Professor Slavoj Žižek | Full Address and Q&A | Oxford Union
Talk · OxfordUnion ·
2019-01-01 · 1:15:08 · 9,667 words
ideologypsychoanalysisreligion-theologyfascism-populismdemocracycapitalismsubjectivityphilosophy-generalgeopolitics-warscience-physicsecology-climate
Žižek begins with two Jewish jokes to illustrate the concept of 'surplus enjoyment' derived from self-humiliation and political correctness, arguing that privileged groups use victimhood to assert moral universality. He extends this to gender theory, defining the subject as an excess ('plus') via a Hegelian reading of LGBTQ+ identity, and contrasts hysteria with conformity. He concludes with a theological joke about Auschwitz to discuss 'materialist theology' and registers the shift in modern ideology toward 'opium and the people' (pharmaceuticals and populism), ending with a pessimistic assessment of authoritarian capitalism and the failure of traditional Marxist historical trust. Žižek argues for a strategic inversion of political norms, suggesting the left reclaim 'decency' and 'patriotism' from the alt-right by reframing their actions as weakness rather than strength. He then presents a Hegelian reading of Christianity as a 'religion of atheism,' where the distance from God is internalized within the divine itself, culminating in the community of believers. Finally, he addresses the gap between scientific realism and transcendental philosophy, proposing that quantum physics and the 'video game' metaphor of an unfinished reality offer a way to bridge this divide. Žižek argues that ecology requires abandoning the illusion of a benevolent 'Mother Nature' in favor of recognizing nature's inherent cruelty, while critiquing the psychoanalytic mechanism of disavowal in environmental politics. He extends this critique to contemporary populism (Corbyn, Podemos, Syriza), arguing that protest movements fail to address the stabilization of power and the lack of a viable alternative to global capitalism. He concludes by analyzing Trump not as a simple fascist but as the symptom of a disintegrating liberal consensus, calling for a new, more radical consensus rather than a return to the status quo.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 20
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
The secret, hidden pleasure or privilege gained from adopting an attitude of self-humiliation or victimhood, allowing one to assert a position of moral universality.
as “plus”
A specific position in LGBTQ+ theory where the subject defines themselves not by a fixed category but by the excess or gap itself ('I am the plus'), defining the subject as always in excess of what they are.
as “hysterical questioning”
The elementary form of critique of ideology, characterized by the question 'why am I what you are saying that I am?', which rejects objective social positions.
A theological framework that retains God not as a real being but as a presupposed agency or 'big Other' that registers speech and actions, ensuring their symbolic existence.
as “opium and the people”
Žižek's literalist reinterpretation of Marx's 'religion is the opium of the people,' identifying modern 'opium' as pharmaceuticals (prozac, etc.) and modern 'people' as populism.
An ironic label for leftist populism, suggesting it mimics the right's successful populist gestures in a 'perverted' form, merely asking 'why not me too?' to use simplification for political ends.
A subversion of the optimistic cliché, where Žižek argues the light is actually another train approaching, symbolizing imminent disaster rather than salvation.
Sloterdijk's term for social democratic values (human rights, justice) inscribed into political institutions and unwritten rules, persisting regardless of which party holds power.
Žižek's ironic self-description for a strategy of 'changing the cards' by adopting the opponent's moral high ground (decency/civility) to expose their vulgarity.
as “religion of atheism”
Žižek's characterization of Christianity, where the death of God on the cross signifies the end of the 'big Other' (the higher power), leaving believers to find the divine only in their own community/love.
The philosophical stance that our knowledge is always conditioned by a historical or symbolic horizon (episteme, social practice), preventing access to 'naive' objective reality.
A reinterpretation of the 'Adam with a navel' theological objection to Darwin: God created fossils to give a 'false impression of depth' (age), serving as the best definition of ideology as inventing traditions/backgrounds.
as “ontology at the level of today's world”
Žižek's proposed synthesis where reality is understood as ontologically incomplete or 'unfinished,' analogous to the unrendered background in video games, bridging realism and transcendentalism.
as “Mother Nature as cruel bitch”
The rejection of the romanticized view of nature as a balanced, caring entity, positing instead that nature is inherently cruel and indifferent, evidenced by the catastrophic prehistoric events that created our current energy reserves.
as “Disavowal (Verleugnung / je sais bien mais quand même)”
A psychoanalytic mechanism where one intellectually admits a fact (e.g., global warming) but structurally refuses to draw the practical consequences, maintaining a distance between knowledge and belief.
as “Sex without sex”
A formulation describing the modern bourgeois/liberal desire for a product or experience stripped of its disruptive, real, or excessive element (analogous to coffee without caffeine or beer without alcohol).
as “Culturalism without the real other”
The hypocritical liberal ideal of multiculturalism that respects the 'holistic' image of the Other (e.g., Native Americans) while excluding their actual, proximate, and threatening presence.
Žižek's self-description: a communist who supports radical change out of despair and necessity, acknowledging the historical failures of past communism but seeing no viable alternative to global capitalism.
as “authoritarian capitalism”
The successful combination of wild capitalist competition with strong authoritarian state control, exemplified by contemporary China, which Žižek views as a potential dangerous future.
A Mao quote used to justify acting in chaotic political situations, suggesting that the current breakdown of order is an opportunity for radical political intervention rather than a cause for fear.
Stories he reaches for 7
Žižek lists consumer goods stripped of their defining, potentially harmful or intense qualities (coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol) to illustrate the modern desire for safe, non-disruptive experiences.
“coffee, yes, but without caffeine... what we call sex is precisely sex without sex”
He references the Arab Spring, where massive mobilization in Tahrir Square led not to democracy but to the Muslim Brotherhood and a military regime, arguing that protest moments do not guarantee positive outcomes.
“one million people on tahrir square and then you get muslim brotherhood and now you get military regime”
Cites Paul Claudel's conservative theology: the ultimate mystery is not that we are impotent without God, but that 'God is impotent without us,' requiring the community of believers to actualize the divine through love.
“the ultimate mystery of christianity is not that we are impotent without god, but that god is impotent without us.”
Žižek cites the Greek party Syriza, which campaigned on rejecting austerity but ended up becoming its most faithful executor, to illustrate how populist protest movements fail to sustain radical change once in power.
“syriza. which built its reputation on rejecting austerity became the most faithful executor of austerity”
Re-reads Lenin's final testament not as a critique of Stalin's economic policy, but as a complaint about his 'bad manners' and roughness, using this to justify a leftist strategy of reclaiming 'civility' against Trump/Bolsonaro.
“did you notice what are lenin's arguments about stalin? it's not wrong economic politics... it's simply stalin doesn't have good manners.”
He quotes Mao Zedong's famous statement about disorder to justify political action in chaotic times, despite acknowledging the horrors of Maoist policies like the Great Leap Forward.
“there is disorder under the heaven, so the situation is itcellent. we shouldn't be afraid to act in this situation”
Explains Hegel's view that what dies on the cross is not just the messenger, but 'the very god of beyond,' meaning the distance from God is inscribed within God himself, making Christianity a religion of atheism.
“hegel says, what dies on the cross is the very god of beyond. this idea that there is a higher power up there.”
Works invoked 3
The Hunger Games film
Used as an example of Hollywood correctly perceiving the 'dark prospect' of a new divided, post-catastrophic society.
Described as Lukács's 'first big book' and a 'classic statement' that nature is a historical social category.
Kill All Normies book
Cited by Angela Nagle to analyze the inversion of countercultural norms by the alt-right.
People invoked 24
Jair Bolsonaro negative
Grouped with Trump as 'many other trumps like that' representing the new political vulgarity.
Charles Darwin positive
Mentioned in the context of a theologian friend's reply to Darwin's theory of evolution, used to illustrate the concept of ideology.
Vladimir Lenin positive
Žižek reads Lenin's testament as a critique of 'bad manners' rather than policy, using it to justify a leftist strategy of reclaiming civility.
Pablo Iglesias Turrión negative
Criticizes Podemos leader Iglesias for using populist rhetoric ('screw ideology') that resulted in modest, non-radical social democracy.
Georg Lukács positive
Cited for 'History and Class Consciousness' and the statement that 'nature is a historical social category,' representing the Western Marxist transcendental view.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited as a foundational influence for the concept of 'surplus enjoyment' and the idea that 'when we talk, we believe in god' (the big Other).
G. K. Chesterton positive
Described as a 'good catholic theolog' who understood that identifying with God's abandonment on the cross is the Christian answer.
Francis Fukuyama negative
Describes Fukuyama as 'basically right' about democracy/capitalism only to argue that we are 'enlightened leftist fukuyamaists' who have failed to move beyond capitalism, implying Fukuyama's end-of-history thesis is dangerously incomplete.
Donald Trump positive
Analyzes Trump not as a simple fascist but as the symptom of a disintegrating liberal democratic consensus, arguing his 'great result' was ruining the shared ground between Republicans and Democrats.
Paul Claudel positive
Cited as a 'conservative' theologian/poet who stated that 'god is impotent without us,' supporting Žižek's view of the community of believers.
Saul Kripke positive
Mentioned as an analytic philosopher whose work Žižek 'fully admire[s]' despite finding much of analytic philosophy boring.
Yanis Varoufakis negative
Described as an 'otherwise good friend' and political supporter, but criticized for his pro-democracy stance on immigration, which Žižek argues would yield xenophobic results.
Werner Heisenberg positive
Mentioned for the uncertainty principle regarding position and velocity, used in the video game analogy.
Michel Foucault positive
Cited for the concept of 'episteme' as the ultimate horizon of knowledge, representing the transcendental approach.
Peter Sloterdijk positive
Cites Sloterdijk's concept of 'objective social democracy' as a viable direction for a new political consensus.
Angela Nagle positive
Author of 'Kill All the Normies'; Žižek cites her analysis of the alt-right's inversion of countercultural norms.
Angela Merkel positive
Used in an anecdote about a friend's argument to reframe her immigration policy as an act of 'great German patriotism' and trust.
Mao Zedong positive
Acknowledges the 'horrors of maoism' and '50 million dead' but admires Mao's strategic saying about disorder, using it to justify radical action.
Niels Bohr positive
Cited for the claim in quantum physics that uncertainty is ontological, not just epistemological.
Jürgen Habermas positive
Žižek agrees with Habermas's opponent Sloterdijk on 'objective social democracy' and cites Habermas's claim about the circularity of scientific procedures, though he finds some analytic philosophy boring.
Joseph Stalin negative
Cited in Lenin's testament as having 'bad manners' and being 'too rough,' used as a foil for the desired leftist persona of decency.
Karl Marx positive
Cited for the formula 'religion is the opium of the people,' which Žižek reinterprets literally.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Cited for the insight that 'what dies on the cross is the very god of beyond,' forming the basis of Žižek's 'atheist Christianity' reading.
Corbyn Besson positive
Expresses sympathy for Corbyn, noting he is not a demagogic populist but a 'bland person,' though Žižek remains skeptical of the broader populist strategy.
Transcript 36 turns
Slavoj Žižek
i am really, really grateful for this invitation and you may be surprised by this, but i even like the weather. hell is for me some stupid mediterranean beach with all the sun and so on. no, this is the weather that i like. okay, so i am a little bit afraid that in which direction to take because most of you are not so i will try in this maximum quarter of an hour introduction. don. maybe i will do it like this to begin with. uh to begin with more not purely philosophical stuff, but some stuff with philosophical consequences and then conclude with some political remarks. let me, it will be a little bit, i will be associating and so on, i don't want to bore you. i would like to begin with two jewish jokes. which have a deep properly metaphysical meaning. one i've already used in my old books, hopefully you all don't know it. the other one is fresh, only now i learned about it. the first one is that classical one, you know, on sabbat, on saturday, jewish believers meet in a synagogue and each of them says something. so first a big rabbi said, oh my god, i am nobody. i am not worthy of your attention, god. then a rich jewish merchant comes and says, oh my god, i'm also nobody. don't even consider me. i'm not worthy of your attention. then, i hope you know the joke, a poor jew stands up and says, god, i'm also a nobody. and then the rich merchant kicks the rabbi and said, who is this guy that he thinks he can also? say that he is a nobody. there is deep truth in this. whenever somebody apparently humiliates himself and so on, adopts this attitude of i despise my nation, my identity, blah blah. be very careful for looking for secret privilege, what, as a Lacanian, I would have called surplus enjoyment. i will give you an example which may be even provocative to some of you. i've written about it extensively. in united states, in these politically correct times, there is one basic rule, very simple. further that you are from white male protestant, whatever elite. more you are allowed to assert your particular ethnic, religious identity. like native americans, so-called, they hate this term, indians, i prefer to call them. do you know my joke which really happened in missoula, montana? one indian referred to himself as indian and immediately a white well-meaning liberal interrupted him. no, you're native american, don't you know that you are humiliating yourself and the indian gave a perfect answer. he says, no, sorry. native american is for me much more racist. it means i am native american, part of nature, and what are you? cultural american or what. he said, i prefer to be called indian in this way. at least my name is a sign of white man's stupidity. you know, they thought they are in india. he got it correctly. no, sorry, let's go on seriously. so native americans, okay. blacks, okay. then chinese suspicion begins. italians, maybe germans, scandinav,, but if white. wp, anglo-saxon or whatever, if you just say, i also want to assert my identity, you are a fascist. you are decried as a fascist and so on. now i know well foundounded reasoning behind this because this is effectively this hegemonic position. it's not the same for you or for a poor native american to say i want to assert my identity. but i noticed something else how beneath i'm now. talking about these typical multiculturalist leftist liberals. beneath this self-humiliating gesture, oh we are guilty for everything, imperialist colonizers, we don't have the right, renouncing all your particular features always comes with in a discrete way, asserting your position of universality. all this apparently modest, self-denigrating. white people, at the same time i noticed have no problems behaving in a very patronizing way towards others, correcting them, telling them when they are making a mistake or whatever or whatever. so clearly the secret profit is this. moral authority given to you in this way. i think there is something of the same with how in europe, and i have all sympathy for them, but nonetheless, how in europe leftists, left liberals, behave towards immigrants. of course we should be, my god. my position is, do not be afraid, very leftist here. i just noticed how in their very understanding of immigrants. how they always already patronize them. like if immigrants do and like all people, they are a mixed crowd. there are criminals among them and so on. if they do something horrible, rape and so on, white liberals are always looking for an excuse. oh, this is just general human nature, we are all like that. or they were so victimized by us, we should understand this and so on and so on. and one of my immigrant friends. exploded and told me. that it's a beautiful paradox, philosophical. he told me, my god, my basic human right is at least to be recognized as an adult responsible person, which practically means to be able to do something horrible. are they aware that by treating me almost like a child in this way, they are humiliating me and so on and so on. so i think that again, okay, i will not go into political consequences here, just beware how. also with political correctness, often the position of a victim. can be used as a nice instrument to justify your exerting of in academia, american it's typical, in outside victims are really victims. but in academia, playing with victimhood. if you are a privileged victim, gives you an incredible power de facto. that would be my first point. let's go to the second point. i mentioned the notion this surplus enjoyment, profit that you get from apparently denigrating, humiliating yourself. and this is my hegelian Lacanian standpoint that every position of subject, every subject, even the most empty cartesian subject. has to rely on this type of small feature surplus enjoyment which sustains his or its subjectivity. i will give you another example here, short philosophical idea. although i was accused of i don't know what, i really, for theoretical reasons, read the last chapter in my last book where i explain it, but i really believe in subversive potential, not in the strict sense they cause disorder, but some deep insights on which lgbtq, this transgenderism is based. but since we are here also among some of you least philosophers, i would like to draw one attention to it. you know that the official term is now lgbt plus or lgbtq whatever plus now, usually, sorry to be critical against at least part of your tradition, but usually this plus is understood in empiricist way, or british empiricists. the idea is this one. it's not just the binary sexuality, male or female, blah, blah. there are dozens . multiplicity of gender or sex positions. and since no classification can be really exhausting, what if another guy comes and says, i read your classification, but i'm neither biender nor books nor this, nor asexual and something else. so it's this simple worry what if we nonetheless miss some position? so let's leave the space open. i think, and it's not me, i forgot her name, but it's a very good lgbt plus theoretician, a lady from australia, who did a proper hegelian move and said, no, what if we? when you have lgbt. q plus. what if we define this plus itself as a specific position? i can be a plus. and this is, i think, even the best definition of a subject. a subject is not simply something. a subject is always in excess of what he she it is. and this is why i go very fast here. if you want to know more, read my books or whatever. this is why not only psychoanalysis is not male chauvinist, but... it's eminently feminist in the sense that subject as such is ultimately feminine. why? because this defines for me ultimately femininity, this self-questioning attitude, which can be discerned even in some most superficial annoying features. you know, like you are in love with a woman and she will sooner or later ask you, tell me, why do you love me? but it's a very deep question. you know why? because of course it has no answer. i mean, the moment you know it, the moment you can say, because of your eyes, because of your legs, because of your laughter, it's not love. love must be that plus x. in other words, hysterical questioning is the most elementary form for me of critique of ideology. ideology is in very vague sense ideology is an ideology at its most elementary, what society tells you that you are. you are a man, a muslim, a christian, atheist, democrat, worker, whatever. but the most elementary questioning is this, why am i what you are saying that i am? this not accepting any objective position s. yours. and here again. the function of the plus is crucial. that's why intelligent psychoanalysis always prefers. hysteria to perversion. perversion is i claim, even in clinical terms, always conformist. pervers is simply the hidden aspect of a power structure. but okay, let's not lose time. my second joke and then some political remarks. uh which goes more into because i am an atheist but a christian atheist i will not go into this what this means.. what does this mean for theology? a jewish friend told me, and at least for me this joke is new, i didn't. hear it before. a wonderful story, i warn you, it's no trigger warning is needed, nothing dirty happens, but it's a very cruel joke and i discovered with wonder and respect how do you know that there is a whole tradition of jewish jokes about auschwitz? not simply making fun, but drawing out the paradoxes. and there is something, we don't have time to go into it now, very deep in it. i claim that when for tragedy to take place, it must happen what is going on within certain limits where the victim retains its dignity, you know, tragic victim. when things get really terrifying. a mode of comedy has to enter, which is not a comedy where you just laugh, but a horrifying comedy. okay, so the joke is this one. in paradise, some jews who were slaughtered at auschwitz. nice life they sit at a bench and talk about their memories of how they were killed, making fun of it. like one says to another, do you remember jacob, how when they dragged you to gas chamber, you sleep on something and hit your head and die even before. you entered guest chamber and, oh yeah, that was so funny and so on. now comes the deep insight. then god, also taking a break, god himself walks by them, listens at these jokes and s. sorry guys, i don't understand it. now, sorry, for you to understand the point of this joke, you must know that this whole theological tradition of claiming god died at auschwitz, things that happened there are so horrible that they cannot be in any way combined with the idea of divinity as the hidden master of the universe. god, as they put it, that's crucial, as many theologologists put it, god was not there. okay, so god comes there and says, sorry guys, i don't understand it. then one of the jews goes to god, embraces him in a patronizing way and says, don't worry, our lord. you were not there, so of course you cannot understand it, you know. but you know what's the beauty? it's not in this version. it's not that god cannot understand the horror. he can. he's all-powerful. he cannot understand how it's possible to make a joke out of it. god doesn't get the joke. in this sense, i will not go into it now, i think that what i call materialist theology. h retains god, not as real god, old guy up there, but as some kind of a presupposed agency which registers things. you know, and we all rely on it. as Jacques Lacan put it, the moment we talk, we believe in god. why? because we believe that when something is spoken out, registered, it exists in a different way. to give an extremely simple example, didn't it happen to you, unfortunately, with my bad manners, it often happens to me, you are with a couple of friends and some of you in that case it was me, did something horrible and shameful. you know that everybody else knows it. and everybody knows that all other knows it. but nonetheless, everything changes the moment one says this publicly. that's the moment of registration. what i want to say is that i like this theological idea that god is like a benevolent master who... allows you small niches where like where you can violate even his prohibitions, you know. the god like a proper, severe, old-fashioned father. today in our post-patriarchal era, i almost like them. because no matter how severe they pretend to be, that's how traditional authority functions. the idea is always, do it, violate my prohibitions, but discreetly. i don't want to know about it and according to some good theologists this is even what. you have in ten commandments. you know the commandment don't celebrate other gods. this is not the correct tradition. it's in the bible old testament a much more ambiguous statement, which basically means don't don't praise other gods in my presence. like, you know, do it, but discreetly and so on. and, okay, i will not get lost here. i'm talking too much. so we can go on in the debate, if you want, about modes of authority today. i would just like conclude with a very simple joke i've used in some of my texts, but they were not published in big media. you probably don't know it. where are we? today. i am still some kind of critique of ideology. and what is happening, i claim, is that ideology is now alive, but in new modes. there are two, i think, main modes. one, weak two. you probably know the old formula of marx, religion is the opium of the people. i think now we have to change this formula that we have, now i hope you will get the joke. i often used it in talks, but not here. we have today two new opiums of the people. you can guess which ones. literally. opium and the people. war nicht. literally if you read statistics, at least in degenerate spaces like academia and so on. you know that literally in united states around 80% of professors students are already into prozac and all that stuff. like we literally need a support in chemistry and so on just to function relatively normally. and at all levels, from this simple antidepress depresspressives to drugs proper, whatever, whatsoever what is the circular nature of this support. first, if you are too excited, you take a calmant to calm you down. but then you lose desire, you take another drug to reusc it. so this is a very important thing. for our daily psychic life to function, we have more and more to rely on different drugs in this metaphoric sense, opium. second, people, i think that precisely the be opium. today is people populism. and for reasons that we can debate later, i don't want to go into it now, that's why i have doubts about what is getting popular now among some europeanists, leftist populism. in the sense of, oh, if the right can do it successfully, right populism is a kind of, i call it ironically, perverted me too. why not me too? no, i think that populism is always this gesture of simplification. you create an image of the enemy and it may work in short term, but not really. for example, in the united states today, of course, trump is the enemy. but my god, if you want to be an intelligent political analyst and agent, you should also ask the obvious question, where did trump come from? what were we, by this i mean liberal democratic hegemony what were we doing wrong to open up the space for trump i will not lose your time here, just i will finish with one conclusive sad thought, two sad points to conclude. first, i already mentioned it talking with some of you before. people say communism has failed. it has, but at the same time, and that's bad news for me, look what is happening in china now. i mean, it is still a communist power. in this combination, communism with capitalism, are you aware what the chinese communists achieved? something absolutely unique, never in the history of mankind, i think. did you have such a tremendous economic development in just a couple of decades? and do you know what they did? to simplify it very much, leftists hate two things. on the one hand, this wild capitalist competition market. on the other hand, strong authoritarian... state which controls, regulates everything. the chinese have combined the two, the works in an extremely successful way. so what to do here? it's a very difficult question. what if our future will be, and this is not good news, i don't sympathize with them, what if this type of authoritarian capitalism is our future? second reason of my pessimism. marxism, at least the traditional one. relied on a certain, how should i call it, pre-established harmony that we when we are just before the revolution or in modern times, facing are in a unique situation where the highest theoretical insight, communism breaking out of capitalist, blah blah. can somehow be rooted in the concrete living experience of the majority of the people. we are proletarians, we need radical change and so on and so on. i think that with problems that we are facing today, ecology, biogenetics and so on, i'm more of a pessimist. i doubt if problems which we are really confronting today. can be in this way applied or connected to mobilizing the people. for example, and i will be very brutal last sentence, i promise, for example, here i disagree with my otherwise good friend, i support him politically, Yanis Varoufakis, who says we need more democracy in europe. and i'm always asking me, and i think at least he didn't give me a good answer. okay, but are you aware that, for example, with immigrants? refugees entering europe. if you were to do... a truly democratic election. the result would have been much more xenophobic than the predominant reaction. in practically all european countries, they would have say, stop, stop. that's what i also learned from my diplomatic friends when they were dealing with this problem, when the crisis was at its high point two years ago, or when for example, politicians from my country, i learned, it's terrible irony. they were relatively fair, saying we are nonetheless co-responsible, we have to. we are among the causes of this crisis in the middle east and so on. in closed sessions. publicly they were much more anti-immigrant because they knew they would lose votes in their own country and so on and so on. so i think we live in a very dangerous situation where maybe the gap between what needs to be done and simple. opinion of the many, inclusive many intellectuals. i'm not saying ordinary people are stupid, intellectuals are not. they are also. i'm just no no. what i mean is i i'm just a pessimist here. miracles happen, but we no longer can have this marxist trust in history. you know. so to conclude with another one line, don't be afraid. that i quote in my book, you know, when my leftist friends remain optimists and say, don't worry, the situation may be dark, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. you know what's my answer? of course it is. it's another train approaching us from there. thanks very much for your kind color. my god, i feel as if i am in a movie set where you know they are now changing the scene. i hope you did it in a proper cinematic stalinist way. when we will have a q&a with the people, i hope you did distribute the questions and. please
i am really, really grateful for this invitation and you may be surprised by this, but i even like the weather. hell is for me some stupid mediterranean beach with all the sun and so on. no, this is the weather that i like. okay, so i am a little bit afraid that in which direction to take because most of you are not so i will try in this maximum quarter of an hour introduction. don. maybe i will do it like this to begin with. uh to begin with more not purely philosophical stuff, but some stuff with philosophical consequences and then conclude with some political remarks. let me, it will be a little bit, i will be associating and so on, i don't want to bore you. i would like to begin with two jewish jokes. which have a deep properly metaphysical meaning. one i've already used in my old books, hopefully you all don't know it. the other one is fresh, only now i learned about it. the first one is that classical one, you know, on sabbat, on saturday, jewish believers meet in a synagogue and each of them says something. so first a big rabbi said, oh my god, i am nobody. i am not worthy of your attention, god. then a rich jewish merchant comes and says, oh my god, i'm also nobody. don't even consider me. i'm not worthy of your attention. then, i hope you know the joke, a poor jew stands up and says, god, i'm also a nobody. and then the rich merchant kicks the rabbi and said, who is this guy that he thinks he can also? say that he is a nobody. there is deep truth in this. whenever somebody apparently humiliates himself and so on, adopts this attitude of i despise my nation, my identity, blah blah. be very careful for looking for secret privilege, what, as a Lacanian, I would have called surplus enjoyment. i will give you an example which may be even provocative to some of you. i've written about it extensively. in united states, in these politically correct times, there is one basic rule, very simple. further that you are from white male protestant, whatever elite. more you are allowed to assert your particular ethnic, religious identity. like native americans, so-called, they hate this term, indians, i prefer to call them. do you know my joke which really happened in missoula, montana? one indian referred to himself as indian and immediately a white well-meaning liberal interrupted him. no, you're native american, don't you know that you are humiliating yourself and the indian gave a perfect answer. he says, no, sorry. native american is for me much more racist. it means i am native american, part of nature, and what are you? cultural american or what. he said, i prefer to be called indian in this way. at least my name is a sign of white man's stupidity. you know, they thought they are in india. he got it correctly. no, sorry, let's go on seriously. so native americans, okay. blacks, okay. then chinese suspicion begins. italians, maybe germans, scandinav,, but if white. wp, anglo-saxon or whatever, if you just say, i also want to assert my identity, you are a fascist. you are decried as a fascist and so on. now i know well foundounded reasoning behind this because this is effectively this hegemonic position. it's not the same for you or for a poor native american to say i want to assert my identity. but i noticed something else how beneath i'm now. talking about these typical multiculturalist leftist liberals. beneath this self-humiliating gesture, oh we are guilty for everything, imperialist colonizers, we don't have the right, renouncing all your particular features always comes with in a discrete way, asserting your position of universality. all this apparently modest, self-denigrating. white people, at the same time i noticed have no problems behaving in a very patronizing way towards others, correcting them, telling them when they are making a mistake or whatever or whatever. so clearly the secret profit is this. moral authority given to you in this way. i think there is something of the same with how in europe, and i have all sympathy for them, but nonetheless, how in europe leftists, left liberals, behave towards immigrants. of course we should be, my god. my position is, do not be afraid, very leftist here. i just noticed how in their very understanding of immigrants. how they always already patronize them. like if immigrants do and like all people, they are a mixed crowd. there are criminals among them and so on. if they do something horrible, rape and so on, white liberals are always looking for an excuse. oh, this is just general human nature, we are all like that. or they were so victimized by us, we should understand this and so on and so on. and one of my immigrant friends. exploded and told me. that it's a beautiful paradox, philosophical. he told me, my god, my basic human right is at least to be recognized as an adult responsible person, which practically means to be able to do something horrible. are they aware that by treating me almost like a child in this way, they are humiliating me and so on and so on. so i think that again, okay, i will not go into political consequences here, just beware how. also with political correctness, often the position of a victim. can be used as a nice instrument to justify your exerting of in academia, american it's typical, in outside victims are really victims. but in academia, playing with victimhood. if you are a privileged victim, gives you an incredible power de facto. that would be my first point. let's go to the second point. i mentioned the notion this surplus enjoyment, profit that you get from apparently denigrating, humiliating yourself. and this is my hegelian Lacanian standpoint that every position of subject, every subject, even the most empty cartesian subject. has to rely on this type of small feature surplus enjoyment which sustains his or its subjectivity. i will give you another example here, short philosophical idea. although i was accused of i don't know what, i really, for theoretical reasons, read the last chapter in my last book where i explain it, but i really believe in subversive potential, not in the strict sense they cause disorder, but some deep insights on which lgbtq, this transgenderism is based. but since we are here also among some of you least philosophers, i would like to draw one attention to it. you know that the official term is now lgbt plus or lgbtq whatever plus now, usually, sorry to be critical against at least part of your tradition, but usually this plus is understood in empiricist way, or british empiricists. the idea is this one. it's not just the binary sexuality, male or female, blah, blah. there are dozens . multiplicity of gender or sex positions. and since no classification can be really exhausting, what if another guy comes and says, i read your classification, but i'm neither biender nor books nor this, nor asexual and something else. so it's this simple worry what if we nonetheless miss some position? so let's leave the space open. i think, and it's not me, i forgot her name, but it's a very good lgbt plus theoretician, a lady from australia, who did a proper hegelian move and said, no, what if we? when you have lgbt. q plus. what if we define this plus itself as a specific position? i can be a plus. and this is, i think, even the best definition of a subject. a subject is not simply something. a subject is always in excess of what he she it is. and this is why i go very fast here. if you want to know more, read my books or whatever. this is why not only psychoanalysis is not male chauvinist, but... it's eminently feminist in the sense that subject as such is ultimately feminine. why? because this defines for me ultimately femininity, this self-questioning attitude, which can be discerned even in some most superficial annoying features. you know, like you are in love with a woman and she will sooner or later ask you, tell me, why do you love me? but it's a very deep question. you know why? because of course it has no answer. i mean, the moment you know it, the moment you can say, because of your eyes, because of your legs, because of your laughter, it's not love. love must be that plus x. in other words, hysterical questioning is the most elementary form for me of critique of ideology. ideology is in very vague sense ideology is an ideology at its most elementary, what society tells you that you are. you are a man, a muslim, a christian, atheist, democrat, worker, whatever. but the most elementary questioning is this, why am i what you are saying that i am? this not accepting any objective position s. yours. and here again. the function of the plus is crucial. that's why intelligent psychoanalysis always prefers. hysteria to perversion. perversion is i claim, even in clinical terms, always conformist. pervers is simply the hidden aspect of a power structure. but okay, let's not lose time. my second joke and then some political remarks. uh which goes more into because i am an atheist but a christian atheist i will not go into this what this means.. what does this mean for theology? a jewish friend told me, and at least for me this joke is new, i didn't. hear it before. a wonderful story, i warn you, it's no trigger warning is needed, nothing dirty happens, but it's a very cruel joke and i discovered with wonder and respect how do you know that there is a whole tradition of jewish jokes about auschwitz? not simply making fun, but drawing out the paradoxes. and there is something, we don't have time to go into it now, very deep in it. i claim that when for tragedy to take place, it must happen what is going on within certain limits where the victim retains its dignity, you know, tragic victim. when things get really terrifying. a mode of comedy has to enter, which is not a comedy where you just laugh, but a horrifying comedy. okay, so the joke is this one. in paradise, some jews who were slaughtered at auschwitz. nice life they sit at a bench and talk about their memories of how they were killed, making fun of it. like one says to another, do you remember jacob, how when they dragged you to gas chamber, you sleep on something and hit your head and die even before. you entered guest chamber and, oh yeah, that was so funny and so on. now comes the deep insight. then god, also taking a break, god himself walks by them, listens at these jokes and s. sorry guys, i don't understand it. now, sorry, for you to understand the point of this joke, you must know that this whole theological tradition of claiming god died at auschwitz, things that happened there are so horrible that they cannot be in any way combined with the idea of divinity as the hidden master of the universe. god, as they put it, that's crucial, as many theologologists put it, god was not there. okay, so god comes there and says, sorry guys, i don't understand it. then one of the jews goes to god, embraces him in a patronizing way and says, don't worry, our lord. you were not there, so of course you cannot understand it, you know. but you know what's the beauty? it's not in this version. it's not that god cannot understand the horror. he can. he's all-powerful. he cannot understand how it's possible to make a joke out of it. god doesn't get the joke. in this sense, i will not go into it now, i think that what i call materialist theology. h retains god, not as real god, old guy up there, but as some kind of a presupposed agency which registers things. you know, and we all rely on it. as Jacques Lacan put it, the moment we talk, we believe in god. why? because we believe that when something is spoken out, registered, it exists in a different way. to give an extremely simple example, didn't it happen to you, unfortunately, with my bad manners, it often happens to me, you are with a couple of friends and some of you in that case it was me, did something horrible and shameful. you know that everybody else knows it. and everybody knows that all other knows it. but nonetheless, everything changes the moment one says this publicly. that's the moment of registration. what i want to say is that i like this theological idea that god is like a benevolent master who... allows you small niches where like where you can violate even his prohibitions, you know. the god like a proper, severe, old-fashioned father. today in our post-patriarchal era, i almost like them. because no matter how severe they pretend to be, that's how traditional authority functions. the idea is always, do it, violate my prohibitions, but discreetly. i don't want to know about it and according to some good theologists this is even what. you have in ten commandments. you know the commandment don't celebrate other gods. this is not the correct tradition. it's in the bible old testament a much more ambiguous statement, which basically means don't don't praise other gods in my presence. like, you know, do it, but discreetly and so on. and, okay, i will not get lost here. i'm talking too much. so we can go on in the debate, if you want, about modes of authority today. i would just like conclude with a very simple joke i've used in some of my texts, but they were not published in big media. you probably don't know it. where are we? today. i am still some kind of critique of ideology. and what is happening, i claim, is that ideology is now alive, but in new modes. there are two, i think, main modes. one, weak two. you probably know the old formula of marx, religion is the opium of the people. i think now we have to change this formula that we have, now i hope you will get the joke. i often used it in talks, but not here. we have today two new opiums of the people. you can guess which ones. literally. opium and the people. war nicht. literally if you read statistics, at least in degenerate spaces like academia and so on. you know that literally in united states around 80% of professors students are already into prozac and all that stuff. like we literally need a support in chemistry and so on just to function relatively normally. and at all levels, from this simple antidepress depresspressives to drugs proper, whatever, whatsoever what is the circular nature of this support. first, if you are too excited, you take a calmant to calm you down. but then you lose desire, you take another drug to reusc it. so this is a very important thing. for our daily psychic life to function, we have more and more to rely on different drugs in this metaphoric sense, opium. second, people, i think that precisely the be opium. today is people populism. and for reasons that we can debate later, i don't want to go into it now, that's why i have doubts about what is getting popular now among some europeanists, leftist populism. in the sense of, oh, if the right can do it successfully, right populism is a kind of, i call it ironically, perverted me too. why not me too? no, i think that populism is always this gesture of simplification. you create an image of the enemy and it may work in short term, but not really. for example, in the united states today, of course, trump is the enemy. but my god, if you want to be an intelligent political analyst and agent, you should also ask the obvious question, where did trump come from? what were we, by this i mean liberal democratic hegemony what were we doing wrong to open up the space for trump i will not lose your time here, just i will finish with one conclusive sad thought, two sad points to conclude. first, i already mentioned it talking with some of you before. people say communism has failed. it has, but at the same time, and that's bad news for me, look what is happening in china now. i mean, it is still a communist power. in this combination, communism with capitalism, are you aware what the chinese communists achieved? something absolutely unique, never in the history of mankind, i think. did you have such a tremendous economic development in just a couple of decades? and do you know what they did? to simplify it very much, leftists hate two things. on the one hand, this wild capitalist competition market. on the other hand, strong authoritarian... state which controls, regulates everything. the chinese have combined the two, the works in an extremely successful way. so what to do here? it's a very difficult question. what if our future will be, and this is not good news, i don't sympathize with them, what if this type of authoritarian capitalism is our future? second reason of my pessimism. marxism, at least the traditional one. relied on a certain, how should i call it, pre-established harmony that we when we are just before the revolution or in modern times, facing are in a unique situation where the highest theoretical insight, communism breaking out of capitalist, blah blah. can somehow be rooted in the concrete living experience of the majority of the people. we are proletarians, we need radical change and so on and so on. i think that with problems that we are facing today, ecology, biogenetics and so on, i'm more of a pessimist. i doubt if problems which we are really confronting today. can be in this way applied or connected to mobilizing the people. for example, and i will be very brutal last sentence, i promise, for example, here i disagree with my otherwise good friend, i support him politically, Yanis Varoufakis, who says we need more democracy in europe. and i'm always asking me, and i think at least he didn't give me a good answer. okay, but are you aware that, for example, with immigrants? refugees entering europe. if you were to do... a truly democratic election. the result would have been much more xenophobic than the predominant reaction. in practically all european countries, they would have say, stop, stop. that's what i also learned from my diplomatic friends when they were dealing with this problem, when the crisis was at its high point two years ago, or when for example, politicians from my country, i learned, it's terrible irony. they were relatively fair, saying we are nonetheless co-responsible, we have to. we are among the causes of this crisis in the middle east and so on. in closed sessions. publicly they were much more anti-immigrant because they knew they would lose votes in their own country and so on and so on. so i think we live in a very dangerous situation where maybe the gap between what needs to be done and simple. opinion of the many, inclusive many intellectuals. i'm not saying ordinary people are stupid, intellectuals are not. they are also. i'm just no no. what i mean is i i'm just a pessimist here. miracles happen, but we no longer can have this marxist trust in history. you know. so to conclude with another one line, don't be afraid. that i quote in my book, you know, when my leftist friends remain optimists and say, don't worry, the situation may be dark, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. you know what's my answer? of course it is. it's another train approaching us from there. thanks very much for your kind color. my god, i feel as if i am in a movie set where you know they are now changing the scene. i hope you did it in a proper cinematic stalinist way. when we will have a q&a with the people, i hope you did distribute the questions and. please
Moderator
i'm sorry, i talked too much now. i'm your slave. my first question is, in the opening chapter of the new book, you talk about philosophers becoming state philosophers and negating the radical potential of their philosophies to the subservience of the existing order. how do you think philosophers can still be a part of radical movements and what distinguishes people like yourself who are energizing radical politics from those like you say like habermas who are just supporting the state structures?
i'm sorry, i talked too much now. i'm your slave. my first question is, in the opening chapter of the new book, you talk about philosophers becoming state philosophers and negating the radical potential of their philosophies to the subservience of the existing order. how do you think philosophers can still be a part of radical movements and what distinguishes people like yourself who are energizing radical politics from those like you say like habermas who are just supporting the state structures?
Slavoj Žižek
wait a minute, maybe i was there, not fair enough. now, i will be very honest here and as simple as possible. i am not dismissing state philosophers. wait a minute, our institutions, the way we think politically and so on, do imply a certain, not philosophical in a technical sense, but a certain basic view. here i would even agree with habermas's great opponent. Peter Sloterdijk, a right-winger, but my good friend, intelligent right-winger, who says that, and although he is a right-winger, he means this positively, that the greatest thing of our western european, insofar as they still exist, less and less, welfare states, is that we don't just... get what he calls subjective social democracy, we have something that he very nicely calls objective social democracy, that is to say social democratic values, human rights, social justice, and so on.. inscribed into political institutions themselves or even more, silently accepted as shared by all. you know which was the greatest example of this? i remember, you are too young, i think it was mid-70s or a little bit later, when social democrats for the first time lost power in sweden. but then that coalition of what we, when i was young, called bourgeois parties, liberals, conservatives, nothing changed. they nationalized even more far, it went on because this basic social pact, not so much written rules but... unwritten rules was there. and it's here i have a certain respect, it's almost a heroic role for habermas to say i know i will be despised as a conformist, but okay, i will play the idiot who is this. but for me, if you remember, then i go on and i say that today, the situation is getting more complex and i really think that so-called alt-right, especially in the united states and in some other countries, changed the rules. because, is it popular here in the uk, the book by that irish girl who now lives in new york, i met her there in brooklyn even, Angela Nagle or what? she wrote a book, you should have it, kill all the normies. his idea is that what half a century ago was a typical left subversive attitude, you know, the institutional power is severe, strict. speaks with decent terms. we should provoke, tell dirty jokes, use f words, all this subversive marginal culture tradition. but he said what happens now is it's not symmetrical inversion, but almost an inversion, alt-right. now behaves as formally as the new counterculture and the horror is that the left whatever remains of it took refuge in political correctness. helpless moralism and so on and so on. i don't think so this compates thing. and that's why i am a leninist. it's a joke, but not quite. you know in what sense? you know, it's very interesting to read last lenin's writings. i mean he was totally desperate. he saw no socialism, what can we do? and you know with what lenin was obsessed in the last two years of his life with good manners. civility and so on. you know, you all, if you know history of politics and so on, know that famous short testament that lenin dictated proposing to polit bureauuro to depose stalin. but did you notice what are lenin's arguments about stalin? it's not wrong economic politics, wrong politics. it is simply stalin doesn't have good manners. he's too rough and so on. now today with trump and so on and many other trumps like that bolsonaro guy in brazil and so on, wouldn't it be, that's my secret dream. now you will say this is a joke because i am obscene. no, but i try to be obscene in a non-offensive way that it would be wonderful for me, for the left to say, no, we are the true force of moral majority, we are the true force of decency, you are the dirty subversive, the right-wingers and so on. i love this strategy of changing the cards. i will give you another example. in germany, one of my friends there friendsrench wrote a wonderful comment. where? she says... we should change this perception, although i don't ideal for that. angela merkel is too weak, allowed too many immigrants, like an old mother losing power, and then anti-immigrant nationalists present themselves as, you know, courageous, we fight for our nation. the point of my friend was... shouldn't we rather say angela merkel is the last, in the good sense of the term, great german patriot and strong nationalist. why? because to say to million refugees, you can come, it means you have a great trust in your nation, that it will be able to integrate them and so on and so on. and the point is, we should rather treat alt-right anti-immigrants as weak people who don't trust their nation and so on and so on. you know, i think it's very good to mix cards like this in political struggle. so i didn't properly answer your question, but you see in what direction i'm going.
wait a minute, maybe i was there, not fair enough. now, i will be very honest here and as simple as possible. i am not dismissing state philosophers. wait a minute, our institutions, the way we think politically and so on, do imply a certain, not philosophical in a technical sense, but a certain basic view. here i would even agree with habermas's great opponent. Peter Sloterdijk, a right-winger, but my good friend, intelligent right-winger, who says that, and although he is a right-winger, he means this positively, that the greatest thing of our western european, insofar as they still exist, less and less, welfare states, is that we don't just... get what he calls subjective social democracy, we have something that he very nicely calls objective social democracy, that is to say social democratic values, human rights, social justice, and so on.. inscribed into political institutions themselves or even more, silently accepted as shared by all. you know which was the greatest example of this? i remember, you are too young, i think it was mid-70s or a little bit later, when social democrats for the first time lost power in sweden. but then that coalition of what we, when i was young, called bourgeois parties, liberals, conservatives, nothing changed. they nationalized even more far, it went on because this basic social pact, not so much written rules but... unwritten rules was there. and it's here i have a certain respect, it's almost a heroic role for habermas to say i know i will be despised as a conformist, but okay, i will play the idiot who is this. but for me, if you remember, then i go on and i say that today, the situation is getting more complex and i really think that so-called alt-right, especially in the united states and in some other countries, changed the rules. because, is it popular here in the uk, the book by that irish girl who now lives in new york, i met her there in brooklyn even, Angela Nagle or what? she wrote a book, you should have it, kill all the normies. his idea is that what half a century ago was a typical left subversive attitude, you know, the institutional power is severe, strict. speaks with decent terms. we should provoke, tell dirty jokes, use f words, all this subversive marginal culture tradition. but he said what happens now is it's not symmetrical inversion, but almost an inversion, alt-right. now behaves as formally as the new counterculture and the horror is that the left whatever remains of it took refuge in political correctness. helpless moralism and so on and so on. i don't think so this compates thing. and that's why i am a leninist. it's a joke, but not quite. you know in what sense? you know, it's very interesting to read last lenin's writings. i mean he was totally desperate. he saw no socialism, what can we do? and you know with what lenin was obsessed in the last two years of his life with good manners. civility and so on. you know, you all, if you know history of politics and so on, know that famous short testament that lenin dictated proposing to polit bureauuro to depose stalin. but did you notice what are lenin's arguments about stalin? it's not wrong economic politics, wrong politics. it is simply stalin doesn't have good manners. he's too rough and so on. now today with trump and so on and many other trumps like that bolsonaro guy in brazil and so on, wouldn't it be, that's my secret dream. now you will say this is a joke because i am obscene. no, but i try to be obscene in a non-offensive way that it would be wonderful for me, for the left to say, no, we are the true force of moral majority, we are the true force of decency, you are the dirty subversive, the right-wingers and so on. i love this strategy of changing the cards. i will give you another example. in germany, one of my friends there friendsrench wrote a wonderful comment. where? she says... we should change this perception, although i don't ideal for that. angela merkel is too weak, allowed too many immigrants, like an old mother losing power, and then anti-immigrant nationalists present themselves as, you know, courageous, we fight for our nation. the point of my friend was... shouldn't we rather say angela merkel is the last, in the good sense of the term, great german patriot and strong nationalist. why? because to say to million refugees, you can come, it means you have a great trust in your nation, that it will be able to integrate them and so on and so on. and the point is, we should rather treat alt-right anti-immigrants as weak people who don't trust their nation and so on and so on. you know, i think it's very good to mix cards like this in political struggle. so i didn't properly answer your question, but you see in what direction i'm going.
Moderator
i want to ask about the christian materialism and the importance of the church that you've written about. do you think that the theological, the philosophical, the normative tools that christianity that you find helpful are going to survive if the church continues to decline? or do you think that the institution of the church and adherence to the church has no bearing on those surviving materialistic aspects?
i want to ask about the christian materialism and the importance of the church that you've written about. do you think that the theological, the philosophical, the normative tools that christianity that you find helpful are going to survive if the church continues to decline? or do you think that the institution of the church and adherence to the church has no bearing on those surviving materialistic aspects?
Slavoj Žižek
it's an open question, especially catholic church. i don't believe in it. it can be franciscus or not. i have doubts. but you know, it's okay, i will very briefly. give it to you the way i read christianity if you take it really seriously, it's really a religion of atheism. in what sense? and hegel knew this. he says, the big problem is what died on the cross? hegel says, it's not just you read christianity in a pagan way. if you think god is up there, he sent us a messenger and then messenger died and cried and god says, god the father, okay, my son, come back to me. it didn't work. next time better luck and so on. no, hegel says, what dies on the cross is the very god of beyond. this idea that there is a higher power up there. you know what's so paradoxical of christianity for me? again, in all other all more or less religions, the way we are here, we live a fallen life. end the only way to get back to god contact is to do good works, purify yourself, whatever, through mystical exercise to good deeds and so on. climb up again. i came in christianity, don't people notice this? something totally different happens. and Chesterton, my good catholic theolog knew it. he says that that moment, eli eli lama sabaktami, god, why have you forsaken me? it means this. how do you identify with god? let's say i feel abandoned, god has left me, i'm in a godless world. the christian answer again is not, okay, let me pray hard, do good things, maybe. i will re-establish contact, it's the say. but at that very point, when i feel abandoned by god, i'm identified with christ on the cross who felt the same. that is to say, as hegel puts it very precisely, i overcome the division from god by transposing it into god himself. this idea that my distance from god is inscribed into god himself. the consequences of these are then pretty radical. for example, i think it's totally wrong reading the usual one that what will be second coming? somehow christ will come again. no, christ is dead. he is already here in holy spirit. what is holy spirit or ghost? i don't know how you read. it is i simplify it very much. it is it is the community of believers and as christ says, my god, in the gospel, when he is asked by one of his pupils, how will we know that you are still alive, that you will come, he says, whenever there is love between two of you, i am there. and i take this totally literally. second coming means that you discover that. what you are waiting for, oh my god, god left us, maybe he will come again, is already here in the community of believers. you don't need god as an old guy up there, a secret guarantee and so on and so on. intelligent theologologists knew this. like even a conservative, like claudel, paul claudel, the great poet, he said, the ultimate mystery of christianity is not that we are impotent without god, but that god is impotent without us. okay, it gets more complex, but in this sense, i mean it quite literally about being an atheist christian. i specifically don't mean all those simplistic ideas that christianity can be realized in new communist society or whatever, all those dreams. no, i think that, again, the secret core of christianity is precisely this. acceptance of being on your own. precisely divine gift. you know, what is the christian answer when you feel alone, abandoned by god, just depending on yourself? the message is, but this is god's gift to you. this is freedom that god gave us. it's a much more complex situation. i don't want to lose time now. i just want to tell you that don't you just think that this is some crazy obscenity. many theologists today are moving. in this direction. sorry. it's good
it's an open question, especially catholic church. i don't believe in it. it can be franciscus or not. i have doubts. but you know, it's okay, i will very briefly. give it to you the way i read christianity if you take it really seriously, it's really a religion of atheism. in what sense? and hegel knew this. he says, the big problem is what died on the cross? hegel says, it's not just you read christianity in a pagan way. if you think god is up there, he sent us a messenger and then messenger died and cried and god says, god the father, okay, my son, come back to me. it didn't work. next time better luck and so on. no, hegel says, what dies on the cross is the very god of beyond. this idea that there is a higher power up there. you know what's so paradoxical of christianity for me? again, in all other all more or less religions, the way we are here, we live a fallen life. end the only way to get back to god contact is to do good works, purify yourself, whatever, through mystical exercise to good deeds and so on. climb up again. i came in christianity, don't people notice this? something totally different happens. and Chesterton, my good catholic theolog knew it. he says that that moment, eli eli lama sabaktami, god, why have you forsaken me? it means this. how do you identify with god? let's say i feel abandoned, god has left me, i'm in a godless world. the christian answer again is not, okay, let me pray hard, do good things, maybe. i will re-establish contact, it's the say. but at that very point, when i feel abandoned by god, i'm identified with christ on the cross who felt the same. that is to say, as hegel puts it very precisely, i overcome the division from god by transposing it into god himself. this idea that my distance from god is inscribed into god himself. the consequences of these are then pretty radical. for example, i think it's totally wrong reading the usual one that what will be second coming? somehow christ will come again. no, christ is dead. he is already here in holy spirit. what is holy spirit or ghost? i don't know how you read. it is i simplify it very much. it is it is the community of believers and as christ says, my god, in the gospel, when he is asked by one of his pupils, how will we know that you are still alive, that you will come, he says, whenever there is love between two of you, i am there. and i take this totally literally. second coming means that you discover that. what you are waiting for, oh my god, god left us, maybe he will come again, is already here in the community of believers. you don't need god as an old guy up there, a secret guarantee and so on and so on. intelligent theologologists knew this. like even a conservative, like claudel, paul claudel, the great poet, he said, the ultimate mystery of christianity is not that we are impotent without god, but that god is impotent without us. okay, it gets more complex, but in this sense, i mean it quite literally about being an atheist christian. i specifically don't mean all those simplistic ideas that christianity can be realized in new communist society or whatever, all those dreams. no, i think that, again, the secret core of christianity is precisely this. acceptance of being on your own. precisely divine gift. you know, what is the christian answer when you feel alone, abandoned by god, just depending on yourself? the message is, but this is god's gift to you. this is freedom that god gave us. it's a much more complex situation. i don't want to lose time now. i just want to tell you that don't you just think that this is some crazy obscenity. many theologists today are moving. in this direction. sorry. it's good
Moderator
let's take some questions from the audience. we are in democratic faith.
let's take some questions from the audience. we are in democratic faith.
Slavoj Žižek
exactly democratic phase. only very occasionally, really. my last joke before i give you the word, you know i'm an old platonist. i'm repeating the joke already used there. so i'm all for a dialogue with you. but, you know, as a lover of plato, you know, which is my favorite dialogue. did you read late plato's dialogues? you know how they are written. one guy talks all the time and the other guy says every 10 minutes by use, so it is socrates and so on. so let's have this dialogue now.
exactly democratic phase. only very occasionally, really. my last joke before i give you the word, you know i'm an old platonist. i'm repeating the joke already used there. so i'm all for a dialogue with you. but, you know, as a lover of plato, you know, which is my favorite dialogue. did you read late plato's dialogues? you know how they are written. one guy talks all the time and the other guy says every 10 minutes by use, so it is socrates and so on. so let's have this dialogue now.
Moderator
yeah.
yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
mr.
mr.
Moderator
wait for the microphone to come to you, but let's go to the hand on the end of the aisle there in the dark blue coat.
wait for the microphone to come to you, but let's go to the hand on the end of the aisle there in the dark blue coat.
Slavoj Žižek
that's why i asked you to do this.
that's why i asked you to do this.
Moderator
this is a moment of anxiety. this is one few things i can do.
this is a moment of anxiety. this is one few things i can do.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah yeah, but how did you know in this politically correct time then somebody will say, but did you ignore that woman and so on? okay, sorry, please.
yeah yeah, but how did you know in this politically correct time then somebody will say, but did you ignore that woman and so on? okay, sorry, please.
Audience Member
professor zijek, a fan of yours from south africa. i wanted to ask you, we're in oxford now. sorry, ask me ask you, yes. we're in oxford now, and the analytical school of philosophy is big here. and it seems as though that the burden always falls onto continental philosophers to justify their existence. and i wanted you to talk to this point, the value of continental philosophy in in the 21st century. thank you.
professor zijek, a fan of yours from south africa. i wanted to ask you, we're in oxford now. sorry, ask me ask you, yes. we're in oxford now, and the analytical school of philosophy is big here. and it seems as though that the burden always falls onto continental philosophers to justify their existence. and i wanted you to talk to this point, the value of continental philosophy in in the 21st century. thank you.
Slavoj Žižek
wait a minute, again, my position is here much more integrated, complex. first, i must tell you, iff there is much boring stuff going on in so-called analytic philosophy. but there are many things which i fully admire going on there. and also, for example, i don't know, he now disappeared, i don't know why, philosophers like saul kripke, some others and so on, they did, or even cognitivists. uh there are very intelligent cognitivists who raise the right questions and so on, but nonetheless, and also there is a lot of... bullshit, not taking scientific breakthroughs seriously, going in so-called continental philosophy. the big problem for me today is... what i call the gap between realism and transcendental approach. on the one hand, we have scientific or realistic philosophical approach don't be afraid i will try to which simply. pretends to describe reality the way it is, to put it in very simplistic terms. you forget about who you are, from where you are speaking. then we have transcendental reasoning, which is not something mystical and so on, but it's based on the simple fact that our argumentation is ultimately always circular. for example, their reproach. for example, to mention the guy that you brought, habermas. he's basic. contribution ich to claim that. from the scientific perspective one thing you cannot explain is the normative discursive structures of this scientific procedure itself if you. you can be very good at scientific explanations, evolutionary and so on of this stuff, what goes on, how did human intelligence arise. but all this is possible because you approached nature in a certain way. as a complex cobweb of causes, effects and so on and so on. this doesn't go by itself. so the idea is that we all approach reality from a certain perspective and we cannot ever break out of this. cerle. and now, so that ultimately, but on the other hand, it's clear that somehow, although we are always caught in our symbolic universe and so on, and if some of you follow modern thought, the ultimate in my sense of the term now, not in the strict kantian transcendental philosopher would have been, for example, somebody like michel foucault. for him. the ultimate horizon. of our knowledge is what he calls episteme the idea that in every epoch a certain it may be conflictual but opposite sides always share some presuppositions. a certain base, for example, the opposition between empiricism and rationalism, but they share a whole set of presuppositions about reality and so on. so the idea is this one that this is the ultimate thing. so for example, if you were to ask michel foucault, do we have an immortal soul or not? his answer would have been, all i can do is to describe the episteme, the set of implicit presuppositions, within which this question has meaning at all. and if you ask him, do you believe in... evolutionary account of humanity. his answer would have been, i can only tell you that this evolutionary account is part of a modern scientific paradigm and as such totally different from, for example, medieval paradigm, no. within which meaning was something immanent to reality itself. the universe is meaningful. so what i'm saying is that on the other hand, of course, we all admit, at least almost all of us, that although this is the, ah, another point, if there are some marxists here, marxists, at least so-called western marxists, are also fully transcendental. in what sense? uh for radical marxists, the ultimate horizon is social practice. and as Lukács in the ultimate western marxist work, his first big book, history and class consciousness, he even says, this is a classic statement, nature is a historical social category. which means, of course, somehow we did humanity, we did emerge out of nature. but what we understand by nature is something which is always historically over-determined and as part of our social practice. nature means something totally different in modernity than in early. then in early renaissance and so on and so on. so... we have this ultimate tension on the one hand. naive scientific realism, on the other hand, this transcendental approach. and what i'm obsessed with in my last works, i'm always writing the same book and so on, is precisely, is it possible to break out of this circle? is it possible to move beyond this? transcendental approach that we can just describe the historical horizon of meaning into which we were thrown without returning to naive realism. hier we should be creative. for example, who was that guy? i forgot his name. often here, and that's for me the strength of continental approach. some criticism, even theological, of science which can appear stupid and it is stupid at the level of direct scientific value can be extremely interesting if we read it in a slightly different way as theory of ideology. for example, do you know that i forgot the guy's name, darwin had a friend. who knew his work, darwin's, and was at the same time theologist yes, the one who his reply to darwin was i forgot the name, it's a latin name, i'm too stupid. for navel, you know, it's the old problem. adam is depicted with a navel. but wait a minute, adam was not born, he was created. why then? thus you have it. so the idea is this one, and it's such an ingenious solution. he said. darwin conclusively proves through fossils and so on that our earth or our universe was created at least million years ago. if you take bible literally, it was 4 thousand and some years. so where is the truth? you know what is the answer. of course bible is true, my god, it cannot be not true. so how do we explain fossils and so on? the idea is that the same way when you paint a state, you paint the background to create a false impression of depth. that god directly created fossils and so on to give us a false opening. of the past and this is the best definition. of ideology i can imagine and so on. aren't we all the time inventing traditions in this sense and so on and so on? so again, to answer you properly it's maybe too complex now. but i try to, first i have tremendous, you know what's one of my interests here. maybe this was some interest to you. the latest results insofar as i understand them, i'm the first to admit my limitation. now what is happening now in quantum physics, i was told and i read some popular books, but i try to check it with my friends who are quantum physicists, like, am i totally bluffing or does it have some that with this quantum gravity theory and so on, there is a tremendous progress beyond string theory going on now. and i think that some of the things that you find in quantum physics are, i think, of incredible significance to resolve this problem because the basic presupposition of quantum physics it is precisely that what we perceive as natural reality is not the ultimate reality that there is whatever we call it, quantum oscillations and so on, another level and i think that this is how and let's call it ontology at the level of today's world should function. if i may go on for two three minutes you will like it i promise i'm sorry. i hope you don't know this joke but i love it. a philosopher, i'm very sorry i forgot his name you noticed my senility that i forget many names used a wonderful example to explain quantum physics and my point is the basic paradox of quantum physics. my point is to apply it to reality as such. his idea is this one wonderful simple metaphor a parallel between quantum universe which is as you know heisenberg uncertainty principle although bohr puts it in a slightly different way but the point is this one you know what everybody knows. you cannot measure simultaneously the position and the velocity movement of a particle. okay. now you can read this in epistemological way. we just cannot measure it. niels bohr went a step further and claimed it is in itself that. it's not determined. this is a wonderful vision of reality which is in itself ontologically incomplete. and now comes the parallel with video games. aren't they in the same similar, very superficial analogy? incomplete, in what sense? you remember i don't play them, but i watch my son doing it and i envy him and so on. when you play a video game, let's say you see a house there. but if it's not part of the game to enter that house, then the interior of the house is not programmed. you know this. you know. in the video universe, it's or. in the background, there is the forest. but it's meaningless to say, let's go there and look in detail at the trees. no, because it's not part of the game that you can go there. so, in this book, the idea is this one. it's a very clinical one, but i love it. god did something similar. he underestimated us humans a little bit. he thought that we will never be intelligent enough to move beyond atoms to microparticles. so he said, fuck it, why should i lose time programming there everything? so we, as it were, caught god with his spell down, you know. but my point is... we can how would it be to think reality? as unfinished without this subjectivity god, whatever. is it possible to think reality as unfinished? and here i think utopian as it may appear only a kind of a collaboration between the best of continental tradition, not those arrogant europeans who despise analytic philosophy just, and the best of analytical philosophers can do the job. sorry, i'm too long. what can i say?
wait a minute, again, my position is here much more integrated, complex. first, i must tell you, iff there is much boring stuff going on in so-called analytic philosophy. but there are many things which i fully admire going on there. and also, for example, i don't know, he now disappeared, i don't know why, philosophers like saul kripke, some others and so on, they did, or even cognitivists. uh there are very intelligent cognitivists who raise the right questions and so on, but nonetheless, and also there is a lot of... bullshit, not taking scientific breakthroughs seriously, going in so-called continental philosophy. the big problem for me today is... what i call the gap between realism and transcendental approach. on the one hand, we have scientific or realistic philosophical approach don't be afraid i will try to which simply. pretends to describe reality the way it is, to put it in very simplistic terms. you forget about who you are, from where you are speaking. then we have transcendental reasoning, which is not something mystical and so on, but it's based on the simple fact that our argumentation is ultimately always circular. for example, their reproach. for example, to mention the guy that you brought, habermas. he's basic. contribution ich to claim that. from the scientific perspective one thing you cannot explain is the normative discursive structures of this scientific procedure itself if you. you can be very good at scientific explanations, evolutionary and so on of this stuff, what goes on, how did human intelligence arise. but all this is possible because you approached nature in a certain way. as a complex cobweb of causes, effects and so on and so on. this doesn't go by itself. so the idea is that we all approach reality from a certain perspective and we cannot ever break out of this. cerle. and now, so that ultimately, but on the other hand, it's clear that somehow, although we are always caught in our symbolic universe and so on, and if some of you follow modern thought, the ultimate in my sense of the term now, not in the strict kantian transcendental philosopher would have been, for example, somebody like michel foucault. for him. the ultimate horizon. of our knowledge is what he calls episteme the idea that in every epoch a certain it may be conflictual but opposite sides always share some presuppositions. a certain base, for example, the opposition between empiricism and rationalism, but they share a whole set of presuppositions about reality and so on. so the idea is this one that this is the ultimate thing. so for example, if you were to ask michel foucault, do we have an immortal soul or not? his answer would have been, all i can do is to describe the episteme, the set of implicit presuppositions, within which this question has meaning at all. and if you ask him, do you believe in... evolutionary account of humanity. his answer would have been, i can only tell you that this evolutionary account is part of a modern scientific paradigm and as such totally different from, for example, medieval paradigm, no. within which meaning was something immanent to reality itself. the universe is meaningful. so what i'm saying is that on the other hand, of course, we all admit, at least almost all of us, that although this is the, ah, another point, if there are some marxists here, marxists, at least so-called western marxists, are also fully transcendental. in what sense? uh for radical marxists, the ultimate horizon is social practice. and as Lukács in the ultimate western marxist work, his first big book, history and class consciousness, he even says, this is a classic statement, nature is a historical social category. which means, of course, somehow we did humanity, we did emerge out of nature. but what we understand by nature is something which is always historically over-determined and as part of our social practice. nature means something totally different in modernity than in early. then in early renaissance and so on and so on. so... we have this ultimate tension on the one hand. naive scientific realism, on the other hand, this transcendental approach. and what i'm obsessed with in my last works, i'm always writing the same book and so on, is precisely, is it possible to break out of this circle? is it possible to move beyond this? transcendental approach that we can just describe the historical horizon of meaning into which we were thrown without returning to naive realism. hier we should be creative. for example, who was that guy? i forgot his name. often here, and that's for me the strength of continental approach. some criticism, even theological, of science which can appear stupid and it is stupid at the level of direct scientific value can be extremely interesting if we read it in a slightly different way as theory of ideology. for example, do you know that i forgot the guy's name, darwin had a friend. who knew his work, darwin's, and was at the same time theologist yes, the one who his reply to darwin was i forgot the name, it's a latin name, i'm too stupid. for navel, you know, it's the old problem. adam is depicted with a navel. but wait a minute, adam was not born, he was created. why then? thus you have it. so the idea is this one, and it's such an ingenious solution. he said. darwin conclusively proves through fossils and so on that our earth or our universe was created at least million years ago. if you take bible literally, it was 4 thousand and some years. so where is the truth? you know what is the answer. of course bible is true, my god, it cannot be not true. so how do we explain fossils and so on? the idea is that the same way when you paint a state, you paint the background to create a false impression of depth. that god directly created fossils and so on to give us a false opening. of the past and this is the best definition. of ideology i can imagine and so on. aren't we all the time inventing traditions in this sense and so on and so on? so again, to answer you properly it's maybe too complex now. but i try to, first i have tremendous, you know what's one of my interests here. maybe this was some interest to you. the latest results insofar as i understand them, i'm the first to admit my limitation. now what is happening now in quantum physics, i was told and i read some popular books, but i try to check it with my friends who are quantum physicists, like, am i totally bluffing or does it have some that with this quantum gravity theory and so on, there is a tremendous progress beyond string theory going on now. and i think that some of the things that you find in quantum physics are, i think, of incredible significance to resolve this problem because the basic presupposition of quantum physics it is precisely that what we perceive as natural reality is not the ultimate reality that there is whatever we call it, quantum oscillations and so on, another level and i think that this is how and let's call it ontology at the level of today's world should function. if i may go on for two three minutes you will like it i promise i'm sorry. i hope you don't know this joke but i love it. a philosopher, i'm very sorry i forgot his name you noticed my senility that i forget many names used a wonderful example to explain quantum physics and my point is the basic paradox of quantum physics. my point is to apply it to reality as such. his idea is this one wonderful simple metaphor a parallel between quantum universe which is as you know heisenberg uncertainty principle although bohr puts it in a slightly different way but the point is this one you know what everybody knows. you cannot measure simultaneously the position and the velocity movement of a particle. okay. now you can read this in epistemological way. we just cannot measure it. niels bohr went a step further and claimed it is in itself that. it's not determined. this is a wonderful vision of reality which is in itself ontologically incomplete. and now comes the parallel with video games. aren't they in the same similar, very superficial analogy? incomplete, in what sense? you remember i don't play them, but i watch my son doing it and i envy him and so on. when you play a video game, let's say you see a house there. but if it's not part of the game to enter that house, then the interior of the house is not programmed. you know this. you know. in the video universe, it's or. in the background, there is the forest. but it's meaningless to say, let's go there and look in detail at the trees. no, because it's not part of the game that you can go there. so, in this book, the idea is this one. it's a very clinical one, but i love it. god did something similar. he underestimated us humans a little bit. he thought that we will never be intelligent enough to move beyond atoms to microparticles. so he said, fuck it, why should i lose time programming there everything? so we, as it were, caught god with his spell down, you know. but my point is... we can how would it be to think reality? as unfinished without this subjectivity god, whatever. is it possible to think reality as unfinished? and here i think utopian as it may appear only a kind of a collaboration between the best of continental tradition, not those arrogant europeans who despise analytic philosophy just, and the best of analytical philosophers can do the job. sorry, i'm too long. what can i say?
Moderator
great, let's take another question., let's go to the hand over here. oh political
great, let's take another question., let's go to the hand over here. oh political
Slavoj Žižek
i no, you moved to the left. that's good. no, i was afraid that you were.
i no, you moved to the left. that's good. no, i was afraid that you were.
Moderator
yeah, in the red shirt, yeah, there we go.
yeah, in the red shirt, yeah, there we go.
Audience Member
your professor zk i'm another fan of yours. i'm here.
your professor zk i'm another fan of yours. i'm here.
Moderator
yeah, you.
yeah, you.
Audience Member
yeah. yeah
yeah. yeah
Slavoj Žižek
my nazi instinct, are you special? .
my nazi instinct, are you special? .
Audience Member
no i am indian i'm from india.
no i am indian i'm from india.
Slavoj Žižek
i'm so sorry. i'm not. i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry. i just i'm myopic, you know. it's not racism. yeah.
i'm so sorry. i'm not. i'm so sorry. i'm so sorry. i just i'm myopic, you know. it's not racism. yeah.
Audience Member
i yeah. so i am studying here a course on environmental change and management and we get to hear this one word like anthropocene every now and then. oh, species are going extinct, polar caps are melting, you know, forest, tropical forest, deforestation. and we club this one thing, anthropocene, always and always. it's like a plus. what do you think about this word? i find it very uncomfortable at times. i find it funny, i find it very serious. what is this word anthropologyocene? the word anthropology. yeah, what is your take on this to club every. on this
i yeah. so i am studying here a course on environmental change and management and we get to hear this one word like anthropocene every now and then. oh, species are going extinct, polar caps are melting, you know, forest, tropical forest, deforestation. and we club this one thing, anthropocene, always and always. it's like a plus. what do you think about this word? i find it very uncomfortable at times. i find it funny, i find it very serious. what is this word anthropologyocene? the word anthropology. yeah, what is your take on this to club every. on this
Slavoj Žižek
yeah.
yeah.
Audience Member
word.
word.
Slavoj Žižek
well, i'm not qualified enough to drag it. scientifically but i like the paradoxes that this work implied. namely, there is one insight in it which is correct, that all this modern progressism, humanity should develop further and further, that unfortunately you find it as an unquestionable base even in marx. presupposes that we can count on nature as that vast background which, as they say, however we will screw it up, destroy ourselves and so on, the sun will rise, there will be another season and so on, that nature is this inexhaustible background. i think that what we are gradually discovering, and that's for me the first step of correct ecology, is not that we should go a step further and not only admit our responsibility, we humans screwed it up. isn't this nice irony that precisely when we become incredibly powerful, we are confronted by our limit. we may destroy the very material conditions of our life. but what i like is this, what if we change perspective and ask ourselves if this entire perspective of human hubris, you know, nature is some kind of a balanced circle, but we men were too aggressive, exploitative, and then you the idea is let's return to our proper place and so on and so on. i think that the true horror and danger is that, if i may put it in these terms, we cannot rely on mother nature as this good caring entity and we shouldn't provoke her too much by making violent intervention. what if nature is in itself a pretty cruel bitch, not a good mother? and i always evoke this simple example. you know, whenever we talk about human catastrophes and so on caused by humanity, don't forget that, for example, our own sources of energy, oil, coal. can we even imagine what kind of megaatastrophes must have happened in prehistory of the earth, prehistory with regard to human history, that we have all these reserves? so... my position is here even more tragic. i'm all for ecology but without illusions i think that we there is no natural balance to which we can simply return. it's open, it's full of risks and so on and so on. the situation is much more open. on the second hand, what interests me is this thing. we talk about anthropocene, danger, humanity, blah, blah, blah. and here psychoanalysis maybe enters. why don't we do more, something? i think that the best term, some of my friends even now published a book where they develop this notion that it's what psychoanalysts call the mechanism of disavowal. it's not simply negation. you admit it, but in an isolated forum you... reject to draw the consequences of it like the french term for this disavowal verleugnung is the german term is je sais bien mais quand même i know very well that it's like this but nonetheless i don't really believe in it so i ignore it. i think there is something of this mechanism at work.
well, i'm not qualified enough to drag it. scientifically but i like the paradoxes that this work implied. namely, there is one insight in it which is correct, that all this modern progressism, humanity should develop further and further, that unfortunately you find it as an unquestionable base even in marx. presupposes that we can count on nature as that vast background which, as they say, however we will screw it up, destroy ourselves and so on, the sun will rise, there will be another season and so on, that nature is this inexhaustible background. i think that what we are gradually discovering, and that's for me the first step of correct ecology, is not that we should go a step further and not only admit our responsibility, we humans screwed it up. isn't this nice irony that precisely when we become incredibly powerful, we are confronted by our limit. we may destroy the very material conditions of our life. but what i like is this, what if we change perspective and ask ourselves if this entire perspective of human hubris, you know, nature is some kind of a balanced circle, but we men were too aggressive, exploitative, and then you the idea is let's return to our proper place and so on and so on. i think that the true horror and danger is that, if i may put it in these terms, we cannot rely on mother nature as this good caring entity and we shouldn't provoke her too much by making violent intervention. what if nature is in itself a pretty cruel bitch, not a good mother? and i always evoke this simple example. you know, whenever we talk about human catastrophes and so on caused by humanity, don't forget that, for example, our own sources of energy, oil, coal. can we even imagine what kind of megaatastrophes must have happened in prehistory of the earth, prehistory with regard to human history, that we have all these reserves? so... my position is here even more tragic. i'm all for ecology but without illusions i think that we there is no natural balance to which we can simply return. it's open, it's full of risks and so on and so on. the situation is much more open. on the second hand, what interests me is this thing. we talk about anthropocene, danger, humanity, blah, blah, blah. and here psychoanalysis maybe enters. why don't we do more, something? i think that the best term, some of my friends even now published a book where they develop this notion that it's what psychoanalysts call the mechanism of disavowal. it's not simply negation. you admit it, but in an isolated forum you... reject to draw the consequences of it like the french term for this disavowal verleugnung is the german term is je sais bien mais quand même i know very well that it's like this but nonetheless i don't really believe in it so i ignore it. i think there is something of this mechanism at work.
Moderator
all know, yes.
all know, yes.
Slavoj Žižek
global warming. there but then you know you go out okay now not in oxford but in general sun is shining and so on and you simply cannot accept it will all this really be threatened now the problem is then how to awaken us truly. i want to avoid the conclusion that many of my leftist friends are. attracted to that we need one big mega catastropherophe that only this will awaken humanity. you know why i am afraid of this? because again, it's this typical traditional marxist mistake. how do they know that the result of this catastrophe will be some society of solidarity, socialism? what if it will be a much more authoritarian society and so on? but my point where maybe i, if i got your... if i got the thrust of your question correctly, where i share your interest is that. although ecology is the topic today, we should all the more carefully analyze all the ideological traps that are there. and in this way, i will now, very briefly return to your question. i forgot, what can philosophers do? i don't believe philosophers can answer. they can raise the right question. this is philosophy at its best. when with ecology, with racism and so on. it shows how the very way we. formulate a problem, is part of the problem, reproduces the problem and so on and so on. my classical example is here harassment. harassment, okay, real harassment, sexual harassment, nothing against. but the term harassment even tolerance are of limited use, even in fighting racism. because i always make this experiment, which i tried, go to the web and download martin luther king's speeches and look for tolerance in them, practically non-existing terms. when you confront racism as a problem of tolerance, it's already a certain reduction to cultural tolerance, we should tolerate each other and so on. with harassment, it's the same. harassment has always this, as it works, narcissistic undertone in the sense of, you know, keep at a distance, don't come too close to me. i think that harassment the fear of harassment is not simply the fear of bad harassment. it is always also the fear of simply the over proximity of the real actual other. and you find this against, even with leftist k like immigrants. but then if you look closely at their image of immigrants, you see that it's that's my dirty word. it's like, you know, in today's society, i always use this example, we like to get a product, but in its clinched form. like beer. yes, but without alcohol. chocolate, yes, but without fat. coffee, yes, but without caffeine. and i claim that what we call sex is precisely sex without sex. and what we claim as standard bourgeois multiculturalism is precisely culturalism without the real other, you know. there is nothing more racist for me than this, for example, american liberal image of so-called native americans. they are holistic, they don't just exploit nature, they are in a dialogue with nature and so on and so on. i cannot imagine more implicitly racist thing than this false respect of the other. i know, again, i didn't answer your question, but fuck it, that's life. thank you. thank.
global warming. there but then you know you go out okay now not in oxford but in general sun is shining and so on and you simply cannot accept it will all this really be threatened now the problem is then how to awaken us truly. i want to avoid the conclusion that many of my leftist friends are. attracted to that we need one big mega catastropherophe that only this will awaken humanity. you know why i am afraid of this? because again, it's this typical traditional marxist mistake. how do they know that the result of this catastrophe will be some society of solidarity, socialism? what if it will be a much more authoritarian society and so on? but my point where maybe i, if i got your... if i got the thrust of your question correctly, where i share your interest is that. although ecology is the topic today, we should all the more carefully analyze all the ideological traps that are there. and in this way, i will now, very briefly return to your question. i forgot, what can philosophers do? i don't believe philosophers can answer. they can raise the right question. this is philosophy at its best. when with ecology, with racism and so on. it shows how the very way we. formulate a problem, is part of the problem, reproduces the problem and so on and so on. my classical example is here harassment. harassment, okay, real harassment, sexual harassment, nothing against. but the term harassment even tolerance are of limited use, even in fighting racism. because i always make this experiment, which i tried, go to the web and download martin luther king's speeches and look for tolerance in them, practically non-existing terms. when you confront racism as a problem of tolerance, it's already a certain reduction to cultural tolerance, we should tolerate each other and so on. with harassment, it's the same. harassment has always this, as it works, narcissistic undertone in the sense of, you know, keep at a distance, don't come too close to me. i think that harassment the fear of harassment is not simply the fear of bad harassment. it is always also the fear of simply the over proximity of the real actual other. and you find this against, even with leftist k like immigrants. but then if you look closely at their image of immigrants, you see that it's that's my dirty word. it's like, you know, in today's society, i always use this example, we like to get a product, but in its clinched form. like beer. yes, but without alcohol. chocolate, yes, but without fat. coffee, yes, but without caffeine. and i claim that what we call sex is precisely sex without sex. and what we claim as standard bourgeois multiculturalism is precisely culturalism without the real other, you know. there is nothing more racist for me than this, for example, american liberal image of so-called native americans. they are holistic, they don't just exploit nature, they are in a dialogue with nature and so on and so on. i cannot imagine more implicitly racist thing than this false respect of the other. i know, again, i didn't answer your question, but fuck it, that's life. thank you. thank.
Moderator
one more. just one more final question. let's go. i hope this one can be a. my god, i feel... are there any women who want to ask a question? yes, there's a woman at the back.
one more. just one more final question. let's go. i hope this one can be a. my god, i feel... are there any women who want to ask a question? yes, there's a woman at the back.
Slavoj Žižek
i think
i think
Moderator
i can't see anything.
i can't see anything.
Slavoj Žižek
very patronizing, but i want to save my or as i like to say ironically precisely because privately i'm not a good feminist i have to cover it up by.
very patronizing, but i want to save my or as i like to say ironically precisely because privately i'm not a good feminist i have to cover it up by.
Audience Member
okay, so in your talk you defined populism not as an act perhaps cult of personality surrounding a leader or even a leader being promoted through things like memes and internet culture, but as an act of enemy creation. would you say that even, for example, the british left at the moment, because you said this was a problem both on the left and the right, that specifically in britain that... perhaps like jeremy corbyn and the labour party at the moment have created an enemy and if so, what would you say it is?
okay, so in your talk you defined populism not as an act perhaps cult of personality surrounding a leader or even a leader being promoted through things like memes and internet culture, but as an act of enemy creation. would you say that even, for example, the british left at the moment, because you said this was a problem both on the left and the right, that specifically in britain that... perhaps like jeremy corbyn and the labour party at the moment have created an enemy and if so, what would you say it is?
Slavoj Žižek
now, i'm greatly sympathetic to corbyn, although i'm not an economist and i don't know what would have happened, but it's not that they are economically stupid, you know. our economic reality is not an objective fact. the way markets react, it's full of prejudices, fears and so on and so on. and what i fear, as all my friends, is that let's say corbyn labour party comes to power and then there is some kind of a panicky market reaction and so on and you can say it's irrational but the effects can be very real. but another point, i wonder if you would agree. i follow a little bit the debate and precisely what i, maybe i'm wrong, relatively like about corbyn is that whatever he is, people usually even reproach him for that. but i like that. he is not a demagogic, charismatic populist. if there is almost a bland person, how they put it not, it's him. and so i think he cannot compare with real european populists. although they are not all bad, look at podemos is for me what i have in mind as long as they play this game of and when i said in my introductory five minutes, which lasted 25 minutes, when i said that how how we cannot count on this in advanced harmony. this is why the populist formula, at least of iglesias in spain, was forget, he even used vir words all the, screw, fuck ideology, socialism, communism, turn to ordinary people, listen to their actual demands, troubles, and so on and so on. unfortunately, i don't believe in this. of course, up to the point we should do it. but look where it brought podemos. they got there 15% or whatever and you know, i'm always fascinated by it's easy to be a protest party. you register protest of the people and so on. but then look at their electoral program in the last elections. it wasn't even a very radical social democracy. and people were disappointed because all the big rhetorics listening to real people and so on ended up in very, very modest proposals, raise the taxes a little bit here and so on, up and down. you see, that's another problem that i have with the very notion of populism is that. it is for me, this will be a general reflection. two. match it relies too much to an idea of emergency state. populist moment is, it's not normal, it's antagonism, tension and so on. but i think i'm here a radical leftist, but very... careful one. i think that the really crucial moment of every revolution is when things, sooner or later, stabilize, when life returns to normal, how do ordinary people feel the difference at that point? i hate this big thing,, one million people on the square, there, yeah, yeah, and what happens then? like in arab spring, you have one million people on tahrir square and then you get muslim brotherhood and now you get military regime, so on and so on. in greece, it was a i blame them, but you got the biggest popular mobilization, syriza, at the end, are you aware what totally crazy thing happened there? syriza. which built its reputation on rejecting austerity became the most faithful executor of austerity. so you see that's my. skepsis of populism. i don't think it addresses or answers the true question. i'm very naive, old-fashioned, although i don't believe in traditional marxist answers, marxist here. the big problem is, and all other things are bullshit. do we have a serious feasible alternative to global capitalism or are we all enlightened leftist fukuyamaists? which means fukuyama was basically right, democracy, capitalism, we just let's move it a little bit towards the left and so on and so on. and i don't see any communist party or whatever saving us. i'm a pessimistic communist. sense that i think that with regard to problems that we are facing today, ecology, immigrants, or this, not just immigrants, this, global world disorder, megatopic, biogenetics. all the experiments today, prospects of directly wiring our brain, linking that. who will control this? what will be the result of all this? i don't think that. the way our societies are structured now economically and politically. is appropriate to even properly confront these questions. and i'm here a great pessimist because i'm the first to admit that what we knew till now as communism was, if anything, even worse in it. i just'm again a communist out of despair. i see the need for a radical change, but there is no predetermination. maybe it will not happen. maybe hollywood is right. by hollywood is right, i mean it's incredible how even hollywood sees this dark prospect in all these post-catastrophic movies, hunger game and so on and so on. in some sense, they are right. we are approaching a new divided society. i mean are we aware what trump means? every functioning democracy. has to rely on a set of shared presuppositions. you can have all the polemics and so on, but against the background on not just procedural, but even more substantial presuppositions about the basics of economic order, about the basis of democratic decision and so on and so on. and that's what is happening now in the united states. it's literally already ideological civil war. this shared ground, which was still now very operative between republicans and democrats is disintegrating. and my belief is that what trump did, i will not say his great result but he did something. he ruined this liberal democratic consensus shared by all. and maybe we should be courageous enough to admit that the solution is not simply to re-establish that consensus, but that we should propose another consensus, a little bit more to the left, what Sloterdijk called objective social democracy. because i think, again, that it's a tremendous trend that today, it's not only trump. trump is part of the global movement, what happens in china and so on, where a new authoritarian capitalism is emerging. and again, it's a very dangerous situation. that's why, to conclude, i don't agree with those who cry fascism, fascism. this is the worst manner of old leftists. they are too lazy to think, which is when something emerges which nobody likes, instead of thinking it seriously, they. just reduce it to some old things which already happened and we don't like. trump fascism. no, sorry, trump is not simply a fascist, my god. even this alt-right... populism now is not simply fascism. i think we really live in a dangerous situation. but again, my hope is, i often, although i'm well aware of the horrors of maoism, great leap forward, up to 50 million dead and so on, but i still admire that saying by mao, there is disorder under the heaven, so the situation is itcellent. we shouldn't be afraid to act in this situation. i stop. thank very much. thank you very much, professor.
now, i'm greatly sympathetic to corbyn, although i'm not an economist and i don't know what would have happened, but it's not that they are economically stupid, you know. our economic reality is not an objective fact. the way markets react, it's full of prejudices, fears and so on and so on. and what i fear, as all my friends, is that let's say corbyn labour party comes to power and then there is some kind of a panicky market reaction and so on and you can say it's irrational but the effects can be very real. but another point, i wonder if you would agree. i follow a little bit the debate and precisely what i, maybe i'm wrong, relatively like about corbyn is that whatever he is, people usually even reproach him for that. but i like that. he is not a demagogic, charismatic populist. if there is almost a bland person, how they put it not, it's him. and so i think he cannot compare with real european populists. although they are not all bad, look at podemos is for me what i have in mind as long as they play this game of and when i said in my introductory five minutes, which lasted 25 minutes, when i said that how how we cannot count on this in advanced harmony. this is why the populist formula, at least of iglesias in spain, was forget, he even used vir words all the, screw, fuck ideology, socialism, communism, turn to ordinary people, listen to their actual demands, troubles, and so on and so on. unfortunately, i don't believe in this. of course, up to the point we should do it. but look where it brought podemos. they got there 15% or whatever and you know, i'm always fascinated by it's easy to be a protest party. you register protest of the people and so on. but then look at their electoral program in the last elections. it wasn't even a very radical social democracy. and people were disappointed because all the big rhetorics listening to real people and so on ended up in very, very modest proposals, raise the taxes a little bit here and so on, up and down. you see, that's another problem that i have with the very notion of populism is that. it is for me, this will be a general reflection. two. match it relies too much to an idea of emergency state. populist moment is, it's not normal, it's antagonism, tension and so on. but i think i'm here a radical leftist, but very... careful one. i think that the really crucial moment of every revolution is when things, sooner or later, stabilize, when life returns to normal, how do ordinary people feel the difference at that point? i hate this big thing,, one million people on the square, there, yeah, yeah, and what happens then? like in arab spring, you have one million people on tahrir square and then you get muslim brotherhood and now you get military regime, so on and so on. in greece, it was a i blame them, but you got the biggest popular mobilization, syriza, at the end, are you aware what totally crazy thing happened there? syriza. which built its reputation on rejecting austerity became the most faithful executor of austerity. so you see that's my. skepsis of populism. i don't think it addresses or answers the true question. i'm very naive, old-fashioned, although i don't believe in traditional marxist answers, marxist here. the big problem is, and all other things are bullshit. do we have a serious feasible alternative to global capitalism or are we all enlightened leftist fukuyamaists? which means fukuyama was basically right, democracy, capitalism, we just let's move it a little bit towards the left and so on and so on. and i don't see any communist party or whatever saving us. i'm a pessimistic communist. sense that i think that with regard to problems that we are facing today, ecology, immigrants, or this, not just immigrants, this, global world disorder, megatopic, biogenetics. all the experiments today, prospects of directly wiring our brain, linking that. who will control this? what will be the result of all this? i don't think that. the way our societies are structured now economically and politically. is appropriate to even properly confront these questions. and i'm here a great pessimist because i'm the first to admit that what we knew till now as communism was, if anything, even worse in it. i just'm again a communist out of despair. i see the need for a radical change, but there is no predetermination. maybe it will not happen. maybe hollywood is right. by hollywood is right, i mean it's incredible how even hollywood sees this dark prospect in all these post-catastrophic movies, hunger game and so on and so on. in some sense, they are right. we are approaching a new divided society. i mean are we aware what trump means? every functioning democracy. has to rely on a set of shared presuppositions. you can have all the polemics and so on, but against the background on not just procedural, but even more substantial presuppositions about the basics of economic order, about the basis of democratic decision and so on and so on. and that's what is happening now in the united states. it's literally already ideological civil war. this shared ground, which was still now very operative between republicans and democrats is disintegrating. and my belief is that what trump did, i will not say his great result but he did something. he ruined this liberal democratic consensus shared by all. and maybe we should be courageous enough to admit that the solution is not simply to re-establish that consensus, but that we should propose another consensus, a little bit more to the left, what Sloterdijk called objective social democracy. because i think, again, that it's a tremendous trend that today, it's not only trump. trump is part of the global movement, what happens in china and so on, where a new authoritarian capitalism is emerging. and again, it's a very dangerous situation. that's why, to conclude, i don't agree with those who cry fascism, fascism. this is the worst manner of old leftists. they are too lazy to think, which is when something emerges which nobody likes, instead of thinking it seriously, they. just reduce it to some old things which already happened and we don't like. trump fascism. no, sorry, trump is not simply a fascist, my god. even this alt-right... populism now is not simply fascism. i think we really live in a dangerous situation. but again, my hope is, i often, although i'm well aware of the horrors of maoism, great leap forward, up to 50 million dead and so on, but i still admire that saying by mao, there is disorder under the heaven, so the situation is itcellent. we shouldn't be afraid to act in this situation. i stop. thank very much. thank you very much, professor.