The Ideology of Neo-Stalinist Architecture
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
undated · 0:43:31 · 5,966 words
ideologycommunism-socialismcapitalismgeopolitics-warrace-antisemitismliberalism-political-correctnessrevolution-violencephilosophy-generalcinema-art-culturedemocracy
Žižek delivers a wide-ranging lecture touching on ideology, the Israel-Palestine conflict, immigration, the limits of basic income as a leftist program, and a sustained critique of Alain Badiou's philosophy of subtraction. He argues that ideology operates by suppressing the 'thick background noise' that gives statements their concrete meaning, illustrates this through the Toronto Film Festival boycott controversy and his debate with Bernard-Henri Lévy, and closes by defending the necessity of a global theory of contemporary capitalism against Badiou's turn toward local punctual interventions and necessary illusion.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 14
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek uses 'parallax' as the conceptual starting point for examining how ideology functions, the same object or statement shifts meaning depending on the positional background from which it is viewed.
Ideology is the forgetting or obliteration of the thick situational background that provides the actual meaning of an utterance in its concrete context.
A tendency in contemporary Russian architecture and painting that Žižek identifies as an ideological aesthetic formation worth analyzing.
Badiou's political strategy of withdrawal from state power and local punctual intervention rather than global confrontation, Žižek rejects this as an evasion of the need for a theory of contemporary capitalism.
as “thick background noise”
The concrete situational context that gives a statement its actual ideological meaning; ideology works by obliterating this background so utterances appear as neutral, universal claims.
Žižek invokes Kripke's notion to describe how 'mullah' functions as a rigid designator in Iranian popular humor, the label fixes a stereotyped identity (gay, corrupt) across possible worlds.
The self-presentation of Jerusalem as a cultural oasis amid regional conflict, Žižek identifies this as the ideology of Israeli colonialism, obscuring the occupation by projecting an image of cosmopolitan neutrality.
Implied in Žižek's critique of anti-Semitic displacement: the Marxist point that when Hitler said 'the Jew' he meant a metonymic displacement of capital, but this real abstraction does not excuse or soften the concrete violence.
Philippe Van Parijs's proposal for a universal citizen's income regardless of work, Žižek takes it seriously as the only coherent global leftist economic model but criticizes it for reviving nation-state logic and placing workers in a 'sandwich' of exploitation from above and below.
Badiou's Kantian notion that political engagement requires a symbolic narrative or fiction (such as 'the idea of communism') to make the real of ethical commitment meaningful, Žižek considers this too close to Lyotard's postmodernism.
For Badiou (as presented critically by Žižek), the evanescent ethical commitment to equality that must be embedded in an imaginary symbolic narrative to be sustained.
as “dialectical materialism without historical materialism”
Žižek's characterization of Badiou's position: accepting a logic of the real (dialectical materialism) while rejecting any global narrative of historical development (historical materialism), leaving only local fictional supplements.
Badiou's poetic label for the third mode of defeat, the self-destructive violence of movements (Thermidor, Pol Pot, the Cultural Revolution) that try to remain pure and end up destroying themselves.
The stage of capitalism in which cultural production is no longer superstructure but part of the base, so that ideological-artistic battles are fought at the level of economic production itself.
Stories he reaches for 4
Žižek recalls being close to power in Slovenia for half a year, during which period almost ten people tried to kill themselves, illustrating that intellectuals in power tend to be far harsher than corrupted pragmatic politicians.
“when we intellectuals come close to power we are usually the hardliners. That's my experience. And we are much worse than corrupted pragmatic politicians.”
Badiou identifies three ways to lose: direct crushing by the enemy; winning but becoming the new power structure (Stalinism, social democracy); and remaining pure while descending into self-destructive violence (Thermidor, Pol Pot, Cultural Revolution). His conclusion is that all three stem from daring to take power.
“The first way is a direct defeat you are simply crushed by the enemy. The second way is to lose in the victory itself... The next one is the radical one... sacrificial temptation of the void.”
Žižek cites Orwell's observation from the late 1930s that the left's demand for radical change often functions as a superstitious gesture precisely to ensure that real change does not occur.
“when they demand radical change they do it as some kind of a superstitious gesture just to make it sure that there really will not be a change.”
Žižek and Bernard-Henri Lévy each made their respective cases, Lévy for liberal tolerance, Žižek for communism, in such abstract terms that both positions became indistinguishable; Lévy even said 'if this is communism, I am a communist,' proving both were deep in ideology.
“even he said, okay, with a little bit of irony but nonetheless, "Oh, if this is communism then I am a communist," no.”
Works invoked 8
The Parallax View book
Žižek's own book, named as the conceptual starting point for the lecture's analysis of ideology.
Empire book
Represents the 'Negri gang's' post-national thesis which Žižek criticizes for being internally contradicted by their support of basic income.
Hero film
Mentioned as context for Zhang Yimou's stature before noting his capitulation to the Chinese state establishment.
Forgiveness film
Žižek attended the Jerusalem Film Festival specifically to support this film by his friend Udi Aloni.
Borat film
Used as an example of how liberal-tolerance humor abandons its universality when Zionist interests are at stake.
Cited as the source where Badiou directly develops his notion of subtraction; not yet translated at the time of the talk.
Time magazine journal
Cited as the source for the story about Zhang Yimou's Mao epic and the rewriting of Chinese revolutionary history.
New York Review of Books journal
Mentioned as the venue where Udi Aloni's open letter to the Toronto Film Festival appeared.
People invoked 18
Glenn Beck positive
Used as an unexpected example: despite being 'that idiot,' Beck's comic pivot to sincere direct appeal illustrates Žižek's point about the true function of comedy.
Udi Aloni positive
Žižek calls Aloni a good Jewish friend he admires for walking the narrow path on Israel-Palestine; he attended Jerusalem to support Aloni's film Forgiveness and co-signed the Toronto festival letter.
Paul Krugman positive
Praised for honesty in explicitly advocating a return to Keynes; Žižek agrees in the short term but doubts Keynesianism works long-term.
Philippe Van Parijs positive
Credited as the inventor of basic income; Žižek takes the proposal seriously as the only coherent global leftist model currently available.
Deng Xiaoping negative
Implicitly criticized via the Zhang Yimou film that rewrites Mao's legacy to legitimize Deng's capitalist turn.
Joseph E. Stiglitz positive
Listed alongside Krugman as part of the moderate left whose critique of capitalism has validity, though Žižek does not elaborate.
Žižek criticizes the Borat persona for abandoning its universal mockery when Zionist interests are at stake, revealing liberal-tolerance humor as selective.
Saul Kripke positive
Invoked via the concept of the rigid designator to describe how 'mullah' functions as a fixed stereotype in Iranian popular humor.
Antonio Negri negative
Žižek targets the 'Negri gang's' internal contradiction: their post-national, anti-state Empire thesis sits uneasily with their championing of basic income, which requires exactly the state and citizenship they claim are passé.
Alain Badiou negative
Žižek engages Badiou at length as a friend and intellectual interlocutor he nonetheless fundamentally disagrees with; he rejects Badiou's subtraction thesis, necessary illusion, three-modes-of-defeat argument, and the resulting advocacy for a cult of personality.
Bernard-Henri Lévy negative
Žižek recounts their NYPL debate as a mutual exercise in ideology, both spoke in such abstract terms that their positions collapsed into each other; Lévy represents the hardline liberal anti-communist stance Žižek opposes.
George Orwell positive
Žižek quotes Orwell's late-1930s essays approvingly: the observation that leftist demands for radical change function as superstitious gestures ensuring no real change occurs.
Fredric Jameson positive
Cited approvingly for the concept of cultural capitalism, the analysis that cultural production is now part of the base rather than the superstructure.
Bertolt Brecht positive
Cited for the poem about poetry of nature being a sin in dark times, applied to the obscenity of Jerusalem cultural events ignoring the nearby occupation wall.
Zhang Yimou negative
Described as having 'totally sold to the establishment' by directing a Stalinist-style epic that rewrites Mao's revolution to retroactively justify Deng Xiaoping's capitalist turn.
Mao Zedong positive
Žižek sides with Mao's slogan 'dare to win' against Badiou's reinterpretation; also mocked via Zhang Yimou's film for being retroactively rewritten as proto-capitalist.
Gérard Pommier negative
Žižek acknowledges a 'moment of truth' in Pommier's description of capitalism but attacks his opposition of bureaucracy to market as stupid, arguing contemporary capitalism requires extensive state intervention.
Michael Hardt negative
Named alongside Negri as part of the Empire/Multitude intellectual current Žižek criticizes for inconsistency on the state question.
What it argues
ideology as suppression of concrete background contextcritique of Badiou's subtraction and necessary illusionIsrael-Palestine and the double trap of false equivalencebasic income and contradictions within the Negri/Multitude frameworkthe left's reluctance to truly dare to wincultural capitalism and the role of art in political struggleimmigration as a spontaneous working-class reaction rather than imperialist plot
Dialectical moves 7
“This very presentation of Jerusalem as an island of sanity IS the ideology of colonialism of the state of Israel.”
What presents itself as neutral cultural cosmopolitanism is in fact the ideological cover for settler colonialism, the benign form is the ideology, not a mask over it.
“Ideology is precisely the obliteration of the thick background noise which provides the actual meaning in a concrete situation of what you are saying.”
Ideology is not false content but the erasure of contextual specificity that makes utterances appear universally valid.
“To win means to lose in an even more radical way — Badiou's inversion of Mao's 'dare to win'.”
Badiou turns the revolutionary imperative into its opposite, making the avoidance of power the new political virtue; Žižek rejects this as defeat dressed as wisdom.
“Liberalizing immigration is in the interest of the ruling class — it is the ruling class, not the left, that benefits from open borders.”
Anti-immigrant sentiment among workers is a spontaneous class reaction, not a ruling-class plot; the actual ruling-class interest runs in the opposite direction.
“Badiou wants dialectical materialism without historical materialism — the opposite of Western Marxism's move.”
Western Marxists dropped dialectical materialism but kept historical materialism; Badiou drops historical materialism but keeps a logic of the real, ending up with punctual interventions that need fictional supplements.
“When we intellectuals come close to power we are usually the hardliners — much worse than corrupted pragmatic politicians.”
The stereotype of soft intellectuals who cannot bear power inverts reality: intellectual proximity to power historically produces extreme ruthlessness, not hesitancy.
“The only global leftist model — basic income — requires the state and citizenship it claims to have superseded.”
The Negri camp celebrates basic income while simultaneously declaring the nation-state obsolete, revealing an internal contradiction at the heart of post-national leftism.
Claims 13
asserts
Ideology operates by suppressing the thick background noise — the concrete situational context — that gives any statement its actual meaning.ideology
asserts
Presenting Jerusalem as an island of cultural sanity is itself the ideology of Israeli colonialism.Israel-Palestine conflict / ideology
rejects
A blanket boycott of Israel risks sliding into antisemitism, especially in Europe, and Žižek opposes it even while criticizing Israeli state policy.cultural boycott of Israel
asserts
Anti-immigrant racism is largely a spontaneous lower-class reaction, not an imperialist plot, and the left must be willing to say this.immigration and working-class politics
rejects
Today's postmodern capitalism needs more state intervention and regulation than ever, not less — the opposition between market and bureaucracy is false.neoliberal anti-statism / Gérard Pommier's framing
reframes
Basic income is the only coherent global leftist economic proposal currently on the table, but it contradicts the Negri camp's own anti-statist, post-national premises.basic income / Negri's Empire thesis
rejects
Badiou's notion of subtraction — withdrawing from power and intervening only locally — is an evasion that cannot replace the need for a global theory of contemporary capitalism.Badiou's philosophy of subtraction
rejects
Badiou's recourse to 'necessary illusion' — a symbolic fiction wrapping the real of political engagement — is a Kantian move too close to Lyotardian postmodern fragmentation.Badiou's concept of necessary illusion
asserts
The real question for the left is not subtraction but daring to win and confront capitalism at the level of cultural production, which is now part of the economic base.left strategy / cultural capitalism
asserts
Many of today's radical leftists do not really want change — their radical demands function as a superstitious gesture ensuring no real change occurs.left politics / authenticity of radical desire
asserts
Liberalizing immigration is in the interest of the ruling class, not the working class — which is why Bush, not a Democrat, pushed the first legalization.immigration policy and class interest
rejects
Badiou's 'dare to be' inversion — that winning means losing in a more radical way — is a counsel of defeat masquerading as theoretical sophistication.Badiou's reinterpretation of Mao's 'dare to win'
asserts
The Borat persona's willingness to mock everything except Zionist interests exposes the falsity of liberal tolerance as an abstract universal.liberal tolerance / free speech / Israel lobby
Quotes 10
“Ideology is precisely such the obliteration of the, let's call it the thick background noise which provides the actual meaning in a concrete situation of what you are saying.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology as erasure of context
“This very presentation of Jerusalem as an island of sanity is the ideology of colonialism of the state of Israel.”Slavoj Žižek · cultural cosmopolitanism as colonial ideology
“He makes fun of Obama, neo-Nazi whatever, but then he says and that black guy who was beaten to death, do we still care for that? That's the true point of comedy I claim.”Slavoj Žižek · comedy as sincere ethical interruption
“when we intellectuals come close to power we are usually the hardliners. That's my experience. And we are much worse than corrupted pragmatic politicians.”Slavoj Žižek · intellectuals in power as extremists
“'Yankee go home, but take me with you, please.'”Slavoj Žižek · gap between anti-imperialist rhetoric and actual desire
“it is in the interest of the ruling class to liberalize immigration. Or to put it in a different way... anti-immigrant racism is... a spontaneous lower class reaction.”Slavoj Žižek · immigration politics inverts left assumptions about class interest
“when they demand radical change they do it as some kind of a superstitious gesture just to make it sure that there really will not be a change.”Slavoj Žižek · the left's pseudo-radical demands as guarantee of inaction
“Badiou wants dialectical materialism without historical materialism.”Slavoj Žižek · Badiou's philosophical position as inversion of Western Marxism
“Cultural production is part of the base today. The battles have to be fought here, not to play this game of subtraction or whatever resistance and so on.”Slavoj Žižek · cultural capitalism requires political engagement not withdrawal
“You know, it's like democracy. You were forced to listen.”Slavoj Žižek · democracy as compelled participation
Transcript 17 turns
Slavoj Žižek
Thank you very much especially to Miguel. I'm really grateful for this occasion to be here. Hope you will not be disappointed. What I want to do is the following: taking as a starting point the concept of Parallax that I elaborated in my book of the same name, I want to begin just with a couple of indications on how ideology functions today. Then, from here, I want to go to two concrete examples: today's Russian contemporary, no, some tendencies in painting and architecture, the so-called Neo-Stalinist Gothic. And then, here in the West, this big so-called Holy Grail of architecture, the performance art venues. If some of you were around a year of more ago when I gave a talk at Jack Tilton's gallery—I'm very glad and honored that he is here—I will not sell the same stuff, I mean there's another twist, don't be afraid. And then, to the end, what are friends for? They're here to be beaten into a pulp. So, very critical finale on Badiou, art and politics. Why I think it doesn't work. I will try to provide a theory of why he is so popular in the United States. I'll attack you directly because the way his notion of subtraction is perceived, not its precisely, no, we subtract, we have our nice life and you don't have to do anything but you are a really subversive and all that stuff, no? Okay, let me be a little bit more serious. Let me begin with another unpleasant event of mine which happened to me and I try to obliterate, repress it, not even fore-close it, whatever, no. The public debate about a year ago, I think, with Bernard-Henri Lévy at New York Public Library. If some of you had misfortune of being there, probably remember two details. One, first how Bernard-Henri Lévy made a pathetic case for liberal tolerance, something along the lines of would you not like to live in a society where you can make fun of the predominant religion without the fear of being killed for it? Where women are free to dress the way they like and choose a man they love and so on and so on. Then I made a similarly pathetic case for Communism along the lines of with the growing food crisis, ecological crisis, uncertainty how to deal with biogenetics and so on, is there not the need to find a new way of collective action which radically differs from market as well as from state administration. The irony of the situation was that when you state your case in these abstract terms, you cannot but agree with both of us. What should I say to him? No, I want to live in a society where women are obliged to cover their faces or what? And what could he say? If you remember that wonderful detail, this is the worst self-post-criticism that I can engage in, even he said, okay, with a little bit of irony but nonetheless, "Oh, if this is communism then I am a communist," no. He, you know, hardline liberal anti-communist proponent of free market and so on and so on. This mutual misunderstanding was the proof that we were both there knee-deep in ideology. Ideology is precisely such the obliteration of the, let's call it the thick background noise which provides the actual meaning in a concrete situation of what you are saying. You know, ideology is to forget that when somebody says, "Oh, I want to live in a society where you can make fun of religion," it's not just a statement in the air. It means something if you say this in Tehran where by the way according to my Iranian friends everybody would agree with you. The basic experience with my Iranian friends is that they make much more fun about their own religion than an average Jew or Christian. Just okay, they don't do it publicly. True. And this is a big difference. But nonetheless, don't please don't take Iranians as some kind of fundamentalist fanatics who never, I don't think there is today—just good to know this, you know, when you read all this stuff about fundamentalism—I don't think there is a country today where there are the whole society is penetrated by this obscene humor so much making fun of, for example, I was told the elementary idea of a mullah, the Islam clergy is that he must be gay and corrupt. Normal. That's almost kind of to refer to Saul Kripke, this rigid designator, no? Possible worlds. Why I'm saying this? Because more than ever this is how ideological battles are fought today. I want to mention an example of a politics which goes on now, by now I mean almost literally now. It started I think a week ago, a friend of mine will answer, my good friend, the Jewish cinema maker Udi Aloni, maybe you saw it in the, I think it's the last issue of how is it called, of New York Review of Books. The two, okay three, I only know two, I'm sorry the third person is not known to me which means nothing. There are, strange as it may sound, there are things in the world that I don't know about. But there are, signed the lately Udi Aloni with some of his friends was involved in organizing a movement sending an open letter to the Toronto Film Festival apropos the fact that the city they were celebrating this year was Tel Aviv. Celebrating it and that was the point, the open city of cultural diversity and so on, anti-racist, solidarity, whatever you want and so on and so on. This call typically was this open letter then triggered the mobilization of the entire Jewish state apparatus. The Jewish general consul for example in LA mobilized Seinfeld, Borat and so on. And it's interesting to learn about the Borat guy, no? That how he can make fun of—you see here you can see already to make a jump back the falsity of this Bernard-Henri Lévy, no? Like, he can make in his Borat movie fun of everything, no? But you know when you have the Zionist interest all of the sudden fun, fun stops there, no? No longer Borat. All of the sudden this is also my reproach incidentally, I'm even tempted to write something about it, about the guy, I think I forgot his first name, I'll know, I mean I when I'm here I watch only one TV station, of course, all normal people do, Fox News, no? My favorite is that idiot, Glenn Beck or what or something. No, Glenn Beck. You know what you see this is what I like about him, how first he does, my god he has worse tics than me, you know, no? Making faces, making fun, shouting, but then at the end it's like Roberto Benigni at his worst. At the end after all the cruel irony he makes a simple point looking into the camera where you are about to cry or to take it seriously, you know. He makes fun of Obama, neo-Nazi whatever, but then he says and that black guy who was beaten to death, do we still care for that? That's the true point of comedy I claim. At that point when he makes a... and so again, along the same lines I would have dealt with the Borat guy. But let me go on. Why I'm telling you this? Immediately I'll come to the point. It's interesting how this call, appeal which had only a very precise point—and both Udi and me already paid the price for it even from the Palestinians, I will tell you immediately how—was totally falsified into a call to totally boycott Israel, even those from Israel who are critical towards the politics of the state of Israel which is again total lie, totally invented and so on. Now I come to my story, I'm just faithful to myself here. A year ago I went to the Israel, to the, sorry, to the Jerusalem Film Festival to help Udi to support his movie Forgiveness and there was, I was attacked by Palestinians, some of them, there was even an open letter about against me circulating on the mail how oh I took the side of Zionists and so on and so on. And then I precisely stated my position. That I was there because I think that in no way first I don't want to boycott Israel because you know I'm coming from Europe, that even if you play all these differences Israel, Jews, it's too close, you know in Europe saying let's boycott the Jews unfortunately means something. Even if you introduce all the qualifications like we mean only the Jews, sorry, no we mean the opposite, we mean only the state of Israel, not the Jews, you play too much with fire. But the reason I only went there as Udi's guest as a private person and I stated it publicly, stated it publicly there, it's precisely now I'm coming to my point of the ideology involved in it. The way the Jerusalem Film Festival was presented was, "You know we live in the most dangerous part of the world, madness, wars, people shooting, but here we try to reconstruct a place of simple culture, an island of sanity in the middle of that madness." No, you will not get out as simple as that. This very presentation of Jerusalem as an island of sanity is the ideology of colonialism of the state of Israel. This is how it works. You present your, and this is what they're doing now, I know it from my Jewish friends all around, they're now dispossessing a large part of East Jerusalem to do what? A big multicultural park where all religions will be represented and so on and so on. So you know what I mean, I don't here to repeat the words of Brecht, you know who said, you know this famous poem by Brecht where he said in what some something like in what sad times do we live when even to speak about nature like celebrating nature in poetry is a sin, I mean because if you talk about this it means you don't talk about social injustice, catastrophes. For the same reason I would say to sit in Jerusalem with the wall less than a mile from you and talk about an island of reason and so on is obscenity. But again at the same point absolutely I'm totally opposed to any kind of boycotting Israel or whatever and so on and so on. It's difficult you know and that's why I admire my friend Udi Aloni. It's very difficult to walk this straight line to avoid all the false temptations, the false blackmails. And this is the point to reject the all my real Jewish friends when they show some sympathy for Palestinians they do it in an truly honorable radical way which means that's the best statement I got from them. No, I shouldn't be too identified to being a Jew, you know one should step out and see the, no no no they say this is our way of being truly faithful to the ethical core of Jewish experience. I'm not sympathetic with Palestinians because somehow renouncing my identity, that's the way to be faithful to myself. That's and this is difficult today to walk this narrow path. Avoiding and I'm the first to admit I will maybe next week when I give that more blah-blah political talk at Cooper Union I will more go into this political aspect of how I don't, how to put it, again and again I see that's why I'm addressing this to you, again and again I see this double trap of how if you criticize Israel you are told but aren't you getting dangerously close to anti-Semitism? If I criticize Palestinians I'm being told but don't you know Zionist will take use of this and so on and then you are one step towards justifying some kind of anti-Semitism, no. In the sense of you know this well-known story when they say Jews they don't really mean Jews they mean the state of Israel, no? Well, fuck it why don't they say it I mean, no? You know because in this way you can justify even Hitler. I mean an elementary Marxist analysis shows you that when Hitler said Jew is our enemy, he really meant a kind of a okay to use the metonymic displacement of capital, no? Okay but you will wait very long you know the illusion of some of today's leftists who think anything against United States is good, so let's support so-called fundamentalist they're anti-imperialist, is the same illusion as if in the early 30s we were to think let's support Hitler because sooner or later he will see that he doesn't really mean Jews but capital. Well you will wait long for that to put it, no? So but you see but what I totally reject is this kind of stance that you will remain a marginal rejected by majority and so on. Let me make it very clear: if this were to become a state policy, let's just open borders, you would have in one month not the imperialist revolution but the frustrated working class revolution. Beware what happened in United States. Do you remember that there are also moments of beautiful solidarity. I remember how I think in Seattle something beautiful happened: immigrant Spaniards and your own trade unions demonstrated together. This was a beautiful moment. But as a counter example, don't forget that it was Bush, not democratic president, who tried to who did the first legalization, you know that rule if you are two years here you get the green card or whatever because to put it in the most primitive terms of class analysis, it is in the interest of the ruling class to liberalize immigration. Or to put it in a different way, you know some leftists usually talk as if anti-immigrant racism is some kind of a imperialist plot out there. No, it's a spontaneous lower class reaction. And this is what is prohibited to say. I said this at a Marxist conference in London and it didn't go too well, no? They desperately tried to evoke some examples and so on of how no but once in East End workers were also demonstrating for for the Pakistani and so on and so on while as you probably know the most exploding in the number of votes party in Britain today is the BNP, British National Party, no? Which strictly a working class party, no? Anti-immigrant and so on and so on. So what I'm saying is that the situation described by Gérard Pommier, there is a moment of truth in it, my god. Capitalism has reinvented itself after with this really terrifying efficient let's call it bombastically postmodern whatever dynamics and sorry to tell you I don't see any serious how to call it immediate at least alternative of the left. I respect them the left who is the moderate left all the Stiglitz, Krugman, they did make one point and of course here is where where our attack should be but now you will see that I'm not a total liberal idiot or whatever I am opposed to this. You know where the description is obviously false? When Gérard Pommier describes opposes in such a stupid way a bureaucracy and market. Wait a minute! Today's postmodern capitalism precisely in its flexibility and dynamics needs more than ever state intervention and state regulation. I mean are we aware that look at all the world celebrated it now United States as the model of how to avoid Europe's mistake clinging to old welfare model blah blah postmodern dynamic capitalism. Yes but the state sorry to tell you what you know better than me the state exploded the strength of the United States and not only anti-terrorist even regulatory and all others. So this is the first way to the first way to complicate things. But nonetheless it's so sad I don't have time to go more into it because the only original idea of the left which as far as I know—I may be wrong apart from returning to Keynes and at least Krugman is honest enough, no? He said basically explicitly in a couple of tests that I read let's return to Keynes—I'm just in short term I tend to agree, I just wonder if it works in the long term. The correct me if I'm wrong but the only global not some specificity of some I don't know what country global model that was seriously presented and it's interesting but I don't think it works I'm sorry I don't have time now to develop would have been I don't know how popular is here in Europe and in Latin America is now extremely popular the so-called basic income model. Note it is already it was invented by Philippe Van Parijs, I hope I pronounce it correctly, a Belgian leftist sociologist economist. It is totally supported by the Negri gang, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and so on and it has many advocates already in the European Union, in South Africa and in Latin American countries. For example it was already legalized passed into a law in Brazil. Okay they said we will now gradually realize it I mean see when how. But the idea is an elementary one. The idea is that our societies are rich enough to provide for every member of society irrespectively of new work or not a basic income. You get it as a citizen. A basic income presenting you to live a modest but still human life. And the argumentation is very nice up to a point even Marxist. The argumentation is that a) it is feasible because the majority of the people will still want more, they will work, but b) precisely because in this way unemployed and so on will be demobilized in the sense of against wild political mobilization, you know, that this is even easier in a way than all these complicated mechanism of welfare support whatever it's something like a leftist counter-proposal to flat tax or whatever no and the calculation works. And there is also one nice motive, you know the big Marxist argument against market which is obviously true, it's that although you and the capitalist are formally equal, like both of us can say to the other "fuck you, I don't like your proposal, how much wage or whatever," but you make the free choice. But how to put it for you as individual worker the choice is much less free because your alternative if you don't accept some offer is you drop dead, you are hungry. But in this way that's a nice point that I like because it takes over the ideological right-wing motive that I mentioned. They say this is the true freedom of choice. With basic income also for the workers the taking a job or not will be a true freedom, freedom to freedom to choose because you are not forced, it's not just a formal freedom where of course you have to work. You really have a chance to say no under these conditions I prefer to live more but. Why am I what I find so ironic in this product is two things. First that it is celebrated by the Negri gang—I don't mean this in a dismissive way—but why? Because if there is a motto of Negri gang it's empire no longer state, the state is passé. But sorry did I hear it correctly? The basic idea of basic income is that state gives to all citizens. So where is all that poetry about fluidity, no borders and so on, state and citizenship which is supposed you know we are all here the mantra oh don't think no eth- no you shouldn't any longer think in the terms of nation-state and so on. They return with a vengeance. The second thing: what happens with the old Marxist idea of of exploitation? If you cling to it then you find I love this which is for me incidentally what I will say now a critical point against Marx if anything of how we should rethink the notion of exploitation of Marxist economics. Namely what they basically proposed is that those few workers who really work should be exploited not only by the capitalist but also by the unemployed, you know like me a couple of us work and we are screwed from behind from below from above you know that we working class find ourselves—if I may use plastic terms so that you will understand—in a sandwich position, you know like being squeezed between two men you know. Should I take more plastic? Okay no no limits this is a no limits for tastelessness. Okay sorry let me go on. So here I think now really to conclude, here I have problems with this Badiou's idea which is to put it—I don't have time to go through it—but to put it very brutally: subtraction. I'm afraid that his new book is not yet translated, this his introduction how is it called, no, *Manifesto for Philosophy Volume where he directly develops his notion which is the following one: today history with capital H no longer exists. Which means he puts it in quite clear terms that we no longer can claim to have a global social theory of the united unique all-encompassing world-historical process. At that point Badiou sounds strangely Baudrillard—not Baudrillard, Lyotard postmodern. He says we just have fragmented narratives. And his idea is explicitly all we can do then is react intervene locally. All politics today is local. You see an injustice here, racism, you intervene. You see there there you intervene. As Badiou put it already years ago for him anti-capitalism doesn't have any meaning. You cannot capitalism is everywhere. He says somewhere it's the air we breathe, you cannot oppose it, it's meaningless. What can you oppose? You can oppose in politics this or that social catastrophe and so on and so on. For and from here he draws for me—I'm so sad that I don't have time—a terrible conclusion for me. Nonetheless he has to admit that again for him historical reality is experienced he openly put it as symbolic fiction. You know what I will do so that I'm not telling you bullshit now, allow me to go on for five minutes and then for your Lacan.com—you told me before that you wanted two hours ago—I will this final text of dialogue with Badiou I will give it to you if you don't show it to Badiou. But you know what I mean because I'm now giving you in a funny short version I want you to have a chance to more seriously be long questions. Okay that's what I want. Okay sorry sorry capitalism you know sorry no sorry. What I want to say is that Badiou's notion is the following one, this is what horrifies me. All of a sudden he became even more Kantian that I thought than I thought. He started to advocate the notion of necessary illusion, fiction. A very Kantian notion. He claims that—and I'm not simplifying him, again there is no history with capital H, no we just have partial narratives and so on. And the only this are symbolic fictions. The only real is the only real is the real of a political act. But he says we it's not enough to mobilize us ideologically. You need a symbolic envelope, again, a story to provide the illusory background to make meaningful your the real of political engagement. Like I see to be very primitive, I see there suffering, women are beaten, other races whatever you want. But it doesn't only work if you say, "Oh suffering this." You need a story to embed in it. And he claims this is how he even and he claims that—here he is very precise—when he talks about the idea of communism, this is for him this kind of necessary illusion. The idea is you have to provide a story for the real of the political engagement. I found this solution very tragic in a way, I reject it totally because he even goes here—I'm more sympathetic to him, people didn't get it what was talking at the communist conference in London—he even along the same lines openly advocated that he is closer to me the cult of personality. He claims you need a leader like Stalin, whatever Lenin, that precisely because of this necessary illusion. It shouldn't cannot be just that as he put it in a poetic way: "Look, I will give you a quote. If an idea is for an individual the subjective operation by means of which a particular real truth is in an imaginary way projected into the symbolic movement of a history, then we can say that an idea presents the truth as if it is a fact, or that the idea presents certain facts as symbols of the real of the truth. It has to be that in the imaginary mode the symbol comes to support the creative flight of the real." You got it? Real evanescent disappearing you need to provide you need to locate it in some narrative. But the again I don't buy this. It's too close to Lyotard for me. The idea is you have the real of an ethical commitment, but you need an illusion for it to work. You have to tell a story, a mythical story and so on. What I don't buy is the underlying presupposition that—to cut a long story short I put it this way: some of you know Marxism a little bit then you know that the big struggle with dogmatic Marxists and Stalinists was that dogmatic Marxists had you know dialectical materialism and historical materialism. And the big point of Western Marxists was to reject dialectical materialism as the Stalinist stupidity and claim historical materialism is all there is. Badiou almost does the opposite. He wants dialectical materialism without historical materialism. For him historical materialism as the global theory of history is this bad Hegelianism, as if you can tell the total story of history and this for him is communist ideology, maybe necessary but an illusion. Instead of communism being this punctual interventions on behalf of what he calls axiom of unconditional axiom of equality: like people are screwed there in a racist way, sexist, I intervene, but you need a story where you say this is the movement of history towards progress and so on and so on. I claim with regard to what I developed before, that is to say this new stage of capitalism where ideology, cultural ideology and politics are intertwined, intermingled, if we don't confront that we are lost. How to put it? We need more than ever a theory of, okay, maybe not history with capital H, not a narrative theory, but simply I'm here very old fashioned, a theory of what goes on today, where are we today? What is happening? I mean we don't know. Interestingly enough the big opponents liberal capitalists and old Marxists agree that it's still capitalism. This is the only guys who agree. But it's an open question. I think it is, but one must qualify this very much. What is happening now in China and so on? Okay I know now that in China even Mao is made a capitalist. Did you read in the last issue of Time magazine? I think I checked it on eBay. A wonderful news that big director, you know Zhang Yimou whatever who did the Hero and so on, he now totally sold to the establishment, no? And he made a mega spectacle, mega movie telling the story of Mao founding People's Republic of China. And I really had to laugh the way it was described. And I believe it that it's in the best Stalinist way, although in pro-capitalist terms, the history is rewritten to justify Deng Xiaoping and today's China. For example, I love this, you have a scene where just before taking Beijing in communist groups liberate a small city just outside Beijing and Mao walks along the street and looks for a shop where he could find a some brand of cigarettes that he was smoking to buy. And then they inform him that all the rich people, bourgeoisie have escaped the communists, no? And then Mao said sooner or later we will have to bring capitalists back and so on, oh like Mao already knew and I love this how the story—but okay what I'm saying is that for our poli- here I don't—now I'm more serious—I don't buy this Badiou's abstract ethics of the purity of the idea. He—I don't want to take too much time to quote him now—but he goes so far as to directly oppose the Mao's Mao's slogan "dare to be". You know this is the great don't be afraid to win. And basically he says that he turns it around. He says that the lesson of the great 21st century is that to win means to lose in an even more radical way. He claims there are three ways to lose. The first way is a direct defeat you are simply crushed by the enemy. The second way is to lose in the victory itself: you win but you become a new power structure, like Stalinism or social democracy, you start to imitate the enemy. And the next one is the radical one, Thermidor, Pol Pot, Kampuchea, China Cultural Revolution: you want to remain pure but you end up in self-destructive violence. He calls this very nicely, poetically, almost sacrificial temptation of the void. And his result is all this catastrophes happen, the three defeats, because you dared to win, you did risk to take power. His idea is no, we should subtraction, withdraw and so on and so on. I have problems here. I think that like we really need to confront what is today's capitalism and unfortunately I don't think it is already done. And I'm not kidding, this is not just as a sign of flattering gratitude to you. You play a crucial role here, by you I mean art galleries, because precisely because we live in an epoch of cultural capitalism. You are as Fredric Jameson nicely analyzed, you are no longer just—the term cultural capitalism means many things, among other things means that you no longer have, you know, base where you produce real things and superstructure. Cultural production is part of the base today. The battles have to be fought here, not to play this game of subtraction or whatever resistance and so on and so on. I don't know, now don't ask me how to do it. The only thing I know is if we will not do it, we will in years live in a society in which maybe I would prefer not to live. You know there I I also you know I know from my youth a wonderful joke among other dirty tasteless jokes that this one is not tasteless, from Soviet Union. The idea is that people gather on the 1st of May at and then there is a big poster "In years our society will reach communism," no? And then a guy starts to laugh and jump out of joy. And they ask him "Why? Are you crazy?" He said, "Ha ha, I have cancer, I will not be alive to see it." No, without doing something I have almost the same reaction. I'm sorry if I was too long, but what could you do, you were forced to listen. It's like democracy.
Thank you very much especially to Miguel. I'm really grateful for this occasion to be here. Hope you will not be disappointed. What I want to do is the following: taking as a starting point the concept of Parallax that I elaborated in my book of the same name, I want to begin just with a couple of indications on how ideology functions today. Then, from here, I want to go to two concrete examples: today's Russian contemporary, no, some tendencies in painting and architecture, the so-called Neo-Stalinist Gothic. And then, here in the West, this big so-called Holy Grail of architecture, the performance art venues. If some of you were around a year of more ago when I gave a talk at Jack Tilton's gallery—I'm very glad and honored that he is here—I will not sell the same stuff, I mean there's another twist, don't be afraid. And then, to the end, what are friends for? They're here to be beaten into a pulp. So, very critical finale on Badiou, art and politics. Why I think it doesn't work. I will try to provide a theory of why he is so popular in the United States. I'll attack you directly because the way his notion of subtraction is perceived, not its precisely, no, we subtract, we have our nice life and you don't have to do anything but you are a really subversive and all that stuff, no? Okay, let me be a little bit more serious. Let me begin with another unpleasant event of mine which happened to me and I try to obliterate, repress it, not even fore-close it, whatever, no. The public debate about a year ago, I think, with Bernard-Henri Lévy at New York Public Library. If some of you had misfortune of being there, probably remember two details. One, first how Bernard-Henri Lévy made a pathetic case for liberal tolerance, something along the lines of would you not like to live in a society where you can make fun of the predominant religion without the fear of being killed for it? Where women are free to dress the way they like and choose a man they love and so on and so on. Then I made a similarly pathetic case for Communism along the lines of with the growing food crisis, ecological crisis, uncertainty how to deal with biogenetics and so on, is there not the need to find a new way of collective action which radically differs from market as well as from state administration. The irony of the situation was that when you state your case in these abstract terms, you cannot but agree with both of us. What should I say to him? No, I want to live in a society where women are obliged to cover their faces or what? And what could he say? If you remember that wonderful detail, this is the worst self-post-criticism that I can engage in, even he said, okay, with a little bit of irony but nonetheless, "Oh, if this is communism then I am a communist," no. He, you know, hardline liberal anti-communist proponent of free market and so on and so on. This mutual misunderstanding was the proof that we were both there knee-deep in ideology. Ideology is precisely such the obliteration of the, let's call it the thick background noise which provides the actual meaning in a concrete situation of what you are saying. You know, ideology is to forget that when somebody says, "Oh, I want to live in a society where you can make fun of religion," it's not just a statement in the air. It means something if you say this in Tehran where by the way according to my Iranian friends everybody would agree with you. The basic experience with my Iranian friends is that they make much more fun about their own religion than an average Jew or Christian. Just okay, they don't do it publicly. True. And this is a big difference. But nonetheless, don't please don't take Iranians as some kind of fundamentalist fanatics who never, I don't think there is today—just good to know this, you know, when you read all this stuff about fundamentalism—I don't think there is a country today where there are the whole society is penetrated by this obscene humor so much making fun of, for example, I was told the elementary idea of a mullah, the Islam clergy is that he must be gay and corrupt. Normal. That's almost kind of to refer to Saul Kripke, this rigid designator, no? Possible worlds. Why I'm saying this? Because more than ever this is how ideological battles are fought today. I want to mention an example of a politics which goes on now, by now I mean almost literally now. It started I think a week ago, a friend of mine will answer, my good friend, the Jewish cinema maker Udi Aloni, maybe you saw it in the, I think it's the last issue of how is it called, of New York Review of Books. The two, okay three, I only know two, I'm sorry the third person is not known to me which means nothing. There are, strange as it may sound, there are things in the world that I don't know about. But there are, signed the lately Udi Aloni with some of his friends was involved in organizing a movement sending an open letter to the Toronto Film Festival apropos the fact that the city they were celebrating this year was Tel Aviv. Celebrating it and that was the point, the open city of cultural diversity and so on, anti-racist, solidarity, whatever you want and so on and so on. This call typically was this open letter then triggered the mobilization of the entire Jewish state apparatus. The Jewish general consul for example in LA mobilized Seinfeld, Borat and so on. And it's interesting to learn about the Borat guy, no? That how he can make fun of—you see here you can see already to make a jump back the falsity of this Bernard-Henri Lévy, no? Like, he can make in his Borat movie fun of everything, no? But you know when you have the Zionist interest all of the sudden fun, fun stops there, no? No longer Borat. All of the sudden this is also my reproach incidentally, I'm even tempted to write something about it, about the guy, I think I forgot his first name, I'll know, I mean I when I'm here I watch only one TV station, of course, all normal people do, Fox News, no? My favorite is that idiot, Glenn Beck or what or something. No, Glenn Beck. You know what you see this is what I like about him, how first he does, my god he has worse tics than me, you know, no? Making faces, making fun, shouting, but then at the end it's like Roberto Benigni at his worst. At the end after all the cruel irony he makes a simple point looking into the camera where you are about to cry or to take it seriously, you know. He makes fun of Obama, neo-Nazi whatever, but then he says and that black guy who was beaten to death, do we still care for that? That's the true point of comedy I claim. At that point when he makes a... and so again, along the same lines I would have dealt with the Borat guy. But let me go on. Why I'm telling you this? Immediately I'll come to the point. It's interesting how this call, appeal which had only a very precise point—and both Udi and me already paid the price for it even from the Palestinians, I will tell you immediately how—was totally falsified into a call to totally boycott Israel, even those from Israel who are critical towards the politics of the state of Israel which is again total lie, totally invented and so on. Now I come to my story, I'm just faithful to myself here. A year ago I went to the Israel, to the, sorry, to the Jerusalem Film Festival to help Udi to support his movie Forgiveness and there was, I was attacked by Palestinians, some of them, there was even an open letter about against me circulating on the mail how oh I took the side of Zionists and so on and so on. And then I precisely stated my position. That I was there because I think that in no way first I don't want to boycott Israel because you know I'm coming from Europe, that even if you play all these differences Israel, Jews, it's too close, you know in Europe saying let's boycott the Jews unfortunately means something. Even if you introduce all the qualifications like we mean only the Jews, sorry, no we mean the opposite, we mean only the state of Israel, not the Jews, you play too much with fire. But the reason I only went there as Udi's guest as a private person and I stated it publicly, stated it publicly there, it's precisely now I'm coming to my point of the ideology involved in it. The way the Jerusalem Film Festival was presented was, "You know we live in the most dangerous part of the world, madness, wars, people shooting, but here we try to reconstruct a place of simple culture, an island of sanity in the middle of that madness." No, you will not get out as simple as that. This very presentation of Jerusalem as an island of sanity is the ideology of colonialism of the state of Israel. This is how it works. You present your, and this is what they're doing now, I know it from my Jewish friends all around, they're now dispossessing a large part of East Jerusalem to do what? A big multicultural park where all religions will be represented and so on and so on. So you know what I mean, I don't here to repeat the words of Brecht, you know who said, you know this famous poem by Brecht where he said in what some something like in what sad times do we live when even to speak about nature like celebrating nature in poetry is a sin, I mean because if you talk about this it means you don't talk about social injustice, catastrophes. For the same reason I would say to sit in Jerusalem with the wall less than a mile from you and talk about an island of reason and so on is obscenity. But again at the same point absolutely I'm totally opposed to any kind of boycotting Israel or whatever and so on and so on. It's difficult you know and that's why I admire my friend Udi Aloni. It's very difficult to walk this straight line to avoid all the false temptations, the false blackmails. And this is the point to reject the all my real Jewish friends when they show some sympathy for Palestinians they do it in an truly honorable radical way which means that's the best statement I got from them. No, I shouldn't be too identified to being a Jew, you know one should step out and see the, no no no they say this is our way of being truly faithful to the ethical core of Jewish experience. I'm not sympathetic with Palestinians because somehow renouncing my identity, that's the way to be faithful to myself. That's and this is difficult today to walk this narrow path. Avoiding and I'm the first to admit I will maybe next week when I give that more blah-blah political talk at Cooper Union I will more go into this political aspect of how I don't, how to put it, again and again I see that's why I'm addressing this to you, again and again I see this double trap of how if you criticize Israel you are told but aren't you getting dangerously close to anti-Semitism? If I criticize Palestinians I'm being told but don't you know Zionist will take use of this and so on and then you are one step towards justifying some kind of anti-Semitism, no. In the sense of you know this well-known story when they say Jews they don't really mean Jews they mean the state of Israel, no? Well, fuck it why don't they say it I mean, no? You know because in this way you can justify even Hitler. I mean an elementary Marxist analysis shows you that when Hitler said Jew is our enemy, he really meant a kind of a okay to use the metonymic displacement of capital, no? Okay but you will wait very long you know the illusion of some of today's leftists who think anything against United States is good, so let's support so-called fundamentalist they're anti-imperialist, is the same illusion as if in the early 30s we were to think let's support Hitler because sooner or later he will see that he doesn't really mean Jews but capital. Well you will wait long for that to put it, no? So but you see but what I totally reject is this kind of stance that you will remain a marginal rejected by majority and so on. Let me make it very clear: if this were to become a state policy, let's just open borders, you would have in one month not the imperialist revolution but the frustrated working class revolution. Beware what happened in United States. Do you remember that there are also moments of beautiful solidarity. I remember how I think in Seattle something beautiful happened: immigrant Spaniards and your own trade unions demonstrated together. This was a beautiful moment. But as a counter example, don't forget that it was Bush, not democratic president, who tried to who did the first legalization, you know that rule if you are two years here you get the green card or whatever because to put it in the most primitive terms of class analysis, it is in the interest of the ruling class to liberalize immigration. Or to put it in a different way, you know some leftists usually talk as if anti-immigrant racism is some kind of a imperialist plot out there. No, it's a spontaneous lower class reaction. And this is what is prohibited to say. I said this at a Marxist conference in London and it didn't go too well, no? They desperately tried to evoke some examples and so on of how no but once in East End workers were also demonstrating for for the Pakistani and so on and so on while as you probably know the most exploding in the number of votes party in Britain today is the BNP, British National Party, no? Which strictly a working class party, no? Anti-immigrant and so on and so on. So what I'm saying is that the situation described by Gérard Pommier, there is a moment of truth in it, my god. Capitalism has reinvented itself after with this really terrifying efficient let's call it bombastically postmodern whatever dynamics and sorry to tell you I don't see any serious how to call it immediate at least alternative of the left. I respect them the left who is the moderate left all the Stiglitz, Krugman, they did make one point and of course here is where where our attack should be but now you will see that I'm not a total liberal idiot or whatever I am opposed to this. You know where the description is obviously false? When Gérard Pommier describes opposes in such a stupid way a bureaucracy and market. Wait a minute! Today's postmodern capitalism precisely in its flexibility and dynamics needs more than ever state intervention and state regulation. I mean are we aware that look at all the world celebrated it now United States as the model of how to avoid Europe's mistake clinging to old welfare model blah blah postmodern dynamic capitalism. Yes but the state sorry to tell you what you know better than me the state exploded the strength of the United States and not only anti-terrorist even regulatory and all others. So this is the first way to the first way to complicate things. But nonetheless it's so sad I don't have time to go more into it because the only original idea of the left which as far as I know—I may be wrong apart from returning to Keynes and at least Krugman is honest enough, no? He said basically explicitly in a couple of tests that I read let's return to Keynes—I'm just in short term I tend to agree, I just wonder if it works in the long term. The correct me if I'm wrong but the only global not some specificity of some I don't know what country global model that was seriously presented and it's interesting but I don't think it works I'm sorry I don't have time now to develop would have been I don't know how popular is here in Europe and in Latin America is now extremely popular the so-called basic income model. Note it is already it was invented by Philippe Van Parijs, I hope I pronounce it correctly, a Belgian leftist sociologist economist. It is totally supported by the Negri gang, Antonio Negri, Michael Hardt and so on and it has many advocates already in the European Union, in South Africa and in Latin American countries. For example it was already legalized passed into a law in Brazil. Okay they said we will now gradually realize it I mean see when how. But the idea is an elementary one. The idea is that our societies are rich enough to provide for every member of society irrespectively of new work or not a basic income. You get it as a citizen. A basic income presenting you to live a modest but still human life. And the argumentation is very nice up to a point even Marxist. The argumentation is that a) it is feasible because the majority of the people will still want more, they will work, but b) precisely because in this way unemployed and so on will be demobilized in the sense of against wild political mobilization, you know, that this is even easier in a way than all these complicated mechanism of welfare support whatever it's something like a leftist counter-proposal to flat tax or whatever no and the calculation works. And there is also one nice motive, you know the big Marxist argument against market which is obviously true, it's that although you and the capitalist are formally equal, like both of us can say to the other "fuck you, I don't like your proposal, how much wage or whatever," but you make the free choice. But how to put it for you as individual worker the choice is much less free because your alternative if you don't accept some offer is you drop dead, you are hungry. But in this way that's a nice point that I like because it takes over the ideological right-wing motive that I mentioned. They say this is the true freedom of choice. With basic income also for the workers the taking a job or not will be a true freedom, freedom to freedom to choose because you are not forced, it's not just a formal freedom where of course you have to work. You really have a chance to say no under these conditions I prefer to live more but. Why am I what I find so ironic in this product is two things. First that it is celebrated by the Negri gang—I don't mean this in a dismissive way—but why? Because if there is a motto of Negri gang it's empire no longer state, the state is passé. But sorry did I hear it correctly? The basic idea of basic income is that state gives to all citizens. So where is all that poetry about fluidity, no borders and so on, state and citizenship which is supposed you know we are all here the mantra oh don't think no eth- no you shouldn't any longer think in the terms of nation-state and so on. They return with a vengeance. The second thing: what happens with the old Marxist idea of of exploitation? If you cling to it then you find I love this which is for me incidentally what I will say now a critical point against Marx if anything of how we should rethink the notion of exploitation of Marxist economics. Namely what they basically proposed is that those few workers who really work should be exploited not only by the capitalist but also by the unemployed, you know like me a couple of us work and we are screwed from behind from below from above you know that we working class find ourselves—if I may use plastic terms so that you will understand—in a sandwich position, you know like being squeezed between two men you know. Should I take more plastic? Okay no no limits this is a no limits for tastelessness. Okay sorry let me go on. So here I think now really to conclude, here I have problems with this Badiou's idea which is to put it—I don't have time to go through it—but to put it very brutally: subtraction. I'm afraid that his new book is not yet translated, this his introduction how is it called, no, *Manifesto for Philosophy Volume where he directly develops his notion which is the following one: today history with capital H no longer exists. Which means he puts it in quite clear terms that we no longer can claim to have a global social theory of the united unique all-encompassing world-historical process. At that point Badiou sounds strangely Baudrillard—not Baudrillard, Lyotard postmodern. He says we just have fragmented narratives. And his idea is explicitly all we can do then is react intervene locally. All politics today is local. You see an injustice here, racism, you intervene. You see there there you intervene. As Badiou put it already years ago for him anti-capitalism doesn't have any meaning. You cannot capitalism is everywhere. He says somewhere it's the air we breathe, you cannot oppose it, it's meaningless. What can you oppose? You can oppose in politics this or that social catastrophe and so on and so on. For and from here he draws for me—I'm so sad that I don't have time—a terrible conclusion for me. Nonetheless he has to admit that again for him historical reality is experienced he openly put it as symbolic fiction. You know what I will do so that I'm not telling you bullshit now, allow me to go on for five minutes and then for your Lacan.com—you told me before that you wanted two hours ago—I will this final text of dialogue with Badiou I will give it to you if you don't show it to Badiou. But you know what I mean because I'm now giving you in a funny short version I want you to have a chance to more seriously be long questions. Okay that's what I want. Okay sorry sorry capitalism you know sorry no sorry. What I want to say is that Badiou's notion is the following one, this is what horrifies me. All of a sudden he became even more Kantian that I thought than I thought. He started to advocate the notion of necessary illusion, fiction. A very Kantian notion. He claims that—and I'm not simplifying him, again there is no history with capital H, no we just have partial narratives and so on. And the only this are symbolic fictions. The only real is the only real is the real of a political act. But he says we it's not enough to mobilize us ideologically. You need a symbolic envelope, again, a story to provide the illusory background to make meaningful your the real of political engagement. Like I see to be very primitive, I see there suffering, women are beaten, other races whatever you want. But it doesn't only work if you say, "Oh suffering this." You need a story to embed in it. And he claims this is how he even and he claims that—here he is very precise—when he talks about the idea of communism, this is for him this kind of necessary illusion. The idea is you have to provide a story for the real of the political engagement. I found this solution very tragic in a way, I reject it totally because he even goes here—I'm more sympathetic to him, people didn't get it what was talking at the communist conference in London—he even along the same lines openly advocated that he is closer to me the cult of personality. He claims you need a leader like Stalin, whatever Lenin, that precisely because of this necessary illusion. It shouldn't cannot be just that as he put it in a poetic way: "Look, I will give you a quote. If an idea is for an individual the subjective operation by means of which a particular real truth is in an imaginary way projected into the symbolic movement of a history, then we can say that an idea presents the truth as if it is a fact, or that the idea presents certain facts as symbols of the real of the truth. It has to be that in the imaginary mode the symbol comes to support the creative flight of the real." You got it? Real evanescent disappearing you need to provide you need to locate it in some narrative. But the again I don't buy this. It's too close to Lyotard for me. The idea is you have the real of an ethical commitment, but you need an illusion for it to work. You have to tell a story, a mythical story and so on. What I don't buy is the underlying presupposition that—to cut a long story short I put it this way: some of you know Marxism a little bit then you know that the big struggle with dogmatic Marxists and Stalinists was that dogmatic Marxists had you know dialectical materialism and historical materialism. And the big point of Western Marxists was to reject dialectical materialism as the Stalinist stupidity and claim historical materialism is all there is. Badiou almost does the opposite. He wants dialectical materialism without historical materialism. For him historical materialism as the global theory of history is this bad Hegelianism, as if you can tell the total story of history and this for him is communist ideology, maybe necessary but an illusion. Instead of communism being this punctual interventions on behalf of what he calls axiom of unconditional axiom of equality: like people are screwed there in a racist way, sexist, I intervene, but you need a story where you say this is the movement of history towards progress and so on and so on. I claim with regard to what I developed before, that is to say this new stage of capitalism where ideology, cultural ideology and politics are intertwined, intermingled, if we don't confront that we are lost. How to put it? We need more than ever a theory of, okay, maybe not history with capital H, not a narrative theory, but simply I'm here very old fashioned, a theory of what goes on today, where are we today? What is happening? I mean we don't know. Interestingly enough the big opponents liberal capitalists and old Marxists agree that it's still capitalism. This is the only guys who agree. But it's an open question. I think it is, but one must qualify this very much. What is happening now in China and so on? Okay I know now that in China even Mao is made a capitalist. Did you read in the last issue of Time magazine? I think I checked it on eBay. A wonderful news that big director, you know Zhang Yimou whatever who did the Hero and so on, he now totally sold to the establishment, no? And he made a mega spectacle, mega movie telling the story of Mao founding People's Republic of China. And I really had to laugh the way it was described. And I believe it that it's in the best Stalinist way, although in pro-capitalist terms, the history is rewritten to justify Deng Xiaoping and today's China. For example, I love this, you have a scene where just before taking Beijing in communist groups liberate a small city just outside Beijing and Mao walks along the street and looks for a shop where he could find a some brand of cigarettes that he was smoking to buy. And then they inform him that all the rich people, bourgeoisie have escaped the communists, no? And then Mao said sooner or later we will have to bring capitalists back and so on, oh like Mao already knew and I love this how the story—but okay what I'm saying is that for our poli- here I don't—now I'm more serious—I don't buy this Badiou's abstract ethics of the purity of the idea. He—I don't want to take too much time to quote him now—but he goes so far as to directly oppose the Mao's Mao's slogan "dare to be". You know this is the great don't be afraid to win. And basically he says that he turns it around. He says that the lesson of the great 21st century is that to win means to lose in an even more radical way. He claims there are three ways to lose. The first way is a direct defeat you are simply crushed by the enemy. The second way is to lose in the victory itself: you win but you become a new power structure, like Stalinism or social democracy, you start to imitate the enemy. And the next one is the radical one, Thermidor, Pol Pot, Kampuchea, China Cultural Revolution: you want to remain pure but you end up in self-destructive violence. He calls this very nicely, poetically, almost sacrificial temptation of the void. And his result is all this catastrophes happen, the three defeats, because you dared to win, you did risk to take power. His idea is no, we should subtraction, withdraw and so on and so on. I have problems here. I think that like we really need to confront what is today's capitalism and unfortunately I don't think it is already done. And I'm not kidding, this is not just as a sign of flattering gratitude to you. You play a crucial role here, by you I mean art galleries, because precisely because we live in an epoch of cultural capitalism. You are as Fredric Jameson nicely analyzed, you are no longer just—the term cultural capitalism means many things, among other things means that you no longer have, you know, base where you produce real things and superstructure. Cultural production is part of the base today. The battles have to be fought here, not to play this game of subtraction or whatever resistance and so on and so on. I don't know, now don't ask me how to do it. The only thing I know is if we will not do it, we will in years live in a society in which maybe I would prefer not to live. You know there I I also you know I know from my youth a wonderful joke among other dirty tasteless jokes that this one is not tasteless, from Soviet Union. The idea is that people gather on the 1st of May at and then there is a big poster "In years our society will reach communism," no? And then a guy starts to laugh and jump out of joy. And they ask him "Why? Are you crazy?" He said, "Ha ha, I have cancer, I will not be alive to see it." No, without doing something I have almost the same reaction. I'm sorry if I was too long, but what could you do, you were forced to listen. It's like democracy.
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You assume that people think,
You assume that people think,
Slavoj Žižek
that the capitalists
that the capitalists
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think, then they reason out their plan, and they assume power because they have a plan. But I believe that people who have power actually are missing a genetic component of empathy for the other. And so it's not difficult for them to plan their assumption of power. It's easy for them to sleep at night. See, for us, we are very hesitant to assume power, we don't want to manipulate our others, we don't want to manipulate our spouses, we hesitate this, we feel bad about hurting someone's feelings. These people, it's almost a genetic thing where they're missing
think, then they reason out their plan, and they assume power because they have a plan. But I believe that people who have power actually are missing a genetic component of empathy for the other. And so it's not difficult for them to plan their assumption of power. It's easy for them to sleep at night. See, for us, we are very hesitant to assume power, we don't want to manipulate our others, we don't want to manipulate our spouses, we hesitate this, we feel bad about hurting someone's feelings. These people, it's almost a genetic thing where they're missing
Slavoj Žižek
this. They can
this. They can
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allow people to starve and they can sleep at night. So they can cheat and they can assume money. Yeah
allow people to starve and they can sleep at night. So they can cheat and they can assume money. Yeah
Slavoj Žižek
but it follows from what you said that they can do it because we don't dare to do it. But the point
but it follows from what you said that they can do it because we don't dare to do it. But the point
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is that we're thinkers
is that we're thinkers
Slavoj Žižek
about it, they're not going to think, you cannot reason and convince them of that this is
about it, they're not going to think, you cannot reason and convince them of that this is
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wrong,
wrong,
Slavoj Žižek
okay? No I don't believe in that. Right, and we are all thinkers and we don't produce power. No, but here maybe I will disappoint you but you know don't fall into that trap that we thinkers we are too soft, we cannot hurt, we
okay? No I don't believe in that. Right, and we are all thinkers and we don't produce power. No, but here maybe I will disappoint you but you know don't fall into that trap that we thinkers we are too soft, we cannot hurt, we
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cannot...
cannot...
Slavoj Žižek
Listen, I was close to power in Slovenia years ago for half a year. Almost ten people tried to kill themselves. I'm not joking. No, why this stupid boasting? I'm saying that you know when we, when we intellectuals come close to power we are usually the hardliners. That's my experience. And we are much worse than corrupted pragmatic politicians. And I don't have any problem... But what are we going to do? The problem is not this one, do you want power, no and so on. Of course we want power. Here I agree with Mao against Badiou: dare to win. I claim that many of today's leftists, of course it's impossible, but how to put it, you know there is a wonderful, okay he was a liberal, but a nice intelligent liberal, I quote him in one of my books, George Orwell in his essays from the late 30s already, has a wonderful passage where he said that the main feature of the left is that when they demand radical change they do it as some kind of a superficial, sorry, superstitious gesture just to make it sure that there really will not be a change. I don't think that radical leftists today really want a change. If they want a change, it's the change as far as possible. They like changes in Venezuela, in Cuba, you know you can sympathize but they are there, they don't disturb your market for paintings you will sell, your department power struggles and so on. Revolutions are nice when they are there, you know, and then you say, 'My God, I live in this corrupted society, you know, how much more would I like to be there.' Fuck you, go there! Like, I like even one right-wing motto which is true, I love it, I always liked this truth in bitter, you know this old leftist motto protesting neo-colonialism: 'Yankee go home'. You know which is now the new version? 'Yankee go home, but take me with you, please.' No, no, no, there are moments of truth. And again, if left really wants to do something we have to start asking harder questions. It is two
Listen, I was close to power in Slovenia years ago for half a year. Almost ten people tried to kill themselves. I'm not joking. No, why this stupid boasting? I'm saying that you know when we, when we intellectuals come close to power we are usually the hardliners. That's my experience. And we are much worse than corrupted pragmatic politicians. And I don't have any problem... But what are we going to do? The problem is not this one, do you want power, no and so on. Of course we want power. Here I agree with Mao against Badiou: dare to win. I claim that many of today's leftists, of course it's impossible, but how to put it, you know there is a wonderful, okay he was a liberal, but a nice intelligent liberal, I quote him in one of my books, George Orwell in his essays from the late 30s already, has a wonderful passage where he said that the main feature of the left is that when they demand radical change they do it as some kind of a superficial, sorry, superstitious gesture just to make it sure that there really will not be a change. I don't think that radical leftists today really want a change. If they want a change, it's the change as far as possible. They like changes in Venezuela, in Cuba, you know you can sympathize but they are there, they don't disturb your market for paintings you will sell, your department power struggles and so on. Revolutions are nice when they are there, you know, and then you say, 'My God, I live in this corrupted society, you know, how much more would I like to be there.' Fuck you, go there! Like, I like even one right-wing motto which is true, I love it, I always liked this truth in bitter, you know this old leftist motto protesting neo-colonialism: 'Yankee go home'. You know which is now the new version? 'Yankee go home, but take me with you, please.' No, no, no, there are moments of truth. And again, if left really wants to do something we have to start asking harder questions. It is two
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hours,
hours,
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why don't we stop? I don't
why don't we stop? I don't
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like
like
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democracy. I don't like democracy. No, what you say? Enough. Yeah, I don't like democracy to have to pretend...
democracy. I don't like democracy. No, what you say? Enough. Yeah, I don't like democracy to have to pretend...