Only a Catastrophy Can Save Us
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2023-03 · 1:21:56 · 10,266 words
with Darko Radosavljev
ideologygeopolitics-warpsychoanalysissexuality-genderecology-climateliberalism-political-correctnessfascism-populismrace-antisemitismhegel-dialecticsreligion-theologyphilosophy-generalcapitalism
Žižek delivers a wide-ranging lecture under the banner 'Only a Catastrophe Can Save Us,' structured around what he calls 'unholy alliances': the convergence of far-right conservatism and anti-imperialist leftism in support of Russia, the alliance between radical Zionism and Western antisemitism, and the paradox of woke identity politics undermining solidarity. He argues for continued support of Ukraine while insisting the war forces Ukraine to confront its own oligarchic corruption, defends psychoanalysis against both biological determinism and voluntarist identity politics, and ends with a discussion of ecology, cynical ideology, and the role of philosophy in times of crisis.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 15
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “peace as instrument of the occupier”
Žižek's claim that peace always serves the interests of whoever currently occupies territory, so abstract pacifism is de facto conservative: the occupier wants the violence to stop so they can occupy in peace.
as “ideology gets its own efficiency”
Žižek's claim that ideological commitments cannot be reduced to material interests: Nazi antisemitism produced millions of deaths even when it was militarily counterproductive, proving ideology acts with autonomous causal force.
as “capitalism as religious phenomenon”
Following Walter Benjamin, Žižek argues capitalism is not egotist pleasure-seeking but a sacrificial religion in which the true fanatic works compulsively so that capital reproduces itself, demanding we appeal to 'good egotism' against it.
Freud's concept of a childhood phase of polymorphous, fantasy-driven sexuality that permanently structures adult desire and prevents sexuality from ever being simply a matter of conscious choice.
Žižek criticizes the practice of using puberty blockers to defer sexual identity formation, arguing it rests on a naïve Enlightenment fantasy that maturity brings free choice, whereas sexual identity, like love, is never a simple conscious decision.
as “unholy alliance”
Žižek's term for politically incoherent coalitions where ideologically opposed forces (e.g., far-right and radical left) converge on the same position for contradictory reasons, as when anti-imperialist leftists and religious conservatives both support Putin.
Žižek contrasts the old left's unifying address to 'the people' with woke politics' logic of perpetual suspicion, always finding hidden offenses in language, which he argues blocks rather than enables solidarity.
as “Zionist antisemitism”
The paradoxical alliance in which radical Zionists seeking a strong ethnostate find common cause with Western antisemites who want Jews to leave Europe, a logic Žižek traces back to Reinhard Heydrich's 1936 letter.
An ecological ideology Žižek rejects as secretly anthropocentric: it imagines nature as a harmonious whole disrupted by humans, ignoring that nature is already self-destructive (coal, oil as products of prior ecological catastrophes).
as “the gaze / the look back”
The Lacanian idea that to truly see a thing it must in some sense look back at you; Žižek applies this to new surveillance technology, arguing what we lose is precisely the mysterious 'blind spot' of the returning gaze.
Drawing on Kleist, Žižek argues that all great linguistic and intellectual discoveries arise from speaking wrongly and then improvising to save the situation, something computers cannot do and which AI-generated speech lacks.
Used implicitly via the Lem/Solaris reading: the external traumatic object that remains permanently non-transparent, resisting reduction to a mirror of our inner desires.
The structure 'I know very well, but...' whereby subjects acknowledge a disturbing reality (e.g., war deaths) while acting as if it does not apply to them; Žižek updates this via Alenka Zupančič to show that today the fetish has become knowledge itself.
Following Sloterdijk, the post-ideological stance of 'we know very well what we are doing but we do it anyway,' which Žižek identifies in art biennales and climate conferences that proclaim critique while reproducing capitalist logic.
Žižek provocatively names 'work makes you free' as his personal motto while denouncing the Nazi misuse of the phrase, arguing the horror of Nazism is that it perverted a motto that in itself expresses a genuine truth about meaningful activity.
Stories he reaches for 7
Reinhard Heydrich wrote approvingly of helping Jews emigrate to Palestine, seeing it as consistent with antisemitic goals of removing Jews from Germany, showing that the current far-right celebration of Netanyahu's call for diaspora Jews to move to Israel reproduces this same logic.
“Jews are an ingenious active people. We would like to collaborate, trade with them, we just don't want them here. We should help them to move to Palestine.”
The Glasgow COP summit gathered world leaders to make correct declarations about climate change, after which everyone returned to business as usual, the summit functioning as a ritual that discharges the obligation to act without producing action.
“They were saying all the right things but it works like, 'Okay, now we said it, now we can go on as usual.'”
Uganda's parliament passed a law with a potential death penalty for homosexuality; a Ugandan MP framed it as: you are either with us or with Western imperialism, dramatizing how sexual conservatism and anti-imperialism have merged.
“You are either with us, supporting our anti-gay legislation, or you are with the Western world.”
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan they immediately made peace with China: you let us do what we want to women, we will not interfere with your treatment of Uyghurs, revealing Putin's 'multicultural coexistence' as co-authorship of repression.
“You Chinese allow us in Afghanistan to do what we want, to treat women the way we do, but we will not mess with what you are doing with Uyghur Muslims.”
Wittgenstein's newly published WWI diaries reveal he was thinking about philosophical debates with colleagues during masturbation, illustrating Freud's question: not 'are you always thinking about sex?' but 'what are you thinking about when you are having sex?'
“He describes what he's thinking about when he was masturbating... discussing with colleagues philosophical questions and so on, that's the spirit.”
Hugh Grant's fumbling, repetitive declaration of love in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' is for Žižek the model of authentic love declaration: if done too smoothly, it signals mere performance, not genuine feeling.
“When Hugh Grant declares love to Andie MacDowell, he gets in his typical way, stumbles, repeats himself. That's how you declare love.”
After Wagenknecht gave a pacifist anti-Ukraine-aid speech at peace demonstrations, a high-ranking AfD member invited her to join them, illustrating the left-right convergence on pro-Russian positions.
“You speak like us, like join us.”
Works invoked 12
Žižek's own book, mentioned as his treatment of why he is not simply afraid of AI and cyberspace developments, exploring what happens to humans as humans when both nature and human identity are dissolving.
Žižek calls it a 'stupid movie, otherwise I hated it,' but cites Hugh Grant's fumbling love declaration as the correct model of authentic avowal.
The Rapture film
Called 'the most materialist film that I saw'; Žižek uses it as his central example of the truest undermining of religion from within, the protagonist refuses God even after the apocalypse actually occurs.
Solaris (film) film
Tarkovsky's adaptation is criticized for 'the usual half-religious obscurantism', reducing the alien object to a mirror of the characters' deepest desires, losing Lem's radical non-transparency.
The Fabelmans film
Žižek doesn't like the film much but calls the ending with John Ford 'one of the best endings of all time.'
Žižek's own text for which he was attacked, arguing Ukraine faces both Russian military colonization and Western economic neocolonialism via agricultural corporations owning Chernozem.
Žižek's own book against the American attack on Iraq, whose title he borrows from the Freudian joke about mutually contradictory excuses.
Lem's novel cited (by the host, endorsed by Žižek) as anticipating the virtualization of existence through drugs/technology, already happening with social media's image-world.
Sloterdijk's early work, called 'maybe still the best,' cited for defining cynicism as enlightened false consciousness, 'we know very well what we are doing but we are nonetheless doing it.'
Kleist's short essay cited for the thesis that great inventions in language and ideas arise from misspeaking and then improvising to save the situation, a capacity Žižek doubts computers possess.
Newly published WWI diaries cited as empirical evidence for the Freudian theory that sexual fantasy involves displacement to entirely non-sexual content.
Solaris (novel) book
Lem's novel is preferred over Tarkovsky's film for keeping the ocean as a permanently non-transparent external traumatic object, a true instantiation of the Real.
People invoked 25
Alenka Zupančič positive
Žižek describes her as his Slovenian colleague, calls her 'very bright, maybe more bright than me,' and credits her with the updated theory that the fetish has become knowledge itself.
Marek Edelman positive
Named as Žižek's ethical hero of the 20th century: Polish-Jewish Bundist, Warsaw Ghetto uprising co-organizer, who stayed to witness Auschwitz and wrote to Palestinians advising resistance, model of unconditional ethics.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited twice: for the idea that to truly see something it must look back at you (the gaze), and for the claim that the true metaphysical question is whether God believes in himself.
Charles de Gaulle positive
Cited approvingly for refusing French capitulation in 1940, 'the war is not over', as a model for rejecting false peace-through-occupation.
Heinrich von Kleist positive
Cited for his short essay arguing that great linguistic and intellectual inventions arise from misspeaking, the error that forces improvisation and discovery, a capacity AI lacks.
Alain Badiou positive
Called 'my friend, the French guy,' cited for his analysis of the death of God and the problem of authority without unconditionality in contemporary society.
Bernie Sanders positive
Called 'good old-fashioned American Social Democrat'; cited approvingly for his critique of woke divisive logic versus the old left's unifying address.
Mentioned as organizing an anti-corruption campaign under pressure from ordinary Ukrainians who are asking what kind of Ukraine they are fighting for.
Benjamin Netanyahu negative
Cited as an example of the Zionist-antisemitism unholy alliance: his call for French Jews to emigrate to Israel was celebrated by right-wing antisemitic circles who wanted Jews out of France.
Kirill I of Moscow negative
Described as an 'old KGB fellow of Putin' who proclaimed Putin 'the greatest exorcist of our time' and framed Western Europe as the realm of Satanism.
Peter Sloterdijk positive
Cited for 'Kritik der zynischen Vernunft' and the definition of cynicism as 'enlightened false consciousness', we know what we're doing but do it anyway; Žižek calls it perhaps still Sloterdijk's best work.
Mentioned incidentally as the subject of a face-swap pornographic video Žižek saw, used as an example of AI-enabled identity destabilization.
Reinhard Heydrich negative
Cited as the originator of the logic connecting Zionism and antisemitism, his 1936 letter praising Jewish emigration to Palestine as compatible with Nazi goals prefigures the current far-right support for Israel.
Walter Benjamin positive
Cited for the thesis that capitalism is a religious phenomenon, a point Žižek builds his critique of capitalist ethics around.
Søren Kierkegaard positive
Called 'my favorite guy'; cited for the insight that religious belief is not a conclusion from comparing religions but the prior condition for understanding the arguments, applied by Žižek to love and sexual identity.
Stanisław Lem positive
Lem's novel Solaris is explicitly preferred over Tarkovsky's film for maintaining the Real as a permanently non-transparent external object; also mentioned for The Futurological Congress as anticipating the virtualization of existence.
Jürgen Habermas positive
Žižek says they don't like each other personally, but cites approvingly Habermas's formulation 'Ukraine must not perish' and his raising of the right question about cognitive enhancement, even while disagreeing with his solutions.
Sahra Wagenknecht negative
Žižek criticizes her false pacifist speech at peace demonstrations as exemplifying the left-right unholy alliance on Russia, noting she received an immediate invitation from the AfD.
Vladimir Putin negative
Primary political antagonist of the talk; Žižek analyzes his exploitation of unholy alliances (Orthodox Church + Marxists), his openly fascist-conservative ideology, and his long-term geopolitical project to redraw borders.
Andrei Tarkovsky negative
His film Solaris is criticized for turning Lem's traumatic external object into a 'half-religious obscurantism' mirror of the soul's desires, unlike Lem's novel which preserves the object's non-transparency.
Žižek says he doesn't like The Fabelmans very much but praises the ending with John Ford as 'one of the best endings of all time.'
Karl Marx positive
Cited for the thesis that Marxist truth is visible only from a subjectively engaged position, and for the 11th thesis on philosophers, which Žižek then reverses; also referenced for the standard analysis of antisemitism as Klassenkampf substitute.
Sigmund Freud positive
Central authority throughout the talk; Žižek defends Freudian psychoanalysis against both biological determinists and anti-Freudian LGBT activists, arguing it provides the only adequate account of human sexuality.
Ludwig Wittgenstein positive
His newly published WWI secret diaries are cited as evidence for the Freudian point about sexual fantasy: Wittgenstein was thinking about philosophical debates with colleagues while masturbating.
Mentioned as the other participant in an Italian-made infinite AI-generated debate; Žižek uses it to critique AI fluency vs. authentic human misspeaking.
What it argues
unholy alliances between left and right extremesUkraine war and false pacifismpsychoanalysis vs. identity politicsfetishist disavowal and cynical ideologyecology without deep ecology sentimentalismcatastrophe as condition of possibilitythe role of philosophy in times of crisis
Dialectical moves 8
“Peace is always in the interest of the occupier — when Israel says 'we want peace on the West Bank,' they mean they can occupy it in peace.”
What looks like a universal good (peace) is revealed as the political instrument of whoever holds power; peace without justice is the continuation of domination.
“Capitalism is not egotist but a religious sacrifice — we need more egotism, not less, against false capitalist ethics.”
The standard left critique of capitalism as selfish is inverted: capitalism demands self-sacrifice for capital's reproduction; healthy self-interest (asking how my children will live) is actually the counter-capitalist move.
“The most radically free choices work like something imposed on you — freely imposed.”
True freedom (in love, sexual identity, political commitment) is not experienced as deliberate selection but as a discovery of what one is already committed to, inverting the liberal model of autonomous rational choice.
“Far from being a harmonious whole disturbed by humans, nature is already a dirty bitch — our main energy sources are products of prior natural catastrophes.”
Deep ecology's image of pristine nature disrupted by human egotism is inverted: nature is self-destructive, and catastrophe is its normal mode.
“The fetish has become knowledge itself — today it is not that we know but ignore; our knowledge is structured as a fetish.”
Classical fetishist disavowal ('I know but I act as if I don't') has mutated: the cynical acknowledgment of a problem (e.g., capitalism at a biennale) is itself the mechanism that allows continued participation.
“The true ethical hero is not the Holocaust survivor who uses suffering to justify anything, but the one who says: my suffering gives me the right to tell others to resist.”
Marek Edelman's example inverts the logic of victimhood-as-license: authentic ethical authority from trauma consists in universalizing the right to resistance, not in using it to exempt oneself from ethical judgment.
“Marx's thesis — philosophers have only interpreted the world, we have to change it — should today be turned around: we tried to change it too fast; now we need to interpret it more.”
The 20th century's catastrophic rush to change the world without adequate understanding is the very reason philosophy (interpretation) now takes priority over political activism.
“The true undermining of religion from within is not 'God doesn't exist' but the refusal to say 'I love God' even when faced with paradise — remaining in darkness forever.”
Atheism that dismisses God as a noble ideal is weaker than the film Rapture's ending, where the protagonist refuses God after experiencing God's indifference, preserving the wound rather than dissolving it.
Claims 18
asserts
The pro-Russian alliance between the far left and the far right is an unholy alliance that must be actively rejected, not accommodated.left-right convergence on Russia / Ukraine war
asserts
Abstract pacifism in the Ukraine context is dangerous because peace always favors the occupier; Ukraine must not perish.pacifism and the Ukraine war
asserts
Ideology is never merely ideology — it has its own autonomous causal efficiency, independent of material interests.ideology vs. material interests
reframes
Capitalism is not egotist but a sacrificial religious phenomenon, and we need more 'good egotism' against it.the nature of capitalism
reframes
Sexual identity is not a matter of free conscious choice but has the structure of love — you discover you are already in it.sexual identity and free choice in identity politics
asserts
Psychoanalysis (Freud) is needed more than ever and the anti-Freudian trend in LGBT circles is a mistake.psychoanalysis and gender/sexuality politics
reframes
Both biological determinists and non-binary voluntarists share the same error: they behave as if Freud didn't exist.the sex/gender debate
rejects
Deep ecology is secretly anthropocentric and ideologically naive; nature is itself catastrophic and not a harmonious whole disturbed only by humans.deep ecology
asserts
The struggle against antisemitism and the struggle for Palestinian rights must be parts of the same unconditional ethical struggle.antisemitism and the Palestinian question
asserts
Those who invoke the Holocaust to justify Israeli colonization of the West Bank are the true manipulators of Holocaust memory.the Holocaust and Israeli-Palestinian conflict
asserts
Radical Zionism and Western antisemitism form an unholy alliance, both wanting Jews concentrated in Israel for opposed but convergent reasons.Zionism and antisemitism
reframes
Marx's 11th thesis should be reversed today: we tried to change the world too fast in the 20th century; now we need to interpret it more.the role of philosophy vs. political action
asserts
Today's cynical ideology reproduces itself by announcing the truth about itself and then doing nothing — proclamation replaces change.cynical ideology and performative critique
asserts
Philosophy is needed most precisely in times of crisis; great philosophy always emerges from emergency, not peaceful times.the role of philosophy
asserts
AI-generated speech lacks the productive stumbling and misspeaking from which genuine thought and invention arise.artificial intelligence and human language
rejects
Puberty blockers rest on a naïve fantasy that maturity brings free choice; sexual identity is not like choosing from a patisserie.puberty blockers and sexual maturation
asserts
Western corporations and the West itself exercise a neocolonial economic colonization of Ukraine alongside Russia's military colonization.Ukraine between two colonizations
asserts
The Russia-China-Iran-North Korea axis itself reveals what 'multicultural coexistence' really means in Putin's world: mutual non-interference in each other's repression.Russia's geopolitical vision
Quotes 17
“Peace is always in the interest of the occupier.”Slavoj Žižek · peace as instrument of domination
“Ideology is never just ideology. It has its own power, you pay the price for it.”Slavoj Žižek · autonomous efficiency of ideology
“The problem of capitalism is as Walter Benjamin knew, that it's a religious phenomenon. Religious in the sense of a radical sacrifice.”Slavoj Žižek · capitalism as sacrificial religion
“We need today more egotism. We need to ask not what about the fate of living on earth, but my God, how will I and my children live in years from now.”Slavoj Žižek · good egotism against false capitalist ethics
“If nature is our mother, it's a dirty bitch, this mother.”Slavoj Žižek · nature as self-destructive, against deep ecology sentimentalism
“The struggle against antisemitism unconditionally and the struggle for Palestinians... should be parts of the same struggle. Point. That's it.”Slavoj Žižek · unconditional ethical universalism on Israel-Palestine
“Those who manipulate the memory of Holocaust to justify what Israel is today doing on the West Bank... are the true manipulators with Holocaust.”Slavoj Žižek · manipulation of Holocaust memory
“You all of a sudden discover that you are already in love. That's the structure of love.”Slavoj Žižek · love as discovery, not deliberate choice
“The most radically free choices work like that, like something imposed on you. But freely imposed.”Slavoj Žižek · radical freedom as imposed necessity
“What Freud's big question is not this vulgar psychoanalytic 'whatever you are doing you are always thinking about F' — on the contrary: but what are you thinking when you are doing F?”Slavoj Žižek · Freud's real question: fantasy structures of sexuality
“Okay, now we said it, now we can go on as usual.”Slavoj Žižek · cynical performative proclamation as substitute for action
“True philosophy is for the times of emergency.”Slavoj Žižek · philosophy as crisis thought
“In the 20th century we wanted to change the world too fast. Now we need to interpret it more.”Slavoj Žižek · reversal of Marx's 11th thesis
“That's the political art! To tell the truth in a way that will confuse the enemy! That should be it!”Slavoj Žižek · truth as political weapon through misdirection
“The fetish becomes your knowledge itself.”Slavoj Žižek · updated fetishist disavowal: knowledge as the fetish
“We don't believe in God but nonetheless we believe that God gave us the land there. But that's ideology.”Slavoj Žižek · secular-nationalist ideology's theological structure
“The true metaphysical question is not do we believe in God? The problem is does God, God as our fantasy formation, does God believe in himself?”Slavoj Žižek · the theological subject supposed to believe in itself
Transcript 47 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Please, if you will feel that some things are provocative, it's on purpose, not to [unintelligible] you, not to hurt you, but simply to bring out the real debate because I think that on both sides, the so-called wokeness liberal side and so-called new fundamentalist rightists, debate is less and less possible. So let me begin. I was so glad to learn that the general title of this event is Unholy Alliances because this already provides the answer to my title, "Only a Catastrophe What Can Save Us." Why? Because we live in a time of unholy alliances. I will try, and then we go on a free dialogue, I will try to ground this in, even if it will sound sometimes funny, it's very sad and serious. I think today we really live, it's not an empty phrase, in a complex time. Not complex in this empirical sense. Yes, situation is always complex, you know. So for example, to make a jump towards actual situation, I'm basically, of course, in this war pro-Ukrainian and I hate when some of my friends tell me, "But you know Ukrainians are not so good, the situation is very complex." Where the situation is always complex. World War II, it was not simply democracy against Nazism because I'm sorry, Stalin was not a democrat and so on, and we had to join forces. But let me directly bomb you with a great unholy alliance which Putin, not only Putin, is exploiting to the end. I know people who know people who are close to Putin and they told me that what Putin is doing is interesting. On the one hand, he relies on Orthodox Church support. The, how do you call it, Patriarch or whatever of Orthodox Church in Russia, Kirill, he is an old KGB fellow of Putin, no? But not only that. Putin did something very interesting. He hired, hired, okay controls, a group of young leftist Marxists and they are the ones who support his otherwise almost openly fascist conservative line of argumentation. You know, Western Europe is the realm of Satanism. Kirill Patriarch even proclaimed Putin the greatest exorcist of our time. And for example, I watched a wonderful debate on Russian TV, I follow it, you learn a lot there, I mean about ideological madness, when somebody confronts a Putin, pro-Putin figure and says, "But are you really sure that Ukrainians are degenerate Nazis?" And the guy said, "Okay, even if you abstract ignore all other things, they allowed a Pride parade in Kyiv." Like the greatest horror you can imagine. But so what are the Marxist doing, Marxists? They are providing, be careful to it, this other line of argumentation which is: we are fighting for all the third world people against the imperialist, neocolonialist, whatever Western dominance. And the sad thing is how these two axes, first, anti-gay, LGBT, Western decadence, and the other, like Western imperialism and so on, they get together. Which is a catastrophe. That's the first unholy alliance. Check in your newspapers. It happened a day or two ago in Uganda. The parliament passed a terrifying law that if you are caught in homosexual relationship, it's not just you are a little bit ostracized, you can even get death penalty, but at least ten years of prison and all that. And then when a Western journalist protested, this happened two days ago, a member of Ugandan parliament told him, "You are either with us, supporting our anti-gay legislation, or you are with the Western world." You see, this is a terrifying unholy alliance, that you address third world nations but at the same time playing this sexually conservative anti-gay rights anti-LGBT plus and so on logic. And so can you imagine for so-called, I hate the term, but I will use it as an abbreviation, for so-called non-binary people, use it as a general term, you know what's the bad news? That to fight for gay rights and all this is perceived in many countries as part of Western imperialism. This alliance had to be broken somehow. Now I go to another example of this unholy alliance. It happened I think maybe you know more, like two weeks ago or three, when there were big pro-freedom, pro-peace demonstrations in Berlin and in Dresden and so on. I mean, I almost cried, it's so sad. Part of Die Linke party in Deutschland, Sahra Wagenknecht, gave a speech, all this false pacifist stuff, why should we get involved, this is not our war, blah blah blah. And then you know what she got next day? Not ironically, an invitation from a high-ranking member of Alternative für Deutschland. "But you speak like us, like join us," and so on. And this is not a joke. This is now happening in my own country in Slovenia, in England, in United States and so on, that the pro-Russian attitude is adopted by extreme left and extreme right. Why? Well, maybe you know this joke but what came to my mind is this, I even wrote a book with this in the title, wonderful simple but nonetheless joke by Freud from his book on Witz, on jokes, where he quotes this joke where you give too many arguments for a thing but they are mutually exclusive. Like the book I wrote against the Iraq war, American attack on Iraq, has the title "The Broken Iraqi Cup" or whatever, no? Like, I borrow from you a cup or eine Vase and I return it to you broken and you of course accuse me. And my answer is A: I never borrowed a vase from you, B: I returned it to you full, and C: it was already broken when you gave it to me. I notice that this pro-sympathy for Russia argument has exactly the same structure. Did you notice that there are three arguments? First is generally pacifist: wars are madness, we shouldn't give arms because as a general wisdom, if you give arms you only prolong the conflict. This is I think a terrifying notion. Because at the same time these pacifists claim, "But now there is a situation more or less a, how do you call it, stalemate, stable position on front, to push for peace." Yes, but how did we arrive at this position? By supporting Ukraine. Can you imagine what would have happened there without? And then I draw a comparison for which I got much hatred, that I draw a parallel between today's peaceniks and some crazy communists at the beginning of World War II when on the West they had that phony war who claimed this is imperialist conflict, we should stay neutral and fraternize with German soldiers, this is not our war, and so on and so on. So the first reasoning is this abstract pacifist. I disagree with it not because I like war, but I think it's absolutely clear that Russia is engaged in a long-term geopolitical rearrangement and it's clear, not by any sinister hermeneutics, but they say it, the Russians, that they want to go on. Moldova, now they officially claim to have real peace we have to push the borders of Poland a little bit to the West. We already have Georgia and Gruziya, we already had Crimea and so on. So I think the, that's the paradox I accept, that yes we shouldn't aim at destroying Russia. That's unacceptable. But Habermas, Jürgen, who we don't like each other personally but he put it very nicely almost a year ago, yeah, where he says we shouldn't speak the language of destroy Russia but simply negatively: Ukraine must not perish. It's in our interest, especially again in view of this more and more crazy directly male chauvinist ideological foundation which is Western Europe is the reign of Satan unholy orgies and all that stuff. Now this, here again there is unfortunately a moment of truth that the West is still engaged many times in some kind of neocolonial or post-colonial exploitation. But my answer to this is double. First, do you think that China is any better? I don't know what our media report but do you know that when Chinese buy some resources, some mines in, I think it was Zambia, when they bought them there was a local rebellion because the local workers there wanted a monthly salary of two hundred dollars. It was too much. Chinese brought their own staff people who were ready to work for a little bit over hundred dollars per month and so on. So neocolonialism is expanding but it's everywhere. Second thing that makes this alliance between left and Putin unholy is I don't know what's the logic, ah yes another thing, sorry, the first argument: we want peace, peace at any price. And usually in my country in Slovenia then the politicians who follow this line add something very cynical, they say every war has to end up with negotiations and compromise. And my answer to them is, "Ah really? Then we were taught wrong. You remember in '45 there were negotiations and pact with Hitler?" No, it wasn't. There was a clear defeat. So again this general pacifist stance has to be rejected on behalf of real peace itself. Remember one thing that I repeat all the time. Peace is always in the interest of the occupier. I believe, I'm not antisemitic, I'm totally pro-Jewish, but on the West Bank Israel is colonizing it. And when Israel says, "We want peace there," I believe them. Because peace means they can occupy it in peace, you know. Of course. Even Germans when they occupied France in '39, were they sincerely for peace? Of course they were because peace means we can occupy it. That's why General de Gaulle, you know what was his great statement which foundered resistance? "No, the war is not over." France did not capitulate. So I reject this general line. Then the second line of defense is what I already mentioned, the situation is complex, nobody is clear there. I know, I will not bore you now with it, but I can give you some, once I enumerated them, some to points of mistakes, stupidities committed by Ukrainians. But sorry, this is like condemning, and we should, for example the allied attack in March '45 I think on Dresden which was totally unnecessary militarily, or for example the allied bombing of Hamburg with those terrible storms. Why? Because as parents of my friends in Hamburg told me, you know what they did, the allies? They were obsessed with the idea that it's more important to break the morale of the working class than to destroy industry. So they focused their bombings on working class suburbs and they let all the great villas and so on and so on. But nonetheless, this doesn't change the fact who was right. So often complexity is an excuse. And the third argument is a vulgar pragmatic one. It's: it's not our war, why should we because of two crazy nations fighting on the edge of Europe, why should we pay more for electricity and so on and so on. I find again, I find this logic terrifying. It's true what my friends are saying, some pro-Russians, that the conflict in Ukraine is a conflict between two visions of the world. But their interpretation is it's Western imperialist vision and authentic multicultural vision of coexistence and so on of different modes. I don't like the coexistence that Putin stands for. You know where you get a model of this coexistence? You remember when Taliban took over? They immediately made peace with China. The deal was what? You Chinese allow us in Afghanistan to do what we want, to treat women the way we do, but we will not mess with what you are doing with Uyghur Muslims in your country. It tells a lot if you look at who are Russia's direct allies today: Iran, North Korea and so on, Afghanistan even. It tells you a lot about how, and this is a horrible thing to accept, but yes, world imperialism and so on and so on, but my God, can't we accept that in spite of all the horrors of Western imperialism what Putin stands for is nonetheless worse. And now I come to, first time I return to my title, catastrophe can save us. You know that the latest news I got from my friends in Ukraine give a little bit of hope. Ukraine no doubt was an extremely corrupted country and so on with all the oligarchs. But do you know that now the left is awakening slowly there? They said organizing themselves, wait a minute, half even more of the oligarchs, I don't know how it is here in Austria, for example, many of them came to Slovenia and close to Austrian border, Radenska, a big spa, they simply rented for months the biggest luxurious hotel and so on. And people in Ukraine are asking, "We are doing the fighting, they are doing that." It's under their pressure that Zelenskyy is now organizing this anti-corruption campaign. He knows that people are not simply fighting, they are raising the crucial question which is: but what is the Ukraine for which we are fighting? Will it be the same extremely corrupted oligarch system? And that's why I wrote a text for which I was attacked, maybe I don't know if it appeared in Germany, with the title "Ukraine Between Two Colonizations." Yes, Russia wants to colonize it. But what do you think the West is doing? Do you know that they have in the south that Chernozem, the black earth, allegedly the most fertile best in the world? But do you know that one third of this best earth in the world is already owned by American agricultural corporations? Do you know that there is all the time pressure also from the West on Ukraine that it should become neocolon- economically at least dependent on the West? My hope is that now maybe something will come out of it, maybe not, that Ukraine will begin to awaken, you know, to ask the question again: not just free Ukraine but what kind of Ukraine? So another thing. Then people tell me, and I come again to this unholy alliances and so on, other people are telling me, "But these are just words. Okay, Putin talks against Satanism, world domination, but he really wants just a piece of land there, a little bit." No, sorry. This is a big philosophical even mistake. Ideology is never just ideology. It has its own power, you pay the price for it. Look at the Nazis. The standard Marx explanation is antisemitism was just an ein Ersatz for Klassenkampf. Really they wanted to keep capitalism, Nazis and so on. Yeah, but the result was nonetheless millions of death and so on and ideology gets its own efficiency. Like I don't know why this anecdote stuck so deeply in my mind, when in '44 Germany was withdrawing from Greek islands. They noticed that on one island they left Jews. And in that crazy situation where they needed every soldier, they sent a military boat back to get those Jews. This didn't help them militarily in any way. So again I don't buy this story, it's really just about material interests. No, ideology is to be taken seriously. My next conclusion here, to provoke you a little bit with philosophy, this is why I am sick and tired of this critique of capitalism that it's egotist, we care only for our interests. No, the problem of capitalism is as Walter Benjamin knew, that it's a religious phenomenon. Religious in the sense of a radical sacrifice. A true fanatical capitalist, he doesn't enjoy good life. He is ready to work all the time fanatically so that capital reproduces itself. No, we need today more egotism. We need to ask not what about the fate of living on earth, but my God, how will I and my children live in years from now if we go on with this destruction of nature. No, we should appeal to good egotism against this false capitalist, false capitalist ethics. Now the next point. Ah, now things get, this was nothing as a provocation, more difficult. The next unholy alliance that I see, trigger warning, this will be problematic for some of you although I am, I cannot say it more, I have a whole school of followers among trans people. Real trans people. Not just that game, you know, "Now I am a woman, I feel like a man," and so on. But people who went through all the painful operations and so on and it's not just change man into a woman but trying to invent something third. And you know where I agree with them? That LGBT plus in principle I totally support, not just in words. I was engaged in actions and so on. But I don't like this anti-psychoanalytic trend. The commonplace in many of these circles in Germany, especially in the United States, is, "Oh Freud is an old white dead man, he still thought in binary terms, Oedipal complex and so on." No, you know what's my problem? You know this big conflict, especially in United States and in United States, between, let's call it biological determinists and LGBT feminists. I simplify to the utmost. Biological determinists claim that sex is, even if sex is confused you don't know what you are, but basically it's predetermined with your genetic structure or education or whatever, and it's not a matter of free choice. On the opposite hand you have non-binary in a wrong way I claim people who claim people should be allowed to freely choose. It's a matter of choice how you feel. I claim there is an unholy alliance here because they both behave as if Freud didn't exist. For an authentic Freudian, of course sex is human sexuality is not directly a biological phenomenon. It's how some Grundlage, some foundation is mediated, caught in a totally different logic and it can even be, I have a friend, it even can be demonstrated with experiments. I have a friend who studies sexuality in apes, well-developed apes, gorillas, orangutans, and man. And discovered that apes are much more rational, sorry for my tasteless way of saying. Let's say you are a beautiful ape woman. Actually I am an orangutan also. I would like to have sex with you. But I see no way, so okay, fuck off, I turn attention elsewhere. It's only with humans that you get this type of fixed attachment that the more you are inaccessible to me, the more I am obsessed drawn towards you. Sorry? [Host: The more you're drawn towards me.] Yeah, yeah. So the whole logic changes. Second point of Freud, crucial, and some true LGBT people are well aware of it. You know sex is not in this vulgar sense a matter of free choice, I feel like that. No, to the big revolution of Freud is that, one has to read him properly, that this patriarchal symbolic order, male position, patriarchal feminine, it's not natural. It's a long and painful process because we have something, we humans unique, what Freud characterized as childhood infantile sexuality. It's something very strange. Animals as far as we know don't have it. Because of the delayed puberty we have it. This idea that you get caught in crazy fantasies, how are children born? And these fantasies can be very beautiful. Let me tell intimate confession, two of I clearly remember them, two of fantasies from my own youth. When I vaguely knew that sex has to do something with health, sorry, with childbirth [Host: reproduction, yeah], yeah with reproduction, with copulation, but I didn't know exactly how. So one of my infantile theories was, and women like it very much later, that sex is long hard work. You have to F again and again, like you tell to your lover now again orangutan and his wife, I tell you let's screw, let's have sex today, today we will work on the hands. Tomorrow again on the legs. You have to do it I like this fantasy until the whole thing, until the whole body is yes. And then we may check if we like the hands and if we don't like the hands we do it again, we do it again. The second one I have, I heard this story that storks, how do you call them, the stupid birds are bringing babies [Host: yeah, yeah, the storks], and my dream was this one, that it's better if you want a nice child or child to do it with open windows because storks are observing you and if you make love in a nice way, you get a child, you know. Now this is not just a joke because the big Freudian theory is not: then once we become mature we know how it is. No, all the time to the end human sexuality is accompanied by fantasies. Freud's big question is not this vulgar psychoanalytic "whatever you are doing you are always thinking about F," you know, it's on the contrary: but what are you thinking when you are doing F? And here you Austrians published a wonderful book, my friend, you know they discovered Wittgenstein's "Geheime Tagebücher" from World War I. And he is brutally open. He describes what he's thinking about when he was masturbating. You know what he was? Not gay sex, but discussing with colleagues philosophical questions and so on, that's the spirit. So what I want to say, no, but you see what I'm saying. Freud makes it aware that human sexuality is a very complex phenomenon, it doesn't emerge naturally but through a series of traumatic cuts. And in this sense, the process is self-contradictory, mostly unconscious and so on. So it's not as some LGBT plus people like to simplify, you know: okay, I feel that I am that. My point is: how do you know that you really feel this? To Freud it was clear that feelings cannot be relied on, they often cheat. Elementary stupid example. You or me, okay I will not blame you. What if I'm secretly gay but I don't want to admit to myself so I enact this as homophobia, you know? So what I'm saying and again please don't buy this cheap stuff: people should be allowed to choose their sexual identity. Yes, but it's not as simple as that because it's not simply a conscious choice. It's not that you sit there and think, "Okay, it would be nice to have a lady, it can be funny with men, but other options," okay this sounds the best one. No, I will give you an example which I always like. Love. Love is free, otherwise it's not true love. I cannot tell to you, I will try not to be accused that I'm harassing, I tell I, love is not I compare you, you and you and say, "Okay you have nice legs, you have nice eyes, you love life," okay then I make a list, you are the best and I will choose you. No, love has the structure of theology where as Kierkegaard my favorite guy said, to choose your religion, it's not that you compare different religions and then follow like I compare Buddhism which is not even a religion, Muslim, Jews, I don't know whom and I said, "My God, Christianity has the best arguments." No, you get the arguments only, you understand the arguments only once you believe. When you already believe. Now you will say this is religious obscurantism. No, shock, Marx is saying the same when he says proletarian position is not I look around history I see, oh, workers will win so let's join them. No, it's Marxist truth is a truth which appears only from a subjectively engaged position. So you see what's my point here? That let's all the rights to LGBT plus but really listen to them and be aware of the complexity. Like I was now involved, some people attacked me, totally misunderstood me, because into a polemic about so-called puberty blockers. I don't know if you do use them, use them, but in England they widely use them. The idea is this one: when you are if you are not sure independently of biological sex, if you are not sure what sex you are, at that point you are not, you cannot decide, but so that you will not be pressured under in the conditions of heterosexual patriarchal domination, they give you puberty blockers which delay, postpone for a couple of years your sexual maturation. With a terrifying for me totally naive idea that in this couple of years you will become mature enough to see what you want. Of course now they are discovering slowly that first, these puberty blockers do many problematic things, they disturb the whole process of your biological development, not just sexual identity but other things, it's very risky. But also I think this idea is totally wrong, namely the idea that with maturity you are free to choose. No, sexual identity is for me like love. I appeal to you, if you were lucky enough to be in love with men, woman, I'm not playing these games anybody, you never fall in love in the sense of, "Oh now I decide to fall in love." Be aware of temporality here. You all of a sudden discover that you are already in love. Maybe you even hated, hated, had a problematic relation to that man or woman or whoever, but all of a sudden you become aware: my God, really I'm in love with him or her. That's the structure of love. And these are our deepest choices which are precisely not experienced as simple free choices. Love or sexual identity is not like going to a patisserie and "Oh my God, should I take cheesecake, strawberry cake or chocolate cake?" you know. No, you are chosen in some sense. And the most radically free choices work like that, like something imposed on you. But freely imposed. Here again I think we need today psychoanalysis, we need psychoanalysis more than ever. I'm talking too much so I will cut it short. No, because then you, my orangutan, will not like me if I talk too much. [Moderator: As long as we can later on you know like work on the hands.] [Žižek:] Okay. He is my type, you know. I discovered that behind all his friendliness deep in him he can be very evil also. And I think this is the whole, the hope today. You know [Host: we were sitting here just like half an hour ago and I said we have a lot of things in common, and we will come to that.] You know what I mean by that? And now you are gradually coming out of yourself and telling me that I'm telling you what you are telling me, which is a very good thing. No, because you know once they asked me what makes a full, if we can talk about this in today's confused times, a full normal human being? I said three things. First, here my metaphysical,
Please, if you will feel that some things are provocative, it's on purpose, not to [unintelligible] you, not to hurt you, but simply to bring out the real debate because I think that on both sides, the so-called wokeness liberal side and so-called new fundamentalist rightists, debate is less and less possible. So let me begin. I was so glad to learn that the general title of this event is Unholy Alliances because this already provides the answer to my title, "Only a Catastrophe What Can Save Us." Why? Because we live in a time of unholy alliances. I will try, and then we go on a free dialogue, I will try to ground this in, even if it will sound sometimes funny, it's very sad and serious. I think today we really live, it's not an empty phrase, in a complex time. Not complex in this empirical sense. Yes, situation is always complex, you know. So for example, to make a jump towards actual situation, I'm basically, of course, in this war pro-Ukrainian and I hate when some of my friends tell me, "But you know Ukrainians are not so good, the situation is very complex." Where the situation is always complex. World War II, it was not simply democracy against Nazism because I'm sorry, Stalin was not a democrat and so on, and we had to join forces. But let me directly bomb you with a great unholy alliance which Putin, not only Putin, is exploiting to the end. I know people who know people who are close to Putin and they told me that what Putin is doing is interesting. On the one hand, he relies on Orthodox Church support. The, how do you call it, Patriarch or whatever of Orthodox Church in Russia, Kirill, he is an old KGB fellow of Putin, no? But not only that. Putin did something very interesting. He hired, hired, okay controls, a group of young leftist Marxists and they are the ones who support his otherwise almost openly fascist conservative line of argumentation. You know, Western Europe is the realm of Satanism. Kirill Patriarch even proclaimed Putin the greatest exorcist of our time. And for example, I watched a wonderful debate on Russian TV, I follow it, you learn a lot there, I mean about ideological madness, when somebody confronts a Putin, pro-Putin figure and says, "But are you really sure that Ukrainians are degenerate Nazis?" And the guy said, "Okay, even if you abstract ignore all other things, they allowed a Pride parade in Kyiv." Like the greatest horror you can imagine. But so what are the Marxist doing, Marxists? They are providing, be careful to it, this other line of argumentation which is: we are fighting for all the third world people against the imperialist, neocolonialist, whatever Western dominance. And the sad thing is how these two axes, first, anti-gay, LGBT, Western decadence, and the other, like Western imperialism and so on, they get together. Which is a catastrophe. That's the first unholy alliance. Check in your newspapers. It happened a day or two ago in Uganda. The parliament passed a terrifying law that if you are caught in homosexual relationship, it's not just you are a little bit ostracized, you can even get death penalty, but at least ten years of prison and all that. And then when a Western journalist protested, this happened two days ago, a member of Ugandan parliament told him, "You are either with us, supporting our anti-gay legislation, or you are with the Western world." You see, this is a terrifying unholy alliance, that you address third world nations but at the same time playing this sexually conservative anti-gay rights anti-LGBT plus and so on logic. And so can you imagine for so-called, I hate the term, but I will use it as an abbreviation, for so-called non-binary people, use it as a general term, you know what's the bad news? That to fight for gay rights and all this is perceived in many countries as part of Western imperialism. This alliance had to be broken somehow. Now I go to another example of this unholy alliance. It happened I think maybe you know more, like two weeks ago or three, when there were big pro-freedom, pro-peace demonstrations in Berlin and in Dresden and so on. I mean, I almost cried, it's so sad. Part of Die Linke party in Deutschland, Sahra Wagenknecht, gave a speech, all this false pacifist stuff, why should we get involved, this is not our war, blah blah blah. And then you know what she got next day? Not ironically, an invitation from a high-ranking member of Alternative für Deutschland. "But you speak like us, like join us," and so on. And this is not a joke. This is now happening in my own country in Slovenia, in England, in United States and so on, that the pro-Russian attitude is adopted by extreme left and extreme right. Why? Well, maybe you know this joke but what came to my mind is this, I even wrote a book with this in the title, wonderful simple but nonetheless joke by Freud from his book on Witz, on jokes, where he quotes this joke where you give too many arguments for a thing but they are mutually exclusive. Like the book I wrote against the Iraq war, American attack on Iraq, has the title "The Broken Iraqi Cup" or whatever, no? Like, I borrow from you a cup or eine Vase and I return it to you broken and you of course accuse me. And my answer is A: I never borrowed a vase from you, B: I returned it to you full, and C: it was already broken when you gave it to me. I notice that this pro-sympathy for Russia argument has exactly the same structure. Did you notice that there are three arguments? First is generally pacifist: wars are madness, we shouldn't give arms because as a general wisdom, if you give arms you only prolong the conflict. This is I think a terrifying notion. Because at the same time these pacifists claim, "But now there is a situation more or less a, how do you call it, stalemate, stable position on front, to push for peace." Yes, but how did we arrive at this position? By supporting Ukraine. Can you imagine what would have happened there without? And then I draw a comparison for which I got much hatred, that I draw a parallel between today's peaceniks and some crazy communists at the beginning of World War II when on the West they had that phony war who claimed this is imperialist conflict, we should stay neutral and fraternize with German soldiers, this is not our war, and so on and so on. So the first reasoning is this abstract pacifist. I disagree with it not because I like war, but I think it's absolutely clear that Russia is engaged in a long-term geopolitical rearrangement and it's clear, not by any sinister hermeneutics, but they say it, the Russians, that they want to go on. Moldova, now they officially claim to have real peace we have to push the borders of Poland a little bit to the West. We already have Georgia and Gruziya, we already had Crimea and so on. So I think the, that's the paradox I accept, that yes we shouldn't aim at destroying Russia. That's unacceptable. But Habermas, Jürgen, who we don't like each other personally but he put it very nicely almost a year ago, yeah, where he says we shouldn't speak the language of destroy Russia but simply negatively: Ukraine must not perish. It's in our interest, especially again in view of this more and more crazy directly male chauvinist ideological foundation which is Western Europe is the reign of Satan unholy orgies and all that stuff. Now this, here again there is unfortunately a moment of truth that the West is still engaged many times in some kind of neocolonial or post-colonial exploitation. But my answer to this is double. First, do you think that China is any better? I don't know what our media report but do you know that when Chinese buy some resources, some mines in, I think it was Zambia, when they bought them there was a local rebellion because the local workers there wanted a monthly salary of two hundred dollars. It was too much. Chinese brought their own staff people who were ready to work for a little bit over hundred dollars per month and so on. So neocolonialism is expanding but it's everywhere. Second thing that makes this alliance between left and Putin unholy is I don't know what's the logic, ah yes another thing, sorry, the first argument: we want peace, peace at any price. And usually in my country in Slovenia then the politicians who follow this line add something very cynical, they say every war has to end up with negotiations and compromise. And my answer to them is, "Ah really? Then we were taught wrong. You remember in '45 there were negotiations and pact with Hitler?" No, it wasn't. There was a clear defeat. So again this general pacifist stance has to be rejected on behalf of real peace itself. Remember one thing that I repeat all the time. Peace is always in the interest of the occupier. I believe, I'm not antisemitic, I'm totally pro-Jewish, but on the West Bank Israel is colonizing it. And when Israel says, "We want peace there," I believe them. Because peace means they can occupy it in peace, you know. Of course. Even Germans when they occupied France in '39, were they sincerely for peace? Of course they were because peace means we can occupy it. That's why General de Gaulle, you know what was his great statement which foundered resistance? "No, the war is not over." France did not capitulate. So I reject this general line. Then the second line of defense is what I already mentioned, the situation is complex, nobody is clear there. I know, I will not bore you now with it, but I can give you some, once I enumerated them, some to points of mistakes, stupidities committed by Ukrainians. But sorry, this is like condemning, and we should, for example the allied attack in March '45 I think on Dresden which was totally unnecessary militarily, or for example the allied bombing of Hamburg with those terrible storms. Why? Because as parents of my friends in Hamburg told me, you know what they did, the allies? They were obsessed with the idea that it's more important to break the morale of the working class than to destroy industry. So they focused their bombings on working class suburbs and they let all the great villas and so on and so on. But nonetheless, this doesn't change the fact who was right. So often complexity is an excuse. And the third argument is a vulgar pragmatic one. It's: it's not our war, why should we because of two crazy nations fighting on the edge of Europe, why should we pay more for electricity and so on and so on. I find again, I find this logic terrifying. It's true what my friends are saying, some pro-Russians, that the conflict in Ukraine is a conflict between two visions of the world. But their interpretation is it's Western imperialist vision and authentic multicultural vision of coexistence and so on of different modes. I don't like the coexistence that Putin stands for. You know where you get a model of this coexistence? You remember when Taliban took over? They immediately made peace with China. The deal was what? You Chinese allow us in Afghanistan to do what we want, to treat women the way we do, but we will not mess with what you are doing with Uyghur Muslims in your country. It tells a lot if you look at who are Russia's direct allies today: Iran, North Korea and so on, Afghanistan even. It tells you a lot about how, and this is a horrible thing to accept, but yes, world imperialism and so on and so on, but my God, can't we accept that in spite of all the horrors of Western imperialism what Putin stands for is nonetheless worse. And now I come to, first time I return to my title, catastrophe can save us. You know that the latest news I got from my friends in Ukraine give a little bit of hope. Ukraine no doubt was an extremely corrupted country and so on with all the oligarchs. But do you know that now the left is awakening slowly there? They said organizing themselves, wait a minute, half even more of the oligarchs, I don't know how it is here in Austria, for example, many of them came to Slovenia and close to Austrian border, Radenska, a big spa, they simply rented for months the biggest luxurious hotel and so on. And people in Ukraine are asking, "We are doing the fighting, they are doing that." It's under their pressure that Zelenskyy is now organizing this anti-corruption campaign. He knows that people are not simply fighting, they are raising the crucial question which is: but what is the Ukraine for which we are fighting? Will it be the same extremely corrupted oligarch system? And that's why I wrote a text for which I was attacked, maybe I don't know if it appeared in Germany, with the title "Ukraine Between Two Colonizations." Yes, Russia wants to colonize it. But what do you think the West is doing? Do you know that they have in the south that Chernozem, the black earth, allegedly the most fertile best in the world? But do you know that one third of this best earth in the world is already owned by American agricultural corporations? Do you know that there is all the time pressure also from the West on Ukraine that it should become neocolon- economically at least dependent on the West? My hope is that now maybe something will come out of it, maybe not, that Ukraine will begin to awaken, you know, to ask the question again: not just free Ukraine but what kind of Ukraine? So another thing. Then people tell me, and I come again to this unholy alliances and so on, other people are telling me, "But these are just words. Okay, Putin talks against Satanism, world domination, but he really wants just a piece of land there, a little bit." No, sorry. This is a big philosophical even mistake. Ideology is never just ideology. It has its own power, you pay the price for it. Look at the Nazis. The standard Marx explanation is antisemitism was just an ein Ersatz for Klassenkampf. Really they wanted to keep capitalism, Nazis and so on. Yeah, but the result was nonetheless millions of death and so on and ideology gets its own efficiency. Like I don't know why this anecdote stuck so deeply in my mind, when in '44 Germany was withdrawing from Greek islands. They noticed that on one island they left Jews. And in that crazy situation where they needed every soldier, they sent a military boat back to get those Jews. This didn't help them militarily in any way. So again I don't buy this story, it's really just about material interests. No, ideology is to be taken seriously. My next conclusion here, to provoke you a little bit with philosophy, this is why I am sick and tired of this critique of capitalism that it's egotist, we care only for our interests. No, the problem of capitalism is as Walter Benjamin knew, that it's a religious phenomenon. Religious in the sense of a radical sacrifice. A true fanatical capitalist, he doesn't enjoy good life. He is ready to work all the time fanatically so that capital reproduces itself. No, we need today more egotism. We need to ask not what about the fate of living on earth, but my God, how will I and my children live in years from now if we go on with this destruction of nature. No, we should appeal to good egotism against this false capitalist, false capitalist ethics. Now the next point. Ah, now things get, this was nothing as a provocation, more difficult. The next unholy alliance that I see, trigger warning, this will be problematic for some of you although I am, I cannot say it more, I have a whole school of followers among trans people. Real trans people. Not just that game, you know, "Now I am a woman, I feel like a man," and so on. But people who went through all the painful operations and so on and it's not just change man into a woman but trying to invent something third. And you know where I agree with them? That LGBT plus in principle I totally support, not just in words. I was engaged in actions and so on. But I don't like this anti-psychoanalytic trend. The commonplace in many of these circles in Germany, especially in the United States, is, "Oh Freud is an old white dead man, he still thought in binary terms, Oedipal complex and so on." No, you know what's my problem? You know this big conflict, especially in United States and in United States, between, let's call it biological determinists and LGBT feminists. I simplify to the utmost. Biological determinists claim that sex is, even if sex is confused you don't know what you are, but basically it's predetermined with your genetic structure or education or whatever, and it's not a matter of free choice. On the opposite hand you have non-binary in a wrong way I claim people who claim people should be allowed to freely choose. It's a matter of choice how you feel. I claim there is an unholy alliance here because they both behave as if Freud didn't exist. For an authentic Freudian, of course sex is human sexuality is not directly a biological phenomenon. It's how some Grundlage, some foundation is mediated, caught in a totally different logic and it can even be, I have a friend, it even can be demonstrated with experiments. I have a friend who studies sexuality in apes, well-developed apes, gorillas, orangutans, and man. And discovered that apes are much more rational, sorry for my tasteless way of saying. Let's say you are a beautiful ape woman. Actually I am an orangutan also. I would like to have sex with you. But I see no way, so okay, fuck off, I turn attention elsewhere. It's only with humans that you get this type of fixed attachment that the more you are inaccessible to me, the more I am obsessed drawn towards you. Sorry? [Host: The more you're drawn towards me.] Yeah, yeah. So the whole logic changes. Second point of Freud, crucial, and some true LGBT people are well aware of it. You know sex is not in this vulgar sense a matter of free choice, I feel like that. No, to the big revolution of Freud is that, one has to read him properly, that this patriarchal symbolic order, male position, patriarchal feminine, it's not natural. It's a long and painful process because we have something, we humans unique, what Freud characterized as childhood infantile sexuality. It's something very strange. Animals as far as we know don't have it. Because of the delayed puberty we have it. This idea that you get caught in crazy fantasies, how are children born? And these fantasies can be very beautiful. Let me tell intimate confession, two of I clearly remember them, two of fantasies from my own youth. When I vaguely knew that sex has to do something with health, sorry, with childbirth [Host: reproduction, yeah], yeah with reproduction, with copulation, but I didn't know exactly how. So one of my infantile theories was, and women like it very much later, that sex is long hard work. You have to F again and again, like you tell to your lover now again orangutan and his wife, I tell you let's screw, let's have sex today, today we will work on the hands. Tomorrow again on the legs. You have to do it I like this fantasy until the whole thing, until the whole body is yes. And then we may check if we like the hands and if we don't like the hands we do it again, we do it again. The second one I have, I heard this story that storks, how do you call them, the stupid birds are bringing babies [Host: yeah, yeah, the storks], and my dream was this one, that it's better if you want a nice child or child to do it with open windows because storks are observing you and if you make love in a nice way, you get a child, you know. Now this is not just a joke because the big Freudian theory is not: then once we become mature we know how it is. No, all the time to the end human sexuality is accompanied by fantasies. Freud's big question is not this vulgar psychoanalytic "whatever you are doing you are always thinking about F," you know, it's on the contrary: but what are you thinking when you are doing F? And here you Austrians published a wonderful book, my friend, you know they discovered Wittgenstein's "Geheime Tagebücher" from World War I. And he is brutally open. He describes what he's thinking about when he was masturbating. You know what he was? Not gay sex, but discussing with colleagues philosophical questions and so on, that's the spirit. So what I want to say, no, but you see what I'm saying. Freud makes it aware that human sexuality is a very complex phenomenon, it doesn't emerge naturally but through a series of traumatic cuts. And in this sense, the process is self-contradictory, mostly unconscious and so on. So it's not as some LGBT plus people like to simplify, you know: okay, I feel that I am that. My point is: how do you know that you really feel this? To Freud it was clear that feelings cannot be relied on, they often cheat. Elementary stupid example. You or me, okay I will not blame you. What if I'm secretly gay but I don't want to admit to myself so I enact this as homophobia, you know? So what I'm saying and again please don't buy this cheap stuff: people should be allowed to choose their sexual identity. Yes, but it's not as simple as that because it's not simply a conscious choice. It's not that you sit there and think, "Okay, it would be nice to have a lady, it can be funny with men, but other options," okay this sounds the best one. No, I will give you an example which I always like. Love. Love is free, otherwise it's not true love. I cannot tell to you, I will try not to be accused that I'm harassing, I tell I, love is not I compare you, you and you and say, "Okay you have nice legs, you have nice eyes, you love life," okay then I make a list, you are the best and I will choose you. No, love has the structure of theology where as Kierkegaard my favorite guy said, to choose your religion, it's not that you compare different religions and then follow like I compare Buddhism which is not even a religion, Muslim, Jews, I don't know whom and I said, "My God, Christianity has the best arguments." No, you get the arguments only, you understand the arguments only once you believe. When you already believe. Now you will say this is religious obscurantism. No, shock, Marx is saying the same when he says proletarian position is not I look around history I see, oh, workers will win so let's join them. No, it's Marxist truth is a truth which appears only from a subjectively engaged position. So you see what's my point here? That let's all the rights to LGBT plus but really listen to them and be aware of the complexity. Like I was now involved, some people attacked me, totally misunderstood me, because into a polemic about so-called puberty blockers. I don't know if you do use them, use them, but in England they widely use them. The idea is this one: when you are if you are not sure independently of biological sex, if you are not sure what sex you are, at that point you are not, you cannot decide, but so that you will not be pressured under in the conditions of heterosexual patriarchal domination, they give you puberty blockers which delay, postpone for a couple of years your sexual maturation. With a terrifying for me totally naive idea that in this couple of years you will become mature enough to see what you want. Of course now they are discovering slowly that first, these puberty blockers do many problematic things, they disturb the whole process of your biological development, not just sexual identity but other things, it's very risky. But also I think this idea is totally wrong, namely the idea that with maturity you are free to choose. No, sexual identity is for me like love. I appeal to you, if you were lucky enough to be in love with men, woman, I'm not playing these games anybody, you never fall in love in the sense of, "Oh now I decide to fall in love." Be aware of temporality here. You all of a sudden discover that you are already in love. Maybe you even hated, hated, had a problematic relation to that man or woman or whoever, but all of a sudden you become aware: my God, really I'm in love with him or her. That's the structure of love. And these are our deepest choices which are precisely not experienced as simple free choices. Love or sexual identity is not like going to a patisserie and "Oh my God, should I take cheesecake, strawberry cake or chocolate cake?" you know. No, you are chosen in some sense. And the most radically free choices work like that, like something imposed on you. But freely imposed. Here again I think we need today psychoanalysis, we need psychoanalysis more than ever. I'm talking too much so I will cut it short. No, because then you, my orangutan, will not like me if I talk too much. [Moderator: As long as we can later on you know like work on the hands.] [Žižek:] Okay. He is my type, you know. I discovered that behind all his friendliness deep in him he can be very evil also. And I think this is the whole, the hope today. You know [Host: we were sitting here just like half an hour ago and I said we have a lot of things in common, and we will come to that.] You know what I mean by that? And now you are gradually coming out of yourself and telling me that I'm telling you what you are telling me, which is a very good thing. No, because you know once they asked me what makes a full, if we can talk about this in today's confused times, a full normal human being? I said three things. First, here my metaphysical,
unknown
dedication to some serious cause. So socialism, whatever,
dedication to some serious cause. So socialism, whatever,
Slavoj Žižek
freedom, ready to work really for it. Point two, some kind of good pragmatism. There are people who are principled but enjoy being principled losers. Many leftists today, they wait for the big revolution. But whenever something happens, Syriza, they say, "No, no, that's not yet it," you know. [Host: No, let the others do it.] Let's let the others do it, yeah. And there's the whole history of the left here, how the European left after '68 is just looking, at some point it was Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, now we are, no, the revolution takes place elsewhere. We want here to enjoy our academic or what job and see the revolution there. You know like what I wanted to say is that let me go on. Okay I will just cover of this unholy alliances and catastrophe can save us. Okay another example of catastrophe can save us. Something that worries me very, very much. I cut off that line, I know I said enough about LGBT plus and so on. I wonder if you will agree with this. A very intelligent critique from Bernie Sanders, my God, good old-fashioned American Social Democrat. [Host: Where are my gloves? Sorry? Where are my gloves? Yeah the gloves.] It's a complicated, I know, I know. No, no, I just said that he noticed something. You know what's my problem with a certain type of woke suspicion? That the good old left at least pretended to be unifying. You address the people, you say we may have differences but let's say even peace, justice, better health, let's get all together. While did you notice how the woke logic is on the contrary an extremely divisive logic of suspicion. The first thing they note is, "Yeah, but the expression that you use there may be misunderstood in that way." It's very sad. That's why I think woke logic of this universal suspicion where are traces of racism and so on, blocks solidarity. But let's not get long, quickly to the end. Another unholy alliance, what I already hinted at, I think, Zionist antisemitism. It's not a joke. We have now at a very delicate level a strange alliance between the truly crazy Zionists, those who now want to throw Arabs out of the West Bank, you noticed what happened, I cried, in Israel now how, like that city, for one terrorist act they want, a minister of finance of them proposed this, to erase the entire city of people and so on. They speak openly about annexing and so on. Okay there are more problems here. But what I want to say is that did you notice how these radical Zionist Jews who want strong Israel are getting gradually into an unholy alliance with even antisemitic Western conservatives. For example, if there was somebody who was not really philosemitic it was Donald Trump. He was supported by a series of extreme right openly antisemitic organizations, but he supported Israel. Now you will say what's my point? Ah, now comes a bad surprise. Not now look into my books, I have a quote. You know who is at the origin of this? Reinhard Heydrich. In he, the one of Wannsee Conference or what, in '36 or '7, he wrote a letter where he said, "Jews are an ingenious active people. We would like to collaborate, trade with them, we just don't want them here. We should help them to move to Palestine," and so on. And that's why when Bibi Netanyahu some six-seven years ago called French Jews "Come to Israel," the right-wing really antisemitic circles celebrated it. "Yeah, yeah, you see, go there, go, just out of France," you know. So what I'm- what makes me, what makes me here so sad is, is again this weird alliance. Then people tell me, "But Jews suffered so much during the Holocaust." I told them, "No, this is an obscenity what you are saying." Because Arabs are saying the same thing, like some stupid pro-Palestinian in Ljubljana in front of my house did a graffiti, "If I were to live in Gaza, I would also deny Holocaust." Like when you suffer, you- no, this is totally wrong. You know what is for me, I hope you'll agree, the only serious ethical position? The struggle against antisemitism unconditionally and the struggle for Palestinians, not the terrorist on the West Bank, should be parts of the same struggle. Point. That's it. That those who manipulate the memory of Holocaust to justify what Israel is today doing on the West Bank, those are the true manipulators with Holocaust because they used a mega traumatic event to justify petty colonizing land politics now. You know who I was asked at year an extremely stupid question, naive. [Host: Elaborate.] No, no, I will not elaborate too much because then we can take a break, go to sleep and then come again. Yeah, yeah. Who is for you a true ethical- Oh my God, fuck it, okay- a true ethical hero of 20th century? I said Marek Edelman. This was, remember the name, a Polish Jew, absolute hero. He was Bundist there in Poland before World War II fighting for workers rights, leftist. He was among the coordinators of the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion. He somehow survived it. He then organized that Warsaw uprising. After the war he remained there in Poland although communists wanted to throw him out, with a beautiful argumentation. He said, "I see Auschwitz stones there and I think I don't have anything to say that out of respect for the victims somebody has to be here to look at those stones." And then, shock, in '67-8, one of the last things he did is he wrote a message to my Palestinian brothers. He told them as a Jew who went through all of it, "I advise you resist, not with terror, but resist, you have the right." This is true ethics. Now so that we don't go on, just to conclude, I find the same problem with ecology. You know, that's my philosophical training. You know how often, I'm totally against, pro-ecology. But again it's complex, one ideology I hate is this deep ecology which is secretly too anthropocentric. You know when ecologists talk about say, saving environment, if you read it closely what they mean is let's maintain environment such that we can live in it, which means focus on that. It's an arrogant vision that nature in itself is somehow more harmonious but we egotist exploiting people threw it out of balance. No, the first statement of true ecologism is, sorry for this vulgar statement, you may have heard it, is: if nature is our mother, it's a dirty bitch, this mother. A proof. What is our main source of energy today? Oil, coal. Can you even imagine what ecological catastrophes had to happen on earth before humans emerged that we have all these sources of energy? No, nature already in itself is not some kind of a harmonious cycle,
freedom, ready to work really for it. Point two, some kind of good pragmatism. There are people who are principled but enjoy being principled losers. Many leftists today, they wait for the big revolution. But whenever something happens, Syriza, they say, "No, no, that's not yet it," you know. [Host: No, let the others do it.] Let's let the others do it, yeah. And there's the whole history of the left here, how the European left after '68 is just looking, at some point it was Cuba, Vietnam, Venezuela, now we are, no, the revolution takes place elsewhere. We want here to enjoy our academic or what job and see the revolution there. You know like what I wanted to say is that let me go on. Okay I will just cover of this unholy alliances and catastrophe can save us. Okay another example of catastrophe can save us. Something that worries me very, very much. I cut off that line, I know I said enough about LGBT plus and so on. I wonder if you will agree with this. A very intelligent critique from Bernie Sanders, my God, good old-fashioned American Social Democrat. [Host: Where are my gloves? Sorry? Where are my gloves? Yeah the gloves.] It's a complicated, I know, I know. No, no, I just said that he noticed something. You know what's my problem with a certain type of woke suspicion? That the good old left at least pretended to be unifying. You address the people, you say we may have differences but let's say even peace, justice, better health, let's get all together. While did you notice how the woke logic is on the contrary an extremely divisive logic of suspicion. The first thing they note is, "Yeah, but the expression that you use there may be misunderstood in that way." It's very sad. That's why I think woke logic of this universal suspicion where are traces of racism and so on, blocks solidarity. But let's not get long, quickly to the end. Another unholy alliance, what I already hinted at, I think, Zionist antisemitism. It's not a joke. We have now at a very delicate level a strange alliance between the truly crazy Zionists, those who now want to throw Arabs out of the West Bank, you noticed what happened, I cried, in Israel now how, like that city, for one terrorist act they want, a minister of finance of them proposed this, to erase the entire city of people and so on. They speak openly about annexing and so on. Okay there are more problems here. But what I want to say is that did you notice how these radical Zionist Jews who want strong Israel are getting gradually into an unholy alliance with even antisemitic Western conservatives. For example, if there was somebody who was not really philosemitic it was Donald Trump. He was supported by a series of extreme right openly antisemitic organizations, but he supported Israel. Now you will say what's my point? Ah, now comes a bad surprise. Not now look into my books, I have a quote. You know who is at the origin of this? Reinhard Heydrich. In he, the one of Wannsee Conference or what, in '36 or '7, he wrote a letter where he said, "Jews are an ingenious active people. We would like to collaborate, trade with them, we just don't want them here. We should help them to move to Palestine," and so on. And that's why when Bibi Netanyahu some six-seven years ago called French Jews "Come to Israel," the right-wing really antisemitic circles celebrated it. "Yeah, yeah, you see, go there, go, just out of France," you know. So what I'm- what makes me, what makes me here so sad is, is again this weird alliance. Then people tell me, "But Jews suffered so much during the Holocaust." I told them, "No, this is an obscenity what you are saying." Because Arabs are saying the same thing, like some stupid pro-Palestinian in Ljubljana in front of my house did a graffiti, "If I were to live in Gaza, I would also deny Holocaust." Like when you suffer, you- no, this is totally wrong. You know what is for me, I hope you'll agree, the only serious ethical position? The struggle against antisemitism unconditionally and the struggle for Palestinians, not the terrorist on the West Bank, should be parts of the same struggle. Point. That's it. That those who manipulate the memory of Holocaust to justify what Israel is today doing on the West Bank, those are the true manipulators with Holocaust because they used a mega traumatic event to justify petty colonizing land politics now. You know who I was asked at year an extremely stupid question, naive. [Host: Elaborate.] No, no, I will not elaborate too much because then we can take a break, go to sleep and then come again. Yeah, yeah. Who is for you a true ethical- Oh my God, fuck it, okay- a true ethical hero of 20th century? I said Marek Edelman. This was, remember the name, a Polish Jew, absolute hero. He was Bundist there in Poland before World War II fighting for workers rights, leftist. He was among the coordinators of the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion. He somehow survived it. He then organized that Warsaw uprising. After the war he remained there in Poland although communists wanted to throw him out, with a beautiful argumentation. He said, "I see Auschwitz stones there and I think I don't have anything to say that out of respect for the victims somebody has to be here to look at those stones." And then, shock, in '67-8, one of the last things he did is he wrote a message to my Palestinian brothers. He told them as a Jew who went through all of it, "I advise you resist, not with terror, but resist, you have the right." This is true ethics. Now so that we don't go on, just to conclude, I find the same problem with ecology. You know, that's my philosophical training. You know how often, I'm totally against, pro-ecology. But again it's complex, one ideology I hate is this deep ecology which is secretly too anthropocentric. You know when ecologists talk about say, saving environment, if you read it closely what they mean is let's maintain environment such that we can live in it, which means focus on that. It's an arrogant vision that nature in itself is somehow more harmonious but we egotist exploiting people threw it out of balance. No, the first statement of true ecologism is, sorry for this vulgar statement, you may have heard it, is: if nature is our mother, it's a dirty bitch, this mother. A proof. What is our main source of energy today? Oil, coal. Can you even imagine what ecological catastrophes had to happen on earth before humans emerged that we have all these sources of energy? No, nature already in itself is not some kind of a harmonious cycle,
unknown
it's- it's destroying itself. So it's not just that we humans screwed it up. Then there are so- you know, ecologists for me ambiguous. Again, I'm absolutely for it, for all the measures and so on, radical measures. But don't fall into simple ideology. What do I mean by this? Often my friend
it's- it's destroying itself. So it's not just that we humans screwed it up. Then there are so- you know, ecologists for me ambiguous. Again, I'm absolutely for it, for all the measures and so on, radical measures. But don't fall into simple ideology. What do I mean by this? Often my friend
Slavoj Žižek
Alain Badiou, the French guy, developed this nicely, how today we have a problem of the so-called death of God. There is no authority which is untouchable for us, that if that authority says this, we should- we relativize everything. And I think often ecology flirts with this kind of an unconditionality in the sense that "But we can have nature which puts limits to us." No, I don't buy this. I think again, keep the complexity. What is a real problem today is that it's not only nature that is disappearing but also we humans as humans. I've written a book about it, maybe some of you know it, "Hegel in a Wired Brain," where I tried to pull that- why I'm not so much afraid of all this fake stuff although wonderful things are happening them. Now I will conclude. You know that for example, did you hear about this face swap hardcore porn? It's done very simply. You take a hardcore shot and then you just need a couple of photographs of a woman and you put it in and then the computer does all the job and then you have that woman doing all the gest- You may can make a hardcore porn with every person that you have enough photos of. A proof. I'm- apologies, I'm open here to you for the tastelessness. I saw one with the German Green foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. Fucking like crazy screaming. It's face swap. Then you can accompany this with- we have now such perfect voice imitations, no, that you can completely do it. So maybe to conclude, we are coming close to something that I almost find attractive. I will conclude with an old joke of mine which some of you maybe know. The Guardian journal asked me some ten years ago is romance still alive today. My answer was difficult but maybe. What would be today a really nice romantic sex encounter? Man has his- they call it, it's so vulgar- stamina training unit. In German you call it even more Vagina-Rohr you call it. A plastic one, it's wonderful, you can regulate the density, how it shakes, you put your penis in. Then of course women have this dildo whatever, plastic penis. Both work on electricity. So let's say you're a woman, I'm a man, this time we are not apes, and we want to have sex. Wouldn't you like to do it this way? You come, if you're a woman, with your dildo, I come with my Vagina-Rohr. We sit down, we plug them both in. We put dildo in Vagina-Rohr. The machines are buzzing. They're doing it for us. And we can have coffee and we are talking about philosophy like Wittgenstein. And the good thing is we can both use the Vagina-Rohr, actually. No, no, no, yeah we can. I want to have sex with you, if you were a woman. Ah, so okay. So I want the machine but I don't want the effort. So wouldn't this be a wonderful thing today, that we do the same thing, we take a really hot couple in a hard porn and just exchange faces and then observe this on screen and have a nice drink and talk and so on and so on. Maybe this is the future of our sexuality. Maybe. Thank you very much, I finished, yeah. Host: Stop. You see that? There must be discipline. Before I hand you the microphone, I'd like to, I like to follow that thought a little bit. It doesn't matter if you see me as an ape or a woman or whatever. I'm not an ape, I'm a pig. [Žižek snorts] Host: Yeah, well the thing is you mentioned an interesting thing because nowadays we so much relate on technology and in a, in an abbreviation of the popular quote of Nietzsche, "the longer you glare into the abyss, the abyss starts to glare into you," isn't it like the longer we look into the internet, the internet looks into us as well. So do you think that we're already beyond that point where we, you know, started to, speaking about catastrophes, that's us educating the machinery, the web, everything like that, or do you think we're already past the point where the machinery started to educate us and this is like opening up a whole new field of catastrophes going to happen? Žižek: This is a very good question because for simple dogmatic reason because it sounds very Lacanian. Lacan, Jacques Lacan developed in detail this idea which is I think very profound, that in order to really look at a thing, in some sense the thing has to look back at you. And you experience this as the so-called blind spot in the picture, the point where it's looking back at you. And I think it's a speculative thesis, but it can be argued, that every sex act almost has at least at a some deep unconscious level this idea of voyeurism. When I enjoy sex I don't enjoy it directly. I imagine being observed by somebody and so on and so on. And it's a very good question of yours what happens with this technology where it's no longer a fantasy, but you are really observed, everything is recorded and so on. And my quick answer because I've spoken apologies too long, is that maybe what we are losing is precisely this deeper metaphysical look how the other returns the gaze. It's no longer this mysterious X, we simply see where the machine really looks at us, you know. That would be my brief answer. That on the other, my second answer would have been that you remember maybe you do, some Italian guy did something and I didn't like it, I'm sorry, it was supposed to be [unintelligible], an endless artificially generated debate between me and Werner Herzog which you can listen to it endlessly. And I had an exchange with him. [Host: You ate the last piece of chocolate I guess.] Yeah and I told him my God, listen, couldn't you like- I'm too fluent there. There are none of my dirty ticks, none of my vulgarities and so on. Couldn't you include... so the real problem with computers imitating us or controlling us is the greatest thing about our human speech. You know who knew this? Didn't Kleist, Heinrich von Kleist wrote a wonderful a couple of pages short essay on Über, I don't know, von Menschen where his idea is that all great inventions in language ideas happened so that you misspoke. You say something wrongly and then you try to save the situation and try to include that. Can computers do this? I'm not so sure. Host: No, we not either, but that's a good thing because as we talk about this failure and this things that happen and then we try to cope with that, brings us back, probably brings us back to the topic of tonight and your, reading, the title of your lecture, like catastrophe will save us. Because like in what Kleist says in little, in language, is like that a little catastrophe happens and some good comes out of it. Žižek: Yeah. Even today, sorry, just to finish. No, finish, it's interesting. It is. That's why many Jewish friends are telling me, you know this catastrophe now colonizing the West Bank, direct racism and so on. It's not just hypocrisy when white liberal, liberal Jews are protesting it, but this was such a shock for the majority of half atheists, what I like about Jews is that you know they have the greatest percentage of atheists in the world, the Jews. And it's this wonderful paradox as a Jew once told me, "We don't believe in God but nonetheless we believe that God gave us the land there." That's- but that's ideology. [Host: So we don't believe in God but we know that God believes in us. Yeah, we are the chosen people.] Now you said something so profound that I'm just sad that we cannot go on indefinitely because I think Jacques Lacan says this: the true metaphysical question is not do we believe in God? Well, some people do, some not, who cares. The problem is does God, God as our fantasy formation, does God believe in himself? And the answer of all truly profound theologians is: no. No. You know the problem- the problem is there. The problem is there. [Host: The problem is that we made him up.] Yeah, but what does he know? Which is why I have another theory, I wonder if you like it. [Host: Hit me.] Yeah, the most materialist film that I saw, I've written about it is, download it, you get it, "Rapture." years old film with when she was younger, Mimi Rogers. It's an incredible story, I will condense it as much as possible. An ordinary- [Host: Short, short, short.] Žižek: Short, short, short. An ordinary girl, okay is promiscuous, then she falls in love, her husband dies, she has a children she- and she has an obsession that God will in a rupture call her up. So she goes to a desert near Los Angeles to wait for God. God doesn't do- do- does nothing. So she kills her daughter. Nothing. Then she is arrested for this. Now comes the miracle. She goes- till this point and is arrested, till that point the movie is realistic. Could have happened, a disappointed crazy believer. Then the miracle happens. It's the end of the world. All of a sudden the walls disintegrate of the prison. She takes a car, she goes to somewhere to the edge of the world where she sees up there paradise. And the ending it's incredible. There from the other side of paradise her dead husband and daughter approach her and ask her, "Mommy, come to us, you just have to say I love you, God." And she said, "No, I will not. After God did what God did to me with all this meaningless... no." And then her daughter said, "But Mommy, you know what this means? You know how long you will stay there?" And she says, "I know, forever." This is the end. That's- that's the true undermining of religion from within. Much better than this God doesn't exist because when people say God doesn't exist they usually mean but nonetheless it's a noble ideal, you know like I love- I talk too much, bitte. Host: No, two things. First, this reminds me a little bit in a very abstract way of the story of Liliom from Molnár, you know, the play. Sorry, which play? Host: The play of Liliom from Molnár. Are you familiar with that? It's an... Žižek: No, I don't know it, bit- Host: Okay, we
Alain Badiou, the French guy, developed this nicely, how today we have a problem of the so-called death of God. There is no authority which is untouchable for us, that if that authority says this, we should- we relativize everything. And I think often ecology flirts with this kind of an unconditionality in the sense that "But we can have nature which puts limits to us." No, I don't buy this. I think again, keep the complexity. What is a real problem today is that it's not only nature that is disappearing but also we humans as humans. I've written a book about it, maybe some of you know it, "Hegel in a Wired Brain," where I tried to pull that- why I'm not so much afraid of all this fake stuff although wonderful things are happening them. Now I will conclude. You know that for example, did you hear about this face swap hardcore porn? It's done very simply. You take a hardcore shot and then you just need a couple of photographs of a woman and you put it in and then the computer does all the job and then you have that woman doing all the gest- You may can make a hardcore porn with every person that you have enough photos of. A proof. I'm- apologies, I'm open here to you for the tastelessness. I saw one with the German Green foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock. Fucking like crazy screaming. It's face swap. Then you can accompany this with- we have now such perfect voice imitations, no, that you can completely do it. So maybe to conclude, we are coming close to something that I almost find attractive. I will conclude with an old joke of mine which some of you maybe know. The Guardian journal asked me some ten years ago is romance still alive today. My answer was difficult but maybe. What would be today a really nice romantic sex encounter? Man has his- they call it, it's so vulgar- stamina training unit. In German you call it even more Vagina-Rohr you call it. A plastic one, it's wonderful, you can regulate the density, how it shakes, you put your penis in. Then of course women have this dildo whatever, plastic penis. Both work on electricity. So let's say you're a woman, I'm a man, this time we are not apes, and we want to have sex. Wouldn't you like to do it this way? You come, if you're a woman, with your dildo, I come with my Vagina-Rohr. We sit down, we plug them both in. We put dildo in Vagina-Rohr. The machines are buzzing. They're doing it for us. And we can have coffee and we are talking about philosophy like Wittgenstein. And the good thing is we can both use the Vagina-Rohr, actually. No, no, no, yeah we can. I want to have sex with you, if you were a woman. Ah, so okay. So I want the machine but I don't want the effort. So wouldn't this be a wonderful thing today, that we do the same thing, we take a really hot couple in a hard porn and just exchange faces and then observe this on screen and have a nice drink and talk and so on and so on. Maybe this is the future of our sexuality. Maybe. Thank you very much, I finished, yeah. Host: Stop. You see that? There must be discipline. Before I hand you the microphone, I'd like to, I like to follow that thought a little bit. It doesn't matter if you see me as an ape or a woman or whatever. I'm not an ape, I'm a pig. [Žižek snorts] Host: Yeah, well the thing is you mentioned an interesting thing because nowadays we so much relate on technology and in a, in an abbreviation of the popular quote of Nietzsche, "the longer you glare into the abyss, the abyss starts to glare into you," isn't it like the longer we look into the internet, the internet looks into us as well. So do you think that we're already beyond that point where we, you know, started to, speaking about catastrophes, that's us educating the machinery, the web, everything like that, or do you think we're already past the point where the machinery started to educate us and this is like opening up a whole new field of catastrophes going to happen? Žižek: This is a very good question because for simple dogmatic reason because it sounds very Lacanian. Lacan, Jacques Lacan developed in detail this idea which is I think very profound, that in order to really look at a thing, in some sense the thing has to look back at you. And you experience this as the so-called blind spot in the picture, the point where it's looking back at you. And I think it's a speculative thesis, but it can be argued, that every sex act almost has at least at a some deep unconscious level this idea of voyeurism. When I enjoy sex I don't enjoy it directly. I imagine being observed by somebody and so on and so on. And it's a very good question of yours what happens with this technology where it's no longer a fantasy, but you are really observed, everything is recorded and so on. And my quick answer because I've spoken apologies too long, is that maybe what we are losing is precisely this deeper metaphysical look how the other returns the gaze. It's no longer this mysterious X, we simply see where the machine really looks at us, you know. That would be my brief answer. That on the other, my second answer would have been that you remember maybe you do, some Italian guy did something and I didn't like it, I'm sorry, it was supposed to be [unintelligible], an endless artificially generated debate between me and Werner Herzog which you can listen to it endlessly. And I had an exchange with him. [Host: You ate the last piece of chocolate I guess.] Yeah and I told him my God, listen, couldn't you like- I'm too fluent there. There are none of my dirty ticks, none of my vulgarities and so on. Couldn't you include... so the real problem with computers imitating us or controlling us is the greatest thing about our human speech. You know who knew this? Didn't Kleist, Heinrich von Kleist wrote a wonderful a couple of pages short essay on Über, I don't know, von Menschen where his idea is that all great inventions in language ideas happened so that you misspoke. You say something wrongly and then you try to save the situation and try to include that. Can computers do this? I'm not so sure. Host: No, we not either, but that's a good thing because as we talk about this failure and this things that happen and then we try to cope with that, brings us back, probably brings us back to the topic of tonight and your, reading, the title of your lecture, like catastrophe will save us. Because like in what Kleist says in little, in language, is like that a little catastrophe happens and some good comes out of it. Žižek: Yeah. Even today, sorry, just to finish. No, finish, it's interesting. It is. That's why many Jewish friends are telling me, you know this catastrophe now colonizing the West Bank, direct racism and so on. It's not just hypocrisy when white liberal, liberal Jews are protesting it, but this was such a shock for the majority of half atheists, what I like about Jews is that you know they have the greatest percentage of atheists in the world, the Jews. And it's this wonderful paradox as a Jew once told me, "We don't believe in God but nonetheless we believe that God gave us the land there." That's- but that's ideology. [Host: So we don't believe in God but we know that God believes in us. Yeah, we are the chosen people.] Now you said something so profound that I'm just sad that we cannot go on indefinitely because I think Jacques Lacan says this: the true metaphysical question is not do we believe in God? Well, some people do, some not, who cares. The problem is does God, God as our fantasy formation, does God believe in himself? And the answer of all truly profound theologians is: no. No. You know the problem- the problem is there. The problem is there. [Host: The problem is that we made him up.] Yeah, but what does he know? Which is why I have another theory, I wonder if you like it. [Host: Hit me.] Yeah, the most materialist film that I saw, I've written about it is, download it, you get it, "Rapture." years old film with when she was younger, Mimi Rogers. It's an incredible story, I will condense it as much as possible. An ordinary- [Host: Short, short, short.] Žižek: Short, short, short. An ordinary girl, okay is promiscuous, then she falls in love, her husband dies, she has a children she- and she has an obsession that God will in a rupture call her up. So she goes to a desert near Los Angeles to wait for God. God doesn't do- do- does nothing. So she kills her daughter. Nothing. Then she is arrested for this. Now comes the miracle. She goes- till this point and is arrested, till that point the movie is realistic. Could have happened, a disappointed crazy believer. Then the miracle happens. It's the end of the world. All of a sudden the walls disintegrate of the prison. She takes a car, she goes to somewhere to the edge of the world where she sees up there paradise. And the ending it's incredible. There from the other side of paradise her dead husband and daughter approach her and ask her, "Mommy, come to us, you just have to say I love you, God." And she said, "No, I will not. After God did what God did to me with all this meaningless... no." And then her daughter said, "But Mommy, you know what this means? You know how long you will stay there?" And she says, "I know, forever." This is the end. That's- that's the true undermining of religion from within. Much better than this God doesn't exist because when people say God doesn't exist they usually mean but nonetheless it's a noble ideal, you know like I love- I talk too much, bitte. Host: No, two things. First, this reminds me a little bit in a very abstract way of the story of Liliom from Molnár, you know, the play. Sorry, which play? Host: The play of Liliom from Molnár. Are you familiar with that? It's an... Žižek: No, I don't know it, bit- Host: Okay, we
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talk about it later when we work on the hands. And, the good thing about a film or a movie is that
talk about it later when we work on the hands. And, the good thing about a film or a movie is that
Slavoj Žižek
you
you
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can make a like a really
can make a like a really
Slavoj Žižek
hard cut. So we make a hard cut now because I promised the people that they can ask you questions and we've got another minutes running. So- Žižek: And I will try to be yes stupid enough to believe me, I will try to be- Host: No, you the good thing- the good thing is you are straight to the point, you are not very elaborate, you have straight answers, very short, it's a very good
hard cut. So we make a hard cut now because I promised the people that they can ask you questions and we've got another minutes running. So- Žižek: And I will try to be yes stupid enough to believe me, I will try to be- Host: No, you the good thing- the good thing is you are straight to the point, you are not very elaborate, you have straight answers, very short, it's a very good
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thing. Žižek: But you are right in something. The great art in books, in films, is the proper cut at the end. Did you see the new Spielberg? I don't like it
thing. Žižek: But you are right in something. The great art in books, in films, is the proper cut at the end. Did you see the new Spielberg? I don't like it
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very much, Fabelmans. Host: Yes. Žižek: That ending with John Ford is one of the best endings of all the time. [Host: And now the fuck get out of my office.] Žižek: Bitte. Bitte. You know what song I will sing about you? [Host: No.] Žižek: You are- you are Sebastian. [Host: Yes, yeah. Somebody called me Sebastian.] No, no, no, no, no. You know, do you know the old DDR from early fifties pro-Stalin song, "Stalin, Freund, Genosse"? Which I think about you, "Sebastian, Freund, Genosse." Okay. [Host: And I, and the song that I will sing for you from the DDR is "Sag mir wo du stehst."] Žižek: I know! But this was a pop song, you know. [Host: Yeah it was, it was.] Questions. Bitte. I already
very much, Fabelmans. Host: Yes. Žižek: That ending with John Ford is one of the best endings of all the time. [Host: And now the fuck get out of my office.] Žižek: Bitte. Bitte. You know what song I will sing about you? [Host: No.] Žižek: You are- you are Sebastian. [Host: Yes, yeah. Somebody called me Sebastian.] No, no, no, no, no. You know, do you know the old DDR from early fifties pro-Stalin song, "Stalin, Freund, Genosse"? Which I think about you, "Sebastian, Freund, Genosse." Okay. [Host: And I, and the song that I will sing for you from the DDR is "Sag mir wo du stehst."] Žižek: I know! But this was a pop song, you know. [Host: Yeah it was, it was.] Questions. Bitte. I already
Slavoj Žižek
criticized him, I told him as a true Stalinist did you organize the questions? [Host: Yes, of course. They are all censored. Come on.] They are, I hope so, yeah. The nomenklatura is watching. Audience Question: Vielen Dank, danke. Ich hoffe, dass ich die Frage richtig verstanden hat. [Host: You can also ask in German if you want.] Yeah, it's okay. Sehr geehrter Herr Žižek, ich hätte zwei kurze Fragen und zwar zur ersten. Sie haben das ja näher ausgeführt, diese unheilige Allianz zwischen Wagenknecht, den Linken und der AfD etc. Aber wenn man sich die andere Seite anschaut, also ich würde jetzt mal sagen viele Linksliberalen, die sagen es braucht Waffenlieferungen ohne Ende, die schon diskutieren über eine Flugverbotszone etc. Steckt da nicht auch eine gewisse Ideologie dahinter, dass man den Krieg und den Tod und das Leides etwas virtuelles betrachtet? Man diskutiert darüber und denkt nicht über die Konsequenzen und auch nicht darüber, dass Russen genauso sterben wie Ukrainer. Und ob da meiner Meinung nach nicht auch ein bisschen diese Struktur der fetischistischen Verleugnung dahintersteckt: Ich weiß, dass da ein Krieg herrscht, aber ich tue so, als ob es diesen ganzen Tod und so nicht geben würde. Und was Ihre dazu sagen? Und meine zweite Frage wäre, wo sehen Sie die Rolle der Philosophie in den ganzen Krisen? Irgendwie habe ich das Gefühl jetzt in der Pandemie hat man sehr viel über- da gab es nicht viel Platz für Philosophie, eher wurde mit virologischen Grundbegriffen argumentiert und jetzt im Krieg auch sehr viel mit militärischen Begriffen.
criticized him, I told him as a true Stalinist did you organize the questions? [Host: Yes, of course. They are all censored. Come on.] They are, I hope so, yeah. The nomenklatura is watching. Audience Question: Vielen Dank, danke. Ich hoffe, dass ich die Frage richtig verstanden hat. [Host: You can also ask in German if you want.] Yeah, it's okay. Sehr geehrter Herr Žižek, ich hätte zwei kurze Fragen und zwar zur ersten. Sie haben das ja näher ausgeführt, diese unheilige Allianz zwischen Wagenknecht, den Linken und der AfD etc. Aber wenn man sich die andere Seite anschaut, also ich würde jetzt mal sagen viele Linksliberalen, die sagen es braucht Waffenlieferungen ohne Ende, die schon diskutieren über eine Flugverbotszone etc. Steckt da nicht auch eine gewisse Ideologie dahinter, dass man den Krieg und den Tod und das Leides etwas virtuelles betrachtet? Man diskutiert darüber und denkt nicht über die Konsequenzen und auch nicht darüber, dass Russen genauso sterben wie Ukrainer. Und ob da meiner Meinung nach nicht auch ein bisschen diese Struktur der fetischistischen Verleugnung dahintersteckt: Ich weiß, dass da ein Krieg herrscht, aber ich tue so, als ob es diesen ganzen Tod und so nicht geben würde. Und was Ihre dazu sagen? Und meine zweite Frage wäre, wo sehen Sie die Rolle der Philosophie in den ganzen Krisen? Irgendwie habe ich das Gefühl jetzt in der Pandemie hat man sehr viel über- da gab es nicht viel Platz für Philosophie, eher wurde mit virologischen Grundbegriffen argumentiert und jetzt im Krieg auch sehr viel mit militärischen Begriffen.
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Jetzt ist
Jetzt ist
Slavoj Žižek
ja zum Beispiel auch wie Sie erwähnt haben Jürgen Habermas ist auch oft angegriffen worden für das was er geschrieben hat, Alexander Kluge auch. Wo ist da die Rolle der Philosophie im Sinne einer Intervention? Danke. Žižek: Vielen Dank. Danke. I hope that I properly- I understood correctly. The first question, yes I totally agree again as I already said I can give you a whole list of crazy things that Ukrainians were and are doing, but nonetheless,
ja zum Beispiel auch wie Sie erwähnt haben Jürgen Habermas ist auch oft angegriffen worden für das was er geschrieben hat, Alexander Kluge auch. Wo ist da die Rolle der Philosophie im Sinne einer Intervention? Danke. Žižek: Vielen Dank. Danke. I hope that I properly- I understood correctly. The first question, yes I totally agree again as I already said I can give you a whole list of crazy things that Ukrainians were and are doing, but nonetheless,
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I will tell you one thing. First, I don't buy this argument that it's really a proxy war between United States and Russland and that it's just to support our military industry. Tell this to an Ukrainian and he will explode, and justly. He will say, "Do you think that we are so stupid that we said to ourselves we could have lived in peace, but wait a minute, why don't we sacrifice ourselves to support the Western
I will tell you one thing. First, I don't buy this argument that it's really a proxy war between United States and Russland and that it's just to support our military industry. Tell this to an Ukrainian and he will explode, and justly. He will say, "Do you think that we are so stupid that we said to ourselves we could have lived in peace, but wait a minute, why don't we sacrifice ourselves to support the Western
Slavoj Žižek
military industry?" They- for them it's not a proxy war. They fight for their survival. Russia is openly saying Ukrainian nation doesn't exist and so on and so on. I know I didn't really- but what I like very much is this how you applied to this also that logic, did I understand you correctly, "Ich weiß sehr wohl, aber..." Because this I think is something absolutely crucial that's happening today. This formula as we well know is the formula of again fetishist disavowal: I know very well, but, but I don't really believe it, I act as if and so on. But today, I plagiarize
military industry?" They- for them it's not a proxy war. They fight for their survival. Russia is openly saying Ukrainian nation doesn't exist and so on and so on. I know I didn't really- but what I like very much is this how you applied to this also that logic, did I understand you correctly, "Ich weiß sehr wohl, aber..." Because this I think is something absolutely crucial that's happening today. This formula as we well know is the formula of again fetishist disavowal: I know very well, but, but I don't really believe it, I act as if and so on. But today, I plagiarize
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here my good friend, you should invite her here, I
here my good friend, you should invite her here, I
Slavoj Žižek
envy and hate her, this means love, because she- she is very bright, I don't want to talk about it maybe more bright than me, Alenka Zupančič. My Slovene colleague. And she developed that today, it's not just that you know something but at the same time you don't take it seriously, ignore it. No, it's that the fetish becomes your knowledge itself. I will give you an example how I claim more and more we live in an absolutely cynical era where the official ideology situation can only reproduce itself by in some sense limited saying the truth about itself and doing nothing. You know, I give you- to make it clear what I mean- two examples that I like. First, I hate this Kassel Biennale, Venice Biennale because I look at the program, they always say even we are caught in capitalist game, it's all colonial exploitation. Yeah, they say this but they function perfectly, they are playing this capitalist game. And why can they play it? Because they proclaim it, you know. This is a new version of this old Peter Sloterdijk's his early work maybe still the best, "Kritik der zynischen Vernunft," where he defines it as... Zynismus turning around Marx. Reflection used for sanctioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know very well what we are doing but we are nonetheless doing it. The second example is I really hated it, you remember it's now two years ago already in Glasgow, I think, that big meeting of Prince Charles was there, every- everybody for fight against global warming. Global warming conference, yeah, conference. And they were saying all the right things but it works like, "Okay, now we said it, now we can go on as usual." So this mechanism, I'm sorry I shouldn't talk too much, but this is absolutely a crucial mechanism which works in different ways. What you said
envy and hate her, this means love, because she- she is very bright, I don't want to talk about it maybe more bright than me, Alenka Zupančič. My Slovene colleague. And she developed that today, it's not just that you know something but at the same time you don't take it seriously, ignore it. No, it's that the fetish becomes your knowledge itself. I will give you an example how I claim more and more we live in an absolutely cynical era where the official ideology situation can only reproduce itself by in some sense limited saying the truth about itself and doing nothing. You know, I give you- to make it clear what I mean- two examples that I like. First, I hate this Kassel Biennale, Venice Biennale because I look at the program, they always say even we are caught in capitalist game, it's all colonial exploitation. Yeah, they say this but they function perfectly, they are playing this capitalist game. And why can they play it? Because they proclaim it, you know. This is a new version of this old Peter Sloterdijk's his early work maybe still the best, "Kritik der zynischen Vernunft," where he defines it as... Zynismus turning around Marx. Reflection used for sanctioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We know very well what we are doing but we are nonetheless doing it. The second example is I really hated it, you remember it's now two years ago already in Glasgow, I think, that big meeting of Prince Charles was there, every- everybody for fight against global warming. Global warming conference, yeah, conference. And they were saying all the right things but it works like, "Okay, now we said it, now we can go on as usual." So this mechanism, I'm sorry I shouldn't talk too much, but this is absolutely a crucial mechanism which works in different ways. What you said
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about Krise, Pandemie, Philosophie: I must say that, maybe I speak now in an egotist way for saving my own profession but in some sense we live in a time when philosophy is needed more than ever. Why? Because in the confusion in which we are today, like and confusion which concerns even everyday
about Krise, Pandemie, Philosophie: I must say that, maybe I speak now in an egotist way for saving my own profession but in some sense we live in a time when philosophy is needed more than ever. Why? Because in the confusion in which we are today, like and confusion which concerns even everyday
Slavoj Žižek
people, you know like Habermas- I
people, you know like Habermas- I
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don't agree with his solution but he raised the right question where he said do we have the right
don't agree with his solution but he raised the right question where he said do we have the right
Slavoj Žižek
to mix with our brains? Because then we may manipulate our psychic properties and so on and so on. But this is a problem for all of us. I read somewhere it's a horrible vision so
to mix with our brains? Because then we may manipulate our psychic properties and so on and so on. But this is a problem for all of us. I read somewhere it's a horrible vision so
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horrible that I almost
horrible that I almost
Slavoj Žižek
like it, that now a guy with some Arab name is opening a big clinic in
like it, that now a guy with some Arab name is opening a big clinic in
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Vorort von Berlin
Vorort von Berlin
Slavoj Žižek
where you will have a perfect reproduction of not vagina but how do you call this inside? [Host: Uterus.] Uterus, transparent,
where you will have a perfect reproduction of not vagina but how do you call this inside? [Host: Uterus.] Uterus, transparent,
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and you want to have with your wife, partner a child. You just give sperm
and you want to have with your wife, partner a child. You just give sperm
Slavoj Žižek
and what's the
and what's the
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feminine
feminine
Slavoj Žižek
counterpart and you do nothing. Then you just fill out the form, they give
counterpart and you do nothing. Then you just fill out the form, they give
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you choices how to manipulate before even starting the process,
you choices how to manipulate before even starting the process,
Slavoj Žižek
sperm and so on like choice
sperm and so on like choice
Darko Radosavljev
of color, color of the eye like brown or the other, black, blue, yeah yeah, and all that stuff and intelligence and height and so on. Height, height. Sorry. Height. Height. Yeah, yeah, sorry. [Host: How tall, how tall.] Yes, yes. And then they produce the child and their hope is that- so you know all these things and already basically already the abortion debate confronts us with some basic philosophical problems like what are we as humans? When do we exist as humans? We live in a time of ethical confusion where even everyday decisions demand from us a kind of spontaneous basically philosophical- philosophical decision. You know like the use again- Habermas was right, but I don't think his solution is right, when he said that when we will be able to do, that's the big task now, to somehow implant Wissen, knowledge in our mind either through sleep, hypnosis or other way without we doing ourselves. [Host: Isn't that a wonderful vision that Stanisław Lem already wrote up in The Futurological Congress? That we take- we take
of color, color of the eye like brown or the other, black, blue, yeah yeah, and all that stuff and intelligence and height and so on. Height, height. Sorry. Height. Height. Yeah, yeah, sorry. [Host: How tall, how tall.] Yes, yes. And then they produce the child and their hope is that- so you know all these things and already basically already the abortion debate confronts us with some basic philosophical problems like what are we as humans? When do we exist as humans? We live in a time of ethical confusion where even everyday decisions demand from us a kind of spontaneous basically philosophical- philosophical decision. You know like the use again- Habermas was right, but I don't think his solution is right, when he said that when we will be able to do, that's the big task now, to somehow implant Wissen, knowledge in our mind either through sleep, hypnosis or other way without we doing ourselves. [Host: Isn't that a wonderful vision that Stanisław Lem already wrote up in The Futurological Congress? That we take- we take
Slavoj Žižek
pills and then we- we virtualize our whole existence. Isn't that happening right now already? Like we- we- we translate ourselves much more in- in images than in writing. It's like all this social media is much more like an image media than a written media.] No, I agree. That's why- but we don't have time for this- that's why I much prefer Lem's novel than Stalker the film. [Host: Yeah, me too.] Novel is- no, sorry, Solaris! [Host: Solaris, Solaris, not Stalker.] Because the- the- in the film Tarkovsky does the usual half-religious obscurantism. The object is just a mirror of the deepest desires of our soul, while in Lem's novel it became a traumatic external object which simply remains non-transparent. We know they are doing something with us but we never learn at the end what. What. What. So- okay, let's not lose time. What I'm just saying is that precisely philosophy, every great philosophy always happens in the time of a crisis. [Host: Huge crisis.] Huge. Plato, Aristotle, it's the end of polis, it's already the decadence of polis. And Hegel was quite aware: the new boost of philosophy from Kant to Hegel and later comes with the problems of Aufklärung and Französische Revolution when with terror and so on things went wrong. [Host: So we need the crisis?] Žižek: To think properly, absolutely. I don't believe that to be a philosopher you need peaceful time. No, true philosophy is for the times of emergency. [Host: But can peaceful times, if it's so peaceful and you have no challenge at all, can be a great burden by itself as well?] Absolutely. I'm afraid of this, absolutely. I mean I- I cannot even- I'm an absolute workaholic, even tonight because I was not able to do my work, I go back to Ljubljana... [Host: And you finish it?] Žižek: Two hours minimum. [Host: It's very important to have a regime. Absolutely. Keeps you going. Because you need a task in life.] Žižek: That's why I will end with a pure obscenity. But take it friendly. It's not a bad joke. When a German journalist asked me "What's your favorite motto?" I said, "Arbeit macht frei." And then of course I said I don't mean it in that way, but the Nazis brutally misused it. That work certainly didn't make you free. But the horror of the Nazis is that a motto which is for me at least in itself a good one, free one, they misused it in the most horrible imaginable way. [Host: But it's always like that. Sovereignty of interpretation means you control how you propagandize for things.] Yeah, but that's why I believe in Fehler, in mistakes, in misspeaking. That's the only way, even in love. Don't you agree that when you declare love- this is for me the most traumatic moment always- when you declare love to somebody, if you don't do it with some oscillation, stumbling, there is something wrong. It means you are perfectly trained to do it. It's not- Did you see a stupid movie, otherwise I hated it, "Four Weddings and a Funeral"? But there is a nice detail that where when Hugh Grant declares love to Andie MacDowell, he gets in his typical way, stumbles, repeats himself. That's how you declare love. [Host: Yeah, true. So the thing is we reach the end unfortunately. I want to ask you one last question before you kill yourself.] Žižek: No, no. [Host: With the challenge, with the challenge attached to it, that you have to answer it like really shortly. Okay. And we see and if you can, like, suffice. Thing is, you were talking about the role of philosophy in nowadays times and we are in very challenging times. So do you generally, like, it's more like a yes or no question, do you generally think that- that- that the biggest challenge is that we live in times where we- you know, have a lot of reflexes to counter stuff that is coming to us, and especially in times when there is a high pressure of reflex, that
pills and then we- we virtualize our whole existence. Isn't that happening right now already? Like we- we- we translate ourselves much more in- in images than in writing. It's like all this social media is much more like an image media than a written media.] No, I agree. That's why- but we don't have time for this- that's why I much prefer Lem's novel than Stalker the film. [Host: Yeah, me too.] Novel is- no, sorry, Solaris! [Host: Solaris, Solaris, not Stalker.] Because the- the- in the film Tarkovsky does the usual half-religious obscurantism. The object is just a mirror of the deepest desires of our soul, while in Lem's novel it became a traumatic external object which simply remains non-transparent. We know they are doing something with us but we never learn at the end what. What. What. So- okay, let's not lose time. What I'm just saying is that precisely philosophy, every great philosophy always happens in the time of a crisis. [Host: Huge crisis.] Huge. Plato, Aristotle, it's the end of polis, it's already the decadence of polis. And Hegel was quite aware: the new boost of philosophy from Kant to Hegel and later comes with the problems of Aufklärung and Französische Revolution when with terror and so on things went wrong. [Host: So we need the crisis?] Žižek: To think properly, absolutely. I don't believe that to be a philosopher you need peaceful time. No, true philosophy is for the times of emergency. [Host: But can peaceful times, if it's so peaceful and you have no challenge at all, can be a great burden by itself as well?] Absolutely. I'm afraid of this, absolutely. I mean I- I cannot even- I'm an absolute workaholic, even tonight because I was not able to do my work, I go back to Ljubljana... [Host: And you finish it?] Žižek: Two hours minimum. [Host: It's very important to have a regime. Absolutely. Keeps you going. Because you need a task in life.] Žižek: That's why I will end with a pure obscenity. But take it friendly. It's not a bad joke. When a German journalist asked me "What's your favorite motto?" I said, "Arbeit macht frei." And then of course I said I don't mean it in that way, but the Nazis brutally misused it. That work certainly didn't make you free. But the horror of the Nazis is that a motto which is for me at least in itself a good one, free one, they misused it in the most horrible imaginable way. [Host: But it's always like that. Sovereignty of interpretation means you control how you propagandize for things.] Yeah, but that's why I believe in Fehler, in mistakes, in misspeaking. That's the only way, even in love. Don't you agree that when you declare love- this is for me the most traumatic moment always- when you declare love to somebody, if you don't do it with some oscillation, stumbling, there is something wrong. It means you are perfectly trained to do it. It's not- Did you see a stupid movie, otherwise I hated it, "Four Weddings and a Funeral"? But there is a nice detail that where when Hugh Grant declares love to Andie MacDowell, he gets in his typical way, stumbles, repeats himself. That's how you declare love. [Host: Yeah, true. So the thing is we reach the end unfortunately. I want to ask you one last question before you kill yourself.] Žižek: No, no. [Host: With the challenge, with the challenge attached to it, that you have to answer it like really shortly. Okay. And we see and if you can, like, suffice. Thing is, you were talking about the role of philosophy in nowadays times and we are in very challenging times. So do you generally, like, it's more like a yes or no question, do you generally think that- that- that the biggest challenge is that we live in times where we- you know, have a lot of reflexes to counter stuff that is coming to us, and especially in times when there is a high pressure of reflex, that
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we should take our time to reflect instead of just reflex?] Absolutely. This is why- to forget, to annoy many of my leftist friends, maybe you know- [Host: Maybe we need more time to take a step back.] No, no. This is my standard answer: like is Marxist Thesis "Philosophers have
we should take our time to reflect instead of just reflex?] Absolutely. This is why- to forget, to annoy many of my leftist friends, maybe you know- [Host: Maybe we need more time to take a step back.] No, no. This is my standard answer: like is Marxist Thesis "Philosophers have
Slavoj Žižek
only interpreted the world, we have to change it." I claim that
only interpreted the world, we have to change it." I claim that
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it's a
it's a
Slavoj Žižek
correct phrase for today, just we should turn it around. In the 20th century we wanted to change the world too fast. Now we need to interpret it more. Exactly. Never were we so epistemologically with our knowledge disoriented. I ask you a simple question: what is China today? It's still communism, it's authoritarian capital- the basic orientation is missing. Host: We have to finish now. Ladies and gentlemen, meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren, danke dass Sie so aufmerksam zugehört haben. Žižek: You've chosen- ich würde sagen "Genossen und Genossinnen." Fertig, danke. [Applause] Host: Stop. Stop. Because with me you always pay the price.
correct phrase for today, just we should turn it around. In the 20th century we wanted to change the world too fast. Now we need to interpret it more. Exactly. Never were we so epistemologically with our knowledge disoriented. I ask you a simple question: what is China today? It's still communism, it's authoritarian capital- the basic orientation is missing. Host: We have to finish now. Ladies and gentlemen, meine sehr verehrten Damen und Herren, danke dass Sie so aufmerksam zugehört haben. Žižek: You've chosen- ich würde sagen "Genossen und Genossinnen." Fertig, danke. [Applause] Host: Stop. Stop. Because with me you always pay the price.
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Since you applauded, I will tell you a wonderful dirty joke which is
Since you applauded, I will tell you a wonderful dirty joke which is
Slavoj Žižek
short. Yeah, yeah, which is... [Host: We have to work on the hands. You have to go and work on the hands.] Žižek: I don't know- No, no, no, but a dirty joke which is philosophically correct. A nasty wife sends her man in the evening, "Go out and bring me some cigarettes from the traffic across the street." The husband goes out, the traffic is closed, he goes to a nearby bar to buy the cigarettes and there is a nice waitress there, they begin to flirt, they end- ended in her flat, screwing like
short. Yeah, yeah, which is... [Host: We have to work on the hands. You have to go and work on the hands.] Žižek: I don't know- No, no, no, but a dirty joke which is philosophically correct. A nasty wife sends her man in the evening, "Go out and bring me some cigarettes from the traffic across the street." The husband goes out, the traffic is closed, he goes to a nearby bar to buy the cigarettes and there is a nice waitress there, they begin to flirt, they end- ended in her flat, screwing like
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crazy till three in the morning. Then he said, "Oh my God, I must go home. What
crazy till three in the morning. Then he said, "Oh my God, I must go home. What
Slavoj Žižek
will I tell to my wife?" And he finds a solution. He says to the lady, "Do you have some of this, if you do bowlin- how do you say- powder." [Host: Mm-hmm.] Žižek: Okay. [Host: Bowling, for bowling. Okay.] Žižek: He puts this on and goes home. Be careful for the dialectic now. The wife asks him, "Where were you? Such a
will I tell to my wife?" And he finds a solution. He says to the lady, "Do you have some of this, if you do bowlin- how do you say- powder." [Host: Mm-hmm.] Žižek: Okay. [Host: Bowling, for bowling. Okay.] Žižek: He puts this on and goes home. Be careful for the dialectic now. The wife asks him, "Where were you? Such a
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long time!" And he says- just- he said, "You know, I went out, the
long time!" And he says- just- he said, "You know, I went out, the
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traffic was closed, I went
traffic was closed, I went
Slavoj Žižek
to a bar, I flirted with a lady, we fucked like
to a bar, I flirted with a lady, we fucked like
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crazy." And you
crazy." And you
Slavoj Žižek
know what's the effect? The wife says, "Why are you so miserably lying to me? I see the powder! You went bowling with your friends!" That's the political art! To tell the truth in a way that will confuse the enemy! That should be it!
know what's the effect? The wife says, "Why are you so miserably lying to me? I see the powder! You went bowling with your friends!" That's the political art! To tell the truth in a way that will confuse the enemy! That should be it!