The MATRIX or Two Sides of Perversion
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2014-03 · 0:41:31 · 6,312 words
ideologyrevolution-violencecapitalismgeopolitics-warliberalism-political-correctnesshegel-dialecticscinema-art-culturecommunism-socialismphilosophy-general
This is a Q&A session (likely at Modern Times bookstore) where Žižek addresses questions on political action, Obama, the nation-state, global capitalism, Walter Benjamin's divine violence versus Carl Schmitt, and cultural strategies of subversion. He defends a principled opportunism in leftist tactics, arguing that pseudo-activity can sustain the system, while criticising Negri's view that global capitalism has already superseded the nation-state. He contrasts Benjamin's concept of divine violence with Schmitt's friend-enemy distinction, and uses Rammstein and Chaplin as examples of a more radical cultural strategy than punk.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 11
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Hyperactive doing-something that functions to guarantee nothing actually changes, analogous to Žižek's own incessant talking in psychoanalysis to prevent a truly embarrassing question.
A mode of pseudo-activity in which one performs gestures (protest, therapy, consumption) that appear engaged but in fact discharge tension and thereby sustain the existing system without disturbing it.
Žižek's tactical stance: do everything as needed, mass protest, violence, civil disobedience, or strategic inaction, rather than privileging any single mode of resistance in advance.
Literally 'fit for the salon'; used to describe how practices like torture are rendered debatable rather than automatically excluded from civilised discourse, which Žižek treats as a symptom of ideological regression.
Hegel's social-ethical substance; Žižek uses it to point to the current radical uncertainty about what is publicly acceptable to say (e.g. torture becoming salonfähig).
Measuring a system by its own declared standards; Žižek recommends this as a short-term tactic against global capitalism, using Mali's cotton example to show capitalism violates its own free-market principles.
A subversive cultural strategy (illustrated by Rammstein and Chaplin) of taking an ideological position more literally and obscenely than intended, thereby exposing and undermining its fantasmatic support.
as “big Other”
Invoked negatively: Žižek argues the big Other of history is not on the left's side and that the old Marxist reliance on history's automatism must be abandoned.
Benjamin's category of violence that is means without a goal, not instrumental or state-protective, which Žižek defends as genuinely involving bloodshed rather than being softened into abstract symbolic transgression.
as “mythical violence”
In Benjamin's schema, violence that serves as a means to an end (state-founding or state-protective), contrasted with divine violence as means without a goal.
Carl Schmitt's core political concept; Žižek partially endorses the point that liberal systems deny the existence of enemies but then produce them more violently in excluded zones like Guantanamo.
Stories he reaches for 5
A scientist visiting Bohr's country house finds a horseshoe above the door and asks if Bohr believes in it. Bohr replies he doesn't believe in it but has it because 'I was told it works even if you don't believe in it.' This illustrates how ideology functions even for cynics.
“I have it, I don't believe in it, but I have it there because I was told that it works, horseshoe, even if you don't believe in it.”
Starbucks directly suggests to consumers how to feel virtuous about their purchase (the 'happy African child' getting a tuberculosis injection), illustrating how the meaning of commodity consumption is ideologically pre-packaged rather than left to consumers.
“You see the happy African child or whatever, no, who gets the stupid tuberculosis injection.”
Žižek recounts entering psychoanalysis briefly and talking incessantly, not because he had anything to say but out of fear that if he stopped the analyst would ask a truly embarrassing question. He uses this as a self-critical illustration of pseudo-activity.
“All my hyperactivity was just to guarantee that nothing will happen.”
Rammstein directly confronts audiences with the obscenity of totalitarian nationalist rituals through over-identification rather than ironic distance, making it impossible to take those rituals seriously afterward, analogous to Chaplin's Great Dictator reducing Hitler to nonsense syllables.
“They are directly confronting you with the obscenity of totalitarian nationalist rituals, but in this way they are much more radically undermining it.”
Mali produces the world's best cotton at half the US cost, but US farm subsidies (exceeding Mali's entire state budget) block it from the market. Mali's minister asked not for aid but for the West to play by its own free-market rules, which the US refused. Used to illustrate the hypocrisy of capitalist universalism and the case for immanent critique.
“We don't want your help. We just please want you play by your own rules. Where is your free market competition?”
Works invoked 12
The Parallax View book
Žižek's own book; cited as the source where he uses the Niels Bohr horseshoe joke about ideology functioning even for non-believers.
Žižek's own book; he references the final chapter on new walls and social divisions as context for the talk's political arguments.
The Great Dictator film
Chaplin's film praised as a model of over-identification: Hitler reduced to incomprehensible obscene syllables, exposing the obscenity beneath fascist rhetoric in a way that makes it impossible to take seriously.
The Matrix film
Described as 'not such a good naive film' but used to illustrate the thesis that humanity is increasingly passive, with even its dreams taken away.
Violence book
Žižek's own book; referenced by an audience member as the source of the claim that sometimes the greatest violence is to withdraw and do nothing.
Empire book
Negri and Hardt's book; criticised for its theological ending and for its naïve teleology about the multitude.
Multitude book
Negri and Hardt's second major work; similarly criticised for ending in theological expectation of the moment when multitude will explode, treating state power as obstacle rather than condition.
Žižek's own earlier work; cited as the source of the theoretical notion of interpassivity / pseudo-activity.
Critique of Violence essay
Benjamin's foundational essay; Žižek argues Schmitt's entire project is a reactive attempt to obliterate its core insight about divine/emancipatory violence.
Volume edited by Chantal Mouffe to which Žižek contributed; mentioned neutrally.
Negri's self-interview book; Žižek cites it as the source of Negri's strange alliance proposal with Davos and his praise of Lula over Chavez.
Zorn und Zeit book
Sloterdijk's book (Time and Rage); Žižek credits it for honestly acknowledging that Benjamin's divine violence legitimizes mob violence and state terror, against academic soft-pedalling.
People invoked 19
George W. Bush negative
Cited for his cynical response to the anti-Iraq-war protests ('I totally support these demonstrations, this is why we are going to Iraq'), which Žižek uses to illustrate the satisfaction of pseudo-activity for all parties.
Robert Pfaller positive
Cited as the Austrian philosopher who invented the notion of interpassivity; Žižek credits him with the insight that those in power prefer 'clinching' (dialogue) to inactivity.
Jan Žižka positive
The Hussite military leader after whom Žižek's family name derives; described admiringly as leader of the first modern violent egalitarian movement.
Mentioned only as editor of a volume on the actuality of Carl Schmitt to which Žižek contributed; no evaluative stance expressed.
Antonio Negri negative
Žižek calls him a friend but systematically attacks his post-nation-state thesis, his alliance with Davos, his praise of Lula over Chavez, and his view that digital capitalism is already communism; accuses him of a classic Marxist mistake of confusing obstacles with conditions of possibility.
Giorgio Agamben positive
Žižek agrees with Agamben's reading of Schmitt as a reactive response to the young Benjamin, and uses Agamben's framework to support his own interpretation of divine violence.
Mentioned as strangely praised by Negri in contrast to Negri's opposition to Chavez; Žižek uses this to illustrate Negri's uncritical attitude toward progressive capitalism.
Jörg Haider negative
Austrian right-wing populist used as a negative example; his 'Kärnten bleibt deutsch' slogan is the target of the obscene-variation counter-strategy Žižek praises.
Described as a right-wing friend with whom Žižek personally gets along while being politically hostile ('if I take over you get a one-way ticket to Magadan'); Žižek nonetheless credits Sloterdijk's Zorn und Zeit for honestly noting that Benjamin's divine violence legitimizes mob violence and state terror.
Walter Benjamin positive
Žižek defends Benjamin's concept of divine violence against both Critchley's softening and Schmitt's reactive appropriation; argues Benjamin is the key to understanding Schmitt and the key reference for emancipatory thought.
Žižek expresses mixed feelings: suspicion that Obama is diluting his message to be acceptable (like Martin Luther King), but also recognition that Obama opens new topics and changes what can be publicly discussed; does not endorse or condemn.
Carl Schmitt negative
Žižek treats Schmitt as a reactive figure whose real purpose is to close off Benjamin's divine violence; grants the partial insight that liberal systems need an enemy but denies Schmitt's overall framework offers a positive contribution to the left.
Mentioned briefly as an analogy for Obama's possible co-optation, watering down his message to be acceptable.
Mentioned as the target of Negri's strange animosity; Žižek does not evaluate Chavez directly.
Referenced ironically: Žižek says his favourite dialogues are the late Plato ones where one person talks constantly and the other merely says 'By Zeus, so it is!', a self-deprecating joke about his own monologic style.
Noam Chomsky negative
Žižek disagrees with Chomsky's claim that no theory is needed today, just facts, calling it 'absolutely naive rationalism' that fails to recognise the need to redefine the very coordinates of the problem.
Michael Hardt negative
Co-author of Empire and Multitude with Negri; Žižek notes both books end in a theological note about the 'moment' when multitude will explode, which he finds naively teleological.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Referenced via Sittlichkeit and the idea of a Hegelian triad; Žižek uses Hegel's framework to diagnose the current uncertainty in the social-ethical substance.
Simon Critchley negative
Žižek calls him 'all too soft', says for Critchley 'a stick is already too violent', and engages in an ongoing published polemic over Benjamin's divine violence, accusing Critchley of a pragmatic misreading that sanitizes violence into strategic calculation.
What it argues
pseudo-activity versus genuine political actionthe persistence and necessity of the nation-state under global capitalismBenjamin's divine violence versus Schmitt's sovereign exceptionliberal tolerance and the disavowal of the enemycultural subversion through obscene over-identificationprincipled opportunism in leftist tacticsthe open and catastrophic character of the present historical situation
Dialectical moves 6
“The most violent thing is sometimes to do nothing—but only when the only available mode of activity sustains the existing system.”
Inaction is not passivity but can be the most disruptive gesture when all available action is co-opted as pseudo-activity.
“The state is disappearing only in the Stalinist dialectical sense—it disappears through the fortifying of its organs of repression.”
The apparent withering of the state is in fact its intensification, turning liberal talk of the post-state order into its opposite.
“Liberal systems that prohibit the very word 'enemy' are precisely those that produce the enemy most absolutely—as the totally excluded (Guantanamo).”
The liberal denial of political antagonism does not dissolve the enemy but returns it in a more extreme, dehumanised form.
“Far from being a theorist who allows too much violence, Carl Schmitt is actually a reactive figure whose aim is to close off any space for emancipatory violence.”
Schmitt's apparent radicalism masks a conservative move to eliminate Benjamin's divine violence by confining violence to state forms.
“What Negri sees as an obstacle to the fully exploding multitude—state power—is in fact its positive condition of possibility.”
The state is not an external block on the multitude but the very ground that makes collective political agency possible.
“Times of catastrophe and apocalypse are also times of openness.”
The pessimistic trajectory toward catastrophe is simultaneously an opening: what cannot continue is the present system's smooth self-reproduction.
Claims 13
asserts
Pseudo-activity—hyperactive gestures that appear radical—often functions to guarantee that nothing actually changes and thereby sustains the existing system.political action / interpassivity
asserts
The left should practice principled opportunism, deploying protests, violence, civil disobedience, or inaction opportunistically rather than privileging any single tactic.leftist strategy
rejects
The nation-state is not withering away; it remains the dominant political form, and global capitalist institutions (WTO, IMF) serve specific nation-states rather than embodying true universality.Negri's post-nation-state thesis
rejects
Negri's suggestion that the left should ally with Davos/global capitalism against the US nation-state is naive, because truly universal global capitalism will never exist.Negri's alliance strategy with global capitalism
asserts
What matters politically is not whether actors are sincere but whether a situation creates an opportunity to change the rules of discourse.Obama / political sincerity
asserts
Torture becoming a legitimate topic of salon debate (salonfähig) is more dangerous than torture itself, because it signals erosion of the ethical substance that automatically excludes certain acts from public discourse.torture / Guantanamo / public discourse
rejects
Benjamin's divine violence is not a pragmatic calculation of lesser evils but violence as means without a goal, involving real bloodshed—Critchley's pragmatic reading is wrong.Critchley's reading of Benjamin's divine violence
asserts
Carl Schmitt's entire project is a reactive attempt to obliterate Benjamin's concept of divine/emancipatory violence by restricting violence to state-founding and state-protective forms.Carl Schmitt / Walter Benjamin
asserts
Liberal systems that deny the existence of enemies are precisely those that produce enemies most violently, as the 'war on terror' and Guantanamo demonstrate.liberalism / friend-enemy distinction
asserts
History is not on the left's side; catastrophe is the likely trajectory, but catastrophe is also a moment of openness, not a guarantee of emancipation.historical teleology / Marxist automatism
rejects
Chomsky's view that no theory is needed today—just facts—is naively rationalist and incorrect; the first step of critique is to refuse the system's self-description and redefine the coordinates.Chomsky's anti-theoretical pragmatism
asserts
Rammstein's strategy of directly confronting audiences with the obscenity of totalitarian rituals is more radically subversive than punk's ironic distance.cultural subversion / over-identification
asserts
The real task today is not to accelerate the 'train of history' but to stop it before it reaches the precipice, in the spirit of Benjamin's historical materialism.leftist political task / historical materialism
Quotes 10
“All my hyperactivity was just to guarantee that nothing will happen.”Slavoj Žižek · pseudo-activity / interpassivity
“I have it, I don't believe in it, but I have it there because I was told that it works, horseshoe, even if you don't believe in it. That's how big ideology functions today.”Slavoj Žižek · cynical ideology / Niels Bohr horseshoe
“The task today is not to run the train of history—to stop it, maybe in the last minute.”Slavoj Žižek · catastrophism / Benjamin / historical materialism
“The first step of critical thinking is do not accept the way the system describes itself. The first thing is to redefine the very coordinates.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology critique / theory
“I would like to live in a society where when somebody argues for rape, he's simply automatically dismissed as a strange jerk, idiot, or whatsoever.”Slavoj Žižek · salonfähig / ethical exclusions / torture
“We are approaching some kind of a new apartheid neo-authoritarian society, it's already happening in front of our eyes.”Slavoj Žižek · political pessimism / neo-authoritarianism
“Times of catastrophe, of apocalypse, are also times of openness.”Slavoj Žižek · catastrophe as opening / historical situation
“The other side of this liberal idea of no enemies is that enemy returns all the more forcefully as Guantanamo and so on as totally excluded from human community.”Slavoj Žižek · liberalism / enemy / Guantanamo
“Benjamin says mythical violence is violence which serves as a means to a goal. Divine violence are means without a goal.”Slavoj Žižek · divine violence / Benjamin
“You find everything that a young Christian Marxist gentleman needs to know in Walter Benjamin.”Slavoj Žižek · Benjamin over Schmitt
Transcript 22 turns
Slavoj Žižek
In the last chapter of my Lost Causes, I'm well aware that these three processes have to be supplemented by the crucial one: the new walls apart from the new social divisions. Without them, I think all these three topics can be re-appropriated by conservative problematic. Like biogenetics: oh my god, the church will immediately say of course it's off limits. Ecology: you know who is now the greatest ecologist? Rupert Murdoch, the big bad guy. He all of a sudden discovered ecological threat and so on and so on. So it's more complex. But nonetheless, I hope you got my point. I think that along these lines, the question we should ask is that, although it's not such a good naive film, of Matrix. Are we not more and more like humanity in Matrix? Just in this kind of a passive position, with even our dreams, everything taken from us? Now we pretend a little bit that we live in a democracy, no? I love democracy and free debate, just let me warn you that my favorite dialogues—I love dialogues—are late Plato dialogues. You know how they look? If you know philosophy, Plato: one guy talks all the time, the other guy every ten minutes just interrupts him by saying, "By Zeus, so it is! Yes, Socrates." A little bit of dialogue like that, if you please. You, you, I'm here confused. I need another master to... Go ahead. My question is about in your recent paper
In the last chapter of my Lost Causes, I'm well aware that these three processes have to be supplemented by the crucial one: the new walls apart from the new social divisions. Without them, I think all these three topics can be re-appropriated by conservative problematic. Like biogenetics: oh my god, the church will immediately say of course it's off limits. Ecology: you know who is now the greatest ecologist? Rupert Murdoch, the big bad guy. He all of a sudden discovered ecological threat and so on and so on. So it's more complex. But nonetheless, I hope you got my point. I think that along these lines, the question we should ask is that, although it's not such a good naive film, of Matrix. Are we not more and more like humanity in Matrix? Just in this kind of a passive position, with even our dreams, everything taken from us? Now we pretend a little bit that we live in a democracy, no? I love democracy and free debate, just let me warn you that my favorite dialogues—I love dialogues—are late Plato dialogues. You know how they look? If you know philosophy, Plato: one guy talks all the time, the other guy every ten minutes just interrupts him by saying, "By Zeus, so it is! Yes, Socrates." A little bit of dialogue like that, if you please. You, you, I'm here confused. I need another master to... Go ahead. My question is about in your recent paper
unknown
published in In These Times where you defend Obama's rhetoric—it's a very problematic, I'm here in between, yes—and then also in your talk last night where you talked about, you know, and also in a book, in the end of Violence, where you talked about how perhaps the greatest violence is just withdraw, not do anything. And is that a development of your opinions on political action from the past where you advocated kind of like taking power and doing things? No, no, I stayed my—no, no, I'm sorry, yeah. No,
published in In These Times where you defend Obama's rhetoric—it's a very problematic, I'm here in between, yes—and then also in your talk last night where you talked about, you know, and also in a book, in the end of Violence, where you talked about how perhaps the greatest violence is just withdraw, not do anything. And is that a development of your opinions on political action from the past where you advocated kind of like taking power and doing things? No, no, I stayed my—no, no, I'm sorry, yeah. No,
Slavoj Žižek
but this is here already you can see the difference because, you know, Critchley doesn't fire a stick from what I know, from what I've heard. For him, Critchley is basically for me all too soft. For Critchley, a stick is already too violent, totalitarian, or whatever, whatever. But let me answer the question. No, first, when I say sometimes the most—I say sometimes the most violent thing is to do nothing. And then I specify: we should do nothing when the only open mode of being active is this pseudo-activity of doing something which, even if it may appear to be radical or whatever, basically sustains the existing system. And I'm here very precise. I refer to my older theoretical work, for example in Plague of Fantasies, that notion of interpassivity or pseudo-activity. What does this mean? Let me be very brutal against myself. I remember when fifteen, twenty years ago I was in psychoanalysis for a short period—I hated it, then I stopped. I, as you can imagine, I talked all the time, like now. Why? Not because I had anything to say, I had strictly nothing to say. I had only one fear: if I stop talking for a second, the analyst may ask me a truly embarrassing question. So all my hyperactivity was just to guarantee that nothing will happen. And you know, unfortunately, I think that quite often these pseudo-radical academic protests function like that. So I'm very precise: do nothing only when what you are doing sustains the system. You know what we should be aware? It's not true that simply by doing nothing you support the system. Because often what people think is doing nothing is they—they are doing quite many things. The system needs us to reproduce itself. We are all the time active and so on. That's what—that's what fascinates me, this how, if you, how should I put it, what fascinates me is how even when we think we are doing nothing by—okay, we think we are doing nothing, but we are doing nothing in the mode of our cynical—but cynical doubt, but even then we are usually active. You probably know my old joke from my Parallax View—I use it there, but it's a wonderful one, I will repeat it—about that Niels Bohr who visited, who was visited in his country house by a scientist friend, and the friend saw above the entrance to his wooden house, horseshoe, which I don't know how it is here in Europe, a horseshoe above the entrance is a superstitious item which allegedly prevents evil spirits to enter the house. So a friend asked Niels Bohr, "But are you crazy? Are you superstitious? Why do you have this there?" Niels Bohr answered, "Of course I'm not superstitious." Then the friend asked him, "But why do you have it?" Niels Bohr answered, "I have it, I don't believe in it, but I have it there because I was told that it works, horseshoe, even if you don't believe in it." That's how big ideology functions today. You don't believe in it, you think you are cynical, but you participate in it somehow. And that's the different, that's the difficult thing to do. So no, I—and obviously many leftists were very hurt by this because not only Critchley, the animosity exploded everywhere, as you put it, no? Why? Because I touched their sacred cow. They really think that their protests are something tremendous, that—I mean, I'm here, I know that, you know what was a sobering effect? I know that it was meant as a bad, stupid joke, that it's not true. But I like it in a masochist way almost. After the big anti-Iraq war protests in London, Bush visited United Kingdom and the journalists asked him what does he think about big one million people on Trafalgar Square demonstrations against. You know what was President Bush's answer? Very cynical, stupid, but unfortunately I think there is an element of truth in it. It was: "I totally support and admire these demonstrations." And then he said, "You see, this is why we are going to Iraq, so that people there will also be able to demonstrate like people." I mean, it may be cynical but, you know, what disturbed me a little bit, I—my god, I was participant in many demonstrations at that point—but what disturbed me a little bit is how at the end of the day every—everybody was satisfied. Those in power were satisfied: you see, we are a democratic society, they can protest, because they knew that it will not affect in any way the decision will there be a war or not. The protesters were satisfied—I claim a little bit cynically—because most of them knew that this is a gesture of protest which will not change anything. So it surprised me how at the end of the day it's as if everybody did his or her or their duty, everybody was satisfied and so on. I claim there are often situations where you are—I think we are wrong when we think that the strategy of those in power is to keep you inactive. No, they want dialogue, contact and so on. Their strategy is, as my friend Robert Pfaller, the Austrian philosopher who invented the notion interpassivity, said, their strategy is the one that involves clinching, I think you call it clinching to the enemy. You know, like, like, please come, let us have dialogue and so on and so on. In such a situation, ominous silence is much better. I remember from my own socialist youth where—I'm not saying I was a great dissident, but somehow part of it—and incidentally I felt absolutely at home as if the Republican Convention was back into real socialism. Why? You noticed how Republicans repeat all the time, "We are for change, for radical change" and so on. But they are the guys who are in power all the time. And I remember when I was young and we started a little bit dissidence here and there, the answer of communists were not "We are status quo, don't do it." Their answer was, "You are not critical enough. We communists are agents of radical change." You know, like you had the same paradox of a power structure which legitimized itself as an agent of a permanent radical change and so on and so on. So I feel very much at home with this, with this topic here, no? But—okay, sorry, I was too long. Okay, but you got the idea that no, that's not my point. I first say I think one should be simply an—not unprincipled but principled opportunist here. Let's do everything. Big protest when big protests are needed. Violence when violence is needed. Only civil disobedience when that is needed. Doing nothing when that works. And I remember back to my socialist experience, at some point when nomenklatura in power started to lose their confidence, they terribly wanted dialogue with us. We got all the time calls "Come to us, to Central Committee, let's have a debate." And then when once we went there, we spit on them: "You are worse than Stalin." And we thought we would be maybe arrested a little bit, no danger, but so that you can then have your badge of honor, victim of communism. And no, communists told us, "So nice that you came, let's debate more" and so on and so on. And then next time we did nothing, we didn't come. And this incredibly raised the temperature, you know, like, my god, no dialogue, what is—at certain point this works, non-activity. Just doing—you know, when you're expected to do something, doing nothing can create terrible anxiety, which is good, it puts fear into them, those in power, so to put it, no? There were guys there and okay. Please, don't privilege you, try to be opportunist-centrist, but don't privilege only the right, give also some chance to the left. You. Okay. No, no, no, this woman first, and then you're next. No, no, that's okay,
but this is here already you can see the difference because, you know, Critchley doesn't fire a stick from what I know, from what I've heard. For him, Critchley is basically for me all too soft. For Critchley, a stick is already too violent, totalitarian, or whatever, whatever. But let me answer the question. No, first, when I say sometimes the most—I say sometimes the most violent thing is to do nothing. And then I specify: we should do nothing when the only open mode of being active is this pseudo-activity of doing something which, even if it may appear to be radical or whatever, basically sustains the existing system. And I'm here very precise. I refer to my older theoretical work, for example in Plague of Fantasies, that notion of interpassivity or pseudo-activity. What does this mean? Let me be very brutal against myself. I remember when fifteen, twenty years ago I was in psychoanalysis for a short period—I hated it, then I stopped. I, as you can imagine, I talked all the time, like now. Why? Not because I had anything to say, I had strictly nothing to say. I had only one fear: if I stop talking for a second, the analyst may ask me a truly embarrassing question. So all my hyperactivity was just to guarantee that nothing will happen. And you know, unfortunately, I think that quite often these pseudo-radical academic protests function like that. So I'm very precise: do nothing only when what you are doing sustains the system. You know what we should be aware? It's not true that simply by doing nothing you support the system. Because often what people think is doing nothing is they—they are doing quite many things. The system needs us to reproduce itself. We are all the time active and so on. That's what—that's what fascinates me, this how, if you, how should I put it, what fascinates me is how even when we think we are doing nothing by—okay, we think we are doing nothing, but we are doing nothing in the mode of our cynical—but cynical doubt, but even then we are usually active. You probably know my old joke from my Parallax View—I use it there, but it's a wonderful one, I will repeat it—about that Niels Bohr who visited, who was visited in his country house by a scientist friend, and the friend saw above the entrance to his wooden house, horseshoe, which I don't know how it is here in Europe, a horseshoe above the entrance is a superstitious item which allegedly prevents evil spirits to enter the house. So a friend asked Niels Bohr, "But are you crazy? Are you superstitious? Why do you have this there?" Niels Bohr answered, "Of course I'm not superstitious." Then the friend asked him, "But why do you have it?" Niels Bohr answered, "I have it, I don't believe in it, but I have it there because I was told that it works, horseshoe, even if you don't believe in it." That's how big ideology functions today. You don't believe in it, you think you are cynical, but you participate in it somehow. And that's the different, that's the difficult thing to do. So no, I—and obviously many leftists were very hurt by this because not only Critchley, the animosity exploded everywhere, as you put it, no? Why? Because I touched their sacred cow. They really think that their protests are something tremendous, that—I mean, I'm here, I know that, you know what was a sobering effect? I know that it was meant as a bad, stupid joke, that it's not true. But I like it in a masochist way almost. After the big anti-Iraq war protests in London, Bush visited United Kingdom and the journalists asked him what does he think about big one million people on Trafalgar Square demonstrations against. You know what was President Bush's answer? Very cynical, stupid, but unfortunately I think there is an element of truth in it. It was: "I totally support and admire these demonstrations." And then he said, "You see, this is why we are going to Iraq, so that people there will also be able to demonstrate like people." I mean, it may be cynical but, you know, what disturbed me a little bit, I—my god, I was participant in many demonstrations at that point—but what disturbed me a little bit is how at the end of the day every—everybody was satisfied. Those in power were satisfied: you see, we are a democratic society, they can protest, because they knew that it will not affect in any way the decision will there be a war or not. The protesters were satisfied—I claim a little bit cynically—because most of them knew that this is a gesture of protest which will not change anything. So it surprised me how at the end of the day it's as if everybody did his or her or their duty, everybody was satisfied and so on. I claim there are often situations where you are—I think we are wrong when we think that the strategy of those in power is to keep you inactive. No, they want dialogue, contact and so on. Their strategy is, as my friend Robert Pfaller, the Austrian philosopher who invented the notion interpassivity, said, their strategy is the one that involves clinching, I think you call it clinching to the enemy. You know, like, like, please come, let us have dialogue and so on and so on. In such a situation, ominous silence is much better. I remember from my own socialist youth where—I'm not saying I was a great dissident, but somehow part of it—and incidentally I felt absolutely at home as if the Republican Convention was back into real socialism. Why? You noticed how Republicans repeat all the time, "We are for change, for radical change" and so on. But they are the guys who are in power all the time. And I remember when I was young and we started a little bit dissidence here and there, the answer of communists were not "We are status quo, don't do it." Their answer was, "You are not critical enough. We communists are agents of radical change." You know, like you had the same paradox of a power structure which legitimized itself as an agent of a permanent radical change and so on and so on. So I feel very much at home with this, with this topic here, no? But—okay, sorry, I was too long. Okay, but you got the idea that no, that's not my point. I first say I think one should be simply an—not unprincipled but principled opportunist here. Let's do everything. Big protest when big protests are needed. Violence when violence is needed. Only civil disobedience when that is needed. Doing nothing when that works. And I remember back to my socialist experience, at some point when nomenklatura in power started to lose their confidence, they terribly wanted dialogue with us. We got all the time calls "Come to us, to Central Committee, let's have a debate." And then when once we went there, we spit on them: "You are worse than Stalin." And we thought we would be maybe arrested a little bit, no danger, but so that you can then have your badge of honor, victim of communism. And no, communists told us, "So nice that you came, let's debate more" and so on and so on. And then next time we did nothing, we didn't come. And this incredibly raised the temperature, you know, like, my god, no dialogue, what is—at certain point this works, non-activity. Just doing—you know, when you're expected to do something, doing nothing can create terrible anxiety, which is good, it puts fear into them, those in power, so to put it, no? There were guys there and okay. Please, don't privilege you, try to be opportunist-centrist, but don't privilege only the right, give also some chance to the left. You. Okay. No, no, no, this woman first, and then you're next. No, no, that's okay,
unknown
I'll wait. Go ahead. Be loud enough, please. Yesterday you
I'll wait. Go ahead. Be loud enough, please. Yesterday you
Slavoj Žižek
said about Mr. Obama, and I would like to hear a little bit more about what you say around, you know. No, okay, I think you reminded me that my short comment was—isn't published in I don't know if only online or printed in In These Times, so I don't want to repeat myself. My point is only my mixed feelings. On the one hand, I have a suspicion that he is a little bit doing what was done to Martin Luther King, even now to himself, like watering down his message a little bit to be acceptable, no? On the other hand, I think that he is opening new topics, new ways to talk about, and don't underestimate the importance of this. For example, the horrible thing, as I improvised yesterday, for me is that it's not the fact that tortures go on in Guantanamo. In a cynical way, totally accept that maybe in China, I don't know where, Russia, they torture much more. What worries me is that all of a sudden torture is becoming—Germans have this wonderful word—salonfähig, appropriate for polite salon debate. All of a sudden, and that's—it's horrible for me. I would like to live in a society where you don't debate about torture, it's obscene. It should be dogmatically evident you don't torture. It's the same as rape. I mean, I hope you women here wouldn't like to live in a society where one would have to argue all the time that—you know, I claim that those who are—who would have argued against rape would be even more dangerous, because apparently opposing rape, they would be preparing the terrain for rape as a debate. I would like to live in a society where when somebody argues for rape, he's simply automatically dismissed as a strange jerk, idiot, or whatsoever, like you just turn around as if he made some unpleasant sound or whatever, no? And I would like to live in a society where with torture it's the same, my god, no? So what I'm saying is that we have this type of changes and which are bad, but maybe we can counteract it with different changes. The things like race, other, how you treat so-called terrorists and so on. That maybe something can be done here. And my point is simply don't underestimate this: how we talk about things, how we perceive them, what we are—what is permissible to talk about publicly and so on. It is very important because what we do is ultimately determined by what we talk about. I think that cynicism in the sense of oh you just talk and so on, it doesn't matter, is the wrong attitude. So this would—so I've just a simple mixed, mixed feeling. Also the reason I'm not ready to condemn simply Obama is that, you know, I'm deeply suspicious of that old pseudo-radical left strategy whose utter catastrophic result was Nazism. Where, you know, that how Communist Party reacted first to the threat of Hitler taking power. It was even better because now at least all illusions will fall and we will have clearly the enemy there in power, no? Okay, all illusions did fall, but then I don't know how many thirty, forty million people had to die, no, before—or whatever. So again, let's just—it's I don't like this topic: is Obama sincere or not, who or does he real—I don't care. It is an opportunity to change the rules. I think this situation today it's a very interesting situation. Things are changing radically at the level of what we talk about, like we can talk about torture and so on. All this points towards a great uncertainty in what I would have called with Hegel, Sittlichkeit, the social ethical substance of our lives. And we should also be active here. My god, let's not leave all the initiative to the bad guys to introduce torture and all you want them and so on and so on. So it's very modest thought. You—you've argued against the Negri's notion of the nation-state.
said about Mr. Obama, and I would like to hear a little bit more about what you say around, you know. No, okay, I think you reminded me that my short comment was—isn't published in I don't know if only online or printed in In These Times, so I don't want to repeat myself. My point is only my mixed feelings. On the one hand, I have a suspicion that he is a little bit doing what was done to Martin Luther King, even now to himself, like watering down his message a little bit to be acceptable, no? On the other hand, I think that he is opening new topics, new ways to talk about, and don't underestimate the importance of this. For example, the horrible thing, as I improvised yesterday, for me is that it's not the fact that tortures go on in Guantanamo. In a cynical way, totally accept that maybe in China, I don't know where, Russia, they torture much more. What worries me is that all of a sudden torture is becoming—Germans have this wonderful word—salonfähig, appropriate for polite salon debate. All of a sudden, and that's—it's horrible for me. I would like to live in a society where you don't debate about torture, it's obscene. It should be dogmatically evident you don't torture. It's the same as rape. I mean, I hope you women here wouldn't like to live in a society where one would have to argue all the time that—you know, I claim that those who are—who would have argued against rape would be even more dangerous, because apparently opposing rape, they would be preparing the terrain for rape as a debate. I would like to live in a society where when somebody argues for rape, he's simply automatically dismissed as a strange jerk, idiot, or whatsoever, like you just turn around as if he made some unpleasant sound or whatever, no? And I would like to live in a society where with torture it's the same, my god, no? So what I'm saying is that we have this type of changes and which are bad, but maybe we can counteract it with different changes. The things like race, other, how you treat so-called terrorists and so on. That maybe something can be done here. And my point is simply don't underestimate this: how we talk about things, how we perceive them, what we are—what is permissible to talk about publicly and so on. It is very important because what we do is ultimately determined by what we talk about. I think that cynicism in the sense of oh you just talk and so on, it doesn't matter, is the wrong attitude. So this would—so I've just a simple mixed, mixed feeling. Also the reason I'm not ready to condemn simply Obama is that, you know, I'm deeply suspicious of that old pseudo-radical left strategy whose utter catastrophic result was Nazism. Where, you know, that how Communist Party reacted first to the threat of Hitler taking power. It was even better because now at least all illusions will fall and we will have clearly the enemy there in power, no? Okay, all illusions did fall, but then I don't know how many thirty, forty million people had to die, no, before—or whatever. So again, let's just—it's I don't like this topic: is Obama sincere or not, who or does he real—I don't care. It is an opportunity to change the rules. I think this situation today it's a very interesting situation. Things are changing radically at the level of what we talk about, like we can talk about torture and so on. All this points towards a great uncertainty in what I would have called with Hegel, Sittlichkeit, the social ethical substance of our lives. And we should also be active here. My god, let's not leave all the initiative to the bad guys to introduce torture and all you want them and so on and so on. So it's very modest thought. You—you've argued against the Negri's notion of the nation-state.
unknown
Negri's notion of nation-state, no. Negri says there is no nation-state. Yeah, yeah, and you say there is, would you elaborate more on the basis of WTO, NAFTA, World Bank, IMF? First, I don't think these are truly neutral. Even Negri—you know Negri cheats a little bit. He's my friend but I would say in what sense? He claims that, okay, there is this post-nation-state globalized space,
Negri's notion of nation-state, no. Negri says there is no nation-state. Yeah, yeah, and you say there is, would you elaborate more on the basis of WTO, NAFTA, World Bank, IMF? First, I don't think these are truly neutral. Even Negri—you know Negri cheats a little bit. He's my friend but I would say in what sense? He claims that, okay, there is this post-nation-state globalized space,
Slavoj Žižek
but then he claimed that United States did nation-state coup
but then he claimed that United States did nation-state coup
unknown
d'état on the global order, no? So he even proposes in his last book, I don't think did it already appear in English or here with you, Goodbye Mr. Socialism. Did it already appear? I don't know. His book of self-interview talk with a friend who is probably his friend so that they—okay. He there claims that for the left at the present level we have an unresolved tension in global capitalism itself between the true universality of global capitalism, embodied in these international brain trusts like—I
d'état on the global order, no? So he even proposes in his last book, I don't think did it already appear in English or here with you, Goodbye Mr. Socialism. Did it already appear? I don't know. His book of self-interview talk with a friend who is probably his friend so that they—okay. He there claims that for the left at the present level we have an unresolved tension in global capitalism itself between the true universality of global capitalism, embodied in these international brain trusts like—I
Slavoj Žižek
really hate them—Davos, you know that where the all the big guys from Bill Gates to Dalai Lama or whatever meet. And he claims that at this level the left should make an alliance with Davos, the true universal spirit of global capitalism, against United States as a nation-state coup d'état. I think this is a naivety. There never will be a truly universal global capitalism. I think that nation-state is here to stay, and I think even empirically this is true. My god, was there ever a stronger nation-state as to its means, effective power of control, apparatus of control of—of armed forces than United States today? And if you see all these—all these international organizations, from World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and so on, isn't it the problem that they are simply not truly universal? They are in service of a couple of nation-states. Which is why, although I don't think this is a long-term strategy, at least tactically, one should even do a little bit of immanent critique of global capitalism, measuring it by its own standards. If you ask me for a state which is paradigmatic today, I would say Mali. Mali, you know, the small, not so small, okay, little people, a small number of people, African, no, Western African country, no? Why? I will simplify to the utmost the analysis that I've read, but the situation is I simplified the following one. In the south of Mali, they have cotton, in the north they have beef. What's their problem? Their problem is that that cotton is the best in the world, produced at a price which is half of the price of the cost of the American cotton here in Carolina and so on. What's the problem? The problem is as you know because these are Republican congressional districts and so on, United States spent more money to support cotton farmers here than the entire state budget of Mali. So I read an—I saw even on TV an interview with Mali minister of economy who said, "No, we don't want your help. We don't want any socialist measures. We just please want you play by your own rules. Where is your free market competition? If you just allow market to work really without you violating it by giving state support to your farmers, Mali would be saved in a couple of years." No way. No way. United States didn't budge. In the north is a similar situation only it concerns cow, milk, and the bad guys are Nestlé and other European companies. So it's incredible the Western hypocrisy on how they insist on, you know, "do away with state mechanisms, allow market to work" to these poor third world countries, but themselves they brutally ignore, they brutally—for example, that's the irony, now I'm talking to the north of Mali. Why does Negri have that position? I don't know because he is so fascinated by, you know, what one has to do with Negri is the evil thing to look at his interviews not in Europe, but when he is outside of Europe, when he thinks that our Marxist KGB big brother doesn't see him, like in Latin America he often says there things where he just explodes what he really thinks and is afraid maybe to say it in Europe. For example, I read a recent interview with him in Brazil where he said, "Today's most dynamic digital capitalism practically already is communism. We no longer have to fight it, we just have to join it" and so on and so on. He is—which is why very strangely, for example, in this book Goodbye Mr. Socialism, Negri praises Lula and totally opposes Chavez. A strange animosity against Chavez and so on. I think he is a little bit too much obsessed by this very old-fashioned Marxist idea of capitalism at its most progressive is practically already communism. Which is why no wonder they—did you notice how both his and Hardt's big books, Empire and especially Multitude, end in a very theological note? With explicit reference to a kind of a theological turn they claim multitude, local, but the moment will come when—I think this moment will never come. I think that what Negri sees as an obstacle to fully exploding multitude—state power and so on—is really its condition of possibility. I think Negri makes, to put it in Marxist terms, this pretty classic mistake. He sees only as an obstacle that what is a positive condition. Which is why again, we shouldn't say some old leftist claim against this idea of—of disappearing state, "no, we need a stronger state." No, we need a different state. We already have a very strong state, my god. Where does this myth come that state is slowly—if it is disappearing, it's in a very Stalinist way. You know that Stalin, in his infinite wisdom, said that in Soviet Union state is disappearing only in a dialectical way, said Stalin, that state disappears through the fortifying of its—of its organs, especially organs of repression. No, I mean. In this sense only I would say that the state is disappearing today, no? Effectively. Okay, but I'm not just getting confused now. The message is here that the first step of critical thinking is do not accept the way the system describes itself. The first thing is to redefine the very coordinates. It's not that we all share the same analysis and then we just differ in what is good, what is bad and so on and so on. One really needs thinking more than ever today. And here I disagree, although I respect him as a political figure, with Noam Chomsky. A friend of mine had a year ago lunch with Chomsky and told me that Chomsky told him, "Today we don't need any theory, everything is totally cynical, clear. The only thing we have to do is to tell people what is going on." I disagree with it. I don't—this is this absolutely naive rational aspect of Chomsky which I don't think it works. Last—last tree, okay, we can make a Hegelian triad if you please. Could you tell me the etymology of your name, your first name and your last name? It's very disgusting. Slavoj means "the glorious one." Žižek—I don't know, I only know that's the only good news—that it's of Czech origins. And in Czech it's the same name as that Jan Žižka. You—you know, Jan Hus, the Protestant, no? And then Jan Žižka was the greatest warrior of Protestants. He had a great revolutionary army. They were famous for having so-called moving fortresses fighting Catholic Church. They—they had—they put like thirty, forty oxen and put on them a giant wooden structure like a small fortress so that the whole fortress was moving and the earth was shaking and terrorizing the enemy. And they were so-called Hussites or Taborites, in the Tabor which is town south of Prague. They established there their own Protestant—radical Protestant Republic, in a wonderful Stalinist way. Like they liberated that farmers, "nothing to pay to—to the feudal masters," and then they said, "Just to—just to sustain your revolutionary power, us, you will have to pay to us even a little bit more than before." No, no, quite seriously. That part of my name I'm not ashamed of. It's the first really modern violent egalitarian movement. Protestantism at its best. Slavoj means glorious? Yeah, yeah. One thing before we go on to the signing. Yeah, but okay, my god, the guys, you know, just very briefly, yeah. Oh my god, don't read a long question. It's not. Okay, sorry. In your proposed response to how capitalism addresses consumers, you propose that consumers impose their own meaning on the act of consumption by saying this isn't to save the African child, this is to kill the African child. This was attempted by the punks and was appropriated. How can we resist that appropriation? No, first I wouldn't say that consumers themselves impose the meaning because what meaning does it have? It is quite clearly suggested to you, like for—to be simplified, I know example that I evoked, Starbucks. They don't leave it to you, they directly suggest to you in what way you should feel well, you know. The stupid cup of coffee, "oh,
really hate them—Davos, you know that where the all the big guys from Bill Gates to Dalai Lama or whatever meet. And he claims that at this level the left should make an alliance with Davos, the true universal spirit of global capitalism, against United States as a nation-state coup d'état. I think this is a naivety. There never will be a truly universal global capitalism. I think that nation-state is here to stay, and I think even empirically this is true. My god, was there ever a stronger nation-state as to its means, effective power of control, apparatus of control of—of armed forces than United States today? And if you see all these—all these international organizations, from World Trade Organization, International Monetary Fund and so on, isn't it the problem that they are simply not truly universal? They are in service of a couple of nation-states. Which is why, although I don't think this is a long-term strategy, at least tactically, one should even do a little bit of immanent critique of global capitalism, measuring it by its own standards. If you ask me for a state which is paradigmatic today, I would say Mali. Mali, you know, the small, not so small, okay, little people, a small number of people, African, no, Western African country, no? Why? I will simplify to the utmost the analysis that I've read, but the situation is I simplified the following one. In the south of Mali, they have cotton, in the north they have beef. What's their problem? Their problem is that that cotton is the best in the world, produced at a price which is half of the price of the cost of the American cotton here in Carolina and so on. What's the problem? The problem is as you know because these are Republican congressional districts and so on, United States spent more money to support cotton farmers here than the entire state budget of Mali. So I read an—I saw even on TV an interview with Mali minister of economy who said, "No, we don't want your help. We don't want any socialist measures. We just please want you play by your own rules. Where is your free market competition? If you just allow market to work really without you violating it by giving state support to your farmers, Mali would be saved in a couple of years." No way. No way. United States didn't budge. In the north is a similar situation only it concerns cow, milk, and the bad guys are Nestlé and other European companies. So it's incredible the Western hypocrisy on how they insist on, you know, "do away with state mechanisms, allow market to work" to these poor third world countries, but themselves they brutally ignore, they brutally—for example, that's the irony, now I'm talking to the north of Mali. Why does Negri have that position? I don't know because he is so fascinated by, you know, what one has to do with Negri is the evil thing to look at his interviews not in Europe, but when he is outside of Europe, when he thinks that our Marxist KGB big brother doesn't see him, like in Latin America he often says there things where he just explodes what he really thinks and is afraid maybe to say it in Europe. For example, I read a recent interview with him in Brazil where he said, "Today's most dynamic digital capitalism practically already is communism. We no longer have to fight it, we just have to join it" and so on and so on. He is—which is why very strangely, for example, in this book Goodbye Mr. Socialism, Negri praises Lula and totally opposes Chavez. A strange animosity against Chavez and so on. I think he is a little bit too much obsessed by this very old-fashioned Marxist idea of capitalism at its most progressive is practically already communism. Which is why no wonder they—did you notice how both his and Hardt's big books, Empire and especially Multitude, end in a very theological note? With explicit reference to a kind of a theological turn they claim multitude, local, but the moment will come when—I think this moment will never come. I think that what Negri sees as an obstacle to fully exploding multitude—state power and so on—is really its condition of possibility. I think Negri makes, to put it in Marxist terms, this pretty classic mistake. He sees only as an obstacle that what is a positive condition. Which is why again, we shouldn't say some old leftist claim against this idea of—of disappearing state, "no, we need a stronger state." No, we need a different state. We already have a very strong state, my god. Where does this myth come that state is slowly—if it is disappearing, it's in a very Stalinist way. You know that Stalin, in his infinite wisdom, said that in Soviet Union state is disappearing only in a dialectical way, said Stalin, that state disappears through the fortifying of its—of its organs, especially organs of repression. No, I mean. In this sense only I would say that the state is disappearing today, no? Effectively. Okay, but I'm not just getting confused now. The message is here that the first step of critical thinking is do not accept the way the system describes itself. The first thing is to redefine the very coordinates. It's not that we all share the same analysis and then we just differ in what is good, what is bad and so on and so on. One really needs thinking more than ever today. And here I disagree, although I respect him as a political figure, with Noam Chomsky. A friend of mine had a year ago lunch with Chomsky and told me that Chomsky told him, "Today we don't need any theory, everything is totally cynical, clear. The only thing we have to do is to tell people what is going on." I disagree with it. I don't—this is this absolutely naive rational aspect of Chomsky which I don't think it works. Last—last tree, okay, we can make a Hegelian triad if you please. Could you tell me the etymology of your name, your first name and your last name? It's very disgusting. Slavoj means "the glorious one." Žižek—I don't know, I only know that's the only good news—that it's of Czech origins. And in Czech it's the same name as that Jan Žižka. You—you know, Jan Hus, the Protestant, no? And then Jan Žižka was the greatest warrior of Protestants. He had a great revolutionary army. They were famous for having so-called moving fortresses fighting Catholic Church. They—they had—they put like thirty, forty oxen and put on them a giant wooden structure like a small fortress so that the whole fortress was moving and the earth was shaking and terrorizing the enemy. And they were so-called Hussites or Taborites, in the Tabor which is town south of Prague. They established there their own Protestant—radical Protestant Republic, in a wonderful Stalinist way. Like they liberated that farmers, "nothing to pay to—to the feudal masters," and then they said, "Just to—just to sustain your revolutionary power, us, you will have to pay to us even a little bit more than before." No, no, quite seriously. That part of my name I'm not ashamed of. It's the first really modern violent egalitarian movement. Protestantism at its best. Slavoj means glorious? Yeah, yeah. One thing before we go on to the signing. Yeah, but okay, my god, the guys, you know, just very briefly, yeah. Oh my god, don't read a long question. It's not. Okay, sorry. In your proposed response to how capitalism addresses consumers, you propose that consumers impose their own meaning on the act of consumption by saying this isn't to save the African child, this is to kill the African child. This was attempted by the punks and was appropriated. How can we resist that appropriation? No, first I wouldn't say that consumers themselves impose the meaning because what meaning does it have? It is quite clearly suggested to you, like for—to be simplified, I know example that I evoked, Starbucks. They don't leave it to you, they directly suggest to you in what way you should feel well, you know. The stupid cup of coffee, "oh,
unknown
you
you
Slavoj Žižek
see the happy African child" or whatever, no, who gets the stupid tuberculosis
see the happy African child" or whatever, no, who gets the stupid tuberculosis
unknown
injection or
injection or
Slavoj Žižek
whatever, no? So—but with concerning punk, oh my god, okay, we don't have time to go into it, but I deeply agree with you here that punk is problem—but I have an answer. More radical groups for the lack of better name I would have called them post-punk. I don't know to what extent they are known here. There was even a Slovene group called Laibach. Now I no longer respect them, they made for my taste too much of a compromise with the new power in Slovenia. Now they want to be recognized as for their contribution to Slovene independence and so on. But there is a German group, do you know it, Rammstein? I think they are good guys, progressive. Why? What are they doing? People think—you know this stupid liberals—totally missed the point. They see Rammstein as—you know, they have all this proto-totalitarian German—they think that they ironically mock the totalitarian rituals, but then typical liberal worry, "That's okay if you are intelligent, but what if there are some young innocent people who will take this too seriously and really become Nazis?" They totally miss the point. You know what I think Rammstein is doing? Let me give you an example from a different domain but it's going in the same direction. In Carinthia, which is north from Slovenia, immediately south Austrian province, this is the original place of that Austrian right-wing populist
whatever, no? So—but with concerning punk, oh my god, okay, we don't have time to go into it, but I deeply agree with you here that punk is problem—but I have an answer. More radical groups for the lack of better name I would have called them post-punk. I don't know to what extent they are known here. There was even a Slovene group called Laibach. Now I no longer respect them, they made for my taste too much of a compromise with the new power in Slovenia. Now they want to be recognized as for their contribution to Slovene independence and so on. But there is a German group, do you know it, Rammstein? I think they are good guys, progressive. Why? What are they doing? People think—you know this stupid liberals—totally missed the point. They see Rammstein as—you know, they have all this proto-totalitarian German—they think that they ironically mock the totalitarian rituals, but then typical liberal worry, "That's okay if you are intelligent, but what if there are some young innocent people who will take this too seriously and really become Nazis?" They totally miss the point. You know what I think Rammstein is doing? Let me give you an example from a different domain but it's going in the same direction. In Carinthia, which is north from Slovenia, immediately south Austrian province, this is the original place of that Austrian right-wing populist
unknown
Jörg Haider who,
Jörg Haider who,
Slavoj Žižek
to—in order to gain his popularity twenty years ago already, twenty-five, he proposed as a slogan a totally crazy idea that we Slovenes—we
to—in order to gain his popularity twenty years ago already, twenty-five, he proposed as a slogan a totally crazy idea that we Slovenes—we
unknown
are nobody, small shitty nation—nonetheless that we are a threat to Austria, that we want to occupy Carinthia. And then his slogan was, in German, "Kärnten bleibt deutsch," which means Carinthia will or should remain German. Now what did the Austrian leftists do? They published in main newspapers—they bought one page and started with "Kärnten
are nobody, small shitty nation—nonetheless that we are a threat to Austria, that we want to occupy Carinthia. And then his slogan was, in German, "Kärnten bleibt deutsch," which means Carinthia will or should remain German. Now what did the Austrian leftists do? They published in main newspapers—they bought one page and started with "Kärnten
Slavoj Žižek
bleibt deutsch." Then they didn't do any ideological analysis how this is wrong. They just—that was the entire paid ad—they just supplemented it with obscene variations like "Kärnten bleibt deutsch," "Kärnten teipt bleuch," "Kärnten bleipt bleuch" and so on. It sounded so dirty, obscene. Doesn't Chaplin do something of the same? Don't underestimate him in his The Great Dictator. You know those speeches of Hitler where you have Hitler deprived of his message, reduced to this vulgar obscenities and so on. You see this raw emotional material. And I think Rammstein is doing something similar. They are directly confronting you with the obscenity of totalitarian nationalist rituals, but in this way they are much more radically undermining it. Like after you see like Chaplin Great Dictator and so on, you can no longer take it—it is as if, you know, something happens like when—similar to, you know, when you see an operatic performance or a great speech. You know what happens on TV when you turn off the sound? The gestures become ridiculous. Something at the similar level is what Chaplin does to Hitler there. You remember that famous speech where it's really like "Kärnten bleipt bleuch" or what? His speech, some totally incomprehensible strange language, only from time to time you recognize a vulgar German word like "Wienerschnitzel," "Apfelstrudel" or what. It's as if Hitler is unmasked in his obscenity. And I think something along these lines Rammstein are doing. And it's a very nice strategy because then the—I think again this is totally false danger, this perception "what if people take it seriously?" I hope they do because in this way they will really get rid of it, of Nazism. I mean, because again what you get—so again, at this level I have—I cannot develop it now—a very precise theory of why punk was not enough and why you have to move like a little bit further. Because, you know, it's even in Europe there were big polemics, at least when I was young, twenty years ago, how to categorize even these bands, no? Punk, but it's no longer that old punk, Johnny Rotten and so on that we knew, no? But it's a very appropriate question. I agree with you here, yeah. Yeah, just—really quickly, um, just, um, in in some of your previous like— Louder! Sorry, in some of your other like lectures you mentioned that the favelas in Brazil perhaps might be a site of sort of like a new sort of almost ontological shift in like leftist kind of like interaction. And in your new book, I thought in the in the section on Heidegger, I thought it was really interesting that that you said that his disillusionment was that like that Nazism wasn't actually an ontological, only like an ontic, sorry that he thought that? Yeah, that it was, or that's what I—I don't know, maybe I read that wrong, but like—but was the—how do you—uh, would you say that like it's possible to have an ontological movement on the left today or— ontological? Yeah, like a—like a shift in—in like in politics and like in like a new like something beyond capitalism that is like— No, no, here my position is honestly tragic and moderately optimistic. I am not saying automatically there will be a new leftist movement. I am saying that we will sooner or later face a dilemma. If we—if there will not be, then we are approaching some kind of a new apartheid neo-authoritarian society, it's already happening in front of our eyes. So I think that in contrast to old Marxism, the big other of history is not on our side. Unfortunately we cannot afford this old Marxist reliance, you know, history is with us, we are moving with the train of history. No, we have to—how'd they put it? Benjamin said this, that the task today is that the problem is that the train of history is running towards precipice. Our task is not to run the train of history—to stop it, maybe in the last minute, no? So—but no, I don't see precisely unfortunately any—if by ontology you mean any ontological guarantee, you know, this almost pseudo-Marxist—which Marx is more ambiguous—automatism, like, you know, like history itself is pushing towards emancipatory. No, history itself is pushing towards catastrophe. Catastrophe is an open situation, my only pessimism with small element of optimism is only that—that times of catastrophe, of apocalypse, are also times of openness. It means that I—what I think cannot happen is that the present system, the way it is, can slowly
bleibt deutsch." Then they didn't do any ideological analysis how this is wrong. They just—that was the entire paid ad—they just supplemented it with obscene variations like "Kärnten bleibt deutsch," "Kärnten teipt bleuch," "Kärnten bleipt bleuch" and so on. It sounded so dirty, obscene. Doesn't Chaplin do something of the same? Don't underestimate him in his The Great Dictator. You know those speeches of Hitler where you have Hitler deprived of his message, reduced to this vulgar obscenities and so on. You see this raw emotional material. And I think Rammstein is doing something similar. They are directly confronting you with the obscenity of totalitarian nationalist rituals, but in this way they are much more radically undermining it. Like after you see like Chaplin Great Dictator and so on, you can no longer take it—it is as if, you know, something happens like when—similar to, you know, when you see an operatic performance or a great speech. You know what happens on TV when you turn off the sound? The gestures become ridiculous. Something at the similar level is what Chaplin does to Hitler there. You remember that famous speech where it's really like "Kärnten bleipt bleuch" or what? His speech, some totally incomprehensible strange language, only from time to time you recognize a vulgar German word like "Wienerschnitzel," "Apfelstrudel" or what. It's as if Hitler is unmasked in his obscenity. And I think something along these lines Rammstein are doing. And it's a very nice strategy because then the—I think again this is totally false danger, this perception "what if people take it seriously?" I hope they do because in this way they will really get rid of it, of Nazism. I mean, because again what you get—so again, at this level I have—I cannot develop it now—a very precise theory of why punk was not enough and why you have to move like a little bit further. Because, you know, it's even in Europe there were big polemics, at least when I was young, twenty years ago, how to categorize even these bands, no? Punk, but it's no longer that old punk, Johnny Rotten and so on that we knew, no? But it's a very appropriate question. I agree with you here, yeah. Yeah, just—really quickly, um, just, um, in in some of your previous like— Louder! Sorry, in some of your other like lectures you mentioned that the favelas in Brazil perhaps might be a site of sort of like a new sort of almost ontological shift in like leftist kind of like interaction. And in your new book, I thought in the in the section on Heidegger, I thought it was really interesting that that you said that his disillusionment was that like that Nazism wasn't actually an ontological, only like an ontic, sorry that he thought that? Yeah, that it was, or that's what I—I don't know, maybe I read that wrong, but like—but was the—how do you—uh, would you say that like it's possible to have an ontological movement on the left today or— ontological? Yeah, like a—like a shift in—in like in politics and like in like a new like something beyond capitalism that is like— No, no, here my position is honestly tragic and moderately optimistic. I am not saying automatically there will be a new leftist movement. I am saying that we will sooner or later face a dilemma. If we—if there will not be, then we are approaching some kind of a new apartheid neo-authoritarian society, it's already happening in front of our eyes. So I think that in contrast to old Marxism, the big other of history is not on our side. Unfortunately we cannot afford this old Marxist reliance, you know, history is with us, we are moving with the train of history. No, we have to—how'd they put it? Benjamin said this, that the task today is that the problem is that the train of history is running towards precipice. Our task is not to run the train of history—to stop it, maybe in the last minute, no? So—but no, I don't see precisely unfortunately any—if by ontology you mean any ontological guarantee, you know, this almost pseudo-Marxist—which Marx is more ambiguous—automatism, like, you know, like history itself is pushing towards emancipatory. No, history itself is pushing towards catastrophe. Catastrophe is an open situation, my only pessimism with small element of optimism is only that—that times of catastrophe, of apocalypse, are also times of openness. It means that I—what I think cannot happen is that the present system, the way it is, can slowly
unknown
expand itself so that in twenty years the whole of the world will be a happy worldwide liberal democracy. It cannot. It cannot. There are not only ecological, not only this vulgar empirical limits like not enough resources, but for more fundamental reasons. This means an open situation. Nothing is guaranteed. You—dog, okay, give one more and then I will collapse. To paraphrase Carl Schmitt. Yeah. Do we need to find an enemy? I mean— Ah, here I would say—I don't have time to go into it—but here I would say that—you know what's the problem today with Carl Schmitt? It's that I'm more and more convinced that Agamben has the right reading when he says that all Carl Schmitt is basically a desperate attempt to recuperate and reinscribe into his own reactionary blah-blah position the insight
expand itself so that in twenty years the whole of the world will be a happy worldwide liberal democracy. It cannot. It cannot. There are not only ecological, not only this vulgar empirical limits like not enough resources, but for more fundamental reasons. This means an open situation. Nothing is guaranteed. You—dog, okay, give one more and then I will collapse. To paraphrase Carl Schmitt. Yeah. Do we need to find an enemy? I mean— Ah, here I would say—I don't have time to go into it—but here I would say that—you know what's the problem today with Carl Schmitt? It's that I'm more and more convinced that Agamben has the right reading when he says that all Carl Schmitt is basically a desperate attempt to recuperate and reinscribe into his own reactionary blah-blah position the insight
Slavoj Žižek
of the young Benjamin in his Critique of Violence. That the gre—all the effort of Carl Schmitt is to obliterate what Benjamin calls divine violence, the emancipatory violence. Because Carl Schmitt is not that he allows too much violence. No, enough. For him it's only, if you dismiss simple criminal violence, it's only this, how you call it, state-protective violence of a constituted state and state-founding violence. There is no space. So Carl Schmitt is, I think, very reactive figure. The Carl Schmitt's big other is interesting to know, do you know that they even exchange letters when they were young? Yeah, yeah, in the early twenties they even had correspondence, Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt. I think there is no way to read Carl Schmitt without reference to—to Walter Benjamin. I think the key is given in Walter Benjamin. And there is now the topic how to read Benjamin. Here my good enemy now, Simon Critchley, whom you mentioned, the polemics goes on, I warn you. It will be soon printed, it gets even much dirtier because now Critchley attacked me claiming that I totally misread Benjamin's notion of divine violence. He claimed that I am for some kind of irrational outburst of violence. And the way he reads it—this will be my answer—is I think totally wrong. What he does is he reads divine violence as a kind of a strategic, in the sense of if we were to be perfect, divine, there would have been no violence. But unfortunately in our imperfect condition, in order to prevent greater violence, you have to strategically kill, use violence, and so on and so on. I think if Benjamin's violence is not something, it's not this. Benjamin, and Agamben is right here, says that—it's not at the level of purposes that you can distinguish divine violence from the bad one, pro-state, mythical violence. He says very—he says almost the opposite. Benjamin says mythical violence is violence which serves as a means to a goal. Divine violence are means without a goal. If anything is in its appearance even more irrational outburst whatsoever. So I think that this pragmatic reading—you know, "we would all like to live in a world without violence, but because of imperfection and so on, you have to kill here, torture there" and so on and so on—precisely this utilitarian calculus of a moderate level of violence is not what Benjamin means. I think no, and Benjamin is an embarrassment here. My right-wing friend Peter Sloterdijk—whatever you think about him, he is reactionary but we personally like each other, I mean, I'm very open with him, when I meet him I tell him, "Listen, things are clear, if I take over you get a one-way ticket to Magadan, Siberia, and you never come back" and so on—but nonetheless he is right when he makes this clear in his book where he also attacks me on—I forgot what was the title, his—ah, Zorn und Zeit, yes, Time and Rage. When he claims that—are we aware that Benjamin, under the notion of divine violence, he simply legitimizing state terror and—and—and mob violence? Yes. He is, he is. You know, this is what I don't trust with this postmodern soft souls where every academic dreams about this, about divine violence should be a violence which is very violent but in some abstract radical symbolic sense where nobody is really hurt, you know, and nothing horrible really—no, no, sorry, Benjamin is here very clear. Divine violence means killing, blood, and so on. And I try to—so the polemic is going on. But nonetheless to answer you, I, although I did contribute there to that volume The Actuality of Carl Schmitt or what by Chantal Mouffe, I think again that his role is a little bit exaggerated. I don't—I mean, if you read some leftists, it almost appears as if the only way to the renewal of Marxism is Carl Schmitt or what. I think you find everything that a young Christian Marxist gentleman needs to know in Walter Benjamin. Perfect point. Good. It seems as though you're like resurrecting the the symbolic figure of the enemy. I mean we need a enemy to survive in a certain sense. Like—no, but I'm doing something else here. No, not that we need an enemy but here I will tell you something where I agree with—but with you. It is as if today's liberalism is prohibiting the very word enemy. It's as if in politics there are not real enemies, just people who are duped, who are victims, blah blah. And you know the price we are paying for it is that enemy returns all the more forcefully as Guantanamo and so on as totally excluded from human com—from human community. I claim that the other side of this liberal idea of no—no, we should accept the fact that sorry in poli—it's not so much that we need an enemy, there are enemies my god. Let's not—it's—you know here this is why I—this is what I find problematic in all this multiculturalist topic of tolerance and so on and so on. Not because of any class essentialism, but the whole matrix as it were of struggle changes. Because in multiculturalism, anti-racism, the whole point is to transform antagonism into peaceful coexistence. Men and women, different races, like the point of feminism is not—I hope not, maybe whatever, maybe I will sign confession and kill myself—but in principle it's not that men should disappear, it's to find a new peaceful blah-blah where one
of the young Benjamin in his Critique of Violence. That the gre—all the effort of Carl Schmitt is to obliterate what Benjamin calls divine violence, the emancipatory violence. Because Carl Schmitt is not that he allows too much violence. No, enough. For him it's only, if you dismiss simple criminal violence, it's only this, how you call it, state-protective violence of a constituted state and state-founding violence. There is no space. So Carl Schmitt is, I think, very reactive figure. The Carl Schmitt's big other is interesting to know, do you know that they even exchange letters when they were young? Yeah, yeah, in the early twenties they even had correspondence, Walter Benjamin and Carl Schmitt. I think there is no way to read Carl Schmitt without reference to—to Walter Benjamin. I think the key is given in Walter Benjamin. And there is now the topic how to read Benjamin. Here my good enemy now, Simon Critchley, whom you mentioned, the polemics goes on, I warn you. It will be soon printed, it gets even much dirtier because now Critchley attacked me claiming that I totally misread Benjamin's notion of divine violence. He claimed that I am for some kind of irrational outburst of violence. And the way he reads it—this will be my answer—is I think totally wrong. What he does is he reads divine violence as a kind of a strategic, in the sense of if we were to be perfect, divine, there would have been no violence. But unfortunately in our imperfect condition, in order to prevent greater violence, you have to strategically kill, use violence, and so on and so on. I think if Benjamin's violence is not something, it's not this. Benjamin, and Agamben is right here, says that—it's not at the level of purposes that you can distinguish divine violence from the bad one, pro-state, mythical violence. He says very—he says almost the opposite. Benjamin says mythical violence is violence which serves as a means to a goal. Divine violence are means without a goal. If anything is in its appearance even more irrational outburst whatsoever. So I think that this pragmatic reading—you know, "we would all like to live in a world without violence, but because of imperfection and so on, you have to kill here, torture there" and so on and so on—precisely this utilitarian calculus of a moderate level of violence is not what Benjamin means. I think no, and Benjamin is an embarrassment here. My right-wing friend Peter Sloterdijk—whatever you think about him, he is reactionary but we personally like each other, I mean, I'm very open with him, when I meet him I tell him, "Listen, things are clear, if I take over you get a one-way ticket to Magadan, Siberia, and you never come back" and so on—but nonetheless he is right when he makes this clear in his book where he also attacks me on—I forgot what was the title, his—ah, Zorn und Zeit, yes, Time and Rage. When he claims that—are we aware that Benjamin, under the notion of divine violence, he simply legitimizing state terror and—and—and mob violence? Yes. He is, he is. You know, this is what I don't trust with this postmodern soft souls where every academic dreams about this, about divine violence should be a violence which is very violent but in some abstract radical symbolic sense where nobody is really hurt, you know, and nothing horrible really—no, no, sorry, Benjamin is here very clear. Divine violence means killing, blood, and so on. And I try to—so the polemic is going on. But nonetheless to answer you, I, although I did contribute there to that volume The Actuality of Carl Schmitt or what by Chantal Mouffe, I think again that his role is a little bit exaggerated. I don't—I mean, if you read some leftists, it almost appears as if the only way to the renewal of Marxism is Carl Schmitt or what. I think you find everything that a young Christian Marxist gentleman needs to know in Walter Benjamin. Perfect point. Good. It seems as though you're like resurrecting the the symbolic figure of the enemy. I mean we need a enemy to survive in a certain sense. Like—no, but I'm doing something else here. No, not that we need an enemy but here I will tell you something where I agree with—but with you. It is as if today's liberalism is prohibiting the very word enemy. It's as if in politics there are not real enemies, just people who are duped, who are victims, blah blah. And you know the price we are paying for it is that enemy returns all the more forcefully as Guantanamo and so on as totally excluded from human com—from human community. I claim that the other side of this liberal idea of no—no, we should accept the fact that sorry in poli—it's not so much that we need an enemy, there are enemies my god. Let's not—it's—you know here this is why I—this is what I find problematic in all this multiculturalist topic of tolerance and so on and so on. Not because of any class essentialism, but the whole matrix as it were of struggle changes. Because in multiculturalism, anti-racism, the whole point is to transform antagonism into peaceful coexistence. Men and women, different races, like the point of feminism is not—I hope not, maybe whatever, maybe I will sign confession and kill myself—but in principle it's not that men should disappear, it's to find a new peaceful blah-blah where one
unknown
doesn't dread the other. But sorry, this is not the logic of what we once called class struggle. The point of class struggle is not to replace
doesn't dread the other. But sorry, this is not the logic of what we once called class struggle. The point of class struggle is not to replace
Slavoj Žižek
antagonism with peaceful coexistence. No, it's a real struggle among enemies. And it's not so much as some pathological need for it. If anything, the present liberal system has a need for it. For me, this is the whole topic of the war of terror, how precisely at the point when capitalism won, when liberal tolerance ideology won, there was this need to quickly construct a new enemy. Then do you remember how throughout the nineties it wasn't clear? At some point the candidates were even Medellin cartel, cocaine and so on, finally happily for them they found terrorists and so on and so on. It's liberal system who—here this is the truth of—of Carl Schmitt, that liberal system itself deeply needs a figure of the enemy. Sorry, now I have—I'm a little bit tired. Okay. So we will have a signing. Thank you all for coming and staying. We're going to have the signing right around the corner under the gear, so please start the line there and then through the store. Thank you for coming out to Modern
antagonism with peaceful coexistence. No, it's a real struggle among enemies. And it's not so much as some pathological need for it. If anything, the present liberal system has a need for it. For me, this is the whole topic of the war of terror, how precisely at the point when capitalism won, when liberal tolerance ideology won, there was this need to quickly construct a new enemy. Then do you remember how throughout the nineties it wasn't clear? At some point the candidates were even Medellin cartel, cocaine and so on, finally happily for them they found terrorists and so on and so on. It's liberal system who—here this is the truth of—of Carl Schmitt, that liberal system itself deeply needs a figure of the enemy. Sorry, now I have—I'm a little bit tired. Okay. So we will have a signing. Thank you all for coming and staying. We're going to have the signing right around the corner under the gear, so please start the line there and then through the store. Thank you for coming out to Modern
unknown
Times tonight.
Times tonight.