The Function of Fantasy in the Lacanian Real
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2012 · 1:25:19 · 10,982 words
psychoanalysisideologycinema-art-culturesexuality-genderethicsphilosophy-generalhegel-dialectics
Žižek delivers a semi-improvised lecture on the structure of fantasy, reality, and ideology, using hardcore pornography as his central case study to illuminate Lacanian concepts such as the Real, jouissance, and the inexistence of the sexual relationship. He argues that fantasy is not a retreat from reality but its very support, that ideology works by constructing a phantasmatic horror more terrifying than reality so that reality remains bearable, and that 'real sex' often functions as a defense against the excess of fantasy rather than its fulfillment. The talk also addresses ethics in violent conflict through the French resistance film 'L'Armée des ombres', arguing that authentic ethics involves assuming the horror of necessary violence without pacifist self-exculpation.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 20
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
For Žižek/Lacan, the Real is not brute external reality but the traumatic excess located in fantasy itself, what is encountered in the dream is more horrifying than waking life.
as “distanciation vs. identification (pseudo-Brechtian)”
Žižek rejects the progressive Brechtian idea that distanciation (awareness of staging) is critical and identification is bourgeois; he argues we cry precisely because we know it's fiction, and reminders of production are themselves defenses against the Real.
The anecdote of the snuff VHS illustrates that when fiction crosses into apparent reality (real gore), identification collapses and the fantasy frame that makes enjoyment possible is destroyed.
Implicitly invoked in the discussion of pornographic codification: the excess that makes sex bearable or interesting always involves a phantasmatic supplement beyond the act itself.
Žižek endorses Lacan's paradox that lesbians are 'the only true heterosexuals' because they relate to the other as a genuine other rather than as a screen for their own fantasies.
Žižek's inversion of the usual definition of masturbation: most 'real' sex has the structure of masturbation because one remains enclosed in one's fantasy and merely uses the partner as a prop.
as “the neighbor as abyss”
Love is not subjectifying the other (reducing them to a fellow me) but encountering them as the abyssal neighbor, irreducible otherness.
The structural prohibition in pornographic narrative: you are permitted to see explicit sex provided the narrative frame is made ridiculously stupid, preventing genuine emotional immersion.
A more radical form of the same censorship: eliminating even the stupid story and having performers address the camera directly, constantly reminding viewers of staging, to prevent deeper identification.
Žižek's counter-intuitive thesis that 'real sex' and 'real action' (e.g. Nicole Kidman's final line in Eyes Wide Shut) function as defenses against the traumatic excess of fantasy, not fantasy's remedy.
as “perversion is constitutive”
Against the model of normal hetero sexuality with perversion as deviation, Žižek argues that for Freud perversion is the structural foundation of all sexuality.
Lacan's concept of the feminine position as not-fully inscribed in the symbolic order, used to explain why reality can never fully contain all of experience and must be supplemented by fiction.
as “fantasy frame”
The phantasmatic coordinates within which we constitute and experience reality; without the fantasy frame, reality disintegrates into Realitätsverlust (loss of reality).
as “jouissance of the Other”
Used in the context of Bergman's Persona: the purely verbal retelling of a scene of jouissance, mediated through language rather than direct experience, exemplifies Lacan's notion of the Other's jouissance.
The symbolic space or authority figure to whom one can address and deposit one's message or suffering; its inexistence is revealed when trauma victims find no one to receive their testimony.
Loss of reality: the momentary shattering of the fantasy frame that makes reality coherent, illustrated by Žižek's hypothetical of self-mutilation.
as “forçage (forcing)”
Badiou's term (endorsed by Žižek) for the logic of a decision or act that cannot wait for conditions to be ripe; one forces the Real without fully knowing.
Every authentic act is simultaneously too early (from the standpoint of certainty) and too late (from the standpoint of urgency); there is no 'proper moment', one must always begin prematurely.
as “fantasy without its substance”
When the phantasmatic support of sex (or any act) is lost, the gesture becomes nonsensical, one experiences the act as 'what am I doing, making this stupid gesture'.
as “there is no sexual relationship”
Lacan's formula, which Žižek illustrates through pornography's structural failure to represent 'real' sex and through the film title 'Il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel'.
Stories he reaches for 11
A grieving father falls asleep by his son's coffin; a candle sets cloth alight; the father constructs a dream in which the son says 'father, can't you see I'm burning?' He wakes not because of the external fire but because the Real trauma encountered in the dream is more horrifying. The father wakes to continue dreaming, to escape the Real.
“the father awakens to be able to really continue to dream to avoid the real trauma which is precisely confronting the death of his son”
Levi and other inmates dreamed of returning home and telling their families what happened in the camp; the family grows bored and leaves them alone. The horror of having no one receive the message is so unbearable they wake up, back in Auschwitz. The true trauma is the absence of the big Other.
“first the child then the grandmother they get bored blah blah and you remain alone and this idea that you have no one to receive your message is so horrible that you escape into reality you awaken in Auschwitz”
A private Viennese publisher showed Žižek Ludwig Wittgenstein's WWI front diaries, in which Wittgenstein records both masturbation and what he fantasized about: not sexual scenes but debating mathematical problems with fellow philosophers, illustrating that fantasy always requires a non-sexual scenario even during sex.
“he also reports what he was dreaming while masturbating not any gay orgies he was dreaming debating mathematical problems with fellow philosophers no that's what I claim true ethics”
Bosnian rape survivors during the Yugoslav wars often survived the assault with the imperative to bear witness; the breakdowns and suicides occurred afterward, when they found no big Other, no symbolic space, that would receive their testimony without dismissal or mockery.
“they didn't find the big Other to whom to tell the story… it's then that suicides or breakdowns happen not the rape itself but when… there is no big Other who will”
Kubrick's orgy scene is deliberately aseptic/impotent; the film's true revelation is the final line ('let's go home and fuck') which, rather than grounding them in real sex, functions as a defense against the fantasmatic excess that has driven the whole narrative.
“Nicole Kidman tells him I have something very important to tell you… let's go home and fuck… real sex functions there as a defense against fantasy”
A North American tribe held that all dreams have sexual meaning, except sexual dreams, which require a non-sexual fantasy scenario. Žižek uses this to support Freud's point: even in sex, a fantasmatic non-sexual scenario is necessary.
“they said all dreams have sexual meaning except sexual dreams except those who are directly sexual no the idea is what that like even again even when you directly make love you need some phantasmic scenario”
In Persona, Bibi Andersson narrates a beach orgy to Liv Ullmann using only words, no flashback, Žižek reads this as the purest illustration of jouissance of the Other, demonstrating that women can achieve jouissance through the symbolic/narrative act of telling.
“the genius of Bergman was not to go just words no flashback and everybody admits it's this is what Lacan calls jouissance of the other the other is language here”
Michel Chion's reading of the Dennis Hopper / Isabella Rossellini scene in Blue Velvet: the disturbing details (breathing mask etc.) are best read as a child's imaginary reconstruction of what parents are doing behind a closed door, having heard sounds without understanding sex.
“you should read this as a visualization of a fantasy imagine a kid listening and father doing certain thing and the kid doesn't know what is sex and imagines what is as the father difficulties in breathing”
A semiotician mapped four strictly codified facial expressions of women in hardcore porn: ecstasy, indifference, instrumental/hard-work focus, and mocking laughter, demonstrating that pornography is among the most rigidly codified genres.
“he discovered and then he contacted some guy think guys who do it and he discovered he even made them a semiotic square it's strictly codified”
The archetypal porn story (plumber fixes the kitchen leak, then the housewife has 'another hole to fix') is so embarrassingly stupid that it provokes a mix of disgust and involuntary amusement, illustrating the structural function of the idiotic narrative as censorship.
“it's like it's worse than Sound of Music you're embarrassed to mention it like a plumber comes home the housewife is home alone… I have another hole which should be fixed”
Three prisoners can see each other's hats (three white, two black) and must deduce their own. The solution requires reasoning through a logic of delay: 'if I had a black hat, the others would have deduced faster.' Lacan uses this to illustrate the temporality of the subject.
“the problem is what happens if I see two white hats… precisely through a certain logic of delay”
Works invoked 14
Vertigo film
Briefly cited: Scottie's relation to Madeleine/Judy is called 'masturbating with Madeleine', a pure illustration of using the partner as a fantasy prop.
If This Is a Man book
Primo Levi's memoir of Auschwitz; the recurring dream of returning home and finding no one to receive the testimony is cited as a key illustration of the inexistence of the big Other.
Žižek's own book, mentioned as where he develops the analysis of September 11th and the fantasy frame.
Blue Velvet film
Lynch's depiction of the Dennis Hopper/Isabella Rossellini scene is read via Michel Chion as a visualization of the primal scene from a child's fantasy, illustrating perversion as constitutive.
Breaking the Waves film
Used to illustrate masculine masturbating position (husband) versus feminine narrative jouissance (wife), and to explore the gendered relation to fantasy in Lacanian terms.
Persona film
Bergman's purely verbal narration of the beach orgy (no flashback) is called a genius illustration of Lacan's jouissance of the Other, only through language can this jouissance be fully transmitted.
Hero film
Zhang Yimou's film is noted for a scene comparing calligraphic painting with combat, illustrating the Barthes/Marxist argument about visible production processes.
Eyes Wide Shut film
Kubrick's deliberate asepticism in the orgy scene and Nicole Kidman's final line ('let's go home and fuck') are read as illustrating that real sex functions as a defense against the excess of fantasy.
Hal Foster's book is criticized for misidentifying avant-garde shock tactics (a 'return to reality') as a return to the Lacanian Real.
Out of Africa film
Cited only as a hypothetical example of a film Žižek hates; imagines it extended into explicit sex to illustrate the structural prohibition against combining emotionally engaging narrative with pornographic display.
Apocalypse Now film
The real animal sacrifice at the end disturbs spectators precisely because it crosses the line from staged fiction to actual death, illustrating the power of the fantasy frame.
Described as 'wonderful relatively wonderful'; Žižek uses it as the primary illustration of authentic ethics in violent struggle, the resistance fighters maintain absolute ethical coordinates while assuming the horror of what they are doing.
Called 'his boring novel' yet used positively to illustrate the big Other: Goethe deposited his pain in the text, enabling him to go on living.
Unfaithful film
Described as 'a kitsch but that specific scene I like'; the train flashback scene after the adultery is cited as a cinematic illustration of feminine jouissance through retrospective narrative.
People invoked 27
Ingmar Bergman positive
Cited for Persona's beach-orgy narration scene as the purest cinematic illustration of jouissance of the Other; Žižek notes 'other Bergmans are better' but singles out this scene as genius.
Primo Levi positive
Žižek draws on Levi's If This Is a Man for the recurring dream of returning home and finding no one to receive the testimony, used to illustrate the inexistence of the big Other.
Actress playing the resistance member in L'Armée des ombres who engineers her own killing by the group to save her daughter while not betraying her comrades.
Michel Chion positive
Described as 'one of the great theorists although he is neglected'; his reading of Blue Velvet as primal-scene fantasy is cited approvingly.
Claude Lévi-Strauss positive
Cited for a North American tribal theory that all dreams have sexual meaning except sexual dreams, used to illustrate that even sex requires a non-sexual fantasy scenario.
Lars von Trier positive
Breaking the Waves is used to illustrate the masculine masturbating position (Stellan Skarsgård's character) versus the feminine relation to narrative jouissance (Emily Watson's character).
"Jean-Pierre Melville" positive
Director of L'Armée des ombres, cited as making a 'wonderful relatively wonderful French film' that captures the authentic ethical position in violent struggle.
Hal Foster negative
His book Return of the Real is criticized: Foster mistakes a return to brute reality (avant-garde shock tactics) for a return to the Lacanian Real, which is located in fiction, not in reality.
Julia Kristeva negative
Mentioned as exemplifying a misreading of Lacan's feminine non-all as a pro-feminist claim that women have distance from ideology while men are fully caught in the symbolic order.
Jacques Lacan positive
Central theoretical authority throughout; Žižek repeatedly invokes Lacan's formulas (no reality without fantasy, there is no sexual relationship, lesbians as true heterosexuals, the Real, big Other, jouissance of the Other, the three-prisoners puzzle, awakening to continue dreaming).
Roland Barthes negative
Barthes's parallel between Japanese calligraphy and Marxist production-transparency is used as an example of pseudo-progressive Brechtian mystification that Žižek argues is in fact a defense against the Real.
Stanley Kubrick positive
Cited via the actor Rade Šerbedžija's account: Kubrick consciously made the orgy in Eyes Wide Shut 'aseptic and impotent' to illustrate that fantasy, not explicit sex, is the true site of disturbance.
Called 'a good girl great actress'; Žižek mentions through a chain of acquaintance that she praised one of his books, which he takes as validation of her taste.
David Lynch positive
Called 'a genius' for Blue Velvet's primal-scene visualization; Michel Chion's reading of the Dennis Hopper scene is endorsed by Žižek as the best illustration of perversion as constitutive fantasy.
Catherine Breillat positive
French pornographic-art film director who attempts to combine genuine emotional narrative with explicit sex; Žižek says she is theoretically right but 'remains marginal' because the prohibition against immersive pornographic narrative is structurally enforced by audiences.
Alain Badiou positive
Cited approvingly for the concept of forçage (forcing) and for loving L'Armée des ombres as illustration of decision under uncertainty; Žižek notes Badiou even uses the term 'totalitarianism' to describe the collapse of the gap between decision and certainty.
Actor playing the main hero Gerbier in L'Armée des ombres; the scene in which his character tells the young traitor 'don't worry you will not suffer' before strangling him is cited as exemplary of assuming the horror of necessary violence.
Rony Brauman positive
French humanitarian (described as a 'very good French guy who really cares' rather than a corrupt charity figure) cited for his insight that humanitarian charity is a superstitious activity to keep horror at a distance.
Yugoslav/Croat actor who appears in Eyes Wide Shut; Žižek says he 'immediately identifies' with the morally ambiguous character Šerbedžija plays, and that they met and are 'heart friends'.
Jean Cavaillès positive
Philosopher of mathematics and heroic resistance fighter; the real-life model for the fictional philosopher in L'Armée des ombres; tortured to death by the Germans, named only his own name under interrogation, Žižek calls him 'mega heroic'.
Zhang Yimou positive
Described as having 'unfortunately sold himself to the regime in China'; his film Hero is cited for a nice scene comparing calligraphic painting with martial combat.
Dean MacCannell positive
Semiotician and 'almost Lacanian theorist of tourism' who mapped the four codified facial expressions in hardcore pornography into a semiotic square, used by Žižek to demonstrate the rigid codification of pornographic fantasy.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe positive
His authorship of The Sorrows of Young Werther is cited as an example of depositing personal pain into fiction (the big Other of the text) to allow continued living.
Rosa Luxemburg positive
Cited for her polemic against revisionist social democracy: one must always begin too early, and through precipitous failures one matures toward the right moment, used to illustrate the logic of the act.
Russian opera singer; her name etymologically means 'I don't need you' in Russian, cited as the archetypal fatal woman embodying the codified indifference expression in Žižek's pornography semiotics.
Sigmund Freud positive
Žižek deploys Freud's theory of fantasy and the dream of the burning child; argues Freud's true insight is anti-pan-sexualism, the fantasy scenario is always necessary to supplement sex itself.
Ludwig Wittgenstein positive
His unpublished WWI diaries (in which he records masturbating while dreaming of mathematical debates) are used as a comic-philosophical illustration of the fantasy supplement to sex.
What it argues
fantasy as the support of reality, not its oppositethe Lacanian Real as excess of fantasy rather than brute external realityhardcore pornography as illustration of the inexistence of the sexual relationshipthe big Other as the space for depositing one's message or sufferingethics of violence in just struggle without pacifist evasionthe structural codification of pornographic expressionthe act as always simultaneously too early and too late
Dialectical moves 8
“The true trauma is not in reality but in the dream — you awaken in order to be able to continue to dream, to escape the Real.”
Lacan's reading of Freud's burning-child dream: the father wakes not because external reality becomes too strong but because the dream encounter with the Real is more terrifying than waking life.
“Real sex is not what you do instead of fantasizing — real sex is a defense against the excess of fantasy.”
Inverts the common-sense hierarchy: fantasy is not a substitute for 'real' sex; rather, 'real' sex is deployed to drown out the traumatic surplus of fantasy.
“Lesbians are the only true heterosexuals.”
By Lacan's logic of relating to a genuine other rather than a fantasy screen, lesbians, not heterosexual or gay male couples, fulfil the condition of 'true' heterosexuality.
“It was not reality intruding into their dream — it was what they experienced as dream-fiction that intruded into their reality.”
Žižek's reversal of the standard reading of September 11th: the shock was not 'waking up' to real suffering, but the collapse of the libidinal boundary that had kept third-world suffering in the register of screen-fiction.
“The invisible censorship of pornography is not that it shows too much but that it insists on showing too little — it bombards you with reminders of stupidity so you cannot immerse.”
The prohibition is not on explicit display but on genuine narrative immersion alongside explicit display; the stupidity of porno stories is a censorship device, not incompetence.
“Far from Brechtian distanciation being the critical-progressive gesture, it is precisely a defense against the Real — the real horror is in fiction, not in reality.”
Reminders that 'it's just a play/film/performance' are not demystifying gestures but escapes from the traumatic kernel that only fiction can contain.
“Every act is simultaneously too early and too late — there is no proper time.”
The authentic political or ethical act cannot wait for certainty (which never arrives) yet is always experienced as too-late urgency; precipitation is constitutive, not a defect.
“Humanitarian charity is basically a superstitious activity to ensure horror remains there and doesn't come too close.”
Citing Rony Brauman: charitable giving to distant suffering functions ideologically to maintain the libidinal distance that keeps the horror 'out there' on the screen.
Claims 15
reframes
The traumatic impact of September 11th on New Yorkers was not reality intruding into an ivory tower, but rather what they had experienced as screen-fiction (Third World horror) intruding into their reality.September 11th / ideology / fantasy-reality distinction
asserts
The Real in the Lacanian sense is not brute external reality but the excess of fantasy — what is most traumatic is encountered in the dream, not in waking life.Lacanian Real / fantasy
asserts
Real sex typically has the structure of masturbation with a real partner — one uses the other as a prop to stage one's own fantasies rather than genuinely encountering the other.sexuality / fantasy / the Other
reframes
In Nicole Kidman's final line in Eyes Wide Shut ('let's go home and fuck'), real sex functions as a defense against the excess of fantasy, not as its satisfaction.fantasy / sexuality / Eyes Wide Shut
asserts
The ridiculously stupid narrative of hardcore pornography is not commercial incompetence but a structural censorship that prevents genuine emotional immersion while permitting explicit display.pornography / censorship / fantasy frame
asserts
Gonzo pornography, which eliminates even the stupid story, represents a more radical form of the same censorship rather than its absence.pornography / censorship / Gonzo
rejects
Reminders of production (Brechtian distanciation, avant-garde theater shocks) are not progressive exits from ideology but escapes from the Lacanian Real into mere reality.Brechtian theater / distanciation / ideology critique
asserts
Lesbians are, in Lacan's paradoxical sense, the only true heterosexuals because they relate to the other as a genuine other rather than as a fantasy screen.sexual difference / homosexuality / the Other
asserts
Perversion is not a deviation from normal sexuality but constitutive of all sexuality — there is always a fantasy scenario necessary to sustain sexual activity.Freudian psychoanalysis / perversion / sexuality
rejects
General pacifism — the position that any killing makes you the same as your enemy — is as false as uncritical patriotism; the authentic ethical position involves assuming the horror of necessary violence while maintaining absolute ethical coordinates.pacifism / ethics of violence / resistance
asserts
Every authentic act is simultaneously too early (certainty never arrives) and too late (urgency demands action); one must always begin prematurely, and through failures one matures toward the 'right moment'.political act / decision / Rosa Luxemburg / Badiou
asserts
The breakdown of rape survivors happens not during the trauma itself but when they find no 'big Other' to receive their testimony — confirming that the big Other's inexistence is the true tragedy.trauma / the big Other / testimony
asserts
Catherine Breillat's attempt to make emotionally engaging pornographic narrative remains marginal because it violates the structural prohibition that mainstream audiences unconsciously enforce.Catherine Breillat / pornography / the invisible censorship
reframes
Freud's point is not pan-sexualism (everything secretly means sex) but the inverse: even when you are having sex you need a fantasy — sex always requires a phantasmatic supplement.Freud / sexuality / fantasy
rejects
Hal Foster's 'Return of the Real' misidentifies a return to mere reality (shock tactics in avant-garde art) as a return to the Lacanian Real, which is actually located in fiction.Hal Foster / the Real / avant-garde art
Quotes 15
“the father awakens to be able to really continue to dream to avoid the real trauma which is precisely confronting the death of his son”Slavoj Žižek · awakening as escape from the Real
“you masturbate with a real partner — basically you remain in your fantasy you just use the other as a prop as some plastic tool even if this plastic tool is breathing”Slavoj Žižek · masturbation with a real partner / inexistence of the sexual relationship
“lesbians are the only true heterosexuals — while you make love you relate to the other not just as a material prop to stage your fantasies but the real neighbor the real other”Slavoj Žižek · Lacanian sexual difference / the Other
“we give humanitarian help it's kind of a superstitious activity you know like if we give them something they will remain there it's basically a superstitious activity to be sure that the horror remains there”Slavoj Žižek · ideology / charity as distance-maintaining ritual
“the real horror is not that they lived in an ivory tower and reality intruded — exactly the opposite: what they experienced as dream-fiction intruded into their reality”Slavoj Žižek · September 11th / fantasy-reality reversal
“you can see it all I mean sex organs but the price you pay is you shouldn't be immersed you should be bombarded with reminders narrative reminders how ridiculous stupid this is”Slavoj Žižek · invisible censorship of pornography
“this idea that you have no one to receive your message is so horrible that you escape into reality you awaken in Auschwitz”Slavoj Žižek · the big Other / trauma / Primo Levi
“if you wait for the right moment it will never arrive because you have to begin too early at the wrong moment and through the very failures of these precipitous too-early attempts you become mature enough”Slavoj Žižek · Rosa Luxemburg / precipitation of the act
“every authentic act is at the same time too late and too early — there is no proper time if you wait for the proper moment by definition it never arrives”Slavoj Žižek · the act / decision / temporality
“there are situations where when you are not ready to kill someone is an act of betrayal in the sense of you know causing many more deaths — but you are fanatically dedicated to the cause but you are aware of the horror”Slavoj Žižek · authentic ethics of violence
“it's not that real sex is the real thing and then you fantasize too much when you don't get it no — that the truly subversive thing is fantasy and that real sex functions there as a defense against fantasy”Slavoj Žižek · fantasy / defense / the Real
“Freud's point if you read him carefully is exactly the opposite one — okay maybe whatever we are doing we are secretly thinking about that but what are we thinking when we are doing that”Slavoj Žižek · anti-pan-sexualism / Freudian fantasy
“the philosopher said no it's just a hypothesis — you know like how you have to act you have to decide there is no easy way out”Slavoj Žižek · act without certainty / ethics
“crying is already a release it means it's okay — you cry precisely because you are aware that it's not real”Slavoj Žižek · identification in cinema / Lacanian fantasy
“the return of the real is a return to reality which is exactly the escape from the Lacanian real — the real is precisely in the fiction”Slavoj Žižek · Hal Foster / Lacanian Real / avant-garde art
Transcript 16 turns
unknown
Let’s simply go what I will do
Let’s simply go what I will do
Slavoj Žižek
again as I already told you it will not be high cinema theory just to make a point about a very naive thing a very naive ethical point I want to make but I think it’s important how to you know like the problem with pacifism how to do our fight if you fight you have to kill and so on and so on it’s very naive what I will say but at the same time the difficult thing is that either how to avoid one extreme which is this pure simple patriotism or our cause is the right one you know and you know this is typical I don’t know Soviet films or Western against the Germans you don’t real oh we can do we can then you have the opposite but the opposite is also false for me this kind of a general pacifism you know oh every killing is bad if you fight back you become the same as your enemy and so on and when I hear this I always say to the people okay I mean a very primitive point okay would you say this in Europe in no let’s not resist Hitler because we will be becoming the same as him and so on so first film sorry this line of argumentation I want to present it as part of you will get the text that I promised you to today because I talked too much we didn’t have time to present it about the function of frame frame in the sense of I like those moments where you are as it were on the edge when things get too intense in the sense in what sense in this sense for Lacan you probably know he says there is no reality without fantasy that’s very important for Lacan and he doesn’t mean it in any stupid subjectivist way you know like oh there is no reality we just fantasize it no there is the real there are things out his point is only that the way we act in daily life we never directly approach things the way they are you always I’m almost tempted to use here the philosophical term transcendentally constitute reality you perceive reality within certain coordinates which are not only cognitive coordinates like what you perceive what you don’t perceive but even coordinates of I don’t know suffering pain and so on and what I’m for what do I mean by this okay let me give you some examples why was for I develop this in my book maybe you even know it that Welcome to the Desert of the Real why was September 11th such a trauma for New Yorkers and others it’s not I think it’s the wrong metaphor which was sometimes used Americans or New York people at least lived in their ivory tower their relative prosperity and they simply didn’t take into account the brutal life all around the world you know all the horrors Congo Somalia blah blah and then finally that it was as if reality intruded that secluded space I think it’s the exact opposite in what sense imagine everyday American but I’m not going into America bashing here the same is at least for Western Europeans and so on of course you know about all the horrors you know but it’s very important that you know about them mostly from TV and so on and I claim that in your innermost the way you perceive it of course you know it is real it happens but it’s not part of your reality it’s absolutely fundamental that it’s something that happens up there on the screen and what I mean by this for example even in even in even with movies yes we could complicate it because I spoke I gave some talk there were some gay people and you know my sleep yesterday so what I want to say is about identifying no and they told me two gay guys but this is nothing tasteless it’s rather horrible that once they visited a friend these two guys and saw there this was more than years ago it was still more a VHS VHS cassette like that they found there with a friend who told them okay use my apartment a VHS where it says keep it secret don’t use it okay fuck it if you find a VHS like that it’s the same as to say immediately drop everything put it but then they they they they were sorry they regretted terribly for doing it ah because it was a how you call them my God I’m getting senile it slipped out of my hand how do you got movies how do you call movies about murder rape snuff it was two guys were raping a girl okay they said it’s tasteless but so what it’s an acting movie let’s watch it no then you know you slowly notice like first you see special effect no they cut off her ear they open the belly blah blah and of course they told me like for practically half a year they couldn’t look at a human body and so on no but what I’m saying then I tried we talked about it a lot with these two guys to complicate the image in the sense that you know in a movie when people say even some Marxists this pseudo-Brechtian notion that identification is bad like you know that bourgeois cinema is emotional you know this pseudo-Brechtian idea that bad bourgeois cinema is identification you cry sentimentally good critical spirit is distanciation you are aware all the time to that it’s just a film I think for reasons into which I will not go now I think that this is totally wrong I think that that precisely we never really identify in a film you cry precisely because you are aware that it’s not real if some of you have a small kid I mean this is the first lesson I learned about my small son let’s say he falls hits something no the moment he starts or she starts to cry you know it’s okay that you know what you should worry if he’s just like ah he cannot crying is already a release it means it’s okay so what I want to say is that this is why it’s interesting to see a couple of films where you identify with it you cry because you know it’s just a film no but then you notice that at least some detail that they really did it for example did you see Apocalypse Now you remember at the end in that crazy Marlon Brando democratic republic or whatever no that they sacrifice some bull or cow but then you see they are really and how this how this disturbs you and that would have been for me the ultimate shock you think you are watching a fiction and that you can identify no okay the first thing important here and I think at a certain level this goes even in a more complex way for our daily life like in order to identify with something you must already be in a safe distance okay to go back now why do I not agree with this general pseudo-Brechtian approach you identify with it it’s bourgeois logic you maintain a distance it’s progressive okay and so on and so on because I think that this precisely is I’m returning to the example of September 11th this is how ideology works very well in everyday life you listen to news today it’s Syria yesterday Somalia whatever and I claim no matter how much you emphasize it no it’s something that happens out there we like to give charity but as some cynical guy Rony Brauman he’s a very good French guy who is a charity guy but not this type of corrupted corrupted charity guy but the one who really cares he said he’s well aware that we give humanitarian help it’s kind of a superstitious activity you know like if we give them something they will remain there it’s basically a superstitious activity to be sure that the horror remains there that it doesn’t come too close so again my ultimate proof I’m sorry if some of you know this line but it fits here perfectly of how there are limits of identification that’s why I hate her movies but I would like to ask her by her I think that French art pornography woman director Catherine Breillat you know how it works with her namely I’m sorry if some of you know this are you aware and this makes the nice Lacanian point against any authentic spontaneity if you had the misfortune of watching hardcore porn are you aware that these are maybe the most codified films that you can imagine okay let me make you two points I’m sorry if you know some of them one of them is Dean MacCannell who is kind of a guy who works in semiotics at the same time a theorist some very strange almost Lacanian theorist of tourism don’t ask me how this works he told me that he did exploration of hardcore porn and how the expression of no he didn’t really focus on anything dirty but the expression of woman’s face while she is banged whatever no and he discovered and then he contacted some guy think guys who do it and he discovered he even made them a semiotic square it’s strictly codified I know that four expressions are codified one is the sorry don’t take me serious one is this simple ecstasy ah yes ah this ecstasy which is the least interesting you know then the second codified expression is it’s very important it’s a wonderful Freudian message it is the indifference many men find this attractive it’s the indifferent one like the woman is yawning chewing gum like I don’t care go fuck off you are doing something down there I’m bored by it you know and it’s a wonderful message because like do you know that Russian diva Anna Netrebko who sings no okay now she’s a little bit too well rounded maybe but the point is that she was or is beautiful and I love you don’t get it if you are not Slavic her name no sorry not blinking Netrebko not blinking no is it not blinking or what I didn’t know I thought it then I was wrong but okay se non vero ben trovato I thought it because even isn’t it even in Russian to need something means treba
again as I already told you it will not be high cinema theory just to make a point about a very naive thing a very naive ethical point I want to make but I think it’s important how to you know like the problem with pacifism how to do our fight if you fight you have to kill and so on and so on it’s very naive what I will say but at the same time the difficult thing is that either how to avoid one extreme which is this pure simple patriotism or our cause is the right one you know and you know this is typical I don’t know Soviet films or Western against the Germans you don’t real oh we can do we can then you have the opposite but the opposite is also false for me this kind of a general pacifism you know oh every killing is bad if you fight back you become the same as your enemy and so on and when I hear this I always say to the people okay I mean a very primitive point okay would you say this in Europe in no let’s not resist Hitler because we will be becoming the same as him and so on so first film sorry this line of argumentation I want to present it as part of you will get the text that I promised you to today because I talked too much we didn’t have time to present it about the function of frame frame in the sense of I like those moments where you are as it were on the edge when things get too intense in the sense in what sense in this sense for Lacan you probably know he says there is no reality without fantasy that’s very important for Lacan and he doesn’t mean it in any stupid subjectivist way you know like oh there is no reality we just fantasize it no there is the real there are things out his point is only that the way we act in daily life we never directly approach things the way they are you always I’m almost tempted to use here the philosophical term transcendentally constitute reality you perceive reality within certain coordinates which are not only cognitive coordinates like what you perceive what you don’t perceive but even coordinates of I don’t know suffering pain and so on and what I’m for what do I mean by this okay let me give you some examples why was for I develop this in my book maybe you even know it that Welcome to the Desert of the Real why was September 11th such a trauma for New Yorkers and others it’s not I think it’s the wrong metaphor which was sometimes used Americans or New York people at least lived in their ivory tower their relative prosperity and they simply didn’t take into account the brutal life all around the world you know all the horrors Congo Somalia blah blah and then finally that it was as if reality intruded that secluded space I think it’s the exact opposite in what sense imagine everyday American but I’m not going into America bashing here the same is at least for Western Europeans and so on of course you know about all the horrors you know but it’s very important that you know about them mostly from TV and so on and I claim that in your innermost the way you perceive it of course you know it is real it happens but it’s not part of your reality it’s absolutely fundamental that it’s something that happens up there on the screen and what I mean by this for example even in even in even with movies yes we could complicate it because I spoke I gave some talk there were some gay people and you know my sleep yesterday so what I want to say is about identifying no and they told me two gay guys but this is nothing tasteless it’s rather horrible that once they visited a friend these two guys and saw there this was more than years ago it was still more a VHS VHS cassette like that they found there with a friend who told them okay use my apartment a VHS where it says keep it secret don’t use it okay fuck it if you find a VHS like that it’s the same as to say immediately drop everything put it but then they they they they were sorry they regretted terribly for doing it ah because it was a how you call them my God I’m getting senile it slipped out of my hand how do you got movies how do you call movies about murder rape snuff it was two guys were raping a girl okay they said it’s tasteless but so what it’s an acting movie let’s watch it no then you know you slowly notice like first you see special effect no they cut off her ear they open the belly blah blah and of course they told me like for practically half a year they couldn’t look at a human body and so on no but what I’m saying then I tried we talked about it a lot with these two guys to complicate the image in the sense that you know in a movie when people say even some Marxists this pseudo-Brechtian notion that identification is bad like you know that bourgeois cinema is emotional you know this pseudo-Brechtian idea that bad bourgeois cinema is identification you cry sentimentally good critical spirit is distanciation you are aware all the time to that it’s just a film I think for reasons into which I will not go now I think that this is totally wrong I think that that precisely we never really identify in a film you cry precisely because you are aware that it’s not real if some of you have a small kid I mean this is the first lesson I learned about my small son let’s say he falls hits something no the moment he starts or she starts to cry you know it’s okay that you know what you should worry if he’s just like ah he cannot crying is already a release it means it’s okay so what I want to say is that this is why it’s interesting to see a couple of films where you identify with it you cry because you know it’s just a film no but then you notice that at least some detail that they really did it for example did you see Apocalypse Now you remember at the end in that crazy Marlon Brando democratic republic or whatever no that they sacrifice some bull or cow but then you see they are really and how this how this disturbs you and that would have been for me the ultimate shock you think you are watching a fiction and that you can identify no okay the first thing important here and I think at a certain level this goes even in a more complex way for our daily life like in order to identify with something you must already be in a safe distance okay to go back now why do I not agree with this general pseudo-Brechtian approach you identify with it it’s bourgeois logic you maintain a distance it’s progressive okay and so on and so on because I think that this precisely is I’m returning to the example of September 11th this is how ideology works very well in everyday life you listen to news today it’s Syria yesterday Somalia whatever and I claim no matter how much you emphasize it no it’s something that happens out there we like to give charity but as some cynical guy Rony Brauman he’s a very good French guy who is a charity guy but not this type of corrupted corrupted charity guy but the one who really cares he said he’s well aware that we give humanitarian help it’s kind of a superstitious activity you know like if we give them something they will remain there it’s basically a superstitious activity to be sure that the horror remains there that it doesn’t come too close so again my ultimate proof I’m sorry if some of you know this line but it fits here perfectly of how there are limits of identification that’s why I hate her movies but I would like to ask her by her I think that French art pornography woman director Catherine Breillat you know how it works with her namely I’m sorry if some of you know this are you aware and this makes the nice Lacanian point against any authentic spontaneity if you had the misfortune of watching hardcore porn are you aware that these are maybe the most codified films that you can imagine okay let me make you two points I’m sorry if you know some of them one of them is Dean MacCannell who is kind of a guy who works in semiotics at the same time a theorist some very strange almost Lacanian theorist of tourism don’t ask me how this works he told me that he did exploration of hardcore porn and how the expression of no he didn’t really focus on anything dirty but the expression of woman’s face while she is banged whatever no and he discovered and then he contacted some guy think guys who do it and he discovered he even made them a semiotic square it’s strictly codified I know that four expressions are codified one is the sorry don’t take me serious one is this simple ecstasy ah yes ah this ecstasy which is the least interesting you know then the second codified expression is it’s very important it’s a wonderful Freudian message it is the indifference many men find this attractive it’s the indifferent one like the woman is yawning chewing gum like I don’t care go fuck off you are doing something down there I’m bored by it you know and it’s a wonderful message because like do you know that Russian diva Anna Netrebko who sings no okay now she’s a little bit too well rounded maybe but the point is that she was or is beautiful and I love you don’t get it if you are not Slavic her name no sorry not blinking Netrebko not blinking no is it not blinking or what I didn’t know I thought it then I was wrong but okay se non vero ben trovato I thought it because even isn’t it even in Russian to need something means treba
unknown
Netrebko
Netrebko
Slavoj Žižek
yeah Netrebko yeah and it’s wonderful her name means I don’t need you and that’s the ultimate fatal woman you know the message is no wonder she is the cultish Netrebko this literally means I don’t need you I love to play with these games didn’t I tell you story I you know I cannot resist an obscenity in Slovenia we had this wonderful joke which I use when people accuse me that I’m not patriotic you know local idiots often say oh but you just write in English aren’t you aware what beautiful language what wealth it has and I always say of course it’s a beautiful language Slovene it allows you to get deep insight into things blah blah and then my point of course it’s an obscenity it’s that every Slovene knows why Mona Lisa is laughing has this gentle smile you know why in Slovene we are stupid we don’t have dirty words we take them either from Serb Croat or from Italian German no so mona is the Italian common word it’s rude but not too rude for vagina no so we know what is mona now comes it’s incredible in Slovene Lisa no problem lizati lizati it’s literal you don’t have to change is it also in Croat yes verb to lick no is there any problem then why Mona Lisa is there has this gentle smile you know you can imagine I got even some threat hate mail you know like this didn’t make but okay let’s go back so what pornography yes what I want to say this is the second codified the third one is the what I call it instrumental technological expression you know it’s thin lips like let’s do it we are in a hard work you know like sex is hard work and you have to focus it’s strictly codified usually like this tight lips expression like it’s hard work we are doing and my favorite of course the last one it’s sex equivalent of that feminine gaze that I mentioned yesterday is this slight mocking laughter you know and like haha is this all you can do you know at man but it’s wonderful to see this how strictly codified it is and okay the last thing incidentally there you also can see now I’m becoming a little bit more serious there you also can see why homosexuality and sorry how do you distinguish them because gay can cover both what is the male version of lesbians gay but gay is both I never got it okay masculine and feminine homosexuality how they are not structurally the same it’s not on the one hand you do it with the opposite sex then you have homosexuality with two subdivisions the proof did you notice how and it’s a very complex phenomenon how in standard hetero hardcore pornography it’s part of the codified procedure that women play among themselves you have usually an masturbation a bang here a bang there lesbian interplay and then the big bang whatever at the end no but you see but it’s absolutely prohibited to show it would have been too obscene in straight hardcore to show two men playing never never I mean I know that I compromise you if I ask you tell me a counter argument this would be the admission that you are watching pornography so you will say oh I have no idea I know but okay believe me although I don’t I stopped watching them long ago but I’ll tell you why I watched some of them recently but no they don’t so again I claim the lesson is a very beautiful one Lacan says somewhere something very nice and I think it’s deeply true very pro-feminist even that lesbians are the only true heterosexuals heterosexual in the simple sense that while you make love you relate to the other not just as a material prop how should I put it to stage your fantasies but the real neighbor the real other no and because you must know this line of mine maybe you know how we usually define masturbation having sex with an imagined partner as it were you do it to yourself but you imagine whatever you want the best Lacanian inversion of this would have been that most of the time real sex has the structure of a masturbation with a real partner that is to say that basically you remain in your fantasy you just use the other as a prop as some plastic tool even if this plastic tool is breathing or whatever no to and it’s bad and to for to stage your fantasies like it’s clear for example in Hitchcock’s Vertigo this is absolutely clear Scottie is masturbating with Madeleine and then and then Judy so again for Lacan it’s very nice theory it’s that the categorization is this one both heterosexual and male homosexual are what we call straight sex are homosexual the only true heterosexuals are lesbians and then of course Lacan leaves a window open that in real love and so on you can even with other sexual practices achieve it why because Lacan is here again very precise there is another beautiful point here about Lacan where he again his formula is this one he rehabilitates love here and I’m also an incurable romantic here I’m for Lacan how if you do sex how do you go beyond this structure of masturbation with a real partner with love I claim which is why I claim that that I that love is not just some romantic coating or whatever no like in this primitive stupid sense of we all want just to brutally fuck whatever but to make it nicer you talk about love no no no love is more radical in a way I absolutely believe in love itself what do you mean you subjectified your partner yeah okay now I wouldn’t for theoretical terms because you know subjectivization you know why I don’t but yes basically I agree with you my problem with subjectivization is that it usually means reducing him or her to someone like me to fellow man you know and so love is when you cease to objectify the partner not necessarily subjectify but you cease to use her or him or yeah yeah or at least the other is no longer just the mirror the playground for your fantasies you know like in the in the way I I defined the neighbor as that abyss you know in love you make love to the neighbor the other is okay but so let us go on so now comes my big hit I’m sorry if you know it but I love it I cannot resist did you notice the basic point that I always like to make about hardcore pornography and the most depressing one did you notice okay now I see from your faces what is this guy talking about I never heard of about did you notice in at least but I will give you further reasons why I think I’m right at least years ago the predominant how okay in a hardcore narrative especially if it’s a full movie not just five minutes sex you need some kind of a stupid story there must be a story to introduce did you noticed how incredibly ridiculously pseudo-comic stupid this story is and my firm conviction is that this is a structural necessity it’s not that you know they are so stupid commercial they don’t in a way what let me I’m sorry I repeat here an old joke but like like when I was very young I I am still traumatized by I had the misfortune of encountering this the stupidity of this story that and at its most stupid you know it’s like it’s worse than Sound of Music you’re embarrassed to mention it like a plumber comes home the housewife is home alone and he fixes the hole in the kitchen which is leaking and then of course the housewife said I have another hole which should be fixed can you also and it’s so so so you know you it’s so disgusting that you cannot help liking it you know it’s less disgusting but I claim this is censorship you know in what sense what is prohibited is both at the same time to have a let’s call it naively emotionally engaging story which at the same time would have gone to the end you know like imagine I don’t know this is a fantasy because I hate the movie did you see how was it called that Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in Africa Out of Africa can you imagine that movie exactly the same it is but when once they embrace just minutes more you know seeing it all and so on it doesn’t work in that universe so you see I think that here is the invisible censorship okay you can see it all I mean sex organs but the price you pay is you shouldn’t be immersed you should be bombarded with reminders narrative reminders how ridiculous stupid this is and so on and so on now comes the prob now come two problems one is what about Catherine Breillat because to cut a long story short she tries to do to simplify precisely this but that’s why I claim she remains marginal it’s unacceptable for the large public you know you cannot I mean for large majority this prohibition still holds second reproach the most brutal reaction I had this once was somebody told me haha you must really be out of sex impotent they were doing this years ago you know no so I asked them okay what are they doing now and then I checked it maybe you know it’s something called called how do they call it the term will come okay it will come the term to me it means hardcore where they don’t even pretend that it’s a story even the most stupid story sorry Gonzo Gonzo finally someone with education yeah yeah you know what is Gonzo like you know they are fucking the guy looks into the camera I’m doing well how what should I do you know like it’s to remind you all the time that this is staged and again I think this is censorship you know you see the prohibition is even more radical here they are afraid even of this totally stupid narrative it you have to be re and this is also why in avant-garde theater Brechtian and so on I was always skeptical about this you know how people thought you do a materialist gesture if you remind people that it’s only stage performance you know like different strategies like actors look directly into the public address it or what was also popular in avant-garde theater Brechtian you do something that is too shockingly real you know like you kill a chicken I don’t know something that reminds people my God they are really doing it this I claim this is not the Lacanian real although how is he called Foster not Norman Foster that Hal Foster when he wrote that book Return of the Real he is deeply wrong there this return of the real is a return to reality which is exactly the escape from the Lacanian real it’s as if the real in the Lacanian sense of that absolute real the true core of trauma is precisely in the fiction in the fiction and I claim this escapes into reality you know like haha we have to remind you it’s only a play are precisely defenses against the real the real is the horror of the real is precisely a story where you would too deeply immerse yourself so again this stupid game of intellectual game of ah we are progressive we fight alienation in the sense of sentimental identification if we are reminded all the time of the production you know when I was young this idea was very popular it was especially popularized by Roland Barthes you know no when in this this was typical pro-Chinese progressive sixties where he developed a parallel between Chinese painting and okay you can go into further domains painting and preparing the food he wrote a short text I don’t know where let me it was sorry Roland Barthes you know how that as a rule in Japan as a rule again not always but the food is prepared there in front of you you know the idea being that they are not caught in this European mystification where the site of production is in their kitchen and then it’s like a magic effect you don’t know how but the beautiful dry plate with food is brought to you you see the production process and then the idea of Barthes is that it’s the same in how do you call it it’s the same in painting you know these Chinese or Japanese limited my education I’m sorry painting with brush on this extremely Calligraphy sorry calligraphy yeah yeah the point is what that you must do it fast because the paper is so sensitive absorbing it that it simply gets the paper dissolved blurred no so the idea is that in contrast to standard European realist painting where you have the effect of reality there transparent reality you just see the object there part of the beauty of the painting is that gestures remain visible so okay here Roland Barthes draws this parallel with with Marxist notion of work exploitation claiming how they are the good guys the production process is not obfuscated you know while we in the West bad representation blah blah you know it’s not just past sorry it’s not just past as much as it is once yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because you see you have you get one chance how should I put it no if you blew it up there then you are yeah yeah that’s true yeah yeah so did you see the movie by Zhang Yimou who now unfortunately sold himself to the regime in China Hero which has it very nice some nice scene comparing this calligraphic painting with with a with with fight no with it’s crucial I think this parallel and so on no okay but so let’s go on so what I’m claiming is that okay let me tell you another story that maybe you know but it’s crucial here to give you precisely an idea of what for Lacan is the real Lacanian real is not there out there the way things really are and then you know this would be more like some kind of a pseudo some people read Nietzsche in this way strongly Nietzschean way that the real out there is the brutal reality too raw for us to perceive it so we need symbolic screens to domesticate it to petrify it no no the real is in fantasy the real is the excess of fantasy you know in which film I don’t like it for different reasons but I like the last scene you get this very nicely did you see Stanley Kubrick the last one Eyes Wide Shut yes yes do you remember even already that orgy you know the orgy scene I like it you know why because I know because you know the actor who plays a big role there but the role with which I immediately identify that Croat Yugoslav actor Rade Šerbedžija he plays there that that manipulator who is basically selling his daughter whatever he is my type you know and I met him once we are heart friends and he told me that Kubrick explained this to him that the whole point of the orgy scene let you know when finally Tom Cruise penetrated is that it was consciously done in this how should you put it totally aseptic impotent way because it’s not oh this orgy where you eat you are terribly disappointed it’s some kind of a totally fragile almost immaterial ritual but what I really like let’s go to the end is you remember the very last scene in some shopping mall where they they Tom Cruise Nicole Kidman they meet and okay they reconcile themselves and then these are if I remember it correctly the very last words of the film Nicole Kidman tells him I have something very important to tell you what let’s go home and fuck okay since all the film is about getting caught into this fantasy she imagines what she is secretly doing you know all that story about envy excessive fantasy of course the obvious way to read it would have been they fantasize too much because they didn’t have enough proper sex as it were so her idea is let’s have a good sex and we will not need fantasizing my reading is exactly the opposite one that it’s not that real sex is the real thing and then you fantasize too much when you don’t get it no that the truly subversive things is fantasy and that real sex functions there as a defense against fantasy like literally you are so obsessed with excessive fantasies that you use real sex to block drown out the excess of fantasies that’s the whole Freud you know because again to give you the ABC probably you know it but it needs to be repeated Freudian point of fantasy and so on is not or of sexual meaning is not some kind of a stupid pan-sexualism you know like whatever we are doing we are thinking about that you know like I don’t know I’m no I am I don’t know intellectual activity when you when you attack someone you are basically raping him as if the secret meaning of everything is sexual meaning no Freud’s point if you read him carefully is exactly the opposite one he asks a simple question here which is okay maybe true maybe not that whatever we are doing we are secretly thinking about that but what are we thinking when we are doing that and the whole premise of Freud and this is what Lacan aims at when he says there is no sexual relationship is that that you never get pure sex by pure sex I mean it’s just me and the partner we don’t need anything we are here you have to have a fantasy always you have to imagine a third gaze or which is why I think that that people when you open it up and I’m not the guy for that I’m terrified people can do sex exhibitionistically in front of others I claim that in most of the time you do imagine another even if it’s of course not a physical other but it’s an imagined gaze so again the role of fantasy for Freud is that what you know basically Freud gives a version of a wonderful insight by Levi-Strauss who wrote somewhere that he encountered one of those mythic tribes this time in North America I think who had a wonderful theory of dreams of meaning of dreams they said they were right they said all dreams have sexual meaning except sexual dreams except those who are directly sexual no the idea is what that like even again even when you directly make love you need some phantasmic scenario narrative to to sustain it and you get here wonderful extreme examples like a small Viennese Austria Vienna publisher friend of mine published private diaries of Ludwig Wittgenstein he was writing them on the front of World War One and you know Wittgenstein was a little bit crazy so he records everything his regular masturbation and so on but what’s more interesting he also reports what he was dreaming while masturbating not any gay orgies he was dreaming debating mathematical problems with fellow philosophers no that’s what I claim true ethics no but seriously what I so let’s put it like this you know what’s the Freudian which is this is the reason why Freudian psychoanalysis is deeply anti- how should I put it against this logic that there is a normal sexual development normal hetero sex and if you don’t get it then you have different perversions no for Freud perversion is constitutive in what sense let’s put it in very naive terms let’s say you are a young boy or girl and you are close to the door where your parents are and you know like you well maybe from time to time hopefully you hear some sounds and so on and so on and then fantasy you try to imagine what goes on there you know and here David Lynch was a genius you know where okay the best known film Blue Velvet yeah Blue Velvet you know what’s my good friend he’s one of the great theorists although he is neglected the French guy Michel Chion he provided a wonderful reading of that scene it’s much more complex in reality but you remember that half rape half I don’t know what scene between Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini is a good girl great actress you know why I’m saying this I have a friend who has a friend who knows her and I was told that three months ago she was praising a book of mine so oh she is a great actress and so on seriously no the you remember what I mean this is an ingenious reading by Chion you remember what happens there how the father figure okay Dennis Hopper you remember that weird detail he puts on a breathing mask and and other details like that you know what is you know what is the reading of Chion that you should read this as a visualization of a fantasy imagine a kid listening and father doing certain thing and the kid doesn’t know what is sex and imagines what is as the father difficulties in breathing you know and it’s a wonderful reading it’s a much more complex reading even because then sorry yes all the examples you’re giving though it seems are male masculine relation to fantasy for Lacan is it not a male and female as you’re saying before what the difference between hetero and homosexual sex have a different relation to fantasy yeah I don’t want to go into that now I admit confess my male chauvinist bias no because for Lacan you know but Lacan’s point is this one I will try to make it it’s a risky reading that I’ll put it like this some people misread Lacan as if he is claiming men are fully in the symbolic order woman is non-all half out and so on and then some people try to read this in a Kristevian Julia Kristeva pro-feminist way like men are fully identified with ideology in women have a distance others read this in an anti-feminist way like women too stupid cannot even fully integrate into the symbolic order but Lacan is saying something different what you know where I think maybe I’m wrong but I think it works you have at its clearest and here women appear much more I don’t like the word spiritual but simply within the symbolic order difference masculine feminine position although they are not single positions it’s much more complex read my big fat book that chapter on sexual difference where I try to go into it did you see Lars von Trier Breaking the Waves exactly what is the constellation there the man Stellan Skarsgård the guy the man is pure pure how should you put it male masturbating position she tells him her Emily Watson go out fuck with guys come to me tell me about it so the idea is he wants her to provide fantasies to masturbate or just to enjoy you know like this is simply using the other as fantasy screen to provide fantasies but her position is a much more interesting one her position is that it’s not
yeah Netrebko yeah and it’s wonderful her name means I don’t need you and that’s the ultimate fatal woman you know the message is no wonder she is the cultish Netrebko this literally means I don’t need you I love to play with these games didn’t I tell you story I you know I cannot resist an obscenity in Slovenia we had this wonderful joke which I use when people accuse me that I’m not patriotic you know local idiots often say oh but you just write in English aren’t you aware what beautiful language what wealth it has and I always say of course it’s a beautiful language Slovene it allows you to get deep insight into things blah blah and then my point of course it’s an obscenity it’s that every Slovene knows why Mona Lisa is laughing has this gentle smile you know why in Slovene we are stupid we don’t have dirty words we take them either from Serb Croat or from Italian German no so mona is the Italian common word it’s rude but not too rude for vagina no so we know what is mona now comes it’s incredible in Slovene Lisa no problem lizati lizati it’s literal you don’t have to change is it also in Croat yes verb to lick no is there any problem then why Mona Lisa is there has this gentle smile you know you can imagine I got even some threat hate mail you know like this didn’t make but okay let’s go back so what pornography yes what I want to say this is the second codified the third one is the what I call it instrumental technological expression you know it’s thin lips like let’s do it we are in a hard work you know like sex is hard work and you have to focus it’s strictly codified usually like this tight lips expression like it’s hard work we are doing and my favorite of course the last one it’s sex equivalent of that feminine gaze that I mentioned yesterday is this slight mocking laughter you know and like haha is this all you can do you know at man but it’s wonderful to see this how strictly codified it is and okay the last thing incidentally there you also can see now I’m becoming a little bit more serious there you also can see why homosexuality and sorry how do you distinguish them because gay can cover both what is the male version of lesbians gay but gay is both I never got it okay masculine and feminine homosexuality how they are not structurally the same it’s not on the one hand you do it with the opposite sex then you have homosexuality with two subdivisions the proof did you notice how and it’s a very complex phenomenon how in standard hetero hardcore pornography it’s part of the codified procedure that women play among themselves you have usually an masturbation a bang here a bang there lesbian interplay and then the big bang whatever at the end no but you see but it’s absolutely prohibited to show it would have been too obscene in straight hardcore to show two men playing never never I mean I know that I compromise you if I ask you tell me a counter argument this would be the admission that you are watching pornography so you will say oh I have no idea I know but okay believe me although I don’t I stopped watching them long ago but I’ll tell you why I watched some of them recently but no they don’t so again I claim the lesson is a very beautiful one Lacan says somewhere something very nice and I think it’s deeply true very pro-feminist even that lesbians are the only true heterosexuals heterosexual in the simple sense that while you make love you relate to the other not just as a material prop how should I put it to stage your fantasies but the real neighbor the real other no and because you must know this line of mine maybe you know how we usually define masturbation having sex with an imagined partner as it were you do it to yourself but you imagine whatever you want the best Lacanian inversion of this would have been that most of the time real sex has the structure of a masturbation with a real partner that is to say that basically you remain in your fantasy you just use the other as a prop as some plastic tool even if this plastic tool is breathing or whatever no to and it’s bad and to for to stage your fantasies like it’s clear for example in Hitchcock’s Vertigo this is absolutely clear Scottie is masturbating with Madeleine and then and then Judy so again for Lacan it’s very nice theory it’s that the categorization is this one both heterosexual and male homosexual are what we call straight sex are homosexual the only true heterosexuals are lesbians and then of course Lacan leaves a window open that in real love and so on you can even with other sexual practices achieve it why because Lacan is here again very precise there is another beautiful point here about Lacan where he again his formula is this one he rehabilitates love here and I’m also an incurable romantic here I’m for Lacan how if you do sex how do you go beyond this structure of masturbation with a real partner with love I claim which is why I claim that that I that love is not just some romantic coating or whatever no like in this primitive stupid sense of we all want just to brutally fuck whatever but to make it nicer you talk about love no no no love is more radical in a way I absolutely believe in love itself what do you mean you subjectified your partner yeah okay now I wouldn’t for theoretical terms because you know subjectivization you know why I don’t but yes basically I agree with you my problem with subjectivization is that it usually means reducing him or her to someone like me to fellow man you know and so love is when you cease to objectify the partner not necessarily subjectify but you cease to use her or him or yeah yeah or at least the other is no longer just the mirror the playground for your fantasies you know like in the in the way I I defined the neighbor as that abyss you know in love you make love to the neighbor the other is okay but so let us go on so now comes my big hit I’m sorry if you know it but I love it I cannot resist did you notice the basic point that I always like to make about hardcore pornography and the most depressing one did you notice okay now I see from your faces what is this guy talking about I never heard of about did you notice in at least but I will give you further reasons why I think I’m right at least years ago the predominant how okay in a hardcore narrative especially if it’s a full movie not just five minutes sex you need some kind of a stupid story there must be a story to introduce did you noticed how incredibly ridiculously pseudo-comic stupid this story is and my firm conviction is that this is a structural necessity it’s not that you know they are so stupid commercial they don’t in a way what let me I’m sorry I repeat here an old joke but like like when I was very young I I am still traumatized by I had the misfortune of encountering this the stupidity of this story that and at its most stupid you know it’s like it’s worse than Sound of Music you’re embarrassed to mention it like a plumber comes home the housewife is home alone and he fixes the hole in the kitchen which is leaking and then of course the housewife said I have another hole which should be fixed can you also and it’s so so so you know you it’s so disgusting that you cannot help liking it you know it’s less disgusting but I claim this is censorship you know in what sense what is prohibited is both at the same time to have a let’s call it naively emotionally engaging story which at the same time would have gone to the end you know like imagine I don’t know this is a fantasy because I hate the movie did you see how was it called that Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in Africa Out of Africa can you imagine that movie exactly the same it is but when once they embrace just minutes more you know seeing it all and so on it doesn’t work in that universe so you see I think that here is the invisible censorship okay you can see it all I mean sex organs but the price you pay is you shouldn’t be immersed you should be bombarded with reminders narrative reminders how ridiculous stupid this is and so on and so on now comes the prob now come two problems one is what about Catherine Breillat because to cut a long story short she tries to do to simplify precisely this but that’s why I claim she remains marginal it’s unacceptable for the large public you know you cannot I mean for large majority this prohibition still holds second reproach the most brutal reaction I had this once was somebody told me haha you must really be out of sex impotent they were doing this years ago you know no so I asked them okay what are they doing now and then I checked it maybe you know it’s something called called how do they call it the term will come okay it will come the term to me it means hardcore where they don’t even pretend that it’s a story even the most stupid story sorry Gonzo Gonzo finally someone with education yeah yeah you know what is Gonzo like you know they are fucking the guy looks into the camera I’m doing well how what should I do you know like it’s to remind you all the time that this is staged and again I think this is censorship you know you see the prohibition is even more radical here they are afraid even of this totally stupid narrative it you have to be re and this is also why in avant-garde theater Brechtian and so on I was always skeptical about this you know how people thought you do a materialist gesture if you remind people that it’s only stage performance you know like different strategies like actors look directly into the public address it or what was also popular in avant-garde theater Brechtian you do something that is too shockingly real you know like you kill a chicken I don’t know something that reminds people my God they are really doing it this I claim this is not the Lacanian real although how is he called Foster not Norman Foster that Hal Foster when he wrote that book Return of the Real he is deeply wrong there this return of the real is a return to reality which is exactly the escape from the Lacanian real it’s as if the real in the Lacanian sense of that absolute real the true core of trauma is precisely in the fiction in the fiction and I claim this escapes into reality you know like haha we have to remind you it’s only a play are precisely defenses against the real the real is the horror of the real is precisely a story where you would too deeply immerse yourself so again this stupid game of intellectual game of ah we are progressive we fight alienation in the sense of sentimental identification if we are reminded all the time of the production you know when I was young this idea was very popular it was especially popularized by Roland Barthes you know no when in this this was typical pro-Chinese progressive sixties where he developed a parallel between Chinese painting and okay you can go into further domains painting and preparing the food he wrote a short text I don’t know where let me it was sorry Roland Barthes you know how that as a rule in Japan as a rule again not always but the food is prepared there in front of you you know the idea being that they are not caught in this European mystification where the site of production is in their kitchen and then it’s like a magic effect you don’t know how but the beautiful dry plate with food is brought to you you see the production process and then the idea of Barthes is that it’s the same in how do you call it it’s the same in painting you know these Chinese or Japanese limited my education I’m sorry painting with brush on this extremely Calligraphy sorry calligraphy yeah yeah the point is what that you must do it fast because the paper is so sensitive absorbing it that it simply gets the paper dissolved blurred no so the idea is that in contrast to standard European realist painting where you have the effect of reality there transparent reality you just see the object there part of the beauty of the painting is that gestures remain visible so okay here Roland Barthes draws this parallel with with Marxist notion of work exploitation claiming how they are the good guys the production process is not obfuscated you know while we in the West bad representation blah blah you know it’s not just past sorry it’s not just past as much as it is once yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah because you see you have you get one chance how should I put it no if you blew it up there then you are yeah yeah that’s true yeah yeah so did you see the movie by Zhang Yimou who now unfortunately sold himself to the regime in China Hero which has it very nice some nice scene comparing this calligraphic painting with with a with with fight no with it’s crucial I think this parallel and so on no okay but so let’s go on so what I’m claiming is that okay let me tell you another story that maybe you know but it’s crucial here to give you precisely an idea of what for Lacan is the real Lacanian real is not there out there the way things really are and then you know this would be more like some kind of a pseudo some people read Nietzsche in this way strongly Nietzschean way that the real out there is the brutal reality too raw for us to perceive it so we need symbolic screens to domesticate it to petrify it no no the real is in fantasy the real is the excess of fantasy you know in which film I don’t like it for different reasons but I like the last scene you get this very nicely did you see Stanley Kubrick the last one Eyes Wide Shut yes yes do you remember even already that orgy you know the orgy scene I like it you know why because I know because you know the actor who plays a big role there but the role with which I immediately identify that Croat Yugoslav actor Rade Šerbedžija he plays there that that manipulator who is basically selling his daughter whatever he is my type you know and I met him once we are heart friends and he told me that Kubrick explained this to him that the whole point of the orgy scene let you know when finally Tom Cruise penetrated is that it was consciously done in this how should you put it totally aseptic impotent way because it’s not oh this orgy where you eat you are terribly disappointed it’s some kind of a totally fragile almost immaterial ritual but what I really like let’s go to the end is you remember the very last scene in some shopping mall where they they Tom Cruise Nicole Kidman they meet and okay they reconcile themselves and then these are if I remember it correctly the very last words of the film Nicole Kidman tells him I have something very important to tell you what let’s go home and fuck okay since all the film is about getting caught into this fantasy she imagines what she is secretly doing you know all that story about envy excessive fantasy of course the obvious way to read it would have been they fantasize too much because they didn’t have enough proper sex as it were so her idea is let’s have a good sex and we will not need fantasizing my reading is exactly the opposite one that it’s not that real sex is the real thing and then you fantasize too much when you don’t get it no that the truly subversive things is fantasy and that real sex functions there as a defense against fantasy like literally you are so obsessed with excessive fantasies that you use real sex to block drown out the excess of fantasies that’s the whole Freud you know because again to give you the ABC probably you know it but it needs to be repeated Freudian point of fantasy and so on is not or of sexual meaning is not some kind of a stupid pan-sexualism you know like whatever we are doing we are thinking about that you know like I don’t know I’m no I am I don’t know intellectual activity when you when you attack someone you are basically raping him as if the secret meaning of everything is sexual meaning no Freud’s point if you read him carefully is exactly the opposite one he asks a simple question here which is okay maybe true maybe not that whatever we are doing we are secretly thinking about that but what are we thinking when we are doing that and the whole premise of Freud and this is what Lacan aims at when he says there is no sexual relationship is that that you never get pure sex by pure sex I mean it’s just me and the partner we don’t need anything we are here you have to have a fantasy always you have to imagine a third gaze or which is why I think that that people when you open it up and I’m not the guy for that I’m terrified people can do sex exhibitionistically in front of others I claim that in most of the time you do imagine another even if it’s of course not a physical other but it’s an imagined gaze so again the role of fantasy for Freud is that what you know basically Freud gives a version of a wonderful insight by Levi-Strauss who wrote somewhere that he encountered one of those mythic tribes this time in North America I think who had a wonderful theory of dreams of meaning of dreams they said they were right they said all dreams have sexual meaning except sexual dreams except those who are directly sexual no the idea is what that like even again even when you directly make love you need some phantasmic scenario narrative to to sustain it and you get here wonderful extreme examples like a small Viennese Austria Vienna publisher friend of mine published private diaries of Ludwig Wittgenstein he was writing them on the front of World War One and you know Wittgenstein was a little bit crazy so he records everything his regular masturbation and so on but what’s more interesting he also reports what he was dreaming while masturbating not any gay orgies he was dreaming debating mathematical problems with fellow philosophers no that’s what I claim true ethics no but seriously what I so let’s put it like this you know what’s the Freudian which is this is the reason why Freudian psychoanalysis is deeply anti- how should I put it against this logic that there is a normal sexual development normal hetero sex and if you don’t get it then you have different perversions no for Freud perversion is constitutive in what sense let’s put it in very naive terms let’s say you are a young boy or girl and you are close to the door where your parents are and you know like you well maybe from time to time hopefully you hear some sounds and so on and so on and then fantasy you try to imagine what goes on there you know and here David Lynch was a genius you know where okay the best known film Blue Velvet yeah Blue Velvet you know what’s my good friend he’s one of the great theorists although he is neglected the French guy Michel Chion he provided a wonderful reading of that scene it’s much more complex in reality but you remember that half rape half I don’t know what scene between Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini and Isabella Rossellini is a good girl great actress you know why I’m saying this I have a friend who has a friend who knows her and I was told that three months ago she was praising a book of mine so oh she is a great actress and so on seriously no the you remember what I mean this is an ingenious reading by Chion you remember what happens there how the father figure okay Dennis Hopper you remember that weird detail he puts on a breathing mask and and other details like that you know what is you know what is the reading of Chion that you should read this as a visualization of a fantasy imagine a kid listening and father doing certain thing and the kid doesn’t know what is sex and imagines what is as the father difficulties in breathing you know and it’s a wonderful reading it’s a much more complex reading even because then sorry yes all the examples you’re giving though it seems are male masculine relation to fantasy for Lacan is it not a male and female as you’re saying before what the difference between hetero and homosexual sex have a different relation to fantasy yeah I don’t want to go into that now I admit confess my male chauvinist bias no because for Lacan you know but Lacan’s point is this one I will try to make it it’s a risky reading that I’ll put it like this some people misread Lacan as if he is claiming men are fully in the symbolic order woman is non-all half out and so on and then some people try to read this in a Kristevian Julia Kristeva pro-feminist way like men are fully identified with ideology in women have a distance others read this in an anti-feminist way like women too stupid cannot even fully integrate into the symbolic order but Lacan is saying something different what you know where I think maybe I’m wrong but I think it works you have at its clearest and here women appear much more I don’t like the word spiritual but simply within the symbolic order difference masculine feminine position although they are not single positions it’s much more complex read my big fat book that chapter on sexual difference where I try to go into it did you see Lars von Trier Breaking the Waves exactly what is the constellation there the man Stellan Skarsgård the guy the man is pure pure how should you put it male masturbating position she tells him her Emily Watson go out fuck with guys come to me tell me about it so the idea is he wants her to provide fantasies to masturbate or just to enjoy you know like this is simply using the other as fantasy screen to provide fantasies but her position is a much more interesting one her position is that it’s not
unknown
simply as people claim painting her as some sacrificing benevolent girl who blah blah no she does for her the true substance of enjoyment is telling about it she does it so that she is able to tell the story and I think again I’m sorry if this may appear secretively male chauvinist false mystified
simply as people claim painting her as some sacrificing benevolent girl who blah blah no she does for her the true substance of enjoyment is telling about it she does it so that she is able to tell the story and I think again I’m sorry if this may appear secretively male chauvinist false mystified
Slavoj Žižek
celebration of women but I think only a woman can do this and I will give you two other examples one from a immediately one from a serious film one from a commercial film but with a nice detail did you see did you see did you see of course you did although I find it also other Bergmans are better Bergman Persona you remember I think it’s already one third into the film even earlier when who is the girl Bibi Andersson is telling the other Liv Ullmann the wife a scene on the beach there was an orgy and the genius of Bergman was not to go just words no flashback and everybody admits it’s this is what Lacan calls jouissance of the other the other is language here it’s totally wrong to read Lacan as if saying women has access to some mystical primordial jouissance no no no only women can do this to and another film it’s a kitsch but that specific scene I like did you see that shitty melodrama with Richard Gere and and Diane Lane Diane Lane is another thing she was cute which one Unfaithful I think Unfaithful yeah you remember how when she does it cheating on her husband with the young boy there in some lower lower Manhattan Soho studio whatever which is always in Hollywood imagination the place to do these things no you know it’s nonetheless nicely shot you remember how it’s shot after doing it she has to go to that suburban from Grand Station train okay it’s they embrace and then you immediately jump to the train and the whole is given in a flashback comment you know it’s as if what matters is not the stupid things she was doing there but you know narrative memory afterwards it’s more it’s very nice it’s very nicely done no again so it’s at this level that I would have been looking which is why okay maybe I am a man here which is why I always find it horrible during sexual acts this idea of you know whispering obscenities and so on talking I’m here a brutal man you talk when you talk you do that when you do that like when a lady once wanted to tell me something I said fuck you we work no time for that fuck your femininity you know we don’t do that you know okay but nonetheless let’s go on nonetheless important so that now let me go to this role of the fantasy and yeah because yes let me go on so with yeah you know the Freudian dream you all know it but I want now to read it interpret it for the twentieth time with an accent on this you know maybe the second maybe even the first the best known Freudian dream the dream you remember when father is dreaming that his son appears to him horrible burning claiming father can’t you see I’m burning there Lacan does the stroke of a genius how he interprets it again very simple reversal but it’s efficient namely Freud is still ambiguous here what’s the scene you know the story probably father’s father is mourning his son who died unexpectedly of a heavy illness and the scene is this is reality this is what really happened it was in rather primitive I don’t know some village I don’t know what society where they still follow this ritual that how do you call it the night watch you know that somebody has to stay awake by the coffin okay what happened is that the father was tired and fell asleep a little bit and then one of the candles on the coffin turned and it started to burn the cloth covering the coffin and then the standard thing happened you know this wonderful logic of dreams when where when you are sleeping and some sound or external disturbance threaten to disturb your sleep you quickly construct a dream which includes that sound to be able to prolong your sleep I mean even to an idiot like me this happens like a phone rings fuck you you will not awaken me you know I construct a dream where somebody is calling and so on you know but now the the question and Lacan focuses on it the question of course is why then do you awaken why do you nonetheless finally awaken the vulgar explanation is because simply the external intrusion disturbance becomes too strong like if I ring a phone call you you may prolong your sleep but if I come I like to imagine this and kick you and grab your head don’t you see the fucking phone or whatever you like I doubt if you will still be able to integrate this Lacan has a much more elegant reading that you construct the dream to escape from reality I mean to stay to remain sleeping but what you encounter in the dream is something much more horrifying than reality than your it’s precisely the Real of a trauma for example here can you imagine the obviously the logic was like this the son probably died of some terrifying fever for which father felt guilty who knows what other traumas were so father constructs the dream of the son burning to include into the dream the smell of smoke and so on but then you know what he awakens in this way is a trauma much more terrifying than the reality out there so he awakens as Lacan puts it nicely the father awakens to be able to really continue to dream to avoid the real trauma which is precisely confronting the death of his son and you know this is what I’m aiming at with that final scene from Eyes Wide Shut that like the real trauma is in the excess of the dream and even I claim the trick of ideology is often this like you the trick how does an ideology make reality sustainable tolerable so that it constructs a phantasmatic real a horror which is more terrifying than reality itself so that you can endure reality because you experience it as a and here Big Other is always here in what sense let me give you another maybe you know it but it’s crucial I think extra dramatic case but don’t be afraid this is real tragedy now I’m not bullshitting with bad taste jokes from Primo Levi it’s from his I think it’s in the first one Se questo un uomo (If This Is a Man). He reports how he had again and again the same dream up there in that tourist hot place Auschwitz or whatever where he was on a long holiday for three years no that he had a dream there and then he thought this is his peculiar weird dream but then he discovered that most of the inmates prisoners others had the same or at least a similar dream namely a dream goes like this I’m telling you this because you have exactly the same structure of dreaming and then dreams the dream becomes so traumatic that you awaken into reality the dream is this one he was dreaming to he was dreaming that the war is it appeared at the beginning as a happy dream no he the war was over he returned home and the dream starts with this wonderful that’s all you are dreaming about in a camp or what of course you are sitting behind the kitchen table with your family you had a wonderful dinner with them you talk and then horror begins you start to tell them in the dream how how was what was life in the camp how horrible it was and then you know first the child then the grandmother they get bored blah blah and you remain alone and this idea that you have no one to receive your message is so horrible that you escape into reality you awaken in Auschwitz you know and let me give you another confirmation of this dream I spoke you know when we had that terrible war civil war ex-Yugoslavia early nineties I spoke with some doctors because many refugees from Bosnia came to Slovenia and they all told me a similar thing take this horrible case let’s say but Serbs were not the only bad guys let’s say Serbs raping Bosnian girl the usual story was that they survive if they were lucky enough to survive but there were no suicides rarely or breakdowns there they survived with this typical economy of you know I must survive to tell the story to bear witness no what then happened is that they didn’t find the big Other to whom to tell the story you know it’s all this disgusting male chauvinism jokes oh are you sure you didn’t enjoy it a little bit or you know all the vulgarities or people weren’t and it’s then that suicides or breakdowns happen not the rape itself but when and this is the true tragedy of what Lacan means by the big Other doesn’t exist when you get it that you are alone with your suffering that there is no big Other who will yes this happens a lot with the soldiers that are coming back from the war and having PTSD I can I can guess this also yeah yeah yeah post-traumatic stress syndrome where they feel very isolated from yeah but it’s not I agree with you because one has to be precise here it’s not just this primitive psychological isolation it’s isolation in this much more radical sense you know like we cannot survive without having some figure of the Other which is our not symbolic authority in any authoritarian sense but just the space where we can deposit our message as it were you know as we usually tell when you are screwed up tell it and tell the story even if it’s a false one and then you know this is for example you know what Goethe did with his boring novel I don’t get it Werther he was terribly in love like that but he wrote the story where he or Werther kills himself and then he said okay I deposited my pain there now I can go on enjoy life no so again this complexity this complexity is is crucial here but I’m a sinner but I promise even if I die you will get your fucking Buddhism tomorrow morning okay you know but now let’s yes I will now nonetheless guys slaves get slowly ready you have to minutes okay for the clips namely so the message of all this is how the way we experience reality it’s always within a fantasy frame and so on and so on and again I always like to use this here I didn’t yet this time very vulgar metaphor with what I mean by this let’s say I were now to take a knife pick out one of my eyes and eat it I claim that for a brief moment at least you would have a brief experience of what they call Realitätsverlust (loss of reality) like is this really happening you know it’s too strong to be directly situated but let me give you maybe this means I’m a coward an example from real life I
celebration of women but I think only a woman can do this and I will give you two other examples one from a immediately one from a serious film one from a commercial film but with a nice detail did you see did you see did you see of course you did although I find it also other Bergmans are better Bergman Persona you remember I think it’s already one third into the film even earlier when who is the girl Bibi Andersson is telling the other Liv Ullmann the wife a scene on the beach there was an orgy and the genius of Bergman was not to go just words no flashback and everybody admits it’s this is what Lacan calls jouissance of the other the other is language here it’s totally wrong to read Lacan as if saying women has access to some mystical primordial jouissance no no no only women can do this to and another film it’s a kitsch but that specific scene I like did you see that shitty melodrama with Richard Gere and and Diane Lane Diane Lane is another thing she was cute which one Unfaithful I think Unfaithful yeah you remember how when she does it cheating on her husband with the young boy there in some lower lower Manhattan Soho studio whatever which is always in Hollywood imagination the place to do these things no you know it’s nonetheless nicely shot you remember how it’s shot after doing it she has to go to that suburban from Grand Station train okay it’s they embrace and then you immediately jump to the train and the whole is given in a flashback comment you know it’s as if what matters is not the stupid things she was doing there but you know narrative memory afterwards it’s more it’s very nice it’s very nicely done no again so it’s at this level that I would have been looking which is why okay maybe I am a man here which is why I always find it horrible during sexual acts this idea of you know whispering obscenities and so on talking I’m here a brutal man you talk when you talk you do that when you do that like when a lady once wanted to tell me something I said fuck you we work no time for that fuck your femininity you know we don’t do that you know okay but nonetheless let’s go on nonetheless important so that now let me go to this role of the fantasy and yeah because yes let me go on so with yeah you know the Freudian dream you all know it but I want now to read it interpret it for the twentieth time with an accent on this you know maybe the second maybe even the first the best known Freudian dream the dream you remember when father is dreaming that his son appears to him horrible burning claiming father can’t you see I’m burning there Lacan does the stroke of a genius how he interprets it again very simple reversal but it’s efficient namely Freud is still ambiguous here what’s the scene you know the story probably father’s father is mourning his son who died unexpectedly of a heavy illness and the scene is this is reality this is what really happened it was in rather primitive I don’t know some village I don’t know what society where they still follow this ritual that how do you call it the night watch you know that somebody has to stay awake by the coffin okay what happened is that the father was tired and fell asleep a little bit and then one of the candles on the coffin turned and it started to burn the cloth covering the coffin and then the standard thing happened you know this wonderful logic of dreams when where when you are sleeping and some sound or external disturbance threaten to disturb your sleep you quickly construct a dream which includes that sound to be able to prolong your sleep I mean even to an idiot like me this happens like a phone rings fuck you you will not awaken me you know I construct a dream where somebody is calling and so on you know but now the the question and Lacan focuses on it the question of course is why then do you awaken why do you nonetheless finally awaken the vulgar explanation is because simply the external intrusion disturbance becomes too strong like if I ring a phone call you you may prolong your sleep but if I come I like to imagine this and kick you and grab your head don’t you see the fucking phone or whatever you like I doubt if you will still be able to integrate this Lacan has a much more elegant reading that you construct the dream to escape from reality I mean to stay to remain sleeping but what you encounter in the dream is something much more horrifying than reality than your it’s precisely the Real of a trauma for example here can you imagine the obviously the logic was like this the son probably died of some terrifying fever for which father felt guilty who knows what other traumas were so father constructs the dream of the son burning to include into the dream the smell of smoke and so on but then you know what he awakens in this way is a trauma much more terrifying than the reality out there so he awakens as Lacan puts it nicely the father awakens to be able to really continue to dream to avoid the real trauma which is precisely confronting the death of his son and you know this is what I’m aiming at with that final scene from Eyes Wide Shut that like the real trauma is in the excess of the dream and even I claim the trick of ideology is often this like you the trick how does an ideology make reality sustainable tolerable so that it constructs a phantasmatic real a horror which is more terrifying than reality itself so that you can endure reality because you experience it as a and here Big Other is always here in what sense let me give you another maybe you know it but it’s crucial I think extra dramatic case but don’t be afraid this is real tragedy now I’m not bullshitting with bad taste jokes from Primo Levi it’s from his I think it’s in the first one Se questo un uomo (If This Is a Man). He reports how he had again and again the same dream up there in that tourist hot place Auschwitz or whatever where he was on a long holiday for three years no that he had a dream there and then he thought this is his peculiar weird dream but then he discovered that most of the inmates prisoners others had the same or at least a similar dream namely a dream goes like this I’m telling you this because you have exactly the same structure of dreaming and then dreams the dream becomes so traumatic that you awaken into reality the dream is this one he was dreaming to he was dreaming that the war is it appeared at the beginning as a happy dream no he the war was over he returned home and the dream starts with this wonderful that’s all you are dreaming about in a camp or what of course you are sitting behind the kitchen table with your family you had a wonderful dinner with them you talk and then horror begins you start to tell them in the dream how how was what was life in the camp how horrible it was and then you know first the child then the grandmother they get bored blah blah and you remain alone and this idea that you have no one to receive your message is so horrible that you escape into reality you awaken in Auschwitz you know and let me give you another confirmation of this dream I spoke you know when we had that terrible war civil war ex-Yugoslavia early nineties I spoke with some doctors because many refugees from Bosnia came to Slovenia and they all told me a similar thing take this horrible case let’s say but Serbs were not the only bad guys let’s say Serbs raping Bosnian girl the usual story was that they survive if they were lucky enough to survive but there were no suicides rarely or breakdowns there they survived with this typical economy of you know I must survive to tell the story to bear witness no what then happened is that they didn’t find the big Other to whom to tell the story you know it’s all this disgusting male chauvinism jokes oh are you sure you didn’t enjoy it a little bit or you know all the vulgarities or people weren’t and it’s then that suicides or breakdowns happen not the rape itself but when and this is the true tragedy of what Lacan means by the big Other doesn’t exist when you get it that you are alone with your suffering that there is no big Other who will yes this happens a lot with the soldiers that are coming back from the war and having PTSD I can I can guess this also yeah yeah yeah post-traumatic stress syndrome where they feel very isolated from yeah but it’s not I agree with you because one has to be precise here it’s not just this primitive psychological isolation it’s isolation in this much more radical sense you know like we cannot survive without having some figure of the Other which is our not symbolic authority in any authoritarian sense but just the space where we can deposit our message as it were you know as we usually tell when you are screwed up tell it and tell the story even if it’s a false one and then you know this is for example you know what Goethe did with his boring novel I don’t get it Werther he was terribly in love like that but he wrote the story where he or Werther kills himself and then he said okay I deposited my pain there now I can go on enjoy life no so again this complexity this complexity is is crucial here but I’m a sinner but I promise even if I die you will get your fucking Buddhism tomorrow morning okay you know but now let’s yes I will now nonetheless guys slaves get slowly ready you have to minutes okay for the clips namely so the message of all this is how the way we experience reality it’s always within a fantasy frame and so on and so on and again I always like to use this here I didn’t yet this time very vulgar metaphor with what I mean by this let’s say I were now to take a knife pick out one of my eyes and eat it I claim that for a brief moment at least you would have a brief experience of what they call Realitätsverlust (loss of reality) like is this really happening you know it’s too strong to be directly situated but let me give you maybe this means I’m a coward an example from real life I
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remember when I did in military
remember when I did in military
Slavoj Žižek
service I did it pretty well afterwards and you would never have guessed it because people said oh you crazy soft philosopher haha I got a medal for model soldier and so on no no I’m a fascist privately there has to be order shooting no problem but nonetheless it was so traumatic for me that I strictly remember how I was able to survive it at least the first months in totally compartmentalizing how should I put it my experience I accepted at the time in the army and that that’s my world and simply private life remained a kind of a vague I mean sorry civil life outside a kind of a vague memory not part of you know I related to it as some kind of a vague dream fiction it was not my reality and I remember how quickly how quick the shift was like once I got a short holiday I returned home my barracks were like kilometers from Ljubljana so I had to take a bus and on that bus already I erased the army I almost didn’t remember it you know how and here you can see the here you can see the power of fantasy how and that’s what Lacan means also with non-all how what really happens out there we cannot ever fully include it into what we experience as reality back to September 11th their reality of New Yorkers and so on was there even if it’s crime in New York a relatively prosperous safe lives and they fictionalized horror Afghanistan Somalia whatever in the same way I and then which is why now comes the point you will get it I think what happened with September 11th bombing it’s not that they lived in an illusory world and reality intruded exactly the opposite it was what they experienced as dream fiction that intruded into their reality what had for them the status of you know fiction in the libidinal sense that of course rationally they know people are really dying in Afghanistan but it’s on the screen you know it’s different reality and that would be the psychoanalytic notion of reality you cannot put it all on the same level you know you have a reality but some things too strong or whatever have to be excluded experienced as fiction or or whatever in this sense reality is always inconsistent you need reality and then gaps in the reality which are filled in by fiction so now haha after three let’s go to the movies the first one because what I want to show in this movies remember I began with a I began with this gap between sorry this how how to move between these two opposites on the one hand this simple heroic transparency Nazis whoever you want they are bad guys it’s a just war no problem on the other hand this rather superficial I claim pacifism oh you know every killing is killing blah blah the truly difficult thing is to have it both ways to be aware okay it’s a brutal war we are right for example if we fight I don’t know Hitler or whatever the most no so no doubt there no like the message is nonetheless within this total identification with your cause which is the just cause nonetheless you leave the space open for uncertainty you know in the sense of you have to be able to gain a minimal distance towards the narrative frame which is why I will show you simply one after the other from a wonderful relatively wonderful I think French film from I think it’s or by Jean-Pierre Melville L’Armée des ombres (The Army in the Shadows) which is the story of a group of French resistance people and it’s precisely how it never puts in doubt the justice but nonetheless for example two shots the first shot will be I think very well done pretty dramatic its simple narrative background the resistance group establishes that one of them is a traitor a young guy so they take him to a long house to kill him there then they discover that this house is not empty that there is someone so they cannot shoot him so they have to strangle him and there is no doubt that they have to do it but it shows so nicely their absolute trauma embarrassment you know how to you know the disgust of it and again what I like is that it’s not this nihilist pacifist disgust oh horror war no they had to do it no question but it’s very important that you remain aware of the horror you are doing and at the end it’s even a better scene one of them played by the wife of of Yves Montand Simone Signoret she plays a mature woman who is part of this group and Germans catch her and they leave her they set her free and the resistance learns why they were able to identify her because violating the rules but this is not bad thing because she was so linked to it she had a photo of her daughter who was in her late teens always with her so in this way the Germans identified her arrested the daughter and gave her a clear choice you know you spy for us you tell us resistance contacts or your daughter goes to the eastern front to work in brothels whorehouses for German soldiers till she will die there being raped to death whatever so what’s the idea then you will see the scene of resistance meeting and debating what to do and then enters somebody who in the movie is called Luc Jardie and who is for me in real life one of the mega heroic images Badiou is in love with him all the time the real model for that guy the boss of resistance is Jean Cavaillès he’s a philosopher who was philosopher of mathematics and so on pure but at the same time absolutely heroic resistance fighter the Germans it’s well-known episode in caught him tortured him to death the only thing name he named was his own name you know and this guy said we must kill her she is asking us to kill her and then he the guy gives a clear explanation why you will see that she was in a difficult predicament either she betrays them she doesn’t want to or she loses the daughter now the obvious solution would have been suicide but ah Germans as you learn before in the film made it clear that if she kills this would be the easy way out no if she kills herself the daughter still retains her ticket to Moscow train how should we put it so she gets it that she must die but it must not be suicide so that they will not blame the daughter so she tells the Germans that that they need to set her free because the resistance is moving their addresses all the time she had to reestablish contact to be able to inform the Germans blah blah they leave her they let her free and the philosopher reads this as you see she is asking us to kill her as the only way to achieve at least even if she loses life two things not to die I mean sorry her daughter to survive but at the same time not to betray but then it’s a wonderful detail when people the group decides this two remain played by Lino Ventura the main hero of the film and this philosopher and Lino the guy played by Lino Ventura the hero of the film asks the philosopher but are you quite sure that this is true and the philosopher said no it’s just a hypothesis you know like how you have to I like this radical logic you know you have to act you have to decide there is no easy way out but even if you have to do horrible things this is for me the true ethics not to escape oh I don’t kill it’s horrible no fuck it there are situations where effectively not killing I can well imagine a situation of a rapist blah blah or a criminal killing where I can imagine very easily a situation where when you are not ready to kill someone is an act of betrayal in the sense of you know causing many more deaths but this would be my ethics you are fanatically dedicated to the cause but you are aware of the horror so let’s have these two clips please let’s and pray to God if you are religious that it will work I always can you make it a little bit larger no ah okay okay got it even and sound sound ah yeah okay I’m sorry obviously there is something wrong with the DVD you know there were a couple of she didn’t try to run away though sorry she didn’t try to run away or anything she just stood there yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah no that’s the whole point the ethics of it because the guy I like this honesty the philosopher she wanted to be there for her to see him like assuming the act not oh sorry oh she ran away it’s just the guy caught her you know no again I’m not saying this is ah we can go on don’t even bother with the lights prepare the next one my god one cannot even rely on slaves today they obviously have seen
service I did it pretty well afterwards and you would never have guessed it because people said oh you crazy soft philosopher haha I got a medal for model soldier and so on no no I’m a fascist privately there has to be order shooting no problem but nonetheless it was so traumatic for me that I strictly remember how I was able to survive it at least the first months in totally compartmentalizing how should I put it my experience I accepted at the time in the army and that that’s my world and simply private life remained a kind of a vague I mean sorry civil life outside a kind of a vague memory not part of you know I related to it as some kind of a vague dream fiction it was not my reality and I remember how quickly how quick the shift was like once I got a short holiday I returned home my barracks were like kilometers from Ljubljana so I had to take a bus and on that bus already I erased the army I almost didn’t remember it you know how and here you can see the here you can see the power of fantasy how and that’s what Lacan means also with non-all how what really happens out there we cannot ever fully include it into what we experience as reality back to September 11th their reality of New Yorkers and so on was there even if it’s crime in New York a relatively prosperous safe lives and they fictionalized horror Afghanistan Somalia whatever in the same way I and then which is why now comes the point you will get it I think what happened with September 11th bombing it’s not that they lived in an illusory world and reality intruded exactly the opposite it was what they experienced as dream fiction that intruded into their reality what had for them the status of you know fiction in the libidinal sense that of course rationally they know people are really dying in Afghanistan but it’s on the screen you know it’s different reality and that would be the psychoanalytic notion of reality you cannot put it all on the same level you know you have a reality but some things too strong or whatever have to be excluded experienced as fiction or or whatever in this sense reality is always inconsistent you need reality and then gaps in the reality which are filled in by fiction so now haha after three let’s go to the movies the first one because what I want to show in this movies remember I began with a I began with this gap between sorry this how how to move between these two opposites on the one hand this simple heroic transparency Nazis whoever you want they are bad guys it’s a just war no problem on the other hand this rather superficial I claim pacifism oh you know every killing is killing blah blah the truly difficult thing is to have it both ways to be aware okay it’s a brutal war we are right for example if we fight I don’t know Hitler or whatever the most no so no doubt there no like the message is nonetheless within this total identification with your cause which is the just cause nonetheless you leave the space open for uncertainty you know in the sense of you have to be able to gain a minimal distance towards the narrative frame which is why I will show you simply one after the other from a wonderful relatively wonderful I think French film from I think it’s or by Jean-Pierre Melville L’Armée des ombres (The Army in the Shadows) which is the story of a group of French resistance people and it’s precisely how it never puts in doubt the justice but nonetheless for example two shots the first shot will be I think very well done pretty dramatic its simple narrative background the resistance group establishes that one of them is a traitor a young guy so they take him to a long house to kill him there then they discover that this house is not empty that there is someone so they cannot shoot him so they have to strangle him and there is no doubt that they have to do it but it shows so nicely their absolute trauma embarrassment you know how to you know the disgust of it and again what I like is that it’s not this nihilist pacifist disgust oh horror war no they had to do it no question but it’s very important that you remain aware of the horror you are doing and at the end it’s even a better scene one of them played by the wife of of Yves Montand Simone Signoret she plays a mature woman who is part of this group and Germans catch her and they leave her they set her free and the resistance learns why they were able to identify her because violating the rules but this is not bad thing because she was so linked to it she had a photo of her daughter who was in her late teens always with her so in this way the Germans identified her arrested the daughter and gave her a clear choice you know you spy for us you tell us resistance contacts or your daughter goes to the eastern front to work in brothels whorehouses for German soldiers till she will die there being raped to death whatever so what’s the idea then you will see the scene of resistance meeting and debating what to do and then enters somebody who in the movie is called Luc Jardie and who is for me in real life one of the mega heroic images Badiou is in love with him all the time the real model for that guy the boss of resistance is Jean Cavaillès he’s a philosopher who was philosopher of mathematics and so on pure but at the same time absolutely heroic resistance fighter the Germans it’s well-known episode in caught him tortured him to death the only thing name he named was his own name you know and this guy said we must kill her she is asking us to kill her and then he the guy gives a clear explanation why you will see that she was in a difficult predicament either she betrays them she doesn’t want to or she loses the daughter now the obvious solution would have been suicide but ah Germans as you learn before in the film made it clear that if she kills this would be the easy way out no if she kills herself the daughter still retains her ticket to Moscow train how should we put it so she gets it that she must die but it must not be suicide so that they will not blame the daughter so she tells the Germans that that they need to set her free because the resistance is moving their addresses all the time she had to reestablish contact to be able to inform the Germans blah blah they leave her they let her free and the philosopher reads this as you see she is asking us to kill her as the only way to achieve at least even if she loses life two things not to die I mean sorry her daughter to survive but at the same time not to betray but then it’s a wonderful detail when people the group decides this two remain played by Lino Ventura the main hero of the film and this philosopher and Lino the guy played by Lino Ventura the hero of the film asks the philosopher but are you quite sure that this is true and the philosopher said no it’s just a hypothesis you know like how you have to I like this radical logic you know you have to act you have to decide there is no easy way out but even if you have to do horrible things this is for me the true ethics not to escape oh I don’t kill it’s horrible no fuck it there are situations where effectively not killing I can well imagine a situation of a rapist blah blah or a criminal killing where I can imagine very easily a situation where when you are not ready to kill someone is an act of betrayal in the sense of you know causing many more deaths but this would be my ethics you are fanatically dedicated to the cause but you are aware of the horror so let’s have these two clips please let’s and pray to God if you are religious that it will work I always can you make it a little bit larger no ah okay okay got it even and sound sound ah yeah okay I’m sorry obviously there is something wrong with the DVD you know there were a couple of she didn’t try to run away though sorry she didn’t try to run away or anything she just stood there yeah yeah yeah absolutely yeah yeah no that’s the whole point the ethics of it because the guy I like this honesty the philosopher she wanted to be there for her to see him like assuming the act not oh sorry oh she ran away it’s just the guy caught her you know no again I’m not saying this is ah we can go on don’t even bother with the lights prepare the next one my god one cannot even rely on slaves today they obviously have seen
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too sorry they don’t make them like they used they don’t yeah yeah yeah the best yeah yeah you should do oh let’s not get lost in this madness you know sorry what I wanted to say is that again I’m not saying this is a mega great movie or whatever but I really don’t remember anywhere finding in such a clear way the authentic ethical position because you have ways to make the opposition between good guys and bad guys softer you know like you have in some movies I don’t know the good German who is not the killer or blah blah but this is not the same here nobody says that the young boy was not a traitor blah blah and I think do I remember it correctly I think that it’s my fault a bad DVD I think that there also there was another jump it’s very nice just before they strangle him Lino Ventura the guy Gerbier or the guy tells him don’t worry you will not suffer we will try to kill you and so on so again the ethical coordinates are the same absolute you know what I mean but you assume the disgust the horror of what you are doing yes how would you articulate though that ethical subject’s relation to certainty to the the subject’s relation to certainty certainty this is this is the Lacanian move it shows very well how no certainty if you wait for sorry yeah if you wait for certainty it never arrives you must always the decision is always precipitation you have to make a move you know this is I’m so sad we cannot go into this because Alain Badiou incidentally Alain likes this movie because it makes this is what Alain sorry sorry it’s incredible how today I read even in an analysis it’s so identified with hardcore porn that to see a woman dressed up as a nurse nobody has an association with hospital you know everybody thinks this is porn so why don’t you ladies here who are nice come here to make it lively dressed as nurses here would be much nicer sorry I cannot resist tastelessness as you have got it no but what I mean is that you know this is what Badiou aims at when he says yes decision act but he uses this French term forcée forçage you know don’t enforce the real maintain that gap she he even used I tend to agree with him one wouldn’t expect it from him the term
too sorry they don’t make them like they used they don’t yeah yeah yeah the best yeah yeah you should do oh let’s not get lost in this madness you know sorry what I wanted to say is that again I’m not saying this is a mega great movie or whatever but I really don’t remember anywhere finding in such a clear way the authentic ethical position because you have ways to make the opposition between good guys and bad guys softer you know like you have in some movies I don’t know the good German who is not the killer or blah blah but this is not the same here nobody says that the young boy was not a traitor blah blah and I think do I remember it correctly I think that it’s my fault a bad DVD I think that there also there was another jump it’s very nice just before they strangle him Lino Ventura the guy Gerbier or the guy tells him don’t worry you will not suffer we will try to kill you and so on so again the ethical coordinates are the same absolute you know what I mean but you assume the disgust the horror of what you are doing yes how would you articulate though that ethical subject’s relation to certainty to the the subject’s relation to certainty certainty this is this is the Lacanian move it shows very well how no certainty if you wait for sorry yeah if you wait for certainty it never arrives you must always the decision is always precipitation you have to make a move you know this is I’m so sad we cannot go into this because Alain Badiou incidentally Alain likes this movie because it makes this is what Alain sorry sorry it’s incredible how today I read even in an analysis it’s so identified with hardcore porn that to see a woman dressed up as a nurse nobody has an association with hospital you know everybody thinks this is porn so why don’t you ladies here who are nice come here to make it lively dressed as nurses here would be much nicer sorry I cannot resist tastelessness as you have got it no but what I mean is that you know this is what Badiou aims at when he says yes decision act but he uses this French term forcée forçage you know don’t enforce the real maintain that gap she he even used I tend to agree with him one wouldn’t expect it from him the term
Slavoj Žižek
totalitarianism you know
totalitarianism you know
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that in totalitarianism this gap disappears like in a totalitarian movie the first murder would have been shot probably they would show the traitor as sleazy evil guy why you know like the situation would be totally totally transparent but again I hope you got my point I’m sorry I repeat it for the third time my point is that it’s that the ethical coordinates are no less absolute that’s my point the message of film is not we humans are fighting our struggles but it’s all relative you know like kind of a relative no the ethical coordinates remain they are absolutely right to do what they do and so on and I’m sad that I don’t have time because precisely this is what I also wanted to do to go into this logic of precipitation where even Alain Badiou refers to Lacan his seminar on
that in totalitarianism this gap disappears like in a totalitarian movie the first murder would have been shot probably they would show the traitor as sleazy evil guy why you know like the situation would be totally totally transparent but again I hope you got my point I’m sorry I repeat it for the third time my point is that it’s that the ethical coordinates are no less absolute that’s my point the message of film is not we humans are fighting our struggles but it’s all relative you know like kind of a relative no the ethical coordinates remain they are absolutely right to do what they do and so on and I’m sad that I don’t have time because precisely this is what I also wanted to do to go into this logic of precipitation where even Alain Badiou refers to Lacan his seminar on
Slavoj Žižek
psychoanalytic act the idea is a very nice paradox is that every act is at the same time too late and too early there is no proper time if you wait for the proper moment by definition it never arrives you know whom I quote here long ago but now I will go in my next book more in detail Rosa Luxemburg the one you know who you know freedom is freedom for those who think differently here I have problems I’m a totalitarian I prefer the version freedom is freedom for those who think exactly like me but nonetheless she says something wonderful in her polemics to social democrat against social democrats Bernstein and so on she is she tries to argue against the typical revisionist argument let’s not try the revolution now it’s too early you know let’s wait for the mature circumstances blah blah and she says something simply true she says if you wait for the right moment it will never arrive because you have to begin too early at the wrong moment and through the very failures of these precipitous too-early attempts you become mature enough for the right moment you know and it’s something like in every act of course you wait and you always wait too long so always there is a delay every act every authentic act that’s the paradox it’s at the same time too late in the sense that you are under terrible pressure and you know my god it’s already too late let’s do it but at the same time paradoxically from the standpoint of certainty it’s too early what I wanted to do but we will not is the
psychoanalytic act the idea is a very nice paradox is that every act is at the same time too late and too early there is no proper time if you wait for the proper moment by definition it never arrives you know whom I quote here long ago but now I will go in my next book more in detail Rosa Luxemburg the one you know who you know freedom is freedom for those who think differently here I have problems I’m a totalitarian I prefer the version freedom is freedom for those who think exactly like me but nonetheless she says something wonderful in her polemics to social democrat against social democrats Bernstein and so on she is she tries to argue against the typical revisionist argument let’s not try the revolution now it’s too early you know let’s wait for the mature circumstances blah blah and she says something simply true she says if you wait for the right moment it will never arrive because you have to begin too early at the wrong moment and through the very failures of these precipitous too-early attempts you become mature enough for the right moment you know and it’s something like in every act of course you wait and you always wait too long so always there is a delay every act every authentic act that’s the paradox it’s at the same time too late in the sense that you are under terrible pressure and you know my god it’s already too late let’s do it but at the same time paradoxically from the standpoint of certainty it’s too early what I wanted to do but we will not is the
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do you know
do you know
Slavoj Žižek
that logical paradox exploited by Lacan about three prisoners you know there are three white hats two dark hats and prisoners see only what other what the other two guys what they have and then you know some sadistic chief of prison tells them the first one who guesses from looking at the other two what color is his hat he will be free the problem is prisoners no there are two dark and one sorry three white and two black hats and it’s clear what Lacan is aiming at like if I see two black hats I immediately know of course since there are only two one but if I see one black and one white then I can also quickly arrive at the result you know I say okay if I were to have also black hat one of those two would immediately guess that I have a that he has the white hat so I must also have the white hat the problem is what happens if I see two white hats and okay you can easily but precisely through a certain logic of delay it’s a very simple exercise not so simple I think and now I will tell you a secret in a chapter that I’m finishing now I did something so disgusting that I know I will provoke critics to say oh my god it’s so disgusting I retell this story but I just change conditions a little bit think really dirty and you will imagine it that it’s a my god it’s so disgusting it’s a feminine prison and the boss of the prison gathers three ladies and tell them you will be around the table leaning forward and I have here three white guys and two black guys and you will be each fucked from behind and you will see only which color of a guy is fucking the other two and the one who guesses first oh I’m fucked by white or black I cannot even imagine but I like to provoke what will come okay going back to pornography the what I want to finish with is maybe some of you already know it is don’t be afraid it will be hardcore but maybe you will not even see one of absolutely most depressing films that I’ve ever watched it’s a movie about hardcore but the director some Siboni I don’t know which I got this from my friends at Cahiers du Cinéma did this he approached a director of hardcore movies and tells him can I do something shoot you while you are shooting movies but you know from a little bit of distance you know just you like you see how the poor girls prepare themselves are bored and just that’s what I’m saying the effect is almost the same as I think I already improvised it here to some of you like how here you see the power of fantasy in sex you know like you make love but if the phantasmatic support of sex is lost all of a sudden you can have this stupid feeling I hope it didn’t happen too often to you to me it did like what am I doing this making this stupid gesture you kind of a like you know you experience and everything is lost you know and here it bombards you it’s just the importance of frame okay let’s have to finish just a little bit of this let’s see I even didn’t know where we were but can you maybe jump just a little bit because I want to see some real action no stay there just jump then yeah yeah yeah look look look look look how nothing is happening even just okay let’s stop nonetheless you got the idea no you know and although my idea is that this is just sex that with true love it would still work maybe I’m wrong okay fuck it that’s life for today tomorrow we will do some more movies but I wanted to do at least some the guy must be a Lacanian because the title of the film now when it was released Il
that logical paradox exploited by Lacan about three prisoners you know there are three white hats two dark hats and prisoners see only what other what the other two guys what they have and then you know some sadistic chief of prison tells them the first one who guesses from looking at the other two what color is his hat he will be free the problem is prisoners no there are two dark and one sorry three white and two black hats and it’s clear what Lacan is aiming at like if I see two black hats I immediately know of course since there are only two one but if I see one black and one white then I can also quickly arrive at the result you know I say okay if I were to have also black hat one of those two would immediately guess that I have a that he has the white hat so I must also have the white hat the problem is what happens if I see two white hats and okay you can easily but precisely through a certain logic of delay it’s a very simple exercise not so simple I think and now I will tell you a secret in a chapter that I’m finishing now I did something so disgusting that I know I will provoke critics to say oh my god it’s so disgusting I retell this story but I just change conditions a little bit think really dirty and you will imagine it that it’s a my god it’s so disgusting it’s a feminine prison and the boss of the prison gathers three ladies and tell them you will be around the table leaning forward and I have here three white guys and two black guys and you will be each fucked from behind and you will see only which color of a guy is fucking the other two and the one who guesses first oh I’m fucked by white or black I cannot even imagine but I like to provoke what will come okay going back to pornography the what I want to finish with is maybe some of you already know it is don’t be afraid it will be hardcore but maybe you will not even see one of absolutely most depressing films that I’ve ever watched it’s a movie about hardcore but the director some Siboni I don’t know which I got this from my friends at Cahiers du Cinéma did this he approached a director of hardcore movies and tells him can I do something shoot you while you are shooting movies but you know from a little bit of distance you know just you like you see how the poor girls prepare themselves are bored and just that’s what I’m saying the effect is almost the same as I think I already improvised it here to some of you like how here you see the power of fantasy in sex you know like you make love but if the phantasmatic support of sex is lost all of a sudden you can have this stupid feeling I hope it didn’t happen too often to you to me it did like what am I doing this making this stupid gesture you kind of a like you know you experience and everything is lost you know and here it bombards you it’s just the importance of frame okay let’s have to finish just a little bit of this let’s see I even didn’t know where we were but can you maybe jump just a little bit because I want to see some real action no stay there just jump then yeah yeah yeah look look look look look how nothing is happening even just okay let’s stop nonetheless you got the idea no you know and although my idea is that this is just sex that with true love it would still work maybe I’m wrong okay fuck it that’s life for today tomorrow we will do some more movies but I wanted to do at least some the guy must be a Lacanian because the title of the film now when it was released Il
unknown
n’y a pas de
n’y a pas de
Slavoj Žižek
rapport sexuel yeah yeah yeah there is no sexual relationship yeah.
rapport sexuel yeah yeah yeah there is no sexual relationship yeah.