Slavoj Zizek Interview: Sex and the Failed Absolute
Interview · Sublation Media with Douglas Lain ·
2019-12-03 · 1:07:49 · 9,452 words
philosophy-generalpsychoanalysisideologyscience-physicssubjectivityeveryday-lifesexuality-gendergeopolitics-wareconomicsrevolution-violence
Žižek addresses a question regarding the relationship between matter, mind, and idealism, arguing that materialism is defined by contingency and blindness rather than substance. He critiques 'mysterianism' (the idea that the mind cannot understand itself due to evolutionary limits) by contrasting human obsession with impossible questions against animal indifference, positing that the human mind emerges from its own impossibility. He reinterprets Hegel not as a naive idealist but as a modest philosopher who accepts Kantian limits, arguing that appearance and abstraction are fundamental to reality, a view he supports with examples from sexuality and quantum physics. Žižek critiques radical historicism and liberal feminism, arguing that both fail to grasp the inherent contradiction and 'alienation' of social reality. He uses examples from cinema (The Nines), history (Albania, WWI), and politics (Syriza, Brexit) to argue that true freedom requires engaging with opaque, non-transparent structures rather than seeking a transparent, consensual utopia. He concludes with a pessimistic view of current political movements, emphasizing the need for concrete, pragmatic engagement despite the risks of catastrophe.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 19
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek's ironic label for the perceived alignment between his thoughts and the audience's questions, described as an 'obscurantist term'.
as “blind process”
Žižek's definition of materialism: a process of blind interaction without higher teleological purpose or organization, equating the material with the contingent and chaotic.
as “structure of chaos”
The Hegelian concept that order/structure gradually emerges out of pure chaotic multiplicity (Being), rather than being imposed from outside.
The argument, attributed to Chomsky, McGinn, Pinker, and Peterson, that the human mind is genetically limited and by definition cannot understand itself.
as “Hegelian trick”
The move of asking not why we cannot answer impossible questions, but why we are obsessed with answering them, positing that this 'not understanding' is part of the positive definition of the human mind.
A Lacanian formulation describing the human mind as defined by its engagement with impossible dilemmas and problems, rather than just factual processing.
Hegel's acceptance of Kant's 'thing-in-itself' impossibility, claiming that this structure of constitutive impossibility is inscribed into reality itself.
The Kantian opposition between phenomena and the thing-in-itself, which Hegel treats as immanent to phenomena rather than a barrier.
The psychoanalytic concept of 'negation' or 'saying no,' referenced by the questioner to describe the act of abstracting reality.
György Lukács' statement that our conception of nature is a historical product of collective symbolic interaction and practice, not a subjective idealist error.
The view that the physical universe is structured in a way that allows for the emergence of consciousness, contrasted with the 'strong' version implying creation for that purpose.
as “retroactive determination”
A feature of quantum physics (and T.S. Eliot's view of art) where measurement determines what already happened, changing the past counterfactually/meaningfully.
as “radical historicism”
The position that all truths (like gender or objectivity) are historically contingent, which Žižek argues fails because it presupposes a privileged historical standpoint (idealism).
as “good alienation”
A form of intersubjective distance and non-transparency in social organization (like an efficient state apparatus) that is necessary for freedom, distinct from capitalist exploitation.
as “consent does not matter”
The argument that liberal sexual ethics focusing on consent ignore the inherent ambiguity, coercion, and contradiction of sexuality, which can exist even within 'free' exchanges.
as “plus is a positive entity”
An idea from LGBT+ theory suggesting that the 'plus' (queer identity) defines subjectivity positively, rather than being a deviation from a heterosexual norm.
as “rational, reasonable panic”
A stance of moderate alarm regarding the current historical epoch, comparing the pre-WWI era of progress to the current era approaching a potential catastrophe.
as “false personalization”
The liberal error of blaming political evil on corrupt individuals (like Trump) rather than recognizing the structural domination inscribed in institutions themselves.
as “beautiful souls”
Radical leftists who maintain moral purity by refusing to compromise or engage in concrete political action, thereby failing to effect change.
Stories he reaches for 2
Žižek quotes T.S. Eliot that every new work of art changes the entire past history of art, using this to explain retroactive meaning in quantum physics.
“with every new work of art the entire past history of art is changed.”
Žižek jokes that answering questions well might earn a 'Stalinist censor' reward: a couple of years in a re-education camp instead of the Gulag.
“Good Stalinist censor, I read in detail questions... you will get a couple of years of re-education camp, but you will not go to Gulag.”
Works invoked 5
Capital book
Referenced for Marx's enumeration of modes of production and his return to Robinson to imagine a communist society.
Hegel's work, specifically the forward, where Hegel celebrates the human spirit's ability to abstract and introduce appearances.
Kant's work, referenced for the distinction between phenomena and the thing-in-itself, which Hegel accepts as immanent.
The Nines film
Used to illustrate the solipsistic ego becoming an abstract, alienated substance and the dissolution of reality.
Robinson Crusoe book
Cited to critique Marx's handling of the example, noting the omission of the servant Friday.
People invoked 28
Johann Gottlieb Fichte negative
Described as part of 'total charlatanism' following Kant; Kant's first conflict was with Fichte.
Mentioned as an actress involved in a scandal, used to contrast media obsession with 'true despair' and massive poverty.
Blaise Pascal positive
Cited for writing about the 'vast silent universe' devoid of meaning.
Georg Lukács positive
Cited for the statement that 'nature is a historical category,' meaning our conception of nature is a product of historical practice.
Wolfgang Schäuble negative
German Finance Minister, portrayed as a 'real conservative' who welcomed Grexit to inflict chaos and teach a lesson.
Jacques Lacan positive
Referenced implicitly through psychoanalytic concepts like the Real and the structure of desire, though not explicitly named in this excerpt, his framework underpins the critique of historicism.
Steven Pinker negative
Cited as a proponent of mysterianism; Žižek finds his 'rabbit/differential calculus' analogy misleading because humans are obsessed with impossible questions animals ignore.
Judith Butler negative
Described as 'somebody whom I otherwise appreciate' but with whom Žižek has a 'problem' (cut off before explanation).
Donald Trump negative
Described as a 'disgusting entity'; Žižek argues against focusing on impeaching him, seeing this as a 'false personalization' of structural evil.
Jeremy Corbyn positive
Mentioned in the context of the UK Labour party and the challenge of capital flight if he were elected.
Alain Badiou positive
Cited as providing the idea that the current era resembles the pre-WWI period of progress before catastrophe.
Mentioned as a political movement (Syriza) that moved, but whose failure teaches a lesson about the limits of the nation-state.
George Orwell positive
Mentioned as someone Žižek otherwise respects, though the specific quote is cut off.
Bernie Sanders positive
Cited as a 'moderate social democrat' whom radical 'beautiful souls' dismiss, but whom Žižek engages with pragmatically.
T. S. Eliot positive
Quoted by Žižek regarding how new art changes the past history of art, used to explain retroactive determination in quantum physics.
Arthur Schopenhauer negative
Grouped with Fichte and Schelling as 'total charlatanism'.
Yanis Varoufakis positive
Cited as a source for the revelation that German conservatives wanted Grexit to teach Greece a lesson; his failure is used to argue for internationalism.
Evo Morales positive
Mentioned as a leader with 'potential of some change' that Žižengaged with pragmatically.
Cited as the leader of Albania who built millions of bunkers, used as an example of irrational sacrificial gestures.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling negative
Grouped with Fichte and Schopenhauer as 'total charlatanism' in the continental tradition.
Jordan Peterson negative
Cited alongside Pinker and McGinn as making the same 'mysterian' argument about evolutionary limitations.
Colin McGinn negative
Cited as a proponent of 'mysterianism' (the mind cannot understand itself due to evolutionary limits).
Referenced in a joke about 'Stalinist censor' and 're-education camp' to frame the Q&A session.
Noam Chomsky positive
Cited for the point that the problem is matter, not mind; Žižek agrees with Chomsky that science defines matter through practice, though he disagrees with Chomsky's 'mysterianism'.
Karl Marx positive
Žižek defends Marx's ambiguity towards capitalism, arguing that Marx saw capitalism as a necessary stage for freedom, and critiques liberal interpretations of Marx's Robinson Crusoe example.
René Descartes positive
Cited as marking the modern split where reality is seen as 'out there' (vast silent universe) and meaning is bestowed by humans.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Žižek's primary philosophical ally; reinterpreted as a 'very modest philosopher' who accepts Kantian limits and shows how structure emerges from chaos.
Immanuel Kant positive
Seen as the last serious German philosopher in the continental tradition before 'charlatans'; Žižek agrees with Kant's 'impossibility' of knowing the thing-in-itself.
Transcript 76 turns
unknown
I have a small Twitch stream that no one watches, but it will collect the video. That's good. Okay, I'm going to turn that on and we're recording the audio, and Slavoj Žižek, thank you very much for coming back to the Zero Books podcast and to our new Twitch stream and to the video channel. And you know, I sent you a list of questions before we talk and I want to. It's a
I have a small Twitch stream that no one watches, but it will collect the video. That's good. Okay, I'm going to turn that on and we're recording the audio, and Slavoj Žižek, thank you very much for coming back to the Zero Books podcast and to our new Twitch stream and to the video channel. And you know, I sent you a list of questions before we talk and I want to. It's a
Slavoj Žižek
good Stalinist censor, I read in detail questions, your questions, and I can tell you maybe you will get a couple of years of re-education camp, but you will not go to Gulag. Good questions.
good Stalinist censor, I read in detail questions, your questions, and I can tell you maybe you will get a couple of years of re-education camp, but you will not go to Gulag. Good questions.
unknown
Thank you very much. Yeah, so I want to start with the last question. That's ingenious,
Thank you very much. Yeah, so I want to start with the last question. That's ingenious,
Slavoj Žižek
I wanted to, my god, we have, if I may use this new obscurantist terms, you know, this synchronicity of minds or whatever. Right,
I wanted to, my god, we have, if I may use this new obscurantist terms, you know, this synchronicity of minds or whatever. Right,
unknown
because I think it's where to start. It's so about, it kind of ties in with the attacks that have been perpetrated against you recently and I think it has to do with a desire to hold off a confrontation with the real world. So I wanted to ask you this question, which is: what do you make of Noam Chomsky's claim that we no longer have any conception of the physical world or physicality, his embrace of mysterianism, and the idea that the hard problem of consciousness cannot be overcome by humans? And maybe do you think that that explains why his embrace of this sort of Kantian mysterianism explains why he calls you a charlatan?
because I think it's where to start. It's so about, it kind of ties in with the attacks that have been perpetrated against you recently and I think it has to do with a desire to hold off a confrontation with the real world. So I wanted to ask you this question, which is: what do you make of Noam Chomsky's claim that we no longer have any conception of the physical world or physicality, his embrace of mysterianism, and the idea that the hard problem of consciousness cannot be overcome by humans? And maybe do you think that that explains why his embrace of this sort of Kantian mysterianism explains why he calls you a charlatan?
Slavoj Žižek
Probably, because as we know, for people, for the people who come from analytic tradition, Kant is the last German philosopher in this continental tradition to be taken seriously, no? With Fichte and then Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, it's total charlatanism, blah, and so on and so on. Although you know, of course there is much more in Kant and so on, but let me ask your, I really like this question. Chomsky has a point when he says the problem is not mind, do we know what is mind, the problem is already matter. We don't have a concept of matter. Right. I think the answer to this is we don't need it. Science defines in its practice what counts as matter through measurement and so on and so on. Where materialism is enters for me is just with two, three additional totally formal features. First, and the same thing matters to how ideas are, even ideas can be something conceived in a materialistic way, that this process is blind, it's a process of blind interaction, not organized, run by any higher teleological purposeful intelligence and so on. It's just a blind, stupid process. That's the point for me. That's what defines materialism. For Žižek, what is material is the same as what is contingent. It's blind, unstructured, meaningless, chaotic. Conversely, Žižek says that what is idealist is what is structured, caused, and I think necessary. This is to me sort of the opposite of what Chomsky says. But you see, you can't ask the question about interaction between physical and non-physical until you tell us what physical means. But there hasn't been any concept of physical for hundreds of years. The physical these days are things that Newton would have regarded as total absurdities, like curved space-time. How can that be physical? Quantum entanglement. I mean, Einstein regarded that as non-physical because it's so absurd. But you know, now scientists just accept it. Physical is just anything we more or less understand. And if that's the only notion of physical we have, there can't be interaction between physical and non-physical. Non-physical will
Probably, because as we know, for people, for the people who come from analytic tradition, Kant is the last German philosopher in this continental tradition to be taken seriously, no? With Fichte and then Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, it's total charlatanism, blah, and so on and so on. Although you know, of course there is much more in Kant and so on, but let me ask your, I really like this question. Chomsky has a point when he says the problem is not mind, do we know what is mind, the problem is already matter. We don't have a concept of matter. Right. I think the answer to this is we don't need it. Science defines in its practice what counts as matter through measurement and so on and so on. Where materialism is enters for me is just with two, three additional totally formal features. First, and the same thing matters to how ideas are, even ideas can be something conceived in a materialistic way, that this process is blind, it's a process of blind interaction, not organized, run by any higher teleological purposeful intelligence and so on. It's just a blind, stupid process. That's the point for me. That's what defines materialism. For Žižek, what is material is the same as what is contingent. It's blind, unstructured, meaningless, chaotic. Conversely, Žižek says that what is idealist is what is structured, caused, and I think necessary. This is to me sort of the opposite of what Chomsky says. But you see, you can't ask the question about interaction between physical and non-physical until you tell us what physical means. But there hasn't been any concept of physical for hundreds of years. The physical these days are things that Newton would have regarded as total absurdities, like curved space-time. How can that be physical? Quantum entanglement. I mean, Einstein regarded that as non-physical because it's so absurd. But you know, now scientists just accept it. Physical is just anything we more or less understand. And if that's the only notion of physical we have, there can't be interaction between physical and non-physical. Non-physical will
unknown
be the things, just all the things we don't understand. I think what Žižek is doing is this: he's
be the things, just all the things we don't understand. I think what Žižek is doing is this: he's
unknown
starting an Hegelian
starting an Hegelian
unknown
immanent critique of Kant's
immanent critique of Kant's
unknown
notion of the noumenal, that is, the noumenal isn't some mystery outside of our perception, but is just a mass of chaotic, contingent, and undifferentiated stuff. It isn't even coherent enough to form little chunks of atoms, not in its most basic form. That is, it is precisely the gap or the impossibility of our own perception. And we see it and understand it as that impossibility. However, it seems to me that by labeling matter as this contingent stuff, Žižek has maybe brought it into relation with subjectivity or mind in such a way as that it now relies on the presence of mind on some level. So when I was a
notion of the noumenal, that is, the noumenal isn't some mystery outside of our perception, but is just a mass of chaotic, contingent, and undifferentiated stuff. It isn't even coherent enough to form little chunks of atoms, not in its most basic form. That is, it is precisely the gap or the impossibility of our own perception. And we see it and understand it as that impossibility. However, it seems to me that by labeling matter as this contingent stuff, Žižek has maybe brought it into relation with subjectivity or mind in such a way as that it now relies on the presence of mind on some level. So when I was a
unknown
kid, there was a commercial on TV for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and one someone would be walking along and they'd have a bar of chocolate and the other person would have a jar of peanut butter, they'd have a bar of chocolate and a jar of peanut butter and they'd run into each other and the chocolate would get in the peanut butter and they'd say your chocolate is in my peanut butter and the other one would say your peanut butter's in my chocolate. I feel as though when you talk about materialism the way you are, that your idealism gets into your materialism. I see your point. Yes.
kid, there was a commercial on TV for Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and one someone would be walking along and they'd have a bar of chocolate and the other person would have a jar of peanut butter, they'd have a bar of chocolate and a jar of peanut butter and they'd run into each other and the chocolate would get in the peanut butter and they'd say your chocolate is in my peanut butter and the other one would say your peanut butter's in my chocolate. I feel as though when you talk about materialism the way you are, that your idealism gets into your materialism. I see your point. Yes.
Slavoj Žižek
But but first I don't see how you can oppose here materialism and idealism, because I think exactly the same thing can also be said for the ideal universe. It's in the same way constructed, it has a structure, and it's chaotic. And that's what I think Hegel enables us to think, in some sense the structure of chaos itself, how order evolves out of chaos. Never forget, now we are I hope we are not boring our public too much, now we are at a high abstract conceptual level, but never forget that Hegel does not begin his logic with God or supreme idea or whatever, but with the notion of being, which is pure chaotic multiplicity. And out of this totally flat chaotic multiplicity, that's the point of his logic, some kind of structure gradually emerges. But if I may say another thing, where I am disturbed by this idea of mysterianism in the sense of our human mind by definition because of our genetic evolutionary limitations cannot understand itself. This is an old argument. You find it with Chomsky, with McGinn, but you also incidentally find it with Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson makes the same argument. Yes, but I think I have a good counterpoint here, a very simple one. Steven Pinker in I forgot where it's quoted, where I refer to him in one of my big fat books, Steven Pinker gives this example: we cannot understand how our mind works for the same reason that I think he uses it, maybe I'm wrong, a rabbit cannot understand differential calculus. Simply, rabbit's mind, brain, whatever, I don't know how his self-awareness functions, didn't need this for evolutionary reasons, for survival and so on. It's not part of rabbit's lifeworld. So of course it cannot understand it. And Pinker's argumentation is it's the same for us. Our mind developed for work, instrumental reasoning, or for intersubjectivity, seduction, cooperation and so on and so on, not for understanding itself. So it's a simple evolutionary explanation. It was not needed, it's not the focus of our mind to understand. I find this parallel totally misleading. Because you know, a rabbit also does not care, worry about differential calculus. It's totally outside its domain. While is it not mysterious that we humanity as far as we know from the very beginning, even before there were sciences at least in the modern sense, are asking ourselves impossible questions, questions that we genetically, evolutionary, whatever are unable to properly understand. So now I am making my usual Hegelian trick. Of course there are questions that we cannot answer, but why then are we in contrast to animals or whoever answering them all the time? Why are we precisely obsessed with impossible questions? Why do we need a mystery? Because for rabbit there are in some sense no mysteries. Okay, unexpected things can happen for a rabbit, some animal jumps on him, human, a gun shot by a human being kills him, but these are not in a proper human sense a mystery, like mysteries for us: mystery of the universe, mystery of love and so on and so on. So I would say in a little bit more subtle way, that it's not simply that we cannot understand human mind, but that this not understanding is in the strongest possible sense part of the positive definition of the human mind. Human mind means, this is what I put it in my Lacanian jargon, that it emerges out of its own impossibility. Even all that it's dealing with impossible dilemmas, problems, even if you look historically, it's interesting to see how it was not that first we are dealing with facts, science and so on and then we start to speculate. No! We first start to speculate: cosmology, what is the nature of the stars, blah, and then gradually as a secondary effect of this positive sciences emerge. And it's a good question, here I am not against Chomsky, maybe he would even agree with it. It's a good question to what extent, although there is no... Can I, I want to interject here. Yeah please, interrupt me, go on. Okay, I want to go, this is a tangent, but it's just a sort of, I want you to speculate on like an alternative history. If Hegel and Kant had debated, do you think that Kant would have called Hegel a charlatan? Do you think they would have been able to...? Absolutely, he already did it not with Hegel, but the first conflict was the passage from Kant to Fichte. And Kant, okay, he didn't use the term charlatan, but more or less something similar. But again, what is crucial here is that that's why I am so obsessed about this and in all my last books I agree with my critics here I am struggling with the same problem I am rewriting the same book. What does Hegel with Kant? Hegel is not a naive idealist who says, oh now I know the last mystery of the universe or whatever, now I know it, the thing itself and so on and so on. No, what Hegel does is just he accepts the Kantian fundamental let's call it impossibility, we cannot know the thing in itself and all that. He just claims that this structure is, if I may use naive terms, inscribed into reality itself. That reality itself is structured through constitutive impossibilities, absences and so on and so on. It's a very complex topic, you know, here unfortunately to my unfortunate for my detractors I'm not bluffing here, I know very well I may say. Yeah. So this is the this is the Hegelian speculative moment. That's why I think Hegel is not a crazy, Hegel is for me, this may sound shocking, a very modest philosopher. He is not saying I know everything there are no mysteries I'm reading the mind of God and so on and so on. What what Hegel is just very attentive to is how Hegel is to cut a long story short, Hegel and this brings us to your first question, correlationism, the thing in itself and so on and so on. Hegel is not saying there are no things in themselves, everything emerges through our subjectivity and so on. But what Hegel is saying is that this Kantian opposition between phenomena and the thing in itself is and it's clear if you read Kant close, it's absolutely immanent to phenomena. In the sense that the thing in itself is
But but first I don't see how you can oppose here materialism and idealism, because I think exactly the same thing can also be said for the ideal universe. It's in the same way constructed, it has a structure, and it's chaotic. And that's what I think Hegel enables us to think, in some sense the structure of chaos itself, how order evolves out of chaos. Never forget, now we are I hope we are not boring our public too much, now we are at a high abstract conceptual level, but never forget that Hegel does not begin his logic with God or supreme idea or whatever, but with the notion of being, which is pure chaotic multiplicity. And out of this totally flat chaotic multiplicity, that's the point of his logic, some kind of structure gradually emerges. But if I may say another thing, where I am disturbed by this idea of mysterianism in the sense of our human mind by definition because of our genetic evolutionary limitations cannot understand itself. This is an old argument. You find it with Chomsky, with McGinn, but you also incidentally find it with Steven Pinker and Jordan Peterson. Jordan Peterson makes the same argument. Yes, but I think I have a good counterpoint here, a very simple one. Steven Pinker in I forgot where it's quoted, where I refer to him in one of my big fat books, Steven Pinker gives this example: we cannot understand how our mind works for the same reason that I think he uses it, maybe I'm wrong, a rabbit cannot understand differential calculus. Simply, rabbit's mind, brain, whatever, I don't know how his self-awareness functions, didn't need this for evolutionary reasons, for survival and so on. It's not part of rabbit's lifeworld. So of course it cannot understand it. And Pinker's argumentation is it's the same for us. Our mind developed for work, instrumental reasoning, or for intersubjectivity, seduction, cooperation and so on and so on, not for understanding itself. So it's a simple evolutionary explanation. It was not needed, it's not the focus of our mind to understand. I find this parallel totally misleading. Because you know, a rabbit also does not care, worry about differential calculus. It's totally outside its domain. While is it not mysterious that we humanity as far as we know from the very beginning, even before there were sciences at least in the modern sense, are asking ourselves impossible questions, questions that we genetically, evolutionary, whatever are unable to properly understand. So now I am making my usual Hegelian trick. Of course there are questions that we cannot answer, but why then are we in contrast to animals or whoever answering them all the time? Why are we precisely obsessed with impossible questions? Why do we need a mystery? Because for rabbit there are in some sense no mysteries. Okay, unexpected things can happen for a rabbit, some animal jumps on him, human, a gun shot by a human being kills him, but these are not in a proper human sense a mystery, like mysteries for us: mystery of the universe, mystery of love and so on and so on. So I would say in a little bit more subtle way, that it's not simply that we cannot understand human mind, but that this not understanding is in the strongest possible sense part of the positive definition of the human mind. Human mind means, this is what I put it in my Lacanian jargon, that it emerges out of its own impossibility. Even all that it's dealing with impossible dilemmas, problems, even if you look historically, it's interesting to see how it was not that first we are dealing with facts, science and so on and then we start to speculate. No! We first start to speculate: cosmology, what is the nature of the stars, blah, and then gradually as a secondary effect of this positive sciences emerge. And it's a good question, here I am not against Chomsky, maybe he would even agree with it. It's a good question to what extent, although there is no... Can I, I want to interject here. Yeah please, interrupt me, go on. Okay, I want to go, this is a tangent, but it's just a sort of, I want you to speculate on like an alternative history. If Hegel and Kant had debated, do you think that Kant would have called Hegel a charlatan? Do you think they would have been able to...? Absolutely, he already did it not with Hegel, but the first conflict was the passage from Kant to Fichte. And Kant, okay, he didn't use the term charlatan, but more or less something similar. But again, what is crucial here is that that's why I am so obsessed about this and in all my last books I agree with my critics here I am struggling with the same problem I am rewriting the same book. What does Hegel with Kant? Hegel is not a naive idealist who says, oh now I know the last mystery of the universe or whatever, now I know it, the thing itself and so on and so on. No, what Hegel does is just he accepts the Kantian fundamental let's call it impossibility, we cannot know the thing in itself and all that. He just claims that this structure is, if I may use naive terms, inscribed into reality itself. That reality itself is structured through constitutive impossibilities, absences and so on and so on. It's a very complex topic, you know, here unfortunately to my unfortunate for my detractors I'm not bluffing here, I know very well I may say. Yeah. So this is the this is the Hegelian speculative moment. That's why I think Hegel is not a crazy, Hegel is for me, this may sound shocking, a very modest philosopher. He is not saying I know everything there are no mysteries I'm reading the mind of God and so on and so on. What what Hegel is just very attentive to is how Hegel is to cut a long story short, Hegel and this brings us to your first question, correlationism, the thing in itself and so on and so on. Hegel is not saying there are no things in themselves, everything emerges through our subjectivity and so on. But what Hegel is saying is that this Kantian opposition between phenomena and the thing in itself is and it's clear if you read Kant close, it's absolutely immanent to phenomena. In the sense that the thing in itself is
unknown
something that appears as such in our phenomenal experience. I experience that there is something out there which is out of my grasp. What I want to, just to finish because this is a crucial point, Hegel's point would have been
something that appears as such in our phenomenal experience. I experience that there is something out there which is out of my grasp. What I want to, just to finish because this is a crucial point, Hegel's point would have been
Slavoj Žižek
there is no mystery in nature. As I always repeat it, okay there are mysteries in the sense we don't know, but nature, you know as I always repeated, okay there are mysteries in the sense that we don't know, but nature, you know, usually the problem, the Kantian problem is this is how things appear to us, who knows, we cannot know how they are in themselves. Hegel as you probably know I repeat this point all the time, Hegel turns around this enigma. He says things are, so what? They stupidly exist out there. The big enigma is not can we step out of our phenomenal experience and see how things are in themselves, the big problem is why do things appear? How can in the middle of positive being, reality, something like appearance arise? Which is why in very precise terms Hegel always celebrates the notions of fiction, appearance, for example he says, Hegel in the famous passage in his forward to phenomenology, that the greatest strength of human spirit is the ability to tear apart what is in reality always together, to abstract things, to break the natural unity and so on and so on, which means to introduce appearances. And that's why even, I had recently in London something that may attract our listeners, we had a debate on sexuality, you know? And I said are we aware how our basic, at least for most of us, there are special cases of perversion I will not enter into that, but what a kind of a violent force of abstraction does sexual experience involve. Look, I'm with my lover, of whatever sex blah blah, I hold him, her, it naked in my arms, I explore it, but if sexuality is to work I have to abstract from so many things. You know this my old example already from medieval times, if you were too much obsessed with sexuality they tell you: just imagine what is one inch beneath the skin of vagina or penis. It's dirty glands, the penis can smell of urine and so on and so on. Once you are in sexuality you have to abstract all this. And I claim this brutal abstraction in the sense that the libidinal object is always an appearance, appearance in the sense that you abstract a whole, when you are holding your lover in your hands you abstract all the bodily details or whatever biological details, it's a very reductive experience. That's what Hegel celebrates. This precisely for Hegel the greatest strength of humanity is precisely, it sounds paradoxical but it is, this unique ability to to fall into an illusion, to take an illusion seriously. It's not the opposite, it's not the reality. Animals can deal with reality, no problem. We humans are ready to risk our life for appearance. I want to reframe this a little bit but I I mean I'm not I don't disagree with what you're saying, I just want to clarify because... When you say this, it's what in psychoanalysis we call Verneinung, negation, so kill me directly say. I just want to reframe it because what happens is I feel like I understand what you're saying but then these problems remain. So for instance... Please tell me, be precise. Okay I'll tell you. For me I still am wondering to what degree what we take to be reality or the objective world relies on our own subjectivity and vice versa. It does what we... Let me just let me finish the question then. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, go on, sorry. So the question is I'll put it like to you like this. When I imagine the world I had an experience when I a few years ago when I was a younger man when my uncle died I realized that it was a little bit strange that the world was going on without him because he was a that somehow some part of the world had disappeared and then I imagine well what if I was gone and I thought well the whole world would be gone right? This is our dilemma. But then you want to believe in a world outside of yourself. My difficulty at this point in the interview is this one. If the objective contingent chaotic world does appear to us and I agree with Žižek that it does, then isn't this material world in a Kantian sense a category of our perception? If this is so, then haven't we embraced idealism? Anyhow, this is what is bothering me at this point in the interview, and I try to ask Žižek about it by referencing the notion of solipsism. I'm grasping at this issue of the reality of our subjectivity, the way that ontologizing the split between the objective and the subjective or the idea that reality is incomplete in itself may lead us to idealism. I'm trying to state this difficulty as baldly as possible and I think Žižek picks up on what I'm driving at. And you talk about this in terms of the transcendent horizon or the... Yeah, but here I would have been much more not in a traditional sense but nonetheless materialist and Marxist. If I in the sense that you know, it's not our isolated consciousness. Right. It is something that is formed through collective symbolic interaction, through collective practice and so on and so on. This is how I read Lukács, György Lukács' famous statement that nature is a historical category. He was not a subjective idealist. His point was only that whenever we imagine nature, and precisely the way you mentioned it now as if I disappear what remains and so on, that is always a historical product. It's overdetermined by our historical practice. And you can show it in a triumphant way if you look at the history of natural sciences. We know the story, it's in very rough terms. In medieval times till even in Renaissance still, meaning was part of reality. Reality was perceived as something which has, even if it's chaotic meaning, but some type of deeper meaning inscribed into it. It's only with modernity, after Renaissance, Descartes and so on, that this clear opposition emerged: reality is out there, Pascal wrote about this vast silent universe, endless, no meaning in it, and meaning is something that we humans bestow on it. I'm not saying this is true, I'm just saying that this then this notion of nature as meaningless, run by some abstract mechanisms, natural laws, this is a typical modern phenomenon.
there is no mystery in nature. As I always repeat it, okay there are mysteries in the sense we don't know, but nature, you know as I always repeated, okay there are mysteries in the sense that we don't know, but nature, you know, usually the problem, the Kantian problem is this is how things appear to us, who knows, we cannot know how they are in themselves. Hegel as you probably know I repeat this point all the time, Hegel turns around this enigma. He says things are, so what? They stupidly exist out there. The big enigma is not can we step out of our phenomenal experience and see how things are in themselves, the big problem is why do things appear? How can in the middle of positive being, reality, something like appearance arise? Which is why in very precise terms Hegel always celebrates the notions of fiction, appearance, for example he says, Hegel in the famous passage in his forward to phenomenology, that the greatest strength of human spirit is the ability to tear apart what is in reality always together, to abstract things, to break the natural unity and so on and so on, which means to introduce appearances. And that's why even, I had recently in London something that may attract our listeners, we had a debate on sexuality, you know? And I said are we aware how our basic, at least for most of us, there are special cases of perversion I will not enter into that, but what a kind of a violent force of abstraction does sexual experience involve. Look, I'm with my lover, of whatever sex blah blah, I hold him, her, it naked in my arms, I explore it, but if sexuality is to work I have to abstract from so many things. You know this my old example already from medieval times, if you were too much obsessed with sexuality they tell you: just imagine what is one inch beneath the skin of vagina or penis. It's dirty glands, the penis can smell of urine and so on and so on. Once you are in sexuality you have to abstract all this. And I claim this brutal abstraction in the sense that the libidinal object is always an appearance, appearance in the sense that you abstract a whole, when you are holding your lover in your hands you abstract all the bodily details or whatever biological details, it's a very reductive experience. That's what Hegel celebrates. This precisely for Hegel the greatest strength of humanity is precisely, it sounds paradoxical but it is, this unique ability to to fall into an illusion, to take an illusion seriously. It's not the opposite, it's not the reality. Animals can deal with reality, no problem. We humans are ready to risk our life for appearance. I want to reframe this a little bit but I I mean I'm not I don't disagree with what you're saying, I just want to clarify because... When you say this, it's what in psychoanalysis we call Verneinung, negation, so kill me directly say. I just want to reframe it because what happens is I feel like I understand what you're saying but then these problems remain. So for instance... Please tell me, be precise. Okay I'll tell you. For me I still am wondering to what degree what we take to be reality or the objective world relies on our own subjectivity and vice versa. It does what we... Let me just let me finish the question then. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, go on, sorry. So the question is I'll put it like to you like this. When I imagine the world I had an experience when I a few years ago when I was a younger man when my uncle died I realized that it was a little bit strange that the world was going on without him because he was a that somehow some part of the world had disappeared and then I imagine well what if I was gone and I thought well the whole world would be gone right? This is our dilemma. But then you want to believe in a world outside of yourself. My difficulty at this point in the interview is this one. If the objective contingent chaotic world does appear to us and I agree with Žižek that it does, then isn't this material world in a Kantian sense a category of our perception? If this is so, then haven't we embraced idealism? Anyhow, this is what is bothering me at this point in the interview, and I try to ask Žižek about it by referencing the notion of solipsism. I'm grasping at this issue of the reality of our subjectivity, the way that ontologizing the split between the objective and the subjective or the idea that reality is incomplete in itself may lead us to idealism. I'm trying to state this difficulty as baldly as possible and I think Žižek picks up on what I'm driving at. And you talk about this in terms of the transcendent horizon or the... Yeah, but here I would have been much more not in a traditional sense but nonetheless materialist and Marxist. If I in the sense that you know, it's not our isolated consciousness. Right. It is something that is formed through collective symbolic interaction, through collective practice and so on and so on. This is how I read Lukács, György Lukács' famous statement that nature is a historical category. He was not a subjective idealist. His point was only that whenever we imagine nature, and precisely the way you mentioned it now as if I disappear what remains and so on, that is always a historical product. It's overdetermined by our historical practice. And you can show it in a triumphant way if you look at the history of natural sciences. We know the story, it's in very rough terms. In medieval times till even in Renaissance still, meaning was part of reality. Reality was perceived as something which has, even if it's chaotic meaning, but some type of deeper meaning inscribed into it. It's only with modernity, after Renaissance, Descartes and so on, that this clear opposition emerged: reality is out there, Pascal wrote about this vast silent universe, endless, no meaning in it, and meaning is something that we humans bestow on it. I'm not saying this is true, I'm just saying that this then this notion of nature as meaningless, run by some abstract mechanisms, natural laws, this is a typical modern phenomenon.
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Now, now comes my point. Okay. I am not saying, I am not saying that so we cannot step out of our human collective human universe, I'm just saying that the way is not to try to abstract from
Now, now comes my point. Okay. I am not saying, I am not saying that so we cannot step out of our human collective human universe, I'm just saying that the way is not to try to abstract from
Slavoj Žižek
ourselves and to say okay this notion in science still betrays
ourselves and to say okay this notion in science still betrays
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human influence touch, let's try to abstract from it and then you get some totally abstract notion and so on and so on. No, all you can show it pretty convincingly that all natural scientific basic visions of reality are socially overdetermined. Now, but now I repeat it, I'm not saying that this means that they are simply not true, that they
human influence touch, let's try to abstract from it and then you get some totally abstract notion and so on and so on. No, all you can show it pretty convincingly that all natural scientific basic visions of reality are socially overdetermined. Now, but now I repeat it, I'm not saying that this means that they are simply not true, that they
Slavoj Žižek
are our collective idealist
are our collective idealist
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dream and so on. All I'm saying is that if you want to ask radically the question so how are things in themselves, do not ask the question in this way and that's for me the limit of correlationism. This is where as you put it in one of your questions, correlationists like Kant and Graham Harman and other new realists, speculative realists, they share this presupposition: we are here, reality is out there. The point is can we get at it or not? I I reject this alternative, not in some stupid Hegelian way, everything is created by our mind and so on and so on. But I think that that the true problem is not how is reality without us, but how we are
dream and so on. All I'm saying is that if you want to ask radically the question so how are things in themselves, do not ask the question in this way and that's for me the limit of correlationism. This is where as you put it in one of your questions, correlationists like Kant and Graham Harman and other new realists, speculative realists, they share this presupposition: we are here, reality is out there. The point is can we get at it or not? I I reject this alternative, not in some stupid Hegelian way, everything is created by our mind and so on and so on. But I think that that the true problem is not how is reality without us, but how we are
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part of reality. And I don't mean this as an empirical question, in the sorry I don't mean this as an evolutionary question: how did human mind emerge out of I mean it in a more radical sense like how could something like self-awareness, like this very transcendental horizon and so on, how could this have happened in reality, in what we vaguely can call objective reality? So there in a more perverted sense I agree with those mysterians or whatever you call them that but I would say that mystery is not out there, you try to erase yourself from the picture and then the imagined reality in itself how it is. This is typical human procedure because the whole image is already structured through the paradoxes of your mind and so on and so on. The problem is the old problem of German idealism, how reality if we
part of reality. And I don't mean this as an empirical question, in the sorry I don't mean this as an evolutionary question: how did human mind emerge out of I mean it in a more radical sense like how could something like self-awareness, like this very transcendental horizon and so on, how could this have happened in reality, in what we vaguely can call objective reality? So there in a more perverted sense I agree with those mysterians or whatever you call them that but I would say that mystery is not out there, you try to erase yourself from the picture and then the imagined reality in itself how it is. This is typical human procedure because the whole image is already structured through the paradoxes of your mind and so on and so on. The problem is the old problem of German idealism, how reality if we
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vaguely use this term for technical reasons I prefer the Lacanian notion of the
vaguely use this term for technical reasons I prefer the Lacanian notion of the
Slavoj Žižek
real, how the real is structured so that something like human consciousness, something like our symbolic universe of illusions and so on can emerge in it. The mystery is here, the true mystery is not reality in itself. The true mystery is ourselves, how are we part of reality? I feel like there's two ways to understand what you're saying. We could we could understand it as you asking how is it from the perspective of the natural sciences, how is it that the world that we take to be the physical universe could be such that subjectivity could arise in it, there's that question and then there's the question how... Yeah I know, this is the so-called soft anthropic principle. Right. The strong version is I of course we all reject it, the strong version is that the world was created to enable the rise of consciousness. But there's the second way to take the same the same point that you're making which is this which is how is the social world where we already are including ourselves in it such that we understand ourselves as we are. That's another way to to as we understand ourselves, in other words we understand ourselves say as liberal bourgeois subjects or we understand ourselves as whatever, so there are two different kinds of... I agree with you, but I would nonetheless like to add something. First this transcendental question for me is not the ultimate horizon so that we can say so that we can simply say whatever we are saying it's overdetermined by our symbolic horizon or whatever we cannot step out of it. I am only saying that that to step out of it is means not to step out of ourselves, but again to try to conceptualize, maybe it's an impossible task, what kind of a gap do we humans introduce into nature, and here I come to your point I think so, and how should the nature be structured in itself let's say so that such a gap is possible? Here comes my to simplify it for my readers, my fascination with quantum physics. Because what I find so beautiful in quantum physics is that in our usual understanding of the world where we oppose human mind and reality, we see many things as specific to human like reality is flat, stupid, it happens or not. In human mind we can make experiments, we can deal with alternate realities, we can change things retroactively, of course only counterfactually at the symbolic level and so on. But in some sense the reason of my mega fascination with quantum physics is that it shows how features that we usually identify with the functioning of human spirit are in a subtly different way I'm not saying everything is in spirit, but in some subtle way are already in natural reality at its most elementary level. That would be the limit of my speculation. Topics like you know superposition, retroactively changing the past, you know all those mystery of quantum experiments are the most beautiful point of them is that it's not only and quantum physics I'm well aware is precisely not some stupid subjectivism where we observers create reality and so on. But the most subtle paradox emerges there where not only something is established in its positive being as part of our reality only through measurement, but that this works also retroactively. So that through measurement you determine what already happened. Now what I find again so fascinating here is that we think that this happens only in our human mind, as I you must know I always quote T.S. Eliot who said with every new work of art the entire past history of art is changed. Of course we don't we shouldn't take this we take this in a brutal material sense like we are changing the past factually. No, but we are changing it counterfactually, it acquires a different meaning and so on and so on. And again what I find so fascinating is that is that something along these lines, but not the same as in human mind, already happens at the most elementary level of reality described by quantum physics. Why is this important? Because to return back to Chomsky's question, this means that if we follow not relativity theory but quantum physics and so on and so on, we can see that the way they describe reality, it has nothing to do with our common sense notion of reality as you know pieces of matter moving in linear time space and so on and so on. It's something much more paradoxical and so on. And this would have been for me true materialism. Do you think that do you think that let's say that we changed the horizon of our being politically, in other words let's say there was a revolution, we have socialism, we live in a completely different kind of
real, how the real is structured so that something like human consciousness, something like our symbolic universe of illusions and so on can emerge in it. The mystery is here, the true mystery is not reality in itself. The true mystery is ourselves, how are we part of reality? I feel like there's two ways to understand what you're saying. We could we could understand it as you asking how is it from the perspective of the natural sciences, how is it that the world that we take to be the physical universe could be such that subjectivity could arise in it, there's that question and then there's the question how... Yeah I know, this is the so-called soft anthropic principle. Right. The strong version is I of course we all reject it, the strong version is that the world was created to enable the rise of consciousness. But there's the second way to take the same the same point that you're making which is this which is how is the social world where we already are including ourselves in it such that we understand ourselves as we are. That's another way to to as we understand ourselves, in other words we understand ourselves say as liberal bourgeois subjects or we understand ourselves as whatever, so there are two different kinds of... I agree with you, but I would nonetheless like to add something. First this transcendental question for me is not the ultimate horizon so that we can say so that we can simply say whatever we are saying it's overdetermined by our symbolic horizon or whatever we cannot step out of it. I am only saying that that to step out of it is means not to step out of ourselves, but again to try to conceptualize, maybe it's an impossible task, what kind of a gap do we humans introduce into nature, and here I come to your point I think so, and how should the nature be structured in itself let's say so that such a gap is possible? Here comes my to simplify it for my readers, my fascination with quantum physics. Because what I find so beautiful in quantum physics is that in our usual understanding of the world where we oppose human mind and reality, we see many things as specific to human like reality is flat, stupid, it happens or not. In human mind we can make experiments, we can deal with alternate realities, we can change things retroactively, of course only counterfactually at the symbolic level and so on. But in some sense the reason of my mega fascination with quantum physics is that it shows how features that we usually identify with the functioning of human spirit are in a subtly different way I'm not saying everything is in spirit, but in some subtle way are already in natural reality at its most elementary level. That would be the limit of my speculation. Topics like you know superposition, retroactively changing the past, you know all those mystery of quantum experiments are the most beautiful point of them is that it's not only and quantum physics I'm well aware is precisely not some stupid subjectivism where we observers create reality and so on. But the most subtle paradox emerges there where not only something is established in its positive being as part of our reality only through measurement, but that this works also retroactively. So that through measurement you determine what already happened. Now what I find again so fascinating here is that we think that this happens only in our human mind, as I you must know I always quote T.S. Eliot who said with every new work of art the entire past history of art is changed. Of course we don't we shouldn't take this we take this in a brutal material sense like we are changing the past factually. No, but we are changing it counterfactually, it acquires a different meaning and so on and so on. And again what I find so fascinating is that is that something along these lines, but not the same as in human mind, already happens at the most elementary level of reality described by quantum physics. Why is this important? Because to return back to Chomsky's question, this means that if we follow not relativity theory but quantum physics and so on and so on, we can see that the way they describe reality, it has nothing to do with our common sense notion of reality as you know pieces of matter moving in linear time space and so on and so on. It's something much more paradoxical and so on. And this would have been for me true materialism. Do you think that do you think that let's say that we changed the horizon of our being politically, in other words let's say there was a revolution, we have socialism, we live in a completely different kind of
unknown
society, would that change the way we understand the kinds of facts that we we've already found in the natural sciences? It's already happening. It's already happening. There are good although I am not at the utmost a historicist, I think that every historicism is ultimately self-contradictory. In the sense that it it has a certain metatheory
society, would that change the way we understand the kinds of facts that we we've already found in the natural sciences? It's already happening. It's already happening. There are good although I am not at the utmost a historicist, I think that every historicism is ultimately self-contradictory. In the sense that it it has a certain metatheory
Slavoj Žižek
implied into it which itself cannot be historicized. Let me give you an example. This is my old problem with somebody whom I otherwise appreciate he is a great mind, Judith Butler. You know. She she is
implied into it which itself cannot be historicized. Let me give you an example. This is my old problem with somebody whom I otherwise appreciate he is a great mind, Judith Butler. You know. She she is
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an anti-essentialist. We
an anti-essentialist. We
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don't have fixed sexual identities biologically or theologically determined, our gender identities gender is not the same as sex but let's drop it now our gender identities are performatively enacted, contingent through practice, through repetition and so on
don't have fixed sexual identities biologically or theologically determined, our gender identities gender is not the same as sex but let's drop it now our gender identities are performatively enacted, contingent through practice, through repetition and so on
Slavoj Žižek
and so on. Okay. My simple question for her is, is this dynamic performative vision of our gender identities, is this itself a historical phenomenon? That's how we experience ourselves in today's postmodern global capitalist universe? Or can we say in some sense that, to be slightly but benevolently ironic, when when the stone men seduced each other and whatever they did as their sexual activity they were already performatively constructing their identity and so on and so on. If if you adopt the whichever way you answer I think you are in a deadlock. If you claim no, this is our specific vision today, then what will you say then, that once essentialism was true only today it's not or only today it's not? If you say essentialism was never true, then you find yourself in a very strange predicament which is idealist in the worst sense I think. Because then you have to claim that we in a very primitive historicist way, that something is universally true, sex, gender identity were always performatively constructed in a contingent way, but today we are in a privileged position to know this. So again, what interests me with all historicists is that they are never fully historicists. The very structure of historicity is something that they have to presuppose as an a priori. I don't think we quite resolved the question of idealism, but I do think that I ended up siding with Žižek here against myself. If I try to imagine what Žižek is getting at, I think of Ryan Reynolds in the movie The Nines, which is a movie I mentioned in the last video I made. I want to explain how the solipsistic ego becomes an abstract and alienated substance in a more accessible way by taking up the dialectics of Ryan Reynolds in the film The Nines. In the movie The Nines, Reynolds plays three characters that are really one character. He plays a man who's not really a man at all, but some kind of God. In the film, Reynolds slowly realizes that the world he's in is a world of his own creation. A world that he is ultimately responsible for, but also a world that, since it is his creation, isn't real. Once the realization fully sets in, what happens is that a new world, a divine world filled with gods, is revealed to him. What Žižek is asking me to consider is that this movie The Nines could be made just like it is, but at the end Reynolds wouldn't be proven out to be a God and there would be no divine realm. That is, what if the world is incomplete? What if we're all responsible for our own phenomenal world, but there is no organic substrate? The truth of The Nines from Žižek's perspective isn't this idea of the divine realm that emerges in a New Age way at the end, but the dissolution of reality. The mystery in our own experience of our own being in nature is what Žižek is driving at. I grok this, but I don't fully understand it. When it comes to Žižek's point on historicism, though, I think I do understand. He was arguing that either the cavemen were determined by their essence and somehow we are not determined by our essence, or the cavemen's essence was their orientation towards performing gender roles or creating gender, but they didn't know this and today we do know it. In both cases there's a kind of idealism. One is the idealism that supports a natural essence creating natural genders, and the other is an essence of our creative capacity to perform new genders. This second choice would mean that we are historically situated in a privileged position to know our essence, whereas our caveman ancestors were not. As a Marxist, I'm ready to embrace this second form of idealism because I think capitalism creates the conditions wherein we are in a privileged position to take rational charge of the social relations that set up our political economic reality. The very structure of historicity is something that they have to presuppose as an a priori. It's obvious with Marx and Marxism. For there the process
and so on. Okay. My simple question for her is, is this dynamic performative vision of our gender identities, is this itself a historical phenomenon? That's how we experience ourselves in today's postmodern global capitalist universe? Or can we say in some sense that, to be slightly but benevolently ironic, when when the stone men seduced each other and whatever they did as their sexual activity they were already performatively constructing their identity and so on and so on. If if you adopt the whichever way you answer I think you are in a deadlock. If you claim no, this is our specific vision today, then what will you say then, that once essentialism was true only today it's not or only today it's not? If you say essentialism was never true, then you find yourself in a very strange predicament which is idealist in the worst sense I think. Because then you have to claim that we in a very primitive historicist way, that something is universally true, sex, gender identity were always performatively constructed in a contingent way, but today we are in a privileged position to know this. So again, what interests me with all historicists is that they are never fully historicists. The very structure of historicity is something that they have to presuppose as an a priori. I don't think we quite resolved the question of idealism, but I do think that I ended up siding with Žižek here against myself. If I try to imagine what Žižek is getting at, I think of Ryan Reynolds in the movie The Nines, which is a movie I mentioned in the last video I made. I want to explain how the solipsistic ego becomes an abstract and alienated substance in a more accessible way by taking up the dialectics of Ryan Reynolds in the film The Nines. In the movie The Nines, Reynolds plays three characters that are really one character. He plays a man who's not really a man at all, but some kind of God. In the film, Reynolds slowly realizes that the world he's in is a world of his own creation. A world that he is ultimately responsible for, but also a world that, since it is his creation, isn't real. Once the realization fully sets in, what happens is that a new world, a divine world filled with gods, is revealed to him. What Žižek is asking me to consider is that this movie The Nines could be made just like it is, but at the end Reynolds wouldn't be proven out to be a God and there would be no divine realm. That is, what if the world is incomplete? What if we're all responsible for our own phenomenal world, but there is no organic substrate? The truth of The Nines from Žižek's perspective isn't this idea of the divine realm that emerges in a New Age way at the end, but the dissolution of reality. The mystery in our own experience of our own being in nature is what Žižek is driving at. I grok this, but I don't fully understand it. When it comes to Žižek's point on historicism, though, I think I do understand. He was arguing that either the cavemen were determined by their essence and somehow we are not determined by our essence, or the cavemen's essence was their orientation towards performing gender roles or creating gender, but they didn't know this and today we do know it. In both cases there's a kind of idealism. One is the idealism that supports a natural essence creating natural genders, and the other is an essence of our creative capacity to perform new genders. This second choice would mean that we are historically situated in a privileged position to know our essence, whereas our caveman ancestors were not. As a Marxist, I'm ready to embrace this second form of idealism because I think capitalism creates the conditions wherein we are in a privileged position to take rational charge of the social relations that set up our political economic reality. The very structure of historicity is something that they have to presuppose as an a priori. It's obvious with Marx and Marxism. For there the process
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which determines or overdetermines the change from one to another notion of reality is ultimately the change in collective practice, collective labor process and so on. For Heidegger it's different and so on and so on. So again, I am not a radical historicist. I am to put it very naively in search of the absolute.
which determines or overdetermines the change from one to another notion of reality is ultimately the change in collective practice, collective labor process and so on. For Heidegger it's different and so on and so on. So again, I am not a radical historicist. I am to put it very naively in search of the absolute.
Slavoj Žižek
I don't think that radical historicism works as a position. Sorry. What what if the absolute is the way in which a subject interacts with and transforms the objective world? That's nice to say, but do you know that all the terms that you used now are already so heavily historically overdetermined. What do you mean by objective world? Do you mean it in modern sense? Do you mean it in a more medieval sense and so on. Is this objective world the world of natural sciences? Is it...? Well, the world you have to change in order to find something to eat, the world that you have to change in order to get a shelter from from the elements. Oh here I would again be tempted to complicate. If there is something and it's a paradox, here I find mysteries not only Chomsky. Yeah. From the very beginning, even when they were starving and so on, humanity had a weird need to make under quotation marks irrational sacrifices. You almost don't have enough of meat but you have to destroy as an offering to Gods a little bit of it and so on and so on. And this always fascinated me and there are even ridiculous examples like I think this is modern theology. Do you know a little bit of, it's horrible, the history of communist Albania after World War II, Enver Hoxha? You know that they were obsessed by security and you know that in a country of I think less than million people, in a decade or so as part of this obsession that Albania will be attacked, he they built the Albanians small bunkers. It was clearly a sacrificial gesture. Yeah, but I kind of feel like but we have something similar under capitalism, right? We have I mean what we sacrifice ourselves to is the value that we're creating that's completely abstract and that mediates our life and and I I feel as though that we can think of it that way. Although you know, my problem here is and I claim even Marx's theory is ambiguous. Okay, I agree. But never forget that for Marx the only way to freedom, actual freedom what he called, goes through capitalism. Right. That Marx was always ambiguous towards capitalism.
I don't think that radical historicism works as a position. Sorry. What what if the absolute is the way in which a subject interacts with and transforms the objective world? That's nice to say, but do you know that all the terms that you used now are already so heavily historically overdetermined. What do you mean by objective world? Do you mean it in modern sense? Do you mean it in a more medieval sense and so on. Is this objective world the world of natural sciences? Is it...? Well, the world you have to change in order to find something to eat, the world that you have to change in order to get a shelter from from the elements. Oh here I would again be tempted to complicate. If there is something and it's a paradox, here I find mysteries not only Chomsky. Yeah. From the very beginning, even when they were starving and so on, humanity had a weird need to make under quotation marks irrational sacrifices. You almost don't have enough of meat but you have to destroy as an offering to Gods a little bit of it and so on and so on. And this always fascinated me and there are even ridiculous examples like I think this is modern theology. Do you know a little bit of, it's horrible, the history of communist Albania after World War II, Enver Hoxha? You know that they were obsessed by security and you know that in a country of I think less than million people, in a decade or so as part of this obsession that Albania will be attacked, he they built the Albanians small bunkers. It was clearly a sacrificial gesture. Yeah, but I kind of feel like but we have something similar under capitalism, right? We have I mean what we sacrifice ourselves to is the value that we're creating that's completely abstract and that mediates our life and and I I feel as though that we can think of it that way. Although you know, my problem here is and I claim even Marx's theory is ambiguous. Okay, I agree. But never forget that for Marx the only way to freedom, actual freedom what he called, goes through capitalism. Right. That Marx was always ambiguous towards capitalism.
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At the same time he celebrated capitalism as this dissolution of all old patriarchal links and so on and so on. So for Marx this how shall I call it? This the fact that I put it like this. The fact that for Marx in capitalism production doesn't serve the needs of real people, but its own capital's reproduction, for Marx this is already an inverted form of freedom because as Marx says in communism or whatever however you imagine it, production will
At the same time he celebrated capitalism as this dissolution of all old patriarchal links and so on and so on. So for Marx this how shall I call it? This the fact that I put it like this. The fact that for Marx in capitalism production doesn't serve the needs of real people, but its own capital's reproduction, for Marx this is already an inverted form of freedom because as Marx says in communism or whatever however you imagine it, production will
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not serve the needs of the people but will be a self-goal, something an affirmative process and so on and so on. Right. So let's not make this faithful pragmatic step and claim we need production which serves the needs of the real people. On the other hand, what are the needs of the real people? Here I buy a little bit of psychoanalysis and so on. Don't the whole capitalism relies on the structure of envy. It's not just what we have and need. It's how what we have is overdetermined by what others have. We want what others want and so on and so on. That's why my good friend who is a Marxist, Fredric Jameson, said that if we even imagine a post-capitalist order, the biggest problem there
not serve the needs of the people but will be a self-goal, something an affirmative process and so on and so on. Right. So let's not make this faithful pragmatic step and claim we need production which serves the needs of the real people. On the other hand, what are the needs of the real people? Here I buy a little bit of psychoanalysis and so on. Don't the whole capitalism relies on the structure of envy. It's not just what we have and need. It's how what we have is overdetermined by what others have. We want what others want and so on and so on. That's why my good friend who is a Marxist, Fredric Jameson, said that if we even imagine a post-capitalist order, the biggest problem there
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will be envy. Okay, but... Well, I think you're not wrong, but I think that the kind of envy that we would experience in a post-capitalist world would be the kind of envy that you experience maybe between academics on a university campus, which would mean it be vicious but not not deadly. And that it would be the kind of envy that you find amongst free people. Um, in like the for me what Marx points to, the way I interpret Marx, and partly through you by the way... Yeah. ...is that um that what we're looking for is to take responsibility for the mechanism that mediates our productive life. And not that we're going to find one that's naturally there for us already, not that we're going to know what the nature what we need already, but just that we're going to be able to be free to experiment with another mediating force in the world. And you know, you do have to go through capitalism to get there because that's what's liberated us from previous autocratic or monarchal powers so that we can work together as free people. But but we're not going to find anything waiting for us where, you know, it's just naturally there. No, I agree, but I would nonetheless be a little bit more pessimistic and claim that you know, there are serious problems here how to imagine this new mode. Even with Marx you often find in many famous passages in late Marx, in Grundrisse and Capital, what I'm tempted to call this technocratic temptation: that communism will be a self-transparent society where some collective reason will perfectly in a transparent way regulate our exchange with nature and so on and so on. What shocks me is that read the that sub-chapter from
will be envy. Okay, but... Well, I think you're not wrong, but I think that the kind of envy that we would experience in a post-capitalist world would be the kind of envy that you experience maybe between academics on a university campus, which would mean it be vicious but not not deadly. And that it would be the kind of envy that you find amongst free people. Um, in like the for me what Marx points to, the way I interpret Marx, and partly through you by the way... Yeah. ...is that um that what we're looking for is to take responsibility for the mechanism that mediates our productive life. And not that we're going to find one that's naturally there for us already, not that we're going to know what the nature what we need already, but just that we're going to be able to be free to experiment with another mediating force in the world. And you know, you do have to go through capitalism to get there because that's what's liberated us from previous autocratic or monarchal powers so that we can work together as free people. But but we're not going to find anything waiting for us where, you know, it's just naturally there. No, I agree, but I would nonetheless be a little bit more pessimistic and claim that you know, there are serious problems here how to imagine this new mode. Even with Marx you often find in many famous passages in late Marx, in Grundrisse and Capital, what I'm tempted to call this technocratic temptation: that communism will be a self-transparent society where some collective reason will perfectly in a transparent way regulate our exchange with nature and so on and so on. What shocks me is that read the that sub-chapter from
Slavoj Žižek
Capital Volume on fetishism and its mysteries, mysteries or whatever, when Marx very strangely enumerating different modes of production begins with Robinson, one guy alone, okay let's forget about the fact that it's strangely ignored by Marx that Robinson was not alone, he had a servant on that island. Right. Right. And then at the end Marx says let's try to imagine, he means basically a communist society, and he said we are back at Robinson. Only instead of one person we have the collective mind. I doubt that this is possible. I believe in let's call it
Capital Volume on fetishism and its mysteries, mysteries or whatever, when Marx very strangely enumerating different modes of production begins with Robinson, one guy alone, okay let's forget about the fact that it's strangely ignored by Marx that Robinson was not alone, he had a servant on that island. Right. Right. And then at the end Marx says let's try to imagine, he means basically a communist society, and he said we are back at Robinson. Only instead of one person we have the collective mind. I doubt that this is possible. I believe in let's call it
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constitutive opacity of the social space. That's the lesson of psychoanalysis. Well, I think that what we have to do is recognize is (not
constitutive opacity of the social space. That's the lesson of psychoanalysis. Well, I think that what we have to do is recognize is (not
Slavoj Žižek
to?) you know maybe I do disagree with Marx on that point that you just raised, but the hope is to recognize our own responsibility for creating the gap that you talk about, for creating whatever the kind of unreal thing is that's mediating our lives. I wrote a
to?) you know maybe I do disagree with Marx on that point that you just raised, but the hope is to recognize our own responsibility for creating the gap that you talk about, for creating whatever the kind of unreal thing is that's mediating our lives. I wrote a
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book a novel where I tried to figure this out and I decided that rather than productive work what
book a novel where I tried to figure this out and I decided that rather than productive work what
Slavoj Žižek
would in in labor-time what would I I had an AI impose on the world that video that everyone would play video games and what would decide where things went was what video games were most popular. That's a wonderful vision. Just just my evil imagination. Well, it was a dystopian novel. It was my attempt to overcome capitalism. Yes that's a beautiful point that you're making here, yes. Because you know my problem with AI, artificial intelligence, it's not that it's perfect, it could control us, but that it can get in its own contradictions, it can get self-contradictory, it can be inconsistent and so on. I don't believe in some perfect artificial intelligence which will be a threat to us. I think artificial intelligence will be also inconsistent, confused and so on. Right. I just think we can be inconsistent in a better, more open and and free way, and
would in in labor-time what would I I had an AI impose on the world that video that everyone would play video games and what would decide where things went was what video games were most popular. That's a wonderful vision. Just just my evil imagination. Well, it was a dystopian novel. It was my attempt to overcome capitalism. Yes that's a beautiful point that you're making here, yes. Because you know my problem with AI, artificial intelligence, it's not that it's perfect, it could control us, but that it can get in its own contradictions, it can get self-contradictory, it can be inconsistent and so on. I don't believe in some perfect artificial intelligence which will be a threat to us. I think artificial intelligence will be also inconsistent, confused and so on. Right. I just think we can be inconsistent in a better, more open and and free way, and
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where people don't starve. Okay, but would you then make the next step which is for some leftists very problematic? Yeah. What if I say that the lesson of all this
where people don't starve. Okay, but would you then make the next step which is for some leftists very problematic? Yeah. What if I say that the lesson of all this
Slavoj Žižek
is that we need a certain degree of alienation? Of course not in the Marxist sense of exploitation and so on, but in the simple sense of intersubjective distance, non-transparency and so on and so on. And I would even... Listen, you indoctrinated me. I completely agree with you on that. Yeah. I even would have follow your lines here and in the sense of it's horrible when I say this, I was even a couple of times interrupted by booing, but when I said I don't want to live in a society where every afternoon I have to sit in meetings and determine how we organize health, education and so on, I want some relatively efficient anonymous collective apparatus state on the apparatuses or not, which take care of this. And I would say following you if I got you correctly, that that that we should imagine an alienation in this elementary sense life is not simply self-transparent and so on, which can be absolutely different from capitalist alienation. Right. The big enigma for me, it may sound very ironic today, is to imagine a different good alienation. Yeah, that's how I'm with you on that. But I just think that we have to start by understanding the one we have, and that is one based on capitalist exploitation... Yeah, absolutely. But here again my fascination with Marx is that you know, Marx as I again and again repeated, Marx is not this is where I find the full actuality of Marx. Marx is not simply saying we live in a phantasmagoric universe of capitalist illusions, we need to turn to reality. No. Marx was well aware that the
is that we need a certain degree of alienation? Of course not in the Marxist sense of exploitation and so on, but in the simple sense of intersubjective distance, non-transparency and so on and so on. And I would even... Listen, you indoctrinated me. I completely agree with you on that. Yeah. I even would have follow your lines here and in the sense of it's horrible when I say this, I was even a couple of times interrupted by booing, but when I said I don't want to live in a society where every afternoon I have to sit in meetings and determine how we organize health, education and so on, I want some relatively efficient anonymous collective apparatus state on the apparatuses or not, which take care of this. And I would say following you if I got you correctly, that that that we should imagine an alienation in this elementary sense life is not simply self-transparent and so on, which can be absolutely different from capitalist alienation. Right. The big enigma for me, it may sound very ironic today, is to imagine a different good alienation. Yeah, that's how I'm with you on that. But I just think that we have to start by understanding the one we have, and that is one based on capitalist exploitation... Yeah, absolutely. But here again my fascination with Marx is that you know, Marx as I again and again repeated, Marx is not this is where I find the full actuality of Marx. Marx is not simply saying we live in a phantasmagoric universe of capitalist illusions, we need to turn to reality. No. Marx was well aware that the
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true fantasies, theological mysteries that control us are part of our social reality. So Marx didn't say we have to step out of illusions into social reality. No. Again, the way I read Marx, I always repeat this. Fetishism is not in our false consciousness. Fetishism is in our social practice. An average bourgeois subject thinks commodity is a simple thing, we exchange things, money gives the equivalent and then Marx says literally I quoted this passage tens of times, that a commodity appears something obvious, simple. You need very profound analysis to see what Marx ironically refers to as the theological dimension of it. Right. So Marx is not saying we should step out of these illusions into some kind of naive transparent reality and so on and so on. I think that this is a vulgar reading of Marx. So I think we've arrived at a point that I want to get to, which is trying to explain the attacks on you based on what the aims of the left are currently
true fantasies, theological mysteries that control us are part of our social reality. So Marx didn't say we have to step out of illusions into social reality. No. Again, the way I read Marx, I always repeat this. Fetishism is not in our false consciousness. Fetishism is in our social practice. An average bourgeois subject thinks commodity is a simple thing, we exchange things, money gives the equivalent and then Marx says literally I quoted this passage tens of times, that a commodity appears something obvious, simple. You need very profound analysis to see what Marx ironically refers to as the theological dimension of it. Right. So Marx is not saying we should step out of these illusions into some kind of naive transparent reality and so on and so on. I think that this is a vulgar reading of Marx. So I think we've arrived at a point that I want to get to, which is trying to explain the attacks on you based on what the aims of the left are currently
Slavoj Žižek
and why your message and what you say sometimes and more more recently seems to fall on deaf ears or on people who are intentionally misinterpreting you. And I think it has to do with a desire to make their politics already fit into the world as it is and also make it into a kind of return to a state of nature. Those two things aren't as opposed as you might you know as it might appear. No, no I deeply I deeply agree with you here, but I'm maybe even more even more even more of a pessimist. For example, let's take feminism, MeToo and so on and so on. Yeah. I simply don't get it how is it possible for me to be so often attacked for antifeminism and so on and so on. What I see in the predominant mode of political correctness and MeToo, it's not what some libertarian critics are reproaching it for, that it's too that it's too radical. No, it's really not radical enough. It doesn't even mention, ignores the true horrors of exploitation of women and so on and so on. My big obsession is not you are a movie star and you had to sleep with the producer to get the role, this usual stories. You know who is my ideal here? You know the actress Kristen Stewart? Yes. She gave recently I think to the
and why your message and what you say sometimes and more more recently seems to fall on deaf ears or on people who are intentionally misinterpreting you. And I think it has to do with a desire to make their politics already fit into the world as it is and also make it into a kind of return to a state of nature. Those two things aren't as opposed as you might you know as it might appear. No, no I deeply I deeply agree with you here, but I'm maybe even more even more even more of a pessimist. For example, let's take feminism, MeToo and so on and so on. Yeah. I simply don't get it how is it possible for me to be so often attacked for antifeminism and so on and so on. What I see in the predominant mode of political correctness and MeToo, it's not what some libertarian critics are reproaching it for, that it's too that it's too radical. No, it's really not radical enough. It doesn't even mention, ignores the true horrors of exploitation of women and so on and so on. My big obsession is not you are a movie star and you had to sleep with the producer to get the role, this usual stories. You know who is my ideal here? You know the actress Kristen Stewart? Yes. She gave recently I think to the
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Vogue magazine a nice interview where she made the same point. She said forget about this aspiring movie stars. Just make a step back, go to any studio, all those script girls, secretaries, makeup girls and so on. They are massively exploited and it's sexual and it's part of their daily life. We don't even mention this. Or my other big example. Why is MeToo so obsessed with this what I call one-night stand problems,
Vogue magazine a nice interview where she made the same point. She said forget about this aspiring movie stars. Just make a step back, go to any studio, all those script girls, secretaries, makeup girls and so on. They are massively exploited and it's sexual and it's part of their daily life. We don't even mention this. Or my other big example. Why is MeToo so obsessed with this what I call one-night stand problems,
Slavoj Žižek
you know? Did you misuse the girl if you lied to her when you
you know? Did you misuse the girl if you lied to her when you
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blah when you flirted with her whatever. What about the true misery of hundreds of millions of women? Let's say you're in
blah when you flirted with her whatever. What about the true misery of hundreds of millions of women? Let's say you're in
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mid-30s, you have two children, you depend financially on your husband. Your husband
mid-30s, you have two children, you depend financially on your husband. Your husband
Slavoj Žižek
maybe it's not even beating you, he is not rude towards you. But he starts to ignore you and there is no way out for you. Where can you go? You know? That's for me true despair. I mean, this is what has to be addressed. This massive misery, poverty of which you don't find many things in the media.
maybe it's not even beating you, he is not rude towards you. But he starts to ignore you and there is no way out for you. Where can you go? You know? That's for me true despair. I mean, this is what has to be addressed. This massive misery, poverty of which you don't find many things in the media.
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But the last thing that I want to emphasize here is my Freudian and Hegelian lesson. I don't share this I call it MeToo
But the last thing that I want to emphasize here is my Freudian and Hegelian lesson. I don't share this I call it MeToo
Slavoj Žižek
optimism, that if we get rid of and then the enemy can be male chauvinism, heterosexual logic and so on, if we just get rid of this force of oppression, we will get free sexual life, fully enjoying ourselves. No, sorry. I think we should learn something from Freud. Sexuality is inherently contradictory, self-destructive and so on and so on. Yeah. And we have
optimism, that if we get rid of and then the enemy can be male chauvinism, heterosexual logic and so on, if we just get rid of this force of oppression, we will get free sexual life, fully enjoying ourselves. No, sorry. I think we should learn something from Freud. Sexuality is inherently contradictory, self-destructive and so on and so on. Yeah. And we have
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to admit this and to learn to deal with it in a
to admit this and to learn to deal with it in a
Slavoj Žižek
different way. That's my obsession. Yeah. I mean I don't even want this free perfect sex because it would become once you try to imagine it it becomes flat and boring. It's the fact that... You know what it becomes? I read another feminist, there are many intelligent feminists I admire that, much more than men. One of them says I forgot who something wonderful. That if you follow this politically correct, you know consensual sex all the stuff, this politically correct instruction, the image of good sex that you get it gets uncannily close to sadomasochist contract. That's the model that remains. Right. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know because for example when I criticized
different way. That's my obsession. Yeah. I mean I don't even want this free perfect sex because it would become once you try to imagine it it becomes flat and boring. It's the fact that... You know what it becomes? I read another feminist, there are many intelligent feminists I admire that, much more than men. One of them says I forgot who something wonderful. That if you follow this politically correct, you know consensual sex all the stuff, this politically correct instruction, the image of good sex that you get it gets uncannily close to sadomasochist contract. That's the model that remains. Right. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know because for example when I criticized
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this logic of consent, I was attacked for ah, so we can rape women and consent doesn't matter. No, my point is not
this logic of consent, I was attacked for ah, so we can rape women and consent doesn't matter. No, my point is not
Slavoj Žižek
consent doesn't matter. Of course I am for consent. But my point is consent does not my god, if there is a thing that we learned from Marx is that the bourgeois exchange exploitation is also by definition the free consent. Right. That consent is not enough. You can still have coercion, domination even in the form of consent. And this holds especially for sexuality with all its provocations, ambiguities, you say yes then you are afraid of it, you want to withdraw, or you say no, everything is possible in sexuality. Or you say no, but it's meant as a provocation for further seduction and so on and so on. Let's admit this incredible ambiguity, grey zone complexity of sexuality. Let's not play the game sexuality is in itself a domain of pure joy and then comes the the evil patriarchal ideology which ruins it. Right. I feel like what happened is that we had this theoretical conversation and then we had this political conversation and they almost met, they almost connected, but
consent doesn't matter. Of course I am for consent. But my point is consent does not my god, if there is a thing that we learned from Marx is that the bourgeois exchange exploitation is also by definition the free consent. Right. That consent is not enough. You can still have coercion, domination even in the form of consent. And this holds especially for sexuality with all its provocations, ambiguities, you say yes then you are afraid of it, you want to withdraw, or you say no, everything is possible in sexuality. Or you say no, but it's meant as a provocation for further seduction and so on and so on. Let's admit this incredible ambiguity, grey zone complexity of sexuality. Let's not play the game sexuality is in itself a domain of pure joy and then comes the the evil patriarchal ideology which ruins it. Right. I feel like what happened is that we had this theoretical conversation and then we had this political conversation and they almost met, they almost connected, but
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not quite. But they do connect. I deeply agree with you
not quite. But they do connect. I deeply agree with you
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because you know and here I am I wouldn't say an optimist, but a partisan of the opinion that we live in a very interesting era where abstract questions about what is subjectivity, agency, sexual identity and so on are at the same time part of our everyday political social problems of oppression. That's why I like so much the
because you know and here I am I wouldn't say an optimist, but a partisan of the opinion that we live in a very interesting era where abstract questions about what is subjectivity, agency, sexual identity and so on are at the same time part of our everyday political social problems of oppression. That's why I like so much the
Slavoj Žižek
debate and this may surprise you or some of our listeners how often I get positive signals from I know many of them from LGBT+ women. Especially again and again after a talk I get approached by them and they told me they especially like this idea of mine which is not mine, I took it from an Australian feminist, LGBT sorry LGBT theorists, you know this idea that LGBT+, that this plus is a positive entity in itself, that defines subjectivity. You know how many authentic LGBT authentic for me subjects accept this fully. And this is this is this is what gives me hope. Isn't it wonderful when a very concrete debate LGBT+ rights, which can be then very empirical separate toilets or whatever you want, all of a sudden in an unique short circuit brings us to the mega theoretical mega philosophical problem of what is subjectivity agency and so on and so on. Well you know here's my hope Slavoj and I think we're maybe wrapping it up here but one day after the revolution we can you know have a drink in Siberia together in a Gulag. Absolutely. And even if it's Gulag we will enjoy it there, nice hot tea and so on. But seriously, it's very good that you mentioned revolution because you know what I think? That and Alain Badiou gave it to me this idea. No, what's happening today it's not like before World War II, it's more unfortunately before World War I. Yeah. In the second half of 19th century was like our era the last years. It was an era of unprecedented progress: women's vote, trade unions, retirement and so on, and then something happened unimaginable: First World War. And that's my answer to those who claim oh communists are fascists they are the same this crudity. No, if you look at the history of 20th century, you know that First World War was the mega catastrophe. Millions it was such a shock for and what I am afraid is that now our epoch is in a similar way approaching some I don't know how it will look catastrophe. We have full reasons to be like moderately, not to lose nerves, but to be if I may use this stupid terms, to adopt the stance of a rational, reasonable panic. Okay
debate and this may surprise you or some of our listeners how often I get positive signals from I know many of them from LGBT+ women. Especially again and again after a talk I get approached by them and they told me they especially like this idea of mine which is not mine, I took it from an Australian feminist, LGBT sorry LGBT theorists, you know this idea that LGBT+, that this plus is a positive entity in itself, that defines subjectivity. You know how many authentic LGBT authentic for me subjects accept this fully. And this is this is this is what gives me hope. Isn't it wonderful when a very concrete debate LGBT+ rights, which can be then very empirical separate toilets or whatever you want, all of a sudden in an unique short circuit brings us to the mega theoretical mega philosophical problem of what is subjectivity agency and so on and so on. Well you know here's my hope Slavoj and I think we're maybe wrapping it up here but one day after the revolution we can you know have a drink in Siberia together in a Gulag. Absolutely. And even if it's Gulag we will enjoy it there, nice hot tea and so on. But seriously, it's very good that you mentioned revolution because you know what I think? That and Alain Badiou gave it to me this idea. No, what's happening today it's not like before World War II, it's more unfortunately before World War I. Yeah. In the second half of 19th century was like our era the last years. It was an era of unprecedented progress: women's vote, trade unions, retirement and so on, and then something happened unimaginable: First World War. And that's my answer to those who claim oh communists are fascists they are the same this crudity. No, if you look at the history of 20th century, you know that First World War was the mega catastrophe. Millions it was such a shock for and what I am afraid is that now our epoch is in a similar way approaching some I don't know how it will look catastrophe. We have full reasons to be like moderately, not to lose nerves, but to be if I may use this stupid terms, to adopt the stance of a rational, reasonable panic. Okay
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this is it, this is my last question. I I remembered something that I had
this is it, this is my last question. I I remembered something that I had
Slavoj Žižek
wanted to bring up at the beginning and didn't. Which is last night before to get ready to talk to you I I watched a video of you from years ago. You were on a pretty interesting program where you're surrounded by television sets. I think it was a Swedish program but... It was Dutch, it was Netherlands, Dutch, yes. I know which one you mean, I hate it because I don't it was too much of a TV show and so on. Yeah, yeah. Well, but it was interesting nonetheless because there was you made one point which at the time was very important to make in which was that when we talk about the financial crisis we tend to talk about bad bankers, or we tend to talk about greed, or the loss of values, or psychological issues, and we don't talk about the structure the way capitalism itself has and its structure has set up the the crisis and is is going to continue to set up these sorts of crises. Absolutely. But if I may conclude with another provocation. Yeah. That's also where I would shift the accent. What I mean, what disturbs me although I am again Trump is a disgusting entity, but I don't like this focus on impeach Trump. The problem today if we learned something through Snowden,
wanted to bring up at the beginning and didn't. Which is last night before to get ready to talk to you I I watched a video of you from years ago. You were on a pretty interesting program where you're surrounded by television sets. I think it was a Swedish program but... It was Dutch, it was Netherlands, Dutch, yes. I know which one you mean, I hate it because I don't it was too much of a TV show and so on. Yeah, yeah. Well, but it was interesting nonetheless because there was you made one point which at the time was very important to make in which was that when we talk about the financial crisis we tend to talk about bad bankers, or we tend to talk about greed, or the loss of values, or psychological issues, and we don't talk about the structure the way capitalism itself has and its structure has set up the the crisis and is is going to continue to set up these sorts of crises. Absolutely. But if I may conclude with another provocation. Yeah. That's also where I would shift the accent. What I mean, what disturbs me although I am again Trump is a disgusting entity, but I don't like this focus on impeach Trump. The problem today if we learned something through Snowden,
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WikiLeaks and so on, is that the problem is not individuals who are corrupted. The problem is the evil manipulation
WikiLeaks and so on, is that the problem is not individuals who are corrupted. The problem is the evil manipulation
Slavoj Žižek
domination inscribed into the very functioning of our institutions. So even if you don't have a corrupted guy, you may have sincere patriots and so on, but still horrors will happen. You know? I don't like this false personalization: you see Trump is a corrupted guy. No, it's false. The the evil, evil alienation, domination is inscribed into the very functioning of our institutions. That's why to return to you, something like a revolution, a radical change of institutions themselves will have to happen. Do you think that the left, the radical left, the left that's supposed to still care about something like a revolution just failed to hold on to...? No, no. My my sad idea is that many of them that I've met that secretly, intimately they don't really believe in it. They themselves, they are the ultimate beautiful souls. It's very easy today to have this position of no, all these are compromises, who is Bernie Sanders a moderate social democrat, this is not enough and so on and so on. But de facto
domination inscribed into the very functioning of our institutions. So even if you don't have a corrupted guy, you may have sincere patriots and so on, but still horrors will happen. You know? I don't like this false personalization: you see Trump is a corrupted guy. No, it's false. The the evil, evil alienation, domination is inscribed into the very functioning of our institutions. That's why to return to you, something like a revolution, a radical change of institutions themselves will have to happen. Do you think that the left, the radical left, the left that's supposed to still care about something like a revolution just failed to hold on to...? No, no. My my sad idea is that many of them that I've met that secretly, intimately they don't really believe in it. They themselves, they are the ultimate beautiful souls. It's very easy today to have this position of no, all these are compromises, who is Bernie Sanders a moderate social democrat, this is not enough and so on and so on. But de facto
unknown
this means you just sit back and and comfortably await the big revolutionary event, which you even secretly hope it
this means you just sit back and and comfortably await the big revolutionary event, which you even secretly hope it
Slavoj Žižek
will not happen. That's why I with all my radicality blah blah I was always I think the I was always also in some sense very pragmatic. Whenever something is moving, Syriza at the beginning, Morales, I was even connected with Linera was my ideal, Morales, Bernie Sanders and so on, we have to join the ranks when we see a potential of some change even if it appears naive and so on and so on. We don't have the right to... Sorry? And don't you think we have to do that critically? Though we have to do that you know... Of course, but we have to do it. But we don't we shouldn't be afraid to dirty our hands, not with crimes, but with concrete engagements which even may appear naive and so on, but they are necessary because I believe that of course you know what I think Orwell, whom I otherwise
will not happen. That's why I with all my radicality blah blah I was always I think the I was always also in some sense very pragmatic. Whenever something is moving, Syriza at the beginning, Morales, I was even connected with Linera was my ideal, Morales, Bernie Sanders and so on, we have to join the ranks when we see a potential of some change even if it appears naive and so on and so on. We don't have the right to... Sorry? And don't you think we have to do that critically? Though we have to do that you know... Of course, but we have to do it. But we don't we shouldn't be afraid to dirty our hands, not with crimes, but with concrete engagements which even may appear naive and so on, but they are necessary because I believe that of course you know what I think Orwell, whom I otherwise
unknown
don't like too much, he said at some point that all revolutions fail, but they don't fail in the same way. Yeah, yeah. And I think this is important. Let's imagine today I'm worried of today, next
don't like too much, he said at some point that all revolutions fail, but they don't fail in the same way. Yeah, yeah. And I think this is important. Let's imagine today I'm worried of today, next
Slavoj Žižek
week the elections
week the elections
unknown
in England. I think that Corbyn cannot win. But if he will win, probably there will be mega troubles. Capital will escape and so on and so on. But there is no other way than to go through all this. My spies in London are more optimistic, they say he has like a percent chance of getting a minority government, you know? Okay, but what will happen then? I spoke
in England. I think that Corbyn cannot win. But if he will win, probably there will be mega troubles. Capital will escape and so on and so on. But there is no other way than to go through all this. My spies in London are more optimistic, they say he has like a percent chance of getting a minority government, you know? Okay, but what will happen then? I spoke
Slavoj Žižek
with my friends there who are close to Corbyn... sorry to Corbyn and then they told me, but wait a minute, what will you do with capital already getting ready to to to to flow out. No, there'll have to be he'll be smashed unless there's a popular movement in the streets, you know, unless there's people who are willing to fight for helping his agenda get through. Unless... See I see problems for him again because first what they would have the it will be a matter of their survival to control the free flow of capital. And how to do it with all the opposition. I, you know what's my ultimate paranoia? You know that true conservatives like every years
with my friends there who are close to Corbyn... sorry to Corbyn and then they told me, but wait a minute, what will you do with capital already getting ready to to to to flow out. No, there'll have to be he'll be smashed unless there's a popular movement in the streets, you know, unless there's people who are willing to fight for helping his agenda get through. Unless... See I see problems for him again because first what they would have the it will be a matter of their survival to control the free flow of capital. And how to do it with all the opposition. I, you know what's my ultimate paranoia? You know that true conservatives like every years
unknown
something close to radical left taking power and then one year fiasco so that
something close to radical left taking power and then one year fiasco so that
Slavoj Žižek
as they always tell me the people will learn the lesson then, you know? We will have peace for the next years. That's what I was already afraid in the case of Greece. You know what was my biggest shock there? I spoke with Varoufakis, maybe you know the story. And he told me that when he pulled his great ace card when talking with Schäuble, the German finance minister, okay then we'll do Grexit, you know. Schäuble's reaction was: nice, perfect, okay do it. We can give you billion
as they always tell me the people will learn the lesson then, you know? We will have peace for the next years. That's what I was already afraid in the case of Greece. You know what was my biggest shock there? I spoke with Varoufakis, maybe you know the story. And he told me that when he pulled his great ace card when talking with Schäuble, the German finance minister, okay then we'll do Grexit, you know. Schäuble's reaction was: nice, perfect, okay do it. We can give you billion
unknown
as a credit to do
as a credit to do
Slavoj Žižek
it and so on. The real conservatives in Europe they wanted Grexit and they already had precise plans: Grexit, hungering Greece, chaos, okay people will be taught. Right I know, I know. At the time I was saying that I was not for a Greek exit from the EU just because I thought it would actually
it and so on. The real conservatives in Europe they wanted Grexit and they already had precise plans: Grexit, hungering Greece, chaos, okay people will be taught. Right I know, I know. At the time I was saying that I was not for a Greek exit from the EU just because I thought it would actually
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end up making the conditions in in Greece worse and that you know
end up making the conditions in in Greece worse and that you know
Slavoj Žižek
what I thought the only possibility would be is to organize
what I thought the only possibility would be is to organize
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amongst the the the losers in Europe, you know the small nations that were struggling and and
amongst the the the losers in Europe, you know the small nations that were struggling and and
Slavoj Žižek
hurt the most by the crisis and they were in debt, that they had to organize together. They couldn't just do it... But I agree with you, but that's crucial. This is also the conclusion of Varoufakis when I talked with him. That the lesson of the failure of Syriza is one: there is still a dream among some leftists in Europe that since capital is international, a strong nation-state gives you enough autonomy, blah blah. I doubt this. We need left also has to be in some sense at least internationalist. We
hurt the most by the crisis and they were in debt, that they had to organize together. They couldn't just do it... But I agree with you, but that's crucial. This is also the conclusion of Varoufakis when I talked with him. That the lesson of the failure of Syriza is one: there is still a dream among some leftists in Europe that since capital is international, a strong nation-state gives you enough autonomy, blah blah. I doubt this. We need left also has to be in some sense at least internationalist. We
unknown
cannot play nation-state against global capital. Yeah. I agree. Well, listen, it was very nice of you to to be on the on the channel today and to... Yeah, but we talk too much, so please I need your comrade-ly censorship. Cut short all
cannot play nation-state against global capital. Yeah. I agree. Well, listen, it was very nice of you to to be on the on the channel today and to... Yeah, but we talk too much, so please I need your comrade-ly censorship. Cut short all
Slavoj Žižek
stupidities and so
stupidities and so
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on.
on.