Special Session on “Ideology Today”
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2021-03-21 · 1:30:30 · 9,875 words
with Julian Assange
ideologypsychoanalysishegel-dialecticscapitalismsexuality-gendercinema-art-cultureliberalism-political-correctnesscommunism-socialismfascism-populismdemocracy
In this seminar Q&A session, Žižek engages students on topics of ideology, subversion, and overidentification, using Rammstein, Philip Guston, and Judith Butler as key reference points. He argues that obscene transgression (dirty jokes, homoeroticism in the military, ironic performativity) does not subvert power but rather sustains it as its necessary underside. He contends that Butler's model of subversive performative repetition describes the dominant form of late-capitalist subjectivity rather than a genuine challenge to it, and that the left should embrace plain-spoken moral-majority patriotism rather than ironic distance. The talk closes with reflections on COVID, pandemic communism, neo-feudal capitalism, and anxieties about the decline of urban public life.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 18
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
A strategy (associated with Laibach/Rammstein and Žižek's personal experience) of taking official ideology too literally or seriously as a way of exposing and undermining it from within.
as “liberal fear”
The patronizing liberal worry that marginalized groups need protection from disturbing symbols, Žižek treats it as itself an ideological operation that disempowers the very people it claims to protect.
as “desire for prohibition”
When desire is prohibited, the prohibition is not simply a barrier, one begins to enjoy the very rituals of prohibition; the prohibition generates its own desire.
as “jouissance as impossible”
Žižek stresses the double sense: we never attain the ultimate object, but we also cannot rid ourselves of enjoyment, it migrates to the rituals of prohibition themselves.
as “drive versus instinct”
Žižek distinguishes the Lacanian drive, where enjoyment lies in the process itself (e.g., sucking, not obtaining milk), from animal instinct aimed at a goal.
Žižek uses it to mean the enjoyment that emerges not from satisfaction but from deprivation and prohibition, the more that attaches to the very obstacle or ritual of denial rather than to the prohibited object itself.
Žižek inverts the common reading: perversion, far from bypassing repression, represents repression at its most intense, the unconscious is nowhere more deeply buried than in the pervert.
Žižek's informal label for a cluster of feminist and women philosophers (Butler, Rocío Zambrana, and others) who are deeply engaged with Hegel.
Implicitly invoked in the discussion of how everyday ideological mechanisms produce real social effects despite their apparent unreality.
Žižek's thesis that Butler's model of identity as playful ironic reconstruction is not subversive but is itself the hegemonic form of late-capitalist subjectivity.
as “fetishistic disavowal”
The structure of post-modern cynical ideology: 'they know very well what they are doing, but they do it nonetheless', ideology functioning not through ignorance but through disavowal.
The obscene, unofficial underside (dirty jokes, homoeroticism, vulgar rituals) that sustains official power and discipline rather than subverting it.
as “truthful lie”
A statement in which every individual fact is true but the overall arrangement serves a false ideological purpose, Žižek considers it more dangerous than outright lying.
as “working class aristocracy”
Lenin's term, cited by Žižek when quoting a view he and Harvey reject: that the Western working class is so privileged it is no longer a revolutionary subject.
as “sex without love as masturbation with a real partner”
Žižek's formulation that sexual contact without genuine emotional involvement is essentially virtual or self-referential; passionate love paradoxically brings greater bodily proximity.
as “communist tendency”
The spontaneous recognition during the COVID pandemic that healthcare, vaccine production, and basic income cannot be left to the market, an immanent pressure toward socialization.
as “privatized NSA”
Žižek cites Assange's characterization of Google as a privately run intelligence/surveillance apparatus equivalent to the NSA.
as “neo-feudal capitalism”
A form of capitalism in which tech giants like Amazon and Facebook no longer operate on profit from production but extract rent from ownership of digital commons, analogous to feudal lords.
Stories he reaches for 3
In Žižek's Yugoslav army, soldiers' morning greeting was a vulgar expression for fellatio; officially homophobic, the culture was entirely saturated with homoeroticism, proving that transgressive obscenity sustains rather than subverts official norms.
“we didn't say to each other good morning but smoke mine, vulgar expression for smoke my prick, fellatio and so on”
Empirically, neo-Nazis do not listen to Rammstein (they prefer soft romantic ballads), confirming that Rammstein's over-identification with brutality genuinely functions as subversion.
“there are no neo-Nazis who like or who really refer to Rammstein as their own. Neo-Nazis like... tender nice ballads, romantic music”
The soldier who over-identifies with military discipline (Pyle) is not a model soldier but a failed excess who goes too mad; the skeptical, ironic soldiers in his unit are the successful ones, proving over-identification is not the only or best subversive mode.
“those in his unit who are presented most skeptical, looking at him ironically... those who do not fall into this trap, they are the good soldiers”
Works invoked 6
Butler's book is praised for approaching the Lacanian logic of surplus enjoyment and the reversal of prohibition into desire, even without using Lacanian terminology.
Full Metal Jacket film
Read as showing that over-identification (Pyle) is a failed excess; the skeptical, ironic soldiers are the truly successful ones, illustrating the logic of inherent transgression.
Subjects of Desire book
Butler's first book on Hegel is described as 'a very good book'; one of the two Butler works Žižek most appreciates.
Cited as an example of media irony that fails to fix its target: conservatives read it as mocking liberals, liberals read it as mocking conservatives.
Links 2-3-4 song
Rammstein song cited for the line that 'all are trying to convince us that we have heart on our right, but no, we have heart on our left side.'
MASH film
Altman's film is used counter-intuitively: the ironic, joking characters are model soldiers, not subversives; private ironic distance enables efficient duty.
People invoked 24
Alenka Zupančič positive
Cited for clarifying the double sense of Lacanian jouissance as impossible: both unattainable and inescapable.
Rocío Zambrana positive
Puerto Rican philosopher; her text on Hegel, Adorno, and mourning is praised as excellent; Žižek says she triumphantly refutes Habermas's critique of negative dialectics.
Kyrsten Sinema negative
Her thumbs-down vote on minimum wage and feminist framing of that gesture is cited as an example of liberal feminist ideology serving capital.
Jacques Lacan positive
Central theoretical resource throughout: jouissance, surplus enjoyment, drive, and the impossibility of the object are all deployed via Lacan.
Louis Althusser positive
Implicitly invoked via the notion of interpellation, though not named directly.
Stephen Colbert positive
The Colbert Report is raised as an example of media irony that is read differently by conservatives and liberals, illustrating the limits of ironic subversion.
Judith Butler negative
Žižek appreciates her early Hegel book and Psychic Life of Power for approaching Lacanian surplus enjoyment without naming it, but argues her model of subversive performativity describes dominant ideology rather than challenging it; he calls her 'a stupid feminist' while acknowledging her intellectual quality.
Donald Trump positive
Used as an example to argue against both liberal and conservative readings: Trump is the ultimate postmodern cynic, not an honest outsider; his lies were a deliberate strategy, not a mistake.
Nancy Fraser positive
Referenced for a book on the liberal reappropriation of American feminism, which Žižek finds interesting and relevant.
Mentioned as an example of an artist briefly claimed by the alt-right before she publicly declared anti-Trump views.
Jeff Bezos negative
Example of neo-feudal capitalist who extracts rent from digital commons while exploiting warehouse workers.
David Harvey positive
Cited approvingly for rejecting the left's obsession with marginalized identity groups and defending the reality of working-class suffering in cities like Detroit and Cleveland.
Bernie Sanders positive
Praised as the model of plain-spoken moral directness and left patriotism; his strategy of targeting Trump voters rather than the liberal center is endorsed.
Julian Assange positive
Admired; cited for his definition of Google as a privatized NSA and for exposing tech-company surveillance more than his Iraq war revelations.
Mladen Dolar positive
A friend who found the historical connection between International Women's Day and the Paris Commune in early photographs from Vienna.
Angela Nagle positive
Appreciated for her point that the alt-right culturally appropriated old leftist subversive transgression.
Bill Gates negative
Cited as representing 'bubble capitalism', digital total control for the elite as a capitalist response to COVID.
Angela Merkel positive
Her argument that Germany's greatness allows it to welcome immigrants is used to illustrate left patriotism.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau positive
Called 'one of my great guys'; cited for the observation that fake liberals care more about distant exotic tribes than about the poor in their own street.
Philip Guston positive
His KKK paintings are praised as a model of undermining racist imagery from within by locating it in lower-class misery.
Jürgen Habermas negative
Mentioned as the target of Zambrana's argument: Habermas reproaches negative dialectics for lacking a positive normative standard, a reading Žižek (following Zambrana) rejects.
Sigmund Freud positive
Cited for the claim that nowhere is the unconscious more deeply repressed than in perversion, though Žižek notes even Freud made a lapse on this point.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Underpins the discussion of absolute knowing, inner tensions of normative structures, and negative dialectics throughout.
Ronald Reagan positive
Cited as the first politician to discover that lies boosted rather than damaged popularity, prefiguring Trump's strategy.
What it argues
inherent transgression as support of power, not subversionButler's performativity versus Lacanian surplus enjoymentover-identification and the limits of ironyleft patriotism and direct address as subversive strategyCOVID pandemic as site of communist tendency versus capitalist re-containmentneo-feudal digital capitalismperversion as the highest stage of repression
Dialectical moves 9
“The prohibition of desire automatically always turns into a desire for prohibition.”
What begins as an external ban on jouissance is internalized so that the ritual of prohibition itself becomes the object of enjoyment, the classic Lacanian reversal of repression into its supplement.
“Perversion is not the opposite of repression but its highest stage.”
Žižek inverts the common assumption: the pervert who appears to do everything openly is in fact the most deeply repressed subject.
“If there ever was a truly postmodern president it's Donald Trump; if there ever was a politician closest to traditional dignity it's Bernie Sanders.”
A reversal of common attributions: the supposed 'outsider' Trump is the ultimate postmodern cynic while the 'radical' Sanders embodies classical moral rectitude.
“What Butler describes as a potentially subversive model is today the predominant form of late-capitalist subjectivity.”
Žižek inverts Butler's subversive claim: the very mode said to undermine hegemony is hegemony, performative reconstruction of identity is the dominant ideology.
“The truly subversive thing today is to be naive.”
Under conditions of pervasive cynical irony, sincere direct address becomes the genuinely transgressive act.
“Those who are afraid of foreigners don't trust the greatness of their own nation; if you really love your nation you help others.”
Žižek reframes xenophobic nationalism as a sign of national weakness or insecurity, true patriotism expresses itself through openness.
“Sex without love is like a masturbation with a real partner; passionate love brings you much closer even bodily to your partner.”
Žižek inverts the intuition that physical sex is more 'real' than love: without love, the act remains essentially virtual and self-referential.
“The most dangerous lie is a truthful lie—everything is factually true but serves a false purpose.”
Žižek reverses the folk equation of truth with honesty: factual accuracy can be the vehicle of the deepest ideological distortion.
“Even mother is not mother—the ultimate object of desire is impossible not because we never get it but because when we do it still fails to satisfy.”
Žižek radicalizes the Lacanian point: the impossibility of jouissance is not merely our perpetual distance from the object but the object's own inner inadequacy.
Claims 17
asserts
Neo-Nazis and the alt-right do not listen to Rammstein; they prefer tender romantic ballads, which confirms that Rammstein's brutality does genuine subversive work.Rammstein / over-identification
asserts
Philip Guston's KKK paintings undermine the power of racist imagery by locating it in the miserable, dirty, lower-class reality of Klan members rather than glorifying it.art and ideological critique / Philip Guston
rejects
The liberal worry that Black audiences need protection from Guston's imagery is patronizing and paternalistic.liberal cancel-culture / liberal fear
rejects
Butler's description of subversive performative repetition actually describes the dominant ideological form of late-capitalist subjectivity, not a challenge to it.Judith Butler's performativity theory
asserts
The obscene rituals and homoeroticism that permeate military life are not resistance to discipline but the very support that makes discipline function.inherent transgression / military discipline
asserts
If you play the game of official discipline without participating in the obscene supplement, you are expelled more forcefully than if you violate explicit rules.inherent transgression / obscene underside of power
rejects
Trump is not a genuinely postmodern ironic figure who says everything openly; he is a calculating politician who respects certain prohibitions and whose lies were a deliberate strategic message.Trump's political style
asserts
Perversion is the highest stage of repression, not its opposite; the unconscious is nowhere more deeply buried than in the pervert.perversion / repression / Freud and Lacan
asserts
The radical left should embrace direct, naive, plain-spoken address and a form of patriotism rather than triple-ironic subversion.left political strategy
asserts
Love, not sexuality alone, brings genuine bodily proximity to the other; sex without love is essentially a form of masturbation with a real partner.sexuality, love, and fantasy
asserts
The COVID pandemic revealed a communist tendency—the necessity of socialized healthcare and basic income—that global capitalism is now desperately trying to re-contain.COVID / communism / capitalism
asserts
What is happening today economically and politically under COVID is more important than what happened in 1968.historical significance of the present moment
asserts
A lie in the guise of truth—where every individual fact is accurate but the overall framing serves a false purpose—is more dangerous than outright lying.ideology, propaganda, and lying
rejects
White liberal celebration of marginalized groups as bearers of authentic life is condescending and despised by the very people it purports to honor.liberal multiculturalism / identity politics
asserts
The '68 revolt was re-inscribed by capitalism through its focus on sexual liberation and drug freedoms, causing its original social-struggle dimension to be forgotten.1968 revolt / ideological recuperation
rejects
MASH (the film) is not subversive but a realistic portrayal of military life: private ironic distance enables rather than undermines efficient performance of duty.MASH as subversive / ironic distance
rejects
The left's obsession with ultra-minorities and marginal invisible groups is a mistaken strategy that alienates those who could be won over from the right.left identity politics
Quotes 12
“Perversion is the highest stage of repression. We should always bear in mind this.”Slavoj Žižek · perversion as repression, not its opposite
“If there ever was a truly post-modern president—by post-modern I mean making fun of all values, irony, obscenity all the time—it's Donald Trump. If there ever was a politician who comes as close as possible to a traditional elementary dignity, morality, even family values to a certain point, it's Bernie Sanders.”Slavoj Žižek · reversal of Trump/Sanders as postmodern vs. traditional
“What she describes as a potentially subversive model is today the predominant form of late capitalist form of subjectivity.”Slavoj Žižek · Butler's performativity as dominant ideology
“The truly subversive thing today is to be naive.”Slavoj Žižek · naivety as subversion under cynical postmodernity
“Sex without love is like a masturbation with a real partner. To get real contact, you need love.”Slavoj Žižek · love as condition of genuine bodily contact
“The most dangerous lie again is a truthful lie. You know where I discovered the last example?”Slavoj Žižek · truthful lie as the most dangerous ideology
“My dream: the new left as the voice of truly patriotic silent moral majority.”Slavoj Žižek · left strategy as moral-majority patriotism
“Julian Assange gave the best definition of Google, which is: a privatized NSA. Privatized form of social control.”Slavoj Žižek · Google as privatized NSA / neo-feudal surveillance
“These new corporate masters—Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos Amazon and so on—they are not even no longer traditional capitalists who work with profit. They are like feudal masters who get rent.”Slavoj Žižek · neo-feudal capitalism / rent extraction by tech giants
“Even mother is not mother. That's Lacan's point.”Slavoj Žižek · the impossibility of the ultimate object of desire
“It's a deeply conservative genre. Deeply conservative, deeply, deeply conservative. Regulated... totally regulated.”Slavoj Žižek · hardcore pornography as conservative / strictly regulated
“Those who are afraid of foreigners, 'My God, foreigners will invade us, destroy us', they really don't trust the greatness of their own nation.”Slavoj Žižek · xenophobia as lack of national confidence
Transcript 82 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Okay, listen. Let's not... Okay, we have one minute officially. Let's not lose time because I must say I'm not bluffing. This is not the polite starting point of a conversation, that I was really impressed by the quality of the questions. And I see your perplexity and problems that you see with some questions and so on and so on. You know, and I must also say that like I am aware of the potential problems, problematic points in what I'm claiming. So I am sure of what I'm claiming, but you know, but this is my experience. I can give you more examples and so on. You know, people often accuse me that I do these abstract speculations, but what I wrote about over-identification and so on and so on, this is one of—now I will be critical towards myself of course—one of the few points of my theory which is really—and I will use this kitsch common sense terminology—really based on my deepest personal experience. In this sense I'm not bluffing there, you know.
Okay, listen. Let's not... Okay, we have one minute officially. Let's not lose time because I must say I'm not bluffing. This is not the polite starting point of a conversation, that I was really impressed by the quality of the questions. And I see your perplexity and problems that you see with some questions and so on and so on. You know, and I must also say that like I am aware of the potential problems, problematic points in what I'm claiming. So I am sure of what I'm claiming, but you know, but this is my experience. I can give you more examples and so on. You know, people often accuse me that I do these abstract speculations, but what I wrote about over-identification and so on and so on, this is one of—now I will be critical towards myself of course—one of the few points of my theory which is really—and I will use this kitsch common sense terminology—really based on my deepest personal experience. In this sense I'm not bluffing there, you know.
unknown
Yeah. So do we
Yeah. So do we
Slavoj Žižek
begin? Ah, I see you. Sorry, I don't see the whole family name. The lady, Jessica. You asked me a nice tough question. I know, I did my secret police job, you know. I want to move to China, you know, to what high are they developed this [unintelligible]. But they applied to millions of people face recognition, you know. Their machines can recognize in a big crowd faces even if they wear masks.
begin? Ah, I see you. Sorry, I don't see the whole family name. The lady, Jessica. You asked me a nice tough question. I know, I did my secret police job, you know. I want to move to China, you know, to what high are they developed this [unintelligible]. But they applied to millions of people face recognition, you know. Their machines can recognize in a big crowd faces even if they wear masks.
unknown
Yeah. I talk too
Yeah. I talk too
Slavoj Žižek
much. How do you Russell, you are the boss. I need a master. How... Okay.
much. How do you Russell, you are the boss. I need a master. How... Okay.
unknown
Well here's what I thought we would do. Um, when you and I talked about this, I thought that we don't need the... we've already pretty much started. I think everyone knows—everyone—I'll spare the honorifics. Everyone knows who you are. We've been reading your work and as you said we sent questions.
Well here's what I thought we would do. Um, when you and I talked about this, I thought that we don't need the... we've already pretty much started. I think everyone knows—everyone—I'll spare the honorifics. Everyone knows who you are. We've been reading your work and as you said we sent questions.
Slavoj Žižek
I know, because when somebody says Slavoj Zizek needs no introduction, this means we are in for minutes of, you know... Yeah
I know, because when somebody says Slavoj Zizek needs no introduction, this means we are in for minutes of, you know... Yeah
unknown
I'm actually... I'll actually be honest about that and not do the introduction in the interest of time. Um, so we can get
I'm actually... I'll actually be honest about that and not do the introduction in the interest of time. Um, so we can get
Slavoj Žižek
right into it. Let me be arrogant in my politically incorrect style. Should we introduce you because nobody knows you, you need half an hour of introduction. Yeah. No, no, no. You are doing a very good job, seriously.
right into it. Let me be arrogant in my politically incorrect style. Should we introduce you because nobody knows you, you need half an hour of introduction. Yeah. No, no, no. You are doing a very good job, seriously.
unknown
Oh, thanks. Okay, so I thought what we would do is when you and I talked, you said maybe like or minutes...
Oh, thanks. Okay, so I thought what we would do is when you and I talked, you said maybe like or minutes...
Slavoj Žižek
No, please less, less, but for very precise reasons. Because there is—I'm sorry for this—the old now that I went through health problems, all my nervous tics and so on are returning with a vengeance. What I want to say is that there are so many interesting points in your questions that I would prefer just to, how do you put it, throw myself into the water and start to swim in your questions, not to lose points. How shall...
No, please less, less, but for very precise reasons. Because there is—I'm sorry for this—the old now that I went through health problems, all my nervous tics and so on are returning with a vengeance. What I want to say is that there are so many interesting points in your questions that I would prefer just to, how do you put it, throw myself into the water and start to swim in your questions, not to lose points. How shall...
unknown
Okay? Yeah. However you want to do it. Do you want to... do you have some remarks and then go into it or do you want to just jump right into the questions?
Okay? Yeah. However you want to do it. Do you want to... do you have some remarks and then go into it or do you want to just jump right into the questions?
Slavoj Žižek
Okay, no. Maybe I should make some... but not to your big question. Maybe I should make some remarks not apropos your big questions, but just to clarify some points. I forgot who of you raises this obvious question, this what I call liberal fear: but what if some neo-Nazis, for example, would nonetheless take Rammstein seriously and as neo-Nazis and so on? Well, I would like almost to begin with an empirical statement. I'm aware of this danger and I am... whenever I'm in Germany, talking with German journalists, talking with German friends and so on, I obsessively always ask this question. And I always, always—not even one tiny exception—get the same answer, unambiguous: there are no neo-Nazis who like or who really refer to Rammstein as their own. Neo-Nazis like... even in the United States, like—I mean the alt-right—they like another type of music, you know. Like, you know that before she—by she I mean Taylor Swift—you know, before she went open public with her maybe not leftist but at least pro-liberal anti-Trump stance, she was the heroine in some circle at least of the alt-right. And I did these obsessive things, I did then ask myself this question: but what do then they listen to, the neo-racists, neo-Nazis and so on and so on? Well, I will disappoint you: tender nice ballads, romantic music, very gentle, very soft and so on. That's why I believe that this Rammstein's brutality does... does the work. Okay, but that's an unimportant point. Incidentally with Rammstein, there is no doubt because you know that they even had a song on this, Links Left, which has a beautiful line saying that all are trying to convince us that we have heart on our right, but no, we have heart on our left side and so on and so on. It's a nice line. But let's not lose time with it and let's—let me jump directly into the water. First point, connected with this Rammstein: You know what I think is typical here? That whenever there are accusations, not just apropos Rammstein, are they... what is some naive alt-right people will nonetheless take them as neo-Nazi propaganda and so on and so on, but I noticed the same problem at multiple levels. For example, did you follow—probably you did, I only don't know how to pronounce the name of the guy—Guston, that you remember that scandal? Okay, problematic point. A couple of months ago, when four big art institutions, galleries, whatever museums, wanted to do an exhibition of his... of his drawings, paintings, and then the worry was, what if nonetheless, because he painted the Ku Klux Klan people, some Black people who may be sensitive to the very physical presence of Ku Klux Klan images, what if they may be... may be hurt by this? But what I claim again—I propose this even as a... as an empirical proposition to measure it—it is happening in the United States, in my country and so on, that again and again I see in this a patronizing sense of white liberals. As if Blacks or whoever could be offended, as if they are so sensitive that we liberals should protect them. I say, they will take care of themselves, they're strong enough, they will say if they are hurt and so on. And especially how do you pronounce that guy's name? Guston, Guston. People mostly pronounce it Guston, I don't get it although... I think it's Guston. It is Guston? I—this, okay, so I will pass to you, I mean you as the letter. No, what I want to say is that I tried to reject this idea that people may be nonetheless Black, hurt by... but I looked at his paintings. You know what he does? Something that I consider wonderful: he puts all the Ku Klux Klan imagery in the miserable reality of lower class—that's his standard procedure—Ku Klux Klan members. You see a poor guy, dirty linen, drinking and so on and so on. I think I cannot even imagine how some Black guy could be offended by this, because you don't get any fascination with Ku Klux Klan. You get this utter misery of the reality of Ku Klux Klan. And if you insist nonetheless, some people reproached me that nonetheless, it doesn't matter the context, the very symbol, Ku Klux Klan and so on, is forceful enough that it can affect you. No, I think—there comes my second argument—that yes, in some sense of course it can hurt you. You cannot be neutral to see a Ku Klux Klan symbol. But I claim that precisely by nonetheless locating this symbol in the miserable reality—dirty, drunk, lower class guy and so on and so on—it, as it were, again undermines, destroys the power of this symbol. And my further claim: it's the only way for me to really destroy it from within. If you just describe it without feeling the presence, seeing it, you don't really do the job. If you remain at an abstract rational level, you... the fascination remains. That's why I see in that guy Guston, or whatever, undermining the power of these images from within. Let's go further to the... to the big understanding or misunderstanding, Judith Butler. Right. That's actually what I wanted to ask you about that, so good. Sorry? Yeah you didn't ask me, but your big question, you know, two, three pages... No, I was just going—I was just about to ask you that, so you read my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I appreciate, and I'm not kidding, for me it's not a joke: two of her books that I like most are first, her first book, is it Subjects of Desire or what, a very good book on Hegel. And then Psychic Life of Power. Why? Because she comes there very close—I don't mean this in a patronizing way—like comes very close but as a stupid feminist she cannot really get it. But simply, she is not a Lacanian so she doesn't use the term, but deploys the logic of what Lacan means by surplus enjoyment. Surplus enjoyment is not simply—no, it's just ordinary sex or pleasure—it's something more. It's a more which emerges in the less, in a deprivation, obstacle and so on. You want something, it's prohibited. This prohibition is materialized
Okay, no. Maybe I should make some... but not to your big question. Maybe I should make some remarks not apropos your big questions, but just to clarify some points. I forgot who of you raises this obvious question, this what I call liberal fear: but what if some neo-Nazis, for example, would nonetheless take Rammstein seriously and as neo-Nazis and so on? Well, I would like almost to begin with an empirical statement. I'm aware of this danger and I am... whenever I'm in Germany, talking with German journalists, talking with German friends and so on, I obsessively always ask this question. And I always, always—not even one tiny exception—get the same answer, unambiguous: there are no neo-Nazis who like or who really refer to Rammstein as their own. Neo-Nazis like... even in the United States, like—I mean the alt-right—they like another type of music, you know. Like, you know that before she—by she I mean Taylor Swift—you know, before she went open public with her maybe not leftist but at least pro-liberal anti-Trump stance, she was the heroine in some circle at least of the alt-right. And I did these obsessive things, I did then ask myself this question: but what do then they listen to, the neo-racists, neo-Nazis and so on and so on? Well, I will disappoint you: tender nice ballads, romantic music, very gentle, very soft and so on. That's why I believe that this Rammstein's brutality does... does the work. Okay, but that's an unimportant point. Incidentally with Rammstein, there is no doubt because you know that they even had a song on this, Links Left, which has a beautiful line saying that all are trying to convince us that we have heart on our right, but no, we have heart on our left side and so on and so on. It's a nice line. But let's not lose time with it and let's—let me jump directly into the water. First point, connected with this Rammstein: You know what I think is typical here? That whenever there are accusations, not just apropos Rammstein, are they... what is some naive alt-right people will nonetheless take them as neo-Nazi propaganda and so on and so on, but I noticed the same problem at multiple levels. For example, did you follow—probably you did, I only don't know how to pronounce the name of the guy—Guston, that you remember that scandal? Okay, problematic point. A couple of months ago, when four big art institutions, galleries, whatever museums, wanted to do an exhibition of his... of his drawings, paintings, and then the worry was, what if nonetheless, because he painted the Ku Klux Klan people, some Black people who may be sensitive to the very physical presence of Ku Klux Klan images, what if they may be... may be hurt by this? But what I claim again—I propose this even as a... as an empirical proposition to measure it—it is happening in the United States, in my country and so on, that again and again I see in this a patronizing sense of white liberals. As if Blacks or whoever could be offended, as if they are so sensitive that we liberals should protect them. I say, they will take care of themselves, they're strong enough, they will say if they are hurt and so on. And especially how do you pronounce that guy's name? Guston, Guston. People mostly pronounce it Guston, I don't get it although... I think it's Guston. It is Guston? I—this, okay, so I will pass to you, I mean you as the letter. No, what I want to say is that I tried to reject this idea that people may be nonetheless Black, hurt by... but I looked at his paintings. You know what he does? Something that I consider wonderful: he puts all the Ku Klux Klan imagery in the miserable reality of lower class—that's his standard procedure—Ku Klux Klan members. You see a poor guy, dirty linen, drinking and so on and so on. I think I cannot even imagine how some Black guy could be offended by this, because you don't get any fascination with Ku Klux Klan. You get this utter misery of the reality of Ku Klux Klan. And if you insist nonetheless, some people reproached me that nonetheless, it doesn't matter the context, the very symbol, Ku Klux Klan and so on, is forceful enough that it can affect you. No, I think—there comes my second argument—that yes, in some sense of course it can hurt you. You cannot be neutral to see a Ku Klux Klan symbol. But I claim that precisely by nonetheless locating this symbol in the miserable reality—dirty, drunk, lower class guy and so on and so on—it, as it were, again undermines, destroys the power of this symbol. And my further claim: it's the only way for me to really destroy it from within. If you just describe it without feeling the presence, seeing it, you don't really do the job. If you remain at an abstract rational level, you... the fascination remains. That's why I see in that guy Guston, or whatever, undermining the power of these images from within. Let's go further to the... to the big understanding or misunderstanding, Judith Butler. Right. That's actually what I wanted to ask you about that, so good. Sorry? Yeah you didn't ask me, but your big question, you know, two, three pages... No, I was just going—I was just about to ask you that, so you read my mind. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I appreciate, and I'm not kidding, for me it's not a joke: two of her books that I like most are first, her first book, is it Subjects of Desire or what, a very good book on Hegel. And then Psychic Life of Power. Why? Because she comes there very close—I don't mean this in a patronizing way—like comes very close but as a stupid feminist she cannot really get it. But simply, she is not a Lacanian so she doesn't use the term, but deploys the logic of what Lacan means by surplus enjoyment. Surplus enjoyment is not simply—no, it's just ordinary sex or pleasure—it's something more. It's a more which emerges in the less, in a deprivation, obstacle and so on. You want something, it's prohibited. This prohibition is materialized
unknown
in rituals, but then you start to enjoy
in rituals, but then you start to enjoy
Slavoj Žižek
rituals themselves. And she in the beautiful way in one chapter, I forgot which one, of her Psychic Life of Power, Judith Butler points out how this reversal—and she puts it very nicely in openly Hegelian terms—how for example the prohibition of desire automatically always turns into a desire for prohibition. Yeah. If jouissance is prohibited, you start to enjoy the very prohibitions, the rituals that prohibit and so on and so on, which incidentally—a small Lacanian detour—which brings us to a nice point: ambiguity of Lacan's notion of jouissance as impossible. You know, people usually read this just as the negative effect: the ultimate object of desire—okay, in a primitive pseudo-Freudian sense—mother cannot be... is never accessible. But as Alenka Zupancic pointed out, first we have to bring this example which may appear naive to its extreme. Okay, what if you—and I don't want to humiliate others, so I will turn to you, Russell, sorry—what if you really were to sleep with your mother? My point is, it would still not be... you know, even mother is not mother. That's Lacan's point. Right. Okay, but let's go further. Lacan is not just saying this, that the object of desire is impossible means we never get it, we just get metonymic or metaphoric displacement, we never get the thing itself. Lacan says something much more crucial: that the opposite also holds. We cannot get rid of enjoyment. You have a certain enjoyment, you prohibit it, but then enjoyment sticks to the very rituals of prohibition and so on. And this would be, for example, Lacan's basic model of surplus enjoyment. Or, even at its most elementary, you know when—this is how Lacan defines drive—drive as specifically human, not the same as animal instinct, means that, for example, Lacan's elementary example: oral drive. Okay, a small kid wants to suck milk, he or she or it—I prefer it—has first... so, but then we are at the level of drive where your real enjoyment is in the process itself, in sucking itself, not getting the milk and so on and so on. So this complication I think is crucial for how ideology works. And here I must correct a little bit myself. I wrote what I will tell you now, but maybe I wasn't precise enough. Namely, all those people whom I appreciate very much, Angela Nagle and so on, had this point how in the old days the left was subversive, showing you finger, let's be anti-establishment, vulgar, let's denounce the empty hypocritical rituals of those in power. How now it's the alt-right which took over, assumed, which did—to put it ironically—a cultural appropriation of old leftist... And I think here we should use Lacan's term perversion, also Freud's, in its precise meaning. You know what I maybe didn't develop clearly enough? This doesn't mean that, for example, somebody like Donald Trump was really subversive in the sense that he spoke openly, whatever he wanted and so on. I claim that I doubt if there was a politician more consciously manipulating and more calculating, more respecting certain prohibitions than Donald Trump. That's crucial. And this confirms Freud's wonderful point when he says that nowhere is unconscious so deeply repressed than nowhere else than in the perversion. Perversion where apparently it's the opposite of repression, as they say wrongly—even Freud makes this lapse once. He said hysterics only dream about things, perverts do it in reality. No, for Freud already and for Lacan, perversion is the highest stage of repression. We should always bear in mind this. Trump is not somebody who literally says everything openly and so on. No, no, he says it in a very calculated way, with many repressions and so on and so on, mystifications and so on and so on. But then I will stop, I talk too much as usual. Back to Judith Butler. So where is my misunderstanding? Okay, I will try to be... because I do appreciate her as a theoretician. You know why? Because she nonetheless—that's the good side of Judith—I noticed that she is one of the members of what I call New Left Hegelians. Feminists, or at least women, who are profoundly attached to Hegel. For example, Judith even tries to, I forgot where, to reassert what is usually considered as the most problematic notion of Hegel, absolute knowing and so on and so on. And she is not alone, there are so many of them. Do some of you know her? That she's from Puerto Rico, did a book on Hegel, Rocio Zambrana? Oh, I haven't... I know who... I haven't read that book yet, but... But she is... I read just one text on Hegel, Adorno and mourning, suffering. It's an excellent text. Basically, it's a text against this Habermasian reading. You know, Habermas's point is that Adorno and all those partisans of negative dialectics are just critical without bringing out, formulating a positive norm, normative standard by means of which they judge reality as terrifying, bad and so on and so on. That's the standard idea, critical reproach to the older generation of Frankfurt School itself, to Dialectic of Enlightenment. And I think she, Rocio Zambrana, triumphantly demonstrates how no, for Hegel and even for Marx, although sometimes in a more obscure way, no, Hegel just as it were describes the inner tension, the suffering—in human terms—the inner tension of a certain normative structure and in this way undermines it, without implying some good standard of positive by means of which we should measure it. Okay, so Judith Hegelian. The problem I see—and now I come to your questions in your introductory Russell notes, but also in some of your students' points—you know, I will try to be as brutal as possible, where I see a certain defense nonetheless with Judith. When she talks about how norms are constructed through this playful repetitive ironic repetition which always displaces the norm and so on and so on. Yeah. And she sees in this the, how should I call it even... she nonetheless sees in this ironic displacement, repetition and so on and so on, some kind of force of subversion. I see in this fundamentally the basic model of functioning of ideology. For me it's... I don't see any subversive power in this. So I will now go back immediately—sorry if I will sound a little bit confused—to another question one of you asked, it's—I don't know who—was it one of you whom I see who made that wonderful point? I like this empirical confirmation: that you
rituals themselves. And she in the beautiful way in one chapter, I forgot which one, of her Psychic Life of Power, Judith Butler points out how this reversal—and she puts it very nicely in openly Hegelian terms—how for example the prohibition of desire automatically always turns into a desire for prohibition. Yeah. If jouissance is prohibited, you start to enjoy the very prohibitions, the rituals that prohibit and so on and so on, which incidentally—a small Lacanian detour—which brings us to a nice point: ambiguity of Lacan's notion of jouissance as impossible. You know, people usually read this just as the negative effect: the ultimate object of desire—okay, in a primitive pseudo-Freudian sense—mother cannot be... is never accessible. But as Alenka Zupancic pointed out, first we have to bring this example which may appear naive to its extreme. Okay, what if you—and I don't want to humiliate others, so I will turn to you, Russell, sorry—what if you really were to sleep with your mother? My point is, it would still not be... you know, even mother is not mother. That's Lacan's point. Right. Okay, but let's go further. Lacan is not just saying this, that the object of desire is impossible means we never get it, we just get metonymic or metaphoric displacement, we never get the thing itself. Lacan says something much more crucial: that the opposite also holds. We cannot get rid of enjoyment. You have a certain enjoyment, you prohibit it, but then enjoyment sticks to the very rituals of prohibition and so on. And this would be, for example, Lacan's basic model of surplus enjoyment. Or, even at its most elementary, you know when—this is how Lacan defines drive—drive as specifically human, not the same as animal instinct, means that, for example, Lacan's elementary example: oral drive. Okay, a small kid wants to suck milk, he or she or it—I prefer it—has first... so, but then we are at the level of drive where your real enjoyment is in the process itself, in sucking itself, not getting the milk and so on and so on. So this complication I think is crucial for how ideology works. And here I must correct a little bit myself. I wrote what I will tell you now, but maybe I wasn't precise enough. Namely, all those people whom I appreciate very much, Angela Nagle and so on, had this point how in the old days the left was subversive, showing you finger, let's be anti-establishment, vulgar, let's denounce the empty hypocritical rituals of those in power. How now it's the alt-right which took over, assumed, which did—to put it ironically—a cultural appropriation of old leftist... And I think here we should use Lacan's term perversion, also Freud's, in its precise meaning. You know what I maybe didn't develop clearly enough? This doesn't mean that, for example, somebody like Donald Trump was really subversive in the sense that he spoke openly, whatever he wanted and so on. I claim that I doubt if there was a politician more consciously manipulating and more calculating, more respecting certain prohibitions than Donald Trump. That's crucial. And this confirms Freud's wonderful point when he says that nowhere is unconscious so deeply repressed than nowhere else than in the perversion. Perversion where apparently it's the opposite of repression, as they say wrongly—even Freud makes this lapse once. He said hysterics only dream about things, perverts do it in reality. No, for Freud already and for Lacan, perversion is the highest stage of repression. We should always bear in mind this. Trump is not somebody who literally says everything openly and so on. No, no, he says it in a very calculated way, with many repressions and so on and so on, mystifications and so on and so on. But then I will stop, I talk too much as usual. Back to Judith Butler. So where is my misunderstanding? Okay, I will try to be... because I do appreciate her as a theoretician. You know why? Because she nonetheless—that's the good side of Judith—I noticed that she is one of the members of what I call New Left Hegelians. Feminists, or at least women, who are profoundly attached to Hegel. For example, Judith even tries to, I forgot where, to reassert what is usually considered as the most problematic notion of Hegel, absolute knowing and so on and so on. And she is not alone, there are so many of them. Do some of you know her? That she's from Puerto Rico, did a book on Hegel, Rocio Zambrana? Oh, I haven't... I know who... I haven't read that book yet, but... But she is... I read just one text on Hegel, Adorno and mourning, suffering. It's an excellent text. Basically, it's a text against this Habermasian reading. You know, Habermas's point is that Adorno and all those partisans of negative dialectics are just critical without bringing out, formulating a positive norm, normative standard by means of which they judge reality as terrifying, bad and so on and so on. That's the standard idea, critical reproach to the older generation of Frankfurt School itself, to Dialectic of Enlightenment. And I think she, Rocio Zambrana, triumphantly demonstrates how no, for Hegel and even for Marx, although sometimes in a more obscure way, no, Hegel just as it were describes the inner tension, the suffering—in human terms—the inner tension of a certain normative structure and in this way undermines it, without implying some good standard of positive by means of which we should measure it. Okay, so Judith Hegelian. The problem I see—and now I come to your questions in your introductory Russell notes, but also in some of your students' points—you know, I will try to be as brutal as possible, where I see a certain defense nonetheless with Judith. When she talks about how norms are constructed through this playful repetitive ironic repetition which always displaces the norm and so on and so on. Yeah. And she sees in this the, how should I call it even... she nonetheless sees in this ironic displacement, repetition and so on and so on, some kind of force of subversion. I see in this fundamentally the basic model of functioning of ideology. For me it's... I don't see any subversive power in this. So I will now go back immediately—sorry if I will sound a little bit confused—to another question one of you asked, it's—I don't know who—was it one of you whom I see who made that wonderful point? I like this empirical confirmation: that you
unknown
served the army and went through the
served the army and went through the
Slavoj Žižek
training there. Oh that—yeah, that was Evan. Are you here? No, I don't see him here, doesn't matter. What I want to say is... I am here. Ah, you are. Just, hi. Ah, you did. You are... you are not like those soft pussies there, you really did—I mean military training. No, but I'm so, you know how I agree with you, those couple of lines in your question. I identify with them so much because as you said—if I quote you correctly—sexuality is everywhere and nowhere in the army. And this contradictory combination fascinated me. Like maybe you know my old example, when I was in the army, on the one hand it was totally homophobic. If a soldier was discovered to be gay, he was sent home, but before the decision came from headquarters, he was usually ritualistically beaten every night and so on and so on. So homophobia is out... sorry, homosexuality is out, homophobia reigns. But at the same time, the entire atmosphere, jokes and so on, was totally penetrated by homoeroticism. For example—sorry if I repeat if some of you know this—in my army you need—we didn't say to each other good morning but smoke mine, vulgar expression for smoke my prick, fellatio and so on. Or dozens of models like this. So what fascinated me is this combination of moral severity, homosexuality is out, blah blah, but at the same time sustained by an extreme degree of homosexual metaphorics, games and so on and so on. Even at an almost childish level. For example when in the army we were waiting in line for food distribution, it was a stupid game played again and again that people were standing behind you so that one of them then stuck his fingers up your ass, you turned around and haha they were all looking around, guess who it was and so on and so on. This combination fascinated me and maybe I'm simplifying here Judith's point, so I will tell my point. In my experience, all these dirty rituals are in no way subversive. Without them, without this obscene supplement, you lose military discipline itself. And totalitarian as I am, I liked military discipline. I went to the army hoping that I will get absolute discipline and I was—I'm a true fascist, honest fascist, they don't exist you know—and I was shocked by how this obscenity invaded—invaded the whole field. Even officers... I noticed how the most severe officers at the same time—they shouted at us, shouted at us, terrorized us, but always mixed this with obscenity. You know, like for example haha, now you work so hard, if your girl will visit you, you will not be able even to fuck her and then after the weekend visit she asked the soldier openly haha, how was it, where were you... common vulgarities. But you see my point? My point is—now you can correct me, maybe I'm wrong—I don't see this duality as the duality of official oppressive order and then resistance, ob... No, this is false resistance. This resistance sustains the order. And now I make my usual excessive point, going too much. I would have said that—and I experienced this on my skin as it were—if you try to play just the game of discipline without these obscene rituals, supplements, you are excommunicated much more forcefully than if you violate the explicit rules of discipline. That was my experience. Other soldiers, even officers, immediately felt that you are not playing their obscene game and you were out. So again, back to Judith. I have the impression—maybe I even hope I'm wrong at least up to a point—that for her it is the pure paternal whatever authority, symbolic law, whatever, which is then undermined, to a certain level of course, through these dirty rituals. No, I think these dirty rituals are the main support of a power which functions. And the big example that I use here—that I like to use here—is that of—sorry if you know it—Trump versus Bernie Sanders. Ah. When these neo-con idiots claim 'Oh, Trump is for traditional values, blah blah', I said, no, if there ever was—I'm sorry if some of you know this line of thought of mine—if there ever was a truly post-modern president—by post-modern I mean making fun of all values, irony, obscenity all the time—it's Donald Trump. If there ever was a politician who comes as close as possible to a traditional elementary dignity, morality, even family values to a certain point, it's Bernie Sanders. Yeah. I like this reversal. So that would be one point of disagreement with her. The second one, I will put it in very brutal simplified terms: I think that Judith still thinks that today the main ideology is patriarchal ideology and that the way to subvert it is to play this game of playing ironic repetition, carnival undermining it, plasticity, reconstructing your identity. My thesis is that—to put it again in very brutal terms—that what she describes as a potentially subversive model is today the predominant form of—sorry for this official sounding term—late capitalist form of subjectivity. I think that what neo-conservatives are doing today—return to homophobic family values and so on and so on—is just a clownish reaction, the battle is lost. Yeah. The predominant—in what sense? Even if this—let's call them performative social constructivists who claim there is no fixed identity, we reconstruct our identity playfully undermine, change, reinvent ourselves—I think this is the predominant ideology, even if it's not quantitatively the predominant one, all others already react to it. So, would you say that does Trump... I actually included this in some of the questions that I sent. But maybe this is a way to get to a question that Maurine had about the effect that COVID has on our political or ideological imagination. But do you think—it's interesting that Trump is a sort of return of... that Trump was a return of post-modern cynicism in a way because it seemed like that era was over. But I wonder if... do you think that with Trump and all of these other sort of, you know, international obscene right-wing figures of the master, that are we still... because the post-modern era was presumably or supposedly post-ideological. And of course, your point was that it wasn't post-ideology at all, we just moved from ideology functioning symptomally—the old Marxist notion, right, in Capital 'they do not know it but they're doing it'—to under post-modern cynicism fetishistically, right? The formula for fetishistic disavowal: they know very well that they are doing it, but nonetheless. Is... is Trump and this sort of like international, you know, rise of these right-wing obscene figures of the master, is this within that sort of cynical fetishistic horizon of ideology or does that mark a break with that and something new? Now, I will be very honest, and I will admit because openly that I would like to learn here from you. I don't think I have a clear position here. Because the first thing I would like to say is that, you know, with all his irony, undermining and so on and so on, Trump doesn't go to the end. There are things he is not ready to joke about. Like he jokes about many things, but he doesn't mean it in an ironic way when he says 'Make America Great Again', 'United States are a big nation' and so on and so on. So Trump has limits. He is not through and through... he is not all the way as it were ironic. But I want to go back to another question about Full Metal Jacket. You know that soldier who at the end he kills himself I think, who is over-identified, no? Yeah. Yes, I accept this, but that's why I think he is a failed excess, he is not a true model of a good soldier. My reading, if I remember correctly, of Full Metal Jacket is that those in his unit who are presented most skeptical, looking at him ironically and... those who do not fall into this trap, they are the good soldiers, you know. He is not the model of military discipline. He is an excess. Okay, he doesn't subvert it in the sense of Rammstein, but he brings it to the point of madness. He goes too far. That's why I am always fascinated by how even the worst totalitarians—and that's what I miss in that crazy soldier, I forgot his name who trains them, you know. Oh, the drill sergeant? Yeah, but do you know an irony? Members of Slovene version of Rammstein, of Laibach, our hard punk group, you know that they were at that point when Kubrick was shooting Full Metal Jacket, they were there because
training there. Oh that—yeah, that was Evan. Are you here? No, I don't see him here, doesn't matter. What I want to say is... I am here. Ah, you are. Just, hi. Ah, you did. You are... you are not like those soft pussies there, you really did—I mean military training. No, but I'm so, you know how I agree with you, those couple of lines in your question. I identify with them so much because as you said—if I quote you correctly—sexuality is everywhere and nowhere in the army. And this contradictory combination fascinated me. Like maybe you know my old example, when I was in the army, on the one hand it was totally homophobic. If a soldier was discovered to be gay, he was sent home, but before the decision came from headquarters, he was usually ritualistically beaten every night and so on and so on. So homophobia is out... sorry, homosexuality is out, homophobia reigns. But at the same time, the entire atmosphere, jokes and so on, was totally penetrated by homoeroticism. For example—sorry if I repeat if some of you know this—in my army you need—we didn't say to each other good morning but smoke mine, vulgar expression for smoke my prick, fellatio and so on. Or dozens of models like this. So what fascinated me is this combination of moral severity, homosexuality is out, blah blah, but at the same time sustained by an extreme degree of homosexual metaphorics, games and so on and so on. Even at an almost childish level. For example when in the army we were waiting in line for food distribution, it was a stupid game played again and again that people were standing behind you so that one of them then stuck his fingers up your ass, you turned around and haha they were all looking around, guess who it was and so on and so on. This combination fascinated me and maybe I'm simplifying here Judith's point, so I will tell my point. In my experience, all these dirty rituals are in no way subversive. Without them, without this obscene supplement, you lose military discipline itself. And totalitarian as I am, I liked military discipline. I went to the army hoping that I will get absolute discipline and I was—I'm a true fascist, honest fascist, they don't exist you know—and I was shocked by how this obscenity invaded—invaded the whole field. Even officers... I noticed how the most severe officers at the same time—they shouted at us, shouted at us, terrorized us, but always mixed this with obscenity. You know, like for example haha, now you work so hard, if your girl will visit you, you will not be able even to fuck her and then after the weekend visit she asked the soldier openly haha, how was it, where were you... common vulgarities. But you see my point? My point is—now you can correct me, maybe I'm wrong—I don't see this duality as the duality of official oppressive order and then resistance, ob... No, this is false resistance. This resistance sustains the order. And now I make my usual excessive point, going too much. I would have said that—and I experienced this on my skin as it were—if you try to play just the game of discipline without these obscene rituals, supplements, you are excommunicated much more forcefully than if you violate the explicit rules of discipline. That was my experience. Other soldiers, even officers, immediately felt that you are not playing their obscene game and you were out. So again, back to Judith. I have the impression—maybe I even hope I'm wrong at least up to a point—that for her it is the pure paternal whatever authority, symbolic law, whatever, which is then undermined, to a certain level of course, through these dirty rituals. No, I think these dirty rituals are the main support of a power which functions. And the big example that I use here—that I like to use here—is that of—sorry if you know it—Trump versus Bernie Sanders. Ah. When these neo-con idiots claim 'Oh, Trump is for traditional values, blah blah', I said, no, if there ever was—I'm sorry if some of you know this line of thought of mine—if there ever was a truly post-modern president—by post-modern I mean making fun of all values, irony, obscenity all the time—it's Donald Trump. If there ever was a politician who comes as close as possible to a traditional elementary dignity, morality, even family values to a certain point, it's Bernie Sanders. Yeah. I like this reversal. So that would be one point of disagreement with her. The second one, I will put it in very brutal simplified terms: I think that Judith still thinks that today the main ideology is patriarchal ideology and that the way to subvert it is to play this game of playing ironic repetition, carnival undermining it, plasticity, reconstructing your identity. My thesis is that—to put it again in very brutal terms—that what she describes as a potentially subversive model is today the predominant form of—sorry for this official sounding term—late capitalist form of subjectivity. I think that what neo-conservatives are doing today—return to homophobic family values and so on and so on—is just a clownish reaction, the battle is lost. Yeah. The predominant—in what sense? Even if this—let's call them performative social constructivists who claim there is no fixed identity, we reconstruct our identity playfully undermine, change, reinvent ourselves—I think this is the predominant ideology, even if it's not quantitatively the predominant one, all others already react to it. So, would you say that does Trump... I actually included this in some of the questions that I sent. But maybe this is a way to get to a question that Maurine had about the effect that COVID has on our political or ideological imagination. But do you think—it's interesting that Trump is a sort of return of... that Trump was a return of post-modern cynicism in a way because it seemed like that era was over. But I wonder if... do you think that with Trump and all of these other sort of, you know, international obscene right-wing figures of the master, that are we still... because the post-modern era was presumably or supposedly post-ideological. And of course, your point was that it wasn't post-ideology at all, we just moved from ideology functioning symptomally—the old Marxist notion, right, in Capital 'they do not know it but they're doing it'—to under post-modern cynicism fetishistically, right? The formula for fetishistic disavowal: they know very well that they are doing it, but nonetheless. Is... is Trump and this sort of like international, you know, rise of these right-wing obscene figures of the master, is this within that sort of cynical fetishistic horizon of ideology or does that mark a break with that and something new? Now, I will be very honest, and I will admit because openly that I would like to learn here from you. I don't think I have a clear position here. Because the first thing I would like to say is that, you know, with all his irony, undermining and so on and so on, Trump doesn't go to the end. There are things he is not ready to joke about. Like he jokes about many things, but he doesn't mean it in an ironic way when he says 'Make America Great Again', 'United States are a big nation' and so on and so on. So Trump has limits. He is not through and through... he is not all the way as it were ironic. But I want to go back to another question about Full Metal Jacket. You know that soldier who at the end he kills himself I think, who is over-identified, no? Yeah. Yes, I accept this, but that's why I think he is a failed excess, he is not a true model of a good soldier. My reading, if I remember correctly, of Full Metal Jacket is that those in his unit who are presented most skeptical, looking at him ironically and... those who do not fall into this trap, they are the good soldiers, you know. He is not the model of military discipline. He is an excess. Okay, he doesn't subvert it in the sense of Rammstein, but he brings it to the point of madness. He goes too far. That's why I am always fascinated by how even the worst totalitarians—and that's what I miss in that crazy soldier, I forgot his name who trains them, you know. Oh, the drill sergeant? Yeah, but do you know an irony? Members of Slovene version of Rammstein, of Laibach, our hard punk group, you know that they were at that point when Kubrick was shooting Full Metal Jacket, they were there because
unknown
they worked, they played the role of one of the soldiers there, they were there. Oh really? I didn't know that. Yeah, I have a link with that drill sergeant, and they told me that he was a little bit crazy, he was not just acting, he was really like that, you know. Well he was... he was actually a drill sergeant. Kubrick brought him in as a consultant, and then he was so good at it when he was just modeling what the actor should do, Kubrick said, 'No, you're... you are the drill sergeant.' Yeah, but my friends told me again that people liked him because, you know, there was no fake in him, he really was that. That's why it's suicide, it doesn't work. I think the story of the movie is how through his failure, through taking a distance towards his excess, a normal good military discipline is organized. But wait a minute, I have here to provoke you a little bit. Another, I hope, provocative thesis. I will tell you that... but you know, as a leftist, I reject this liberal leftist notion 'Oh discipline bad, we should be free express ourselves'. No, sorry, there are social situations where you need discipline, where you need hard work and
they worked, they played the role of one of the soldiers there, they were there. Oh really? I didn't know that. Yeah, I have a link with that drill sergeant, and they told me that he was a little bit crazy, he was not just acting, he was really like that, you know. Well he was... he was actually a drill sergeant. Kubrick brought him in as a consultant, and then he was so good at it when he was just modeling what the actor should do, Kubrick said, 'No, you're... you are the drill sergeant.' Yeah, but my friends told me again that people liked him because, you know, there was no fake in him, he really was that. That's why it's suicide, it doesn't work. I think the story of the movie is how through his failure, through taking a distance towards his excess, a normal good military discipline is organized. But wait a minute, I have here to provoke you a little bit. Another, I hope, provocative thesis. I will tell you that... but you know, as a leftist, I reject this liberal leftist notion 'Oh discipline bad, we should be free express ourselves'. No, sorry, there are social situations where you need discipline, where you need hard work and
Slavoj Žižek
so on. I'm not against discipline. And I will give you a slightly... which is why—okay, I will give you another example. This is the ambiguity of otherwise—I like him very much—Robert Altman's first mega-hit MASH. Yeah. I never got it, what should be so subversive in that movie. I'm talking about movie, not the TV series. With all the irony and jokes and so on, they are model soldiers for me. It's not a story about how you can subvert it. No, precisely through this private distance, making fun and so on, they do their job saving lives... lives and so on and so on. They do their job in an excellent way. This is for me again not a subversive portrayal but simply a realistic portrayal of military life. But you know what? You have so many intelligent people, and I don't count you among them—intelligent they are with good questions. Please, I'm here to be beaten, as it were, please. Yeah, let's... let's open it up. Who wants to... I'm not hypocritical. I would like to learn from you where I'm wrong and so on and so on. Because Judith Butler, maybe she was right, once she claimed that I'm too traumatized when I speak about inherent transgression by my socialist background. Till Yugoslavia was a communist country, and there ideology worked—this is maybe my formative experience, almost epiphany. In the last decade ideology, official ideology, worked in an openly cynical way. If those in power perceived you as somebody who really believed in official ideology, you usually lost your job, you were considered dangerous. Because their idea was, if you take it too seriously, you will become a dissident sooner or later. So maybe I'm making some mistakes here, which is why I always go when I go to China, when I go to whichever different
so on. I'm not against discipline. And I will give you a slightly... which is why—okay, I will give you another example. This is the ambiguity of otherwise—I like him very much—Robert Altman's first mega-hit MASH. Yeah. I never got it, what should be so subversive in that movie. I'm talking about movie, not the TV series. With all the irony and jokes and so on, they are model soldiers for me. It's not a story about how you can subvert it. No, precisely through this private distance, making fun and so on, they do their job saving lives... lives and so on and so on. They do their job in an excellent way. This is for me again not a subversive portrayal but simply a realistic portrayal of military life. But you know what? You have so many intelligent people, and I don't count you among them—intelligent they are with good questions. Please, I'm here to be beaten, as it were, please. Yeah, let's... let's open it up. Who wants to... I'm not hypocritical. I would like to learn from you where I'm wrong and so on and so on. Because Judith Butler, maybe she was right, once she claimed that I'm too traumatized when I speak about inherent transgression by my socialist background. Till Yugoslavia was a communist country, and there ideology worked—this is maybe my formative experience, almost epiphany. In the last decade ideology, official ideology, worked in an openly cynical way. If those in power perceived you as somebody who really believed in official ideology, you usually lost your job, you were considered dangerous. Because their idea was, if you take it too seriously, you will become a dissident sooner or later. So maybe I'm making some mistakes here, which is why I always go when I go to China, when I go to whichever different
unknown
culture. This is always what
culture. This is always what
Slavoj Žižek
interests me. Is this logic that I described
interests me. Is this logic that I described
unknown
in a primitive way, this inherent transgression, the underside of power—is this something culturally specific or universal? I tend to claim it is universal. It functions in different ways and so on and so on. But I spoke about it in Israel, I went to
in a primitive way, this inherent transgression, the underside of power—is this something culturally specific or universal? I tend to claim it is universal. It functions in different ways and so on and so on. But I spoke about it in Israel, I went to
Slavoj Žižek
the other side—not to Iran, but to Ramallah, West Bank—it's always the same. In China, in Korea, wherever I was. I mean, quickly I would just say, I think that your point... I would agree, I would say that it's... Also, but... Well no, I was just... this was I was going to say, that it's... it's universal but like you were saying, that it's... the structuring role of enjoyment is there is universal, but it articulates in different forms or different ways I guess. Can I tell you something? There I got a very interesting reply from some of my Japanese friends. They told me that in Japan in the academia, the structure is superficially much more oppressive. You can only address your professor who is above you—the big professor, if you are assistant or whatever—in a very respectful way, you shouldn't openly contradict him, you know. But nonetheless, it is of course ritualized the way you signal disagreement. The furthest you can go—I love this—is to say that 'I totally agree with you, maybe I would just risk and put the accent in a slightly different way' or... But you have in the States as far as I know the same rituals. Like, let's say, Russell—I will be the bad guy, don't be afraid—I give a talk and I ask you 'Was it good or not?' How do you say in a polite way it was bad? As far as I know the phrase is 'it was interesting'. Yeah. It's interesting, yeah. It was interesting means it was bad, the polite way. You know, because I was once at a unique scene when I was an idiot and risked it and I said to a guy, 'Well it wasn't too good, it was bad'. And the guy was deeply hurt. And then he explained to me, he said, 'I know it wasn't too good. But why then didn't you just say that it was interesting? I would have gotten the point.' He thought that naming it directly adds another much more aggressive personal intersubjective dimension, no? Sorry, I interrupted you. Let's go on. All right, who... let's open it up a little bit. Um, to somebody who wants to ask a question or to jump in here. Haha, screw you. There you were reading long questions and so on, now... Well I'm happy to jump in here. This is an interesting. This is an interesting. I have a question though and it's along these lines of the, you know, the short version is: how do we be subversive in modern media? Sorry, how do we—I didn't get, how do we— How do we... how would we be subversive in modern media? And I'm thinking of something like The Colbert Report, do you know this show? Where Stephen Colbert, one of the old people from The Daily Show, mocked being a kind of Fox News type conservative critic. And the
the other side—not to Iran, but to Ramallah, West Bank—it's always the same. In China, in Korea, wherever I was. I mean, quickly I would just say, I think that your point... I would agree, I would say that it's... Also, but... Well no, I was just... this was I was going to say, that it's... it's universal but like you were saying, that it's... the structuring role of enjoyment is there is universal, but it articulates in different forms or different ways I guess. Can I tell you something? There I got a very interesting reply from some of my Japanese friends. They told me that in Japan in the academia, the structure is superficially much more oppressive. You can only address your professor who is above you—the big professor, if you are assistant or whatever—in a very respectful way, you shouldn't openly contradict him, you know. But nonetheless, it is of course ritualized the way you signal disagreement. The furthest you can go—I love this—is to say that 'I totally agree with you, maybe I would just risk and put the accent in a slightly different way' or... But you have in the States as far as I know the same rituals. Like, let's say, Russell—I will be the bad guy, don't be afraid—I give a talk and I ask you 'Was it good or not?' How do you say in a polite way it was bad? As far as I know the phrase is 'it was interesting'. Yeah. It's interesting, yeah. It was interesting means it was bad, the polite way. You know, because I was once at a unique scene when I was an idiot and risked it and I said to a guy, 'Well it wasn't too good, it was bad'. And the guy was deeply hurt. And then he explained to me, he said, 'I know it wasn't too good. But why then didn't you just say that it was interesting? I would have gotten the point.' He thought that naming it directly adds another much more aggressive personal intersubjective dimension, no? Sorry, I interrupted you. Let's go on. All right, who... let's open it up a little bit. Um, to somebody who wants to ask a question or to jump in here. Haha, screw you. There you were reading long questions and so on, now... Well I'm happy to jump in here. This is an interesting. This is an interesting. I have a question though and it's along these lines of the, you know, the short version is: how do we be subversive in modern media? Sorry, how do we—I didn't get, how do we— How do we... how would we be subversive in modern media? And I'm thinking of something like The Colbert Report, do you know this show? Where Stephen Colbert, one of the old people from The Daily Show, mocked being a kind of Fox News type conservative critic. And the
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phenomenon came out
phenomenon came out
Slavoj Žižek
that conservatives
that conservatives
unknown
actually love the show because they think the joke is on his fake guests, um, whereas liberals love the show because they think it's about making fun of him and Fox News and so on. So the question is, you know, you read what you want to read, and irony just allows you to see whatever side you want
actually love the show because they think the joke is on his fake guests, um, whereas liberals love the show because they think it's about making fun of him and Fox News and so on. So the question is, you know, you read what you want to read, and irony just allows you to see whatever side you want
Slavoj Žižek
to see. Is it... what is the medium that makes critique possible? Now it may surprise you my answer. With all this—I will make a point which is not exactly a reply to you but it moves in the same direction—with all this talk of 'Oh, Trump lied times, how many lies and so on', I think that it's much more dangerous when people lie in the guise of truth. So that everything they say can be literally true but it's still a lie. And I convinced my Jewish friends, maybe you know the story, when I told them
to see. Is it... what is the medium that makes critique possible? Now it may surprise you my answer. With all this—I will make a point which is not exactly a reply to you but it moves in the same direction—with all this talk of 'Oh, Trump lied times, how many lies and so on', I think that it's much more dangerous when people lie in the guise of truth. So that everything they say can be literally true but it's still a lie. And I convinced my Jewish friends, maybe you know the story, when I told them
unknown
'I can easily imagine a
'I can easily imagine a
Slavoj Žižek
book, let me allow me—I will not do it—to write a book with the title like The Role of Jews in Art Criticism and Legal System and Journalism in General in Germany in the early 1930s'. All data would be true. And it's clear that Jews did mostly control art criticism, of art critics were Jews, legal profession, most of the lawyers were Jews and so on and
book, let me allow me—I will not do it—to write a book with the title like The Role of Jews in Art Criticism and Legal System and Journalism in General in Germany in the early 1930s'. All data would be true. And it's clear that Jews did mostly control art criticism, of art critics were Jews, legal profession, most of the lawyers were Jews and so on and
unknown
so on. So
so on. So
Slavoj Žižek
you see my point? Everything can be true. But in that concrete constellation, these truths would have served the anti-Semitic lie. That's why I'm saying it's much more dangerous, this lying in the guise of truth. It's never... the point is never simply do you lie or not. The most dangerous lie again is a truthful lie. You know where I discovered the last example? Maybe you read it in some big media, CNN, I don't know where, I discovered that
you see my point? Everything can be true. But in that concrete constellation, these truths would have served the anti-Semitic lie. That's why I'm saying it's much more dangerous, this lying in the guise of truth. It's never... the point is never simply do you lie or not. The most dangerous lie again is a truthful lie. You know where I discovered the last example? Maybe you read it in some big media, CNN, I don't know where, I discovered that
unknown
a restaurant—sorry I'm not sure was it Toronto or Boston—a Chinese
a restaurant—sorry I'm not sure was it Toronto or Boston—a Chinese
Slavoj Žižek
restaurant had a menu which
restaurant had a menu which
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is as it were truthful. For example, when they give
is as it were truthful. For example, when they give
unknown
these
these
unknown
descriptions of
descriptions of
unknown
different
different
Slavoj Žižek
entries,
entries,
unknown
foods, with some special noodles they say 'It's not really as good, we wonder ourselves why people are so stupid to order this meal' and so on. But isn't this the strategy that precisely in this way they seduce you even more, you know? It appears to be honest and so on. And I was told that years ago you had in the States already the self-ironic reflexive publicity. Like it shows the group of people who want... who are making the commercial for a certain product, and they talk like 'How should we manipulate people, should we add this, should we add that?' and it worked perfectly.
foods, with some special noodles they say 'It's not really as good, we wonder ourselves why people are so stupid to order this meal' and so on. But isn't this the strategy that precisely in this way they seduce you even more, you know? It appears to be honest and so on. And I was told that years ago you had in the States already the self-ironic reflexive publicity. Like it shows the group of people who want... who are making the commercial for a certain product, and they talk like 'How should we manipulate people, should we add this, should we add that?' and it worked perfectly.
Slavoj Žižek
So again, the point is not simply the truth. It's a literal truth which can be a deeper lie. That's the most dangerous one. So I'm much more afraid than of Trump, I would be of somebody who would have been Trump with a measure, as it were, you know? Who take a little bit more care of... I think with Trump it was another strategy, more complex. I'm more and more convinced—and I think you, Russell, already gave some hints on it, we agree here—that for Trump, his lies were not a mistake. His lies were part of his message. His lies made him popular. The same thing happened, the first one who did this step was Ronald Reagan. I remember how the big liberal media after every press conference of Reagan—that's why then there were less and less of them—they made a list of his lies, untruths and so on. And then shockingly they discovered that this only boosts helped his popularity, you know. So I would... I would have said that—now the answer would have shocked you, I will appear as a kind of almost real authentic neo-con Bernie Sanders and so on—that I think we, the left radicals, if we are this, should accept without any shame, irony and so on, at a certain level, moral majority logic. We should address people not as some subversive fanatics who at the triple level of irony make the point, but simply addressing people in their ordinary cares, supposing that they are still at certain level honest and addressing that. And that's what I think Bernie Sanders was doing, that's what Jeremy Corbyn was doing... This, so I am paradoxically for a certain level of naivete here even. I think that the truly subversive thing today is to be naive. Even with—now I will take a problematic example, I don't think it was with you Russell but somewhere I already used it and some people were shocked to put it mildly—for example concerning patriotism. I think the left should absolutely advocate patriotism. Loving your country is not bad. But our reproach to alt-right should be that what they are doing is seeding panic. They don't trust in America, they are in a panic, you know. If you... that's the elementary point that some intelligent leftist, even Angela Merkel who is not a leftist made it once in Germany. She said, 'Because I love Germany and I trust Germany, we are a great nation. That's why we can afford to invite foreigners to come here.' Those who are afraid of foreigners, 'My God, foreigners will invade us, destroy us', they really don't trust the greatness of their own nation. So isn't this a much better strategy? Not to say 'You are racist, you don't see other minority cultures'. Yes, we see them, but there is no contradiction in respecting others and loving your nation. If you really love and trust your nation then, up to a certain point of course—I'm not saying let's invite ISIS to open a... to open an embassy in Washington, no—but nonetheless patriotism should show itself in this way: if you are strong, you help others, you are not afraid of others and so on and so on. This is... this is very important, I claim. To stop with this idea that the radical left should be this obsession with ultra-minorities, you know. Already Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the great... my great guys, said wonderfully that how do you discover fake liberal? Who lives in a street, in a nearby street there are hundreds of poor people, but no, he cares more about some Mongolian tribe than about... Like this is what I like also about David Harvey, the Marxist who was always against this obsession with minorities and so on. I remember I was at a round table with him—I even forgot there, maybe in London at Birkbeck—when somebody advocated this radical line that our working class is already part of what Lenin called working class aristocracy, they are all corrupted, only these marginal groups are today really subversive. And then David Harvey exploded. He said, 'Sorry, go to the suburbs of Detroit or Cleveland and so on. You will see what neoliberal politics did to the working class there and so on and so on. Don't treat them as privileged, you know.' So along these lines, I think that—I will say something horrible—I'm more and more for—not in the fascist sense—for direct action, say directly what do you mean, don't worry about this double-triple ironic level and so on, you know. In this way I believe we can... we can win. We should be the voice of—I know it sounds horrible—but we should be the... isn't this wonderful? That's my dream: the new left as the voice of truly patriotic silent moral majority. And we should seriously play this game because in this way we would take voters from Trump and so on and so on. And again, Bernie has his limitations, I'm not idealizing him, but he saw this very clearly. Where he said... his message to Democrats was: 'Stop your obsession with... with those middle-in-between, 'are we too radical' and so on. Our target should be those who otherwise vote for Trump.' And incidentally that's his strategy. I spoke with people who are working around him when he was still in Burlington, Vermont, no? That this was his strategy. He visited poor farmers there and so on. All those who would have naturally... all those who were morally concerned about decadence and so on and so on. If you ask me, I... I... I... I think we should break out of this model, I don't know how to call it, of you know, obsession with... with marginal invisible and so on and so on. Because I know many people who are marginal half invisible. Some so-called Native Americans, also Blacks and so on. And they opened up to me, many of them, and told me, 'You cannot imagine how they despise this white liberal condescending celebration of them like, you know, we are alienated, you have an authentic life there'. My God, Native American Indian guy exploded to me, 'What authenticity? Do you know the misery of the average... tribal area and so on? It's a nightmare, drugs, people are...'. You know that in Canada I learned, maybe you read it, it was in the media already two, three years ago. If you go from the center of Canada, Toronto, up north, there is a city with mostly—whatever you call them, Inuit, Native First... whatever—which has the highest suicide rate in the world. It's total despair. Blacks at least succeeded in different forms—they're not all acceptable maybe for us—to build their identity, from... people they don't like, like Farrakhan and so on. They have a sense of identity. Inuit, even more than Native Americans in Canada, I was told, they are just live pure despair. Most of them haven't even reached this level. So the worst favor you can do for them is to celebrate them as some remainders of authentic life and so on and so on. I mean, when I talk with them, they explode. They say to white people who come and say 'We are more...', they say 'Okay, let's change places. You come to live with my misery, I move to your house in Pasadena' or whatever, the suburb. Well, yeah. Well we have... let's see, we've got about maybe like minutes... um, cause I don't want to keep you too long but yeah, there are some... there are some questions. Tony, um, why don't you—I'm sorry that I talk too much, I will try to... That's fine. Tony, you go ahead. Yeah, so along the same lines as the two questions that have been asked already, um, then how do we sort of reconcile a genre like horror, since that's something that's really at my like forefront right now? Um, that's something I really wanted to ask. How do we... um, usually horror seen as something that is subversive— You mean horror movies or horror horror? What do you mean by horror, sorry? Like horror movies, horror literature, um, usually seen as some... there's some form of like subversive character or subversive formality to it. Um, so how would you... would you consider horror as subversive or as a tool or a mechanism of ideology in some way? It's a good question and I don't want to... to lie and bluff too much. I admit that I don't have a... a direct answer here so I would just like to make one point. I think that all the time while we are watching horror movies, we are aware that we are watching just a movie, that it's not reality. So it's not this real mimetic horror, as if
So again, the point is not simply the truth. It's a literal truth which can be a deeper lie. That's the most dangerous one. So I'm much more afraid than of Trump, I would be of somebody who would have been Trump with a measure, as it were, you know? Who take a little bit more care of... I think with Trump it was another strategy, more complex. I'm more and more convinced—and I think you, Russell, already gave some hints on it, we agree here—that for Trump, his lies were not a mistake. His lies were part of his message. His lies made him popular. The same thing happened, the first one who did this step was Ronald Reagan. I remember how the big liberal media after every press conference of Reagan—that's why then there were less and less of them—they made a list of his lies, untruths and so on. And then shockingly they discovered that this only boosts helped his popularity, you know. So I would... I would have said that—now the answer would have shocked you, I will appear as a kind of almost real authentic neo-con Bernie Sanders and so on—that I think we, the left radicals, if we are this, should accept without any shame, irony and so on, at a certain level, moral majority logic. We should address people not as some subversive fanatics who at the triple level of irony make the point, but simply addressing people in their ordinary cares, supposing that they are still at certain level honest and addressing that. And that's what I think Bernie Sanders was doing, that's what Jeremy Corbyn was doing... This, so I am paradoxically for a certain level of naivete here even. I think that the truly subversive thing today is to be naive. Even with—now I will take a problematic example, I don't think it was with you Russell but somewhere I already used it and some people were shocked to put it mildly—for example concerning patriotism. I think the left should absolutely advocate patriotism. Loving your country is not bad. But our reproach to alt-right should be that what they are doing is seeding panic. They don't trust in America, they are in a panic, you know. If you... that's the elementary point that some intelligent leftist, even Angela Merkel who is not a leftist made it once in Germany. She said, 'Because I love Germany and I trust Germany, we are a great nation. That's why we can afford to invite foreigners to come here.' Those who are afraid of foreigners, 'My God, foreigners will invade us, destroy us', they really don't trust the greatness of their own nation. So isn't this a much better strategy? Not to say 'You are racist, you don't see other minority cultures'. Yes, we see them, but there is no contradiction in respecting others and loving your nation. If you really love and trust your nation then, up to a certain point of course—I'm not saying let's invite ISIS to open a... to open an embassy in Washington, no—but nonetheless patriotism should show itself in this way: if you are strong, you help others, you are not afraid of others and so on and so on. This is... this is very important, I claim. To stop with this idea that the radical left should be this obsession with ultra-minorities, you know. Already Jean-Jacques Rousseau, one of the great... my great guys, said wonderfully that how do you discover fake liberal? Who lives in a street, in a nearby street there are hundreds of poor people, but no, he cares more about some Mongolian tribe than about... Like this is what I like also about David Harvey, the Marxist who was always against this obsession with minorities and so on. I remember I was at a round table with him—I even forgot there, maybe in London at Birkbeck—when somebody advocated this radical line that our working class is already part of what Lenin called working class aristocracy, they are all corrupted, only these marginal groups are today really subversive. And then David Harvey exploded. He said, 'Sorry, go to the suburbs of Detroit or Cleveland and so on. You will see what neoliberal politics did to the working class there and so on and so on. Don't treat them as privileged, you know.' So along these lines, I think that—I will say something horrible—I'm more and more for—not in the fascist sense—for direct action, say directly what do you mean, don't worry about this double-triple ironic level and so on, you know. In this way I believe we can... we can win. We should be the voice of—I know it sounds horrible—but we should be the... isn't this wonderful? That's my dream: the new left as the voice of truly patriotic silent moral majority. And we should seriously play this game because in this way we would take voters from Trump and so on and so on. And again, Bernie has his limitations, I'm not idealizing him, but he saw this very clearly. Where he said... his message to Democrats was: 'Stop your obsession with... with those middle-in-between, 'are we too radical' and so on. Our target should be those who otherwise vote for Trump.' And incidentally that's his strategy. I spoke with people who are working around him when he was still in Burlington, Vermont, no? That this was his strategy. He visited poor farmers there and so on. All those who would have naturally... all those who were morally concerned about decadence and so on and so on. If you ask me, I... I... I... I think we should break out of this model, I don't know how to call it, of you know, obsession with... with marginal invisible and so on and so on. Because I know many people who are marginal half invisible. Some so-called Native Americans, also Blacks and so on. And they opened up to me, many of them, and told me, 'You cannot imagine how they despise this white liberal condescending celebration of them like, you know, we are alienated, you have an authentic life there'. My God, Native American Indian guy exploded to me, 'What authenticity? Do you know the misery of the average... tribal area and so on? It's a nightmare, drugs, people are...'. You know that in Canada I learned, maybe you read it, it was in the media already two, three years ago. If you go from the center of Canada, Toronto, up north, there is a city with mostly—whatever you call them, Inuit, Native First... whatever—which has the highest suicide rate in the world. It's total despair. Blacks at least succeeded in different forms—they're not all acceptable maybe for us—to build their identity, from... people they don't like, like Farrakhan and so on. They have a sense of identity. Inuit, even more than Native Americans in Canada, I was told, they are just live pure despair. Most of them haven't even reached this level. So the worst favor you can do for them is to celebrate them as some remainders of authentic life and so on and so on. I mean, when I talk with them, they explode. They say to white people who come and say 'We are more...', they say 'Okay, let's change places. You come to live with my misery, I move to your house in Pasadena' or whatever, the suburb. Well, yeah. Well we have... let's see, we've got about maybe like minutes... um, cause I don't want to keep you too long but yeah, there are some... there are some questions. Tony, um, why don't you—I'm sorry that I talk too much, I will try to... That's fine. Tony, you go ahead. Yeah, so along the same lines as the two questions that have been asked already, um, then how do we sort of reconcile a genre like horror, since that's something that's really at my like forefront right now? Um, that's something I really wanted to ask. How do we... um, usually horror seen as something that is subversive— You mean horror movies or horror horror? What do you mean by horror, sorry? Like horror movies, horror literature, um, usually seen as some... there's some form of like subversive character or subversive formality to it. Um, so how would you... would you consider horror as subversive or as a tool or a mechanism of ideology in some way? It's a good question and I don't want to... to lie and bluff too much. I admit that I don't have a... a direct answer here so I would just like to make one point. I think that all the time while we are watching horror movies, we are aware that we are watching just a movie, that it's not reality. So it's not this real mimetic horror, as if
unknown
I'm being strangled or... or killed or suffocated or... whatever, cut by a knife. The... the proof is this one. You
I'm being strangled or... or killed or suffocated or... whatever, cut by a knife. The... the proof is this one. You
Slavoj Žižek
know what would have been for me... and a gay friend from the United
know what would have been for me... and a gay friend from the United
unknown
States told me years ago, he had
States told me years ago, he had
unknown
this experience: he borrowed by a friend—these
this experience: he borrowed by a friend—these
unknown
were the old times, prehistoric maybe you remember
were the old times, prehistoric maybe you remember
unknown
them of those video tapes and so on, you know—a cassette and he thought it's an ordinary gay hardcore cassette. And
them of those video tapes and so on, you know—a cassette and he thought it's an ordinary gay hardcore cassette. And
Slavoj Žižek
then he was shocked and then he discovered
then he was shocked and then he discovered
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that his friend just got it, also didn't know it—how do you call
that his friend just got it, also didn't know it—how do you call
Slavoj Žižek
that, snuff or what, movies where the thing real... really... really... it's snuff or what? Yeah, okay. In the mid of it he
that, snuff or what, movies where the thing real... really... really... it's snuff or what? Yeah, okay. In the mid of it he
unknown
discovered that
discovered that
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my God, this is not acting, because they really cut off the guy's one ball, they... put a knife into his stomach, cut it and so on. And everything, it totally changed. So I think that horror always has this type of distance in it. And my ultimate proof here—sorry to repeat my old joke but I take it
my God, this is not acting, because they really cut off the guy's one ball, they... put a knife into his stomach, cut it and so on. And everything, it totally changed. So I think that horror always has this type of distance in it. And my ultimate proof here—sorry to repeat my old joke but I take it
Slavoj Žižek
seriously... it's hardcore pornography, no?
seriously... it's hardcore pornography, no?
unknown
This failure of some attempts in France and so on to make—how should I call it—realistic hardcore pornography, so that you have a serious melodramatic story where
This failure of some attempts in France and so on to make—how should I call it—realistic hardcore pornography, so that you have a serious melodramatic story where
Slavoj Žižek
you identify with heroes, but when there is a sex scene you see it all. It didn't work. People, even those who watch... like to watch hardcore, want this difference to be kept. If it's a story that should make you cry blah blah, you shouldn't see it all. If you see it all—penetration blah blah, ejaculation whatever—then the story should be ridiculous. So the fact I spoke with some producers, women—I was correct not those who exploit women, I hope so—and a woman in France and she told me that they are well aware of this, that because I asked her how could you do such extremely stupid narratives that accompany the... She said—she told me—it doesn't work, you know. So this is what fascinated me, the genre which you think it's totally without any limitations except their direct masochism, killing and so on, you show it all—no, you pay the price, the story should not be, you know? How against this simplistic pseudo-Brechtian theory that usual romantic narrative you identify with it—no, you don't identify with it, that's why
you identify with heroes, but when there is a sex scene you see it all. It didn't work. People, even those who watch... like to watch hardcore, want this difference to be kept. If it's a story that should make you cry blah blah, you shouldn't see it all. If you see it all—penetration blah blah, ejaculation whatever—then the story should be ridiculous. So the fact I spoke with some producers, women—I was correct not those who exploit women, I hope so—and a woman in France and she told me that they are well aware of this, that because I asked her how could you do such extremely stupid narratives that accompany the... She said—she told me—it doesn't work, you know. So this is what fascinated me, the genre which you think it's totally without any limitations except their direct masochism, killing and so on, you show it all—no, you pay the price, the story should not be, you know? How against this simplistic pseudo-Brechtian theory that usual romantic narrative you identify with it—no, you don't identify with it, that's why
Julian Assange
you
you
Slavoj Žižek
are able... you are able to enjoy it, you know. Yeah, well Slavo, you've made that point before that... about pornography in general, that you... the narrative is that—not the narrative of the story but
are able... you are able to enjoy it, you know. Yeah, well Slavo, you've made that point before that... about pornography in general, that you... the narrative is that—not the narrative of the story but
Julian Assange
that the idea is
that the idea is
Slavoj Žižek
that this is like, you know, you see it all, this is
that this is like, you know, you see it all, this is
Julian Assange
like, you know,
like, you know,
Slavoj Žižek
everything, but it's a deeply conservative genre. Deeply conservative, deeply, deeply conservative. Regulated... I mean totally... totally regulated. But did you read in some text, I hope you didn't, my absolutely sublime story about pornography? I'm sorry if you know it, I must tell it: I read a comment an op-ed in the Guardian magazine half a year ago. A lady called Eva Wiseman, one of their columnists, reports on something. She saw a hardcore movie, I also saw that one, which—no, don't be afraid, I'm not a pervert, listen, give me a chance—hardcore movie but which is shot by another camera three, four yards behind the camera shooting the movie. So you see what goes on, all these absurd details and so on. And the scene that happened is this one: the guy is, standard scene, banging a lady, and then in the middle of it he steps... he steps back and said 'I'm sorry, I'm losing erection. Could somebody pass me my iPhone? I will surf a little bit on Pornhub to get excited again to do erection.' And this lady Eva Wiseman—not the actress—the journalist, is shocked like 'Where did we come? She had there the real thing, the excited lady, and now she needs fantasy'. And but I think this is the structure of sexuality. You always need a fantasy. Sexuality is never just you with the... with the object. Fantasy is inscribed into sexual act. But here my romantic side comes: does this go all the way? I think not. I think—sorry for my romanticism—in true passionate love you are really with the woman or with the man whatever with whom you are. So this is a nice point, you know in what sense? My point is that—and there is a lesson for... for pandemic, for COVID in it—that if you have just sexuality without passionate emotional involvement, love, you are much closer to virtuality than in passionate love. Passionate love brings you much closer even bodily to your partner. Or as I like to say, sex without love is like a masturbation with a real partner. To get real contact, you need love. Here I'm an... an incurable romantic. Well, since you mentioned—since you mentioned COVID, do we... do we have like five or ten minutes just for one more question? Okay. I appreciate the cynicism of your point, like when I get a question I need five to... Well no, because... um, you mentioned COVID and I think this is like a... this is a more contemporary question because Maurine... this is one of the questions that I sent you... Well I want her to ask it, but it's about COVID and capitalism versus something you might call communism. Maurine, why don't you jump in? Yeah so my question was regarding pandemic: can we view the pandemic as a... as a form of late capitalist ideology where we see wealthy billionaires who are in the e-commerce business they keep getting wealthy like the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, but while his employees, they're working in harsh conditions in the warehouses? So is the pandemic a form of late capitalist ideology or is it a form of communism where we see countries uniting each other and assisting each other with medical equipment and vaccines to fight this global enemy together? It's a very good tough question. I'm always asked, often asked this question, because people sometimes identify me, you know, as that idiot who thought 'Oh we will go into communism'. I
everything, but it's a deeply conservative genre. Deeply conservative, deeply, deeply conservative. Regulated... I mean totally... totally regulated. But did you read in some text, I hope you didn't, my absolutely sublime story about pornography? I'm sorry if you know it, I must tell it: I read a comment an op-ed in the Guardian magazine half a year ago. A lady called Eva Wiseman, one of their columnists, reports on something. She saw a hardcore movie, I also saw that one, which—no, don't be afraid, I'm not a pervert, listen, give me a chance—hardcore movie but which is shot by another camera three, four yards behind the camera shooting the movie. So you see what goes on, all these absurd details and so on. And the scene that happened is this one: the guy is, standard scene, banging a lady, and then in the middle of it he steps... he steps back and said 'I'm sorry, I'm losing erection. Could somebody pass me my iPhone? I will surf a little bit on Pornhub to get excited again to do erection.' And this lady Eva Wiseman—not the actress—the journalist, is shocked like 'Where did we come? She had there the real thing, the excited lady, and now she needs fantasy'. And but I think this is the structure of sexuality. You always need a fantasy. Sexuality is never just you with the... with the object. Fantasy is inscribed into sexual act. But here my romantic side comes: does this go all the way? I think not. I think—sorry for my romanticism—in true passionate love you are really with the woman or with the man whatever with whom you are. So this is a nice point, you know in what sense? My point is that—and there is a lesson for... for pandemic, for COVID in it—that if you have just sexuality without passionate emotional involvement, love, you are much closer to virtuality than in passionate love. Passionate love brings you much closer even bodily to your partner. Or as I like to say, sex without love is like a masturbation with a real partner. To get real contact, you need love. Here I'm an... an incurable romantic. Well, since you mentioned—since you mentioned COVID, do we... do we have like five or ten minutes just for one more question? Okay. I appreciate the cynicism of your point, like when I get a question I need five to... Well no, because... um, you mentioned COVID and I think this is like a... this is a more contemporary question because Maurine... this is one of the questions that I sent you... Well I want her to ask it, but it's about COVID and capitalism versus something you might call communism. Maurine, why don't you jump in? Yeah so my question was regarding pandemic: can we view the pandemic as a... as a form of late capitalist ideology where we see wealthy billionaires who are in the e-commerce business they keep getting wealthy like the owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, but while his employees, they're working in harsh conditions in the warehouses? So is the pandemic a form of late capitalist ideology or is it a form of communism where we see countries uniting each other and assisting each other with medical equipment and vaccines to fight this global enemy together? It's a very good tough question. I'm always asked, often asked this question, because people sometimes identify me, you know, as that idiot who thought 'Oh we will go into communism'. I
unknown
still
still
Slavoj Žižek
think that the first shock of the pandemic brought out something that one cannot but designate—and not by some ideologists, by everyday people—some kind of a communist spirit. It became clear to us that, that for example vaccine production, care... care for the COVID patients and so on cannot be left to the market, that healthcare has to be socialized in some sense. Even states run by conservatives—United States, United Kingdom and so on—de facto had to
think that the first shock of the pandemic brought out something that one cannot but designate—and not by some ideologists, by everyday people—some kind of a communist spirit. It became clear to us that, that for example vaccine production, care... care for the COVID patients and so on cannot be left to the market, that healthcare has to be socialized in some sense. Even states run by conservatives—United States, United Kingdom and so on—de facto had to
unknown
introduce
introduce
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some kind of something that resembles basic income and so on and so on. So I think that people became aware of it, that something, whatever you call it, is... would have been the only appropriate response to COVID. That is to say, in some sense, not necessarily
some kind of something that resembles basic income and so on and so on. So I think that people became aware of it, that something, whatever you call it, is... would have been the only appropriate response to COVID. That is to say, in some sense, not necessarily
Slavoj Žižek
just state control, socializing production, even
just state control, socializing production, even
unknown
agriculture and so on. World should unite, we all know these phrases always repeated: COVID you cannot just beat it in one country in the long term, you have
agriculture and so on. World should unite, we all know these phrases always repeated: COVID you cannot just beat it in one country in the long term, you have
Slavoj Žižek
to do it all around, all that stuff and so on and so on. Also what people are so afraid but I accept it gladly—not gladly, okay—we need a tighter—I wouldn't say necessarily state control but social control. I don't see it as oppressive even: social control of our acts, self-control, also trust to the people. It's clear that countries which did relatively well with COVID, they did it in two ways. Either with brutal state control like—from what I know, maybe I'm wrong, I hope so—China, or simply like till now at least some Scandinavian countries where simply people not only trust those in power but trust themselves, self-organize. So there is something like a communist tendency. And my reading is that the phenomena that you described—all this absurd... not only regress of the role of women in the West, more exploitation of wives and the... the professions which sacrificed most were largely feminized, nurses and caretakers and so on and so on—I think that what global capitalism is doing now is precisely desperately searching for the ways to contain this, let's call it communist or radical socialist threat. One way is the Trumpian way, let's not take it seriously, no? Life goes on as usual. The other way is the Bill
to do it all around, all that stuff and so on and so on. Also what people are so afraid but I accept it gladly—not gladly, okay—we need a tighter—I wouldn't say necessarily state control but social control. I don't see it as oppressive even: social control of our acts, self-control, also trust to the people. It's clear that countries which did relatively well with COVID, they did it in two ways. Either with brutal state control like—from what I know, maybe I'm wrong, I hope so—China, or simply like till now at least some Scandinavian countries where simply people not only trust those in power but trust themselves, self-organize. So there is something like a communist tendency. And my reading is that the phenomena that you described—all this absurd... not only regress of the role of women in the West, more exploitation of wives and the... the professions which sacrificed most were largely feminized, nurses and caretakers and so on and so on—I think that what global capitalism is doing now is precisely desperately searching for the ways to contain this, let's call it communist or radical socialist threat. One way is the Trumpian way, let's not take it seriously, no? Life goes on as usual. The other way is the Bill
unknown
Gates
Gates
Slavoj Žižek
and so on promising to the elite although they don't say this, bubble capitalism, we will live in safe places and so on, total digital control and so on and so on. So I think that again globally at the basic level there was something which made notions that two years ago—imagine that somebody were to say two years ago every American family should get a check of or we need to socially organize healthcare and so on—you would be considered of being a leftist madman or whatever. Now is accepted. But that's only one side of the story. The system—and I don't mean some secret body meeting once a year somewhere between New York and Washington and making plans—spontaneously the system is trying to contain this danger. Capitalism knows that this is a hard blow to capitalism. So I would say an answer to you that the dilemma that you described, either some sort of a movement towards communism or... or even stronger capitalist exploitation, control and so on, it's a real political process, this is a struggle that's going on today. That would be my answer. It's not
and so on promising to the elite although they don't say this, bubble capitalism, we will live in safe places and so on, total digital control and so on and so on. So I think that again globally at the basic level there was something which made notions that two years ago—imagine that somebody were to say two years ago every American family should get a check of or we need to socially organize healthcare and so on—you would be considered of being a leftist madman or whatever. Now is accepted. But that's only one side of the story. The system—and I don't mean some secret body meeting once a year somewhere between New York and Washington and making plans—spontaneously the system is trying to contain this danger. Capitalism knows that this is a hard blow to capitalism. So I would say an answer to you that the dilemma that you described, either some sort of a movement towards communism or... or even stronger capitalist exploitation, control and so on, it's a real political process, this is a struggle that's going on today. That would be my answer. It's not
unknown
a simple question, it's either this or that. It's a struggle which then overlaps with other struggles. That's why I still admire for
a simple question, it's either this or that. It's a struggle which then overlaps with other struggles. That's why I still admire for
Slavoj Žižek
example Julian Assange, because much more important than his first batch of information about what Americans were doing in Iraq and so on is what he demonstrated about Google and all those companies. He gave—Julian Assange—the best definition of Google, which is: a privatized NSA. Privatized form of social control and so on. So you see
example Julian Assange, because much more important than his first batch of information about what Americans were doing in Iraq and so on is what he demonstrated about Google and all those companies. He gave—Julian Assange—the best definition of Google, which is: a privatized NSA. Privatized form of social control and so on. So you see
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what's my point
what's my point
Slavoj Žižek
here? I'm radically opposed to those idiots who claim 'We are now in a state of emergency, forget about politics'. No, we are now in the radically political moment. Capitalism is changing. One tendency, one reaction is what some theorists defined as neo-feudalism, neo-feudal capitalism. These new corporate masters—Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos Amazon and so on—they are not even no longer traditional capitalists who work with profit. They are like feudal masters who get rent. They own part of our commons, our common space of communication whatever, Facebook and so on and they get rent. So this is one possibility. Who knows what will happen? I mean it's a very open situation. Things are happening. The reason I emphasize this—I don't believe it will be now COVID-ism or whatever—is that in contrast to some of my leftist friends, I think that what's happening today is much more important than what was happening in '68. '68 revolt was for me a model of how a revolt which was in some sense authentic got re-inscribed through focus on sexual liberation, drug freedoms and so on. We are not aware to what extent '68 originally was also a social struggle.
here? I'm radically opposed to those idiots who claim 'We are now in a state of emergency, forget about politics'. No, we are now in the radically political moment. Capitalism is changing. One tendency, one reaction is what some theorists defined as neo-feudalism, neo-feudal capitalism. These new corporate masters—Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos Amazon and so on—they are not even no longer traditional capitalists who work with profit. They are like feudal masters who get rent. They own part of our commons, our common space of communication whatever, Facebook and so on and they get rent. So this is one possibility. Who knows what will happen? I mean it's a very open situation. Things are happening. The reason I emphasize this—I don't believe it will be now COVID-ism or whatever—is that in contrast to some of my leftist friends, I think that what's happening today is much more important than what was happening in '68. '68 revolt was for me a model of how a revolt which was in some sense authentic got re-inscribed through focus on sexual liberation, drug freedoms and so on. We are not aware to what extent '68 originally was also a social struggle.
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Also, did you read this today, the 8th of March? You know today
Also, did you read this today, the 8th of March? You know today
Slavoj Žižek
it's International Women's Day. But do
it's International Women's Day. But do
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you know—my friend Mladen Dolar for a text dedicated to this looked into it—and said do you
you know—my friend Mladen Dolar for a text dedicated to this looked into it—and said do you
Slavoj Žižek
know
know
unknown
that the first time, it was in years ago, was the first time when the 8th of March was celebrated worldwide? But it was
that the first time, it was in years ago, was the first time when the 8th of March was celebrated worldwide? But it was
unknown
not yet this kind of official moment of respect to women. Dolar found some photos from big demonstrations in Vienna, 8th of March. You know what was the biggest poster there? Remember Paris Commune. Because Paris Commune was the 18th of March, and remember we are celebrating now
not yet this kind of official moment of respect to women. Dolar found some photos from big demonstrations in Vienna, 8th of March. You know what was the biggest poster there? Remember Paris Commune. Because Paris Commune was the 18th of March, and remember we are celebrating now
Slavoj Žižek
years of... now in next week no? years of Paris Commune. The first time those really below, beneath, took power for two months, two whole months. So what I'm saying is that you see that's the problem today, like American feminism, you know. How Nancy Fraser wrote a book, I was told, I didn't have time to read it, it's pretty interesting again about liberal reappropriation of American feminism and so on and so on. So I'm not just a pessimist in the sense of the system can appropriate everything. No, the field is open, it's the time to have a struggle, to fight. Well you saw—you saw that this week with the, or last week with the vote that Kyrsten Sinema did on the thumbs down on the minimum wage and her initial response to anyone criticizing it was: it's feminist or it's anti-feminist to criticize her gesture of the... of the thumbs down. Which is like an—it's gotta be a key example of what Nancy Fraser is talking about in that... in that book. Yeah, yeah. You know we with us we also—I mentioned somewhere—have when democracy came we have this left-center—I was member of it at that point to oppose nationalists—Liberal Democratic Party, so the government immediately established a small government department for women. And you know what was their first task? They selected it: to organize golf tournament for women. You know that this was all a metaphor for all that was wrong. They had a certain power structure. Their obsession was just women should also be on the top. They were not bothered by the power structure as such, but just to squeeze enough women on the top echelons there. Well Slavo, this... this has been interesting. Screw you. Now I will say something, my traditional thing against Russell. You see all the books behind him. He's bluffing, he wants to appear intellectual. I'm sure these are only covers of the book, montage. It's wallpaper. It's all fake. It's just a background, it's just a fake background. Yeah, yeah. So really I appreciated it, thanks very much. Yeah thanks Slavo. I'm grateful to you. You know that the good thing about COVID is that precisely because of impossibility of direct communication, one... I meet people that probably otherwise I wouldn't have met. You know, Zoom has also its good points, you know. But you know what I'm really worried, I'm an old-fashioned guy here. I like cities with bustling life like, you know, cafeteria, movie theater, bookstore. And I'm here a pessimist, friends told me, friends from Washington Square there around Lower... that they wonder if this will ever return. Or London, the whole center, Soho, Covent Garden, the idea is that it will not return. And if you combine this with the fact that like there are no longer DVDs, everybody is downloading and so on, you know. The most beautiful, without irony—I nothing I liked more than a nice shopping experience in a good bookstore. My definition of a good bookstore is where the bookseller there at least in my department, philosophy cultural studies, knows good new books and you have one or two tables where new books are displayed and it's wonderful to discover things that you never get on Amazon. Because with all their big algorithms and so on, you know when you buy a book on Amazon and then you get some proposals, thing... books that may interest you. They are always, always, always wrong with me, you know. And this makes me very depressed that what... what will happen at this level with our public life? Will this mean even more controlled spaces and so on, you know? Yeah. So have a nice time as far as you can. Thanks to you and my gratitude. Have a good night. Ah, yeah, because here it is, yes. And you now I will be evil in
years of... now in next week no? years of Paris Commune. The first time those really below, beneath, took power for two months, two whole months. So what I'm saying is that you see that's the problem today, like American feminism, you know. How Nancy Fraser wrote a book, I was told, I didn't have time to read it, it's pretty interesting again about liberal reappropriation of American feminism and so on and so on. So I'm not just a pessimist in the sense of the system can appropriate everything. No, the field is open, it's the time to have a struggle, to fight. Well you saw—you saw that this week with the, or last week with the vote that Kyrsten Sinema did on the thumbs down on the minimum wage and her initial response to anyone criticizing it was: it's feminist or it's anti-feminist to criticize her gesture of the... of the thumbs down. Which is like an—it's gotta be a key example of what Nancy Fraser is talking about in that... in that book. Yeah, yeah. You know we with us we also—I mentioned somewhere—have when democracy came we have this left-center—I was member of it at that point to oppose nationalists—Liberal Democratic Party, so the government immediately established a small government department for women. And you know what was their first task? They selected it: to organize golf tournament for women. You know that this was all a metaphor for all that was wrong. They had a certain power structure. Their obsession was just women should also be on the top. They were not bothered by the power structure as such, but just to squeeze enough women on the top echelons there. Well Slavo, this... this has been interesting. Screw you. Now I will say something, my traditional thing against Russell. You see all the books behind him. He's bluffing, he wants to appear intellectual. I'm sure these are only covers of the book, montage. It's wallpaper. It's all fake. It's just a background, it's just a fake background. Yeah, yeah. So really I appreciated it, thanks very much. Yeah thanks Slavo. I'm grateful to you. You know that the good thing about COVID is that precisely because of impossibility of direct communication, one... I meet people that probably otherwise I wouldn't have met. You know, Zoom has also its good points, you know. But you know what I'm really worried, I'm an old-fashioned guy here. I like cities with bustling life like, you know, cafeteria, movie theater, bookstore. And I'm here a pessimist, friends told me, friends from Washington Square there around Lower... that they wonder if this will ever return. Or London, the whole center, Soho, Covent Garden, the idea is that it will not return. And if you combine this with the fact that like there are no longer DVDs, everybody is downloading and so on, you know. The most beautiful, without irony—I nothing I liked more than a nice shopping experience in a good bookstore. My definition of a good bookstore is where the bookseller there at least in my department, philosophy cultural studies, knows good new books and you have one or two tables where new books are displayed and it's wonderful to discover things that you never get on Amazon. Because with all their big algorithms and so on, you know when you buy a book on Amazon and then you get some proposals, thing... books that may interest you. They are always, always, always wrong with me, you know. And this makes me very depressed that what... what will happen at this level with our public life? Will this mean even more controlled spaces and so on, you know? Yeah. So have a nice time as far as you can. Thanks to you and my gratitude. Have a good night. Ah, yeah, because here it is, yes. And you now I will be evil in
unknown
my
my
Slavoj Žižek
style. Go out, go to a movie theater and to a restaurant and so on. Have a nice time. Bye bye. Bye.
style. Go out, go to a movie theater and to a restaurant and so on. Have a nice time. Bye bye. Bye.