On Belief and Otherness
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2002 · 0:50:15 · 8,166 words
ideologyliberalism-political-correctnesspsychoanalysiscinema-art-culturedemocracyrevolution-violenceethicsreligion-theologyhistorygeopolitics-wareveryday-lifephilosophy-general
Žižek delivers a lecture (followed by Q&A) critiquing liberal multiculturalism, the ideology of irony, and the post-September 11 political situation. He argues against the Levinasian ethics of respect for the Other, defends ruthless commitment to just causes, and deconstructs how ideology functions through self-deprecating jokes and cynical distance. The talk concludes with reflections on the erosion of democracy, the normalization of torture and surveillance post-9/11, and a skeptical engagement with the concept of happiness.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 14
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek targets the liberal-Levinasian ethical imperative to respect radical otherness, arguing it is an obstacle to genuine political commitment and ruthless struggle against enemies of humanity.
Implied in Žižek's discussion of how multiculturalism masks underlying monotony, the appearance of diversity conceals a homogeneous global lifestyle.
as “ideology through irony”
Contemporary ideology operates not through sincere identification but through ironic self-distance that nonetheless keeps the same old narrative going, as exemplified by Shrek.
as “multiculturalism as masked Eurocentrism”
The post-colonial/postmodern celebration of contingency and difference over essentialism secretly encodes the old distinction between naive primitive belief and sophisticated modern reflexivity.
The post-colonial doxa that valorizes contingency over essentialism actually reproduces the old colonial hierarchy between flexible moderns and naive traditionalists.
The modern subject knows perfectly well what ideology is but continues to practice it anyway; Žižek uses this to explain how belief functions today without naive sincerity.
The 'I know very well, but all the same...' structure where subjects know the ideology is false yet continue to act as if it were true.
A Lacanian-derived structure whereby subjects outsource their belief to another (e.g., children believe in Santa Claus so parents don't have to), allowing cynical distance while the belief still functions.
Žižek rejects the liberal-genealogical practice of tracing fascism back to earlier cultural forms (mass choreography, Nietzschean rhetoric), arguing that the beginning of fascism is fascism itself.
Žižek distinguishes progressive bodily discipline (working-class martial arts training as the only available means of self-development) from bourgeois self-actualization (jogging, bodybuilding).
Crisis situations like 9/11 generate an ideological effect of forced clarity ('now you must choose') that actually deepens mystification and forecloses genuine questioning.
as “state of emergency as permanent norm”
Drawing on Agamben, Žižek argues that the war on terror creates a situation where the exception becomes indistinguishable from normal democratic life.
The post-9/11 process whereby American patriotism was retroactively cleansed of guilt and ambivalence, allowing previously self-critical citizens to embrace national identity without irony.
Purely ritual speech acts (like 'How are you?') that function as social lubricant rather than sincere inquiry; Žižek uses this to interrogate the hollowness of the happiness injunction.
Stories he reaches for 3
Adults say they don't believe in Santa Claus but pretend to for the sake of the children; when you ask any child, the child also says they don't really believe but pretend to receive gifts. The belief is endlessly delegated to another who also doesn't hold it.
“I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I pretend to believe just on behalf of my children. But do the children believe? Of course not, I am not stupid, I pretend to believe so that I get the presents.”
Despite its surface message of Austrian resistance to Nazism, The Sound of Music presents Nazis as abstract cosmopolitan occupiers while depicting Austrians as 'good small fascists'. A telling anachronism: the film set in 1938 shows oranges labeled 'Product of Israel'.
“The implicit message is almost the opposite of the explicit message. I think it's a much more reactionary film than it may appear.”
The Soviet Stalinist writer Aleksandr Fadeyev killed himself after Khrushchev's 1956 Congress report, but not because he learned anything new. The unbearable fact was not the revelation but its public staging. This shows how the surface matters more than underlying knowledge.
“He didn't learn basically anything new in Khrushchev's report. What was disturbed was only the surface. It was rendered public. That was the unbearable fact.”
Works invoked 13
The Sound of Music film
Žižek argues it is more reactionary than it appears: the Nazis are presented as abstract cosmopolitan occupiers while Austrians emerge as 'good small fascists'; a production error (oranges labeled 'Product of Israel' in 1938-set scene) is identified as an inadvertent truth.
Schindler's List film
Referenced for the Jewish saying 'When somebody saves one man alone from death, one saves entire humanity,' which Žižek then supplements with a more radical ethical claim about annihilating enemies.
Jesus of Nazareth film
Zeffirelli's film is implicitly called 'the most disgusting' Christian film; the Vatican's exclusion of it from the top-50 is treated as a positive surprise.
Part of a publishing series of 'obscene truth' books (how to take revenge, how to survive prison); Žižek finds them wonderful as the dark underside of self-help literature.
Unbreakable film
Žižek calls it 'ridiculous' but says he likes it; uses it to illustrate how contemporary authority operates through obscene familiarity rather than formal distance.
Paul Veyne's book is cited approvingly as a resource for understanding the complex structure of ancient and modern belief.
Pasolini's film is cited approvingly as an example of a high-quality Christian film that made the Vatican's top-50 list, contrasted with Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth.
Harmonielehre book
Schoenberg's 1911 theoretical text is used to demonstrate that proto-fascist-sounding rhetoric is not inherently fascist, Žižek deploys it to reject genealogical analysis of fascism.
My Path to Myself book
Joschka Fischer's memoir about losing 50 kilos; cited by Žižek as evidence of the ex-radical's retreat from politics into bodily self-cultivation.
A Nun's Story film
Discussed in the Q&A with an audience member; Žižek has not seen it and declines to use it as an example of happiness.
The Perfect Storm film
Identified as the only recent Hollywood film showing working-class solidarity, though Žižek notes it is 'very boring'; used to illustrate the ideological limits of what can be imagined in mainstream cinema.
Shrek film
Žižek uses Shrek as his central example of how ideology functions today through ironic self-subversion that ultimately leaves the same reactionary narrative intact.
Žižek loves these books for dealing with 'real life situations you never encounter' (alligator attacks, lion encounters); uses the series to explore the deep progressive agenda in imagining catastrophe.
People invoked 20
The Stalinist Soviet Writers' Union president who killed himself after the Khrushchev Report; used by Žižek as a case study in the structure of belief and public knowledge.
Bruce Lee positive
The Kung Fu films associated with Bruce Lee are cited as examples of a genuinely progressive spontaneous working-class ideology.
Indirectly referenced via the Huntington's disease discussion, though the disease is named after the scientist George Huntington, not the political scientist.
Marguerite Duras positive
Žižek draws on Duras's novels to illustrate his concept of happiness emerging obliquely, not through direct eye contact but through two people focused on a shared third object.
Emmanuel Levinas negative
The ethics of respect for radical otherness that Žižek attacks throughout the talk is implicitly Levinasian; Žižek rejects it as insufficient for genuine political commitment.
Arnold Schoenberg positive
Žižek discusses Schoenberg's proto-Nazi-sounding rhetoric in Harmonielehre to argue against genealogical proto-fascism analysis; treats Schoenberg's work as a useful example, not as fascist.
Alan Dershowitz negative
Cited as an example of liberal capitulation: Dershowitz opposes torture but on pragmatic rather than principled grounds, thereby already accepting torture as a legitimate topic of debate.
G. K. Chesterton positive
Žižek quotes Chesterton twice approvingly, on the 'frantic blasphemous statement' of admitting one might be wrong, to denounce academic epistemic modesty as bad faith.
Donald Rumsfeld negative
Cited for the statement that the war on terror will never end (before 50 years), which Žižek takes as evidence of the permanent state of emergency.
Judith Butler negative
Žižek imagines a 'Judith Butler reading' of Shrek that would celebrate it as 'displacement, reinscription, another site of resistance', and rejects this as missing the film's reactionary function.
Pier Paolo Pasolini positive
Žižek is 'nicely surprised' that Pasolini's The Gospel According to Matthew was included in the Vatican's top-50 film list, treating this as a sign of quality.
Alain Badiou positive
Žižek quotes Badiou's critique of 'respect for the other' approvingly and credits him with the insight that 'the beginning of fascism is fascism itself'; he calls him an intellectual ally and interlocutor.
John Ashcroft negative
Also associated with the permanent-war-on-terror claim, cited alongside Rumsfeld as evidence of the normalization of emergency.
Giorgio Agamben positive
Žižek invokes Agamben's concept of the state of emergency to analyze the post-9/11 normalization of emergency conditions.
Cited for his 1956 Secret Speech denouncing Stalin at the 20th Congress, used to analyze the structure of public knowledge vs. private knowledge.
Jane Fonda negative
Used as an example of the ex-radical who transitions to pragmatic mainstream politics via a period of bodily self-cultivation (aerobics).
Franco Zeffirelli negative
Žižek implies Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth is the 'most disgusting' Christian film, and treats Zeffirelli's outrage at the Vatican's exclusion of it with amusement.
Polish Stalinist leader who died immediately after Khrushchev's 1956 speech; cited as example of how the publicization of knowledge (not its revelation) can be lethal.
Joschka Fischer negative
The German Green politician used alongside Fonda as an example of the radical-to-mainstream trajectory mediated by bodily transformation (losing 50 kilos, writing 'My Path to Myself').
Paul Veyne positive
Žižek cites Veyne's book 'Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?' approvingly as a resource for understanding the complex structure of belief.
What it argues
critique of liberal tolerance and multiculturalism as masked Eurocentrismideology functions through ironic distance and self-undermining jokesthe ethics of ruthless commitment versus respect for the Otherpost-9/11 erosion of democratic norms and normalization of emergencythe paradoxes and failures of happiness as a political and personal idealbelief and its structural disavowal in contemporary subjectsreclaiming contested political terrain from the right
Dialectical moves 10
“The true ethical test is not only the readiness to save victims, but perhaps even more the ruthless dedication to annihilate those who made them victims.”
Žižek inverts the conventional humanitarian ethics (saving) to argue that destroying the perpetrator is equally, perhaps more, essential, love for humanity demands ruthlessness toward its enemies.
“What appears as a passage from primitive naïve essentialism to modern contingency is really a new, differently coded version of the old colonial distinction between primitives and moderns.”
The postmodern valorization of contingency over essentialism secretly reproduces the very Eurocentric hierarchy it claims to overcome.
“Even suicide bombers who appear to be true believers are in fact terribly unsure of their belief—the wager of their suicide is to convince themselves that they believe.”
Apparent total conviction is revealed as the product of radical doubt; the extreme act is not the expression but the attempted resolution of uncertainty.
“The function of all the jokes and displacements in Shrek is profoundly reactionary—it is precisely the way for the same story to go on.”
Irony and self-subversion in popular culture do not deconstruct ideology but are its most effective contemporary vehicle.
“The apparent modest relativization of one's own position is the mode of appearance of its very opposite: the privileging of one's own position of enunciation.”
Academic epistemic modesty is a form of ideological self-protection that immunizes one's own viewpoint by feigning not to hold it.
“Mass choreography is not even neutral—it was Nazism that stole it, appropriated it from the workers' movement.”
What looks like a fascist origin is shown to be a left-wing origin: the right stole from the left, not vice versa.
“The beginning of fascism is fascism itself.”
Rejecting genealogical analysis that seeks proto-fascist roots in earlier cultural forms, Žižek insists fascism must be understood as a self-originating break.
“The truly horrible thing is not that normal democratic life will be replaced by a state of emergency, but that somehow we would not even be able to tell the difference—they would be perceived as the same.”
The emergency does not suspend democracy dramatically but quietly colonizes it from within, becoming indistinguishable from normalcy.
“Intimacy is already public today—the only space for intimate happiness must be created through some kind of new collectivity.”
The private sphere has been hollowed out precisely when retreat into it is most recommended; authentic intimacy now requires collective political construction.
“Yes, they are for the real—but not in the sense that you mean. They are for the real in the sense that now we should question the very presuppositions of what is imposed on us.”
Žižek accepts the post-9/11 injunction to be 'serious' but inverts its content: seriousness means radical questioning of the presuppositions, not enforced consensus.
Claims 14
asserts
The liberal ethics of respect for radical otherness is not only insufficient but actively harmful when confronting genuine enemies of humanity, such as Nazis.liberal ethics / Levinasian otherness
asserts
The true ethical test is not only readiness to save victims but ruthless dedication to annihilate those who made them victims.ethics of political commitment
asserts
The post-colonial/postmodern opposition of contingency versus essentialism secretly reproduces Eurocentric hierarchies between sophisticated moderns and naive primitives.post-colonial studies / multiculturalism
reframes
Even apparent true believers (like suicide bombers) are not genuine believers but rather perform belief to convince themselves, underpinned by radical doubt.religious fundamentalism / belief
rejects
Ironic self-distancing jokes in popular culture (as in Shrek) do not subvert ideology but render traditional narratives palatable and prevent us from imagining alternatives.irony as resistance / postmodern subversion
rejects
The prohibition on firmly asserting one's own position in radical academia is itself a form of ideological bad faith and a privileging of one's own position of enunciation.academic rhetoric / epistemic modesty
rejects
Mass choreography and bodily discipline are not inherently fascist; Nazism appropriated them from the workers' movement.proto-fascism / totalitarianism
asserts
We are approaching the end of even the limited democracy we previously enjoyed, as post-9/11 emergency measures quietly become indistinguishable from normal democratic life.democracy / post-9/11 state of emergency
asserts
The normalization of torture as a legitimate topic of public debate is more alarming than any single policy decision.torture / civil liberties
asserts
Multiculturalism's celebration of diversity masks an underlying global monotony and sameness.multiculturalism / global capitalism
reframes
The German mayor who committed suicide after visiting a concentration camp was performing ethical hypocrisy, retroactively constructing his own innocence, not demonstrating genuine moral horror.ethical hypocrisy / complicity
asserts
One should not concede political terrain to the enemy but fearlessly appropriate even terms with right-wing connotations.political strategy / left politics
reframes
The binary of 'democracy or fundamentalism' after 9/11 is a forced choice where both options are pre-defined by ruling ideology, making genuine dissent impossible within its terms.war on terror / democracy vs. fundamentalism
asserts
Intimate happiness today can no longer be found in private intimacy but must be created through new forms of collectivity.happiness / private life / collectivity
Quotes 12
“The true ethical test is not only the readiness to save victims, but perhaps even more the ruthless dedication to annihilate those who made them victims.”Slavoj Žižek · ethics of political ruthlessness
“The function of all these jokes is profoundly reactionary. It is to prevent us from asking 'Why not telling another story?' It's precisely a way for the same story to go on.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology through irony
“We make fun of our beliefs while continuing to practice them.”Slavoj Žižek · cynical ideology
“Of course his views may not be the right ones. Of course his views must be the right ones or they are not his views.”Slavoj Žižek · Chesterton on epistemic commitment
“The apparent modest relativization of one's own position is the mode of appearance of its very opposite, of privileging one's own position of enunciation.”Slavoj Žižek · academic bad faith / epistemic modesty as self-privileging
“Spontaneity, the 'let it go' attitude belong to those who have the means to afford it. Those who have nothing have only their bodies to discipline them.”Slavoj Žižek · class and bodily discipline
“The beginning of fascism is fascism itself.”Slavoj Žižek · rejecting proto-fascism genealogies
“The truly horrible thing is not that normal democratic life will be replaced by state of emergency, but that somehow we would not even be able to tell the difference.”Slavoj Žižek · post-9/11 normalization of emergency
“The only true happiness would have been an anonymous state agency doing this to all of us without us even knowing it.”Slavoj Žižek · happiness requires total ignorance / reductio of utilitarian happiness
“The true victim is precisely private life. We are getting less and less of what till now was privacy was intimacy.”Slavoj Žižek · erosion of genuine private sphere
“Se non vero, ben trovato.”Slavoj Žižek · on conspiracy and structural truth
“What I find horrible is not that the answer is yes, but that it's accepted as legitimate topic of the debate.”Slavoj Žižek · normalization of torture discourse
Transcript 48 turns
Slavoj Žižek
The third point is that within this perspective the central ethical category horizon turns out to be respect for otherness. That as if, you know, that's the ultimate horizon. Here let me quote Alain Badiou from an interview he made with this art journal, Cabinet, where he made a point with which I agree. "I must particularly insist that the formula 'respect for the other' has nothing to do with any serious definition of good and evil. What does respect for the other mean when one is at war against an enemy, when one must judge the work of a mediocre artist, when science is faced with obscurantist sects? Very often it is the respect for others which is injurious, which is evil, especially when it is resistance against others or even hatred of others that drives a subjectively just action." Now the obvious liberal reproach here would have been: "But do Badiou's own examples not display the limit of his logic? Yes, hatred for the enemy, intolerance towards false wisdom. But is not the big lesson of the 20th century of totalitarian experience that even and especially when we are caught in such a struggle, we should respect a certain limit? The limit precisely of the other's radical otherness. Is it not that we should never reduce the other to an enemy, to the bearer of false knowledge or whatever? Is it not that there is always in every figure of the other an impenetrable abyss of radical otherness, almost a kind of absolute?" The 20th century totalitarianism with its millions of victims shows, this would be the liberal criticism I think, the ultimate outcome, catastrophic outcome of following to the end what appears to be a subjectively just action. But I think that this precisely, now it's me who is speaking, no longer the liberals to avoid confusion, this is the reasoning that we should reject. Let me take the extreme case, a mortal violent struggle against a fascist enemy. Should one display here a respect for the abyss of the radical otherness of Hitler's personality and so on? It is here I think that one should apply Christ's well-known words about how he brings swords and division, not unity and peace. Out of the very love for humanity, inclusive whatever remained of humanity in Nazis themselves, one should fight them in an absolutely ruthless, disrespectful way. In short, the Jewish saying often quoted, like in Schindler's List apropos Holocaust, you know that well-known wisdom: "When somebody saves one man alone from death, one saves entire humanity." It may sound strange, but I think it should be supplemented with: "When one kills only one true enemy of humanity, one saves entire humanity." That's the more difficult part to accept. The true ethical test is not only the readiness to save victims, but perhaps even more the ruthless dedication to annihilate those who made them victims. Now what, back to this celebration of multitude? What this emphasis on multitude and diversity masks is of course the underlying monotony of today's global life. I think this is the ultimate fake of multiculturalism, this emphasis on different lifestyles and so on, that is basically all the same. How then is this concealed? I think through another key feature of contemporary ideology which is the constant ironic undermining of every identification. The point today, the way authority functions today, it's how? Do you see the movie? It's a ridiculous movie but I like it, with Bruce Willis, Unbreakable. Where you know the ridiculous story, the hero discovers that he is in real life an invincible cartoon hero and the problem is that it's difficult for him to assume this mandate, whatever. And I think this is how generally authority today functions. Today's boss no longer says "I insist on order, you must obey me," and then behind his back you make fun at him. Today's boss comes to you, makes obscene jokes, embraces you and so on, but he nonetheless remains the boss. So in a closer look, how does this ideology function? Let me take another example from Hollywood which gives us the other aspect of today's dominant ideology. This recent, again animated blockbuster, big success, Shrek. You know what it is? It's a cartoon about the standard, it's a standard fairy tale story. The hero and his endearingly confused comic helper go and defeat the dragon and save the princess from its clutches. But if you saw the movie, you know what I'm talking about, this story is quoted in joking, subversive effects, almost sometimes it looks as Brechtian Verfremdung, extraniations, ironic self-referential comments. For example, you know when at the end the couple marry, or in the middle, sorry, the couple is supposed to marry in the church, you see people applauding, but then you see that servants of the king are giving stage directions like "applaud", "respectful silence", and so on. Or for example, the two lovers kiss, the ugly ogre and the beautiful princess. But instead of the standard story where the ugly guy, frog or whatever, turns into a beautiful prince, here is the beautiful princess who turns into an ugly peasant woman so that they can be a happy couple and so on and so on. So we get all these reversals. For example, even the dragon turns out to be a caring female who later helps the heroes. We have anachronic references to modern culture and so on and so on. So how are we to read it? I can imagine a Judith Butler reading which would be "Yeah, yeah, these are displacement, reinscription, another site of resistance," you know? I don't think that it is. I think that this film perfectly exemplifies how ideology functions today. The key focus for me is that with all these jokes, displacement, blah blah blah, the same old story is being told. And I think that the function of all these displacements, jokes, is precisely to render the traditional narrative palpable for our time. The function of all these jokes is profoundly reactionary. It is to prevent us from asking "Why not telling another story?" It's precisely a way for the same story to go on. So no wonder that the finale of the film consists of the ironic version of the old Monkees' hit, Monkees was a band from the sixties, "I'm a Believer". This is how we are today believers. We make fun of ourselves while continuing, we make fun of our beliefs while continuing to practice them. So let me now conclude, I probably already speak for ten minutes now, on my non-linear notion of time. Okay, I move to the last part now. What conclusions should we make from this situation? The first one, I think, one should fight a certain attitude which was again perfectly designated by Chesterton. This attitude which is at different levels of course practiced in our public lives, in our usual secular lives, but also in the radical academia. Did you notice how with many so-called radical academics you have one stylistic prohibition which is the prohibition to firmly assert your position? You are not allowed to say "This is it." You are allowed to say, and you have these dozens of rhetoric variations, like usually as a rhetorical question: "Might we not risk the claim that under certain conditions it could be possible to propose that?" Then woman is a symbolic construction, not a natural category, whatever. But that's how it is. So always as if in order to make a statement, you must always add a qualification "But I don't mean it really, of course I mean it self-critically, it's not to" and so on and so on. I think that the falsity of this attitude was again denounced by Chesterton, a wonderful quote, the last one, don't be worried. "At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic, blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his views may not be the right ones. Of course his views must be the right ones or they are not his views." End of quote. And I think again in many of today's academic rhetorics, the same falsity is discernible. And I think Chesterton is quite right to use here the strong term of blasphemy. The apparent modest relativization of one's own position is the mode of appearance of its very opposite, of privileging one's own position of enunciation. I think you make it very safe for you. It's the way of not risking an engagement. So again, the lesson of all this is thus that there are basically two lessons. First, we should be very careful not to attribute to the other the naive belief we are unable to sustain. What do I mean by this? First let me just emphasize how I think many of the terms which are part of the post-modern critical post-colonial studies' doxa today are deeply, not only Eurocentric but are how should I put it, are a kind of a masked aggressive, extremely aggressive Eurocentrism masked as its opposite. Let me take the fundamental category where you cannot miss if you want to be right today. Everybody is against essentialism and for contingency. No, contingency is good, essentialism is bad. But let's look closely how this category works. I claim that it is effectively a new, differently coded version of the old distinction between you know primitives who believe firmly in their beliefs and we moderns who know about contingency, who have a more flexible intellectual approach, who live a more reflexive life and so on. Because if you look at it closely, the passage from fundamentalism or essentialism to contingency is always staged as a kind of a passage from more primitive naive attitude towards more modern plural contingent attitude whatever. So one should be again very suspicious about how this functions. For example, even in the case of the highest certainty, the notorious case of so-called media image Muslim fundamentalist on a suicidal mission. We usually say "Oh my God, but they have to believe, they really must believe, at least they believe." Well frankly I doubt if they really believe. I spoke with some of my Israeli friends who are of course, I mean Israeli in close contacts with Palestinians fighting Zionism, and they told me that they made some researches there and came to a strange, I mean researches, okay, speaking with people who knew people and so on, and came to a strange, much more refined result that with most of these suicide so-called bombers even if they pretend even if it may appear that they really believe this story which is often falsely appeared in the Western media, you know, "I will kill myself and tomorrow I will have the famous fifty virgins in paradise or what," that the logic is really different. The underlying logic is that they are terribly unsure of their belief. And the wager of their suicide is rather "I am not sure if I believe, but by killing myself I will in a way convince myself that I believe." So what I want to say is that even there there is a kind of a doubt. On the contrary, and the counterpoint to this would have been that we in the West precisely when we pretend not to believe, you know always the others are believers, we are cynical, we don't take things seriously. But I think that the structure which was elaborated by some Lacanian theorists of the subject supposed to believe, how you need another one to believe for you, is widely practiced today. You know the classical examples for example I don't know you know how when you say "I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I pretend to believe just on behalf of my children." But my God, do the children believe? Ask any child, he will say "Of course not, I am not stupid, I pretend to believe so that I get the presents" and so on and so on. And it's exactly the same with history. No, do you know a wonderful book by Paul Veyne, "Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?" And the answer is that you know the best example of this ancient beliefs is I think a story about these Ethiopian Christians, no, who they believe they believe that lion is a sacred animal. Because it's a sacred animal it respects Sabbath so it shouldn't attack their sheep on Saturday. But their logic is "We believe in it, but nonetheless it's better not to take onto pasture your sheep, no, you never know" and so. So again how does belief function today? Let me evoke a strange example. You know that after the twentieth or during even the twentieth congress of the Soviet Communist Party, the Khrushchev Report Congress, you know that there were even doctors back prepared to treat collapses and it did happen. I think a couple of people had heart attack, attack there on the spot. A couple of people died immediately after like Bolesław Bierut, the big Polish Stalinist leader, and a couple of people like Aleksandr Fadeyev, the hardline Stalinist writer, President of Soviet Writers' Union, also killed himself a couple of days later. But wait a minute, was he a believer? It would be naive to accept that he was a believer. I mean my God he denounced dozens of persons. So he couldn't play the game of "Oh my God, I thought we live in an ideal world, now I learned about horrible Stalinist crimes." No, it wasn't, he didn't learn basically anything new in Khrushchev's report. What was disturbed was only the surface. It was rendered public. That was the unbearable fact. Another example which is I think the ultimate example of ethical hypocrisy although it's usually in the history books that I read about the last months of Germany, German defeat in the spring, sorry, in the first months of forty-five, it's evoked as an ethical example. The well-known example of a German mayor who in the early, there are two stories, one is from the West, the US army occupied a small town and forced the mayor, forced the mayor and others to visit the nearby concentration camp and upon his return home he committed suicide. The idea is "Oh my God you see he was honest." Absolutely not, I think this was the ultimate hypocritical act. Why? My God, I'm sure he knew it. What he wasn't, the strategy of this suicide was to retroactively create the illusion that he was innocent, that he didn't know it. It's utter hypocrisy. The same with another ethical example that I learned. When Soviet army was approaching an East German city, a mayor also he was supposed to be an honest Nazi and in contrast to others who simply burned their documents, erased their traces, he proudly put on all the Nazi insignia and walked towards the Russians and was immediately shot. And the books that I read say "You see this was an honest Nazi." My God if he was so honest what was he doing with Nazis with all the insignia and so on? You know, so again matters with belief are problematic. The second, the last point that I want to make is that instead of conceding in advance any territory to the enemy in political struggle, one should struggle even for notions which appear naturally to belong to the enemy. What do I mean by this? Let me take really at the end an extreme case. I recently was reading Arnold Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, you know his major theoretical manifesto from nineteen eleven, where he develops his opposition to tonal music. But how does he do it? In the second part, he does it in terms which almost recall what we perceive as Nazi anti-Semitic rhetoric. He designates tonal music as diseased, degenerated world in need of a clear solution. The tonal system has given in to inbreeding and incest, romantic chords are cosmopolitan, hermaphroditic, and so on and so on. He he even asks for some kind of apocalyptic act in order to clear the spiritual situation and so on and so on. Now the obvious thing would have been "You see even he was infected by the by the virus of what later exploded in Nazism" and so on and so on. But I think it's precisely this conclusion that we should avoid. What makes Nazism repulsive is not the rhetoric of final solution as such but the concrete twist it gives, Nazism, to it. Another popular topic of this kind of analysis is the allegedly proto-fascist character of mass choreography displaying disciplined movements of thousand of bodies, you know parades and so on. If one finds them also in socialism, one immediately draws the conclusion about a deeper affinity between the two totalitarianisms. I think such procedures are typical of ideological liberalism and they miss the point. Not only are such mass performances not inherently fascist, they are not even neutral, waiting to be appropriated by the left or the right. It was Nazism who stole them, who appropriated them from the workers' movement. So it is here that I think one should abandon this topic, this you know search for proto-fascism, where did it begin? Was it one popular theory that it was the romantic aesthetic reading of Kantian ethics or whatsoever? I don't I think that here again I refer to a conversation with Badiou who gave me this idea that the beginning of fascism is fascism itself, in a way. I don't accept this game of this naive pre-Nietzschean genealogy. Along the same lines I think one should reject the notion that discipline from self-control to bodily training is a kind of a proto-fascist feature. I think that for example I remember from my youth the wave of Kung Fu films, you know Bruce Lee and so on and so on. If you ask me frankly I think that they were relatively progressive even. They were a genuine working-class spontaneous ideology of youngsters whose only means of success was the disciplinary training of their only possession, their bodies. Spontaneity, the "let it go" attitude belong to those who have the means to afford it. Those who have nothing have only their bodies to discipline them. Of course I'm aware that this bodily discipline is to be opposed to the opposite bodily discipline which is not the collective training but jogging, bodybuilding and so on as part of realizing your inner potentials. It's typical how the obsession with one's body is an almost obligatory part, I notice, of the passage of ex-leftist radicals into the maturity of pragmatic politics. This is what Jane Fonda and Joschka Fischer have in common. In their youth they were more radical. Now they are mainstream. In between there was a period where you know Joschka Fischer published a book, My Path to Myself, where he reports how he lost fifty kilos and so on and so on. So again my point is let's not the enemy determine the terrain. We should simply we should totally I think abandon outgrow this notion of liberal tolerance determining the terms. We should fearlessly approach sorry appropriate terms even if it means even if they have today neo-Nazi whatever connotations. We should be absolutely fearless here. So to conclude in another I wouldn't since I began with an East German joke I want to conclude with Hollywood. In a classic line from a Hollywood screwball comedy, the girl I forgot which one was but from the late thirties with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers I think, the girl asks her boyfriend "Do you want to marry me?" The boy answers "No." The girl says "Stop dodging the issue, give me a straight answer." I think she was right. In a way the underlying logic is correct. The only proper answer for her was of course "Yes." And this is not a crazy illusory example. I remember twice when I was young having exactly the same experience. I remember when I was six seven I encountered a priest. He asked me "Do you believe in God?" I said "No." He said "Stop avoiding the issue, that's not a serious answer," no? Okay I had later with a communist functionary the same experience and so on. But what I want to say is that isn't it something of the same order that we are facing today with the choice democracy or fundamentalism, war on terror. Is it not that within the terms of this choice you really cannot if you say "I'm for fundamentalism," oh it's not serious, come on and so on and so on. So precisely when we are faced with a choice like that, we should focus on the true problem which is the way the ruling ideology imposes on us what in this choice it's the way it is structured, no? Of course you cannot choose fundamentalism. But then if you choose democracy it's already in advance determined what is democracy. The problem is what they sell you under the guise of democracy. And here again we should be fearless in what sense? Especially situations like after September eleventh, we are they generate some kind of a how should I call it, false clarity. No, the idea is that things now are clear. This was the message of American establishment to cultural studies people. You know the titles were all around like The End of the Age of Irony. You were able to play all the games now you must choose. But I think that our thesis should be that precisely in situations like that when things appear to be clear, us against them survival, the mystification is absolute. At that point one should gather the strength and say "No, it's not that now things are for the real." Yes they are for the real, but not in the sense that you mean. They are for the real in the sense that now we should question the very presuppositions of what is imposed on us. Which is why I'm more and more convinced that what is truly at stake in all this September eleventh affair is rather that even if it was not, I'm not of those paranoid conspiracy theorists who claim that the bombing was directly organized by the FBI, but how should I put it, I don't believe this, but "se non vero, ben trovato". That is to say the crucial element for me is what is effect not the big spectacular events but just look at the details of what goes on at the daily life how things are imperceptibly changing our standards. For example do you know that in American media you find now regularly open discussions about torture? Should we reintroduce torture? What I find horrible is not that the answer is yes, but that it's accepted as legitimate topic of the debate. And even liberals who oppose it, oppose it not on principled grounds but but like Alan Dershowitz says "Yes, but we cannot ever be sure and we should change the laws" and so on. You know he already even he already accepted the this as the topic of the debate. Or another thing you read about this about this idea of this idea of TIPS, new idea, it's already a proposal to to engage literally hundreds of thousands of workers who on account of their work have access to private apartments, offices and so on to serve as informers. No the idea is that postmen, repairmen and so on should be given appropriate material and report on suspicious activities and so on and so on. So you know this is what interests me, the actual silent changes taking place at at the daily level. This I think is what is effectively happening. We can forgot, we can forget about Middle East. What interests me is how what interests me is this radical change in the mode of functioning of our so-called democracies, namely my thesis is a very pessimistic one, it's that it may sound crazy but I'm not a so-called lunatic leftist Trotskyite but nonetheless I'm very much to the left and my thesis is that basically we are approaching the era of the end of even what we till now had as democracy. I think that slowly we are moving to an era where more and more how should I put it, it's not that there will be a direct state of emergency. The crucial statement was by I think Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft who said that the war on terror will never end, definitely not before fifty years. That is to say the truly horrible thing is not to use Agamben terms that normal democratic life will be replaced by state of emergency, but that somehow we would not even be able to tell the difference, that they would be perceived as the same. So this may be bad news, but at the same time these are good news. The enemy will be forced to show his face. Thank you very much. Okay so how long did I speak? Where are we now? One hour and ten minutes. Oh that's good. Okay but it took away your your proof, no? Oh yeah. But what on earth happened with happiness? In the beginning it was all happiness, happiness, happiness, and then no word of happiness anymore and at the end the the enemy shows its face. Ah no, he said now the good news is that now happiness is again possible. Yeah, but I will tell you why I have a theory I have a theory of happiness which is the good the good happiness, you know what? What you find very briefly not another twenty minutes, what you find in the best novels of Marguerite Duras which is that usually how does love emerge there? It's not I look you eye to eye, we look into each other, it's that a couple is confronted a task of I don't know searching for a third person and then you don't look eye to eye, you just hold hands and focus on the third element and then all of a sudden you discover "But here I'm happy," which is why quite pathetically I think that even intimate happiness is no longer today to be found in intimacy. Intimacy is already public today. You can have I don't know public websites where you can find I mean today everybody can confess his private secrets. That's not the intimate the only space for intimate happiness must be created through some kind of a new collectivity. More than ever I think that when we speak about withdrawing into private life, I think that the true victim is precisely private life. We are getting less and less of what till now was privacy was intimacy. But okay. You want to be happy? I try to find no no I want to be happy like this Czech people you know that I think it's a good idea I'm totally with you that happiness could be the worst what can happen as long as we have a chance to be wrong about it, so we can still be what's that optimistic you know? We don't have it, but there is something possible and so on. Is that not if our life has now become after September eleventh as I think a quite accurate description something which is an undeclared state of emergency, you know would that not fit in your first part of your talk about this in-between in which happiness is can be experienced. So you... No no quite in an empirical way definitely, I think that Americans are now definitely happier than before because they have a strong power no absolutely but this is for me only superficially reported. Oh no no no no wait a minute I can tell you exactly what I mean. I mean before September eleventh there was still this how should I put it, silent prohibition not only among critical academics but even among many common you know they did Vietnam they did many there was a kind of a resistance towards simply identifying with American patriotism. I think that the result of September eleventh was a kind of a how should I make a verb out of innocence, innocentization of American patriotism. Like now that we suffered this we can be innocently fully American patriots again. That's path to happiness. But you have been in the Western yourself, you know you still should kill people who try to kill you, it's very simple. That makes you happy. Okay, but let's go back to the audience now. Please feel brave enough. Make me happy by killing me or... Make him happy by allowing him to kill you. Come on guys, if I don't have volunteers I take others, okay. This is just a minor observation. Have you seen A Nun's Story with Katharine Hepburn? Isn't it Audrey Hepburn? Or sorry Audrey Hepburn. No, that's not it, yeah. It seems to me that both that film and I believe Sound of Music are on the Vatican top fifty list of films which says something about what they mean to Catholicism. Yeah, but if we are referring to the same list I must say that as many critical so-called intellectuals I was rather nicely surprised by that list. It wasn't as bad as one expected. You know that for example of the Christian films Pasolini's Matthew was in and the most disgusting one Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth was not, so that I remember Zeffirelli wrote an open letter claiming that Vatican is already occupied by by communist agents and so on. No, there were many quite nice surprises. That list is not as bad as one may think. I've taken
The third point is that within this perspective the central ethical category horizon turns out to be respect for otherness. That as if, you know, that's the ultimate horizon. Here let me quote Alain Badiou from an interview he made with this art journal, Cabinet, where he made a point with which I agree. "I must particularly insist that the formula 'respect for the other' has nothing to do with any serious definition of good and evil. What does respect for the other mean when one is at war against an enemy, when one must judge the work of a mediocre artist, when science is faced with obscurantist sects? Very often it is the respect for others which is injurious, which is evil, especially when it is resistance against others or even hatred of others that drives a subjectively just action." Now the obvious liberal reproach here would have been: "But do Badiou's own examples not display the limit of his logic? Yes, hatred for the enemy, intolerance towards false wisdom. But is not the big lesson of the 20th century of totalitarian experience that even and especially when we are caught in such a struggle, we should respect a certain limit? The limit precisely of the other's radical otherness. Is it not that we should never reduce the other to an enemy, to the bearer of false knowledge or whatever? Is it not that there is always in every figure of the other an impenetrable abyss of radical otherness, almost a kind of absolute?" The 20th century totalitarianism with its millions of victims shows, this would be the liberal criticism I think, the ultimate outcome, catastrophic outcome of following to the end what appears to be a subjectively just action. But I think that this precisely, now it's me who is speaking, no longer the liberals to avoid confusion, this is the reasoning that we should reject. Let me take the extreme case, a mortal violent struggle against a fascist enemy. Should one display here a respect for the abyss of the radical otherness of Hitler's personality and so on? It is here I think that one should apply Christ's well-known words about how he brings swords and division, not unity and peace. Out of the very love for humanity, inclusive whatever remained of humanity in Nazis themselves, one should fight them in an absolutely ruthless, disrespectful way. In short, the Jewish saying often quoted, like in Schindler's List apropos Holocaust, you know that well-known wisdom: "When somebody saves one man alone from death, one saves entire humanity." It may sound strange, but I think it should be supplemented with: "When one kills only one true enemy of humanity, one saves entire humanity." That's the more difficult part to accept. The true ethical test is not only the readiness to save victims, but perhaps even more the ruthless dedication to annihilate those who made them victims. Now what, back to this celebration of multitude? What this emphasis on multitude and diversity masks is of course the underlying monotony of today's global life. I think this is the ultimate fake of multiculturalism, this emphasis on different lifestyles and so on, that is basically all the same. How then is this concealed? I think through another key feature of contemporary ideology which is the constant ironic undermining of every identification. The point today, the way authority functions today, it's how? Do you see the movie? It's a ridiculous movie but I like it, with Bruce Willis, Unbreakable. Where you know the ridiculous story, the hero discovers that he is in real life an invincible cartoon hero and the problem is that it's difficult for him to assume this mandate, whatever. And I think this is how generally authority today functions. Today's boss no longer says "I insist on order, you must obey me," and then behind his back you make fun at him. Today's boss comes to you, makes obscene jokes, embraces you and so on, but he nonetheless remains the boss. So in a closer look, how does this ideology function? Let me take another example from Hollywood which gives us the other aspect of today's dominant ideology. This recent, again animated blockbuster, big success, Shrek. You know what it is? It's a cartoon about the standard, it's a standard fairy tale story. The hero and his endearingly confused comic helper go and defeat the dragon and save the princess from its clutches. But if you saw the movie, you know what I'm talking about, this story is quoted in joking, subversive effects, almost sometimes it looks as Brechtian Verfremdung, extraniations, ironic self-referential comments. For example, you know when at the end the couple marry, or in the middle, sorry, the couple is supposed to marry in the church, you see people applauding, but then you see that servants of the king are giving stage directions like "applaud", "respectful silence", and so on. Or for example, the two lovers kiss, the ugly ogre and the beautiful princess. But instead of the standard story where the ugly guy, frog or whatever, turns into a beautiful prince, here is the beautiful princess who turns into an ugly peasant woman so that they can be a happy couple and so on and so on. So we get all these reversals. For example, even the dragon turns out to be a caring female who later helps the heroes. We have anachronic references to modern culture and so on and so on. So how are we to read it? I can imagine a Judith Butler reading which would be "Yeah, yeah, these are displacement, reinscription, another site of resistance," you know? I don't think that it is. I think that this film perfectly exemplifies how ideology functions today. The key focus for me is that with all these jokes, displacement, blah blah blah, the same old story is being told. And I think that the function of all these displacements, jokes, is precisely to render the traditional narrative palpable for our time. The function of all these jokes is profoundly reactionary. It is to prevent us from asking "Why not telling another story?" It's precisely a way for the same story to go on. So no wonder that the finale of the film consists of the ironic version of the old Monkees' hit, Monkees was a band from the sixties, "I'm a Believer". This is how we are today believers. We make fun of ourselves while continuing, we make fun of our beliefs while continuing to practice them. So let me now conclude, I probably already speak for ten minutes now, on my non-linear notion of time. Okay, I move to the last part now. What conclusions should we make from this situation? The first one, I think, one should fight a certain attitude which was again perfectly designated by Chesterton. This attitude which is at different levels of course practiced in our public lives, in our usual secular lives, but also in the radical academia. Did you notice how with many so-called radical academics you have one stylistic prohibition which is the prohibition to firmly assert your position? You are not allowed to say "This is it." You are allowed to say, and you have these dozens of rhetoric variations, like usually as a rhetorical question: "Might we not risk the claim that under certain conditions it could be possible to propose that?" Then woman is a symbolic construction, not a natural category, whatever. But that's how it is. So always as if in order to make a statement, you must always add a qualification "But I don't mean it really, of course I mean it self-critically, it's not to" and so on and so on. I think that the falsity of this attitude was again denounced by Chesterton, a wonderful quote, the last one, don't be worried. "At any street corner we may meet a man who utters the frantic, blasphemous statement that he may be wrong. Every day one comes across somebody who says that of course his views may not be the right ones. Of course his views must be the right ones or they are not his views." End of quote. And I think again in many of today's academic rhetorics, the same falsity is discernible. And I think Chesterton is quite right to use here the strong term of blasphemy. The apparent modest relativization of one's own position is the mode of appearance of its very opposite, of privileging one's own position of enunciation. I think you make it very safe for you. It's the way of not risking an engagement. So again, the lesson of all this is thus that there are basically two lessons. First, we should be very careful not to attribute to the other the naive belief we are unable to sustain. What do I mean by this? First let me just emphasize how I think many of the terms which are part of the post-modern critical post-colonial studies' doxa today are deeply, not only Eurocentric but are how should I put it, are a kind of a masked aggressive, extremely aggressive Eurocentrism masked as its opposite. Let me take the fundamental category where you cannot miss if you want to be right today. Everybody is against essentialism and for contingency. No, contingency is good, essentialism is bad. But let's look closely how this category works. I claim that it is effectively a new, differently coded version of the old distinction between you know primitives who believe firmly in their beliefs and we moderns who know about contingency, who have a more flexible intellectual approach, who live a more reflexive life and so on. Because if you look at it closely, the passage from fundamentalism or essentialism to contingency is always staged as a kind of a passage from more primitive naive attitude towards more modern plural contingent attitude whatever. So one should be again very suspicious about how this functions. For example, even in the case of the highest certainty, the notorious case of so-called media image Muslim fundamentalist on a suicidal mission. We usually say "Oh my God, but they have to believe, they really must believe, at least they believe." Well frankly I doubt if they really believe. I spoke with some of my Israeli friends who are of course, I mean Israeli in close contacts with Palestinians fighting Zionism, and they told me that they made some researches there and came to a strange, I mean researches, okay, speaking with people who knew people and so on, and came to a strange, much more refined result that with most of these suicide so-called bombers even if they pretend even if it may appear that they really believe this story which is often falsely appeared in the Western media, you know, "I will kill myself and tomorrow I will have the famous fifty virgins in paradise or what," that the logic is really different. The underlying logic is that they are terribly unsure of their belief. And the wager of their suicide is rather "I am not sure if I believe, but by killing myself I will in a way convince myself that I believe." So what I want to say is that even there there is a kind of a doubt. On the contrary, and the counterpoint to this would have been that we in the West precisely when we pretend not to believe, you know always the others are believers, we are cynical, we don't take things seriously. But I think that the structure which was elaborated by some Lacanian theorists of the subject supposed to believe, how you need another one to believe for you, is widely practiced today. You know the classical examples for example I don't know you know how when you say "I don't believe in Santa Claus, but I pretend to believe just on behalf of my children." But my God, do the children believe? Ask any child, he will say "Of course not, I am not stupid, I pretend to believe so that I get the presents" and so on and so on. And it's exactly the same with history. No, do you know a wonderful book by Paul Veyne, "Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?" And the answer is that you know the best example of this ancient beliefs is I think a story about these Ethiopian Christians, no, who they believe they believe that lion is a sacred animal. Because it's a sacred animal it respects Sabbath so it shouldn't attack their sheep on Saturday. But their logic is "We believe in it, but nonetheless it's better not to take onto pasture your sheep, no, you never know" and so. So again how does belief function today? Let me evoke a strange example. You know that after the twentieth or during even the twentieth congress of the Soviet Communist Party, the Khrushchev Report Congress, you know that there were even doctors back prepared to treat collapses and it did happen. I think a couple of people had heart attack, attack there on the spot. A couple of people died immediately after like Bolesław Bierut, the big Polish Stalinist leader, and a couple of people like Aleksandr Fadeyev, the hardline Stalinist writer, President of Soviet Writers' Union, also killed himself a couple of days later. But wait a minute, was he a believer? It would be naive to accept that he was a believer. I mean my God he denounced dozens of persons. So he couldn't play the game of "Oh my God, I thought we live in an ideal world, now I learned about horrible Stalinist crimes." No, it wasn't, he didn't learn basically anything new in Khrushchev's report. What was disturbed was only the surface. It was rendered public. That was the unbearable fact. Another example which is I think the ultimate example of ethical hypocrisy although it's usually in the history books that I read about the last months of Germany, German defeat in the spring, sorry, in the first months of forty-five, it's evoked as an ethical example. The well-known example of a German mayor who in the early, there are two stories, one is from the West, the US army occupied a small town and forced the mayor, forced the mayor and others to visit the nearby concentration camp and upon his return home he committed suicide. The idea is "Oh my God you see he was honest." Absolutely not, I think this was the ultimate hypocritical act. Why? My God, I'm sure he knew it. What he wasn't, the strategy of this suicide was to retroactively create the illusion that he was innocent, that he didn't know it. It's utter hypocrisy. The same with another ethical example that I learned. When Soviet army was approaching an East German city, a mayor also he was supposed to be an honest Nazi and in contrast to others who simply burned their documents, erased their traces, he proudly put on all the Nazi insignia and walked towards the Russians and was immediately shot. And the books that I read say "You see this was an honest Nazi." My God if he was so honest what was he doing with Nazis with all the insignia and so on? You know, so again matters with belief are problematic. The second, the last point that I want to make is that instead of conceding in advance any territory to the enemy in political struggle, one should struggle even for notions which appear naturally to belong to the enemy. What do I mean by this? Let me take really at the end an extreme case. I recently was reading Arnold Schoenberg's Harmonielehre, you know his major theoretical manifesto from nineteen eleven, where he develops his opposition to tonal music. But how does he do it? In the second part, he does it in terms which almost recall what we perceive as Nazi anti-Semitic rhetoric. He designates tonal music as diseased, degenerated world in need of a clear solution. The tonal system has given in to inbreeding and incest, romantic chords are cosmopolitan, hermaphroditic, and so on and so on. He he even asks for some kind of apocalyptic act in order to clear the spiritual situation and so on and so on. Now the obvious thing would have been "You see even he was infected by the by the virus of what later exploded in Nazism" and so on and so on. But I think it's precisely this conclusion that we should avoid. What makes Nazism repulsive is not the rhetoric of final solution as such but the concrete twist it gives, Nazism, to it. Another popular topic of this kind of analysis is the allegedly proto-fascist character of mass choreography displaying disciplined movements of thousand of bodies, you know parades and so on. If one finds them also in socialism, one immediately draws the conclusion about a deeper affinity between the two totalitarianisms. I think such procedures are typical of ideological liberalism and they miss the point. Not only are such mass performances not inherently fascist, they are not even neutral, waiting to be appropriated by the left or the right. It was Nazism who stole them, who appropriated them from the workers' movement. So it is here that I think one should abandon this topic, this you know search for proto-fascism, where did it begin? Was it one popular theory that it was the romantic aesthetic reading of Kantian ethics or whatsoever? I don't I think that here again I refer to a conversation with Badiou who gave me this idea that the beginning of fascism is fascism itself, in a way. I don't accept this game of this naive pre-Nietzschean genealogy. Along the same lines I think one should reject the notion that discipline from self-control to bodily training is a kind of a proto-fascist feature. I think that for example I remember from my youth the wave of Kung Fu films, you know Bruce Lee and so on and so on. If you ask me frankly I think that they were relatively progressive even. They were a genuine working-class spontaneous ideology of youngsters whose only means of success was the disciplinary training of their only possession, their bodies. Spontaneity, the "let it go" attitude belong to those who have the means to afford it. Those who have nothing have only their bodies to discipline them. Of course I'm aware that this bodily discipline is to be opposed to the opposite bodily discipline which is not the collective training but jogging, bodybuilding and so on as part of realizing your inner potentials. It's typical how the obsession with one's body is an almost obligatory part, I notice, of the passage of ex-leftist radicals into the maturity of pragmatic politics. This is what Jane Fonda and Joschka Fischer have in common. In their youth they were more radical. Now they are mainstream. In between there was a period where you know Joschka Fischer published a book, My Path to Myself, where he reports how he lost fifty kilos and so on and so on. So again my point is let's not the enemy determine the terrain. We should simply we should totally I think abandon outgrow this notion of liberal tolerance determining the terms. We should fearlessly approach sorry appropriate terms even if it means even if they have today neo-Nazi whatever connotations. We should be absolutely fearless here. So to conclude in another I wouldn't since I began with an East German joke I want to conclude with Hollywood. In a classic line from a Hollywood screwball comedy, the girl I forgot which one was but from the late thirties with Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers I think, the girl asks her boyfriend "Do you want to marry me?" The boy answers "No." The girl says "Stop dodging the issue, give me a straight answer." I think she was right. In a way the underlying logic is correct. The only proper answer for her was of course "Yes." And this is not a crazy illusory example. I remember twice when I was young having exactly the same experience. I remember when I was six seven I encountered a priest. He asked me "Do you believe in God?" I said "No." He said "Stop avoiding the issue, that's not a serious answer," no? Okay I had later with a communist functionary the same experience and so on. But what I want to say is that isn't it something of the same order that we are facing today with the choice democracy or fundamentalism, war on terror. Is it not that within the terms of this choice you really cannot if you say "I'm for fundamentalism," oh it's not serious, come on and so on and so on. So precisely when we are faced with a choice like that, we should focus on the true problem which is the way the ruling ideology imposes on us what in this choice it's the way it is structured, no? Of course you cannot choose fundamentalism. But then if you choose democracy it's already in advance determined what is democracy. The problem is what they sell you under the guise of democracy. And here again we should be fearless in what sense? Especially situations like after September eleventh, we are they generate some kind of a how should I call it, false clarity. No, the idea is that things now are clear. This was the message of American establishment to cultural studies people. You know the titles were all around like The End of the Age of Irony. You were able to play all the games now you must choose. But I think that our thesis should be that precisely in situations like that when things appear to be clear, us against them survival, the mystification is absolute. At that point one should gather the strength and say "No, it's not that now things are for the real." Yes they are for the real, but not in the sense that you mean. They are for the real in the sense that now we should question the very presuppositions of what is imposed on us. Which is why I'm more and more convinced that what is truly at stake in all this September eleventh affair is rather that even if it was not, I'm not of those paranoid conspiracy theorists who claim that the bombing was directly organized by the FBI, but how should I put it, I don't believe this, but "se non vero, ben trovato". That is to say the crucial element for me is what is effect not the big spectacular events but just look at the details of what goes on at the daily life how things are imperceptibly changing our standards. For example do you know that in American media you find now regularly open discussions about torture? Should we reintroduce torture? What I find horrible is not that the answer is yes, but that it's accepted as legitimate topic of the debate. And even liberals who oppose it, oppose it not on principled grounds but but like Alan Dershowitz says "Yes, but we cannot ever be sure and we should change the laws" and so on. You know he already even he already accepted the this as the topic of the debate. Or another thing you read about this about this idea of this idea of TIPS, new idea, it's already a proposal to to engage literally hundreds of thousands of workers who on account of their work have access to private apartments, offices and so on to serve as informers. No the idea is that postmen, repairmen and so on should be given appropriate material and report on suspicious activities and so on and so on. So you know this is what interests me, the actual silent changes taking place at at the daily level. This I think is what is effectively happening. We can forgot, we can forget about Middle East. What interests me is how what interests me is this radical change in the mode of functioning of our so-called democracies, namely my thesis is a very pessimistic one, it's that it may sound crazy but I'm not a so-called lunatic leftist Trotskyite but nonetheless I'm very much to the left and my thesis is that basically we are approaching the era of the end of even what we till now had as democracy. I think that slowly we are moving to an era where more and more how should I put it, it's not that there will be a direct state of emergency. The crucial statement was by I think Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft who said that the war on terror will never end, definitely not before fifty years. That is to say the truly horrible thing is not to use Agamben terms that normal democratic life will be replaced by state of emergency, but that somehow we would not even be able to tell the difference, that they would be perceived as the same. So this may be bad news, but at the same time these are good news. The enemy will be forced to show his face. Thank you very much. Okay so how long did I speak? Where are we now? One hour and ten minutes. Oh that's good. Okay but it took away your your proof, no? Oh yeah. But what on earth happened with happiness? In the beginning it was all happiness, happiness, happiness, and then no word of happiness anymore and at the end the the enemy shows its face. Ah no, he said now the good news is that now happiness is again possible. Yeah, but I will tell you why I have a theory I have a theory of happiness which is the good the good happiness, you know what? What you find very briefly not another twenty minutes, what you find in the best novels of Marguerite Duras which is that usually how does love emerge there? It's not I look you eye to eye, we look into each other, it's that a couple is confronted a task of I don't know searching for a third person and then you don't look eye to eye, you just hold hands and focus on the third element and then all of a sudden you discover "But here I'm happy," which is why quite pathetically I think that even intimate happiness is no longer today to be found in intimacy. Intimacy is already public today. You can have I don't know public websites where you can find I mean today everybody can confess his private secrets. That's not the intimate the only space for intimate happiness must be created through some kind of a new collectivity. More than ever I think that when we speak about withdrawing into private life, I think that the true victim is precisely private life. We are getting less and less of what till now was privacy was intimacy. But okay. You want to be happy? I try to find no no I want to be happy like this Czech people you know that I think it's a good idea I'm totally with you that happiness could be the worst what can happen as long as we have a chance to be wrong about it, so we can still be what's that optimistic you know? We don't have it, but there is something possible and so on. Is that not if our life has now become after September eleventh as I think a quite accurate description something which is an undeclared state of emergency, you know would that not fit in your first part of your talk about this in-between in which happiness is can be experienced. So you... No no quite in an empirical way definitely, I think that Americans are now definitely happier than before because they have a strong power no absolutely but this is for me only superficially reported. Oh no no no no wait a minute I can tell you exactly what I mean. I mean before September eleventh there was still this how should I put it, silent prohibition not only among critical academics but even among many common you know they did Vietnam they did many there was a kind of a resistance towards simply identifying with American patriotism. I think that the result of September eleventh was a kind of a how should I make a verb out of innocence, innocentization of American patriotism. Like now that we suffered this we can be innocently fully American patriots again. That's path to happiness. But you have been in the Western yourself, you know you still should kill people who try to kill you, it's very simple. That makes you happy. Okay, but let's go back to the audience now. Please feel brave enough. Make me happy by killing me or... Make him happy by allowing him to kill you. Come on guys, if I don't have volunteers I take others, okay. This is just a minor observation. Have you seen A Nun's Story with Katharine Hepburn? Isn't it Audrey Hepburn? Or sorry Audrey Hepburn. No, that's not it, yeah. It seems to me that both that film and I believe Sound of Music are on the Vatican top fifty list of films which says something about what they mean to Catholicism. Yeah, but if we are referring to the same list I must say that as many critical so-called intellectuals I was rather nicely surprised by that list. It wasn't as bad as one expected. You know that for example of the Christian films Pasolini's Matthew was in and the most disgusting one Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth was not, so that I remember Zeffirelli wrote an open letter claiming that Vatican is already occupied by by communist agents and so on. No, there were many quite nice surprises. That list is not as bad as one may think. I've taken
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off my glasses then I didn't look at it closely, but the point I wanted to make was that it probably provided a model
off my glasses then I didn't look at it closely, but the point I wanted to make was that it probably provided a model
Slavoj Žižek
for
for
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some aspects of the Sound of Music but there are there's a very different agenda,
some aspects of the Sound of Music but there are there's a very different agenda,
Slavoj Žižek
there are three fathers with whom she is in love, the father in Africa who is the doctor and she doesn't consummate that relationship, is sent back to the church and mother superior in Holland and then renounces the church because her father is killed and then as the Germans occupy Holland she goes out to the misery of community service in the service of soldiers on both sides of the of the fence. On both sides. Yeah on both sides. So what's sorry I haven't seen the movie I just know about it, so what's the end? What happens at the end? The end is that she's just going out the door after taking off her habit and taking in a very clinical sense and then she just moves out in this long tracking shot and you see her in her street clothes moving towards the world where she is going to encounter misery upon misery. So it doesn't really reinforce the the thesis about sexuality I don't think. Wait but but I think simply that this I wouldn't quote this film then as an part of my argument as an example of happiness. I think I don't see then the
there are three fathers with whom she is in love, the father in Africa who is the doctor and she doesn't consummate that relationship, is sent back to the church and mother superior in Holland and then renounces the church because her father is killed and then as the Germans occupy Holland she goes out to the misery of community service in the service of soldiers on both sides of the of the fence. On both sides. Yeah on both sides. So what's sorry I haven't seen the movie I just know about it, so what's the end? What happens at the end? The end is that she's just going out the door after taking off her habit and taking in a very clinical sense and then she just moves out in this long tracking shot and you see her in her street clothes moving towards the world where she is going to encounter misery upon misery. So it doesn't really reinforce the the thesis about sexuality I don't think. Wait but but I think simply that this I wouldn't quote this film then as an part of my argument as an example of happiness. I think I don't see then the
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continuity with with The Sound of Music. Because The Sound of Music you know is much trickier film than one may expect. I claim that it's a wonderful film in what sense that if you look at it closely you will see that okay officially it's Austrian resistance towards Hitler the Nazis. But if you look really closely at the features small features it's really that the Nazis are presented as a kind of an abstract cosmopolitan occupying power and the Austrians as are the good small fascists how should I put it. So you know the implicit message is almost the opposite of the explicit message. I think it's a much more reactionary film than it may appear so I think the element of justice in the film is a nice detail a small mistake. You remember that kids' song do re mi whatever that they sing? Then when they go into Salzburg they buy some oranges, the movie is supposed to take
continuity with with The Sound of Music. Because The Sound of Music you know is much trickier film than one may expect. I claim that it's a wonderful film in what sense that if you look at it closely you will see that okay officially it's Austrian resistance towards Hitler the Nazis. But if you look really closely at the features small features it's really that the Nazis are presented as a kind of an abstract cosmopolitan occupying power and the Austrians as are the good small fascists how should I put it. So you know the implicit message is almost the opposite of the explicit message. I think it's a much more reactionary film than it may appear so I think the element of justice in the film is a nice detail a small mistake. You remember that kids' song do re mi whatever that they sing? Then when they go into Salzburg they buy some oranges, the movie is supposed to take
Slavoj Žižek
place in thirty-eight. They buy some oranges, put the image on a freeze and look in detail. It says there product of Israel, no? So that's a nice kind of a truth of the film. Okay. I had a question about happiness. This comes from it's several years ago I worked on I was hired to work on a play that was about two parents dealing with a child that had cystic fibrosis. And it was a play designed written for and designed to be presented to people in hospitals who have to deal with parents so they had to learn how parents react. So but the crux of of the play and what kept getting repeated over and over again was a parent's job of learning was "How are we ever going to deal with this struggle day to day? How's our child ever going to be happy? How are we ever going to be happy?" And it seemed to me that that it was a shocking, this horribly wrong question to ask to a certain degree, certainly happiness is an issue but there's so much more at stake than just happiness.
place in thirty-eight. They buy some oranges, put the image on a freeze and look in detail. It says there product of Israel, no? So that's a nice kind of a truth of the film. Okay. I had a question about happiness. This comes from it's several years ago I worked on I was hired to work on a play that was about two parents dealing with a child that had cystic fibrosis. And it was a play designed written for and designed to be presented to people in hospitals who have to deal with parents so they had to learn how parents react. So but the crux of of the play and what kept getting repeated over and over again was a parent's job of learning was "How are we ever going to deal with this struggle day to day? How's our child ever going to be happy? How are we ever going to be happy?" And it seemed to me that that it was a shocking, this horribly wrong question to ask to a certain degree, certainly happiness is an issue but there's so much more at stake than just happiness.
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And then it got me to thinking for the quite a few quite a few months after this project I was really noticing and shocked by the constant
And then it got me to thinking for the quite a few quite a few months after this project I was really noticing and shocked by the constant
Slavoj Žižek
drive to find happiness as an end-all to satisfy everything and
drive to find happiness as an end-all to satisfy everything and
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and that it was all happiness, smiling, that's a fullness, but in fact it's not, it's an emptiness to a certain... Yeah, but don't
and that it was all happiness, smiling, that's a fullness, but in fact it's not, it's an emptiness to a certain... Yeah, but don't
Slavoj Žižek
you think that especially
you think that especially
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in these cases of terminal diseases and so on
in these cases of terminal diseases and so on
Slavoj Žižek
that the usual the only consequent answer is ignorance, no?
that the usual the only consequent answer is ignorance, no?
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Which is why I'm against happiness. Like for example let me tell another story which I like, you know this Huntington disease, no? This is one of the few cases where you really
Which is why I'm against happiness. Like for example let me tell another story which I like, you know this Huntington disease, no? This is one of the few cases where you really
Slavoj Žižek
have radical genetic determinism. There it's clear like I can analyze okay to not not to be sadistic you analyze my blood and you can tell me if it is a case after genetic analysis that now you will be healthy for three years, in around three years' time you will develop the first symptoms, half year later you will be dead. Complete determinism, you can up to a couple of months up or down you can even determine in advance the not only that I will die but how, when. But now what's the catch? The catch is that the very doctor who
have radical genetic determinism. There it's clear like I can analyze okay to not not to be sadistic you analyze my blood and you can tell me if it is a case after genetic analysis that now you will be healthy for three years, in around three years' time you will develop the first symptoms, half year later you will be dead. Complete determinism, you can up to a couple of months up or down you can even determine in advance the not only that I will die but how, when. But now what's the catch? The catch is that the very doctor who
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invented this test is afraid to
invented this test is afraid to
Slavoj Žižek
apply it on himself. So it's interesting that the only
apply it on himself. So it's interesting that the only
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people who have in family in their families Huntington's disease and accept the test are those who usually is the pathetic parental care stuff, who have children and want to know if they have it so that if they have it they can take care financially provide for the children. But then I ask myself a very simple question. From the standpoint of happiness, what would I have done? From the opportunistic standpoint of happiness. And I found only one solution. The opportunistic
people who have in family in their families Huntington's disease and accept the test are those who usually is the pathetic parental care stuff, who have children and want to know if they have it so that if they have it they can take care financially provide for the children. But then I ask myself a very simple question. From the standpoint of happiness, what would I have done? From the opportunistic standpoint of happiness. And I found only one solution. The opportunistic
Slavoj Žižek
happiness solution would have been the following one. Let's say that you are a very good doctor and a friend of mine. I would have asked you... I would tell
happiness solution would have been the following one. Let's say that you are a very good doctor and a friend of mine. I would have asked you... I would tell
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you the truth... No but that's precisely why my God, no my idea would be: analyze me but don't tell me anything. Just if you know let us say if you learn that three years from now the illness will start, then a month before kill me in my sleep without me knowing. That would be the closest you can come to happiness. But it doesn't work of course,
you the truth... No but that's precisely why my God, no my idea would be: analyze me but don't tell me anything. Just if you know let us say if you learn that three years from now the illness will start, then a month before kill me in my sleep without me knowing. That would be the closest you can come to happiness. But it doesn't work of course,
Slavoj Žižek
why not because every time I would meet you I would know? So let's go to the end, the only true happiness would have been an anonymous state agency doing this to all of us without us even knowing it. This is the solution of happiness I claim. So... Good one, okay. Okay first rate then Victor. I wonder if you can provide another example of a nation that had as one of its premises the pursuit of happiness and what has become of that nation. Oh, it's not I think that but isn't it that in modernity especially in modernity happiness is basically I don't think even we have to look far, isn't it silently admitted today that the the state's main duty even more than to guarantee freedom is to provide happiness? It started even with I think it was James the one who was whose head was cut off by by Orwell sorry Charles the first who issued this famous statement "My God I will I will I will make the English people happy even if I will have to force them to be happy with the army" and so on. I mean it it began there no it began there in a way. So I think that one even one even doesn't have to look for it. Okay in the case of United States it's more specific and so on and so on. But which is why I think you find all the paradoxes of happiness in an even more direct way. For
why not because every time I would meet you I would know? So let's go to the end, the only true happiness would have been an anonymous state agency doing this to all of us without us even knowing it. This is the solution of happiness I claim. So... Good one, okay. Okay first rate then Victor. I wonder if you can provide another example of a nation that had as one of its premises the pursuit of happiness and what has become of that nation. Oh, it's not I think that but isn't it that in modernity especially in modernity happiness is basically I don't think even we have to look far, isn't it silently admitted today that the the state's main duty even more than to guarantee freedom is to provide happiness? It started even with I think it was James the one who was whose head was cut off by by Orwell sorry Charles the first who issued this famous statement "My God I will I will I will make the English people happy even if I will have to force them to be happy with the army" and so on. I mean it it began there no it began there in a way. So I think that one even one even doesn't have to look for it. Okay in the case of United States it's more specific and so on and so on. But which is why I think you find all the paradoxes of happiness in an even more direct way. For
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example what happens with subjectivity? I read recently an
example what happens with subjectivity? I read recently an
Slavoj Žižek
excellent
excellent
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book, I love it. The book is How to Disappear Completely. And it's a quite a serious book I mean not dreaming. The idea is let's say you are tired of your life and you want to disappear and create new identity. It gives you very precise instructions how you do it. The idea is that he discovered this guy that the birth where the birth registers are kept in the United States are not at the same place than when death registers are kept. So the idea is you notice a certain person approximately of your age died. Then you you write to his place of birth to local state authority place whatever and you just ask for a new birth certificate and you give some money and you can get it without documents they send it to you. No, no. Yes, it's done. No, no, this book is outdated... Okay, but it was really... Yeah for many years... Yeah, yeah because then with this you get you get social security number with this you become member of the union you get a credit card and you are in. But they ask you for identity before you get your birth...
book, I love it. The book is How to Disappear Completely. And it's a quite a serious book I mean not dreaming. The idea is let's say you are tired of your life and you want to disappear and create new identity. It gives you very precise instructions how you do it. The idea is that he discovered this guy that the birth where the birth registers are kept in the United States are not at the same place than when death registers are kept. So the idea is you notice a certain person approximately of your age died. Then you you write to his place of birth to local state authority place whatever and you just ask for a new birth certificate and you give some money and you can get it without documents they send it to you. No, no. Yes, it's done. No, no, this book is outdated... Okay, but it was really... Yeah for many years... Yeah, yeah because then with this you get you get social security number with this you become member of the union you get a credit card and you are in. But they ask you for identity before you get your birth...
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Ah really? Okay, then that's American
Ah really? Okay, then that's American
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terrorism
terrorism
Slavoj Žižek
whatsoever. No, but my point is that this book series is wonderful, this was published by a publishing house which specializes in books which I think are a kind of obscene truth of these official books of you know how to make your life happy how to succeed. The other titles published by this house are like how to take revenge on your enemies, how to ruin someone with bad rumors and so on and so on. I mean it's wonderful books I mean... How to Survive Prison I think is one of those. Really? Yeah, like "So you're going to prison", you know? This is how you make a shiv, this is how you make a bomb, this is how you... But you are not talking about the other one which I like which I think it's theoretically important book but totally different that this is not the same as if you mean that the worst case survivor... It's a different it's a different one specifically... Because I love I love those books precisely because of how should I put it, again they deal with real life situations, the only problem is that you never encounter these situations no? Like you have in that bestseller book you have advice like "What do you do when an alligator or crocodile bites your leg?" The idea is you tap him on the nose because it automatically... or "What do you do when a hungry lion wants to attack you?" It's simple, you must have okay unfortunately a jacket, you open it because the lions don't think in depth terms, they think that you are then much bigger and usually turn around and so on. No it's now what I mean is that it's very mysterious the success of this book. I think there is a deep almost progressive agenda in it namely let me ask you a simple question. Which was the only American movie of the last years where you have a spectacle of working class solidarity? It was that otherwise very boring movie The Perfect Storm. You know I think that it's almost a model of how in this conditions of extreme
whatsoever. No, but my point is that this book series is wonderful, this was published by a publishing house which specializes in books which I think are a kind of obscene truth of these official books of you know how to make your life happy how to succeed. The other titles published by this house are like how to take revenge on your enemies, how to ruin someone with bad rumors and so on and so on. I mean it's wonderful books I mean... How to Survive Prison I think is one of those. Really? Yeah, like "So you're going to prison", you know? This is how you make a shiv, this is how you make a bomb, this is how you... But you are not talking about the other one which I like which I think it's theoretically important book but totally different that this is not the same as if you mean that the worst case survivor... It's a different it's a different one specifically... Because I love I love those books precisely because of how should I put it, again they deal with real life situations, the only problem is that you never encounter these situations no? Like you have in that bestseller book you have advice like "What do you do when an alligator or crocodile bites your leg?" The idea is you tap him on the nose because it automatically... or "What do you do when a hungry lion wants to attack you?" It's simple, you must have okay unfortunately a jacket, you open it because the lions don't think in depth terms, they think that you are then much bigger and usually turn around and so on. No it's now what I mean is that it's very mysterious the success of this book. I think there is a deep almost progressive agenda in it namely let me ask you a simple question. Which was the only American movie of the last years where you have a spectacle of working class solidarity? It was that otherwise very boring movie The Perfect Storm. You know I think that it's almost a model of how in this conditions of extreme
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catastrophe
catastrophe
Slavoj Žižek
a kind of elementary although in a small group working class solidarity emerges. But it tells a lot about today's situation that we need such a such an extreme situation in order to be able to imagine at all any kind of elementary working class solidarity. Sorry I talk too much. No, who is now? I happen to know that there's no other constitution in the world that lists... What do they have in Bangladesh then where... Pardon? But the nation of Bhutan for the past five years has been researching establishing something they're going to call Gross National Happiness. And it's intent... No they're taking it from... as a national advisor, environmental economist working... I know. And to be cynical Bhutan is the country where they are selling by thousands small five years old girls to Indian prostitution houses no? Yes. No wonder. Answer the question that's in another place. I'm not saying... No no sorry... and I would never Bhutan on the level of as Gross National Happiness. Okay. One more thing. I just was you maybe interested to know that worst case scenarios book is now becoming a game show. I know that and I also know that there are further books which I think are are not as successful. It's clear that it was how do you call it a hapax yes. The best case, the very question of happiness makes everybody unhappy. Conduct an experiment. When you're walking down the hall and you see someone, don't just say "Hello," "Good morning," "How do you feel?", "Nice day" and so on, ask them, stop them "Are you happy?" I conducted that experiment for about a year. It was amazing the different kinds of
a kind of elementary although in a small group working class solidarity emerges. But it tells a lot about today's situation that we need such a such an extreme situation in order to be able to imagine at all any kind of elementary working class solidarity. Sorry I talk too much. No, who is now? I happen to know that there's no other constitution in the world that lists... What do they have in Bangladesh then where... Pardon? But the nation of Bhutan for the past five years has been researching establishing something they're going to call Gross National Happiness. And it's intent... No they're taking it from... as a national advisor, environmental economist working... I know. And to be cynical Bhutan is the country where they are selling by thousands small five years old girls to Indian prostitution houses no? Yes. No wonder. Answer the question that's in another place. I'm not saying... No no sorry... and I would never Bhutan on the level of as Gross National Happiness. Okay. One more thing. I just was you maybe interested to know that worst case scenarios book is now becoming a game show. I know that and I also know that there are further books which I think are are not as successful. It's clear that it was how do you call it a hapax yes. The best case, the very question of happiness makes everybody unhappy. Conduct an experiment. When you're walking down the hall and you see someone, don't just say "Hello," "Good morning," "How do you feel?", "Nice day" and so on, ask them, stop them "Are you happy?" I conducted that experiment for about a year. It was amazing the different kinds of
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responses I
responses I
Slavoj Žižek
got. The first time I thought I'd really hit a jackpot because the woman fell against the wall, someone I know very well a colleague, and she was horrified, it was as if her face just crumbled. That's interesting because that's not my experience I made similar experiments I will tell you at what level. I think it's just a question of
got. The first time I thought I'd really hit a jackpot because the woman fell against the wall, someone I know very well a colleague, and she was horrified, it was as if her face just crumbled. That's interesting because that's not my experience I made similar experiments I will tell you at what level. I think it's just a question of
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cultural context or whatever
cultural context or whatever
Slavoj Žižek
because I noticed I'm an idiot at a certain level. By idiot I mean psychotic, I take things literally no? So I remember when the first time I visited United States I was shocked, it's not done in Europe, you know this pseudo-familiarity of Manhattan waiters especially in lower Manhattan. You know you enter they say "Hello, my name is John, how are you today?" and so on. So I didn't know what's going on so I said "Oh not too good, I had a bad night" and so on. And you know I didn't know it's a purely rhetorical question. So the guy looked at me as an idiot as a as if I'm an idiot which I was in that case no? But my point is that it all depends how this question functions in my country you can ask okay not too stupidly "Are you happy?" but "Are things okay? Is it good?" and you are supposed to say yes even if you were castrated yesterday or whatsoever. I mean so you know what I mean. Phatic communication, right? Yeah, phatic, literally phatic. You're about Oh so... No but I like it you know why? Because how should I put it? It appears to be
because I noticed I'm an idiot at a certain level. By idiot I mean psychotic, I take things literally no? So I remember when the first time I visited United States I was shocked, it's not done in Europe, you know this pseudo-familiarity of Manhattan waiters especially in lower Manhattan. You know you enter they say "Hello, my name is John, how are you today?" and so on. So I didn't know what's going on so I said "Oh not too good, I had a bad night" and so on. And you know I didn't know it's a purely rhetorical question. So the guy looked at me as an idiot as a as if I'm an idiot which I was in that case no? But my point is that it all depends how this question functions in my country you can ask okay not too stupidly "Are you happy?" but "Are things okay? Is it good?" and you are supposed to say yes even if you were castrated yesterday or whatsoever. I mean so you know what I mean. Phatic communication, right? Yeah, phatic, literally phatic. You're about Oh so... No but I like it you know why? Because how should I put it? It appears to be
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hypocritical but it's not. For example if you ask me or
hypocritical but it's not. For example if you ask me or
Slavoj Žižek
I ask you: "How are you doing?" You would like "Hello, how are you doing?" Isn't it that since we don't yet know each other really personally, if you were to suspect that I mean it really sincerely, you would have if you were to suspect it you would have full right to say "Sorry, but it's none of your concern, it's none of your
I ask you: "How are you doing?" You would like "Hello, how are you doing?" Isn't it that since we don't yet know each other really personally, if you were to suspect that I mean it really sincerely, you would have if you were to suspect it you would have full right to say "Sorry, but it's none of your concern, it's none of your
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business," no? I mean this
business," no? I mean this
Slavoj Žižek
question functions as you said as a purely phatic question and it's even an insult to take it seriously. And that's I think the
question functions as you said as a purely phatic question and it's even an insult to take it seriously. And that's I think the
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mystery of... Yeah, but if you ask the question using the word "happy," it seems to really pierce people. I'm tempted to say... It makes them unhappy, the raising the question... Yeah, but you know I know where are you aiming at and I'm have slight doubts if I'm totally ready to follow you. You know what I like about I think I don't know where did you do this, in Japan, yes. You know like when somebody
mystery of... Yeah, but if you ask the question using the word "happy," it seems to really pierce people. I'm tempted to say... It makes them unhappy, the raising the question... Yeah, but you know I know where are you aiming at and I'm have slight doubts if I'm totally ready to follow you. You know what I like about I think I don't know where did you do this, in Japan, yes. You know like when somebody
Slavoj Žižek
disagrees with another guy, no? They don't say "Oh it's shit I don't agree," no, they say "I totally agree with you I would just maybe put a slightly different accent." So okay I would just like to maybe put a slightly different accent on what you said, which is that if you were aiming at the point which is the standard point that you can only be happy in a spontaneous way without knowing that you are happy and so on, I don't buy this. I think you can do it. It's the same as in sexuality. Let's say to be very vulgar you are no sorry I am okay impotent. The worst thing you can get is this pseudo-New Age advice "Just don't think about it, let yourself go," etc. That's you are finished. What works, and I spoke, not because of my own case, with some sexual blah blah, what works is the totally opposite strategy. To treat it as
disagrees with another guy, no? They don't say "Oh it's shit I don't agree," no, they say "I totally agree with you I would just maybe put a slightly different accent." So okay I would just like to maybe put a slightly different accent on what you said, which is that if you were aiming at the point which is the standard point that you can only be happy in a spontaneous way without knowing that you are happy and so on, I don't buy this. I think you can do it. It's the same as in sexuality. Let's say to be very vulgar you are no sorry I am okay impotent. The worst thing you can get is this pseudo-New Age advice "Just don't think about it, let yourself go," etc. That's you are finished. What works, and I spoke, not because of my own case, with some sexual blah blah, what works is the totally opposite strategy. To treat it as
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a totally instrumental
a totally instrumental
Slavoj Žižek
problem. Like sit down with your partner and make a detailed list. First I will kiss you in this way that blah blah. Then you do it and precisely because everything is planned in advance, you somehow forget about your duty to be spontaneous and it works. So you know what I mean. I think it's the same for happiness. I can well imagine someone wanting to be happy consciously and nonetheless being happy. Although not at the same level, it's not the same level. But I'm just a little bit skeptical, okay, maybe you didn't have this in mind. But I'm a little bit skeptical about the idea that you know this ideology of
problem. Like sit down with your partner and make a detailed list. First I will kiss you in this way that blah blah. Then you do it and precisely because everything is planned in advance, you somehow forget about your duty to be spontaneous and it works. So you know what I mean. I think it's the same for happiness. I can well imagine someone wanting to be happy consciously and nonetheless being happy. Although not at the same level, it's not the same level. But I'm just a little bit skeptical, okay, maybe you didn't have this in mind. But I'm a little bit skeptical about the idea that you know this ideology of
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"You only can be happy if you don't think about it," this lost innocence,
"You only can be happy if you don't think about it," this lost innocence,
Slavoj Žižek
"the moment you
"the moment you
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reflect
reflect
Slavoj Žižek
about it you are no longer happy" and so on and so on. The ultimate proof of it that things are not as simple as that is that I think this is like in Charles Dickens' novels. I love Dickens but nonetheless you know this fundamental hypocrisy love for these small poor people who are happy. Yeah but I mean you are saying this who is already you know I think that the fact that you can be happy without knowing it is mostly the dream of the people who feel very well not being happy and if you ask them "Okay but would you exchange place with that guy who is supposed to be happy?" you would never have accepted it. So I just find it this opposition of only spontaneously living people can be happy... You are a little bit old fashioned, nowadays we believe in lifestyle drugs like take Viagra and then your problem is over you don't have to talk with anybody you know. I'm unhappy with that answer. But good. Are you taking are you taking was this a personal confession or what? No but I can give you a few if you'd like it. Oh yes. No no I just wanted to answer his question. Ah. Answer the question. So nobody has a question? We
about it you are no longer happy" and so on and so on. The ultimate proof of it that things are not as simple as that is that I think this is like in Charles Dickens' novels. I love Dickens but nonetheless you know this fundamental hypocrisy love for these small poor people who are happy. Yeah but I mean you are saying this who is already you know I think that the fact that you can be happy without knowing it is mostly the dream of the people who feel very well not being happy and if you ask them "Okay but would you exchange place with that guy who is supposed to be happy?" you would never have accepted it. So I just find it this opposition of only spontaneously living people can be happy... You are a little bit old fashioned, nowadays we believe in lifestyle drugs like take Viagra and then your problem is over you don't have to talk with anybody you know. I'm unhappy with that answer. But good. Are you taking are you taking was this a personal confession or what? No but I can give you a few if you'd like it. Oh yes. No no I just wanted to answer his question. Ah. Answer the question. So nobody has a question? We
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are happy. We
are happy. We
Slavoj Žižek
are out. So anyway, it was a long day
are out. So anyway, it was a long day
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and a good discussion. Thank you very much.
and a good discussion. Thank you very much.