Perfil Interview
Interview · zizekpodcast.com ·
2018-09-09 · 2:59:07 · 24,103 words
with Bernard-Henri Lévy
capitalismcommunism-socialismideologyfascism-populismliberalism-political-correctnessdemocracyrevolution-violencetechnology-ai-cyberspaceecology-climatesexuality-gendergeopolitics-warpsychoanalysisphilosophy-generaleveryday-liferace-antisemitism
In this wide-ranging interview conducted in a conversational setting (likely Buenos Aires), Žižek addresses Argentine and Latin American politics, Peronism, Chávez, Morales, before broadening to global themes: the crisis of the liberal-democratic consensus, the rise of authoritarian capitalism (China, Putin, Erdoğan, Trump), the failure of the left to articulate an alternative, and the exhaustion of populism as a strategy. He also covers sexuality and MeToo, digital technology and control, the nature of ideological belief in a cynical era, ecology, biogenetics, immigration and multiculturalism, nationalism, and ends with a cautious optimism about the return of serious philosophical reflection.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 24
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “populist fascism”
Žižek's characterization of Peronism and similar movements: a strong authoritarian state guaranteeing class peace between workers and capital, which he distinguishes from but relates to fascism.
as “ideological hegemony”
Žižek uses it to diagnose the breakdown of the shared presuppositions that made liberal-democratic politics function in the US and Europe, a vacuum Trump filled.
as “authoritarian capitalism”
Žižek's term for the new global formula combining market economics with political authoritarianism, exemplified by China, Singapore, and mirrored in Trump's 'America First' nationalism.
Žižek's neologism condensing Putin and Erdoğan to name the new archetype of authoritarian nationalist leaders who combine strong-state nationalism with capitalism.
Žižek identifies communication networks and social platforms as a new form of commons that tech monopolies have privatized by charging rent for access.
as “privatization of the commons”
Žižek's diagnosis of tech monopolies: Bill Gates and Zuckerberg do not exploit workers but charge rent for access to our shared communicative space, a form of enclosure Marx could not predict.
as “rent (vs. profit)”
Žižek argues that the wealth of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft is not Marxist profit (exploitation of labour) but rent, they privatize the digital commons through which everyone communicates.
as “opium of the people (updated)”
Žižek's ironic update of Marx: today the two opiums are literal drugs (Prozac, Xanax) and populism ('the people' as political fetish), with the people itself becoming the opium.
Against the anti-Oedipal reading of digital culture, Žižek argues internet dating is the most Oedipal structure imaginable: desire is fully mediated through a symbolic screen rather than immediate contact.
Žižek argues our era is not truly hedonist but features pleasures censored of their dangerous element, coffee without caffeine, Coca-Cola without sugar, desire fulfilled in a decaffeinated form.
as “belief without belief”
Žižek's concept, illustrated by the Niels Bohr horseshoe story and canned laughter, that things function socially even without subjective conviction, you believe through the Other.
Implicit in Žižek's discussion of belief: social appearances and rituals function independently of individual conviction because they are sustained by the symbolic order (the big Other).
as “cynical ideology”
Following Sloterdijk, Žižek argues the dominant form of ideology today is not naive belief but cynical distance: 'we know very well what we are doing, but we are still doing it'.
Implied in Žižek's use of commodity fetishism: the illusion is not in the mind but in what we do socially, the objective appearance that persists regardless of subjective disbelief.
Žižek invokes Marx's concept to show that ideology is not subjective illusion but enacted in practice, we know money has no magic but we act as if it does.
as “canned laughter”
Žižek's preferred example of how ideology functions in a cynical era: the laugh track performs enjoyment on your behalf so you do not even need to feel the emotion yourself.
Žižek connects the digital gaming fantasy of indestructible resurrection (Tom & Jerry, video-game respawning) to a Gnostic dream of becoming software, immortal, downloadable, liberated from mortality.
Žižek's name for the digital-era fantasy of becoming a pure software mind, transcending bodily mortality, already anticipated in Soviet cosmism of the 1920s.
Following Badiou, Žižek argues that postmodern society has abolished initiation rites into adulthood, producing men (including Trump) as permanent adolescents while women are expected to be more mature.
Žižek argues the contractual, consent-protocol model of sex promoted by MeToo and political correctness is secretly modelled on formal BDSM contracts, a desexualized regulatory fantasy.
as “involuntary celibates (Incels)”
Žižek analyses Incels as a reductio ad absurdum of politically correct affirmative-action logic applied to sex: they demand state regulation of sexual access in the name of equality.
Žižek treats trigger warnings as a politically correct symptom of a broader ideology that perceives subjects as extremely vulnerable individuals who must be protected from all harm, stifling genuine shock and critique.
as “revolution must strike twice”
Žižek's thesis that genuine revolutionary change requires a second strike to consolidate and correct the first (February/October in Russia; France 1789/1793), and Latin American populism is still awaiting its self-critical second blow.
Implicit in Žižek's canned-laughter example: one delegates enjoyment, belief, or activity to an external medium (the laugh track, the recording one will never watch) while remaining passive oneself.
Stories he reaches for 11
Bohr had a horseshoe over his door; a visitor asked if he believed in it. Bohr said no, it's superstition, but he was told it works even if you don't believe in it. Žižek's paradigm case of how ideology functions in a cynical era: things work without subjective belief.
“it's superstition I don't believe in it but I was told it functions even if you don't believe in it — that's how ideology functions today”
Jean-Pierre Dupuy, as EU envoy in Fukushima days after the disaster, told Žižek that for a few hours the Japanese government was in panic considering evacuating the entire Tokyo area, thirty million people. Illustrates catastrophic scale requiring international rather than market response.
“for a couple of hours Japanese government was in panic because it looked that they will have to evacuate the entire Tokyo area thirty million people”
TV comedy shows have a laugh track that laughs for you; you feel relaxed afterward as if you had laughed yourself. Paradigm of how in the cynical era you can outsource emotions, beliefs, and enjoyment to an external medium.
“you don't even have to laugh you look at it the screen laughs for you and it works...after watching a comical series I feel relaxed as if I laughed”
Žižek lists decaffeinated coffee, fat-free sausage, sugar-free Coca-Cola as paradigm cases of contemporary controlled hedonism: you want the element but receive it censored of its dangerous substance.
“coffee without caffeine sausage without fat Coca-Cola without...you want the element but censored of its element”
Asked whether they prefer wife or mistress: Marx says wife, Engels says mistress, Lenin says both, to tell each he is with the other, and then 'learn, learn, and learn'. Illustrates that the true Leninist position is to hold two incompatible options to gain freedom of movement.
“Lenin says I want to have both...so that I can tell my wife that I'm with my mistress and to my mistress that I'm with my wife...then learn learn and learn”
Radio Yerevan is asked: is it true that Rabinovich won a new car on the state lottery? Answer: in principle yes, but it wasn't a new car, it was an old bicycle, and he didn't win it, it was stolen from him. Žižek uses it as his template for answering 'is Marx still valid today?'
“in principle it's true but it wasn't a new car it was an old bicycle and he didn't win it it was stolen from him”
Žižek debated fundamentalists about DNA-testing the Turin Shroud stains. They welcomed it, saying God has no DNA, it would just be Mary's DNA redoubled. They treat religious claims as simple facts within a scientific idiom, not as authentic faith.
“God doesn't have a DNA it will be Mary's DNA redoubled...American Christian fundamentalists are not even true believers”
When all European socialist parties voted for war credits in WWI and Lenin was devastated, he withdrew to Switzerland and started reading Hegel's Logic, the most abstract Hegel, rather than acting immediately.
“what did he do he withdrew into Switzerland basically and started to read Hegel...this idea of our old world has died and we don't have simple answers”
Lenin's famous testament argues for deposing Stalin, but the grounds are not political line, Stalin is simply 'too rude'. Žižek finds this admirable: Lenin, near the end, saw that political brutality itself is extremely dangerous and became obsessed with civility.
“it's shocking it's a question of manners Lenin is saying Stalin is too rude...all of a sudden he was obsessed with this idea just bring more civilized talk politeness”
Facebook briefly removed the iconic 'napalm girl' Vietnam War photograph, claiming possible child pornography, when the real motive was political embarrassment. Paradigm of political censorship disguised as moral protection.
“the justification was it can be child pornography nonsense...you mask political censorship as care for morality”
In Rotherham, UK, organized Pakistani gangs systematically raped over a thousand working-class English girls for years; police avoided investigating to prevent accusations of racism. Žižek uses this to argue that multicultural avoidance of difficult truths cedes ground to the populist right.
“the police said this would create racial problems if we investigate this...the catastrophe is to decide that we don't talk about it”
Works invoked 10
The Hunger Games film
Cited as evidence that even Hollywood blockbusters are obsessed with what to do, symptom of the left's lack of real alternative.
Communist Manifesto book
Žižek mentions writing a short introduction to a new Communist Manifesto; he begins it with the Radio Yerevan joke to signal a critical-but-engaged stance toward Marx.
Homo Deus book
Harari's book cited approvingly for the point that democracy requires shared values and procedures, and for raising the problem of brain sciences threatening our notion of free selfhood.
Paul Veyne's book used to complicate the concept of belief, Greeks did not literally believe myths, demonstrating that 'belief' is always more complex than it appears.
Piketty's diagnosis praised as excellent; his prescriptions rejected as utopian (requiring global political coordination that doesn't exist).
Orwell's foreword cited: 'real freedom is the freedom to tell people what they don't want to hear', used against trigger warnings and political correctness.
Black Panther film
Žižek dislikes the film's ideology of returning to pre-modern African traditions; uses it to illustrate the fascist temptation, noting the irony that the CIA agent stands beside the king at the UN.
Enlightenment Now book
Pinker's book: Žižek concedes its statistics are correct at the level of aggregate data but rejects its optimism as missing the historical logic that progress and catastrophe coexist.
The most abstract Hegel, which Lenin retreated to read in Switzerland during WWI, Žižek holds this up as the model for what the left should do now: step back and think.
People invoked 47
Walter Mignolo negative
Rejected for advocating a return to pre-colonial local traditions and ancient wisdoms as resistance to capitalism, Žižek sees this as no different from the fascist temptation to want modernity without its disruptive effects.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy positive
Described as a good friend and French theorist of catastrophes; cited for his Fukushima testimony about the near-evacuation of Tokyo.
Marquis de Sade positive
Cited via Lacan's reading for the Juliette example of indestructible undead subjectivity, the character is tortured but appears restored and beautiful in the next scene.
Umberto Eco positive
Cited for the postmodern love-declaration qualified ('I love you as a poet would have said') versus pre-modern unqualified declaration, Eco argues qualifications were always already included.
Named by Sloterdijk as the person to whom monuments will be built in 50-100 years, the founder of the Singapore model of authoritarian capitalism that Žižek sees as a key precursor.
Vladimir Lenin positive
Žižek identifies as a Leninist in the sense of repeating Lenin's gesture of radical rethinking (withdrawing to read Hegel, insisting on civility), while acknowledging Stalinism as Lenin's logical if not inevitable consequence.
Cited as someone who consciously plays the game of combining left and right demands (wanted to raise top taxes to 45%), making the Trump coalition interesting as a form of right-wing populism that absorbs leftist economic demands.
Mentioned as explicitly naming Singapore as the model for all of China when beginning his reforms.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited for the Marquis de Sade observation about Juliette's indestructibility in the context of undead/digital subjectivity.
Cited as example of brain-computer interface technology: in his last years Hawking's brain was directly wired to his wheelchair, controlling it by thought alone.
Mentioned as a sexual liberal within the Soviet cosmist movement of the 1920s, contrasted with the dominant tendency there to de-eroticize sexuality.
Francis Fukuyama negative
Žižek insists Fukuyama should not be dismissed as an idiot, in practice, even radical leftists were Fukuyama-ists who accepted liberal democratic capitalism as the horizon. Now Fukuyama himself has doubts.
Steven Pinker negative
Žižek acknowledges the statistics in Enlightenment Now are 'right at that level' but argues Pinker's optimism misses the historical logic whereby progress and catastrophe coexist (Holocaust as part of the progress that yielded Israel).
Žižek resists calling Trump a fascist but sees him as a permanent adolescent exploiting the collapse of ideological hegemony; notes that liberal mockery of Trump (John Oliver, Alec Baldwin) only helped him and that Trump is in a bad sense a 'real revolutionary' undermining moral norms.
Chantal Mouffe negative
Associated with Laclau in the leftist-populism formula that Žižek opposes.
Yuval Noah Harari positive
Cited approvingly from Homo Deus for the point that democracy requires shared values, and from a Guardian essay on fake news and idealization of the past; described as 'a little bit simplistic' but making some points well.
Álvaro García Linera positive
Identified by Žižek as the real intellectual force behind the Bolivian government.
Mentioned as the representative of the 'singularity' transhumanist dream of a universal digital mind, Žižek connects this to 1920s Soviet cosmism.
Alain Badiou positive
Cited approvingly for his distinction between initiation-rite adulthood and permanent adolescence, for his point on capitalism having no 'world', and for his critique of contemporary fundamentalism as inauthentic belief.
Guy Sorman negative
Described as a right-wing friend whose solution to the China question (it's not 'real' capitalism) is 'too simple' for Žižek.
Wolf Biermann positive
East German dissident who told Žižek the story of neo-Nazis at a Green Party meeting who rejected Hitler for building highways that spoiled nature, one of Žižek's most inverted examples of fascist ideology.
George Orwell positive
Described as 'often too simplistic' personally but cited approvingly from the Animal Farm foreword: 'real freedom is the freedom to tell people what they don't want to hear'.
Cited for a 1925 text explicitly calling for the biological/genetic reworking of human nature as the next step after political victory, anticipating today's transhumanist dreams.
Bernie Sanders positive
Cited approvingly as the suppressed left-wing alternative blocked by Hillary Clinton; Žižek sees his defeat as a major cause of Trump's victory.
Julian Assange positive
Cited approvingly for revealing the tight connections between companies like Google and the State Department, as evidence of opaque digital control.
Ruhollah Khomeini positive
Cited for the formulation 'Islam is political or it's nothing', and for Quranic verse on controlling only public behavior not private belief, used to discuss authentic vs. instrumental religious belief.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan negative
The other half of 'Putogan', authoritarian nationalist whose Turkey moved from near-war with Russia to alliance with Russia within a few years.
Yanis Varoufakis positive
Described as a good friend; Žižek is persuaded by Varoufakis's view that Grexit would have been catastrophic but also that a third way existed; he cites Varoufakis on European weakness against US tariffs.
Mentioned as a Bolivian leader whose administration was somewhat more reasonable than Chávez/Maduro; Linera seen as the real mind; question of what happens when Morales leaves.
Peter Sloterdijk positive
Described as a right-wing philosopher but cited positively for the 'Kuppel' concept (the bubble of developed-world comfort) and for predicting Lee Kuan Yew as a historical monument-worthy figure; also for the cynicism formula ('we know but we do it anyway').
Pope Francis negative
Žižek has 'all respect' for the Pope's stances on abuse, immigrants, and poverty, but finds his economic-political proposals vague and notes he is a Peronist; sees him as representing a twentieth-century Catholic culture that cannot grapple with today's capitalism.
Ernesto Laclau negative
Žižek was in 'very bad relations' with Laclau over the formula of leftist populism, which Žižek rejects because it naively defers to 'real people' who often hold racist views.
Viktor Orbán negative
Noted for moving post-communist Hungary toward anti-immigrant authoritarianism while paradoxically connecting with Putin, East European nations going 'back to Russia'.
Mao Zedong positive
Žižek is aware of all the horrors of Mao (Great Leap Forward, fifty million deaths) but cites his maxim 'there is great disorder under the clouds so the situation is excellent' as his own favorite expression of conditional optimism.
Walter Benjamin positive
Quoted: 'every fascism is a sign of a failed revolution', used to argue that today's authoritarianism is capitalism's response to the left's failure.
Hillary Clinton negative
Blamed for blocking Bernie Sanders and embodying the failed liberal establishment logic that opened the space for Trump.
Søren Kierkegaard positive
Cited as the model of authentic belief: the greatest theologians knew that authentic faith must always be on the edge of disbelief.
Paul Veyne positive
Cited for the book Did Ancient Greeks Believe in Their Myths?, showing ancient Greeks did not literally believe myths were empirical facts, used to complicate what 'belief' means.
Barack Obama negative
Mentioned as co-embodying the liberal establishment logic that is insufficient to defeat Trump.
Vladimir Putin negative
Žižek is 'no friend of Putin'; sees him as the Putogan archetype of authoritarian nationalism; criticizes his unprincipled support of everyone from Catalonia to Le Pen to destabilize Europe.
Nelson Mandela positive
Praised for never playing the game of returning to African traditions or pre-modern primordial wisdom, representing modern egalitarianism against traditionalist nostalgia.
Antonio Gramsci positive
Cited for the formula 'the old is dying but the new didn't yet arrive', applied to the current era of political-cultural interregnum.
Hugo Chávez negative
Called 'a Fidel Castro with money', threw money at problems without solving them; his many experiments (cooperatives, self-management) globally failed.
Joseph Stalin negative
Mentioned primarily through Lenin's testament criticizing Stalin's rudeness; Žižek sees Stalinism as the most probable logical outcome of Leninism, not an accidental deviation.
Karl Marx positive
Žižek affirms Marx's analysis of capitalism (commodity fetishism, tendency to monopoly) as the best available while rejecting the working class as revolutionary agent and noting what Marx could not predict (digital rent, the commons).
Sigmund Freud positive
Cited in the joke about suffering-then-paradise; also in the context of child sexuality (his legacy being reversed by today's 'innocent child' ideology) and Lacan's extension of Freud.
Thomas Piketty negative
Capital praised as 'excellent' on diagnosis, but Žižek says Piketty's proposed solution (higher taxes) is utopian because it requires global political coordination that would already presuppose a progressive world-government.
What it argues
crisis of the liberal-democratic consensus and Fukuyamist horizonauthoritarian capitalism as the new global tendencyfailure of the left to offer a credible alternativecynical ideology — knowing and doing it anywayMeToo, political correctness, and the moralization of politicsdigital control experienced as freedomreturn of metaphysics and the need to rethink problems before solving them
Dialectical moves 11
“The people itself is the opium — populism's 'the people' is precisely the political fetish that prevents real analysis.”
Žižek inverts Marx's formula: instead of religion, today the political category of 'the people' functions as narcotic mystification.
“The control that digital technology exercises over us is experienced as freedom — we are most controlled when we feel most free.”
The new forms of digital domination are more insidious than totalitarian surveillance precisely because they coincide with the subjective experience of unconstrained choice.
“To repeat Lenin today is precisely NOT to do what Lenin did — it is to scrap even Lenin and start again.”
Authentic fidelity to Lenin means repeating his gesture of radical rethinking, which in our situation means abandoning his specific answers.
“We should turn Marx's Eleventh Thesis around: in the twentieth century we tried to change the world too fast without knowing what we were doing; today we have to step back and interpret it again.”
The practical imperative has become a theoretical one, the most politically urgent act now is understanding, not changing.
“Far from being radically hedonist, our era features a tightly controlled hedonism — coffee without caffeine, Coca-Cola without sugar — desire censored of its dangerous element.”
What appears as permissiveness is actually a managed, sanitized version of pleasure that avoids genuine excess.
“The more you understand authentic evil, the more perplexed and horrified you become — understanding does not lead to forgiveness but to deeper bewilderment.”
Žižek inverts the humanist axiom 'to understand is to forgive': with true evil, comprehension intensifies rather than dissolves the horror.
“Transgression is no longer emancipatory — it is the very name of capitalism today.”
The avant-garde logic of breaking taboos has been absorbed as capitalism's own dynamic of permanent self-renewal, stripping transgression of its critical force.
“The movement for sexual liberation imperceptibly turns around into not liberation OF sexuality but liberation FROM sexuality.”
The trajectory from sexual freedom to transgenderism and de-eroticization ends by dissolving the very sexuality it claimed to liberate.
“You are much more Oedipal on the internet than in direct life — internet dating is the most Oedipal structure imaginable.”
The supposedly post-Oedipal digital world intensifies mediation and symbolic alienation, the very essence of the Oedipal structure.
“Today's intelligent left should say: we are the true moral majority, we fight for decency and civilization — it is the right that is vulgar and transgressive.”
Žižek inverts the standard cultural-political alignment: progressives should claim the conservative moral ground that the right has vacated through Trumpian vulgarity.
“With authentic horrors the more you understand it the more you are perplexed — it's never pacification, 'oh now I understand it'.”
Genuine evil resists the pacifying effect of comprehension; understanding escalates rather than resolves the moral disturbance.
Claims 28
asserts
Peronism is a form of populist fascism — a strong state guaranteeing class peace — and is a main cause of Argentina's long-term dysfunction.Peronism
asserts
Trump's victory was primarily caused by the failure of the Democratic establishment — specifically Hillary Clinton's blocking of Bernie Sanders — not Russian meddling.Trump's election
asserts
The breakdown of ideological hegemony (shared presuppositions of liberal democracy) is the fundamental political event, not Trump as an individual phenomenon.liberal-democratic consensus
asserts
The left today cannot simply return to the old liberal establishment logic; it must rethink its categories radically.left strategy
rejects
Leftist populism (Laclau/Mouffe) fails because ordinary people's spontaneous views often contain racism and cannot serve as the basis for political truth.left populism
asserts
Authoritarian capitalism (China, Singapore model) has proven that explosive economic development does not require democracy, undermining Fukuyama's thesis.capitalism and democracy
asserts
The new global tendency is authoritarian nationalism combined with capitalism — 'Putoganism' — not classical fascism or communism.contemporary authoritarianism
asserts
Tech monopolies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft) extract rent, not profit, by privatizing digital commons — a form of exploitation Marx could not predict.digital capitalism
rejects
Piketty's proposed solution (higher taxes within capitalism) requires a degree of global political coordination that would already presuppose a progressive world-government — making it utopian.Piketty's programme
asserts
Marx's diagnosis of capitalism remains largely valid, but the working class is no longer the privileged agent of emancipatory change.Marxism
asserts
The dominant ideological form today is cynicism, not naive belief: we know very well what we are doing but we do it anyway.ideology
reframes
To be a Leninist today means not repeating Lenin but scrapping even Lenin and rethinking from scratch, as Lenin himself did when he withdrew to read Hegel during WWI.Leninism
asserts
Political correctness and MeToo represent the left's flight into moralism precisely because it lacks a credible economic-political alternative.political correctness
rejects
MeToo's protest against 'objectification' misses the point because objectification is intrinsic to eroticism; the issue is freedom in objectification, not its abolition.MeToo and objectification
asserts
The contractual-consent model of sex promoted by political correctness secretly models itself on the sadomasochist contract and is becoming the silent norm.sexual politics
asserts
Digital control is more dangerous than totalitarian surveillance because it is experienced as freedom — we enjoy our own manipulation.digital technology and control
rejects
Returning to pre-modern local traditions or indigenous wisdom as resistance to capitalism is a fascist temptation — capitalism must be passed through, not bypassed.anti-capitalist traditionalism
asserts
Transgression is no longer emancipatory — it is the very name of capitalism today, which permanently transgresses its own norms.transgression
asserts
The progressive left should today adopt a 'conservative' moral posture — defending decency, civilization, and ordinary people against the vulgarity of right-wing populism.left strategy
asserts
Every fascism is a sign of a failed revolution (Walter Benjamin's thesis), and the new authoritarianism is capitalism's response to the left's failure to articulate an alternative.fascism
asserts
Authentic nationalism is possible without racism: genuine national pride includes awareness of one's own cultural limitation.nationalism
rejects
Steven Pinker's rational optimism is statistically correct but misses the logic of history: progress and catastrophe are not mutually exclusive — the Holocaust was part of the progress that produced Israel.Pinker's optimism
asserts
Philosophy is returning to 'big naive metaphysical questions' because scientists have taken them over, and this return is healthy and necessary.the role of philosophy
reframes
The Marxist imperative to change the world should today be reversed: we must first step back and interpret the world again, because we do not know what is happening.Marx's Eleventh Thesis on Feuerbach
asserts
Ecology and biogenetics pose problems that cannot be handled by market mechanisms alone and require strong international institutional structures.ecology and global governance
asserts
Latin America needs a 'second revolution' that is self-critical and gets rid of the Peronist-populist legacy rather than merely repeating it.Latin American politics
rejects
Multiculturalist tolerance that avoids confronting genuine cultural clashes (e.g., Rotherham, arranged marriages) cedes the ground to right-wing populism.multiculturalist left
asserts
Chinese colonialism in Africa and Latin America is a taboo topic for the left that needs to be broken.Chinese neo-colonialism
Quotes 14
“The opium of the people is today opium and the people — the people itself is the opium or the fetish of political life today.”Slavoj Žižek · populism as ideology
“We know very well what we are doing but we are still doing it — that's the dominant ideology today.”Slavoj Žižek · cynical ideology
“There is great disorder under the clouds — so the situation is excellent.”Slavoj Žižek · conditional optimism in crisis
“Real freedom is the freedom to tell people what they don't want to hear.”Slavoj Žižek · freedom of speech
“Every fascism is a sign of a failed revolution.”Slavoj Žižek · fascism as symptom of left failure
“China is not a model for me — China is a preview of horrors awaiting us.”Slavoj Žižek · authoritarian capitalism
“The first task of thinking is not to solve problems but to formulate them — what really are problems. You need the right formula of the problem.”Slavoj Žižek · philosophy as problem-formulation
“When the old is dying but the new didn't yet arrive — this is the dangerous era where monsters arise.”Slavoj Žižek · Gramsci's interregnum
“It's not profit it's rent — Bill Gates privatized our commons; we pay him a rent so that I can communicate with you.”Slavoj Žižek · digital rent vs. profit
“To repeat Lenin today is not to return to Lenin but to scrap even Lenin and start you know...”Slavoj Žižek · Leninism as radical rethinking
“Sex is basically unjust — some people are much nicer than others, they have a privilege. If you try to regulate it it has to end as a catastrophe.”Slavoj Žižek · sex and justice
“An enemy is somebody whose story you were not prepared to listen — ah good to know, so Stalin and Hitler are our enemies because we did not listen to their stories?”Slavoj Žižek · limits of humanist empathy
“I believe in miracles — not religiously, but SYRIZA was a miracle — who would have expected it?”Slavoj Žižek · political hope in crisis
“The struggle for sexual freedom imperceptibly turns around into not liberation of sexuality but liberation from sexuality.”Slavoj Žižek · sexuality and emancipation
Transcript 154 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Is the most but how is now doing Macri a little bit better bad what is economic now in Argentina
Is the most but how is now doing Macri a little bit better bad what is economic now in Argentina
unknown
In Argentina is a disaster but in some sense the disaster is because we did a disaster before that I know but Macri is not a great president it's just more or less
In Argentina is a disaster but in some sense the disaster is because we did a disaster before that I know but Macri is not a great president it's just more or less
Slavoj Žižek
No but here I know I had so many conflicts with my wife's friends years ago there who were secretly sympathetic with with Peronism and so on but I told them Peronism is maybe one of the way I see one of the main causes for Argentinian struggle and I don't understand leftists okay you have left Peronism and so on but basically it's a form of fascism my God the whole formula class peace strong state which guarantees peace between it's so obvious and okay but let's not lose time just the last thing will you need something to eat some small dessert or will you survive perfectly no I will survive perfectly I will concentrate in the interview you see we people say we are privileged but we are the only true Stalinists who are ready without food to do it so don't worry no we really
No but here I know I had so many conflicts with my wife's friends years ago there who were secretly sympathetic with with Peronism and so on but I told them Peronism is maybe one of the way I see one of the main causes for Argentinian struggle and I don't understand leftists okay you have left Peronism and so on but basically it's a form of fascism my God the whole formula class peace strong state which guarantees peace between it's so obvious and okay but let's not lose time just the last thing will you need something to eat some small dessert or will you survive perfectly no I will survive perfectly I will concentrate in the interview you see we people say we are privileged but we are the only true Stalinists who are ready without food to do it so don't worry no we really
unknown
are okay just water and then we begin that's it just I okay was good just my I did a little bit your mobile so both of you are mobile in the in the picture this one when I'm finished I can move it to here
are okay just water and then we begin that's it just I okay was good just my I did a little bit your mobile so both of you are mobile in the in the picture this one when I'm finished I can move it to here
unknown
but if you want to put it where you want if you think that there is better you move it
but if you want to put it where you want if you think that there is better you move it
unknown
directly
directly
Slavoj Žižek
okay okay I put this here I give us water okay okay okay okay okay wait a minute you know which country worries me now really I understand poverty and so on but it can be a catastrophe do you follow what is going now in South Africa when they want to take the land okay I understand it's horrible injustice but how to avoid the Zimbabwe catastrophe now because whatever you say the white farmers there are very efficient they make the country function no well efficient is the
okay okay I put this here I give us water okay okay okay okay okay wait a minute you know which country worries me now really I understand poverty and so on but it can be a catastrophe do you follow what is going now in South Africa when they want to take the land okay I understand it's horrible injustice but how to avoid the Zimbabwe catastrophe now because whatever you say the white farmers there are very efficient they make the country function no well efficient is the
unknown
problem because if everything must be efficient yeah half of the population will be out of the system and that's
problem because if everything must be efficient yeah half of the population will be out of the system and that's
Slavoj Žižek
yeah it's it's a catastrophe I think you know and the and my friends who are black leftists tell me the corruption in African National Congress is crazy it's absolute the corruption there you know and they are doing exactly what shouldn't be done to cover up their own corruption they are now blaming the whites you know please okay but then you can be here wherever you want I must be here this is easy no you not no no no be very comfortable it's comfort for me for me it's comfortable okay okay I just I sent the questionnaire because could be easier maybe go faster
yeah it's it's a catastrophe I think you know and the and my friends who are black leftists tell me the corruption in African National Congress is crazy it's absolute the corruption there you know and they are doing exactly what shouldn't be done to cover up their own corruption they are now blaming the whites you know please okay but then you can be here wherever you want I must be here this is easy no you not no no no be very comfortable it's comfort for me for me it's comfortable okay okay I just I sent the questionnaire because could be easier maybe go faster
unknown
yeah well the the first question is we are on you are recording we begin very good yes when was the last time that you visited Argentina oh it was it must be ten years ago and for ten years which is the remembrance that you have about Argentina for this time I don't think
yeah well the the first question is we are on you are recording we begin very good yes when was the last time that you visited Argentina oh it was it must be ten years ago and for ten years which is the remembrance that you have about Argentina for this time I don't think
Slavoj Žižek
this will be very interesting for you because my memories are of a very private nature I don't remember I remember particular details
this will be very interesting for you because my memories are of a very private nature I don't remember I remember particular details
unknown
like you know Ateneo there or others the nice bookstores the bookstores which are also cafeterias or not
like you know Ateneo there or others the nice bookstores the bookstores which are also cafeterias or not
Slavoj Žižek
expensive restaurants but moderate moderate places ordinary to eat like
expensive restaurants but moderate moderate places ordinary to eat like
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thing things like choripán and so on this ordinary with choripán why are there still idiots who want to eat McDonald's in Argentina I
thing things like choripán and so on this ordinary with choripán why are there still idiots who want to eat McDonald's in Argentina I
Slavoj Žižek
never got it this everyday everyday life this then in some parts this lively streets with which are open alive in the evening Buenos Aires I remember it as a city because I don't know what is your experience but in Estados Unidos in United States cities are disappearing I claim for example when I was young Santa Monica in Los Angeles was a myth lively that street the Third Street I think is now concrete shopping malls public life is disappearing so this is one of my fond memories there in Argentina then this may surprise you but since I am heavy diabetic I was surprised by never not even the most developed countries like United States did I see such high quality of stores for diabetic food you know you get twenty thirty types of cakes without sugar and all that and so on and so on so I and you miss Argentina you miss I do miss at this level unfortunately I was always busy and so on that I wasn't able to do maybe if I will get there you know I'm a crazy guy who likes cold this is hell for me my best holiday was last year with my son you know where are Svalbard Islands north of Norway and you fly one hour north practically in the pole yeah yeah yeah but it's so beautiful you know you have and so my dream as you can imagine is is Tierra del Fuego what is in the south there or some mountains and so on that's where I would really like to
never got it this everyday everyday life this then in some parts this lively streets with which are open alive in the evening Buenos Aires I remember it as a city because I don't know what is your experience but in Estados Unidos in United States cities are disappearing I claim for example when I was young Santa Monica in Los Angeles was a myth lively that street the Third Street I think is now concrete shopping malls public life is disappearing so this is one of my fond memories there in Argentina then this may surprise you but since I am heavy diabetic I was surprised by never not even the most developed countries like United States did I see such high quality of stores for diabetic food you know you get twenty thirty types of cakes without sugar and all that and so on and so on so I and you miss Argentina you miss I do miss at this level unfortunately I was always busy and so on that I wasn't able to do maybe if I will get there you know I'm a crazy guy who likes cold this is hell for me my best holiday was last year with my son you know where are Svalbard Islands north of Norway and you fly one hour north practically in the pole yeah yeah yeah but it's so beautiful you know you have and so my dream as you can imagine is is Tierra del Fuego what is in the south there or some mountains and so on that's where I would really like to
unknown
be Tierra del Fuego is in the latitude of Oslo in Norway and then
be Tierra del Fuego is in the latitude of Oslo in Norway and then
Slavoj Žižek
is the ideal place for you absolutely ideal place or maybe there some mountains up there you know yes in the Andes that is yeah yeah yeah this is this is my people people identify maybe too much tourists Argentina with all these cliché images pampas and then how do you call them your cowboys gauchos gauchos riding but I read in a history of Argentina that this image was created in early nineteenth century by British visitors you know this is are the first the first writers about the south yeah they created it and then you adopted it no no I I I and at some point this history of Argentina fascinated me I always like to be the devil's advocate so for some time this may surprise you I was able at that time to read a little bit Spanish I was surprised by the figure of who was your dictator Rosas in the 1820s 30s 40s no how he was not simply only bad it's much more
is the ideal place for you absolutely ideal place or maybe there some mountains up there you know yes in the Andes that is yeah yeah yeah this is this is my people people identify maybe too much tourists Argentina with all these cliché images pampas and then how do you call them your cowboys gauchos gauchos riding but I read in a history of Argentina that this image was created in early nineteenth century by British visitors you know this is are the first the first writers about the south yeah they created it and then you adopted it no no I I I and at some point this history of Argentina fascinated me I always like to be the devil's advocate so for some time this may surprise you I was able at that time to read a little bit Spanish I was surprised by the figure of who was your dictator Rosas in the 1820s 30s 40s no how he was not simply only bad it's much more
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complex you cannot just dismiss him and I was this was a book that
complex you cannot just dismiss him and I was this was a book that
Slavoj Žižek
I was it may shock you tempted to write a kind of a revisionist partial he was horrible also
I was it may shock you tempted to write a kind of a revisionist partial he was horrible also
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rehabilitation of Rosas
rehabilitation of Rosas
Slavoj Žižek
you know so the history fascinated me and so on but I was never I must tell you and this many people were shocked at it precisely as some kind of a leftist I was never trapped by Peronism I I know there were some leftist tendencies in Peronism but I think the basic formula of Peronism still remains that of a populist fascism a strong authoritarian government controls both poles working workers and capital tries to introduce some justice and so on but for me this never works in the long term it brings corruption it brings immobility and so on and so on so I was never seduced by Peronism and also more generally this also brought me a lot of troubles I am a radical leftist but not a naive leftist I don't expect a revolution or what my left means only this we are obviously approaching some serious problems my God even big corporate persons like Zuckerberg who is an idiot but doesn't matter Bill Gates and so on are saying this capitalism cannot survive the way it is the problem is that I don't think that populism is the answer I have a strong this was also the reason at the end I was in very bad relations with Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe who proposed this formula of leftist populism I I you are not agreeing with that no no if for no other reason why not okay let's go not into theory but into more complex stuff don't you think that the idea of populism at its best nobody will accuse Podemos in Spain or of totalitarianism but their basic idea is forget about ideological schemes listen to real people to their problems and so on what people really care really want really worry about I think that the situation today is so complex that I know I don't trust intellectuals they don't have a solution but do you think that ordinary people are any better I don't think so look what's the tragedy even with my good friend who is now popular after being a minister Yanis Varoufakis yes there's always my problem with him he says this idea people should be allowed to vote freely to really say and I tell him look at the for example immigrant crisis now many people worry about immigrants so most of the people now in Western Europe would be against immigrants so should you trust them here and so on no I think that we are in a very difficult problem where a situation where the problems that we have you need some kind of a theory or deeper insight even to identify the problem you cannot play this old Maoist I'm referring to Mao Zedong game of let's just listen to the people if you listen to the people you get often some racism even spontaneous racism and so on even to identify the problems we need reflection for example ecology people forget that even to identify the problem ozone hole global warming you don't see the ozone hole up there it's science which tells you and this is what makes so problematic today we are approaching problems but and this is for me I think the big problem I hope you agree for the left capitalism is approaching big troubles but let's face it the left today doesn't have a consistent answer to what you do I was on Wall Street Occupy Wall Street and I was always asking them what do you want really and I got some kind of a confusion always less corruption more efficient government and so on okay I told them is it then still capitalism with more welfare is it something much more radical and so on and so on they don't have it that's why the left is getting moralistic political correctness MeToo this happens always I claim when you don't have an alternative proposal and this was the true tragedy sorry to I'm jumping if you ask me with Chávez in Venezuela he was for me to be very vicious a Fidel Castro with money he was not as far as I can see solving problems he had first enough money to throw money at problems he spends he spent yeah and I know from friends there how many attempts he made he was experimenting all the time self-management of the workers giving factories to the workers cooperatives and so on and so on maybe it worked here and there but globally it did not work and that's why we leftists instead of just crying oh global capitalism new forms of fascism and so on we have seriously to ask ourselves do we have to offer what do we have to offer to the people do we have an alternative to the capitalism to the and what does it mean how to do it it's a very tragic situation but I talk too much please no no no no it's the same thing that I am thinking about the populism because now some people think that Trump Donald Trump in United States is the first Peronist to be president of the United States because he's a populist too and are any kind of similarity between Trump and Perón and you think that this idea that Trump could be the first Peronist president in United States is part of the narcissism of the Argentinians or maybe is possible that United States is going to this kind of well I'm here here first insofar as Peronism was basically a form of it may be much softer than Nazism but a form of fascism okay I would not like because it simplifies the terms to call Trump a fascist I will tell you why it's not that he's better but often today's leftists don't you think they see something they don't like and instead of concretely analyzing it the easiest way to do it is to just apply the old terms oh it's fascism again no it's not simply fascism again second thing that it's very simplified analysis but I think it's true we should not focus on Trump but we should focus on the failure of the United States political establishment which opened up the space for Trump I think that the big event in United States it's the failure of what in old Marxist terms we called hegemonía ideológica ideological hegemony there was a gap there mistrust of the people in the ruling political consensus and so on and Trump filled in this space how yes maybe in a Peronist way that is to say combining left and right that's why I find very interesting the person of Steve Bannon you know that he consciously plays this game of even flirting with Bernie Sanders of incorporating some leftist demands which no social democrat today would dare to implement for example Bannon's misunderstanding with Trump you know that he wanted to raise taxes not to lower them to forty-five percent and so on and we know this in Europe in Europe I was shocked my friends from Poland told me this conservative Christian government of Kaczyński who is the grey eminence in Poland they implemented some social measures like lowering retirement age better healthcare and so on which no no moderate mainstream leftist party would
you know so the history fascinated me and so on but I was never I must tell you and this many people were shocked at it precisely as some kind of a leftist I was never trapped by Peronism I I know there were some leftist tendencies in Peronism but I think the basic formula of Peronism still remains that of a populist fascism a strong authoritarian government controls both poles working workers and capital tries to introduce some justice and so on but for me this never works in the long term it brings corruption it brings immobility and so on and so on so I was never seduced by Peronism and also more generally this also brought me a lot of troubles I am a radical leftist but not a naive leftist I don't expect a revolution or what my left means only this we are obviously approaching some serious problems my God even big corporate persons like Zuckerberg who is an idiot but doesn't matter Bill Gates and so on are saying this capitalism cannot survive the way it is the problem is that I don't think that populism is the answer I have a strong this was also the reason at the end I was in very bad relations with Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe who proposed this formula of leftist populism I I you are not agreeing with that no no if for no other reason why not okay let's go not into theory but into more complex stuff don't you think that the idea of populism at its best nobody will accuse Podemos in Spain or of totalitarianism but their basic idea is forget about ideological schemes listen to real people to their problems and so on what people really care really want really worry about I think that the situation today is so complex that I know I don't trust intellectuals they don't have a solution but do you think that ordinary people are any better I don't think so look what's the tragedy even with my good friend who is now popular after being a minister Yanis Varoufakis yes there's always my problem with him he says this idea people should be allowed to vote freely to really say and I tell him look at the for example immigrant crisis now many people worry about immigrants so most of the people now in Western Europe would be against immigrants so should you trust them here and so on no I think that we are in a very difficult problem where a situation where the problems that we have you need some kind of a theory or deeper insight even to identify the problem you cannot play this old Maoist I'm referring to Mao Zedong game of let's just listen to the people if you listen to the people you get often some racism even spontaneous racism and so on even to identify the problems we need reflection for example ecology people forget that even to identify the problem ozone hole global warming you don't see the ozone hole up there it's science which tells you and this is what makes so problematic today we are approaching problems but and this is for me I think the big problem I hope you agree for the left capitalism is approaching big troubles but let's face it the left today doesn't have a consistent answer to what you do I was on Wall Street Occupy Wall Street and I was always asking them what do you want really and I got some kind of a confusion always less corruption more efficient government and so on okay I told them is it then still capitalism with more welfare is it something much more radical and so on and so on they don't have it that's why the left is getting moralistic political correctness MeToo this happens always I claim when you don't have an alternative proposal and this was the true tragedy sorry to I'm jumping if you ask me with Chávez in Venezuela he was for me to be very vicious a Fidel Castro with money he was not as far as I can see solving problems he had first enough money to throw money at problems he spends he spent yeah and I know from friends there how many attempts he made he was experimenting all the time self-management of the workers giving factories to the workers cooperatives and so on and so on maybe it worked here and there but globally it did not work and that's why we leftists instead of just crying oh global capitalism new forms of fascism and so on we have seriously to ask ourselves do we have to offer what do we have to offer to the people do we have an alternative to the capitalism to the and what does it mean how to do it it's a very tragic situation but I talk too much please no no no no it's the same thing that I am thinking about the populism because now some people think that Trump Donald Trump in United States is the first Peronist to be president of the United States because he's a populist too and are any kind of similarity between Trump and Perón and you think that this idea that Trump could be the first Peronist president in United States is part of the narcissism of the Argentinians or maybe is possible that United States is going to this kind of well I'm here here first insofar as Peronism was basically a form of it may be much softer than Nazism but a form of fascism okay I would not like because it simplifies the terms to call Trump a fascist I will tell you why it's not that he's better but often today's leftists don't you think they see something they don't like and instead of concretely analyzing it the easiest way to do it is to just apply the old terms oh it's fascism again no it's not simply fascism again second thing that it's very simplified analysis but I think it's true we should not focus on Trump but we should focus on the failure of the United States political establishment which opened up the space for Trump I think that the big event in United States it's the failure of what in old Marxist terms we called hegemonía ideológica ideological hegemony there was a gap there mistrust of the people in the ruling political consensus and so on and Trump filled in this space how yes maybe in a Peronist way that is to say combining left and right that's why I find very interesting the person of Steve Bannon you know that he consciously plays this game of even flirting with Bernie Sanders of incorporating some leftist demands which no social democrat today would dare to implement for example Bannon's misunderstanding with Trump you know that he wanted to raise taxes not to lower them to forty-five percent and so on and we know this in Europe in Europe I was shocked my friends from Poland told me this conservative Christian government of Kaczyński who is the grey eminence in Poland they implemented some social measures like lowering retirement age better healthcare and so on which no no moderate mainstream leftist party would
unknown
dare to do the same in France Marine Le Pen she was the only one of the big parties who dared to directly address working class and my enemy here is the predominant leftist ideology which is this politically correct moralism they I find some truth in this that they these modern liberal left they were so focused on these problems of feminism multiculturalism and so on that at some point they lost contact with let's call it ordinary people and this populist right stepped in this is why in spite of all this Russian
dare to do the same in France Marine Le Pen she was the only one of the big parties who dared to directly address working class and my enemy here is the predominant leftist ideology which is this politically correct moralism they I find some truth in this that they these modern liberal left they were so focused on these problems of feminism multiculturalism and so on that at some point they lost contact with let's call it ordinary people and this populist right stepped in this is why in spite of all this Russian
Slavoj Žižek
meddling I'm no friend of Putin you know absolutely not but I think the main reason of Trump's victory was the disgraceful way Hillary Clinton blocked Bernie Sanders and the left wing I read some analysis which demonstrate in United States that many Democratic voters were so shocked by this Hillary Clinton's way of doing that they did not many of them vote for Trump but they abstained they said it's too much for us and I am so what I am afraid is that to return to this liberal left establishment logic embodied by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is not enough to win over Trump now I'm not advocating any kind of revolution this is crazy but I'm just saying this is why I never liked I'm just saying it's not enough to plea for the return to the old establishment Trump moved changed the situation categories at the same time but the the idea that they use some things from the left absolutely you know Steve Bannon I saw an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN where he said my idea is the coalition between Trump and Bernie Sanders he directly said this and my idea is that this is what we should learn we cannot simply return to the old old establishment logic of categories categories liberal left this because Trump is precisely the proof that these categories don't work don't work so we are in a although things may appear to go on okay but you know moments in social life when there is no firm ideological hegemony are extremely dangerous I read somewhere a very good do you know that guy okay he is he is a little bit simplistic and so on he is now a big bestseller Yuval maybe you interviewed him even Yuval Harari you know the the famous yeah he makes in his *Homo Deus* one point very well for democracy to function even if you have strong oppositions there always has to be a certain set of shared values procedures and so on and so on this is why as he points out if you have too big cultural or ethnic or religious differences you cannot play simple democracy majority rules you have to play coalition negotiations and so on and so on and this is missing today this consensus like in America before Trump democrat wherever whoever won they shared so many basic presuppositions that the system functioned if Democrats lost they said okay let's wait four years or eight it will be up I think Trump is something much more radical exactly yeah it's not just the normal exchange within the consensus this consensus itself is changing and to be very clear here I am not saying that well I'm not crazy we need a Leninist revolution you know you have one question afterwards in what sense I am a Leninist where maybe you know my answer for three reasons first reason is I always say repeat Lenin today not in the sense of doing the same that is one of the titles of your books yeah yeah but I make it clear that Lenin is dead to repeat is to do it again but precisely correcting Lenin's mistakes what do I mean by this you know which Lenin I like at the end of the World War I or in World War I not only Lenin the entire left was shocked by this patriotic turn you know all social democratic parties in Europe when the war began voted for war credits and so on and Lenin was totally devastated and what did he do he withdrew into Switzerland basically and started to read Hegel I mean this is the Lenin I like this idea of our old world has died and we don't have simple answers to it it's not enough to stick to the old line we have to rethink everything now I am not one of those Trotskyist idiots who claim oh if only Lenin were to survive two three years more we would have a different Soviet Union no somehow at a different at a deeper level Stalinism was there present as a most probable version and so Lenin cannot be simply excused you know but you know where I still admire Lenin the last years of Lenin's life he was pretty desperate and okay let's not lose time with this but I will tell you something I wrote about it now which shocked me you know everybody who tries to redeem Lenin quotes his famous testament where he says we
meddling I'm no friend of Putin you know absolutely not but I think the main reason of Trump's victory was the disgraceful way Hillary Clinton blocked Bernie Sanders and the left wing I read some analysis which demonstrate in United States that many Democratic voters were so shocked by this Hillary Clinton's way of doing that they did not many of them vote for Trump but they abstained they said it's too much for us and I am so what I am afraid is that to return to this liberal left establishment logic embodied by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton is not enough to win over Trump now I'm not advocating any kind of revolution this is crazy but I'm just saying this is why I never liked I'm just saying it's not enough to plea for the return to the old establishment Trump moved changed the situation categories at the same time but the the idea that they use some things from the left absolutely you know Steve Bannon I saw an interview with Fareed Zakaria on CNN where he said my idea is the coalition between Trump and Bernie Sanders he directly said this and my idea is that this is what we should learn we cannot simply return to the old old establishment logic of categories categories liberal left this because Trump is precisely the proof that these categories don't work don't work so we are in a although things may appear to go on okay but you know moments in social life when there is no firm ideological hegemony are extremely dangerous I read somewhere a very good do you know that guy okay he is he is a little bit simplistic and so on he is now a big bestseller Yuval maybe you interviewed him even Yuval Harari you know the the famous yeah he makes in his *Homo Deus* one point very well for democracy to function even if you have strong oppositions there always has to be a certain set of shared values procedures and so on and so on this is why as he points out if you have too big cultural or ethnic or religious differences you cannot play simple democracy majority rules you have to play coalition negotiations and so on and so on and this is missing today this consensus like in America before Trump democrat wherever whoever won they shared so many basic presuppositions that the system functioned if Democrats lost they said okay let's wait four years or eight it will be up I think Trump is something much more radical exactly yeah it's not just the normal exchange within the consensus this consensus itself is changing and to be very clear here I am not saying that well I'm not crazy we need a Leninist revolution you know you have one question afterwards in what sense I am a Leninist where maybe you know my answer for three reasons first reason is I always say repeat Lenin today not in the sense of doing the same that is one of the titles of your books yeah yeah but I make it clear that Lenin is dead to repeat is to do it again but precisely correcting Lenin's mistakes what do I mean by this you know which Lenin I like at the end of the World War I or in World War I not only Lenin the entire left was shocked by this patriotic turn you know all social democratic parties in Europe when the war began voted for war credits and so on and Lenin was totally devastated and what did he do he withdrew into Switzerland basically and started to read Hegel I mean this is the Lenin I like this idea of our old world has died and we don't have simple answers to it it's not enough to stick to the old line we have to rethink everything now I am not one of those Trotskyist idiots who claim oh if only Lenin were to survive two three years more we would have a different Soviet Union no somehow at a different at a deeper level Stalinism was there present as a most probable version and so Lenin cannot be simply excused you know but you know where I still admire Lenin the last years of Lenin's life he was pretty desperate and okay let's not lose time with this but I will tell you something I wrote about it now which shocked me you know everybody who tries to redeem Lenin quotes his famous testament where he says we
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should depose Stalin and so on but how many people noticed a simple thing what are Lenin's arguments against Stalin it's not the political line Stalin is too
should depose Stalin and so on but how many people noticed a simple thing what are Lenin's arguments against Stalin it's not the political line Stalin is too
Slavoj Žižek
radical no it's it's shocking it's a question of manners Lenin is saying Stalin is too rude and so on and so on and this is not just with Stalin I find this so admirable it's not radical enough Lenin was guilty for it but how all of a sudden in the last years Lenin saw it that this brutality of political life is extremely dangerous and all of a sudden he was obsessed with this idea just bring more civilized talk politeness and so on also in his other proposals you had this and this is very actual today incidentally with Donald Trump you know we are entering a new age of political brutality so this is one thing second thing is what I already said this awareness that the old left is over we have to rethink everything and so to be a Leninist today is not to return to Lenin but to scrap even Lenin and start you know I quote in one of my books Lenin wrote a wonderful text about
radical no it's it's shocking it's a question of manners Lenin is saying Stalin is too rude and so on and so on and this is not just with Stalin I find this so admirable it's not radical enough Lenin was guilty for it but how all of a sudden in the last years Lenin saw it that this brutality of political life is extremely dangerous and all of a sudden he was obsessed with this idea just bring more civilized talk politeness and so on also in his other proposals you had this and this is very actual today incidentally with Donald Trump you know we are entering a new age of political brutality so this is one thing second thing is what I already said this awareness that the old left is over we have to rethink everything and so to be a Leninist today is not to return to Lenin but to scrap even Lenin and start you know I quote in one of my books Lenin wrote a wonderful text about
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climbing
climbing
Slavoj Žižek
a high mountain when he said in a revolutionary process you see you are on a wrong path and then you have to return down to the starting point and do it again this is what the left has to do it but otherwise when people ask me why you are a Leninist you must know my joke about that Lenin learn learn learn no oh please that's a wonderful when I was even in a young young student under communism high school we have in school rooms that famous advice of Lenin to young people what just learn learn and learn okay the joke goes like this they ask those legendary jokes where you ask three people they ask Marx Engels and Lenin would you prefer to have wife or a mistress and Marx more conservative says wife Engels more a bon vivant
a high mountain when he said in a revolutionary process you see you are on a wrong path and then you have to return down to the starting point and do it again this is what the left has to do it but otherwise when people ask me why you are a Leninist you must know my joke about that Lenin learn learn learn no oh please that's a wonderful when I was even in a young young student under communism high school we have in school rooms that famous advice of Lenin to young people what just learn learn and learn okay the joke goes like this they ask those legendary jokes where you ask three people they ask Marx Engels and Lenin would you prefer to have wife or a mistress and Marx more conservative says wife Engels more a bon vivant
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says
says
Slavoj Žižek
mistress Lenin says I want to have both and they are shocked my God isn't Lenin an ascetic why then they ask him but why comrade Lenin and he says because so that I can tell my wife that I'm with my mistress and to my mistress that I'm with my wife and then they ask him but what do you do then he says learn learn and learn isn't this if we say wife is for the established order mistress is transgression that's what we need to do today we really don't know basically what is happening today what type of new society is emerging this is why I even said to the horror of my leftist friends and I hope we agree here that today our formula this should no longer be the Marxist thesis on Feuerbach philosophers have only interpreted the world we have to change it we should maybe turn it around in the twentieth century we maybe tried to change the world too fast without knowing what we are doing today we have to step back and interpret it again we don't know look I remember I met him later in Paris your friend okay friend you made also an interview with him Guy Sorman yeah his what goes on in China today his solution for me is too simple his solution is it's not real capitalism because capitalism I say okay but then what it is China is for me maybe the saddest lesson that we got on the one hand let's admit it what they achieved in the last forty years or what is simply breathtaking I don't think there was ever a period even in United States early capitalism where just in thirty forty years a country passed from poverty to such explosive development and so on and so on but the sad thing for me is that it proves how nonetheless capitalism okay we call it market capitalism I will not struggle how to define it this explosive capitalist development can work very well with an authoritarian state and again I though at the beginning the the neighbors from Asia showed the same Korea was a dictatorship not only this even the model for me is you know my friend who is a right-winger but intelligent the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk maybe you know what he said they asked him a couple of years ago very interesting question to which person from our time will they be building monuments fifty or one hundred years in the future you know what was his answer Lee Kuan Yew the founder of modern and when I was in Singapore they showed me a movie you know when Deng Xiaoping began his reforms he said Singapore should be model for all of China and so on but this is very sad the formula is simply a kind of a authoritarian capitalism it was the same with Pinochet yeah and isn't it yeah and Chile developed a lot developed a lot the question is what will be the future is after that the all idea innocent idea that from the competition of the market will be the competition in the politics and I think that this is not going no no no I am always many Marxists always have this idea we have to suffer now but then it will be better well you know what Freud says here once a communist tried to turn around Freud and told to Freud first we will have to suffer a lot then it will be paradise and Freud says well I believe with first part of your statement but not with the second no no if anything we learned from history is mistrust you shouldn't trust those who promise suffering now for the later happiness basically it never happened but what I mean is that this is what would have worried me you know people when people were claiming it was true till now and I can be convinced of the opposite but I doubt it was true till now that capitalism sooner or later brought democracy a demand let's take precisely the example of Pinochet or of Korea a dictatorship triggered the development when it developed to a certain point it gave birth to a radical demand for democracy even in Brazil it was the same and so on but things like Singapore China and so on make me I'm asking myself what do you think here my impression is that I doubt that this still holds I don't trust liberals who think with all this the people after that after that we will have a common democracy I am afraid I am afraid that there is something genuinely new maybe when you when you change the scale yeah change everything yeah in China is so big to repeat the same way that this Singapore the Korea the Chile but the question is which is the system of China this is capitalism no it's something genuinely new it's not capitalism in the classic sense but it's also not simply some authoritarian regime you know what is so but this is the future for the work one of the tendencies that's what I'm afraid of and here Trump fits in what makes me so sad is that you know you remember two years ago three when there was that tension between Turkey and Russia when Turks shot down two Russian fighters which entered from Syria then it was almost war they said and so on and from Turkey they asked me what do I think about this tension and I told them okay tension up tension down but aren't Erdoğan and Putin very similar in some sense yeah they're both their formula is precisely this authoritarian nationalism so I proposed and for this I was afraid to enter then Turkey for one year I proposed the term Putogan like condensation of Putin and Erdoğan I said in any case new Putogans will rule us and you have this in India Modi and so on this combination of authoritarian nationalism with capitalism with capitalism and this really is the current world and in a way isn't also Trump moving in this direction that's the meaning of his formula America First that's the new formula America First Russia First India First Turkey First whatever and the case the difference with China is in the other part of the world there is a person that is the authoritarian in the case of China is a party yes it was a party it or was the party this is a very interesting question because at a certain point how do you pronounce his name I don't know Xi or what Xi yeah he tried to impose himself as a leader you know at the level of Mao his name but I read recently that there are some resistances to it you know that it doesn't well until now we we
mistress Lenin says I want to have both and they are shocked my God isn't Lenin an ascetic why then they ask him but why comrade Lenin and he says because so that I can tell my wife that I'm with my mistress and to my mistress that I'm with my wife and then they ask him but what do you do then he says learn learn and learn isn't this if we say wife is for the established order mistress is transgression that's what we need to do today we really don't know basically what is happening today what type of new society is emerging this is why I even said to the horror of my leftist friends and I hope we agree here that today our formula this should no longer be the Marxist thesis on Feuerbach philosophers have only interpreted the world we have to change it we should maybe turn it around in the twentieth century we maybe tried to change the world too fast without knowing what we are doing today we have to step back and interpret it again we don't know look I remember I met him later in Paris your friend okay friend you made also an interview with him Guy Sorman yeah his what goes on in China today his solution for me is too simple his solution is it's not real capitalism because capitalism I say okay but then what it is China is for me maybe the saddest lesson that we got on the one hand let's admit it what they achieved in the last forty years or what is simply breathtaking I don't think there was ever a period even in United States early capitalism where just in thirty forty years a country passed from poverty to such explosive development and so on and so on but the sad thing for me is that it proves how nonetheless capitalism okay we call it market capitalism I will not struggle how to define it this explosive capitalist development can work very well with an authoritarian state and again I though at the beginning the the neighbors from Asia showed the same Korea was a dictatorship not only this even the model for me is you know my friend who is a right-winger but intelligent the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk maybe you know what he said they asked him a couple of years ago very interesting question to which person from our time will they be building monuments fifty or one hundred years in the future you know what was his answer Lee Kuan Yew the founder of modern and when I was in Singapore they showed me a movie you know when Deng Xiaoping began his reforms he said Singapore should be model for all of China and so on but this is very sad the formula is simply a kind of a authoritarian capitalism it was the same with Pinochet yeah and isn't it yeah and Chile developed a lot developed a lot the question is what will be the future is after that the all idea innocent idea that from the competition of the market will be the competition in the politics and I think that this is not going no no no I am always many Marxists always have this idea we have to suffer now but then it will be better well you know what Freud says here once a communist tried to turn around Freud and told to Freud first we will have to suffer a lot then it will be paradise and Freud says well I believe with first part of your statement but not with the second no no if anything we learned from history is mistrust you shouldn't trust those who promise suffering now for the later happiness basically it never happened but what I mean is that this is what would have worried me you know people when people were claiming it was true till now and I can be convinced of the opposite but I doubt it was true till now that capitalism sooner or later brought democracy a demand let's take precisely the example of Pinochet or of Korea a dictatorship triggered the development when it developed to a certain point it gave birth to a radical demand for democracy even in Brazil it was the same and so on but things like Singapore China and so on make me I'm asking myself what do you think here my impression is that I doubt that this still holds I don't trust liberals who think with all this the people after that after that we will have a common democracy I am afraid I am afraid that there is something genuinely new maybe when you when you change the scale yeah change everything yeah in China is so big to repeat the same way that this Singapore the Korea the Chile but the question is which is the system of China this is capitalism no it's something genuinely new it's not capitalism in the classic sense but it's also not simply some authoritarian regime you know what is so but this is the future for the work one of the tendencies that's what I'm afraid of and here Trump fits in what makes me so sad is that you know you remember two years ago three when there was that tension between Turkey and Russia when Turks shot down two Russian fighters which entered from Syria then it was almost war they said and so on and from Turkey they asked me what do I think about this tension and I told them okay tension up tension down but aren't Erdoğan and Putin very similar in some sense yeah they're both their formula is precisely this authoritarian nationalism so I proposed and for this I was afraid to enter then Turkey for one year I proposed the term Putogan like condensation of Putin and Erdoğan I said in any case new Putogans will rule us and you have this in India Modi and so on this combination of authoritarian nationalism with capitalism with capitalism and this really is the current world and in a way isn't also Trump moving in this direction that's the meaning of his formula America First that's the new formula America First Russia First India First Turkey First whatever and the case the difference with China is in the other part of the world there is a person that is the authoritarian in the case of China is a party yes it was a party it or was the party this is a very interesting question because at a certain point how do you pronounce his name I don't know Xi or what Xi yeah he tried to impose himself as a leader you know at the level of Mao his name but I read recently that there are some resistances to it you know that it doesn't well until now we we
unknown
can say that the difference between China and the rest of the authoritarian with capitalism is China don't have a person
can say that the difference between China and the rest of the authoritarian with capitalism is China don't have a person
Slavoj Žižek
that is the authoritarian the party is the authoritarian this could change in the future I i think that no I don't think also I don't think it's a too complex situation but they already have an authoritarian this is always I read some very good books about how China actually functions those who rule are now it was nine now they are seven people the standing committee of the Politburo and you know what's so fascinating with all the big congresses debate it's like divine appearance a mysterious event at the end of a congress every I don't know how many years they are presented nobody knows okay there are rumors who I think that this non-transparency you don't debate who will be the new members of the Politburo the names are simply not given in advance this is the key authoritarian element this mysterious
that is the authoritarian the party is the authoritarian this could change in the future I i think that no I don't think also I don't think it's a too complex situation but they already have an authoritarian this is always I read some very good books about how China actually functions those who rule are now it was nine now they are seven people the standing committee of the Politburo and you know what's so fascinating with all the big congresses debate it's like divine appearance a mysterious event at the end of a congress every I don't know how many years they are presented nobody knows okay there are rumors who I think that this non-transparency you don't debate who will be the new members of the Politburo the names are simply not given in advance this is the key authoritarian element this mysterious
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appearance from nowhere not they don't even pretend to debate different names the essential difference is that they don't pretend to have a differentiation of power justice is different to congress no no no yeah yeah this is the big differences and obviously this is related
appearance from nowhere not they don't even pretend to debate different names the essential difference is that they don't pretend to have a differentiation of power justice is different to congress no no no yeah yeah this is the big differences and obviously this is related
Slavoj Žižek
with press because if you don't have a differentiation between the party and the justice obviously you couldn't have free press but I read a good book I've written about it from sorry the name where it says you know how delicate in this sense the Chinese system is do you know a wonder I like these symptomatic crazy things when they happen you know that a Chinese dissident it's a true story denounced Communist Party to the court he said Communist Party committed some crimes I think he was referring to Tiananmen or whatever and I want to go to court to go to court yeah you know he got an answer in two months it's not a joke you know what was the answer no sorry but we looked at all our registrations no organization like Communist Party exists you know that Communist Party rules but it has no legal status it's very mysterious all communist in communism in China rules in this way it's totally not formalized it's not an institution it doesn't exist legal status is not and I think this is the formula of authoritarian government at its purest that you have some legal system you have a government blah blah parliament but everything is decided in advance basically but then if if you synthesize the question is the market dominate all the world the difference is between the countries that still being democratic in sense that they have
with press because if you don't have a differentiation between the party and the justice obviously you couldn't have free press but I read a good book I've written about it from sorry the name where it says you know how delicate in this sense the Chinese system is do you know a wonder I like these symptomatic crazy things when they happen you know that a Chinese dissident it's a true story denounced Communist Party to the court he said Communist Party committed some crimes I think he was referring to Tiananmen or whatever and I want to go to court to go to court yeah you know he got an answer in two months it's not a joke you know what was the answer no sorry but we looked at all our registrations no organization like Communist Party exists you know that Communist Party rules but it has no legal status it's very mysterious all communist in communism in China rules in this way it's totally not formalized it's not an institution it doesn't exist legal status is not and I think this is the formula of authoritarian government at its purest that you have some legal system you have a government blah blah parliament but everything is decided in advance basically but then if if you synthesize the question is the market dominate all the world the difference is between the countries that still being democratic in sense that they have
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different powers yeah yeah or
different powers yeah yeah or
Slavoj Žižek
countries that
countries that
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have authoritarianism and here is my fear I'm not a Leninist totalitarian of course I prefer democracy but what worries me is this strengthening of this more authoritarian type which although incidentally I'm not afraid this is crazy when some
have authoritarianism and here is my fear I'm not a Leninist totalitarian of course I prefer democracy but what worries me is this strengthening of this more authoritarian type which although incidentally I'm not afraid this is crazy when some
Slavoj Žižek
of my leftist critics in America tell me don't you see Trump already is fascism in power no let's be serious United States is a very complex country with so many independent institutions and so on and so on Trump in power in United States it's not the same as let's say Marine Le Pen in power in France France is much more centralized there it would have been much more dangerous so I don't fear this but in a way the tendency is unfortunately the same but you know where I see when you said market is global this is my when you ask me also in one of the following questions about what is the symptom today and so on I think and I repeat this all the time in a very naive way that the big question today is are we still Fukuyama-ists Fukuyama that is one of the questionnaire yeah and Fukuyama and I didn't like it when people just dismissed Fukuyama as an idiot and so on in practice all of us we were Fukuyama-ists because even many radical leftists thought basically the system we have liberal democratic capitalism is the
of my leftist critics in America tell me don't you see Trump already is fascism in power no let's be serious United States is a very complex country with so many independent institutions and so on and so on Trump in power in United States it's not the same as let's say Marine Le Pen in power in France France is much more centralized there it would have been much more dangerous so I don't fear this but in a way the tendency is unfortunately the same but you know where I see when you said market is global this is my when you ask me also in one of the following questions about what is the symptom today and so on I think and I repeat this all the time in a very naive way that the big question today is are we still Fukuyama-ists Fukuyama that is one of the questionnaire yeah and Fukuyama and I didn't like it when people just dismissed Fukuyama as an idiot and so on in practice all of us we were Fukuyama-ists because even many radical leftists thought basically the system we have liberal democratic capitalism is the
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best
best
Slavoj Žižek
we can imagine we can do some changes more abortion rights more gay rights more tolerance more health care but basically we and then the
we can imagine we can do some changes more abortion rights more gay rights more tolerance more health care but basically we and then the
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Fukuyama as you if you interviewed him must know even he doubts this now he sees problems
Fukuyama as you if you interviewed him must know even he doubts this now he sees problems
Slavoj Žižek
I also see them and I always repeat I see at
I also see them and I always repeat I see at
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least four problems first problem would be to be very simple ecology I don't think ultimately that
least four problems first problem would be to be very simple ecology I don't think ultimately that
Slavoj Žižek
although we should use market where we can like you tax more the polluters and so on but catastrophes are possible and they will happen all the time where you need a much greater larger stronger international organization my good friend Jean-Pierre Dupuy D-U-P-U-Y a French theorist of catastrophes was as an envoy of European Union in Fukushima three days after and he told me something horrible he told me that for a couple of hours Japanese government was in panic because it looked that they will
although we should use market where we can like you tax more the polluters and so on but catastrophes are possible and they will happen all the time where you need a much greater larger stronger international organization my good friend Jean-Pierre Dupuy D-U-P-U-Y a French theorist of catastrophes was as an envoy of European Union in Fukushima three days after and he told me something horrible he told me that for a couple of hours Japanese government was in panic because it looked that they will
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have to evacuate the entire Tokyo area thirty million people where how we need to get prepared to things like that the whole parts of the world are getting uninhabitable like I was there with my son part of my you know I'm a snob privately I live modestly but once a year I take my son and tells him let's do some crazy like for one week we
have to evacuate the entire Tokyo area thirty million people where how we need to get prepared to things like that the whole parts of the world are getting uninhabitable like I was there with my son part of my you know I'm a snob privately I live modestly but once a year I take my son and tells him let's do some crazy like for one week we
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went I got a good
went I got a good
Slavoj Žižek
offer not too expensive you know that Burj Al Arab hotel like they say yes yes in the and I was there for one week I got the smallest room just two hundred and twenty square meters just two floors but what I'm saying is that there they told me every summer they get a week or two of over fifty degrees Celsius even for them it's getting too much and the saddest news that I got is that now they suspect that the same is beginning to happen in this most inhabited part of the world China the coast between Beijing and Shanghai that so even to confront these problems you will have to have some large institutional structures you cannot do it simply by the market and I worry how to do how to do it that's my first problem the second so ecology generally second problem I agree here with with Fukuyama what is happening today with brain
offer not too expensive you know that Burj Al Arab hotel like they say yes yes in the and I was there for one week I got the smallest room just two hundred and twenty square meters just two floors but what I'm saying is that there they told me every summer they get a week or two of over fifty degrees Celsius even for them it's getting too much and the saddest news that I got is that now they suspect that the same is beginning to happen in this most inhabited part of the world China the coast between Beijing and Shanghai that so even to confront these problems you will have to have some large institutional structures you cannot do it simply by the market and I worry how to do how to do it that's my first problem the second so ecology generally second problem I agree here with with Fukuyama what is happening today with brain
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sciences is pretty terrifying you know and all are doing China United States and so on something which has even deep philosophical consequences is happening our notion of being
sciences is pretty terrifying you know and all are doing China United States and so on something which has even deep philosophical consequences is happening our notion of being
Slavoj Žižek
living person a free
living person a free
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self always implies
self always implies
Slavoj Žižek
I'm free in my thinking I'm here reality is out there now it's already developing a direct connection between our brain and a computer well okay I think about something it can happen do you know that Stephen Hawking in the last years he no longer needed his finger to move his brain was wired attached he just thought forward and his wheelchair moved but it goes also the other way around so who will do this how do we control it and so on and co- this connected with digitalization of our lives here I agree with Harari and so on it's not just pessimism but it's simply that something so new is happening new modes of control and so on and so on that's why I'm not praising I'm not crazy Putin but it's too easy when Americans play now oh Putin influenced elections no we now know Cambridge Analytica and so on it's just part of the new forms of control and you know what I find dangerous in these forms of control that it's not the old totalitarian control where you are afraid you know you're controlled we experience this control as freedom I sit in front of the TV I surf what can be more freedom surfing around on the web choosing what you want but again we are manipulated everything is directed and so on everything is
I'm free in my thinking I'm here reality is out there now it's already developing a direct connection between our brain and a computer well okay I think about something it can happen do you know that Stephen Hawking in the last years he no longer needed his finger to move his brain was wired attached he just thought forward and his wheelchair moved but it goes also the other way around so who will do this how do we control it and so on and co- this connected with digitalization of our lives here I agree with Harari and so on it's not just pessimism but it's simply that something so new is happening new modes of control and so on and so on that's why I'm not praising I'm not crazy Putin but it's too easy when Americans play now oh Putin influenced elections no we now know Cambridge Analytica and so on it's just part of the new forms of control and you know what I find dangerous in these forms of control that it's not the old totalitarian control where you are afraid you know you're controlled we experience this control as freedom I sit in front of the TV I surf what can be more freedom surfing around on the web choosing what you want but again we are manipulated everything is directed and so on everything is
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registered and so on so my point is not just pessimism my point is that at least we it this control of course we should prevent hardcore child pornography racism but it should be done in a transparent way that we should ordinary people we should know how we
registered and so on so my point is not just pessimism my point is that at least we it this control of course we should prevent hardcore child pornography racism but it should be done in a transparent way that we should ordinary people we should know how we
Slavoj Žižek
are controlled in what way and so on for example I don't like these stations but I follow this in United States try to go to a big hotel practically nowhere you don't get Al Jazeera you don't get Russia Today okay Russia Today manipulates I know well but anyway you could you could yeah but like who decided this this is what all of a sudden or the one that I definitely don't like don't misunderstand me Telesur yeah first I don't believe them you know but nonetheless I would like to know that they exist I understand that they have the right to exist no no even if you know I'm even ready to go further if you think they're spreading lie too much but we should do it in a public transparent way I don't like that I turn on the TV and all of a sudden they are not there I would like to know the mechanism who decides it how because otherwise the control will be unimaginable let me finish with economy yeah please yes the case that the population saw that China grow faster Chile grew faster with a dictatorship and people vote for authoritarian because they felt that the authoritarian increase economy yes this is a possible scenario that the people look absolutely because they they feel that with authoritarianism they will grow the economy will grow and they will live better in terms of economic yeah but I will go even a step further here I'm really a pessimist here I would say that in a way I understand the people I don't like the arrogant leftist reaction when they say oh people are manipulated no in a way it's at a certain level I don't agree with it a rational decision my God in China they created three hundred million or more middle class living relatively well and so on and so you don't need any deep psychoanalysis to understand why they no well was the same that Soviet Union the first thirty years of Soviet Union Soviet Union grow a lot they was yeah but the cost was horrible you know no well another cost was horrible no but you see here I disagree with let's go into this do you follow you should maybe make an interview with him this how should I call them new rational optimists like Steven Pinker did you read his book *Enlightenment Now* but you read about it okay the reason is this and at the level of most of their statistics they are right they say why always this atmosphere of doom catastrophe they say look if you look at it statistically even in the poorest countries in Africa things are moving up slowly for the first time in the history of humanity we have more obesity fat is greater problem than hunger you know and and there were never with all the time talk about terrorism war but there never were in spite of what goes on in the Middle East so little wars such relative safety as now and so on and so on so my answer here would be the following one statistics can cheat you know in what level let's take Jews if you look at a statistic level the last hundred years were a triumph for the Jews in around anti-Semitism was legitimate you have could write whatever against them they were marginalized and so on today anti-Semitism is at least formally in the free world prohibited they have their own state they are very strong and so on and so on so progress yes but in between there was Holocaust and Holocaust was part of this progress because without Holocaust I doubt if there would be the state of Israel you know there is that's my first problem my second problem is that one and that's why I think pessimists are right the situation today I think is not the one before World War II new fascism it's much closer to the situation between World War I where the old big imperial power England British Empire was losing its ground and it was the new multicentric world and if you look at this Steven Pinker statistic way you could have said my God in around or why pessimism for fifty sixty year Europe had an unprecedented explosive progress standard of living everything exploded do we know how many things we got more or less general healthcare education retirement getting so why pessimism yes but everybody was right when they were all afraid of the new world war and it did happen who would have guessed in what will happen just a couple of years later an undescribable horror I think we are in that situation instead of Great Britain United States is losing its dominant role we are entering a new multicentric world and although nobody wants war are we afraid I looked at some data that everybody is silently preparing like crazy for the war but in the case to to finish the case of authoritarian then in your theory people vote authoritarian and Trump is part of this yes here I am a pessimist I don't I am not an old communist who says with the party no no we don't know and it's interesting how let's be fair to communism at a certain level it did bring industrialization and so on and so on but then and we can locate precisely where with this new whatever we call it digital postmodern capitalism new media communist regimes couldn't deal with it no it didn't work so so that is that is over what I am afraid and again I'm not saying something revolutionary my God Bill Gates they are all saying the same is that capitalism the way it is I don't think it can well could be the same that Marx the idea of Marx that the capitalism will destroy itself because the monopoly is a tendency today again we have a problem of the monopoly because Google Facebook for example yeah ah it's a very good question that you are asking my answer would be this one first if I'm a kind of a Marxist I'm extremely critical of Marx did you look I now published a short introduction to new Communist Manifesto where I begin begin like this I quote one of my old Soviet jokes you know that of not the one that I quote all the time a different one the Jew Rabinovich you know what he was Radio Yerevan a comical radio station in Russia where you ask questions you always get an official answer so the joke is like this they ask Radio Yerevan is it true that the Jew Rabinovich won a new car on the state lottery the answer is in principle it's true but it wasn't a new car it was an old bicycle and he didn't win it it was stolen from him so that's my answer too when they ask it's Marx
are controlled in what way and so on for example I don't like these stations but I follow this in United States try to go to a big hotel practically nowhere you don't get Al Jazeera you don't get Russia Today okay Russia Today manipulates I know well but anyway you could you could yeah but like who decided this this is what all of a sudden or the one that I definitely don't like don't misunderstand me Telesur yeah first I don't believe them you know but nonetheless I would like to know that they exist I understand that they have the right to exist no no even if you know I'm even ready to go further if you think they're spreading lie too much but we should do it in a public transparent way I don't like that I turn on the TV and all of a sudden they are not there I would like to know the mechanism who decides it how because otherwise the control will be unimaginable let me finish with economy yeah please yes the case that the population saw that China grow faster Chile grew faster with a dictatorship and people vote for authoritarian because they felt that the authoritarian increase economy yes this is a possible scenario that the people look absolutely because they they feel that with authoritarianism they will grow the economy will grow and they will live better in terms of economic yeah but I will go even a step further here I'm really a pessimist here I would say that in a way I understand the people I don't like the arrogant leftist reaction when they say oh people are manipulated no in a way it's at a certain level I don't agree with it a rational decision my God in China they created three hundred million or more middle class living relatively well and so on and so you don't need any deep psychoanalysis to understand why they no well was the same that Soviet Union the first thirty years of Soviet Union Soviet Union grow a lot they was yeah but the cost was horrible you know no well another cost was horrible no but you see here I disagree with let's go into this do you follow you should maybe make an interview with him this how should I call them new rational optimists like Steven Pinker did you read his book *Enlightenment Now* but you read about it okay the reason is this and at the level of most of their statistics they are right they say why always this atmosphere of doom catastrophe they say look if you look at it statistically even in the poorest countries in Africa things are moving up slowly for the first time in the history of humanity we have more obesity fat is greater problem than hunger you know and and there were never with all the time talk about terrorism war but there never were in spite of what goes on in the Middle East so little wars such relative safety as now and so on and so on so my answer here would be the following one statistics can cheat you know in what level let's take Jews if you look at a statistic level the last hundred years were a triumph for the Jews in around anti-Semitism was legitimate you have could write whatever against them they were marginalized and so on today anti-Semitism is at least formally in the free world prohibited they have their own state they are very strong and so on and so on so progress yes but in between there was Holocaust and Holocaust was part of this progress because without Holocaust I doubt if there would be the state of Israel you know there is that's my first problem my second problem is that one and that's why I think pessimists are right the situation today I think is not the one before World War II new fascism it's much closer to the situation between World War I where the old big imperial power England British Empire was losing its ground and it was the new multicentric world and if you look at this Steven Pinker statistic way you could have said my God in around or why pessimism for fifty sixty year Europe had an unprecedented explosive progress standard of living everything exploded do we know how many things we got more or less general healthcare education retirement getting so why pessimism yes but everybody was right when they were all afraid of the new world war and it did happen who would have guessed in what will happen just a couple of years later an undescribable horror I think we are in that situation instead of Great Britain United States is losing its dominant role we are entering a new multicentric world and although nobody wants war are we afraid I looked at some data that everybody is silently preparing like crazy for the war but in the case to to finish the case of authoritarian then in your theory people vote authoritarian and Trump is part of this yes here I am a pessimist I don't I am not an old communist who says with the party no no we don't know and it's interesting how let's be fair to communism at a certain level it did bring industrialization and so on and so on but then and we can locate precisely where with this new whatever we call it digital postmodern capitalism new media communist regimes couldn't deal with it no it didn't work so so that is that is over what I am afraid and again I'm not saying something revolutionary my God Bill Gates they are all saying the same is that capitalism the way it is I don't think it can well could be the same that Marx the idea of Marx that the capitalism will destroy itself because the monopoly is a tendency today again we have a problem of the monopoly because Google Facebook for example yeah ah it's a very good question that you are asking my answer would be this one first if I'm a kind of a Marxist I'm extremely critical of Marx did you look I now published a short introduction to new Communist Manifesto where I begin begin like this I quote one of my old Soviet jokes you know that of not the one that I quote all the time a different one the Jew Rabinovich you know what he was Radio Yerevan a comical radio station in Russia where you ask questions you always get an official answer so the joke is like this they ask Radio Yerevan is it true that the Jew Rabinovich won a new car on the state lottery the answer is in principle it's true but it wasn't a new car it was an old bicycle and he didn't win it it was stolen from him so that's my answer too when they ask it's Marx
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still true today I would answer in principle yes but the first
still true today I would answer in principle yes but the first
Slavoj Žižek
big but is that communism don't underestimate it did bring general education health but ultimately it miserably failed and that's for me if you ask me for example the true horror of Cuba forget about okay we shouldn't forget about it but ultimately no democracy terror did they really develop some new form of social relations that would bring something new that's the tragedy so I would say and but the big problem is this one Marx still saw in tendency the working class as the agent of change the exploited proletarian today I simply don't think how you can maintain that to be a classical
big but is that communism don't underestimate it did bring general education health but ultimately it miserably failed and that's for me if you ask me for example the true horror of Cuba forget about okay we shouldn't forget about it but ultimately no democracy terror did they really develop some new form of social relations that would bring something new that's the tragedy so I would say and but the big problem is this one Marx still saw in tendency the working class as the agent of change the exploited proletarian today I simply don't think how you can maintain that to be a classical
unknown
proletarian I work in a big company okay I am exploited but I have permanent healthcare retirement and so on is almost the ideal the privileged ones can do this you have now precarious workers you have now permanently unemployed students who find no job immigrants and so on and so on and I don't see here the same revolutionary potential all my leftist
proletarian I work in a big company okay I am exploited but I have permanent healthcare retirement and so on is almost the ideal the privileged ones can do this you have now precarious workers you have now permanently unemployed students who find no job immigrants and so on and so on and I don't see here the same revolutionary potential all my leftist
unknown
friends like Alain Badiou and so on dream that out of this a new revolutionary agent will emerge I don't I don't think this is the case so with a Marxism Marx still got maybe
friends like Alain Badiou and so on dream that out of this a new revolutionary agent will emerge I don't I don't think this is the case so with a Marxism Marx still got maybe
Slavoj Žižek
the best the most efficient analysis of capitalism but we should recognize the changes which happened like another you hinted at it change is that today are we aware that because of these tendencies to monopoly and so on to retain market you need a very strong state regulation if you leave the market to itself it will self-abolish itself so it's not true that it's big corporation which rules states if anything state mechanisms and so on are getting stronger and stronger second thing that interests me is that the names that you mentioned
the best the most efficient analysis of capitalism but we should recognize the changes which happened like another you hinted at it change is that today are we aware that because of these tendencies to monopoly and so on to retain market you need a very strong state regulation if you leave the market to itself it will self-abolish itself so it's not true that it's big corporation which rules states if anything state mechanisms and so on are getting stronger and stronger second thing that interests me is that the names that you mentioned
unknown
the new monopolistic names Google Amazon Facebook in a way they are something that Marx couldn't have predicted they don't own some big machine or what a in my old book I tried to develop them where does the money come this immense
the new monopolistic names Google Amazon Facebook in a way they are something that Marx couldn't have predicted they don't own some big machine or what a in my old book I tried to develop them where does the money come this immense
Slavoj Žižek
profits I think it's not plants
profits I think it's not plants
unknown
that they would take it no and it's also not
that they would take it no and it's also not
Slavoj Žižek
it's not profit it's rent what does Microsoft do we are all in contact with each other we need a medium which is our common medium Bill Gates has more or less not quite a monopoly on that so he privatized our commons what is our common space Amazon again you buy books book exchange Facebook the commons of our private so it's and it's not profit it's wrong to claim Bill Gates exploits us no first he doesn't exploit his workers he even I think paid them relatively well and so on they don't need so much work no he we pay him a rent so that I can communicate with you and so on and so on it's a it's something new which Marx couldn't predict Marx thought the moment you have commons profit is over he couldn't predict this and this is a big problem how to deal but but something because Marx predict that with a monopoly the capitalism will be more injustice injustice injustice and the capitalism give answer to correct the monopoly I think in my point of view in with the antitrust rule in United States but today with this kind of companies from Silicon Valley again is creating the idea that capitalism is will be in the future will be a lot of monopolies that will create but they're again they're different monopolies you know the problem is that these monopolies in a way as I already said we experience them as the very space of our freedom what is our freedom I buy whatever I want I communicate with ah to participate in this freedom you and you know what really worries me not these monopolies as such but so the first problem is that we experience these monopolies as the very space of our everyday freedom second thing and here although he is much criticized I agree I think Assange Julian discovered something how all these companies like Google do you know how tightly Google is connected with with State Department State Department and all that and so on and I'm not saying we can avoid this I'm not from some pure freedom I'm just saying we should become aware in what sense are we controlled and so on and so on but finally in a different way they take more money from the people and they concentrate their wealth as you see the Piketty book from two years ago they show that it is very clear that the society in the last twenty years the rich are more rich and the poor are more poor or at least even in United States Germany and so on the poor remain at the same level in the best case yes yes yeah but you know what I find so problematic and sad I read Piketty of course excellent and so on but then when he addresses the problem what to do he becomes a utopian he admits that capitalism is the only system that really works so basically he wants the system the way it is with higher taxes and
it's not profit it's rent what does Microsoft do we are all in contact with each other we need a medium which is our common medium Bill Gates has more or less not quite a monopoly on that so he privatized our commons what is our common space Amazon again you buy books book exchange Facebook the commons of our private so it's and it's not profit it's wrong to claim Bill Gates exploits us no first he doesn't exploit his workers he even I think paid them relatively well and so on they don't need so much work no he we pay him a rent so that I can communicate with you and so on and so on it's a it's something new which Marx couldn't predict Marx thought the moment you have commons profit is over he couldn't predict this and this is a big problem how to deal but but something because Marx predict that with a monopoly the capitalism will be more injustice injustice injustice and the capitalism give answer to correct the monopoly I think in my point of view in with the antitrust rule in United States but today with this kind of companies from Silicon Valley again is creating the idea that capitalism is will be in the future will be a lot of monopolies that will create but they're again they're different monopolies you know the problem is that these monopolies in a way as I already said we experience them as the very space of our freedom what is our freedom I buy whatever I want I communicate with ah to participate in this freedom you and you know what really worries me not these monopolies as such but so the first problem is that we experience these monopolies as the very space of our everyday freedom second thing and here although he is much criticized I agree I think Assange Julian discovered something how all these companies like Google do you know how tightly Google is connected with with State Department State Department and all that and so on and I'm not saying we can avoid this I'm not from some pure freedom I'm just saying we should become aware in what sense are we controlled and so on and so on but finally in a different way they take more money from the people and they concentrate their wealth as you see the Piketty book from two years ago they show that it is very clear that the society in the last twenty years the rich are more rich and the poor are more poor or at least even in United States Germany and so on the poor remain at the same level in the best case yes yes yeah but you know what I find so problematic and sad I read Piketty of course excellent and so on but then when he addresses the problem what to do he becomes a utopian he admits that capitalism is the only system that really works so basically he wants the system the way it is with higher taxes and
unknown
so on but I claim to do this we the progressives should already win and win worldwide because the measures that he proposed
so on but I claim to do this we the progressives should already win and win worldwide because the measures that he proposed
Slavoj Žižek
will work only if you apply them at least in the most countries of the world otherwise capital will escape there and so you see this is the same problem I talk all the time we see the problem but what is the feasible solution how to do it but we will have to invent something otherwise again I worry we have this what you called monopolies the new form of monopolized commons ecology biogenetics try to imagine that in the beginning of the last century the capitalism was so unjust then it create communism yeah today couldn't create communism and create the injustice of the capitalism is creating authoritarianism then
will work only if you apply them at least in the most countries of the world otherwise capital will escape there and so you see this is the same problem I talk all the time we see the problem but what is the feasible solution how to do it but we will have to invent something otherwise again I worry we have this what you called monopolies the new form of monopolized commons ecology biogenetics try to imagine that in the beginning of the last century the capitalism was so unjust then it create communism yeah today couldn't create communism and create the injustice of the capitalism is creating authoritarianism then
unknown
the authoritarianism is a result of the incapacity of the capitalism that again control themselves again the capitalism like at the beginning of the last century is going to monopoly yeah but didn't
the authoritarianism is a result of the incapacity of the capitalism that again control themselves again the capitalism like at the beginning of the last century is going to monopoly yeah but didn't
Slavoj Žižek
something similar happen not at the same extent don't forget that in after World War I because is another yeah fascism also emerged and monopoly and so on oh sorry no no I will please take it I will not so my point is that I like to quote that Frankfurt School companion Walter Benjamin who says every fascism is a sign of a failed revolution yeah I still think that we will have to come I'm not talking about abolishing capitalism with some communal prop- with some common property old models of communism simply don't function but I'm very much of a pessimist with how to again how to if we don't find a third way not the Tony Blair third way but a third way between liberal capitalism and these fascist reactions to to it we are lost I claim and here I believe in Hollywood you know all these blockbusters *Hunger Games* and so on we are even obsessed by what to do of course I don't believe in classic revolution and so on that's crazy I maybe I'm just playing with ideas I don't know enough economically but what do you think about with tight financial controls I don't know what can be done there I know that where they did it it can work for example why did okay because of the authoritarian structure but nonetheless what did they do look at the crisis why did China survive it pretty well because they were able immediately because they have an authoritarian state to impose financial control and so on all that maybe this could be the first step somehow to re- and you don't infringe on economic freedoms here etc. etc. but try to return to the idea that you have that today there is a situation very similar to first World War before yeah and the same happen with the with the monopoly because you are talking about the political situation that there is there is no one country that can dominate the rest but at the same time the the situation is similar to the beginning of the last century in terms of the capitalism because this kind of monopoly is increasing the earnings of the big companies and decreasing the earnings of the media class the media class is going down the answer is Trump the answer is yes absolutely agree yeah but finally we will need a third way between the authoritarian and the and that's the tragedy we see you know in we are at the opposite situation of the classical communists who you know I remember even when I was young there was relative welfare 60s at least in Europe welfare state but communists were saying no the system is rotten and they proposed a model what to do so that you know that was the whole artifice of the new left even if you were living relatively well they were saying no but you are alienated horror today is the opposite situation there is crisis antagonism but the left doesn't have an answer which is why they escape into moralism more and more I see political correctness all this obsession with how you talk gay rights even I am for gay rights whatever you want but don't you think that this this moralization just masks finally we'll have authoritarianism in the beginning of the last century we have authoritarianism from the left that is the communism yeah yeah yeah and today is authoritarianism from the right but finally the answer to the the democratic liberal system is authoritarianism yeah but is this the only answer because then we can close the store no I still believe in miracles here you never know something can happen here and there I see small signs of hope though I don't think the situation is so clear but I agree with you at some point I wouldn't put it in this deterministic way but I agree with you that if nothing happens if somehow there is not an awakening then yes the most logical if we extrapolate the situation now is a worldwide not centralized authoritarianism but like a combination of local authoritarianism which perfectly function in global world market the local authoritarianism also could be a answer for the people to afraid to the globalization absolutely but you know what was the same that the first yeah but do you agree
something similar happen not at the same extent don't forget that in after World War I because is another yeah fascism also emerged and monopoly and so on oh sorry no no I will please take it I will not so my point is that I like to quote that Frankfurt School companion Walter Benjamin who says every fascism is a sign of a failed revolution yeah I still think that we will have to come I'm not talking about abolishing capitalism with some communal prop- with some common property old models of communism simply don't function but I'm very much of a pessimist with how to again how to if we don't find a third way not the Tony Blair third way but a third way between liberal capitalism and these fascist reactions to to it we are lost I claim and here I believe in Hollywood you know all these blockbusters *Hunger Games* and so on we are even obsessed by what to do of course I don't believe in classic revolution and so on that's crazy I maybe I'm just playing with ideas I don't know enough economically but what do you think about with tight financial controls I don't know what can be done there I know that where they did it it can work for example why did okay because of the authoritarian structure but nonetheless what did they do look at the crisis why did China survive it pretty well because they were able immediately because they have an authoritarian state to impose financial control and so on all that maybe this could be the first step somehow to re- and you don't infringe on economic freedoms here etc. etc. but try to return to the idea that you have that today there is a situation very similar to first World War before yeah and the same happen with the with the monopoly because you are talking about the political situation that there is there is no one country that can dominate the rest but at the same time the the situation is similar to the beginning of the last century in terms of the capitalism because this kind of monopoly is increasing the earnings of the big companies and decreasing the earnings of the media class the media class is going down the answer is Trump the answer is yes absolutely agree yeah but finally we will need a third way between the authoritarian and the and that's the tragedy we see you know in we are at the opposite situation of the classical communists who you know I remember even when I was young there was relative welfare 60s at least in Europe welfare state but communists were saying no the system is rotten and they proposed a model what to do so that you know that was the whole artifice of the new left even if you were living relatively well they were saying no but you are alienated horror today is the opposite situation there is crisis antagonism but the left doesn't have an answer which is why they escape into moralism more and more I see political correctness all this obsession with how you talk gay rights even I am for gay rights whatever you want but don't you think that this this moralization just masks finally we'll have authoritarianism in the beginning of the last century we have authoritarianism from the left that is the communism yeah yeah yeah and today is authoritarianism from the right but finally the answer to the the democratic liberal system is authoritarianism yeah but is this the only answer because then we can close the store no I still believe in miracles here you never know something can happen here and there I see small signs of hope though I don't think the situation is so clear but I agree with you at some point I wouldn't put it in this deterministic way but I agree with you that if nothing happens if somehow there is not an awakening then yes the most logical if we extrapolate the situation now is a worldwide not centralized authoritarianism but like a combination of local authoritarianism which perfectly function in global world market the local authoritarianism also could be a answer for the people to afraid to the globalization absolutely but you know what was the same that the first yeah but do you agree
unknown
with something else this is today the big split among even in Europe now the left there are two myths of the left with which I don't agree the first myth is that capitalism is global so the only way to control the excesses of capitalism is strong nation state I think this is a dream you cannot do it at this level and they all have this idea die Linke the leftists in Germany even those who opposed SYRIZA's compromise in Greece radical left claim we do Grexit we print our own money national capitalism state-controlled no this is suicidal I think look take look at Greece they are
with something else this is today the big split among even in Europe now the left there are two myths of the left with which I don't agree the first myth is that capitalism is global so the only way to control the excesses of capitalism is strong nation state I think this is a dream you cannot do it at this level and they all have this idea die Linke the leftists in Germany even those who opposed SYRIZA's compromise in Greece radical left claim we do Grexit we print our own money national capitalism state-controlled no this is suicidal I think look take look at Greece they are
Slavoj Žižek
so much part of European economy they import most of the food products everything so you cannot do it in this way by isolation the second thing I don't agree with is all this that's why that guy where is he from Brazil or Tierra- you know Walter Mignolo no okay he is relatively famous for advocating this idea that yes capitalism is bad but not communism but his idea is some kind of that we should return to old local traditions of ancient wisdoms Latin America Africa that as a resistance I absolutely don't agree with like I have even some Latino American friends who claim they can get like crazy one tried to convince you that there is some tribe in upper Amazonia who has some wonderful model to resist capitalism and so on no I still believe as a good old Marxist here with Marx's basic insight that capitalism is the condition of freedom in the sense of we cannot resist capitalism by returning to some old more authoritarian but more organic traditions you know all
so much part of European economy they import most of the food products everything so you cannot do it in this way by isolation the second thing I don't agree with is all this that's why that guy where is he from Brazil or Tierra- you know Walter Mignolo no okay he is relatively famous for advocating this idea that yes capitalism is bad but not communism but his idea is some kind of that we should return to old local traditions of ancient wisdoms Latin America Africa that as a resistance I absolutely don't agree with like I have even some Latino American friends who claim they can get like crazy one tried to convince you that there is some tribe in upper Amazonia who has some wonderful model to resist capitalism and so on no I still believe as a good old Marxist here with Marx's basic insight that capitalism is the condition of freedom in the sense of we cannot resist capitalism by returning to some old more authoritarian but more organic traditions you know all
unknown
these ideas in Latin America but this was even the idea of Sendero Luminoso some kind of Inca ancient revival no capitalism capitalism's destruction of old traditional hierarchic forms we have to go through it it's a condition of freedom no way back from there that's why but now they're in crisis this is what I like with Mandela he never played this game of we should return to our African traditions or whatever bullshit
these ideas in Latin America but this was even the idea of Sendero Luminoso some kind of Inca ancient revival no capitalism capitalism's destruction of old traditional hierarchic forms we have to go through it it's a condition of freedom no way back from there that's why but now they're in crisis this is what I like with Mandela he never played this game of we should return to our African traditions or whatever bullshit
Slavoj Žižek
modern egalitarianism is the big legacy of capitalism we have to go through it I don't believe in these local resistances we will create our you know this is the that's why I hated the film did you see it's an interesting ideological point did you see *Black Panther* yeah yeah this idea of some ancient traditions and so on and I always tell to my friends but did you notice that even at the end who is at the king's side when he speaks to United Nations the CIA agent and so on you know no I totally disagree with this idea of returning to some pre-modern primordial wisdom but they all this is melancholy this is the fascist this is the fascist formula look that's why in China they are now rehabilitating Confucianism and so on I think this is the fascist temptation fascism means as they say in English you want to have your cake and eat it no the problem of fascism from the beginning and this is not in itself evil was how to have modernity but
modern egalitarianism is the big legacy of capitalism we have to go through it I don't believe in these local resistances we will create our you know this is the that's why I hated the film did you see it's an interesting ideological point did you see *Black Panther* yeah yeah this idea of some ancient traditions and so on and I always tell to my friends but did you notice that even at the end who is at the king's side when he speaks to United Nations the CIA agent and so on you know no I totally disagree with this idea of returning to some pre-modern primordial wisdom but they all this is melancholy this is the fascist this is the fascist formula look that's why in China they are now rehabilitating Confucianism and so on I think this is the fascist temptation fascism means as they say in English you want to have your cake and eat it no the problem of fascism from the beginning and this is not in itself evil was how to have modernity but
unknown
prevent its destructive socially disruptive effects in this sense the Pope yeah is because he is against the capitalism but is against the but against the capitalism with all ideas could be that he represents the culture of twentieth century he couldn't understand the answer of the problem of the capitalism of today yes I I think because you know with
prevent its destructive socially disruptive effects in this sense the Pope yeah is because he is against the capitalism but is against the but against the capitalism with all ideas could be that he represents the culture of twentieth century he couldn't understand the answer of the problem of the capitalism of today yes I I think because you know with
Slavoj Žižek
all my respect for the Pope he at least looked though he is ambiguous admitted all this horror abuse of children his positive attitude towards immigrant all that and so on but nonetheless you know it's easy to be an honest ethically person at this general level but I'm tired of these honest people who say yeah but what's his proposal do you get it what I'm more brutal here okay okay we all agree horrors happen and so on and so on well in terms of economy and politics the idea in Argentina is the the Pope Francisco is also Peronist it's like the the idea like Trump that we have one Peronist in the United States and one Peronist in the Vatican formally Pope Francis is a Peronist he was part of the Peronism in Argentina when was the Cardinal Bergoglio okay I wouldn't blame him I don't know for that but again what does Peronism mean here does it mean anything more than the the last years of Cristina Kirchner when you have okay some populist measure but all confused lost in corruption and so on and so on relative inefficiency and so on you know for me the problem is extremely serious again we are confronting incredible problems economic we're approaching authoritarianism do people people think I joke when I say look at China China is not a model for me China is a preview of horrors awaiting us every democrat today should be on the edge of suicide of thing an authoritarian regime beating capitalists at their own game and that's for me the big problem I don't see a clear solution just I believe in this will sound horrible but I believe in miracles not religiously but let's say SYRIZA was a miracle who would have expected it was for the first SYRIZA is for me a symptom of where we are on the one hand it was a miracle
all my respect for the Pope he at least looked though he is ambiguous admitted all this horror abuse of children his positive attitude towards immigrant all that and so on but nonetheless you know it's easy to be an honest ethically person at this general level but I'm tired of these honest people who say yeah but what's his proposal do you get it what I'm more brutal here okay okay we all agree horrors happen and so on and so on well in terms of economy and politics the idea in Argentina is the the Pope Francisco is also Peronist it's like the the idea like Trump that we have one Peronist in the United States and one Peronist in the Vatican formally Pope Francis is a Peronist he was part of the Peronism in Argentina when was the Cardinal Bergoglio okay I wouldn't blame him I don't know for that but again what does Peronism mean here does it mean anything more than the the last years of Cristina Kirchner when you have okay some populist measure but all confused lost in corruption and so on and so on relative inefficiency and so on you know for me the problem is extremely serious again we are confronting incredible problems economic we're approaching authoritarianism do people people think I joke when I say look at China China is not a model for me China is a preview of horrors awaiting us every democrat today should be on the edge of suicide of thing an authoritarian regime beating capitalists at their own game and that's for me the big problem I don't see a clear solution just I believe in this will sound horrible but I believe in miracles not religiously but let's say SYRIZA was a miracle who would have expected it was for the first SYRIZA is for me a symptom of where we are on the one hand it was a miracle
unknown
who would have expected a radical left party to win in totally fair elections and so on but immediately this was a symptom of where we are after winning they had to precisely adopt measures which were all that they were fighting for all the time before and when my friends say oh they betrayed their cause I say formally yes but the problem was real I spoke with Varoufakis he was even against this compromise he thought I hope he was right I don't know a third way is possible he saw it correctly he told me on the one hand be the pressure from European Union on the other hand we have these crazy Grexit plans and his view and I'm convinced by him was that if radical left were to take over
who would have expected a radical left party to win in totally fair elections and so on but immediately this was a symptom of where we are after winning they had to precisely adopt measures which were all that they were fighting for all the time before and when my friends say oh they betrayed their cause I say formally yes but the problem was real I spoke with Varoufakis he was even against this compromise he thought I hope he was right I don't know a third way is possible he saw it correctly he told me on the one hand be the pressure from European Union on the other hand we have these crazy Grexit plans and his view and I'm convinced by him was that if radical left were to take over
Slavoj Žižek
and they would do Grexit break with European Union print money national capitalism state-controlled well for the first two three years the living standard would have dropped at least for another thirty percent there would be probably hunger and so on a nightmare so you see we are always encountering this problem of it's easy for a democratic leftist to take over but then you hit bottom when you approach it's in South Africa it's the same so yeah sorry let me ask about one thing that you read the recently write is the Marx wrote that religion was the opium of the people the new opium of the people is drug no no no you know what was my irony maybe it got lost in translations no first I don't think that today religion is mainly the
and they would do Grexit break with European Union print money national capitalism state-controlled well for the first two three years the living standard would have dropped at least for another thirty percent there would be probably hunger and so on a nightmare so you see we are always encountering this problem of it's easy for a democratic leftist to take over but then you hit bottom when you approach it's in South Africa it's the same so yeah sorry let me ask about one thing that you read the recently write is the Marx wrote that religion was the opium of the people the new opium of the people is drug no no no you know what was my irony maybe it got lost in translations no first I don't think that today religion is mainly the
unknown
opium of the people I think that today religion a certain version can play a very progressive role and so on my irony was this one that there are today two opiums of the people which are what opium and people you know precisely that on the one hand we have opium and I read some books wonderful analysis of how in in the West I don't know how it is in
opium of the people I think that today religion a certain version can play a very progressive role and so on my irony was this one that there are today two opiums of the people which are what opium and people you know precisely that on the one hand we have opium and I read some books wonderful analysis of how in in the West I don't know how it is in
Slavoj Žižek
Argentina but most of the countries where I move you know this is no longer a marginal phenomenon according to some statistics in United States in American academia universities and so on seventy to eighty percent people of people are on some kind of drugs Prozac Xanax whatever we simply have to rely on that to to function normally and I like this irony of how this functions on the one hand when you are overexcited you take drugs Xanax to calm you down but then you get depressed and take again drug to revitalize you and so on we are in it we rely on it second thing isn't populism precisely
Argentina but most of the countries where I move you know this is no longer a marginal phenomenon according to some statistics in United States in American academia universities and so on seventy to eighty percent people of people are on some kind of drugs Prozac Xanax whatever we simply have to rely on that to to function normally and I like this irony of how this functions on the one hand when you are overexcited you take drugs Xanax to calm you down but then you get depressed and take again drug to revitalize you and so on we are in it we rely on it second thing isn't populism precisely
unknown
ideological opium for the people it's the only way to
ideological opium for the people it's the only way to
Slavoj Žižek
introduce
introduce
unknown
passion today
passion today
Slavoj Žižek
that works you have here and there left Podemos SYRIZA okay Occupy Wall Street but but basically more and more the big opposition and Democrats are losing in Western Europe is this cold Brussels bureaucracy economic rationalism without passion and passion means populism and so on in this sense that's my joke that again opium of the people is today opium and the people you know precisely that people itself which is the opium or the fetish of political fetish today the the people like populism the people itself yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah people itself which is the opium or the fetish of of political fetish today and so the feminism was the current revolution no no it's even oh my God how many feminists hate me for this when I say of course I basically I admire and agree with MeToo because it's really something is radically changing maybe what was the model of the relations between men and women for thousands of years is we can develop but at the same time this excessive moralization and legalization expressions we use and so on I find this precisely a tragedy to prevent a more radical leftist politicization I think it's typical in United States if you look at it how many radical feminists already attacking Bernie Sanders for being white male and so on and so on so I think it is crucial to retain a critical eye on on MeToo or generally this new movement of transgenderism and so on and so on I support its basic goals but I think the way it is done it's also that you know what worries me at a more even philosophical level there are so many secret hierarchies in it for example MeToo is always describing a certain scene of male violence like the way men pick up women rape them and so on but they always talk about a certain although they would not admit it situation which is one night stands I go to a place am I picked up will I be raped and so on and so on this is but what about they very they don't talk about it at least publicly in the big media a lot the much more tragic aspect is for me this everyday suffering of ordinary women where you are no longer attractive and so on this is not attractive it's much more attractive to talk about a beautiful young star was she raped by a producer or not and so on and so on but the real suffering massive of women second thing that I don't agree I think you asked me in one of the questions is this reproach of objectivization men are objectivizing us wait a minute I don't like this term as a bad word objectivization means a man is with desire observing you as a sexual object well this is part of erotics I'm sorry and many women try to objectivize themselves they make themselves attractive and so on and so on I don't like this term automatically as a bad term the point is the freedom of objectivization what is wrong with a woman who wants to be attractive who even I don't care wants to be promiscuous and seduce men and so on and so on so here this radical MeToo which protests objectivization totally in a way totally misses totally misses the point there is a okay I put it like this yes true women were subordinated and so on and so on but there is and many feminists wrote about it in at least in the West in other countries it's better the predominant form of MeToo is simply a logic of revenge we will now make the men pay back and if you are accused of something you are already treated as guilty no matter what you say
that works you have here and there left Podemos SYRIZA okay Occupy Wall Street but but basically more and more the big opposition and Democrats are losing in Western Europe is this cold Brussels bureaucracy economic rationalism without passion and passion means populism and so on in this sense that's my joke that again opium of the people is today opium and the people you know precisely that people itself which is the opium or the fetish of political fetish today the the people like populism the people itself yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah people itself which is the opium or the fetish of of political fetish today and so the feminism was the current revolution no no it's even oh my God how many feminists hate me for this when I say of course I basically I admire and agree with MeToo because it's really something is radically changing maybe what was the model of the relations between men and women for thousands of years is we can develop but at the same time this excessive moralization and legalization expressions we use and so on I find this precisely a tragedy to prevent a more radical leftist politicization I think it's typical in United States if you look at it how many radical feminists already attacking Bernie Sanders for being white male and so on and so on so I think it is crucial to retain a critical eye on on MeToo or generally this new movement of transgenderism and so on and so on I support its basic goals but I think the way it is done it's also that you know what worries me at a more even philosophical level there are so many secret hierarchies in it for example MeToo is always describing a certain scene of male violence like the way men pick up women rape them and so on but they always talk about a certain although they would not admit it situation which is one night stands I go to a place am I picked up will I be raped and so on and so on this is but what about they very they don't talk about it at least publicly in the big media a lot the much more tragic aspect is for me this everyday suffering of ordinary women where you are no longer attractive and so on this is not attractive it's much more attractive to talk about a beautiful young star was she raped by a producer or not and so on and so on but the real suffering massive of women second thing that I don't agree I think you asked me in one of the questions is this reproach of objectivization men are objectivizing us wait a minute I don't like this term as a bad word objectivization means a man is with desire observing you as a sexual object well this is part of erotics I'm sorry and many women try to objectivize themselves they make themselves attractive and so on and so on I don't like this term automatically as a bad term the point is the freedom of objectivization what is wrong with a woman who wants to be attractive who even I don't care wants to be promiscuous and seduce men and so on and so on so here this radical MeToo which protests objectivization totally in a way totally misses totally misses the point there is a okay I put it like this yes true women were subordinated and so on and so on but there is and many feminists wrote about it in at least in the West in other countries it's better the predominant form of MeToo is simply a logic of revenge we will now make the men pay back and if you are accused of something you are already treated as guilty no matter what you say
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and so on and so on it's a certain logic of revenge and of formal guilt there is always a suspicion that if you are trying to seduce a woman you are a priori guilty in some sense the moment you are accused the only thing and this logic this this will end very badly I think no I'm for
and so on and so on it's a certain logic of revenge and of formal guilt there is always a suspicion that if you are trying to seduce a woman you are a priori guilty in some sense the moment you are accused the only thing and this logic this this will end very badly I think no I'm for
Slavoj Žižek
real freedom which includes freedom of women and men to objectivize themselves if by objectivizing this is so ridiculous they claim I shouldn't be reduced to sexual object my God listen let's say and you have a full right to be this you are a woman who wants to seduce a man you try to be just a attr- what will you tell your man no I want you to appreciate me also as a person and so on that's ridiculous in an erotic game and so on let me ask you about the current market where the millennials are the standard is the anti-Oedipus world we are the I never trusted
real freedom which includes freedom of women and men to objectivize themselves if by objectivizing this is so ridiculous they claim I shouldn't be reduced to sexual object my God listen let's say and you have a full right to be this you are a woman who wants to seduce a man you try to be just a attr- what will you tell your man no I want you to appreciate me also as a person and so on that's ridiculous in an erotic game and so on let me ask you about the current market where the millennials are the standard is the anti-Oedipus world we are the I never trusted
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too easily this idea of we are outside Oedipus and so on and so on because if Oedipus means that our relation to the world is mediated by some symbolic medium isn't internet the most Oedipal structure that you can imagine instead of direct life directly being with you everything is mediated and that's the essence
too easily this idea of we are outside Oedipus and so on and so on because if Oedipus means that our relation to the world is mediated by some symbolic medium isn't internet the most Oedipal structure that you can imagine instead of direct life directly being with you everything is mediated and that's the essence
Slavoj Žižek
of Oedipus that your desire is okay in classical Oedipus it is paternal authority but now can you okay I'll put it like this can you imagine in this sense anything more Oedipal than internet dating well you are not even yourself you are totally alienated in how you present yourself in the media and did you do you know my story which I wrote it's my favorite story that's I think my point that we are approaching this radically mediated time because this connects with another moment element which I think it's crucial ah first point I want to make here is that people usually describe our era as radically hedonist no our hedonism is tightly controlled the true hedonism which would have been I do it even if I drop dead they are presented as ultimate horrors smoking pedophilia alcoholism drugs and so on I mean we are always censoring our pleasures like I always use this joke like coffee without caffeine sausage without fat Coca-Cola without you want the element but censored of its element so I don't think first that we live in real radical hedonism it's a very tightly tightly controlled hedonism the second thing it's crucial for how not only our pleasures but our beliefs function I often develop this idea you must know that one the story about Niels Bohr you know that one that I quote often that about horse shoe and so on and his formula is for you know when Bohr answered to his friend why do you have a horse shoe above your entrance he says it's superstition I don't believe in it but I was told it functions even if you don't believe in it that's how ideology functions today we live in a cynical era we you don't have to believe for something to function like today most people are cynical they say of course democracy justice a- it's not hedonism it's the cynical era it's a cynical era yes I think we live in a very cynical era where it's not here I turned around Marx following Peter Sloterdijk it's our formula today is not Marxist formula of ideology they don't know what they are doing it but they are doing it Sloterdijk proposed an opposite formula we
of Oedipus that your desire is okay in classical Oedipus it is paternal authority but now can you okay I'll put it like this can you imagine in this sense anything more Oedipal than internet dating well you are not even yourself you are totally alienated in how you present yourself in the media and did you do you know my story which I wrote it's my favorite story that's I think my point that we are approaching this radically mediated time because this connects with another moment element which I think it's crucial ah first point I want to make here is that people usually describe our era as radically hedonist no our hedonism is tightly controlled the true hedonism which would have been I do it even if I drop dead they are presented as ultimate horrors smoking pedophilia alcoholism drugs and so on I mean we are always censoring our pleasures like I always use this joke like coffee without caffeine sausage without fat Coca-Cola without you want the element but censored of its element so I don't think first that we live in real radical hedonism it's a very tightly tightly controlled hedonism the second thing it's crucial for how not only our pleasures but our beliefs function I often develop this idea you must know that one the story about Niels Bohr you know that one that I quote often that about horse shoe and so on and his formula is for you know when Bohr answered to his friend why do you have a horse shoe above your entrance he says it's superstition I don't believe in it but I was told it functions even if you don't believe in it that's how ideology functions today we live in a cynical era we you don't have to believe for something to function like today most people are cynical they say of course democracy justice a- it's not hedonism it's the cynical era it's a cynical era yes I think we live in a very cynical era where it's not here I turned around Marx following Peter Sloterdijk it's our formula today is not Marxist formula of ideology they don't know what they are doing it but they are doing it Sloterdijk proposed an opposite formula we
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know very well what we are doing but we are still doing it
know very well what we are doing but we are still doing it
Slavoj Žižek
you know that's the this is what is also so new about Trump he practically admits he is lying but he is still lying we are accepting it and so on and so on it and this is where again I see the actuality of Marx because when Marx talks about commodity fetishism he doesn't claim this is an illusion he claims we know very well that there is nothing magic in money commodity but we still act as if we believe in its magic so this is a wonderful idea of Marx which is today actual more than ever of an illusion which is not our subjective illusion like things are like this but I live in dreams no I know how things are but I enact my dreams illusion is in what I do socially not in my this and this is something at all levels of our life take ecology we know very well the the catastrophe is possible but we act as if we don't really believe we know but we act as if we don't know and this is something which is very difficult to fight because as long as you are dealing with illusions you can convince people you can deal with them but now today people will admit of course I'm not an idiot I know it's all a lie and what do you do then you know it's a very difficult to criticize ideology today because again people know what they're doing it you cannot shock them this is the problem with the truth the truth is not more important and although there I have another problem I know all these fake news and so on yes it is a problem but here again Harari wrote a good essay now I read it in Guardian an excerpt where he says you know we shouldn't idealize the past look at the 50s wasn't communist propaganda one big fake news wasn't up to a point even American propaganda I mean the point was only that these were just two three big competing narratives and today it just gets dispersed everybody can do it but do not idealize the past but this this narrative this two narrative that dominated the twentieth century people believed in that the difference is today
you know that's the this is what is also so new about Trump he practically admits he is lying but he is still lying we are accepting it and so on and so on it and this is where again I see the actuality of Marx because when Marx talks about commodity fetishism he doesn't claim this is an illusion he claims we know very well that there is nothing magic in money commodity but we still act as if we believe in its magic so this is a wonderful idea of Marx which is today actual more than ever of an illusion which is not our subjective illusion like things are like this but I live in dreams no I know how things are but I enact my dreams illusion is in what I do socially not in my this and this is something at all levels of our life take ecology we know very well the the catastrophe is possible but we act as if we don't really believe we know but we act as if we don't know and this is something which is very difficult to fight because as long as you are dealing with illusions you can convince people you can deal with them but now today people will admit of course I'm not an idiot I know it's all a lie and what do you do then you know it's a very difficult to criticize ideology today because again people know what they're doing it you cannot shock them this is the problem with the truth the truth is not more important and although there I have another problem I know all these fake news and so on yes it is a problem but here again Harari wrote a good essay now I read it in Guardian an excerpt where he says you know we shouldn't idealize the past look at the 50s wasn't communist propaganda one big fake news wasn't up to a point even American propaganda I mean the point was only that these were just two three big competing narratives and today it just gets dispersed everybody can do it but do not idealize the past but this this narrative this two narrative that dominated the twentieth century people believed in that the difference is today
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they don't need to believe to act like and here I'm a little bit more skeptical because okay this
they don't need to believe to act like and here I'm a little bit more skeptical because okay this
Slavoj Žižek
would be a very complicated theory you know don't misjudge what people really believed the French historian Paul Veyne V-E-Y-N-E wrote a wonderful book called *Did Ancient Greeks Believe in Their Myths?* like a very simple question were ancient Greeks really so stupid to think that if you climb the mountain of Olympus you will see God and he proves exclusively no they of course didn't believe it you know it was just a form of politeness of rhetoric like for example when I meet a friend we keep together to meet together to share to share yeah yeah yeah and you know it's not true in this sense I wouldn't be too sure what people believed if anything maybe because for example when people said in the past I believe in God I would doubt very much how they really believed it no no they were not lying but as you said it was a form of social trust to believe in God means yes I'm part of this community and so on and so on so today maybe maybe in some sense we believe even more in what sense you know Umberto Eco wrote a very good essay where he says that it's typical of postmodernism to qualify all statements you don't say to a beloved man or woman I love you but I love you as a poet would have said of I maybe could say you know you are afraid to state it directly but Eco says but pre-modern people also didn't believe it literally just for them it was not necessary to add these qualifications when you said to somebody I love you all this this distance qualifications were already included into it you know they were not naive if anything we are more naive today that's why for me strictly the other part of this universal cynicism is the race of this naive fundamentalism and in a way I admire them this is what always fascinates me American fundamentalists one would expect them to be stupid you know but no they are very scientifically developed and so on for example I debated once with one of them and we had a debate on this how to call it Turin Shroud you know that with those bloodstains the idea is is this maybe the blood of Christ you know and the church is of course afraid here because now with DNA if you analyze those stains what if we can discover the DNA of Jesus Christ and then it's over this game God's son what if you discover that that his father was some sorry to be vulgar Egyptian slave fucking Mary or whatever you know but another thing is important I debated with them and they are totally they said yes we should do the DNA and they know the answer they claim no what was the answer no because God doesn't have a DNA it will be Mary's DNA redoubled you know it's what they miss is this like in some sense I think American Christian fundamentalists are not even true believers for them religious statements or belief are simple facts they treat it as just another just a language as a form of communication it's like social yeah yeah yeah and I think with we should really go into all this more deeply we don't have time now because again when people say belief radical belief fundamentalists I always like to ask but what do you mean by belief what does it mean to believe in something often the condition to believe in something is to make fun of it I don't know how it is in Argentina but here the usual form of patriotism is that among friends you always make fun of your country but if a foreigner makes fun of you then all of a sudden but so it's as if you are ashamed to directly you know or I always have this joke with my Israeli friends no because do you know that Israel is according to some statistics the most atheist nation in the world over fifty percent of Jews don't really believe in God so I tell them okay for you God doesn't exist but nonetheless he gave you the land of Israel and so on
would be a very complicated theory you know don't misjudge what people really believed the French historian Paul Veyne V-E-Y-N-E wrote a wonderful book called *Did Ancient Greeks Believe in Their Myths?* like a very simple question were ancient Greeks really so stupid to think that if you climb the mountain of Olympus you will see God and he proves exclusively no they of course didn't believe it you know it was just a form of politeness of rhetoric like for example when I meet a friend we keep together to meet together to share to share yeah yeah yeah and you know it's not true in this sense I wouldn't be too sure what people believed if anything maybe because for example when people said in the past I believe in God I would doubt very much how they really believed it no no they were not lying but as you said it was a form of social trust to believe in God means yes I'm part of this community and so on and so on so today maybe maybe in some sense we believe even more in what sense you know Umberto Eco wrote a very good essay where he says that it's typical of postmodernism to qualify all statements you don't say to a beloved man or woman I love you but I love you as a poet would have said of I maybe could say you know you are afraid to state it directly but Eco says but pre-modern people also didn't believe it literally just for them it was not necessary to add these qualifications when you said to somebody I love you all this this distance qualifications were already included into it you know they were not naive if anything we are more naive today that's why for me strictly the other part of this universal cynicism is the race of this naive fundamentalism and in a way I admire them this is what always fascinates me American fundamentalists one would expect them to be stupid you know but no they are very scientifically developed and so on for example I debated once with one of them and we had a debate on this how to call it Turin Shroud you know that with those bloodstains the idea is is this maybe the blood of Christ you know and the church is of course afraid here because now with DNA if you analyze those stains what if we can discover the DNA of Jesus Christ and then it's over this game God's son what if you discover that that his father was some sorry to be vulgar Egyptian slave fucking Mary or whatever you know but another thing is important I debated with them and they are totally they said yes we should do the DNA and they know the answer they claim no what was the answer no because God doesn't have a DNA it will be Mary's DNA redoubled you know it's what they miss is this like in some sense I think American Christian fundamentalists are not even true believers for them religious statements or belief are simple facts they treat it as just another just a language as a form of communication it's like social yeah yeah yeah and I think with we should really go into all this more deeply we don't have time now because again when people say belief radical belief fundamentalists I always like to ask but what do you mean by belief what does it mean to believe in something often the condition to believe in something is to make fun of it I don't know how it is in Argentina but here the usual form of patriotism is that among friends you always make fun of your country but if a foreigner makes fun of you then all of a sudden but so it's as if you are ashamed to directly you know or I always have this joke with my Israeli friends no because do you know that Israel is according to some statistics the most atheist nation in the world over fifty percent of Jews don't really believe in God so I tell them okay for you God doesn't exist but nonetheless he gave you the land of Israel and so on
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you know this is and Jews are not here specific for example I was so deeply shocked I quote
you know this is and Jews are not here specific for example I was so deeply shocked I quote
Slavoj Žižek
him in some of my books now that Croatia is really almost openly Croatia the other republic rehabilitating fascism and Catholicism plays a key role but they strictly reduce Catholicism to an instrument of nations self-affirmation as one of their theologians said if you are not a Catholic you cannot be really a Croat and then he went a step further it's terrifying and he said it doesn't even mean that you have to really believe in God just to say just to say and in this sense you strengthen the Catholic and so on and so on so I think that another this is a very good argument Alain Badiou developed it as well that the problem with today's fundamentalism is not that it's too fanatically religious it's just it's not even authentic religious belief it has some kind of a as you would have put it language game as an instrument of power and even in some sense you know who said this nicely Khomeini he was not an idiot I read his texts where he said Islam is political or it's nothing and then in some text he quoted Quran where there is a very interesting statement I like it where Mohammad says if people believe in or not God there's their private problem we cannot control them there all we can do is to control how they act publicly they have to act as if they believe and so on and so on you know so again we should be very careful today to avoid this image fanatics fundamentalist no no no you have to be very precise in what does it mean to authentically believe this is why the greatest theologians like the Danish one Kierkegaard were aware that authentic belief always has to be on the edge of disbelief like probably there is no God but I'm crazy enough to say I risk on it all this complacent belief just follow the ritual this is why what I was so fascinated by I've written a lot about it I think these are the best examples of how ideology today works when I was asked once what's the greatest contribution of American culture to world civilization my answer was immediate canned laughter you know what is this on their TV these comical series you hear laughter is part of the soundtrack and I like this because it means you don't even have to laugh you look at it the screen laughs for you and it works at least with me after seeing a watching a comical series I feel relaxed as if I laughed and I think this is crucial for how things function today in our cynical era you don't have to believe you even don't have to laugh you can enjoy through others you can do everything through others and what will be the end I don't know sorry I talk too much no no no it's the millennials I never knew what does it mean for some people it's people born in for others are people who reached maturity less than years more or less yeah yeah yeah I was told yeah what do you think about that today the youngers all the advertising all the market is focused on the youngers there is any relationship between the technology that the youngers are more efficient with the technology and there is the idea that technology is changing all and the old people is less useful than fifty years ago which is the relation with the youngers in terms of how they change the politics and you know what of course me being now unfortunately the older one I wouldn't like to but what fascinates me in my new book there will be a chapter on it this how this being totally immersed into digital space no here I have a couple of maybe interesting points to make how a certain logic which was already described in psychoanalysis which we encounter in horror movies in video interests me very much this logic where you no longer conceive yourself as a mortal being but in a sense as undead you know you die you come back again you are indestructible and the first time this was developed as far as I know was in Marquis de Sade as Lacan pointed out look at Juliette she is tortured terribly but in the next scene she comes again back with all her beauty and so on isn't it the same with then I noticed with cartoons Tom and Jerry and so on it's the same crazy world in one scene Tom or Jerry are cut into pieces run over by a truck in the next scene they are here again but this is in a way the universe of digital games and so on and it's not just technology of course in a game you can start it all it isn't this also the Gnostic dream of our digital era to become like a software program and you cannot die you just download yourself again again you can reincarnate yourself again and again and this I think it's not just an illusion it is a mode of existence which I'm not ready simply to condemn but isn't it very interesting this that if we return at the your idea that some situations of today are very similar to the beginning of the last century yeah one of the differences the beginning of the last century was women that doesn't exist like a power yeah yeah yeah one hundred years ago and the teenagers because in at the beginning of the last century at thirteen years you go to work the this was an invention of the twentieth century the power of the woman and power of the youngest people how this change the the world of the century I think it's another one Alain Badiou in a short book made a very good distinction he said that this is a very general observation that till our postmodern era revolution after for men there was still some kind of a how should I call it ritual of initiation to become a full adult member of society this could be getting the first job finishing your university education or in many countries your military service whatever but this means you are fully an adult but that now with all this idea of permanently young and at the
him in some of my books now that Croatia is really almost openly Croatia the other republic rehabilitating fascism and Catholicism plays a key role but they strictly reduce Catholicism to an instrument of nations self-affirmation as one of their theologians said if you are not a Catholic you cannot be really a Croat and then he went a step further it's terrifying and he said it doesn't even mean that you have to really believe in God just to say just to say and in this sense you strengthen the Catholic and so on and so on so I think that another this is a very good argument Alain Badiou developed it as well that the problem with today's fundamentalism is not that it's too fanatically religious it's just it's not even authentic religious belief it has some kind of a as you would have put it language game as an instrument of power and even in some sense you know who said this nicely Khomeini he was not an idiot I read his texts where he said Islam is political or it's nothing and then in some text he quoted Quran where there is a very interesting statement I like it where Mohammad says if people believe in or not God there's their private problem we cannot control them there all we can do is to control how they act publicly they have to act as if they believe and so on and so on you know so again we should be very careful today to avoid this image fanatics fundamentalist no no no you have to be very precise in what does it mean to authentically believe this is why the greatest theologians like the Danish one Kierkegaard were aware that authentic belief always has to be on the edge of disbelief like probably there is no God but I'm crazy enough to say I risk on it all this complacent belief just follow the ritual this is why what I was so fascinated by I've written a lot about it I think these are the best examples of how ideology today works when I was asked once what's the greatest contribution of American culture to world civilization my answer was immediate canned laughter you know what is this on their TV these comical series you hear laughter is part of the soundtrack and I like this because it means you don't even have to laugh you look at it the screen laughs for you and it works at least with me after seeing a watching a comical series I feel relaxed as if I laughed and I think this is crucial for how things function today in our cynical era you don't have to believe you even don't have to laugh you can enjoy through others you can do everything through others and what will be the end I don't know sorry I talk too much no no no it's the millennials I never knew what does it mean for some people it's people born in for others are people who reached maturity less than years more or less yeah yeah yeah I was told yeah what do you think about that today the youngers all the advertising all the market is focused on the youngers there is any relationship between the technology that the youngers are more efficient with the technology and there is the idea that technology is changing all and the old people is less useful than fifty years ago which is the relation with the youngers in terms of how they change the politics and you know what of course me being now unfortunately the older one I wouldn't like to but what fascinates me in my new book there will be a chapter on it this how this being totally immersed into digital space no here I have a couple of maybe interesting points to make how a certain logic which was already described in psychoanalysis which we encounter in horror movies in video interests me very much this logic where you no longer conceive yourself as a mortal being but in a sense as undead you know you die you come back again you are indestructible and the first time this was developed as far as I know was in Marquis de Sade as Lacan pointed out look at Juliette she is tortured terribly but in the next scene she comes again back with all her beauty and so on isn't it the same with then I noticed with cartoons Tom and Jerry and so on it's the same crazy world in one scene Tom or Jerry are cut into pieces run over by a truck in the next scene they are here again but this is in a way the universe of digital games and so on and it's not just technology of course in a game you can start it all it isn't this also the Gnostic dream of our digital era to become like a software program and you cannot die you just download yourself again again you can reincarnate yourself again and again and this I think it's not just an illusion it is a mode of existence which I'm not ready simply to condemn but isn't it very interesting this that if we return at the your idea that some situations of today are very similar to the beginning of the last century yeah one of the differences the beginning of the last century was women that doesn't exist like a power yeah yeah yeah one hundred years ago and the teenagers because in at the beginning of the last century at thirteen years you go to work the this was an invention of the twentieth century the power of the woman and power of the youngest people how this change the the world of the century I think it's another one Alain Badiou in a short book made a very good distinction he said that this is a very general observation that till our postmodern era revolution after for men there was still some kind of a how should I call it ritual of initiation to become a full adult member of society this could be getting the first job finishing your university education or in many countries your military service whatever but this means you are fully an adult but that now with all this idea of permanently young and at the
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same time all the time permanent education and so on we men are changing into permanent adolescents and he pointed out very nicely how even somebody like Donald Trump he doesn't behave as a mature person he is a
same time all the time permanent education and so on we men are changing into permanent adolescents and he pointed out very nicely how even somebody like Donald Trump he doesn't behave as a mature person he is a
Slavoj Žižek
permanent adolescent at the same time and that's very nice observation by Badiou women are treated as more and more as more mature men forever remain young women already young women are expected to act in a much more adult way you know where you can register this I don't know how it is Argentina but in France I know it's true when you have problems with adolescents the policewomen social workers judges they are mostly women the idea is that women have more tact maturity to do this and the tragedy is the same and justice the increases
permanent adolescent at the same time and that's very nice observation by Badiou women are treated as more and more as more mature men forever remain young women already young women are expected to act in a much more adult way you know where you can register this I don't know how it is Argentina but in France I know it's true when you have problems with adolescents the policewomen social workers judges they are mostly women the idea is that women have more tact maturity to do this and the tragedy is the same and justice the increases
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of the woman in justice
of the woman in justice
Slavoj Žižek
is amazing yeah a lot of justice woman is on important party but it's also what I don't like in this is this psychologization of justice is that you know a judge should only understand you your motives and this is for me nonetheless another form of social control and so on but what I'm saying here is that again I don't want to be a catastrophist saying that's the end and so on but nonetheless again if we put all this together what happens at this level of of changes in this basic family patterns and and so on something tremendous is happening because children are at the same time treated as totally immature which is why the greatest crime almost that you can imagine today is pedophilia and many of my psychoanalytic friends noticed how in this way our era which is allegedly permissive you can do whatever you want returned back from Freud you don't talk about child children's sexuality today children are innocent but at the same time as they are innocent not yet corrupted by sexuality at the same time they are and here even sorry at this level I even find this I don't agree with it I'm all for this against this horror did you follow this story and I don't get it that Italian actress who is now already Asia Asia Argento the accusation no okay I will tell you something terrifying no but if I were to be seventeen and if a nice woman like her mature would do this that what she did allegedly to him to me well I wouldn't protest too much so why is this experience maybe it was in that case and so on but isn't it clear I'm not simply on her side that's another thing but first the fact that he wanted four millions and so on and all the stuff that this traumatized her I find this a very exploitative move from his side but on the other hand when you are seventeen you usually are already sexually awakened and so on what is so horrible about a beautiful woman seducing you I find it totally cynical it's again this idea innocent boy seduced I find this horrifying look I will tell you something very vulgar I don't like Macron too much but on the other hand isn't he the one who realized the dream of us all when you are in high school and you have a beautiful teacher there isn't the ultimate dream to be seduced by her and he did it and now so this there is I think a big confusion here because as to quote Gramsci we all know it that famous quote when the old is dying but the new didn't yet arrive this is dangerous era where monsters arise and so on and so on I think we are exactly in such an era and we pay the price of these paradoxes look in sexuality on the one hand we are in permissive era you can be gay you can be transsexual whatever you want on the other hand you have to be very careful politically correct what you do how this ultrapermissivity is combined with ultratight control you are terrorized almost all the time did I because you know what's the problem for me with political and again I deeply sympathize I'm totally for women I'm a crazy guy here I'm even for death penalty against rapists that's not my problem my problem is this one and I always got when I get in a debate with politically correct people here let's be frank in an erotic interplay there always is a problem a moment when somebody has to break the ice and do a gesture which these gestures if it's rejected can be proclaimed harassment you cannot avoid this you know what I reproach all those MeToo and politically correct is they have a certain they underestimate the extent to which even brutality is part of sexual game not brutality in the sense that I brutally rape but in the sense that a certain rough approach you cannot control can itself be eroticized or when they say that man seduced a woman it wasn't him it was just because he was a person of power yes but I'm sorry power itself can be eroticized and so on I mean don't don't you have sometimes the impression that hypocrisy yeah that politically correct people dream of some pure innocent sex where nobody humiliates the other it's just the mutual agreement and so on this is not sex it doesn't ah now I have an intelligent friend who gave me the formula who told me the only sex which functions like that is the sadomasochist contractual sex and that's the secret model today it's we are attracted so we sit down we sign a contract a masochist contract you do this to me I do this to you so no wonder I find it totally logical that today in some politically correct circles in Sweden now ah how sex is more and more becoming contractualized do you know that in Australia now did you read this they passed a law that okay how do you control it it's nonsense but yeah yeah yeah that before two people go into bed they must look into each other and both publicly state yes I want to do it well I find this a little bit unpractical because I was in this situation quite often you know a woman or a man who terribly wants to do it might find this humiliating and you know to declare it in this way and do you know that they are already circulating now this sexual contracts like we want to go to bed okay we fill in the form my name your name birth religion so that you don't lie to her then do you have any AIDS or sexual weakness and they even already have forms where they specify no anal penetration or whatever you set the limits but again what hurts me here is that the ideal that how this sadomasochist contract is and that's the result of all this MeToo is silently promoted as a norm and then there is another madness of political correctness I'm not joking here they're very interesting I've written a short text on them do you know Incels they're marginal a couple of hundred thousand but they are crucial as a phenomenon of madness do you know Incels who are Incels no oh you should Involuntary celibates it's a movement of not massive but hundreds of yeah they are ugly fat usually ugly white men who are usually alt-right for hierarchy and so on but not in sex they feel underprivileged
is amazing yeah a lot of justice woman is on important party but it's also what I don't like in this is this psychologization of justice is that you know a judge should only understand you your motives and this is for me nonetheless another form of social control and so on but what I'm saying here is that again I don't want to be a catastrophist saying that's the end and so on but nonetheless again if we put all this together what happens at this level of of changes in this basic family patterns and and so on something tremendous is happening because children are at the same time treated as totally immature which is why the greatest crime almost that you can imagine today is pedophilia and many of my psychoanalytic friends noticed how in this way our era which is allegedly permissive you can do whatever you want returned back from Freud you don't talk about child children's sexuality today children are innocent but at the same time as they are innocent not yet corrupted by sexuality at the same time they are and here even sorry at this level I even find this I don't agree with it I'm all for this against this horror did you follow this story and I don't get it that Italian actress who is now already Asia Asia Argento the accusation no okay I will tell you something terrifying no but if I were to be seventeen and if a nice woman like her mature would do this that what she did allegedly to him to me well I wouldn't protest too much so why is this experience maybe it was in that case and so on but isn't it clear I'm not simply on her side that's another thing but first the fact that he wanted four millions and so on and all the stuff that this traumatized her I find this a very exploitative move from his side but on the other hand when you are seventeen you usually are already sexually awakened and so on what is so horrible about a beautiful woman seducing you I find it totally cynical it's again this idea innocent boy seduced I find this horrifying look I will tell you something very vulgar I don't like Macron too much but on the other hand isn't he the one who realized the dream of us all when you are in high school and you have a beautiful teacher there isn't the ultimate dream to be seduced by her and he did it and now so this there is I think a big confusion here because as to quote Gramsci we all know it that famous quote when the old is dying but the new didn't yet arrive this is dangerous era where monsters arise and so on and so on I think we are exactly in such an era and we pay the price of these paradoxes look in sexuality on the one hand we are in permissive era you can be gay you can be transsexual whatever you want on the other hand you have to be very careful politically correct what you do how this ultrapermissivity is combined with ultratight control you are terrorized almost all the time did I because you know what's the problem for me with political and again I deeply sympathize I'm totally for women I'm a crazy guy here I'm even for death penalty against rapists that's not my problem my problem is this one and I always got when I get in a debate with politically correct people here let's be frank in an erotic interplay there always is a problem a moment when somebody has to break the ice and do a gesture which these gestures if it's rejected can be proclaimed harassment you cannot avoid this you know what I reproach all those MeToo and politically correct is they have a certain they underestimate the extent to which even brutality is part of sexual game not brutality in the sense that I brutally rape but in the sense that a certain rough approach you cannot control can itself be eroticized or when they say that man seduced a woman it wasn't him it was just because he was a person of power yes but I'm sorry power itself can be eroticized and so on I mean don't don't you have sometimes the impression that hypocrisy yeah that politically correct people dream of some pure innocent sex where nobody humiliates the other it's just the mutual agreement and so on this is not sex it doesn't ah now I have an intelligent friend who gave me the formula who told me the only sex which functions like that is the sadomasochist contractual sex and that's the secret model today it's we are attracted so we sit down we sign a contract a masochist contract you do this to me I do this to you so no wonder I find it totally logical that today in some politically correct circles in Sweden now ah how sex is more and more becoming contractualized do you know that in Australia now did you read this they passed a law that okay how do you control it it's nonsense but yeah yeah yeah that before two people go into bed they must look into each other and both publicly state yes I want to do it well I find this a little bit unpractical because I was in this situation quite often you know a woman or a man who terribly wants to do it might find this humiliating and you know to declare it in this way and do you know that they are already circulating now this sexual contracts like we want to go to bed okay we fill in the form my name your name birth religion so that you don't lie to her then do you have any AIDS or sexual weakness and they even already have forms where they specify no anal penetration or whatever you set the limits but again what hurts me here is that the ideal that how this sadomasochist contract is and that's the result of all this MeToo is silently promoted as a norm and then there is another madness of political correctness I'm not joking here they're very interesting I've written a short text on them do you know Incels they're marginal a couple of hundred thousand but they are crucial as a phenomenon of madness do you know Incels who are Incels no oh you should Involuntary celibates it's a movement of not massive but hundreds of yeah they are ugly fat usually ugly white men who are usually alt-right for hierarchy and so on but not in sex they feel underprivileged
Bernard-Henri Lévy
because they claim
because they claim
Slavoj Žižek
all only beautiful men get women we are underprivileged and they try to change the game so that they publicly enjoy their ugliness but you know what's the
all only beautiful men get women we are underprivileged and they try to change the game so that they publicly enjoy their ugliness but you know what's the
Bernard-Henri Lévy
madness you know what's their ideology although they are officially ultra-hierarchic for inequality they demand that in sex state or society should somehow regulate it that everybody gets a woman and it's a mass movement what I find it so crazy is that in a way they're bringing the politically correct logic to the end okay I agree with this affirmative action in the case of race and so on and women but now
madness you know what's their ideology although they are officially ultra-hierarchic for inequality they demand that in sex state or society should somehow regulate it that everybody gets a woman and it's a mass movement what I find it so crazy is that in a way they're bringing the politically correct logic to the end okay I agree with this affirmative action in the case of race and so on and women but now
Slavoj Žižek
you know that when I was the last time in Texas they told me there already is are movements and in one of two universities they enacted it first an ugly guy started a movement claiming that ugly people are underprivileged so he needs a yeah yes affirmative action for ugl- then in one or two Texas colleges they already did affirmative action for stupidity claiming it's because of my education and genes that I'm stupid so it's not fair for me to be measured by the same standard and they enacted it if I'm your professor and you prove me that you have diminished mental capacities I shouldn't grade you in the same way and so on and so on I mean there is there is a dangerous limit here and i i it because you know at the end I claim okay I'm for social justice and so on but we have to accept don't you think that sex is basically unjust yes some people are much nicer than others they have a privilege and it's madness to regulate this sex is extremely unjust in this level and if you try to regulate it it has to end as a catastrophe let me again go with the youngers yeah i think that the figure of the young person have more power today than fifty years ago do you have the same idea youngers are more powerful today than well first I would like to locate where how do you locate power in media in media in for example you you put media I think that your association is very good because for example Google Facebook the people
you know that when I was the last time in Texas they told me there already is are movements and in one of two universities they enacted it first an ugly guy started a movement claiming that ugly people are underprivileged so he needs a yeah yes affirmative action for ugl- then in one or two Texas colleges they already did affirmative action for stupidity claiming it's because of my education and genes that I'm stupid so it's not fair for me to be measured by the same standard and they enacted it if I'm your professor and you prove me that you have diminished mental capacities I shouldn't grade you in the same way and so on and so on I mean there is there is a dangerous limit here and i i it because you know at the end I claim okay I'm for social justice and so on but we have to accept don't you think that sex is basically unjust yes some people are much nicer than others they have a privilege and it's madness to regulate this sex is extremely unjust in this level and if you try to regulate it it has to end as a catastrophe let me again go with the youngers yeah i think that the figure of the young person have more power today than fifty years ago do you have the same idea youngers are more powerful today than well first I would like to locate where how do you locate power in media in media in for example you you put media I think that your association is very good because for example Google Facebook the people
unknown
that work in this kind of company in majority are millennials for example the idea that the millennials understand the internet native yeah and the revolution that the internet produce create disruption all the old are out of the new world okay on the one hand maybe I'm here an old-age conservative let me tell you my dream let's imagine my Stalinist dream I'm a dictator of a country yeah personally as a person the first thing I would have done is to prohibit
that work in this kind of company in majority are millennials for example the idea that the millennials understand the internet native yeah and the revolution that the internet produce create disruption all the old are out of the new world okay on the one hand maybe I'm here an old-age conservative let me tell you my dream let's imagine my Stalinist dream I'm a dictator of a country yeah personally as a person the first thing I would have done is to prohibit
Slavoj Žižek
Facebook and Twitter and if you are caught for more than I don't know quarter of an hour per day on Twitter you are mobilized and you have to clean toilets for three months I think this is a terrifying loss of time you know why because what interests me and good analyses were made here how this type of communication Twitter is for me the model Twitter is like this horrible talk shows or CNN and so on where you cannot talk for more than twenty seconds or whatever and every argumentation gets lost is just these quick witty short remarks and so on so i do feel I do feel like that what worries me is but I'm precisely trying not just to see the bad side look for example copying the movies from Pirate Bay from I don't know where YouTube you know what I decided I wonder if you have the same experience the result is that I see less movies than ever I want to see a movie then I say oh I don't have time to do it so I will copy it and then I will have time to do it I can see it whatever I want which means that I never see it because I always tell myself I can do it wherever I want you know so this is the the pattern in this one precisely because I can do something whenever I want I don't do it and I notice even how operas movies you know i'm tired i begin to watch it I say oh not now i will do it
Facebook and Twitter and if you are caught for more than I don't know quarter of an hour per day on Twitter you are mobilized and you have to clean toilets for three months I think this is a terrifying loss of time you know why because what interests me and good analyses were made here how this type of communication Twitter is for me the model Twitter is like this horrible talk shows or CNN and so on where you cannot talk for more than twenty seconds or whatever and every argumentation gets lost is just these quick witty short remarks and so on so i do feel I do feel like that what worries me is but I'm precisely trying not just to see the bad side look for example copying the movies from Pirate Bay from I don't know where YouTube you know what I decided I wonder if you have the same experience the result is that I see less movies than ever I want to see a movie then I say oh I don't have time to do it so I will copy it and then I will have time to do it I can see it whatever I want which means that I never see it because I always tell myself I can do it wherever I want you know so this is the the pattern in this one precisely because I can do something whenever I want I don't do it and I notice even how operas movies you know i'm tired i begin to watch it I say oh not now i will do it
unknown
later and so on how it radically fragments our experience that's why I also don't like to read books on Kindle and
later and so on how it radically fragments our experience that's why I also don't like to read books on Kindle and
Slavoj Žižek
so on and so on something radically changes it the very mode of experience which is why I noticed how even among philosophers there is less and less of writing substantial books if if you write a substantial book it must be some popularization introduction and so on and so on and I remain here an old conservative I believe then more than ever today to quote Lenin we should learn learn and learn we should take a step back and reflect what is happening so here I remain faithful to the to the old generation on the other hand I'm not ready to just dismiss in this way the new media look even events like the Arab Spring as we know SYRIZA Podemos was a media phenomenon first in Spain but you can say that at the beginning Trump also came from television because he did a show in the television yeah yeah yeah but but even it's interesting to see how internet was developed you know how internet i read in a history of it how internet exploded in United States Army you were thinking about what if there is an atomic war and the centers of power are destroyed so how to laterally connect those who survive so in this sense internet was developed that is more lateral democratic decentralized and that's why the big struggle today is how to control it you know and sorry just to improvise on this it's especially what I especially hate is how this control not only works in a non-transparent way but to achieve certain political goals it presents itself as pure moralism for example do you remember a couple of years ago that famous napalm girl image disappeared for a couple of days from Facebook and the justification was it can be child pornography nonsense they were embarrassed because this was an iconic up and in Russia did you follow it now the same happened now somewhere in mid-Russia a kindergarten teacher recorded a horrible scene in a summer camp how teachers were literally torturing a young boy and she posted she posted this on the internet it was not only censored but she was put to prison the idea was she was spreading violent child pornography on the media and the woman was just desperate because she showed this video to authorities and they all ignored it so out of despair she said but this is horrible they're literally torturing children no so what do these two cases have in common how you mask political censorship as care for morality the same happened to me when I was telling at a conference a story about a horrible story about rape torture and so on in Canada they accused me by telling the story of reproducing the crime and so on you see this is another danger of political correctness for me this fear that I will hurt you but I want to hurt you in some sense well i want you to be shocked that's the only way to move people you know I don't like it too much he's often too simplistic George Orwell but he says something wonderful here in the foreword to his *Animal Farm* he says real freedom is the freedom to tell people what they don't want to hear you know freedom is not to bring you just good news and here it's terrible how the interest of authorities and of politically correct fanatics are combined just to do the we are not to hurt to traumatize you know this terrible strategy in United States now which one of so-called trigger warnings you know oh you should just Google it trigger warning you will see it's not marginal now it's in the most of universities at least in my area there New York and so on that it happened all it started at Columbia University where a professor of classical literature gave to the students to read some parts of Ovid's *Metamorphoses* oh a kind of a hard rape is presented there a god rapes I don't know who and one student protested that she was recently raped and that this is too traumatic for her then this developed in an entire movement and now when there is anything that may trauma a little bit hurt somebody you you you have to add trigger warnings if you are sensitive and so on but I consider this madness for example do you know that Mark Twain *Huckleberry Finn* *Tom Sawyer* they are now read in schools in a censored way because the way one black person is like Lolita as another example yeah yeah but what I what makes me terrified here is this idea of how and this is the sad philosophical implication we are perceived as extremely vulnerable individuals which we should be protected from all harm and so on and it's a very sad universe where every encounter with the other is potentially experienced as harmful you know how you can hurt me it happened to me i looked like this at a woman and i even didn't look with desire i just had some eye inflammation i was accused of visual rape and so on anything can be hurting the other but you know what is so sad maybe you experienced it you are there in the United States very sad is how if you are already a leftist to know you cannot but notice the class dimension of this for example they may sound very nice all these feminists and people who worry about harassment but usually it's that middle class well-educated people are afraid of lower class people whom they perceive as vulgar harassing them and it has this clear dimension of harassment did you read no you probably didn't a tech of mine somewhere someone told me a wonderful thing happened wonderful in the sense of horror of at an American campus they were putting a new surface on a building this building was relatively close to a swimming pool on that building on the steps to it there were some Latino Mexican workers doing it in the swimming pool there were student girls swimming sunbathing then of course my God it happens some of these Mexican workers did some of how do you call it piropo el piropo through some erotic remarks girls protested and you know how they solved the problem they built for the workers a special tunnel in plastic and put a special tunnel a special plastic wall so that they were not able to see the girls okay the girls felt harassed but it was at the same time a clear element of racism and so on and so on so this is why when people talk about harassment i think that behind it covered by harassment can be extremely brutal racist hatred and so on and so on I don't like this attitude of tolerance which means I tolerate you but don't come too close to me remain at the proper distance and so on and you know what's so sad is that at the same time physical brutality is exploding today in the world I read recently that in Brazil rapes are exploding violence Venezuela South Africa is today world capital in rapes you know that they have a specific name in South Africa for it's a death specialty it happens almost every day you rape a woman and while making love to her you are slowly killing her by suffocating her cutting her with a knife so I think these are two strictly correlative phenomena like two sides of a coin extreme real life brutality but at the same time this trigger warning I don't want to know about it and so on no no we live in a crazy world if you ask me which is the metaphysics of the social network they have any kind of metaphysics Twitter Facebook i think ah now I will repeat your point about how one hundred years ago you know what is so fascinating that all this metaphysics in the sense of Gnostic dream of digital world you know people like Ray Kurzweil we are approaching a singularity we will be all part of a universal digital mind do you know that all this happened already in the 1920s in Soviet Union it was a kind of a spontaneous new age technological yeah yeah yeah where the idea was i quote him somewhere even Trotsky part of it was for some point Trotsky explicitly wrote in '25 that now that in Russia working class has the political economic
so on and so on something radically changes it the very mode of experience which is why I noticed how even among philosophers there is less and less of writing substantial books if if you write a substantial book it must be some popularization introduction and so on and so on and I remain here an old conservative I believe then more than ever today to quote Lenin we should learn learn and learn we should take a step back and reflect what is happening so here I remain faithful to the to the old generation on the other hand I'm not ready to just dismiss in this way the new media look even events like the Arab Spring as we know SYRIZA Podemos was a media phenomenon first in Spain but you can say that at the beginning Trump also came from television because he did a show in the television yeah yeah yeah but but even it's interesting to see how internet was developed you know how internet i read in a history of it how internet exploded in United States Army you were thinking about what if there is an atomic war and the centers of power are destroyed so how to laterally connect those who survive so in this sense internet was developed that is more lateral democratic decentralized and that's why the big struggle today is how to control it you know and sorry just to improvise on this it's especially what I especially hate is how this control not only works in a non-transparent way but to achieve certain political goals it presents itself as pure moralism for example do you remember a couple of years ago that famous napalm girl image disappeared for a couple of days from Facebook and the justification was it can be child pornography nonsense they were embarrassed because this was an iconic up and in Russia did you follow it now the same happened now somewhere in mid-Russia a kindergarten teacher recorded a horrible scene in a summer camp how teachers were literally torturing a young boy and she posted she posted this on the internet it was not only censored but she was put to prison the idea was she was spreading violent child pornography on the media and the woman was just desperate because she showed this video to authorities and they all ignored it so out of despair she said but this is horrible they're literally torturing children no so what do these two cases have in common how you mask political censorship as care for morality the same happened to me when I was telling at a conference a story about a horrible story about rape torture and so on in Canada they accused me by telling the story of reproducing the crime and so on you see this is another danger of political correctness for me this fear that I will hurt you but I want to hurt you in some sense well i want you to be shocked that's the only way to move people you know I don't like it too much he's often too simplistic George Orwell but he says something wonderful here in the foreword to his *Animal Farm* he says real freedom is the freedom to tell people what they don't want to hear you know freedom is not to bring you just good news and here it's terrible how the interest of authorities and of politically correct fanatics are combined just to do the we are not to hurt to traumatize you know this terrible strategy in United States now which one of so-called trigger warnings you know oh you should just Google it trigger warning you will see it's not marginal now it's in the most of universities at least in my area there New York and so on that it happened all it started at Columbia University where a professor of classical literature gave to the students to read some parts of Ovid's *Metamorphoses* oh a kind of a hard rape is presented there a god rapes I don't know who and one student protested that she was recently raped and that this is too traumatic for her then this developed in an entire movement and now when there is anything that may trauma a little bit hurt somebody you you you have to add trigger warnings if you are sensitive and so on but I consider this madness for example do you know that Mark Twain *Huckleberry Finn* *Tom Sawyer* they are now read in schools in a censored way because the way one black person is like Lolita as another example yeah yeah but what I what makes me terrified here is this idea of how and this is the sad philosophical implication we are perceived as extremely vulnerable individuals which we should be protected from all harm and so on and it's a very sad universe where every encounter with the other is potentially experienced as harmful you know how you can hurt me it happened to me i looked like this at a woman and i even didn't look with desire i just had some eye inflammation i was accused of visual rape and so on anything can be hurting the other but you know what is so sad maybe you experienced it you are there in the United States very sad is how if you are already a leftist to know you cannot but notice the class dimension of this for example they may sound very nice all these feminists and people who worry about harassment but usually it's that middle class well-educated people are afraid of lower class people whom they perceive as vulgar harassing them and it has this clear dimension of harassment did you read no you probably didn't a tech of mine somewhere someone told me a wonderful thing happened wonderful in the sense of horror of at an American campus they were putting a new surface on a building this building was relatively close to a swimming pool on that building on the steps to it there were some Latino Mexican workers doing it in the swimming pool there were student girls swimming sunbathing then of course my God it happens some of these Mexican workers did some of how do you call it piropo el piropo through some erotic remarks girls protested and you know how they solved the problem they built for the workers a special tunnel in plastic and put a special tunnel a special plastic wall so that they were not able to see the girls okay the girls felt harassed but it was at the same time a clear element of racism and so on and so on so this is why when people talk about harassment i think that behind it covered by harassment can be extremely brutal racist hatred and so on and so on I don't like this attitude of tolerance which means I tolerate you but don't come too close to me remain at the proper distance and so on and you know what's so sad is that at the same time physical brutality is exploding today in the world I read recently that in Brazil rapes are exploding violence Venezuela South Africa is today world capital in rapes you know that they have a specific name in South Africa for it's a death specialty it happens almost every day you rape a woman and while making love to her you are slowly killing her by suffocating her cutting her with a knife so I think these are two strictly correlative phenomena like two sides of a coin extreme real life brutality but at the same time this trigger warning I don't want to know about it and so on no no we live in a crazy world if you ask me which is the metaphysics of the social network they have any kind of metaphysics Twitter Facebook i think ah now I will repeat your point about how one hundred years ago you know what is so fascinating that all this metaphysics in the sense of Gnostic dream of digital world you know people like Ray Kurzweil we are approaching a singularity we will be all part of a universal digital mind do you know that all this happened already in the 1920s in Soviet Union it was a kind of a spontaneous new age technological yeah yeah yeah where the idea was i quote him somewhere even Trotsky part of it was for some point Trotsky explicitly wrote in '25 that now that in Russia working class has the political economic
Bernard-Henri Lévy
power we should move to the next step which is change human nature human animal Homo sapiens is not good enough we have totally biologically genetically to rework it and you know what's so interesting that part of this movement was a trust against sexuality there
power we should move to the next step which is change human nature human animal Homo sapiens is not good enough we have totally biologically genetically to rework it and you know what's so interesting that part of this movement was a trust against sexuality there
Slavoj Žižek
were some sexual liberals like Aleksandra Kollontai whatever but for many people it was a very strong tendency there to say
were some sexual liberals like Aleksandra Kollontai whatever but for many people it was a very strong tendency there to say
Bernard-Henri Lévy
that now that we won in economy and politics sexuality with its brutal game is the last bastion of bourgeois so the dream was to somehow move beyond sexuality to change procreation into like you work on a field and so on to de-eroticize it and so on and so on it's the same as with today's transgenderism everything becomes flexible and so on but the key tendency is then to move out of sexuality itself it's crucial this movement how at a certain point
that now that we won in economy and politics sexuality with its brutal game is the last bastion of bourgeois so the dream was to somehow move beyond sexuality to change procreation into like you work on a field and so on to de-eroticize it and so on and so on it's the same as with today's transgenderism everything becomes flexible and so on but the key tendency is then to move out of sexuality itself it's crucial this movement how at a certain point
Slavoj Žižek
struggle for sexual freedom imperceptibly turns around into not just liberation of sexuality but liberation from sexuality correct a minute ago you spoke about the idea that some things need to do twice to work for example revolution was necessary to do twice in the case of France here I am critical but here also here I am critical of Marx Marx still thought that revolution will be this one emancipatory act we know what we are doing when I think that if there is a lesson of the twentieth century is that revolutions not only can go wrong but in a certain sense almost I would say have to go wrong I don't think that Stalinism was simply an accidental deviation it was the logical result not it's not hundred percent determinism but you can clearly see the logic yes so I think we have absolutely to accept this risky tragic dimension of every revolution that's the tragedy of history look at China you know what always fascinated me people who celebrate China now but you know on the other hand you have Great Leap Forward which was according to some estimations the greatest mass murder maybe in all history now the Chinese government is discreetly they don't want to publish the results i met some people there researching into how many people did die of unnatural causes in late fifties that you know Great Leap Forward the idea it's worse than even the most radical dissident numbers it's fifty million something like that can you imagine but the but the history is crazy it's like Holocaust and then Israel you know it's history is absolutely crazy and I think we should leave behind this naive Marxist progressive view and accept the tragic dimension of history which does not mean we just sit behind and do nothing but we should be more than ever aware of the risks let me enter in some Lacan languages to analyze the politics which is the ghost of the globalization the ghost ghost ah yes sorry in that sense you mean yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah by okay i will put it like this if by it depends on are you mean ghost in the sense that when Marx mentions at the beginning of capitalism ghost of communism and so on and so on I think if you ask me maybe it's a wrong answer but the horror of globalization is precisely there is no ghost in the sense of some clear ideology behind with globalization capitalism really became international even at the level of language I read a wonderful analysis on how okay people say we all speak English but an American patriot discovered that this English that we all speak is much more closer to that pidgin English that Chinese dealers speak in Singapore than to any you know the problem is this one that capitalism is we these games no longer work capitalism is really Eurocentric or whatever no today it really cut off its roots it's like in this sense like a ghost it is not rooted in no longer any rooted in any particular culture we it can function with practically all ideologies it can function even with Islam with Singapore China United States Latin America whatever you want and so on and so on so the horror of as Badiou put it the horror of capitalism is that it's a certain machinery which works and can ignore all specific cultures civilizations and so on and so on it's something absolutely unique in human history they don't have any ghost sorry they don't have any ghost in this ideological sense no no no I think it's as Alain Badiou put it insofar as ghost we mean world a world in the cultural sense we live in a certain world with some cultural values how we perceive life I don't think that today's global capitalism has it has many local ghosts i put it like this it's a realm of small gods small ghosts ghosts here and there but a machine a certain universal form machine is reproducing itself and is just using these local ghosts what is the point the caption the tipping point in the globalization the phallic signifier as a signifier of all oh it's difficult to locate it because here I think okay it's not this maybe this phallic exception and so on but I will give you a more general answer again my friend Peter Sloterdijk the right-wing philosopher although he is a right-winger but he said that today he used the term *Kuppel* like we in the relatively developed country we live in a *Kuppel* and many people are out of this *Kuppel* and then we are inside we don't even see properly those outside they are not part of our worlds that's the function of the TV news i think you see horrors in Somalia and so on but it's there on the screen it's not part of your world so that's why we have the problem with refugees it's like those from outside want to penetrate inside and I'm here very much a pessimist in the sense that some people you also I'm now jumping to another question you asked me are immigrants the new proletarians it's too easy question some of the leftists claim yes immigrants they don't have any home they are just freely floating homeless they are the new worldwide working class I don't think we did because first for Marx proletarian was something very specific the productive part of society which is exploited and so on you cannot say this about immigrants but my big problem is this immigrants they don't come from nowhere they come with a certain cultural identity although this identity is fractured but so they are all and so on and the topic of how these different cultures can clash the problems to which this leads it's practically prohibited within the left at least in United States and Western Europe the moment you just mention that there may be problems you are proclaimed racist proto-fascist and so on and so on but i think that this idealization of immigrants as honest yes there are honest suffering people among them but there are also gangsters also fundamentalists and so on and like I was so much reproached for even mentioning it did you follow this story it happened some three years ago I think in England does the name Rotherham mean something to you no oh you should it's a nightmare but it was underreported but at the end even Guardian had to admit it Rotherham is in mid-England a city of one hundred thousand a little bit more where they discovered that for a couple of years organized gangs of Pakistani youth people systematically were raping young English girls but working-class girls they knew very well you don't touch the rich girls and it was a nightmare over one thousand girls were for years raped serially and parents protested to the police the police said this would create racial problems if we investigate this we would be and it was such a scandal that they were all afraid to approach this when it exploded of course it served the populist anti-immigrant right but I think the catastrophe is to decide that we don't talk about it these are serious problems you know my leftist friend say no I am a racist what about why does it bother you when people from Africa eat their own food sing their songs I told them no I'm not bothered by this but ways of life are defined by other things relations of authority and how sexuality is regulated and these are extremely sensitive points where does tolerance stop here in Slovenia maybe you know the case we had some ten years ago even more a problem where Roma Roma like Gypsy Roma family a girl escaped from that family to the police because her father wants to marry her with a friend of his and of course all feminists jumped support the girl but then the father addressed the public and said listen arranged marriages are the very core of our way of life if you take this from us in two generations we are dead and in a way he was right so you have to confront this problem sometimes there is a choice between what we perceive as women's right and a certain particular way of life what if oppressing women homosexuals and so on is part of that way of life I'm only saying that we should openly confront these problems if not populists will win over Europe right-wing populists do you see that it is culturally possible that China and Russia build an anti-Western and anti-American alliance or will hate between them be stronger and prevent from trusting one to the other is possible this is a complex question but i think you even mention it i think yes some there is some tendency in this that there are two blocks emerging again America and their allies on the other hand Russia China and then we Europe are somewhere in between and so on but the first unknown element here for me is India which is getting yeah yeah but the second thing i is everything is so shifting quickly today like you remember we mentioned it you remember Turkey Turkey there was almost war with Russia now Turkey is totally on the Russian side against and i think that maybe this alliance with Russia will work but of China but China there are problems the first problem is do you know that
struggle for sexual freedom imperceptibly turns around into not just liberation of sexuality but liberation from sexuality correct a minute ago you spoke about the idea that some things need to do twice to work for example revolution was necessary to do twice in the case of France here I am critical but here also here I am critical of Marx Marx still thought that revolution will be this one emancipatory act we know what we are doing when I think that if there is a lesson of the twentieth century is that revolutions not only can go wrong but in a certain sense almost I would say have to go wrong I don't think that Stalinism was simply an accidental deviation it was the logical result not it's not hundred percent determinism but you can clearly see the logic yes so I think we have absolutely to accept this risky tragic dimension of every revolution that's the tragedy of history look at China you know what always fascinated me people who celebrate China now but you know on the other hand you have Great Leap Forward which was according to some estimations the greatest mass murder maybe in all history now the Chinese government is discreetly they don't want to publish the results i met some people there researching into how many people did die of unnatural causes in late fifties that you know Great Leap Forward the idea it's worse than even the most radical dissident numbers it's fifty million something like that can you imagine but the but the history is crazy it's like Holocaust and then Israel you know it's history is absolutely crazy and I think we should leave behind this naive Marxist progressive view and accept the tragic dimension of history which does not mean we just sit behind and do nothing but we should be more than ever aware of the risks let me enter in some Lacan languages to analyze the politics which is the ghost of the globalization the ghost ghost ah yes sorry in that sense you mean yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah by okay i will put it like this if by it depends on are you mean ghost in the sense that when Marx mentions at the beginning of capitalism ghost of communism and so on and so on I think if you ask me maybe it's a wrong answer but the horror of globalization is precisely there is no ghost in the sense of some clear ideology behind with globalization capitalism really became international even at the level of language I read a wonderful analysis on how okay people say we all speak English but an American patriot discovered that this English that we all speak is much more closer to that pidgin English that Chinese dealers speak in Singapore than to any you know the problem is this one that capitalism is we these games no longer work capitalism is really Eurocentric or whatever no today it really cut off its roots it's like in this sense like a ghost it is not rooted in no longer any rooted in any particular culture we it can function with practically all ideologies it can function even with Islam with Singapore China United States Latin America whatever you want and so on and so on so the horror of as Badiou put it the horror of capitalism is that it's a certain machinery which works and can ignore all specific cultures civilizations and so on and so on it's something absolutely unique in human history they don't have any ghost sorry they don't have any ghost in this ideological sense no no no I think it's as Alain Badiou put it insofar as ghost we mean world a world in the cultural sense we live in a certain world with some cultural values how we perceive life I don't think that today's global capitalism has it has many local ghosts i put it like this it's a realm of small gods small ghosts ghosts here and there but a machine a certain universal form machine is reproducing itself and is just using these local ghosts what is the point the caption the tipping point in the globalization the phallic signifier as a signifier of all oh it's difficult to locate it because here I think okay it's not this maybe this phallic exception and so on but I will give you a more general answer again my friend Peter Sloterdijk the right-wing philosopher although he is a right-winger but he said that today he used the term *Kuppel* like we in the relatively developed country we live in a *Kuppel* and many people are out of this *Kuppel* and then we are inside we don't even see properly those outside they are not part of our worlds that's the function of the TV news i think you see horrors in Somalia and so on but it's there on the screen it's not part of your world so that's why we have the problem with refugees it's like those from outside want to penetrate inside and I'm here very much a pessimist in the sense that some people you also I'm now jumping to another question you asked me are immigrants the new proletarians it's too easy question some of the leftists claim yes immigrants they don't have any home they are just freely floating homeless they are the new worldwide working class I don't think we did because first for Marx proletarian was something very specific the productive part of society which is exploited and so on you cannot say this about immigrants but my big problem is this immigrants they don't come from nowhere they come with a certain cultural identity although this identity is fractured but so they are all and so on and the topic of how these different cultures can clash the problems to which this leads it's practically prohibited within the left at least in United States and Western Europe the moment you just mention that there may be problems you are proclaimed racist proto-fascist and so on and so on but i think that this idealization of immigrants as honest yes there are honest suffering people among them but there are also gangsters also fundamentalists and so on and like I was so much reproached for even mentioning it did you follow this story it happened some three years ago I think in England does the name Rotherham mean something to you no oh you should it's a nightmare but it was underreported but at the end even Guardian had to admit it Rotherham is in mid-England a city of one hundred thousand a little bit more where they discovered that for a couple of years organized gangs of Pakistani youth people systematically were raping young English girls but working-class girls they knew very well you don't touch the rich girls and it was a nightmare over one thousand girls were for years raped serially and parents protested to the police the police said this would create racial problems if we investigate this we would be and it was such a scandal that they were all afraid to approach this when it exploded of course it served the populist anti-immigrant right but I think the catastrophe is to decide that we don't talk about it these are serious problems you know my leftist friend say no I am a racist what about why does it bother you when people from Africa eat their own food sing their songs I told them no I'm not bothered by this but ways of life are defined by other things relations of authority and how sexuality is regulated and these are extremely sensitive points where does tolerance stop here in Slovenia maybe you know the case we had some ten years ago even more a problem where Roma Roma like Gypsy Roma family a girl escaped from that family to the police because her father wants to marry her with a friend of his and of course all feminists jumped support the girl but then the father addressed the public and said listen arranged marriages are the very core of our way of life if you take this from us in two generations we are dead and in a way he was right so you have to confront this problem sometimes there is a choice between what we perceive as women's right and a certain particular way of life what if oppressing women homosexuals and so on is part of that way of life I'm only saying that we should openly confront these problems if not populists will win over Europe right-wing populists do you see that it is culturally possible that China and Russia build an anti-Western and anti-American alliance or will hate between them be stronger and prevent from trusting one to the other is possible this is a complex question but i think you even mention it i think yes some there is some tendency in this that there are two blocks emerging again America and their allies on the other hand Russia China and then we Europe are somewhere in between and so on but the first unknown element here for me is India which is getting yeah yeah but the second thing i is everything is so shifting quickly today like you remember we mentioned it you remember Turkey Turkey there was almost war with Russia now Turkey is totally on the Russian side against and i think that maybe this alliance with Russia will work but of China but China there are problems the first problem is do you know that
unknown
because they have too
because they have too
Slavoj Žižek
many people economically expanding and all stuff you know that there are already millions of Chinese in Siberia Eastern Siberia working there exploiting natural resources and so on and Russians are getting very worried about it so this I see as one potential obstacle to this scenario the second obstacle is that as it's clear from this new Silk Road initiative and so on China is now so much embedded in worldwide trade you must know it my God isn't Argentina now exporting a lot of soy to China and so on and that's why and on Latin America China on Latin America China Africa other I mean that's another taboo of the left that i like to break okay it's nice American imperialism is horrible but about what about new forms of Chinese economic colonialism and do you see that India could be the China of the last of the end of the last century the country that United States will use to divide Asia yes that they will definitely try yes because now already in this political but it's interesting here how things are changing do you remember we are unfortunately old enough how decades ago Pakistan was pro-American India was closer to Soviet Union now it's almost different Pakistan is more relying on China India is now absolutely pro-Israeli and pro-United States but what i think is that this is a subtle difference where China nonetheless wants to secure its place not only third world but a privileged relation with European Union Europe and i find
many people economically expanding and all stuff you know that there are already millions of Chinese in Siberia Eastern Siberia working there exploiting natural resources and so on and Russians are getting very worried about it so this I see as one potential obstacle to this scenario the second obstacle is that as it's clear from this new Silk Road initiative and so on China is now so much embedded in worldwide trade you must know it my God isn't Argentina now exporting a lot of soy to China and so on and that's why and on Latin America China on Latin America China Africa other I mean that's another taboo of the left that i like to break okay it's nice American imperialism is horrible but about what about new forms of Chinese economic colonialism and do you see that India could be the China of the last of the end of the last century the country that United States will use to divide Asia yes that they will definitely try yes because now already in this political but it's interesting here how things are changing do you remember we are unfortunately old enough how decades ago Pakistan was pro-American India was closer to Soviet Union now it's almost different Pakistan is more relying on China India is now absolutely pro-Israeli and pro-United States but what i think is that this is a subtle difference where China nonetheless wants to secure its place not only third world but a privileged relation with European Union Europe and i find
unknown
maybe this is an option i'm not sure namely what Trump and Putin share is destroy Europe in the sense of European Union and Putin as you must know it's
maybe this is an option i'm not sure namely what Trump and Putin share is destroy Europe in the sense of European Union and Putin as you must know it's
Slavoj Žižek
here quite unprincipled it's disgusting Putin support everyone left or right Catalonia Le Pen and so on and it's the most shameful part it's very sad did you follow what happened now in Greece and Macedonia after they reached that compromise about northern Macedonia they had to expel some Russian diplomats and so on who were trying who were supporting right-wingers on both sides to prevent this fact you know why because when this problem is solved Macedonia will you join EU and NATO and this will be a lot so what I'm saying is that one thing that makes spoil this pact is that Chinese interest is now against United States and in view of this new tariff war tensions with United States it's to have a strong development with strong Europe China is now not immanently anti-European and anti-western what is West today that's the problem you know because with Trump everything is getting crazy you know although again of course people again underestimate the way Trump plays even crazy leftist poli- like do you know this tariff war against imports of aluminum steel from Europe Canada but Trump presented this as saving American working class and so on you know don't underestimate this it was just not just a crazy tariff war you know what really the weakness of Europe became so obvious here you know Varoufakis told me this although European Union and German said heroically no we will withstand American pressure or with Iran all the big companies are going out are going out no in your book concerning learn politics
here quite unprincipled it's disgusting Putin support everyone left or right Catalonia Le Pen and so on and it's the most shameful part it's very sad did you follow what happened now in Greece and Macedonia after they reached that compromise about northern Macedonia they had to expel some Russian diplomats and so on who were trying who were supporting right-wingers on both sides to prevent this fact you know why because when this problem is solved Macedonia will you join EU and NATO and this will be a lot so what I'm saying is that one thing that makes spoil this pact is that Chinese interest is now against United States and in view of this new tariff war tensions with United States it's to have a strong development with strong Europe China is now not immanently anti-European and anti-western what is West today that's the problem you know because with Trump everything is getting crazy you know although again of course people again underestimate the way Trump plays even crazy leftist poli- like do you know this tariff war against imports of aluminum steel from Europe Canada but Trump presented this as saving American working class and so on you know don't underestimate this it was just not just a crazy tariff war you know what really the weakness of Europe became so obvious here you know Varoufakis told me this although European Union and German said heroically no we will withstand American pressure or with Iran all the big companies are going out are going out no in your book concerning learn politics
unknown
and subjectivity in the late capitalism you pointed out the revolution for
and subjectivity in the late capitalism you pointed out the revolution for
Slavoj Žižek
succeed it must strike twice that you see the case of Russia February October
succeed it must strike twice that you see the case of Russia February October
unknown
of France in yeah but I mean
of France in yeah but I mean
Slavoj Žižek
and now unfortunately probably in South Africa and my question is about Latin America do you think that it's possible that Latin American populism have not trumped because it's the second blow is still missing and maybe we will have in the next decade another I hope so but i hope it will be a revolution how should i put it self-critical revolution a revolution of getting rid precisely of this populist predominance because countries which really make me sad is not just Venezuela but Nicaragua and so on and so on they all are you know maybe you should teach me here I'm not sure but my impression was that they are more reasonable in Bolivia a little bit they didn't screw it up okay their rhetoric yeah yeah and you see was more moderate than the other administration they don't destroy the economy yeah and so I think that but the question will be when Evo Morales will not be present maybe this could change the scene but i believe my sources which claim that nonetheless okay Morales up and down but Linera is the mind there you know but the question is to see what will happen with when no he did a president the same that happened in Ecuador with the president of Ecuador that also have an reasonable administration how how did the old guy not Lenin now we have a Leninist over there how did Correa do with the economy I didn't follow that reasonable well in the same case of Bolivia the economy oh really for that I am using this example to say that Ecuador also was one of the country that the population was one administration but don't you think that if there is a new chance for Latin America it had to get rid of this Peronist populist legacy unfortunately I don't see any the second revolution must be a self-critical revolution getting rid of this legacy great one question more has the transgression still been a emancipatory no I totally agree here with your point today transgression is maybe even the main name of the capitalist
and now unfortunately probably in South Africa and my question is about Latin America do you think that it's possible that Latin American populism have not trumped because it's the second blow is still missing and maybe we will have in the next decade another I hope so but i hope it will be a revolution how should i put it self-critical revolution a revolution of getting rid precisely of this populist predominance because countries which really make me sad is not just Venezuela but Nicaragua and so on and so on they all are you know maybe you should teach me here I'm not sure but my impression was that they are more reasonable in Bolivia a little bit they didn't screw it up okay their rhetoric yeah yeah and you see was more moderate than the other administration they don't destroy the economy yeah and so I think that but the question will be when Evo Morales will not be present maybe this could change the scene but i believe my sources which claim that nonetheless okay Morales up and down but Linera is the mind there you know but the question is to see what will happen with when no he did a president the same that happened in Ecuador with the president of Ecuador that also have an reasonable administration how how did the old guy not Lenin now we have a Leninist over there how did Correa do with the economy I didn't follow that reasonable well in the same case of Bolivia the economy oh really for that I am using this example to say that Ecuador also was one of the country that the population was one administration but don't you think that if there is a new chance for Latin America it had to get rid of this Peronist populist legacy unfortunately I don't see any the second revolution must be a self-critical revolution getting rid of this legacy great one question more has the transgression still been a emancipatory no I totally agree here with your point today transgression is maybe even the main name of the capitalist
unknown
game it's all even
game it's all even
Slavoj Žižek
in art I follow this you know
in art I follow this you know
unknown
what happened to
what happened to
Slavoj Žižek
a my friend a painter in London he wanted to do an exhibition and he went to Saatchi and Saatchi Thatcher capitalism but supporting ma- they told him but you just have paintings where is the subversion you know they expect you to be a hit today you know to do something like you know that scandal in America the they you put an image of Christ into shit and urine and so on or you do picture like you must go to the end further and further this this type of transgression is the name of capitalism today it's and the my only hope is that this permanent self-transgression is becoming in a way boring in itself this is my basic impression today everything is changing so fast but nothing really changes we are in the same world so no i don't think we should you know what would be my dream of a new left this Leninist conservative now that when I was i'll put it like this when I was young I remember very young and so on leftist revolutionaries liked to use dirty language against this official jargon like fuck you and so on but today sorry the right-wingers are much better in speaking in a very vulgar way isn't this a unique chance of the progressive left to say no we are a true moral majority we are for decency we are for civilization and so on here I don't agree with some of my friends who are for this antifa anti-fascist we also have to bit no it's a unique chance for progressives to say sorry conservatives are vulgar today we want to speak for ordinary people for their decency and so on and so on and in this sense i claim i will go to the end for which some leftists would hate me and say sorry but Trump is in this bad sense the real revolutionary he is undermining moral for today and an intelligent left will say today we are the only ones who can save what is great in our conservative tradition that would be my ideal leftist politics disruptive if you if we understand revolution that disrupted Trump is a real revolution unfortunately yes although again of course it's still this fascist game of you make big change so that really nothing changes you know and that's the magic of Trump he but how will he lower the taxes at the same I don't know how it will end I don't know enough about economy do you have some economists who know better your friend i'm still in contact with him Guy Sorman what does he think about Trump I think that they couldn't understand it's the same that happen with all the intellectuals in in United States they couldn't understand they couldn't predict you know what hurts me the best of the liberal left was this you maybe noticed them this John Oliver John Stewart this Alec Baldwin these endless jokes making fun of Trump and the more they make fun the better he is doing my God they don't get it how Trump functions you know what shocked me i remember the last month before elections where Trump made something that people took for a brutal mistake do you remember like when he made fun of McCain of some soldier heroes and they thought it's public suicide he is finished no he wasn't finished they really don't even when they caught Trump with all that grabbing them by the pussy vulgarities this didn't hurt his image because that's what conservatives how they reason he is vulgar like one of us you know they identify with his weaknesses and so on i'm so disappointed by how the liberal left failed to react properly to Trump this is a great catastrophe in one of your book I read this one quote that understand is forgive i probably mean it critically because what i'm saying is i think then it goes on the opposite because i think that then i go into this example okay this sounds something very deep you know but
a my friend a painter in London he wanted to do an exhibition and he went to Saatchi and Saatchi Thatcher capitalism but supporting ma- they told him but you just have paintings where is the subversion you know they expect you to be a hit today you know to do something like you know that scandal in America the they you put an image of Christ into shit and urine and so on or you do picture like you must go to the end further and further this this type of transgression is the name of capitalism today it's and the my only hope is that this permanent self-transgression is becoming in a way boring in itself this is my basic impression today everything is changing so fast but nothing really changes we are in the same world so no i don't think we should you know what would be my dream of a new left this Leninist conservative now that when I was i'll put it like this when I was young I remember very young and so on leftist revolutionaries liked to use dirty language against this official jargon like fuck you and so on but today sorry the right-wingers are much better in speaking in a very vulgar way isn't this a unique chance of the progressive left to say no we are a true moral majority we are for decency we are for civilization and so on here I don't agree with some of my friends who are for this antifa anti-fascist we also have to bit no it's a unique chance for progressives to say sorry conservatives are vulgar today we want to speak for ordinary people for their decency and so on and so on and in this sense i claim i will go to the end for which some leftists would hate me and say sorry but Trump is in this bad sense the real revolutionary he is undermining moral for today and an intelligent left will say today we are the only ones who can save what is great in our conservative tradition that would be my ideal leftist politics disruptive if you if we understand revolution that disrupted Trump is a real revolution unfortunately yes although again of course it's still this fascist game of you make big change so that really nothing changes you know and that's the magic of Trump he but how will he lower the taxes at the same I don't know how it will end I don't know enough about economy do you have some economists who know better your friend i'm still in contact with him Guy Sorman what does he think about Trump I think that they couldn't understand it's the same that happen with all the intellectuals in in United States they couldn't understand they couldn't predict you know what hurts me the best of the liberal left was this you maybe noticed them this John Oliver John Stewart this Alec Baldwin these endless jokes making fun of Trump and the more they make fun the better he is doing my God they don't get it how Trump functions you know what shocked me i remember the last month before elections where Trump made something that people took for a brutal mistake do you remember like when he made fun of McCain of some soldier heroes and they thought it's public suicide he is finished no he wasn't finished they really don't even when they caught Trump with all that grabbing them by the pussy vulgarities this didn't hurt his image because that's what conservatives how they reason he is vulgar like one of us you know they identify with his weaknesses and so on i'm so disappointed by how the liberal left failed to react properly to Trump this is a great catastrophe in one of your book I read this one quote that understand is forgive i probably mean it critically because what i'm saying is i think then it goes on the opposite because i think that then i go into this example okay this sounds something very deep you know but
Bernard-Henri Lévy
would you say the same about Hitler no so there are limits so no i think when you have an authentic evil the more you understand it the more you must be perplexed when you read about this technology of horror i read in a book on concentration camps isn't something horrible in this you know that in Germany they produced industrially it looked
would you say the same about Hitler no so there are limits so no i think when you have an authentic evil the more you understand it the more you must be perplexed when you read about this technology of horror i read in a book on concentration camps isn't something horrible in this you know that in Germany they produced industrially it looked
Slavoj Žižek
like those instruments to crack nuts to torture you to crack testicles isn't there something horrible in it that okay you do this when you torture someone like in an excess but that you industrially you have a special machine there is something so terrifying in this that that it's impossible to understand yes the moment okay you can understand it in this mediated purely intellectual way but no you cannot understand it in the sense of now I see what they did it here I also don't agree i think this is part of the same line of argumentation with this humanist stupidity when somebody said an enemy is somebody whose story you were not prepared to listen my reaction was ah good to know so Stalin and Hitler are our enemies because we did not listen to their stories or what no this is something there is something terribly wrong in this ideology of just open yourself to the other side no there is authentic evil in the world my God where this logic of to understand is to forgive simply again the formula that i like is the one that i think just now already gave it to you with authentic horrors the more you
like those instruments to crack nuts to torture you to crack testicles isn't there something horrible in it that okay you do this when you torture someone like in an excess but that you industrially you have a special machine there is something so terrifying in this that that it's impossible to understand yes the moment okay you can understand it in this mediated purely intellectual way but no you cannot understand it in the sense of now I see what they did it here I also don't agree i think this is part of the same line of argumentation with this humanist stupidity when somebody said an enemy is somebody whose story you were not prepared to listen my reaction was ah good to know so Stalin and Hitler are our enemies because we did not listen to their stories or what no this is something there is something terribly wrong in this ideology of just open yourself to the other side no there is authentic evil in the world my God where this logic of to understand is to forgive simply again the formula that i like is the one that i think just now already gave it to you with authentic horrors the more you
unknown
understand it the more you are perplexed and horrified it's never this pacification oh now i understand it and so on and so on so it's possible
understand it the more you are perplexed and horrified it's never this pacification oh now i understand it and so on and so on so it's possible
Slavoj Žižek
for nationalism to be non-racist or yes i still believe it yes because i think that that was the big mistake of the liberal left where they disqualified every national self-assertion as automatically first step to fascism and so on no i think that this is typical liberal arrogance where they think they are above no i don't see i think that an authentic nationalism precisely equals the limit of your admitting your limit it means sorry I am rooted in my culture i love it but I cannot step outside and look at it objectively it's the beauty of authentic nationalism is that you're pride in your nation but at the same time you see it as a limitation so i think again that this anti-nat- you know what you must know it typical leftist radical attitude is somewhere out there in third world they tolerate others' nationalism but not here in Western Europe we are evil if- and it's the same i always use this example in my books how i even say how you have a precise ladder of like in United States with liberals with blacks and Indians Native Americans they can be nationalist it's okay with Chinese it's still okay Arab so-so then Italians ah-ah but if you are white Protestant you are not allowed like you can say I fight for black culture if you say I fight for white Protestant culture you are a fascist and so on okay they will say because it's the predominant culture but no the all of this doesn't work true anti-racism is not that you have to renounce your culture it is absolutely possible to assert your culture to be proud of it in the and i think again not being able to admit this is one of the great limitations of the of the contemporary multicultural left after decades of the European Union and beyond the recent Brexit has the European culture has integrated somewhat
for nationalism to be non-racist or yes i still believe it yes because i think that that was the big mistake of the liberal left where they disqualified every national self-assertion as automatically first step to fascism and so on no i think that this is typical liberal arrogance where they think they are above no i don't see i think that an authentic nationalism precisely equals the limit of your admitting your limit it means sorry I am rooted in my culture i love it but I cannot step outside and look at it objectively it's the beauty of authentic nationalism is that you're pride in your nation but at the same time you see it as a limitation so i think again that this anti-nat- you know what you must know it typical leftist radical attitude is somewhere out there in third world they tolerate others' nationalism but not here in Western Europe we are evil if- and it's the same i always use this example in my books how i even say how you have a precise ladder of like in United States with liberals with blacks and Indians Native Americans they can be nationalist it's okay with Chinese it's still okay Arab so-so then Italians ah-ah but if you are white Protestant you are not allowed like you can say I fight for black culture if you say I fight for white Protestant culture you are a fascist and so on okay they will say because it's the predominant culture but no the all of this doesn't work true anti-racism is not that you have to renounce your culture it is absolutely possible to assert your culture to be proud of it in the and i think again not being able to admit this is one of the great limitations of the of the contemporary multicultural left after decades of the European Union and beyond the recent Brexit has the European culture has integrated somewhat
unknown
or there are still the three different existential attitudes that you wrote the German reflection the joke about toilets yeah is is still working this idea or the I think there is a new
or there are still the three different existential attitudes that you wrote the German reflection the joke about toilets yeah is is still working this idea or the I think there is a new
Slavoj Žižek
triad emerging I don't yet
triad emerging I don't yet
unknown
have i don't know how to connect it with toilets but it's different it's Northern Europe it's Latino South and it's Eastern post-communist countries
have i don't know how to connect it with toilets but it's different it's Northern Europe it's Latino South and it's Eastern post-communist countries
unknown
it's a new triad and I must say I i don't like of course this
it's a new triad and I must say I i don't like of course this
Slavoj Žižek
post-communist Europe which is now consciously moving to the anti-immigrant right and so on and so on they're even playing very strange games for example Orbán in Hungary you know how closely he is now connected with Putin and so on you know finally the East go again to Russia yeah
post-communist Europe which is now consciously moving to the anti-immigrant right and so on and so on they're even playing very strange games for example Orbán in Hungary you know how closely he is now connected with Putin and so on you know finally the East go again to Russia yeah
unknown
very that's very sad of course they are some of them who are still part of the ah do you know this story of mine it's horror in East Germany this is a very sad indictment of
very that's very sad of course they are some of them who are still part of the ah do you know this story of mine it's horror in East Germany this is a very sad indictment of
Slavoj Žižek
communist regime do you know what happened there maybe you
communist regime do you know what happened there maybe you
unknown
read it in my books I know this story Wolf Biermann the famous East German
read it in my books I know this story Wolf Biermann the famous East German
Slavoj Žižek
dissident told me this you know that neo-Nazis in
dissident told me this you know that neo-Nazis in
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Germany they are much stronger in ex-communist Eastern part much stronger than in the West and because Wolf Biermann interrupt me you know the story told me something terrifying but
Germany they are much stronger in ex-communist Eastern part much stronger than in the West and because Wolf Biermann interrupt me you know the story told me something terrifying but
Slavoj Žižek
beautifully terrifying he was soon after the Wende the turnover the the disappearance of East Germany he was at some big Green Party round table in East Germany and there were different groups there one
beautifully terrifying he was soon after the Wende the turnover the the disappearance of East Germany he was at some big Green Party round table in East Germany and there were different groups there one
unknown
of them was an East German ecological group which was neo-Nazi clearly and he
of them was an East German ecological group which was neo-Nazi clearly and he
Slavoj Žižek
reproached them for being neo-Nazi and you know what answer he got from them I love it because it was the you know that usual partial rehabilitation of Hitler say yeah Hitler did many horrible things like Holocaust but he also did some good things like trains run on time highways and so on you know what answer he got from these people he said no we are against Hitler because although he did some good things like killing the Jews but he did some horrible things like building all the highways that spoiled our nature and so on it's the most inverted the most horrible so what i'm saying is this this is already ruining Europe this authoritarian turn in from its I even called it ironically and i was hated here I called it a new axis of evil Baltic countries Poland Czech Republic Hungary Slovenia Croatia the level there of subtle rehabilitation even of fascism and so on it's it's quite incredible and so this is one Europe then we have this Latino Europe Spain up to a point Italy the Vatican the Vatican at the same time that are the where the Pope yeah although although i think if you ask me that the Pope will simply ah i know what's nonetheless what i like about this Pope that many in the Catholic Church like in Slovenia here they are now openly attacking the church claiming that he is dangerous that he is Catholics even priests and there was a wonderful ironic situation in Slovene media where the lefty ironically told him but you are Catholics you should believe that Pope cannot make mistakes so now you are criticizing it well is part of the the way that you say that finally the people don't believe the things that they believe
reproached them for being neo-Nazi and you know what answer he got from them I love it because it was the you know that usual partial rehabilitation of Hitler say yeah Hitler did many horrible things like Holocaust but he also did some good things like trains run on time highways and so on you know what answer he got from these people he said no we are against Hitler because although he did some good things like killing the Jews but he did some horrible things like building all the highways that spoiled our nature and so on it's the most inverted the most horrible so what i'm saying is this this is already ruining Europe this authoritarian turn in from its I even called it ironically and i was hated here I called it a new axis of evil Baltic countries Poland Czech Republic Hungary Slovenia Croatia the level there of subtle rehabilitation even of fascism and so on it's it's quite incredible and so this is one Europe then we have this Latino Europe Spain up to a point Italy the Vatican the Vatican at the same time that are the where the Pope yeah although although i think if you ask me that the Pope will simply ah i know what's nonetheless what i like about this Pope that many in the Catholic Church like in Slovenia here they are now openly attacking the church claiming that he is dangerous that he is Catholics even priests and there was a wonderful ironic situation in Slovene media where the lefty ironically told him but you are Catholics you should believe that Pope cannot make mistakes so now you are criticizing it well is part of the the way that you say that finally the people don't believe the things that they believe
unknown
obviously yeah no so i'm saying that it's more that's
obviously yeah no so i'm saying that it's more that's
Slavoj Žižek
why in so far as France is somewhere in between but it will not work you know people are so much afraid of new Germany and so on i think I will say so nothing horrible for which again some people will accuse me of fascism or what i think that a blessing for Europe would have been a strong
why in so far as France is somewhere in between but it will not work you know people are so much afraid of new Germany and so on i think I will say so nothing horrible for which again some people will accuse me of fascism or what i think that a blessing for Europe would have been a strong
unknown
Germany politically also unfortunately Germany is strong even manipulating for its profit economically but it's terribly afraid for being accused of neo-fascism
Germany politically also unfortunately Germany is strong even manipulating for its profit economically but it's terribly afraid for being accused of neo-fascism
Slavoj Žižek
whatever to assert itself politically the only chance for Europe I see is maybe some kind of a new pact between Germany and France but i'm a i'm a pessimist if you ask me because again and again look it all began with Yugoslav civil war early 90s Europe was absolutely unable to intervene in a creative way at the end United States had to stop the war then we had immigrant crisis absolute inability of Europe to impose some politics Catalonia you remember it's not so much that they didn't support Catalonia it's more that there was no coherent politics they just washed their hands it's for the Spain to deal with it and so on and so on this impotence of Europe is terrifying and i think that at the end that's my dream very sad that Europe
whatever to assert itself politically the only chance for Europe I see is maybe some kind of a new pact between Germany and France but i'm a i'm a pessimist if you ask me because again and again look it all began with Yugoslav civil war early 90s Europe was absolutely unable to intervene in a creative way at the end United States had to stop the war then we had immigrant crisis absolute inability of Europe to impose some politics Catalonia you remember it's not so much that they didn't support Catalonia it's more that there was no coherent politics they just washed their hands it's for the Spain to deal with it and so on and so on this impotence of Europe is terrifying and i think that at the end that's my dream very sad that Europe
unknown
will become for not only for the Americans but also for the
will become for not only for the Americans but also for the
Slavoj Žižek
Chinese who are now massively invading Europe as tourists what ancient Greece was in Roman times you know you went to Greece for cultural and tourism and so on and so on but i again so just wait you know why i'm still sympathetic to Europe because in all this confusion of new authoritarian nation states and in spite of all its fiasco doesn't Europe still stand for something which is quite sympathetic a kind of a transnational unity whose aim is to protect basic human rights to guarantee the minimum of welfare state and so on and so on in today's world i still find Europe very sympathetic because now it may be horrible to say this for a leftist but wouldn't you agree that did ever in any moment in human history so many people live in such a relatively lead such a relatively good life safe free than in Western Europe in the last fifty sixty years isn't this an almost unique moment of history you know but and this is now threatened what then remains okay i don't trust Europe but that's so sad that you have islands of rationality is it still good or not some friends told me that one country where it more or less functions is Costa Rica is it true or not oh yes it's the
Chinese who are now massively invading Europe as tourists what ancient Greece was in Roman times you know you went to Greece for cultural and tourism and so on and so on but i again so just wait you know why i'm still sympathetic to Europe because in all this confusion of new authoritarian nation states and in spite of all its fiasco doesn't Europe still stand for something which is quite sympathetic a kind of a transnational unity whose aim is to protect basic human rights to guarantee the minimum of welfare state and so on and so on in today's world i still find Europe very sympathetic because now it may be horrible to say this for a leftist but wouldn't you agree that did ever in any moment in human history so many people live in such a relatively lead such a relatively good life safe free than in Western Europe in the last fifty sixty years isn't this an almost unique moment of history you know but and this is now threatened what then remains okay i don't trust Europe but that's so sad that you have islands of rationality is it still good or not some friends told me that one country where it more or less functions is Costa Rica is it true or not oh yes it's the
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country in Central America that's more democratic they
country in Central America that's more democratic they
Slavoj Žižek
they never had but they did a crazy thing it's good that nobody wants to attack them didn't they even abolish the army yeah it's very small country in Central America the neighbors also very small but is distinguished with the rest of the neighborhood that have all kind of dictatorship violence and Costa Rica still being a country democratic country without army what's the mystery do you have a theory what's the mystery how does it function what's the mystery oh i think that small small is a theory it's the same that which is the mystery of Singapore and which is the mystery of the Nordic countries in Europe Sweden Norway small is different when you have a big country yeah yeah yeah when you have a big country the- yeah yeah yeah you could move this at a different scale you will have a different but you know where they will encounter limits again with the immigrants the left was avoiding because my problem is not ignore fuck them immigrants they do suffer and we are responsible for it look at attack on Iraq on Libya it was madness not because they were good guys they were horrors but they couldn't they think about al- isn't this the irony that two main results almost of attack of Iraq is that first at least Saddam was a wall protecting Arab countries from Iran now Iran is the strongest factory Iraqi politics point
they never had but they did a crazy thing it's good that nobody wants to attack them didn't they even abolish the army yeah it's very small country in Central America the neighbors also very small but is distinguished with the rest of the neighborhood that have all kind of dictatorship violence and Costa Rica still being a country democratic country without army what's the mystery do you have a theory what's the mystery how does it function what's the mystery oh i think that small small is a theory it's the same that which is the mystery of Singapore and which is the mystery of the Nordic countries in Europe Sweden Norway small is different when you have a big country yeah yeah yeah when you have a big country the- yeah yeah yeah you could move this at a different scale you will have a different but you know where they will encounter limits again with the immigrants the left was avoiding because my problem is not ignore fuck them immigrants they do suffer and we are responsible for it look at attack on Iraq on Libya it was madness not because they were good guys they were horrors but they couldn't they think about al- isn't this the irony that two main results almost of attack of Iraq is that first at least Saddam was a wall protecting Arab countries from Iran now Iran is the strongest factory Iraqi politics point
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two whatever horror Saddam was women
two whatever horror Saddam was women
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played a certain role he was a
played a certain role he was a
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nationalist dictator he wasn't a Christian fundamentalist his foreign minister Tariq Aziz you remember was a Christian and so on so the role of women
nationalist dictator he wasn't a Christian fundamentalist his foreign minister Tariq Aziz you remember was a Christian and so on so the role of women
Slavoj Žižek
of civil
of civil
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of and is now much lower than in
of and is now much lower than in
Slavoj Žižek
Saddam's times much diminished with regard to Saddam's times and Christianity because of this new mess now do you know that more than half Christians from Iraq emigrated escaped so are Americans crazy or what you occupy the country the result is it falls under the influence of Iran women lose and Christians lose are they and with Libya it was the same my French friends warned me are we crazy because at the end in the last five six years Gaddafi basically capitulated to the West he collaborated with them and this was almost an authentic moment i remember in the last years one of his last public appearances Gaddafi said but are you crazy ISIS will come hardliners will come here and so on where is the strategic thinking maybe it's not strategic maybe it's not strategic yes the last question yeah Marshall McLuhan predict in the end of Gutenberg galaxy Bill Gates in the year predict the end of the newspapers what do you predict about the media in this transition of the information and culture do you think that the well my irony is that Bill Gates wrote a book predicting the end of books no and he said pathetically i remember some fifteen years ago this book that you hold in your hand is already an obsolete instrument and so on well what immediately disappeared was his book which was simply nothing and so on no no i am i i if you look here i am a little bit more optimistic because if you it's true that okay I don't know how it is in Buenos Aires but in Europe like bookstores are going out but it's not so much that people are buying less books it's more Amazon Amazon is now almost monopoly i spoke with my publisher in England they told me my type of books these philosophical essays Amazon is sixty to seventy percent of the sales which they use brutally you know if they are in struggle with a publisher they simply lie there you click a book and they say out of stock even if they have it to block it and so on so but you are more optimistic a little bit i am no no no not newspapers in some sense they are over but you know why this makes me sad i will tell you exactly it's not all this that it's more superficial and so on look what i like about a newspaper is that you get these big pieces of paper and somehow you jump up and down and so on while when you are on the web you usually select and look what you want to find you are much more surprised in a newspaper it's the same why i like old-fashioned bookstores like Ateneo or those you go there to a philosophy section and you find one or two tables all the new works displayed in Amazon this doesn't function because you it's just what you were looking for and you already know okay sometimes because i buy a lot through them sometimes they have suggestions for you they are always wrong they never guess what i want but i i the good surprise is something which happened to me personally look i'm publishing short political books but also big fat philosophical books you know that often the second ones are selling better so don't be too pessimistic there is today a growing interest in philosophy in a very basic sense this postmodern era of just deconstructing ironically making fun of it and so on is disappearing there is today something that i cannot call but fundamental desire for critical serious reflection it's growing again it's very it's very interesting so here at this level i'm not you know what's another story another proof of it i think that precisely because philosophy were just doing these self-critical deconstructionist games the big metaphysical questions were taken over by scientists today if you want to know is the universe finite or infinite does it have a
Saddam's times much diminished with regard to Saddam's times and Christianity because of this new mess now do you know that more than half Christians from Iraq emigrated escaped so are Americans crazy or what you occupy the country the result is it falls under the influence of Iran women lose and Christians lose are they and with Libya it was the same my French friends warned me are we crazy because at the end in the last five six years Gaddafi basically capitulated to the West he collaborated with them and this was almost an authentic moment i remember in the last years one of his last public appearances Gaddafi said but are you crazy ISIS will come hardliners will come here and so on where is the strategic thinking maybe it's not strategic maybe it's not strategic yes the last question yeah Marshall McLuhan predict in the end of Gutenberg galaxy Bill Gates in the year predict the end of the newspapers what do you predict about the media in this transition of the information and culture do you think that the well my irony is that Bill Gates wrote a book predicting the end of books no and he said pathetically i remember some fifteen years ago this book that you hold in your hand is already an obsolete instrument and so on well what immediately disappeared was his book which was simply nothing and so on no no i am i i if you look here i am a little bit more optimistic because if you it's true that okay I don't know how it is in Buenos Aires but in Europe like bookstores are going out but it's not so much that people are buying less books it's more Amazon Amazon is now almost monopoly i spoke with my publisher in England they told me my type of books these philosophical essays Amazon is sixty to seventy percent of the sales which they use brutally you know if they are in struggle with a publisher they simply lie there you click a book and they say out of stock even if they have it to block it and so on so but you are more optimistic a little bit i am no no no not newspapers in some sense they are over but you know why this makes me sad i will tell you exactly it's not all this that it's more superficial and so on look what i like about a newspaper is that you get these big pieces of paper and somehow you jump up and down and so on while when you are on the web you usually select and look what you want to find you are much more surprised in a newspaper it's the same why i like old-fashioned bookstores like Ateneo or those you go there to a philosophy section and you find one or two tables all the new works displayed in Amazon this doesn't function because you it's just what you were looking for and you already know okay sometimes because i buy a lot through them sometimes they have suggestions for you they are always wrong they never guess what i want but i i the good surprise is something which happened to me personally look i'm publishing short political books but also big fat philosophical books you know that often the second ones are selling better so don't be too pessimistic there is today a growing interest in philosophy in a very basic sense this postmodern era of just deconstructing ironically making fun of it and so on is disappearing there is today something that i cannot call but fundamental desire for critical serious reflection it's growing again it's very it's very interesting so here at this level i'm not you know what's another story another proof of it i think that precisely because philosophy were just doing these self-critical deconstructionist games the big metaphysical questions were taken over by scientists today if you want to know is the universe finite or infinite does it have a
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beginning or not you don't ask philosophers you ask quantum cosmologists if you want to know are we free or not you ask Darwinists evolutionary biologists brain scientists and so on and so on but now I think philosophy is returning to these big naive big metaphysical questions which we need
beginning or not you don't ask philosophers you ask quantum cosmologists if you want to know are we free or not you ask Darwinists evolutionary biologists brain scientists and so on and so on but now I think philosophy is returning to these big naive big metaphysical questions which we need
Slavoj Žižek
to answer today for example i love all these debates do we
to answer today for example i love all these debates do we
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have a free mind or not you
have a free mind or not you
Slavoj Žižek
know because some people think you can prove we are not free you know all those experiments that i like that you make an totally arbitrary decision to grab something if i measure your nerves i can discover that before you became aware of your decision you already sent the signal to your hand to move in other words when you freely decide something your brain just realizes a decision which was already made at the level of your neurons so does this mean we are not free and so on i mean these are we live in a wonderful era where what some times it was a big metaphysical question and you could say in everyday life i don't care about it today they are becoming questions debated all around and so on and so on so I nonetheless predict very naively a big return of metaphysics and this is very good finally yeah you are optimist because this knowledge i i would define myself like this i'm aware of all the horrors of Mao but my favorite saying of Mao is you know that famous one there is great disorder under the clouds so the
know because some people think you can prove we are not free you know all those experiments that i like that you make an totally arbitrary decision to grab something if i measure your nerves i can discover that before you became aware of your decision you already sent the signal to your hand to move in other words when you freely decide something your brain just realizes a decision which was already made at the level of your neurons so does this mean we are not free and so on i mean these are we live in a wonderful era where what some times it was a big metaphysical question and you could say in everyday life i don't care about it today they are becoming questions debated all around and so on and so on so I nonetheless predict very naively a big return of metaphysics and this is very good finally yeah you are optimist because this knowledge i i would define myself like this i'm aware of all the horrors of Mao but my favorite saying of Mao is you know that famous one there is great disorder under the clouds so the
unknown
situation is excellent you know i'm conditional optimist in the sense that moments
situation is excellent you know i'm conditional optimist in the sense that moments
Slavoj Žižek
moments of crisis are very dangerous but if you don't lose nerves and you can catch an opportunity there something new may emerge there is no guarantee i'm not this old-fashioned Marxist yeah yeah at the end communism will win but we we have a we have a dangerous situation always also makes a chance what makes me a pessimist what do you think is still that the denial is so strong for example of a of the denial of ecological crisis and so on that and this is a very sad conclusion that maybe a big catastrophe said that and we need some kind of a mega catastrophe much more stronger global warming or what to make us do something people have to feel it you say that Lenin went to Switzerland to reading Hegel yes and which is interesting not the historical Hegel but Logic the most abstract Hegel we need this this is today is the time to think don't be because what leftists were saying years ago now the establishment is saying we don't need philosophy we have concrete problems we have to solve them and so on no the first task of thinking is not to solve problem but to formulate problems what really are problems and so on you need the right formula of the problem yeah and this is what only thinking does so thank you very much i will stop there but one
moments of crisis are very dangerous but if you don't lose nerves and you can catch an opportunity there something new may emerge there is no guarantee i'm not this old-fashioned Marxist yeah yeah at the end communism will win but we we have a we have a dangerous situation always also makes a chance what makes me a pessimist what do you think is still that the denial is so strong for example of a of the denial of ecological crisis and so on that and this is a very sad conclusion that maybe a big catastrophe said that and we need some kind of a mega catastrophe much more stronger global warming or what to make us do something people have to feel it you say that Lenin went to Switzerland to reading Hegel yes and which is interesting not the historical Hegel but Logic the most abstract Hegel we need this this is today is the time to think don't be because what leftists were saying years ago now the establishment is saying we don't need philosophy we have concrete problems we have to solve them and so on no the first task of thinking is not to solve problem but to formulate problems what really are problems and so on you need the right formula of the problem yeah and this is what only thinking does so thank you very much i will stop there but one