deepest trouble).
The libidinal investment in the analyst (or authority figure) that makes the analyst's role structurally irreducible, once an analyst, always an analyst, and which explains the problematic power differential in the Clinton/Lewinsky case.
as “sublimation vs desublimation”
Žižek defends authentic sublimation against vulgar Freudian reduction: Lacan insists that feminine mysticism (e.g. convent life) is a genuine subjective position, not repressed sexuality, and promiscuous sexuality is often itself an escape from something deeper.
Stories he reaches for 5
A woman asks a man 'Do you want to come up for coffee?' He says 'I don't drink coffee.' She says 'I haven't got any.' The non-saying constitutes the seduction: a direct statement ('come up and fuck me') would de-eroticize entirely. Classic instance of Lubitsch-style mediation.
“"Do you want to come up for coffee?" "I don't drink coffee." "I haven't got any."”
During the Siege of Sarajevo when the city ran out of gas, the vulgar joke circulated: 'What is the difference between Auschwitz and Sarajevo? In Auschwitz at least they never ran out of gas.' Žižek cites it as desperate humor that signals the horror is too fresh for dignified treatment.
“What's the difference between Auschwitz and Sarajevo? In Auschwitz at least they never ran out of gas.”
Žižek claims friends confess to secretly enjoying The Handmaid's Tale, fascinated by the patriarchal ritual they are supposed to be horrified by, illustrating the criterion that the limit of horror-comedy is crossed when depiction feeds obscene enjoyment rather than horror.
“all my friends are secretly enjoying it: 'My god, how wonderful they treat women like this.'”
In 1970s Yugoslav army, morning classes on international law (Geneva Convention: do not shoot parachuters in mid-air) were immediately followed, same officer, same day, by a class giving precise technical instructions on how to shoot a parachuter in mid-air. The soldier who raised the contradiction was told he was 'utterly stupid.'
“You appear to be an intellectual, how can you be so utterly stupid? Do you really not get it?”
In a Skopje hotel room, the ashtray provided on the table was inscribed with the image 'smoking prohibited.' The prohibition and its direct enabling coexist on the same object with no 'but' between them, the perfect metaphor for how law and transgression belong together in contemporary ideology.
“Smoking is prohibited in this hotel, but no problem, you have ashtray on the table there.”
Works invoked 14
Žižek is against it because it crosses the limit: instead of provoking horror, it feeds the audience's secret enjoyment of the very patriarchal ritual it depicts, this is the criterion of failed critical representation.
Brassed Off film
Clip of the 'coffee without coffee' scene used as the clearest example of Lubitsch-style mediation eroticizing through detour.
Science of Logic book
Cited as what Žižek would want his analysand to talk about instead of personal filth, specifically the passage 'from reflexive determination to determinate reflection' in Book Two, illustrating that conceptual problems are the real trauma for him.
The Great Dictator film
Chaplin's anti-Nazi comedy criticized along with Lubitsch's film for 'downplaying' Nazi horror; Žižek defends both against this charge.
What is Sex? book
Alenka Zupančič's book recommended enthusiastically at the close as a condensed 100-page treatment of sexual difference; said to be selling better than Žižek's own Incontinence of the Void.
To Be or Not to Be film
Lubitsch's 1942 anti-Nazi dark comedy is the central text of the talk; Žižek argues it has a deep ontological foundation and that its lesson is not cynical but about the reality of love and authentic relationship through performance.
Žižek's own book briefly mentioned self-deprecatingly ('it's not so good') at the talk's conclusion.
The Auschwitz-survivor vs. reality-TV-Survivor episode is cited approvingly as a joke that works because it presupposes the incommensurability of the two, thus paradoxically affirming Auschwitz's unique horror.
Fifty Shades of Grey book
Žižek sees it as a woman authoring the masochistic scenario (as Sacher-Masoch did for men), an emancipatory gesture insofar as the so-called victim controls the staging; a fantasy of subordination, not endorsement of actual submission.
Žižek says he doesn't like it but finds the Miranda/dirty-talk episode philosophically rich as an illustration of the sinthome and Lacan's formulas of sexuation.
Lubitsch's 1931 pre-Code film starring Maurice Chevalier; clips shown to illustrate surplus enjoyment ('rat-tat-tat') and how erotic form precedes explicit content. Žižek half-jokes it 'should be prohibited' because its obscene formal excess is so effective.
The Producers film
Mel Brooks's comedy about Nazis briefly mentioned by the interviewer in the context of The Last Laugh; Žižek does not comment on it directly.
The Last Laugh film
Documentary film about Holocaust humor (featuring Mel Brooks and Sarah Silverman), raised by the interviewer; Žižek uses it to address limits of representation without elaborating on the film itself.
Venus in Furs book
Sacher-Masoch's novel cited as the canonical instance of male masochism as scripted theater where the 'victim' authors the scenario; Žižek uses it to argue Fifty Shades of Grey is a woman assuming the same authorial role.
People invoked 31
Avital Ronell negative
Named as a deconstructionist friend whom Žižek challenges to say 'what is reality' and gets only 'social-symbolic constructionism' in return, 'not enough.'
Central to the Me Too discussion via Lewinsky; Žižek acknowledges the shameful public/political asymmetry in how she suffered while Clinton did not, and agrees he abused power, but resists describing the encounter as straightforward victimization.
Catherine Deneuve negative
Stands for the liberal position that Me Too goes 'a little bit too far'; Žižek explicitly rejects this position, arguing instead that the movement does not go far enough.
Eduardo Cadava negative
Grouped with Ronell as a deconstructionist from whose reply Žižek gets only social constructionism, insufficient for genuine ontology.
Cited in the Q&A context of The Last Laugh: Brooks distinguishes jokes about Nazis (permissible) from jokes about Auschwitz (he cannot do it himself); Žižek sympathizes with the distinction but argues for a different criterion (does it feed secret enjoyment?).
Stars in the 1931 Lubitsch film The Smiling Lieutenant shown as a clip illustrating surplus enjoyment and erotic form before the Hays Code.
Alenka Zupančič positive
Described as part of Žižek's 'gang'; her book What is Sex? (100 condensed pages on sexual difference) is enthusiastically recommended as 'selling better than mine.'
Cited as co-creator (with Lubitsch) of anti-Nazi comedy; Žižek notes Chaplin's own retrospective regret about The Great Dictator and argues Chaplin was 'wrongly' self-critical.
Jacques Lacan positive
Repeatedly invoked for the sinthome, formulas of sexuation, the subject supposed to know, the analytic relationship as irreducible, and the claim that we are 'always responsible for our enjoyment.' Lacan's honor is cited for not signing the pro-child-sex proclamation.
Alec Baldwin negative
Cited as failure: his SNL impersonation of Trump cannot work because Trump already self-parodies, making the imitation redundant.
Listed among signatories of the 1960s French pro-child-sex proclamation; no further elaboration.
Gilles Deleuze positive
Credited with the insight that there is no symmetry between sadism and masochism: the masochist is the true master who writes the scenario. Also cited as initiating the 'new ontology' trend (New Materialism etc.) which Žižek opposes but acknowledges is asking the right questions.
Monica Lewinsky negative
Žižek rejects her self-presentation as victim lacking agency, arguing she actively initiated the encounter with Clinton and that her desire (including the attraction of his power) was hers; he is not hostile to her personally but argues her framing denies her subjectivity.
Cited by Jacqueline Miller in the Q&A (not by Žižek directly) as authoritative for the claim that one cannot speak for another's experience.
Compared to Colonel Ehrhardt: already his own best comical impersonation, making liberal irony ineffective; Žižek predicts he will be re-elected and may even broker an 'obscene peace' with North Korea.
Mentioned by the interviewer as having made a Holocaust joke at an awards ceremony that Mel Brooks admired but could not himself make; Žižek does not elaborate beyond acknowledging the limits question.
Larry David positive
The Curb Your Enthusiasm Auschwitz-survivor vs. reality-TV-Survivor scene is cited approvingly as a joke that works because it presupposes the incommensurability of Auschwitz; Žižek is 'tempted to buy this.'
Cited by Jacqueline Miller in the Q&A alongside Butler as authority for the impossibility of speaking for the other.
Cited tentatively as a British/American feminist of the 1960s who wrote that true liberation would come when parents could sleep with their children, illustrating how liberationist consensus has reversed.
Mentioned as 'too much' into positive ontology for Žižek's taste, though overall treated as ally; associated with 'multitudes interacting' vision.
Graham Harman negative
Associated with Object-Oriented Ontology / New Materialism, a post-Deleuzian positive ontology trend that Žižek says he is 'radically opposed to' though he acknowledges it asks the right questions.
Ex-East German dissident, now near right-wing; Žižek credits him for the anecdote about neo-Nazi ecologists' 'balanced' critique of Hitler.
Called 'the real evil character in the story' of the Lewinsky affair, the woman who manipulated Lewinsky into exposure.
Listed among signatories of the 1960s French pro-child-sex proclamation; no further elaboration in this talk.
Ernst Lubitsch positive
Central figure of the talk; Žižek reads his dark comedies as having deep ontological foundations about mediation, form, and erotics, calls him 'important today' and considers his insight about appearances 'much more subtle' than postmodern cynicism.
Jacques-Alain Miller positive
Žižek was in analysis with Miller; recounts the anecdote of encountering Miller's father at a reception and being disturbed that an analyst 'shouldn't have a father.' Intellectual admiration implied.
Jordan Peterson negative
Called sarcastically 'one of the greatest thinkers of twentieth century'; Žižek had publicly attacked him and his partisans misread Žižek as a feminist for doing so.
Max Stirner negative
Raised by an audience member; Žižek rejects radical negativity / dissolution of all fixed concepts as not truly radical, it is more radical today to propose a new just social form.
Arthur Koestler positive
Cited approvingly for his insight that the horror of the Holocaust corrupts not only executors but also victims in a subtle way.
Sigmund Freud positive
Cited on perversion occluding the unconscious more than any other structure; on the unfortunate claim that 'the pervert does in reality what the hysteric only dreams'; on Wolfman; against vulgar desublimation; and as foundation of the anti-pedophilia but nuanced position.
Listed among signatories of the 1960s French pro-child-sex proclamation; no further comment.
What it argues
comedy versus tragedy as responses to historical horrorlaw and its obscene transgressive undersideperversion as complicit with power, not subversiveMe Too, consent, and the limits of legalistic sexual ethicsfeeling versus the unconscious as measure of truthLubitsch's mediation and the erotics of formfemale agency versus victimhood in feminist discourse
Dialectical moves 9
“In Auschwitz, victims were so dehumanized that to portray it as tragedy is a blasphemy — the very form meant to honor them diminishes them; comedy is the more truthful register.”
The form that appears most respectful (tragedy) is actually false; the apparently disrespectful form (comedy) honors the extremity of the horror more accurately.
“It's not only that Tura plays Ehrhardt; Ehrhardt in some sense also plays himself.”
The reversal shows that 'authentic' identity is itself already a performance, the original is indistinguishable from its parody, dissolving the distinction between mask and face.
“Far from being emancipatory, perversion is simply the dark other side of power — the very underside that keeps power in place.”
What appears as subversive transgression (perversion, 'bringing it all out') turns out to be the secret support of the law it seems to violate.
“Nowhere is the unconscious more occluded, more impenetrable than in perversion — when you bring everything out, the true unconscious is even more hidden.”
The paradox of transparency: full disclosure of the hidden content makes the real unconscious more inaccessible, not less.
“The true obscenity resides not behind the closed door but in the embarrassing detail in front of the door — the 'rat-tat-tat' that adds surplus enjoyment.”
Obscenity is not where we expect to find it (the hidden explicit content) but in the formal supplement that eroticizes what would otherwise be mundane.
“The right to withdraw at any moment — meant to protect — can itself become the instrument of extreme emotional violence.”
The very rule designed to prevent coercion can be weaponized as a tool of humiliation, showing that no procedural formula escapes the ambiguity of desire.
“They don't go too far; they don't go far enough — the 'enthusiastic yes-yes-yes' formula is not excessive feminist overreach but an inadequate response to the utter ambiguity of sexuality.”
Apparent feminist extremism is revealed as insufficient because it still domesticates the lawless character of desire rather than confronting it.
“The moment a woman feels bad, hurt, it's usually the beginning of liberation; the true victims are women who are objectively abused and feel good in it.”
Subjective feeling inverts its apparent meaning: pain signals progress, comfort signals deepest capture, feeling cannot be the criterion of emancipation.
“Sexuality is our privileged contact with the absolute — not in the sense of mystical union but precisely as our experience of reality's constitutive failure and incompleteness.”
What seems like a merely biological or personal domain turns out to be the site of the fundamental ontological antagonism.
Claims 18
asserts
Comedy, not tragedy, is sometimes the more truthful and respectful form for depicting extreme historical horror, because tragedy falsely restores dignity to victims who were stripped of all dignity.comedy versus tragedy as responses to atrocity
asserts
Perversion is not emancipatory but is the secret underside of power; every power edifice requires a pervert, and 'bringing it all out' leaves the unconscious more occluded, not less.perversion and the unconscious
rejects
The 1960s valorization of perversion over hysteria was a hidden anti-feminist move, since hysteria is genuinely subversive while perversion is merely the dark complement of domination.1960s sexual liberation ideology
asserts
Explicit prohibition and its direct transgression belong together within the same ideological system; there is nothing liberating in merely breaking the law.law, transgression, and ideology
asserts
The true unconscious point is always a marginal, embarrassing detail (the sinthome) — not the spectacular transgression that appears to liberate but actually forecloses the real.the structure of the unconscious and jouissance
asserts
Mediation is not merely a polite detour around the explicit; the very form of indirection constitutively produces erotic charge that direct expression would destroy.Lubitsch's erotics of form / mediation
rejects
The affirmative-consent formula ('enthusiastic yes-yes-yes') does not go far enough, because any rule of conduct can be turned around to enact emotional violence.affirmative consent frameworks in the Me Too context
asserts
Feeling is not the ultimate truth of the subject: women (and men) can feel good in situations of objective abuse, and psychoanalysis teaches that the beginning of liberation often feels bad.the epistemological status of subjective feeling in feminist discourse
rejects
Monica Lewinsky's self-presentation as a victim who could not be held responsible for her own desire is a form of false innocence that denies her full subjective agency.Monica Lewinsky's Me Too narrative
asserts
Enjoying a fantasy of subordination (as in *Fifty Shades of Grey*) is categorically different from enjoying actual subordination and should not be read as endorsing real submission.fantasy versus reality in masochistic desire
asserts
The masochist in the Sacher-Masoch tradition is the real master who authors and controls the scenario; there is no simple sadism-masochism symmetry.masochism and power
rejects
The Me Too discourse focuses too narrowly on spectacular harassment while obscuring the daily domestic violence within millions of ordinary marriages.the scope and focus of the Me Too movement
reframes
The current cultural elevation of child sexual abuse as the ultimate sin is part of an anti-Freudian regression that re-desexualizes children and contradicts what was mainstream liberationist consensus in the 1960s–70s.pedophilia and the historical construction of childhood sexuality
rejects
The Left's task is not to 'fluidify' identity (capitalism already does that) but to invent a new stable and just social form.identity fluidity as progressive politics
asserts
Sexuality in the Lacanian sense — constitutive antagonism and incompleteness — is humanity's privileged contact with the absolute as an ontological category.ontology and sexuality
asserts
Trump is already his own best comical self-impersonation, which is why liberal irony (Alec Baldwin's SNL parody) cannot effectively critique him.Trump and the limits of liberal irony
asserts
Promiscuous sexuality is typically itself an escape from something deeper, not the destination of genuine liberation.sexual liberation discourse
asserts
If the ANC land redistribution in South Africa fails, it will hand ammunition to white liberals to say 'Blacks always screw it up' — making its success or failure the moment of truth for African liberation.South Africa / ANC land reform
Quotes 14
“In a tragedy, victims retain a minimum of dignity, which is why when horror crosses a certain line, to portray it in a tragedy is a blasphemy; one downplays it to the true extent of horror.”Slavoj Žižek · comedy vs. tragedy for extreme atrocity
“It's not only that Tura plays Ehrhardt; Ehrhardt in some sense also plays himself.”Slavoj Žižek · identity as performance / original indistinguishable from parody
“Every power edifice needs a secret pervert. To truly undermine power, you don't do it through perversion; you don't do it through bringing out the secret underside.”Slavoj Žižek · perversion as the underside of power, not subversive
“Nowhere is the unconscious more occluded, more impenetrable than in perversion.”Slavoj Žižek · the paradox of perverse transparency
“It is not simply that we know that 'rat-tat-tat' means ejaculation... if you take 'rat-tat-tat' the words away, you lose precisely the erotic dimension.”Slavoj Žižek · form constitutes surplus enjoyment
“Can you imagine her saying directly, 'I don't care about coffee, come up and fuck me'? It would have been precisely de-eroticized.”Slavoj Žižek · mediation eroticizes / directness destroys desire
“They don't go far enough. What is problematic is what they call 'the enthusiastic presence of a yes-yes-yes.'”Slavoj Žižek · affirmative consent is insufficient, not excessive
“The moment a woman feels bad, hurt, it's usually the beginning of liberation. The true horror, the true victims are for me women who are objectively abused and even feel good in it.”Slavoj Žižek · feeling is not the truth of the subject
“Sexuality is our privileged contact with the absolute — the basic ontological feature is the inconsistent antagonism of reality, and our basic experience of this constitutive failure is sexuality.”Slavoj Žižek · sexuality as ontological contact with the absolute
“Trump is already his own best comical impersonation. You cannot beat him.”Slavoj Žižek · Trump as Ehrhardt — the real exceeds its parody
“The great achievement of the Left would not be to fluidify relations — capitalism is doing it enough for it — but to invent a new steady social form.”Slavoj Žižek · Left's task: stable form, not fluid identity
“Muscles of the leftist revolt are immobilized, but the problem are the nerves: the theory, the new vision. And the only way to revitalize the nerves is nonetheless not by directly thinking, but by moving the muscles.”Slavoj Žižek · muscles/nerves metaphor for practice and theory
“Promiscuous sexuality is as a rule an escape. They are really trying to escape from something.”Slavoj Žižek · sexual promiscuity as flight, not liberation
“The horror of terrible crimes like the Holocaust is that it doesn't corrupt only the executors; in some more subtle way it corrupts also the victims.”Slavoj Žižek · Holocaust corrupts victims too (Koestler)
Transcript 78 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Thank you very much. Just two things, three, to begin with. First, I’m really, it's not a joke, physically ashamed for what’s happening to me, this paresis of the right side of my face. I mean, here I’m almost a neo-Nazi, you know, like we should have beautiful bodies, if we don't have them, then this mirrors our spiritual filth and decadence, whatever. I’m really embarrassed for it. So, the, I’m doing all the indescribable disgusting things, massages, laser, and so on. But the only way I can react to it is to give you a theory. I think that this so-called paresis mirrors nicely our political predicament. Because it may appear that the muscles here are immobilized. But as doctors tell you, there is nothing wrong with the muscles; it’s the nerves. But there is another paradox: you cannot contact or influence directly the nerves; you have to go through massaging the muscles to revitalize the nerves. Isn't this our political predicament? Muscles of the leftist revolt are immobilized, but the problem are the nerves: the theory, the new vision, and so on. But as every good leftist knows, the further is exactly like with my stupid face, that the only way to revitalize the nerves, to provide a new vision, is nonetheless not by directly thinking, but by moving the muscles and then hoping, that is to say, crowd movements, protests, and so on, and hope that our nerves, we here, academia theory, will react to it. So, this is a good critique of false liberal left intellectuals who criticize the stupid crowds, you know, the muscles, like "how you take Trump seriously" and so on and so on. No, they, the nerves, are really guilty. And the way it goes on now, I will tell you, Trump will even be re-elected. You know that first, his approval ratings are already over fifty percent. He's just doing well. I will tell you at the end, he will even be the big peacemaker concluding some obscene peace with his twin double, the North Korean guy, no? So, that the second thing, I really feel bad about this already changing the topic, condensing it, because already in my, already as you know if some of you were at my previous seminars, I cheat a lot, like it’s a lucky, like in casinos, those, what's the big hit that you get three numbers seven or whatever in one row, that you get me really talking about what I announce in the title. So, I really feel bad and I propose to do the usual thing, that I will send to, where is she hiding, to Magda, there, where did she go? Probably went outside for a smoke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will simply send her at least some texts which are fresh texts, unpublished, part of my forthcoming book, so that at least you will be able to get basically nonetheless the stuff. So that if you still have time to read, now it's extremely annoying for me, I almost cannot read, because one of the effects is also that my eye is not getting enough water, so I have to put artificial tears on it all the time, and I cannot read consistently for more than ten minutes. Can you imagine what hell, much more than this C-face, sorry for vulgar implications, how frustrating this is for me, like that I cannot even read? I mean, then what should I do there then? Okay. So, it will be an easy talk combined with some, ah, now you heard me? I hear everything all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With some movie clips and so on about some actual top... like the starting point will be Ernst Lubitsch, a Hollywood director which I think deserves to be brought back to life, and I will connect all this with topics of comedy, love, sexuality, and of course violence, horror. After the extent of the Nazi atrocities became known to the public, Lubitsch’s dark anti-Nazi comedy *To Be or Not to Be*, as well as Charlie Chaplin’s *The Great Dictator*, were both criticized for downplaying the horrors of Nazism by way of making a comedy out of them. And Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin himself, said, I think wrongly, that if he just were to know the horrors that happened in Auschwitz and so on, he would never have shot his film; it makes too light and it makes it too easy, too light, and so on and so on. However, I think that the situation is much more complex and ambiguous. Isn't it that in a tragedy—I’m repeating an old point of mine—in a tragedy, victims retain a minimum of dignity, which is why when horror crosses a certain line, to portray it in a tragedy or as a tragedy is a blasphemy; one downplays it to the true extent of horror. In Auschwitz or in Gulag camp and so on, victims were to such an extent dehumanized, deprived of their human dignity, that they can no longer be perceived as tragic heroes. There is something false to imagine this, let’s say Auschwitz, a Nazi henchman approaching a Jew who then says, "You can kill me but you will never take away my freedom" and blah blah. It's false; you were too broken down there to do things like this. So, again my old point: no wonder that then some of the best films about concentration camps are comedies. And should we then be really surprised that the same goes for today’s horrors? For example, I learned, it’s a disgusting example but that’s my point, that when Sarajevo was under siege in early nineties, one of and you know because of the Serb bombardment they often ran out of gas, and the vulgar brutal joke was, "What's the difference between Auschwitz and Sarajevo? In Auschwitz at least they never ran out of gas" and so on. I mean, it’s vulgarity, but what I want to say is that it’s not a simple disrespect; it’s a desperate vulgarity and escape into comedy, the meaning of which is it’s still too fresh, too traumatic to deal with it directly in all its horror. All we can do it is some kind of a desperate escape into humor which really means we respect it, the horror of what’s going on, we respect it too much to stage it as a pathetic tragedy, you know all that humanitarian bullshit like it was popular to say—I’m especially suspicious about this formula—"In some sense we all live in Sarajevo," you know, or this false pathetic identification with victims, which of course means for us living comfortably in the West that precisely we all live in Sarajevo, yes, then I return to my flat and order some food delivery and so on. Is this secret pleasure? I can say that, but I know very well that I don't live there. So, along similar lines is a story, maybe you know it, maybe I’m repeating myself, told to me because I think that if you look at jokes from Lubitsch’s masterpiece *To Be or Not to Be*, they are when he is at his most brutal very similar to this Sarajevo story. And that’s Lubitsch’s greatness: he does not portray the Nazis as the usual idiots there, you know, these dumb idiots, ridiculously disciplined and so on. It's a nice detail that in *To Be or Not to Be*, these best one-liners are provided by Colonel Ehrhardt, an SS officer. And there are two famous one-liners: one is when this Ehrhardt is asked about concentration camps, you know, he replies, "Yes, we the Germans are doing the concentrating and the Poles are doing the camping," no, and so on, lines like this. And I think it’s a very similar reversal, very brutal one, happened, it was told to me by Wolf Biermann, the ex-East German dissident who is now more almost a right-winger in Germany. Wonderful anecdote, I’m sorry if you know it, immediately after the breakdown of communism, he, Biermann, went to some Green meeting in ex-East Germany, and one group present there were some right-wing neo-Nazi ecologists. And he attacked them for, "But my god, you praise Hitler, you are Nazis," and he got, I’m sorry if you know it, the answer of a lifetime. I love it. They answered him, "No, it's not true, we are critical of Hitler," but now listen to their joke. They said, "We were Green ecologists." They said, "We are horrified at Hitler. We agree one should be balanced. Hitler did some good things like getting rid of the Jews, Germany, and so on, but he also did so many horrible things like building all the highways, electrification, and so on. So no, we are against him." This is the pure spirit of Lubitsch, I claim: this brutal humor. And I think now comes my first clip, theoretically important, this Lubitsch approach has a deep—I’m not afraid of the word—ontological foundation. There is—I’m sorry it’s not very funny but the point will be clear—in one scene in *To Be or Not to Be*, you see the hero of the film, this ridiculous Polish actor Joseph Tura, impersonating as part of a resistance operation the SS officer Colonel Ehrhardt, the Nazi guy. And he is questioned by a Nazi collaborator, and evading the question, he—you will see it immediately—Tura, again masked as Colonel Ehrhardt, does in an absolutely exaggerated way this gesture of "Ha-ha-ha, they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt" and so on. And you think, "Okay, this idiot cannot even play properly, he is exaggerating it." But then a couple of minutes later—you will see both clips—the roles are changed and Joseph Tura is dressed as another Nazi collaborator questioning, confronting the real Colonel Ehrhardt. And in a wonderful subtle joke, the real Colonel Ehrhardt does exactly the same as his imitator even more. He says, "Ha-ha-ha, they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt" and so on and so on. There is a wonderful lesson in this. It is that it's not only that Tura plays Ehrhardt; Ehrhardt in some sense also plays himself. So let me show the first two very short clips and if you are religious let's pray. *(Film Clip from To Be or Not To Be plays)* "I so long I get suspicious of everyone." "And so do I." "Ha-ha-ha! So they, they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt! Ha-ha-ha!" *(Laughter)* "Coming back to Mrs. Tura." "Oh, let's forget about her. There's nothing mysterious about her. She's just a cheap little..." "I so long I get suspicious of everyone." "And so do I." Okay, no problem. Wait a minute. I pressed too much and got rid of all of it. I will do it immediately. Documents, Pictures, USB, yeah. Sorry, I'm back here, yes. Everything okay. BB. I'm here. No, don't worry. Now we get Tura... oh my god. I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry. I know what I did wrong. I have to go here, yeah, yeah. Life is hell as you can see, yeah. So here is just a clumsy actor making fun of Ehrhardt. Now we have the real Ehrhardt. *(Film Clip from To Be or Not To Be plays)* "Colonel, you're quite famous in London. Do you know what they call you? Concentration Camp Ehrhardt." "Oh they do, do they? Ha-ha-ha! So they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt! Ha-ha-ha! I, I thought you would react just that way. Well Professor, let's have your information." "The, I think I could stand a glass of brandy after all." "Certainly. Brandy. That makes me think of a very funny story which..." Oh my god, I, it doesn't matter. Okay, sorry. So again, this is what I like about Lubitsch and where he is actually important today is that okay, what you saw here you can still read it in some postmodern way, everything is an irony, there is no substance, we just play ourselves and so on and so on. But see the movie—you can easily even legally download it, you don't need even to go to Pirate Bay—and you can see that the implication of Lubitsch that I appreciate so much is that his lesson is not a cynical one. "There is no love, there is no authentic relationship, we are just playing games." It's a much more subtle one. I think that the movie *To Be or Not to Be*—again, the central figures are this Joseph Tura, an actor, self-in-love, arrogant, but... and his wife, Maria Tura.
Thank you very much. Just two things, three, to begin with. First, I’m really, it's not a joke, physically ashamed for what’s happening to me, this paresis of the right side of my face. I mean, here I’m almost a neo-Nazi, you know, like we should have beautiful bodies, if we don't have them, then this mirrors our spiritual filth and decadence, whatever. I’m really embarrassed for it. So, the, I’m doing all the indescribable disgusting things, massages, laser, and so on. But the only way I can react to it is to give you a theory. I think that this so-called paresis mirrors nicely our political predicament. Because it may appear that the muscles here are immobilized. But as doctors tell you, there is nothing wrong with the muscles; it’s the nerves. But there is another paradox: you cannot contact or influence directly the nerves; you have to go through massaging the muscles to revitalize the nerves. Isn't this our political predicament? Muscles of the leftist revolt are immobilized, but the problem are the nerves: the theory, the new vision, and so on. But as every good leftist knows, the further is exactly like with my stupid face, that the only way to revitalize the nerves, to provide a new vision, is nonetheless not by directly thinking, but by moving the muscles and then hoping, that is to say, crowd movements, protests, and so on, and hope that our nerves, we here, academia theory, will react to it. So, this is a good critique of false liberal left intellectuals who criticize the stupid crowds, you know, the muscles, like "how you take Trump seriously" and so on and so on. No, they, the nerves, are really guilty. And the way it goes on now, I will tell you, Trump will even be re-elected. You know that first, his approval ratings are already over fifty percent. He's just doing well. I will tell you at the end, he will even be the big peacemaker concluding some obscene peace with his twin double, the North Korean guy, no? So, that the second thing, I really feel bad about this already changing the topic, condensing it, because already in my, already as you know if some of you were at my previous seminars, I cheat a lot, like it’s a lucky, like in casinos, those, what's the big hit that you get three numbers seven or whatever in one row, that you get me really talking about what I announce in the title. So, I really feel bad and I propose to do the usual thing, that I will send to, where is she hiding, to Magda, there, where did she go? Probably went outside for a smoke. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I will simply send her at least some texts which are fresh texts, unpublished, part of my forthcoming book, so that at least you will be able to get basically nonetheless the stuff. So that if you still have time to read, now it's extremely annoying for me, I almost cannot read, because one of the effects is also that my eye is not getting enough water, so I have to put artificial tears on it all the time, and I cannot read consistently for more than ten minutes. Can you imagine what hell, much more than this C-face, sorry for vulgar implications, how frustrating this is for me, like that I cannot even read? I mean, then what should I do there then? Okay. So, it will be an easy talk combined with some, ah, now you heard me? I hear everything all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With some movie clips and so on about some actual top... like the starting point will be Ernst Lubitsch, a Hollywood director which I think deserves to be brought back to life, and I will connect all this with topics of comedy, love, sexuality, and of course violence, horror. After the extent of the Nazi atrocities became known to the public, Lubitsch’s dark anti-Nazi comedy *To Be or Not to Be*, as well as Charlie Chaplin’s *The Great Dictator*, were both criticized for downplaying the horrors of Nazism by way of making a comedy out of them. And Chaplin, Charlie Chaplin himself, said, I think wrongly, that if he just were to know the horrors that happened in Auschwitz and so on, he would never have shot his film; it makes too light and it makes it too easy, too light, and so on and so on. However, I think that the situation is much more complex and ambiguous. Isn't it that in a tragedy—I’m repeating an old point of mine—in a tragedy, victims retain a minimum of dignity, which is why when horror crosses a certain line, to portray it in a tragedy or as a tragedy is a blasphemy; one downplays it to the true extent of horror. In Auschwitz or in Gulag camp and so on, victims were to such an extent dehumanized, deprived of their human dignity, that they can no longer be perceived as tragic heroes. There is something false to imagine this, let’s say Auschwitz, a Nazi henchman approaching a Jew who then says, "You can kill me but you will never take away my freedom" and blah blah. It's false; you were too broken down there to do things like this. So, again my old point: no wonder that then some of the best films about concentration camps are comedies. And should we then be really surprised that the same goes for today’s horrors? For example, I learned, it’s a disgusting example but that’s my point, that when Sarajevo was under siege in early nineties, one of and you know because of the Serb bombardment they often ran out of gas, and the vulgar brutal joke was, "What's the difference between Auschwitz and Sarajevo? In Auschwitz at least they never ran out of gas" and so on. I mean, it’s vulgarity, but what I want to say is that it’s not a simple disrespect; it’s a desperate vulgarity and escape into comedy, the meaning of which is it’s still too fresh, too traumatic to deal with it directly in all its horror. All we can do it is some kind of a desperate escape into humor which really means we respect it, the horror of what’s going on, we respect it too much to stage it as a pathetic tragedy, you know all that humanitarian bullshit like it was popular to say—I’m especially suspicious about this formula—"In some sense we all live in Sarajevo," you know, or this false pathetic identification with victims, which of course means for us living comfortably in the West that precisely we all live in Sarajevo, yes, then I return to my flat and order some food delivery and so on. Is this secret pleasure? I can say that, but I know very well that I don't live there. So, along similar lines is a story, maybe you know it, maybe I’m repeating myself, told to me because I think that if you look at jokes from Lubitsch’s masterpiece *To Be or Not to Be*, they are when he is at his most brutal very similar to this Sarajevo story. And that’s Lubitsch’s greatness: he does not portray the Nazis as the usual idiots there, you know, these dumb idiots, ridiculously disciplined and so on. It's a nice detail that in *To Be or Not to Be*, these best one-liners are provided by Colonel Ehrhardt, an SS officer. And there are two famous one-liners: one is when this Ehrhardt is asked about concentration camps, you know, he replies, "Yes, we the Germans are doing the concentrating and the Poles are doing the camping," no, and so on, lines like this. And I think it’s a very similar reversal, very brutal one, happened, it was told to me by Wolf Biermann, the ex-East German dissident who is now more almost a right-winger in Germany. Wonderful anecdote, I’m sorry if you know it, immediately after the breakdown of communism, he, Biermann, went to some Green meeting in ex-East Germany, and one group present there were some right-wing neo-Nazi ecologists. And he attacked them for, "But my god, you praise Hitler, you are Nazis," and he got, I’m sorry if you know it, the answer of a lifetime. I love it. They answered him, "No, it's not true, we are critical of Hitler," but now listen to their joke. They said, "We were Green ecologists." They said, "We are horrified at Hitler. We agree one should be balanced. Hitler did some good things like getting rid of the Jews, Germany, and so on, but he also did so many horrible things like building all the highways, electrification, and so on. So no, we are against him." This is the pure spirit of Lubitsch, I claim: this brutal humor. And I think now comes my first clip, theoretically important, this Lubitsch approach has a deep—I’m not afraid of the word—ontological foundation. There is—I’m sorry it’s not very funny but the point will be clear—in one scene in *To Be or Not to Be*, you see the hero of the film, this ridiculous Polish actor Joseph Tura, impersonating as part of a resistance operation the SS officer Colonel Ehrhardt, the Nazi guy. And he is questioned by a Nazi collaborator, and evading the question, he—you will see it immediately—Tura, again masked as Colonel Ehrhardt, does in an absolutely exaggerated way this gesture of "Ha-ha-ha, they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt" and so on. And you think, "Okay, this idiot cannot even play properly, he is exaggerating it." But then a couple of minutes later—you will see both clips—the roles are changed and Joseph Tura is dressed as another Nazi collaborator questioning, confronting the real Colonel Ehrhardt. And in a wonderful subtle joke, the real Colonel Ehrhardt does exactly the same as his imitator even more. He says, "Ha-ha-ha, they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt" and so on and so on. There is a wonderful lesson in this. It is that it's not only that Tura plays Ehrhardt; Ehrhardt in some sense also plays himself. So let me show the first two very short clips and if you are religious let's pray. *(Film Clip from To Be or Not To Be plays)* "I so long I get suspicious of everyone." "And so do I." "Ha-ha-ha! So they, they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt! Ha-ha-ha!" *(Laughter)* "Coming back to Mrs. Tura." "Oh, let's forget about her. There's nothing mysterious about her. She's just a cheap little..." "I so long I get suspicious of everyone." "And so do I." Okay, no problem. Wait a minute. I pressed too much and got rid of all of it. I will do it immediately. Documents, Pictures, USB, yeah. Sorry, I'm back here, yes. Everything okay. BB. I'm here. No, don't worry. Now we get Tura... oh my god. I'm so sorry. I'm really sorry. I know what I did wrong. I have to go here, yeah, yeah. Life is hell as you can see, yeah. So here is just a clumsy actor making fun of Ehrhardt. Now we have the real Ehrhardt. *(Film Clip from To Be or Not To Be plays)* "Colonel, you're quite famous in London. Do you know what they call you? Concentration Camp Ehrhardt." "Oh they do, do they? Ha-ha-ha! So they call me Concentration Camp Ehrhardt! Ha-ha-ha! I, I thought you would react just that way. Well Professor, let's have your information." "The, I think I could stand a glass of brandy after all." "Certainly. Brandy. That makes me think of a very funny story which..." Oh my god, I, it doesn't matter. Okay, sorry. So again, this is what I like about Lubitsch and where he is actually important today is that okay, what you saw here you can still read it in some postmodern way, everything is an irony, there is no substance, we just play ourselves and so on and so on. But see the movie—you can easily even legally download it, you don't need even to go to Pirate Bay—and you can see that the implication of Lubitsch that I appreciate so much is that his lesson is not a cynical one. "There is no love, there is no authentic relationship, we are just playing games." It's a much more subtle one. I think that the movie *To Be or Not to Be*—again, the central figures are this Joseph Tura, an actor, self-in-love, arrogant, but... and his wife, Maria Tura.
unknown
And with Lubitsch names are important: Joseph and Mary, Joseph Tura, Maria Tura. Although she is cheating on him, he is exploiting her. But I claim the message is: through all these ridiculous cheatings, misunderstandings, they are the ultimate happy couple. They invented their formula. And I think that's the proper lesson of psychoanalysis: don't look for happy marriage,
And with Lubitsch names are important: Joseph and Mary, Joseph Tura, Maria Tura. Although she is cheating on him, he is exploiting her. But I claim the message is: through all these ridiculous cheatings, misunderstandings, they are the ultimate happy couple. They invented their formula. And I think that's the proper lesson of psychoanalysis: don't look for happy marriage,
Slavoj Žižek
look for a formula into which you include all these stupidities of each side and so on, and they can work in an extreme... in a wonderful way. Like I remember when I was very young I saw a caricature in a Slovenian comical weekly where it you see one old guy running with an axe after an old lady and their neighbor observing them said
look for a formula into which you include all these stupidities of each side and so on, and they can work in an extreme... in a wonderful way. Like I remember when I was very young I saw a caricature in a Slovenian comical weekly where it you see one old guy running with an axe after an old lady and their neighbor observing them said
unknown
to a friend, "You
to a friend, "You
Slavoj Žižek
see, I know for sixty years that this marriage will not end well," you know like... but that’s the formula. The formula can even be "I’m running with an axe after you," cheating, whatever. That's what Lacan means with "there is no sexual relationship."
see, I know for sixty years that this marriage will not end well," you know like... but that’s the formula. The formula can even be "I’m running with an axe after you," cheating, whatever. That's what Lacan means with "there is no sexual relationship."
unknown
It does not mean this tragic sense: "You know, it's always romantic catastrophe" and so on. The art of happy love life, I claim, is to turn the deadlock into a wonderful comedy. It can be done. That's the point of—I will not bore you with it—the best Jewish humor about wives and so on. It's... don't do it in the wrong
It does not mean this tragic sense: "You know, it's always romantic catastrophe" and so on. The art of happy love life, I claim, is to turn the deadlock into a wonderful comedy. It can be done. That's the point of—I will not bore you with it—the best Jewish humor about wives and so on. It's... don't do it in the wrong
unknown
way. But again, does this also not point to the limits of the approach of Lubitsch? At least for us today. We more and more experience what was for Lubitsch still a joke as something that is now simply enacted in real political-ideological life. Recall Ehrhardt’s
way. But again, does this also not point to the limits of the approach of Lubitsch? At least for us today. We more and more experience what was for Lubitsch still a joke as something that is now simply enacted in real political-ideological life. Recall Ehrhardt’s
Slavoj Žižek
legendary quip that I already mentioned it: "We do the concentrating, Poles do the camping." Or there is another legendary quip: Joseph Tura is in the movie a great Shakespeare actor who of course plays *Hamlet* in a slightly ridiculous way and he, masked as a Nazi, asks the real Colonel Ehrhardt, "Did you hear about a Polish actor called Joseph Tura?" And you know the answer he gets—it’s for this joke that the movie was censored, they didn’t want it—a wonderful answer Ehrhardt gives: "Yes, Joseph Tura. Yes, of course I know him. He is doing to Shakespeare what we Germans are now doing to Poland," no, and so on. I mean, I find this so subversive and much more deeply anti-Nazi that you know, you don't make Nazis just those clumsy idiots, whatever, shouting "Heil Hitler" and so on and so on. Okay, so "we are doing the concentrating, Poles are doing the camping." Today if you ask a Brussels bureaucrat, for example, about the politics of austerity, I think you can well get a similar answer: "Yes, we in Brussels are doing the politics, the Greeks are doing the austerity," or whatever. I mean, and not even mentioning to look at Donald Trump and so on. My point simply is how, and this is the sad experience of our life today, isn't Donald Trump like Colonel Ehrhardt? Imagine Joseph Tura as Alec Baldwin impersonating Trump, and that's why I think Alec Baldwin is a failure. I mean, Trump is already his own best comical impersonation. You cannot beat him. However, so again, the idea is this one: that the obscenity is getting so open today with Donald Trump that this liberal irony and so on and so on no longer works. But here I want to complicate things, to understand what is going on today. Lubitsch was well aware implicitly that all this 1960s, '68 and afterwards, rhetoric—and rhetoric I don't mean just words, I mean rhetoric which regulates our practice—of "dropping the masks," you know, this Actor’s Studio logic: "We should drop masks of manners, behavior, be what you really are" and so on and so on, is deeply misleading. Why? Again, in the sixties, I remember it from my own youth, it was fashionable to assert perversion against hysteria. The idea was—and nobody wrote about it, this was I think even a hidden anti-feminist agenda, not recognized as such of the 1960s—when they dismissed hysteria as too compromising, you know, the idea was a hysterical subject just makes fun of the master, but secretly it demands a new stronger master, while the pervert goes to the end. Or as even Freud says at some point, very unfortunately, "A pervert does it in reality what a hysterical subject only dreams about." This is deeply wrong. For Freud, Lacan, and all proper analysts, hysteria is truly subversive. Perversion is simply the dark other side of power. Every power edifice needs a secret pervert. To truly undermine power, you don't do it through perversion; you don't do it through bringing out the secret underside. And here we discover a model of this, an awareness of what Freud says somewhere—it's absolutely crucial—that although in perversion you bring out all the secret content, like you have let’s say some dirty dreams, no problem, all obstacles fall away, you directly enact them, he says, Freud, that nowhere is unconscious more occluded, more impenetrable than in perversion. Which means that when you have the surface of good manners, blah blah, and all these dirty dreams and so on and so on, the true unconscious are not these dirty pervert dreams and so on and so on. This gesture of liberation, "bring it out," is false. And this especially holds today where I will now first show you and then tell you a story another image that I already mentioned it here the last time, but I’m sorry for repeating it, it's crucial for my line of argument. It fascinated me so much that I even am tempted to call my next book *Variations on an Ashtray in a Skopje Hotel*. Skopje is the capital of Macedonia. You must know the story if you were already here. I, my wife is a chain smoker, so we demanded smoking room and they said, "Sorry, smoking is..." Literally, we got this answer: "Smoking is prohibited in this hotel, but no problem, you have ashtray on the table there." No, I think if I remember it exactly, they didn't even say "but." They simply confronted prohibition and its transgression as "it’s prohibited and you have the ashtray there." I’m sorry if you already saw this and it will not be surprising for you, but I like this—sorry I’m a total idiot, so I have to go again through it—open file. I hope it will be... yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, wait a minute. Okay, that image disappeared, it doesn't matter. Okay. What I wanted to show—it because it's not there, it should be the ashtray. Okay, doesn't matter. So what we were shocked about is that when we entered the room there was really an ashtray and as the illustration on the bottom of the ashtray it was a sign "smoking prohibited." I think this is the best metaphor of where we are today. Isn't this the exact gesture, answer that you get, for example, from the Americans when if you were to ask an American CIA manager, "Do you torture?" He would have said, "No, torture is prohibited and here is how you do waterboarding" or whatever. You know, like exactly the same. And my best experience, I’m sorry if you know the story of this, this was my paradise: when I was in mid-seventies serving the army, the Yugoslav army, we have morning classes and the first class in the morning was some ideological education, international law, socialism, doesn't matter. The topic on a certain day was "What are the international rules of shooting," you know, with a simple gun. And we went through that Geneva Convention where it says that, I wonder if you know this, that still under international law when you have a parachuter you are not allowed to shoot at him while he is still in the air. That's international law, only when he touches the ground. "Yeah, we wrote this down, we learned this." Then I love this: by chance the next class hour was about "how to shoot" and it was the same officer. And it was some kind of divine coincidence: the topic was "how to shoot a parachuter in the air" with exact instructions, you know, how you take into account the strength of the wind, the movement, so that you must target it a little bit below and to what side. And one idiot—it wasn't me, pseudo-intellectual—asked the officer, "But isn't there a slight contradiction, you know, like between this and..." and the officer gave him a correct answer. He just looked at him with extreme contempt and said, "You appear to be an intellectual, how can you be so utterly stupid? Do you really not get it?" and so on and so on. So what I’m what I want to say through these examples is something very simple: it’s precisely that a certain type of law, rule of law and its direct transgression, pervert’s other side, belong together. There is nothing liberating, emancipatory in breaking the law in the sense of, I don't know, shooting a parachuter and so on. It's part of the game. So here Lubitsch enters, because does this mean that we are in a closed circle? Does this mean that simply if you obey the law you are a conformist, if you violate the law you are even deeper caught within the secret texture of the law? So what to do? Ah, here I think again Lubitsch enters. The idea and very nice Freudian idea is that precisely when you drop the mask in the sense of, "You know, let's forget about prohibitions, let's do it directly" and so on and so on, when you do that, what you you do not just violate the explicit prohibition, you precisely miss the true unconscious point. Which is the unconscious in this simple opposition of open, sorry, public law and its obscene pervert transgressions, which are—always remember—part, the secret part, but part of the ruling ideology. The true unconscious point is a much more subtle marginal point. And although I don't like *Sex and the City*, I wonder if I already used, I hope not, this example. But I have to blame someone; my wife was watching it, and by mistake I... in one episode something happened which I quite liked. It’s the correct Lubitsch point. The girl who is the ugliest there officially, but my favorite one, I hate all the others, Miranda. She is with a lover, they make love, and then the lover tells her that he likes this pep—obscene talk—while they make love, and tells her, "Talk dirty to me, it would be much better" and so on and so on. Okay, it's difficult for her, she gets gradually used to it. And then something and then she goes too far. But in what way? When she says all the dirty things and so on and so on, no problem. But then at some point she says, "I've noticed how during making love you enjoy it when while we are doing it I put my finger into your asshole." He withdraws instantly. You know, this is a beautiful example what I’m talking about. You can talk about, I don't know, fucking with three men, with a dog... no problem. But this is the touchy point. This is the true unconscious tiny detail, what Lacan means by *sinthome*, not the symptom but that condensed *jouissance*. And you see, in a way all that "tell all the dirty things" and so on and so on is to avoid this type of truly traumatic point, true phantasmatic kernel. And also in this episode of *Sex and the City*, it's also nice how the misunderstanding between Miranda and her lover follows Lacan’s formulas of sexuation. The lover is a male, so he understands his request in masculine terms of universality based on an exception: "Talk dirty, say everything, but implicitly except that." Like, basically the lesson is: "Tell me everything implicitly, just don't mention your finger in my asshole, just just do it, you know, but talk about everything," while her logic is a correct one. It's a feminine logic of "non-all" with no exception: "Just tell whatever comes to your mind without worrying if you say it all" and whatever, "that’s not a problem." So again, I and this is I think what Lubitsch is doing when he plays with appearances in his films. I will instantly give you—don't be afraid I’m mocking, but for me it really is—a truly embarrassing ultra-hardcore example of this. Don't be afraid, it's from Hollywood but it's typically from I think '32, just before Hays Code. I’m embarrassed, I wonder if you will share this, to see this movie. It's with Maurice Chevalier from '31, sorry, *The Smiling Lieutenant*, where you have of course sex, love affair, and you have of course playing it with dots. Everything happens behind the closed door and so on. But what I find so fascinating is that you have an obscene moment. But the obscene moment is not that you go behind the door. But the obscenity which explodes in front of the door. I will show you two-three clips. It's... *(Maurice Chevalier clip from The Smiling Lieutenant plays)* "Ah soldier boy was never born. And though we never use a gun, we're still on active service though we're through with fighting, for when a lady takes the field, she knows the guards will always yield, and every man deserves a medal every night! To arms, to arms, we are use night alarms. We are always facing powder, the girls give in, but we weaken but we win and march home feeling proud. We're on a parade each evening in the park, we're not afraid to skirmish in the dark. We're famous near and far for our rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Toujours l'amour in the army! We give the girls a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. When we go out campaigning, and they give us a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat and so we are not complaining. For years and years we battle every night, they'll pension us when we are too old to fight. We're the boudoir brigade with our rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Toujours l'amour in the army! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!" Now all the complications go on and then it's worth seeing for the extreme obscenity the final scene. This princess is now re-educated in sex and she will finally seduce him. See. *(Final clip from The Smiling Lieutenant plays)* "Anna! Is this you?" "No. This is Mandelbaum and Gruenstein. That's me. And that's me again." *(Music from the "Toujours l'amour in the army" song plays with visual cues of sexual excitement: soldiers' heads turning, objects pulsating)* "I've found a home, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. There'll be no more campaigning. And she'll find me, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. And so I'm not complaining. I've found a new commander to obey, I must report for duty right away. She'll never pension me! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Toujours l'amour in the army!" You know, if you ask me, movies like this should be prohibited, no? Because you see what is the so-called erotic tension here. It's not simply that we know that "rat-tat-tat" means ejaculation, the movements and so on. But what adds obscenity is this very obscene form. Like if you take "rat-tat-tat" the words away, you lose precisely the erotic dimension. And I claim this "rat-tat-tat" is that embarrassing detail like in *Sex and the City* sticking the finger up your ass, which makes all of it really which makes all of it really which makes all of it really embarrassing. Again, of course I am totally... this is I'm totally opposed to this entire scene, which I'm well aware, even if it superficially turns around the relationship and men serve women and so on, it's really male chauvinism at its worst. And also it's not yet Lubitsch; I think the mature Lubitsch would never have shown this directly. But again, the insight is the right one: that the true obscenity are these details, finger up your ass or "rat-tat-tat," even the words, which add surplus enjoyment to what otherwise would have been a simple animal copulation or whatever. Now I come to my central problematic topic, which is why, and this is I think the best example of Lubitsch’s avoiding immediacy, mediation. Mediation is not just about not showing it directly. And then we all know what it means. Mediation means that the very form of not doing it directly eroticizes it. Let me I will give an example which I mentioned here five times but only now I got a I got a nice clip. Open file. It's a very short one that I mentioned from that movie *Brassed Off*, the short clip. You will see it immediately. Just. *(Clip from Brassed Off plays)* "Do you want to come up for coffee?" "I don't drink coffee." "I haven't got any." It's so simple. I mean, so stupidly simple. But what happens here is not just she doesn't say directly. But this very detour eroticizes the situation. Can you imagine her saying directly, "I don't care about coffee, come up and fuck me"? I mean, you know, it's not only that it would be too vulgar, direct, but it would have been precisely de-eroticized. And Lubitsch was aware of this: that the true obscenity is resides precisely in these obscene gestures. And I found—I don't have time to develop it now—the latest example. Did some of you are some of you aware of it? Now the latest product on our markets—I love it, this is the market publicity dialectics at its best—so-called "Light Phones" as opposed to smartphones. How they subtly mobilize the entire critical ideological point that that smartphones really enslave you and so on. Light Phones are very small cell phones, reduced to just the elementary: phone calls and you can check email and alarm clock whatever. But the publicity is incredible. It says something like, "it's a phone which respects you and gives you your freedom. You are not all the time..." It basically sell it as a defense against superego. "If you have a real smartphone, you are all the time nervous: check the Twitter, Facebook, this, that. No, it allows you..." They even use this term "to spend more quality time with those about whom you really care." It gives you back... and I like this so much because the implication is they say it: "You can leave your smart home at home, your smartphone." So it's so nice: first they tell you, "Oh you can have a smartphone, you can do everything" and so on and so on, and that's the beautiful Hegelian dialectic of publicity. Then you have to get another phone to free you from all that bullshit that was imposed and they they make it still clear: you need a smartphone, just if you want a little bit of freedom you can escape from it and have just the just the Light Phone and so on. You know and again, it's almost like this coffee-no coffee, you know, it's the same logic. Like you get a smartphone but then you get rid of the smartphone and you feel free. And they use all this publicity, all this it sounds almost Marxist, like the message is: "All this technology which apparently liberates you is really enslaving you, you become slave of it. So why not get rid of it, return to your respect?" It's even one of the publicity slogans is "a phone which respects you, which gives you back your dignity." Okay, back to the main line, which is why I think Lubitsch would have been horrified at the idea of today as one of the offsprings of of Me Too and so on: the idea of sexual contracts, like, you know, to be truly sure that we are not harassing each other, the partners should sign a contract stating your... there are different versions, the basic are: they both agree to use a condom or not, you profess your religious orientation, you have AIDS or not, and the limits, like anal sex, yes and no and so on and so on. Well, I have I have problems with this. I will not repeat my old usual points; I will just like to focus on some more new points. In replying to those who insisted on a difference between Weinstein, brutal rapist, and Louis C. K., Me Too activists claim that those who say this have no idea about how male violence works, like I read this literally in my book, that who are me to say that Louis C. K. showing you his penis and masturbating can be less violent than somebody really brutally raping you? That it can be emotionally as bad as that. So we others have no right
legendary quip that I already mentioned it: "We do the concentrating, Poles do the camping." Or there is another legendary quip: Joseph Tura is in the movie a great Shakespeare actor who of course plays *Hamlet* in a slightly ridiculous way and he, masked as a Nazi, asks the real Colonel Ehrhardt, "Did you hear about a Polish actor called Joseph Tura?" And you know the answer he gets—it’s for this joke that the movie was censored, they didn’t want it—a wonderful answer Ehrhardt gives: "Yes, Joseph Tura. Yes, of course I know him. He is doing to Shakespeare what we Germans are now doing to Poland," no, and so on. I mean, I find this so subversive and much more deeply anti-Nazi that you know, you don't make Nazis just those clumsy idiots, whatever, shouting "Heil Hitler" and so on and so on. Okay, so "we are doing the concentrating, Poles are doing the camping." Today if you ask a Brussels bureaucrat, for example, about the politics of austerity, I think you can well get a similar answer: "Yes, we in Brussels are doing the politics, the Greeks are doing the austerity," or whatever. I mean, and not even mentioning to look at Donald Trump and so on. My point simply is how, and this is the sad experience of our life today, isn't Donald Trump like Colonel Ehrhardt? Imagine Joseph Tura as Alec Baldwin impersonating Trump, and that's why I think Alec Baldwin is a failure. I mean, Trump is already his own best comical impersonation. You cannot beat him. However, so again, the idea is this one: that the obscenity is getting so open today with Donald Trump that this liberal irony and so on and so on no longer works. But here I want to complicate things, to understand what is going on today. Lubitsch was well aware implicitly that all this 1960s, '68 and afterwards, rhetoric—and rhetoric I don't mean just words, I mean rhetoric which regulates our practice—of "dropping the masks," you know, this Actor’s Studio logic: "We should drop masks of manners, behavior, be what you really are" and so on and so on, is deeply misleading. Why? Again, in the sixties, I remember it from my own youth, it was fashionable to assert perversion against hysteria. The idea was—and nobody wrote about it, this was I think even a hidden anti-feminist agenda, not recognized as such of the 1960s—when they dismissed hysteria as too compromising, you know, the idea was a hysterical subject just makes fun of the master, but secretly it demands a new stronger master, while the pervert goes to the end. Or as even Freud says at some point, very unfortunately, "A pervert does it in reality what a hysterical subject only dreams about." This is deeply wrong. For Freud, Lacan, and all proper analysts, hysteria is truly subversive. Perversion is simply the dark other side of power. Every power edifice needs a secret pervert. To truly undermine power, you don't do it through perversion; you don't do it through bringing out the secret underside. And here we discover a model of this, an awareness of what Freud says somewhere—it's absolutely crucial—that although in perversion you bring out all the secret content, like you have let’s say some dirty dreams, no problem, all obstacles fall away, you directly enact them, he says, Freud, that nowhere is unconscious more occluded, more impenetrable than in perversion. Which means that when you have the surface of good manners, blah blah, and all these dirty dreams and so on and so on, the true unconscious are not these dirty pervert dreams and so on and so on. This gesture of liberation, "bring it out," is false. And this especially holds today where I will now first show you and then tell you a story another image that I already mentioned it here the last time, but I’m sorry for repeating it, it's crucial for my line of argument. It fascinated me so much that I even am tempted to call my next book *Variations on an Ashtray in a Skopje Hotel*. Skopje is the capital of Macedonia. You must know the story if you were already here. I, my wife is a chain smoker, so we demanded smoking room and they said, "Sorry, smoking is..." Literally, we got this answer: "Smoking is prohibited in this hotel, but no problem, you have ashtray on the table there." No, I think if I remember it exactly, they didn't even say "but." They simply confronted prohibition and its transgression as "it’s prohibited and you have the ashtray there." I’m sorry if you already saw this and it will not be surprising for you, but I like this—sorry I’m a total idiot, so I have to go again through it—open file. I hope it will be... yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, wait a minute. Okay, that image disappeared, it doesn't matter. Okay. What I wanted to show—it because it's not there, it should be the ashtray. Okay, doesn't matter. So what we were shocked about is that when we entered the room there was really an ashtray and as the illustration on the bottom of the ashtray it was a sign "smoking prohibited." I think this is the best metaphor of where we are today. Isn't this the exact gesture, answer that you get, for example, from the Americans when if you were to ask an American CIA manager, "Do you torture?" He would have said, "No, torture is prohibited and here is how you do waterboarding" or whatever. You know, like exactly the same. And my best experience, I’m sorry if you know the story of this, this was my paradise: when I was in mid-seventies serving the army, the Yugoslav army, we have morning classes and the first class in the morning was some ideological education, international law, socialism, doesn't matter. The topic on a certain day was "What are the international rules of shooting," you know, with a simple gun. And we went through that Geneva Convention where it says that, I wonder if you know this, that still under international law when you have a parachuter you are not allowed to shoot at him while he is still in the air. That's international law, only when he touches the ground. "Yeah, we wrote this down, we learned this." Then I love this: by chance the next class hour was about "how to shoot" and it was the same officer. And it was some kind of divine coincidence: the topic was "how to shoot a parachuter in the air" with exact instructions, you know, how you take into account the strength of the wind, the movement, so that you must target it a little bit below and to what side. And one idiot—it wasn't me, pseudo-intellectual—asked the officer, "But isn't there a slight contradiction, you know, like between this and..." and the officer gave him a correct answer. He just looked at him with extreme contempt and said, "You appear to be an intellectual, how can you be so utterly stupid? Do you really not get it?" and so on and so on. So what I’m what I want to say through these examples is something very simple: it’s precisely that a certain type of law, rule of law and its direct transgression, pervert’s other side, belong together. There is nothing liberating, emancipatory in breaking the law in the sense of, I don't know, shooting a parachuter and so on. It's part of the game. So here Lubitsch enters, because does this mean that we are in a closed circle? Does this mean that simply if you obey the law you are a conformist, if you violate the law you are even deeper caught within the secret texture of the law? So what to do? Ah, here I think again Lubitsch enters. The idea and very nice Freudian idea is that precisely when you drop the mask in the sense of, "You know, let's forget about prohibitions, let's do it directly" and so on and so on, when you do that, what you you do not just violate the explicit prohibition, you precisely miss the true unconscious point. Which is the unconscious in this simple opposition of open, sorry, public law and its obscene pervert transgressions, which are—always remember—part, the secret part, but part of the ruling ideology. The true unconscious point is a much more subtle marginal point. And although I don't like *Sex and the City*, I wonder if I already used, I hope not, this example. But I have to blame someone; my wife was watching it, and by mistake I... in one episode something happened which I quite liked. It’s the correct Lubitsch point. The girl who is the ugliest there officially, but my favorite one, I hate all the others, Miranda. She is with a lover, they make love, and then the lover tells her that he likes this pep—obscene talk—while they make love, and tells her, "Talk dirty to me, it would be much better" and so on and so on. Okay, it's difficult for her, she gets gradually used to it. And then something and then she goes too far. But in what way? When she says all the dirty things and so on and so on, no problem. But then at some point she says, "I've noticed how during making love you enjoy it when while we are doing it I put my finger into your asshole." He withdraws instantly. You know, this is a beautiful example what I’m talking about. You can talk about, I don't know, fucking with three men, with a dog... no problem. But this is the touchy point. This is the true unconscious tiny detail, what Lacan means by *sinthome*, not the symptom but that condensed *jouissance*. And you see, in a way all that "tell all the dirty things" and so on and so on is to avoid this type of truly traumatic point, true phantasmatic kernel. And also in this episode of *Sex and the City*, it's also nice how the misunderstanding between Miranda and her lover follows Lacan’s formulas of sexuation. The lover is a male, so he understands his request in masculine terms of universality based on an exception: "Talk dirty, say everything, but implicitly except that." Like, basically the lesson is: "Tell me everything implicitly, just don't mention your finger in my asshole, just just do it, you know, but talk about everything," while her logic is a correct one. It's a feminine logic of "non-all" with no exception: "Just tell whatever comes to your mind without worrying if you say it all" and whatever, "that’s not a problem." So again, I and this is I think what Lubitsch is doing when he plays with appearances in his films. I will instantly give you—don't be afraid I’m mocking, but for me it really is—a truly embarrassing ultra-hardcore example of this. Don't be afraid, it's from Hollywood but it's typically from I think '32, just before Hays Code. I’m embarrassed, I wonder if you will share this, to see this movie. It's with Maurice Chevalier from '31, sorry, *The Smiling Lieutenant*, where you have of course sex, love affair, and you have of course playing it with dots. Everything happens behind the closed door and so on. But what I find so fascinating is that you have an obscene moment. But the obscene moment is not that you go behind the door. But the obscenity which explodes in front of the door. I will show you two-three clips. It's... *(Maurice Chevalier clip from The Smiling Lieutenant plays)* "Ah soldier boy was never born. And though we never use a gun, we're still on active service though we're through with fighting, for when a lady takes the field, she knows the guards will always yield, and every man deserves a medal every night! To arms, to arms, we are use night alarms. We are always facing powder, the girls give in, but we weaken but we win and march home feeling proud. We're on a parade each evening in the park, we're not afraid to skirmish in the dark. We're famous near and far for our rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Toujours l'amour in the army! We give the girls a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. When we go out campaigning, and they give us a rat-tat-tat-tat-tat and so we are not complaining. For years and years we battle every night, they'll pension us when we are too old to fight. We're the boudoir brigade with our rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Toujours l'amour in the army! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!" Now all the complications go on and then it's worth seeing for the extreme obscenity the final scene. This princess is now re-educated in sex and she will finally seduce him. See. *(Final clip from The Smiling Lieutenant plays)* "Anna! Is this you?" "No. This is Mandelbaum and Gruenstein. That's me. And that's me again." *(Music from the "Toujours l'amour in the army" song plays with visual cues of sexual excitement: soldiers' heads turning, objects pulsating)* "I've found a home, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. There'll be no more campaigning. And she'll find me, rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. And so I'm not complaining. I've found a new commander to obey, I must report for duty right away. She'll never pension me! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Toujours l'amour in the army!" You know, if you ask me, movies like this should be prohibited, no? Because you see what is the so-called erotic tension here. It's not simply that we know that "rat-tat-tat" means ejaculation, the movements and so on. But what adds obscenity is this very obscene form. Like if you take "rat-tat-tat" the words away, you lose precisely the erotic dimension. And I claim this "rat-tat-tat" is that embarrassing detail like in *Sex and the City* sticking the finger up your ass, which makes all of it really which makes all of it really which makes all of it really embarrassing. Again, of course I am totally... this is I'm totally opposed to this entire scene, which I'm well aware, even if it superficially turns around the relationship and men serve women and so on, it's really male chauvinism at its worst. And also it's not yet Lubitsch; I think the mature Lubitsch would never have shown this directly. But again, the insight is the right one: that the true obscenity are these details, finger up your ass or "rat-tat-tat," even the words, which add surplus enjoyment to what otherwise would have been a simple animal copulation or whatever. Now I come to my central problematic topic, which is why, and this is I think the best example of Lubitsch’s avoiding immediacy, mediation. Mediation is not just about not showing it directly. And then we all know what it means. Mediation means that the very form of not doing it directly eroticizes it. Let me I will give an example which I mentioned here five times but only now I got a I got a nice clip. Open file. It's a very short one that I mentioned from that movie *Brassed Off*, the short clip. You will see it immediately. Just. *(Clip from Brassed Off plays)* "Do you want to come up for coffee?" "I don't drink coffee." "I haven't got any." It's so simple. I mean, so stupidly simple. But what happens here is not just she doesn't say directly. But this very detour eroticizes the situation. Can you imagine her saying directly, "I don't care about coffee, come up and fuck me"? I mean, you know, it's not only that it would be too vulgar, direct, but it would have been precisely de-eroticized. And Lubitsch was aware of this: that the true obscenity is resides precisely in these obscene gestures. And I found—I don't have time to develop it now—the latest example. Did some of you are some of you aware of it? Now the latest product on our markets—I love it, this is the market publicity dialectics at its best—so-called "Light Phones" as opposed to smartphones. How they subtly mobilize the entire critical ideological point that that smartphones really enslave you and so on. Light Phones are very small cell phones, reduced to just the elementary: phone calls and you can check email and alarm clock whatever. But the publicity is incredible. It says something like, "it's a phone which respects you and gives you your freedom. You are not all the time..." It basically sell it as a defense against superego. "If you have a real smartphone, you are all the time nervous: check the Twitter, Facebook, this, that. No, it allows you..." They even use this term "to spend more quality time with those about whom you really care." It gives you back... and I like this so much because the implication is they say it: "You can leave your smart home at home, your smartphone." So it's so nice: first they tell you, "Oh you can have a smartphone, you can do everything" and so on and so on, and that's the beautiful Hegelian dialectic of publicity. Then you have to get another phone to free you from all that bullshit that was imposed and they they make it still clear: you need a smartphone, just if you want a little bit of freedom you can escape from it and have just the just the Light Phone and so on. You know and again, it's almost like this coffee-no coffee, you know, it's the same logic. Like you get a smartphone but then you get rid of the smartphone and you feel free. And they use all this publicity, all this it sounds almost Marxist, like the message is: "All this technology which apparently liberates you is really enslaving you, you become slave of it. So why not get rid of it, return to your respect?" It's even one of the publicity slogans is "a phone which respects you, which gives you back your dignity." Okay, back to the main line, which is why I think Lubitsch would have been horrified at the idea of today as one of the offsprings of of Me Too and so on: the idea of sexual contracts, like, you know, to be truly sure that we are not harassing each other, the partners should sign a contract stating your... there are different versions, the basic are: they both agree to use a condom or not, you profess your religious orientation, you have AIDS or not, and the limits, like anal sex, yes and no and so on and so on. Well, I have I have problems with this. I will not repeat my old usual points; I will just like to focus on some more new points. In replying to those who insisted on a difference between Weinstein, brutal rapist, and Louis C. K., Me Too activists claim that those who say this have no idea about how male violence works, like I read this literally in my book, that who are me to say that Louis C. K. showing you his penis and masturbating can be less violent than somebody really brutally raping you? That it can be emotionally as bad as that. So we others have no right
unknown
to tell women
to tell women
Slavoj Žižek
what is how she feels and so on and so on.
what is how she feels and so on and so on.
unknown
They always refer to feeling: "Don't tell a woman how she feels." Ah, here problems for me begin. Are they aware that they are reproducing the classical Cartesian anti-feminist cliché: "women feel"? That is to say that while men can reflect, women feel, and there they cannot move in a way beyond their feelings. A woman doesn't even... so cannot move, so her feeling should be the ultimate measure. Then another topic I want to enter here. You maybe some of you know I got engaged in this strange debate—I even didn't mean to criticize him so much—which ironically I mean, one of the greatest thinkers of twentieth century, Jordan Peterson, no? And a guy attacked me ferociously, his partisan, and quoted—and it almost sounds convincing—he quoted as the... I mean he of course totally misread me, and in a way I was satisfied because usually I’m perceived as the guy who is secretly anti-feminist, Islamophobic, whatever. But now that I clearly attacked Jordan Peterson, the reaction was that I’m just the usual politically correct guy who believes in woman's enslavement and so on. And then as the ultimate argument against me, he quoted he said there is one phenomenon which ruins the entire argumentation about women resisting their submission: *Fifty Shades of Grey*. It's as the guy claims on TV—you can find the clip—"It's a woman, a novel written by a woman about a woman and immensely popular against women and a novel depicting women's submission." So how to answer this? Of course we should at any price avoid the cheap pseudo-psychoanalytic counterclaims in the style of these novels like *Fifty Shades of Grey* make it clear that even women who appear to demand emancipation from male power are effectively in the thrall of a profound unconscious masochist
They always refer to feeling: "Don't tell a woman how she feels." Ah, here problems for me begin. Are they aware that they are reproducing the classical Cartesian anti-feminist cliché: "women feel"? That is to say that while men can reflect, women feel, and there they cannot move in a way beyond their feelings. A woman doesn't even... so cannot move, so her feeling should be the ultimate measure. Then another topic I want to enter here. You maybe some of you know I got engaged in this strange debate—I even didn't mean to criticize him so much—which ironically I mean, one of the greatest thinkers of twentieth century, Jordan Peterson, no? And a guy attacked me ferociously, his partisan, and quoted—and it almost sounds convincing—he quoted as the... I mean he of course totally misread me, and in a way I was satisfied because usually I’m perceived as the guy who is secretly anti-feminist, Islamophobic, whatever. But now that I clearly attacked Jordan Peterson, the reaction was that I’m just the usual politically correct guy who believes in woman's enslavement and so on. And then as the ultimate argument against me, he quoted he said there is one phenomenon which ruins the entire argumentation about women resisting their submission: *Fifty Shades of Grey*. It's as the guy claims on TV—you can find the clip—"It's a woman, a novel written by a woman about a woman and immensely popular against women and a novel depicting women's submission." So how to answer this? Of course we should at any price avoid the cheap pseudo-psychoanalytic counterclaims in the style of these novels like *Fifty Shades of Grey* make it clear that even women who appear to demand emancipation from male power are effectively in the thrall of a profound unconscious masochist
Slavoj Žižek
desire, you know this stupid old claim: "Women who demand emancipation are just frustrated women and who secretly also long to be brutally laid" or whatever. I think that the first thing to do is—and it was already done, I’m not saying anything new here, just repeating the point—to take a closer look at what *Fifty Shades of Grey* does. It does not simply it does not imply enjoying actual subordination, but enjoying a fantasy of subordination, which is by far not the same thing and
desire, you know this stupid old claim: "Women who demand emancipation are just frustrated women and who secretly also long to be brutally laid" or whatever. I think that the first thing to do is—and it was already done, I’m not saying anything new here, just repeating the point—to take a closer look at what *Fifty Shades of Grey* does. It does not simply it does not imply enjoying actual subordination, but enjoying a fantasy of subordination, which is by far not the same thing and
unknown
should in no way be interpreted as a call for actual subordination. Again, my old point: you know, if there is one thing that psychoanalysis teaches us, it's that if you fantasize about something, the most brutal thing there is could be if somebody from outside imposes on you this fantasy. And I’m here, I think so, truly pro-feminist: I resist the usual temptation to say, "So the woman who fantasize about being brutally mishandled are are really dominated by they just internalized male patriarchy." No, it's much more ambiguous. I think that Deleuze made this point how in masochism—at least this Sacher-Masoch theatrical masochism—the so-called victim is the true master. Deleuze was right to emphasize that there is no symmetry between masochism and sadism. It's not "I, a masochist, want a sadist to mistreat me." No, I want a slave to do exactly in the contract signed what I want him or her or whatever to do to me. In this sense I’m almost tempted to say that there is some kind of a—although it’s a horrible movie—secret emancipatory dimension in *Fifty Shades of Grey*. It's usually masochists are supposed to be men who wrote a scenario like in Sacher-Masoch, *Venus in Furs*, who wrote a scenario for the domina, "You know you do this to me" and so on, exactly written theater. Why should only men be doing this? I see *Fifty Shades of Grey*, at least up to a point, as a woman assuming this role of writing the scenario with the right
should in no way be interpreted as a call for actual subordination. Again, my old point: you know, if there is one thing that psychoanalysis teaches us, it's that if you fantasize about something, the most brutal thing there is could be if somebody from outside imposes on you this fantasy. And I’m here, I think so, truly pro-feminist: I resist the usual temptation to say, "So the woman who fantasize about being brutally mishandled are are really dominated by they just internalized male patriarchy." No, it's much more ambiguous. I think that Deleuze made this point how in masochism—at least this Sacher-Masoch theatrical masochism—the so-called victim is the true master. Deleuze was right to emphasize that there is no symmetry between masochism and sadism. It's not "I, a masochist, want a sadist to mistreat me." No, I want a slave to do exactly in the contract signed what I want him or her or whatever to do to me. In this sense I’m almost tempted to say that there is some kind of a—although it’s a horrible movie—secret emancipatory dimension in *Fifty Shades of Grey*. It's usually masochists are supposed to be men who wrote a scenario like in Sacher-Masoch, *Venus in Furs*, who wrote a scenario for the domina, "You know you do this to me" and so on, exactly written theater. Why should only men be doing this? I see *Fifty Shades of Grey*, at least up to a point, as a woman assuming this role of writing the scenario with the right
Slavoj Žižek
to withdraw at any point and so on and so on. Then the standard, yes, so then the second thing that you notice in *Fifty Shades of Grey* is
to withdraw at any point and so on and so on. Then the standard, yes, so then the second thing that you notice in *Fifty Shades of Grey* is
unknown
that precisely there
that precisely there
Slavoj Žižek
is a contract and that violence is not... I
is a contract and that violence is not... I
unknown
mean, I knew a lady in Slovenia who
mean, I knew a lady in Slovenia who
unknown
was in real
was in real
unknown
hard feminine masochism among women lesbian, and she said, "If this is violence, my god" and so on. So it’s all gently staged and so on and so on. So my point is that—yes, that’s difficult maybe for some politically correct persons—but part of feminine liberation, emancipation should also be: "If I am a masochist, I demand the right to write the scenario, to control it" and so on and so on. Why should only men be allowed to have their dominas and so on and so on? Such a masochist staging controlled by a woman up to detailed point has nothing to do with real brutal violence. And just an improvisation here—it’s very not very deep theoretically but I want to say what bothers me a little bit, at least in the public image of this Me Too campaign, is how it focuses on a typical scene, which is that of casual sex: a guy seducing a lady or brutally imposing himself on her, and then is the lady coerced into saying yes and so on and so on, all that stuff. Okay, this is a problem, I agree. But so many things which can be in a way even more violent
hard feminine masochism among women lesbian, and she said, "If this is violence, my god" and so on. So it’s all gently staged and so on and so on. So my point is that—yes, that’s difficult maybe for some politically correct persons—but part of feminine liberation, emancipation should also be: "If I am a masochist, I demand the right to write the scenario, to control it" and so on and so on. Why should only men be allowed to have their dominas and so on and so on? Such a masochist staging controlled by a woman up to detailed point has nothing to do with real brutal violence. And just an improvisation here—it’s very not very deep theoretically but I want to say what bothers me a little bit, at least in the public image of this Me Too campaign, is how it focuses on a typical scene, which is that of casual sex: a guy seducing a lady or brutally imposing himself on her, and then is the lady coerced into saying yes and so on and so on, all that stuff. Okay, this is a problem, I agree. But so many things which can be in a way even more violent
unknown
disappear here. For example, yeah, it's so charming to read about movie stars being harassed by producers and all that stuff, but what about the daily horror in millions of marriages where a woman is exploited by her husband? It's not direct violence, maybe from time to time beaten, they are
disappear here. For example, yeah, it's so charming to read about movie stars being harassed by producers and all that stuff, but what about the daily horror in millions of marriages where a woman is exploited by her husband? It's not direct violence, maybe from time to time beaten, they are
Slavoj Žižek
married,
married,
unknown
she cannot leave the husband and so
she cannot leave the husband and so
Slavoj Žižek
on. This is a much less attractive phenomenon of violence, but of course it's not
on. This is a much less attractive phenomenon of violence, but of course it's not
unknown
popular to talk about that. So let me go on. Next point that I find
popular to talk about that. So let me go on. Next point that I find
Slavoj Žižek
problematic this feminine emancipa... this movement is the idea, basic idea that "no" no means "no" is not enough, that there can also be a coerced "yes." I totally agree with this. Let me read you a quote and then do my critique, which is not critique in the sense of denying anything that's there. Just to show where another dimension of violence resides. A quote from a report of this in a long essay published online on *The Guardian*: "Badgering someone into quasi-submission might technically be within the law, but it is not the road to a happy sex life, and it may no longer protect a man from public censure. What young men should look for is not the potentially ambiguous absence of no, but the enthusiastic presence of a yes-yes-yes or affirmative consent. In 'no' means 'no' is totally antiquated. It pulls all the pressure on the person in the most vulnerable position, a woman, that is someone that if someone doesn't have the capacity of the confidence to speak up, they are going to be violated. If somebody isn't an enthusiastic yes, if they are hesitating, if they are like 'ugh, I don't know,' at this point in time, that equals no." End of quote. To avoid any misunderstanding: I totally agree with this. How, you know, this wavering "yes" means "no," it's a subtle game, no problem here. What I reproach to this quote, line of thought, is not that is as usually liberals, Catherine Deneuve type of liberals do: "Aren't they don't they go a little bit too far?" No, they don't go far enough. Why not? Let me elaborate it a little bit. What is problematic is what they call in this quote "the enthusiastic pressure of a yes-yes-yes," "the enthusiastic presence of a yes-yes-yes." I immediately see here an opening for ridiculing women. Imagine—I’m sorry to be almost personal, sorry I apologize in advance—that you, and you have the full right to do it, you see a guy you like him, you want to fuck him. But let's say the guy is, why not, it's not bad, very politically correct. And it doesn't work in that way some ambiguous hints and so on. He is afraid
problematic this feminine emancipa... this movement is the idea, basic idea that "no" no means "no" is not enough, that there can also be a coerced "yes." I totally agree with this. Let me read you a quote and then do my critique, which is not critique in the sense of denying anything that's there. Just to show where another dimension of violence resides. A quote from a report of this in a long essay published online on *The Guardian*: "Badgering someone into quasi-submission might technically be within the law, but it is not the road to a happy sex life, and it may no longer protect a man from public censure. What young men should look for is not the potentially ambiguous absence of no, but the enthusiastic presence of a yes-yes-yes or affirmative consent. In 'no' means 'no' is totally antiquated. It pulls all the pressure on the person in the most vulnerable position, a woman, that is someone that if someone doesn't have the capacity of the confidence to speak up, they are going to be violated. If somebody isn't an enthusiastic yes, if they are hesitating, if they are like 'ugh, I don't know,' at this point in time, that equals no." End of quote. To avoid any misunderstanding: I totally agree with this. How, you know, this wavering "yes" means "no," it's a subtle game, no problem here. What I reproach to this quote, line of thought, is not that is as usually liberals, Catherine Deneuve type of liberals do: "Aren't they don't they go a little bit too far?" No, they don't go far enough. Why not? Let me elaborate it a little bit. What is problematic is what they call in this quote "the enthusiastic pressure of a yes-yes-yes," "the enthusiastic presence of a yes-yes-yes." I immediately see here an opening for ridiculing women. Imagine—I’m sorry to be almost personal, sorry I apologize in advance—that you, and you have the full right to do it, you see a guy you like him, you want to fuck him. But let's say the guy is, why not, it's not bad, very politically correct. And it doesn't work in that way some ambiguous hints and so on. He is afraid
unknown
that it's not a full "yes." So how do you then express this enthusiastic
that it's not a full "yes." So how do you then express this enthusiastic
Slavoj Žižek
"yes-yes-yes"? Sorry, but the implication is that what? Should you jump ahead of him, "Yes-yes, please fuck me" or whatever? I mean, you know, the whole point of seduction is that this formula, "enthusiastic yes-yes-yes," is so ambiguous, you don't do it in this way. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Or another problem that I see here: the other part of this logic is how they say every person should have partner in a sexual act should have the right to withdraw at any moment. My god, do these people know how sex life really goes on? From numerous friends of mine of both sexes, I heard for decades I hear stories of how this right to say no... yes, I’m for this right, but we should be aware how it can be used for extreme brutal emotional violence. I know men, disgusting men, who boasted to me how the strategy is to really arouse a woman, you are naked with her, she is all, sorry for the vulgarity, wet and so on, and then when she is really into it you say, not in these words but de facto, "Sorry, now I lost interest, I want to use my right to withdraw." Or women doing the same and so on. Can you imagine something more brutal than arousing your partner, giving him all the... and then use this as the utter humiliation? This is what fascinates me. So my point, you got my point, is not "no, this means we can rape women"—I’m not crazy. It means just that there are no simple formulas for conduct which guarantee it, that there will not be violence. That's sexuality: every ambiguity, every rule can be in this sense can be turned around. And this is where I find problematic—did you read it? I found it a little bit depressing. Did you read the now Monica Lewinsky joined Me Too campaign? And she claim, as it is predictable, that she was really a victim of Bill Clinton. I mean, she admits she made the initiative and so on, but she said she was young, she didn't know what she was doing, and since Bill Clinton was first in position of power, the most powerful man and much older than her, he should have rejected her and put her at her proper place, as she said. I find this logic pretty terrifying. Because it first... what did she do wrong? I mean, one problem is marital fidelity. Okay, if you believe in that, and I am tempted to believe in that, she was obviously by trying to seduce Bill Clinton in some sense unfair towards Hillary. I consider this as a serious argument. But if you abstract from this, she just enacted her desire and probably Bill Clinton’s political power was part of his attraction for her. She wanted to be f-ed by that guy and she acted on it. What’s wrong about this? Why shouldn't a woman make the initiative and so on? But what I find so suspicious in her defense is this presenting women as even when a woman is—as she was when she was Bill Clinton’s whatever that in some office in White House working—that even when she is totally active, she is really a victim. I don't like this false innocence. It reminds me of an old story that I repeated often here, you must remember it, that about in what happened in Australia some ten years ago where a woman was raped walking alone on the street, Islamic woman, by a series of guys, and then some top Islamic authority there blamed the woman. He said—he used that infamous metaphor—that if you leave a piece of meat unwrapped on the street and dogs eat it, you would not blame the dogs, you would have blamed the idiot who left the meat there. And the, of course, the parallel was in the same way: if a woman—although she was not naked—walks on the street, if she gets raped, even if men are active and she is raped, she is totally responsible, she should be punished. But isn't there a symmetrical reversal—it's not quite symmetrical, power relations are different, but nonetheless—isn't there a symmetrical reversal with regard to this, with regard to what Monica Lewinsky did? In both cases she was active, the way the man undoubtedly raped a girl in Australia. But the interpretation is even if she is active, she is innocent like the man because the object of their activity was the one which really instigated the act. Now I’m not... sorry should we cut it off, what's the secret message, tell me? *(Interviewer speaks)* "Jacqueline has made the following point. You ready? If the topic is sexual harassment, it should be a conversation." "What do you mean by this? That women also... so there should be some kind of possibility of coming back on the topic on the way in which you are addressing this topic." Yeah, but I’m not making a general point about it. I don't think I here presented some kind of... I think I even did in some sense, maybe you will disagree, something which is not totally dissimilar to what, because of my eye problem I wasn't yet able to do it, something similar to what you did, I was told that you did a good text for *London Review of Books* about all these ambiguities of Me Too and so on. Because again, let's make it clear: my point is not "women are exaggerating" and so on. My point is just how precisely because of the utter ambiguity of sexual tensions and so on, you cannot guarantee anything in this direct way. It can be turned around and so on and so on. But okay, let me... *(Interviewer speaks)* "I think the point that Jacqueline is making, I can speak for Jacqueline, is one about process. The one about process in the sense of who speaks about sexual harassment and the way in which that's taken up." I agree, but I would be very afraid to draw from here a conclusion that that women have some big kind of privilege here. I think that my other line of defense here—not of men—would be that the way to address all these harassments would be to bring in men as victims. Not victims of women, but I claim that every time when men are violent—now I speak for men as myself—in some sense they are themselves, they all rapist always in some sense enact his impotence, or typical example in Mexico—I read books on rapes there—and it's always the example that that men who feel threatened by single women and so on and so on. So I think that the way to fight it is to not to make men innocent victims of circum... no, we are responsible when we rape. I’m not saying, "no we are not guilty, blah blah, we just..." But what I’m saying is that our aggressivity and so on is not simply a sign of our power. It's in some deeper sense a sign of our impotent frustrations and so on; we are also the victims of the situation. *(Audience Member speaks)* "Can I just make a very quick point? I mean, so we're talking about men and women, but what about children involved in all this? Victims of pedophilia, you know, the the perpetrators tend to be men, and maybe that..." Yeah, but where do you see here... okay, I agree, but that’s another topic. Why do you think that I’m soft there? No, my answer there would have been just—and I’m here absolutely without mercy for pedophilia—but what fascinates me is how things changed from '68. I often repeat in my text this story how do you know that in late sixties-early seventies, French journals published a proclamation, public call, signed by all big names—Sartre, Foucault, not Lacan, goes to his honor, Althusser, name them—claiming that incest and child sex should the prohibition should be abolished, that there will only be sexual liberation when parents will be able to have sex with their small, not yet adolescent children, and all everybody signed it. So I would I would like to point out how this changes how strange that a thing which at that point was generally accepted in the French media as a liberation is now the ultimate horror. *(Interviewer speaks)* "So, um, maybe we should just move on to the last bit of your talk and then we can pick up the issues in a more conversational way as you say." Yeah, yeah. So again, sorry, with children. I’m fanatically against child pornography. My point is not "let a..." I’m just saying how although we should be against child pornography, I still think that this elevation of children of child se... of raping children, pedophilia, as the ultimate sin, is part of an anti-Freudian move. With all our sexual liberation and so on, we regressed with regard to Freud: children are considered innocent, asexualized. It's considered almost the ultimate sin. So it just interests me this historical shift of how what began as a... I remember when I was young, some British feminist, if I’m wrong, I think Shulamith Firestone wrote again how "the true liberation will only become when parents will be able to sleep with their children" and so on and so on. Now this is the ultimate horror. So nonetheless things are not as automatic as they as they appear here. So again, okay, I’m getting caught here, maybe we should maybe maybe we should maybe I should stop here. My central point is not that everything is blurred and so on and so on; we need precise rules. But I think that at least we should shift, as it were, first we should be aware that while we need firm legal regulations—and I think, for example, do you have it in the UK, a regulation like that it makes unwanted imposed sex in a marriage also a rape? Can here wife prosecute her husband for rape? That’s, for example, something maybe much more important than all that politically correct stuff for me. Can you even imagine what unthinkable horrors are going on at this level? I mean, let’s turn to this misery of daily life. And also what I don't like here is this idea of the basic scenario of Me Too, which is as if the original scene is: poor girl, men aggressively attacking her, harassing her, and then how can she defend herself? Yes, it's very important and so on. But, now I will say something extremely vulgar. But millions of people, men, women, and others, do want to have sex, desperately even. And I think the most refined forms of violence are not simply are precisely those who manipulate this desire for sex. The problem is not how to protect women from male desire, but how to make them subjects who can regulate it, instigate it, and drop out when they want and so on and so on. I would like to have not a woman who is just afraid, "Oh my god, how that guy looked at me, I never felt more objectified" and so on and so on. I would like to regulate how a woman comes and says desires, "I want to fuck that guy like crazy, how do do I do it?" That’s the true sexual liberation for me: that woman is expected to do it, and even more. Can I just conclude with a funny detail, but it's prohibited, funny for... yes, but it's prohibited to mention it. The majority of women and men—let’s face it, I include myself in this category—are in some vulgar sense not beautiful, not sexually over-attractive. I know I can be accused if I say this for you know like "oh, seeing others only as sex objects" and so on and so on. But it's a brutal truth which means that like, can we imagine the—not suffering in the sense of torture, but the inner turmoil and so on—of people who are simply most of their life not in a position to be sexual objects? Where we have in Slovenia—you I think also have it—this nice expression that the other potential partner simply looks through you, you know, you are not noticed. Millions are terribly suffering like this. How to approach this without falling into sexist traps and so on and so on? I mean, there is so much more to say to say here. And again, that worries me because you know, to finish, Arthur Koestler—we know him—he wrote something precisely apropos of Holocaust; it was very heroic. He said that "the horror of terrible crimes like Holocaust is that it doesn't corrupt only the executors; in some more subtle way it corrupts also the victims." And you know, these problems emerge here. Okay, I will stop now just to tell you that what I will do at a much more serious level in summer... sorry at Summer School is: what am I doing now? This may amuse you. Serious. Is to address finally the big metaphysical questions. We have now Habermasians who exert some kind of authority, and then we have these New Ontologists, from Graham Harman, New Materialism, Object-Oriented Ontology, this happy return to ontology. I think it all began with Deleuze. You know, the idea is the reaction against deconstruction, like deconstruction is caught in this vicious circle of just deconstructing in some abyssal reflexivity, offering these happy visions of like Deleuze, these multiple happy worlds of I don't know multitudes interacting and so on, even Badiou is too much into this I think. This idea that this eternal focus on negativity should be finally left behind and we need a new positive ontology. I’m opposed to it. I’m radically opposed to this, but nonetheless they are approaching the right question, which is... like I always ask in this my deconstructionist friends like Avital Ronell and Eduardo Cadava in New York, "Okay, cut the bullshit. What do you think? What is reality? Can we even ask this question? Are things out there in the world? Do we subjects constitute it?" and so on and so on. And what I get from them is usually just some social-symbolic constructionism. It's difficult to talk about it; isn't reality as we know it always constructed through social practice and so on and so on? That’s not enough. So I will try to approach directly, and my result—to provoke you sexually even—will be that... don't laugh, I’m not crazy. That sexuality is our privileged contact with the absolute. Don't laugh. I’m not becoming in my old age a New Ager. I’m not saying "when you are in the orgasmic thrall, there you glimpse divinity." No, quite the opposite. Sexuality I mean in a Lacanian sense: that the basic ontological feature is the inconsistent antagonism of reality, and our basic experience of this constitutive failure, incompleteness of reality is sexuality. In this precise sense sexuality is our contact with the absolute. I will develop all this later. Now believe me or not, I stop talking. Thank you. *(Applause)* *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay let’s... do you want to reply directly? Before, before, before we get started on the question, I think Jacqueline wants to come in and I also wanted to just ask you something before, is that okay? Very briefly, I want, I'd like to hear you say something about limits. Um, I was in the, I don't know if you saw the film *The Last Laugh*, which is about, it raises the question, it's a film about the question 'can you make jokes about Auschwitz?'. And there's a, there's a wonderful, um, exchange in it between Mel Brooks, you know *The Producers* film about a comedy about Nazis, and Sarah Silverman, the American comic. Sarah Silverman gives this absolutely, well what can I call it, I don't know, horrific Holocaust joke at an awards ceremony for Mel Brooks. And Mel Brooks says, 'Look, I can make jokes about Nazis but I can't make jokes about Auschwitz.' I admire her, but I couldn't do that. I'm just interested in whether you think there is anything that's um outside the limits of what can be commented on or what can be joked about?" Obviously there are limits. For example, if you ask me, I will be very personal. My personal equivalent to that, but horror equivalent to that, stick finger into your ass is, I read somewhere and the industrialized form shocked me. You know that one of the things that Germans for the use of torture in camps produced massively is like you know those machines, simple machines, to break nuts and so on? Egg, balls, squash, balls squasher. They produce it that you put a testicle and squash it. And there is something for me... okay, I can imagine it although in no way doing it that some brutal fuck in an act of despair squeezes your balls. But isn't there something terrifying in how you industrialize also this? I find it a little bit difficult. *(Interviewer speaks)* "Yes, but I think I’m asking you what you think your responsibility might be at the level of what can and can't be spoken about and how it can and how it can be spoken about." I think with regard to political correctness that it all—I’m a Leninist here, concrete analysis of a concrete situation—it all depends on the discursive effect. If the effect is without any doubt that of horror, not of secret pleasure. And my model I mentioned it here of secret pleasure is, did you see the TV mini-series *Handmaid’s Tale*? I’m against it. I, because I think that—and all my friends are confirming this to me—"Yes, you're supposed to be horrified at new patriarchal world." But all my friends are secretly enjoying it: "My god, how wonderful they treat women like this, that ritual, that ritual." They are all fascinated by this world. They cross the limit for me, although nothing horrible happens. The limit is: does the horror depicted feed you with some obscene enjoyment? The limit is strictly at this level. And you can go pretty far here. I think we even talked about it. You know what he did, maybe problematic: Larry David. In one of his *Curb Your Enthusiasm*, he has a party staged where two guys meet, two survivors: one Auschwitz survivor and
"yes-yes-yes"? Sorry, but the implication is that what? Should you jump ahead of him, "Yes-yes, please fuck me" or whatever? I mean, you know, the whole point of seduction is that this formula, "enthusiastic yes-yes-yes," is so ambiguous, you don't do it in this way. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. Or another problem that I see here: the other part of this logic is how they say every person should have partner in a sexual act should have the right to withdraw at any moment. My god, do these people know how sex life really goes on? From numerous friends of mine of both sexes, I heard for decades I hear stories of how this right to say no... yes, I’m for this right, but we should be aware how it can be used for extreme brutal emotional violence. I know men, disgusting men, who boasted to me how the strategy is to really arouse a woman, you are naked with her, she is all, sorry for the vulgarity, wet and so on, and then when she is really into it you say, not in these words but de facto, "Sorry, now I lost interest, I want to use my right to withdraw." Or women doing the same and so on. Can you imagine something more brutal than arousing your partner, giving him all the... and then use this as the utter humiliation? This is what fascinates me. So my point, you got my point, is not "no, this means we can rape women"—I’m not crazy. It means just that there are no simple formulas for conduct which guarantee it, that there will not be violence. That's sexuality: every ambiguity, every rule can be in this sense can be turned around. And this is where I find problematic—did you read it? I found it a little bit depressing. Did you read the now Monica Lewinsky joined Me Too campaign? And she claim, as it is predictable, that she was really a victim of Bill Clinton. I mean, she admits she made the initiative and so on, but she said she was young, she didn't know what she was doing, and since Bill Clinton was first in position of power, the most powerful man and much older than her, he should have rejected her and put her at her proper place, as she said. I find this logic pretty terrifying. Because it first... what did she do wrong? I mean, one problem is marital fidelity. Okay, if you believe in that, and I am tempted to believe in that, she was obviously by trying to seduce Bill Clinton in some sense unfair towards Hillary. I consider this as a serious argument. But if you abstract from this, she just enacted her desire and probably Bill Clinton’s political power was part of his attraction for her. She wanted to be f-ed by that guy and she acted on it. What’s wrong about this? Why shouldn't a woman make the initiative and so on? But what I find so suspicious in her defense is this presenting women as even when a woman is—as she was when she was Bill Clinton’s whatever that in some office in White House working—that even when she is totally active, she is really a victim. I don't like this false innocence. It reminds me of an old story that I repeated often here, you must remember it, that about in what happened in Australia some ten years ago where a woman was raped walking alone on the street, Islamic woman, by a series of guys, and then some top Islamic authority there blamed the woman. He said—he used that infamous metaphor—that if you leave a piece of meat unwrapped on the street and dogs eat it, you would not blame the dogs, you would have blamed the idiot who left the meat there. And the, of course, the parallel was in the same way: if a woman—although she was not naked—walks on the street, if she gets raped, even if men are active and she is raped, she is totally responsible, she should be punished. But isn't there a symmetrical reversal—it's not quite symmetrical, power relations are different, but nonetheless—isn't there a symmetrical reversal with regard to this, with regard to what Monica Lewinsky did? In both cases she was active, the way the man undoubtedly raped a girl in Australia. But the interpretation is even if she is active, she is innocent like the man because the object of their activity was the one which really instigated the act. Now I’m not... sorry should we cut it off, what's the secret message, tell me? *(Interviewer speaks)* "Jacqueline has made the following point. You ready? If the topic is sexual harassment, it should be a conversation." "What do you mean by this? That women also... so there should be some kind of possibility of coming back on the topic on the way in which you are addressing this topic." Yeah, but I’m not making a general point about it. I don't think I here presented some kind of... I think I even did in some sense, maybe you will disagree, something which is not totally dissimilar to what, because of my eye problem I wasn't yet able to do it, something similar to what you did, I was told that you did a good text for *London Review of Books* about all these ambiguities of Me Too and so on. Because again, let's make it clear: my point is not "women are exaggerating" and so on. My point is just how precisely because of the utter ambiguity of sexual tensions and so on, you cannot guarantee anything in this direct way. It can be turned around and so on and so on. But okay, let me... *(Interviewer speaks)* "I think the point that Jacqueline is making, I can speak for Jacqueline, is one about process. The one about process in the sense of who speaks about sexual harassment and the way in which that's taken up." I agree, but I would be very afraid to draw from here a conclusion that that women have some big kind of privilege here. I think that my other line of defense here—not of men—would be that the way to address all these harassments would be to bring in men as victims. Not victims of women, but I claim that every time when men are violent—now I speak for men as myself—in some sense they are themselves, they all rapist always in some sense enact his impotence, or typical example in Mexico—I read books on rapes there—and it's always the example that that men who feel threatened by single women and so on and so on. So I think that the way to fight it is to not to make men innocent victims of circum... no, we are responsible when we rape. I’m not saying, "no we are not guilty, blah blah, we just..." But what I’m saying is that our aggressivity and so on is not simply a sign of our power. It's in some deeper sense a sign of our impotent frustrations and so on; we are also the victims of the situation. *(Audience Member speaks)* "Can I just make a very quick point? I mean, so we're talking about men and women, but what about children involved in all this? Victims of pedophilia, you know, the the perpetrators tend to be men, and maybe that..." Yeah, but where do you see here... okay, I agree, but that’s another topic. Why do you think that I’m soft there? No, my answer there would have been just—and I’m here absolutely without mercy for pedophilia—but what fascinates me is how things changed from '68. I often repeat in my text this story how do you know that in late sixties-early seventies, French journals published a proclamation, public call, signed by all big names—Sartre, Foucault, not Lacan, goes to his honor, Althusser, name them—claiming that incest and child sex should the prohibition should be abolished, that there will only be sexual liberation when parents will be able to have sex with their small, not yet adolescent children, and all everybody signed it. So I would I would like to point out how this changes how strange that a thing which at that point was generally accepted in the French media as a liberation is now the ultimate horror. *(Interviewer speaks)* "So, um, maybe we should just move on to the last bit of your talk and then we can pick up the issues in a more conversational way as you say." Yeah, yeah. So again, sorry, with children. I’m fanatically against child pornography. My point is not "let a..." I’m just saying how although we should be against child pornography, I still think that this elevation of children of child se... of raping children, pedophilia, as the ultimate sin, is part of an anti-Freudian move. With all our sexual liberation and so on, we regressed with regard to Freud: children are considered innocent, asexualized. It's considered almost the ultimate sin. So it just interests me this historical shift of how what began as a... I remember when I was young, some British feminist, if I’m wrong, I think Shulamith Firestone wrote again how "the true liberation will only become when parents will be able to sleep with their children" and so on and so on. Now this is the ultimate horror. So nonetheless things are not as automatic as they as they appear here. So again, okay, I’m getting caught here, maybe we should maybe maybe we should maybe I should stop here. My central point is not that everything is blurred and so on and so on; we need precise rules. But I think that at least we should shift, as it were, first we should be aware that while we need firm legal regulations—and I think, for example, do you have it in the UK, a regulation like that it makes unwanted imposed sex in a marriage also a rape? Can here wife prosecute her husband for rape? That’s, for example, something maybe much more important than all that politically correct stuff for me. Can you even imagine what unthinkable horrors are going on at this level? I mean, let’s turn to this misery of daily life. And also what I don't like here is this idea of the basic scenario of Me Too, which is as if the original scene is: poor girl, men aggressively attacking her, harassing her, and then how can she defend herself? Yes, it's very important and so on. But, now I will say something extremely vulgar. But millions of people, men, women, and others, do want to have sex, desperately even. And I think the most refined forms of violence are not simply are precisely those who manipulate this desire for sex. The problem is not how to protect women from male desire, but how to make them subjects who can regulate it, instigate it, and drop out when they want and so on and so on. I would like to have not a woman who is just afraid, "Oh my god, how that guy looked at me, I never felt more objectified" and so on and so on. I would like to regulate how a woman comes and says desires, "I want to fuck that guy like crazy, how do do I do it?" That’s the true sexual liberation for me: that woman is expected to do it, and even more. Can I just conclude with a funny detail, but it's prohibited, funny for... yes, but it's prohibited to mention it. The majority of women and men—let’s face it, I include myself in this category—are in some vulgar sense not beautiful, not sexually over-attractive. I know I can be accused if I say this for you know like "oh, seeing others only as sex objects" and so on and so on. But it's a brutal truth which means that like, can we imagine the—not suffering in the sense of torture, but the inner turmoil and so on—of people who are simply most of their life not in a position to be sexual objects? Where we have in Slovenia—you I think also have it—this nice expression that the other potential partner simply looks through you, you know, you are not noticed. Millions are terribly suffering like this. How to approach this without falling into sexist traps and so on and so on? I mean, there is so much more to say to say here. And again, that worries me because you know, to finish, Arthur Koestler—we know him—he wrote something precisely apropos of Holocaust; it was very heroic. He said that "the horror of terrible crimes like Holocaust is that it doesn't corrupt only the executors; in some more subtle way it corrupts also the victims." And you know, these problems emerge here. Okay, I will stop now just to tell you that what I will do at a much more serious level in summer... sorry at Summer School is: what am I doing now? This may amuse you. Serious. Is to address finally the big metaphysical questions. We have now Habermasians who exert some kind of authority, and then we have these New Ontologists, from Graham Harman, New Materialism, Object-Oriented Ontology, this happy return to ontology. I think it all began with Deleuze. You know, the idea is the reaction against deconstruction, like deconstruction is caught in this vicious circle of just deconstructing in some abyssal reflexivity, offering these happy visions of like Deleuze, these multiple happy worlds of I don't know multitudes interacting and so on, even Badiou is too much into this I think. This idea that this eternal focus on negativity should be finally left behind and we need a new positive ontology. I’m opposed to it. I’m radically opposed to this, but nonetheless they are approaching the right question, which is... like I always ask in this my deconstructionist friends like Avital Ronell and Eduardo Cadava in New York, "Okay, cut the bullshit. What do you think? What is reality? Can we even ask this question? Are things out there in the world? Do we subjects constitute it?" and so on and so on. And what I get from them is usually just some social-symbolic constructionism. It's difficult to talk about it; isn't reality as we know it always constructed through social practice and so on and so on? That’s not enough. So I will try to approach directly, and my result—to provoke you sexually even—will be that... don't laugh, I’m not crazy. That sexuality is our privileged contact with the absolute. Don't laugh. I’m not becoming in my old age a New Ager. I’m not saying "when you are in the orgasmic thrall, there you glimpse divinity." No, quite the opposite. Sexuality I mean in a Lacanian sense: that the basic ontological feature is the inconsistent antagonism of reality, and our basic experience of this constitutive failure, incompleteness of reality is sexuality. In this precise sense sexuality is our contact with the absolute. I will develop all this later. Now believe me or not, I stop talking. Thank you. *(Applause)* *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay let’s... do you want to reply directly? Before, before, before we get started on the question, I think Jacqueline wants to come in and I also wanted to just ask you something before, is that okay? Very briefly, I want, I'd like to hear you say something about limits. Um, I was in the, I don't know if you saw the film *The Last Laugh*, which is about, it raises the question, it's a film about the question 'can you make jokes about Auschwitz?'. And there's a, there's a wonderful, um, exchange in it between Mel Brooks, you know *The Producers* film about a comedy about Nazis, and Sarah Silverman, the American comic. Sarah Silverman gives this absolutely, well what can I call it, I don't know, horrific Holocaust joke at an awards ceremony for Mel Brooks. And Mel Brooks says, 'Look, I can make jokes about Nazis but I can't make jokes about Auschwitz.' I admire her, but I couldn't do that. I'm just interested in whether you think there is anything that's um outside the limits of what can be commented on or what can be joked about?" Obviously there are limits. For example, if you ask me, I will be very personal. My personal equivalent to that, but horror equivalent to that, stick finger into your ass is, I read somewhere and the industrialized form shocked me. You know that one of the things that Germans for the use of torture in camps produced massively is like you know those machines, simple machines, to break nuts and so on? Egg, balls, squash, balls squasher. They produce it that you put a testicle and squash it. And there is something for me... okay, I can imagine it although in no way doing it that some brutal fuck in an act of despair squeezes your balls. But isn't there something terrifying in how you industrialize also this? I find it a little bit difficult. *(Interviewer speaks)* "Yes, but I think I’m asking you what you think your responsibility might be at the level of what can and can't be spoken about and how it can and how it can be spoken about." I think with regard to political correctness that it all—I’m a Leninist here, concrete analysis of a concrete situation—it all depends on the discursive effect. If the effect is without any doubt that of horror, not of secret pleasure. And my model I mentioned it here of secret pleasure is, did you see the TV mini-series *Handmaid’s Tale*? I’m against it. I, because I think that—and all my friends are confirming this to me—"Yes, you're supposed to be horrified at new patriarchal world." But all my friends are secretly enjoying it: "My god, how wonderful they treat women like this, that ritual, that ritual." They are all fascinated by this world. They cross the limit for me, although nothing horrible happens. The limit is: does the horror depicted feed you with some obscene enjoyment? The limit is strictly at this level. And you can go pretty far here. I think we even talked about it. You know what he did, maybe problematic: Larry David. In one of his *Curb Your Enthusiasm*, he has a party staged where two guys meet, two survivors: one Auschwitz survivor and
unknown
one survivor who won the TV reality show *Survivor*. And they fight who suffered more, and of course because it's a comedy the reality TV show wins. You know like "at least you in Auschwitz you were in those warm huts,
one survivor who won the TV reality show *Survivor*. And they fight who suffered more, and of course because it's a comedy the reality TV show wins. You know like "at least you in Auschwitz you were in those warm huts,
Slavoj Žižek
what about me out in the jungle?" Then I am tempted to buy this. It's not humiliating, because we all know it’s a bad taste joke and the way it is shot. We all know—that's the point—that you cannot even compare the two, that the true horror was Auschwitz. That’s the presupposition of it working. So my answer would be one has to be instead of simple direct rules, Auschwitz is out of touch or whatever. One should ask this crucial question: are you meant to be horrified by the victim, how does it work? Or is it secret enjoyment? As Lacan said, we are always
what about me out in the jungle?" Then I am tempted to buy this. It's not humiliating, because we all know it’s a bad taste joke and the way it is shot. We all know—that's the point—that you cannot even compare the two, that the true horror was Auschwitz. That’s the presupposition of it working. So my answer would be one has to be instead of simple direct rules, Auschwitz is out of touch or whatever. One should ask this crucial question: are you meant to be horrified by the victim, how does it work? Or is it secret enjoyment? As Lacan said, we are always
unknown
responsible
responsible
Slavoj Žižek
for our
for our
unknown
enjoyment. *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay, Jacqueline." *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "Well, I would like to respond
enjoyment. *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay, Jacqueline." *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "Well, I would like to respond
Slavoj Žižek
to you, Slavoj, and I realize there are hundreds of people in this room who may want to say something." "But you can speak on their behalf." "No, I think I’m sure the hundreds of people would like to hear your response." "We should just see whether people let speak first." "No, Jacqueline, I'm gonna let you go." "All right, I speak as co-director of the Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities, while I’m a colleague with Slavoj, but I have a responsibility to respond to this evening’s talk and the conversation we’ve just been having. Let me start by saying that you said in Summer School you are going to talk about something much more serious. I don't think anything could be more serious than the discussion that has taken place today in terms of what it touched on: the question of limits, who speaks to who, and how. I think that that those are the questions that have been raised in a fully gendered dimension by what has been discussed this evening. Let me start by saying that I think your analysis of *The Smiling Lieutenant* is fabulous and I..." "Too simple, much more can be said. See the movie." "Okay, I will see the movie, but even if it was simple it’s still the best thing you
to you, Slavoj, and I realize there are hundreds of people in this room who may want to say something." "But you can speak on their behalf." "No, I think I’m sure the hundreds of people would like to hear your response." "We should just see whether people let speak first." "No, Jacqueline, I'm gonna let you go." "All right, I speak as co-director of the Birkbeck Institute of the Humanities, while I’m a colleague with Slavoj, but I have a responsibility to respond to this evening’s talk and the conversation we’ve just been having. Let me start by saying that you said in Summer School you are going to talk about something much more serious. I don't think anything could be more serious than the discussion that has taken place today in terms of what it touched on: the question of limits, who speaks to who, and how. I think that that those are the questions that have been raised in a fully gendered dimension by what has been discussed this evening. Let me start by saying that I think your analysis of *The Smiling Lieutenant* is fabulous and I..." "Too simple, much more can be said. See the movie." "Okay, I will see the movie, but even if it was simple it’s still the best thing you
unknown
can say about that
can say about that
Slavoj Žižek
movie. I thought that was quite, you know, it was brilliant, Slavoj. And I also thought your point about the 1960s when perversion was seen as radical, whereas in fact it is the other side... yeah, yeah... of power and the suspicion of hysteria which is much more in touch with the unconscious was a kind of anti-feminist plot. So there were really strong points in what you said which I appreciate. But..." "Yeah, the 'but.' Okay, let's..." "Okay, the 'but' is: after Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak and..." "Yeah, please." "You cannot speak for Monica Lewinsky. For..." "You cannot speak for Monica Lewinsky. You cannot tell her what she was experiencing and what she wanted and what she didn't want. What Monica Lewinsky’s done is not turn herself into a victim; she’s turned herself into an agent by speaking out now and by re-reading the experience she had as a young intern. You spoke entirely from the position
movie. I thought that was quite, you know, it was brilliant, Slavoj. And I also thought your point about the 1960s when perversion was seen as radical, whereas in fact it is the other side... yeah, yeah... of power and the suspicion of hysteria which is much more in touch with the unconscious was a kind of anti-feminist plot. So there were really strong points in what you said which I appreciate. But..." "Yeah, the 'but.' Okay, let's..." "Okay, the 'but' is: after Judith Butler and Gayatri Spivak and..." "Yeah, please." "You cannot speak for Monica Lewinsky. For..." "You cannot speak for Monica Lewinsky. You cannot tell her what she was experiencing and what she wanted and what she didn't want. What Monica Lewinsky’s done is not turn herself into a victim; she’s turned herself into an agent by speaking out now and by re-reading the experience she had as a young intern. You spoke entirely from the position
unknown
of her assumed desire. You cannot speak for her, you cannot assume to know her desire, you cannot speak from that position. Neither
of her assumed desire. You cannot speak for her, you cannot assume to know her desire, you cannot speak from that position. Neither
Slavoj Žižek
can I, by the way, but still nonetheless I think this is a real problem. Your description of the Me Too movement as a Cartesian anti-feminist plot... but that’s specifically feature of it, yeah... yes, because it says that women only feel is for me a parody of what the Me Too movement is. The Me Too movement as far as I see it is to do with thought, organization, re-interpretation of original earlier experiences, reflection, and struggle. That is to say it is not about turning women into victims; it is saying there has been an abuse of power and it is saying that in response to that you can organize, speak, communicate, learn, re-think, and re-model what should be the correct power relations between men and women in the field of sexual life. Where I agree with you, all the bets are off, sexuality is lawless. It seems to me that what the Me Too campaign has presented us with is the problem of the vicious end game of sexual harassment which is about power, right? About not saying all men equate with that identification because then feminism is finished. If all men are the problem then that's right, it's finished. But also at the same time saying there's something about sexuality which evades the law and how do you put those two things on to the same page? And in relation to your question about protecting women from other things than harassment from Harvey Weinstein, which is bad enough, there is in British law coercive control. It’s passed into British law in the last few years and it is about all the forms of domestic abuse that take place inside families. Seven hundred thousand farm worker women wrote to the Chief Hollywood activists and said, 'We are being abused on a daily basis.' I think what's really crucial about this Me Too movement is that it is allowing women to speak in a way about victimization which does not re-victimize them. And I think you have to get that double turn, otherwise it's too easy to parody it, it's too easy to call it out as a Cartesian plot saying women only feel. I think that's the last thing this movement does. So, I just think there's a there's another discussion to be had. I mean, you know I’ve said this to you before, Slavoj, we've had this conversation. I would like more awareness from you of what it means for you to speak in a way to demonstrate the most violent moments with physical gestures, to ask us to re-read Monica Lewinsky. There are moments when it really something works for me as in perversion as in *The Smiling Lieutenant*, and then something just goes off, I think what Stephen was saying was, there's a limit that gets crossed and it makes me feel very awkward on behalf, and I’ll be very judicious in this case, on behalf of my women students and colleagues, some of whom are sitting in the room here today. So I felt I needed to speak, at the same time as you know, your work on psychoanalysis and politics it continues to be enormously important to me individually and to many others. Thank you." *(Applause)* I agree almost with everything you said, but nonetheless I want to be more precise here: when you said I don't have the right to speak for Monica Lewinsky, but I’m not im... I just follow her words. What I objected to is her self-presentation as, "oh, the guy Bill Clinton should have controlled me, I didn't know what I was doing" and so on and so on. I’m not saying "yes, she is guilty, she knew what she was doing." I’m saying she had the full right to do what she was doing. *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "She said he was abusing his power, and of course he was." Abusing, okay, okay. But you know now I’m sorry for now I will really speak as a male chauvinist. If a nice young girl comes to you and raises her skirt, you know... *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "Do you know that’s what happened, Slavoj?" Her description in her book, I read it. She describes the scene: she gave him the document, then she withdrew and raised her skirt. Her description in her memoirs. So you know, yes, you can say this one... I would like to assert her as a subject. *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "So would I." Yeah. That about Monica Lewinsky. About this Cartesian stuff and so on and so on. For example, the case of why what Louis C. K. was doing and so on and so on. I think the case also against him can be made as you said in a much more reflexive terms, you know like what he was also doing wrong and so on and so on. What bothered me is—and I do find it quite often—this reference just to "you cannot tell me what I am feeling." I’m almost tempted to say, with all the horror this implies against women and men, ultimately I don't care what you are feeling. Because your feelings are not the truth about you. You can be feeling good about something which is horrible. If there is a lesson of psychoanalysis, it's that the moment a woman feels bad, hurt, it's usually the beginning of liberation. The true horror, the true victims are for me women who are objectively abused and even feel feel good in it, accept it. So for me that’s my all point: feeling is not the ultimate measure. And I would like more... but again, what you said I hope we are here clear: I am not in any way trying to... how to put although, okay, I would okay, I will give you the ultimate argument here, which is also against men. We always I always hear this: "Who am I to talk about women how they feel?" Yeah, but it's automatically assumed that women can talk about how we men feel. That if I were to be Weinstein—my and he's a disgusting guy. I don't have any problems with death penalty. I’m an old partisan of death penalty. Even the guy like Weinstein, my solution would be a good Stalinist trial where he would demand death penalty for himself, you know, but okay that’s another story. But what I’m saying is that if I were to be Weinstein I would say, "It appeared as if I’m putting pressure in and raping you. But how do you know
can I, by the way, but still nonetheless I think this is a real problem. Your description of the Me Too movement as a Cartesian anti-feminist plot... but that’s specifically feature of it, yeah... yes, because it says that women only feel is for me a parody of what the Me Too movement is. The Me Too movement as far as I see it is to do with thought, organization, re-interpretation of original earlier experiences, reflection, and struggle. That is to say it is not about turning women into victims; it is saying there has been an abuse of power and it is saying that in response to that you can organize, speak, communicate, learn, re-think, and re-model what should be the correct power relations between men and women in the field of sexual life. Where I agree with you, all the bets are off, sexuality is lawless. It seems to me that what the Me Too campaign has presented us with is the problem of the vicious end game of sexual harassment which is about power, right? About not saying all men equate with that identification because then feminism is finished. If all men are the problem then that's right, it's finished. But also at the same time saying there's something about sexuality which evades the law and how do you put those two things on to the same page? And in relation to your question about protecting women from other things than harassment from Harvey Weinstein, which is bad enough, there is in British law coercive control. It’s passed into British law in the last few years and it is about all the forms of domestic abuse that take place inside families. Seven hundred thousand farm worker women wrote to the Chief Hollywood activists and said, 'We are being abused on a daily basis.' I think what's really crucial about this Me Too movement is that it is allowing women to speak in a way about victimization which does not re-victimize them. And I think you have to get that double turn, otherwise it's too easy to parody it, it's too easy to call it out as a Cartesian plot saying women only feel. I think that's the last thing this movement does. So, I just think there's a there's another discussion to be had. I mean, you know I’ve said this to you before, Slavoj, we've had this conversation. I would like more awareness from you of what it means for you to speak in a way to demonstrate the most violent moments with physical gestures, to ask us to re-read Monica Lewinsky. There are moments when it really something works for me as in perversion as in *The Smiling Lieutenant*, and then something just goes off, I think what Stephen was saying was, there's a limit that gets crossed and it makes me feel very awkward on behalf, and I’ll be very judicious in this case, on behalf of my women students and colleagues, some of whom are sitting in the room here today. So I felt I needed to speak, at the same time as you know, your work on psychoanalysis and politics it continues to be enormously important to me individually and to many others. Thank you." *(Applause)* I agree almost with everything you said, but nonetheless I want to be more precise here: when you said I don't have the right to speak for Monica Lewinsky, but I’m not im... I just follow her words. What I objected to is her self-presentation as, "oh, the guy Bill Clinton should have controlled me, I didn't know what I was doing" and so on and so on. I’m not saying "yes, she is guilty, she knew what she was doing." I’m saying she had the full right to do what she was doing. *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "She said he was abusing his power, and of course he was." Abusing, okay, okay. But you know now I’m sorry for now I will really speak as a male chauvinist. If a nice young girl comes to you and raises her skirt, you know... *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "Do you know that’s what happened, Slavoj?" Her description in her book, I read it. She describes the scene: she gave him the document, then she withdrew and raised her skirt. Her description in her memoirs. So you know, yes, you can say this one... I would like to assert her as a subject. *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "So would I." Yeah. That about Monica Lewinsky. About this Cartesian stuff and so on and so on. For example, the case of why what Louis C. K. was doing and so on and so on. I think the case also against him can be made as you said in a much more reflexive terms, you know like what he was also doing wrong and so on and so on. What bothered me is—and I do find it quite often—this reference just to "you cannot tell me what I am feeling." I’m almost tempted to say, with all the horror this implies against women and men, ultimately I don't care what you are feeling. Because your feelings are not the truth about you. You can be feeling good about something which is horrible. If there is a lesson of psychoanalysis, it's that the moment a woman feels bad, hurt, it's usually the beginning of liberation. The true horror, the true victims are for me women who are objectively abused and even feel feel good in it, accept it. So for me that’s my all point: feeling is not the ultimate measure. And I would like more... but again, what you said I hope we are here clear: I am not in any way trying to... how to put although, okay, I would okay, I will give you the ultimate argument here, which is also against men. We always I always hear this: "Who am I to talk about women how they feel?" Yeah, but it's automatically assumed that women can talk about how we men feel. That if I were to be Weinstein—my and he's a disgusting guy. I don't have any problems with death penalty. I’m an old partisan of death penalty. Even the guy like Weinstein, my solution would be a good Stalinist trial where he would demand death penalty for himself, you know, but okay that’s another story. But what I’m saying is that if I were to be Weinstein I would say, "It appeared as if I’m putting pressure in and raping you. But how do you know
unknown
what I felt? I really felt provoked by you and I was the real victim" and so on. It's bullshit, but precisely there are rapists who feel like that, that they are really victims. And I’m just very distrustful of feelings. And out of my respect for women, I think they can do it much better than playing this feeling game. And if they are doing wonderful, I totally agree. I mean, a mega—I wrote about this—a mega thing is happening today. Basic rules are changing, which are just not just bourgeois society rules. Which are basically rules of thousands of
what I felt? I really felt provoked by you and I was the real victim" and so on. It's bullshit, but precisely there are rapists who feel like that, that they are really victims. And I’m just very distrustful of feelings. And out of my respect for women, I think they can do it much better than playing this feeling game. And if they are doing wonderful, I totally agree. I mean, a mega—I wrote about this—a mega thing is happening today. Basic rules are changing, which are just not just bourgeois society rules. Which are basically rules of thousands of
unknown
years
years
unknown
I would have said. Something
I would have said. Something
unknown
profound is changing and it’s a wonderful thing. My only worry is that it will be somehow like that Light Phone-smartphone recaptured
profound is changing and it’s a wonderful thing. My only worry is that it will be somehow like that Light Phone-smartphone recaptured
Slavoj Žižek
by the... You know where I can I make a personal political remark to you friendly? You remember you were up here the last time we had the debate on South Africa. This is now causing me sleepless nights. I would like so much for them to succeed. Now as you probably know, ANC decided to to to dispossess white farmers. I pray day and night that the result will not be against their will through Western manipulations, a new Zimbabwe, and then again, you know, all white liberals
by the... You know where I can I make a personal political remark to you friendly? You remember you were up here the last time we had the debate on South Africa. This is now causing me sleepless nights. I would like so much for them to succeed. Now as you probably know, ANC decided to to to dispossess white farmers. I pray day and night that the result will not be against their will through Western manipulations, a new Zimbabwe, and then again, you know, all white liberals
unknown
saying, "You know we love blacks but you see they always screw it up" and so on and
saying, "You know we love blacks but you see they always screw it up" and so on and
Slavoj Žižek
so on. I’m so worried. I really and I’m not secretly a racist enjoying it. I would love them to succeed. But I’m so afraid. Do you they have some connections there? This is important, sorry I’m not losing... do they have a precise plan how to do it? What, you know? I mean, don't you agree this is maybe the crucial event? If they succeed or fail, it's in a way the moment of truth of all this African liberation. Sorry, this is not our topic today. *(Interviewer speaks)* "I think Jacqueline would share an interest in South Africa, which is the question of the redistribution of the land and the failure to address the economic injustice in South Africa has been at the heart of the Fees Must Fall and the Rhodes Must Fall protest movements in South Africa. It is the issue. It is the issue. I don't have an answer to whether if they go down that..." "But we agree that it's THE issue, and not just of South Africa, of the entire region there, you know." *(Interviewer speaks)* "We'll see if other people want to come in. I thought a few might. Yes, okay, let’s go for the lady there and then Jean here, but lady there first." *(Audience Member speaks)* "I actually agree broadly with what you said about Me Too, so I don't think that Jacqueline’s because you’re a woman you have the right to speak on behalf of all women. But anyway, that's beside the point." "But she didn't imply that." "No, that wasn't the claim." "Yeah, I didn't mean to make the claim. Anyway, my question's about psychoanalysis. Um, I'm in training in psychodynamic psychotherapy and as well as reading Freud, Klein, and so forth, we have to do these seminars about risk, child protection, and guidance, suicide, um, and all these occasions where we have to stop being analysts and call the police or call the social services. Um, so for me this is deeply problematic because Jacqueline told, you know, your
so on. I’m so worried. I really and I’m not secretly a racist enjoying it. I would love them to succeed. But I’m so afraid. Do you they have some connections there? This is important, sorry I’m not losing... do they have a precise plan how to do it? What, you know? I mean, don't you agree this is maybe the crucial event? If they succeed or fail, it's in a way the moment of truth of all this African liberation. Sorry, this is not our topic today. *(Interviewer speaks)* "I think Jacqueline would share an interest in South Africa, which is the question of the redistribution of the land and the failure to address the economic injustice in South Africa has been at the heart of the Fees Must Fall and the Rhodes Must Fall protest movements in South Africa. It is the issue. It is the issue. I don't have an answer to whether if they go down that..." "But we agree that it's THE issue, and not just of South Africa, of the entire region there, you know." *(Interviewer speaks)* "We'll see if other people want to come in. I thought a few might. Yes, okay, let’s go for the lady there and then Jean here, but lady there first." *(Audience Member speaks)* "I actually agree broadly with what you said about Me Too, so I don't think that Jacqueline’s because you’re a woman you have the right to speak on behalf of all women. But anyway, that's beside the point." "But she didn't imply that." "No, that wasn't the claim." "Yeah, I didn't mean to make the claim. Anyway, my question's about psychoanalysis. Um, I'm in training in psychodynamic psychotherapy and as well as reading Freud, Klein, and so forth, we have to do these seminars about risk, child protection, and guidance, suicide, um, and all these occasions where we have to stop being analysts and call the police or call the social services. Um, so for me this is deeply problematic because Jacqueline told, you know, your
unknown
commitment to the unconscious has a has a limit.
commitment to the unconscious has a has a limit.
unknown
Um, so I was I was
Um, so I was I was
unknown
wondering what your thoughts
wondering what your thoughts
unknown
about that. I know you're interested in the philosophy of psychoanalysis rather than practice per se." "Not so much practice, but the muscles and the nerves, right? The practice of psychoanalysis and classical psychoanalysis." "I was interested in what you said about
about that. I know you're interested in the philosophy of psychoanalysis rather than practice per se." "Not so much practice, but the muscles and the nerves, right? The practice of psychoanalysis and classical psychoanalysis." "I was interested in what you said about
Slavoj Žižek
about Freud and, you know, going back to a pre-Freudian
about Freud and, you know, going back to a pre-Freudian
unknown
idea of era. Um, for me I was thinking about this state of the New New York State's actually very intrusive. It doesn't um sort of invest in education and housing but it does intrude in in people's lives. So I was wondering what what you thought of the state's relation with psychoanalysis and Lacan." *(Interviewer speaks)*
idea of era. Um, for me I was thinking about this state of the New New York State's actually very intrusive. It doesn't um sort of invest in education and housing but it does intrude in in people's lives. So I was wondering what what you thought of the state's relation with psychoanalysis and Lacan." *(Interviewer speaks)*
Slavoj Žižek
"Okay, Slavoj, let's just hold it, let's get Jean's questions as well. Can you just pass the
"Okay, Slavoj, let's just hold it, let's get Jean's questions as well. Can you just pass the
unknown
microphone over? Thank you." *(Jean speaks)* "This is just to uh add back to the discussion about Monica Lewinsky. Yeah. I'm I'm thinking of Lacan’s use of uh Socrates and Alcibiades to think what happens with transference and seduction in an analytic situation. That Alcibiades thinks he's uh wants to be seduced by uh Socrates, but actually what Socrates understands is that he really wants himself, and he wants his own desire, and uh transference of his own desire, so he doesn't give in to um this seductive seduction of Alcibiades. And that's the what happens in his what should happen in psychoanalysis. If you respond to the seduction of the analyzer, you shouldn't be an analyst, because the analyst actually by refusing to be seduced allows the you get the point. And I think it's the same thing where there is a power relationship there's a transference. So, you know, Clinton, as with the you know the head of the United States of America, she was a young teenage girl. As there was the power differentials means that there was a transference and so it was I do agree with her that it was up to him to set the limits." *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay, hold on Slavoj, let's take one more. There's a a man at the right at the back, sorry, I nearly forgot, and then then we'll if we can take those three." "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just speak into the microphone." *(Audience Member speaks)* "Okay, so what is your opinion on the complex negative ontology such as of Max Stirner, so considering all things that are fixed concepts just to be thrown away which like denies completely all fixed concepts?" *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay, thanks. So we've got two there that connect together: one is about the role of the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist and when it's
microphone over? Thank you." *(Jean speaks)* "This is just to uh add back to the discussion about Monica Lewinsky. Yeah. I'm I'm thinking of Lacan’s use of uh Socrates and Alcibiades to think what happens with transference and seduction in an analytic situation. That Alcibiades thinks he's uh wants to be seduced by uh Socrates, but actually what Socrates understands is that he really wants himself, and he wants his own desire, and uh transference of his own desire, so he doesn't give in to um this seductive seduction of Alcibiades. And that's the what happens in his what should happen in psychoanalysis. If you respond to the seduction of the analyzer, you shouldn't be an analyst, because the analyst actually by refusing to be seduced allows the you get the point. And I think it's the same thing where there is a power relationship there's a transference. So, you know, Clinton, as with the you know the head of the United States of America, she was a young teenage girl. As there was the power differentials means that there was a transference and so it was I do agree with her that it was up to him to set the limits." *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay, hold on Slavoj, let's take one more. There's a a man at the right at the back, sorry, I nearly forgot, and then then we'll if we can take those three." "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just speak into the microphone." *(Audience Member speaks)* "Okay, so what is your opinion on the complex negative ontology such as of Max Stirner, so considering all things that are fixed concepts just to be thrown away which like denies completely all fixed concepts?" *(Interviewer speaks)* "Okay, thanks. So we've got two there that connect together: one is about the role of the psychoanalyst or psychotherapist and when it's
unknown
discarded in the context... you mean her question?... No, that was that one, and then Jean’s question Jean’s point really about the the significance of the psychoanalytic the psychoanalyst’s own austerity, and then this question here about negative ontology seems a broad one, that one, but what can you do with that in two or three minutes?" *(Laughter)* Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, I would almost I’m sorry but prefer to begin with you. I know it’s a beautiful logic. The only—I’m sorry if I’m now brutal not against you, but against many Lacanians, at least in France, that I know. I can say this, maybe if somebody is recording it now they can prosecute me that. Almost all Lacanians that I know violate this rule. I mean to be extremely brutal, they screw like crazy with their patients or whatever you want and so on and so on. Some of them even claim that you manage it intelligently: having sex with them with a distance can... *(Jacqueline
discarded in the context... you mean her question?... No, that was that one, and then Jean’s question Jean’s point really about the the significance of the psychoanalytic the psychoanalyst’s own austerity, and then this question here about negative ontology seems a broad one, that one, but what can you do with that in two or three minutes?" *(Laughter)* Oh my god, oh my god. Okay, I would almost I’m sorry but prefer to begin with you. I know it’s a beautiful logic. The only—I’m sorry if I’m now brutal not against you, but against many Lacanians, at least in France, that I know. I can say this, maybe if somebody is recording it now they can prosecute me that. Almost all Lacanians that I know violate this rule. I mean to be extremely brutal, they screw like crazy with their patients or whatever you want and so on and so on. Some of them even claim that you manage it intelligently: having sex with them with a distance can... *(Jacqueline
Slavoj Žižek
Miller speaks)* "Can I just come back on that? I know many patients of Lacanians who have been violated by top Lacanians in France and that they have been devastated by it. The analysis has been ruined, and they’ve been unable to go back into analysis and their desire has been affected, their lives have been hugely, hugely affected. So, I speak I speak close to a lot of women who were abused by Lacanian analysts."
Miller speaks)* "Can I just come back on that? I know many patients of Lacanians who have been violated by top Lacanians in France and that they have been devastated by it. The analysis has been ruined, and they’ve been unable to go back into analysis and their desire has been affected, their lives have been hugely, hugely affected. So, I speak I speak close to a lot of women who were abused by Lacanian analysts."
unknown
I totally
I totally
Slavoj Žižek
agree with you here. My problem is just with... okay, now my god, I will appear as one example of a role that I usually make fun of all the time. I know, but you know where I find a little bit hypocrisy here in Monica Lewinsky nonetheless. But she knew fully that she had a transference there and that this is the most powerful guy in the world. That’s what probably attracted her to him. And now I will say something horrible: if you abstract from the question of violating marriage, blah blah, fidelity, what would be wrong for him to have a little bit of sex discreetly with Bill Clinton? I don't think anyone would be really hurt and so on. Who knows, probably not. Why shouldn't she say not complain, but "Yeah, yeah, I wanted to have sex with him discreetly there in the corner of the Oval Office." *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "But when it came out she paid the price in a way that he didn't." Ah, here I would... yes, this was shameful... "it's not fair... No, that's why she she was almost she almost took her life. The effects went far beyond..." That I agree. No, that was shameful, I know. But don't forget the real evil character in the story is a woman, but another woman. Who was that evil Republican woman, you remember, who manipulated her and so on and so on? *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "Linda Tripp. Yes, yeah, yeah." No, but I agree with you, I agree with you here. But admit something else: but admit something else. Even in—forget about psychoanalysis—in ordinary flirting and so on, sex, there is this power component is always there. And it’s an impossible task to say, you know, like I flirt with a woman, let's do it, and then anyone of us say, "Sorry, there is a power differential, transference, we cannot do it." I don't like this. I don't like... I think you should simply take transference into the game. I wouldn't treat transference as a necessary absolute obstacle like... Okay, you want to... no no no, sorry, just the last one with that Stirner and so on. It's a nice philosophical question but I will talk more about this in July in the Summer School. I am a... I don't like, if I got it, if you identify Stirner as a guy who advocates some kind of radical negativity, dissolving of all forms and so on and so on. I don't think there is something really radical or... you know, today it is much more radical to propose a new—even if it's fixed—more just social form, than to play this game "every form alienates us, ossified us." I don't believe in this sense in radical negativity, and even in sexuality. Let me tell you a terrifying, very short one, very short, very accident that happened to me once in the United States. It's a disgusting evening where we didn't know each other after my talk and we were asked by a professor: each of us should present his field of work, his job where he is employed, and his sexual orientation. And I exploded like, "Fuck you, first you tell me how much you earn." Because this is typical American: the guy will
agree with you here. My problem is just with... okay, now my god, I will appear as one example of a role that I usually make fun of all the time. I know, but you know where I find a little bit hypocrisy here in Monica Lewinsky nonetheless. But she knew fully that she had a transference there and that this is the most powerful guy in the world. That’s what probably attracted her to him. And now I will say something horrible: if you abstract from the question of violating marriage, blah blah, fidelity, what would be wrong for him to have a little bit of sex discreetly with Bill Clinton? I don't think anyone would be really hurt and so on. Who knows, probably not. Why shouldn't she say not complain, but "Yeah, yeah, I wanted to have sex with him discreetly there in the corner of the Oval Office." *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "But when it came out she paid the price in a way that he didn't." Ah, here I would... yes, this was shameful... "it's not fair... No, that's why she she was almost she almost took her life. The effects went far beyond..." That I agree. No, that was shameful, I know. But don't forget the real evil character in the story is a woman, but another woman. Who was that evil Republican woman, you remember, who manipulated her and so on and so on? *(Jacqueline Miller speaks)* "Linda Tripp. Yes, yeah, yeah." No, but I agree with you, I agree with you here. But admit something else: but admit something else. Even in—forget about psychoanalysis—in ordinary flirting and so on, sex, there is this power component is always there. And it’s an impossible task to say, you know, like I flirt with a woman, let's do it, and then anyone of us say, "Sorry, there is a power differential, transference, we cannot do it." I don't like this. I don't like... I think you should simply take transference into the game. I wouldn't treat transference as a necessary absolute obstacle like... Okay, you want to... no no no, sorry, just the last one with that Stirner and so on. It's a nice philosophical question but I will talk more about this in July in the Summer School. I am a... I don't like, if I got it, if you identify Stirner as a guy who advocates some kind of radical negativity, dissolving of all forms and so on and so on. I don't think there is something really radical or... you know, today it is much more radical to propose a new—even if it's fixed—more just social form, than to play this game "every form alienates us, ossified us." I don't believe in this sense in radical negativity, and even in sexuality. Let me tell you a terrifying, very short one, very short, very accident that happened to me once in the United States. It's a disgusting evening where we didn't know each other after my talk and we were asked by a professor: each of us should present his field of work, his job where he is employed, and his sexual orientation. And I exploded like, "Fuck you, first you tell me how much you earn." Because this is typical American: the guy will
unknown
tell you
tell you
Slavoj Žižek
when he had sex the last night, no problem, but you ask him, "Okay, what's your
when he had sex the last night, no problem, but you ask him, "Okay, what's your
unknown
family fortune? How much do you earn? How they treat you?" as if no way. But okay, then a lady there said, "I am joyously bisexual." And I find it very sad because later I overheard her
family fortune? How much do you earn? How they treat you?" as if no way. But okay, then a lady there said, "I am joyously bisexual." And I find it very sad because later I overheard her
Slavoj Žižek
saying
saying
unknown
to a friend—isn't this sad?—that she really is
to a friend—isn't this sad?—that she really is
Slavoj Žižek
heterosexual, but she felt that if she says this, she will appear too fixed, too conservative, and she said she felt that it suited her career
heterosexual, but she felt that if she says this, she will appear too fixed, too conservative, and she said she felt that it suited her career
unknown
better to claim that she is more dynamic, shifting identities and so on and so on. I’m totally opposed to this cult of, you know,
better to claim that she is more dynamic, shifting identities and so on and so on. I’m totally opposed to this cult of, you know,
Slavoj Žižek
"you shift your identities, you reconstruct yourself."
"you shift your identities, you reconstruct yourself."
unknown
There is nothing necessarily progressive in it. I had also I have... the great
There is nothing necessarily progressive in it. I had also I have... the great
unknown
achievement of the Left would not be to fluidify relations—capitalism is doing it enough for it—but to
achievement of the Left would not be to fluidify relations—capitalism is doing it enough for it—but to
unknown
invent a new steady social form with which functions and so on. I’m all for form, stability, good manners, whatever. And the first one I didn't quite, I’m sorry, I like the questions but I maybe lost the point, Freud and all that stuff... *(Interviewer speaks)* "When when does the analyst step out of role? When should the analyst step out of role?" "Or what do you think about it, you know, when?" Ah, that’s the problem. You know what’s the problem? And I spoke with some analysts in France who were not bad analysts. The problem is that—and Freud experienced this already with Wolfman and others—that once you are an analyst, de facto, it's almost impossible to really do it. To say, "Okay, now you are in analysis on a couch, I resist transference blah blah, but then we meet in dinner during dinner and..." In a way if you are an analyst, you are ALWAYS an analyst. In some although formally
invent a new steady social form with which functions and so on. I’m all for form, stability, good manners, whatever. And the first one I didn't quite, I’m sorry, I like the questions but I maybe lost the point, Freud and all that stuff... *(Interviewer speaks)* "When when does the analyst step out of role? When should the analyst step out of role?" "Or what do you think about it, you know, when?" Ah, that’s the problem. You know what’s the problem? And I spoke with some analysts in France who were not bad analysts. The problem is that—and Freud experienced this already with Wolfman and others—that once you are an analyst, de facto, it's almost impossible to really do it. To say, "Okay, now you are in analysis on a couch, I resist transference blah blah, but then we meet in dinner during dinner and..." In a way if you are an analyst, you are ALWAYS an analyst. In some although formally
Slavoj Žižek
you can say we play the game of stepping out, but there are limits. Like,
you can say we play the game of stepping out, but there are limits. Like,
unknown
okay, to be vulgar but not in a personal way. Let's say that you, nothing personal, just you, no, you have a beautiful patient, a
okay, to be vulgar but not in a personal way. Let's say that you, nothing personal, just you, no, you have a beautiful patient, a
unknown
girl whom
girl whom
unknown
you desire. You cannot say you resist her advances during course and then you say, "But can I invite you to dinner and then you do everything," you know? It's not just because of some professional ethics but... and I remember—I will tell you a detail, not a dirty one, but it's typical—I remember when I was, unfortunately, in
you desire. You cannot say you resist her advances during course and then you say, "But can I invite you to dinner and then you do everything," you know? It's not just because of some professional ethics but... and I remember—I will tell you a detail, not a dirty one, but it's typical—I remember when I was, unfortunately, in
Slavoj Žižek
analysis with Jacques-Alain Miller and I had at the beginning a very strong transference, then at some public big reception, I met his father. And it caused me sleepless nights. Because my idea was that somehow a person like Miller, the analyst, shouldn't have a father. You know, how can he have a father there, you know? And I told him that, and it totally disturbed
analysis with Jacques-Alain Miller and I had at the beginning a very strong transference, then at some public big reception, I met his father. And it caused me sleepless nights. Because my idea was that somehow a person like Miller, the analyst, shouldn't have a father. You know, how can he have a father there, you know? And I told him that, and it totally disturbed
unknown
me. So, you know, it's too easy to say, "Oh, forget it, now we are not in analysis" and so on. No, in some sense you are always. The analyst IS the analyst and you cannot simply say "Bye-bye, now I can pinch
me. So, you know, it's too easy to say, "Oh, forget it, now we are not in analysis" and so on. No, in some sense you are always. The analyst IS the analyst and you cannot simply say "Bye-bye, now I can pinch
Slavoj Žižek
you, I’m not an analyst" or whatever, you know? It's... but what..." *(Interviewer speaks)* "So it's a privileged role. You wouldn't say that about many other things." Yeah, but it's more or less that's what Lacan at his best emphasizes: the truly great analyst appears at the end to disappear, not to remain a charismatic product, but really the shit, the excrement of the process. A true analyst is not that when you finish the analysis, "Oh my god, it's the ultimate," you really the transference should be over. She's scum, somebody who just... and the the problem with analysts is that they are the problem often. I hope you had the same experience in analysis: they don't like this last step, they somehow like very much to remain the charismatic point of transference and so on. This is the true ethical... But when you mentioned me, look, my own joke, let's be serious. Can you really imagine me as an analyst? I mean, if you can even imagine me being your analyst, then you must really be crazy and you need a... You know what I mean, like I I resist so much the idea of it. First I’m in a loving way I hope, brutal, cruel. Me? Can you imagine me listening to another person for more than half a minute, you know? Me listening there? Second point, I’m not interested in dirty details about other people. You have some personal filth, fuck off. My as an analyst I would tell my analysis would be: forget about how you saw your father screwing your mother, whatever, but tell me about second book of Hegel’s *Logic*, about passage from reflexive determination to determinate reflection, you know? That would be the real trauma for me, is some conceptual thing. I’m very naive here, and I think that ultimately—I hope you agree here—Freud is absolutely and Lacan against this vulgar form of desublimation in the sense of "it's all really about sex" and so on and so on. No, Lacan absolutely believes that there are spiritual forms which should not be reduced in this vulgar way to some sexual desires. Like Lacan explodes when you tell him that feminine spirituality in the sense of being a nun, convent, feminine mysticism, should absolutely not be accounted for in these vulgar terms, you know: "the woman wanted to fuck she screwed it up, now she entered..." It's an authentic subjective position. That it's very important to keep this: that psychoanalysis does not mean that every sublimation in the sense, vulgar sense of escaping sexuality, is a kind of a repression or escape from it. If we can learn anything today from today’s mess is that promiscuous sexuality is as a rule an escape. They are really trying to escape from something. *(Interviewer speaks)* "Good, thank you. I don't think we’re going to have time for another round. So just to say if you really want to engage in conversation with Slavoj, sign up for the Summer School. Um, it's really cheap and it's really worth doing." "No, you're just making money." "Ah, but can I give you just one advice short?" "One last piece of advice from Slavoj, then leave." "Apart from my own book—I have to make
you, I’m not an analyst" or whatever, you know? It's... but what..." *(Interviewer speaks)* "So it's a privileged role. You wouldn't say that about many other things." Yeah, but it's more or less that's what Lacan at his best emphasizes: the truly great analyst appears at the end to disappear, not to remain a charismatic product, but really the shit, the excrement of the process. A true analyst is not that when you finish the analysis, "Oh my god, it's the ultimate," you really the transference should be over. She's scum, somebody who just... and the the problem with analysts is that they are the problem often. I hope you had the same experience in analysis: they don't like this last step, they somehow like very much to remain the charismatic point of transference and so on. This is the true ethical... But when you mentioned me, look, my own joke, let's be serious. Can you really imagine me as an analyst? I mean, if you can even imagine me being your analyst, then you must really be crazy and you need a... You know what I mean, like I I resist so much the idea of it. First I’m in a loving way I hope, brutal, cruel. Me? Can you imagine me listening to another person for more than half a minute, you know? Me listening there? Second point, I’m not interested in dirty details about other people. You have some personal filth, fuck off. My as an analyst I would tell my analysis would be: forget about how you saw your father screwing your mother, whatever, but tell me about second book of Hegel’s *Logic*, about passage from reflexive determination to determinate reflection, you know? That would be the real trauma for me, is some conceptual thing. I’m very naive here, and I think that ultimately—I hope you agree here—Freud is absolutely and Lacan against this vulgar form of desublimation in the sense of "it's all really about sex" and so on and so on. No, Lacan absolutely believes that there are spiritual forms which should not be reduced in this vulgar way to some sexual desires. Like Lacan explodes when you tell him that feminine spirituality in the sense of being a nun, convent, feminine mysticism, should absolutely not be accounted for in these vulgar terms, you know: "the woman wanted to fuck she screwed it up, now she entered..." It's an authentic subjective position. That it's very important to keep this: that psychoanalysis does not mean that every sublimation in the sense, vulgar sense of escaping sexuality, is a kind of a repression or escape from it. If we can learn anything today from today’s mess is that promiscuous sexuality is as a rule an escape. They are really trying to escape from something. *(Interviewer speaks)* "Good, thank you. I don't think we’re going to have time for another round. So just to say if you really want to engage in conversation with Slavoj, sign up for the Summer School. Um, it's really cheap and it's really worth doing." "No, you're just making money." "Ah, but can I give you just one advice short?" "One last piece of advice from Slavoj, then leave." "Apart from my own book—I have to make
unknown
propaganda
propaganda
Slavoj Žižek
but I won't, it’s not so good—*Incontinence of the Void*, read a book, it's selling better than mine: Alenka Zupančič, *What is Sex?*. It's an incredibly condensed one hundred pages résumé of her thinking of sexual difference and so on and so on. This is the prospect project that me and my gang are are engaged in." *(Interviewer speaks)* "Thank you Slavoj, thanks everyone." "And I'm grateful to
but I won't, it’s not so good—*Incontinence of the Void*, read a book, it's selling better than mine: Alenka Zupančič, *What is Sex?*. It's an incredibly condensed one hundred pages résumé of her thinking of sexual difference and so on and so on. This is the prospect project that me and my gang are are engaged in." *(Interviewer speaks)* "Thank you Slavoj, thanks everyone." "And I'm grateful to
unknown
you for your patience with my..."
you for your patience with my..."
Slavoj Žižek
*(Laughter and Applause)*
*(Laughter and Applause)*