Slavoj Žižek on Iranian Philosophy and Nadia Maftouni's Approach
Lecture · Nuri Gallery ·
2021 · 0:47:41 · 5,313 words
philosophy-generalreligion-theologycinema-art-cultureideologyliberalism-political-correctnessdemocracytechnology-ai-cyberspacegeopolitics-wareveryday-lifesubjectivity
Žižek opens his talk by acknowledging the audience's location and expressing gratitude for the invitation. He singles out the work of Nadia Maftouni, praising her focus on imagination as a productive lens for re-reading philosophical and religious traditions. Žižek discusses Iranian philosophy (Kiarostami, Mulla Sadra) and cultural exchange, arguing for an 'ontologically incomplete reality' where understanding oneself requires the 'other.' He critiques Western liberal democracy as being in crisis, contrasting its subtle, technological, and ideological control with the clearer, subvertible censorship of socialist Yugoslavia. He concludes by warning against the 'wired brain' and emphasizing the need for 'Sittlichkeit' (social customs/rules) to sustain freedom. Žižek argues for an anti-historicist, abstraction-based approach to interpreting great works like Shakespeare and Hegel, claiming that true understanding requires grasping the essential spiritual constellation rather than empirical details. He critiques modern cynicism, asserting that contemporary society is characterized by unconscious belief rather than agnosticism, and redefines political alignment by labeling Trump as a relativist postmodernist and Sanders as the true moral majority. He concludes with a personal appeal to engage in global intellectual reflection, citing Iran as a site of spiritual hope.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 20
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Used here not merely as fantasy but as a critical methodological tool that throws a new, productive perspective on how to read tradition.
A framing device where a specific focus (like imagination) reveals hidden structures in established traditions (philosophical/religious).
The stance of remaining in one's own cultural/political context (like Kiarostami) rather than fleeing to the West as a dissident, maintaining a critical distance.
The space of potentialities and virtual traditions inherent in an object itself, which defines what the thing might have been but didn't become.
as “ontologically incomplete reality”
Reality is not full or closed; it contains gaps, inconsistencies, and unused potentialities that are part of the thing's identity, not just subjective projections.
The entry of the divine when reading a classical text in a traditional way reveals a new, virtual dimension; linked to love as seeing the 'divine spark' in the ordinary.
Jürgen Habermas's concept that developing nations should simply adopt the existing Western socio-political system rather than creating new models.
A state where political camps speak such different languages and have such incompatible visions of 'one America' that synthesis is impossible.
Censorship that inadvertently promotes the forbidden content (e.g., through jokes or word-of-mouth), creating a space for subversion.
as “freedom as unfreedom”
The paradox where modern technological control is experienced by the individual as the very form of their freedom (e.g., choosing what to buy), making subversion impossible.
The direct technological link between the human brain and external machines, allowing for direct mind control and access by those who control the machine.
Hegelian concept of ethical life/public common customs and unwritten rules that provide the social context necessary for actual freedom.
The essential, non-empirical core of a work's meaning that is missed when one focuses too heavily on historical context or biographical details.
as “power of abstraction”
The true interpretive capacity to grasp the essential features of a work or author, distinguishing the significant from the empirical mess.
as “cynical belief”
The condition where individuals act cynically but unconsciously believe more than they think they do, contrasting with the notion of modern agnosticism.
The modern, Protestant-derived notion of belief as factual acceptance (e.g., seeing Zeus on Olympus), which Žižek argues did not characterize ancient Greek religiosity.
The Marxist idea that capitalism provides the interpretive key to understanding pre-capitalist history, reversing the standard chronological understanding.
as “relativist cynical historicist postmodern president”
Žižek's specific label for Donald Trump, characterizing him not as a traditional conservative but as a figure who embodies relativism and postmodern cynicism.
as “true moral majority”
Žižek's redefinition of the term to refer to Bernie Sanders and the progressive left, who he argues embody genuine moral concern for ordinary people, unlike the populist conservatives.
The primary contemporary crisis, which Žižek argues is not economic but spiritual, requiring global intellectual reflection rather than specialist knowledge.
Stories he reaches for 2
Kurosawa's film adaptation set in modern Japan reveals the 'traumatic core' and ambiguity of Hamlet more clearly than Shakespeare himself, showing how later interpretations bring out latent virtual dimensions.
“the best version of Hamlet for me is the one shot I think in early 60s by Kurosawa in Japan.”
Amazon tracks not just purchases but reading intensity and chapters, illustrating how technological control approaches direct mind control.
“Amazon gets the data not only which books you bought but through that reading machine with what intensity, how much of the book did you read”
Works invoked 7
Cited as the part of Hegel's work that scholars admit to reading, illustrating the necessity of abstraction.
Hamlet film
Žižek considers this the 'best version' of Hamlet, set in modern Japan, which reveals the 'traumatic core' and ambiguity more clearly than Shakespeare.
Referenced as Proust's 'big fat volumes' (eight or nine parts) in the context of Bayard's anecdote about unread classics.
Cited to prove that ancient belief was not 'literal belief' in the modern Protestant sense, supporting Žižek's argument about complex belief.
Described as 'wonderful' and 'slightly ironic but basically serious'; used to illustrate the power of abstraction.
A film from the Yugoslav era that became a propaganda hit due to 'counterproductive censorship,' illustrating how banned films can spread via jokes.
The Idiot (film) film
Set in contemporary Japan, featuring a soldier returning from war; Žižek considers this the 'best version' of Dostoevsky's novel he knows.
People invoked 23
Marcel Proust positive
Used as the subject of Bayard's anecdote to show that even experts haven't read his entire multi-volume work.
A specific individual addressed in the talk; Žižek offers to meet her in New Haven for a debate on monotheism and imagination.
Pierre Bayard positive
Cited as the author of 'How to Talk About Works, Books That You Haven't Read', used to illustrate the power of abstraction over empirical reading.
Mulla Sadra positive
A 'cult figure' in Žižek's circles; Žižek values his demonstration that monotheism can be more open and fragile than polytheism.
Nadia Maftouni positive
A scholar whose work Žižek follows specifically for her focus on imagination, which he finds extraordinarily productive for re-reading tradition.
Richard Rorty negative
Described as 'not an idiot' but whose advice to Iranians was to 'get our Western democracy,' which Žižek warns against.
Mentioned as a figure predicted by Rorty and as part of the 'Trumpians' in the US ideological civil war.
Mazdak positive
Described as possibly the first socialist/communist in world philosophy, who was publicly killed after a counter-revolution.
Christian Jambet positive
A French philosopher who wrote on Mulla Sadra to resolve the deadlock of his own Maoist past; used as an example of going to the 'other' to solve one's own trouble.
Fredric Jameson positive
Described as a 'good friend' and 'old Marxist' who is 'very old and ill'; Žižek expresses a desire to meet him before they both die.
Bernie Sanders positive
Identified as the 'true moral majority' who sympathizes with ordinary people, representing the direction the progressive left should take.
Žižek states he has 'sympathies for Robespierre' and uses the French Revolution as an example of universal freedom turning into terror.
Abbas Kiarostami positive
Žižek appreciates Kiarostami's stance of remaining in the 'intermediate space' of Iran rather than fleeing to the West as a dissident.
Walter Benjamin positive
Cited for the metaphor of art/philosophy as film shots requiring a later 'developer' (interpretation) to be seen.
Joan Copjec positive
An American friend and movie theorist who learned Iranian to study Mulla Sadra, moving from Kiarostami.
Karl Friedrich Vieweg negative
Author of a Hegel biography that Žižek dismisses as not providing 'tremendously new' insights compared to Hegel's theory.
William Shakespeare positive
Used as a primary example of how later interpretations (like Kurosawa's) bring out what was 'latent, virtual' in the original, even if Shakespeare didn't fully know it.
Jürgen Habermas negative
Critiques Habermas's 'catch-up revolution' (Nachholende Revolution) as the boring, identitarian view that Iran should just adopt the Western system.
Akira Kurosawa positive
Žižek considers Kurosawa's Hamlet and The Idiot adaptations as the 'best versions,' revealing dimensions latent in the originals.
Aristotle negative
Žižek argues that Islamic philosophy (via Maftouni) goes 'beyond Aristotle,' whose theory of imagination is 'pretty traditional' and reduces it to the subjective.
Mentioned only to contrast with Hegel, noting Hegel was 'almost the opposite of Marx' in his approach to catastrophe/success.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Žižek states he 'tends more towards Hegel today,' citing his idea to look for dangers in success/triumph rather than just good in catastrophe.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky positive
Žižek lists him alongside Shakespeare as a great writer, noting Kurosawa's The Idiot as the best version.
Transcript 9 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Hi. Hello. Are you in Tehran or in Yale or in United
Hi. Hello. Are you in Tehran or in Yale or in United
unknown
States? I know, I'm in Tehran. Ah, that's... thank you so much.
States? I know, I'm in Tehran. Ah, that's... thank you so much.
Slavoj Žižek
It was my pleasure. I'm very honored for this invitation.
It was my pleasure. I'm very honored for this invitation.
unknown
I want mention in my papers and books, I usually put the sentence of yours: cinema doesn't give you what you desire, it tells you how to desire. I love this sentence of yours, Slavoj.
I want mention in my papers and books, I usually put the sentence of yours: cinema doesn't give you what you desire, it tells you how to desire. I love this sentence of yours, Slavoj.
Slavoj Žižek
And you are not hidden from me, I also love your work, your readings, the way you approach the Iranian tradition. More about this a little bit later. So you are all, you are all on my radar, to put it, no. Honor. Let me begin by sincerely thanking you. And of course, I follow the work of Nadia Maftouni for very precise reason. It's not just generally that I favor her work. I think what she is doing with her focus on imagination, that if we focus in a correct way onto this notion, this throws in a new light, an extraordinarily productive perspective, the way we should read today our philosophical, religious, and so on, tradition.
And you are not hidden from me, I also love your work, your readings, the way you approach the Iranian tradition. More about this a little bit later. So you are all, you are all on my radar, to put it, no. Honor. Let me begin by sincerely thanking you. And of course, I follow the work of Nadia Maftouni for very precise reason. It's not just generally that I favor her work. I think what she is doing with her focus on imagination, that if we focus in a correct way onto this notion, this throws in a new light, an extraordinarily productive perspective, the way we should read today our philosophical, religious, and so on, tradition.
unknown
So what do I know about
So what do I know about
Slavoj Žižek
Iran? My selection here will be that of a half-educated Western intellectual, of course. I know some films, not only of Kiarostami, your great Kiarostami, but mostly by him. And what I appreciated in Kiarostami, because some of my friends even met him, Joan Copjec, who is also fascinated by Iranian thought, and they admired his stance. He was of course a little bit critical towards the Iranian regime, had some minor troubles, but he didn't want to simply play the dissident card, move to the West and so on. He absolutely wanted to remain in that intermediate space, which I think was the correct decision. From Iranian past, I... it's an obvious choice, even from just before Islam came, thinker, theologist, Mazdak, who is according to some classifications, the first socialist or even communist in the history of world philosophy. I think he was an extraordinary phenomenon. And he wasn't afraid to engage himself. He was I think even some kind of an advisor or connected with the King at that point and then there was counter-revolution against his orientation, he was publicly killed and so on and so on. Then, this will not surprise you, but the one philosopher whom I really relatively know is of course the great Mulla Sadra. He is quite a cult figure in our circles. My American friend Joan Copjec started to learn Iranian, the language, because of him. Because in an extraordinary experience, she was a movie theorist, she began with Kiarostami and then with her focus on what happens in Kiarostami's films with images, the role of image, imagination and so on, she simply moved her interest onto Mulla Sadra. And I think that he, Mulla Sadra, is very important. No wonder books are written on him even in French especially, because he does something which is I think quite extraordinary. Now, I'm not going into details of course, but what fascinates me is that he is a monotheist formally, like one God, the One. But in a subtle way he demonstrates precisely by evoking all those shadows, virtual traditions, imagination and so on, that the One is always at the same time less and more than the One. In this sense he demonstrates that monotheism can be more open and fragile than polytheism. In polytheism, this inner tension of the One gets dissipated. You know, you have this feature, that feature, like in Scandinavian Viking religious space, you have Odin for this, you have Freya for love, you have Thor for natural force, whatever, the tension is lost. So I think if you should think inconsistency and all that inner tensions, you need correct monotheism. Here now I come with what the work of Nadia Maftouni means to me. Maybe this is a little bit of a wild reading, but I will brutally impose my view. In her dealings of imagination, she goes and she demonstrates that already ancient Islamic philosophy went this way, namely she goes beyond Aristotle. Aristotle has a theory of imagination and if we take away some subversive hints, it's a pretty traditional theory of imagination. My main point is this one: we in the West, we usually reduce imagination to something subjective as opposed to objective reality. Things are out there, they are what they are in their identity, maybe this identity is not fully known to us, but it exists out there and then imagination is subjective, we project something onto objects, we fill in the gaps in our knowledge and so on and so on. But I think what we learn from the tradition which is close to me, from German idealism, Hegel, and others of course in the 20th century up to, if I may engage in this wild speculation, up to philosophical implications of quantum physics, it's that objectively also things are not simply what they are. What a thing is immanently implies the space of some kind of, I would even call it, ontological imagination, imagination in the thing itself. What this thing might have been but didn't become, what is a secret potential in the thing. So to understand a thing means not only forget about your mind, focus just on what that thing really is. No, to understand a thing means to include into its identity all these potentialities. The clearest example of this is of course the domain of ethics. Let's say you were supposed to do something in a very tense social-political situation, your duty, and you knew it. Was to do this, but you were too scared, you failed, you didn't do it. And this not doing it can be a stain which defines marks your entire life. You remain if not for others then in your own conscience, you remain the man who failed to do that. A step further here I want to do is that for me again the ontological vision beneath this is what I try to develop as an ontologically incomplete reality. Reality is not full. There are gaps, inconsistencies, unused opportunities, potentialities in reality and it's not just our mind that projects this onto reality. This opening is in the reality itself. It's a pretty paradoxical view, but I think the only consequent view imposed even by the modern science. Now I come to my crucial point about cultural and not only cultural exchange or interchange. I think that if we approach our exchanges or generally exchanges between different cultures in this way, then we should abandon this boring identitarian view which tells us that, okay, you have your culture, I have my own culture, we can just try, we cannot ever really understand each other, so as if we are separated islands and we can try to understand each other but we always fail. No, the first thing to add, it's a crazy thesis, is that the problem is not if I understand you, the problem is that I probably or am for sure already don't really understand myself. And the contact I'm in my identity always traversed inconsistent, inconsequential and so on and so on, so that the contact and exchange with other or others, persons, cultures at a global level can make me understand better than I understand myself. Because as I said as a general thesis every specific culture is ontologically open. For example and then I will apply this also to relations with Iran. For example, my standard example I'm sorry if it's a little bit boring, Shakespeare. It's a false question to ask: can we understand what Shakespeare really meant in the figure of Hamlet? In some sense I claim he himself didn't know it. There are in Shakespeare some features, characteristics which obviously he as a great writer just put down without being aware of all the implications, presuppositions and so on and so on. So I claim it's not that since we don't know the historical context we cannot really know what Shakespeare meant. No, Shakespeare didn't know it. And later interpretations are like new perspectives but not simply external to Shakespeare, new perspectives which bring out what was only latent, virtual in Shakespeare. And this is my hope for international intellectual exchanges. For example, going back to Shakespeare. I don't know how you deal with Shakespeare in Iran, but I was very glad to learn of two great writers... I don't like the other one, he is too spiritual in a fake way for me, but Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. It's undoubtedly all real movie lovers know this that the best version of Hamlet for me is the one shot I think in early 60s by Kurosawa in Japan. It's a Hamlet set in modern Japan, a student who is son of a rich industrialist comes back from his studies in America and discovers that his father was killed by the usual story his uncle. So it's different time, different culture, but you see there dimensions, the traumatic core of Hamlet, all its ambiguity, much more clearly than in Shakespeare himself. For example, it's clear to every attentive reader that the true bad guy in Shakespeare is not Claudius who killed the king, but the king himself. He must have been an evil king. Okay, I will not lose time here, the same surprise you know that also Kurosawa I think did the best version of Dostoevsky's The Idiot that I know. Set in contemporary Japan, Idiot is a soldier who returns to his home from the war, broken down and so on and so on. So you see my point. We shouldn't say, okay, we have Shakespeare's Hamlet and we have what the Japanese did with Hamlet. No, it's all intertwined, interconnected. Walter Benjamin whom you know said somewhere that some works of art and I would add even philosophy are like shots of a film in a traditional real cinematic track for which only a later generation invents a developer so that you can see the precise image that you shot. I think it's like this. For example, Shakespeare became Shakespeare I claim maybe even after Romanticism, only in the 19th century. You need time from distance. It's true that sometimes distance is an obstacle, you don't understand what is a certain civilization, but maybe you can understand it even better. And this is I think our situation today. It's not that out of some politically correct desire to understand the other that I'm interested in Iranian philosophy, Indian, Chinese philosophy and so on. It's to understand myself only through another's eyes can I see what is hidden in myself. And this process is always mutual in the sense that it goes for all parties. Reality is incomplete. And if we use here the notion of God, divinity, for me God is not the ultimate guarantee of identity. God is precisely one of the names of this openness. The divine dimension is there when you read a classical text of art in a certain traditional way and then you discover another virtual dimension. In our ordinary experience here the divine dimension enters. In this sense for me God is linked with love. Love means precisely this. Love does not mean idealization. The object beloved, man, woman, remains the same, but love allows you to think an ordinary person with this extraordinary divine spark in it. Now what does this mean? Now finally I'm coming to censorship and so on. I would have said that it's our duty as intellectuals to be always attentive, that is to say always when a certain view is presented to us as the final solution like this is it, this is what we have to strive for. Always ask yourself but what are the potential problems, contradictions, dangers even in that ideal that we are striving for. For example, some of the Western critics of Iran, even sympathetic critics, claim that we have a simple measure of how democratic and free the country is and that what they wish for Iran is simply what Jürgen Habermas demanded of East Germany after German reunification. His notion is the Nachholende Revolution, a catch-up revolution, like to put it bluntly, we in Western Europe and United States, we already have the best possible in these circumstances socio-political system and the only way for you in Iran is to maybe slowly in one way or another to catch up with us. Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, but in an interview Richard Rorty, the pragmatic philosopher who otherwise was not an idiot, he predicted years ago a figure like Trump. But this was I think if I'm not wrongly informed his advice to you Iranians. Just try to get our Western democracy. I think that okay I will not teach you and I will not tell you, you should tell me, what I want to warn you is that what we are witnessing now and here we in the developed West need your maybe not help but your insight. Isn't it clear in the last decade or two that in the West which always praised itself as a beacon of democracy, something is happening which is no longer just the protest against local forms of oppression like we are not truly in a democracy in the usual parliamentary sense and so on, but a more radical protest which casts a doubt upon the very model of Western liberal democracy. What do I mean by this? Look at Yellow Vests in France. This was precisely a massive protests against the form of democracy that they have in France, the representative parliamentary democracy. The shock of these protests was that the demands of the people, I don't agree even with them, but the point is it was not possible to translate them into the form of political parties, political representation. So while you should maybe it's not for me to tell you, strive for some for the fuller measure of some freedoms that we have in the West, at the same time bear in mind that the West itself is in a deep, deep crisis now. What is happening is what? Every society relies as we know not only on its explicit constitution, legal regulations, but on what always fascinates me incredibly, the set of silent unwritten rules. We never had just the laws. We have unwritten customs, manners, which tell us how to apply these rules. Quite often there is a contradiction here. Those who know my works know that I'm quite obsessed by this phenomenon. How the hegemonic ruling discourse often prohibits something but you are discreetly solicited to violate this prohibition. That's how sexual prohibitions mostly work. At the same time we have a much more interesting opposite paradox. Something is allowed, you are even solicited to do it, so you are given a free choice but on condition that you make the right choice. You know, like you have freedom to vote but only if you vote for the right guy. All these paradoxes are exploding today. And for example United States, it's now at the edge of a ideological civil war. You have two camps whose language is getting so different that I don't see any possibility of a synthesis like Trumpians and Democrats will finally come together invent one America. No, because the conflict is precisely in what this one America will be. So again when you fight for your freedoms please always be aware that there is no clear established model of what to follow. Now you mentioned this forms of censorship and so on and so on. And it's good that you mentioned also digital control, new forms of unfreedom in the West because you know from my own experience, I think that I almost have a half nostalgic memory of the time when Yugoslavia was a socialist country because then the censorship rules were clear and it was even easy to violate them. The example, Spartans were persons, all that confusion, well, probably since you Iranians translate many books, read a lot, since you are not idiots, probably, probably this was even a big propaganda for the film. You know people were telling to each other this jokes. This was an example of counterproductive censorship. But the censorship we are getting today more and more in the West, it's much more dangerous. First because of technological control, all the mechanisms of face recognition and so on, because of technological control and at the same time the exchange of data between big corporation like Facebook, Google and so on and state security agencies, the control is very strong. They are almost approaching the state of directly controlling our mind. You know that for example I learned just now when you buy on Amazon a book on Kindle, Amazon gets the data not only which books you bought but through that reading machine with what intensity, how much of the book did you read, which chapters and so on and so on. The same with the modern TV set that you get. So one of the lessons in the West is that maybe the most dangerous kind of unfreedom is the unfreedom which you individually experience as the very form of your freedom. Take an average American, you are free, you go out to eat, you buy what you want, you chat with friends and so on. You do what you want but you are totally controlled and in subtle ways regulated. In censorship, in direct censorship there is at least a space for metaphoric and other ways to subvert the censorship rule. Here you are not even aware what the prohibitions are usually, so there is not even a way to subvert it. It's a much harsher closure. So just be aware of this. This is what from your perspective your fight for freedom should be. Yes we want more freedom political of the press, but look carefully at what happens in the West. And be aware that in the West we also have our own forms of control. For example I will be critical not too much of Iran, probably with you if you want to get a big university post you have to be approved by some I don't know what body. Yeah, but we now learn that in United Kingdom, England, the beacon of liberty, you know that discreetly MI5 or I don't know which of the two is for domestic dangers, is doing exactly the same. Every university post, all trade union posts and so on, student organizations are all closely discreetly controlled. You are not even aware of it but it works. And my back to philosophy to conclude, my big fear here is the next step, I've written a book about it. It's of course still not realized but it's coming close to it. What I called a wired brain, the direct link between our brain, at least the main lines of the thoughts in my brain and an external machine. So that a machine will be able to communicate directly with my brain and of course then those who control the machine will be able to get access to my brain. Now I don't think that this will totally deprive us of our freedom. But just be a good Hegelian. By Hegel, the great philosopher, I mean that Hegel was almost the opposite of Marx and I tend more towards Hegel today. His idea was not even when there is a catastrophe look for the good side of it like out of every catastrophe something good can come. No, Hegel's point was more when you triumph and succeed look at the new dangers. Hegel was always fascinated by how like I don't know French Revolution began as universal freedom, you get revolutionary terror. But that's not even a good example, I have sympathies for Robespierre. I would have said look at the October Revolution. Undoubtedly at the beginning emancipatory event, then in years you get Stalinism and so on. So philosophy I think today I doubt if it can give you big new answers. But its main task of a philosopher today is to raise the right questions and to make you attentive to the potential dark sides of even big emancipatory events. So with all this whatever we call them populist revolutions I'm not saying we should not fight for freedom. I'm just saying be very careful. Freedom is such a fragile thing it can always turn into its opposite immanently following its own inner logic. And the second thing, here you being neither East nor the West but in the middle. Here between East, Far East and West, you Iranians should be aware of this. This everyday experience that Americans I think are not fully aware of. We need some substantial what Hegel called Sittlichkeit. Categories of not individual ethics but public common customs, mostly unwritten rules, to be actually free. Look, to think freely you need, we think in language, you have to obey the rules of language fluently. To be free socially, it means I go out, I chat with friends, I do what I do, but this means that I should rely on a set of rules. When I walk on the street I will not be simply killed by by somebody, people will obey certain manners and so on and so on. Freedom is not abstract, freedom is always a freedom in a social context and for that we should fight. Not for freedom as such, you always have the freedom to kill yourself or whatever, but we should fight for the social network of rules within which our freedom can only thrive. And here again nobody has a privilege. We in the West can learn from you. For example it was Christian Jambet who wrote a nice book years ago on Mulla Sadra in French. You know what interests me in his reading? That he didn't do it in this patronizing way, 'Oh let's see how intelligent Iranians are, did they already have some insights?' No, he did it because before that he was a Maoist politically, this strict ascetic revolutionary logic, and then his Maoist view got in a deadlock. So you see he went to Mulla Sadra to resolve the unbearable deadlock of his own situation. It's to get out of the trouble I am in that I go out to you. That's I think the only way to be truly respectful in intercultural communications. Not this patronizing respect, 'Oh look you are not stupid, you already see.' No, you enable me to see myself, you help me to get out. At this base I must say Iran is today with all its unfreedoms and so on but at the same time with an I'm aware of it with an incredible intellectual life, Iran is one of the countries which most interest me today. But let me return to Shakespeare. Because it's a universally known simple example. I know we often hear this point, you have to know the entire history of Elizabethan England, the political ideological struggles and so on and to put Shakespeare into his context. Of course up to a certain point this is true. But what I'm saying is that even to a greater point the opposite holds. It's not only that to understand Shakespeare you have to study Elizabethan history, it's also that if you want to understand spiritually the reign of Elizabeth, that epoch, you will learn much more from Shakespeare's plays then than from reading detailed history of that era. Second thing, great work of arts are universal but not in some boring UNICEF United Nations sense that in spite of all our differences we share some universal features. No, the paradox of true historicity is that some work is universal, it has finds universal echo precisely by being fully immersed or fully located in certain historical context because historical contexts themselves have a universal dimension in them. What do I mean by this? For example as I already began returning to my point namely I think that the greatness of Shakespeare is that even if you don't know his context, the his texts tell something to you. Or even more to really understand Shakespeare, now this is a crazy thesis, maybe it's better not to know too much about his context. Because if you know his context you become a specialist and this time in a bad sense and you learn all the details, you know like 'Ah he meant this, that, he referred to that event.' But the basic spiritual constellation you miss it. This is why I even go a step further here. A French author Pierre Bayard I think, B-A-Y-A-R-D, wrote a wonderful book which is slightly ironic but basically serious. The title is How to Talk About Works, Books That You Haven't Read. And he does it in an experimental way. He takes for example I think it's Marcel Proust. He does something wonderfully mischievous evil. He spoke with as many as possible of authors who wrote big fat volumes on Proust. And he then privately went to them, not mentioning their names it would be indiscreet and asked them, 'But did you really read all those how many parts are four, In Search of Lost Time, eight, nine, I don't know?' And those who wrote the best books on Proust admitted it that they haven't read all of it. Maybe only one and so on and so on. Let's go to Hegel. I know very good books on Hegel from contemporary era and I spoke with them and they admitted me, 'My who can read all of Hegel? I read a little bit of Phenomenology of Spirit.' And this is not such a paradox because a true power to grasp something is always the power of abstraction. Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying don't read a lot just bluff with your interpretations. You should read, study and so on but true interpretation is always an abstraction. Because if you look closely empirically every author is everything. You have this, you have that, he goes a little bit into that direction and so on. But to grasp the essential the great human creativity of our spirit is the power of abstraction. You see a mess then you say no sorry this feature this is what really matters. So again in this sense while I give all the respect to those who follow details for example of an author's political engagement. For example some new biographies of Hegel paint a rather nice picture of him. Although he was close in his last years to a state philosopher he risked his career, he helped students who were imprisoned and so on. But the author I think his name is Vieweg, the author of this biography admits himself that it's not that you learn something tremendously new in this way. The truth of Hegel is in his theory. And again I'm ready to go here to the end and claim to understand Hegel you don't have to study his private life. On the contrary to understand why Hegel lived in a way he did privately you have to know his philosophy. I'm here quite a naive in a good sense idealist, I believe in the power of ideas especially today when in many Western liberal countries the predominant notion is cynicism. Don't take too seriously ideas everything is just about sex power and so on. No, often we are although sometimes in a wrong fundamentalist violent way we often believe more than we think that we do believe. Today's age is not the age of agnosticism or cynicism, it's at the same time the age of belief more than ever. You know once we say today we are cynical in the old times people believed. Did they? I often mention the book Did the Ancient Greeks Believe in Their Gods?. And he proves conclusively that Greeks were not idiots. They didn't think if you climb on the Mount of Olympus you will see Zeus and Aphrodite there or whatever. Believing didn't mean for them this literal belief. This literal belief emerged maybe only with Protestantism, with modernity in Europe. So you know belief is a very complex category. You can pretend to believe but privately be cynical but you can also act as cynical but in reality you believe more than you think you believe. So again just to conclude to avoid a misunderstanding by saying that we always read a work of art from our own epoch. I don't have time to explain this now. But I'm not a historicist relativist. I'm not saying everything is relative and so on and so on. I think that in a further analysis you can show that there are crucial historical epochs which you should study to understand the entire history. Like in some epochs something emerges which provides the key for universal history. Maybe he was wrong but this was the idea of Marx about capitalism. He says the opposite of the usual stupidity that to understand capitalism you have to know its genesis previous... No, Marx' point is that to know pre-capitalist history you should begin with capitalism. Capitalism retroactively provides the key for the entire history. So beware of some of today's in the West populist conservatives who seem to defend traditional values. Let's be clear Donald Trump was for me the most relativist cynical historicist postmodern president that there ever was. The true moral majority is for me somebody like Bernie Sanders who sympathizes with ordinary people and so on and so on. And this I think is what the progressive left should do today. To stop playing this game that if you are doing obscene gestures or using dirty words that you are doing something subversive. Sorry but those in power in the West today are already obscene enough. I'm not ashamed to say that today the left should rediscover simple dignity morality and so on. And my special message to Nadia if you will still be at some point in the United States we should maybe if you are in Yale when you are there we should maybe meet and drink a coffee and have a debate on monotheism and imagination. Yeah for now I'm physically in Iran but when I will be able to go to New Haven I will inform you. Okay because I will also you know I I have to go if for no other reason my good friend the old Marxist Fredric Jameson is now very old and ill. And I want to be brutal I want to meet him before we both die. And incidentally I know this will appear very low but I mean it so sincerely. It made me cry when I read about this. Listen Nadia sincerely all the best to your husband. You know him? No but I read about it, I saw, I know the case. My friends who visited Iran all told me the surprise was that beneath this slightly oppressive surface you have an incredible intellectual life there. It's absolutely incredible. Iran is a country which gives hope. Because today forget about economy ultimately the crisis is spiritual. And we need intellectual life more than ever today. Not specialist life but this global intellectual reflection. It's
Iran? My selection here will be that of a half-educated Western intellectual, of course. I know some films, not only of Kiarostami, your great Kiarostami, but mostly by him. And what I appreciated in Kiarostami, because some of my friends even met him, Joan Copjec, who is also fascinated by Iranian thought, and they admired his stance. He was of course a little bit critical towards the Iranian regime, had some minor troubles, but he didn't want to simply play the dissident card, move to the West and so on. He absolutely wanted to remain in that intermediate space, which I think was the correct decision. From Iranian past, I... it's an obvious choice, even from just before Islam came, thinker, theologist, Mazdak, who is according to some classifications, the first socialist or even communist in the history of world philosophy. I think he was an extraordinary phenomenon. And he wasn't afraid to engage himself. He was I think even some kind of an advisor or connected with the King at that point and then there was counter-revolution against his orientation, he was publicly killed and so on and so on. Then, this will not surprise you, but the one philosopher whom I really relatively know is of course the great Mulla Sadra. He is quite a cult figure in our circles. My American friend Joan Copjec started to learn Iranian, the language, because of him. Because in an extraordinary experience, she was a movie theorist, she began with Kiarostami and then with her focus on what happens in Kiarostami's films with images, the role of image, imagination and so on, she simply moved her interest onto Mulla Sadra. And I think that he, Mulla Sadra, is very important. No wonder books are written on him even in French especially, because he does something which is I think quite extraordinary. Now, I'm not going into details of course, but what fascinates me is that he is a monotheist formally, like one God, the One. But in a subtle way he demonstrates precisely by evoking all those shadows, virtual traditions, imagination and so on, that the One is always at the same time less and more than the One. In this sense he demonstrates that monotheism can be more open and fragile than polytheism. In polytheism, this inner tension of the One gets dissipated. You know, you have this feature, that feature, like in Scandinavian Viking religious space, you have Odin for this, you have Freya for love, you have Thor for natural force, whatever, the tension is lost. So I think if you should think inconsistency and all that inner tensions, you need correct monotheism. Here now I come with what the work of Nadia Maftouni means to me. Maybe this is a little bit of a wild reading, but I will brutally impose my view. In her dealings of imagination, she goes and she demonstrates that already ancient Islamic philosophy went this way, namely she goes beyond Aristotle. Aristotle has a theory of imagination and if we take away some subversive hints, it's a pretty traditional theory of imagination. My main point is this one: we in the West, we usually reduce imagination to something subjective as opposed to objective reality. Things are out there, they are what they are in their identity, maybe this identity is not fully known to us, but it exists out there and then imagination is subjective, we project something onto objects, we fill in the gaps in our knowledge and so on and so on. But I think what we learn from the tradition which is close to me, from German idealism, Hegel, and others of course in the 20th century up to, if I may engage in this wild speculation, up to philosophical implications of quantum physics, it's that objectively also things are not simply what they are. What a thing is immanently implies the space of some kind of, I would even call it, ontological imagination, imagination in the thing itself. What this thing might have been but didn't become, what is a secret potential in the thing. So to understand a thing means not only forget about your mind, focus just on what that thing really is. No, to understand a thing means to include into its identity all these potentialities. The clearest example of this is of course the domain of ethics. Let's say you were supposed to do something in a very tense social-political situation, your duty, and you knew it. Was to do this, but you were too scared, you failed, you didn't do it. And this not doing it can be a stain which defines marks your entire life. You remain if not for others then in your own conscience, you remain the man who failed to do that. A step further here I want to do is that for me again the ontological vision beneath this is what I try to develop as an ontologically incomplete reality. Reality is not full. There are gaps, inconsistencies, unused opportunities, potentialities in reality and it's not just our mind that projects this onto reality. This opening is in the reality itself. It's a pretty paradoxical view, but I think the only consequent view imposed even by the modern science. Now I come to my crucial point about cultural and not only cultural exchange or interchange. I think that if we approach our exchanges or generally exchanges between different cultures in this way, then we should abandon this boring identitarian view which tells us that, okay, you have your culture, I have my own culture, we can just try, we cannot ever really understand each other, so as if we are separated islands and we can try to understand each other but we always fail. No, the first thing to add, it's a crazy thesis, is that the problem is not if I understand you, the problem is that I probably or am for sure already don't really understand myself. And the contact I'm in my identity always traversed inconsistent, inconsequential and so on and so on, so that the contact and exchange with other or others, persons, cultures at a global level can make me understand better than I understand myself. Because as I said as a general thesis every specific culture is ontologically open. For example and then I will apply this also to relations with Iran. For example, my standard example I'm sorry if it's a little bit boring, Shakespeare. It's a false question to ask: can we understand what Shakespeare really meant in the figure of Hamlet? In some sense I claim he himself didn't know it. There are in Shakespeare some features, characteristics which obviously he as a great writer just put down without being aware of all the implications, presuppositions and so on and so on. So I claim it's not that since we don't know the historical context we cannot really know what Shakespeare meant. No, Shakespeare didn't know it. And later interpretations are like new perspectives but not simply external to Shakespeare, new perspectives which bring out what was only latent, virtual in Shakespeare. And this is my hope for international intellectual exchanges. For example, going back to Shakespeare. I don't know how you deal with Shakespeare in Iran, but I was very glad to learn of two great writers... I don't like the other one, he is too spiritual in a fake way for me, but Shakespeare and Dostoevsky. It's undoubtedly all real movie lovers know this that the best version of Hamlet for me is the one shot I think in early 60s by Kurosawa in Japan. It's a Hamlet set in modern Japan, a student who is son of a rich industrialist comes back from his studies in America and discovers that his father was killed by the usual story his uncle. So it's different time, different culture, but you see there dimensions, the traumatic core of Hamlet, all its ambiguity, much more clearly than in Shakespeare himself. For example, it's clear to every attentive reader that the true bad guy in Shakespeare is not Claudius who killed the king, but the king himself. He must have been an evil king. Okay, I will not lose time here, the same surprise you know that also Kurosawa I think did the best version of Dostoevsky's The Idiot that I know. Set in contemporary Japan, Idiot is a soldier who returns to his home from the war, broken down and so on and so on. So you see my point. We shouldn't say, okay, we have Shakespeare's Hamlet and we have what the Japanese did with Hamlet. No, it's all intertwined, interconnected. Walter Benjamin whom you know said somewhere that some works of art and I would add even philosophy are like shots of a film in a traditional real cinematic track for which only a later generation invents a developer so that you can see the precise image that you shot. I think it's like this. For example, Shakespeare became Shakespeare I claim maybe even after Romanticism, only in the 19th century. You need time from distance. It's true that sometimes distance is an obstacle, you don't understand what is a certain civilization, but maybe you can understand it even better. And this is I think our situation today. It's not that out of some politically correct desire to understand the other that I'm interested in Iranian philosophy, Indian, Chinese philosophy and so on. It's to understand myself only through another's eyes can I see what is hidden in myself. And this process is always mutual in the sense that it goes for all parties. Reality is incomplete. And if we use here the notion of God, divinity, for me God is not the ultimate guarantee of identity. God is precisely one of the names of this openness. The divine dimension is there when you read a classical text of art in a certain traditional way and then you discover another virtual dimension. In our ordinary experience here the divine dimension enters. In this sense for me God is linked with love. Love means precisely this. Love does not mean idealization. The object beloved, man, woman, remains the same, but love allows you to think an ordinary person with this extraordinary divine spark in it. Now what does this mean? Now finally I'm coming to censorship and so on. I would have said that it's our duty as intellectuals to be always attentive, that is to say always when a certain view is presented to us as the final solution like this is it, this is what we have to strive for. Always ask yourself but what are the potential problems, contradictions, dangers even in that ideal that we are striving for. For example, some of the Western critics of Iran, even sympathetic critics, claim that we have a simple measure of how democratic and free the country is and that what they wish for Iran is simply what Jürgen Habermas demanded of East Germany after German reunification. His notion is the Nachholende Revolution, a catch-up revolution, like to put it bluntly, we in Western Europe and United States, we already have the best possible in these circumstances socio-political system and the only way for you in Iran is to maybe slowly in one way or another to catch up with us. Maybe I'm doing him an injustice, but in an interview Richard Rorty, the pragmatic philosopher who otherwise was not an idiot, he predicted years ago a figure like Trump. But this was I think if I'm not wrongly informed his advice to you Iranians. Just try to get our Western democracy. I think that okay I will not teach you and I will not tell you, you should tell me, what I want to warn you is that what we are witnessing now and here we in the developed West need your maybe not help but your insight. Isn't it clear in the last decade or two that in the West which always praised itself as a beacon of democracy, something is happening which is no longer just the protest against local forms of oppression like we are not truly in a democracy in the usual parliamentary sense and so on, but a more radical protest which casts a doubt upon the very model of Western liberal democracy. What do I mean by this? Look at Yellow Vests in France. This was precisely a massive protests against the form of democracy that they have in France, the representative parliamentary democracy. The shock of these protests was that the demands of the people, I don't agree even with them, but the point is it was not possible to translate them into the form of political parties, political representation. So while you should maybe it's not for me to tell you, strive for some for the fuller measure of some freedoms that we have in the West, at the same time bear in mind that the West itself is in a deep, deep crisis now. What is happening is what? Every society relies as we know not only on its explicit constitution, legal regulations, but on what always fascinates me incredibly, the set of silent unwritten rules. We never had just the laws. We have unwritten customs, manners, which tell us how to apply these rules. Quite often there is a contradiction here. Those who know my works know that I'm quite obsessed by this phenomenon. How the hegemonic ruling discourse often prohibits something but you are discreetly solicited to violate this prohibition. That's how sexual prohibitions mostly work. At the same time we have a much more interesting opposite paradox. Something is allowed, you are even solicited to do it, so you are given a free choice but on condition that you make the right choice. You know, like you have freedom to vote but only if you vote for the right guy. All these paradoxes are exploding today. And for example United States, it's now at the edge of a ideological civil war. You have two camps whose language is getting so different that I don't see any possibility of a synthesis like Trumpians and Democrats will finally come together invent one America. No, because the conflict is precisely in what this one America will be. So again when you fight for your freedoms please always be aware that there is no clear established model of what to follow. Now you mentioned this forms of censorship and so on and so on. And it's good that you mentioned also digital control, new forms of unfreedom in the West because you know from my own experience, I think that I almost have a half nostalgic memory of the time when Yugoslavia was a socialist country because then the censorship rules were clear and it was even easy to violate them. The example, Spartans were persons, all that confusion, well, probably since you Iranians translate many books, read a lot, since you are not idiots, probably, probably this was even a big propaganda for the film. You know people were telling to each other this jokes. This was an example of counterproductive censorship. But the censorship we are getting today more and more in the West, it's much more dangerous. First because of technological control, all the mechanisms of face recognition and so on, because of technological control and at the same time the exchange of data between big corporation like Facebook, Google and so on and state security agencies, the control is very strong. They are almost approaching the state of directly controlling our mind. You know that for example I learned just now when you buy on Amazon a book on Kindle, Amazon gets the data not only which books you bought but through that reading machine with what intensity, how much of the book did you read, which chapters and so on and so on. The same with the modern TV set that you get. So one of the lessons in the West is that maybe the most dangerous kind of unfreedom is the unfreedom which you individually experience as the very form of your freedom. Take an average American, you are free, you go out to eat, you buy what you want, you chat with friends and so on. You do what you want but you are totally controlled and in subtle ways regulated. In censorship, in direct censorship there is at least a space for metaphoric and other ways to subvert the censorship rule. Here you are not even aware what the prohibitions are usually, so there is not even a way to subvert it. It's a much harsher closure. So just be aware of this. This is what from your perspective your fight for freedom should be. Yes we want more freedom political of the press, but look carefully at what happens in the West. And be aware that in the West we also have our own forms of control. For example I will be critical not too much of Iran, probably with you if you want to get a big university post you have to be approved by some I don't know what body. Yeah, but we now learn that in United Kingdom, England, the beacon of liberty, you know that discreetly MI5 or I don't know which of the two is for domestic dangers, is doing exactly the same. Every university post, all trade union posts and so on, student organizations are all closely discreetly controlled. You are not even aware of it but it works. And my back to philosophy to conclude, my big fear here is the next step, I've written a book about it. It's of course still not realized but it's coming close to it. What I called a wired brain, the direct link between our brain, at least the main lines of the thoughts in my brain and an external machine. So that a machine will be able to communicate directly with my brain and of course then those who control the machine will be able to get access to my brain. Now I don't think that this will totally deprive us of our freedom. But just be a good Hegelian. By Hegel, the great philosopher, I mean that Hegel was almost the opposite of Marx and I tend more towards Hegel today. His idea was not even when there is a catastrophe look for the good side of it like out of every catastrophe something good can come. No, Hegel's point was more when you triumph and succeed look at the new dangers. Hegel was always fascinated by how like I don't know French Revolution began as universal freedom, you get revolutionary terror. But that's not even a good example, I have sympathies for Robespierre. I would have said look at the October Revolution. Undoubtedly at the beginning emancipatory event, then in years you get Stalinism and so on. So philosophy I think today I doubt if it can give you big new answers. But its main task of a philosopher today is to raise the right questions and to make you attentive to the potential dark sides of even big emancipatory events. So with all this whatever we call them populist revolutions I'm not saying we should not fight for freedom. I'm just saying be very careful. Freedom is such a fragile thing it can always turn into its opposite immanently following its own inner logic. And the second thing, here you being neither East nor the West but in the middle. Here between East, Far East and West, you Iranians should be aware of this. This everyday experience that Americans I think are not fully aware of. We need some substantial what Hegel called Sittlichkeit. Categories of not individual ethics but public common customs, mostly unwritten rules, to be actually free. Look, to think freely you need, we think in language, you have to obey the rules of language fluently. To be free socially, it means I go out, I chat with friends, I do what I do, but this means that I should rely on a set of rules. When I walk on the street I will not be simply killed by by somebody, people will obey certain manners and so on and so on. Freedom is not abstract, freedom is always a freedom in a social context and for that we should fight. Not for freedom as such, you always have the freedom to kill yourself or whatever, but we should fight for the social network of rules within which our freedom can only thrive. And here again nobody has a privilege. We in the West can learn from you. For example it was Christian Jambet who wrote a nice book years ago on Mulla Sadra in French. You know what interests me in his reading? That he didn't do it in this patronizing way, 'Oh let's see how intelligent Iranians are, did they already have some insights?' No, he did it because before that he was a Maoist politically, this strict ascetic revolutionary logic, and then his Maoist view got in a deadlock. So you see he went to Mulla Sadra to resolve the unbearable deadlock of his own situation. It's to get out of the trouble I am in that I go out to you. That's I think the only way to be truly respectful in intercultural communications. Not this patronizing respect, 'Oh look you are not stupid, you already see.' No, you enable me to see myself, you help me to get out. At this base I must say Iran is today with all its unfreedoms and so on but at the same time with an I'm aware of it with an incredible intellectual life, Iran is one of the countries which most interest me today. But let me return to Shakespeare. Because it's a universally known simple example. I know we often hear this point, you have to know the entire history of Elizabethan England, the political ideological struggles and so on and to put Shakespeare into his context. Of course up to a certain point this is true. But what I'm saying is that even to a greater point the opposite holds. It's not only that to understand Shakespeare you have to study Elizabethan history, it's also that if you want to understand spiritually the reign of Elizabeth, that epoch, you will learn much more from Shakespeare's plays then than from reading detailed history of that era. Second thing, great work of arts are universal but not in some boring UNICEF United Nations sense that in spite of all our differences we share some universal features. No, the paradox of true historicity is that some work is universal, it has finds universal echo precisely by being fully immersed or fully located in certain historical context because historical contexts themselves have a universal dimension in them. What do I mean by this? For example as I already began returning to my point namely I think that the greatness of Shakespeare is that even if you don't know his context, the his texts tell something to you. Or even more to really understand Shakespeare, now this is a crazy thesis, maybe it's better not to know too much about his context. Because if you know his context you become a specialist and this time in a bad sense and you learn all the details, you know like 'Ah he meant this, that, he referred to that event.' But the basic spiritual constellation you miss it. This is why I even go a step further here. A French author Pierre Bayard I think, B-A-Y-A-R-D, wrote a wonderful book which is slightly ironic but basically serious. The title is How to Talk About Works, Books That You Haven't Read. And he does it in an experimental way. He takes for example I think it's Marcel Proust. He does something wonderfully mischievous evil. He spoke with as many as possible of authors who wrote big fat volumes on Proust. And he then privately went to them, not mentioning their names it would be indiscreet and asked them, 'But did you really read all those how many parts are four, In Search of Lost Time, eight, nine, I don't know?' And those who wrote the best books on Proust admitted it that they haven't read all of it. Maybe only one and so on and so on. Let's go to Hegel. I know very good books on Hegel from contemporary era and I spoke with them and they admitted me, 'My who can read all of Hegel? I read a little bit of Phenomenology of Spirit.' And this is not such a paradox because a true power to grasp something is always the power of abstraction. Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not saying don't read a lot just bluff with your interpretations. You should read, study and so on but true interpretation is always an abstraction. Because if you look closely empirically every author is everything. You have this, you have that, he goes a little bit into that direction and so on. But to grasp the essential the great human creativity of our spirit is the power of abstraction. You see a mess then you say no sorry this feature this is what really matters. So again in this sense while I give all the respect to those who follow details for example of an author's political engagement. For example some new biographies of Hegel paint a rather nice picture of him. Although he was close in his last years to a state philosopher he risked his career, he helped students who were imprisoned and so on. But the author I think his name is Vieweg, the author of this biography admits himself that it's not that you learn something tremendously new in this way. The truth of Hegel is in his theory. And again I'm ready to go here to the end and claim to understand Hegel you don't have to study his private life. On the contrary to understand why Hegel lived in a way he did privately you have to know his philosophy. I'm here quite a naive in a good sense idealist, I believe in the power of ideas especially today when in many Western liberal countries the predominant notion is cynicism. Don't take too seriously ideas everything is just about sex power and so on. No, often we are although sometimes in a wrong fundamentalist violent way we often believe more than we think that we do believe. Today's age is not the age of agnosticism or cynicism, it's at the same time the age of belief more than ever. You know once we say today we are cynical in the old times people believed. Did they? I often mention the book Did the Ancient Greeks Believe in Their Gods?. And he proves conclusively that Greeks were not idiots. They didn't think if you climb on the Mount of Olympus you will see Zeus and Aphrodite there or whatever. Believing didn't mean for them this literal belief. This literal belief emerged maybe only with Protestantism, with modernity in Europe. So you know belief is a very complex category. You can pretend to believe but privately be cynical but you can also act as cynical but in reality you believe more than you think you believe. So again just to conclude to avoid a misunderstanding by saying that we always read a work of art from our own epoch. I don't have time to explain this now. But I'm not a historicist relativist. I'm not saying everything is relative and so on and so on. I think that in a further analysis you can show that there are crucial historical epochs which you should study to understand the entire history. Like in some epochs something emerges which provides the key for universal history. Maybe he was wrong but this was the idea of Marx about capitalism. He says the opposite of the usual stupidity that to understand capitalism you have to know its genesis previous... No, Marx' point is that to know pre-capitalist history you should begin with capitalism. Capitalism retroactively provides the key for the entire history. So beware of some of today's in the West populist conservatives who seem to defend traditional values. Let's be clear Donald Trump was for me the most relativist cynical historicist postmodern president that there ever was. The true moral majority is for me somebody like Bernie Sanders who sympathizes with ordinary people and so on and so on. And this I think is what the progressive left should do today. To stop playing this game that if you are doing obscene gestures or using dirty words that you are doing something subversive. Sorry but those in power in the West today are already obscene enough. I'm not ashamed to say that today the left should rediscover simple dignity morality and so on. And my special message to Nadia if you will still be at some point in the United States we should maybe if you are in Yale when you are there we should maybe meet and drink a coffee and have a debate on monotheism and imagination. Yeah for now I'm physically in Iran but when I will be able to go to New Haven I will inform you. Okay because I will also you know I I have to go if for no other reason my good friend the old Marxist Fredric Jameson is now very old and ill. And I want to be brutal I want to meet him before we both die. And incidentally I know this will appear very low but I mean it so sincerely. It made me cry when I read about this. Listen Nadia sincerely all the best to your husband. You know him? No but I read about it, I saw, I know the case. My friends who visited Iran all told me the surprise was that beneath this slightly oppressive surface you have an incredible intellectual life there. It's absolutely incredible. Iran is a country which gives hope. Because today forget about economy ultimately the crisis is spiritual. And we need intellectual life more than ever today. Not specialist life but this global intellectual reflection. It's
unknown
maybe who
maybe who
Slavoj Žižek
knows the ways of God are improvisible but it's maybe one of the places where something new effectively may happen. So it's my honor to be here and to talk to you. Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you.
knows the ways of God are improvisible but it's maybe one of the places where something new effectively may happen. So it's my honor to be here and to talk to you. Thank you very much for your patience. Thank you.