More Alienation and the Cultural Violence
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2015 · 1:53:45 · 16,101 words
ideologyliberalism-political-correctnessgeopolitics-warhegel-dialecticspsychoanalysisrace-antisemitismreligion-theologysexuality-genderfascism-populismdemocracysubjectivityeveryday-lifecinema-art-culturephilosophy-general
Žižek delivers an improvised lecture in Washington (likely at a Slovenian embassy or cultural event) ranging across European identity, the refugee crisis, multiculturalism, and political correctness. He argues for a rehabilitated 'Leitkultur' grounded in universal Enlightenment norms rather than cultural preservation, defends productive alienation and polite distance over enforced multicultural understanding, and critiques both far-right nativism and pseudo-radical open-borders leftism. The Q&A extends into love, marriage, universalism, feminist subjectivity, and the micro-politics of racism and obscenity as authentic social bonding.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 18
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek's label for authoritarian capitalism (Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore model) as the emerging global alternative to liberal-democratic capitalism, showing that capital no longer needs Enlightenment values.
Žižek redefines the term away from cultural conservatism to mean the minimal universal norms (individual rights, equality) that must govern interaction between cultures in a pluralist society.
as “dogmatism in a good sense”
The embedding of certain ethical norms (e.g. the unacceptability of rape) so deeply into social substance (Sittlichkeit) that they no longer need discursive justification, itself a mark of progress.
Hegel's 'ethical substance' or customary mores; Žižek invokes it to describe the level at which a norm is so internalized it requires no argument.
The substantive ethical texture of a culture, the pre-reflective background of norms; Žižek uses it to illustrate why dogmatism can be progressive.
as “white man's burden (inverted)”
The contemporary liberal guilt-ideology that holds white Westerners responsible for every catastrophe in the developing world, which Žižek exposes as a patronizing form of racism.
as “Starbucks socialism”
The ideological operation of allowing consumers to buy ethical absolution within the act of consumption itself (a slightly pricier coffee that funds a charity), neutralizing any systemic critique.
as “productive alienation”
Žižek's positive valorization of social distance and non-understanding of the other as liberating, contrasted with the coercive demand for multicultural empathy.
Žižek's critique of the third surviving leftist fetish after the failures of social democracy and Stalinism: the dream of immediate local self-organization as an alternative to alienated representative institutions.
as “determinate negation (bestimmte Negation)”
Hegel's concept that negation is always specific, not mere absence; illustrated by the 'coffee without cream vs. coffee without milk' joke to show that what is lacking matters.
The implicit second-order norms that regulate how explicit social rules are to be taken, including the rule that the prohibition itself must not be named, underlying every social texture.
as “hedonist Buddhism”
Žižek's label for the contemporary spontaneous ideology: realize your potential, enjoy, but don't get too attached to any object, a pseudo-Buddhist consumerism that forecloses true love and commitment.
Marx's idea that commodity exchange enacts an objective universal abstraction regardless of cultural differences between parties, universality is a social fact, not merely an idea.
A Hegelian/Marxist category in which subjects experience themselves as detached from all particular determinations, becoming genuinely universal workers rather than merely formally included.
as “super-ego injunction to enjoy”
Žižek invokes the Lacanian super-ego as an excessive command, here in the form of political correctness demanding infinite self-culpabilization and compulsory empathy with the other.
as “materialist Christian”
Žižek's self-description as someone who uses Christian theological concepts (neighbor, love, community) in a materialist-atheist framework.
as “neighbor”
In the Judeo-Christian (and Freudian) sense Žižek invokes, the neighbor is not the friendly fellow man but the radically Other in its monstrous abyss, something to be kept at a proper distance.
Freudian foreplay/preliminary pleasure; Žižek uses it as a self-conscious rhetorical device to describe the provocative opening of his talk before the main thesis.
Stories he reaches for 16
A customer orders 'coffee without cream'; the waiter says they only have milk, so they can only offer 'coffee without milk'. The joke shows that the same positive content (black coffee) carries a different identity depending on what it is deprived of.
“if it's coffee without milk, it's not the same as coffee without cream.”
Native Americans Žižek met in Missoula rejected 'Native Americans' (which implies they are part of nature) and preferred 'Indians' because it memorializes the white man's geographic confusion.
“we much prefer to be called Indians because at least in this way our name is a monument to white man's stupidity.”
In the film Brassed Off, a girl invites a man up for coffee; he says he doesn't drink coffee; she says no problem, she has none. The most erotically charged invitation works precisely because sex is never named.
“'Would you mind to go out to my apartment to drink some coffee?' He says, 'Yeah, but there's a problem I don't drink coffee.' And she said, 'No problem I don't have any.'”
When a rich friend invites Žižek to dinner, both know who will pay; yet when the bill arrives they must perform the ritual 'no I will' exchange. Žižek once punctured it by accepting immediately, revealing the necessity of the hypocritical play.
“After my friend said, 'No, no, I will pay,' I say, 'Okay, pay it.'”
Boris Groys found Bakhtin's 1930s manuscript notes revealing that his carnival theory was secretly modeled on Stalinist purges, the ultimate carnival where today's party secretary becomes tomorrow's enemy of the people.
“the secret model for carnival? Stalinist purges.”
After being rude to Butler and apologizing by phone, she said he owed her no apology; Žižek immediately replied 'then I take it back', illustrating the paradox that an apology only works when declared unnecessary.
“if I don't owe it to you then I take it back.”
The first Haitian constitution declared 'Haiti is a black republic; all citizens of Haiti, independently of the color of their skin, are black', thereby making the formerly excluded term the universal standard rather than merely tolerating white allies.
“All citizens of Haiti, independently of the color of their skin, are black.”
A friend asked the officer whether signing the military oath was a free choice; the officer confirmed it was free, so the friend refused to sign. After negotiation, the officer issued a written order: 'I formally order this soldier to freely sign the oath.'
“I officer blah-blah formally order this soldier to freely sign the oath.”
A Montenegrin man, stereotyped as extremely lazy, digs a hole, inserts his penis, and waits for the earthquake to masturbate for him.
“he digs a small hole in the earth, puts the penis in and waits for the earthquake because he is even too lazy.”
Maori artists initially told Žižek they resist technological civilization and follow ancestral spirits; in private they revealed they have agents in New York and London who track art market trends, which they then translate into instructions from the spirits.
“they take care that these eternal spirits give them precisely the instructions which fit the latest fashion.”
A journalist asked Reagan about his association with Holocaust deniers; Reagan denied it, saying he always fights Holocaust denial at his dinner table, thereby revealing the company he keeps.
“Whenever at my dinner table somebody denies Holocaust, I always attack him.”
Christ's apostles send Mary Magdalene to cheer him on his last night; she strips and spreads her legs, he looks at her vagina and says 'what a terrible wound' and heals it. Used to illustrate Christ's decentered subjectivity.
“Christ looked at it and said, 'Oh what a terrible wound,' and put his hand on and closed it.”
Lenin had a passionate affair with Inessa Armand; both continued their revolutionary work while keeping the love apart as an absolute private point; at her funeral Lenin was visibly broken. Žižek cites this as his model of true love.
“they worked like crazy for the revolution, but the love was outside it as some kind of absolute point.”
Žižek's Albanian army colleague greeted him one morning with 'I screw your mother' as a bid for real friendship; Žižek immediately replied 'after I finish with your sister,' they embraced, and thereafter exchanged only the words 'mother'/'sister' each morning as a sign of solidarity.
“he told me 'mother,' I said 'sister.' Without any laughter, it was a basic solidarity.”
In a progressive music class, students name motifs for Beethoven pieces: Eroica for revolution, Pastoral for nature. The Bosnian student offers 'a big hard penis' and is told it's Für Elise (for Elise / for him).
“A big hard penis... Für Elise.”
A dying Slovenian farmer gathers his family, calls out each name, then suddenly shouts: 'But if you are all here, why is the light on in the corridor?' Illustrates the Slovenian national stereotype of thrift/miserliness.
“if you are all here, why is then the light on there in the corridor?”
Works invoked 12
Ninotchka film
Lubitsch film with Greta Garbo containing the 'coffee without cream / coffee without milk' joke that Žižek uses to illustrate Hegelian determinate negation.
Brassed Off film
Described as 'a little bit boring but not so bad'; the scene of erotic invitation-without-coffee is used to illustrate the social logic of the superfluous act.
Roots tv
Alex Haley's TV miniseries/novel dismissed as 'kitsch', the 'let's return to our roots' narrative that Malcolm X's X explicitly rejected.
To Be or Not to Be film
Lubitsch's Hitler satire, cited alongside Trouble in Paradise as one of his true masterpieces.
Trouble in Paradise film
Early Lubitsch film cited as one of his true masterpieces.
Žižek's own book; he notes it was attacked from both sides, as anti-Semitic by the Jerusalem Post and as Zionist propaganda by Al-Ahram, which he takes as a sign of being on the right path.
The Shining (film) film
Kubrick's film used to illustrate how a fellow man becomes the monstrous neighbor; Žižek agrees with King that Nicholson was miscast because he projects monstrousness from the first frame.
Beloved book
Toni Morrison's novel praised as a profound exploration of the birth of Black feminine subjectivity through overcoming the absolute priority of motherhood.
Oscar Wilde's essay on socialism; Žižek praises its opening argument that he wants socialism so he will not have to feel sorry for the poor, an ironic critique of charitable sentimentalism.
Inuit film praised as 'surprisingly really good'; the director's response to accusations of changing the myth's ending is used to critique the white notion of fidelity to the original.
Bakhtin's book on carnival; subverted by Groys's discovery that its carnival theory was secretly modeled on Stalinist purges.
Freud's work cited for the 'Acheronta movebo' motto, 'move the underground', used to argue that the real site of political struggle is the invisible meta-rules, not explicit laws.
People invoked 44
Lenin's lover; cited as part of the anecdote about love as an absolute private exception to political life.
Mangosuthu Buthelezi negative
Cited as the apartheid-regime-backed Zulu nationalist who argued for preserving Black cultural authenticity, used as an example of how particularist identity politics serves reaction.
Rainer Maria Rilke positive
Quoted (attributed tentatively) for the formulation 'in true love you stand guard over each other's solitude', used to support the view of love as assertion of difference.
Udi Aloni positive
Jewish filmmaker friend who embodies Žižek's model of authentic Jewish-Palestinian solidarity; brought Tamer Nafar to the US.
Virginia Woolf positive
Cited approvingly for the strategic insight that feminist struggle should not only demand equal rights within existing values but change the entire system of values.
Narendra Modi negative
Cited as a perfect example of the combination of brutal neoliberalism and Hindu nationalism, openly offering Indian workers as cheaper labor than China.
Marine Le Pen negative
Named as part of the right-wing populist wave (with UKIP) that represents the true end of Europe as Žižek values it.
Lee Kuan Yew negative
Sloterdijk's example of the figure future monuments will be built to; Žižek uses him as the symbol of authoritarian capitalism with 'Asian values' that renders European democracy obsolete.
Žižek explicitly states he has no sympathy for Saddam as a nightmare, but notes that his secular state was preferable to the Islamist chaos that followed US intervention.
Vladimir Lenin positive
His affair with Inessa Armand is cited as Žižek's model of true love: passionate but kept apart from the revolutionary cause, not consuming it.
Theodor W. Adorno positive
Cited approvingly for his judgment on Furtwängler and for his analysis of how totalitarian regimes bribe subjects with anti-emancipatory enjoyment.
Emmanuel Levinas positive
Cited (with the caveat 'otherwise I don't often agree') for the reading of the Ten Commandments as protection against the neighbor, the neighbor as abyssal Other.
PBS host described as 'my type' with whom Žižek immediately exchanged obscene jokes; used as an example of authentic cross-racial contact.
Mikhail Bakhtin negative
His carnival theory is subverted by Groys's archival discovery that it was modeled on Stalinist purges, undermining the left-wing use of carnival as liberation.
Al Gore negative
Žižek notes his great appreciation for Gore's self-description as 'the guy who once was the future president' but disagrees with Gore's accusation that Descartes is the origin of ecological evil.
Described as disgusting, but the Libya intervention is criticized for creating a failed state with no plan for the aftermath.
Toussaint Louverture positive
Hero of the Haitian Revolution; the 1805 Constitution he helped produce ('all Haitians are black') is Žižek's model of true universalism.
Judith Butler positive
Described as a theoretical opponent but personally a good friend; Žižek agrees with her refusal to call herself a feminist and her view of subjectivity as plastic/Cartesian.
Žižek says he appreciates her but she stopped talking to him after he answered her question 'how do we fight right-wing racism?' with 'with left-wing racism'.
Oscar Wilde positive
His essay on socialism praised for opening with the idea of wanting socialism so as not to have to feel sorry for the poor; cited as an example of the genuine connection between dandyism and radical politics.
Alain Badiou positive
Described as a friend; cited for the idea that true love restructures your world / 'builds a world out of it', and that it is a revolutionary encounter.
Sergei Parajanov positive
Mentioned by an audience member who is a fan; Žižek expresses appreciation for him in the closing exchange.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan negative
Cited as another example of authoritarian capitalism; his campaign slogan 'shop and pray' is treated as a perfect formula for capitalist-religious ideology.
Author of The Shining; cited for his own observation that casting Jack Nicholson was a mistake because it undermines the gradual revelation of monstrousness.
Malcolm X positive
Described as a hero whose genius was to take the 'X' (deracination) not as victimhood but as emancipatory universalist freedom, a Hegelian political move.
Benjamin Netanyahu negative
Ministers in his government who justify annexing the West Bank by quoting the Bible are treated as equivalent to the Islamic fundamentalism Europeans would immediately condemn.
Mentioned as ruling one of the two officially secular Arab states; supported by Iran, Russia, China; Žižek is critical of him but frames the Syrian conflict as a proxy war.
Peter Sloterdijk positive
Described as a personal friend despite being a political opponent; cited for his observations on Lee Kuan Yew as the coming monument and for advocating a 'politics of distance' / polite ignorance.
Described as someone with whom Žižek spent two or three hours in competitive obscene joke-telling, his 'last orgy' of authentic cross-cultural contact.
Ernst Lubitsch positive
Žižek says Lubitsch deserves to be elevated above Hitchcock as megastar; his Ninotchka provides the 'coffee without cream' joke illustrating determinate negation.
Wilhelm Furtwängler positive
Žižek defends Furtwängler against the accusation of Nazism, citing Adorno's judgment that his conducting represented a heroic effort to save culture in dark times; used to justify fighting for European legacy.
Hannah Arendt positive
Cited approvingly (despite other disagreements) for her view that love should be kept apart from politics as a worldless exception.
Boris Groys positive
Described as a friend (though Žižek doesn't always agree with him); his discovery of Bakhtin's secret Stalinist model of carnival is cited approvingly.
Toni Morrison positive
Beloved praised as a genuinely good novel depicting the birth of Black feminine subjectivity through overcoming the absolute priority of motherhood.
Jürgen Habermas positive
Cited approvingly on one specific point: his critique of 'pathetic sentimental moralization' about refugees as opposed to rational duty.
Tamer Nafar positive
Palestinian rapper who sings against both Israeli occupation and honor killings within Palestinian culture; his reply to the UCLA pseudo-leftist is cited as exemplary.
Nelson Mandela positive
The African National Congress's consistent rejection of 'return to authentic roots' and insistence on universalism is cited as exemplary against apartheid's identity-politics justification.
Mentioned dismissively as 'so-so' when contrasted with Parajanov in the closing exchange.
Karl Marx positive
Cited for the real abstraction of commodity exchange as objectively universal, and for the productive gap between formal and actual universality in human rights.
René Descartes positive
Cited positively for the Cogito as the philosophical foundation of desexualized, universal subjectivity, appealing to women in his own time and supporting feminist universalism today.
Sigmund Freud positive
Referenced for the 'Acheronta movebo' motto from Traumdeutung (move the underground) and for the insight that the neighbor is the monstrous abyssal Other.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Fundamental reference throughout: Sittlichkeit, determinate negation, universality for itself, form vs. content in human rights, all invoked to frame Žižek's arguments.
Jean-Paul Sartre positive
Cited for the maxim that if a text is attacked from both sides, it is a good sign you are on the right path.
Ronald Reagan negative
The anecdote of Reagan defending himself against accusations of Holocaust-denier associates by saying he argues against them at dinner is used to illustrate the failure of discursive ethics over moral dogmatism.
What it argues
Leitkultur redefined as universal norms over cultural conservatismproductive alienation and polite distance as social idealEuropean refugee crisis and organized vs. chaotic integrationcritique of patronizing multiculturalism and white liberal guiltdogmatism as a sign of historical progressobscenity and dirty jokes as authentic cross-cultural bondinguniversalism, form vs. content, and the Marxist-Hegelian dialectic
Dialectical moves 10
“Far from being a sign of backwardness, dogmatism — norms so internalized they need no argument — is precisely a mark of historical progress.”
Žižek inverts the Enlightenment equation: true progress is when you no longer have to reason against rape, because its unacceptability has become Sittlichkeit.
“The only true multiculturalism is one that acknowledges each culture is defined not only by what it is but by how it relates to what it is not.”
Hegelian mediation: cultural identity is always already relational, so a 'neutral' liberal framework that ignores normative stances toward otherness is impossible.
“What appears to be the greatest respect for the other — the liberal demand to understand them fully — is actually the worst kind of patronizing racism.”
The inversion exposes multicultural empathy as a covert assertion of Western superiority: the one who must understand others thereby posits himself as their ultimate standard.
“Coffee without milk is not the same as coffee without cream — the same positive content carries a different determinate negation.”
Illustrates Hegelian determinate negation (bestimmte Negation): what is absent is as constitutive as what is present; formal universality always has a specific content.
“All Haitians are black regardless of the color of their skin — the only way to be truly universal is to make the previously excluded the new universal standard.”
The move reverses the liberal logic of 'even blacks can be universal if they behave like us' by making the marginalized term the universal ground.
“It was prohibited to criticize Stalin, but it was even more prohibited to publicly announce this prohibition.”
The meta-rule (that the rule cannot be named) is more fundamental than the rule itself, Žižek uses this to reveal the invisible texture underlying every social order.
“You succeed in what you wanted to do precisely when it is proclaimed superfluous — an apology only works when the other says it was unnecessary.”
Social acts (apology, erotic invitation, oath) achieve their effect through a structure of proclaimed superfluousness: the act negates itself to become real.
“The X in Malcolm X is not a stigma of victimhood but a chance of freedom: being deracinated means being more free to create a universalist society.”
Lack of roots is transformed from injury into emancipatory resource, the void of identity enables a stronger universalism than any rooted culture can achieve.
“Far from saving Iraq from an Islamist regime, American intervention achieved in a few years what centuries of history could not: delivering the country to Islamists and expelling its Christians.”
The intervention that was meant to bring freedom produced its opposite, illustrating the self-defeating logic of humanitarian militarism.
“Human rights are not falsely universal — their false form is precisely what opens the productive gap through which the excluded can demand inclusion.”
Against the standard leftist dismissal of rights as merely bourgeois, Žižek argues the formal gap between stated universality and actual exclusion is the motor of emancipation.
Claims 23
asserts
Global capital no longer needs European Enlightenment values or democracy and functions better without them, which explains why anti-Eurocentrism is now fashionable.capitalism and European Enlightenment
asserts
A certain 'dogmatism' — the embedding of basic ethical norms so deeply into social substance they need no argument — is a sign of genuine historical progress, not regression.dogmatism and historical progress
rejects
Simple multiculturalism (each group asserts its identity under a neutral liberal legal framework) does not work, because every culture contains normative prescriptions about how to deal with other cultures.liberal multiculturalism
rejects
The pseudo-radical left demand to 'open the borders' is hypocritical because its advocates know it will not happen and are only protecting their own moral superiority.open-borders leftism on the refugee crisis
asserts
Europe's response to the refugee crisis should be an organized, pan-European (quasi-military) registration and distribution system, not chaotic free movement.European refugee policy
asserts
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE bear co-responsibility for the Syrian refugee crisis and their acceptance of zero refugees is an obscenity that should be met with economic pressure.Gulf states and the Syrian refugee crisis
asserts
American intervention in Iraq destroyed the only nominally secular Arab state and delivered its Shia majority to Iran while creating the conditions for ISIS — a perfect illustration of winning the war and losing the peace.US intervention in Iraq
rejects
Local cultures threatened by global capitalism are not 'sites of resistance' to it; the authentic emancipatory move is to embrace universalist alienation rather than retreat to ethnic roots.local culture as resistance to capitalism
asserts
Malcolm X's gesture — taking the 'X' of lost roots not as a stigma of victimhood but as a freedom to create a new universalist emancipatory society — is a genuinely Hegelian political act.Malcolm X and universalism
asserts
The true danger to Europe is not refugees but anti-immigrant right-wing populists (Le Pen, UKIP) who would end the Europe worth defending.far-right populism in Europe
rejects
The white liberal attitude that holds Western civilization responsible for every non-Western atrocity is itself a patronizing and racist form of condescension.white liberal guilt and responsibility
asserts
Authentic cross-cultural contact requires a minimal exchange of obscenities or 'racist' jokes; polite political correctness forecloses the possibility of genuine solidarity.obscenity and authentic social bonding
asserts
Bakhtin's theory of carnival was secretly modeled on Stalinist purges, revealing that carnival liberation is structurally compatible with — and can serve — authoritarian enjoyment.carnival theory (Bakhtin) and totalitarianism
asserts
The key site of anti-racist struggle is the invisible 'meta-rules' — the implicit texture telling you how to use explicit rules — not the explicit laws themselves.micro-politics of racism
asserts
True universalism means, following the 1805 Haitian Constitution ('all Haitians are black'), redefining the universal norm so that the formerly excluded become the standard, not merely tolerated exceptions.universalism and race
reframes
The Marxist point on human rights is not that they are falsely universal but that their formal universality opens a productive gap enabling progressive expansion (women, blacks, workers) beyond the original white-male content.Marxist critique of universal human rights
asserts
The apartheid regime's defense of 'authentic Zulu identity' against forced universalization shows that rhetoric of cultural particularity can serve reactionary ends, while the ANC's universalism was emancipatory.identity politics and apartheid
asserts
True love is not fusion but the strongest assertion of difference, requiring that each partner stand guard over the other's solitude.love and subjectivity
rejects
The demand for immediate local self-organization (anti-representative politics) is the remaining leftist fetish after social democracy and Stalinism have failed, and it is equally bankrupt.anti-representative leftist politics
asserts
Feminism should pursue the Cartesian-universalist path (the subject has no sex) rather than affirming a specific feminine principle or identity, since the latter reproduces the masculine/feminine hierarchy.feminist subjectivity and Cartesian universalism
asserts
Marriage is beautiful precisely as a public declaration of exclusive mutual commitment — 'fuck you, we have our space' — not primarily as a property arrangement.marriage and love
rejects
Anthropological 'authentic cultural exchange' is largely a projection: the Guinea tribe that invented a death dance overnight to please Western visitors shows that 'authentic' culture is always performative and constructed.authenticity in anthropological encounters
asserts
BDS is supportable only in the form strictly coordinated between progressive Palestinians and Jewish allies, committed to non-violence, and not associated with Hamas hardliners.BDS movement
Quotes 20
“Global capital, the way it functions today, no longer needs European enlightenment, European democracy, and so on. It functions even better without it.”Slavoj Žižek · capitalism vs. Enlightenment values
“Progress is for me that you no longer have to reason again and again against rape, but when it becomes part of our substance.”Slavoj Žižek · dogmatism as historical progress
“The way our foreign minister—I will not, since F-words are prohibited here, I will not pronounce his name.”Slavoj Žižek · political irreverence / self-censorship joke
“I hate this sentimental moralization, 'oh poor' and so on. It's not a question of sympathy, it's a question of simple duty.”Slavoj Žižek · duty vs. sentimentality on the refugee crisis
“You can be consumerist and pay a little bit more but your social duty price for it, it's included in the price.”Slavoj Žižek · Starbucks socialism
“Are you aware in what patronizing way your attitude is racist? Because your attitude is, you even don't give us the dignity to be evil.”Slavoj Žižek · white liberal guilt as racism
“We much prefer to be called Indians because at least in this way our name is a monument to white man's stupidity.”Slavoj Žižek · Native American irony on political correctness
“Medea is my hero, not that bitch Antigone whom I cannot stand.”Slavoj Žižek · feminine subjectivity beyond motherhood
“I want efficient alienation. I want some efficient invisible state apparatus to do it. I want my freedom to read, to do my stupid movies and to read books.”Slavoj Žižek · defense of alienation over participatory democracy
“The true test of radical change is the morning after. How, when things return back to normal, how do you feel then the actual change?”Slavoj Žižek · critique of carnival / Tahrir Square euphoria
“All citizens of Haiti, independently of the color of their skin, are black.”Slavoj Žižek · true universalism as redefining the standard
“It's not so much important to change the explicit rules, but to change this invisible texture which tells you how to use these rules.”Slavoj Žižek · micro-politics of racism / meta-rules
“It was prohibited to criticize Stalin, of course. But it was even more prohibited to publicly announce this prohibition.”Slavoj Žižek · meta-rule: the prohibition that cannot be named
“I officer blah-blah formally order this soldier to freely sign the oath.”Slavoj Žižek · paradox of commanded freedom
“You do something and you succeed in what you wanted to do precisely when it is proclaimed superfluous.”Slavoj Žižek · structure of the superfluous act in social life
“Two people declare publicly, 'fuck you, we ultimately don't care, fuck off' — we have our space, you are out. It's a beautiful public act.”Slavoj Žižek · marriage as public declaration of exclusive commitment
“If you are a good Hegelian you should know it: a true Hegelian and Marxist is never simply at the level of content, like 'this is just formal democracy.' No, form matters.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegelian formalism: form matters
“Neighbor is precisely the other in its monstrous abyss.”Slavoj Žižek · the neighbor as abyssal Other (Freud / Levinas)
“True love is the strongest assertion of difference of the two. You have to stand guard over each other's solitude.”Slavoj Žižek · love as guarding the other's difference / Rilke
“The message to the man or woman should be: 'you mean everything to me but I don't want to ruin it by sacrificing my life totally for you.'”Slavoj Žižek · paradox of true love
Transcript 58 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Maybe I will break my own rule and nonetheless stand here if I may. To keep it lively, I decided nonetheless to just improvise a lot with what some people call, and I hate it, my provocative spirit or whatever. Okay, first the usual gratitude. I'm proud to be here and especially, I must emphasize this, I'm proud to be here also in connection with Slovenian ambassador whom I appreciate, him but not the Slovenian foreign politics at this moment. I violently brutally disagree with it. The way our foreign minister—I will not, since F-words are prohibited here, I will not pronounce his name—the way he acts with all the dirty compromises about refugees, about Syriza, and so on. That's not my politics. I also have some other problems with Slovenian identity like, I'm sorry, I don't drink wine. Also, the Slovenian national sport is skiing. Well, I have a problem with skiing. Listen, it's nonsense for me. What does it mean, skiing? You climb up a mountain and then you come down. Isn't it better to stay down and read a good book? I mean, whatever. But nonetheless, there are things which I love in Slovenia, some diplomats, philosophers, friends, and so on. It's, you know, like, in the same way that even in the darkest times—and I'm not so tasteless as to compare today's Slovenia with Germany in the late thirties, but you know, when you can say—even in the darkest times, there were people who gave you hope. Let's take for example one victim for me. You know the great—I'm a fanatical Wagnerian—the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. I always considered it a great injustice how whenever people mention classical music and Nazism, they mention him. It's so unjust. Okay, he was a national conservative, but as Adorno—certainly not a right-winger—put it, you can feel in the way Furtwängler conducted and so on, a terrible effort to save what can be saved of great culture in a terrible time. So in the same way, not that I compare myself with it or whatever, but in the same way I think we should fight for Europe, for European legacy today. As you pointed out very nicely, you know, I'm more and more suspicious about so-called anti-Eurocentrism or this standard accusation Eurocentrism. Why is this all of a sudden so fashionable? I have a very dark premonition precisely because—I'm sorry if I put it in these old-fashioned Marxist terms—because global capital, the way it functions today, no longer needs European enlightenment, European democracy, and so on. It functions even better without it. You know, my friend Peter Sloterdijk, who is of course politically my opponent, but personally we are good friends, he once made a wonderful observation. He asked a question: to which person from our time will they be building monuments fifty, one hundred years in future? And his answer was Lee Kuan Yew, you know, the recently deceased founder of New Singapore. To cut a long story short, the guy who invented this so-called capitalism with Asian values. Forget about Asia, it has nothing—it's simply authoritarian capitalism. And isn't this the tendency today? Look at for example India, Modi, their Prime Minister. At the same time the most brutal neoliberal politician that you can imagine. He said it openly: 'In China, the price of working force is a little bit too high, our chance of India is to sell even more cheaply millions of our workers.' At the same time Hindu nationalist and so on and so on. That's the... look at Turkey. It's exactly the same, Erdoğan, the Prime Minister. It's not a joke what I will tell you now. You know what was the slogan of his last electoral campaign? Not the old Christian 'Ora et labora,' but 'pray and work,' but 'shop and pray.' It's a perfect formula. So I, I'm a little bit suspicious that, you know, it's so fashionable to be against Eurocentrism because yes, till now, probably yes, we were guilty of many sins, whatever, imperialism, cultural imperialism, but precisely now that we are on the losing side, we should be fighting for what is worth saving in European culture. And to provoke you, this will be my conclusion, but to give you what in sexual practice is called 'Vorlust'—this is why as a radical leftist, I even think we should redefine in our own way, of course not in the sense of European cultural conservatives, this unfortunate term of 'Leitkultur.' 'Leitkultur' for me does not mean 'oh our European culture is superior, we should impose it.' It means something much more refined. For me, this simple pure idea of multiculturalism, in the sense of each group should have the full right to assert, to practice its identity, and all we need is a kind of a empty liberal legal state which guarantees legally the... it doesn't work. Why not? Because as a Hegelian I know it and you should know it spontaneously: each culture is not only defined by what it is. What a culture is, is always mediated by what it is not, by how it constructs, relates to different cultures. And that's for me the problem. The problem is that each culture not only relates to other cultures but normatively contains a certain normative texture of how you deal with other cultures. And here problems explode, even at the level of what both of you introductory speakers were right to emphasize as this Charlie Hebdo problem and so on. Now to provoke you a little bit, that would be my beginning. Yes, we should be critical towards everything, reflect, that's European legacy, but I'm more and more tempted to say that we should also fully and shamelessly rehabilitate a certain brutal dogmatism. Dogmatism in a good sense of the term. Now immediately, give me half a minute, after I explain it you will agree I think. Look, let's take rape. Rape like doing it to women, you know. I, I wouldn't like to live in a society where you have to argue all the time against rape. I would like to live in a society where the unacceptable character of rape is simply the a most fundamental part of what Hegel would have called 'Sittlichkeit,' 'sittliche Substanz,' the substance of mores, of customs. So that when somebody, you know the usual story, advocates rape in this stupid ridiculous male chauvinist way, you know, 'oh but maybe she liked it, she provoked me, how, how do you know that she didn't secretly enjoy it?' I would like to live in a culture where you don't even have to argue against [it]. When a guy talks like that, you laugh at him like what a jerk, what an idiot, is he retarded or what—you know what I mean. And I so in this paradoxical sense I claim that a certain type of, let's call it dogmatism, is a necessary component and maybe even a sign of historical progress. Progress is for me that you no longer have to reason again and again against rape, but when it becomes part of our substance. I call this the anti-Reagan, your respected President. Why? Because he made a wonderful—not even slip of tongue, he didn't mean it—I remember, I'm old enough, his Presidency. And once he just gave one or two public press conferences, then he made so many mistakes, I remember that he avoided them. But okay, at one of them, I remember, a journalist asked him: 'What about the accusation that you are close to some people who deny Holocaust and so on, that you have friends among them?' No? And Reagan answered indignantly: 'That's not true, how can you say this? Whenever at my dinner table somebody denies Holocaust, I always attack him and'—something like that. Okay, the obvious question is, but what kind of friends does he have when at every dinner he has to fight for—for that there was a Holocaust, you know. So that's my first point, dogmatism. Let's go on. When you mentioned and I agree, Charlie Hebdo, although we all in solidarity admired the reaction of European politicians and so on, but I found and I wrote this in a short book that I published, I found that spectacle so hypocritical and narrow. You remember, you saw it probably in your media, the scene of the top European leaders holding hands on the front of a crowd. But did you see the true photo? Unfortunately for them, there were some photographers just thirty yards back, behind and on a higher podium. And you see it all. It was a staged event on a Paris square, totally surrounded by police. There are politicians and two, three rows of probably secret police, but people to create the impression of depth of a crowd and so on. So what was wrong with this reaction? Here again my position is pro-European but at the same time critical of everyone. You know, I'm tired of this story of 'oh how narrow they are, the Arabs,' and 'we should demonstrate our sense of irony, iconoclasm, you can talk about everything you want.' Well, no you cannot, and it's a good thing that you cannot. Let me give you an example. Okay, you can mock Quran, Islam, but—and don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying we should be allowed to do it. It's just an example. Try to publish just a slightly ironic text about Holocaust and you will see how quickly European intolerance appears. What's my point here? Not we should be open towards everything and so on. No, there are certain topics which should be simply prohibited, even by law. The other important thing here is that, you know, don't stigmatize too quickly other cultures. Yes, there are many things to be criticized in Islam, in today's Arab countries. But it's absolutely clear that this—let's call it stupid term—totalitarian turn of some of the Muslims, you know, it's a strictly historical phenomenon. First, I have many friends there, on the West Bank. I can tell you, they are normal people. By normal people I mean with my spirit for obscenity, I engaged in dirty jokes with them, and they immediately reacted at the same level. A Muslim friend from Ramallah told me one of their jokes which is, you know this stupid idea everyone knows, serious I mean, historical linguists. You know that idea if you die as a martyr, you go to heaven, virgins await for you. Everybody knows, every serious historical linguist, it's a mistranslation. It's the same—that word at that time, 7th century or whatever, Muhammad, was a term in everyday language it meant from white grapes the top quality—how do you call it? Sour grapes? Raisins. Raisins. And this was the standard sign of Arab hospitality. You know, 'You are a welcome guest, we give you a whole palm of white raisins.' So, that's Ramallah West Bank joke. There is an ugly Palestinian boy, he wants to sleep with girls, he's too ugly, gets no girls. So he said, 'My God, I like sex so much that I will become a martyr, explode myself.' He does it and, okay, enters heaven and then, 'Ah, here you have them raisins.' And he said, 'Sorry, mistranslation, can I return back?' and so on and so on. They have sense. Palestinians are, if I may use this ambiguous—some people will even maybe accuse me of racism—Palestinians are the Jews among the Arabs. That's the tragedy. Even, you know, we tend to forget that there are still around of Christians among Palestinians. My God, the best religious jokes I heard, not against the Arabs but against themselves, was from Palestinian Christians. If I may tell you one which is on the edge of acceptability, but don't be afraid, it will be still accepted. This is from West Bank Arab, Christian Arab. It's the last evening of Christ's life. You know, he knows next day he will be crucified, he's son of God, he knows everything of course. So his apostles are gathered around him, Christ is praying in a tent, and they say, 'My God, our Lord, he did so much for us, he just suffered. Wouldn't it be nice to make his last evening on this earth a little bit more merry, you know?' So they call Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, like, 'Would you go in and seduce our Lord?' Of course Mary Magdalene being who she is, 'Oh, of course, yeah, okay.' So she goes in and after five minutes she comes out terrified with a cry of despair. They ask themselves, the apostles, 'What's going on, is our Lord a secret pervert or whatever?' 'No,' says Mary, 'it's worse. I undressed myself, I began to dance in front of him. And he looked at me with a certain interest. Then I widely spread my legs and showed my vagina to him. And then Christ looked at it and said, "Oh what a terrible wound," and put his hand on and closed it.' This is the spirit, my God, that's what... and you know what shocked me? I then had a wonderful theological debate with these people. So these were not some atheist perverts there or whatever. I think that I would almost claim that this is one of the measures of—ah, I will tell you another one. There is even a better one because Christian joke from Palestine which includes—it's a totally temporality is totally mixed, that's what I like about it. And it tells a lot about psychoanalytic notion of a decentered subject, how you are never fully yourself, you are never fully identified with your ideal ego. Christ is tired of doing his propaganda work, so he says to one of his apostles, 'Let's take a week free on Galilean Sea and play golf there.' Okay, they play golf and Christ hits the ball, of course misses it, the ball goes into the sea. So being Christ who, you know, knows how to walk on the water, he goes there, comes to the place, picks up the ball, comes back. And then the apostle tells him, 'But listen, it's too difficult hit, how to call it, you cannot do it. Even—how is your big one called, the—the most popular?' Sorry? 'Yeah, even Tiger Woods couldn't do it.' Christ says, 'Who cares? I'm Jesus Christ, I can.' He does it again, misses again. Okay, the ball falls into the sea and Christ walks on the water there. At that point—and I like this total historical nonsense—at that point a group of American tourists come with a bus there. And one of them sees this and steps to the apostle and says, 'But who is that guy there? Is he crazy? Does he think he is Jesus Christ or what?' Apostle answered, 'No, it's worse, he thinks he is Tiger Woods,' you know, I mean. I mean, that's part of... now you will say I'm obscene. But admit it, if you really—and I did—read the New Testament, this type of spirit is already there. Look, Christ gives a wisdom, then he says, 'I will tell you a parable to explain it.' Admit it, you never get the point of that parable, you know like. I claim that Christ, he had a totally provocative different style of reasoning. Enough of that. What I—so what I want to say is that on the one hand—now I will openly address a very difficult question: the question in Europe on cultural tolerance and so on, especially now with tens, even hundreds of thousands of refugees and so on. You know, I—and this costs this costs me even now an explosive hatred from many I consider them fake leftists, who have this comfortable idea: we Europeans are responsible for everything, you know. Like if there is a war in Africa, we must be somehow guilty and so on. The best answer to this was provided by an African friend of mine, who exploded on this and said, 'Are you aware in what patronizing way your attitude is racist? Because your attitude is, you even don't give us the dignity to be evil. You know that you treat us like children—if we do something horrible, you must be behind it.' It's almost as if, you know, in the colonial times we had the expression 'white—white man's burden.' Now we have the opposite white man's burden: whenever something horrible happens, we have to be responsible for it. Now we are responsible for many, many things, but we should be much more careful here. Why? Once I was in Missoula, Montana to visit the birthplace of David Lynch. Why? And I met some so-called Native Americans there. It was an epiphany for me. Because I loved them so much because they detected so well the hypocrisy of our politically correct respect for them. First they absolutely rejected to be called Native Americans. Because quite intelligently they—they told me, 'Wait a minute, nature—what's the opposite of nature? It's culture. So we are Native Americans and you are cultural Americans or what? Are we part of nature?' And then they gave me a wonderful argument, maybe you know it, I often use it: they said, 'We much prefer to be called Indians because at least in this way our name is a monument to white man's stupidity, you know, who thought they are in...' And then one of them, a professor, younger at university, gave me a wonderful short book that he wrote demonstrating that Indians, Native Americans, killed more buffaloes and burned more forests than all white people together and so on. And in a strange way he was right. You know, they hate spontaneously this patronizing attitude which is: we white people are cultural and economic imperialists, we just exploit nature and so on; while Native Americans or Tibetans or whoever, you know, they have a holistic attitude—before they enter a mountain to mine it, they ask the spirit of the mountain for permission and so on, all that, you know. No, they detect very well how this—how should I call it—false patronizing respect for the other as a rule is the worst kind of patronizing attitude. Which is why, okay, to give a comical final twist to this line, you know, if you are a girl and—sorry to be sexist but there are many nice girls, I see ladies here—let's say that you have two boyfriends or one of the two or oscillate. One of them is telling you, 'Listen, you women simply should serve men. I work, you stay at home, you wash my socks,' and so on. Then you have oscillate between him and between another boyfriend who tells you, 'You know, you women still have an holistic attitude towards nature, we men are Cartesian subjects, we just exploit nature, but you are in dialogue with...' My proposal to you is, stick to the first one. You still have a chance to retrain him. If you have the second type of a boyfriend, pack your luggage and run away as fast as you can. Because, and I'm not kidding here, listen, I was—I was reading a wonderful anthropological book about, I think it's not New Zealand but New Guinea, the other country where they discovered a tribe and of course all these matriarchal ideologists had an intellectual orgasm, you know. A tribe where the big goddess is a woman and in their village the temple in the center even has kind of a form of vagina, you know, a circle with a hole in... okay, nice. There is just one problem, when you study it closely: actual women are of course prohibited to enter that vagina, you know what I mean. They had to—they had to stay out, they had to stay around and so on and so on. So—or I think that and this is an old story of mine, I hope you don't know it. There is a wonderful anecdote which allegedly, at least it's confirmed, I asked some anthropologists it really happened. It's my favorite story about what is wrong with this European deep understanding of the others and so on and so on. Already in the middle of 19th century, a European anthropological expedition went into central Guinea because they heard a rumor that there is some terrifying tribe there. They are dancing some—death dance with black masks, the ultimate encounter with death. Okay, after a long—travel, they arrived there in the evening and they half understood the language of that tribe and they somehow explained to them what they are expecting to do, then they went to sleep. Next morning the tribal the people there—really perform a dance for them. And they were fascinated, you see, what authentic attitude towards death, what deeply felt—ecstatic attitude with death and so on. So they leave the village, return to so-called civilization and write a nice anthropological report. Okay, everything okay, just one problem. A decade or so later another anthropological group visited the same tribe. They took care of really learning their language and learned the true story. When the first group arrived, the tribal people just desperately wanted to show their hospitality, so somehow they got it that these people would like to see some crazy death dance and they worked all the night to invent it, you know, so that they performed it next day for them, you know. So much for authentic cultural exchange and so on and so on. My best friends here are some artists in New Zealand who, you know, first when I talked with them, they gave me the usual bullshit, you know: 'We resist your technological civilization, we listen to our ancestral spirits,' all the bullshit. Then after I got really friendly with them, they told me the true story. They had two agents, one in New York, one in London, who tell them what are the latest trends in the art market. And then they take care that these eternal spirits give them precisely the instructions which fit the latest fashion. But you know what’s my point here? It’s not cheating, they can be—there is nothing shameful in it. It is—the last example of here of this: did you see a wonderful—Inuit, Eskimo to be politically incorrect, Canadian film some years old, The Fast Runner? Okay, it retells the story of an ancient Inuit myth. A wonderful thing happened apropos that film—and I'm not a politically correct guy who praises some third world poor film, no they can be shit and boring. But this one is surprisingly really good, whatever. So—they changed the end of the myth, mythic story. In the original myth, it's a catastrophe, the whole tribe is slaughtered and so on. In their version, the tribe members just—just exile two evil guys, won't even kill them, just out and there is big reconciliation. So there always is an idiot in such a story which was a politically correct white liberal journalist who attacked the director of the movie claiming, 'But didn't you fall here victim to Hollywood commercialism? Like you change the ending just to make the movie more commercial,' and so on. And he got a wonderful answer, dignified, from the director. The director said, 'No, you are the cultural imperialist. Because this notion of sticking to the original, this is your white notion. It's precisely part of our original culture to—there is no original—you retell the story again and again in a different way to fit the present circumstances.' You know, so things are here again much more complex. But okay, let's go on here with the basic line: tolerance, Leitkultur, and so on and so on. Something happened to my friend—Udi Aloni, a Jewish filmmaker who has very good relations with Palestinians and so on, fights also for their rights. And he, Udi Aloni, brought to United States Tamer Nafar, I'm sorry I forgot the name, a great West Bank Palestinian rapper, who not only sings against—Israeli occupation but also against the limitations of their own culture, honor killings and so on and so on. You know what happened in at UCLA? After this guy sang some songs and gave a speech, some crazy pseudo-leftist attacked him like, 'Why do you talk about honor killings? You just support—Zionist propaganda in this way. If there are honor killings, they happen only because Israel keeps the Arabs isolated,' all that bullshit and so on. And this guy gave them wonderful answer. He said, 'You know what's the difference between you and me? You are an upper-class graduate student here who talks in English stupid things to please your professors. I sing there in Arab and Hebrew to—to help real women avoiding catastrophes,' and so on. This is so important. The way to really collaborate with Palestinians, Arabs and so on is not with this patronizing attitude and so on. My idea is always: find some struggle where we can join forces. Especially on the West Bank, they don't need our enlightened feminism. Women are already organized them. Hundreds of women every year escape from their houses in—families, in... so, you know, that's the way to do it. To just connect our struggle with their struggle. Especially now in the Middle East where—all countries are getting in a strange way fundamentalist. I mean, with all my respect for—for the Jewish nation. But listen, I was a little bit shocked when I recently read proclamation of two, three ministers in the latest Netanyahu government who now claim, 'No, no two-state solution, West Bank is ours totally.' Okay, maybe I said, what's the argument? They quote the Bible. I'm sorry, but imagine somebody doing this on the Arab side. You would have been immediately proclaimed a fundamentalist. What's my solution here? Now this may again surprise you. It's so sad what is happening in Israel because—I am not saying it's all just Zionist aggressiveness, Arabs are good guys and so on. No, not only they are not, but we in the West, we are doing all that is possible to promote the really bad guys. I mean, are you aware what happened in Iraq as a result of American intervention? Whatever you say about Saddam—and to avoid a misunderstanding I have no, none of the sympathy with Saddam, he was a nightmare—but one thing he did, the same as Assad. Do you know that Syria and Iraq were the only two Middle East Arab states which were at least nominally, officially secular? Islam was not a state religion. And this was not just a symbolic act, it meant something. Like for thousands of years in Iraq, even in Saddam's times, there were I think around million of Christians living there in peace. Even Tariq Aziz, you remember his Foreign Minister, he was a Christian. Now the result of American intervention was that they disbanded Saddam's army in a very stupid way because there was no other force so real fundamentalist Muslim militias took over, exerted pressure on—so Christians practically disappeared from Iraq. Isn't this a wonderful irony? We went there to save them from primitive Islamist regime, what years of history didn't achieve, a short American intervention did it. To deliver a relatively—religiously only, of course—tolerant country to Islamists who threw out Christians and so on. That's why for me—the true scandal if you ask me, and it's the same in Libya, I mean like, I'm not now, how do you call it, a wise guy after the battle. Many of friends mine warned me. Okay, Gaddafi was disgusting and so on. But do we have any idea what will happen if we overthrow him? Now we have another—failed nonexistent state and so on and so on. So—but back to point. So my problem is—this one here: how do you like—how do you—this is for me the problem of Leitkultur. Not we have this culture, we have that culture, but what rules regulate the interaction among different cultures? And again with all my sympathy for suffering Palestinians and so on and so on. Here and believe me I'm a radical leftist, I'm not any friend of those stupid Europeans who claim we should protect Christian Europe throw out the refugees now. But the problem is real, in what sense? For example, I read a report, maybe you know it, on ZDF, Zweites Deutsches [Fernsehen], the second channel, which is more a Social Democratic one, not a right—where they report that... You know, people usually say but—Muslim women should have the right to choose the way they dress. If they want to wear that cover, burqa, i-don-know-how-you-call-it-here, we should allow them. I agree. But my problem is, but what if they don't want it and their family puts pressure on them? This is not a marginal example. In that report it says that this happens in Germany over times per year. That a girl is under such threat maybe of an honor killing, so Germany already opened up over 20—how do you call it—exile houses where it's like protecting state witnesses. They are provided with a different identity, name to survive. Or another example. It's not a myth, it happened to a child of a friend of mine in Berlin—a child of a friend of mine. He is in high school and there are about of Muslim children there. So first they wanted no pork in their meals that you get. Okay, I agree with this, undoubtedly. Ah, then they went on: that even if other children eat pork, it disturbs them. And then it went on. The school—he showed it to me—the school sent around a letter to all parents claiming that girls shouldn't dress too provocatively, this may disturb the... and so on and so on. And you know then you have these horrible unpleasant scenes like in Berlin, gay people, organized gay people who, of course they felt oppressed, they wanted to help Turks, Muslims. No, the result was that many of them were beaten by Muslims and so on and so on. Like, this is what I—where I see the problem. And here I think a Leitkultur is needed. Like, we should first—now this will sound almost totalitarian, but I think that what is happening now in Europe: you simply cannot have hundreds—you know, radical leftists tell you this bullshit, you know like: 'let's radically open the borders,' 'ugh blah blah blah.' That's nonsense. You provoke a—an anti-immigrant right-wing populist backlash. I'm for militarization. Don't misunderstand me, not this militarization of, you know, put refugees into camps. But a kind of a all—I don't think it will happen, it's too utopian—but all European action. You organize reception centers already there, maybe in Turkey, Lebanon, Syrian coast. And then in a very rational way you register them, you take them to Europe, here, there. If it will not... and of course you make the rules clear. And by Leitkultur I don't mean you should renounce your values, but just these basic things. Like, we have certain elementary rules of individual human rights and so on and so on. Sorry, you have to respect them here. And if I say this, now I'm in a crazy situation—I quite like it because Sartre, Jean-Paul, said somewhere if you are for the same text attacked from both sides, this is a good sign that you are maybe on the right path. You know, it happened with my book Welcome to the Desert of the Real. It was translated in—in Israel in Hebrew and also in Arab. Jerusalem Post proclaimed it—brutal anti-Semitic book. Ah, but Al-Ahram proclaimed it the most perfidious disgusting—Zionist propaganda. You know, maybe I'm on the right way. You know what I'm saying? Now you will say am I going too far by even—supporting BDS, that Boycott Divestment [and Sanctions]? No, you know in what sense do I support it conditionally. First—I'm I have problems with it in Europe. Because let's be clear: even if they say 'no it's not against the Jews, it's against the State of Israel,' but you know, any prohibition associated to Jews is still dangerous in Europe, especially now when anti-Semitism is not a joke, it's exploding again in Europe, more or less openly in Hungary and some other countries. Second—so the BDS that I know, that's crucial, it's strictly coordinated between progressive Palestinians and Jewish my Jewish friends. You find no—no Hamas or whatever hardliners point to and they make it clear. Let's not forget that it's absolutely and it wants to be non-violent. So again, but to return... you see my problem here. I think that this is my limit. Yes, it's not a matter of—here I agree with Habermas, although otherwise we are not best friends, when he said: 'it's disgusting to hear these stories, this pathetic sentimental moralization, you know like, "poor refugees don't you have a heart to help them" and so on.' No, a TV station in my country they caught me on the street—I don't like to give interviews—and they asked me, 'Would you take refugees into your apartment?' I said, 'No, I hate them. It's like I don't like even my own family in my apartment,' you know. But I said: 'it's not a question of sympathy, it's question of simple duty.' I said: 'but I'm ready to lose half of my income to help them.' I hate this sentimental moralization, you know, 'oh poor' and so on and so on. You know because from here you are one step from what I call the most intelligent Starbucks socialism, which is—it's an ingenious operation, that's today's ideology. You know, like our usual attitude if you want to be moderately leftist it is 'yes I'm a consumerist but I feel bad because you know people are starving in Africa, blah blah.' But you know what's the Starbucks trick? Like, 'our cappuccino is a little bit more expensive but goes for some stupid children in Guatemala, the other one to...' So it's an like the message is: 'you can be consumerist and pay a little bit more but your social duty price for it, you pay the price for it, it's included in the price,' you know. That's why I'm deeply suspicious about all this—how should I call it—charity approach or whatever. But okay so this would be my first clear conclusion. Yes, Europe should do it—absolutely. And again as I wrote in a text which again brought me many enemies: it's clear that we Europe and also you United States—and not only you—we are not innocent here. Let's be serious. Where do refugees come from? Iraq. Sorry, but who was it who attacked Iraq and... I mean, you know, that's the tragedy of American politics. Serbs have a proverb—Serbs, ex-part of Yugoslavia—'we win all the wars but we lose the peace,' no? I mean this could be an epithet for United States politics today. You know, of course you easily won in Iraq and what's the result? That the majority of Iraq, the Shia part, you basically delivered it to Iran, you know, your arch enemy. The other part is ISIS. Syria, it's again partially the result of this, partially... you know when we people claim should we intervene in Syria. What a stupid question. We already did, although maybe not directly militarily. It's we know the story. Assad it's supported by Iran, by Russia, partially by China. The other side is supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. And for example one thing that I would have done is the following one and I think it's a legitimate question. Did you notice a strange thing happening there? Did you notice how—how there are extra-rich Arab countries? Let's name them: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Emirates. You know how many refugees they accepted? Literally zero. None. I mean, I found this an obscenity. Why? Because first most of the refugees are Sunnis which means even from a religious standpoint there shouldn't be a problem and so on. And also they are co-responsible, at least Saudi Arabia, which is openly supporting anti-Assad forces in there. So again, I think that—I think that one of the reasonable things to do would be to exert a brutal maybe not military but financial economic pressure on Saudi Arabia and you can break them down immediately. Because you know Saudi Arabia is not a self-enclosed fundamentalist state. Maybe ideologically but economically Saudi Arabia is like a big expository of Western banks, the money flowing in and out. I mean the moment you cut that, it's over. So what I’m saying is that this would be for me the proper attitude. First against anti-immigrant right-wingers, we should absolutely insist: the percentage even if you accept this topic, you know, how many foreigners can we tolerate—but the percentage is still so small that the true threat to Europe are those European anti-immigrant populists who want to defend Christian legacy in Europe. Imagine Europe where Marine Le Pen is in power in France, where—and let's go on, UKIP in England and so on. That's the end of Europe for me, of Europe that we know. That's one point. So absolutely Europe should do it, but in an organized way. What I think cannot be done is to do it in this chaotic way people simply wander around and so on and so on. That's the joke, I spoke in Slovenia with a Syrian refugee who told me: 'We want to go to Norway and study there.' I told him cynically: 'Well, nice. Half of Slovenians would probably also like to do that,' you know. Then he said: 'You want to register us, but we are not cattle to be registered, we are people.' Then I told him: 'But you want to go to Norway. Norway is an extremely organized welfare state where everybody—everyone is over-registered,' and so on and so on. So that would be to put it very simply my—the only solution that I see: a pan-European strategy of simply organizing it as a complex military—I repeat it, not military in the sense you arrest them, but I don't see any other institution apart from the army which simply can do it. You know, establish outposts already there, Turkey, Syria there and organize organize the transport and so on and so on. Okay, let me just add some things before—where is the evil guy there—before he will cut me off. Because I have many other things to say. You know, now you will—now you will say but in this way we are imposing our values. You know, I know all this politically correct story, I am not an idiot that: the moment you emphasize personal freedoms, like if a girl runs from her family we should protect her. Doesn't—doesn't this mean that we impose on others values which are ultimately European values? In the sense of, in other cultures it's considered more acceptable that family or collective rights, duties have priority. Well, my answer is here very brutal. Yes, but we have to accept it. You cannot play both ways here. And you had a similar problem even here in the United States, I talked with some lawyers. For example with people who are definitely not terrorist, Amish, you know. They protested when their children were obliged to go to normal English schools. And they were right to claim, 'if you take this from us, in a couple of generations we lose our identity.' Yes, but—you have to decide here. And I think we should simply accept... you know, we should drop this illusion that you can have some neutral liberal space where one group will be where mother will teach their daughters when they are years how do you use condom, how do you put it on the guy; on the other hand you will have a family where they will do clitoridectomy and so on and so on. You have to make a choice here. And I would do it without any great ethical problems or whatever and so on. We have to establish certain set of rules and I think that we can do it in an with clear conscience. Because yes, I am aware, behind all this refugees there is European intervention. Even in Africa, like Congo. Congo may appear living nightmare, the state doesn't function, blah blah, warlords. But it's probably one of the world countries in the world whose economy is to the utmost degree included into the world market. You know, all the local warlords selling coltan and all that and so on and so on. So but nonetheless. So let's go quickly on here: why the title, now at least allow me to finish with that, 'More Alienation'? I—another part of this European legacy would be—that as Peter Sloterdijk, with whom again I politically disagree, put it nicely: we don't need today politics of understanding, immersion, we need politics of distance, of polite ignorance. Like, let's be serious. Let's say I live in a large apartment block—I'm ashamed to use the word condominium, because when I heard it the first way, the first time as a young idiot I thought 'are these buildings where you get free condoms if you live there?' But what I want to say is that let's say there is an Arab here, a Jew there, a Chinese guy there, Latino American, whatever, African there. I have absolutely no interest of understanding them all, their way of life. Why should I? Because my basic psychoanalytic premise is that probably they don't understand themselves even, you know. I think that through—I don't accept this liberal blackmail: 'but did you really understand them, how do you know you did?' No. I would like—I think we should learn kind, polite ignorance. You are my whatever, Jewish, black, Arab, Chinese neighbor. I greet you nicely, you can rely on me if you will be in trouble, I help you, I hope you will help me and so on. Maybe, exceptionally with some of you, I establish a contact. But maybe not. We need proper distance and I claim there is something liberating in this distance. We absolutely shouldn't feel bad about this. And so—and now I... okay, I will be very quick because I have a whole system of alienations that I want to sustain. The other thing I radically disagree is this idea that since we live in global capitalism, local cultures which are threatened by it are one of—this is the fashionable jargon term—'sites of resistance' against it. I brutally, violently disagree. And here, it’s already circulating, I was with that black guy who is my type, we immediately exchanged obscene jokes, Tavis Smiley, PBS. And I explained to him why Malcolm X is my hero. He did something ingenious which is politically at the level of Hegel, I claim. You know what does it mean Malcolm X? X stands for we don’t have roots. We were torn out of our original ethnic environment, we were deracinated. But his genius was what? His formula was not that stupid—you remember that kitsch—kitsch TV series and novel Alex Haley Roots. 'Heh, let’s return to our roots.' No. Malcolm X understood well that this X is not meant as a stigma of victimhood, but also as a chance, a hope of freedom. We are not constrained by any tradition, which means we are more free to create a new emancipatory society, we can be more universalist than you white people yourself and so on and so on. He got this point. It’s in the same way that I read—I know this appears fashionable but I really think it’s a good novel—Toni Morrison Beloved. Medea is my hero, not that bitch Antigone whom I cannot stand. You know this idea that woman is not defined by motherhood. I think it’s an extremely profound novel of birth of black feminine subjectivity out of overcoming this absolute priority of motherhood and so on and so on. So—again. And for the same alienation I am even at the level of politics. Another, if you are still... I still consider myself a radical leftist, of course, a weird one. I hate this for—you know, today most of the leftists admit it. Two main forms of the left of the 20th century: social democracy and Stalinist state socialism, their time is over. No? Even with welfare state, let’s admit it. It no longer, in today’s conditions of worldwide global market, you cannot do it. But there is a third fetish which still remains. What they call anti-representative: 'we need immediate local self-organization, local communities, transparent self-organization,' and so on. I would hate to live in a society like that, you know. Every afternoon I would have to participate in some stupid local meetings, how we organize kindergartens, water, and so on. I want efficient alienation. I want some efficient invisible state apparatus to do it. I want my freedom to read, to do my stupid... to watch my stupid movies and to read books and to write books. That’s enough for me, apart from other private things and so on. But no, you you see my point: this myth I consider dangerous. Now you will say... I now, the last—some of the last provocations. One would be this one. For this Amy Goodman, whom I appreciate very much, you know, of Democracy Now!—now for two years no longer wants to talk to me. You know why? Because once I gave an interview to her show and she asked me innocently—she didn’t know with what kind of a madman she is talking, no? So she asked me: 'How do we fight fight right-wing fight right-wing racism?' I answered her immediately: 'With left-wing racism,' you know. And then she said, 'What? Are you crazy?' No, I told her something very specific. I'm asking you a simple question. Yes, we have this basic alienation. We in a cold way respect each other but at a distance, no? But from time to time you do establish authentic like the—how do you call them—icebreakers, so that you really are... and I claim you cannot do this without some kind of minimal obscenity. You exchange—you have to do something. And I claim, from my past, my God, you can’t do it without racism, even if it has the form of racism. And here I refer to my own experience from our youth. Before in Yugoslavia—before ethnic tensions really exploded in early mid-eighties. I remember when I met friends from Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, we each nation in ex-Yugoslavia was stigmatized by a certain racist cliché. We Slovenians were, for example, considered, how do you call it, thrifty, misers. Like a Slovenian joke is an old wealthy farmer is dying and all the family is gathered around. And he said, 'Are you all here? My granddaughter?' 'Yes.' 'My son?' 'Yes.' And then he raises the voice: 'But if you are all here, why is then the light on there in the corridor?' you know, that’s Slovenians. Then Montenegro are supposed to be—lazy, extremely lazy. Okay, many of you maybe even heard my standard joke but I know others. Because at the same time Montenegro is earthquake territory. You know how does a Montenegro guy masturbate? He digs a small hole in the earth, puts the penis in and waits for the earthquake because he is even too lazy to and so on. But you know what I mean? I remember those... and not to mention Bosnians. They are supposed to be kind of a primitively cunningly obsessed with sex. Like they have a wonderful joke—joke against this Uni—you know, European help they provided after the war: teachers who wanted to be modern teachers. And the idea is that in some high school they have a modern teacher who said, 'Now I will be teaching you classical music, but you know, not in this traditional way. Beethoven, he was born, died, this... but in this way: each of you should tell me a certain—image motif and then name one composition by Beethoven which fits it,' no? Okay, first you have a boy who said: 'Revolution, honor, warfare.' Third Symphony, Eroica of course, no? Then a girl stands up and said: 'Bambi, stream, forest, blah blah.' Pastoral Symphony. Then the Bosnian guy stands up and says: 'A big hard penis' like this. 'What?' 'Für Elise,' for Eliza. You remember that piano piece. I mean, it’s vulgar, but you know, I still have such a fond memory of how I met my friends from other republics. And the last orgy I had is with that famous artist Marina Abramović, you know. We laughed for two, three hours. This was authentic contact because, you know, it wasn’t mostly jokes about you, it was a kind of a wonderful competition: who will tell about himself, about myself, a more—a more disgusting joke. And I can tell you, they go much further. The only problem is that they are—tend to be a little bit problematic from the feminist standpoint. In the sense that they can be very funny as jokes, but like the presupposition is men exchange women, you know, it’s the solidarity of men at the expense of women. For example, from my history, just to give you an idea of what I’m aiming at—it’s a wonderful simple story, I used it in one of my books. When I was serving the Yugoslav army, I was very friendly with an Albanian soldier. We were simply colleagues. And one morning he approached me and instead of telling me a story—no, sorry—the usual greeting 'Good morning,' he told me: 'Ugh, I screw your mother.' I know exactly what he meant. To translate it into full language it was: 'Now I really want to be a friend with you.' And I know what he expected me to do: to return with a similar obscenity. Believe me I didn’t have a problem, instantly I answered him: 'Go ahead, after I finish with your sister,' no? Now comes the miracle. Then we embraced each other. And it’s not what you maybe thought, oh dirty male chauvinism all the day we were just telling dirty jokes. No, he was a student of quantum physics and I had long debates with him on that. You know how only the trace of that incident survived? Every morning when we met, instead of usual 'Good morning,' we just exchanged one word: he told me 'mother,' I said 'sister.' Without any laughter, it was a basic solidarity. Now to be self-critical, of course, it’s—male chauvinist brotherhood, no? So my feminist counteract would be—would be at least the two women should meet, you know like: 'screw your husband,' 'go ahead after I finish with your brother,' or i-don-know-what. But I so I'm well aware of the problematic nature of this. But still I think that without this type of minimal exchange of obscenities you simply cannot have authentic contact. On the other hand—ah, I always have also bad news—on the on the other hand, I'm so sick and tired of this universal carnival logic, you know like: 'wonderful in Athens Syntagma Square or Tahrir Square, million people we were all together, crying, solidarity.' This is the easy part. Your American expression after drinking too much is 'the morning after,' no? The true test of radical change is the morning after. How, when things return back to normal, how do you feel then the actual change? And that’s the tragedy for me. There, frankly, I don’t think the left didn’t—found proper answer. Because you know this topic liberating of carnival: like at least for a brief moment social rules are suspended, the king is a beggar, the beggar is a king, we are all. Well, you know, if you know a little bit literary theory, who elaborated the theory of carnival? The Russian fellow traveler of formalists Mikhail Bakhtin in his book on François Rabelais. But—I see you are nervous, no? You are sharpening the knife, no? Okay, immediately. But but you know what Boris Groys, a friend of mine, I don’t agree with him but he’s well-known Russian art theorist, he discovered now with his friends the archives of Bakhtin from the thirties, when he was exiled into Kazan, that’s how he survived Stalinism. His—manuscript notes for the book on carnival. And you know what was the shocking discovery? You know what was the secret model for carnival? Stalinist purges. This is was a big carnival: today you are party secretary, tomorrow you are English traitor or whatever you want. Eh, so even look at Ku Klux Klan in this way. Imagine a small American city in the South in—when was the golden year of Ku Klux Klan? 1920s or whatever. It was a carnival: like drunken white people, Saturday evening, 'let’s go rape some black women, lynch someone,' you know what I mean. Theodor Adorno saw this very well already in the thirties: that so-called totalitarian regimes are never just that, like strict rules, renunciation. They always as it were bribe you with some false anti-emancipatory enjoyment. You pretend to be a fanatical fighter and you can rape the Jews, you can beat them, you can have your fun. You can have your fun as we say. So—so again—let me conclude with a Hegelian point. My favorite joke which I used in two of my books, I hope you don't know it. There is a movie director who I think deserves more than Hitchcock to be elevated into next megastar. It's Ernst Lubitsch. If you didn't see maybe if you know some of his work—people usually know only Ninotchka, his great [one] with Greta Garbo, one of the love of her films, no? His true masterpieces are To Be or Not to Be, a satire on Hitler, and the early one Trouble in Paradise. I mean go home, do it, you can download them for free blah blah. But in Ninotchka you have one of the best dialectical jokes. Dialectical in the sense of, if you want to understand what Hegel means by 'bestimmte Negation,' determinate negation, you should listen to that joke. It's a standard joke, it's a more complex I simplified it. It's like this: a guy comes to a cafeteria and says, 'coffee but without cream please.' And the waiter says, 'sorry sir we don't have cream, we only have milk. So I cannot really give you coffee without cream, I can only give you coffee without milk.' So you see the paradox. Literally, in this fetishist identity, you get the same coffee. But the Hegelian lesson is: if it's coffee without milk, it's not the same as coffee without cream. And this is for example the problem of universality. Here I agree with those critics of Eurocentrism: yes, a universal man, but the overcoming, you know, it's one thing to be universal by overcoming just our European identity or to be universal also by overcoming another identity. You can be universal in different modes. And I admire here my other hero is Toussaint Louverture, you know Haiti Revolution. They did something wonderful: in they established finally the black state and they wrote the Constitution. And they had a problem, because they wanted to be a black republic but at the same time they had to—they were honest enough to admit that many white people, especially Polish soldiers from Napoleon's army, joined their side. And they wanted also to give them the right to be full Haiti citizens. So you have a wonderful paradox. Article of Haiti Constitution from 'Haiti is a black republic. All citizens of Haiti, independently of the color of their skin, are black.' This is what we should do. Because our liberals when they want to help the blacks, implicitly they are saying, 'You know, even if you are black but if you behave well you will be really white like us.' You see the point, how it's you see the similarity with this Ninotchka joke and so on and so on, no? That coffee without milk is not the same as coffee without and so on and so on. And it is here that—if I began let me just conclude with my favorite topic which always fascinates me. Just we spoke about and that's the where the true struggle against racism functions. Let's call it micro-politics of racism. No—nobody is today a big racist, almost nobody. Okay, no you say 'oh I like blacks, I like Arabs,' but—and there are some details usually, no? Like the standard liberal idea of many of my friends is: 'oh it's a shame what we white people do did to the blacks and so on, but nonetheless...' and then you begin: 'their food smells strange, their music is too loud,' and so on, you know. All these details. So what fascinates me absolutely, and that's what Hegel called 'sittliche Substanz,' this should be the state the place of fight, is, you know, the paradox is the following one. In every society we have of course certain rules which regulate interaction specific cultural rules and so on and so on. But it's not just like that. Did you notice how always you have, let's call them meta-rules, which tell you how you should take the explicit rules? Because that's the elementary structure of every culture. There are certain thing which are prohibited but in reality you are silently even solicited to do them. You know, like most of the sexual prohibitions in patriarchal societies works like this, you know: father tells you 'beware of the girls' and then secretly 'heh did you already do it' or whatever. So again it's a prohibition but you are silently... but a much more interesting phenomenon is the opposite one, where there are things which you have you are allowed, permitted, even solicited to do them, but on condition that you don't use that right. You know, like formally you... and at this level of, like, wasn't the whole problem with emancipation of the black, that they were given citizenship right on condition that they don't use it, still 1960s, '70s and so on and so on. So you see this is how I read Freud's great motto from Interpretation of Dreams, 'Traumdeutung': 'Acheronta movebo,' move the underground. It's not so much important to change the explicit rules, but to change this invisible texture which tells you how to use these rules. So don't kill me. I, you must be tired. Sit down calmly for I promise two, three minutes, just to tell you some wonderful from my own practice just two, three examples of how this works. Imagine—it's my dream—imagine that we are in Soviet Union in '35, this is the Central Committee, I'm Comrade Stalin. I give a speech, then of course you applaud for minutes, that's another story. And then there is a debate. And then one of you is stupid enough to stand up and attack me. Okay, next day the question will be who was the last one who saw you alive, of course no? But then imagine something else: that another person stands up and starts to shout at the first person: 'Are you crazy? How dare you attack Comrade Stalin? Don't you know that we don't do this here?' I claim he would have been arrested even faster. You know what’s the paradox? It was prohibited to criticize Stalin, of course. But it was even more prohibited to publicly announce this prohibition. That was the whole... and this is what fascinates me, this structure which is not necessarily an an a-an oppressive structure. It is more complex. Look what happened to me with my theoretical opponent personally good friend Judith Butler. Once I was tasteless towards her and used in my style some dirty words and so on. So I felt bad and I called her later on phone and call 'listen Judith I'm very sorry' and so on. Okay, it was no problem. She is a nice lady, she said 'Slavoj'—although it was a little bit ambiguous—she said 'we all know how you are so [laughter] no problem you don't have to...' But then 'you don't owe me any apology,' no? But then with my evil mind my immediate reaction was to tell her: 'okay if I don't owe it to you then I take it back.' Because namely, you see the refined paradox I'm mentioning. How does really an apology function? If I apologize to you, the only way for you to really accept the apology is to say it wasn't necessary. If you say 'my God I deserved it,' it means you don't really pardon me. You see this beautiful paradox of: you do something and you succeed in what you wanted to do precisely when it is proclaimed superfluous. And I think all erotics works like this. That's my second example. Did you see a shitty movie, it's a little bit boring but not so bad, with Ewan McGregor when she was he was still a working class hero before he become Jedi or whatever, Brassed Off, a British movie about striker? There is a wonderful [scene] then: he accompanies a girl to her house. Very Hegelian point of dialogue. And there they are already flirting, the girl tells him: 'Would you mind to go out to my apartment to drink some coffee?' He says, 'Yeah, but there's a problem I don't drink coffee.' And she said, 'No problem I don't have any.' Can you imagine a more erotically provocative invitation? But you know what's the problem? The problem is that the moment it must remain implicit. The moment you mention sex, everything would have been ruined. Like if she says: 'Listen I just want you to fuck my brain out, who cares about coffee?' It's ruined everything. That elegance—that elegance fascinated me how again: you do something and you proclaim it superfluous. Or a class—another classical example that I know. No, it happened to me really with a black friend of mine. I don't want to—he's a great academic name—I don't want to embarrass him, only for this reason I will not say his name. I was in my usual evil extreme bad taste mood, so I told him: 'Is it true, sorry, is it true that you black people not only have penises like this, but that you even can move them freely?' 'So if you walk naked and you have a fly here, bump, you can do it, no?' It worked. He embraced me and he told me: 'Now you can call me nigger.' But you know, this meant 'you are really one of us,' because you know try to call them nigger if you are not one of them, you know. But then when I told this story to other friends they told me: 'but you didn't get the point. It wasn't meant that you really will call him nigger.' And I said 'but that's the whole point.' Of course he didn't mean now you just shout nigger, nigger and so on. It was strictly an offer to be rejected, you know. Like it wasn't meant you really do it, it was just a kind of a very gentle sign of like: 'we are we are really close' or whatever at this level, you know. And the very last story, it you get this mechanism at its purest. I have a photocopy of this document at home. When I was young, a friend of mine, this was mid-1970s, we still have obligatory military service in ex-Yugoslavia. I don't know how it is here. Okay, you don't have obligatory military service. But in ex-Yugoslavia, you know, for one week you get some preliminary training then the big event happens, you know: like all soldiers are gathered, then publicly you recited 'me'—you say your name—'I'm ready to give my life to protect my...' and then you are a full soldier. After that there is a big like rich book you have to sign your name. A friend of mine did an incredible thing. When it came to him he said: 'Is it a free choice or do you order me to sign my name?' The officer said: 'My God, this is an oath, you cannot be forced to take an oath. It's free you do it freely.' Okay, my friend said, 'Then I don't sign it.' The officer said: 'Are you crazy, you will be put in prison,' and so on. Okay, so after long negotiation my friend—and that’s the historical document—got a paper where the officer wrote: 'I officer blah-blah formally order this soldier to freely sign the oath.' And I don't think this is some dark totalitarian mechanism. Our social link at some most elementary level always works like that. And you see here in all these paradoxes of: you say something but how are you to take it? Or a classical example, I don't know how you have it here, but I think it's similar like with us. Let's say I'm poor and you evil guy who will interrupt me, you are rich. You invite me to dinner out. We know in advance you will pay. But do you have here also this ritual that when the bill arrives we have to play this game: 'no, no I will,' and so on, no? Once just to annoy a friend of mine, my God, I had the deepest sadistic pleasure. After my friend said, 'No, no, I will pay,' I say, 'Okay, pay it,' you know. But what I'm saying is that you see the elegance. We both know that this is in a way a hypocritical play. But again but it's not hypocritical really. It establishes an authentic social link. Okay, as they say—did you read when you were young those German kitsch novels Karl May, Winnetou? Yes. And there Indians said 'Ich habe gesprochen'—How? So I say this and I finish. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Okay, who cares about half an hour among friends, you know, yeah. Just before and whether I should say the staff have to come in and clean up and I think that’s one trope and metaphor that we can use. In Europe among fake leftists this is popular. They say what about poor cleaning ladies who are not paid overtime, you know. I could also come in and say we have a better event coming up right now at so some of the people leaving right now hope you had better places to go, television to watch, I hope you took notes what movies to see. But who actually watches TV? In my country we download all the time and who... It’s all one big country by now. It’s yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To this... so I thought I’d start... Inclusive, I hope you include in this one big country North Korea. They have everything downloaded already. They... It’s... to provoke my friends I said, you know, Shangri-La from Lost Horizon. North Korea is Shangri-La for me. So I thought I’d ask one question and then sort of to mix the you had very pragmatic suggestions of what Europe should do right now. Oh also, yeah. I’ll ask and then I’ll open it up and I’ll gather some of the questions, you have to be very brief and concise. Yeah, because the cleaning ladies are waiting, yeah, yeah. So let’s say we see a tomorrow where some of your recommendations are implemented, Europe has a very alienated and deficient way of dealing with the refugees. Are they war or are they economic? No, the actually I want to make a different point. It is not a debate right now about economic refugees from other parts of the world and that distinction in your suggestion that Europe has to actually produce a way of thinking about this, how do you make this distinction between a war refugee versus an economic refugee who seem to be at this moment being discussed in different ways, in ways that you’ve been describing that European liberals and far right-wingers will make those distinctions, they will coincide that these people deserve it and these people deserve it a little less, but living a good life is not as good as escaping violence. So how would you sort of address that fact that is being actively... I will give you a horrible answer. Go ahead, yes. Again an ultra, and people think that as a Hegelian I only like some extreme intellectual plays. That this I consider this basically a pragmatic problem where you have to find a kind of a compromise solution when there is a formula. What I don’t buy is this, I claim pseudo-radical left solution: 'no, we don’t have the right to draw any distinctions, open the borders, everyone should come' and so on and so on. Because the hypocrisy is this, I claim that all pseudo-radical leftists who advocate this, they know very well that it will not happen. What they are worried about is their own moral superiority. No, in a... but don’t you see? Okay, do you have—now I’m not bluffing, sincerely ask you—I don’t think there is a simple a priori solution here. You have to be very pragmatic and say, I know this sounds brutal, cruel, but is there any other solution than to say: wait a minute, it’s brutal but we have to establish some criterion, of course not racist one, not religious but, let's be vulgar, the level of suffering or what who can come? Well and we have to be honest about the criteria. You brought up Toussaint Louverture, this country had a policy about Cuban versus Haitian refugees, treated very, very differently, there’s always been made a distinction. And so this for me, Haiti, was really that you brought up Haiti which had a very radical idea to think everybody is black regardless of whether they are black or not. Yeah, but this meant everybody can come there, but you know what’s the problem? They knew very well that the problem is that nobody wants to come there, you know. Like to be cynical, you know, it’s easy to be like Stalin also always called working-class people to come to Soviet Union because... I kind of wanted to just to sort of listen to you, sort of you want to shift a certain line, one that has regulated speech in certain ways and push it very far and say there’s obscenity, there are jokes, that this line has been drawn too closely and other lines and then you said that we have to draw other lines, we have to make very clear distinctions. You’re saying on the one hand this discourse cannot be determined and policed like this, but other discourses are not sufficiently regulated right now, that there’s a kind of vagueness about anybody could come in, he said no there’s very specific for instance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to open it up? No, what... sorry just to... I will be very short. No, my point I agree with you, my point was not we need more opening or more closure, but very specific as you said nicely. There are... No, my point would be more this one that often we get caught in abstract problems, but when you look at it, for example, people often tell me 'but how do you know that if you say that dirty joke that you are not really perceived as racist, the obscenities, no, that I gave?' I claim no, in actual life situation you always know perfectly well, are you violating, is it racism or not? I don’t... if anything there is much more racism and although I have many English friends, would you agree let’s now target on a common enemy, you know, not that you but the British, no? You know what worries me much more, English men from my experience, maybe also Japanese know the same, are masters of being extremely aggressive and humiliating but in the form of extreme politeness. Oh absolutely, yes. This is a much more dangerous thing. It’s a much more powerful thing. Powerful even, yeah. Absolutely, yes. Well, it’s yeah, it’s a kind of Oscar Wildean way of being in the world. Sorry? Oscar Wilde is sort of the epitome... although can you imagine I my favorite, one of my favorite papers on socialism and communism, it’s still you remember the first paragraph of the Oscar Wilde text on socialism where he basically says: 'I want socialism so that I will not have to feel sorry and to help the poor and so on and so on.' It’s so wonder... I mean all don't understand and there’s an irony that would be worth talking with you about at a later time, and then Oscar Wilde is put on trial for words and goes to prison for obscenity. In some ways he pushes dialogue in a... so you push the conversation in a certain area of what you’re trying to do and then at the same time it gets shut down in another place. We can talk... Yeah, but you know what is the saddest thing, I read books about that, is that what really because in spite of his dandyism and so on, he was, my god this will sound so patronizing but, he was really open towards ordinary poor people. And what really I read this in a biography of Oscar Wilde, what really hurt him was the total lack of sympathy in his predicament with from ordinary working class people. They dismissed him simply as an upper-class decadent and so on and so on. This hurt him very much. Should we open it up to questions... But please just two things, a democratic debate, which means as a good Stalinist: did you distribute the questions already and now? And second thing, we have now a dialogue, but remember I am a Platonist and I like, if you know Plato, you know how do they look, the last Plato dialogues: one guy talks all the time, the other guy only says every minutes like 'yes Socrates by Zeus you are right.' Let’s have this type of dialogue, yeah. Sure, so I’ll be the ephebe to Socrates, okay. Okay. No, fuck you I’m Socrates, you just say 'by Zeus you are right' and so on. So anybody would venture into this agora forum? I will ask you something else listening to you since no one is volunteering right now. You’re such a deep romantic about the erotic, about the possibility of the unsaid and the unspoken, and I’m always interested that you keep that space as and it makes me think of... since we’re in Washington, politics. Hannah Arendt once said that love between two people is the apolitical space in the world because it’s worldless, it’s the end of world as a communal space. And when I listen to you when you do the examples you always call it the erotic and I think it also is romantic and it... First I agree with her that I don’t believe... First I’m totally opposed to that stupid psycho-Marxist leftist dream: in communism sex and work and politics everything will be the same. That’s not your position now. Absolutely not. You know which is my ideal and I’ve written about it: love. Now that they opened up a little bit Russian archives, it’s proven that Lenin did have an affair with Inessa Armand. It was done, first Lenin—it was a passionate affair. There is a photo which was of course censored in Stalinist era where you see Lenin at her, Inessa’s funeral. He is totally obviously totally broken down, that was his end. But what I like, you know what’s my basic notion of true love? Like,
Maybe I will break my own rule and nonetheless stand here if I may. To keep it lively, I decided nonetheless to just improvise a lot with what some people call, and I hate it, my provocative spirit or whatever. Okay, first the usual gratitude. I'm proud to be here and especially, I must emphasize this, I'm proud to be here also in connection with Slovenian ambassador whom I appreciate, him but not the Slovenian foreign politics at this moment. I violently brutally disagree with it. The way our foreign minister—I will not, since F-words are prohibited here, I will not pronounce his name—the way he acts with all the dirty compromises about refugees, about Syriza, and so on. That's not my politics. I also have some other problems with Slovenian identity like, I'm sorry, I don't drink wine. Also, the Slovenian national sport is skiing. Well, I have a problem with skiing. Listen, it's nonsense for me. What does it mean, skiing? You climb up a mountain and then you come down. Isn't it better to stay down and read a good book? I mean, whatever. But nonetheless, there are things which I love in Slovenia, some diplomats, philosophers, friends, and so on. It's, you know, like, in the same way that even in the darkest times—and I'm not so tasteless as to compare today's Slovenia with Germany in the late thirties, but you know, when you can say—even in the darkest times, there were people who gave you hope. Let's take for example one victim for me. You know the great—I'm a fanatical Wagnerian—the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler. I always considered it a great injustice how whenever people mention classical music and Nazism, they mention him. It's so unjust. Okay, he was a national conservative, but as Adorno—certainly not a right-winger—put it, you can feel in the way Furtwängler conducted and so on, a terrible effort to save what can be saved of great culture in a terrible time. So in the same way, not that I compare myself with it or whatever, but in the same way I think we should fight for Europe, for European legacy today. As you pointed out very nicely, you know, I'm more and more suspicious about so-called anti-Eurocentrism or this standard accusation Eurocentrism. Why is this all of a sudden so fashionable? I have a very dark premonition precisely because—I'm sorry if I put it in these old-fashioned Marxist terms—because global capital, the way it functions today, no longer needs European enlightenment, European democracy, and so on. It functions even better without it. You know, my friend Peter Sloterdijk, who is of course politically my opponent, but personally we are good friends, he once made a wonderful observation. He asked a question: to which person from our time will they be building monuments fifty, one hundred years in future? And his answer was Lee Kuan Yew, you know, the recently deceased founder of New Singapore. To cut a long story short, the guy who invented this so-called capitalism with Asian values. Forget about Asia, it has nothing—it's simply authoritarian capitalism. And isn't this the tendency today? Look at for example India, Modi, their Prime Minister. At the same time the most brutal neoliberal politician that you can imagine. He said it openly: 'In China, the price of working force is a little bit too high, our chance of India is to sell even more cheaply millions of our workers.' At the same time Hindu nationalist and so on and so on. That's the... look at Turkey. It's exactly the same, Erdoğan, the Prime Minister. It's not a joke what I will tell you now. You know what was the slogan of his last electoral campaign? Not the old Christian 'Ora et labora,' but 'pray and work,' but 'shop and pray.' It's a perfect formula. So I, I'm a little bit suspicious that, you know, it's so fashionable to be against Eurocentrism because yes, till now, probably yes, we were guilty of many sins, whatever, imperialism, cultural imperialism, but precisely now that we are on the losing side, we should be fighting for what is worth saving in European culture. And to provoke you, this will be my conclusion, but to give you what in sexual practice is called 'Vorlust'—this is why as a radical leftist, I even think we should redefine in our own way, of course not in the sense of European cultural conservatives, this unfortunate term of 'Leitkultur.' 'Leitkultur' for me does not mean 'oh our European culture is superior, we should impose it.' It means something much more refined. For me, this simple pure idea of multiculturalism, in the sense of each group should have the full right to assert, to practice its identity, and all we need is a kind of a empty liberal legal state which guarantees legally the... it doesn't work. Why not? Because as a Hegelian I know it and you should know it spontaneously: each culture is not only defined by what it is. What a culture is, is always mediated by what it is not, by how it constructs, relates to different cultures. And that's for me the problem. The problem is that each culture not only relates to other cultures but normatively contains a certain normative texture of how you deal with other cultures. And here problems explode, even at the level of what both of you introductory speakers were right to emphasize as this Charlie Hebdo problem and so on. Now to provoke you a little bit, that would be my beginning. Yes, we should be critical towards everything, reflect, that's European legacy, but I'm more and more tempted to say that we should also fully and shamelessly rehabilitate a certain brutal dogmatism. Dogmatism in a good sense of the term. Now immediately, give me half a minute, after I explain it you will agree I think. Look, let's take rape. Rape like doing it to women, you know. I, I wouldn't like to live in a society where you have to argue all the time against rape. I would like to live in a society where the unacceptable character of rape is simply the a most fundamental part of what Hegel would have called 'Sittlichkeit,' 'sittliche Substanz,' the substance of mores, of customs. So that when somebody, you know the usual story, advocates rape in this stupid ridiculous male chauvinist way, you know, 'oh but maybe she liked it, she provoked me, how, how do you know that she didn't secretly enjoy it?' I would like to live in a culture where you don't even have to argue against [it]. When a guy talks like that, you laugh at him like what a jerk, what an idiot, is he retarded or what—you know what I mean. And I so in this paradoxical sense I claim that a certain type of, let's call it dogmatism, is a necessary component and maybe even a sign of historical progress. Progress is for me that you no longer have to reason again and again against rape, but when it becomes part of our substance. I call this the anti-Reagan, your respected President. Why? Because he made a wonderful—not even slip of tongue, he didn't mean it—I remember, I'm old enough, his Presidency. And once he just gave one or two public press conferences, then he made so many mistakes, I remember that he avoided them. But okay, at one of them, I remember, a journalist asked him: 'What about the accusation that you are close to some people who deny Holocaust and so on, that you have friends among them?' No? And Reagan answered indignantly: 'That's not true, how can you say this? Whenever at my dinner table somebody denies Holocaust, I always attack him and'—something like that. Okay, the obvious question is, but what kind of friends does he have when at every dinner he has to fight for—for that there was a Holocaust, you know. So that's my first point, dogmatism. Let's go on. When you mentioned and I agree, Charlie Hebdo, although we all in solidarity admired the reaction of European politicians and so on, but I found and I wrote this in a short book that I published, I found that spectacle so hypocritical and narrow. You remember, you saw it probably in your media, the scene of the top European leaders holding hands on the front of a crowd. But did you see the true photo? Unfortunately for them, there were some photographers just thirty yards back, behind and on a higher podium. And you see it all. It was a staged event on a Paris square, totally surrounded by police. There are politicians and two, three rows of probably secret police, but people to create the impression of depth of a crowd and so on. So what was wrong with this reaction? Here again my position is pro-European but at the same time critical of everyone. You know, I'm tired of this story of 'oh how narrow they are, the Arabs,' and 'we should demonstrate our sense of irony, iconoclasm, you can talk about everything you want.' Well, no you cannot, and it's a good thing that you cannot. Let me give you an example. Okay, you can mock Quran, Islam, but—and don't misunderstand me here, I'm not saying we should be allowed to do it. It's just an example. Try to publish just a slightly ironic text about Holocaust and you will see how quickly European intolerance appears. What's my point here? Not we should be open towards everything and so on. No, there are certain topics which should be simply prohibited, even by law. The other important thing here is that, you know, don't stigmatize too quickly other cultures. Yes, there are many things to be criticized in Islam, in today's Arab countries. But it's absolutely clear that this—let's call it stupid term—totalitarian turn of some of the Muslims, you know, it's a strictly historical phenomenon. First, I have many friends there, on the West Bank. I can tell you, they are normal people. By normal people I mean with my spirit for obscenity, I engaged in dirty jokes with them, and they immediately reacted at the same level. A Muslim friend from Ramallah told me one of their jokes which is, you know this stupid idea everyone knows, serious I mean, historical linguists. You know that idea if you die as a martyr, you go to heaven, virgins await for you. Everybody knows, every serious historical linguist, it's a mistranslation. It's the same—that word at that time, 7th century or whatever, Muhammad, was a term in everyday language it meant from white grapes the top quality—how do you call it? Sour grapes? Raisins. Raisins. And this was the standard sign of Arab hospitality. You know, 'You are a welcome guest, we give you a whole palm of white raisins.' So, that's Ramallah West Bank joke. There is an ugly Palestinian boy, he wants to sleep with girls, he's too ugly, gets no girls. So he said, 'My God, I like sex so much that I will become a martyr, explode myself.' He does it and, okay, enters heaven and then, 'Ah, here you have them raisins.' And he said, 'Sorry, mistranslation, can I return back?' and so on and so on. They have sense. Palestinians are, if I may use this ambiguous—some people will even maybe accuse me of racism—Palestinians are the Jews among the Arabs. That's the tragedy. Even, you know, we tend to forget that there are still around of Christians among Palestinians. My God, the best religious jokes I heard, not against the Arabs but against themselves, was from Palestinian Christians. If I may tell you one which is on the edge of acceptability, but don't be afraid, it will be still accepted. This is from West Bank Arab, Christian Arab. It's the last evening of Christ's life. You know, he knows next day he will be crucified, he's son of God, he knows everything of course. So his apostles are gathered around him, Christ is praying in a tent, and they say, 'My God, our Lord, he did so much for us, he just suffered. Wouldn't it be nice to make his last evening on this earth a little bit more merry, you know?' So they call Mary Magdalene, the prostitute, like, 'Would you go in and seduce our Lord?' Of course Mary Magdalene being who she is, 'Oh, of course, yeah, okay.' So she goes in and after five minutes she comes out terrified with a cry of despair. They ask themselves, the apostles, 'What's going on, is our Lord a secret pervert or whatever?' 'No,' says Mary, 'it's worse. I undressed myself, I began to dance in front of him. And he looked at me with a certain interest. Then I widely spread my legs and showed my vagina to him. And then Christ looked at it and said, "Oh what a terrible wound," and put his hand on and closed it.' This is the spirit, my God, that's what... and you know what shocked me? I then had a wonderful theological debate with these people. So these were not some atheist perverts there or whatever. I think that I would almost claim that this is one of the measures of—ah, I will tell you another one. There is even a better one because Christian joke from Palestine which includes—it's a totally temporality is totally mixed, that's what I like about it. And it tells a lot about psychoanalytic notion of a decentered subject, how you are never fully yourself, you are never fully identified with your ideal ego. Christ is tired of doing his propaganda work, so he says to one of his apostles, 'Let's take a week free on Galilean Sea and play golf there.' Okay, they play golf and Christ hits the ball, of course misses it, the ball goes into the sea. So being Christ who, you know, knows how to walk on the water, he goes there, comes to the place, picks up the ball, comes back. And then the apostle tells him, 'But listen, it's too difficult hit, how to call it, you cannot do it. Even—how is your big one called, the—the most popular?' Sorry? 'Yeah, even Tiger Woods couldn't do it.' Christ says, 'Who cares? I'm Jesus Christ, I can.' He does it again, misses again. Okay, the ball falls into the sea and Christ walks on the water there. At that point—and I like this total historical nonsense—at that point a group of American tourists come with a bus there. And one of them sees this and steps to the apostle and says, 'But who is that guy there? Is he crazy? Does he think he is Jesus Christ or what?' Apostle answered, 'No, it's worse, he thinks he is Tiger Woods,' you know, I mean. I mean, that's part of... now you will say I'm obscene. But admit it, if you really—and I did—read the New Testament, this type of spirit is already there. Look, Christ gives a wisdom, then he says, 'I will tell you a parable to explain it.' Admit it, you never get the point of that parable, you know like. I claim that Christ, he had a totally provocative different style of reasoning. Enough of that. What I—so what I want to say is that on the one hand—now I will openly address a very difficult question: the question in Europe on cultural tolerance and so on, especially now with tens, even hundreds of thousands of refugees and so on. You know, I—and this costs this costs me even now an explosive hatred from many I consider them fake leftists, who have this comfortable idea: we Europeans are responsible for everything, you know. Like if there is a war in Africa, we must be somehow guilty and so on. The best answer to this was provided by an African friend of mine, who exploded on this and said, 'Are you aware in what patronizing way your attitude is racist? Because your attitude is, you even don't give us the dignity to be evil. You know that you treat us like children—if we do something horrible, you must be behind it.' It's almost as if, you know, in the colonial times we had the expression 'white—white man's burden.' Now we have the opposite white man's burden: whenever something horrible happens, we have to be responsible for it. Now we are responsible for many, many things, but we should be much more careful here. Why? Once I was in Missoula, Montana to visit the birthplace of David Lynch. Why? And I met some so-called Native Americans there. It was an epiphany for me. Because I loved them so much because they detected so well the hypocrisy of our politically correct respect for them. First they absolutely rejected to be called Native Americans. Because quite intelligently they—they told me, 'Wait a minute, nature—what's the opposite of nature? It's culture. So we are Native Americans and you are cultural Americans or what? Are we part of nature?' And then they gave me a wonderful argument, maybe you know it, I often use it: they said, 'We much prefer to be called Indians because at least in this way our name is a monument to white man's stupidity, you know, who thought they are in...' And then one of them, a professor, younger at university, gave me a wonderful short book that he wrote demonstrating that Indians, Native Americans, killed more buffaloes and burned more forests than all white people together and so on. And in a strange way he was right. You know, they hate spontaneously this patronizing attitude which is: we white people are cultural and economic imperialists, we just exploit nature and so on; while Native Americans or Tibetans or whoever, you know, they have a holistic attitude—before they enter a mountain to mine it, they ask the spirit of the mountain for permission and so on, all that, you know. No, they detect very well how this—how should I call it—false patronizing respect for the other as a rule is the worst kind of patronizing attitude. Which is why, okay, to give a comical final twist to this line, you know, if you are a girl and—sorry to be sexist but there are many nice girls, I see ladies here—let's say that you have two boyfriends or one of the two or oscillate. One of them is telling you, 'Listen, you women simply should serve men. I work, you stay at home, you wash my socks,' and so on. Then you have oscillate between him and between another boyfriend who tells you, 'You know, you women still have an holistic attitude towards nature, we men are Cartesian subjects, we just exploit nature, but you are in dialogue with...' My proposal to you is, stick to the first one. You still have a chance to retrain him. If you have the second type of a boyfriend, pack your luggage and run away as fast as you can. Because, and I'm not kidding here, listen, I was—I was reading a wonderful anthropological book about, I think it's not New Zealand but New Guinea, the other country where they discovered a tribe and of course all these matriarchal ideologists had an intellectual orgasm, you know. A tribe where the big goddess is a woman and in their village the temple in the center even has kind of a form of vagina, you know, a circle with a hole in... okay, nice. There is just one problem, when you study it closely: actual women are of course prohibited to enter that vagina, you know what I mean. They had to—they had to stay out, they had to stay around and so on and so on. So—or I think that and this is an old story of mine, I hope you don't know it. There is a wonderful anecdote which allegedly, at least it's confirmed, I asked some anthropologists it really happened. It's my favorite story about what is wrong with this European deep understanding of the others and so on and so on. Already in the middle of 19th century, a European anthropological expedition went into central Guinea because they heard a rumor that there is some terrifying tribe there. They are dancing some—death dance with black masks, the ultimate encounter with death. Okay, after a long—travel, they arrived there in the evening and they half understood the language of that tribe and they somehow explained to them what they are expecting to do, then they went to sleep. Next morning the tribal the people there—really perform a dance for them. And they were fascinated, you see, what authentic attitude towards death, what deeply felt—ecstatic attitude with death and so on. So they leave the village, return to so-called civilization and write a nice anthropological report. Okay, everything okay, just one problem. A decade or so later another anthropological group visited the same tribe. They took care of really learning their language and learned the true story. When the first group arrived, the tribal people just desperately wanted to show their hospitality, so somehow they got it that these people would like to see some crazy death dance and they worked all the night to invent it, you know, so that they performed it next day for them, you know. So much for authentic cultural exchange and so on and so on. My best friends here are some artists in New Zealand who, you know, first when I talked with them, they gave me the usual bullshit, you know: 'We resist your technological civilization, we listen to our ancestral spirits,' all the bullshit. Then after I got really friendly with them, they told me the true story. They had two agents, one in New York, one in London, who tell them what are the latest trends in the art market. And then they take care that these eternal spirits give them precisely the instructions which fit the latest fashion. But you know what’s my point here? It’s not cheating, they can be—there is nothing shameful in it. It is—the last example of here of this: did you see a wonderful—Inuit, Eskimo to be politically incorrect, Canadian film some years old, The Fast Runner? Okay, it retells the story of an ancient Inuit myth. A wonderful thing happened apropos that film—and I'm not a politically correct guy who praises some third world poor film, no they can be shit and boring. But this one is surprisingly really good, whatever. So—they changed the end of the myth, mythic story. In the original myth, it's a catastrophe, the whole tribe is slaughtered and so on. In their version, the tribe members just—just exile two evil guys, won't even kill them, just out and there is big reconciliation. So there always is an idiot in such a story which was a politically correct white liberal journalist who attacked the director of the movie claiming, 'But didn't you fall here victim to Hollywood commercialism? Like you change the ending just to make the movie more commercial,' and so on. And he got a wonderful answer, dignified, from the director. The director said, 'No, you are the cultural imperialist. Because this notion of sticking to the original, this is your white notion. It's precisely part of our original culture to—there is no original—you retell the story again and again in a different way to fit the present circumstances.' You know, so things are here again much more complex. But okay, let's go on here with the basic line: tolerance, Leitkultur, and so on and so on. Something happened to my friend—Udi Aloni, a Jewish filmmaker who has very good relations with Palestinians and so on, fights also for their rights. And he, Udi Aloni, brought to United States Tamer Nafar, I'm sorry I forgot the name, a great West Bank Palestinian rapper, who not only sings against—Israeli occupation but also against the limitations of their own culture, honor killings and so on and so on. You know what happened in at UCLA? After this guy sang some songs and gave a speech, some crazy pseudo-leftist attacked him like, 'Why do you talk about honor killings? You just support—Zionist propaganda in this way. If there are honor killings, they happen only because Israel keeps the Arabs isolated,' all that bullshit and so on. And this guy gave them wonderful answer. He said, 'You know what's the difference between you and me? You are an upper-class graduate student here who talks in English stupid things to please your professors. I sing there in Arab and Hebrew to—to help real women avoiding catastrophes,' and so on. This is so important. The way to really collaborate with Palestinians, Arabs and so on is not with this patronizing attitude and so on. My idea is always: find some struggle where we can join forces. Especially on the West Bank, they don't need our enlightened feminism. Women are already organized them. Hundreds of women every year escape from their houses in—families, in... so, you know, that's the way to do it. To just connect our struggle with their struggle. Especially now in the Middle East where—all countries are getting in a strange way fundamentalist. I mean, with all my respect for—for the Jewish nation. But listen, I was a little bit shocked when I recently read proclamation of two, three ministers in the latest Netanyahu government who now claim, 'No, no two-state solution, West Bank is ours totally.' Okay, maybe I said, what's the argument? They quote the Bible. I'm sorry, but imagine somebody doing this on the Arab side. You would have been immediately proclaimed a fundamentalist. What's my solution here? Now this may again surprise you. It's so sad what is happening in Israel because—I am not saying it's all just Zionist aggressiveness, Arabs are good guys and so on. No, not only they are not, but we in the West, we are doing all that is possible to promote the really bad guys. I mean, are you aware what happened in Iraq as a result of American intervention? Whatever you say about Saddam—and to avoid a misunderstanding I have no, none of the sympathy with Saddam, he was a nightmare—but one thing he did, the same as Assad. Do you know that Syria and Iraq were the only two Middle East Arab states which were at least nominally, officially secular? Islam was not a state religion. And this was not just a symbolic act, it meant something. Like for thousands of years in Iraq, even in Saddam's times, there were I think around million of Christians living there in peace. Even Tariq Aziz, you remember his Foreign Minister, he was a Christian. Now the result of American intervention was that they disbanded Saddam's army in a very stupid way because there was no other force so real fundamentalist Muslim militias took over, exerted pressure on—so Christians practically disappeared from Iraq. Isn't this a wonderful irony? We went there to save them from primitive Islamist regime, what years of history didn't achieve, a short American intervention did it. To deliver a relatively—religiously only, of course—tolerant country to Islamists who threw out Christians and so on. That's why for me—the true scandal if you ask me, and it's the same in Libya, I mean like, I'm not now, how do you call it, a wise guy after the battle. Many of friends mine warned me. Okay, Gaddafi was disgusting and so on. But do we have any idea what will happen if we overthrow him? Now we have another—failed nonexistent state and so on and so on. So—but back to point. So my problem is—this one here: how do you like—how do you—this is for me the problem of Leitkultur. Not we have this culture, we have that culture, but what rules regulate the interaction among different cultures? And again with all my sympathy for suffering Palestinians and so on and so on. Here and believe me I'm a radical leftist, I'm not any friend of those stupid Europeans who claim we should protect Christian Europe throw out the refugees now. But the problem is real, in what sense? For example, I read a report, maybe you know it, on ZDF, Zweites Deutsches [Fernsehen], the second channel, which is more a Social Democratic one, not a right—where they report that... You know, people usually say but—Muslim women should have the right to choose the way they dress. If they want to wear that cover, burqa, i-don-know-how-you-call-it-here, we should allow them. I agree. But my problem is, but what if they don't want it and their family puts pressure on them? This is not a marginal example. In that report it says that this happens in Germany over times per year. That a girl is under such threat maybe of an honor killing, so Germany already opened up over 20—how do you call it—exile houses where it's like protecting state witnesses. They are provided with a different identity, name to survive. Or another example. It's not a myth, it happened to a child of a friend of mine in Berlin—a child of a friend of mine. He is in high school and there are about of Muslim children there. So first they wanted no pork in their meals that you get. Okay, I agree with this, undoubtedly. Ah, then they went on: that even if other children eat pork, it disturbs them. And then it went on. The school—he showed it to me—the school sent around a letter to all parents claiming that girls shouldn't dress too provocatively, this may disturb the... and so on and so on. And you know then you have these horrible unpleasant scenes like in Berlin, gay people, organized gay people who, of course they felt oppressed, they wanted to help Turks, Muslims. No, the result was that many of them were beaten by Muslims and so on and so on. Like, this is what I—where I see the problem. And here I think a Leitkultur is needed. Like, we should first—now this will sound almost totalitarian, but I think that what is happening now in Europe: you simply cannot have hundreds—you know, radical leftists tell you this bullshit, you know like: 'let's radically open the borders,' 'ugh blah blah blah.' That's nonsense. You provoke a—an anti-immigrant right-wing populist backlash. I'm for militarization. Don't misunderstand me, not this militarization of, you know, put refugees into camps. But a kind of a all—I don't think it will happen, it's too utopian—but all European action. You organize reception centers already there, maybe in Turkey, Lebanon, Syrian coast. And then in a very rational way you register them, you take them to Europe, here, there. If it will not... and of course you make the rules clear. And by Leitkultur I don't mean you should renounce your values, but just these basic things. Like, we have certain elementary rules of individual human rights and so on and so on. Sorry, you have to respect them here. And if I say this, now I'm in a crazy situation—I quite like it because Sartre, Jean-Paul, said somewhere if you are for the same text attacked from both sides, this is a good sign that you are maybe on the right path. You know, it happened with my book Welcome to the Desert of the Real. It was translated in—in Israel in Hebrew and also in Arab. Jerusalem Post proclaimed it—brutal anti-Semitic book. Ah, but Al-Ahram proclaimed it the most perfidious disgusting—Zionist propaganda. You know, maybe I'm on the right way. You know what I'm saying? Now you will say am I going too far by even—supporting BDS, that Boycott Divestment [and Sanctions]? No, you know in what sense do I support it conditionally. First—I'm I have problems with it in Europe. Because let's be clear: even if they say 'no it's not against the Jews, it's against the State of Israel,' but you know, any prohibition associated to Jews is still dangerous in Europe, especially now when anti-Semitism is not a joke, it's exploding again in Europe, more or less openly in Hungary and some other countries. Second—so the BDS that I know, that's crucial, it's strictly coordinated between progressive Palestinians and Jewish my Jewish friends. You find no—no Hamas or whatever hardliners point to and they make it clear. Let's not forget that it's absolutely and it wants to be non-violent. So again, but to return... you see my problem here. I think that this is my limit. Yes, it's not a matter of—here I agree with Habermas, although otherwise we are not best friends, when he said: 'it's disgusting to hear these stories, this pathetic sentimental moralization, you know like, "poor refugees don't you have a heart to help them" and so on.' No, a TV station in my country they caught me on the street—I don't like to give interviews—and they asked me, 'Would you take refugees into your apartment?' I said, 'No, I hate them. It's like I don't like even my own family in my apartment,' you know. But I said: 'it's not a question of sympathy, it's question of simple duty.' I said: 'but I'm ready to lose half of my income to help them.' I hate this sentimental moralization, you know, 'oh poor' and so on and so on. You know because from here you are one step from what I call the most intelligent Starbucks socialism, which is—it's an ingenious operation, that's today's ideology. You know, like our usual attitude if you want to be moderately leftist it is 'yes I'm a consumerist but I feel bad because you know people are starving in Africa, blah blah.' But you know what's the Starbucks trick? Like, 'our cappuccino is a little bit more expensive but goes for some stupid children in Guatemala, the other one to...' So it's an like the message is: 'you can be consumerist and pay a little bit more but your social duty price for it, you pay the price for it, it's included in the price,' you know. That's why I'm deeply suspicious about all this—how should I call it—charity approach or whatever. But okay so this would be my first clear conclusion. Yes, Europe should do it—absolutely. And again as I wrote in a text which again brought me many enemies: it's clear that we Europe and also you United States—and not only you—we are not innocent here. Let's be serious. Where do refugees come from? Iraq. Sorry, but who was it who attacked Iraq and... I mean, you know, that's the tragedy of American politics. Serbs have a proverb—Serbs, ex-part of Yugoslavia—'we win all the wars but we lose the peace,' no? I mean this could be an epithet for United States politics today. You know, of course you easily won in Iraq and what's the result? That the majority of Iraq, the Shia part, you basically delivered it to Iran, you know, your arch enemy. The other part is ISIS. Syria, it's again partially the result of this, partially... you know when we people claim should we intervene in Syria. What a stupid question. We already did, although maybe not directly militarily. It's we know the story. Assad it's supported by Iran, by Russia, partially by China. The other side is supported by Turkey and Saudi Arabia. And for example one thing that I would have done is the following one and I think it's a legitimate question. Did you notice a strange thing happening there? Did you notice how—how there are extra-rich Arab countries? Let's name them: Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Emirates. You know how many refugees they accepted? Literally zero. None. I mean, I found this an obscenity. Why? Because first most of the refugees are Sunnis which means even from a religious standpoint there shouldn't be a problem and so on. And also they are co-responsible, at least Saudi Arabia, which is openly supporting anti-Assad forces in there. So again, I think that—I think that one of the reasonable things to do would be to exert a brutal maybe not military but financial economic pressure on Saudi Arabia and you can break them down immediately. Because you know Saudi Arabia is not a self-enclosed fundamentalist state. Maybe ideologically but economically Saudi Arabia is like a big expository of Western banks, the money flowing in and out. I mean the moment you cut that, it's over. So what I’m saying is that this would be for me the proper attitude. First against anti-immigrant right-wingers, we should absolutely insist: the percentage even if you accept this topic, you know, how many foreigners can we tolerate—but the percentage is still so small that the true threat to Europe are those European anti-immigrant populists who want to defend Christian legacy in Europe. Imagine Europe where Marine Le Pen is in power in France, where—and let's go on, UKIP in England and so on. That's the end of Europe for me, of Europe that we know. That's one point. So absolutely Europe should do it, but in an organized way. What I think cannot be done is to do it in this chaotic way people simply wander around and so on and so on. That's the joke, I spoke in Slovenia with a Syrian refugee who told me: 'We want to go to Norway and study there.' I told him cynically: 'Well, nice. Half of Slovenians would probably also like to do that,' you know. Then he said: 'You want to register us, but we are not cattle to be registered, we are people.' Then I told him: 'But you want to go to Norway. Norway is an extremely organized welfare state where everybody—everyone is over-registered,' and so on and so on. So that would be to put it very simply my—the only solution that I see: a pan-European strategy of simply organizing it as a complex military—I repeat it, not military in the sense you arrest them, but I don't see any other institution apart from the army which simply can do it. You know, establish outposts already there, Turkey, Syria there and organize organize the transport and so on and so on. Okay, let me just add some things before—where is the evil guy there—before he will cut me off. Because I have many other things to say. You know, now you will—now you will say but in this way we are imposing our values. You know, I know all this politically correct story, I am not an idiot that: the moment you emphasize personal freedoms, like if a girl runs from her family we should protect her. Doesn't—doesn't this mean that we impose on others values which are ultimately European values? In the sense of, in other cultures it's considered more acceptable that family or collective rights, duties have priority. Well, my answer is here very brutal. Yes, but we have to accept it. You cannot play both ways here. And you had a similar problem even here in the United States, I talked with some lawyers. For example with people who are definitely not terrorist, Amish, you know. They protested when their children were obliged to go to normal English schools. And they were right to claim, 'if you take this from us, in a couple of generations we lose our identity.' Yes, but—you have to decide here. And I think we should simply accept... you know, we should drop this illusion that you can have some neutral liberal space where one group will be where mother will teach their daughters when they are years how do you use condom, how do you put it on the guy; on the other hand you will have a family where they will do clitoridectomy and so on and so on. You have to make a choice here. And I would do it without any great ethical problems or whatever and so on. We have to establish certain set of rules and I think that we can do it in an with clear conscience. Because yes, I am aware, behind all this refugees there is European intervention. Even in Africa, like Congo. Congo may appear living nightmare, the state doesn't function, blah blah, warlords. But it's probably one of the world countries in the world whose economy is to the utmost degree included into the world market. You know, all the local warlords selling coltan and all that and so on and so on. So but nonetheless. So let's go quickly on here: why the title, now at least allow me to finish with that, 'More Alienation'? I—another part of this European legacy would be—that as Peter Sloterdijk, with whom again I politically disagree, put it nicely: we don't need today politics of understanding, immersion, we need politics of distance, of polite ignorance. Like, let's be serious. Let's say I live in a large apartment block—I'm ashamed to use the word condominium, because when I heard it the first way, the first time as a young idiot I thought 'are these buildings where you get free condoms if you live there?' But what I want to say is that let's say there is an Arab here, a Jew there, a Chinese guy there, Latino American, whatever, African there. I have absolutely no interest of understanding them all, their way of life. Why should I? Because my basic psychoanalytic premise is that probably they don't understand themselves even, you know. I think that through—I don't accept this liberal blackmail: 'but did you really understand them, how do you know you did?' No. I would like—I think we should learn kind, polite ignorance. You are my whatever, Jewish, black, Arab, Chinese neighbor. I greet you nicely, you can rely on me if you will be in trouble, I help you, I hope you will help me and so on. Maybe, exceptionally with some of you, I establish a contact. But maybe not. We need proper distance and I claim there is something liberating in this distance. We absolutely shouldn't feel bad about this. And so—and now I... okay, I will be very quick because I have a whole system of alienations that I want to sustain. The other thing I radically disagree is this idea that since we live in global capitalism, local cultures which are threatened by it are one of—this is the fashionable jargon term—'sites of resistance' against it. I brutally, violently disagree. And here, it’s already circulating, I was with that black guy who is my type, we immediately exchanged obscene jokes, Tavis Smiley, PBS. And I explained to him why Malcolm X is my hero. He did something ingenious which is politically at the level of Hegel, I claim. You know what does it mean Malcolm X? X stands for we don’t have roots. We were torn out of our original ethnic environment, we were deracinated. But his genius was what? His formula was not that stupid—you remember that kitsch—kitsch TV series and novel Alex Haley Roots. 'Heh, let’s return to our roots.' No. Malcolm X understood well that this X is not meant as a stigma of victimhood, but also as a chance, a hope of freedom. We are not constrained by any tradition, which means we are more free to create a new emancipatory society, we can be more universalist than you white people yourself and so on and so on. He got this point. It’s in the same way that I read—I know this appears fashionable but I really think it’s a good novel—Toni Morrison Beloved. Medea is my hero, not that bitch Antigone whom I cannot stand. You know this idea that woman is not defined by motherhood. I think it’s an extremely profound novel of birth of black feminine subjectivity out of overcoming this absolute priority of motherhood and so on and so on. So—again. And for the same alienation I am even at the level of politics. Another, if you are still... I still consider myself a radical leftist, of course, a weird one. I hate this for—you know, today most of the leftists admit it. Two main forms of the left of the 20th century: social democracy and Stalinist state socialism, their time is over. No? Even with welfare state, let’s admit it. It no longer, in today’s conditions of worldwide global market, you cannot do it. But there is a third fetish which still remains. What they call anti-representative: 'we need immediate local self-organization, local communities, transparent self-organization,' and so on. I would hate to live in a society like that, you know. Every afternoon I would have to participate in some stupid local meetings, how we organize kindergartens, water, and so on. I want efficient alienation. I want some efficient invisible state apparatus to do it. I want my freedom to read, to do my stupid... to watch my stupid movies and to read books and to write books. That’s enough for me, apart from other private things and so on. But no, you you see my point: this myth I consider dangerous. Now you will say... I now, the last—some of the last provocations. One would be this one. For this Amy Goodman, whom I appreciate very much, you know, of Democracy Now!—now for two years no longer wants to talk to me. You know why? Because once I gave an interview to her show and she asked me innocently—she didn’t know with what kind of a madman she is talking, no? So she asked me: 'How do we fight fight right-wing fight right-wing racism?' I answered her immediately: 'With left-wing racism,' you know. And then she said, 'What? Are you crazy?' No, I told her something very specific. I'm asking you a simple question. Yes, we have this basic alienation. We in a cold way respect each other but at a distance, no? But from time to time you do establish authentic like the—how do you call them—icebreakers, so that you really are... and I claim you cannot do this without some kind of minimal obscenity. You exchange—you have to do something. And I claim, from my past, my God, you can’t do it without racism, even if it has the form of racism. And here I refer to my own experience from our youth. Before in Yugoslavia—before ethnic tensions really exploded in early mid-eighties. I remember when I met friends from Montenegro, Bosnia, Serbia, we each nation in ex-Yugoslavia was stigmatized by a certain racist cliché. We Slovenians were, for example, considered, how do you call it, thrifty, misers. Like a Slovenian joke is an old wealthy farmer is dying and all the family is gathered around. And he said, 'Are you all here? My granddaughter?' 'Yes.' 'My son?' 'Yes.' And then he raises the voice: 'But if you are all here, why is then the light on there in the corridor?' you know, that’s Slovenians. Then Montenegro are supposed to be—lazy, extremely lazy. Okay, many of you maybe even heard my standard joke but I know others. Because at the same time Montenegro is earthquake territory. You know how does a Montenegro guy masturbate? He digs a small hole in the earth, puts the penis in and waits for the earthquake because he is even too lazy to and so on. But you know what I mean? I remember those... and not to mention Bosnians. They are supposed to be kind of a primitively cunningly obsessed with sex. Like they have a wonderful joke—joke against this Uni—you know, European help they provided after the war: teachers who wanted to be modern teachers. And the idea is that in some high school they have a modern teacher who said, 'Now I will be teaching you classical music, but you know, not in this traditional way. Beethoven, he was born, died, this... but in this way: each of you should tell me a certain—image motif and then name one composition by Beethoven which fits it,' no? Okay, first you have a boy who said: 'Revolution, honor, warfare.' Third Symphony, Eroica of course, no? Then a girl stands up and said: 'Bambi, stream, forest, blah blah.' Pastoral Symphony. Then the Bosnian guy stands up and says: 'A big hard penis' like this. 'What?' 'Für Elise,' for Eliza. You remember that piano piece. I mean, it’s vulgar, but you know, I still have such a fond memory of how I met my friends from other republics. And the last orgy I had is with that famous artist Marina Abramović, you know. We laughed for two, three hours. This was authentic contact because, you know, it wasn’t mostly jokes about you, it was a kind of a wonderful competition: who will tell about himself, about myself, a more—a more disgusting joke. And I can tell you, they go much further. The only problem is that they are—tend to be a little bit problematic from the feminist standpoint. In the sense that they can be very funny as jokes, but like the presupposition is men exchange women, you know, it’s the solidarity of men at the expense of women. For example, from my history, just to give you an idea of what I’m aiming at—it’s a wonderful simple story, I used it in one of my books. When I was serving the Yugoslav army, I was very friendly with an Albanian soldier. We were simply colleagues. And one morning he approached me and instead of telling me a story—no, sorry—the usual greeting 'Good morning,' he told me: 'Ugh, I screw your mother.' I know exactly what he meant. To translate it into full language it was: 'Now I really want to be a friend with you.' And I know what he expected me to do: to return with a similar obscenity. Believe me I didn’t have a problem, instantly I answered him: 'Go ahead, after I finish with your sister,' no? Now comes the miracle. Then we embraced each other. And it’s not what you maybe thought, oh dirty male chauvinism all the day we were just telling dirty jokes. No, he was a student of quantum physics and I had long debates with him on that. You know how only the trace of that incident survived? Every morning when we met, instead of usual 'Good morning,' we just exchanged one word: he told me 'mother,' I said 'sister.' Without any laughter, it was a basic solidarity. Now to be self-critical, of course, it’s—male chauvinist brotherhood, no? So my feminist counteract would be—would be at least the two women should meet, you know like: 'screw your husband,' 'go ahead after I finish with your brother,' or i-don-know-what. But I so I'm well aware of the problematic nature of this. But still I think that without this type of minimal exchange of obscenities you simply cannot have authentic contact. On the other hand—ah, I always have also bad news—on the on the other hand, I'm so sick and tired of this universal carnival logic, you know like: 'wonderful in Athens Syntagma Square or Tahrir Square, million people we were all together, crying, solidarity.' This is the easy part. Your American expression after drinking too much is 'the morning after,' no? The true test of radical change is the morning after. How, when things return back to normal, how do you feel then the actual change? And that’s the tragedy for me. There, frankly, I don’t think the left didn’t—found proper answer. Because you know this topic liberating of carnival: like at least for a brief moment social rules are suspended, the king is a beggar, the beggar is a king, we are all. Well, you know, if you know a little bit literary theory, who elaborated the theory of carnival? The Russian fellow traveler of formalists Mikhail Bakhtin in his book on François Rabelais. But—I see you are nervous, no? You are sharpening the knife, no? Okay, immediately. But but you know what Boris Groys, a friend of mine, I don’t agree with him but he’s well-known Russian art theorist, he discovered now with his friends the archives of Bakhtin from the thirties, when he was exiled into Kazan, that’s how he survived Stalinism. His—manuscript notes for the book on carnival. And you know what was the shocking discovery? You know what was the secret model for carnival? Stalinist purges. This is was a big carnival: today you are party secretary, tomorrow you are English traitor or whatever you want. Eh, so even look at Ku Klux Klan in this way. Imagine a small American city in the South in—when was the golden year of Ku Klux Klan? 1920s or whatever. It was a carnival: like drunken white people, Saturday evening, 'let’s go rape some black women, lynch someone,' you know what I mean. Theodor Adorno saw this very well already in the thirties: that so-called totalitarian regimes are never just that, like strict rules, renunciation. They always as it were bribe you with some false anti-emancipatory enjoyment. You pretend to be a fanatical fighter and you can rape the Jews, you can beat them, you can have your fun. You can have your fun as we say. So—so again—let me conclude with a Hegelian point. My favorite joke which I used in two of my books, I hope you don't know it. There is a movie director who I think deserves more than Hitchcock to be elevated into next megastar. It's Ernst Lubitsch. If you didn't see maybe if you know some of his work—people usually know only Ninotchka, his great [one] with Greta Garbo, one of the love of her films, no? His true masterpieces are To Be or Not to Be, a satire on Hitler, and the early one Trouble in Paradise. I mean go home, do it, you can download them for free blah blah. But in Ninotchka you have one of the best dialectical jokes. Dialectical in the sense of, if you want to understand what Hegel means by 'bestimmte Negation,' determinate negation, you should listen to that joke. It's a standard joke, it's a more complex I simplified it. It's like this: a guy comes to a cafeteria and says, 'coffee but without cream please.' And the waiter says, 'sorry sir we don't have cream, we only have milk. So I cannot really give you coffee without cream, I can only give you coffee without milk.' So you see the paradox. Literally, in this fetishist identity, you get the same coffee. But the Hegelian lesson is: if it's coffee without milk, it's not the same as coffee without cream. And this is for example the problem of universality. Here I agree with those critics of Eurocentrism: yes, a universal man, but the overcoming, you know, it's one thing to be universal by overcoming just our European identity or to be universal also by overcoming another identity. You can be universal in different modes. And I admire here my other hero is Toussaint Louverture, you know Haiti Revolution. They did something wonderful: in they established finally the black state and they wrote the Constitution. And they had a problem, because they wanted to be a black republic but at the same time they had to—they were honest enough to admit that many white people, especially Polish soldiers from Napoleon's army, joined their side. And they wanted also to give them the right to be full Haiti citizens. So you have a wonderful paradox. Article of Haiti Constitution from 'Haiti is a black republic. All citizens of Haiti, independently of the color of their skin, are black.' This is what we should do. Because our liberals when they want to help the blacks, implicitly they are saying, 'You know, even if you are black but if you behave well you will be really white like us.' You see the point, how it's you see the similarity with this Ninotchka joke and so on and so on, no? That coffee without milk is not the same as coffee without and so on and so on. And it is here that—if I began let me just conclude with my favorite topic which always fascinates me. Just we spoke about and that's the where the true struggle against racism functions. Let's call it micro-politics of racism. No—nobody is today a big racist, almost nobody. Okay, no you say 'oh I like blacks, I like Arabs,' but—and there are some details usually, no? Like the standard liberal idea of many of my friends is: 'oh it's a shame what we white people do did to the blacks and so on, but nonetheless...' and then you begin: 'their food smells strange, their music is too loud,' and so on, you know. All these details. So what fascinates me absolutely, and that's what Hegel called 'sittliche Substanz,' this should be the state the place of fight, is, you know, the paradox is the following one. In every society we have of course certain rules which regulate interaction specific cultural rules and so on and so on. But it's not just like that. Did you notice how always you have, let's call them meta-rules, which tell you how you should take the explicit rules? Because that's the elementary structure of every culture. There are certain thing which are prohibited but in reality you are silently even solicited to do them. You know, like most of the sexual prohibitions in patriarchal societies works like this, you know: father tells you 'beware of the girls' and then secretly 'heh did you already do it' or whatever. So again it's a prohibition but you are silently... but a much more interesting phenomenon is the opposite one, where there are things which you have you are allowed, permitted, even solicited to do them, but on condition that you don't use that right. You know, like formally you... and at this level of, like, wasn't the whole problem with emancipation of the black, that they were given citizenship right on condition that they don't use it, still 1960s, '70s and so on and so on. So you see this is how I read Freud's great motto from Interpretation of Dreams, 'Traumdeutung': 'Acheronta movebo,' move the underground. It's not so much important to change the explicit rules, but to change this invisible texture which tells you how to use these rules. So don't kill me. I, you must be tired. Sit down calmly for I promise two, three minutes, just to tell you some wonderful from my own practice just two, three examples of how this works. Imagine—it's my dream—imagine that we are in Soviet Union in '35, this is the Central Committee, I'm Comrade Stalin. I give a speech, then of course you applaud for minutes, that's another story. And then there is a debate. And then one of you is stupid enough to stand up and attack me. Okay, next day the question will be who was the last one who saw you alive, of course no? But then imagine something else: that another person stands up and starts to shout at the first person: 'Are you crazy? How dare you attack Comrade Stalin? Don't you know that we don't do this here?' I claim he would have been arrested even faster. You know what’s the paradox? It was prohibited to criticize Stalin, of course. But it was even more prohibited to publicly announce this prohibition. That was the whole... and this is what fascinates me, this structure which is not necessarily an an a-an oppressive structure. It is more complex. Look what happened to me with my theoretical opponent personally good friend Judith Butler. Once I was tasteless towards her and used in my style some dirty words and so on. So I felt bad and I called her later on phone and call 'listen Judith I'm very sorry' and so on. Okay, it was no problem. She is a nice lady, she said 'Slavoj'—although it was a little bit ambiguous—she said 'we all know how you are so [laughter] no problem you don't have to...' But then 'you don't owe me any apology,' no? But then with my evil mind my immediate reaction was to tell her: 'okay if I don't owe it to you then I take it back.' Because namely, you see the refined paradox I'm mentioning. How does really an apology function? If I apologize to you, the only way for you to really accept the apology is to say it wasn't necessary. If you say 'my God I deserved it,' it means you don't really pardon me. You see this beautiful paradox of: you do something and you succeed in what you wanted to do precisely when it is proclaimed superfluous. And I think all erotics works like this. That's my second example. Did you see a shitty movie, it's a little bit boring but not so bad, with Ewan McGregor when she was he was still a working class hero before he become Jedi or whatever, Brassed Off, a British movie about striker? There is a wonderful [scene] then: he accompanies a girl to her house. Very Hegelian point of dialogue. And there they are already flirting, the girl tells him: 'Would you mind to go out to my apartment to drink some coffee?' He says, 'Yeah, but there's a problem I don't drink coffee.' And she said, 'No problem I don't have any.' Can you imagine a more erotically provocative invitation? But you know what's the problem? The problem is that the moment it must remain implicit. The moment you mention sex, everything would have been ruined. Like if she says: 'Listen I just want you to fuck my brain out, who cares about coffee?' It's ruined everything. That elegance—that elegance fascinated me how again: you do something and you proclaim it superfluous. Or a class—another classical example that I know. No, it happened to me really with a black friend of mine. I don't want to—he's a great academic name—I don't want to embarrass him, only for this reason I will not say his name. I was in my usual evil extreme bad taste mood, so I told him: 'Is it true, sorry, is it true that you black people not only have penises like this, but that you even can move them freely?' 'So if you walk naked and you have a fly here, bump, you can do it, no?' It worked. He embraced me and he told me: 'Now you can call me nigger.' But you know, this meant 'you are really one of us,' because you know try to call them nigger if you are not one of them, you know. But then when I told this story to other friends they told me: 'but you didn't get the point. It wasn't meant that you really will call him nigger.' And I said 'but that's the whole point.' Of course he didn't mean now you just shout nigger, nigger and so on. It was strictly an offer to be rejected, you know. Like it wasn't meant you really do it, it was just a kind of a very gentle sign of like: 'we are we are really close' or whatever at this level, you know. And the very last story, it you get this mechanism at its purest. I have a photocopy of this document at home. When I was young, a friend of mine, this was mid-1970s, we still have obligatory military service in ex-Yugoslavia. I don't know how it is here. Okay, you don't have obligatory military service. But in ex-Yugoslavia, you know, for one week you get some preliminary training then the big event happens, you know: like all soldiers are gathered, then publicly you recited 'me'—you say your name—'I'm ready to give my life to protect my...' and then you are a full soldier. After that there is a big like rich book you have to sign your name. A friend of mine did an incredible thing. When it came to him he said: 'Is it a free choice or do you order me to sign my name?' The officer said: 'My God, this is an oath, you cannot be forced to take an oath. It's free you do it freely.' Okay, my friend said, 'Then I don't sign it.' The officer said: 'Are you crazy, you will be put in prison,' and so on. Okay, so after long negotiation my friend—and that’s the historical document—got a paper where the officer wrote: 'I officer blah-blah formally order this soldier to freely sign the oath.' And I don't think this is some dark totalitarian mechanism. Our social link at some most elementary level always works like that. And you see here in all these paradoxes of: you say something but how are you to take it? Or a classical example, I don't know how you have it here, but I think it's similar like with us. Let's say I'm poor and you evil guy who will interrupt me, you are rich. You invite me to dinner out. We know in advance you will pay. But do you have here also this ritual that when the bill arrives we have to play this game: 'no, no I will,' and so on, no? Once just to annoy a friend of mine, my God, I had the deepest sadistic pleasure. After my friend said, 'No, no, I will pay,' I say, 'Okay, pay it,' you know. But what I'm saying is that you see the elegance. We both know that this is in a way a hypocritical play. But again but it's not hypocritical really. It establishes an authentic social link. Okay, as they say—did you read when you were young those German kitsch novels Karl May, Winnetou? Yes. And there Indians said 'Ich habe gesprochen'—How? So I say this and I finish. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Okay, who cares about half an hour among friends, you know, yeah. Just before and whether I should say the staff have to come in and clean up and I think that’s one trope and metaphor that we can use. In Europe among fake leftists this is popular. They say what about poor cleaning ladies who are not paid overtime, you know. I could also come in and say we have a better event coming up right now at so some of the people leaving right now hope you had better places to go, television to watch, I hope you took notes what movies to see. But who actually watches TV? In my country we download all the time and who... It’s all one big country by now. It’s yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. To this... so I thought I’d start... Inclusive, I hope you include in this one big country North Korea. They have everything downloaded already. They... It’s... to provoke my friends I said, you know, Shangri-La from Lost Horizon. North Korea is Shangri-La for me. So I thought I’d ask one question and then sort of to mix the you had very pragmatic suggestions of what Europe should do right now. Oh also, yeah. I’ll ask and then I’ll open it up and I’ll gather some of the questions, you have to be very brief and concise. Yeah, because the cleaning ladies are waiting, yeah, yeah. So let’s say we see a tomorrow where some of your recommendations are implemented, Europe has a very alienated and deficient way of dealing with the refugees. Are they war or are they economic? No, the actually I want to make a different point. It is not a debate right now about economic refugees from other parts of the world and that distinction in your suggestion that Europe has to actually produce a way of thinking about this, how do you make this distinction between a war refugee versus an economic refugee who seem to be at this moment being discussed in different ways, in ways that you’ve been describing that European liberals and far right-wingers will make those distinctions, they will coincide that these people deserve it and these people deserve it a little less, but living a good life is not as good as escaping violence. So how would you sort of address that fact that is being actively... I will give you a horrible answer. Go ahead, yes. Again an ultra, and people think that as a Hegelian I only like some extreme intellectual plays. That this I consider this basically a pragmatic problem where you have to find a kind of a compromise solution when there is a formula. What I don’t buy is this, I claim pseudo-radical left solution: 'no, we don’t have the right to draw any distinctions, open the borders, everyone should come' and so on and so on. Because the hypocrisy is this, I claim that all pseudo-radical leftists who advocate this, they know very well that it will not happen. What they are worried about is their own moral superiority. No, in a... but don’t you see? Okay, do you have—now I’m not bluffing, sincerely ask you—I don’t think there is a simple a priori solution here. You have to be very pragmatic and say, I know this sounds brutal, cruel, but is there any other solution than to say: wait a minute, it’s brutal but we have to establish some criterion, of course not racist one, not religious but, let's be vulgar, the level of suffering or what who can come? Well and we have to be honest about the criteria. You brought up Toussaint Louverture, this country had a policy about Cuban versus Haitian refugees, treated very, very differently, there’s always been made a distinction. And so this for me, Haiti, was really that you brought up Haiti which had a very radical idea to think everybody is black regardless of whether they are black or not. Yeah, but this meant everybody can come there, but you know what’s the problem? They knew very well that the problem is that nobody wants to come there, you know. Like to be cynical, you know, it’s easy to be like Stalin also always called working-class people to come to Soviet Union because... I kind of wanted to just to sort of listen to you, sort of you want to shift a certain line, one that has regulated speech in certain ways and push it very far and say there’s obscenity, there are jokes, that this line has been drawn too closely and other lines and then you said that we have to draw other lines, we have to make very clear distinctions. You’re saying on the one hand this discourse cannot be determined and policed like this, but other discourses are not sufficiently regulated right now, that there’s a kind of vagueness about anybody could come in, he said no there’s very specific for instance. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to open it up? No, what... sorry just to... I will be very short. No, my point I agree with you, my point was not we need more opening or more closure, but very specific as you said nicely. There are... No, my point would be more this one that often we get caught in abstract problems, but when you look at it, for example, people often tell me 'but how do you know that if you say that dirty joke that you are not really perceived as racist, the obscenities, no, that I gave?' I claim no, in actual life situation you always know perfectly well, are you violating, is it racism or not? I don’t... if anything there is much more racism and although I have many English friends, would you agree let’s now target on a common enemy, you know, not that you but the British, no? You know what worries me much more, English men from my experience, maybe also Japanese know the same, are masters of being extremely aggressive and humiliating but in the form of extreme politeness. Oh absolutely, yes. This is a much more dangerous thing. It’s a much more powerful thing. Powerful even, yeah. Absolutely, yes. Well, it’s yeah, it’s a kind of Oscar Wildean way of being in the world. Sorry? Oscar Wilde is sort of the epitome... although can you imagine I my favorite, one of my favorite papers on socialism and communism, it’s still you remember the first paragraph of the Oscar Wilde text on socialism where he basically says: 'I want socialism so that I will not have to feel sorry and to help the poor and so on and so on.' It’s so wonder... I mean all don't understand and there’s an irony that would be worth talking with you about at a later time, and then Oscar Wilde is put on trial for words and goes to prison for obscenity. In some ways he pushes dialogue in a... so you push the conversation in a certain area of what you’re trying to do and then at the same time it gets shut down in another place. We can talk... Yeah, but you know what is the saddest thing, I read books about that, is that what really because in spite of his dandyism and so on, he was, my god this will sound so patronizing but, he was really open towards ordinary poor people. And what really I read this in a biography of Oscar Wilde, what really hurt him was the total lack of sympathy in his predicament with from ordinary working class people. They dismissed him simply as an upper-class decadent and so on and so on. This hurt him very much. Should we open it up to questions... But please just two things, a democratic debate, which means as a good Stalinist: did you distribute the questions already and now? And second thing, we have now a dialogue, but remember I am a Platonist and I like, if you know Plato, you know how do they look, the last Plato dialogues: one guy talks all the time, the other guy only says every minutes like 'yes Socrates by Zeus you are right.' Let’s have this type of dialogue, yeah. Sure, so I’ll be the ephebe to Socrates, okay. Okay. No, fuck you I’m Socrates, you just say 'by Zeus you are right' and so on. So anybody would venture into this agora forum? I will ask you something else listening to you since no one is volunteering right now. You’re such a deep romantic about the erotic, about the possibility of the unsaid and the unspoken, and I’m always interested that you keep that space as and it makes me think of... since we’re in Washington, politics. Hannah Arendt once said that love between two people is the apolitical space in the world because it’s worldless, it’s the end of world as a communal space. And when I listen to you when you do the examples you always call it the erotic and I think it also is romantic and it... First I agree with her that I don’t believe... First I’m totally opposed to that stupid psycho-Marxist leftist dream: in communism sex and work and politics everything will be the same. That’s not your position now. Absolutely not. You know which is my ideal and I’ve written about it: love. Now that they opened up a little bit Russian archives, it’s proven that Lenin did have an affair with Inessa Armand. It was done, first Lenin—it was a passionate affair. There is a photo which was of course censored in Stalinist era where you see Lenin at her, Inessa’s funeral. He is totally obviously totally broken down, that was his end. But what I like, you know what’s my basic notion of true love? Like,
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let’s say we fight for a cause, whatever is your cause,
let’s say we fight for a cause, whatever is your cause,
Slavoj Žižek
communism, whatever, whatever. True love does not mean I have a love partner and I prefer her. No, you always have if there is a
communism, whatever, whatever. True love does not mean I have a love partner and I prefer her. No, you always have if there is a
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choice pre—you have to choose the public cause, science, work, whatever. You don’t gain respect in love by... that’s the
choice pre—you have to choose the public cause, science, work, whatever. You don’t gain respect in love by... that’s the
Slavoj Žižek
paradox of love. The message to the man or woman should be: 'you mean everything to me but I
paradox of love. The message to the man or woman should be: 'you mean everything to me but I
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don’t want to ruin it by sacrificing
don’t want to ruin it by sacrificing
Slavoj Žižek
my life totally for you.' For me the idea, and this is what for
my life totally for you.' For me the idea, and this is what for
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example Lenin and
example Lenin and
Slavoj Žižek
Inessa Armand did, it was everybody knew it but just talked it, but you know like they worked like crazy for
Inessa Armand did, it was everybody knew it but just talked it, but you know like they worked like crazy for
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the revolution, but the love was outside it as some kind of absolute point. This is why the example that I usually give is Marguerite Duras novels. Yeah. Where there, I
the revolution, but the love was outside it as some kind of absolute point. This is why the example that I usually give is Marguerite Duras novels. Yeah. Where there, I
Slavoj Žižek
hate this Tristan and Isolde bullshit, you know, the two
hate this Tristan and Isolde bullshit, you know, the two
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lovers let’s immerse in the night of love and so on. No, love, true love for me is not just dirty things that happen during the night, but as my friend Alain Badiou likes
lovers let’s immerse in the night of love and so on. No, love, true love for me is not just dirty things that happen during the night, but as my friend Alain Badiou likes
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to say, how you build a world out of it, how you restructure your life out of it. And here I agree with you, it’s not so much romanticism, but I don’t like what is happening today. We apparently live in a permissive times, but not quite. I claim our spontaneous ideology is some kind of hedonist Buddhism. You know like: be truly yourself, realize your potentials, but don’t too much, as they like to say this Jedi wisdom, 'don’t get too much attached to any object' and so on, you know. And no,
to say, how you build a world out of it, how you restructure your life out of it. And here I agree with you, it’s not so much romanticism, but I don’t like what is happening today. We apparently live in a permissive times, but not quite. I claim our spontaneous ideology is some kind of hedonist Buddhism. You know like: be truly yourself, realize your potentials, but don’t too much, as they like to say this Jedi wisdom, 'don’t get too much attached to any object' and so on, you know. And no,
Slavoj Žižek
for me love doesn’t function like that and this is why today like if love is too passionate, it’s almost perceived as something as something obscene, prohibited, this type. We don’t really... Alain Badiou says true love reconstructs—it’s a revolutionary new world. So the other example I would say is Gilles Deleuze says when Angela Davis is on trial they say 'this is a woman in love.' Yeah, yeah. And said 'it’s a revolutionary world that comes out of that.' So it’s not a world that we know, you love and you keep on recreating the same world again, so this... this is what I meant by the romantic part of you. But all, yeah I agree with you, but also what I want to emphasize is this one that here, although I have other problems with Hannah Arendt, but here I agree totally with her that love should be kept apart is an exception. It’s not that, you know, I hate again this idea... Let me ask you another... The Supreme Court of this country
for me love doesn’t function like that and this is why today like if love is too passionate, it’s almost perceived as something as something obscene, prohibited, this type. We don’t really... Alain Badiou says true love reconstructs—it’s a revolutionary new world. So the other example I would say is Gilles Deleuze says when Angela Davis is on trial they say 'this is a woman in love.' Yeah, yeah. And said 'it’s a revolutionary world that comes out of that.' So it’s not a world that we know, you love and you keep on recreating the same world again, so this... this is what I meant by the romantic part of you. But all, yeah I agree with you, but also what I want to emphasize is this one that here, although I have other problems with Hannah Arendt, but here I agree totally with her that love should be kept apart is an exception. It’s not that, you know, I hate again this idea... Let me ask you another... The Supreme Court of this country
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decided that same-sex marriage is legal. Hannah Arendt would have said no love could have been legislated at all point. She said one of the greatest scandals in this country was that miscegenation was not legal until Loving v. Virginia. She said that should never be regulated politically at all, and in a weird way she would have probably not
decided that same-sex marriage is legal. Hannah Arendt would have said no love could have been legislated at all point. She said one of the greatest scandals in this country was that miscegenation was not legal until Loving v. Virginia. She said that should never be regulated politically at all, and in a weird way she would have probably not
Slavoj Žižek
been totally in favor of legislating what marriage could be. She said that should be out of the realm of politics altogether. But what does it mean? It means... But if you are a normal so-called heterosexual couple then it’s still
been totally in favor of legislating what marriage could be. She said that should be out of the realm of politics altogether. But what does it mean? It means... But if you are a normal so-called heterosexual couple then it’s still
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legislated at what point... Well, it’s the question of equality but she said but it should ultimately probably not be decided by the state at all. Oh. I am here... that's interesting because I am here much more, again you would say romantic. In what sense? I am well aware all those Marxist stuff
legislated at what point... Well, it’s the question of equality but she said but it should ultimately probably not be decided by the state at all. Oh. I am here... that's interesting because I am here much more, again you would say romantic. In what sense? I am well aware all those Marxist stuff
Slavoj Žižek
that marriage is not just love, marriage resolves the problem of inheriting property, all that. But precisely today when for the great majority of people the what is at stake is not property. What I the beauty of marriage for you for me is: two people declare publicly, 'fuck you, we ultimately don't care, fuck off,' you know like, 'we have our space, you are out.' It's a beautiful public act. And this is the marriage vow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a question or comment? Go ahead. I’m curious about... oh, thank you. Hi, I’m curious about navigating the tension between defending Europe but simultaneously resisting this like imperial universalism. Um, and in that way is this a defense of this void as such, like when you mentioned Malcolm X, the X as the placeholder for this past, how are we... Sorry,
that marriage is not just love, marriage resolves the problem of inheriting property, all that. But precisely today when for the great majority of people the what is at stake is not property. What I the beauty of marriage for you for me is: two people declare publicly, 'fuck you, we ultimately don't care, fuck off,' you know like, 'we have our space, you are out.' It's a beautiful public act. And this is the marriage vow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have a question or comment? Go ahead. I’m curious about... oh, thank you. Hi, I’m curious about navigating the tension between defending Europe but simultaneously resisting this like imperial universalism. Um, and in that way is this a defense of this void as such, like when you mentioned Malcolm X, the X as the placeholder for this past, how are we... Sorry,
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explain:
explain:
Slavoj Žižek
what do you mean by imperial universalism? When you were discussing—I mean, like using having a sort of a charade of universalism that is in fact just from what you were talking about this more Eurocentric patronizing view. What I see is this tension between defense, this provocation that you made the defense of Europe and its promise and then this condescension
what do you mean by imperial universalism? When you were discussing—I mean, like using having a sort of a charade of universalism that is in fact just from what you were talking about this more Eurocentric patronizing view. What I see is this tension between defense, this provocation that you made the defense of Europe and its promise and then this condescension
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of the universal view of Europe, like how to navigate that. Okay, first thing I would say is that the big question is again: I didn't just try to squeeze out, what do you really mean by universalism? The first lesson of Marx, and it's absolutely
of the universal view of Europe, like how to navigate that. Okay, first thing I would say is that the big question is again: I didn't just try to squeeze out, what do you really mean by universalism? The first lesson of Marx, and it's absolutely
Slavoj Žižek
crucial and still actual today. You know, Marx is not just a historicist who says 'every universality is false, it's like human rights appear to be human rights but in reality are the rights of white...' Marx was a good Hegelian and a good Hegelian means a good formalist. The Marxist idea of human rights is not they are falsely universal, but of course they are, but precisely because of this false form, a certain gap opens up. It's true, it began with human rights which clearly privileged white men of property. But then it started. Mary Wollstonecraft: 'why not also us, women?' Blacks in Haiti, workers, prisoners, and so on. So in this opposition between form and content, a true Hegelian and Marxist is never simply
crucial and still actual today. You know, Marx is not just a historicist who says 'every universality is false, it's like human rights appear to be human rights but in reality are the rights of white...' Marx was a good Hegelian and a good Hegelian means a good formalist. The Marxist idea of human rights is not they are falsely universal, but of course they are, but precisely because of this false form, a certain gap opens up. It's true, it began with human rights which clearly privileged white men of property. But then it started. Mary Wollstonecraft: 'why not also us, women?' Blacks in Haiti, workers, prisoners, and so on. So in this opposition between form and content, a true Hegelian and Marxist is never simply
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at the at the level of content, like 'this is
at the at the level of content, like 'this is
Slavoj Žižek
just formal democracy.' No, form matters. The second thing I would say is that the key point of Marx is this one: that in today's global market,
just formal democracy.' No, form matters. The second thing I would say is that the key point of Marx is this one: that in today's global market,
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universality is a fact. We all do live in universality. Let me take an example that I like: let's say you are a German merchant, I'm a Chinese. You don't know a shit about my culture, I don't know a shit about your culture. So we negotiate. Of course from a cultural standpoint you can say maybe words meant something totally different to you or me, but at the social level our exchange was a universal act. And it doesn't... the truth is not in what how you understood words exchange money. The truth is that they act... You know
universality is a fact. We all do live in universality. Let me take an example that I like: let's say you are a German merchant, I'm a Chinese. You don't know a shit about my culture, I don't know a shit about your culture. So we negotiate. Of course from a cultural standpoint you can say maybe words meant something totally different to you or me, but at the social level our exchange was a universal act. And it doesn't... the truth is not in what how you understood words exchange money. The truth is that they act... You know
Slavoj Žižek
for Marx the the universal of commodities is objectively universal. And that's where Marx introduces another crucial Hegelian category which is the one
for Marx the the universal of commodities is objectively universal. And that's where Marx introduces another crucial Hegelian category which is the one
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of universality
of universality
Slavoj Žižek
for itself. Which means for Marx universality is not just 'I am also universal,' but 'I in my concrete existence experience myself as at a distance from all concrete determinations and so on.' Like when Marx says only in modern capitalist society a worker becomes a universal worker. Why? Because you experience the fact that you are an artisan, farmer, publicity manager as something ultimately contingent. You are none of that. So we should never also forget this aspect. And here that's why I mentioned also Malcolm X and so on. My argument would be this one. I still remember—I'm unfortunately old enough—the battle for apartheid in South—against apartheid... heh, what a Freudian slip... in South Africa. You know who was for 'we blacks should retain our identity'? Buthelezi, the Zulu king who was on the payroll of of the apartheid regime. And you know I did some very nasty thing at that point. I got a book booklet—I bought it in London on Trafalgar Square, there was some embassy or whatever of South Africa and they were distributing—which defended apartheid. But you know in what terms? Of course it was hypocrisy but it was typical. They said: 'but if we simply give the same rights to Zulus and who are those Hottentots Bushman? But these are wonderful culture with their own authentic world view, they will all become vulgar people obsessed with wealth,' you know like, if you read their justification of apartheid it's really just like today’s... and the greatness of Mandela with all problems that are there is that African National Congress always rejected this, you know, return to authentic roots line. They always insisted on universalism. You’re saying two things in this question, that universalism is a fact today, everybody lives that already, and that Marx gave us the way to say this small gap between the form and content actually
for itself. Which means for Marx universality is not just 'I am also universal,' but 'I in my concrete existence experience myself as at a distance from all concrete determinations and so on.' Like when Marx says only in modern capitalist society a worker becomes a universal worker. Why? Because you experience the fact that you are an artisan, farmer, publicity manager as something ultimately contingent. You are none of that. So we should never also forget this aspect. And here that's why I mentioned also Malcolm X and so on. My argument would be this one. I still remember—I'm unfortunately old enough—the battle for apartheid in South—against apartheid... heh, what a Freudian slip... in South Africa. You know who was for 'we blacks should retain our identity'? Buthelezi, the Zulu king who was on the payroll of of the apartheid regime. And you know I did some very nasty thing at that point. I got a book booklet—I bought it in London on Trafalgar Square, there was some embassy or whatever of South Africa and they were distributing—which defended apartheid. But you know in what terms? Of course it was hypocrisy but it was typical. They said: 'but if we simply give the same rights to Zulus and who are those Hottentots Bushman? But these are wonderful culture with their own authentic world view, they will all become vulgar people obsessed with wealth,' you know like, if you read their justification of apartheid it's really just like today’s... and the greatness of Mandela with all problems that are there is that African National Congress always rejected this, you know, return to authentic roots line. They always insisted on universalism. You’re saying two things in this question, that universalism is a fact today, everybody lives that already, and that Marx gave us the way to say this small gap between the form and content actually
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that there’s a potential to activate that alienation. That you actually embrace that and not close it in the name of... And again Marx was not dreaming... like modern feminism. Which is why and here I deeply agree with
that there’s a potential to activate that alienation. That you actually embrace that and not close it in the name of... And again Marx was not dreaming... like modern feminism. Which is why and here I deeply agree with
Slavoj Žižek
Judith Butler, here we are the same. When I told her that, are you aware that your type of subjectivity—this is why and I agree with her here, she refuses the term 'I am not a feminist,' she says. My idea is this like that
Judith Butler, here we are the same. When I told her that, are you aware that your type of subjectivity—this is why and I agree with her here, she refuses the term 'I am not a feminist,' she says. My idea is this like that
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our sexual identity is plastic, reconstructed through... and I told her, but you are a Cartesian here. Because you your subject is a kind of a void with infinite ability to reconstruct its identity. And I think this should be the path of whatever you call it post-feminism. The most dangerous pseudo-feminism for me is the feminism of: 'but there are some specific feminine identity values.' Okay, this has a certain let's call it strategic
our sexual identity is plastic, reconstructed through... and I told her, but you are a Cartesian here. Because you your subject is a kind of a void with infinite ability to reconstruct its identity. And I think this should be the path of whatever you call it post-feminism. The most dangerous pseudo-feminism for me is the feminism of: 'but there are some specific feminine identity values.' Okay, this has a certain let's call it strategic
Slavoj Žižek
weight. Of course, I follow here Virginia Woolf, you know, how the strategy the
weight. Of course, I follow here Virginia Woolf, you know, how the strategy the
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strategy of feminist struggle should not be only 'we women should have all
strategy of feminist struggle should not be only 'we women should have all
Slavoj Žižek
the rights all to become what men are' but also that we should change the very ladder or how do you call it the system of values so that jobs which are considered of lesser importance because feminine all this should be done. But I claim and that's why I'm Cartesian: Descartes opened—you know, it's so interesting to read here history of philosophy. You know that already in Descartes' time he was incredibly popular by women? Okay, there is a class dimension by rich women but they liked this, they said 'Cogito, cogito doesn't have a sex.' It's
the rights all to become what men are' but also that we should change the very ladder or how do you call it the system of values so that jobs which are considered of lesser importance because feminine all this should be done. But I claim and that's why I'm Cartesian: Descartes opened—you know, it's so interesting to read here history of philosophy. You know that already in Descartes' time he was incredibly popular by women? Okay, there is a class dimension by rich women but they liked this, they said 'Cogito, cogito doesn't have a sex.' It's
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neutral, we can all... and you know
neutral, we can all... and you know
Slavoj Žižek
that
that
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I quote it in my big fat Hegel book, I forgot the name, there was some Jesuit guy who was the first feminist Cartesian who already took this line. So it's not just that Descartes was a feminist because the Queen Christina of Sweden and all that stuff. There was a genuine you know in this idea
I quote it in my big fat Hegel book, I forgot the name, there was some Jesuit guy who was the first feminist Cartesian who already took this line. So it's not just that Descartes was a feminist because the Queen Christina of Sweden and all that stuff. There was a genuine you know in this idea
Slavoj Žižek
of emptying subjectivity, of desexualizing even subjectivity,
of emptying subjectivity, of desexualizing even subjectivity,
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you know, of freeing subjectivity from all this polarity masculine feminine. Which is why I wonder if you would agree: there is a certain fashion lately in rehabilitating the oppressed feminine side of Christianity, like Da Vinci Code, you know, 'oh but Jesus was screwing Mary Magdalene feminine principle.' I think this is not the path of feminism. This is a return to traditional
you know, of freeing subjectivity from all this polarity masculine feminine. Which is why I wonder if you would agree: there is a certain fashion lately in rehabilitating the oppressed feminine side of Christianity, like Da Vinci Code, you know, 'oh but Jesus was screwing Mary Magdalene feminine principle.' I think this is not the path of feminism. This is a return to traditional
Slavoj Žižek
hierarchy when you have, you know, masculine and feminine principle and then as if by chance masculine principle is active, feminine principle is passive, masculine principle is light, feminine principle is darkness and so on. That's why I never agreed with all respect with your Vice President Al Gore who is unfortunately one of these among the gang of people who claim Descartes is the origin of evil. My only great appreciation of Al Gore after losing that Florida stuff election, no? He did something wonderful, I have a friend who was in one of his... you know how he for some time presented himself? 'I'm the guy who once was the future president of the United States.' It's I can develop the whole theory of Hegelian temporality here. I think we can take one more question. Um, there was one in the front there, yeah go ahead. But I notice that typically you prefer the right side. This is noted by... [laughter] I noticed like you have to know my position like I'm like a big fan of like Sergei Parajanov who... who? Sergei Parajanov. Parajanov. Ah, the director! Yes, yeah because he believed... he believed like universality and he believed like every culture every language every area identity has a right in like a major one big one big like a place in the world. But are all the same, because everyone, even Hitler would have agreed with that. Right. Integration. Yeah, and you said you know like for example like we should we should keep distance and we should keep like a stationary dynamism with like for example like inside Europe with immigrants. Don’t you think if we alienate for example inside the European society immigrants and for example like Europeans as well it’s gonna like keep like maybe create the ground for more radicalization and give grounds for like I call like a Dostoevsky’s religious nationalists. I see your point, it’s a very good question. But let me tell you what I meant, maybe again, I agree, I was so much caught in these stupid jokes and improvising, I wasn’t clear enough. I’m not saying we should each withdraw into our particular identity. What I’m saying is that we should not change this urge to know the other into a kind of what in psychoanalysis we call super-ego, Über-Ich injunction, like: 'oh you know this is what bothers me in political correctness.' You have this infinite guilt, like for example I use the word black but should I use the word African-American, but then my god what if they are not from Africa and so on, you know. And there is such a pleasure with politically correct film to discover 'no I was still guilty oh my god you know I was still...' I think that there is no it’s not that let’s just be racist but I’m saying there is something profoundly false in this eternal self-culpabilization. And I will tell you at what level. I and it will also be the answer to your other point. Did you notice how I noted this hypocrisy of some multicultural
hierarchy when you have, you know, masculine and feminine principle and then as if by chance masculine principle is active, feminine principle is passive, masculine principle is light, feminine principle is darkness and so on. That's why I never agreed with all respect with your Vice President Al Gore who is unfortunately one of these among the gang of people who claim Descartes is the origin of evil. My only great appreciation of Al Gore after losing that Florida stuff election, no? He did something wonderful, I have a friend who was in one of his... you know how he for some time presented himself? 'I'm the guy who once was the future president of the United States.' It's I can develop the whole theory of Hegelian temporality here. I think we can take one more question. Um, there was one in the front there, yeah go ahead. But I notice that typically you prefer the right side. This is noted by... [laughter] I noticed like you have to know my position like I'm like a big fan of like Sergei Parajanov who... who? Sergei Parajanov. Parajanov. Ah, the director! Yes, yeah because he believed... he believed like universality and he believed like every culture every language every area identity has a right in like a major one big one big like a place in the world. But are all the same, because everyone, even Hitler would have agreed with that. Right. Integration. Yeah, and you said you know like for example like we should we should keep distance and we should keep like a stationary dynamism with like for example like inside Europe with immigrants. Don’t you think if we alienate for example inside the European society immigrants and for example like Europeans as well it’s gonna like keep like maybe create the ground for more radicalization and give grounds for like I call like a Dostoevsky’s religious nationalists. I see your point, it’s a very good question. But let me tell you what I meant, maybe again, I agree, I was so much caught in these stupid jokes and improvising, I wasn’t clear enough. I’m not saying we should each withdraw into our particular identity. What I’m saying is that we should not change this urge to know the other into a kind of what in psychoanalysis we call super-ego, Über-Ich injunction, like: 'oh you know this is what bothers me in political correctness.' You have this infinite guilt, like for example I use the word black but should I use the word African-American, but then my god what if they are not from Africa and so on, you know. And there is such a pleasure with politically correct film to discover 'no I was still guilty oh my god you know I was still...' I think that there is no it’s not that let’s just be racist but I’m saying there is something profoundly false in this eternal self-culpabilization. And I will tell you at what level. I and it will also be the answer to your other point. Did you notice how I noted this hypocrisy of some multicultural
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white liberals who you have a certain hierarchy: people who are far away, they have the full right to assert their specific cultural identity. If Native Americans do it, yoohoo perfect.
white liberals who you have a certain hierarchy: people who are far away, they have the full right to assert their specific cultural identity. If Native Americans do it, yoohoo perfect.
Slavoj Žižek
Blacks, yes, okay. Then you know Italians so-so. Germans uh-uh. If I am an WASP, white Anglo-Saxon, and say we need to protect our culture, I am a fascist practically and so on. Now I am not saying that this is not true, I’m not a total idiot because of relations of power and so on, of course it’s not the same for me to say it or for Native American or black. But what I I noticed is that there is an implicit racism in it in this sense that like: those others further from us are allowed to assert their particular identity and we are not. But this self-humiliation is a false one. At the same time it privileges us as the only truly universal ones, you know. I don't have the right to assert my white culture. Why? Because I'm really universal above it all... Let me take you back to this question here, a very specific question. Does the kind of acceptance of refugees into Europe ultimately becomes a breeding ground for radicalism? Rephrase your question about their radical... No, no my question was the opposite like you said like we should maintain like distance you know we should like keep like... No I would rather say we should not feel guilty about the distance. Yes, immigrants and you should kept like our own European mentality and let them their own. But my question is like if you make like a distinguish between them and make like a borders and lines between us then them what’s by European and immigrants like don’t you like promote like more radicalization, more segregation inside the European society because they don’t become part of like a European society, part of European... Okay, my counterpoint would be here: I fear much more a kind of a enforced universalization in the sense of 'but we are all part of some great spiritual unity.' Because when you look closely at that unity, you will see that it secretly always privileges privileges some part of it, you know. That's that's my problem. And again my point is not let's keep let's keep a distance. My point is this one, now we come finally after all the to the properly philosophical point. It's although I'm a materialist but I define myself as a materialist Christian. I don't have time buy my next
Blacks, yes, okay. Then you know Italians so-so. Germans uh-uh. If I am an WASP, white Anglo-Saxon, and say we need to protect our culture, I am a fascist practically and so on. Now I am not saying that this is not true, I’m not a total idiot because of relations of power and so on, of course it’s not the same for me to say it or for Native American or black. But what I I noticed is that there is an implicit racism in it in this sense that like: those others further from us are allowed to assert their particular identity and we are not. But this self-humiliation is a false one. At the same time it privileges us as the only truly universal ones, you know. I don't have the right to assert my white culture. Why? Because I'm really universal above it all... Let me take you back to this question here, a very specific question. Does the kind of acceptance of refugees into Europe ultimately becomes a breeding ground for radicalism? Rephrase your question about their radical... No, no my question was the opposite like you said like we should maintain like distance you know we should like keep like... No I would rather say we should not feel guilty about the distance. Yes, immigrants and you should kept like our own European mentality and let them their own. But my question is like if you make like a distinguish between them and make like a borders and lines between us then them what’s by European and immigrants like don’t you like promote like more radicalization, more segregation inside the European society because they don’t become part of like a European society, part of European... Okay, my counterpoint would be here: I fear much more a kind of a enforced universalization in the sense of 'but we are all part of some great spiritual unity.' Because when you look closely at that unity, you will see that it secretly always privileges privileges some part of it, you know. That's that's my problem. And again my point is not let's keep let's keep a distance. My point is this one, now we come finally after all the to the properly philosophical point. It's although I'm a materialist but I define myself as a materialist Christian. I don't have time buy my next
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book
book
Slavoj Žižek
to explain why. Crucial here is the notion of neighbor. You know that the Judeo—Judeo-Christian
to explain why. Crucial here is the notion of neighbor. You know that the Judeo—Judeo-Christian
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and also in Islam you find trace notion of neighbor is something extremely interesting. If you read it closely, neighbor is not simply a fellow man, the one who is like me. Neighbor is precisely the other in its monstrous abyss. Already Freud
and also in Islam you find trace notion of neighbor is something extremely interesting. If you read it closely, neighbor is not simply a fellow man, the one who is like me. Neighbor is precisely the other in its monstrous abyss. Already Freud
Slavoj Žižek
knew this clearly. Let me give you an example which is my favorite. Did
knew this clearly. Let me give you an example which is my favorite. Did
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you see the movie and read the novel—I only saw the movie the novel is too long but blah blah—Stephen King and Kubrick, Shining? The hero it’s the story of how a fellow man
you see the movie and read the novel—I only saw the movie the novel is too long but blah blah—Stephen King and Kubrick, Shining? The hero it’s the story of how a fellow man
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becomes a neighbor. It begins with a happy family, father one of us, and slowly the father turns a murderous monster. And Stephen King was right when he said it was
becomes a neighbor. It begins with a happy family, father one of us, and slowly the father turns a murderous monster. And Stephen King was right when he said it was
Slavoj Žižek
the big mistake to hire Jack Nicholson to play the hero. Why? Because the whole point of the novel is that at the beginning he is the kindest father. Slowly, slowly, but you know like the second Jack Nicholson appears on screen there is you know... no but you know what I mean? This is why as even Levinas, with whom otherwise I don't often agree, says very nicely that if you read properly the Ten Commandments, they are really offer a protection against the neighbor. The point is how to keep the neighbor at a distance. And I would even go to love here. Was it Rilke or who who said that in true love yes true love is—and Badiou put this nicely—true love I’m speaking about man-man, man-woman, whatever couple is the strongest assertion of difference of the two. True love is not Tristan and Isolde and that bullshit, we become one in the eternal night. Rilke actually says you have to stand guard over each other’s solitude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I that's that's what I meant by it. You guard you guard the other's solitude. Yeah. You guard your personal like you guard the other's solitude yeah you guard your personal space. I'm yeah but i-no okay I'm a little bit more radical because I don't think you or I know, here I'm a Freudian, know what is my personal space. I I think we are enigmas for ourselves. Right,
the big mistake to hire Jack Nicholson to play the hero. Why? Because the whole point of the novel is that at the beginning he is the kindest father. Slowly, slowly, but you know like the second Jack Nicholson appears on screen there is you know... no but you know what I mean? This is why as even Levinas, with whom otherwise I don't often agree, says very nicely that if you read properly the Ten Commandments, they are really offer a protection against the neighbor. The point is how to keep the neighbor at a distance. And I would even go to love here. Was it Rilke or who who said that in true love yes true love is—and Badiou put this nicely—true love I’m speaking about man-man, man-woman, whatever couple is the strongest assertion of difference of the two. True love is not Tristan and Isolde and that bullshit, we become one in the eternal night. Rilke actually says you have to stand guard over each other’s solitude. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what I that's that's what I meant by it. You guard you guard the other's solitude. Yeah. You guard your personal like you guard the other's solitude yeah you guard your personal space. I'm yeah but i-no okay I'm a little bit more radical because I don't think you or I know, here I'm a Freudian, know what is my personal space. I I think we are enigmas for ourselves. Right,
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right, right. Look my question was... I'm sorry let's we're going to... No no but I'm very sad because we but speaking about Parajanov I like him the you know
right, right. Look my question was... I'm sorry let's we're going to... No no but I'm very sad because we but speaking about Parajanov I like him the you know
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whom I don't like? Tarkovsky.
whom I don't like? Tarkovsky.
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Oh no! No. Tarkovsky so-so, Sokurov eh. There there I have a problem. I I want
Oh no! No. Tarkovsky so-so, Sokurov eh. There there I have a problem. I I want
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to say
to say
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since
since
Slavoj Žižek
you talked about this earlier, you know we had a lot of great nights to have, this was a really special night. I had a huge amount of fun and we learned a lot. My god you are talking like like in pornography. 'I was a passionate night' or whatever. [laughter] I take express my gratitude and I hope you will not decline when we all say thank you to you and we’re going to continue with wine and water upstairs and I really want to thank... Ah, I know why you said this because I said at the beginning
you talked about this earlier, you know we had a lot of great nights to have, this was a really special night. I had a huge amount of fun and we learned a lot. My god you are talking like like in pornography. 'I was a passionate night' or whatever. [laughter] I take express my gratitude and I hope you will not decline when we all say thank you to you and we’re going to continue with wine and water upstairs and I really want to thank... Ah, I know why you said this because I said at the beginning
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that
that
Slavoj Žižek
I don't drink wine so wine for you water for me. [laughter] Thank you for your
I don't drink wine so wine for you water for me. [laughter] Thank you for your
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hospitality.
hospitality.