Oxford Political Review
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2020-11-05 · 0:56:19 · 7,812 words
ideologyfascism-populismliberalism-political-correctnessdemocracycommunism-socialismcapitalismpsychoanalysissexuality-genderecology-climategeopolitics-wareveryday-lifephilosophy-general
In this Oxford Political Review interview conducted during the Covid-19 pandemic, Žižek discusses the disintegration of the liberal center, the rise of Trump and left populism, and the prospects for a radical-left renewal. He also addresses the MeToo debate and the irreducible ambiguity of sexuality from a Lacanian perspective, argues for an eco-socialist response to the interconnected crises of Covid and ecology, and reflects briefly on his early political career in Slovenia and his disdain for conventional politics.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 14
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Operative in Žižek's point that ideological falsehood is a material force: even an obvious lie gets materialized in practices and political positions.
Implicit in Žižek's discussion of ideology as a material force: even a manifest lie becomes real once it is materialized in social practices and political positions.
Žižek's term for the Trumpist logic of radical polarization in which every opponent is branded a communist or enemy of the people, eliminating any middle ground.
as “technocratic socialism”
The model Žižek endorses, exemplified by Bolivia's Lucho Arce: a left in power that combines radical social commitments with economic competence and realism.
Žižek's pun on Fidel Castro's name to mock the Cuban revolutionary left's pride in material deprivation as a sign of authenticity.
as “eco-socialism”
Here invoked via Kohei Saito's reading of Marx's Stoffwechsel as justification for an ecological socialism grounded not in nature-worship but in understanding material exchange in social reproduction.
Marx's concept of material exchange between society and nature, which Žižek cites as showing Marx's late ecological sensitivity and the basis for eco-socialist politics.
as “corporate neoliberal feminism”
Nancy Fraser's term, cited by Žižek, for the co-optation of feminist discourse by neoliberal and class-biased politics, used here to complicate his defense of MeToo.
Underpins Žižek's claim that perversion, enjoying the displeasure itself, is Freud's basic formula for sexuality and cannot be regulated away.
The sadomasochist practice of pre-negotiating every detail of an encounter, which Žižek uses as a reductio ad absurdum of consent-legalism: the ultimate bureaucratization of sex.
Žižek's gloss on Lacan's claim that in typical male heterosexuality the woman is used as a prop for the man's own fantasy rather than encountered as a genuine other.
Žižek's ironic label for the pandemic response that accepts total digital surveillance and social bubbles as the new normal, a techno-managerial solution rather than a genuine transformation.
as “ontological catastrophe”
Žižek's phrase for the Covid pandemic's disruption of the basic coordinates of human existence, the customs, embodied habits, and social rituals that define what it means to be human.
Žižek's diagnosis of the ongoing structural collapse of tolerant, technocratic liberal-centrist politics as the dominant hegemonic form.
Stories he reaches for 4
Žižek recounts telling Cuban audiences that their pride in economic suffering is a form of castration-fidelity, and that their leader's name, Fidel Castro, encodes this perfectly: fidelity to castration.
“no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro, fidelity to castration. You display it proudly.”
Žižek cites Bolivia under Lucho Arce as proof that a radical left in power can deliver everyday improvements without becoming Venezuela or Cuba, a 'thorn in the eyes of the establishment.'
“Bolivia is such a thorn in the eyes of the establishment because there you had a relatively radical left in power, but they didn't become another Venezuela or Cuba.”
Žižek closes the interview by pretending to threaten his interlocutor with the Gulag, then offering the 'privilege' of two portions of rotten fish-head soup on Sundays as a sign of personal friendship, a self-deflating mock-Stalinist joke.
“from my Moscow central bureau, I will call the Gulag administration and... you will get on Sunday two portions of that soup. Aren't you glad?”
An (un-enacted) Australian proposal requiring partners to record a short video clip consenting to sex before intercourse, used to illustrate the absurdity of legalistic consent regulation.
“they passed a legal regulation that somehow the consent of both partners if they want to make love should be registered by signing a paper, taking a short video clip.”
Works invoked 1
Cited to illustrate that Covid forced even conservative governments to adopt measures that would have been dismissed as leftist a year earlier.
People invoked 27
Fidel Castro negative
Subject of Žižek's 'fidelity to castration' pun; criticized for presiding over a left that took pride in material deprivation and ideological purity over ordinary people's welfare.
Laura Mulvey positive
Referenced by the interviewer as having argued that men use women as instruments for staging their own desires, endorsed as consistent with Žižek's Lacanian feminist point.
Mahatma Gandhi positive
Cited approvingly for a text on how a democratic India should organize its secret service, used to legitimize the challenge of combining intelligence work with human rights.
Harold Wilson positive
Cited as an example of past mainstream European social democracy more radical than Sanders, illustrating the global shift of political space rightward.
Jared Kushner negative
Referenced in Žižek's joke about Trump asking for a 'quickie' briefing on the Middle East, used to mock both Trump's vulgarity and the absurdity of the Trump administration's Middle East policy.
Luis Arce positive
Described as a half-friend and held up as the model 'technocratic socialist', Bolivia's success proves that radical left governance can deliver without degenerating into Venezuela or Cuba.
Jacques Lacan positive
Central theoretical reference for the discussion of sexuality, deployed to argue that male heterosexuality is structurally masturbatory and that lesbians may be the only true heterosexuals.
Donald Trump positive
Žižek dislikes Trump personally and finds him vulgar, but uses him analytically as the symptom of liberal-center disintegration and the embodiment of postmodern transgression.
Willy Brandt positive
Cited as an example of European social democracy's genuinely more radical past, against which Sanders looks moderate.
Kohei Saito positive
Japanese eco-socialist philosopher working in Germany, cited for his rehabilitation of Marx's concept of Stoffwechsel as the basis of eco-socialism.
Nancy Fraser positive
Cited for her concept of 'corporate neoliberal feminism' to complicate and deepen the MeToo debate, distinguishing genuine feminism from its class-biased neoliberal co-optation.
Emmanuel Macron positive
Cited as the European liberal-left establishment at its best (alongside Merkel), trying to play a correct technocratic game but increasingly trapped in popular hatred.
Alain Badiou positive
Cited as a friend whose view that true authentic love is rare and difficult underpins Žižek's romantic conception of love as encounter with the other's abyss.
Giorgio Agamben negative
Cited as an example of 'progressive Covid deniers' who claim the pandemic is exaggerated and being exploited by authorities for total biopolitical control.
Bruno Latour positive
Cited in agreement: Covid is a 'dress rehearsal' for future ecological crises.
Bernie Sanders positive
Praised for his strategy of targeting Trump's populist base rather than centrists, described as 'almost the Trump of the left' and as representing mainstream European social democracy rather than radicalism.
Julian Assange positive
Praised for WikiLeaks' focused politics of exposing state surveillance, and cited as the source of information about Swedish pre-sex consent forms.
Mark Fisher positive
Referenced via 'capitalist realism' / 'communist realism' by the interviewer as a framing for what genuine left alternatives would look like beyond neoliberal state adaptation.
Angela Nagle positive
Cited in agreement that today's right has appropriated transgression and vulgarity, reversing the cultural logic of 1960s student rebellion.
Olof Palme positive
Cited as an example of European social democracy at its most radical, far to the left of what Sanders represents today.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez positive
Described as Žižek's 'bright hope,' praised for tempering Sanders's rhetoric with practical caution; still too young but represents the promising left direction.
Angela Merkel positive
Mentioned alongside Macron as exemplifying the European liberal-centrist establishment at its most competent.
Janez Janša negative
Slovenian PM, described as part of Žižek's 'new European axis of evil' (alongside Orbán), a Trumpist figure who brands all opponents as ex-communist deep-state agents.
Viktor Orbán negative
Mentioned as an ally of Janša and part of the Eastern European right-wing authoritarian axis.
Mentioned only in passing as having admitted to the alarming methane explosions in Northern Siberia, used to illustrate the reality of ecological crisis.
Noam Chomsky positive
Described as Žižek's 'arch-enemy' but cited in agreement on the stakes of the 2020 US election being existential for ecology and humanity.
Sigmund Freud positive
Invoked for the thesis that sexuality is inherently ambiguous and perverse, the basic formula that pleasure is bound up with displeasure, and that this cannot be regulated away.
What it argues
disintegration of the liberal center and rise of populismTrump as symptom of a structural political shiftleft strategy: radical social democracy vs. revolutionary leftLacanian sexuality and the limits of consent regulationCovid as ontological and philosophical challengeeco-socialism and permanent ecological disturbancecommon decency and the left reclaiming moral majority
Dialectical moves 8
“No Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez without Trump—they are part of the same process.”
What looks like Trump's opposite (left populism) is in fact generated by the same structural disintegration that produced Trump himself.
“The term 'red pill'—which means readiness to face the truth—has now been appropriated by Covid deniers and conspiracy theorists.”
The symbol of enlightened truth-seeking has become the badge of paranoid unreality, inverting its original emancipatory meaning.
“Under Covid you are not more alone—you are alone means you are connected more than ever. What I miss is being authentically alone.”
Bodily isolation paradoxically coincides with unprecedented social connectivity, so the real loss is not sociality but genuine solitude.
“Lesbians are maybe the only true heterosexuals—the typical male structure of love is homosexual.”
Lacan's inversion: the man who uses a woman as a prop for his own fantasy is relating to an image of himself, making standard male heterosexuality structurally homosexual.
“Can you imagine a more relativistic postmodern president than Donald Trump? He is full of postmodern signs of obscenity, transgression.”
Trump, widely seen as the enemy of progressive postmodernism, is actually postmodernism's purest political expression.
“Today the new populist right is openly vulgar and transgressive—we leftists should be the voice of moral majority.”
The historical reversal in which the counterculture logic of transgression has migrated to the right forces the left to occupy the position of common decency.
“Voting for Biden is like asking a vampire to eat some garlic—but do it.”
Even when the choice is between bad and worse, the stakes (ecology, Covid, humanity's fate) are too high for abstentionism.
“The true measure of a social upheaval is not the million people on Tahrir Square but the day after—how do ordinary people feel the difference?”
Spectacular revolutionary events should be judged not by their sublime moment but by their concrete, everyday material effects on ordinary life.
Claims 18
asserts
There would be no Bernie Sanders or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez without Trump—they are part of the same structural process of liberal-center disintegration.Trump and the left-populist surge
asserts
The gradual disappearance of the liberal center is a real structural tendency of contemporary politics, not a temporary anomaly.liberal center / political landscape
asserts
Ideological statements, even obvious lies, become material forces once they are inscribed in practices and political positions.ideology and political truth
asserts
The left should aim not at winning centrist voters but at capturing the same populist discontent that Trump mobilized.left electoral strategy
asserts
The model for a viable radical left is technocratic socialism—Bolivia under Arce—rather than Venezuela or Cuba.left governance models
asserts
We will never simply return to normal after Covid; permanent disturbance is the new condition, linked to ecological crisis.Covid and ecological crisis
asserts
Covid is a dress rehearsal for future ecological problems, not an isolated medical crisis.Covid / ecology nexus
asserts
Sexuality is an inherently ambiguous domain that cannot be adequately regulated by explicit consent rules without producing new forms of exploitation.MeToo / consent regulation
asserts
The typical male heterosexual structure is masturbation with a real partner—using the woman as a prop for one's own fantasy.male sexuality / Lacanian feminism
asserts
True love is rare and involves encountering the genuine abyss of the other, not merely realizing one's own fantasy.love and sexuality
asserts
The only realistic hope for the left is the radicalization of liberal democracy through a reasonable radical left.left political strategy
asserts
Trump is not a simple mistake but the expression of a deeper structural tendency toward the disintegration of liberal democracy.Trump / liberal democracy
asserts
Today the populist right has appropriated transgression and vulgarity, so the left should position itself as the voice of common decency and the moral majority.left cultural strategy
asserts
The pandemic is not merely a medical crisis but raises fundamental philosophical questions about what it means to be human.Covid and philosophy
asserts
Under Covid conditions, people are paradoxically more socially connected than ever through digital media while losing authentic solitude.social isolation / digital connectivity
reframes
Feminist recognition politics cannot be straightforwardly transposed onto sexuality, since many women consciously desire objectification within an erotic context.recognition / sexuality / feminism
rejects
Simple culturalist explanations for Asia's better Covid performance (social discipline, homogeneity) should be rejected.culturalist explanations for Covid success
reframes
Bernie Sanders represents mainstream European social democracy of half a century ago, not radical leftism.Sanders / left radicalism
Quotes 14
“No Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez without Trump. I think that this is part of the same process, the rise of the two of them.”Slavoj Žižek · Trump and left populism as co-products of the same structural process
“The true measure of a social upheaval is the day later. How do ordinary people feel the difference?”Slavoj Žižek · everyday material effects as the criterion of political change
“Voting for Biden is like asking a vampire to eat some garlic, but do it.”Slavoj Žižek · pragmatic lesser-evil electoral logic despite its unpleasantness
“Can you imagine a more relativistic postmodern president than Donald Trump? He is full of postmodern signs of obscenity, transgression.”Slavoj Žižek · Trump as embodiment of postmodern relativism
“Today the new populist right is openly vulgar... It's the time for us leftists to speak for ordinary people, common decency.”Slavoj Žižek · the left should reclaim moral majority from a transgressive right
“No wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro, fidelity to castration. You display it proudly.”Slavoj Žižek · left authenticism as masochistic pride in failure
“In the majority of cases of a normal straight heterosexual relationship, what man is doing with a woman is basically masturbation with a real partner.”Slavoj Žižek · Lacanian critique of male heterosexuality as fantasy-staging
“Love is not something that supplements sex. Love is sex at its most intensive.”Slavoj Žižek · love as the intensification rather than supplement of sexuality
“Lesbians are maybe the only true heterosexuals.”Slavoj Žižek · Lacan's inversion: male heterosexuality is structurally homosexual
“The pleasure of masochist contract is not only that it's a contract, but there is always an unwritten dimension of how each partner is expected to violate the contract a little bit.”Slavoj Žižek · the constitutive excess beyond any explicit contract in sexuality
“What I miss under Covid conditions is not more society blah blah blah, but being authentically alone.”unknown · Covid paradox: social hyper-connectivity destroys genuine solitude
“We are compelled to act unnaturally... we should accept this challenge and learn to behave unnaturally.”Slavoj Žižek · Covid demands we abandon naturalized social customs and reinvent ourselves
“I have a theory: you have to be stupid in a certain way to be a good politician.”Slavoj Žižek · the incompatibility of theoretical intelligence and effective politics
“Don't get fascinated by Trump. You give too much attention to him.”Slavoj Žižek · critique of Trump-obsession as a political distraction
Transcript 53 turns
unknown
Thank you very much for joining us today at the Oxford Political Review. I'm Brian Wong, the Editor-in-Chief, and we're incredibly, incredibly honored to be joined by the one and only Professor Slavoj Žižek. Professor is a renowned philosopher and amongst the most established theorists in the world today. I see you shaking your head, but it is genuinely our honor and pleasure to have you here. So, with all that said. It’s my pleasure,
Thank you very much for joining us today at the Oxford Political Review. I'm Brian Wong, the Editor-in-Chief, and we're incredibly, incredibly honored to be joined by the one and only Professor Slavoj Žižek. Professor is a renowned philosopher and amongst the most established theorists in the world today. I see you shaking your head, but it is genuinely our honor and pleasure to have you here. So, with all that said. It’s my pleasure,
Slavoj Žižek
it’s my pleasure to be with you, although I must say I’m undecided in this eternal struggle Oxford-Cambridge, you know.
it’s my pleasure to be with you, although I must say I’m undecided in this eternal struggle Oxford-Cambridge, you know.
unknown
Well, I think Oxford’s the analytic school whereas Cambridge is the historical school, so I suppose that’s a difference between the two of us, but I think that’s a superficial distinction anyway. But let’s start with just an interesting question about the US elections. I want to talk about Trump and the mess that’s happened or gone down yesterday. Now, in a op-ed for the Independent, Professor, you wrote that the fear that a Trump victory would turn the US into a fascist state is a ridiculous exaggeration, and you offered two arguments in support of this. The first is that the US had robust institutions and checks and balances to keep the president in check. And the second one is that the Trump victory triggered a process of radicalization that would galvanize the left and eventually fuel them and give them more energy and ammunition to fight the capitalistic structures. However, on the first, Trump's presidency seems to have continually eroded these very institutions and furthermore are continually eroding them as we speak right now, whereas on the second, the prophesied blue wave hasn't materialized and if anything, America's backslide into authoritarianism seems to have only accelerated as opposed to decelerated. What would you say to this statement? Do you think I’m making a doomsday scenario prophecy here?
Well, I think Oxford’s the analytic school whereas Cambridge is the historical school, so I suppose that’s a difference between the two of us, but I think that’s a superficial distinction anyway. But let’s start with just an interesting question about the US elections. I want to talk about Trump and the mess that’s happened or gone down yesterday. Now, in a op-ed for the Independent, Professor, you wrote that the fear that a Trump victory would turn the US into a fascist state is a ridiculous exaggeration, and you offered two arguments in support of this. The first is that the US had robust institutions and checks and balances to keep the president in check. And the second one is that the Trump victory triggered a process of radicalization that would galvanize the left and eventually fuel them and give them more energy and ammunition to fight the capitalistic structures. However, on the first, Trump's presidency seems to have continually eroded these very institutions and furthermore are continually eroding them as we speak right now, whereas on the second, the prophesied blue wave hasn't materialized and if anything, America's backslide into authoritarianism seems to have only accelerated as opposed to decelerated. What would you say to this statement? Do you think I’m making a doomsday scenario prophecy here?
Slavoj Žižek
No, I at one point I do disagree with myself a couple of years ago. I think, and many of my friends disagree with it, that to put it in one sentence: no Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez without Trump. I think that this is part of the same process, the rise of the two of them, which I call unfortunately, I’m not just glad about it, the disintegration, gradual disappearance of what we could have called liberal center. The way Trump is talking, it’s typical and I don’t think this is just a falsity. Of course it’s false, it’s crazy, but it has a political truth in it because you know what’s the paradox of truth? That ideological politics is a material force. Even if you say something that is obviously a total lie, this lie gets materialized in practices, in political positions. And stop me if I’m too long, but what I want to say is that in the same way as in Stalinism, where everybody who opposed Stalin, they didn’t recognize any democratic socialist opposition, you were a collaborator of Nazis, of British spy service, whatever. It’s the same with Trump. I noticed carefully that Melania Trump designated Biden as a socialist. She says he’s a socialist. Then what about Kamala Harris? Trump said it’s even worse, she’s a communist. Now we can say this is ridiculous. If there ever was a moderate guy, it’s Biden. But nonetheless, such statements introduce a certain division, radical division, what I call ideological civil war. And I claim this is the tendency today which I don’t praise but it’s a fact. This gradual losing of energy of what we once called tolerant, decent, liberal center. You know, which to me maybe even a much more tragic case than that of United States, France. Look, I’m not a political partisan of Emmanuel Macron, but he tried to play a certain correct, efficient, technocratic, decent game and he is more and more caught in a kind of hatred. I think the true tragedy was in France, you remember Yellow Vests protests. What was so tragic is that they expressed a certain discontent but in contrast to the United States, where Trump and partially democratic socialists captured part of this discontent, in France it didn’t work. The Yellow Vests were not able to transport, transfer their vision into an active political project. But I’m here, to avoid a misunderstanding, just important then I’ll... I am not saying you have to invent new forum which will give real expression to the people. No, these people's spontaneous rebellions and so on, they are inconsistent, they are always dangerous and so on. So I think, I don’t have a clear way out. I just think that a certain gap is appearing between let’s call it spontaneous self-perception ideology of ordinary people and that Trump was much more adept in catching this in on the the opposite side. Here I stick to my old analysis, Bernie Sanders did this. Bernie Sanders was very intelligent and bright. You know what was his formula? Drop that Biden obsession, we have to get centrist voters. No, Bernie said our aim should be to get those who otherwise would have voted for Trump, this populist discontent. He is almost, I know a nonsense of this, Trump of the left. So basically I still cling to my basic opinion that Trump is not a simple mistake. He expresses a certain tendency which is of disintegration of liberal democracy, and I think in the long term this is the direction the world is taking. And then as an old leftist, I say the only hope is radicalization of liberal democracy through reasonable radical left.
No, I at one point I do disagree with myself a couple of years ago. I think, and many of my friends disagree with it, that to put it in one sentence: no Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez without Trump. I think that this is part of the same process, the rise of the two of them, which I call unfortunately, I’m not just glad about it, the disintegration, gradual disappearance of what we could have called liberal center. The way Trump is talking, it’s typical and I don’t think this is just a falsity. Of course it’s false, it’s crazy, but it has a political truth in it because you know what’s the paradox of truth? That ideological politics is a material force. Even if you say something that is obviously a total lie, this lie gets materialized in practices, in political positions. And stop me if I’m too long, but what I want to say is that in the same way as in Stalinism, where everybody who opposed Stalin, they didn’t recognize any democratic socialist opposition, you were a collaborator of Nazis, of British spy service, whatever. It’s the same with Trump. I noticed carefully that Melania Trump designated Biden as a socialist. She says he’s a socialist. Then what about Kamala Harris? Trump said it’s even worse, she’s a communist. Now we can say this is ridiculous. If there ever was a moderate guy, it’s Biden. But nonetheless, such statements introduce a certain division, radical division, what I call ideological civil war. And I claim this is the tendency today which I don’t praise but it’s a fact. This gradual losing of energy of what we once called tolerant, decent, liberal center. You know, which to me maybe even a much more tragic case than that of United States, France. Look, I’m not a political partisan of Emmanuel Macron, but he tried to play a certain correct, efficient, technocratic, decent game and he is more and more caught in a kind of hatred. I think the true tragedy was in France, you remember Yellow Vests protests. What was so tragic is that they expressed a certain discontent but in contrast to the United States, where Trump and partially democratic socialists captured part of this discontent, in France it didn’t work. The Yellow Vests were not able to transport, transfer their vision into an active political project. But I’m here, to avoid a misunderstanding, just important then I’ll... I am not saying you have to invent new forum which will give real expression to the people. No, these people's spontaneous rebellions and so on, they are inconsistent, they are always dangerous and so on. So I think, I don’t have a clear way out. I just think that a certain gap is appearing between let’s call it spontaneous self-perception ideology of ordinary people and that Trump was much more adept in catching this in on the the opposite side. Here I stick to my old analysis, Bernie Sanders did this. Bernie Sanders was very intelligent and bright. You know what was his formula? Drop that Biden obsession, we have to get centrist voters. No, Bernie said our aim should be to get those who otherwise would have voted for Trump, this populist discontent. He is almost, I know a nonsense of this, Trump of the left. So basically I still cling to my basic opinion that Trump is not a simple mistake. He expresses a certain tendency which is of disintegration of liberal democracy, and I think in the long term this is the direction the world is taking. And then as an old leftist, I say the only hope is radicalization of liberal democracy through reasonable radical left.
unknown
I think they exist. The biggest sorry,
I think they exist. The biggest sorry,
Slavoj Žižek
I talk too much please.
I talk too much please.
unknown
If we look at some of the stats in terms of the states that have currently where Biden have either been trailing or have been performing less well even relative to Hillary Clinton, it’s largely states where basically Trump’s been painting him as leftist, as a pro-redistribution socialist, harking back to the fears of the Latino vote and the Latino block especially in Florida, but also the southeast in general about, you know, the dictatorship in their own countries. And rightly or wrongly, you know, I don’t necessarily want to make a value judgment on communism here, but it does strike me that if we’re talking about galvanizing these folks, Bernie Sanders would only alienate and disillusion even more of them simply because he’s seen as a left-wing figure, he’s seen as economically non-credible and even more statist and allegedly a Marxist than Biden. Now these are perceptions. I’m not saying this as a valid characterization, but I would just query the empirical efficacy of trying to push the party further to the populist left, further to the pro-redistribution side. What do you make of that claim? First, these are many problems you implied. First, if you know that’s our political tragedy, always I hear this Sanders radical leftist, but this is a sad sign of where we are today. If you go half a century or a little bit more even back to the golden era of European social democracy, not just Sweden, but also France, Germany, Willy Brandt and so on, you can see that Bernie Sanders is basically a reasonable version of social European social democracy, much less radical not only than Olof Palme in Sweden was, but that even Harold Wilson was and so on. So this reflects a global change of our political space. But this is why we should learn, I agree with you, if you make if we make a sudden radical leftist turn, we
If we look at some of the stats in terms of the states that have currently where Biden have either been trailing or have been performing less well even relative to Hillary Clinton, it’s largely states where basically Trump’s been painting him as leftist, as a pro-redistribution socialist, harking back to the fears of the Latino vote and the Latino block especially in Florida, but also the southeast in general about, you know, the dictatorship in their own countries. And rightly or wrongly, you know, I don’t necessarily want to make a value judgment on communism here, but it does strike me that if we’re talking about galvanizing these folks, Bernie Sanders would only alienate and disillusion even more of them simply because he’s seen as a left-wing figure, he’s seen as economically non-credible and even more statist and allegedly a Marxist than Biden. Now these are perceptions. I’m not saying this as a valid characterization, but I would just query the empirical efficacy of trying to push the party further to the populist left, further to the pro-redistribution side. What do you make of that claim? First, these are many problems you implied. First, if you know that’s our political tragedy, always I hear this Sanders radical leftist, but this is a sad sign of where we are today. If you go half a century or a little bit more even back to the golden era of European social democracy, not just Sweden, but also France, Germany, Willy Brandt and so on, you can see that Bernie Sanders is basically a reasonable version of social European social democracy, much less radical not only than Olof Palme in Sweden was, but that even Harold Wilson was and so on. So this reflects a global change of our political space. But this is why we should learn, I agree with you, if you make if we make a sudden radical leftist turn, we
unknown
alienate many voters. But on the other hand, it’s not as simple as that. Let’s take the lesson of Trump himself. He was doing on the opposite pole precisely this: no compromises with liberal center, shocking people again and again, not only with his personal
alienate many voters. But on the other hand, it’s not as simple as that. Let’s take the lesson of Trump himself. He was doing on the opposite pole precisely this: no compromises with liberal center, shocking people again and again, not only with his personal
Slavoj Žižek
tasteless style. So you know what would be my proposal to the left? You will maybe laugh at it, but you know where it worked triumphantly? For example, in Bolivia. You know Lucho Arce, I know him, we are half friends, the one who now took over. You know how he designates himself? Technocratic socialist. He knows very well about real economy. Bolivia is such a thorn in the eyes of the establishment because there you had a relatively radical left in power, but they didn’t become another Venezuela or Cuba. They didn’t screw it up. But Venezuela and Cuba screwed it up, right? Like Venezuela did screw it up. Listen please, you know and many leftists even now leftists hate me, you know when Fidel Castro died, you know what tasteless joke I made in my text? I said that they are so proud of their economic hardships. When I visited Cuba, they showed me the ruined buildings and so on, and they say, you see, we are ready to suffer but we are authentic, we will not be the and since I can call vaguely in psychoanalytic terms this suffering castration, you know, being deprived of something vital, I said and it didn’t pass well in Cuba, no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro, fidelity to castration. You display it proudly. And I never was sympathetic to Cuba, you know, because my god, don’t you hate those leftists who say we will remain faithful to our vision even if people starve and so on? No, I have a certain respect for ordinary people. I was never impressed by this "one million people protested on Tahrir Square" whatever on the street. Don’t you think that ordinary people have the right to ask this simple question: okay, big big emphatic event, enthusiasm, but the true measure of a social upheaval is the day later. How do ordinary people feel the difference? And in
tasteless style. So you know what would be my proposal to the left? You will maybe laugh at it, but you know where it worked triumphantly? For example, in Bolivia. You know Lucho Arce, I know him, we are half friends, the one who now took over. You know how he designates himself? Technocratic socialist. He knows very well about real economy. Bolivia is such a thorn in the eyes of the establishment because there you had a relatively radical left in power, but they didn’t become another Venezuela or Cuba. They didn’t screw it up. But Venezuela and Cuba screwed it up, right? Like Venezuela did screw it up. Listen please, you know and many leftists even now leftists hate me, you know when Fidel Castro died, you know what tasteless joke I made in my text? I said that they are so proud of their economic hardships. When I visited Cuba, they showed me the ruined buildings and so on, and they say, you see, we are ready to suffer but we are authentic, we will not be the and since I can call vaguely in psychoanalytic terms this suffering castration, you know, being deprived of something vital, I said and it didn’t pass well in Cuba, no wonder your leader is called Fidel Castro, fidelity to castration. You display it proudly. And I never was sympathetic to Cuba, you know, because my god, don’t you hate those leftists who say we will remain faithful to our vision even if people starve and so on? No, I have a certain respect for ordinary people. I was never impressed by this "one million people protested on Tahrir Square" whatever on the street. Don’t you think that ordinary people have the right to ask this simple question: okay, big big emphatic event, enthusiasm, but the true measure of a social upheaval is the day later. How do ordinary people feel the difference? And in
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Bolivia, they did. Life got really at the everyday life better there.
Bolivia, they did. Life got really at the everyday life better there.
Slavoj Žižek
So I am not for some crazy radical left and even Bernie maybe sometimes he was rhetorically too radical, but you know who is my bright hope but she is too young still Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Already when Bernie Sanders was doing his big stuff, she was warning: wait a minute, we are talking about a lot of things now, universal health care blah blah blah, it’s not so simple as that. And I think there is a chance of this today. You know why? Now I come to my last point but you can interrupt me, ask me. Because when I’m talking about a leftist turn, I’m not talking about some visionary new communist party and so on. I’m talking about what the Covid pandemic is forcing us to do. I read a commentary in Financial Times months ago which said are we aware that now Boris Johnson is doing things like partially nationalizing
So I am not for some crazy radical left and even Bernie maybe sometimes he was rhetorically too radical, but you know who is my bright hope but she is too young still Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Already when Bernie Sanders was doing his big stuff, she was warning: wait a minute, we are talking about a lot of things now, universal health care blah blah blah, it’s not so simple as that. And I think there is a chance of this today. You know why? Now I come to my last point but you can interrupt me, ask me. Because when I’m talking about a leftist turn, I’m not talking about some visionary new communist party and so on. I’m talking about what the Covid pandemic is forcing us to do. I read a commentary in Financial Times months ago which said are we aware that now Boris Johnson is doing things like partially nationalizing
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railways and so on where if a
railways and so on where if a
Slavoj Žižek
leftist were to propose this a year ago, he would have dismissed as a leftist... Can I interrupt you here actually, because I think that’s a very interesting point, but the problem with a lot of the proposals or describing what BoJo is doing or you know what’s being done in Europe as leftist is I think that mistakes basically increased state presence in adapting to or adapting within neoliberal frameworks. See if right now the increase of wealth and benefits still within a neoliberal framework of conditionalizing it upon work, and also how the offering of unconditional welfare support by Rishi Sunak again conditional upon so-called contribution and work, and again the nationalization partially of infrastructure even though there’s a lot of pushback and resistance even from within the Tories, that’s not necessarily left-wing socialism or communism. That’s just basically the neoliberal bourgeois establishment adapting to ensure that they can preserve their own survival. Whereas if we’re genuinely talking about what sort of Mark Fisher’s idea of non-capitalist realism or communist realism, you don’t really see that kind of communist realism in puritanism in current policies even from the Tories, but instead it’s just a capitalistic establishment as you said co-opting left-wing rhetoric, co-opting left-wing strategies to legitimize their own right-wing agenda. But here I stick, I know I often hear this argument, it’s a common one. But I I stick to my analysis for a very paradoxical reason. Because I’m more of an of a pessimist. That is to say, when people say this, they still conceive the pandemic as an event which will last for maybe a year and then during this time, of course as in World War II, those in power establishment bourgeoisie makes a compromise. But I think this will simply go on. Listen, that’s why Europe
leftist were to propose this a year ago, he would have dismissed as a leftist... Can I interrupt you here actually, because I think that’s a very interesting point, but the problem with a lot of the proposals or describing what BoJo is doing or you know what’s being done in Europe as leftist is I think that mistakes basically increased state presence in adapting to or adapting within neoliberal frameworks. See if right now the increase of wealth and benefits still within a neoliberal framework of conditionalizing it upon work, and also how the offering of unconditional welfare support by Rishi Sunak again conditional upon so-called contribution and work, and again the nationalization partially of infrastructure even though there’s a lot of pushback and resistance even from within the Tories, that’s not necessarily left-wing socialism or communism. That’s just basically the neoliberal bourgeois establishment adapting to ensure that they can preserve their own survival. Whereas if we’re genuinely talking about what sort of Mark Fisher’s idea of non-capitalist realism or communist realism, you don’t really see that kind of communist realism in puritanism in current policies even from the Tories, but instead it’s just a capitalistic establishment as you said co-opting left-wing rhetoric, co-opting left-wing strategies to legitimize their own right-wing agenda. But here I stick, I know I often hear this argument, it’s a common one. But I I stick to my analysis for a very paradoxical reason. Because I’m more of an of a pessimist. That is to say, when people say this, they still conceive the pandemic as an event which will last for maybe a year and then during this time, of course as in World War II, those in power establishment bourgeoisie makes a compromise. But I think this will simply go on. Listen, that’s why Europe
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makes me so sad. After March, April when it got a little bit better in during the summer, Europe thought okay we survived it now we can relax a little bit. It was, I totally agree with you, that they just made small concessions to get through it. But my analysis is unfortunately we will never maybe get simply through it. We have now second wave, we have other threats. Are you aware for example, I’m focused on that, it’s a nightmare. Even Putin admitted it. What is happening in Northern Siberia? That methanol whatever gases exploding, temperature rising on Northern Siberian Arctic coast. This summer temperatures rise over degrees Celsius and so on. So I think that we are approaching a new era of permanent disturbances. And that’s why I think that although it is as you said intended from the side of those in power as just short period of compromises, then we will return to normal. That simply sorry, we will never return to normal. And that’s for me the tragedy of Europe now. They thought the worst is over in summer, let’s return to open market and we are where we are now. I think where I want to push where I would dispute your pessimism though Professor is if you look at Asia, a lot of Asian countries have largely returned to normal. So there’s a talk of travel bubbles, there’s talk of resuming travel and the case numbers in a lot of these countries have been kept to a very, very low single digit numbers and I speak from first hand experience coming from a city in my country. And in that sense it strikes me that maybe it’s
makes me so sad. After March, April when it got a little bit better in during the summer, Europe thought okay we survived it now we can relax a little bit. It was, I totally agree with you, that they just made small concessions to get through it. But my analysis is unfortunately we will never maybe get simply through it. We have now second wave, we have other threats. Are you aware for example, I’m focused on that, it’s a nightmare. Even Putin admitted it. What is happening in Northern Siberia? That methanol whatever gases exploding, temperature rising on Northern Siberian Arctic coast. This summer temperatures rise over degrees Celsius and so on. So I think that we are approaching a new era of permanent disturbances. And that’s why I think that although it is as you said intended from the side of those in power as just short period of compromises, then we will return to normal. That simply sorry, we will never return to normal. And that’s for me the tragedy of Europe now. They thought the worst is over in summer, let’s return to open market and we are where we are now. I think where I want to push where I would dispute your pessimism though Professor is if you look at Asia, a lot of Asian countries have largely returned to normal. So there’s a talk of travel bubbles, there’s talk of resuming travel and the case numbers in a lot of these countries have been kept to a very, very low single digit numbers and I speak from first hand experience coming from a city in my country. And in that sense it strikes me that maybe it’s
Slavoj Žižek
not the case that the fates of countries or the fates of the world must necessarily be a new normal of instability and disturbance per Covid. I think there are other crises that are going to inevitably crop up, but I think on the issue of Covid, we might want to compartmentalize Covid from these other issues because otherwise we’d be just homogenizing them and creating an essentialization of discourses of crisis that I think are more nuanced. I agree with you and it’s a very interesting point why is Asia is doing better. First, I reject this simple culturalist approach because Asians are more homogenized, disciplined, sense of social solidarity. Well, sorry, it it holds also for New Zealand and Australia, no? Exactly. There is something there but and I know all this, but what I think is that I agree with you we shouldn’t fall into this paranoia, Covid is just part of a global catastrophe. But nonetheless, it’s clear that Covid crisis is also somehow linked with ecological problems, not directly but at least with our entire mode of production and I would here rehabilitate what some people like Kohei Saito, the Japanese who works in Germany, called eco-socialism. Not in any ideal sense of celebrating nature, but he demonstrates that Marx in his last years was very attentive to what he called Stoffwechsel, in exchange of stuff, material exchange in social reproduction. And here we are approaching stronger and stronger disturbances and you know where I see the real trouble? Just allow me to tell this. For example, how nature remains impenetrable, we don’t know what will happen. Do you remember how glad we were in the first lockdown, March-April, when we saw all those satellite pictures, the dark grey clouds disappear, the air is much better? But as some intelligent meteorologist warned, this is why the typhoons there were so strong. You know you do a partial good measure like diminishing air pollution, but you know nature can be
not the case that the fates of countries or the fates of the world must necessarily be a new normal of instability and disturbance per Covid. I think there are other crises that are going to inevitably crop up, but I think on the issue of Covid, we might want to compartmentalize Covid from these other issues because otherwise we’d be just homogenizing them and creating an essentialization of discourses of crisis that I think are more nuanced. I agree with you and it’s a very interesting point why is Asia is doing better. First, I reject this simple culturalist approach because Asians are more homogenized, disciplined, sense of social solidarity. Well, sorry, it it holds also for New Zealand and Australia, no? Exactly. There is something there but and I know all this, but what I think is that I agree with you we shouldn’t fall into this paranoia, Covid is just part of a global catastrophe. But nonetheless, it’s clear that Covid crisis is also somehow linked with ecological problems, not directly but at least with our entire mode of production and I would here rehabilitate what some people like Kohei Saito, the Japanese who works in Germany, called eco-socialism. Not in any ideal sense of celebrating nature, but he demonstrates that Marx in his last years was very attentive to what he called Stoffwechsel, in exchange of stuff, material exchange in social reproduction. And here we are approaching stronger and stronger disturbances and you know where I see the real trouble? Just allow me to tell this. For example, how nature remains impenetrable, we don’t know what will happen. Do you remember how glad we were in the first lockdown, March-April, when we saw all those satellite pictures, the dark grey clouds disappear, the air is much better? But as some intelligent meteorologist warned, this is why the typhoons there were so strong. You know you do a partial good measure like diminishing air pollution, but you know nature can be
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already adapted to that level of pollution. So if you simply diminish just that, you never know what you will trigger. So in a more global sense, I nonetheless think that we should be yes we should focus on single struggles. I agree with you. Covid is Covid. Or Julian Assange, his greatness of WikiLeaks is not that and I appreciate this with him, he doesn’t fight for some general general social change. He is focused on a certain typical problem: how state controls us, hides crucial information, how Google Google is connected with state apparatuses and so on and so on. But nonetheless, I claim these fights are interconnected. Effects on Covid are racist also, and I agree with the French guy Bruno Latour who said that Covid is just a dress rehearsal for future ecological problems to rise to come. So in the long term, yes, I wish all the best to to China and don’t forget Taiwan. You know, all people praise China but the true triumph is Taiwan, you know. So there obviously is something wrong with the type of Western individualism we were used to. That’s
already adapted to that level of pollution. So if you simply diminish just that, you never know what you will trigger. So in a more global sense, I nonetheless think that we should be yes we should focus on single struggles. I agree with you. Covid is Covid. Or Julian Assange, his greatness of WikiLeaks is not that and I appreciate this with him, he doesn’t fight for some general general social change. He is focused on a certain typical problem: how state controls us, hides crucial information, how Google Google is connected with state apparatuses and so on and so on. But nonetheless, I claim these fights are interconnected. Effects on Covid are racist also, and I agree with the French guy Bruno Latour who said that Covid is just a dress rehearsal for future ecological problems to rise to come. So in the long term, yes, I wish all the best to to China and don’t forget Taiwan. You know, all people praise China but the true triumph is Taiwan, you know. So there obviously is something wrong with the type of Western individualism we were used to. That’s
Slavoj Žižek
for me the tragedy of France as I already said. Look at Macron. You may not like him, but he tried to be he is for me Macron at this moment maybe with Merkel the European left-liberal establishment at its best. But there is an incredible gap between French state apparatus and experience of people. In France they have this tradition which for me is not necessarily even leftist that when the state orders something it’s bad. Sorry, I make you nervous where is your domina aspect, beat me, stop me. Okay alrighty so on a question of dominatrix and domineering, I want to just segue into the second half of our discussion about philosophy because I’m also formally trained more as a philosopher than a political scientist. But where are you, which so that I can locate you in my Stalinist cognitive map. Where are you in philosophy? I’m interested in technically analytic political philosophy, although recently I’ve ended up in the bizarre territory where Arendt intersects Raymond Geuss and also intersects basically Foucault in terms of deconstructing the practice of politics. So I see my role as a theorist also as an activist and also as a political figure intrinsically there. And indeed I wanted to ask you a question really because in a recent interview responding to the backlash you received over your critique of Me Too, you said sexuality is a complex domain with implied meanings and ambiguities, and you cannot translate it into rules. You then term Me Too a new seduction under the spell of a certain kind of legalism. Now I definitely get where you’re coming from, professor, and I think that leads into or blends into what you talked about just then about the big state and also the overarching tendency to capture everything under the panopticon of judgment by society at large. But isn’t this argument template that something or some X such as the family or love or relationship that it should be beyond regulation, isn’t this the very precise argument template that’s been wielded by the powerful like men like those who are cis-heterosexual to basically justify historically violent oppressive practices like assault or the androcentric and asymmetrical distribution of domestic labor? So that’s my question there. No, I am here truly radically feminist. I just want to this is what is my emphasis at abstract philosophical level and at the level of concrete practices. Don’t underestimate the power of what an American leftist feminist Nancy Fraser called corporate corporate neoliberal feminism. How American feminism has also its dark side. That’s one thing and it’s even often used, I so often detected in the United States, the class bias of feminism. They don’t say, but when they criticize brutal male violence, they really mean Hispanics and so on, you know those deemed lower. But my basic philosophical point is that of course some basic things should be regulated. But isn’t it that sexuality, and if we learned anything from Freud, it is this, is in itself an ambiguous, not ambiguous is not a good word, but this kind of a unclear unclear phenomenon where you never know what something means. You not you, you are not English, but isn’t for example there something in British character which lends itself to arrogant brutality which remains very polite at a superficial level? But it can be very aggressive. On the other hand, I think that a true friendship always involves what may appear even a racist joke, but it can work as a level of solidarity. So what I’m saying is that what Me Too people for example when they say no means no or mutual consent. You know they even have,
for me the tragedy of France as I already said. Look at Macron. You may not like him, but he tried to be he is for me Macron at this moment maybe with Merkel the European left-liberal establishment at its best. But there is an incredible gap between French state apparatus and experience of people. In France they have this tradition which for me is not necessarily even leftist that when the state orders something it’s bad. Sorry, I make you nervous where is your domina aspect, beat me, stop me. Okay alrighty so on a question of dominatrix and domineering, I want to just segue into the second half of our discussion about philosophy because I’m also formally trained more as a philosopher than a political scientist. But where are you, which so that I can locate you in my Stalinist cognitive map. Where are you in philosophy? I’m interested in technically analytic political philosophy, although recently I’ve ended up in the bizarre territory where Arendt intersects Raymond Geuss and also intersects basically Foucault in terms of deconstructing the practice of politics. So I see my role as a theorist also as an activist and also as a political figure intrinsically there. And indeed I wanted to ask you a question really because in a recent interview responding to the backlash you received over your critique of Me Too, you said sexuality is a complex domain with implied meanings and ambiguities, and you cannot translate it into rules. You then term Me Too a new seduction under the spell of a certain kind of legalism. Now I definitely get where you’re coming from, professor, and I think that leads into or blends into what you talked about just then about the big state and also the overarching tendency to capture everything under the panopticon of judgment by society at large. But isn’t this argument template that something or some X such as the family or love or relationship that it should be beyond regulation, isn’t this the very precise argument template that’s been wielded by the powerful like men like those who are cis-heterosexual to basically justify historically violent oppressive practices like assault or the androcentric and asymmetrical distribution of domestic labor? So that’s my question there. No, I am here truly radically feminist. I just want to this is what is my emphasis at abstract philosophical level and at the level of concrete practices. Don’t underestimate the power of what an American leftist feminist Nancy Fraser called corporate corporate neoliberal feminism. How American feminism has also its dark side. That’s one thing and it’s even often used, I so often detected in the United States, the class bias of feminism. They don’t say, but when they criticize brutal male violence, they really mean Hispanics and so on, you know those deemed lower. But my basic philosophical point is that of course some basic things should be regulated. But isn’t it that sexuality, and if we learned anything from Freud, it is this, is in itself an ambiguous, not ambiguous is not a good word, but this kind of a unclear unclear phenomenon where you never know what something means. You not you, you are not English, but isn’t for example there something in British character which lends itself to arrogant brutality which remains very polite at a superficial level? But it can be very aggressive. On the other hand, I think that a true friendship always involves what may appear even a racist joke, but it can work as a level of solidarity. So what I’m saying is that what Me Too people for example when they say no means no or mutual consent. You know they even have,
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I think in New South Wales in Australia, nobody accepted it but they passed a legal regulation that somehow the consent of both partners if they want to make love should be registered by signing a paper, taking a short video clip "we both want to do it." But are
I think in New South Wales in Australia, nobody accepted it but they passed a legal regulation that somehow the consent of both partners if they want to make love should be registered by signing a paper, taking a short video clip "we both want to do it." But are
Slavoj Žižek
they
they
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afraid that there’s a certain part aspect of erotic tension where doing like this ruins everything? There are women who want to do it but for whom saying explicitly yes in this sense is humiliating. The last thing, there are you know when when you say there can be masochism but consensual. No, part of the masochist enjoyment is precisely that you play it being non-consensual. Now I am here of course for regulations and so on and so on. I’m just saying that sexuality is in itself a matter of ambiguities, rejection can function as and that so don’t go far too far with explicit regulations because in this way you can open up the way even for even a worse exploitation. Let me tell you an example that I give in one of my books. You know one of the big political correct advices, and I basically agree with it, is that it’s not that you once say yes and then the other guy can do whatever he she wants with you. At every point you have the right to withdraw, no? But you
afraid that there’s a certain part aspect of erotic tension where doing like this ruins everything? There are women who want to do it but for whom saying explicitly yes in this sense is humiliating. The last thing, there are you know when when you say there can be masochism but consensual. No, part of the masochist enjoyment is precisely that you play it being non-consensual. Now I am here of course for regulations and so on and so on. I’m just saying that sexuality is in itself a matter of ambiguities, rejection can function as and that so don’t go far too far with explicit regulations because in this way you can open up the way even for even a worse exploitation. Let me tell you an example that I give in one of my books. You know one of the big political correct advices, and I basically agree with it, is that it’s not that you once say yes and then the other guy can do whatever he she wants with you. At every point you have the right to withdraw, no? But you
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know I know many I know men and women who use this rule to further humiliate the partner. Can you imagine a woman or a man, let’s take a man who excites a woman and then on the verge of penetrating him she says sorry I’m not in the mood I withdraw? Can you imagine a more horrible humiliation? That’s why that’s my problem that sexuality is full of masochist moments, ambiguities and so on. The basic formula of Freud's sexuality is perversion, perversion means that you enjoy the displeasure itself. You cannot regulate pleasure. Professor, isn’t the best form of masochism though the ability to withhold and the ability to control precisely and stipulate precisely the
know I know many I know men and women who use this rule to further humiliate the partner. Can you imagine a woman or a man, let’s take a man who excites a woman and then on the verge of penetrating him she says sorry I’m not in the mood I withdraw? Can you imagine a more horrible humiliation? That’s why that’s my problem that sexuality is full of masochist moments, ambiguities and so on. The basic formula of Freud's sexuality is perversion, perversion means that you enjoy the displeasure itself. You cannot regulate pleasure. Professor, isn’t the best form of masochism though the ability to withhold and the ability to control precisely and stipulate precisely the
Slavoj Žižek
boundaries of where sex lies? Because that is in accordance with the Sadeks right, the most excruciating thing in life is to be able to carry out Onanism and to rein yourself in. So surely the ability to transform sex into something that is controlled within the realm of consent, that is masochism to the highest levels and of the highest extent, and I guess that is where I’d push back with two further responses as well. Firstly, that you mentioned Nancy Fraser just then. Nancy’s quite big on recognition politics, drawing upon Charles Taylor, but one of the arguments that Nancy says is you want people to be recognized as autonomous agents to partake in the markets but also to partake in a private domain, which is where she takes issue with Axel Honneth, and I think that’s also where she says if I don’t recognize others' consent or autonomy, then that failure to recognize them is akin to a form of symbolic violence and erasure of them. And that is why prudently, on one hand you might have a risk of crushing individual’s ability to derive pleasure from sex, but on the other hand you have the possibility of infringing upon the most sacrosanct moments and the most sacrosanct parts of individual’s bodies, i.e. the product of sexual assault, of rape and other forms of violence. So surely prudently, doesn’t the benefit of doubt rest with preventing the latter form of violence from happening because it’s so much more visceral and intimate than the former form? So I think that’s my rejoinder against your very, very sound and interesting argument there. Yeah, but still I I claim that sexuality is such a mess that even for example the talk topic of recognition. It’s very difficult to say how to transpose it into sexuality. I know men and women who are even women, feminists, very active, and they say it’s a beautiful statement. They say I have enough of recognition in my feminist struggles and so on, but when I, will not use the
boundaries of where sex lies? Because that is in accordance with the Sadeks right, the most excruciating thing in life is to be able to carry out Onanism and to rein yourself in. So surely the ability to transform sex into something that is controlled within the realm of consent, that is masochism to the highest levels and of the highest extent, and I guess that is where I’d push back with two further responses as well. Firstly, that you mentioned Nancy Fraser just then. Nancy’s quite big on recognition politics, drawing upon Charles Taylor, but one of the arguments that Nancy says is you want people to be recognized as autonomous agents to partake in the markets but also to partake in a private domain, which is where she takes issue with Axel Honneth, and I think that’s also where she says if I don’t recognize others' consent or autonomy, then that failure to recognize them is akin to a form of symbolic violence and erasure of them. And that is why prudently, on one hand you might have a risk of crushing individual’s ability to derive pleasure from sex, but on the other hand you have the possibility of infringing upon the most sacrosanct moments and the most sacrosanct parts of individual’s bodies, i.e. the product of sexual assault, of rape and other forms of violence. So surely prudently, doesn’t the benefit of doubt rest with preventing the latter form of violence from happening because it’s so much more visceral and intimate than the former form? So I think that’s my rejoinder against your very, very sound and interesting argument there. Yeah, but still I I claim that sexuality is such a mess that even for example the talk topic of recognition. It’s very difficult to say how to transpose it into sexuality. I know men and women who are even women, feminists, very active, and they say it’s a beautiful statement. They say I have enough of recognition in my feminist struggles and so on, but when I, will not use the
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dirty word, when I
dirty word, when I
Slavoj Žižek
want to get "f...ed," I want to be objectivized. None of that "I love you, I respect you." I want to be an object. I want to see men, the man my partner, just fully enjoying in me. That’s what I like. I think this is this is immanent to sexuality and the moment you want to regulate this, that’s another feminist, I don’t know which one who very nicely pointed out, if you move in this direction of consent, even regulated consent in the sense that you which in a way it’s reasonable in Julian Assange told me this, you know that they are already making experiment with this in in Sweden. That the idea is before you make love with a new partner, each of you fills out a form. Name, age, what illnesses you have and what are your limits. For example, no anal intercourse, I don’t know what and so on and so on. What I’m saying is that don’t we approach in this way the idea that what in sadomasochism is called a masochist contract is the ultimate form of sexuality? Because the whole pleasure, I love masochism although I don’t practice it, because it’s for me the ultimate bureaucratization of sex. You know, some masochist admitted to me the act itself them it’s almost irrelevant. The pleasure is to fill in the form: we do this, you can do this, but then you put your finger there. Yes, professor, could I interrupt you there because I think that’s a very fair point, but I just want
want to get "f...ed," I want to be objectivized. None of that "I love you, I respect you." I want to be an object. I want to see men, the man my partner, just fully enjoying in me. That’s what I like. I think this is this is immanent to sexuality and the moment you want to regulate this, that’s another feminist, I don’t know which one who very nicely pointed out, if you move in this direction of consent, even regulated consent in the sense that you which in a way it’s reasonable in Julian Assange told me this, you know that they are already making experiment with this in in Sweden. That the idea is before you make love with a new partner, each of you fills out a form. Name, age, what illnesses you have and what are your limits. For example, no anal intercourse, I don’t know what and so on and so on. What I’m saying is that don’t we approach in this way the idea that what in sadomasochism is called a masochist contract is the ultimate form of sexuality? Because the whole pleasure, I love masochism although I don’t practice it, because it’s for me the ultimate bureaucratization of sex. You know, some masochist admitted to me the act itself them it’s almost irrelevant. The pleasure is to fill in the form: we do this, you can do this, but then you put your finger there. Yes, professor, could I interrupt you there because I think that’s a very fair point, but I just want
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to say, because I think Laura Mulvey’s argument is something that we’ve also read and I think Laura Mulvey basically argued exactly what you talked about right there. But the trouble here is in real life, the reality here is sex is often wielded by men, to borrow the words of Germaine Greer, as an instrument, as a site of reproducing and manifesting their own desires with no regard to the identities and needs and interests of the women. And I think that’s... Here totally agree. My god, this is... No no no no, I not only agree, I even gave examples as a Lacanian. Lacan says somewhere, and this is for me a beautiful feminist statement, that in the majority majority of cases of a normal, under quotation marks, straight heterosexual relationship, what man is doing with a woman is basically masturbation with a real partner. No? You just use woman as a kind of a plastic dildo but real-life prop to realize to stage your fantasy. You don’t relate to woman as an actual other. You use woman as a prop to realize your fantasy. That’s the typical, I claim, male structure. And very rarely, and that’s why I’m an old romantic and I’m for love, because I think love, love, and I believe in passionate love, love doesn’t have the structure of masturbation with a masturbating with a real partner. In love you feel, as it were, the abyss of the other. And for me this was always so obvious. Listen, if you just realize your fantasies, you are with a partner, okay, you do it, you enjoy actualizing your fantasy. But love for me means that let’s say, I will not be tasteless but open, you are in the middle of sex, you hold your partner in your hand, all the trembling. For me it’s too if
to say, because I think Laura Mulvey’s argument is something that we’ve also read and I think Laura Mulvey basically argued exactly what you talked about right there. But the trouble here is in real life, the reality here is sex is often wielded by men, to borrow the words of Germaine Greer, as an instrument, as a site of reproducing and manifesting their own desires with no regard to the identities and needs and interests of the women. And I think that’s... Here totally agree. My god, this is... No no no no, I not only agree, I even gave examples as a Lacanian. Lacan says somewhere, and this is for me a beautiful feminist statement, that in the majority majority of cases of a normal, under quotation marks, straight heterosexual relationship, what man is doing with a woman is basically masturbation with a real partner. No? You just use woman as a kind of a plastic dildo but real-life prop to realize to stage your fantasy. You don’t relate to woman as an actual other. You use woman as a prop to realize your fantasy. That’s the typical, I claim, male structure. And very rarely, and that’s why I’m an old romantic and I’m for love, because I think love, love, and I believe in passionate love, love doesn’t have the structure of masturbation with a masturbating with a real partner. In love you feel, as it were, the abyss of the other. And for me this was always so obvious. Listen, if you just realize your fantasies, you are with a partner, okay, you do it, you enjoy actualizing your fantasy. But love for me means that let’s say, I will not be tasteless but open, you are in the middle of sex, you hold your partner in your hand, all the trembling. For me it’s too if
Slavoj Žižek
you are in love, it’s something so beautiful because it’s not just sexually attractive body there. It’s but this body is my love. You for me, true love is you almost cannot believe what a beautiful thing is happening. That abyss person whom I don’t even know, she or he is here ready to give herself to me. This is metaphysics for me. Love is not something that supplements sex. Love is sex at its most intensive. Only that then in this case, love becomes truly heterosexual. Or into the other. And Lacan here is very clear. He praises heterosexuality, but you know what he adds? That lesbians are maybe the only true heterosexuals. That male structure is of love, even for woman, is homosexual in the sense of you use your partner as a prop for basically enjoying your fantasies. So I try to you see what I try to do. Unite the most radical feminism and so on with with complicating things and breaking out of this politically correct masochist or sadomasochist contract. The whole point of isn’t isn’t the even if you have many of my masochist friends told me that the pleasure of masochist contract is not only that it’s a contract, but there is always an unwritten dimension of how each partner is expected to violate the contract a little bit. But not in an aggressive way. Not "I will beat you more," but in a way of "oh my god, it’s the most beautiful part how you violated that contract." I think your conception of relationship is really interesting, but my worry here is don’t you think this is your conception, but a lot of folks may not see sex as that engagement with the abyss or engagement with that phallocentric sort of construct that is
you are in love, it’s something so beautiful because it’s not just sexually attractive body there. It’s but this body is my love. You for me, true love is you almost cannot believe what a beautiful thing is happening. That abyss person whom I don’t even know, she or he is here ready to give herself to me. This is metaphysics for me. Love is not something that supplements sex. Love is sex at its most intensive. Only that then in this case, love becomes truly heterosexual. Or into the other. And Lacan here is very clear. He praises heterosexuality, but you know what he adds? That lesbians are maybe the only true heterosexuals. That male structure is of love, even for woman, is homosexual in the sense of you use your partner as a prop for basically enjoying your fantasies. So I try to you see what I try to do. Unite the most radical feminism and so on with with complicating things and breaking out of this politically correct masochist or sadomasochist contract. The whole point of isn’t isn’t the even if you have many of my masochist friends told me that the pleasure of masochist contract is not only that it’s a contract, but there is always an unwritten dimension of how each partner is expected to violate the contract a little bit. But not in an aggressive way. Not "I will beat you more," but in a way of "oh my god, it’s the most beautiful part how you violated that contract." I think your conception of relationship is really interesting, but my worry here is don’t you think this is your conception, but a lot of folks may not see sex as that engagement with the abyss or engagement with that phallocentric sort of construct that is
unknown
Lacanian, right? Because some folks might see sex as a very different thing, as a form of exchange in the most intimate manner without that domineering, without that form of mutual masturbation. And I don’t know if we could reasonably say that that’s wrong or that our conception of sex is correct. And I think that’s the benefit of doubt or that epistemic uncertainty is what I’m quite worried about. Okay, I agree with you, but I draw a maybe too romantic radical
Lacanian, right? Because some folks might see sex as a very different thing, as a form of exchange in the most intimate manner without that domineering, without that form of mutual masturbation. And I don’t know if we could reasonably say that that’s wrong or that our conception of sex is correct. And I think that’s the benefit of doubt or that epistemic uncertainty is what I’m quite worried about. Okay, I agree with you, but I draw a maybe too romantic radical
Slavoj Žižek
conclusion. I’m basically an old if this is possible traditional romantic but feminist romantic. What I’m just claiming is that yes, in majority of cases it’s like this. But that’s why I’m an elitist here, not elitist in the sense of intellectual elite, it happens to everybody. I just say following my friend Alain Badiou that true authentic love is rare. It’s not something that happens all the time. But when it happens, you know it and it’s maybe the most difficult thing that can happen to you. Can I just ask you though on that note, would you take the blue pill or the red pill? You know what’s the problem, I’ve written about it. That unfortunately today the term "red pill," which means I think I’m ready to take the truth, no? The term the red pill was now appropriated by Covid deniers, you know. They claim the true the true ideological dream is that this this reality everyday reality is a is a is a fake and that there are some secret mechanisms and so on paranoia theories. I am of of which is why I think the point is not simply to confront the truth. If you just play this game, then you are in this choice between on the one hand Covid deniers even if not radical deniers, there can be also progressive Covid deniers like Giorgio Agamben, who claims that it’s exaggerated Covid and authorities just use it to establish perfect control. Or what I call this screen new deal. We should accept to be totally controlled, regulated, we should live each in a we should accept it in our bubble. But I think that first I never make this is the philosophical aspect, I never make fun of those who are Covid deniers, you know for with Covid, with the new rules of isolation, social distancing, quarantine, in some sense our humanity, the way we understood it until now, is falling apart. No wonder that some people everywhere, and they are not crazy right-wing paranoiacs, claim sorry but to take distance from
conclusion. I’m basically an old if this is possible traditional romantic but feminist romantic. What I’m just claiming is that yes, in majority of cases it’s like this. But that’s why I’m an elitist here, not elitist in the sense of intellectual elite, it happens to everybody. I just say following my friend Alain Badiou that true authentic love is rare. It’s not something that happens all the time. But when it happens, you know it and it’s maybe the most difficult thing that can happen to you. Can I just ask you though on that note, would you take the blue pill or the red pill? You know what’s the problem, I’ve written about it. That unfortunately today the term "red pill," which means I think I’m ready to take the truth, no? The term the red pill was now appropriated by Covid deniers, you know. They claim the true the true ideological dream is that this this reality everyday reality is a is a is a fake and that there are some secret mechanisms and so on paranoia theories. I am of of which is why I think the point is not simply to confront the truth. If you just play this game, then you are in this choice between on the one hand Covid deniers even if not radical deniers, there can be also progressive Covid deniers like Giorgio Agamben, who claims that it’s exaggerated Covid and authorities just use it to establish perfect control. Or what I call this screen new deal. We should accept to be totally controlled, regulated, we should live each in a we should accept it in our bubble. But I think that first I never make this is the philosophical aspect, I never make fun of those who are Covid deniers, you know for with Covid, with the new rules of isolation, social distancing, quarantine, in some sense our humanity, the way we understood it until now, is falling apart. No wonder that some people everywhere, and they are not crazy right-wing paranoiacs, claim sorry but to take distance from
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others, to wear a
others, to wear a
Slavoj Žižek
mask all the time, then I’m like a dog with a muzzle, I’m no longer human. And that’s what I it’s obscene to say like but find stimulating in Covid. It raises it confronts us with fundamental questions. What is being human? For example, I read some ordinary American people who oppose wearing masks, and their argument is not this is a communist Chinese or big corporation plot, they say obeying all these rules, quarantine rules, I am deprived of my
mask all the time, then I’m like a dog with a muzzle, I’m no longer human. And that’s what I it’s obscene to say like but find stimulating in Covid. It raises it confronts us with fundamental questions. What is being human? For example, I read some ordinary American people who oppose wearing masks, and their argument is not this is a communist Chinese or big corporation plot, they say obeying all these rules, quarantine rules, I am deprived of my
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basic freedom and dignity.
basic freedom and dignity.
Slavoj Žižek
I think as a philosopher the first thing we should do here, I hope you will agree, is just to look more closely at the things. For example, all this complaint we are now more isolated. We are not, we are maybe bodily more isolated. But are you aware that socially in situation of in a situation of quarantine and bodily distancing, we are through digital media, through total control by the state where we are, we
I think as a philosopher the first thing we should do here, I hope you will agree, is just to look more closely at the things. For example, all this complaint we are now more isolated. We are not, we are maybe bodily more isolated. But are you aware that socially in situation of in a situation of quarantine and bodily distancing, we are through digital media, through total control by the state where we are, we
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are more socialized, more open to society more than ever. What I miss under Covid conditions, pandemic, what I miss is not more society blah blah blah, but being authentically alone. So it’s much more paradoxically, you know. You are not alone, you are alone means at least for us eight-ten hours a day you you are connected, you for you’re more connected than ever. You follow all the news and so on and so on. I want I am the most annoying part again for me of the pandemic in my daily life is not being able to be really alone. So I agree just to conclude then leave, with your point,
are more socialized, more open to society more than ever. What I miss under Covid conditions, pandemic, what I miss is not more society blah blah blah, but being authentically alone. So it’s much more paradoxically, you know. You are not alone, you are alone means at least for us eight-ten hours a day you you are connected, you for you’re more connected than ever. You follow all the news and so on and so on. I want I am the most annoying part again for me of the pandemic in my daily life is not being able to be really alone. So I agree just to conclude then leave, with your point,
Slavoj Žižek
which is that there is a certain what I cannot but call ontological catastrophe at work in our Covid ex... In the sense that don’t underestimate this how we are if I may use naively this term this term, we are compelled to act unnaturally. It’s our not in the sense of eternal nature, but our customs, for when we remember you meet others, you embrace them, you talk with them and so on and so on. Now what to do here? Unfortunately I took my side here. I think we should
which is that there is a certain what I cannot but call ontological catastrophe at work in our Covid ex... In the sense that don’t underestimate this how we are if I may use naively this term this term, we are compelled to act unnaturally. It’s our not in the sense of eternal nature, but our customs, for when we remember you meet others, you embrace them, you talk with them and so on and so on. Now what to do here? Unfortunately I took my side here. I think we should
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accept this challenge and learn to behave unnaturally. And as we near we’re nearly at the end of our
accept this challenge and learn to behave unnaturally. And as we near we’re nearly at the end of our
Slavoj Žižek
conversation, Professor, but I really wanted to ask you... You can add a minute or two. You sorry for sexual undertones, I always be dirty. You excited me now, don’t give me coitus interruptus. I’m sorry. You know what’s my communist rule, when we talk about the progress of humanity, there are no limits in vulgarity. It’s justified. If we therefore because I want to ask you two questions that I’ve been burning at the bottom of my heart. The first one is just what on earth motivated you to run for the presidency way back? And and if you were given the choice, would you prefer to be a successful politician or an unsuccessful philosopher? Like because you’re pretty... Ah here I have my old but it’s true shocking answer to you. What motivated me, I I’m not now saying this after the effect. I didn’t run for presidency in the sense of being the president. Presidency was a collective body of four people, I ended up the fifth. Because I did practically nothing as electoral campaign. But it was I succeeded in something else. Very modest, every liberal would agree with me. At that point, when socialism or communism was disintegrating, there were two main political options. Either ex-communists in the new mask, democratic socialists, whatever, or nationalist conservatives. And the struggle of my friends was to keep the space open, pluralistic, for feminism, human rights, more justice. And I was identified at that point as as liberal, but in Slovenia and all of Yugoslavia, liberal simply meant yes a dissident against the communist regime, but also against the new nationalism. And we succeeded in this. Now unfortunately, but this is thirty years later, right-wing is in power. But until now Slovenia was the big exception, this relatively moderate left-center predominated. And when you ask me the question, now I will tell you something horrible for which I will be lynched again. I was offered ministerial posts and so on, back then it was something big, but you know Slovenia is as the most beloved president in the world Trump said "shithole" of a country. So it’s a small country, we knew each other, everybody knew each other. So okay, they wanted to offer me ministry of culture or education. You know what was my spontaneous reaction? F... off with that, only two things interest me. Interior ministry or even better chief of the secret police. I see... oh wow, okay. But no, it’s not my secret Stalinism. You know what was my challenge? Can you do it, respecting human rights, but nonetheless efficiently? You know, that’s a big challenge. Do you know that even Gandhi wrote a very interesting text, that’s the Gandhi I like on this: how should the new democratic India organize secret service, spying? That was the challenge. So but no no never no, I am an old-fashioned theorist. F... off with politics, big politics, it’s basically vulgar. I even have a theory, maybe with some exceptions but basically you have to be stupid in a certain way to be a good politician. There are very and you know, writing a new fat book on Hegel is what is absolutely more for me. I’m very much a traditional metaphysician. Gotcha, and I want to ask you... The second question, you said you have two. Yeah, well I was going to ask you just well I think I’ll just integrate the follow-up into this last question really. And that’s to say let’s loop back to Mr. Donald Trump. Now I know the Slovenian PM was the first leader to congratulate and also Janša, friend of Orbán, he is what I call the new European axis of evil. I see. Slovenia, a little bit not really
conversation, Professor, but I really wanted to ask you... You can add a minute or two. You sorry for sexual undertones, I always be dirty. You excited me now, don’t give me coitus interruptus. I’m sorry. You know what’s my communist rule, when we talk about the progress of humanity, there are no limits in vulgarity. It’s justified. If we therefore because I want to ask you two questions that I’ve been burning at the bottom of my heart. The first one is just what on earth motivated you to run for the presidency way back? And and if you were given the choice, would you prefer to be a successful politician or an unsuccessful philosopher? Like because you’re pretty... Ah here I have my old but it’s true shocking answer to you. What motivated me, I I’m not now saying this after the effect. I didn’t run for presidency in the sense of being the president. Presidency was a collective body of four people, I ended up the fifth. Because I did practically nothing as electoral campaign. But it was I succeeded in something else. Very modest, every liberal would agree with me. At that point, when socialism or communism was disintegrating, there were two main political options. Either ex-communists in the new mask, democratic socialists, whatever, or nationalist conservatives. And the struggle of my friends was to keep the space open, pluralistic, for feminism, human rights, more justice. And I was identified at that point as as liberal, but in Slovenia and all of Yugoslavia, liberal simply meant yes a dissident against the communist regime, but also against the new nationalism. And we succeeded in this. Now unfortunately, but this is thirty years later, right-wing is in power. But until now Slovenia was the big exception, this relatively moderate left-center predominated. And when you ask me the question, now I will tell you something horrible for which I will be lynched again. I was offered ministerial posts and so on, back then it was something big, but you know Slovenia is as the most beloved president in the world Trump said "shithole" of a country. So it’s a small country, we knew each other, everybody knew each other. So okay, they wanted to offer me ministry of culture or education. You know what was my spontaneous reaction? F... off with that, only two things interest me. Interior ministry or even better chief of the secret police. I see... oh wow, okay. But no, it’s not my secret Stalinism. You know what was my challenge? Can you do it, respecting human rights, but nonetheless efficiently? You know, that’s a big challenge. Do you know that even Gandhi wrote a very interesting text, that’s the Gandhi I like on this: how should the new democratic India organize secret service, spying? That was the challenge. So but no no never no, I am an old-fashioned theorist. F... off with politics, big politics, it’s basically vulgar. I even have a theory, maybe with some exceptions but basically you have to be stupid in a certain way to be a good politician. There are very and you know, writing a new fat book on Hegel is what is absolutely more for me. I’m very much a traditional metaphysician. Gotcha, and I want to ask you... The second question, you said you have two. Yeah, well I was going to ask you just well I think I’ll just integrate the follow-up into this last question really. And that’s to say let’s loop back to Mr. Donald Trump. Now I know the Slovenian PM was the first leader to congratulate and also Janša, friend of Orbán, he is what I call the new European axis of evil. I see. Slovenia, a little bit not really
unknown
Czech Republic, Poland, some Latvian states, Hungary of course. He is
Czech Republic, Poland, some Latvian states, Hungary of course. He is
Slavoj Žižek
fully part of that and you know where he is personally very close to Trump. He has this Trump’s Stalinist attitudes. You don’t have Trump and then his moderate liberal opponents. If you are against Trump, you are a socialist, communist, and so on. So for Janša our Prime Minister, those who oppose him are part of the
fully part of that and you know where he is personally very close to Trump. He has this Trump’s Stalinist attitudes. You don’t have Trump and then his moderate liberal opponents. If you are against Trump, you are a socialist, communist, and so on. So for Janša our Prime Minister, those who oppose him are part of the
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deep state of ex-communists who still really dominate the life. It’s a very fanatical position like Trump’s where even if you are in power, you still behave like opposition. So it’s... I want to just ask you Professor
deep state of ex-communists who still really dominate the life. It’s a very fanatical position like Trump’s where even if you are in power, you still behave like opposition. So it’s... I want to just ask you Professor
Slavoj Žižek
for the final question today then, if you had say the opportunity to say unfiltered, uncensored, one minute of time or seconds you would spend with Donald Trump right now. What would you say to him if you were in the same room as you and just you two? I would try to avoid it because I really first I didn’t repeat my madness four years ago. Now I used in some text this tasteless metaphor and I say you know, although voting for Biden is like asking a vampire to eat some garlic, but do it. Because you know what? The stakes are simply too high in ecology, Covid, global warming, all that I mean. I agree here with my arch-enemy Chomsky, I mean, you know. Stakes are simply too high. What is in a way decided in this vote is maybe even the fate of it’s maybe even the fate of humanity. But Trump is an extremely vulgar guy. So the only things that comes to my mind, you know when Trump proposed through was it Jared Kushner did it for him that Middle East plan, no? And you remember Trump used an expression which was very weird. He wanted to say I asked Jared to give me a quick overview of Middle East situation, no? And you know what Trump said? I asked Jared to give me a quickie on. No? And you know what for me the word "quickie" means? So my answer would have been sorry, but I have many sexual fantasies, I’m passionate, but Jared Kushner giving Trump a quickie is not my favorite sexual fantasy, you know. So I’m not really interested in Trump. I I’m here a hard-line Stalinist in a good sense. If somebody like Trump will came to me "do you want to tell me how I screwed Melania or whoever," I’m not interested in it. He is not... You give too much attention to him. You know, we should worry about Trump, what he is doing and so on, but that’s a big thing. Don’t get fascinated by Trump. People who fascinate me is charming people but at the same time realists. Who know and I don’t think another thing I have here. This psychoanalysis taught me, don’t you agree? I’m embarrassed when friends or not even
for the final question today then, if you had say the opportunity to say unfiltered, uncensored, one minute of time or seconds you would spend with Donald Trump right now. What would you say to him if you were in the same room as you and just you two? I would try to avoid it because I really first I didn’t repeat my madness four years ago. Now I used in some text this tasteless metaphor and I say you know, although voting for Biden is like asking a vampire to eat some garlic, but do it. Because you know what? The stakes are simply too high in ecology, Covid, global warming, all that I mean. I agree here with my arch-enemy Chomsky, I mean, you know. Stakes are simply too high. What is in a way decided in this vote is maybe even the fate of it’s maybe even the fate of humanity. But Trump is an extremely vulgar guy. So the only things that comes to my mind, you know when Trump proposed through was it Jared Kushner did it for him that Middle East plan, no? And you remember Trump used an expression which was very weird. He wanted to say I asked Jared to give me a quick overview of Middle East situation, no? And you know what Trump said? I asked Jared to give me a quickie on. No? And you know what for me the word "quickie" means? So my answer would have been sorry, but I have many sexual fantasies, I’m passionate, but Jared Kushner giving Trump a quickie is not my favorite sexual fantasy, you know. So I’m not really interested in Trump. I I’m here a hard-line Stalinist in a good sense. If somebody like Trump will came to me "do you want to tell me how I screwed Melania or whoever," I’m not interested in it. He is not... You give too much attention to him. You know, we should worry about Trump, what he is doing and so on, but that’s a big thing. Don’t get fascinated by Trump. People who fascinate me is charming people but at the same time realists. Who know and I don’t think another thing I have here. This psychoanalysis taught me, don’t you agree? I’m embarrassed when friends or not even
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friends
friends
Slavoj Žižek
confide
confide
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in me and try to start to tell me their sexual secrets and so on. I know if I look deep into you and me, you will discover probably some dirty nasty fantasies, disgusting stuff. I believe
in me and try to start to tell me their sexual secrets and so on. I know if I look deep into you and me, you will discover probably some dirty nasty fantasies, disgusting stuff. I believe
Slavoj Žižek
in masks, not in Covid masks, but I believe in common decency. Which is why here I agree with Angela Nagle that in a strange reversal of half a century ago, student rebellion, today the new populist right is openly vulgar, shocking us again and again. And we should do what Bernie did it, very important. He got the fact that today the left should act as the voice of moral majority. What I always repeat against those who criticize postmodernism is, can you imagine a more relativistic postmodern president than Donald Trump? He is full of postmodern
in masks, not in Covid masks, but I believe in common decency. Which is why here I agree with Angela Nagle that in a strange reversal of half a century ago, student rebellion, today the new populist right is openly vulgar, shocking us again and again. And we should do what Bernie did it, very important. He got the fact that today the left should act as the voice of moral majority. What I always repeat against those who criticize postmodernism is, can you imagine a more relativistic postmodern president than Donald Trump? He is full of postmodern
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signs of obscenity, transgression. It’s the time for us leftists to speak for ordinary people, common decency, and so on. And well, I hope I certainly count amongst the the realists that you would fancy speaking to over Trump instead. No no no no, okay,
signs of obscenity, transgression. It’s the time for us leftists to speak for ordinary people, common decency, and so on. And well, I hope I certainly count amongst the the realists that you would fancy speaking to over Trump instead. No no no no, okay,
Slavoj Žižek
I will tell you something to conclude with a joke. I’m not sure where you really stand politically, so maybe when we the people, the Stalinists, take over, you will of course, unfortunately, you will have to go to Gulag. Oh no. But I can promise you something. Since I consider myself your friend, from my Moscow central bureau, I will call the Gulag administration and, you know, on Sunday when it’s the best meal in Gulag, you get some soup with a rotten fish fish heads and so on. As a sign of my friendship, you will get on Sunday two portions of that soup. Aren’t you glad? I’ll be sure to post on my Instagram, Professor. But thank you so much, Professor, for joining us today. It was an absolute honor. I am grateful to you. I am sad we can repeat it whenever you want to go more into philosophy. Because just this to conclude, don’t you really agree that they are totally wrong who think now it’s a medical crisis, maybe economic, it’s not time for philosophy? No, as debates point out, what does it mean to wear a mask, to socially distance, now this struggle now is at the same time struggle for our what I cannot but call everyday philosophy. Each of us has decided what does it mean to be free, dignified human being, to redefine ourselves. It’s now the time of philosophy is coming. Thank you so much for your time, professor. And I am really grateful to you. Don’t talk with this honor, you know, now you will get the vulgar thing you deserve. Okay. Well, I really liked you. If you call me professor and say you are an honor, it was an honor, my answer is what did I do to you, did I rape your mother in public or what, so that you humiliate me so much, you know. Call me Slavoj, you are Brian, hope that in contrast to Brian Jones of Rolling Stones you will live a little bit longer. I hope so too. You never know.
I will tell you something to conclude with a joke. I’m not sure where you really stand politically, so maybe when we the people, the Stalinists, take over, you will of course, unfortunately, you will have to go to Gulag. Oh no. But I can promise you something. Since I consider myself your friend, from my Moscow central bureau, I will call the Gulag administration and, you know, on Sunday when it’s the best meal in Gulag, you get some soup with a rotten fish fish heads and so on. As a sign of my friendship, you will get on Sunday two portions of that soup. Aren’t you glad? I’ll be sure to post on my Instagram, Professor. But thank you so much, Professor, for joining us today. It was an absolute honor. I am grateful to you. I am sad we can repeat it whenever you want to go more into philosophy. Because just this to conclude, don’t you really agree that they are totally wrong who think now it’s a medical crisis, maybe economic, it’s not time for philosophy? No, as debates point out, what does it mean to wear a mask, to socially distance, now this struggle now is at the same time struggle for our what I cannot but call everyday philosophy. Each of us has decided what does it mean to be free, dignified human being, to redefine ourselves. It’s now the time of philosophy is coming. Thank you so much for your time, professor. And I am really grateful to you. Don’t talk with this honor, you know, now you will get the vulgar thing you deserve. Okay. Well, I really liked you. If you call me professor and say you are an honor, it was an honor, my answer is what did I do to you, did I rape your mother in public or what, so that you humiliate me so much, you know. Call me Slavoj, you are Brian, hope that in contrast to Brian Jones of Rolling Stones you will live a little bit longer. I hope so too. You never know.
unknown
And so please, I enjoyed it very much, but just tell me what will happen
And so please, I enjoyed it very much, but just tell me what will happen
Slavoj Žižek
now in in Oxford, is the... Okay, university will be open, but are students there or it’s on Zoom? Well, it’s currently all Zoom, but with some in-person teaching for the undergraduates. So if you would like to come and join us and teach at Oxford, I would love to see you there in Oxford. No, I would I would I would love to, just I am now, you know what’s my problem
now in in Oxford, is the... Okay, university will be open, but are students there or it’s on Zoom? Well, it’s currently all Zoom, but with some in-person teaching for the undergraduates. So if you would like to come and join us and teach at Oxford, I would love to see you there in Oxford. No, I would I would I would love to, just I am now, you know what’s my problem
unknown
now, I’m an extremely risky case. I have strong diabetes, I have some
now, I’m an extremely risky case. I have strong diabetes, I have some
Slavoj Žižek
heart palpitations, I have high pressure, and with people already made jokes with all my nervous gestures, no, people just told me if you want to warn other people how to avoid Covid, no, show me just talking with my gestures and that’s the model of what not to do, you know. But when, and I hope it will be possible, with I will come with pleasure. Thank you so
heart palpitations, I have high pressure, and with people already made jokes with all my nervous gestures, no, people just told me if you want to warn other people how to avoid Covid, no, show me just talking with my gestures and that’s the model of what not to do, you know. But when, and I hope it will be possible, with I will come with pleasure. Thank you so
unknown
much. And
much. And
Slavoj Žižek
I am really grateful to you. Don’t talk with this honor, you know. Thank you all very much for joining us from afar for the Oxford Political Review’s interview with
I am really grateful to you. Don’t talk with this honor, you know. Thank you all very much for joining us from afar for the Oxford Political Review’s interview with
unknown
the one and only Slavoj Žižek.
the one and only Slavoj Žižek.