Reflections on Violence
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2014-02 · 0:38:28 · 6,065 words
revolution-violenceideologyliberalism-political-correctnessrace-antisemitismgeopolitics-warcapitalismdemocracycinema-art-culturephilosophy-general
A post-lecture Q&A session in which Žižek addresses questions about political violence, Obama's failure of will, media distortion of protest, the Roma/Gypsy question in Slovenia, and the tension between his comedian persona and his serious political message. He argues that violence is not a choice but a condition already embedded in the existing order, and that 'systemic' violence is more fundamental than spectacular acts of window-smashing. The session also touches on neoliberal ideology's dishonesty about Scandinavian competitiveness and on Žižek's own strategic use of humour and obscenity to smuggle in radical content.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 9
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “material efficiency of ideology”
Ideology is not merely false consciousness but has real causal force: Republican voters support policies (tax cuts for the rich) that demonstrably worsen their own situation, yet the ideology holds.
The Clintonian strategy of meeting opponents halfway; Žižek cites it as the price the Democrats are now paying, compromise registered as weakness rather than strength.
In Nietzsche's sense, violence that only reacts against the other rather than transforming the system; Žižek deploys it to argue Hitler's violence (Kristallnacht etc.) was reactive cowardice, not 'real' systemic change.
as “no ethnic cleansing without poetry”
Žižek's formulation that ideological-aesthetic ground-laying by 'clean-handed' thinkers and poets enables later physical violence, illustrated by Husserl excluding Gypsies from European spiritual unity.
In the Rancièrian register, the political process by which those without a place in the social order constitute themselves as collective political subjects; raised here in relation to whether individual resistance can become organized action.
Rancière's term for society as an organic whole where everyone is in their proper place, which Žižek contrasts with radical egalitarian rupture.
as “objective/subjective violence”
Distinction between spectacular, visible subjective violence (riots, murder) and the invisible objective violence that sustains the existing order; Žižek insists the latter is primary.
The symbolic order, the organic social body on which everyday life relies; Žižek describes radical political moments as the experience of this order suddenly being 'up in the air'.
Žižek's self-description of his strategic persona: using obscenity and comedy to attract attention so that radical political content can be delivered, consciously risking that audiences stay for the tricks and miss the message.
Stories he reaches for 1
Two weeks before the general election Blair was voted most unpopular person in the UK in a public phone-in; he then won the election. Žižek uses this to argue that public discontent is not captured by the electoral system, which is the structural cause of political violence.
“two weeks before he won the elections Tony Blair won [the most unpopular] isn't this a strange sign of political discrepancy”
Works invoked 2
Violence book
Žižek's own book on violence is referenced by a questioner as the source of his distinction between subjective and systemic/objective violence; Žižek confirms and develops these ideas in the Q&A.
Husserl's late work is used as evidence that philosophical idealism can provide the spiritual-aesthetic ground for ethnic exclusion; Derrida's reading of it is invoked approvingly.
People invoked 22
Bill Clinton negative
His strategy of triangulation (meeting opponents halfway) is cited as the source of the Democratic Party's current weakness: they are now paying the price for those compromises.
Mahatma Gandhi positive
Invoked as someone more 'violent' than Hitler in Žižek's redefined sense: Gandhi actually transformed the system rather than reacting within it.
Jacques Derrida positive
Mentioned briefly as having pointed out the exclusion of Gypsies in Husserl's text.
Called 'the big bad guy' who openly supported McCain; cited as the extreme instance of a broader Democratic Party tendency of internal opposition to progressive politics.
Jacques Lacan positive
Invoked in the Santa Cruz joke anecdote: the 'correct Lacanian answer' is that the form of the joke already carries the sexual content; Žižek accepts this as a genuine Lacanian insight.
Mentioned only as Hanan Ashrawi's teacher to establish her intellectual credentials.
Hanan Ashrawi positive
Described as an educated, pro-Western Palestinian spokeswoman (Edward Said's student) whose disappearance from CNN is used to illustrate the structural bias of media through the coincidence of opposite interests.
Alain Badiou positive
Called 'my best friend'; Žižek 'slightly disagrees' with him about May '68, suggesting the events were less heroic than Badiou celebrates.
Referenced as the kind of stumbling, inarticulate Palestinian image that the Zionist lobby preferred on CNN in order to make Palestinians look bad.
Adolf Hitler negative
Recast as a coward who could not perform systemic violence and so fell back on reactive spectacular killing; Žižek explicitly refuses to grant him even 'evil greatness'.
Augusto Pinochet negative
His 'return to normal' rhetoric at the moment of the coup is the exemplary formulation of corporate violence, extreme force deployed to restore rather than transform the order.
Michael Moore positive
Žižek says he doesn't like him excessively but credits him with the wonderful point that Republicans believe in their project and use power when they have it, unlike Democrats.
Göran Therborn positive
Swedish Marxist sociologist whose empirical data on Scandinavian competitiveness Žižek uses to demolish the neoliberal argument that redistribution reduces economic performance.
Jacques Rancière positive
His distinction between society as corporate social body and radical egalitarian rupture is invoked approvingly to theorise violence as rule-breaking.
Eric Santner positive
Described as a friend who sits on academic prize committees and has repeatedly nominated Žižek, who has never received a prize because his politics are deemed 'problematic'.
Edmund Husserl negative
Cited as a 'clean-handed' thinker whose spiritual definition of Europe in 'The Crisis of European Sciences' explicitly excluded Gypsies, laying philosophical groundwork for ethnic exclusion.
Barack Obama negative
Criticised for excessive niceness and constitutional unwillingness to use power ruthlessly; the knife analogy says he would stick a knife in but not turn it.
Jürgen Habermas negative
The 'Habermasian way' of seeking a priori Kantian rules for legitimate political action is rejected as inadequate to the complexity of political violence.
Karl Marx positive
Cited on the value of labour power as the result of ideological struggle rather than a biological given, in support of the critique of neoliberal claims about wage levels.
Abraham Lincoln negative
His maxim that you cannot fool all the people all the time is cited and then refuted by the evidence of right-wing populism's success.
Friedrich Nietzsche positive
His concept of reactive (ressentiment-based) violence is deployed to classify Hitler's violence as reactive cowardice rather than active systemic transformation.
The paradox of being voted most unpopular person in Britain two weeks before winning the general election is used as evidence that electoral systems fail to capture real public discontent.
What it argues
systemic vs. spectacular violenceObama and the failure of liberal political willmedia distortion of protest and dissentneoliberal ideology vs. Scandinavian empirical realityRoma/Gypsy exclusion and the violence of European spiritual identitythe dangerous clown strategy: using humour to smuggle radical contentthe paradox of compromise as weakness in political negotiation
Dialectical moves 8
“the true violence is already here—in the existing order—so it's not a choice between violence and non-violence”
What appears as a dilemma (act violently or not) conceals that everyday normality is already violent; the real question is which violence one endorses.
“far from being violent, Hitler wasn't violent enough—he was a coward who couldn't do real systemic violence and so resorted to killing people”
Spectacular physical murder is recast as reactive weakness: the truly 'violent' act would have been transforming the economic system, which Hitler was too cowardly to attempt.
“Gandhi was more violent than Hitler”
Inverts the usual ranking of violence by redefining it as systemic transformation rather than body count: Gandhi changed the rules of the game, Hitler only reacted within them.
“smashing windows is not violence—the violence is already the austerity and tuition imposed on people”
Reframes the moral hierarchy: what is called violence (protest destruction) is exposed as secondary to the structural violence that provoked it.
“in order to protect the poor Roma, the police did exactly what the local racists wanted”
State 'protection' of a minority reproduces and enacts the discrimination it ostensibly opposes, collapsing the distinction between protector and persecutor.
“the coincidence of opposite interests: both PLO hardliners and Zionist lobbies wanted Hanan Ashrawi off the air—for opposite reasons she didn't fit either's preferred image of Palestinians”
Two antagonistic political forces converge on the same exclusion for opposite reasons, revealing that ideological image-management overrides political content on both sides.
“the Tea Party won on slogans against public debt and its first economic moves will guarantee the debt explodes even more”
The material efficiency of ideology: the ideology reproduces the very condition it claims to oppose, yet retains its hold over believers.
“maybe Lincoln was wrong—the success of American right-wing populism suggests you can cheat all the people all the time”
Lincoln's democratic optimism about truth prevailing is reversed: sustained ideological manipulation can defeat enlightenment indefinitely.
Claims 14
asserts
Showing willingness to compromise from the start is experienced by political opponents as weakness and invites further aggression rather than cooperation.Obama's strategy of bipartisan outreach
rejects
There is no a priori Kantian rule for when political violence is justified; it must be judged contextually and by the ear.Habermasian/Kantian universal rules for political action
reframes
The real question is not violence versus non-violence but whether any genuine change is possible without some rupture of the existing rules of the game.political violence
asserts
Smashing windows at a protest is not the primary violence; the structural violence of austerity, tuition fees, and dispossession is the real violence, and equating the two is hypocritical.the morality of protest violence
asserts
Hitler was not violent enough in the sense that his spectacular physical violence (Kristallnacht) was reactive cowardice that substituted for the systemic transformation he was unable to perform.Hitler and systemic vs. reactive violence
asserts
Gandhi was more violent than Hitler in the meaningful sense because he actually transformed the system rather than reactively killing people to preserve it.Gandhi and the definition of true political violence
asserts
The Tea Party's electoral success demonstrates that, at least for a significant portion of the electorate, you can fool all of the people all of the time, falsifying Lincoln's maxim.right-wing populism and the limits of democratic rationality
asserts
Neoliberalism is an ideology, not an actual policy: the United States and all major economies are effectively half state-run and constantly cheat with their own neoliberal premises.neoliberalism
rejects
Scandinavian countries empirically disprove the neoliberal claim that more egalitarian redistributive policies necessarily reduce competitiveness.neoliberal competitiveness argument
asserts
Husserl's exclusion of Gypsies from European spiritual unity in 'The Crisis of European Sciences' shows that 'clean-handed' philosophers lay the ideological groundwork for later ethnic cleansing.the role of philosophy in enabling ethnic violence
asserts
The value of labor power is not a biological given but the outcome of ideological struggle over what counts as a normal standard of living.Marxist political economy
asserts
Media coverage is not controlled in a paranoid conspiratorial way but is nonetheless structurally biased in ways that silence certain voices (e.g. Hanan Ashrawi) through the convergence of opposite interests.media and political representation
asserts
The true cause of political violence is the failure of parliamentary representation to capture existing public discontent, as demonstrated by Tony Blair winning an election weeks after being voted most unpopular person in Britain.political representation and violence
asserts
The Democratic Party itself, more than Republicans, is the obstacle to progressive reform in the United States.the Democratic Party
Quotes 10
“it's not a choice between violence or non-violence because the way we are in everyday life already is violent”Slavoj Žižek · systemic violence as the baseline condition
“real balls would have been to not to instead of killing people to killing changing the system a little bit and he killed millions because he was afraid to change”Slavoj Žižek · Hitler's cowardice / reactive vs. systemic violence
“no ethnic cleansing without poetry maybe even without you know I this is whom I hate these thinkers poets who their hands are very clean but ah ah they lay the foundations slowly”Slavoj Žižek · ideology and aesthetic ground-laying for violence
“the paradox of political power is that when you want to seduce the opponent by way of saying okay let's meet halfway blah blah blah that's not the way to do if you start with this opponent will necessarily experience this as a weakness”Slavoj Žižek · compromise registers as weakness
“a moderate leftist will stick a knife into you but then the communist turns a knife left no like this is Obama is not in his nature”Slavoj Žižek · the difference between liberal and communist political will
“do they believe in anything they they act as if they don't believe they are afraid to brutally do it”Slavoj Žižek · Democrats' lack of political conviction
“maybe Lincoln was wrong the success of this American right-wing populism means that at least for a large amount of people you can cheat all of them all the time”Slavoj Žižek · the failure of democratic enlightenment faith
“the moment you see in what sense this is not violence you see our point”Slavoj Žižek · reclassifying protest destruction as non-violence reveals the systemic analysis
“why should we I know I hate like as if since we are leftist what we should do just oh children are starving in Africa and so on fuck it why we can have better fun than the stupid right-wingers”Slavoj Žižek · the left's right to pleasure and humour
“the value of labor force is the result of ideological struggle how much is accepted as normal”Slavoj Žižek · Marxist political economy: the value of labour is not natural but contested
Transcript 41 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Just to maybe we can do one two questions just to sustain the illusion that. I'm
Just to maybe we can do one two questions just to sustain the illusion that. I'm
unknown
going to take this in case
going to take this in case
Slavoj Žižek
you. Ah woman wants still no no I wanted to do the obscenity you you there is something phallic about it you want it no? Okay sorry I cannot resist it. And now you want it. We are
you. Ah woman wants still no no I wanted to do the obscenity you you there is something phallic about it you want it no? Okay sorry I cannot resist it. And now you want it. We are
unknown
not used to be obscene and provocative and Žižek but we are not used to the sentimental version but we're just.
not used to be obscene and provocative and Žižek but we are not used to the sentimental version but we're just.
Slavoj Žižek
Let me tell you something you know that I got the answer of a lifetime when I repeated my old problematic joke this was the true Lacanian answer now in the United States against this stupid political correctness no you know this Santa Cruz story which really happens I was there and they told me why your dirty stories we have wonderful jokes here which are very funny but nobody is hurt and humiliated like what happens when a triangle meets a circle? Of course I said brutally you know what the hell do I care what happens when a triangle meets a circle I want dirty joke when somebody is and then I got the correct answer which was how can you say this as a Lacanian don't you get it that you know the true trick is the form itself and so on that I totally that I fall into some kind of non-dialectical substantialism and so on on the other hand then I I was told you even missed the connotation of this pure form like what happens when a triangle meets with a circle circle phallic triangle you know what my god many things happen okay it's another story what I'm saying is let's go on please. Still
Let me tell you something you know that I got the answer of a lifetime when I repeated my old problematic joke this was the true Lacanian answer now in the United States against this stupid political correctness no you know this Santa Cruz story which really happens I was there and they told me why your dirty stories we have wonderful jokes here which are very funny but nobody is hurt and humiliated like what happens when a triangle meets a circle? Of course I said brutally you know what the hell do I care what happens when a triangle meets a circle I want dirty joke when somebody is and then I got the correct answer which was how can you say this as a Lacanian don't you get it that you know the true trick is the form itself and so on that I totally that I fall into some kind of non-dialectical substantialism and so on on the other hand then I I was told you even missed the connotation of this pure form like what happens when a triangle meets with a circle circle phallic triangle you know what my god many things happen okay it's another story what I'm saying is let's go on please. Still
unknown
into obscene jokes and obscene jokes are good for [unintelligible]. Please. Any
into obscene jokes and obscene jokes are good for [unintelligible]. Please. Any
Slavoj Žižek
question then. No but what interests me is if you have something I'm open here I'm not bluffing about points which I considered are even moderately interesting like this idea of inventing a new way way of this yes sorry you ruined my pleasure which is to ask myself a question and then. Hello
question then. No but what interests me is if you have something I'm open here I'm not bluffing about points which I considered are even moderately interesting like this idea of inventing a new way way of this yes sorry you ruined my pleasure which is to ask myself a question and then. Hello
unknown
just maybe to cover the accusations against Obama one of the interesting facts about Obama's early presidency is the fact that he he had all the power at a certain point he had the whole senate he had congress and one of the problems was one of the big criticisms of him is the fact that he didn't use it to really attack the republicans instead of say pushing through healthcare reform he goes around and says well let's try and convince the republicans to join along that he wasn't violent enough or how would
just maybe to cover the accusations against Obama one of the interesting facts about Obama's early presidency is the fact that he he had all the power at a certain point he had the whole senate he had congress and one of the problems was one of the big criticisms of him is the fact that he didn't use it to really attack the republicans instead of say pushing through healthcare reform he goes around and says well let's try and convince the republicans to join along that he wasn't violent enough or how would
Slavoj Žižek
you. Yeah no no I not only here I totally agree with you because you know I wonder if you saw it a week ago in New York I watched an interview with Michael Moore not that I like him excessively but he made a wonderful point the slogan of his interview is more and more I like republicans no no he's not and then he said because formally my god when they got power they use it brutally they believe in it and he says I'm starting to think do these democrats around Obama you know he sounded as a kind of a progressive progressive Christian fanatic because he said do they believe in anything they they act as if they don't believe they are afraid to to brutally do it you know why I also agree with you because I know enough of my own small political experiences you know what's the paradox of you may know it if you are involved in it the paradox of political power is that when you want to seduce the opponent by way of saying okay let's meet halfway blah blah blah that's not the way to do if you start with this opponent will necessarily experience this as a weakness no first you must shoot and then when you scare them then maybe if necessary you know you don't begin by making compromises I here I totally I totally I totally agree with you that my god again the paradox is at a formal level we should learn from although you know it's wonderful what is happening now with this Tea Party and so on how involved they are in a pure I think the most interesting class struggle is now going on within the Republican Party you have the Tea Party which wants what cut the taxes and slash the budget deficit of course the problem is how to do this together no because all things are already starting to move in the sense of the split there because do you know that the true leadership not Tea Party of of the Republican Party already met big bank managers and promised them to repeal that Volcker Amendment whatever which precisely prohibits or tries to control these speculations by banks which led to and so on so you have here a party which won with the slogan against public deficit debt and its first economic measure two measures will be to abolish this amendment and B to prolong the Bush's Bush's tax cut for the rich people which means a guarantee that public debt will explode even more you see here you have but the story is here a very sad one it's the story about material efficiency of ideology because if you are naively rational you would say can they see that to lower sorry to prolong the tax cuts means immediately everybody even knows how much it's billion per years billions more deficit and nonetheless they do it so I this is the point but I agree here with you my only problem is that I had debates with my American friends about this was Obama even first yes I agree with you he is way too kind a guy he really is you know I don't like this I mean it might be nice sympathetically but you know he you know my cynical definition they asked me what is the difference between moderate leftist and a true communist okay to annoy people I said even if the situation is desperate a moderate leftist will stick a knife into you but then the communist turns a knife left no like this is Obama is not in his nature no I agree with you totally my point is only that again are you aware for example this healthcare reform how many obstacles opponents he had even with this modest politics even in the Democratic Party itself I think maybe more than Obama himself the the problem is the Democratic Party this is what is happening now in the states both big parties are getting split republicans into Tea Party populism but there the result is predictable I think that you know this Lincoln saying you cannot you can cheat some people most of the time all the time all people sometimes not all the people all the time where maybe Lincoln was wrong the success of this American right-wing populism means that at least for a large amount of people you can cheat all of them all the time at least the majority so but and in the Democratic Party you know it's not just you know now all the price for all those Clinton compromises triangulation and so on triangulations I think they pay the price don't underestimate the extent probably you know to what extent within the Democratic Party itself this I mean Senator Lieberman the big bad guy who openly supported McCain is just the extreme you have these realistic blah view and they are they are more or less even openly now opposed to opposed to Obama okay there was a gentleman there in white and there's another another oh sorry yeah thanks as far as what you said in the beginning about how you separate yourself above the events that happened here yesterday with the demonstration and everything I only know from the media what I know maybe something was wrong I apologize no no no at one point you said my god not murders' violence so my question would be when do you draw the line politically and theoretically and I just have to invoke an adult example from Greece yeah the in Greece the politics have been very contentious for the past years after the crisis hit and
you. Yeah no no I not only here I totally agree with you because you know I wonder if you saw it a week ago in New York I watched an interview with Michael Moore not that I like him excessively but he made a wonderful point the slogan of his interview is more and more I like republicans no no he's not and then he said because formally my god when they got power they use it brutally they believe in it and he says I'm starting to think do these democrats around Obama you know he sounded as a kind of a progressive progressive Christian fanatic because he said do they believe in anything they they act as if they don't believe they are afraid to to brutally do it you know why I also agree with you because I know enough of my own small political experiences you know what's the paradox of you may know it if you are involved in it the paradox of political power is that when you want to seduce the opponent by way of saying okay let's meet halfway blah blah blah that's not the way to do if you start with this opponent will necessarily experience this as a weakness no first you must shoot and then when you scare them then maybe if necessary you know you don't begin by making compromises I here I totally I totally I totally agree with you that my god again the paradox is at a formal level we should learn from although you know it's wonderful what is happening now with this Tea Party and so on how involved they are in a pure I think the most interesting class struggle is now going on within the Republican Party you have the Tea Party which wants what cut the taxes and slash the budget deficit of course the problem is how to do this together no because all things are already starting to move in the sense of the split there because do you know that the true leadership not Tea Party of of the Republican Party already met big bank managers and promised them to repeal that Volcker Amendment whatever which precisely prohibits or tries to control these speculations by banks which led to and so on so you have here a party which won with the slogan against public deficit debt and its first economic measure two measures will be to abolish this amendment and B to prolong the Bush's Bush's tax cut for the rich people which means a guarantee that public debt will explode even more you see here you have but the story is here a very sad one it's the story about material efficiency of ideology because if you are naively rational you would say can they see that to lower sorry to prolong the tax cuts means immediately everybody even knows how much it's billion per years billions more deficit and nonetheless they do it so I this is the point but I agree here with you my only problem is that I had debates with my American friends about this was Obama even first yes I agree with you he is way too kind a guy he really is you know I don't like this I mean it might be nice sympathetically but you know he you know my cynical definition they asked me what is the difference between moderate leftist and a true communist okay to annoy people I said even if the situation is desperate a moderate leftist will stick a knife into you but then the communist turns a knife left no like this is Obama is not in his nature no I agree with you totally my point is only that again are you aware for example this healthcare reform how many obstacles opponents he had even with this modest politics even in the Democratic Party itself I think maybe more than Obama himself the the problem is the Democratic Party this is what is happening now in the states both big parties are getting split republicans into Tea Party populism but there the result is predictable I think that you know this Lincoln saying you cannot you can cheat some people most of the time all the time all people sometimes not all the people all the time where maybe Lincoln was wrong the success of this American right-wing populism means that at least for a large amount of people you can cheat all of them all the time at least the majority so but and in the Democratic Party you know it's not just you know now all the price for all those Clinton compromises triangulation and so on triangulations I think they pay the price don't underestimate the extent probably you know to what extent within the Democratic Party itself this I mean Senator Lieberman the big bad guy who openly supported McCain is just the extreme you have these realistic blah view and they are they are more or less even openly now opposed to opposed to Obama okay there was a gentleman there in white and there's another another oh sorry yeah thanks as far as what you said in the beginning about how you separate yourself above the events that happened here yesterday with the demonstration and everything I only know from the media what I know maybe something was wrong I apologize no no no at one point you said my god not murders' violence so my question would be when do you draw the line politically and theoretically and I just have to invoke an adult example from Greece yeah the in Greece the politics have been very contentious for the past years after the crisis hit and
unknown
everything and then in one of the biggest demonstrations against the austerity measures things got contentious as they were and somehow three people died out of a fire that was caused by burning by people just demolishing
everything and then in one of the biggest demonstrations against the austerity measures things got contentious as they were and somehow three people died out of a fire that was caused by burning by people just demolishing
Slavoj Žižek
something yeah so my question because because we have to be more serious in this in my view
something yeah so my question because because we have to be more serious in this in my view
unknown
approach when do you draw the line strategically and theoretically in terms of violence murders' violence non-murders' violence and violence as a meaning for
approach when do you draw the line strategically and theoretically in terms of violence murders' violence non-murders' violence and violence as a meaning for
Slavoj Žižek
acting yeah now maybe my reply will disappoint you I mean of course I I only can give you I don't think you can in the Habermasian way draw some kind of a Kantian a priori rule and so on I unfortunately you have to what's the expression play it by the ear or whatever I don't think you can say okay like for example some Greek friends even told me you can establish rules like when you attack a building it should be only like McDonald's foreign company not this poor small cafe owner who blah blah blah yeah but you can only play this up to a certain limit there there is no a priori rule but nonetheless I think unfortunately that you can you have to take the risk because it's horrible to say but you know it works there are situations where if you don't have a minimum of this sense of emergency things people things simply don't start to move like let's take it here precisely without those a little bit of crashed windows or whatever whatever I think these propositions would simply I don't know not be taken seriously and so on and so on the problem is the way our media are structured I can well imagine media I'm not blaming I mean it's so easy to blame the media but our public space is so distorted that only in this way you can be heard I'm far from idealizing for example Norway and so on Sweden but nonetheless in those countries people convinced me and again I repeat it three times I'm far from idealizing them but they have I think much higher level of this you can be heard without violence you know it's all a question of again how the public space is structured and again I know this may be disappointing but like the conclusion would be then practically do nothing I mean anything can run out of control you know like this would be the same thing as to say sorry for this bad taste example let's let's prohibit all the football matches because you know whenever you have them and so on and so on no I have no I mean to be frank I'm well aware of the dangers of violence and I don't celebrate violence like I only once was in a situation which was not even violent but so-so in ex-Yugoslavia when it was falling apart there was a week maybe in Slovenia where it was a little bit of this it wasn't clear who is in power and so on and I can tell you there is nothing pleasant about it you know it's easy to have this dream oh the state withdraws and oh we are free yeah but uh uh uh you know like remember all these examples that we celebrate let's take May '68 no that's my suspicion about it you know the story much more often than we think was here I slightly disagree with my best friend Badiou was that you know you come with your car you parked it beyond Port Royal or on the right side parked it safely then you crossed the La Seine you threw some bottles demonstrated then you withdraw to the to the Rive Gauche no no to the Rive Droite the north you meet in a cafe with friends if possible with some journalist for an interview and then you take your took your limousine and wait in other words you know are we aware to what extent the state has to function in the sense of we rely on that on that don't play with that too easily the problem is not that I'm celebrating violence the problem is the inertia mediatic and so on of the political you know what is for me the true cause of violence you remember this story I was repeating this story often when the last elections that were won by Labour Party I was here I remember two weeks before and there was a big show they were electing through people's votes calling listeners the most unpopular person in the UK of course Tony Blair won but two weeks later he won the elections isn't this a strange sign of political discrepancy that is to say obviously there was a large extent of public discontent which wasn't captured by the system of parliamentary representation the problem the only way to really fight violence is to to change things to change things at that level no yes just following on the way um just at the beginning you talked about the London demonstrations and it was interesting watching the media coverage when the the radical element of the action were on for example this BBC show Newsnight no matter how hard the person tried it was incredibly difficult to find any kind of line to say and I think the difficulty was that there has to be some or there's usually some level of euphemism and so when this sorry some level of euphemism ah euphemism understatement and so for example the this idea of counter-violence or there's the idea of which I know you don't agree with quite rightly interstitial resistance these kinds of forms of speaking about violence without speaking about it now it seems to me there are two options and I'm not sure quite where you stand one is to defend violence and to say this violence is justified so which is what you said at the beginning you know you have to smash windows to deliver the message but I wonder what do you think of the second option which is to say as a point for example smashing the windows this is not violence so which is to say it once takes your starting point at the beginning your violence book that
acting yeah now maybe my reply will disappoint you I mean of course I I only can give you I don't think you can in the Habermasian way draw some kind of a Kantian a priori rule and so on I unfortunately you have to what's the expression play it by the ear or whatever I don't think you can say okay like for example some Greek friends even told me you can establish rules like when you attack a building it should be only like McDonald's foreign company not this poor small cafe owner who blah blah blah yeah but you can only play this up to a certain limit there there is no a priori rule but nonetheless I think unfortunately that you can you have to take the risk because it's horrible to say but you know it works there are situations where if you don't have a minimum of this sense of emergency things people things simply don't start to move like let's take it here precisely without those a little bit of crashed windows or whatever whatever I think these propositions would simply I don't know not be taken seriously and so on and so on the problem is the way our media are structured I can well imagine media I'm not blaming I mean it's so easy to blame the media but our public space is so distorted that only in this way you can be heard I'm far from idealizing for example Norway and so on Sweden but nonetheless in those countries people convinced me and again I repeat it three times I'm far from idealizing them but they have I think much higher level of this you can be heard without violence you know it's all a question of again how the public space is structured and again I know this may be disappointing but like the conclusion would be then practically do nothing I mean anything can run out of control you know like this would be the same thing as to say sorry for this bad taste example let's let's prohibit all the football matches because you know whenever you have them and so on and so on no I have no I mean to be frank I'm well aware of the dangers of violence and I don't celebrate violence like I only once was in a situation which was not even violent but so-so in ex-Yugoslavia when it was falling apart there was a week maybe in Slovenia where it was a little bit of this it wasn't clear who is in power and so on and I can tell you there is nothing pleasant about it you know it's easy to have this dream oh the state withdraws and oh we are free yeah but uh uh uh you know like remember all these examples that we celebrate let's take May '68 no that's my suspicion about it you know the story much more often than we think was here I slightly disagree with my best friend Badiou was that you know you come with your car you parked it beyond Port Royal or on the right side parked it safely then you crossed the La Seine you threw some bottles demonstrated then you withdraw to the to the Rive Gauche no no to the Rive Droite the north you meet in a cafe with friends if possible with some journalist for an interview and then you take your took your limousine and wait in other words you know are we aware to what extent the state has to function in the sense of we rely on that on that don't play with that too easily the problem is not that I'm celebrating violence the problem is the inertia mediatic and so on of the political you know what is for me the true cause of violence you remember this story I was repeating this story often when the last elections that were won by Labour Party I was here I remember two weeks before and there was a big show they were electing through people's votes calling listeners the most unpopular person in the UK of course Tony Blair won but two weeks later he won the elections isn't this a strange sign of political discrepancy that is to say obviously there was a large extent of public discontent which wasn't captured by the system of parliamentary representation the problem the only way to really fight violence is to to change things to change things at that level no yes just following on the way um just at the beginning you talked about the London demonstrations and it was interesting watching the media coverage when the the radical element of the action were on for example this BBC show Newsnight no matter how hard the person tried it was incredibly difficult to find any kind of line to say and I think the difficulty was that there has to be some or there's usually some level of euphemism and so when this sorry some level of euphemism ah euphemism understatement and so for example the this idea of counter-violence or there's the idea of which I know you don't agree with quite rightly interstitial resistance these kinds of forms of speaking about violence without speaking about it now it seems to me there are two options and I'm not sure quite where you stand one is to defend violence and to say this violence is justified so which is what you said at the beginning you know you have to smash windows to deliver the message but I wonder what do you think of the second option which is to say as a point for example smashing the windows this is not violence so which is to say it once takes your starting point at the beginning your violence book that
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systemic violence and linguistic violence and these kinds of violences are the only violences that count what about saying that in fact protests of this kind are a form of non-violence they are not violence this yeah this works wonderfully but be aware that this works precisely as some kind of a paradoxical statement no paradoxical in the sense that for the majority of people I don't despise them living in
systemic violence and linguistic violence and these kinds of violences are the only violences that count what about saying that in fact protests of this kind are a form of non-violence they are not violence this yeah this works wonderfully but be aware that this works precisely as some kind of a paradoxical statement no paradoxical in the sense that for the majority of people I don't despise them living in
Slavoj Žižek
everyday ideology to them this precisely is presented
everyday ideology to them this precisely is presented
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and they up to a point experience they will tell you wait a minute what is if the fact that I cannot walk on that street because the windows are smashed somebody can hit me if this is not vio you know what I mean I but otherwise I'm deeply I precisely think that this this this apparently absurd statement but this is not violence I deeply you know in what sense I'm deeply sympathetic with it I'm not now just bluffing to get you on my side because this is what I tried to say the point with that statement which caused me so much trouble even now the problem with Hitler is that he wasn't violent enough no he wasn't able to do systemic violence which is why he had to do Kristallnacht that this is in Nietzsche's sense reactive violence I don't want to concede to Hitler even this evil greatness of my god the guy was evil but he had balls no he was a coward he didn't have real balls real balls would have been to not to instead of killing people to killing changing the system a little bit and he killed millions because he was afraid to change here but also what you said about covering in the media are we aware to what extent media are not in any paranoiac way controlled
and they up to a point experience they will tell you wait a minute what is if the fact that I cannot walk on that street because the windows are smashed somebody can hit me if this is not vio you know what I mean I but otherwise I'm deeply I precisely think that this this this apparently absurd statement but this is not violence I deeply you know in what sense I'm deeply sympathetic with it I'm not now just bluffing to get you on my side because this is what I tried to say the point with that statement which caused me so much trouble even now the problem with Hitler is that he wasn't violent enough no he wasn't able to do systemic violence which is why he had to do Kristallnacht that this is in Nietzsche's sense reactive violence I don't want to concede to Hitler even this evil greatness of my god the guy was evil but he had balls no he was a coward he didn't have real balls real balls would have been to not to instead of killing people to killing changing the system a little bit and he killed millions because he was afraid to change here but also what you said about covering in the media are we aware to what extent media are not in any paranoiac way controlled
Slavoj Žižek
but like how sensitive things are here as to who covers what in what way for example this I met also some Palestinians when I was Israel and the other Israelis and they both told me the same story I don't idealize her but do you remember Hanan Ashrawi that Edward Said's student very educated Palestinian lady who was years ago around I would have said the public face of PLO no all the time you saw her on CNN and so on then she disappeared it's wonderful the explanation I was given it's almost as another version of that Woody Allen story of why no Jews were killed on September 11th it was a strange overlapping of opposite interests on the one hand the sad thing about PLO the West Bank is the gradual disappearance of secular left so as part of this she was considered too much by let's call them religious hardliners no an educated pro-Western woman cannot be our voice but now comes the beautiful paradox the Zionist exerted in the United States the same pressure of CNN why not because it didn't fit the image they wanted to project of Palestinians that you have an educated lady no not with half-covered face whatever they much preferred that you know Arafat's stumbling half-English or whatever you know to make the hey these are the true Palestinians no so isn't it a nice paradox how the coincidence of the opposite again she was sacrificed she didn't fit any any of the two but what you said yes coming to think about deeply this is a strategy to be thought about I think it's very efficient yes to say and then I hope you agree with this that the first okay you say this is not violence then the people you have this common-sense reaction haha are you crazy but then if you make them understand this if you explain it good then in a sense you won because I claim that the moment you see in what sense this is not violence you see our point so it's thanks very much I will probably plagiarize you and use this and if you give me your name I will do the usual hypocritical thing you know I will add on the tiny tiny footnote and not even conceding it to you but at the same time that I was developing this idea a colleague of mine came to a similar idea you know how we academics are cheating thanks very much sincerely okay and we've got a few more questions I don't know if you want to take them together or now I'm for group sex take them together yes getting tired it's not really a question but it's more the Gypsy they faced the other because um in England at the moment there's a place called Dale Farm in Essex where Dale Farm is some under eviction it's one of the only left I think it's the only large Irish Gypsy camp left in England um but it's like it sort of fits the same pattern they've always been linked to criminal activity one of which included hacking to because the local helicopter police helicopter because it kept flying around and trying to see what they were doing so they were accused of taking hatches to the helicopter so this is interesting so here it's not really a news at all but this is typical yes what hits the news what at some point it's going to hit the news and then everyone's going to go but let me make it clear so it's this camp and the police itself is putting soft pressure on them maybe even ah this is but here the case is clearer you know what was so perverse in Slovenia was that it was more that West Bank Palestinian-Israeli situation where the police is split officially it pretends even to protect them but it protects them in such a way for example here of course I didn't agree what did the police do the police said of course it's horrible those racists and so on we have to protect the Roma yes and then they forced them and practically kidnapped them and put them into some abandoned school and so on and so on it was a wonderful example of how in order to protect the poor Roma they did exactly what the local racists wanted it's interesting because they're not Roma they're Irish Gypsies Irish I know this I know this you see now you said something I will just show you sorry how politicized the debate is with us what you said now every right-winger in Slovenia knows why because we have this struggle of which term should be
but like how sensitive things are here as to who covers what in what way for example this I met also some Palestinians when I was Israel and the other Israelis and they both told me the same story I don't idealize her but do you remember Hanan Ashrawi that Edward Said's student very educated Palestinian lady who was years ago around I would have said the public face of PLO no all the time you saw her on CNN and so on then she disappeared it's wonderful the explanation I was given it's almost as another version of that Woody Allen story of why no Jews were killed on September 11th it was a strange overlapping of opposite interests on the one hand the sad thing about PLO the West Bank is the gradual disappearance of secular left so as part of this she was considered too much by let's call them religious hardliners no an educated pro-Western woman cannot be our voice but now comes the beautiful paradox the Zionist exerted in the United States the same pressure of CNN why not because it didn't fit the image they wanted to project of Palestinians that you have an educated lady no not with half-covered face whatever they much preferred that you know Arafat's stumbling half-English or whatever you know to make the hey these are the true Palestinians no so isn't it a nice paradox how the coincidence of the opposite again she was sacrificed she didn't fit any any of the two but what you said yes coming to think about deeply this is a strategy to be thought about I think it's very efficient yes to say and then I hope you agree with this that the first okay you say this is not violence then the people you have this common-sense reaction haha are you crazy but then if you make them understand this if you explain it good then in a sense you won because I claim that the moment you see in what sense this is not violence you see our point so it's thanks very much I will probably plagiarize you and use this and if you give me your name I will do the usual hypocritical thing you know I will add on the tiny tiny footnote and not even conceding it to you but at the same time that I was developing this idea a colleague of mine came to a similar idea you know how we academics are cheating thanks very much sincerely okay and we've got a few more questions I don't know if you want to take them together or now I'm for group sex take them together yes getting tired it's not really a question but it's more the Gypsy they faced the other because um in England at the moment there's a place called Dale Farm in Essex where Dale Farm is some under eviction it's one of the only left I think it's the only large Irish Gypsy camp left in England um but it's like it sort of fits the same pattern they've always been linked to criminal activity one of which included hacking to because the local helicopter police helicopter because it kept flying around and trying to see what they were doing so they were accused of taking hatches to the helicopter so this is interesting so here it's not really a news at all but this is typical yes what hits the news what at some point it's going to hit the news and then everyone's going to go but let me make it clear so it's this camp and the police itself is putting soft pressure on them maybe even ah this is but here the case is clearer you know what was so perverse in Slovenia was that it was more that West Bank Palestinian-Israeli situation where the police is split officially it pretends even to protect them but it protects them in such a way for example here of course I didn't agree what did the police do the police said of course it's horrible those racists and so on we have to protect the Roma yes and then they forced them and practically kidnapped them and put them into some abandoned school and so on and so on it was a wonderful example of how in order to protect the poor Roma they did exactly what the local racists wanted it's interesting because they're not Roma they're Irish Gypsies Irish I know this I know this you see now you said something I will just show you sorry how politicized the debate is with us what you said now every right-winger in Slovenia knows why because we have this struggle of which term should be
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used
used
Slavoj Žižek
Roma or Gypsies and right-wingers want to use Gypsy but in this
Roma or Gypsies and right-wingers want to use Gypsy but in this
unknown
vulgar sense as a humiliation and so did I get you correctly because what they claim is that of if you look at how should I put it objectively then Roma are just one of the groups of the Gypsies no and they like this because this legitimizes them to use the word they are how should I put it right for the wrong reason no they are factually right but you ah but this is you know what is also interesting I like it very much when the Roma Gypsies whatever try to organize themselves they tried no yeah they've got their whole campaign going to defend them yeah but but the problem is then again where is the I mean how my problem is always how to make this how to make this efficient because do you know what how long a tradition of this anti-Gypsy sentiment not only were they as you probably know put into camps together with Jews by the Nazis but even nicer nicer in a horrible sense you know the big last work by Husserl the crisis of European blah
vulgar sense as a humiliation and so did I get you correctly because what they claim is that of if you look at how should I put it objectively then Roma are just one of the groups of the Gypsies no and they like this because this legitimizes them to use the word they are how should I put it right for the wrong reason no they are factually right but you ah but this is you know what is also interesting I like it very much when the Roma Gypsies whatever try to organize themselves they tried no yeah they've got their whole campaign going to defend them yeah but but the problem is then again where is the I mean how my problem is always how to make this how to make this efficient because do you know what how long a tradition of this anti-Gypsy sentiment not only were they as you probably know put into camps together with Jews by the Nazis but even nicer nicer in a horrible sense you know the big last work by Husserl the crisis of European blah
Slavoj Žižek
blah blah he speaks there of European spiritual unity Europe
blah blah he speaks there of European spiritual unity Europe
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as spiritual entity Derrida
as spiritual entity Derrida
Slavoj Žižek
brings out this nicey and then he says Europe we mean it
brings out this nicey and then he says Europe we mean it
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not not territorially but spiritually
not not territorially but spiritually
Slavoj Žižek
and then Husserl yes as you may expect says take for example the Gypsies they are territorially here but spiritually they are not Europe they are out and so on and so on so you see how this is what I meant when I said no ethnic cleansing without poetry maybe even without you know I this is whom I hate these thinkers poets who their hands are very clean but ah ah they lay the foundations slowly no and then of course when real violence begins they're the first to say oh my god it's the distortion of our deep insight we didn't want that no maybe we should nonetheless this is body language okay I think we have another one my question is in a more and more theoretical tone poetical? theoretical sorry I was like to ask you what's your argument to justify why strategic violence the really latent question now the emphasis here is is on why
and then Husserl yes as you may expect says take for example the Gypsies they are territorially here but spiritually they are not Europe they are out and so on and so on so you see how this is what I meant when I said no ethnic cleansing without poetry maybe even without you know I this is whom I hate these thinkers poets who their hands are very clean but ah ah they lay the foundations slowly no and then of course when real violence begins they're the first to say oh my god it's the distortion of our deep insight we didn't want that no maybe we should nonetheless this is body language okay I think we have another one my question is in a more and more theoretical tone poetical? theoretical sorry I was like to ask you what's your argument to justify why strategic violence the really latent question now the emphasis here is is on why
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strategic
strategic
Slavoj Žižek
and not on why violence is the strategical violence based on construction of a shared space or a sense of solidarity but subjectification isn't can be consider more as a resistance and if subjectification is individualistic how to think resistance can can we think the capacity to brutally do it that Obama lacks or to turn the knife as in one example of personal violence and if yes how can we think or how to transform or connect it in socially organized action okay this is of course a one-million-dollar question I mean if I would have to if I were to have a precise answer to that one I would have given it to you all I'm saying is that it's not for me a question of again not even strategic violence again I just proposed a couple of steps first step is to understand violence as you said before primarily not
and not on why violence is the strategical violence based on construction of a shared space or a sense of solidarity but subjectification isn't can be consider more as a resistance and if subjectification is individualistic how to think resistance can can we think the capacity to brutally do it that Obama lacks or to turn the knife as in one example of personal violence and if yes how can we think or how to transform or connect it in socially organized action okay this is of course a one-million-dollar question I mean if I would have to if I were to have a precise answer to that one I would have given it to you all I'm saying is that it's not for me a question of again not even strategic violence again I just proposed a couple of steps first step is to understand violence as you said before primarily not
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not
not
Slavoj Žižek
as a simply non- let's call it naively you have a certain let's it's very abstract system which functions using its own rules but also its own transgressions and so on and the change the true change even if it's not physically violent always has something violent violent in the sense of brutally by brutally I mean not justified by the rules of the game by brutally changing the rules of the game or to put it in more even theoretical terms you know this distinction like all the French guys like it but you Rancière between society as corporate social body each at our place and this radical egalitarian point there is always some kind of a clash between the two in this sense I claim violence for me is not about killing people it's about this experience of when you all of a sudden note of how society in the sense of big other organic order on which we rely is up in the air you know you are not you cannot rely on order this is the exact opposite of corporate violence which is precisely violence in order to sustain the order like for me this is like take Pinochet I remember his first words which were the only thing we did
as a simply non- let's call it naively you have a certain let's it's very abstract system which functions using its own rules but also its own transgressions and so on and the change the true change even if it's not physically violent always has something violent violent in the sense of brutally by brutally I mean not justified by the rules of the game by brutally changing the rules of the game or to put it in more even theoretical terms you know this distinction like all the French guys like it but you Rancière between society as corporate social body each at our place and this radical egalitarian point there is always some kind of a clash between the two in this sense I claim violence for me is not about killing people it's about this experience of when you all of a sudden note of how society in the sense of big other organic order on which we rely is up in the air you know you are not you cannot rely on order this is the exact opposite of corporate violence which is precisely violence in order to sustain the order like for me this is like take Pinochet I remember his first words which were the only thing we did
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this is that things return back to
this is that things return back to
Slavoj Žižek
normal that workers we forget
normal that workers we forget
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about politics workers should work again and so on and so on so this is this and my second point is that one always have to remember has to remember the violence which is here not even as some kind of abstract systemic violence but very concrete in different material practices and so on and so on and I claim that I just think we should accept that whenever you really touch things change you have violence in this sense for me to make a good example for example Gandhi was for me as I like to say to provoke people more violent than Hitler because Hitler was a coward Gandhi whatever he was he wasn't a coward he really did it transformation and so on and so on okay the limits of this transformation is another point but you see this is the crucial point I don't
about politics workers should work again and so on and so on so this is this and my second point is that one always have to remember has to remember the violence which is here not even as some kind of abstract systemic violence but very concrete in different material practices and so on and so on and I claim that I just think we should accept that whenever you really touch things change you have violence in this sense for me to make a good example for example Gandhi was for me as I like to say to provoke people more violent than Hitler because Hitler was a coward Gandhi whatever he was he wasn't a coward he really did it transformation and so on and so on okay the limits of this transformation is another point but you see this is the crucial point I don't
Slavoj Žižek
want to be caught into that nightmare of oh my god there is a window smashed how far can we go can we kill and so on of course there is something terrifying in all violence but it's not a choice of this would be my zero-level formulation it's not a choice between violence or non-violence because the way we are in everyday life already is violent this I'm old-fashioned leftist I don't want to concede on this point like again as you said smashing windows no that tuition imposed is too violent this is brutal violence which can mark generations and so on and so on and it's pure pure hypocrisy when people say oh but you smash the windows and so on and so on you know it's as if I don't know I sorry tasteless no I will do it the other way around so that I'm the victim it is it as if you I don't know why you smash me into you spit into my face smash me and I said fuck off and you say how dare you to use that words you know what I mean like it's at the same time the victim was a cat sorry at the same time when the victim was a cat you did the thing again but not words on the violence front yes um it was interesting that you mentioned the Norway and Sweden because my background is from the Norwegian media on the the left in Norwegian media and I just want to invite you to to reflect on the way you are used as a as a thinker in Norway not in Norway in general because the way you are represented in or the way you're coming across in Norway I think is somewhat as a critical thinker and as a somewhat excuse my French comedian yeah I want you to stay comedian yeah and I mean just like in YouTube you have clicks on the your comment on vegetarianism whereas instead there's maybe a thousand clicks on your important productive political lines lines of thoughts so the way you are used is just as a critic and not as a productive political thinker and in in that sense paradoxically you are also becoming your popularity is becoming as part of a symptom of the crisis of the left in itself I tend up to a point to agree with you and I will tell you up to which point I'm trying I agree to play this risky game my my strategic choice years ago was this is a tasteless no no nothing vulgar don't be afraid but just strange example I read in a book about priests priest like Christian in the Wild West that in order to attract attention you know they were the best magicians in the sense of card tricks rabbits and so on because they went to a saloon and first did some tricks and then people started to look at them then haha you have the word of God and so on no and my idea was maybe I can manipulate a little bit in this way of course the risk is to apply to go on with the metaphor that people will just stay for the tricks and then they will but I see nonetheless some signs of change and one symptom of this change is precisely the level of attacks on me which is changing till now did you notice this the predominant tone was what you said oh sometimes he's a little bit crazy communist but forget about that we go to see dirty jokes about Gypsies and blah blah blah you know like he will amuse
want to be caught into that nightmare of oh my god there is a window smashed how far can we go can we kill and so on of course there is something terrifying in all violence but it's not a choice of this would be my zero-level formulation it's not a choice between violence or non-violence because the way we are in everyday life already is violent this I'm old-fashioned leftist I don't want to concede on this point like again as you said smashing windows no that tuition imposed is too violent this is brutal violence which can mark generations and so on and so on and it's pure pure hypocrisy when people say oh but you smash the windows and so on and so on you know it's as if I don't know I sorry tasteless no I will do it the other way around so that I'm the victim it is it as if you I don't know why you smash me into you spit into my face smash me and I said fuck off and you say how dare you to use that words you know what I mean like it's at the same time the victim was a cat sorry at the same time when the victim was a cat you did the thing again but not words on the violence front yes um it was interesting that you mentioned the Norway and Sweden because my background is from the Norwegian media on the the left in Norwegian media and I just want to invite you to to reflect on the way you are used as a as a thinker in Norway not in Norway in general because the way you are represented in or the way you're coming across in Norway I think is somewhat as a critical thinker and as a somewhat excuse my French comedian yeah I want you to stay comedian yeah and I mean just like in YouTube you have clicks on the your comment on vegetarianism whereas instead there's maybe a thousand clicks on your important productive political lines lines of thoughts so the way you are used is just as a critic and not as a productive political thinker and in in that sense paradoxically you are also becoming your popularity is becoming as part of a symptom of the crisis of the left in itself I tend up to a point to agree with you and I will tell you up to which point I'm trying I agree to play this risky game my my strategic choice years ago was this is a tasteless no no nothing vulgar don't be afraid but just strange example I read in a book about priests priest like Christian in the Wild West that in order to attract attention you know they were the best magicians in the sense of card tricks rabbits and so on because they went to a saloon and first did some tricks and then people started to look at them then haha you have the word of God and so on no and my idea was maybe I can manipulate a little bit in this way of course the risk is to apply to go on with the metaphor that people will just stay for the tricks and then they will but I see nonetheless some signs of change and one symptom of this change is precisely the level of attacks on me which is changing till now did you notice this the predominant tone was what you said oh sometimes he's a little bit crazy communist but forget about that we go to see dirty jokes about Gypsies and blah blah blah you know like he will amuse
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us
us
Slavoj Žižek
for blah blah
for blah blah
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blah but
blah but
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then it's not only the New Republic it's other media in the United States it's in in Germany there was a whole polemic against me again again so now the message is not only he's a clown but he's a clown but don't be deceived by it beneath this clown there is a dangerous message of blah blah blah so you know this is for me some kind of a sign and also you know if it were to be oh you know I don't want to boast but my friend Eric Santner don't ask me why these are the mysterious ways academia work he is in that inner circle of whenever you are considered for any prize you know all this shitty human prize they yeah they he is one of these secret committees
then it's not only the New Republic it's other media in the United States it's in in Germany there was a whole polemic against me again again so now the message is not only he's a clown but he's a clown but don't be deceived by it beneath this clown there is a dangerous message of blah blah blah so you know this is for me some kind of a sign and also you know if it were to be oh you know I don't want to boast but my friend Eric Santner don't ask me why these are the mysterious ways academia work he is in that inner circle of whenever you are considered for any prize you know all this shitty human prize they yeah they he is one of these secret committees
Slavoj Žižek
no like he is always asked and he told me that in the
no like he is always asked and he told me that in the
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last ten years he was asked to do to say his opinion to write on me I was considered for a prize at least thirty times and then I never got not even one because then he asked why didn't he
last ten years he was asked to do to say his opinion to write on me I was considered for a prize at least thirty times and then I never got not even one because then he asked why didn't he
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get it they say politics you know a little bit problematic and so on and so on so don't have too many illusions here my last point would have been why I nonetheless like also this comical aspect fuck it not you [unintelligible] I mean why should we I know I hate like as if since we are leftist what we
get it they say politics you know a little bit problematic and so on and so on so don't have too many illusions here my last point would have been why I nonetheless like also this comical aspect fuck it not you [unintelligible] I mean why should we I know I hate like as if since we are leftist what we
Slavoj Žižek
should do just oh children are starving in Africa and so on fuck it why we can have better fun than the stupid right-wingers why should they take this from us you know but I agree with you there are problems here no and again would you agree I'm you know where it's good to mention your country not as an ideal but isn't this important to mention sorry if I repeat myself without idealizing you by you now I mean your glorious Norway whatever that do you know recently I was sent a text by I don't know if I will pronounce the name the Swedish guy across the river the river the fjord Göran Therborn Therborn you know the Swedish leftist Marxist Göran Therborn yeah okay who did something sorry if I repeat myself it's a wonderful point wonderful to show how even within the system we have a maneuvering space and how neoliberal ideology cheats he says let's take Scandinavian countries and again with all critics you are still relatively much more egalitarian and healthcare blah blah all that bullshit than others much more for example if you look at the usual in a company span of wages between lowest and highest it's much lower but then the usual argument of neoliberalism is if we do this become more egalitarian blah blah blah you know what's the mantra we will lose competitiveness ah then Therborn does this he looks not at some leftist cheating economists what the true values Wall Street and so on but you know where you are immediately after okay the first two you cannot beat them are Singapore and Hong Kong then Scandinavian countries already enter as top competitiveness this is an empirical proof that it's simply not true even within the capitalist rules what ideology is telling us you know more healthcare more this ooh you lose competitiveness no you don't necessarily lose competitiveness it's all to put it very simple you know even Marx in Capital when he speaks about the value of labor force he emphasizes this is not a biological the value of labor force is the result of ideological struggle how much is accepted as normal for and this is a struggle of fight which has not even honest economists like that guy Hartfield or what who did that no no no sorry just a finish even he says that that there is nothing a priori between market effectiveness and higher healthcare because you can include all this market only wants clear rules but if you set a clear rule sorry it costs so much blah blah blah then it can work you know there what I want to say is that we should be very clear about something how the system is cheating with regard to its own terms what we effectively have is not neoliberalism neoliberalism is ideology effectively they all have half state-run economies they cheat and so on and so on United States neoliberalism are you crazy are we aware how much state intervenes all the time and so on and so on sorry but I still like your country you know what I like about you I was there in in Oslo recently in a cafe with some friends and there was a beautiful blonde waitress that came as a sexist I couldn't say and you know what they told me oh that's just a Swedish worker like you are now so much richer than Sweden are the poor immigrant workers ah I like that okay I think that's been another wonderful point of another wonderful point but I think you summed it all up by saying that you've described yourself not just a clown but a dangerous clown which is why we [unintelligible] you to find out [unintelligible] I expect that something I expect them to say no Slavoj you are not a clown we love you deeply we know you are really a good man no sorry thanks very much for your great patience.
should do just oh children are starving in Africa and so on fuck it why we can have better fun than the stupid right-wingers why should they take this from us you know but I agree with you there are problems here no and again would you agree I'm you know where it's good to mention your country not as an ideal but isn't this important to mention sorry if I repeat myself without idealizing you by you now I mean your glorious Norway whatever that do you know recently I was sent a text by I don't know if I will pronounce the name the Swedish guy across the river the river the fjord Göran Therborn Therborn you know the Swedish leftist Marxist Göran Therborn yeah okay who did something sorry if I repeat myself it's a wonderful point wonderful to show how even within the system we have a maneuvering space and how neoliberal ideology cheats he says let's take Scandinavian countries and again with all critics you are still relatively much more egalitarian and healthcare blah blah all that bullshit than others much more for example if you look at the usual in a company span of wages between lowest and highest it's much lower but then the usual argument of neoliberalism is if we do this become more egalitarian blah blah blah you know what's the mantra we will lose competitiveness ah then Therborn does this he looks not at some leftist cheating economists what the true values Wall Street and so on but you know where you are immediately after okay the first two you cannot beat them are Singapore and Hong Kong then Scandinavian countries already enter as top competitiveness this is an empirical proof that it's simply not true even within the capitalist rules what ideology is telling us you know more healthcare more this ooh you lose competitiveness no you don't necessarily lose competitiveness it's all to put it very simple you know even Marx in Capital when he speaks about the value of labor force he emphasizes this is not a biological the value of labor force is the result of ideological struggle how much is accepted as normal for and this is a struggle of fight which has not even honest economists like that guy Hartfield or what who did that no no no sorry just a finish even he says that that there is nothing a priori between market effectiveness and higher healthcare because you can include all this market only wants clear rules but if you set a clear rule sorry it costs so much blah blah blah then it can work you know there what I want to say is that we should be very clear about something how the system is cheating with regard to its own terms what we effectively have is not neoliberalism neoliberalism is ideology effectively they all have half state-run economies they cheat and so on and so on United States neoliberalism are you crazy are we aware how much state intervenes all the time and so on and so on sorry but I still like your country you know what I like about you I was there in in Oslo recently in a cafe with some friends and there was a beautiful blonde waitress that came as a sexist I couldn't say and you know what they told me oh that's just a Swedish worker like you are now so much richer than Sweden are the poor immigrant workers ah I like that okay I think that's been another wonderful point of another wonderful point but I think you summed it all up by saying that you've described yourself not just a clown but a dangerous clown which is why we [unintelligible] you to find out [unintelligible] I expect that something I expect them to say no Slavoj you are not a clown we love you deeply we know you are really a good man no sorry thanks very much for your great patience.