Slavoj Žižek on Christian Atheism, Dawkins & why young people don't read anymore
Interview · The Spectator ·
2024-10-13 · 0:37:41 · 4,570 words
ideologyreligion-theologytechnology-ai-cyberspacesubjectivityethics
Žižek argues that digital technology has flattened deep thought into a multitasking, instant-access mode, using his own experience with YouTube and ChatGPT as examples. He then defends his 'Christian atheism' by interpreting the death of Christ and the Book of Job as radical theological insights into freedom and divine failure, rather than moral comfort. Finally, he critiques identity politics as a conservative trap, advocating instead for a humanism that seeks to transcend inherent evil and envy through a sense of vocation.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 7
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
The paradoxical result of modern technology: while access to information is deeper, the mode of engagement is superficial, multitasking, and instant, lacking traditional concentration.
The 'happy fall' of Adam; Žižek uses this to argue that God pushed us into sin, and only through this fall do we become aware of goodness, contrasting with Pope Francis's attempt to domesticate this.
as “Holy Spirit as Communist Party”
Žižek's formulation that the Holy Spirit is the first communist party because it creates a community of believers where social hierarchies are suspended and all are delivered to their own freedom.
as “God becomes an atheist”
A Chestertonian reading of the Crucifixion ('My God, why have you forsaken me?') where God himself doubts his divinity, marking the moment of pure, terrifying freedom.
Žižek's position that one must go deep into Christianity to experience the existential meaning of Christ's death (the death of God) to become truly atheist, rather than just accepting secular science.
A Rousseauian concept Žižek adopts to describe the base human condition: the desire that the other lose, even at one's own expense, which identity politics fails to address.
as “sense of vocation”
The ethical core of ordinary people (exemplified by nurses) who cannot not perform their duty, transcending simple rational egoism through a profound sense of obligation.
Stories he reaches for 3
An apocryphal story where the Pope tells Napoleon, who crowns himself, that he wants to destroy Christianity but will fail because the Church has been trying to do that for 2,000 years by domesticating its radical core.
“you will not succeed, because we the church are trying to do this for almost two thousand years and didn't succeed.”
Žižek cites Chesterton's reading of Job: God's answer ('where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?') is not about infinite wisdom, but about God admitting his creation is a failure, validating Job's complaint.
“You think it's only you whose life is ruined? Look around at the universe, I screwed up everything. All my creation is a big failure.”
Writer Hanif Kureishi, paralyzed from the neck down, discovered that his nurses, despite low pay, stayed due to a 'sense of vocation', a profound inability to not care for him, transcending rational egoism.
“You wouldn't be able to look yourself into the mirror if you don't do it.”
Works invoked 4
The Book of Job book
Used to argue that ideology/critique begins with Job; Chesterton's reading shows God admitting his creation is a failure.
Parsifal opera
Žižek identifies as a 'Wagnerian, old-fashioned conservative Wagnerian' and uses his distracted consumption of it on YouTube to illustrate modern media habits.
The Bible book
Referenced for the story of Job, the Crucifixion, and the 'Eli Eli lama sabachthani' line.
Our Father other
Pope Francis's proposed change to remove 'lead us not into temptation' is criticized by Žižek as an attempt to 'domesticate' Christianity.
People invoked 14
G. K. Chesterton positive
Cited for his radical readings of the Book of Job (God admits failure) and the Crucifixion (God becomes an atheist).
John Milbank positive
Mentioned as one of the 'true authentic living theologians' with whom Žižek debates.
Hanif Kureishi positive
Described as a 'good friend' and writer whose experience with paralyzed nurses illustrated the 'sense of vocation'.
Joseph Goebbels negative
Used as a metaphor for the danger of 'cultural Christianity'; Žižek jokes he would shoot Goebbels if he used that metaphor.
Richard Dawkins negative
Cited as an example of someone who promotes 'cultural Christianity' (nice ethical thoughts without belief), which Žižek rejects as a 'safe position'.
Pope Francis negative
Žižek is 'horrified' by Francis's attempt to change the Our Father prayer to remove the idea of God pushing us into sin, calling it an attempt to 'domesticate' Christianity.
Rowan Williams positive
Described as an 'idea ideal' and a 'true dialectician' who enlightened Žižek on ambiguous parts of Christianity.
Søren Kierkegaard positive
Described as 'maybe the greatest' theologian for understanding that 'we never really know if we can believe' and that 'the most we can do is to believe that we believe.'
Jean-Jacques Rousseau positive
Cited for opposing simple rational egoism with 'self-destructive envious egotism'.
Meister Eckhart positive
Cited as the beginning of European mysticism (Rhenian mystics) where God is split in himself, containing an evil/furious aspect.
Jakob Böhme positive
Cited alongside Eckhart as a key figure in the tradition of God's internal split.
Augustine of Hippo positive
Referenced as the source of the concept 'felix culpa' (happy fall).
Sigmund Freud positive
Quoted to support the view that people are 'at the same time much better and much worse than we think.'
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Called 'my favorite philosopher'; Žižek relies on Hegel's reading of the Crucifixion (death of God on the cross, not just the Messiah).
Transcript 25 turns
unknown
Hello and welcome to Spectator TV. I'm Natasha Frose, the Spectator's deputy broadcast editor, and I'm joined today by Slavoj Zizek. He is a Slovenian intellectual and political philosopher who has authored several books, but most recently a book on Christian atheism. I want to get to the contents of your book, Slavoj, soon, but before I do, as someone who's written several books, one of the things we're talking about a lot at the moment is the fact that young people, perhaps some of your students, don't read books anymore. People aren't really learning or thinking deeply in the way that they used to. So, have you found that at all?
Hello and welcome to Spectator TV. I'm Natasha Frose, the Spectator's deputy broadcast editor, and I'm joined today by Slavoj Zizek. He is a Slovenian intellectual and political philosopher who has authored several books, but most recently a book on Christian atheism. I want to get to the contents of your book, Slavoj, soon, but before I do, as someone who's written several books, one of the things we're talking about a lot at the moment is the fact that young people, perhaps some of your students, don't read books anymore. People aren't really learning or thinking deeply in the way that they used to. So, have you found that at all?
Slavoj Žižek
Maybe this will be of some interest to our viewers, if I correct you a little bit, because this will be the big shock. Please do. Apart from a couple of semesters decades ago in the United States, I was never teaching. I hate students. So, the biggest luck of my life was the communist oppression at the beginning of 1970s. Then I was applying for a job, I was not considered a Marxist enough, and so I was for four years unemployed and then I got a research job. But considering what people read and so on, what I am afraid is that it's not just exclusively a phenomenon among the young people, but it's the deep shift in the entire culture. I think that all these websites where you like YouTube, whatever, where you get instant access, they changed so much the way not just we read but the way we relate even to works of art. I'm not young and let let me tell you what is regularly happening to me. I'm a Wagnerian, old-fashioned conservative Wagnerian in music. And then I go to YouTube and you get, for example, literally over thirty, three-zero versions of Parsifal. So instead of calmly relaxing and listening intensely to one, I listen for five minutes, then I said, my God, isn't there another better version? I jump to that one. Then a scene fascinates me. While the singing, the melody, voice goes on, I jump in a parallelly to another site where there is a theoretical treatise on this passage in the opera. So I function in a totally different way, plus combining fragments. Because it is something so suffocating in the fact, I learned this from my son, who is young and is in this, how if you already ChatGPT, the way it functions now, you just you just dictate into your iPhone. I did it with my son. How did the colonization Russian of Alaska proceed and why did Russia withdraw from Alaska? Do you know that in about four-five seconds, you get a whole treatise on it? I mean, I was shocked how this works. So what I'm saying is that it's not that people know less, but it's another, as far as I can judge, another type of knowledge. Another point then where I would maybe shift the accent, it all depends on what do you think by deep, deep thought. I think that the way so-called, however we call it, transcendental meditation, spiritual experience and so on, the way they function, this fits perfectly today's technology. Because I know many so-called New Agers, and they are very much into spiritual experience, but they do it through quick courses which you can get on YouTube and so on. So I'm almost tempted to say that the result is much more deep thought but, I don't know how to put it in another way, a flattened deep thought. You know, for example, if you debate science, a complete idiot who probably didn't read any book on it can tell you we in the West are too much, too inframed into rationalist metaphysical thought, we should strive for organic unity with nature, this simple mystical experience of unity, or even, that's my anecdote which also works, maybe you heard it. You know, I had a friend who is a nice lady of my wife, and she told me that her boyfriend did something and I praised her, which was meant to be good but she instantly ran away from him. He didn't tell her, I'm a man, I'm superior to you, you should wash my our dishes, my no, he told her, you know, we men are too rational, we objectivize things, while you women are much more organic, you are in a dialogue with nature and so on. And what she said, this is the truly dangerous man, the man who pretends to understand you, but the message is really deeply oppressive, patronizing. So again, I have my lesson is not that we lack deep thoughts but that we lack a certain very traditional mode of concentration. The media today make us, how do you, enforce on us this multitask approach. I think this is the true catastrophe. Incidentally, to finish, you can then cut it off all you want, which is why, and maybe this makes me really old, I'm not even in one of these new media like Facebook, X, Twitter, or whatever. I find it absolutely boring, maybe it's my old-age misanthropy. Any idiot can contact you there, reply, sorry, I stand with what I wrote once. I think ninety-nine percent of the people are boring idiots, I don't want to have contact with them. It's interesting what you say about deep thought, I suppose what you're referring to is people's attention span. I know I have a terrible attention span these days. Do you think that you would have become the writer, philosopher that you are today if you were born in this era? I think I would. I think I would. On the other hand, again, what I already said, that's the beautiful irony for me. I can see the contingencies that enabled me to become what I am. Again, without the communist oppression, the last wave in early seventies, I would probably be a stupid boring local professor here in Ljubljana. And there were many other things, so it was the result of contingencies, but I think I would because it's I think I would still become what I am. Because again, there is something in my nature which is against a dialogue. And I think I mean this in an authentically democratic way. It's not a cheap paradox. I remember here my favorite Catholic
Maybe this will be of some interest to our viewers, if I correct you a little bit, because this will be the big shock. Please do. Apart from a couple of semesters decades ago in the United States, I was never teaching. I hate students. So, the biggest luck of my life was the communist oppression at the beginning of 1970s. Then I was applying for a job, I was not considered a Marxist enough, and so I was for four years unemployed and then I got a research job. But considering what people read and so on, what I am afraid is that it's not just exclusively a phenomenon among the young people, but it's the deep shift in the entire culture. I think that all these websites where you like YouTube, whatever, where you get instant access, they changed so much the way not just we read but the way we relate even to works of art. I'm not young and let let me tell you what is regularly happening to me. I'm a Wagnerian, old-fashioned conservative Wagnerian in music. And then I go to YouTube and you get, for example, literally over thirty, three-zero versions of Parsifal. So instead of calmly relaxing and listening intensely to one, I listen for five minutes, then I said, my God, isn't there another better version? I jump to that one. Then a scene fascinates me. While the singing, the melody, voice goes on, I jump in a parallelly to another site where there is a theoretical treatise on this passage in the opera. So I function in a totally different way, plus combining fragments. Because it is something so suffocating in the fact, I learned this from my son, who is young and is in this, how if you already ChatGPT, the way it functions now, you just you just dictate into your iPhone. I did it with my son. How did the colonization Russian of Alaska proceed and why did Russia withdraw from Alaska? Do you know that in about four-five seconds, you get a whole treatise on it? I mean, I was shocked how this works. So what I'm saying is that it's not that people know less, but it's another, as far as I can judge, another type of knowledge. Another point then where I would maybe shift the accent, it all depends on what do you think by deep, deep thought. I think that the way so-called, however we call it, transcendental meditation, spiritual experience and so on, the way they function, this fits perfectly today's technology. Because I know many so-called New Agers, and they are very much into spiritual experience, but they do it through quick courses which you can get on YouTube and so on. So I'm almost tempted to say that the result is much more deep thought but, I don't know how to put it in another way, a flattened deep thought. You know, for example, if you debate science, a complete idiot who probably didn't read any book on it can tell you we in the West are too much, too inframed into rationalist metaphysical thought, we should strive for organic unity with nature, this simple mystical experience of unity, or even, that's my anecdote which also works, maybe you heard it. You know, I had a friend who is a nice lady of my wife, and she told me that her boyfriend did something and I praised her, which was meant to be good but she instantly ran away from him. He didn't tell her, I'm a man, I'm superior to you, you should wash my our dishes, my no, he told her, you know, we men are too rational, we objectivize things, while you women are much more organic, you are in a dialogue with nature and so on. And what she said, this is the truly dangerous man, the man who pretends to understand you, but the message is really deeply oppressive, patronizing. So again, I have my lesson is not that we lack deep thoughts but that we lack a certain very traditional mode of concentration. The media today make us, how do you, enforce on us this multitask approach. I think this is the true catastrophe. Incidentally, to finish, you can then cut it off all you want, which is why, and maybe this makes me really old, I'm not even in one of these new media like Facebook, X, Twitter, or whatever. I find it absolutely boring, maybe it's my old-age misanthropy. Any idiot can contact you there, reply, sorry, I stand with what I wrote once. I think ninety-nine percent of the people are boring idiots, I don't want to have contact with them. It's interesting what you say about deep thought, I suppose what you're referring to is people's attention span. I know I have a terrible attention span these days. Do you think that you would have become the writer, philosopher that you are today if you were born in this era? I think I would. I think I would. On the other hand, again, what I already said, that's the beautiful irony for me. I can see the contingencies that enabled me to become what I am. Again, without the communist oppression, the last wave in early seventies, I would probably be a stupid boring local professor here in Ljubljana. And there were many other things, so it was the result of contingencies, but I think I would because it's I think I would still become what I am. Because again, there is something in my nature which is against a dialogue. And I think I mean this in an authentically democratic way. It's not a cheap paradox. I remember here my favorite Catholic
unknown
theologian, the Irish guy Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who already detected hundred years ago, even more, a trend which is today very popular, a trend of self-relativization. You know, it's not considered, I would say politically but theoretically spiritually correct if you say, sorry, this is my opinion, I stand here. It's very popular to say I'm saying this but maybe I'm wrong, one should one could also look at
theologian, the Irish guy Gilbert Keith Chesterton, who already detected hundred years ago, even more, a trend which is today very popular, a trend of self-relativization. You know, it's not considered, I would say politically but theoretically spiritually correct if you say, sorry, this is my opinion, I stand here. It's very popular to say I'm saying this but maybe I'm wrong, one should one could also look at
unknown
it from another direction and so on and so on. I hate this, why? Because
it from another direction and so on and so on. I hate this, why? Because
Slavoj Žižek
it's a typical example of how in words you appear open, but you adopt a safe position. No, I like to expose myself. As it were, I like to say, sorry, this is how it is. And then in this way, not hiding behind any self-falsely self-depreciated protective wall, I openly expose myself to it. But by exposing yourself, you must then open yourself out to accepting that you could be wrong at times, no? Yes, but you can but then so yes, of course, but isn't it that the only way to get proper criticism is to clearly state where you stand? Without all this fake self-relativization. I agree with you here. Yes, precisely, my dogmatism is a way to expose myself to criticism. Because I close off then all easy escape routes, you know, like to say, oh but yes, I agree with you, I didn't really mean it like that. No, I try to say how I mean it. So your book, Slavoj, I've read a couple of reviews and I suppose it's it's a chance to persuade the left to take religious issues more seriously, Christianity in particular. And one of the things that really jumped out at me is I was constantly imagining sort of groupthink where religious people come together, they read scriptures, they discuss the meaning of things, they discuss symbolism, they look at metaphors. Possibly in a way that in universities these sorts of seminars don't really happen in the in the same sort of way, they religious people are constantly challenging their ideas, their thoughts. Do you see a parallel there that you're such a deep thinker, you're trying to put forward a case for religion? I will say another thing, maybe this will interest you. What makes me really sad is the decline of what I shamelessly call big
it's a typical example of how in words you appear open, but you adopt a safe position. No, I like to expose myself. As it were, I like to say, sorry, this is how it is. And then in this way, not hiding behind any self-falsely self-depreciated protective wall, I openly expose myself to it. But by exposing yourself, you must then open yourself out to accepting that you could be wrong at times, no? Yes, but you can but then so yes, of course, but isn't it that the only way to get proper criticism is to clearly state where you stand? Without all this fake self-relativization. I agree with you here. Yes, precisely, my dogmatism is a way to expose myself to criticism. Because I close off then all easy escape routes, you know, like to say, oh but yes, I agree with you, I didn't really mean it like that. No, I try to say how I mean it. So your book, Slavoj, I've read a couple of reviews and I suppose it's it's a chance to persuade the left to take religious issues more seriously, Christianity in particular. And one of the things that really jumped out at me is I was constantly imagining sort of groupthink where religious people come together, they read scriptures, they discuss the meaning of things, they discuss symbolism, they look at metaphors. Possibly in a way that in universities these sorts of seminars don't really happen in the in the same sort of way, they religious people are constantly challenging their ideas, their thoughts. Do you see a parallel there that you're such a deep thinker, you're trying to put forward a case for religion? I will say another thing, maybe this will interest you. What makes me really sad is the decline of what I shamelessly call big
unknown
theology, a big global interpretation with a certain firm position. Isn't it that today we have two types of
theology, a big global interpretation with a certain firm position. Isn't it that today we have two types of
Slavoj Žižek
writings about religion? Either cheap popularizations, not serious study, or historicist studies: how was Jesus real, what did his words mean, was Jesus still a Jew or not, I mean descending from Judaism and so on. That's why I have a couple of guys with whom I am in a dialogue, I occasionally meet meet one of my idea ideals Rowan Williams. He is for me a true dialectician. You know where he enlightened me, I don't know if I mentioned this in
writings about religion? Either cheap popularizations, not serious study, or historicist studies: how was Jesus real, what did his words mean, was Jesus still a Jew or not, I mean descending from Judaism and so on. That's why I have a couple of guys with whom I am in a dialogue, I occasionally meet meet one of my idea ideals Rowan Williams. He is for me a true dialectician. You know where he enlightened me, I don't know if I mentioned this in
unknown
the book, he gave the best reading I can imagine of Dostoevsky's Idiot. That he is not a good guy, he is the worst catastrophe. Idiot is a guy who thinks he is sincere, in himself honest, but if you look at the consequences of his acts, he brings destruction all around him. Nastassya Filippovna is killed, the other guy, the violent one, becomes a murderer and so on. I mean, this is such a deep insight, how persons who are sincerely good, tolerant, can function in such a way that they bring havoc, catastrophes all around them. So again, he is a fundamental shameless theologian. Another guy with whom I co-wrote a book even, John Milbank, Radical Orthodoxy. These are the guys I like. They are not afraid, even with all naivety, to
the book, he gave the best reading I can imagine of Dostoevsky's Idiot. That he is not a good guy, he is the worst catastrophe. Idiot is a guy who thinks he is sincere, in himself honest, but if you look at the consequences of his acts, he brings destruction all around him. Nastassya Filippovna is killed, the other guy, the violent one, becomes a murderer and so on. I mean, this is such a deep insight, how persons who are sincerely good, tolerant, can function in such a way that they bring havoc, catastrophes all around them. So again, he is a fundamental shameless theologian. Another guy with whom I co-wrote a book even, John Milbank, Radical Orthodoxy. These are the guys I like. They are not afraid, even with all naivety, to
unknown
approach big questions. You know why I like them? Because they are not afraid to confront, it's too cheap to say inconsistencies
approach big questions. You know why I like them? Because they are not afraid to confront, it's too cheap to say inconsistencies
Slavoj Žižek
in Christianity, but all those ambiguous parts. For example, my worst idea, and now, although I'm more on the Pope Francis side, I was horrified at what he is now doing, Pope Francis. Already a year ago, he proposed the change in this, how do you call it, the most ordinary prayer, Our Father who art in heaven. Don't don't, what's the expression, don't push us into, don't expose us to into into sin and so on, claiming no, no, God is good, he cannot do this, is our free will. No, deep theologians are fully aware that of course we were pushed into sin. Look at the paradise, God prohibited eating from the tree of apples, and he put this stupid tree in the center of paradise. Why didn't he hide the tree? Good theologians knew from Saint Augustine onwards that that the fall was what they call felix culpa, a happy fall. Because only through fall as a reaction to it we became aware to goodness. Without the background of the fall, there is no goodness and so on. So you know, this is for me the living Christianity, not the one which tries to domesticate Christianity, oh this is too radical, this will annoy people. Christianity must annoy people. Here I must clarify another point. When I say Christian atheist, please, if I would be Goebbels' best metaphor, and if somebody calls me a cultural Christian, this is now fashionable, Richard Dawkins also, I would like Goebbels drew my gun out and start to shoot. You know this idea: I'm an atheist but there are many nice ethical thoughts in Christianity, so although I don't believe in God, I consider a good moral guy and so on. No, no, no, I my I am an atheist, but my position is much more radical. To really be an atheist, it's not enough in this abstract way, you know, to say okay God doesn't exist, science shows us and so on. You must go deep into Christianity and experience the spiritual meaning of what the death of Christ means, which is simply the death of God. Hegel, my favorite philosopher, says this. He says what dies on the cross is not a Messiah, a representative of God, so that then after Christ's death on the cross, God says, come back to me my son, I'll try to send them another guy. No, the God of beyond is dead on cross. What for me dies on the cross is the idea that in whatever troubles we are, there is some higher divine destiny, control, so that we know that at the end the story will end well. No, for me the message of the death of Christ is: we are delivered to ourselves. That's why another basic message for me is Holy Spirit. As I put a couple of times in my books, in this one and in previous ones, when people ask me why are you a communist, my answer is because holy, how do you say in English, I don't want to decide, Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost? Okay, I will say Holy Spirit, it's more Hegelian. Holy Spirit is the first form of the communist party. Why? Because it's a community of believers where all social hierarchic links are suspended. You know those famous words I think by Paul, in Christ there are neither women nor men, neither Greeks nor Jews, which means ethnic differences don't matter. This is a community of equals which violates hierarchical social orders and it's delivered to its own freedom. Yes, God brings us freedom through his death. And this freedom is horrifying. And I think, you know, maybe I quote it, you know which is my crucial saying here, which is true? You must know the story, which is incidentally apocryphal, it didn't happen, but there is truth in it. When Napoleon approached the Pope and took the crown from the Pope and put it himself on his head, according to this story, you know what the Pope told Napoleon? I know what you want. You want to destroy Christianity. But you will not succeed, because we the church are trying to do this for almost two thousand years and didn't succeed. You know, I I'm really think trying to bring out what is in Christianity more than its official version. I think Christianity is fighting not so much paganism, Christianity as the existing hierarchic religion, it's fighting some surplus in in its own edifice, its founded, grounded Christianity in controlling, domesticating a certain pretty terrifying insight. So again, I don't play this game of cultural Christianity. My point is not only I'm an atheist but to be truly an atheist existentially, you have to go through Christianity. I I understand how you're trying to extract this leftist argument from Christianity, but but but, when you say like this, you are sharpening your knife behind your back. Strike. But, do you not see that, and this goes back to the deep thinking idea, using sort of theological concepts and metaphors which sometimes explains that there are higher beings than us give people an opportunity to understand concepts that are too complex or hard to grasp? Yeah, but again, allow me to repeat an old story which I I'm not sure I use in this last book. You know, it's again another example of this in a positive way, madness, shattering madness of Christianity. But this not even Christianity, if you you said critique of ideology, ideology. Here I again follow Chesterton. For me, when people ask me okay where does critique of ideology begin, it's enlightenment, is it Marx or what? I always say no, the Book of Job, you pronounce it like this, the guy who got screwed up by yeah. You know what I find so fascinating? You know what happens. Job's life is ruined and then three, I think it's three, friends approach him, each of them justifying his suffering. The first one said, you cannot be innocent, look deeper into you, you must be guilty of something. The second says, maybe this is a temptation, just persist and so on. So they try to justify suffering. Then, you know what happens? Incredible thing. Jehovah himself appears and says: you Job are right in your complaint, those three guys are wrong, I'm on your side. Now comes the climax. It's in the Bible, my God. Then Job asks God the obvious question: but okay, if if I am innocent, why then did you do this to me? Ah, now we come to the crucial point. Chesterton had it. The usual reading is when God says, where were you when I created those unique blah blah blah? This is usually read as indicating the infinite gap between us limited mortal humans and God in his infinite wisdom, impenetrable to us. But I simplify to the utmost. You know how Chesterton reads God's answer? You think it's only you whose life is ruined? Look around at the universe, I screwed up everything. All my creation is a big failure. That's how I read it, that's implicit in the Book of Job. And I think we can understand Christ only against this background. There is a lot of here I'm closer not to
in Christianity, but all those ambiguous parts. For example, my worst idea, and now, although I'm more on the Pope Francis side, I was horrified at what he is now doing, Pope Francis. Already a year ago, he proposed the change in this, how do you call it, the most ordinary prayer, Our Father who art in heaven. Don't don't, what's the expression, don't push us into, don't expose us to into into sin and so on, claiming no, no, God is good, he cannot do this, is our free will. No, deep theologians are fully aware that of course we were pushed into sin. Look at the paradise, God prohibited eating from the tree of apples, and he put this stupid tree in the center of paradise. Why didn't he hide the tree? Good theologians knew from Saint Augustine onwards that that the fall was what they call felix culpa, a happy fall. Because only through fall as a reaction to it we became aware to goodness. Without the background of the fall, there is no goodness and so on. So you know, this is for me the living Christianity, not the one which tries to domesticate Christianity, oh this is too radical, this will annoy people. Christianity must annoy people. Here I must clarify another point. When I say Christian atheist, please, if I would be Goebbels' best metaphor, and if somebody calls me a cultural Christian, this is now fashionable, Richard Dawkins also, I would like Goebbels drew my gun out and start to shoot. You know this idea: I'm an atheist but there are many nice ethical thoughts in Christianity, so although I don't believe in God, I consider a good moral guy and so on. No, no, no, I my I am an atheist, but my position is much more radical. To really be an atheist, it's not enough in this abstract way, you know, to say okay God doesn't exist, science shows us and so on. You must go deep into Christianity and experience the spiritual meaning of what the death of Christ means, which is simply the death of God. Hegel, my favorite philosopher, says this. He says what dies on the cross is not a Messiah, a representative of God, so that then after Christ's death on the cross, God says, come back to me my son, I'll try to send them another guy. No, the God of beyond is dead on cross. What for me dies on the cross is the idea that in whatever troubles we are, there is some higher divine destiny, control, so that we know that at the end the story will end well. No, for me the message of the death of Christ is: we are delivered to ourselves. That's why another basic message for me is Holy Spirit. As I put a couple of times in my books, in this one and in previous ones, when people ask me why are you a communist, my answer is because holy, how do you say in English, I don't want to decide, Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost? Okay, I will say Holy Spirit, it's more Hegelian. Holy Spirit is the first form of the communist party. Why? Because it's a community of believers where all social hierarchic links are suspended. You know those famous words I think by Paul, in Christ there are neither women nor men, neither Greeks nor Jews, which means ethnic differences don't matter. This is a community of equals which violates hierarchical social orders and it's delivered to its own freedom. Yes, God brings us freedom through his death. And this freedom is horrifying. And I think, you know, maybe I quote it, you know which is my crucial saying here, which is true? You must know the story, which is incidentally apocryphal, it didn't happen, but there is truth in it. When Napoleon approached the Pope and took the crown from the Pope and put it himself on his head, according to this story, you know what the Pope told Napoleon? I know what you want. You want to destroy Christianity. But you will not succeed, because we the church are trying to do this for almost two thousand years and didn't succeed. You know, I I'm really think trying to bring out what is in Christianity more than its official version. I think Christianity is fighting not so much paganism, Christianity as the existing hierarchic religion, it's fighting some surplus in in its own edifice, its founded, grounded Christianity in controlling, domesticating a certain pretty terrifying insight. So again, I don't play this game of cultural Christianity. My point is not only I'm an atheist but to be truly an atheist existentially, you have to go through Christianity. I I understand how you're trying to extract this leftist argument from Christianity, but but but, when you say like this, you are sharpening your knife behind your back. Strike. But, do you not see that, and this goes back to the deep thinking idea, using sort of theological concepts and metaphors which sometimes explains that there are higher beings than us give people an opportunity to understand concepts that are too complex or hard to grasp? Yeah, but again, allow me to repeat an old story which I I'm not sure I use in this last book. You know, it's again another example of this in a positive way, madness, shattering madness of Christianity. But this not even Christianity, if you you said critique of ideology, ideology. Here I again follow Chesterton. For me, when people ask me okay where does critique of ideology begin, it's enlightenment, is it Marx or what? I always say no, the Book of Job, you pronounce it like this, the guy who got screwed up by yeah. You know what I find so fascinating? You know what happens. Job's life is ruined and then three, I think it's three, friends approach him, each of them justifying his suffering. The first one said, you cannot be innocent, look deeper into you, you must be guilty of something. The second says, maybe this is a temptation, just persist and so on. So they try to justify suffering. Then, you know what happens? Incredible thing. Jehovah himself appears and says: you Job are right in your complaint, those three guys are wrong, I'm on your side. Now comes the climax. It's in the Bible, my God. Then Job asks God the obvious question: but okay, if if I am innocent, why then did you do this to me? Ah, now we come to the crucial point. Chesterton had it. The usual reading is when God says, where were you when I created those unique blah blah blah? This is usually read as indicating the infinite gap between us limited mortal humans and God in his infinite wisdom, impenetrable to us. But I simplify to the utmost. You know how Chesterton reads God's answer? You think it's only you whose life is ruined? Look around at the universe, I screwed up everything. All my creation is a big failure. That's how I read it, that's implicit in the Book of Job. And I think we can understand Christ only against this background. There is a lot of here I'm closer not to
unknown
Catholicism, not to even Anglican Church, but I have good links with some Protestants,
Catholicism, not to even Anglican Church, but I have good links with some Protestants,
Slavoj Žižek
there is a whole tradition you wouldn't expect it in Norway. Where they claim let's face it, I
there is a whole tradition you wouldn't expect it in Norway. Where they claim let's face it, I
unknown
mean we should avoid here of course anti-Semitic reading, but that the God of the Old Testament is the devil himself. This is the God who created this material work, who pushed us into trouble. Or as one of their theologians
mean we should avoid here of course anti-Semitic reading, but that the God of the Old Testament is the devil himself. This is the God who created this material work, who pushed us into trouble. Or as one of their theologians
Slavoj Žižek
put it in a wonderful way, this God is omnipotent but with the morality of a two-three years old child. Just in a destructive way using his omnipotence. And so goodness enters with Christ. This is also the deep insight, I don't want to take too much time now, but I know what I'm talking about, of this European mysticism, which is I think much deeper than all the oriental bullshit many people will be offended now, so-called Rhenian mystics. It all began with Meister Eckhart, then you have Jacob Bohme and so on, where the idea is that it's not simply God is good up there, we have fallen from God. No, God is split in himself. There is an evil, furious aspect in God himself. So that, it's a wonderful Hegelian dialectical thought, so that when we experience our situation as desperate, as my God we are divided from God, separated, God is out there unreachable to us, this gap through the sacrifice of Christ is located into God himself. As again Chesterton put it, when Christ says, you know those famous line, Eli Eli lama sabachthani, Father why have you forsaken me? I quote Chesterton, at that point God himself for a brief moment doubts divinity, becomes an atheist. And as Chesterton put it wonderfully, all other religions know atheists, bad guys who could be converted, only in Christianity God himself becomes for a moment an atheist. You see and with all my from John Milbank to Rowan Williams, this is how I debate with true authentic living theologians. They are not afraid of all this mess, they are afraid they are fully aware that only if you indepth yourself, go deep into this mess apparent inconsistencies and so on, you are keeping Christianity alive. Kierkegaard, maybe the greatest for me, the Danish theologian, he knew this very well. He wasn't simply a believer. He said we never really know if we can believe. The most we can do is to believe that we believe. This is living religion for me. It's slightly different theme, but one of the few things you have in common, Slavoj, with some of the right thinkers, I know everyone always asks you... I'm not afraid of this, I'm all the time accused of this, precisely being on the long list of things I keep... Well, one of them is your resistance to this identity politics culture wars stuff. You often have to say oh, trigger warning before you say something for fear of offending people. Do you worry that this Christian atheism puts your thoughts into another bracket of identity politics? You've just said so to me, I don't want to be seen as a cultural Christian, I don't want to be seen as Richard Dawkins, and aren't you just a product of this whole idea where people are trying to silo themselves into concepts and then by which saying I'm actually not part of that group either? Ah, this to answer you properly, unfortunately explanation properly would have needed another hour, is to question what do you mean by identity. I will now jump to another topic but I will come back to your question. You know which was my great experience? When I was in India, I visited trade union of the lowest of the lowest caste, the not only the Dalits, untouchable, but the Dalits the lowest among them is the caste of dry toilet cleaners. The dirtiest job. And I asked them what's your program? And they gave me a wonderful formula against identity: they said our basic program is we don't want to be what we are. Simple. So what I want to say is that my God, this should be clear to every Christian even. What I don't like in identity politics is that, it's very naive, even moralistic what I will say now, instead of pushing you to reach over yourself, transcend yourself, reinvent yourself, become something new, the message is be what you are. Rediscover, reassert your identity. So and let me give you two examples here that I like. LGBTQ whatever you add and then plus. I'm a big partisan of this plus. When this formula was proposed, it was the worst British empiricism. The idea was yeah we have lesbians, gays, this that, but maybe some group will not recognize itself. So let's add a plus, like and maybe some others to be added. For me a
put it in a wonderful way, this God is omnipotent but with the morality of a two-three years old child. Just in a destructive way using his omnipotence. And so goodness enters with Christ. This is also the deep insight, I don't want to take too much time now, but I know what I'm talking about, of this European mysticism, which is I think much deeper than all the oriental bullshit many people will be offended now, so-called Rhenian mystics. It all began with Meister Eckhart, then you have Jacob Bohme and so on, where the idea is that it's not simply God is good up there, we have fallen from God. No, God is split in himself. There is an evil, furious aspect in God himself. So that, it's a wonderful Hegelian dialectical thought, so that when we experience our situation as desperate, as my God we are divided from God, separated, God is out there unreachable to us, this gap through the sacrifice of Christ is located into God himself. As again Chesterton put it, when Christ says, you know those famous line, Eli Eli lama sabachthani, Father why have you forsaken me? I quote Chesterton, at that point God himself for a brief moment doubts divinity, becomes an atheist. And as Chesterton put it wonderfully, all other religions know atheists, bad guys who could be converted, only in Christianity God himself becomes for a moment an atheist. You see and with all my from John Milbank to Rowan Williams, this is how I debate with true authentic living theologians. They are not afraid of all this mess, they are afraid they are fully aware that only if you indepth yourself, go deep into this mess apparent inconsistencies and so on, you are keeping Christianity alive. Kierkegaard, maybe the greatest for me, the Danish theologian, he knew this very well. He wasn't simply a believer. He said we never really know if we can believe. The most we can do is to believe that we believe. This is living religion for me. It's slightly different theme, but one of the few things you have in common, Slavoj, with some of the right thinkers, I know everyone always asks you... I'm not afraid of this, I'm all the time accused of this, precisely being on the long list of things I keep... Well, one of them is your resistance to this identity politics culture wars stuff. You often have to say oh, trigger warning before you say something for fear of offending people. Do you worry that this Christian atheism puts your thoughts into another bracket of identity politics? You've just said so to me, I don't want to be seen as a cultural Christian, I don't want to be seen as Richard Dawkins, and aren't you just a product of this whole idea where people are trying to silo themselves into concepts and then by which saying I'm actually not part of that group either? Ah, this to answer you properly, unfortunately explanation properly would have needed another hour, is to question what do you mean by identity. I will now jump to another topic but I will come back to your question. You know which was my great experience? When I was in India, I visited trade union of the lowest of the lowest caste, the not only the Dalits, untouchable, but the Dalits the lowest among them is the caste of dry toilet cleaners. The dirtiest job. And I asked them what's your program? And they gave me a wonderful formula against identity: they said our basic program is we don't want to be what we are. Simple. So what I want to say is that my God, this should be clear to every Christian even. What I don't like in identity politics is that, it's very naive, even moralistic what I will say now, instead of pushing you to reach over yourself, transcend yourself, reinvent yourself, become something new, the message is be what you are. Rediscover, reassert your identity. So and let me give you two examples here that I like. LGBTQ whatever you add and then plus. I'm a big partisan of this plus. When this formula was proposed, it was the worst British empiricism. The idea was yeah we have lesbians, gays, this that, but maybe some group will not recognize itself. So let's add a plus, like and maybe some others to be added. For me a
unknown
plus is a category of its own. Subject as such is a plus. By plus I mean you have a certain hierarchic order, I don't fit into it, I am a
plus is a category of its own. Subject as such is a plus. By plus I mean you have a certain hierarchic order, I don't fit into it, I am a
Slavoj Žižek
plus. That's why to shock you further, and ah
plus. That's why to shock you further, and ah
unknown
incidentally
incidentally
Slavoj Žižek
there are quite many trans theorists who
there are quite many trans theorists who
unknown
agree here with me, claiming that the trans identity it's not just a new identity that we add, it's a plus, it's a position of non-identity with yourself. So what I mean is that we we need to reinvent not simply utopian thinking, but we should return to this idea we need a radical objective social and subjective self-transformation. It's not enough to play this game be truly what you are. And you know how far I go here, against my interest in Freud. I hate doing psychoanalysis in the sense of being a patient. I have this deep conviction that if you were to be, for example, my analyst and look deep into myself, you would discover a lot of shit. Egotists,
agree here with me, claiming that the trans identity it's not just a new identity that we add, it's a plus, it's a position of non-identity with yourself. So what I mean is that we we need to reinvent not simply utopian thinking, but we should return to this idea we need a radical objective social and subjective self-transformation. It's not enough to play this game be truly what you are. And you know how far I go here, against my interest in Freud. I hate doing psychoanalysis in the sense of being a patient. I have this deep conviction that if you were to be, for example, my analyst and look deep into myself, you would discover a lot of shit. Egotists,
Slavoj Žižek
dirty fantasies and so on. And no, I don't want to go into all that. I want to reach, I want to have a cause and put all my effort into transcending myself. You know which is my motto of humanism? I forgot his name, Spanish writer put it so nicely. You know this stupid multiculturalist humanist slogan that whatever their race, sex orientation, wealth, culture, all people have certain basic human rights, dignities. He replaced it this guy with another opposite variation: irrespective of their race, cultural identity, sexual identity, wealth, all people are inherently envious, evil and self-destructive. That's the base, the problem is how to reach beyond this. Wow. It's very interesting and if not a little bit scary. Vision is at least crazy, but you know what's the point? People think that I'm trying now in a cheap way to provoke people. No, I'm sorry, I mean this very seriously. I mean this very seriously. I don't I'm not you know what I would say, maybe this will satisfy you a little bit more? I don't believe in this idea that people are basically egotists and so on. No, it's much worse. People as Freud, whom I often quote, says, people are at the same time much better and much worse than we think. Egotism is a normal position and if you are a rational egotist, you collaborate nicely with others because you see immediately
dirty fantasies and so on. And no, I don't want to go into all that. I want to reach, I want to have a cause and put all my effort into transcending myself. You know which is my motto of humanism? I forgot his name, Spanish writer put it so nicely. You know this stupid multiculturalist humanist slogan that whatever their race, sex orientation, wealth, culture, all people have certain basic human rights, dignities. He replaced it this guy with another opposite variation: irrespective of their race, cultural identity, sexual identity, wealth, all people are inherently envious, evil and self-destructive. That's the base, the problem is how to reach beyond this. Wow. It's very interesting and if not a little bit scary. Vision is at least crazy, but you know what's the point? People think that I'm trying now in a cheap way to provoke people. No, I'm sorry, I mean this very seriously. I mean this very seriously. I don't I'm not you know what I would say, maybe this will satisfy you a little bit more? I don't believe in this idea that people are basically egotists and so on. No, it's much worse. People as Freud, whom I often quote, says, people are at the same time much better and much worse than we think. Egotism is a normal position and if you are a rational egotist, you collaborate nicely with others because you see immediately
unknown
that if you
that if you
Slavoj Žižek
are in good relations with others, in the long term it helps you. Already Rousseau opposed to this a self-destructive envious egotism where what it really matters is not that you should win but that the other should lose. You know like better than the other has its his her their ruin, even better than me profiting from our collaboration. And I'm talking now as a Slovene. This is maybe a feature of being a Slovene. One of legends about Slovenes propagated by ourselves is that fairy appears to a farmer and said, I will do whatever you want to you, but beware I will do or give twice as much to your neighbor. You know what Slovene farmer immediately answer? Take one of my eyes so that the other guy will lose two. So this self-, here we are much worse than we think. But at the same time, now I will surprise you, I will again sound almost as a neo-conservative. You know Hanif Kureishi, my good friend, the writer, who is now after that accident that he had from the neck down in
are in good relations with others, in the long term it helps you. Already Rousseau opposed to this a self-destructive envious egotism where what it really matters is not that you should win but that the other should lose. You know like better than the other has its his her their ruin, even better than me profiting from our collaboration. And I'm talking now as a Slovene. This is maybe a feature of being a Slovene. One of legends about Slovenes propagated by ourselves is that fairy appears to a farmer and said, I will do whatever you want to you, but beware I will do or give twice as much to your neighbor. You know what Slovene farmer immediately answer? Take one of my eyes so that the other guy will lose two. So this self-, here we are much worse than we think. But at the same time, now I will surprise you, I will again sound almost as a neo-conservative. You know Hanif Kureishi, my good friend, the writer, who is now after that accident that he had from the neck down in
unknown
a vegetative state? He told me that what surprised
a vegetative state? He told me that what surprised
Slavoj Žižek
him so much was that nurses, caretakers who had to be with him all the time, and he can't do anything from here below. It's not only feeding him, it's to be very vulgar, arousing his rectum so that the shit comes out. And he said he discovered with great majority of these people something incredible: a simple sense of vocation. They are badly paid, they complain, and then he, Hanif told me he regularly asks them, but then why don't you leave this job? And without any great theory they say, but people depend on me, I cannot do it. I simply cannot do it. You know, don't also underestimate with so-called ordinary people, I am far from despising them, how this simple sense of vocation, in this sense of you know when something is your duty, it's not that you have to do it, it's much more refined: you know that you cannot not do it. As they say pathetically, you wouldn't be able to look yourself into the mirror if you don't do it. Don't underestimate this. Very interesting. Slavoj Zizek, thank you so much
him so much was that nurses, caretakers who had to be with him all the time, and he can't do anything from here below. It's not only feeding him, it's to be very vulgar, arousing his rectum so that the shit comes out. And he said he discovered with great majority of these people something incredible: a simple sense of vocation. They are badly paid, they complain, and then he, Hanif told me he regularly asks them, but then why don't you leave this job? And without any great theory they say, but people depend on me, I cannot do it. I simply cannot do it. You know, don't also underestimate with so-called ordinary people, I am far from despising them, how this simple sense of vocation, in this sense of you know when something is your duty, it's not that you have to do it, it's much more refined: you know that you cannot not do it. As they say pathetically, you wouldn't be able to look yourself into the mirror if you don't do it. Don't underestimate this. Very interesting. Slavoj Zizek, thank you so much
unknown
for joining us on Spectator TV.
for joining us on Spectator TV.