Our World Is Coming To An End | Aaron Bastani Meets Slavoj Žižek | Downstream
Interview · Novara Media ·
published 2023-11-05 · 1:40:47 · 13,168 words
the date above is when the video was uploaded, no recording date was found
capitalismcommunism-socialismideologyhegel-dialecticsreligion-theologyecology-climatesexuality-genderrace-antisemitismfascism-populismliberalism-political-correctnessdemocracyrevolution-violencetechnology-ai-cyberspacecinema-art-culturehistorygeopolitics-wareconomicsethicsphilosophy-general
A wide-ranging Downstream/Novara interview with Slavoj Žižek around his book on whether humanity is heading toward catastrophe. He argues for a 'moderately conservative communist' stance, reads the Arab Spring, Syriza, 1968 and the French/Russian revolutions through Hegel as good ideas that turn wrong, and develops his 'law and order leftist' / 'morning after' position. He discusses the Hamas–Israel war, Ukraine, China, the US democratic crisis, techno-feudalism and the return of rent, the deep structure of modern (biological) anti-semitism and the European Jews as bearers of cosmopolitan universal reason, and closes on ecology-driven emergency states, immigration and the patronizing core of liberal multiculturalism.
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
His term for the blanket consent given in video interviews, allowing one's clips to be re-edited into anything (the deepfake/fake-quote risk).
His self-description: still a communist who accepts radical measures will be needed, but who learns from intelligent conservatives how a good idea can turn wrong.
His claim that declaring something 'possible' or 'impossible' in a given situation is itself an ideological operation (AI thinkable, a 2% tax unthinkable).
as “morning after leftist”
One who judges a movement by how ordinary people's daily life will feel once the revolutionary enthusiasm is over.
as “law and order leftist”
A leftist whose promise is not enthusiastic freedom but a change ordinary people feel in the safety and order of daily life.
Used in the 'good sense' of how we spontaneously experience a situation, e.g. post-68 sensitivity to racism and women became a moment of daily ideology.
The emerging anti-western coalition in which anti-feminism, homophobia and anti-semitism get rebranded as anti-colonial struggle (Uganda, Putin).
as “Zionist antisemitism”
Right-wing Christian/Zionist support for Israel that is structurally antisemitic, pro-Israel policy funded by grass-roots antisemites (Trump, Breivik, Heydrich's 1935 distinction).
as “private use of reason”
Kant's term: reason employed within and on behalf of state institutions, contrasted with the public use of reason that Jews were forced into by their social position.
The authentic-left principle (grounded in Engels and Marx) that the enemy is not persons but the system that even forces the bourgeoisie to act as they do.
as “rent”
Marxist/feudal category he claims is returning: mega-corporations (Amazon, Bill Gates) own the digital commons and extract rent from our communication rather than exploiting workers.
Varoufakis's term he endorses: a new order of states plus mega-corporations that no longer looks like capitalism as we knew it, extracting rent from the digital commons.
as “fascist capitalism”
Capitalism with a strong one-party nation-state controlling it, conservative modernization taking its own national tradition as the control mechanism on market dynamics.
as “pessimism in theory, optimism in practice”
Horkheimer's Frankfurt-school maxim he endorses for desperate times: think the catastrophe clearly but act as if there is hope.
The coming ecological/immigration crises will force emergency mechanisms; the left must design them now or the right will impose authoritarian versions.
Stories he reaches for 10
He'd burn V for Vendetta in his Stalinist universe because it ends with the people occupying parliament; he'd sell his mother into slavery to see a sequel asking what they actually do the next day.
“i would sell my mother into slavery. to see v for vendetta part 2. but what will then they do?”
Native Americans in Missoula told him they hate the PC term 'Native American' (the opposite of nature is culture, so it implies they are 'natural Americans') and prefer 'Indians' because the name is at least a monument to white men's stupidity.
“we much prefer to be called indians. why? because then this name is at least a monument to white men's stupidity.”
Himmler kept the Bhagavad Gita on him as the answer to how to murder Jews without becoming beasts, 'acting through a distance', doing one's duty detached from the deed.
“bhagavad gita was the book which heinrich himmler had all the time in his pocket because this was his reply to how to kill the jews.”
Heydrich in 1935 wrote that there are two types of Jews, Zionist Jews who want to move to Palestine (potentially friends) and assimilation Jews (we kill them), the original kernel of Zionist antisemitism.
“zionist jews who want to move to palestine and assimilation jews. assimilation jews, we kill them.”
Uganda's death-penalty law against homosexuality was justified as a struggle against the ideology of colonialism, paradigmatic of the 'unholy alliance' tying homophobia to anti-imperialism.
“they justified it, that this is a struggle against ideology of colonialism. homosexuality.”
Breivik's manuscript argues Europe should push Israel to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and build a new temple, because Israel is the wall keeping barbarians from Europe, a Zionist antisemitism with a long history.
“we should totally support israel. we should push israel into destroying the asa, that big mosque, build a new temple there because there are a wall keeping barbarians from europe.”
A tasteless joke he was banned for in Cuba: 'Fidel Castro' means fidelity to castration, even if we castrate ourselves, we remain faithful to the cause.
“that's why your leader is called fidel castro. fidelity to castration.”
Morales, Linera and Cho in Bolivia raised ordinary people's living standard over 12 years without scaring off capital, then survived a coup and were re-elected, Žižek's model of pragmatic, non-slogan-bound leftism.
“they didn't scare out the capital. and they, remember, then there was a coup d'etat and they were even re-elected.”
After winning the civil war, Lenin embraced foreign mega-corporations, called big capital an ally and named the small middle class as the enemy, the catastrophic mistake that opened the road to Stalin.
“no big capital is our ally because the organization socialist is already there we just have to take it over the way it is, just chop up the head.”
Chinese friends showed him a suppressed conversation in which the young Mao and Sun Yat-sen agreed that democracy would be chaos in China and fascism (national unity + development) would be ideal, a suppressed root of Chinese communism.
“they claim that democracy would be chaos in china. but fascism is ideal because it's national unity.”
Works invoked 8
V for Vendetta film
Would be burned publicly in his Stalinist universe because it ends with the people occupying parliament; used as the foil for his 'morning after' question, what do they do the next day?
Bhagavad Gita other
One of the most obscene, disgusting sacred books; Himmler kept it in his pocket as the ethical alibi for the Holocaust; desecrates the sex scene in Oppenheimer rather than vice versa.
Oppenheimer film
A good film on the political/committee part; he hates the spiritual Bhagavad Gita part and wrote about it without seeing it (later confirmed he should have been even tougher).
State and Revolution book
Lenin's desperate book whose ambiguities already open the space for Stalinism.
Barbie film
Wrote about it without seeing it, as part of the Hegelian stance that the concept trumps empirical reality.
Fanta other
As a perverse private joke he now prefers Fanta to Coca-Cola because the Germans invented it in 1939, a 'collaborator' drink.
The main hero is the eternal Jew who longs for death, the most disgusting ideology of the 19th century, even when the hero is positive.
His own thousand-page Hegel book, written after the Arab Spring as the hard thinking the situation demanded; the host loved it.
People invoked 44
Fidel Castro positive
Disliked Cuban misery-pride, but credits Castro with correcting Chávez's anti-semitic statements ('you suffered a lot').
Narendra Modi negative
Doing the same nation-statism as China, erasing Muslims, Uyghurs, Tibetans; Žižek is absolutely pro-Muslim in India and has been advised not to travel there.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy positive
Good friend, theorist of catastrophe; told him of the day Japanese authorities panicked over evacuating 30 million from Tokyo after Fukushima.
David Graeber negative
Named as a neo-anarchist friend whose local-initiatives position he rejects, the world demands global mechanisms.
Mahmoud Abbas negative
Made a tasteless, racist statement that Jews basically deserved the Holocaust because of their financial dealings; over 100 Palestinian intellectuals immediately condemned it.
A nightmare but relatively secular (his foreign minister Tariq Aziz was a Christian); the American occupation produced ISIS and Iranian influence and drove Iraqi Christians out.
Vladimir Lenin negative
Very critical: Leninism opened the space for Stalinism (not just a bad surprise); his late embrace of big capital as an ally was the catastrophic mistake. State and Revolution is praised as ambiguous.
Richard Wagner negative
The main hero of Wagner's operas is the eternal Jew longing for death; his letter telling a Jewish admirer to kill himself is the paradigm of biological anti-semitism.
Often agrees with the first 20 minutes of Bannon's speeches (how Trump gets the disillusioned white vote) before Bannon goes crazy.
Deng Xiaoping negative
What Deng really did was move China from communism to fascism: free market under a strong one-party nation-state.
Georges Danton negative
His liquidation by Robespierre was, per British archives, justified, Danton was financed by the British.
Francis Fukuyama negative
A nice guy he met once; 9/11 ended the Fukuyama dream of liberal-democratic capitalism as a universal formula; three years ago Fukuyama was pro-Bernie Sanders.
A nightmare, but Libya under him was a relatively stable, half-welfare, very corrupt country, Western intervention made it worse.
Mike Johnson negative
The new Speaker of the House; openly formulates disrespect for the constitution, at the top of his (joking) list of people to execute before he'll agree to abolish the death penalty.
Joseph Fouché negative
'The evil embodied'; did horrible things for the Jacobins, then served Napoleon, then turned against him, the corrupt leftist pushing more terror.
Donald Trump negative
Not an original fact but a reaction to capitalism's malfunction; openly advocates public disorder; the figure of Zionist antisemitism (pro-Israel backed by grass-roots antisemites).
Álvaro García Linera positive
Co-architect (with Morales and Cho) of the Bolivian pragmatic-left model.
Louis Antoine de Saint-Just positive
Co-eval with Robespierre as one of the two greatest ethical figures; tried to appeal to lower mid-level members neither left nor right.
Leon Trotsky negative
Not a fan: 'screwed it up' with his incredible arrogance and let Stalin take over; but Trotsky's last article on Ukraine is praised as a beautiful Marxist answer.
Friedrich Engels positive
Cited approvingly: in a late letter he says some factory managers/owners were his best friends in Manchester, authentic left does not personalize the enemy.
Bernie Sanders positive
Cited twice approvingly: on abortion (frame it as making abortion less needed via better healthcare) and on the key being the malfunctioning of global capitalism.
Defended by Žižek; Putin pointedly never even names him, calling his gang 'Zelensky and his gang'.
Yanis Varoufakis positive
Endorses the techno-feudalism thesis that something new is emerging beyond capitalism-as-we-knew-it; disagrees with Varoufakis's slightly anti-Ukrainian stance.
Evo Morales positive
With Linera and Arce, his Bolivia is the model pragmatic left: raised ordinary living standards over 12 years without scaring capital, survived a coup and was re-elected.
Heinrich Himmler negative
Kept the Bhagavad Gita in his pocket as the ethical answer to how to murder Jews without becoming beasts.
Maximilien Robespierre positive
One of the greatest ethical figures in world history; saw the terror must end and chose to lose his head rather than follow the path to a new Napoleon.
Anders Behring Breivik negative
His 1000-page manuscript argues Europe should back Israel destroying Al-Aqsa and building the temple, the figure of Zionist antisemitism.
Robespierre predicted him as the new imperial figure; Napoleon gave Jews full citizens' rights but also committed horrors in Haiti.
David Choquehuanca positive
Named alongside Morales and Linera as the Bolivian pragmatic-left team.
Mao Zedong negative
His young-meeting-Sun Yat-sen conversation concluding fascism is ideal for China is a suppressed secret at the root of Chinese communism.
Reinhard Heydrich negative
'The horror itself, the father of holocaust'; in 1935 distinguished Zionist Jews (potential friends) from assimilation Jews (to be killed), the kernel of Zionist antisemitism.
Saddam's Christian foreign minister, cited as evidence that Baathist Iraq was relatively secular before the American occupation.
Søren Kierkegaard positive
Self-identifies as a Kierkegaardian on Hegel's stance that if reality doesn't fit the notional truth, so much worse for reality.
Max Horkheimer positive
Father of the Frankfurt school; his maxim 'pessimism in theory, optimism in practice' is the position Žižek endorses for desperate times.
Vladimir Putin negative
Aiming at a perverted anti-western coalition; his cynical 'decommunization = abolishing Ukraine' line is quoted; repeatedly mentions Lenin to justify the war.
Cited for saying Israel must stop daily violence against West Bank Palestinian farmers, even liberal Israeli media now admit this.
Nelson Mandela positive
The apartheid regime made a deal with him because of the threat of more radical blacks waiting in the wings.
Martin Luther King Jr. positive
His struggle succeeded because behind him stood the threat of more violent radical blacks.
Hugo Chávez negative
When Venezuela went wrong he made anti-semitic statements blaming the Jews, paradigmatic of left anti-semitism as a symptom of failure.
Joseph Stalin negative
The nightmare embodied after October; brought discrete anti-semitism into the Soviet scene.
Father of the Republic; in his dying-day conversation with the young Mao agreed that fascism would be ideal for China.
Karl Marx positive
Cited for the principle that the system, not persons, is the enemy; the 11th thesis is reversed for our time but Marx's analysis of capitalism is retained.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Read as the thinker of how good ideas turn wrong with necessity; not the stupid absolute idealist but obsessed with the necessary failure of revolutions.
Immanuel Kant positive
Cited for the public/private use of reason distinction, used to characterize European Jews as bearers of public reason.
What it argues
thinking as the urgent task in dangerous times (reversing Marx's 11th thesis)the Hegelian lesson: good revolutionary ideas turn wrong with near-necessitythe moderately conservative communist / law and order leftist / morning after leftistanti-semitism as the structural symptom of a failed left and of modern nation-statismthe European Jew as bearer of Kantian public reason and cosmopolitanismthe new global fascism / fascist capitalism (China after Deng, Modi, Putin, Western far right)techno-feudalism and the return of rent via mega-corporations controlling the digital commonsthe breakdown of democracy's unwritten rules, centered on the USemergency states to come (ecology, immigration) and the need to design them before the right doespessimism in theory, optimism in practice (Horkheimer)
Dialectical moves 11
“It's not philosophers who have only interpreted the world, we have to change it — it's maybe in the 20th century we tried to change the world too fast without really understanding it. The time is to interpret, understand the world.”
Inverts Marx's 11th thesis: today interpretation, not change, is the urgent revolutionary act.
“I am the morning after leftist. How will ordinary people feel the change when the enthusiasm is over?”
The truth of a revolution is the day after, not the ecstatic uprising.
“Freedom is formal freedom or it doesn't exist. But freedom to be actual needs certain material conditions.”
Rejects the Stalinist formal-vs-actual freedom opposition by affirming both poles in their order.
“Although there is leftist anti-semitism... this is an absolutely reliable, unmistakable sign of the fact that something is wrong with their leftism.”
The very existence of left anti-semitism is the proof that this isn't really the left.
“Even if it's a good, positive hero, [Wagner's hero] is the eternal Jew who longs to die, for death.”
Wagner's positive hero just IS the anti-semitic figure of the death-longing Jew, the form is already the ideology.
“The true horror, if you were to name me a spot on the earth about which what goes from there I'm really worried... it's not the Middle East, not China but United States.”
The self-declared center of freedom is the real danger, the worry is internal to the empire, not its rivals.
“I even have an opinion on films that I haven't seen... if reality doesn't fit what I proclaim to be the notional truth, so much worse for reality. And I stand by this.”
Endorses the Hegelian-Kierkegaardian stance: the concept trumps empirical reality, not the reverse.
“Precisely those who are most vocal in criticism of eurocentrism are taking over the worst part of European [nation-statism].”
The anti-Eurocentrists are the true continuators of Europe's worst legacy.
“We will help them, by abolishing Ukraine, we will finally decommunize it because Ukraine is a communist [invention] — [Putin's] cynical reversal.”
Cites Putin's inversion: decommunization becomes the annihilation of Ukraine itself.
“Anti-semitism is the exact opposite [of authentic leftism]: you want to keep the idea of our society as an organic harmonious whole, so why are there tensions? Ah, because a foreign intruder, the Jews.”
Anti-semitism is the structural inverse of systemic critique, it personalizes the system's antagonism into an external intruder.
“Maybe we should change the view here — what we consider possible or impossible in a situation is itself an ideological category.”
The possible/impossible distinction is not neutral but already ideological.
Claims 26
reframes
Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach must be reversed for our time: in the 20th century we changed the world too fast without understanding it, so the urgent task is now to interpret and understand the world.Marxist praxis / the priority of interpretation over change
asserts
The lesson of the Arab Spring and of Syriza is Hegelian: a good idea, with a kind of necessity, turns wrong — French Revolution → terror, October Revolution → Stalin.revolution / Hegel's philosophy of history
asserts
Trump is not an original fact but a reaction to the deep malfunctioning of global capitalism, exploited in a reprehensible way.Trump / the real crisis of global capitalism
asserts
Cancel culture and political correctness as practiced are deeply counterproductive; the left should seek converts, not traitors, and build broad coalitions.cancel culture / left strategy
asserts
Left anti-semitism is an absolutely reliable sign that something is wrong with that leftism.left anti-semitism as symptom
asserts
Anti-semitism personalizes the enemy (the Jew as foreign intruder corrupting an organic whole), whereas authentic leftism knows the enemy is the system, not persons.the structure of anti-semitism vs. systemic critique
asserts
The civil emancipation of Jews after the French Revolution produced a worse, biological/genetic anti-semitism than the earlier conversion-based form.modern (biological) anti-semitism / Enlightenment's ambivalence
asserts
European Jews, by their structural outsider position, were forced into Kant's public use of reason and are constitutive of European Enlightenment and cosmopolitanism.European Jewry / cosmopolitan universal reason
asserts
Those who most vocally criticize eurocentrism are taking over its worst part — the strong sovereign nation-state (Turkey's Young Turks, China, Modi's India).eurocentrism / nation-statism
asserts
What Deng Xiaoping really did was move China from communism to fascism: free-market dynamics under a strong one-party nation-state.China / market socialism as fascism
asserts
Hamas's attack must be unconditionally rejected: it was a war to block any chance of peace for decades, not a step toward winning.Hamas / the October 7 attack
asserts
Israel's assault on Gaza will fuel a global explosion of anti-semitism and new 'unholy alliances' tying anti-feminism and anti-semitism to anti-colonial struggle.Israel/Gaza / global anti-semitism
asserts
BDS is supportable up to a point but still dangerous in Europe, where anti-semitism is exploding — it must be non-violent and jointly organized by Palestinians and Jews.BDS
asserts
Ukraine needs continued support to maintain the stalemate; calling for 'peace' today is strictly equivalent to letting Russia keep what it occupies.Ukraine / the Russian invasion
asserts
The left should make tactical alliances with productive capitalists, who also feel exploited by the new mega-corporate feudal class.class alliances / techno-feudalism
asserts
We must prepare emergency-state mechanisms for ecological and other catastrophes now, or the right will impose authoritarian ones.ecology / emergency state
asserts
Immigration should be addressed at its source (e.g. building factories in North Africa) rather than by moralizing about integration.immigration
asserts
Western liberal 'respect' for the Other is at a deeper level deeply patronizing and remains within a Western frame.liberal multiculturalism / patronizing anti-racism
asserts
Democracy is not only written rules; it requires unwritten silent rules, and these are breaking down in the United States.democracy / the US crisis
asserts
The true horror spot on earth is the United States, not the Middle East and not China.geopolitics / US decline
reframes
Freedom is formal freedom or it doesn't exist; but to be actual it needs material conditions (universal healthcare, education).formal vs. actual freedom / socialism
asserts
Lenin's late embrace of big capital as an ally was a catastrophic mistake that opened the space for Stalinism.Lenin / the road to Stalinism
asserts
Robespierre and Saint-Just are among the greatest ethical figures in world history; Robespierre saw the terror must end and consciously risked his life to stop it.Robespierre / the French Revolution
asserts
At moments of radical emancipation you need at least the threat of a more radical deadly force — MLK succeeded because more violent blacks stood behind him, the apartheid regime dealt with Mandela because radical blacks waited in the wings.violence / emancipation
asserts
A new form of fascism — 'fascist capitalism', a strong nation-state controlling capitalist dynamics — is the main global threat today, in different regional forms (Putin, Modi, AfD, US far right, China).new global fascism
reframes
Declaring something 'possible' or 'impossible' in a situation is itself an ideological operation — we accept AI revolution as possible but a 2% tax as impossible.the possible / the impossible as ideological
Quotes 20
“i am the morning after leftist. how will ordinary people feel the change when the enthusiasm is over?”Slavoj Žižek · morning after leftist
“i am shocking as it may sound, a law and order leftist.”Slavoj Žižek · law and order leftist
“the position of left should be pessimism in theory, optimism in practice.”Slavoj Žižek · Horkheimer maxim
“freedom is formal freedom or it doesn't exist.”Slavoj Žižek · formal freedom
“if reality doesn't fit what i proclaim to be the notional truth, so much worse for reality. and i stand by this.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegelian stance
“i even have an opinion on films that i haven't seen.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegelian stance
“the enemy is not you as such. the enemy is the system.”Slavoj Žižek · authentic left vs. anti-semitism
“we tried to change the world. too fast without really understanding it. the time is to interpret, understand the world.”Slavoj Žižek · reversing the 11th thesis
“maybe you know it. you saw the movie v for vendetta. in my stalinist universe, that movie would be burned publicly.”Slavoj Žižek · what comes after the revolution
“i would sell my mother into slavery. to see v for vendetta part 2.”Slavoj Žižek · the morning after question
“the true horror... is not the middle east, not china but united states.”Slavoj Žižek · the US as the real danger
“democracy are not just the written rules. democracy are also, there is no democracy without unwritten, silent rules that you have to obey”Slavoj Žižek · democracy's unwritten rules
“if you have a boyfriend who says... you as a woman has a more dialogic, organic attitude towards nature. run away like crazy.”Slavoj Žižek · patronizing liberal admiration for the Other
“anti-semitism is the exact opposite. you want to keep the idea of our society as an organic harmonious whole. so why are there tensions? ah because a foreign intruder the juice”Slavoj Žižek · the structure of anti-semitism
“precisely those who are most vocal in criticism of eurocentrism are taking over the worst part of european.”Slavoj Žižek · anti-eurocentrists as the true Eurocentrists
“what i without shame, call moderate conservative... a moderately conservative communist.”Slavoj Žižek · moderately conservative communist
“we are returning to rent”Slavoj Žižek · the return of rent
“i call it a pornography consent that they can use clips”Slavoj Žižek · pornography consent
“what broke my heart. is that... extreme left. collaborated with extreme right. that's the end of the world. for me.”Slavoj Žižek · the extreme-left/extreme-right alliance
“the world is crying today for demanding global mechanisms.”Slavoj Žižek · the need for global mechanisms
Transcript 151 turns
Slavoj Žižek
the horror itself, heinrich heydrich, the father of holocaust, in 1935, he wrote, there are two types of jews. zionist jews who want to move to palestine and assimilation jews. assimilation jews, we kill them. they don't zionist jews, they're potentially our friends and partners. we should... no, my idea is that... it will sound so naive, but... i like juice here. not that they shouldn't move somewhere if they want. dr are for me an extremely important part of our culture.
the horror itself, heinrich heydrich, the father of holocaust, in 1935, he wrote, there are two types of jews. zionist jews who want to move to palestine and assimilation jews. assimilation jews, we kill them. they don't zionist jews, they're potentially our friends and partners. we should... no, my idea is that... it will sound so naive, but... i like juice here. not that they shouldn't move somewhere if they want. dr are for me an extremely important part of our culture.
Host
today's guest needs no introduction. simply put, he's one of the world's most famous philosophers. slavojek has written three books coming out this year. this is one of them. and it asks a pretty critical but simple question, namely, are we, humanity, heading towards catastrophe and what can we do about it? but before we have that discussion, i want to give you an update. here at navara, we're looking to gain 5,000 new pang supporters before the end of 2023. and good news, we've just passed the 2,000 mark. so if you like our work here at novara and if you want to help build people-powered media from our daily show on youtube to our articles, podcasts. and downstream as well then support our work by heading to navar.com forward slash support. the link is in the description below. we ask that you pay as much or as little as you can. it can be just £1 pound a month, but that monthly payment really helps. because we can build and plan and coordinate. with an eye towards the future and helping create people powered. media so without any further ado, i hope you enjoy this conversation. gustavo g.
today's guest needs no introduction. simply put, he's one of the world's most famous philosophers. slavojek has written three books coming out this year. this is one of them. and it asks a pretty critical but simple question, namely, are we, humanity, heading towards catastrophe and what can we do about it? but before we have that discussion, i want to give you an update. here at navara, we're looking to gain 5,000 new pang supporters before the end of 2023. and good news, we've just passed the 2,000 mark. so if you like our work here at novara and if you want to help build people-powered media from our daily show on youtube to our articles, podcasts. and downstream as well then support our work by heading to navar.com forward slash support. the link is in the description below. we ask that you pay as much or as little as you can. it can be just £1 pound a month, but that monthly payment really helps. because we can build and plan and coordinate. with an eye towards the future and helping create people powered. media so without any further ado, i hope you enjoy this conversation. gustavo g.
Slavoj Žižek
so this is...
so this is...
Host
video.
video.
Slavoj Žižek
second thing, so that i don't make a mistake, don't be afraid i please stop my joke. just like this is okay, closer
second thing, so that i don't make a mistake, don't be afraid i please stop my joke. just like this is okay, closer
Host
will you move a lot or do you think you'll stay mon?
will you move a lot or do you think you'll stay mon?
Slavoj Žižek
no, no, no, no, i will not do the fred. well saying, dancing and try you know that i'm such a horror? i'm a nightmare, true stalinist. never in my life did i dance, sing in public, smoke a cigarette, got drunk and taste any, even the softest drugs. you've never got drunk. no. really. you know why? i'm really a stalinist, not superficial. you know what's my idea? please, the world is a dangerous place. if you get drunk, you want to embrace people, you get kind, and then you don't recognize the attack, you cannot defend itself. no, we must... stay sober. paranoia to see where the attack is coming. that's really, that's my spontaneous stance, you know
no, no, no, no, i will not do the fred. well saying, dancing and try you know that i'm such a horror? i'm a nightmare, true stalinist. never in my life did i dance, sing in public, smoke a cigarette, got drunk and taste any, even the softest drugs. you've never got drunk. no. really. you know why? i'm really a stalinist, not superficial. you know what's my idea? please, the world is a dangerous place. if you get drunk, you want to embrace people, you get kind, and then you don't recognize the attack, you cannot defend itself. no, we must... stay sober. paranoia to see where the attack is coming. that's really, that's my spontaneous stance, you know
Host
paranoid style.
paranoid style.
Slavoj Žižek
absac.olutely, absolutely. the problem is that i don't live up to my own standards. the way i almost screwed up, ruined my two sons, there, of course, it's another story. you cannot even imagine being such a liberal as i was in the education. you know, like i remember this story once i returned home 20 years ago, my son was doing homework towards the evening. you know what was my reaction? how dare you do this? you are doing homework? what about the horror movie on the tv? it will watch itself by itself. sorry, losing time any other orders to what style are you used here like interrupting lively conversation more
absac.olutely, absolutely. the problem is that i don't live up to my own standards. the way i almost screwed up, ruined my two sons, there, of course, it's another story. you cannot even imagine being such a liberal as i was in the education. you know, like i remember this story once i returned home 20 years ago, my son was doing homework towards the evening. you know what was my reaction? how dare you do this? you are doing homework? what about the horror movie on the tv? it will watch itself by itself. sorry, losing time any other orders to what style are you used here like interrupting lively conversation more
Host
tell stories if you want
tell stories if you want
Slavoj Žižek
no, don't say this to amendment like the last...
no, don't say this to amendment like the last...
Host
just go
just go
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, yeah, the last, you already know it story, i will tell you one in the united states. i was signing books and a guy told me, please, i like your obscene. dirty jokes. please write a dedication to my book as dirty as you can imagine i looked at him and said listen you are talking to a madman who takes things literally you will really get it and he said yes please yes then he was a fan because i wrote imagine i'm screwing your mother up her ass in a dirty toilet up to her knees in urine and then he was mad and i told i warn you're talking to a madman. okay, stop, do you want to give me any precise instructions? well, the questions are as specific as possible.
yeah, yeah, the last, you already know it story, i will tell you one in the united states. i was signing books and a guy told me, please, i like your obscene. dirty jokes. please write a dedication to my book as dirty as you can imagine i looked at him and said listen you are talking to a madman who takes things literally you will really get it and he said yes please yes then he was a fan because i wrote imagine i'm screwing your mother up her ass in a dirty toilet up to her knees in urine and then he was mad and i told i warn you're talking to a madman. okay, stop, do you want to give me any precise instructions? well, the questions are as specific as possible.
Host
so because then you can go as general as you like. because obviously if we ask a general question, then you go.
so because then you can go as general as you like. because obviously if we ask a general question, then you go.
Slavoj Žižek
matter general that that's very good because usually my no, you should, i give you the full right in advance too. you know, it's good that you have black dress. it would be better to have been leather with a whip, a domina. no know, sorry, seriously in the sense that but if i escape too much into and get lost, please feel free.
matter general that that's very good because usually my no, you should, i give you the full right in advance too. you know, it's good that you have black dress. it would be better to have been leather with a whip, a domina. no know, sorry, seriously in the sense that but if i escape too much into and get lost, please feel free.
Host
to
to
Slavoj Žižek
because because you know my old joke, but it's true. people call me fidel not because i... my god, one of my tasteless jokes for which i was prohibited in cuba is, you know... when i was in cuba, i encountered a guy, probably he was a spy following me, although i was privately there, and i felt his heroism, how he showed me all the poverty he's shown me. but his point was, you see. in spite of all this economic ruin, poverty, we are still faithful to our cause, no? and then i said, oh, that's why your leader is called fidel castro. fidelity to castration. like even if we are castrating ourselves, we are faithful to it, no? it's horrible. i really didn't like this in cuba, this very perverted pride in, look, our misery. and poverty is a proof of our greatness. you know, that's one type of a left that i.
because because you know my old joke, but it's true. people call me fidel not because i... my god, one of my tasteless jokes for which i was prohibited in cuba is, you know... when i was in cuba, i encountered a guy, probably he was a spy following me, although i was privately there, and i felt his heroism, how he showed me all the poverty he's shown me. but his point was, you see. in spite of all this economic ruin, poverty, we are still faithful to our cause, no? and then i said, oh, that's why your leader is called fidel castro. fidelity to castration. like even if we are castrating ourselves, we are faithful to it, no? it's horrible. i really didn't like this in cuba, this very perverted pride in, look, our misery. and poverty is a proof of our greatness. you know, that's one type of a left that i.
Host
well, that's christianity, right?
well, that's christianity, right?
Slavoj Žižek
dar.
dar.
Host
you're describing christianity.
you're describing christianity.
Slavoj Žižek
you do you think. was that really oh i think christianity is such a mess so okay let's not let.
you do you think. was that really oh i think christianity is such a mess so okay let's not let.
Host
i mean i'm not going to lose some of that stuff you've already talked.
i mean i'm not going to lose some of that stuff you've already talked.
Slavoj Žižek
right.
right.
Host
okay.
okay.
Slavoj Žižek
can you know what the most evil thing the last i resist you know what you should do? you should use these clips but manipulate them so that you use this as my answer to a totally different question.
can you know what the most evil thing the last i resist you know what you should do? you should use these clips but manipulate them so that you use this as my answer to a totally different question.
Host
we do the all.
we do the all.
Slavoj Žižek
time yeah yeah, yeah, to make me appear an idiot no sorry
time yeah yeah, yeah, to make me appear an idiot no sorry
Host
give us consent to do that.
give us consent to do that.
Slavoj Žižek
i know what i give you what i call when i do a video interview, pornography, i call it a pornography consent that they can use clips, which means with this how we called this deep sorry deep yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that you take a couple of shots of me, you put it on a hardcore and i'm half dead screwing lady i give you consent for just if you said this sells well, you should give me a small percentage. we'll give you a royalty..izek, welcome to downstream. i'm proud to be here. i mean it seriously because we live in... everybody knows this, but one has to emphasize we live in dangerous times and precisely in such times. thinking is
i know what i give you what i call when i do a video interview, pornography, i call it a pornography consent that they can use clips, which means with this how we called this deep sorry deep yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah that you take a couple of shots of me, you put it on a hardcore and i'm half dead screwing lady i give you consent for just if you said this sells well, you should give me a small percentage. we'll give you a royalty..izek, welcome to downstream. i'm proud to be here. i mean it seriously because we live in... everybody knows this, but one has to emphasize we live in dangerous times and precisely in such times. thinking is
Host
need.
need.
Slavoj Žižek
people are totally wrong who think now times are quiet. no, then you are too lazy to think. in in the situations of urgency, which is today's situation at different levels, i think this is what makes many traditional marxists hate me. i think the time is to turn around marxist theories 11. it's not philosophers who have only interpreted the world. we have to change it. it's maybe in the 20th century. we tried to change the world. too fast without really understanding it. the time is to interpret, understand the world that's why i am glad to be here. even if i will not maybe convince many people, i hope i will make them reflect. fink.
people are totally wrong who think now times are quiet. no, then you are too lazy to think. in in the situations of urgency, which is today's situation at different levels, i think this is what makes many traditional marxists hate me. i think the time is to turn around marxist theories 11. it's not philosophers who have only interpreted the world. we have to change it. it's maybe in the 20th century. we tried to change the world. too fast without really understanding it. the time is to interpret, understand the world that's why i am glad to be here. even if i will not maybe convince many people, i hope i will make them reflect. fink.
Host
is that why after the arab spring and all the uprisings of the early 2010s, you went away and wrote a thousand-page book on hegel? because it was precisely then that you had to do the hard thinking about... about the world? because this is a very different book. that was very abstract. i loved it, by the way. and this is obviously very concrete. so what kinds of thinking do you mean? i
is that why after the arab spring and all the uprisings of the early 2010s, you went away and wrote a thousand-page book on hegel? because it was precisely then that you had to do the hard thinking about... about the world? because this is a very different book. that was very abstract. i loved it, by the way. and this is obviously very concrete. so what kinds of thinking do you mean? i
Slavoj Žižek
also mean that... very concrete situations. need also very abstract thinking. not to go into that arab spring. the lesson of arab spring is a very sad and interesting one. it's the same lesson as that of syriza which was a miracle but it went wrong and so on. here i am hegelian. hegel is not this stupid absolute idealist who think at the end everything will be everything will turn out well, blah blah. hegel is on the contrary. obsessed if you really read hegel's historical analysis with one thing which is needed more than ever today how something that was originally a good idea almost with a kind of a necessity as a rule turns wrong you have french revolution freedom bop terror you get october revolution in spite of all problematic things that lenin did at the beginning, no, it was not just as some people think, a bolshevik coup d'etat. it was a wide popular movement. ten years on you get comrade stalin nightmare embodied you know don't we need a lot this today this not simply pessimist spirit but what i without shame, call moderate conservative. by this, i mean i'm still a communist, but you can use this, i repeat it all the time, a moderately conservative communist. yes, communist which means for me, obviously, we in deep crisis, radical measures will be needed. but at the same time, this is what i admire with intelligent moderate conservatives. think well how things can turn wrong. for me, the arab spring was one of the effects of this. even that's why it may surprise you. i never fall when i was young, my god, i'm old like earth. i was already there, 68, the big revolution. what was the actual result of it? all its goals turned wrong. first it was the attack against alienated factories, this serial work, you just work in line automatically. they were against this. nice. what do are we getting today? precarious work, total uncertainty and so on. it's even worse. they were against alienated. op oppression of women and so on. we get today's promiscuous sexuality. which in a way objectifies women and others even more education against alienated universities yes and now we are justified to have a nostalgia towards this big alienated university. you get just quick specialized courses, learn quickly for this specialty, for that. you see, that was needed in 68. yes, a beautiful project, but think about how it can turn.
also mean that... very concrete situations. need also very abstract thinking. not to go into that arab spring. the lesson of arab spring is a very sad and interesting one. it's the same lesson as that of syriza which was a miracle but it went wrong and so on. here i am hegelian. hegel is not this stupid absolute idealist who think at the end everything will be everything will turn out well, blah blah. hegel is on the contrary. obsessed if you really read hegel's historical analysis with one thing which is needed more than ever today how something that was originally a good idea almost with a kind of a necessity as a rule turns wrong you have french revolution freedom bop terror you get october revolution in spite of all problematic things that lenin did at the beginning, no, it was not just as some people think, a bolshevik coup d'etat. it was a wide popular movement. ten years on you get comrade stalin nightmare embodied you know don't we need a lot this today this not simply pessimist spirit but what i without shame, call moderate conservative. by this, i mean i'm still a communist, but you can use this, i repeat it all the time, a moderately conservative communist. yes, communist which means for me, obviously, we in deep crisis, radical measures will be needed. but at the same time, this is what i admire with intelligent moderate conservatives. think well how things can turn wrong. for me, the arab spring was one of the effects of this. even that's why it may surprise you. i never fall when i was young, my god, i'm old like earth. i was already there, 68, the big revolution. what was the actual result of it? all its goals turned wrong. first it was the attack against alienated factories, this serial work, you just work in line automatically. they were against this. nice. what do are we getting today? precarious work, total uncertainty and so on. it's even worse. they were against alienated. op oppression of women and so on. we get today's promiscuous sexuality. which in a way objectifies women and others even more education against alienated universities yes and now we are justified to have a nostalgia towards this big alienated university. you get just quick specialized courses, learn quickly for this specialty, for that. you see, that was needed in 68. yes, a beautiful project, but think about how it can turn.
Host
what wrong. so when you hear the catchphrase, which was from 68, of course, demand the impossible, you say no. do not demand the impossible. demand the
what wrong. so when you hear the catchphrase, which was from 68, of course, demand the impossible, you say no. do not demand the impossible. demand the
Slavoj Žižek
demand the possible possible. again, as a philosopher, i like to complicate things. i would say like this. what do we mean by impossible? my first reaction to what to this point, ich... focus on what counts as possible and what counts as impossible? it's not as clear as it may appear. listen today. we are. perceiving as possible this singularity, artificial intelligence, we will lose our individual mind, blah blah, that's possible, but till the epidemic... to raise taxes for 2%, oh, it would ruin our economy, it's impossible. if there is one good lesson from the epidemic is that there were a lot of measures like billions distributed to ordinary people, almost in a communist way. trump had to act as a communist. you remember every family got a check for so you know, first let's be very specific what we consider as possible or as impossible in a certain situation. maybe we should change the view here, as with artificial intelligence, of course. we are approaching a breathtaking change. but... i think that all the projections that we have of artificial intelligence taking over, on the one hand, the pessimist projection, we will be totally regulated by mega machines, we will lose our individuality, on the opposite hand, it will be like theology actualized. we will become one with god. they are obvious nonsense. i don't know what will happen. i know this will not. happen. so you see that's my first reaction that be precise something declaring something possible or impossible is always also, i'm sorry to use this old obscene term, an ideological category. in a certain situation it appears like this. did you
demand the possible possible. again, as a philosopher, i like to complicate things. i would say like this. what do we mean by impossible? my first reaction to what to this point, ich... focus on what counts as possible and what counts as impossible? it's not as clear as it may appear. listen today. we are. perceiving as possible this singularity, artificial intelligence, we will lose our individual mind, blah blah, that's possible, but till the epidemic... to raise taxes for 2%, oh, it would ruin our economy, it's impossible. if there is one good lesson from the epidemic is that there were a lot of measures like billions distributed to ordinary people, almost in a communist way. trump had to act as a communist. you remember every family got a check for so you know, first let's be very specific what we consider as possible or as impossible in a certain situation. maybe we should change the view here, as with artificial intelligence, of course. we are approaching a breathtaking change. but... i think that all the projections that we have of artificial intelligence taking over, on the one hand, the pessimist projection, we will be totally regulated by mega machines, we will lose our individuality, on the opposite hand, it will be like theology actualized. we will become one with god. they are obvious nonsense. i don't know what will happen. i know this will not. happen. so you see that's my first reaction that be precise something declaring something possible or impossible is always also, i'm sorry to use this old obscene term, an ideological category. in a certain situation it appears like this. did you
Host
be famous.
be famous.
Slavoj Žižek
because
because
Host
did you always want to be famous because you have this wonderful life for most people? where you travel the world, you talk about interesting things, highly educated man. you can have an opinion on films. people love it. you can have an opinion on politics.
did you always want to be famous because you have this wonderful life for most people? where you travel the world, you talk about interesting things, highly educated man. you can have an opinion on films. people love it. you can have an opinion on politics.
Slavoj Žižek
let me me make a step further here. please.
let me me make a step further here. please.
Host
uh
uh
Slavoj Žižek
yeah.
yeah.
Host
but
but
Slavoj Žižek
i go dialectically to the end here. i even have an opinion on films that i haven't seen, you know. like what i wrote about barbie and oppenheimer, it's now a public secret that when i wrote that i haven't seen the films, you know. i am a kierkegaardian, you know that famous hegel's stance if. if reality doesn't fit what i proclaim to be the notional truth, so much worse for reality. and i stand by this. after writing my piece, i was convinced to see just oppenheimer. and i should have been even tougher for the film. i'm now a little bit repeating myself of what i said at other places, but you know, oppenheimer is a good film. the political part, you know, all that committee, how oppenheimer was manipulated doubly. but i hate that spiritual part, bhagavad gita and so on. isn't that horrible? to repeat a story and sel all the time. you remember the movie oppenheimer caused a scandal in india? i didn't know this. yeah, you know why? because when florence pugh and oppenheimer make love for the first time, i think she asks him or the other way around, i don't know, to read bhagavad gita and the indians exploded. dirty sexual act how i agree with indians but in the opposite sense. a beautiful sexual act and they spoil it with reading parts from one of the most obscene, disgusting sacred books. bhagavad gita was the book which heinrich himmler had all the time in his pocket because this was his reply to how to kill the jews. his ethical problem of himmler was, yes, we are doing horrible thing, killing jewish children, mothers, how can we do it without becoming beasts ourselves? his answer was bhagavad gita.
i go dialectically to the end here. i even have an opinion on films that i haven't seen, you know. like what i wrote about barbie and oppenheimer, it's now a public secret that when i wrote that i haven't seen the films, you know. i am a kierkegaardian, you know that famous hegel's stance if. if reality doesn't fit what i proclaim to be the notional truth, so much worse for reality. and i stand by this. after writing my piece, i was convinced to see just oppenheimer. and i should have been even tougher for the film. i'm now a little bit repeating myself of what i said at other places, but you know, oppenheimer is a good film. the political part, you know, all that committee, how oppenheimer was manipulated doubly. but i hate that spiritual part, bhagavad gita and so on. isn't that horrible? to repeat a story and sel all the time. you remember the movie oppenheimer caused a scandal in india? i didn't know this. yeah, you know why? because when florence pugh and oppenheimer make love for the first time, i think she asks him or the other way around, i don't know, to read bhagavad gita and the indians exploded. dirty sexual act how i agree with indians but in the opposite sense. a beautiful sexual act and they spoil it with reading parts from one of the most obscene, disgusting sacred books. bhagavad gita was the book which heinrich himmler had all the time in his pocket because this was his reply to how to kill the jews. his ethical problem of himmler was, yes, we are doing horrible thing, killing jewish children, mothers, how can we do it without becoming beasts ourselves? his answer was bhagavad gita.
Host
you know this, acting through a distance, all that.
you know this, acting through a distance, all that.
Slavoj Žižek
pseudo-oriental bullshit, you know. so ah but back to your point, fame listen, don't you think that i am... i can even give you a list of how i'm very suicidal, systematically. ruining my general acceptance or fame. it began with my critique of cancel culture and political correct. that was a big deal. sorry, that was a big deal. yeah, but do you know how many people now dismiss me as a secret right-winger and so on? although i always emphasize i'm absolutely for all the goals of lgbtq and now i don't know how many letters you have. lgbt
pseudo-oriental bullshit, you know. so ah but back to your point, fame listen, don't you think that i am... i can even give you a list of how i'm very suicidal, systematically. ruining my general acceptance or fame. it began with my critique of cancel culture and political correct. that was a big deal. sorry, that was a big deal. yeah, but do you know how many people now dismiss me as a secret right-winger and so on? although i always emphasize i'm absolutely for all the goals of lgbtq and now i don't know how many letters you have. lgbt
Host
q.
q.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, it's longer now, the latest. and cancel culture and so on, i see. but what worries me is that the way this is practiced it's deeply counterproductive. because i think what, i don't know, don't ask me how to do it, i don't know. but isn't it... crucial for the left, instead of getting caught in this self-divisible censoring, you know, oh you use that word, what if it's still secretly racist and so on, to think in terms of broad coalition. for example, i think it was none other than bernie sanders who at some point said this. he said, i was always radically pro-abortion but it's not enough to say just this. no, we shouldn't make any compromise here. but what if we think in these terms? first, we should inform people how wrong this idea is. propagated all the time by those who opposed abortion as if abortion is typical for middle-class career women who don't want to ruin their career. no, these statistics are wrong. these famous middle-class promiscuous women, they know how to take care of themselves. the majority of abortions came from poorer women who already have two, three children cannot do more. so the way i would address people. who are against abortion. i would tell them, okay, we all agree abortion in itself is not a nice thing. i am not for abortion because i think it's a pleasurable, penetrating experience for a woman. it's the opposite. but i would say... what if we try to you keep your position me mine. but can't we think in the terms of how to? make abortion less needed, less attractive, better health care, more help for the families and so on and so on. and here, this was bernie sanders' answer. you see, we should always focus on this. how to build brought.
yeah, it's longer now, the latest. and cancel culture and so on, i see. but what worries me is that the way this is practiced it's deeply counterproductive. because i think what, i don't know, don't ask me how to do it, i don't know. but isn't it... crucial for the left, instead of getting caught in this self-divisible censoring, you know, oh you use that word, what if it's still secretly racist and so on, to think in terms of broad coalition. for example, i think it was none other than bernie sanders who at some point said this. he said, i was always radically pro-abortion but it's not enough to say just this. no, we shouldn't make any compromise here. but what if we think in these terms? first, we should inform people how wrong this idea is. propagated all the time by those who opposed abortion as if abortion is typical for middle-class career women who don't want to ruin their career. no, these statistics are wrong. these famous middle-class promiscuous women, they know how to take care of themselves. the majority of abortions came from poorer women who already have two, three children cannot do more. so the way i would address people. who are against abortion. i would tell them, okay, we all agree abortion in itself is not a nice thing. i am not for abortion because i think it's a pleasurable, penetrating experience for a woman. it's the opposite. but i would say... what if we try to you keep your position me mine. but can't we think in the terms of how to? make abortion less needed, less attractive, better health care, more help for the families and so on and so on. and here, this was bernie sanders' answer. you see, we should always focus on this. how to build brought.
Host
coalition. seek converts, not traitors. yeah, yeah. so why do you think the left, because this is something you talk about in the book. i mean, you basically sort of... project two poles of attraction politically. far right ultra-nationalism and obviously far less powerful, but you talk about an extremist form of left-wing quote-unquote woke politics. where does the latter come from? why has it emerged? i think that...
coalition. seek converts, not traitors. yeah, yeah. so why do you think the left, because this is something you talk about in the book. i mean, you basically sort of... project two poles of attraction politically. far right ultra-nationalism and obviously far less powerful, but you talk about an extremist form of left-wing quote-unquote woke politics. where does the latter come from? why has it emerged? i think that...
Slavoj Žižek
still here i remain some kind of very problematic for some people marxist. i think that as it were, the key to the crisis is nonetheless debt. there is something not any longer functioning well with, i'm sorry to use this term because it's a jargon term, with global capitalism. obviously, this was made clear by the 2008 financial crisis and so on. and i think that while, of course, i'm here very open when, for example, women's rights are concerned, or gay rights or whatever, we, if i may count myself still as some kind of radical leftist, we should of course make tactical alliance with center-left politically correct liberals to counteract direct racism, anti-feminism and so on. but at the same time, and again bernie sanders made this clear. at the same time, we should never forget that trump is not an original fact. he didn't fall on our happy earth out of context. all of a sudden everything was functioning nice then no, he reacted or he reacted to a deep crisis felt by millions of ordinary people. she exploited this in a way. which was totally reprehensible you know so again totally against him but the key is in the. malfunctioning of our global capitalism. and i don't have even here a clear answer it can be proven economically how disparities are growing. for example, i'm here, i will say something with which i hope we will all agree because it's a very center-lib liberal common sense. the... the basic condition of normal life is this, safety of social order. and i'm saying this as a leftist. i was never fascinated by this big bullshit, you know, utir square or syriza, one million people on the market on the main place. yeah, yeah, yeah. i am, that's my old joke, probably you know it. i am the morning after leftist. how will ordinary people feel the change when the enthusiasm is over? how will their life, ordinary daily life, how will they be affected? that's why i got many hatred from... friendsrench left, you remember some two, three months ago there were those big demonstrations and i said but i am more for law and order there because i read analysis. you know, those demonstrations were basically destroying things, cars, stores, mostly, almost exclusively in the poor suburbs. and i think that's one of the resources of trump. we should listen to these cares of the ordinary people who like security and so on, which is why, let me give you a very problematic example along the same lines. i repeat it all the time, but i think it's worth repeating. recently i talked with a lady from anc, african national congress, and asked her, is all this bullshit true that, you know, what i read in the media, south africa is approaching a failed state. and she told me, she, radical leftist, something so sad, she told me the predominant atmosphere now among the poor blacks in south africa is nostalgia for apartheid. isn't this horrible? she said, life was more stable because it was a police state. standard of living was the same, maybe even slightly higher. this is, you see, the dangerous situation where you have all these racist and falsely anti-racist temptations. you know, for example, the anti-racist temptation is mugabe way. you have new black government which is utterly corrupted, so you play the game of, let's blame the white people because they still control the situation and so on and so on. my standard line here is, maybe you know it. you saw the movie v for vendetta. in my stalinist universe, that movie would be burned publicly. why? because it ends... no the end scene. the people. occupy the parliament win. my standard joke is i would sell my mother into slavery. to see v for vendetta part 2. but what will then they do? the next day the left is in power, how will they change the power structure? what will they do? nationalize things or what? that's what the left should focus on. enough of this enthusiastic freedom and so on and so on. i am shocking as it may sound, a law and order leftist. our promise should be not this enthusiastic fre freedom and so on. our promise should be we will change in a way that you will feel the change the daily life. and cases where this succeeds, where they achieve this, the left are very rare. for example, in latin america, the only clear case is, but now maybe things are going worse is i admit this, i was linked with them. morales linera lcho arce, bolivia. morales was 12 years in power. the standard of ordinary people went up but nonetheless, they did it in such an intelligent way, they didn't scare out the capital. and they, remember, then there was a coup d'etat and they were even re-elected. i like this type of pragmatic left which is not caught into their own slogans and then take the easy way when things go wrong oh we will blame the imperialist enemy. you know.
still here i remain some kind of very problematic for some people marxist. i think that as it were, the key to the crisis is nonetheless debt. there is something not any longer functioning well with, i'm sorry to use this term because it's a jargon term, with global capitalism. obviously, this was made clear by the 2008 financial crisis and so on. and i think that while, of course, i'm here very open when, for example, women's rights are concerned, or gay rights or whatever, we, if i may count myself still as some kind of radical leftist, we should of course make tactical alliance with center-left politically correct liberals to counteract direct racism, anti-feminism and so on. but at the same time, and again bernie sanders made this clear. at the same time, we should never forget that trump is not an original fact. he didn't fall on our happy earth out of context. all of a sudden everything was functioning nice then no, he reacted or he reacted to a deep crisis felt by millions of ordinary people. she exploited this in a way. which was totally reprehensible you know so again totally against him but the key is in the. malfunctioning of our global capitalism. and i don't have even here a clear answer it can be proven economically how disparities are growing. for example, i'm here, i will say something with which i hope we will all agree because it's a very center-lib liberal common sense. the... the basic condition of normal life is this, safety of social order. and i'm saying this as a leftist. i was never fascinated by this big bullshit, you know, utir square or syriza, one million people on the market on the main place. yeah, yeah, yeah. i am, that's my old joke, probably you know it. i am the morning after leftist. how will ordinary people feel the change when the enthusiasm is over? how will their life, ordinary daily life, how will they be affected? that's why i got many hatred from... friendsrench left, you remember some two, three months ago there were those big demonstrations and i said but i am more for law and order there because i read analysis. you know, those demonstrations were basically destroying things, cars, stores, mostly, almost exclusively in the poor suburbs. and i think that's one of the resources of trump. we should listen to these cares of the ordinary people who like security and so on, which is why, let me give you a very problematic example along the same lines. i repeat it all the time, but i think it's worth repeating. recently i talked with a lady from anc, african national congress, and asked her, is all this bullshit true that, you know, what i read in the media, south africa is approaching a failed state. and she told me, she, radical leftist, something so sad, she told me the predominant atmosphere now among the poor blacks in south africa is nostalgia for apartheid. isn't this horrible? she said, life was more stable because it was a police state. standard of living was the same, maybe even slightly higher. this is, you see, the dangerous situation where you have all these racist and falsely anti-racist temptations. you know, for example, the anti-racist temptation is mugabe way. you have new black government which is utterly corrupted, so you play the game of, let's blame the white people because they still control the situation and so on and so on. my standard line here is, maybe you know it. you saw the movie v for vendetta. in my stalinist universe, that movie would be burned publicly. why? because it ends... no the end scene. the people. occupy the parliament win. my standard joke is i would sell my mother into slavery. to see v for vendetta part 2. but what will then they do? the next day the left is in power, how will they change the power structure? what will they do? nationalize things or what? that's what the left should focus on. enough of this enthusiastic freedom and so on and so on. i am shocking as it may sound, a law and order leftist. our promise should be not this enthusiastic fre freedom and so on. our promise should be we will change in a way that you will feel the change the daily life. and cases where this succeeds, where they achieve this, the left are very rare. for example, in latin america, the only clear case is, but now maybe things are going worse is i admit this, i was linked with them. morales linera lcho arce, bolivia. morales was 12 years in power. the standard of ordinary people went up but nonetheless, they did it in such an intelligent way, they didn't scare out the capital. and they, remember, then there was a coup d'etat and they were even re-elected. i like this type of pragmatic left which is not caught into their own slogans and then take the easy way when things go wrong oh we will blame the imperialist enemy. you know.
Host
so so was the russian and french revolutions a mistake then? because obviously those weren't law and order leftists. those were massive... ruptures, particularly the french revolution, against an entire yeah.
so so was the russian and french revolutions a mistake then? because obviously those weren't law and order leftists. those were massive... ruptures, particularly the french revolution, against an entire yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
ah!
ah!
Host
mode of being.
mode of being.
Slavoj Žižek
here i... uh...
here i... uh...
Host
it
it
Slavoj Žižek
may surprise you. first i don't have, let's begin with russian revolution. uh... i'm very critical of. lenin but nonetheless, as a hegelian, i don't buy this trotsite story. you know that if only lenin were to survive for three, four years, he would have made a pact with trotsky throughout stalin and then, then what? big socialist democracy, no, maybe a little bit better, but nonetheless, and i'm ready to go even further back here, it's clear that. i don't care if he wanted he lenin this or not, but leninism obviously did open up the space for stalinism. you cannot say it was just a bad surprise. and you can find this clearly in the ambiguities of lenin's desperate book state and revolution. as for the french revolution, i'm a little bit my... it's my first puberty love i don't want to renounce it for. jacobins, let's make things clear. for me, great one of the greatest ethical figures, or two of them rather, in world history are robespierre and saint-just. read their works. don't listen to that bullshit. first, they say the horror was the liquidation of danton. i spoke, i forgot his name, at a round table with a british historian who said, they were right. now in some old british archives they found it. danton was financed by the british, you know. but i want to say another thing. they saved france with winning the war, the jacobins then in the last three four months of his rule robespierre was obsessed with the idea how to end the terror. he saw this deadly machinery is getting dangerous. so just follow! detailed history all his last per were against leftists who were usually at the same time corrupted and wanted more terror, like joseph fouché, the evil embodied, who did horrible things for jacobins than he was did. minister of interior for napoleon then he turned against napoleon so this was the big problem of robespierre and saint-just. they were already practically ignored by the jacobins and by the gironde, the other pole, and they desperately tried to appeal to those lower mid-level, neither left nor right. members and this is why it's very tragic. robespierre knew what is happening. in his last speech in the convent or the one the day before, he says openly, this is my testament. i know i will be killed soon. and there is some so wonderful letter where he says, i know where history is going, towards a new imperial figure like napoleon. and he says, shall we jacobins? follow that path no i would rather lose my head so if you read it really closely robespierre is one of the rare cases of a guy who, yes, entered a little bit close to the abyss of terror, but then saw clearly the horror end. consciously risked his life not even risk.
may surprise you. first i don't have, let's begin with russian revolution. uh... i'm very critical of. lenin but nonetheless, as a hegelian, i don't buy this trotsite story. you know that if only lenin were to survive for three, four years, he would have made a pact with trotsky throughout stalin and then, then what? big socialist democracy, no, maybe a little bit better, but nonetheless, and i'm ready to go even further back here, it's clear that. i don't care if he wanted he lenin this or not, but leninism obviously did open up the space for stalinism. you cannot say it was just a bad surprise. and you can find this clearly in the ambiguities of lenin's desperate book state and revolution. as for the french revolution, i'm a little bit my... it's my first puberty love i don't want to renounce it for. jacobins, let's make things clear. for me, great one of the greatest ethical figures, or two of them rather, in world history are robespierre and saint-just. read their works. don't listen to that bullshit. first, they say the horror was the liquidation of danton. i spoke, i forgot his name, at a round table with a british historian who said, they were right. now in some old british archives they found it. danton was financed by the british, you know. but i want to say another thing. they saved france with winning the war, the jacobins then in the last three four months of his rule robespierre was obsessed with the idea how to end the terror. he saw this deadly machinery is getting dangerous. so just follow! detailed history all his last per were against leftists who were usually at the same time corrupted and wanted more terror, like joseph fouché, the evil embodied, who did horrible things for jacobins than he was did. minister of interior for napoleon then he turned against napoleon so this was the big problem of robespierre and saint-just. they were already practically ignored by the jacobins and by the gironde, the other pole, and they desperately tried to appeal to those lower mid-level, neither left nor right. members and this is why it's very tragic. robespierre knew what is happening. in his last speech in the convent or the one the day before, he says openly, this is my testament. i know i will be killed soon. and there is some so wonderful letter where he says, i know where history is going, towards a new imperial figure like napoleon. and he says, shall we jacobins? follow that path no i would rather lose my head so if you read it really closely robespierre is one of the rare cases of a guy who, yes, entered a little bit close to the abyss of terror, but then saw clearly the horror end. consciously risked his life not even risk.
Host
he knew he is lost. to stop it. but the point you made about being a law and order communist, which i understand in 2023. but obviously this idea of revolution is so critical to leftist understandings of how progress has simply happened throughout history. that can be the haitian revolution, the bolivarian revolution, etc., etc. you.
he knew he is lost. to stop it. but the point you made about being a law and order communist, which i understand in 2023. but obviously this idea of revolution is so critical to leftist understandings of how progress has simply happened throughout history. that can be the haitian revolution, the bolivarian revolution, etc., etc. you.
Slavoj Žižek
no, no.
no, no.
Host
original ones. the. and the liberation of slaves. was.
original ones. the. and the liberation of slaves. was.
Slavoj Žižek
was lost lost
was lost lost
Host
cost from the beginning. no, i mean the literal liberation of african slaves in south america.
cost from the beginning. no, i mean the literal liberation of african slaves in south america.
Slavoj Žižek
no, i know that started indeed.
no, i know that started indeed.
Host
yeah, no.
yeah, no.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, but maybe the viewers don't.
yeah, but maybe the viewers don't.
Host
i didn't make that clear. so were those mistakes? should those not have happened? clearly there's a place for huge disruptive... politics and history.
i didn't make that clear. so were those mistakes? should those not have happened? clearly there's a place for huge disruptive... politics and history.
Slavoj Žižek
is, but i think that i'm here simply a pessimist. that the way hegel saw it correctly. no. you... have to go through this terrorist moment which fails and then the true struggle begins. will anything good survive from this hegel saw this very clearly well he condemned the french terror but he made it very clear that nonetheless a more liberal democratic order was possible only through that. excessive uh or to give you. another example that i like, i read a book, i forget which one. or clinile, which deals with this problem and says even if not actual violence, at moments of radical emancipation, you at least need a threat of more radical deadly.
is, but i think that i'm here simply a pessimist. that the way hegel saw it correctly. no. you... have to go through this terrorist moment which fails and then the true struggle begins. will anything good survive from this hegel saw this very clearly well he condemned the french terror but he made it very clear that nonetheless a more liberal democratic order was possible only through that. excessive uh or to give you. another example that i like, i read a book, i forget which one. or clinile, which deals with this problem and says even if not actual violence, at moments of radical emancipation, you at least need a threat of more radical deadly.
Host
next.
next.
Slavoj Žižek
for example, this guy looks at, in the 60s, martin luther king for full black emancipation, the struggles. and he said, why did martin luther, more or less, the struggle goes on, succeed? because behind him there was a threat of much more violent radical blacks. look at mandela. the apartheidtheid regime made a deal with him because they were afraid. there were much more radical blacks waiting, getting ready for much more radical measures. so i'm here simply a pessimist. i think that, yes, of course, violent measures explode. but then... uh what? comes after is usually quite often a little bit of a better state, but in the second moments later like even 68 i'm as already said critical of it. but nonetheless, look. how we talk about women today. this is one of the lasting legacies of 68. forget about that sexual liberation and so on, that was commodified and so on. but the way we talk about gays, the way we talk about women, our sensitivity for racism and so on, this precisely became a moment of our daily... ideology this time in a good sense. by ideology i mean how we spontaneously experience the situation. so no, but now things become more sensitive because i think we have to judge it case by case. for example, it was not violent, but it was a rupture. the only really big thing that recently happened, and i hope we will all agree here, is something incredible. it's the iranian after that kurdish girl.
for example, this guy looks at, in the 60s, martin luther king for full black emancipation, the struggles. and he said, why did martin luther, more or less, the struggle goes on, succeed? because behind him there was a threat of much more violent radical blacks. look at mandela. the apartheidtheid regime made a deal with him because they were afraid. there were much more radical blacks waiting, getting ready for much more radical measures. so i'm here simply a pessimist. i think that, yes, of course, violent measures explode. but then... uh what? comes after is usually quite often a little bit of a better state, but in the second moments later like even 68 i'm as already said critical of it. but nonetheless, look. how we talk about women today. this is one of the lasting legacies of 68. forget about that sexual liberation and so on, that was commodified and so on. but the way we talk about gays, the way we talk about women, our sensitivity for racism and so on, this precisely became a moment of our daily... ideology this time in a good sense. by ideology i mean how we spontaneously experience the situation. so no, but now things become more sensitive because i think we have to judge it case by case. for example, it was not violent, but it was a rupture. the only really big thing that recently happened, and i hope we will all agree here, is something incredible. it's the iranian after that kurdish girl.
Host
mm-hmm
mm-hmm
Slavoj Žižek
was killed by the islamic police, whatever, for not wearing a scarf. it was something incredible. millions of people. first women, then ordinary people, not just muslims. you know why i like this? because this was not the boring politically correct feminism you know of you know. are you he or she or they? this was a big social explosion. end. women struggle become a focal point to which all other struggles even the struggles of muslim men attached themselves. this is how we have to learn from. iran. we caught in our sectional struggles like you know the ones between trans and turf among feminists and so on. otherwise like sorry, what was your question? i lost the trail.
was killed by the islamic police, whatever, for not wearing a scarf. it was something incredible. millions of people. first women, then ordinary people, not just muslims. you know why i like this? because this was not the boring politically correct feminism you know of you know. are you he or she or they? this was a big social explosion. end. women struggle become a focal point to which all other struggles even the struggles of muslim men attached themselves. this is how we have to learn from. iran. we caught in our sectional struggles like you know the ones between trans and turf among feminists and so on. otherwise like sorry, what was your question? i lost the trail.
Host
we were saying about, you said on the one hand you're a law and order communist, yeah, but then on the other hand, you're saying that like, what implicit within that for me is that you basically would discard any possibility of change through revolution. but now you're saying that actually no, no, no, no. i.
we were saying about, you said on the one hand you're a law and order communist, yeah, but then on the other hand, you're saying that like, what implicit within that for me is that you basically would discard any possibility of change through revolution. but now you're saying that actually no, no, no, no. i.
Slavoj Žižek
no, no, no, no, no, no, i just think we should... judge it from case to case. for example, let's go to the burning, literally burning gaza question today. hamas. i was. bo out, attacked all around germany, really cover story, for just saying that i unconditionally reject what hamas did. and this was not an empty phrase, because my israeli friends who were left there close to palestinians, told me they knew people in that kibbutz and rving park. they were the best of israelis in the sense of how to relate with arabs. and it's clear that hamas's attack on them was destines not so much to win over israel but for decades in future to block any chance of peace it was a war to make sure that there will not be a peace. so there i am absolutely unambiguously against hamas. what i'm just saying, adding, and for this i was vilified, is not relativizing this attack of hamas, but inquire into that you cannot even understand it without now everybody is talking hamas versus israel. what about 4 million palestinians? is there any perspective for them? like, you know, i have connections there on the west bank with jews and with palestinians.
no, no, no, no, no, no, i just think we should... judge it from case to case. for example, let's go to the burning, literally burning gaza question today. hamas. i was. bo out, attacked all around germany, really cover story, for just saying that i unconditionally reject what hamas did. and this was not an empty phrase, because my israeli friends who were left there close to palestinians, told me they knew people in that kibbutz and rving park. they were the best of israelis in the sense of how to relate with arabs. and it's clear that hamas's attack on them was destines not so much to win over israel but for decades in future to block any chance of peace it was a war to make sure that there will not be a peace. so there i am absolutely unambiguously against hamas. what i'm just saying, adding, and for this i was vilified, is not relativizing this attack of hamas, but inquire into that you cannot even understand it without now everybody is talking hamas versus israel. what about 4 million palestinians? is there any perspective for them? like, you know, i have connections there on the west bank with jews and with palestinians.
Host
and i'm not saying
and i'm not saying
Slavoj Žižek
anything subversive. you know that antony blinken. secretary of state said recently, israel has to stop this daily violence against west bank palestinian farmers, burning their fields, killing them and so on and so on. that's even liberal media now in israel admit this. here, in this concrete situation, i think that the hamas style violence, and don't forget that hamas was everybody admit this now, was not created but helped a lot by israel because they thought if palestinians are split between west bank, which is more plo, secular, and gaza, more. mlim fanatic they will not be united so this will postpone a two-state solution because so what i'm saying is that in this case concretely. i don't think violence helps. it can bring a catastrophe to all sides, to jews also. my fear is this one. that because of what israel now is doing in gaza. this will give a new push, everybody knows this, i'm not saying anything original, to anti-seemitism all around the world. let's be frank. till now, anti-semitism was more or less limited. not quite but let's say to european and middle east world now we live in what with horror i call unholy alliances. for example, example i repeat all the time, uganda. you know this, they now established a law with absolute majority, only one member of parliament abstained to criminalizing homosexuality in a crazy way if you are caught in a homosexual act, you can be put to death and so on. but you know how they justified it, that this is a struggle against ideology of colonialism. homosexuality. so what i am afraid is that, and this is what putin is aiming at. is to create a kind of a very perverted anti-western coalition where, again, to be against feminism will be part of anti-colonial struggle.
anything subversive. you know that antony blinken. secretary of state said recently, israel has to stop this daily violence against west bank palestinian farmers, burning their fields, killing them and so on and so on. that's even liberal media now in israel admit this. here, in this concrete situation, i think that the hamas style violence, and don't forget that hamas was everybody admit this now, was not created but helped a lot by israel because they thought if palestinians are split between west bank, which is more plo, secular, and gaza, more. mlim fanatic they will not be united so this will postpone a two-state solution because so what i'm saying is that in this case concretely. i don't think violence helps. it can bring a catastrophe to all sides, to jews also. my fear is this one. that because of what israel now is doing in gaza. this will give a new push, everybody knows this, i'm not saying anything original, to anti-seemitism all around the world. let's be frank. till now, anti-semitism was more or less limited. not quite but let's say to european and middle east world now we live in what with horror i call unholy alliances. for example, example i repeat all the time, uganda. you know this, they now established a law with absolute majority, only one member of parliament abstained to criminalizing homosexuality in a crazy way if you are caught in a homosexual act, you can be put to death and so on. but you know how they justified it, that this is a struggle against ideology of colonialism. homosexuality. so what i am afraid is that, and this is what putin is aiming at. is to create a kind of a very perverted anti-western coalition where, again, to be against feminism will be part of anti-colonial struggle.
Host
two.
two.
Slavoj Žižek
advocate the prohibition of homosexuality will be against the. will be to fight against imperialism and the same with anti-semitism. this and this. makes me so... scared. that's why. myigr
advocate the prohibition of homosexuality will be against the. will be to fight against imperialism and the same with anti-semitism. this and this. makes me so... scared. that's why. myigr
Host
test fear.
test fear.
Slavoj Žižek
ish r. what i call, that's why i mentioned them as was attacked, what i call literally. zionist. anti. people. trump was this. he supported israel there. you take golan heights, they moved. but at the same time in united states, he was... supported by so many anti-semitic organizations, grassroots like proud boys and so on. and there is a long history. do you know the guy? monster, breivik, the guy who killed ten years ago or when in oslo
ish r. what i call, that's why i mentioned them as was attacked, what i call literally. zionist. anti. people. trump was this. he supported israel there. you take golan heights, they moved. but at the same time in united states, he was... supported by so many anti-semitic organizations, grassroots like proud boys and so on. and there is a long history. do you know the guy? monster, breivik, the guy who killed ten years ago or when in oslo
Host
under
under
Slavoj Žižek
perfect.
perfect.
Host
yeah, yeah, yeah, so you pronounce it more correctly.
yeah, yeah, yeah, so you pronounce it more correctly.
Slavoj Žižek
it's very interesting. my norwegian friend sent me pages from his thousand pages crazy manuscript where he says, in the middle east there, we should totally support israel. we should push israel into destroying the asa, that big mosque, build a new temple there because there are a wall. keeping barbarians from europe. here dr are a problem. and you know who is repeating in all my talks, because it's wonderful, wonderful in the horrifying sense. you know who is one of the original authors of this idea? the horror itself, heinrich heydrich, the father of holocaust, in 1935, he wrote, there are two types of jews. zionist jews who want to move to palestine and assimilation jews. assimilation jews, we kill them. they don't zionist jews, they're potentially our friends and partners. we should... no, my idea is that... it will sound so naive, but... i like jews here. not that they shouldn't move somewhere if they want. jews are for me an extremely important part of our culture. i cannot even imagine, let's be concrete, modern european enlightenment without druze because it was the druze without having a specific place here that were as it were by their position forced into universalism, you know universal reason independently of they embody with their objective social position european jews what kant called public use of reason, immanuel kant. and kant didn't mean by this public in the sense of university and so on. no. for kant, private use of reason is when reason argues for the state institutions. public use of reason is when people meet outside state institutions and debate. and this wouldn't have been possible without the druze. so i want and here! i have an answer for people who, i don't know why, accuse me of, you are maybe between the lines unaware of anti-semitic. my answer is... much worse than the one you know, this anti-semitic classical line. but some of my best friends are jews. no, my line is almost all of my friends are jews, you know. and the other are palestinians. there are many liberal palestinians. there is hope there. do you remember? you see, i don't read enough of this in our newspapers. do you remember? about just before the war a month and a half ago i think, mahmoud abbas the head of plo made a very bad, tasteless, racist statement that jews basically deserved the holocaust because they were so much involved in financial dealings and so on and so on. my answer is, of course they were involved because they were prohibited to own land and so on and so on. they were pushed into. but my point is that do you know that over 100 of palestinian intellectuals from israel and west bank, from united states, immediately wrote a letter condemning abbas for totally unacceptable anti-semitic statement and so on. please
it's very interesting. my norwegian friend sent me pages from his thousand pages crazy manuscript where he says, in the middle east there, we should totally support israel. we should push israel into destroying the asa, that big mosque, build a new temple there because there are a wall. keeping barbarians from europe. here dr are a problem. and you know who is repeating in all my talks, because it's wonderful, wonderful in the horrifying sense. you know who is one of the original authors of this idea? the horror itself, heinrich heydrich, the father of holocaust, in 1935, he wrote, there are two types of jews. zionist jews who want to move to palestine and assimilation jews. assimilation jews, we kill them. they don't zionist jews, they're potentially our friends and partners. we should... no, my idea is that... it will sound so naive, but... i like jews here. not that they shouldn't move somewhere if they want. jews are for me an extremely important part of our culture. i cannot even imagine, let's be concrete, modern european enlightenment without druze because it was the druze without having a specific place here that were as it were by their position forced into universalism, you know universal reason independently of they embody with their objective social position european jews what kant called public use of reason, immanuel kant. and kant didn't mean by this public in the sense of university and so on. no. for kant, private use of reason is when reason argues for the state institutions. public use of reason is when people meet outside state institutions and debate. and this wouldn't have been possible without the druze. so i want and here! i have an answer for people who, i don't know why, accuse me of, you are maybe between the lines unaware of anti-semitic. my answer is... much worse than the one you know, this anti-semitic classical line. but some of my best friends are jews. no, my line is almost all of my friends are jews, you know. and the other are palestinians. there are many liberal palestinians. there is hope there. do you remember? you see, i don't read enough of this in our newspapers. do you remember? about just before the war a month and a half ago i think, mahmoud abbas the head of plo made a very bad, tasteless, racist statement that jews basically deserved the holocaust because they were so much involved in financial dealings and so on and so on. my answer is, of course they were involved because they were prohibited to own land and so on and so on. they were pushed into. but my point is that do you know that over 100 of palestinian intellectuals from israel and west bank, from united states, immediately wrote a letter condemning abbas for totally unacceptable anti-semitic statement and so on. please
Host
no no the thing you said about the european jew is so important and for me the european jew is coterminusus with the rise of the idea of a cosmopolitan and cosmopolitanism. not just a cosm, but like it's the key element. yeah. without rules there wouldn't have been. no i agree. so then the question is, does the demise of european jewry, and this is a modern phenomenon over the last 100 150 years, the idea of jewishness being coterminous with israel and the state of israel. does that also go hand in hand with the demise of cosmopolitanism? is that an idea now from a previous century?.
no no the thing you said about the european jew is so important and for me the european jew is coterminusus with the rise of the idea of a cosmopolitan and cosmopolitanism. not just a cosm, but like it's the key element. yeah. without rules there wouldn't have been. no i agree. so then the question is, does the demise of european jewry, and this is a modern phenomenon over the last 100 150 years, the idea of jewishness being coterminous with israel and the state of israel. does that also go hand in hand with the demise of cosmopolitanism? is that an idea now from a previous century?.
Slavoj Žižek
but let me do something pretty boring so that we just don't remain in a political anecdote. please. i will just give you a very brief version of a speech where i succeeded in the sense of... offending all sides i gave a speech in a big tel aviv a couple of years ago, library and people mostly there were bds pro-palestinian jews minority. and i disappointed them also because for example, to make my position clear, i was asked about bds, boycott, divest and so on. and i said that i am ready to follow it up to a point on one condition that it doesn't call for violence and that it's mixed palestinians and jews who organize it. but at the same time i said deathbt. it's still dangerous for europe. because with all my sympathy for palestinians, i know what is happening in europe now. anti-semitism is effectively exploding. in europe. exploding. it's a big word. yeah, it's a big word, but... it. you know like what broke my heart. is that when i see and in germany there were cases of. pro penian. but really, anti-semitic demonstrations were. extreme left. collaborated with extreme right. that's the end of the world. for me. because now i will say something crazy. i still think that. although there is leftist anti-semitism in the sense that people who proclaim themselves leftists are anti-semitic, this is an absolutely reliable, unmistakable sign of the fact that something is wrong with their leftism. look at when the left becomes anti-semitic. lenin, it's ridiculous to say this. look, everybody knows. lenin's politb bureau, the ruling clique. forget about democracy, the 10 people who run. more than half of them were jewish, which is why in the early anti-soviet in the 1920s, the standard reproach was that the soviet union is a jewish state, you know. then comrade stalin entered the scene. anti-semitism, a discrete one but nonetheless enters the scene. and it's everywhere like this, like hugo chavez. when things began to get wrong in venezuela, he made a couple of statements blaming the jews. you know who had to correct him? although i don't like him. fidel castro said, don't talk like this, you suffered a lot and so on. so for me, whenever there is a left wing or something that appears to be a left wing anti-semitism, it means something is deeply wrong with that left. you know why? for a very simple reason. for me, the message of authentic left is not, let's say, a nice dream. i'm a big poor proletarian or whatever we call it today. bertie bourgeois. i already see here the traces of the rope but like an authentic leftist always knows that the enemy is not you as such. the enemy is the system. engels went to the end. engels even in one of his late friedrich engels of in one of his late letters he says, my god, some factory managers owner are my best friends, werewolf engels in manchester, i think, and so on. every authentic left does not personalize the enemy. it's the system, which even, as marx put it repeatedly, forces the bourgeoisie, otherwise they go bankrupt, to act. to act the way they do. anti-semitism is the exact opposite. you want to keep the idea of our society as an organic harmonious whole. so why are there tensions? ah because a foreign intruder the juice in this case. but another thing i wanted to go on to make this more clear, it's very deep. profound, i'm not kidding, what you said about the violence of modern anti-semitism. in my speech in tel aviv, i went into this and nobody liked it, but it's very you know... that till vaguely french revolution the focus of anti-seemitism was to convert the jews. and then the problem was, the main form of anti-seemitism was, okay, they converted, but... are they secretly still practicing their rituals? did they really convert? you know? that was the problem. so g were considered as people who blah blah blah and i must tell a story, sorry, a brief detour which listeners or those who watch us will like. it makes me infinitely sad how. the fake western christian support for israel now remains within this space, in my own, as donald trump would have called it, shit hole of a country, slovenia. there were many attacks on speech in frankfurt and at the bookfair. and one idiot who attacked me totally defends the jews, but wait to the punchline. he said, i'm totally wrong. this, this, this, all this is good for israel. then he ends up, but there is one sin. which is... mm mm more ominous than all that i reproach to present government of israel which is inexcusable for the jews. that they don't recognize jesus christ. it was like a... bad joke, you know. and that's what all those right-wing fundamentalists who support israel are doing. therefore israel, because they count on armageddon and so but let's return to the crucial point. you know what's the tragedy of french revolution? even napoleon, well he did horrors in up there in haiti, no down there, okay on the other side he did some good things. he gave to jews full citizens' rights and so on. but the result was a surprising one. it was death. and i even don't understand it well, although i should, because it's some kind of a mechanism explained by... psy need psychoanalysis and i although i refer to it i'm not good at it namely the result was a much stronger form of anti-seemitism it was no longer we should convert the jews, but we should be careful do they. did they really convert or do they secretly remain jews? no. it became genetic, biological. the idea was that in their very basic identity. be it biological or spiritual. jews are doomed so you cannot convert them, the only way is to annihilate them. and you have, like the worst, you have in wagner, this in wagner's operas, the main hero of wagner's operas is basically the eternal jew. even if it's a good, positive hero, but the eternal jew who longs to die, for death. this is the most disgusting ideology of 19th century, even this idea of jews are longing to die. they know that only death can redeem them. and so, isn't this something so sad that precisely with french revolution, civil emancipation of jews and so on, this much worse. let's call it biological. or destiny-style anti-semitism, where you tell, for example, it's a disgusting tragic letter a jewish admirer wrote to wagner. he said, i admire your work. what do you expect me? what would you advise me to do as a jew? wagner's answer is, i'm sorry, kill yourself. that's the only thing you can do. i mean, this is, i think, the first sign that... enlightenment. already in the early 1800s even, was slowly shifting towards strong nation states. and i think that, although i'm still eurocentric, in the sense that i think enlightenment is the greatest things we have and so on, i think that this legacy of modern europe, strong sovereign nation states, ich the catastrophe. today look, first, i think that those who criticized most eurocentrism follow it in this strong nation state. look at turkey. all the horrors that they did, the armenian genocide and so on. it was not done by old conservative turks. it was done by young turks who wanted to change turkey into a modern sovereign nation state. look at china. i read wonderful analysis by chinese have dissidents, guys who want to be a marxist but are with one leg already in prison, to put it like this. who says that the problem today with china, although they like to emphasize we are more than nation state, we are a civilization, no, de facto, they are now obsessed with becoming a large nation state. that's why they want to signify or how do i put itify signify yes, sorry. signify uyghurs, muslims, dar tibetans and so on. is not modi doing the same. erase! the muslims, there i'm absolutely pro-muslim in india. i was even advised like not to travel to india now. it's dangerous for me. so i think that today precisely, when isn't it clear that all the problems that we have can only be solved in some kind of global approach. you cannot solve ecological threats by this state is doing this in another sovereign state. no, we will be compelled to develop mechanisms which will be which will have a status of. not just. matter of choice but which will be able measures to over how do you call it cancel over the interests of the individual sovereign states. i don't see another solution
but let me do something pretty boring so that we just don't remain in a political anecdote. please. i will just give you a very brief version of a speech where i succeeded in the sense of... offending all sides i gave a speech in a big tel aviv a couple of years ago, library and people mostly there were bds pro-palestinian jews minority. and i disappointed them also because for example, to make my position clear, i was asked about bds, boycott, divest and so on. and i said that i am ready to follow it up to a point on one condition that it doesn't call for violence and that it's mixed palestinians and jews who organize it. but at the same time i said deathbt. it's still dangerous for europe. because with all my sympathy for palestinians, i know what is happening in europe now. anti-semitism is effectively exploding. in europe. exploding. it's a big word. yeah, it's a big word, but... it. you know like what broke my heart. is that when i see and in germany there were cases of. pro penian. but really, anti-semitic demonstrations were. extreme left. collaborated with extreme right. that's the end of the world. for me. because now i will say something crazy. i still think that. although there is leftist anti-semitism in the sense that people who proclaim themselves leftists are anti-semitic, this is an absolutely reliable, unmistakable sign of the fact that something is wrong with their leftism. look at when the left becomes anti-semitic. lenin, it's ridiculous to say this. look, everybody knows. lenin's politb bureau, the ruling clique. forget about democracy, the 10 people who run. more than half of them were jewish, which is why in the early anti-soviet in the 1920s, the standard reproach was that the soviet union is a jewish state, you know. then comrade stalin entered the scene. anti-semitism, a discrete one but nonetheless enters the scene. and it's everywhere like this, like hugo chavez. when things began to get wrong in venezuela, he made a couple of statements blaming the jews. you know who had to correct him? although i don't like him. fidel castro said, don't talk like this, you suffered a lot and so on. so for me, whenever there is a left wing or something that appears to be a left wing anti-semitism, it means something is deeply wrong with that left. you know why? for a very simple reason. for me, the message of authentic left is not, let's say, a nice dream. i'm a big poor proletarian or whatever we call it today. bertie bourgeois. i already see here the traces of the rope but like an authentic leftist always knows that the enemy is not you as such. the enemy is the system. engels went to the end. engels even in one of his late friedrich engels of in one of his late letters he says, my god, some factory managers owner are my best friends, werewolf engels in manchester, i think, and so on. every authentic left does not personalize the enemy. it's the system, which even, as marx put it repeatedly, forces the bourgeoisie, otherwise they go bankrupt, to act. to act the way they do. anti-semitism is the exact opposite. you want to keep the idea of our society as an organic harmonious whole. so why are there tensions? ah because a foreign intruder the juice in this case. but another thing i wanted to go on to make this more clear, it's very deep. profound, i'm not kidding, what you said about the violence of modern anti-semitism. in my speech in tel aviv, i went into this and nobody liked it, but it's very you know... that till vaguely french revolution the focus of anti-seemitism was to convert the jews. and then the problem was, the main form of anti-seemitism was, okay, they converted, but... are they secretly still practicing their rituals? did they really convert? you know? that was the problem. so g were considered as people who blah blah blah and i must tell a story, sorry, a brief detour which listeners or those who watch us will like. it makes me infinitely sad how. the fake western christian support for israel now remains within this space, in my own, as donald trump would have called it, shit hole of a country, slovenia. there were many attacks on speech in frankfurt and at the bookfair. and one idiot who attacked me totally defends the jews, but wait to the punchline. he said, i'm totally wrong. this, this, this, all this is good for israel. then he ends up, but there is one sin. which is... mm mm more ominous than all that i reproach to present government of israel which is inexcusable for the jews. that they don't recognize jesus christ. it was like a... bad joke, you know. and that's what all those right-wing fundamentalists who support israel are doing. therefore israel, because they count on armageddon and so but let's return to the crucial point. you know what's the tragedy of french revolution? even napoleon, well he did horrors in up there in haiti, no down there, okay on the other side he did some good things. he gave to jews full citizens' rights and so on. but the result was a surprising one. it was death. and i even don't understand it well, although i should, because it's some kind of a mechanism explained by... psy need psychoanalysis and i although i refer to it i'm not good at it namely the result was a much stronger form of anti-seemitism it was no longer we should convert the jews, but we should be careful do they. did they really convert or do they secretly remain jews? no. it became genetic, biological. the idea was that in their very basic identity. be it biological or spiritual. jews are doomed so you cannot convert them, the only way is to annihilate them. and you have, like the worst, you have in wagner, this in wagner's operas, the main hero of wagner's operas is basically the eternal jew. even if it's a good, positive hero, but the eternal jew who longs to die, for death. this is the most disgusting ideology of 19th century, even this idea of jews are longing to die. they know that only death can redeem them. and so, isn't this something so sad that precisely with french revolution, civil emancipation of jews and so on, this much worse. let's call it biological. or destiny-style anti-semitism, where you tell, for example, it's a disgusting tragic letter a jewish admirer wrote to wagner. he said, i admire your work. what do you expect me? what would you advise me to do as a jew? wagner's answer is, i'm sorry, kill yourself. that's the only thing you can do. i mean, this is, i think, the first sign that... enlightenment. already in the early 1800s even, was slowly shifting towards strong nation states. and i think that, although i'm still eurocentric, in the sense that i think enlightenment is the greatest things we have and so on, i think that this legacy of modern europe, strong sovereign nation states, ich the catastrophe. today look, first, i think that those who criticized most eurocentrism follow it in this strong nation state. look at turkey. all the horrors that they did, the armenian genocide and so on. it was not done by old conservative turks. it was done by young turks who wanted to change turkey into a modern sovereign nation state. look at china. i read wonderful analysis by chinese have dissidents, guys who want to be a marxist but are with one leg already in prison, to put it like this. who says that the problem today with china, although they like to emphasize we are more than nation state, we are a civilization, no, de facto, they are now obsessed with becoming a large nation state. that's why they want to signify or how do i put itify signify yes, sorry. signify uyghurs, muslims, dar tibetans and so on. is not modi doing the same. erase! the muslims, there i'm absolutely pro-muslim in india. i was even advised like not to travel to india now. it's dangerous for me. so i think that today precisely, when isn't it clear that all the problems that we have can only be solved in some kind of global approach. you cannot solve ecological threats by this state is doing this in another sovereign state. no, we will be compelled to develop mechanisms which will be which will have a status of. not just. matter of choice but which will be able measures to over how do you call it cancel over the interests of the individual sovereign states. i don't see another solution
Host
sorry., to distill what you just said, so basically we've had a universalization of the bad parts of the enlightenment, i.e. a proliferationation of nation states, hard nation states.
sorry., to distill what you just said, so basically we've had a universalization of the bad parts of the enlightenment, i.e. a proliferationation of nation states, hard nation states.
Slavoj Žižek
it's not only this, there is also human rights and so on. precise.
it's not only this, there is also human rights and so on. precise.
Host
but we've had a universalization of the bad bit and that's really coming to the fore in the last few years, like you say with modi, bootin, etc. yes, that's the idea. sorry ver.
but we've had a universalization of the bad bit and that's really coming to the fore in the last few years, like you say with modi, bootin, etc. yes, that's the idea. sorry ver.
Slavoj Žižek
yes, please, sorry, just to interrupt you, but to agree with you. precisely those who are most vocal in criticism of eurocentrism are taking over the worst part of european.
yes, please, sorry, just to interrupt you, but to agree with you. precisely those who are most vocal in criticism of eurocentrism are taking over the worst part of european.
Host
you know, it's very astute, but then i suppose the counter argument would be that... democracy has only ever gone hand in hand with an idea of national popular sovereignty and often that was the case with regards to our anti-colonial movements in the 30s, the 40s, etc. so the idea that you're resisting a greater power, well how did you do that? often you mobilize through that idea of nation, shared land. next.
you know, it's very astute, but then i suppose the counter argument would be that... democracy has only ever gone hand in hand with an idea of national popular sovereignty and often that was the case with regards to our anti-colonial movements in the 30s, the 40s, etc. so the idea that you're resisting a greater power, well how did you do that? often you mobilize through that idea of nation, shared land. next.
Slavoj Žižek
mega problem that's what i would call in this trip tv shows where a one million dollar winning question you know and i think there are options i don't agree with the predominant answer today which is and after the... soviet-style communism was discredited even in china. now to tease you a little bit more, i got now no wonder i'm half prohibited in china now because i read some books. they are more right-wing, but they make a point. that the secret of what is happening now in china ich that. what deng xiaoping really did is to change china, to put it in brutal simplistic terms, from communism to fascism. fascism means, in contrast to communism where you nationalize economy, you allow a certain degree of free market economy, but you have a strong nation state, one party, non-democratic state to control it and so on and so on. and i think that a new forum i don't like to call it the old. fascism. because it's not as simple as that, but something which nonetheless... adopts this idea of basic fascism, which is what? conservative modernization. we need capitalist dynamics, which is the only one that works, but we need to control it, and to control it you turn to your own national tradition. that's what he isn't that just market socialism though. uh again! depends on who runs the show in the sense of market socialism is an ambiguous term, you know. the first... in what sense? sorry, i'm not bluffing now the first thing i want to say is that what is happening today, my god, i don't 100% agree with varoufakis. but you criticize him a few times in the book, huh? yeah, but no, i have now some problems with it because he was, for my taste, too much into this. slightly anti-ukrainian, you know, like you no, no, i think i resist calls for peace there it's horrible for some leftists. that's where i lose my fame because you know, let's be concrete. isn't it that today to say. ukraineix peace. means it's strictly equivalent to saying russia should be allowed to keep what it occupies.
mega problem that's what i would call in this trip tv shows where a one million dollar winning question you know and i think there are options i don't agree with the predominant answer today which is and after the... soviet-style communism was discredited even in china. now to tease you a little bit more, i got now no wonder i'm half prohibited in china now because i read some books. they are more right-wing, but they make a point. that the secret of what is happening now in china ich that. what deng xiaoping really did is to change china, to put it in brutal simplistic terms, from communism to fascism. fascism means, in contrast to communism where you nationalize economy, you allow a certain degree of free market economy, but you have a strong nation state, one party, non-democratic state to control it and so on and so on. and i think that a new forum i don't like to call it the old. fascism. because it's not as simple as that, but something which nonetheless... adopts this idea of basic fascism, which is what? conservative modernization. we need capitalist dynamics, which is the only one that works, but we need to control it, and to control it you turn to your own national tradition. that's what he isn't that just market socialism though. uh again! depends on who runs the show in the sense of market socialism is an ambiguous term, you know. the first... in what sense? sorry, i'm not bluffing now the first thing i want to say is that what is happening today, my god, i don't 100% agree with varoufakis. but you criticize him a few times in the book, huh? yeah, but no, i have now some problems with it because he was, for my taste, too much into this. slightly anti-ukrainian, you know, like you no, no, i think i resist calls for peace there it's horrible for some leftists. that's where i lose my fame because you know, let's be concrete. isn't it that today to say. ukraineix peace. means it's strictly equivalent to saying russia should be allowed to keep what it occupies.
Host
but i suppose the question is then what if ukraine can't win? if you think that ukraine can't win, which is a reasonable position, one can agree or disagree. if they can't win. then clearly it's going to have to be some kind of negotiated settlement.
but i suppose the question is then what if ukraine can't win? if you think that ukraine can't win, which is a reasonable position, one can agree or disagree. if they can't win. then clearly it's going to have to be some kind of negotiated settlement.
Slavoj Žižek
but the first thing to do, i hope you'll agree, is to recognize. that's my answer to guys who ask questioning that, but are we aware that ukraine at least didn't lose?
but the first thing to do, i hope you'll agree, is to recognize. that's my answer to guys who ask questioning that, but are we aware that ukraine at least didn't lose?
Host
no, it hasn't.
no, it hasn't.
Slavoj Žižek
only because of our help to have this position, now kind of a world war i stalemate, it's precisely because we were helping ukraine. so at least retroactively, all those who are for peace should acknowledge that we are in this position to say at least ukraine have a chance to survive only because we were helping ukraine. because it's. it terribly depressive this. but i'm also critical of ukraine, incredible corruption there and so on. i did this. but sorry, another thing when you say market socialism, this term is for me a little bit too vague in what sense i agree with varoufakis although i wouldn't yet. i'm not sure should we really use, i wouldn't yet use the term feudalism, but his idea of, i think the techno-feudism.
only because of our help to have this position, now kind of a world war i stalemate, it's precisely because we were helping ukraine. so at least retroactively, all those who are for peace should acknowledge that we are in this position to say at least ukraine have a chance to survive only because we were helping ukraine. because it's. it terribly depressive this. but i'm also critical of ukraine, incredible corruption there and so on. i did this. but sorry, another thing when you say market socialism, this term is for me a little bit too vague in what sense i agree with varoufakis although i wouldn't yet. i'm not sure should we really use, i wouldn't yet use the term feudalism, but his idea of, i think the techno-feudism.
Host
technofut
technofut
Slavoj Žižek
now, he has some good points, which i like, which are, i like his basic thesis that wait a minute, stop just criticizing global capitalism. something new is emerging today, which is doubtful if we can still call it capitalism the way we knew it. you have a conglomerate of states and mega corporationsations who exploit at the same time the, under quotation marks, normal productive capitalists and the workers. so a new form of power is emerging and i've written in different terms about it where i agree with some italian. neo-marxists who are very critical of marx who claim that the basic fact of today's global economy is that rent is returning. you know, the classical history is capitalism begin with rent. you own land, like feudal master owns the land, you pay him rent, whatever.
now, he has some good points, which i like, which are, i like his basic thesis that wait a minute, stop just criticizing global capitalism. something new is emerging today, which is doubtful if we can still call it capitalism the way we knew it. you have a conglomerate of states and mega corporationsations who exploit at the same time the, under quotation marks, normal productive capitalists and the workers. so a new form of power is emerging and i've written in different terms about it where i agree with some italian. neo-marxists who are very critical of marx who claim that the basic fact of today's global economy is that rent is returning. you know, the classical history is capitalism begin with rent. you own land, like feudal master owns the land, you pay him rent, whatever.
Host
but now
but now
Slavoj Žižek
so we are returning to rent in what sense? we have now this mega corporation from amazon to bill gates and so on. they own our commons. commons in the sense of the space we use to exchange, communicate. you know, how did, that's my classic example, bill gates become one of the wealthiest persons, not by ultra-exploiting his workers. he even pays them maybe reasonably well. it is because the way we communicate. it's true! the commons of digital space, which is largely controlled by him, and he gets from publicity or from us directly, if you buy new windows, it's rent. we are returning to. rent now i am not wise enough to know how far does this go and so on and so on. but i think the first thing is to clarify. this and i'm here extremely pragmatic, i hope we agree here in the sense that there is an opposition emerging between this new megaorporate feudal class and leftists will crucify me for this small productive capitalist and maybe we should even. rely on this and make tactical alliances with productive capitalists who also feel exploited today. i'm very open here.'re not dogmatic.
so we are returning to rent in what sense? we have now this mega corporation from amazon to bill gates and so on. they own our commons. commons in the sense of the space we use to exchange, communicate. you know, how did, that's my classic example, bill gates become one of the wealthiest persons, not by ultra-exploiting his workers. he even pays them maybe reasonably well. it is because the way we communicate. it's true! the commons of digital space, which is largely controlled by him, and he gets from publicity or from us directly, if you buy new windows, it's rent. we are returning to. rent now i am not wise enough to know how far does this go and so on and so on. but i think the first thing is to clarify. this and i'm here extremely pragmatic, i hope we agree here in the sense that there is an opposition emerging between this new megaorporate feudal class and leftists will crucify me for this small productive capitalist and maybe we should even. rely on this and make tactical alliances with productive capitalists who also feel exploited today. i'm very open here.'re not dogmatic.
Host
yis when we spoke to him he said the same thing.. yanis varoufakis you spoke with here, he said the same thing and it's really interesting to me because if you pay attention to some of the smarter people on the us right,
yis when we spoke to him he said the same thing.. yanis varoufakis you spoke with here, he said the same thing and it's really interesting to me because if you pay attention to some of the smarter people on the us right,
Slavoj Žižek
yeah.
yeah.
Host
they say that trump represented a conflict between family capital and national slash global capital.
they say that trump represented a conflict between family capital and national slash global capital.
Slavoj Žižek
who is for you this smarter? i often, you know, when steve bannon gives a speech, i often tend to agree with first 20 minutes, where he says quite reasonable things. then he goes crazy, you know and he goes into all this stuff,? but you can see if you listen to steve bannon carefully, you can see... why? how trump gets these poor disappointed, newly impoverished white votes and so on?
who is for you this smarter? i often, you know, when steve bannon gives a speech, i often tend to agree with first 20 minutes, where he says quite reasonable things. then he goes crazy, you know and he goes into all this stuff,? but you can see if you listen to steve bannon carefully, you can see... why? how trump gets these poor disappointed, newly impoverished white votes and so on?
Host
newly impoverished but also like you say, like aspirational family petit bourgeois who were a very volatile cohort. they were the bulwark, they were the sort of foundation of fascism in europe but they were also know they were informing the anarchist movement of the early 1900s as well. that what you people.
newly impoverished but also like you say, like aspirational family petit bourgeois who were a very volatile cohort. they were the bulwark, they were the sort of foundation of fascism in europe but they were also know they were informing the anarchist movement of the early 1900s as well. that what you people.
Slavoj Žižek
it's so fashionable lenin in his late years fell into this trap. when soviet union won the civil war against the whites in 21-22. foreign investments began and lenin made there, i think, a crucial mistake before his heart attack and so on. he was some mega big names. ultraorpor h. visited soviet union and lenin was so fascinated by them that he even said no big capital is our ally because the organization socialist is already there we just have to take it over the way it is, just chop up the head. and he even then says this middle class, small capitalists and farmers, these are our enemies. that was the catastrophe. this was the way then to open up.
it's so fashionable lenin in his late years fell into this trap. when soviet union won the civil war against the whites in 21-22. foreign investments began and lenin made there, i think, a crucial mistake before his heart attack and so on. he was some mega big names. ultraorpor h. visited soviet union and lenin was so fascinated by them that he even said no big capital is our ally because the organization socialist is already there we just have to take it over the way it is, just chop up the head. and he even then says this middle class, small capitalists and farmers, these are our enemies. that was the catastrophe. this was the way then to open up.
Host
.
.
Slavoj Žižek
bave. a nice
bave. a nice
Host
to...
to...
Slavoj Žižek
comles.
comles.
Host
mm
mm
Slavoj Žižek
i mean.
i mean.
Host
you mentioned russia-ukraine. what's the correct position for a leftist on russia-ukraine then? because i read an amazing piece in time magazine recently. the average person on the front line for ukraine now is 43 years old. there's clearly a military stalemate. so what's the correct position?
you mentioned russia-ukraine. what's the correct position for a leftist on russia-ukraine then? because i read an amazing piece in time magazine recently. the average person on the front line for ukraine now is 43 years old. there's clearly a military stalemate. so what's the correct position?
Slavoj Žižek
extremely. difficult, i think, but you know where i am a pessimist. i think that ukraine needs our support. at least to maintain this stalemate. i think it's too risky to say, okay, it's a stalemate, let's stop supporting ukraine. that's a permanent war.
extremely. difficult, i think, but you know where i am a pessimist. i think that ukraine needs our support. at least to maintain this stalemate. i think it's too risky to say, okay, it's a stalemate, let's stop supporting ukraine. that's a permanent war.
Host
so it should be like syria. okay, but hey, but... the options.
so it should be like syria. okay, but hey, but... the options.
Slavoj Žižek
the.
the.
Host
and that's what you're proposing.
and that's what you're proposing.
Slavoj Žižek
but what is the alternative?
but what is the alternative?
Host
if you... simply stop supporting ukraine. i'm not suggesting that. no, no. but you're saying, rather than a negotiated settlement, which i agree, like it wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on. fine. but what you're proposing, it seems to me, is just a permanent low-level war between russia and ukraine forever then. which maybe is the best you can hope for, i don't know. but that's what i.
if you... simply stop supporting ukraine. i'm not suggesting that. no, no. but you're saying, rather than a negotiated settlement, which i agree, like it wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on. fine. but what you're proposing, it seems to me, is just a permanent low-level war between russia and ukraine forever then. which maybe is the best you can hope for, i don't know. but that's what i.
Slavoj Žižek
am tempted to suggest it's a very sad position but i would just add something. i wrote two articles one maybe it's here in nburg i don't know where the title is the two colonization of ukraine and so on and so on. ukraine should use this situation to introduce a little bit more of trade union social justice and so on. horrors also happen h in ukraine, how much corruption is there, even concerning how you fight the war, for example, if you are a leftist in ukraine today. you are in great danger that you or your party will be prohibited as potentially pro-russian. are they crazy? my god. don't they read putin? that's why. maybe in this book at, i like to quote, putin made a crush. in e. a year and a half ago when he started the war, two days, 21st and 23rd of february. did you notice that he repeatedly mentions in a critical way only one name no, zelensky. zelensky's... unpronounceable. he will never even mention him.
am tempted to suggest it's a very sad position but i would just add something. i wrote two articles one maybe it's here in nburg i don't know where the title is the two colonization of ukraine and so on and so on. ukraine should use this situation to introduce a little bit more of trade union social justice and so on. horrors also happen h in ukraine, how much corruption is there, even concerning how you fight the war, for example, if you are a leftist in ukraine today. you are in great danger that you or your party will be prohibited as potentially pro-russian. are they crazy? my god. don't they read putin? that's why. maybe in this book at, i like to quote, putin made a crush. in e. a year and a half ago when he started the war, two days, 21st and 23rd of february. did you notice that he repeatedly mentions in a critical way only one name no, zelensky. zelensky's... unpronounceable. he will never even mention him.
Host
lenin.
lenin.
Slavoj Žižek
he said the proper name of ukraine should be ukraine of vladimir ilitch lenin. he says bolsheviks invented ukraine and so on and so on. and then putin makes an incredible cynical remark. he says they want to de-communize ukraine. zelensky and his gang, whatever he calls them, and he says, okay, we will help them when we will enter ukraine, by abolishing ukraine, we will finally decommunize it because ukraine is a communist you know what i mean? do you know i also quoted that the last speech, and i'm not a fan of ktsky, he screwed it up. with his incredible arrogance in the last years of his life, he allowed stalin to take over. but do you know the last speech of trotsky before he died? sorry, written article. it's about ukraine. and he said full sovereignty to ukraine even if it means becoming fully a sovereign state and then he said, what if you tell me, but this goes against proletarian internationalism? and trotsky gives a beautiful marxist answer. he says, no, if you don't allow ukraine to go alone, this is russian nationalism. true proletarian internationalism is simply, you want a sovereign state, have it and then we collaborate. you know, it's a beautiful. so don't forget about this. that's where i despise. those anti-ukrainian leftists. sorry but the support for ukraine in its tradition. has much deeper leftist roots than reist. ruth.
he said the proper name of ukraine should be ukraine of vladimir ilitch lenin. he says bolsheviks invented ukraine and so on and so on. and then putin makes an incredible cynical remark. he says they want to de-communize ukraine. zelensky and his gang, whatever he calls them, and he says, okay, we will help them when we will enter ukraine, by abolishing ukraine, we will finally decommunize it because ukraine is a communist you know what i mean? do you know i also quoted that the last speech, and i'm not a fan of ktsky, he screwed it up. with his incredible arrogance in the last years of his life, he allowed stalin to take over. but do you know the last speech of trotsky before he died? sorry, written article. it's about ukraine. and he said full sovereignty to ukraine even if it means becoming fully a sovereign state and then he said, what if you tell me, but this goes against proletarian internationalism? and trotsky gives a beautiful marxist answer. he says, no, if you don't allow ukraine to go alone, this is russian nationalism. true proletarian internationalism is simply, you want a sovereign state, have it and then we collaborate. you know, it's a beautiful. so don't forget about this. that's where i despise. those anti-ukrainian leftists. sorry but the support for ukraine in its tradition. has much deeper leftist roots than reist. ruth.
Host
so there's a few things going on at the moment which are hugely important. one is demographic explosion in africa, economic development, technological development of china, the geopolitical.
so there's a few things going on at the moment which are hugely important. one is demographic explosion in africa, economic development, technological development of china, the geopolitical.
Slavoj Žižek
i don't know to judge, sorry to interrupt you. what is i'm trying to, because i have many friends from china, if they in china, if i ask them, they're afraid to answer the digital space, internet controlled, of course, by. but how seriously do you take this idea that china is now approaching a big crisis?
i don't know to judge, sorry to interrupt you. what is i'm trying to, because i have many friends from china, if they in china, if i ask them, they're afraid to answer the digital space, internet controlled, of course, by. but how seriously do you take this idea that china is now approaching a big crisis?
Host
um well, car sales were up ten10% in september. um i think it's facing a crisis, but the problem is obviously with people that are watching china, there are huge incentives to overstate the extent of problems.
um well, car sales were up ten10% in september. um i think it's facing a crisis, but the problem is obviously with people that are watching china, there are huge incentives to overstate the extent of problems.
Slavoj Žižek
that's why i'm interested.
that's why i'm interested.
Host
but there are huge incentives to the chinese state to lie as well. so it's you know, i always joke that western journalists have predicted 29 of the last two chinese crises because this is just their tendency. so it's hard to say. but at the moment, car sales were up 10% in september, 9% i think in august. they had 4.9% quarterly growth in the third quarter. people say that's fake. they still they still people say it's fake, right? but then car sales is a pretty common
but there are huge incentives to the chinese state to lie as well. so it's you know, i always joke that western journalists have predicted 29 of the last two chinese crises because this is just their tendency. so it's hard to say. but at the moment, car sales were up 10% in september, 9% i think in august. they had 4.9% quarterly growth in the third quarter. people say that's fake. they still they still people say it's fake, right? but then car sales is a pretty common
Slavoj Žižek
but the big thing is those they have according to official data red somewhere so many empty apartments that the whole population of france and germany combined uh...
but the big thing is those they have according to official data red somewhere so many empty apartments that the whole population of france and germany combined uh...
Host
move i think it's clearly it's slowing down. the question is how much. but yeah, in terms of energy use, purchasing cars, exports, construction of fixed capital, i mean, it still seems like it's growing. you know, it's definitely a different place to europe. so i think i predictions i'd have a pinch of salt. but my question is, yes. no no, it's a really important question.
move i think it's clearly it's slowing down. the question is how much. but yeah, in terms of energy use, purchasing cars, exports, construction of fixed capital, i mean, it still seems like it's growing. you know, it's definitely a different place to europe. so i think i predictions i'd have a pinch of salt. but my question is, yes. no no, it's a really important question.
Slavoj Žižek
and i don't have the answer. i. at least we are honest in this sense. that's the beginning of honesty.
and i don't have the answer. i. at least we are honest in this sense. that's the beginning of honesty.
Host
yeah
yeah
Slavoj Žižek
that you don't pretend that you have answers to everything.
that you don't pretend that you have answers to everything.
Host
yeah, yeah, yeah. we're looking at a bunch of things happening, regardless of whether or not china goes into recession next year, clearly power is shifting east because you can include asean, you know, the east asian countries too, and it's moving away from the west. does the decline of the united states, does the potential end of us empire also mean the end of western civilization. i hope not.
yeah, yeah, yeah. we're looking at a bunch of things happening, regardless of whether or not china goes into recession next year, clearly power is shifting east because you can include asean, you know, the east asian countries too, and it's moving away from the west. does the decline of the united states, does the potential end of us empire also mean the end of western civilization. i hope not.
Slavoj Žižek
but it can, because i think, again. let me not talk too much and condense it. i think that the true horror, if you were to name me a spot on the earth about which what goes from there i'm really worried. it's for have been not the middle east, not china but united states. i think that this can you imagine what dangerous thing this is this guy my god, i'm for death penalty or i'll put it like this if you are against death penalty, i am i would agree with you but i will before give you a list of people. after we kill these people, i i agree with you. on their list on the top is mike johnson, you know, this new speaker of the house. we have a crazy situation in what sense? let's be frank here. i have no illusions about democracy. the way we know it it... may be coming to an end, but i always emphasize in this book, in other books, that democracy are not just the written rules. democracy are also, there is no democracy without unwritten, silent rules that you have to obey and so on. and this is simply breaking down in the united states. you have now a guy who openly formulates disrespect for constitution. for parliamentary democratic system and so on and who is the speaker of the house. you have donald trump openly advocating public disorder and so on and so on. so i think all this talk about the end of the american empire it's predominantly a matter of what happens in america itself and what really worries me is that in different forms it's happening all around. the world. here in the uk, i simplify it up to the utmost. but you probably notice that you no longer have a leftist party. you have a moderate conservative party. it's called labor party. yeah.
but it can, because i think, again. let me not talk too much and condense it. i think that the true horror, if you were to name me a spot on the earth about which what goes from there i'm really worried. it's for have been not the middle east, not china but united states. i think that this can you imagine what dangerous thing this is this guy my god, i'm for death penalty or i'll put it like this if you are against death penalty, i am i would agree with you but i will before give you a list of people. after we kill these people, i i agree with you. on their list on the top is mike johnson, you know, this new speaker of the house. we have a crazy situation in what sense? let's be frank here. i have no illusions about democracy. the way we know it it... may be coming to an end, but i always emphasize in this book, in other books, that democracy are not just the written rules. democracy are also, there is no democracy without unwritten, silent rules that you have to obey and so on. and this is simply breaking down in the united states. you have now a guy who openly formulates disrespect for constitution. for parliamentary democratic system and so on and who is the speaker of the house. you have donald trump openly advocating public disorder and so on and so on. so i think all this talk about the end of the american empire it's predominantly a matter of what happens in america itself and what really worries me is that in different forms it's happening all around. the world. here in the uk, i simplify it up to the utmost. but you probably notice that you no longer have a leftist party. you have a moderate conservative party. it's called labor party. yeah.
Host
yeah, they're the centre-right party now, yeah.
yeah, they're the centre-right party now, yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you have extreme freakish. right wingers.
yeah, yeah, yeah, and then you have extreme freakish. right wingers.
Host
yeah.
yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
no, and... the problem is that... this extremely freakish right wing maybe they will even continue who knows what will happen with farage and so on and so on you have in france similar tendency in germany alternative for germany growing and so on and so on so i think it's the tendency today is towards i'm still afraid to use the term but towards a kind of a i don't have a concept. but... uh kind of a... new. forum of... fascism, fascist capitalism, not fascism necessarily in that nazi sense, but in the sense of strong nation state and now i will tell you something so that you see that i look at all the ways. you know that friends from china showed me something that the chinese are terrified they don't want to render it public. when he was young and just took over the party, mao zedong met with sun yat-sen, the father of the republic, who was just dying earlier. and they have a conversation about what china could take from the west. and you know what's the conclusion of that one? fascism. they claim that democracy would be chaos in china. but fascism is ideal because it's national unity. china needs unity, but combined with economic development and so on. mao and sunia ten agree with this. now, desperately they're trying to erase the traces of it. this is a big secret of, i think, chinese communism. there is even a direct link again with the fascist tradition. and i think this is the main threat which has different forms. putin india the more the one forum, western european forum, american forum, even in latin america and so on. and now to go to the end. i am desperate because what is happening. two days ago when i. had a debate at that royal institute. i was sitting on the same chair maybe no, was that faraday was sitting here. a guy asked me a nice cynical question, but it deeply affected me. it was the right question. he said, but you are just saying to young people. there is no hope. we are fucked up. but he said, but look, you are old, you will soon die, it doesn't matter to you. but look and the, all the young people in their 20s, you can't say them to this, taking hope from them. then i think i found. a gut counterpoint reply. it was this one. how do you mean this reproach do you mean it in a moral sense in the sense of even if you are right in your analysis you should lie as if there is hope, not to disappoint young people. or do you mean there is hope? and we didn't have time, we concluded to answer this, but... now, my answer here, the only one that i can offer is what max horkheimer, one of the fathers of frankfurt school, said very nicely, that in these desperate times, the position of left should be pessimism in theory, optimism in practice. pessimism, yes, our world is coming to an end. and i am afraid to provide an opposition like a clear alternative. like some of my friends, that's where i lost the thread before, not only david graeber, many others are neo-anarchists. no, i don't buy this. because i think that the world is crying today for demanding global mechanisms. and it's too utopian to think, you know, from local initiatives they will come together and so on. so i just grab any opportunity that i can. there is a movement here, a movement there. i have links in philippines, i have links in turkey. i supported syiza here, there. but i... i sorry to disappoint you or others. my advice or what to do ich. let's say if i were to be in government. in a relatively prosperous western country what would be my advice or if i'm in government, my practice. a modest one first comes my. aately conservative side you know.. yes, fight for freedom but with the nonetheless leftist twist, which means this is the lesson of socialism that i still keep. not this stalinist bullshit formal freedom versus actual freedom. no, freedom is the form, sorry. freedom is formal freedom or it doesn't exist. but what socialism did taught us is that. freedom to be actual needs certain material conditions. for example, universal health care. i don't buy this right liberal argumentation. it enslaves you. no, life is much more free if you are aware that if i get seriously ill, cancer, blah, blah. some... social state mechanism will take care of that. that for example in my country, but here also. in my country, one of the few moments of nostalgia for the old socialist yugoslavia. it was! more or less functioning the public health care or the same with education to be really free. i think part of it is to have a fair chance on the market and so on to guarantee your healthcare, but now comes my communist side. i think that in answer to the crisis. in plural that we are approaching today ecological immigrant and so on war. we have to get ready to emergency states. they will come. and we had to build in mechanism of how we to deal with new emergency states because if we don't do it, the right-wingers will do it in their own authoritarian way. i think it's absolutely crucial that there will be, for example, new ecological catastrophes. the story i repeat all the time, maybe you know it. my good friend jean-pierre dupuy, a great friend. theorist of catastrophe was in fukushima or rather tokyo as a special delegate from european union three days after the catastrophe and he told me for one day japanese authorities were in a panic it looked that they will have to evacuate the whole tokyo area 30 million people. where to put them in a rational world order the answer is clear. there are now with global warming waste vast land which hundreds of millions of people literally can settle in siberia. in old times there were such crises. you solved them with the war. today we cannot. it means self-destruction because of nuclear arms and so on. we have to get ready for emergency state. i'm not saying be in a panic. i'm just saying get ready. for example, i'm here brutally realist and that's why again i'm attacked by some leftists. when i say let's control immigration. you know what's so sad? i'm connected with people. in countries from are we aware that immigration is a great! business. the smugglers turn around over ten billions per year and those who come here are in great majority people who can afford it. the really poor remain there. so we should approach the problem in this way. first, how to prevent this. and here very realist. one right-winger in germany, and i tend to agree, said, why don't we instead of far east, try to build? to construct factories in tunisia in northern africa to give them jobs there i very and i don't downplay i hate leftists who put all the troubles. on the side of we are not ready to integrate them. no, what if they don't want to be integrated? many immigrants. it's a much more complex question which we should approach without any old-fashioned either right wing or left wing prejudices. i find this so interesting.
no, and... the problem is that... this extremely freakish right wing maybe they will even continue who knows what will happen with farage and so on and so on you have in france similar tendency in germany alternative for germany growing and so on and so on so i think it's the tendency today is towards i'm still afraid to use the term but towards a kind of a i don't have a concept. but... uh kind of a... new. forum of... fascism, fascist capitalism, not fascism necessarily in that nazi sense, but in the sense of strong nation state and now i will tell you something so that you see that i look at all the ways. you know that friends from china showed me something that the chinese are terrified they don't want to render it public. when he was young and just took over the party, mao zedong met with sun yat-sen, the father of the republic, who was just dying earlier. and they have a conversation about what china could take from the west. and you know what's the conclusion of that one? fascism. they claim that democracy would be chaos in china. but fascism is ideal because it's national unity. china needs unity, but combined with economic development and so on. mao and sunia ten agree with this. now, desperately they're trying to erase the traces of it. this is a big secret of, i think, chinese communism. there is even a direct link again with the fascist tradition. and i think this is the main threat which has different forms. putin india the more the one forum, western european forum, american forum, even in latin america and so on. and now to go to the end. i am desperate because what is happening. two days ago when i. had a debate at that royal institute. i was sitting on the same chair maybe no, was that faraday was sitting here. a guy asked me a nice cynical question, but it deeply affected me. it was the right question. he said, but you are just saying to young people. there is no hope. we are fucked up. but he said, but look, you are old, you will soon die, it doesn't matter to you. but look and the, all the young people in their 20s, you can't say them to this, taking hope from them. then i think i found. a gut counterpoint reply. it was this one. how do you mean this reproach do you mean it in a moral sense in the sense of even if you are right in your analysis you should lie as if there is hope, not to disappoint young people. or do you mean there is hope? and we didn't have time, we concluded to answer this, but... now, my answer here, the only one that i can offer is what max horkheimer, one of the fathers of frankfurt school, said very nicely, that in these desperate times, the position of left should be pessimism in theory, optimism in practice. pessimism, yes, our world is coming to an end. and i am afraid to provide an opposition like a clear alternative. like some of my friends, that's where i lost the thread before, not only david graeber, many others are neo-anarchists. no, i don't buy this. because i think that the world is crying today for demanding global mechanisms. and it's too utopian to think, you know, from local initiatives they will come together and so on. so i just grab any opportunity that i can. there is a movement here, a movement there. i have links in philippines, i have links in turkey. i supported syiza here, there. but i... i sorry to disappoint you or others. my advice or what to do ich. let's say if i were to be in government. in a relatively prosperous western country what would be my advice or if i'm in government, my practice. a modest one first comes my. aately conservative side you know.. yes, fight for freedom but with the nonetheless leftist twist, which means this is the lesson of socialism that i still keep. not this stalinist bullshit formal freedom versus actual freedom. no, freedom is the form, sorry. freedom is formal freedom or it doesn't exist. but what socialism did taught us is that. freedom to be actual needs certain material conditions. for example, universal health care. i don't buy this right liberal argumentation. it enslaves you. no, life is much more free if you are aware that if i get seriously ill, cancer, blah, blah. some... social state mechanism will take care of that. that for example in my country, but here also. in my country, one of the few moments of nostalgia for the old socialist yugoslavia. it was! more or less functioning the public health care or the same with education to be really free. i think part of it is to have a fair chance on the market and so on to guarantee your healthcare, but now comes my communist side. i think that in answer to the crisis. in plural that we are approaching today ecological immigrant and so on war. we have to get ready to emergency states. they will come. and we had to build in mechanism of how we to deal with new emergency states because if we don't do it, the right-wingers will do it in their own authoritarian way. i think it's absolutely crucial that there will be, for example, new ecological catastrophes. the story i repeat all the time, maybe you know it. my good friend jean-pierre dupuy, a great friend. theorist of catastrophe was in fukushima or rather tokyo as a special delegate from european union three days after the catastrophe and he told me for one day japanese authorities were in a panic it looked that they will have to evacuate the whole tokyo area 30 million people. where to put them in a rational world order the answer is clear. there are now with global warming waste vast land which hundreds of millions of people literally can settle in siberia. in old times there were such crises. you solved them with the war. today we cannot. it means self-destruction because of nuclear arms and so on. we have to get ready for emergency state. i'm not saying be in a panic. i'm just saying get ready. for example, i'm here brutally realist and that's why again i'm attacked by some leftists. when i say let's control immigration. you know what's so sad? i'm connected with people. in countries from are we aware that immigration is a great! business. the smugglers turn around over ten billions per year and those who come here are in great majority people who can afford it. the really poor remain there. so we should approach the problem in this way. first, how to prevent this. and here very realist. one right-winger in germany, and i tend to agree, said, why don't we instead of far east, try to build? to construct factories in tunisia in northern africa to give them jobs there i very and i don't downplay i hate leftists who put all the troubles. on the side of we are not ready to integrate them. no, what if they don't want to be integrated? many immigrants. it's a much more complex question which we should approach without any old-fashioned either right wing or left wing prejudices. i find this so interesting.
Host
because my father's iranian.
because my father's iranian.
Slavoj Žižek
really? my father's iranian. my god, i have so many friends in iran. they are, you know, sorry, you know why i admire iran? go on. it's totally different from other arab countries. it still has an incredible, incredible civil society life, philosophy. they translated there, in spite of all city politics up there, they translated over 10 of my books. is an lively intellectual
really? my father's iranian. my god, i have so many friends in iran. they are, you know, sorry, you know why i admire iran? go on. it's totally different from other arab countries. it still has an incredible, incredible civil society life, philosophy. they translated there, in spite of all city politics up there, they translated over 10 of my books. is an lively intellectual
Host
cr.
cr.
Slavoj Žižek
what they did with
what they did with
Host
oh. you are lucky,hev. that's very kind of you. but what he says, tell me., he says, and i think this's an interesting point, you know, i remember saying, oh look, these afghans are going to iceland. and he said, listen to me, son. no afghan wants to go to iceland. no afghan, you're born in this naturally fertile country, amazing history, beautiful weather, the last 40, 50 years, but historically it was a very fertile, beautiful place. and you end up in a place, this is not to besmirch iceland, you go to a place where you don't see the sun for three months. he said, no afghan grows up as a child and says, you know what? i don't want to see the sun for three months and i want to live in minus 10 degrees c for six months. that's a really powerful point. and i think a lot of, i do think a lot of european liberals, progressives, don't understand that. and i think there is this kind of strange, it's not racism, but like european superiority, which is, well, of course they want to come here. we're better. well know, many of them are coming because of war, sanctions, occupation. capitalist underdevelopment, but that seems completely absent from that conversation. why? the left has this analysis about why these places have been underdeveloped by global capital. and and yet when it comes to this topic, that goes out of the window.
oh. you are lucky,hev. that's very kind of you. but what he says, tell me., he says, and i think this's an interesting point, you know, i remember saying, oh look, these afghans are going to iceland. and he said, listen to me, son. no afghan wants to go to iceland. no afghan, you're born in this naturally fertile country, amazing history, beautiful weather, the last 40, 50 years, but historically it was a very fertile, beautiful place. and you end up in a place, this is not to besmirch iceland, you go to a place where you don't see the sun for three months. he said, no afghan grows up as a child and says, you know what? i don't want to see the sun for three months and i want to live in minus 10 degrees c for six months. that's a really powerful point. and i think a lot of, i do think a lot of european liberals, progressives, don't understand that. and i think there is this kind of strange, it's not racism, but like european superiority, which is, well, of course they want to come here. we're better. well know, many of them are coming because of war, sanctions, occupation. capitalist underdevelopment, but that seems completely absent from that conversation. why? the left has this analysis about why these places have been underdeveloped by global capital. and and yet when it comes to this topic, that goes out of the window.
Slavoj Žižek
this is another bad consequence of, i will give you a very simplified answer, of 68 when marxism became cultural marxism in my orthodox marxist term, it was recaptured by liberal culturalist ideology, you know. and i deeply, sorry, we don't have more time, i profoundly agree with you how precisely those western liberals who pretend to be respectful towards the others are at a deeper level deeply patronizing on the other. their whole value system, general frame remains the western one. and this so i think, now i'll put it like this. the way liberals are acting now. letting immigrants in, i am for this, but in a more organized way. yep. and at the same time, with this focus on culturalism. i'm afraid that the nightmare the result will be that what is already happening in sweden, denmark, now germany, france, this anti-immigrant politics will... explode. so don't you agree? here i would totally agree with your father. i don't know how, but the problem should be solved there, in those lands. okay, we shouldn't now invade iran, but we should at least reflect on how we also screwed it up with our politics, for example. tell this to your father you please, go on. you know, i wrote a crazy text 20 years ago. give iranian nukes a chance. which i was beloved by iranian concern. but you know what was my point? remember iraq-iran war. saddam used the chance. invaded iran the world was silent. this was a clear aggression. he wanted to grab the oil fields in the south united states at that point. gave him i read this in new york times gave him poisonous gases and satellite photos there were no calls from peace there were calls from peace only when iran was pushing them. the iraqis back so when there was a trial against saddam and iran official government said, listen, he did his greatest crime towards us. no, this was totally blocked. iran just wanted to say, we also have a list of crimes against saddam. you know. so are we aware that this then... later on, the coup, the way they overthrew saddam. the result is without that american intervention there, there wouldn't have been isis and so on and so on. how we screwed it up there. let's at least learn not to repeat these mistakes. that would have been enough. as the beginning. i remember idiots americans after they occupied iraq, their idea was as if we get rid of saddam and then people will organize themselves into new democracy. no, it was a catastrophe. the result of the american occupation of iraq was that first iranian influence grew.
this is another bad consequence of, i will give you a very simplified answer, of 68 when marxism became cultural marxism in my orthodox marxist term, it was recaptured by liberal culturalist ideology, you know. and i deeply, sorry, we don't have more time, i profoundly agree with you how precisely those western liberals who pretend to be respectful towards the others are at a deeper level deeply patronizing on the other. their whole value system, general frame remains the western one. and this so i think, now i'll put it like this. the way liberals are acting now. letting immigrants in, i am for this, but in a more organized way. yep. and at the same time, with this focus on culturalism. i'm afraid that the nightmare the result will be that what is already happening in sweden, denmark, now germany, france, this anti-immigrant politics will... explode. so don't you agree? here i would totally agree with your father. i don't know how, but the problem should be solved there, in those lands. okay, we shouldn't now invade iran, but we should at least reflect on how we also screwed it up with our politics, for example. tell this to your father you please, go on. you know, i wrote a crazy text 20 years ago. give iranian nukes a chance. which i was beloved by iranian concern. but you know what was my point? remember iraq-iran war. saddam used the chance. invaded iran the world was silent. this was a clear aggression. he wanted to grab the oil fields in the south united states at that point. gave him i read this in new york times gave him poisonous gases and satellite photos there were no calls from peace there were calls from peace only when iran was pushing them. the iraqis back so when there was a trial against saddam and iran official government said, listen, he did his greatest crime towards us. no, this was totally blocked. iran just wanted to say, we also have a list of crimes against saddam. you know. so are we aware that this then... later on, the coup, the way they overthrew saddam. the result is without that american intervention there, there wouldn't have been isis and so on and so on. how we screwed it up there. let's at least learn not to repeat these mistakes. that would have been enough. as the beginning. i remember idiots americans after they occupied iraq, their idea was as if we get rid of saddam and then people will organize themselves into new democracy. no, it was a catastrophe. the result of the american occupation of iraq was that first iranian influence grew.
Host
mm-h
mm-h
Slavoj Žižek
plus, most of the christians emigrated from iraq. whatever you say about saddam, and he was a nightmare, he wasn't a religious fundamentalist. he was relatively secular. you remember tariq aziz, his foreign minister. he was a christian. and all this got lost. you see here a hegelian analysis is needed. didn't they know what they are doing? it's the same in libya and so on. even under gaddafi, he was a nightmare, i know, but libya was a relatively stable, half welfare, very corrupted country, but what did they expect? you intervene and then, you know. so i totally agree here with your father, don't simply think that up. our. not only our land but our notions of freedom and so on don't think that we have the universal model. this is for me the lesson of 2001. it's the end of fukuyama dream. 2001, i mean 9-11, know? fukuyama dream was we have liberal democratic capitalism is universal formula. here and there countries are blah, blah, blah. and fukuyama, today, now, you know where he stands. he's a nice guy. i met him once.
plus, most of the christians emigrated from iraq. whatever you say about saddam, and he was a nightmare, he wasn't a religious fundamentalist. he was relatively secular. you remember tariq aziz, his foreign minister. he was a christian. and all this got lost. you see here a hegelian analysis is needed. didn't they know what they are doing? it's the same in libya and so on. even under gaddafi, he was a nightmare, i know, but libya was a relatively stable, half welfare, very corrupted country, but what did they expect? you intervene and then, you know. so i totally agree here with your father, don't simply think that up. our. not only our land but our notions of freedom and so on don't think that we have the universal model. this is for me the lesson of 2001. it's the end of fukuyama dream. 2001, i mean 9-11, know? fukuyama dream was we have liberal democratic capitalism is universal formula. here and there countries are blah, blah, blah. and fukuyama, today, now, you know where he stands. he's a nice guy. i met him once.
Host
my.
my.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, he is, i don't know where he is now now, but three years ago he was pro- bernie sanders. he said, i
yeah, he is, i don't know where he is now now, but three years ago he was pro- bernie sanders. he said, i
Host
it brought
it brought
Slavoj Žižek
yes. i know. slowly, slowly we should do things like this. and all the best to your father. we need people like that. this is, you know what is so tragic and serious that at some level, what your father is saying and many others, isn't this in the best possible sense? most iranians i might say that by the way.
yes. i know. slowly, slowly we should do things like this. and all the best to your father. we need people like that. this is, you know what is so tragic and serious that at some level, what your father is saying and many others, isn't this in the best possible sense? most iranians i might say that by the way.
Host
they've come here.
they've come here.
Slavoj Žižek
as refugees sorry. yeah, no, that it is in the best sense of the term a common sense thing, it should be so evident, you know. and i have here, but i will stop now, so many similar examples from different countries where, for example, my favorite one is to end with a standard joke by i was once in missoula, montana. giving a talk and there were many so-called native americans. and they already hated the term. because it's the political correct term. they told me, that this is so patronizing. what is the opposite of nature? culture. so they told me, we are natural americans and you are cultural americans or what? and they gave me a that we much prefer to be called indians. why? because then this name is at least a monument to white men's stupidity. when they came there, they thought they were in india. yeah. native americans and inuits eskimos i admire them they have such a wonderful nose for this pseudo-anti-race, pseudo- anti-racist patronizing attitudes towards so-called primitives. so to conclude, use it or not. my favorite thing that i said to some feminists years ago, and they applauded. i said, ladies, let's say you have a boyfriend who says, listen, there is a difference, i'm man more than you, your duty is to wash my socks, to do the house. i said, if you have such a boyfriend, keep him, you may re-educate him. but if you have a boyfriend who says, i'm a western i see nature only as an object of exploitation. you as a woman has a more dialogic, organic attitude towards nature. run away like crazy.
as refugees sorry. yeah, no, that it is in the best sense of the term a common sense thing, it should be so evident, you know. and i have here, but i will stop now, so many similar examples from different countries where, for example, my favorite one is to end with a standard joke by i was once in missoula, montana. giving a talk and there were many so-called native americans. and they already hated the term. because it's the political correct term. they told me, that this is so patronizing. what is the opposite of nature? culture. so they told me, we are natural americans and you are cultural americans or what? and they gave me a that we much prefer to be called indians. why? because then this name is at least a monument to white men's stupidity. when they came there, they thought they were in india. yeah. native americans and inuits eskimos i admire them they have such a wonderful nose for this pseudo-anti-race, pseudo- anti-racist patronizing attitudes towards so-called primitives. so to conclude, use it or not. my favorite thing that i said to some feminists years ago, and they applauded. i said, ladies, let's say you have a boyfriend who says, listen, there is a difference, i'm man more than you, your duty is to wash my socks, to do the house. i said, if you have such a boyfriend, keep him, you may re-educate him. but if you have a boyfriend who says, i'm a western i see nature only as an object of exploitation. you as a woman has a more dialogic, organic attitude towards nature. run away like crazy.
Host
that guy will be the ruin for you.
that guy will be the ruin for you.
Slavoj Žižek
you know, this fake western admiration for some wisdom of third world countries and so on, it's a fake. well, and slavoy, this was fantastic. thanks for joining us on downstream. ah, fantastic. yeah, in what sense. i'll now as my extremely perverse private jokes, i now prefer slowly fanta to coca-cola. it's delicious, fter. ah, the germans got something! collaborator you know what is the origin of f idea yeah yeah hitler 39 people don't know this. no they don't. where are we now? what it this? fuck. our our. oh, you went over by.
you know, this fake western admiration for some wisdom of third world countries and so on, it's a fake. well, and slavoy, this was fantastic. thanks for joining us on downstream. ah, fantastic. yeah, in what sense. i'll now as my extremely perverse private jokes, i now prefer slowly fanta to coca-cola. it's delicious, fter. ah, the germans got something! collaborator you know what is the origin of f idea yeah yeah hitler 39 people don't know this. no they don't. where are we now? what it this? fuck. our our. oh, you went over by.