The Monthly Digestif Presents: Slavoj Žižek on Christian Atheism
Interview · Sydney Lima ·
published 2024-03-26 · 1:39:40 · 12,414 words
the date above is when the video was uploaded, no recording date was found
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Žižek speaks at the Moth Club in a Q&A interview format covering atheism and Christianity, Gaza and Israeli politics, 'war communism' as a response to ecological and political crisis, and recent films (Barbie, Oppenheimer, The Zone of Interest). He ranges across materialism, ideology, artificial intelligence, cosmopolitanism, and the ethics of military resistance, drawing on Hegel, Lacan, Chesterton, and numerous film and literary examples. The talk is informal and wide-ranging, structured by audience questions and interviewer prompts, touching on global gang-rule politics, the Frankfurt School, and the emancipatory core of Christianity.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 13
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Hegelian dialectical sublation, implied in Žižek's reading of the death of God on the cross as the negation that preserves what survives in Holy Spirit.
as “Holy Spirit as Communist Party”
Žižek reads the Holy Spirit, the post-crucifixion community of believers, as the first form of a Communist Party, a horizontal collective that replaces God-above with love between people.
as “emancipatory core of Christianity”
The genuinely subversive kernel of Christianity, radical equality, Holy Spirit as community, rejection of social hierarchy, which the Church has been trying to suppress for two thousand years.
Not the historical Bolshevik policy but Žižek's term for the level of emergency-driven international coordination and economic transformation required by ecological collapse, mass migration, and permanent crisis.
The contemporary political phenomenon in which legitimate political power increasingly depends on the support of illegal criminal gangs, from Haiti to Israel's settlers to Trump's Proud Boys.
Adorno and Horkheimer's Frankfurt School thesis that fascism and Stalinism are not pre-modern survivals but products of Enlightenment rationality itself, a thesis Habermas refuses, to his discredit in Žižek's view.
as “big Other”
Lacanian symbolic agency invoked to explain Stalinist ideology: the idea that a transcendent symbolic guarantor will retroactively justify present atrocities, making Stalinism secretly theological.
Žižek's formula for true materialism, rejecting the naïve notion of tiny hard bits of substance and instead accepting that ideas themselves behave as material objects, and that the void is not empty.
The false version of cosmopolitanism that posits a universal human essence above cultural differences, as opposed to true cosmopolitanism achieved by estrangement from one's own particular culture.
as “ideology inscribed in practice”
Žižek's insistence that ideology is not primarily ideas dominating the mind but is embedded in the very material everyday practices, how we cook, handle bodily functions, relate to commodities.
Marx's concept of the ideological misperception built into capitalist material practice itself, for Žižek, proof that ideology is not merely false consciousness but is constitutive of social reality.
as “productive stupidity”
The uniquely human capacity to make a mistake that opens a new dimension rather than simply erring, the communicative stutter that conveys love more authentically than perfect articulation.
as “states which are necessarily by-products”
Jon Elster's concept, applied by Žižek to human dignity and declarations of love: acts or qualities that are self-defeating when aimed at directly and can only emerge as unintended effects.
Stories he reaches for 8
At a Missoula, Montana round table, a white liberal corrects a Native American for calling himself 'Indian'; the man replies he prefers 'Indian' because at least that name is a monument to the white man's stupidity, thinking he was in India when he arrived. Žižek offers this as true cosmopolitanism.
“I much prefer to be called Indian because then at least my name is a monument to white man's stupidity who thought they are in India when they—”
Watch fascist versus Stalinist leaders receiving applause: the fascist simply stands and receives it, the Stalinist leader joins the applause alongside the crowd. Žižek says he is on the Stalinist side.
“When there is applause, a fascist leader just receives the applause. The Stalinist leader joins the applause.”
Job's three theologians who rationalize his suffering are the original ideologists; God vindicates Job's complaint; but when Job asks why God made him suffer anyway, God's answer (enumerating strange animals and wonders) is read by Žižek via Chesterton as God admitting he screwed up his whole creation, the deepest masked atheism.
“You think I screwed things up with you? But look at the world. I screwed up everything. All my creation.”
Himmler carried a specially bound copy of Bhagavad Gita because its doctrine of acting without identifying with one's acts solved his 'ethical problem': how could SS men do horrible things without losing their inner decency. Žižek uses this to condemn the ethics of inner spiritual distance.
“Himmler's problem was how can they do it without becoming devious, ugly themselves, without losing their decency? And his answer was Bhagavad Gita.”
Žižek argues that the best Hamlet is Kurosawa's 1960 Japanese version (The Bad Sleep Well), which erases British historical particularity and reveals the play's universal dimension better than Laurence Olivier.
A mythological (unverified) story: when Napoleon took the crown from the Pope's hands at Notre Dame, the Pope said: 'I know you want to destroy Christianity, but you will fail; we the Church have been trying to do this for 2000 years and have failed.'
“We the church are trying to do this already for almost 2000 years and we failed.”
Rushdie responded to accusations of betraying his Indian heritage by declaring that his two greatest influences are 'great Indian writers': Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, the poverty of Mumbai slums is Jane Austen territory, seen freshly from outside.
“The biggest influence of my work are two great Indian writers: Charles Dickens and Jane Austen.”
Apostles send Mary Magdalene to comfort Jesus on his last night; she undresses and approaches him, but Christ looks at her and says 'What a terrible wound I see there' and blesses it closed. Žižek calls this the true spirit of Christianity.
“Christ look at me, at that area, and says, 'My God, what a terrible wound I see there,' and crossed with his fingers and closed everything.”
Works invoked 17
The Book of Job other
Called 'my favorite book from the Old Testament' and 'the first systematic critique of ideology'; Job's complaint vindicated by God against the three ideologist-theologians; God's answer read as confession of failed creation.
Adorno and Horkheimer's work; Žižek endorses its central thesis that fascism and barbarism are products of Enlightenment, not pre-modern survivals, and attacks Habermas for rejecting it.
Bhagavad Gita other
Called 'one of the most obscene books in the history of humanity'; used to illustrate the dangerous ethics of inner distance, Himmler's handbook for guilt-free atrocity.
Mein Kampf book
Mentioned as a book Žižek has read; did not make him more tolerant, it was worse; used to argue against the liberal platitude that listening to the enemy's story produces understanding.
The Bad Sleep Well film
Kurosawa's 1960 Japanese Hamlet; called 'the best Shakespeare Hamlet' because by erasing British particularity it reveals the play's universal dimension, cosmopolitanism through external estrangement.
'A disgusting movie, I hate the actors' but the Hugh Grant stutter-declaration scene is the key example of productive stupidity and states which are necessarily by-products.
Oppenheimer film
Not a bad movie but Žižek hates the pseudo-oriental Bhagavad Gita mysticism; the sex-scene-with-sacred-text controversy is used to attack the ethics of inner distance.
Stalker film
Wonderful feature but ultimately 'fake' in Žižek's view; praised for embedding spiritual experience in dirty water and mud rather than transcendence, but the overall spiritualism is questioned.
The Rapture film
Called 'one of my favorite movies'; used as the paradigm case of radical atheism-within-Christianity, a woman who refuses to say 'I love God' even when God demonstrably exists because God is too evil.
Barbie film
Žižek wrote a review without seeing it (à la Oscar Wilde); argues the Barbie world is effectively hell and the film should have been made much darker; used to illustrate how ideology functions.
The Ghost Writer film
Polanski film used as a structural model for Žižek's imagined phone call between Israeli hardliners and Hamas; the CIA-coached PM is 'a beautiful fiction which would have explained everything.'
General della Rovere film
Rossellini film (mentioned as one Žižek 'of course hasn't seen', his joke, but actually has); used as the key illustration of authenticity as full identification with an externally imposed mask.
Žižek's own book, cited as the source of his argument about productive stupidity and AI using the Four Weddings and a Funeral example.
Ulysses book
Mentioned as Joyce's great work written in Trieste (near Žižek's home); cited as an example of cosmopolitan work produced in exile, though Žižek admits to hating Joyce.
Philosophy Now journal
Mentioned as the journal where Žižek published a text on states which are necessarily by-products and the limits of artificial intelligence.
The Zone of Interest film
Žižek is 'more kindly disposed' to it; admires the vulgar realistic detail (commander washing genitals) and Glazer's Oscar speech renouncing Israeli actions.
The Idiot (film) film
Kurosawa's 1951 adaptation of Dostoevsky, another example of cosmopolitan universality through external cultural translation.
People invoked 44
Bezalel Smotrich negative
Named as a 'crazy right-wing minister' who admitted Israel's support for Hamas through Qatar; associated with Eli Academy ideology.
Jonathan Glazer positive
Director of The Zone of Interest; Žižek admires him for his Oscar speech renouncing Israeli actions despite initial patriotic temptation; worries whether he will get funding for future films.
Jean-Pierre Dupuy positive
Called 'my good friend' and 'the greatest today theorist of catastrophes'; visited Fukushima as EU envoy and confirmed Japanese government's near-panic about total central-Japan evacuation.
Itamar Ben-Gvir negative
Described as Israel's chief of police who was previously convicted as a terrorist against Palestinians, exemplifying the new gang-rule politics.
Žižek says he likes her previous work even while criticizing Barbie as not going dark enough.
Mentioned only as the person Putin blamed for 'creating' Ukraine, Žižek uses this to expose Putin's anti-communist ideology.
Theodor W. Adorno positive
Co-author of the Dialectic of Enlightenment, whose thesis about fascism as product of Enlightenment Žižek endorses against Habermas's refusal.
Jacques Lacan positive
Invoked through the concept of the 'big Other' to explain the theological structure underlying Stalinism.
Cited alongside Trump as a 'definitely not good guy' who was nonetheless compelled during the pandemic to implement quasi-communist emergency measures.
G. K. Chesterton positive
Called 'my favorite theologian'; cited for his reading of the Crucifixion as God becoming an atheist, and for his reading of Job as God admitting his creation is a total failure.
Mentioned as an example of Western mega-mistakes: the toppling of Gaddafi contributed to destabilization and migration crises.
Charles de Gaulle positive
Cited as a counter-example to pacifism: in occupied France, de Gaulle's militarist call to continue resistance was the ethical position, not the collaborationist 'pacifism' of those who wanted to wait out the occupation.
Arundhati Roy positive
Cited for her formulation that until Gaza, Western values were hypocritical but still provided a moral compass; after Gaza, the entire European emancipatory legacy lost its potential.
Called the 'true postmodern relativist', an obscene figure who doesn't take things seriously; the paradox being that the ostensible transgressor is actually the relativist.
Álvaro García Linera positive
Called 'my good friend'; Morales's ex-vice president who explained to Žižek that the Bolivian left's breakthrough was recognizing domestic women workers as the truly exploited.
Adolf Hitler negative
Referenced multiple times: Fanta origin; Mein Kampf as a book Žižek read without becoming more tolerant; Eli Academy rabbis calling him God's instrument; and as the historical aggressor whose early appeasement made WWII worse.
Bernie Sanders positive
Held up, despite critical points, as a pure figure of simple, silent decency, 'moral majority' in the positive sense, in contrast to Trump's postmodern cynicism.
Marwan Barghouti positive
Described as a 'Palestinian Mandela', imprisoned for organizing intifadas but never for killing Jews; identified as the only Palestinian with enough popular support to make peace.
Samuel Beckett positive
Cited alongside Joyce as an example of a writer who had to leave Ireland and change language (French) to do his greatest work on Ireland, true cosmopolitanism through betrayal.
Evo Morales positive
Cited, along with his ex-vice president Linera, for recognizing that the truly exploited class in Latin America was not the traditional working class but unorganized women domestic servants.
Heinrich Himmler negative
Used as exemplar of how the Bhagavad Gita ethics of inner distance enables atrocity; his reliance on it is the proof that the text is ideologically dangerous.
Benjamin Netanyahu negative
Central figure in the 'tango' with Hamas; Žižek argues Netanyahu needed the October 7 attack to survive politically and to advance West Bank ethnic cleansing.
Salman Rushdie positive
Žižek says he 'has problems with him' but uses Rushdie's anecdote about Dickens and Austen as 'great Indian writers' as a key example of true cosmopolitanism.
Peter Sloterdijk positive
Described as a right-winger 'but not an idiot'; cited for his idea that every great religion has its own specific form of atheism.
Jon Elster positive
The Norwegian theorist of rational action cited for the concept of 'states which are necessarily by-products', applied to dignity, love declarations, and the limits of AI.
Ami Ayalon positive
Ex-head of Shin Bet described as 'the voice of reason'; advocates immediately releasing Barghouti and giving Palestinians real political hope.
Roman Polanski positive
Director of Ghost Writer, whose fictional structure of the CIA-coached Blair is used by Žižek to model the Hamas-Israel imagined phone call.
Roberto Rossellini positive
Director of General della Rovere, used as the key example of authenticity as full identification with an externally imposed role.
Had a recent interview with Žižek; Žižek says he followed his Jordan Peterson tactic, being soft to get the basic message across (e.g. about Gaza).
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling positive
Cited from the treatise on human freedom for the claim that evil is more spiritual than goodness, used to complicate any equation of materialism with the absence of spirit.
Walter Benjamin positive
Invoked via critics of Habermas: being truly civilized means being aware we are on the edge of barbarism generated by the European project itself.
Jordan Peterson negative
Žižek says he was 'very soft' in their debate because he wanted to speak to Peterson's followers with the left's better version of the anti-victimhood, take-responsibility message; does not endorse Peterson's views.
Søren Kierkegaard positive
Cited for his description of Christ's arrival as a small dirty dog running on stage, a key image for the kenotic lowering at the heart of Christianity.
Žižek says 'I hate James Joyce' but acknowledges he wrote Ulysses in Trieste (near Žižek's home); cited as example of external exile enabling cosmopolitan work.
Jürgen Habermas negative
Criticized for unconditionally supporting Israel; diagnosed as failing to accept the Dialectic of Enlightenment, making him unable to self-criticize Western modernity; called 'a philosophical Barbie.'
Vladimir Putin negative
Žižek is 'shocked' when Putin is seen as a resistance hero; cites Putin's February 2022 speeches explicitly calling Ukraine a 'Bolshevik creation' that must be corrected, making him an anti-communist imperialist.
Akira Kurosawa positive
Cited as director of the best Hamlet (The Bad Sleep Well, 1960) and best Idiot (1951), both Japanese retellings that reveal the universal dimension by erasing British/Russian particularity.
François Laruelle positive
Mentioned as someone whose work Žižek recently introduced, noted for his idea of the suffering subject and alignment with Christian atheism.
Loved as a film director but criticized for a fake quality in Stalker: the spiritual experience embedded in dirty water and mud is praised but the overall spiritualism is called 'fake.'
Discussed in nuanced terms: Žižek is 'no friend of Stalin' but argues Stalin's 1939 Pact was a rational response to Western betrayal over Czechoslovakia; also used to illustrate how Stalinism is secretly theological.
Karl Marx positive
Commodity fetishism used to show ideology is constitutive of material practice; also cited in Talmud analogy ('God quoting Marx') and on working class as emancipatory subject.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Called 'my favorite philosopher'; the death of God on the cross is read as Hegelian, God of the beyond dies, leaving immanent community; used throughout.
Referenced by an audience member asking about cosmopolitanism; Žižek implicitly contrasts Kant's abstract cosmopolitanism with his own dialectical version.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky positive
The Idiot mentioned as another case where Kurosawa's external adaptation (1951) reveals the universal dimension better than historically embedded readings.
What it argues
atheism through Christianity — self-destruction of religion from insidegang-rule and the criminalization of politicswar communism as response to global emergencytrue cosmopolitanism as external estrangement from one's own cultureideology as embedded in material practice, not just ideasproductive stupidity as uniquely human versus AIthe emancipatory core of Christianity against church institutionalization
Dialectical moves 10
“The only way to be a true atheist is through Christianity — you must self-destroy religion from the inside.”
Far from Christianity being the obstacle to atheism, it is the only path to genuine atheism because a bare external denial leaves God surviving in new forms.
“God becomes an atheist on the cross — it is the unique moment when God himself no longer believes in himself.”
The crucifixion is not divine sacrifice but the self-abolition of transcendent God, leaving only the immanent community of believers.
“The Church has been trying to destroy the true message of Christianity for two thousand years and failed — Napoleon was told this and so is everyone who tries to weaponize it.”
The institution most committed to Christianity is also the force most actively suppressing its genuinely subversive core.
“Stalinism is not atheism or materialism — it is a disguised theology, because its logic requires a big Other to retroactively justify present horrors.”
The most militantly atheist political movement secretly relies on the theological structure it claims to have abolished.
“Brutal materialism can be more spiritual in a false sense than idealism — evil is more spiritual than goodness.”
Schelling's insight that evil, as the destruction of materiality, is a more purely spiritual act than natural goodness, undercutting any naïve equation of materialism with the absence of spirit.
“Trump is the true postmodern relativist; Sanders is the representative of simple moral decency — the roles of revolutionary and conservative are paradoxically inverted.”
In a decadent system, the ostensibly transgressive populist is the relativist and it falls to the left to defend old-fashioned moral seriousness.
“Occupiers are always sincerely pacifist — because for them peace means keeping what they have stolen.”
Pacifism cannot be a general ethical principle because it systematically advantages those who already possess by force.
“To truly understand Shakespeare you must erase the peculiarities and look at him from outside — you can understand Shakespeare better than Shakespeare himself.”
Authentic comprehension of a culture comes not from immersion but from external estrangement; the outsider's gaze reveals the universal in the particular.
“If God exists, creation is a totally screwed-up job — a total failure — so even theism implies atheism.”
Chesterton's reading of Job: God's answer is not 'you cannot understand my wisdom' but 'look how I botched everything', God's self-deprecation is thinly masked atheism.
“There is no authentic cosmopolitanism without remaining faithful to your particular legacy by betraying it.”
True universality is reached not by transcending the particular but by seeing it from an external position that reveals its unexpected universal dimension.
Claims 22
asserts
To be a true atheist requires self-destroying religion from the inside rather than simply denying God, because a bare denial leaves God surviving in disguised forms.atheism and religion
asserts
The whole content of Christianity is the death of God — on the cross not a representative but God himself dies — leaving behind only the Holy Spirit as community of believers.Christianity and atheism
asserts
Stalinism is not genuinely materialist or atheist because it is premised on a theological big-Other figure that will retroactively justify present horrors.Stalinism and atheism
rejects
The idea that particular suffering is merely a close-up stain that looks harmonious from a distance is the most disgusting theological metaphor and must be rejected; suffering is absolute.theodicy and the justification of suffering
asserts
Christian ethics is superior to Bhagavad Gita-style ethics of inner detachment because it insists on external engagement: what matters is not your inner spiritual state but what you actually do.ethics of action versus inner distance
asserts
Himmler used Bhagavad Gita to solve his 'ethical problem' — how SS men could commit atrocities without losing their inner decency by not identifying with their acts — making it an ideologically dangerous text.Bhagavad Gita and the ethics of non-identification
asserts
The new right-wing populism has appropriated what used to be experienced as subversive or revolutionary modes of action, leaving the left needing to reclaim simple moral decency.left politics and right-wing populism
reframes
Trump is the true postmodern relativist and it is Bernie Sanders who represents simple, silent moral decency — the roles are paradoxically reversed.Trump, Sanders, and postmodernism
asserts
Contemporary politics is entering a phase where legitimate rulers cannot survive without criminal gang support — from Haiti to Israeli settlers to the Proud Boys.gang rule and political legitimacy
asserts
We need 'war communism' — emergency-level international cooperation and economic transformation — to address ecological collapse and the migration crisis; liberal gradualism is insufficient.ecology, communism, and political response to crisis
asserts
The pandemic revealed that even right-wing leaders like Johnson and Trump were compelled to implement elementary communist measures (free distribution of resources), showing that the market framework can be violated.communism and the pandemic
asserts
Hamas and Israeli hardliners share a deadly tango of mutual benefit: Hamas attacks enable Netanyahu to survive politically, consolidate power, and pursue West Bank ethnic cleansing; Hamas gains from the resulting anti-Semitism.Gaza, Hamas, and Israeli hardliners
asserts
German cultural policy on Israel-Palestine — where criticizing Israeli actions without attributing Palestinian suffering to Hamas is deemed antisemitic — constitutes the worst possible ethical act Germany can perform.Germany, antisemitism, and Gaza
asserts
Habermas failed by never accepting the Dialectic of Enlightenment — the idea that fascism is not a pre-modern remnant but a product of Enlightenment — and this failure explains his unconditional support for Israel.Habermas, Frankfurt School, and Enlightenment
asserts
Gaza has destroyed the emancipatory potential of the entire European legacy of human rights, feminism, and freedom; these values were always hypocritical but at least provided a moral compass until now.Western values and Gaza
asserts
Ideology is not primarily ideas that dominate us but is inscribed into everyday material practice; the key question is not how to escape ideology but why reality itself needs ideology to reproduce.ideology and material practice
asserts
Artificial intelligence cannot replicate what is uniquely human — not superior intelligence but productive stupidity: using mistakes as openings to new dimensions rather than errors to be corrected.AI and human cognition
asserts
True cosmopolitanism is not abstract universalism but seeing one's own culture properly only from the outside — the external gaze that reveals the unexpected universal in the concrete particular.cosmopolitanism and cultural identity
asserts
Authenticity is not the result of going deep into oneself but of fully identifying with an externally imposed role or mask — as in General della Rovere who becomes what he was only pretending to be.authenticity and identity
asserts
There is no abstract pacifist rule covering all wars — early military resistance can prevent larger violence, and occupiers are always sincerely pacifist because peace means they keep what they have stolen.pacifism, war, and Ukraine
asserts
The Barbie world is effectively hell — an asexual fantasy — and the real question is why ordinary people need to fantasize about hell.Barbie film and ideology
asserts
Every great religion has its own specific form of atheism; Judaism has a materialist strand in Talmud where God admits he only exists through human prayer and where Job's complaint is vindicated over the ideologists.Jewish atheism and the Book of Job
Quotes 15
“To truly be an atheist, it's not enough to just say there is no God. If you just do this, then God usually survives in some different form.”Slavoj Žižek · atheism requires more than denial
“What dies on the cross is not just a representative of God, but God of beyond himself dies on the cross.”Slavoj Žižek · death of God — Hegelian Christianity
“The core of Christianity is for me there is no higher force which takes care of us so that we can be sure that at the end everything will turn well. No. History is radically open. It all depends on us.”Slavoj Žižek · Christian atheism — radical openness of history
“Holy Spirit, which is for me the first form of a Communist Party. It is a community of believers.”Slavoj Žižek · Holy Spirit as Communist Party
“The truth about you is not in what you fantasize, your ethical ideas and so on. They are as a rule a fake story you invented so that you can survive, deal with the horrors that you do in your actual life.”Slavoj Žižek · inner life as ideological cover story
“Why not say like this, a beautiful sex scene ruined by one of the most obscene books in the history of humanity?”Slavoj Žižek · Bhagavad Gita as obscene — reversal of Indian protest
“I don't see the problem of artificial intelligence in its being more bright than we, but in not being stupid in the way we humans can be.”Slavoj Žižek · productive human stupidity versus AI
“The only true cosmopolitanism is 'we are both basically evil, but each of us is evil in a specific way.'”Slavoj Žižek · true cosmopolitanism — shared evil in specific forms
“If you are an optimist today, you are just disappointed all the time. But if you are a pessimist, from time to time some nice thing nonetheless happens.”Slavoj Žižek · pessimism as strategy for happiness
“Don't ask directly how to get rid of ideology, ask yourself rather why does reality need ideology to reproduce itself? That's the key point.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology as constitutive of reality
“Occupiers are always sincerely pacifist — because peace for them means we keep France and we exploit it nicely.”Slavoj Žižek · pacifism as ideology of occupation
“Evil is much more spiritual than goodness. Goodness is a natural attitude of respecting natural objects, but evil is the brutality of destroying materiality which is much more spiritual.”Slavoj Žižek · evil as more spiritual than goodness — Schelling
“There is no authentic cosmopolitanism without remaining faithful to your particular legacy by betraying it.”Slavoj Žižek · cosmopolitanism through betrayal of one's particular legacy
“Those who present themselves as advocates of neoconservative Christian values, the other face of them is always vulgar brutal criminality.”Slavoj Žižek · neoconservative values and criminal underside
“You can only be a truly civilized person today if you are aware that we are on the edge of barbarism, which doesn't come from outside but from inner tensions of our own European project.”Slavoj Žižek · barbarism from within — Walter Benjamin / Frankfurt School
Transcript 82 turns
unknown
Hello. One, two. Good evening, comrades, and welcome to the Moth Club. Tonight is a very special event. It's a spin-off event of the Monthly Digestif, which is a weekly news review. I am Sydney Lima, writer and documentary filmmaker, and I'm very, very excited to introduce to the stage Slavoj Žižek. What do you
Hello. One, two. Good evening, comrades, and welcome to the Moth Club. Tonight is a very special event. It's a spin-off event of the Monthly Digestif, which is a weekly news review. I am Sydney Lima, writer and documentary filmmaker, and I'm very, very excited to introduce to the stage Slavoj Žižek. What do you
unknown
think? Nice? I've got your favorites. Although now as I briefly told her, I'm
think? Nice? I've got your favorites. Although now as I briefly told her, I'm
Slavoj Žižek
switching to Fanta as a pure provocation. I'm not kidding. You know, some of you must know, what is the origin of Fanta? Fanta is Hitler's answer to Coke. Because in '39, the war, Coke took the copyright or whatever you call it, license, from Germany and in one month they invented Fanta. So just be aware when you drink Fanta.
switching to Fanta as a pure provocation. I'm not kidding. You know, some of you must know, what is the origin of Fanta? Fanta is Hitler's answer to Coke. Because in '39, the war, Coke took the copyright or whatever you call it, license, from Germany and in one month they invented Fanta. So just be aware when you drink Fanta.
unknown
So I was going to say, how are you?
So I was going to say, how are you?
Slavoj Žižek
Unfortunately, still alive. So that's all I can say.
Unfortunately, still alive. So that's all I can say.
unknown
Congratulations on another book.
Congratulations on another book.
Slavoj Žižek
Too many of them, I know.
Too many of them, I know.
unknown
Yes. So you've been labeled a celebrity philosopher, the most dangerous philosopher in the West, a rock star philosopher, a communist, a punk icon, the Elvis of cultural theory, and most recently a TikTok hero. How do these titles sit with you?
Yes. So you've been labeled a celebrity philosopher, the most dangerous philosopher in the West, a rock star philosopher, a communist, a punk icon, the Elvis of cultural theory, and most recently a TikTok hero. How do these titles sit with you?
Slavoj Žižek
I think as a good Stalinist paranoiac that these are all forms of attacking me. Even if they this appears to celebrate me, but the idea is, he's just a popular figure, go to his talk, be amused, but don't take him seriously, no? On the, on the—in my actual life, if there is something like this, I'm now more and more returning to great philosophical questions. Sorry.
I think as a good Stalinist paranoiac that these are all forms of attacking me. Even if they this appears to celebrate me, but the idea is, he's just a popular figure, go to his talk, be amused, but don't take him seriously, no? On the, on the—in my actual life, if there is something like this, I'm now more and more returning to great philosophical questions. Sorry.
unknown
Sorry, sorry.
Sorry, sorry.
unknown
Oh, that, that fucks my next question. You know what I do
Oh, that, that fucks my next question. You know what I do
unknown
now?
now?
Slavoj Žižek
You will be terribly disappointed. I will not boast with names, but I'm, sorry, sorry, I'm in contact with many great names, I don't know why they are so stupid to accept being in contact with me, of quantum physics. Like, what does it mean for our notion of reality? What's the status of all those wave oscillations and so on? And I think this is truly fascinating. So I'm deep in that now. And my next book will probably be on that.
You will be terribly disappointed. I will not boast with names, but I'm, sorry, sorry, I'm in contact with many great names, I don't know why they are so stupid to accept being in contact with me, of quantum physics. Like, what does it mean for our notion of reality? What's the status of all those wave oscillations and so on? And I think this is truly fascinating. So I'm deep in that now. And my next book will probably be on that.
unknown
You can't talk about the next book, we're trying to sell this one. But this one is—ah, this
You can't talk about the next book, we're trying to sell this one. But this one is—ah, this
Slavoj Žižek
one also has a chapter, second one even, or third one, which is on quantum physics.
one also has a chapter, second one even, or third one, which is on quantum physics.
unknown
So you've previously said the only way really to be an atheist is through Christianity. Please explain.
So you've previously said the only way really to be an atheist is through Christianity. Please explain.
Slavoj Žižek
I can, as briefly as possible, of course, because you know, to truly be an atheist, it's not enough to just say there is no God, blah, blah, blah. If you just do this, then God usually survives in some different form. Like you say, there is not personal God, but there are the divine ideals and so on, we should remain faithful to that and so on. So my idea is that to be really an atheist means to, as it were, self-destroy religion from inside. Did you see, for example, one of my favorite movies? I don't know if I mention it in this book again. I think it's called—it's called *The Rapture*. years ago done with Mimi Rogers. And it's an incredible movie. I will not tell the entire story, but at the end, a woman who suffers a lot, her children are dead and so on—what happens is that the end of the world effectively happens. And she goes to the edge of a certain precipice, it's clear that on the other side it's already heaven. And her child and husband approach her and say, "Just say I love you, Christ, and you will be permitted to crossover." And God exists, I mean, you see it all. And she says, "No, after all the evil that God did to me, I will never say this. God is too evil." And her daughter child then asks her, "But you know what this means? Like, we will never meet." And she said, "Yes, I know." The end of the movie. You know, this is a much more radical position. And I think that something like this happens uniquely in Christianity. I think the whole content of Christianity is the death of God, but not in this cyclical sense of God dies and comes back and so on. As Hegel, my favorite philosopher, put it, what dies on the cross is not just a representative of God, but God of beyond himself dies on the cross. What survives is what? It is simply—uh—what? Holy Spirit, which is for me the first form of a Communist Party. It is a community of believers. Which, and this is how I read all those details. You remember when Christ says, "If you don't hate your father and mother, you are not my follower." How are we to read this? Not in this stupid way, hate your father or mother as a person. It means mother and father stand there simply for social hierarchy. You can love them, but not in their symbolic role in social hierarchy. So, but Christ says this. You remember when he is, I don't know in which Gospel, in a tent and they—somebody tells him, "You know, your family mother who is outside waiting for you," and he says—sorry, he, Christ says—"Listen, uh—here is my family, my followers. I don't have any family" and so on. This is quite a unique idea, Holy Spirit. And Christ returns in Holy Spirit. You—all this topic of second coming, blah, blah, that's bullshit. Read the Gospel, yes, where Christ is asked, "How will we know after your death that you will return?" And he says, "When there will be love between two of you, I will be there." And that's it. Nothing, nothing more. So I think, to cut a long story short, that the whole history of Christianity is one big struggle against the truly subversive core of Christianity. I think I often, maybe if some of you know my books, quote this anecdote which is not true, it's proven, but you know when Napoleon was approached by Pope to be crowned in—in Notre Dame, the church, he took the crown from Pope's hand and put it himself on his head. And that's a myth, but it's a beautiful myth. Then the Pope told Napoleon, "I know what you want to do, you want to destroy Christianity. But believe me, you will fail. We the church are trying to do this already for almost years and we failed." I simply believe that there is something truly traumatic in this original message of Christianity. My favorite theologian, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, said this, he said that, you know, that moment on the cross when Christ says, "Eli, Eli, Father, why have you forsaken me?" no? That it's the unique moment where God himself, Christ, no longer believes in himself. God becomes an atheist at the end. And that's it. The—the freedom that is given to us as Christians is just this negative freedom. It means the core of Christianity is for me there is no higher force which takes care of us so that we can be sure that at the end everything will turn well. No. History is radically open. It all depends on us. And I think this especially is important today when we no longer can afford to think in these eschatological terms. You know, the terms of where the history is moving and so on. It's clear that we are in a mess. Even the Marxist solution, history is nonetheless moving towards some kind of a socialism, communism, I think it no longer holds. Even the idea of a privileged class or group of people which are in their very social position put, constructed as potential fighters for emancipation. Like for Marx, it was the working class. In '68 it was students. Today some people think it is the—the immigrants. Like those who are deprived of everything and will do the freedom. No. I think we are in such a mess today that, for example, I think that—I think that—there are all forms of—for example of unseen unpaid labor, precarious workers, women like in Latin America. That's why Evo Morales, I am very friendly with his ex-vice president Linera, who explained it to me. In old days the left there was focusing on traditional working class. But Linera and Morales got it. What about all those women working as servants, you know, and so on? Nobody counted on them, but they were the truly exploited. And—here I think Christianity survives, but not as a positive solution, just as accepting this abyss. The second reason I like Christianity, trigger warning now, an obscenity will come, no, is that people forget that in Palestine, all are not Muslims. There are also, now they're just of them, Christian Palestinians. The best jokes that I've heard, but they are I think deeply Christian making fun of Christianity itself, I heard them from Christian Palestinians there. Like, the nastiest one almost: the Christ, his last evening there, no, he knows he will be crucified next day, is alone in the tent. So his apostles, disciples, said, "My God, our Lord will die tomorrow, why don't we make his last moments happy and call Mary Magdalene," who was a prostitute. "Go there and seduce him that he will have some pleasure," no? Okay. She goes in and runs out after two, three minutes crying like crazy. And they ask in their worry, "My God, what did he do? Is he secretly a pervert? Did he torture you?" "No," she says, "is much worse. I did what was expected of me. I undressed myself, I spread my legs and approached him. And then Christ look at me, at that area, and says, 'My God, what a terrible wound I see there,' and crossed with his fingers and closed everything." You like—this is the spirit of Christianity, I claim. If a religion doesn't—doesn't sustain this. You know my favorite philosopher, theologian Kierkegaard said this beautifully. You know how he described, Kierkegaard, the arrival of Christ? He says, imagine a big stage where you expect some royal figure to emerge, and then the curtain open and you see nothing just from behind the curtain, a small dirty dog runs on the stage. That's the arrival of Christ. That's the whole point of it. I mean, this is what I'm talking about. So don't be afraid. I mean, I'm not in any sense returning to church. I think that if anything—what, I cannot talk about other kinds—but I'm coming to, I'm coming from Slovenia, where we are a Catholic country. If nothing else, all these pedophilia scandals are so unthinkable. You know what's the biggest mystery for me? How can the Catholic Church, okay now the Pope tries to be a little bit better, but nonetheless, how can they at the same time protect the pedophiliac priests and at the same time criticize homosexuality? As a Croat gay activist, my friend, said, "Ah, now I understand the church position. Adult men shouldn't do among themselves, but if you do it with a small child, everything is okay," you know? It's the position of the—of the church is so—is so weakened, but I don't think this will hurt this what I call emancipatory core of Christianity. Okay, I've spoken long enough. Now I will be shorter. No, I love that. Um, on the subject of Christianity, what's your take on Jordan Peterson saying the Bible is the foundation of truth? I—listen, I know the guy that you mention. I had a so-called debate with him where I was very soft on him, but you know why? Because again, as I said a couple of times, I—my point was to address his followers and to tell them what Jordan is telling you: don't fall into this self-pitying victimhood stance, take your fate into your hands and so on. We authentic left can deliver this to you better than all the conservatives, you know? And this is part of my larger totally crazy argument. We live in a crazy time. Did you notice how in last decades with the new right-wing populism, what once we experienced as subversive revolutionary activity is becoming also almost a right-wing prerogative? I mean, the last thing that looked, although it was not, as a revolutionary act: you remember 6th of January, attack on Capitol. My friends were crying, they said, "We should be doing this," people invading the—no, sorry. Which is why when I'm asked about this, I'm saying something very simple. I'm saying, you know, neoconservatives like to attack multiculturalism—uh—liberal obscenity, cynicism, historicism. No. If there ever was a postmodern president, it is Donald Trump. He's an obscene guy, he doesn't take seriously— You've spoken very highly of him recently. When? Where? Show me. Where, where? No, no, no, because my point is this one, that if you—isn't it paradoxical that he with all his dirty things and so on, he is the true postmodern relativist? And what is Bernie Sanders, in spite of all critical points? Isn't he a pure figure of what you cannot but call simple, silent decency, moral majority even, and so on? It's—the system is so decadent today that it is up to us, whatever survive of the left, to speak about common decency and so on and so on. We live in crazy times.
I can, as briefly as possible, of course, because you know, to truly be an atheist, it's not enough to just say there is no God, blah, blah, blah. If you just do this, then God usually survives in some different form. Like you say, there is not personal God, but there are the divine ideals and so on, we should remain faithful to that and so on. So my idea is that to be really an atheist means to, as it were, self-destroy religion from inside. Did you see, for example, one of my favorite movies? I don't know if I mention it in this book again. I think it's called—it's called *The Rapture*. years ago done with Mimi Rogers. And it's an incredible movie. I will not tell the entire story, but at the end, a woman who suffers a lot, her children are dead and so on—what happens is that the end of the world effectively happens. And she goes to the edge of a certain precipice, it's clear that on the other side it's already heaven. And her child and husband approach her and say, "Just say I love you, Christ, and you will be permitted to crossover." And God exists, I mean, you see it all. And she says, "No, after all the evil that God did to me, I will never say this. God is too evil." And her daughter child then asks her, "But you know what this means? Like, we will never meet." And she said, "Yes, I know." The end of the movie. You know, this is a much more radical position. And I think that something like this happens uniquely in Christianity. I think the whole content of Christianity is the death of God, but not in this cyclical sense of God dies and comes back and so on. As Hegel, my favorite philosopher, put it, what dies on the cross is not just a representative of God, but God of beyond himself dies on the cross. What survives is what? It is simply—uh—what? Holy Spirit, which is for me the first form of a Communist Party. It is a community of believers. Which, and this is how I read all those details. You remember when Christ says, "If you don't hate your father and mother, you are not my follower." How are we to read this? Not in this stupid way, hate your father or mother as a person. It means mother and father stand there simply for social hierarchy. You can love them, but not in their symbolic role in social hierarchy. So, but Christ says this. You remember when he is, I don't know in which Gospel, in a tent and they—somebody tells him, "You know, your family mother who is outside waiting for you," and he says—sorry, he, Christ says—"Listen, uh—here is my family, my followers. I don't have any family" and so on. This is quite a unique idea, Holy Spirit. And Christ returns in Holy Spirit. You—all this topic of second coming, blah, blah, that's bullshit. Read the Gospel, yes, where Christ is asked, "How will we know after your death that you will return?" And he says, "When there will be love between two of you, I will be there." And that's it. Nothing, nothing more. So I think, to cut a long story short, that the whole history of Christianity is one big struggle against the truly subversive core of Christianity. I think I often, maybe if some of you know my books, quote this anecdote which is not true, it's proven, but you know when Napoleon was approached by Pope to be crowned in—in Notre Dame, the church, he took the crown from Pope's hand and put it himself on his head. And that's a myth, but it's a beautiful myth. Then the Pope told Napoleon, "I know what you want to do, you want to destroy Christianity. But believe me, you will fail. We the church are trying to do this already for almost years and we failed." I simply believe that there is something truly traumatic in this original message of Christianity. My favorite theologian, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, said this, he said that, you know, that moment on the cross when Christ says, "Eli, Eli, Father, why have you forsaken me?" no? That it's the unique moment where God himself, Christ, no longer believes in himself. God becomes an atheist at the end. And that's it. The—the freedom that is given to us as Christians is just this negative freedom. It means the core of Christianity is for me there is no higher force which takes care of us so that we can be sure that at the end everything will turn well. No. History is radically open. It all depends on us. And I think this especially is important today when we no longer can afford to think in these eschatological terms. You know, the terms of where the history is moving and so on. It's clear that we are in a mess. Even the Marxist solution, history is nonetheless moving towards some kind of a socialism, communism, I think it no longer holds. Even the idea of a privileged class or group of people which are in their very social position put, constructed as potential fighters for emancipation. Like for Marx, it was the working class. In '68 it was students. Today some people think it is the—the immigrants. Like those who are deprived of everything and will do the freedom. No. I think we are in such a mess today that, for example, I think that—I think that—there are all forms of—for example of unseen unpaid labor, precarious workers, women like in Latin America. That's why Evo Morales, I am very friendly with his ex-vice president Linera, who explained it to me. In old days the left there was focusing on traditional working class. But Linera and Morales got it. What about all those women working as servants, you know, and so on? Nobody counted on them, but they were the truly exploited. And—here I think Christianity survives, but not as a positive solution, just as accepting this abyss. The second reason I like Christianity, trigger warning now, an obscenity will come, no, is that people forget that in Palestine, all are not Muslims. There are also, now they're just of them, Christian Palestinians. The best jokes that I've heard, but they are I think deeply Christian making fun of Christianity itself, I heard them from Christian Palestinians there. Like, the nastiest one almost: the Christ, his last evening there, no, he knows he will be crucified next day, is alone in the tent. So his apostles, disciples, said, "My God, our Lord will die tomorrow, why don't we make his last moments happy and call Mary Magdalene," who was a prostitute. "Go there and seduce him that he will have some pleasure," no? Okay. She goes in and runs out after two, three minutes crying like crazy. And they ask in their worry, "My God, what did he do? Is he secretly a pervert? Did he torture you?" "No," she says, "is much worse. I did what was expected of me. I undressed myself, I spread my legs and approached him. And then Christ look at me, at that area, and says, 'My God, what a terrible wound I see there,' and crossed with his fingers and closed everything." You like—this is the spirit of Christianity, I claim. If a religion doesn't—doesn't sustain this. You know my favorite philosopher, theologian Kierkegaard said this beautifully. You know how he described, Kierkegaard, the arrival of Christ? He says, imagine a big stage where you expect some royal figure to emerge, and then the curtain open and you see nothing just from behind the curtain, a small dirty dog runs on the stage. That's the arrival of Christ. That's the whole point of it. I mean, this is what I'm talking about. So don't be afraid. I mean, I'm not in any sense returning to church. I think that if anything—what, I cannot talk about other kinds—but I'm coming to, I'm coming from Slovenia, where we are a Catholic country. If nothing else, all these pedophilia scandals are so unthinkable. You know what's the biggest mystery for me? How can the Catholic Church, okay now the Pope tries to be a little bit better, but nonetheless, how can they at the same time protect the pedophiliac priests and at the same time criticize homosexuality? As a Croat gay activist, my friend, said, "Ah, now I understand the church position. Adult men shouldn't do among themselves, but if you do it with a small child, everything is okay," you know? It's the position of the—of the church is so—is so weakened, but I don't think this will hurt this what I call emancipatory core of Christianity. Okay, I've spoken long enough. Now I will be shorter. No, I love that. Um, on the subject of Christianity, what's your take on Jordan Peterson saying the Bible is the foundation of truth? I—listen, I know the guy that you mention. I had a so-called debate with him where I was very soft on him, but you know why? Because again, as I said a couple of times, I—my point was to address his followers and to tell them what Jordan is telling you: don't fall into this self-pitying victimhood stance, take your fate into your hands and so on. We authentic left can deliver this to you better than all the conservatives, you know? And this is part of my larger totally crazy argument. We live in a crazy time. Did you notice how in last decades with the new right-wing populism, what once we experienced as subversive revolutionary activity is becoming also almost a right-wing prerogative? I mean, the last thing that looked, although it was not, as a revolutionary act: you remember 6th of January, attack on Capitol. My friends were crying, they said, "We should be doing this," people invading the—no, sorry. Which is why when I'm asked about this, I'm saying something very simple. I'm saying, you know, neoconservatives like to attack multiculturalism—uh—liberal obscenity, cynicism, historicism. No. If there ever was a postmodern president, it is Donald Trump. He's an obscene guy, he doesn't take seriously— You've spoken very highly of him recently. When? Where? Show me. Where, where? No, no, no, because my point is this one, that if you—isn't it paradoxical that he with all his dirty things and so on, he is the true postmodern relativist? And what is Bernie Sanders, in spite of all critical points? Isn't he a pure figure of what you cannot but call simple, silent decency, moral majority even, and so on? It's—the system is so decadent today that it is up to us, whatever survive of the left, to speak about common decency and so on and so on. We live in crazy times.
unknown
In a new text that I don't know when it will appear where, I speak about the most tragic country at
In a new text that I don't know when it will appear where, I speak about the most tragic country at
Slavoj Žižek
this point for me on the world, not Ukraine, not Gaza, but—but Haiti. Did you read what is happening there? The gangs, criminal gangs simply took over the country. They control of the Port-au-Prince capital—uh—and so on. So now you will say okay Haiti blah, blah. Let's move further. In El Salvador, in Ecuador, something similar is happening. Let's go further. In—in other places like from—Israel. Settlers on the West Bank, aren't they also, they are basically a criminal gang, illegal operating illegally and supported by the police. Why? Because you know who is now there chief of police, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was in Israel itself years ago convicted as a terrorist against Palestinians. Then we can go on with all these examples up to, of course—uh—United States. Proud Boys, terrorists. But collaborating with Trump. So the situation in which we are now, it looks as if the new political rulers cannot survive without some form of illegal criminal gang support. And I think we should not miss this opportunity to get the message to ordinary people. Those who present themselves as advocates of neoconservative Christian values, the other face of them is always vulgar brutal criminality. So what are you suggesting? Is this when you've—we've spoken about this before about war communism? No, with war communism I mean something—okay, I mean to provoke obviously but to make people think. With war communism I mean something extremely simple for me, almost common-sensical. War—why war communism? Because we are entering a new global emergency state. We in Western Europe are still playing this game, we are not taking crisis, the forthcoming crisis seriously enough. Our problem is still, "Yeah, let's do some ecological stuff," "Yeah, let's do a little bit of support for Ukraine here, there," but basically we—the main goal is to maintain our level, our style of—our level of relatively comfortable, still relatively, poverty is now exploding also in Western Europe, level of life. And I think as long as we will drag on with this attitude, we are lost. We are—you know what gave me this idea the first—remember two and a half years ago I think, the summer, our beloved places, Seattle and so on, no? You remember temperatures were there Seattle and Vancouver for one week almost degrees Celsius. Vancouver was hotter, more warm than—than—than Gulf State, than Emirates and so on. Why? You cannot solve this as a local problem, you know, like—uh—no, because measured by our ecological standards they were doing relatively good job there. It's the perturbation of air around the entire northern area is disturbed. If you take into account this, if you take into account all the problems of immigration, new wars and so on, only some sort of communism—this is elementary for me. And by communism I mean much end of nation-states potentially, much closer international cooperation. It's clear. For example, I spoke with my good friend Jean-Pierre Dupuy, who is the greatest today I think theorist of catastrophes, he visited Fukushima as a special envoy of European Union two days after the Fukushima tragedy, and the Japanese government representative admitted to him that Japanese government was for one day in a total panic. They thought the whole central area of Japan, million people, will have to be evacuated. Where? In a more collaborative world order, the answer is clear: Siberia. With more than enough space. No, it would not happen. We will need or immigration. I hate this liberal approach, "open the borders." Yes, but it's not enough. We have to begin now to change the economic system, not in a utopian way but just to prevent immigrants—why do people leave their country? What pushes them? There, this is where we are, we in the West are guilty. All these stupidities. You know that without—without American attack on Iraq and Russian meddling in Syria, there wouldn't have been ISIS and so on. The other mega mistake, the toppling of Gaddafi and so on. If we don't begin to think in these
this point for me on the world, not Ukraine, not Gaza, but—but Haiti. Did you read what is happening there? The gangs, criminal gangs simply took over the country. They control of the Port-au-Prince capital—uh—and so on. So now you will say okay Haiti blah, blah. Let's move further. In El Salvador, in Ecuador, something similar is happening. Let's go further. In—in other places like from—Israel. Settlers on the West Bank, aren't they also, they are basically a criminal gang, illegal operating illegally and supported by the police. Why? Because you know who is now there chief of police, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was in Israel itself years ago convicted as a terrorist against Palestinians. Then we can go on with all these examples up to, of course—uh—United States. Proud Boys, terrorists. But collaborating with Trump. So the situation in which we are now, it looks as if the new political rulers cannot survive without some form of illegal criminal gang support. And I think we should not miss this opportunity to get the message to ordinary people. Those who present themselves as advocates of neoconservative Christian values, the other face of them is always vulgar brutal criminality. So what are you suggesting? Is this when you've—we've spoken about this before about war communism? No, with war communism I mean something—okay, I mean to provoke obviously but to make people think. With war communism I mean something extremely simple for me, almost common-sensical. War—why war communism? Because we are entering a new global emergency state. We in Western Europe are still playing this game, we are not taking crisis, the forthcoming crisis seriously enough. Our problem is still, "Yeah, let's do some ecological stuff," "Yeah, let's do a little bit of support for Ukraine here, there," but basically we—the main goal is to maintain our level, our style of—our level of relatively comfortable, still relatively, poverty is now exploding also in Western Europe, level of life. And I think as long as we will drag on with this attitude, we are lost. We are—you know what gave me this idea the first—remember two and a half years ago I think, the summer, our beloved places, Seattle and so on, no? You remember temperatures were there Seattle and Vancouver for one week almost degrees Celsius. Vancouver was hotter, more warm than—than—than Gulf State, than Emirates and so on. Why? You cannot solve this as a local problem, you know, like—uh—no, because measured by our ecological standards they were doing relatively good job there. It's the perturbation of air around the entire northern area is disturbed. If you take into account this, if you take into account all the problems of immigration, new wars and so on, only some sort of communism—this is elementary for me. And by communism I mean much end of nation-states potentially, much closer international cooperation. It's clear. For example, I spoke with my good friend Jean-Pierre Dupuy, who is the greatest today I think theorist of catastrophes, he visited Fukushima as a special envoy of European Union two days after the Fukushima tragedy, and the Japanese government representative admitted to him that Japanese government was for one day in a total panic. They thought the whole central area of Japan, million people, will have to be evacuated. Where? In a more collaborative world order, the answer is clear: Siberia. With more than enough space. No, it would not happen. We will need or immigration. I hate this liberal approach, "open the borders." Yes, but it's not enough. We have to begin now to change the economic system, not in a utopian way but just to prevent immigrants—why do people leave their country? What pushes them? There, this is where we are, we in the West are guilty. All these stupidities. You know that without—without American attack on Iraq and Russian meddling in Syria, there wouldn't have been ISIS and so on. The other mega mistake, the toppling of Gaddafi and so on. If we don't begin to think in these
unknown
terms—uh—we are lost. And my prediction is here pretty pessimistic. That we didn't yet suffer enough. We need a catastrophe
terms—uh—we are lost. And my prediction is here pretty pessimistic. That we didn't yet suffer enough. We need a catastrophe
Slavoj Žižek
which will made us aware of the shit we are in. Oh. Yeah, but it's—we are, don't you think? That I know it's sad, I know no, we still we have meaningful life and so on, we will hopefully not starve, but we need—listen, I—you know why I like epidemic, why I like that pandemic crisis? Because even guys who were definitely not good guys—Boris Johnson here and Trump—even they were compelled to do some things which violated the market rules so much that they could be characterized as elementary forms of communism. Like, you know—uh—free distribution of money of help to millions of people. Of course, they immediately twisted it, it went to the big companies and so on and so on. But— What were you—what were you doing in the pandemic? Sorry? What were you doing in the pandemic? Ah, now we come to my private obscenity. It was the best years—the best years of my life. Banana bread. Because for two, three years I stayed at home, I was able to ignore all my friends, and I was just watching old, mostly British detective criminal series. Which one?—well—okay, it's too politically correct to say *Vera*, but *Lynley*, all those, you know? And—uh—I just—I was watching this and good science-fiction series and I was working like crazy. I loved it immensely. I was able because I hate—in my old age I'm getting really like hating people in general. Especially people who think, "Oh, let's visit him," and so on. Fuck you, I have more serious work to do, you know? I don't like people too much. You know? So I—it was the golden era for me. Um, you recently had an interview with Piers Morgan, who you actually got on with a bit. Maybe I again, I followed my—uh—Jordan Peterson tactic too much, but I just wanted to get through this basic message, for example about Gaza and so on. You know, I still think that, and this is one thing that I am really proud of, a piece of fiction that I imagined, an imagined phone call about—between Hamas and Israelis. Did you see the movie, did you see the movie *Ghost Writer*, with Ewan McGregor? An investigator who investigates a—a figure who is named differently but basically it's Tony Blair. And at the end he is killed because he discovers a secret, that Tony Blair was from his student years coached by CIA to become a pro-American prime minister of the United States. It's a fiction, but it's a beautiful fiction which would have explained everything. In my theory is that to get the logic at what goes on in the Middle East, imagine a phone call from hardliners in Israel and—uh—Hamas. They call hardliners from Israeli government, Hamas: "Hi, you remember that we supported you all these years?" which is true. Are you aware of it? Till two years ago, Israel was regularly through Qatar supporting Hamas. You have proofs. You have Smotrich, their crazy totally right-wing minister admitting it. What was the game? The game was Palestinians must be divided. As long as Gaza is separated politically from the West Bank, there will not be serious pressure for a two-state solution. So the Israelis said, "Now we have to ask you a favor. Could you please attack ferociously some of our settlements there close to Gaza?" And Hamas rep—replied surprisingly, "Why?" Israeli explained to him: "We have now two problems in Israel. A, uh, you know, remember just before October 7th, wonderful things were happening in Israel. Hundreds of thousands were demonstrating against Netanyahu who wanted to abolish the relative independence of the Supreme Court, all that. And this was a problem. And they needed a war, Netanyahu regime to survive." There are many mysterious things which confirm suspicions in this. But I will not go into them. What I want to say—and—the Netanyahu hardliner tells Hamas: "Another problem we have is West Bank, you know, that we want to do ethnic cleansing there. But if we don't have a military crisis, we cannot strengthen settlers to purge Palestinians there." Hamas said, "Okay,
which will made us aware of the shit we are in. Oh. Yeah, but it's—we are, don't you think? That I know it's sad, I know no, we still we have meaningful life and so on, we will hopefully not starve, but we need—listen, I—you know why I like epidemic, why I like that pandemic crisis? Because even guys who were definitely not good guys—Boris Johnson here and Trump—even they were compelled to do some things which violated the market rules so much that they could be characterized as elementary forms of communism. Like, you know—uh—free distribution of money of help to millions of people. Of course, they immediately twisted it, it went to the big companies and so on and so on. But— What were you—what were you doing in the pandemic? Sorry? What were you doing in the pandemic? Ah, now we come to my private obscenity. It was the best years—the best years of my life. Banana bread. Because for two, three years I stayed at home, I was able to ignore all my friends, and I was just watching old, mostly British detective criminal series. Which one?—well—okay, it's too politically correct to say *Vera*, but *Lynley*, all those, you know? And—uh—I just—I was watching this and good science-fiction series and I was working like crazy. I loved it immensely. I was able because I hate—in my old age I'm getting really like hating people in general. Especially people who think, "Oh, let's visit him," and so on. Fuck you, I have more serious work to do, you know? I don't like people too much. You know? So I—it was the golden era for me. Um, you recently had an interview with Piers Morgan, who you actually got on with a bit. Maybe I again, I followed my—uh—Jordan Peterson tactic too much, but I just wanted to get through this basic message, for example about Gaza and so on. You know, I still think that, and this is one thing that I am really proud of, a piece of fiction that I imagined, an imagined phone call about—between Hamas and Israelis. Did you see the movie, did you see the movie *Ghost Writer*, with Ewan McGregor? An investigator who investigates a—a figure who is named differently but basically it's Tony Blair. And at the end he is killed because he discovers a secret, that Tony Blair was from his student years coached by CIA to become a pro-American prime minister of the United States. It's a fiction, but it's a beautiful fiction which would have explained everything. In my theory is that to get the logic at what goes on in the Middle East, imagine a phone call from hardliners in Israel and—uh—Hamas. They call hardliners from Israeli government, Hamas: "Hi, you remember that we supported you all these years?" which is true. Are you aware of it? Till two years ago, Israel was regularly through Qatar supporting Hamas. You have proofs. You have Smotrich, their crazy totally right-wing minister admitting it. What was the game? The game was Palestinians must be divided. As long as Gaza is separated politically from the West Bank, there will not be serious pressure for a two-state solution. So the Israelis said, "Now we have to ask you a favor. Could you please attack ferociously some of our settlements there close to Gaza?" And Hamas rep—replied surprisingly, "Why?" Israeli explained to him: "We have now two problems in Israel. A, uh, you know, remember just before October 7th, wonderful things were happening in Israel. Hundreds of thousands were demonstrating against Netanyahu who wanted to abolish the relative independence of the Supreme Court, all that. And this was a problem. And they needed a war, Netanyahu regime to survive." There are many mysterious things which confirm suspicions in this. But I will not go into them. What I want to say—and—the Netanyahu hardliner tells Hamas: "Another problem we have is West Bank, you know, that we want to do ethnic cleansing there. But if we don't have a military crisis, we cannot strengthen settlers to purge Palestinians there." Hamas said, "Okay,
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we will do this gladly."
we will do this gladly."
Slavoj Žižek
But—uh—in—"Are you aware that this—why this fits us? Because
But—uh—in—"Are you aware that this—why this fits us? Because
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when you will attack us ferociously, anti-Semitism
when you will attack us ferociously, anti-Semitism
Slavoj Žižek
will explode not only in the Arab countries but also elsewhere." And the Israeli hardliner says, "That's wonderful, because when there is stronger anti-Semitism, we can say we must
will explode not only in the Arab countries but also elsewhere." And the Israeli hardliner says, "That's wonderful, because when there is stronger anti-Semitism, we can say we must
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fight it and
fight it and
Slavoj Žižek
become even more militarily aggressive." And they conclude the conversation by saying—you know the
become even more militarily aggressive." And they conclude the conversation by saying—you know the
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last lines of *Casablanca*,
last lines of *Casablanca*,
Slavoj Žižek
they turn it around—"And this is the beginning of a beautiful hatred," something like that. And I really think that they have a deadly tango, Hamas and—and—and the hardliners who are crazy. If you read in some of my texts, I discovered—if you want the truth about what is today's Israeli politics, Google Eli Academy, which is the hardline academy, but not marginal. People who collaborate with it are Netanyahu, Smotrich and so on, and—and Channel which is the most open public Israeli TV channel published a report on it where some rabbis
they turn it around—"And this is the beginning of a beautiful hatred," something like that. And I really think that they have a deadly tango, Hamas and—and—and the hardliners who are crazy. If you read in some of my texts, I discovered—if you want the truth about what is today's Israeli politics, Google Eli Academy, which is the hardline academy, but not marginal. People who collaborate with it are Netanyahu, Smotrich and so on, and—and Channel which is the most open public Israeli TV channel published a report on it where some rabbis
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explain exactly what they want. They—it's not a joke. And I checked with all—all of my friends in Israel,
explain exactly what they want. They—it's not a joke. And I checked with all—all of my friends in Israel,
Slavoj Žižek
they confirmed it. Rabbis are there saying this—I will skip the open racism, like—uh—like that Palestinians are people who are by nature slaves, they need to be enslaved to be happy and so on. The crucial point is when it comes to Nazism. Rabbis said Hitler was the greatest ethical figure of the 20th century. He had the right principle. He says the true Holocaust is not the one done by Germans, the true Holocaust is multiculturalism. So we need—Hitler was right, he just made a mistake of picking up the wrong people. He should have picked up—uh—Arabs, not the Jews. But then comes the ingenious point. They said, "But even like this, Hitler was right, because he was a divine instrument. The Jews got too integrated into Western Europe and Hitler was an instrument of God, Jewish God, to recall, to remind Israelis—Jews, sorry—that it's their
they confirmed it. Rabbis are there saying this—I will skip the open racism, like—uh—like that Palestinians are people who are by nature slaves, they need to be enslaved to be happy and so on. The crucial point is when it comes to Nazism. Rabbis said Hitler was the greatest ethical figure of the 20th century. He had the right principle. He says the true Holocaust is not the one done by Germans, the true Holocaust is multiculturalism. So we need—Hitler was right, he just made a mistake of picking up the wrong people. He should have picked up—uh—Arabs, not the Jews. But then comes the ingenious point. They said, "But even like this, Hitler was right, because he was a divine instrument. The Jews got too integrated into Western Europe and Hitler was an instrument of God, Jewish God, to recall, to remind Israelis—Jews, sorry—that it's their
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time to go out of Europe and return to the West Bank." I
time to go out of Europe and return to the West Bank." I
Slavoj Žižek
was shocked. I thought this is a bad joke. Then I checked through all my friends, Jewish friends in Israel, they confirmed this to me. Of course this is a minority view, but it is a minority view which—uh—determines the actual politics of Israel. Do you know that now, did you see, it's very sad, the last opinion poll, of Jews in Israel are opposed to two-state solution. They accept their version of "from the river to the sea" which is Great Israel and so on. I mean, it's—you know whom I only trust there? Please—uh—Google him, Avi Ayalon, ex-boss of Shin Bet. Who is the voice of reason now. They—he says, if we don't give Palestinians real hope for political autonomy and so on, then we are lost. And he openly says, he proposes a solution which is clear: immediately release from prison—uh—uh—how is it called, Marwan Barghouti I think, no? That—it's—he is a Palestinian Mandela. He never was for killing Jews, violence, but he was the organizer of first two intifadas, and he's already in prison for almost years. And he is really a Palestinian Mandela and he is the only one with enough popular support and ready to make peace. Everybody knows that this is a—all reasonable people know that this is a—say it's not a mystery what to do. But I think we live in times of gang rule and so on where I expect—I'll put it like this to conclude. I—I prefer to be a pessimist. Because if you are an optimist today, you are just disappointed all the time. But if you are a pessimist, from time to time some nice thing nonetheless happens, no? So the only way to happiness is to be a pessimist and then to be pleasantly surprised. Wise words. No, don't, I hate wisdom. You know? That's my old story. You know what is wisdom? I hate it so much. Wisdom is this platitude where whatever the situation is, you can add a wise comment, you know? Once I took an example: you do something risky, and if you succeed then I'm sure you can instantly quote some wisdom to justify it, no? Like, we have this: those who don't risk also never profit. Or you have the whole series of wise saying. Then let's say you make the same risk but you fail. I don't know how it is with you, but in my country we have a wonderful vulgar expression which is—uh—you cannot urinate against the wind. So you see, whatever you do I will find a wisdom to—to justify it. No, I think we need more madness today, just not wisdom. Hear, hear. Um, you recently wrote an article about *Barbie*, um, but you hadn't seen the film. Um—why, why? It's a—after, after, I'm a principled guy. I already told you. My when I write reviews, my motto is what I think so I read. Oscar Wilde wrote somewhere that when you're asked to do a review of a book, it's better not to read that book because if you read it actually it may make your judgment partial, you know. I feel like everyone should do that at school. Sorry? Everyone should just do that at school. Yeah. So again—I'm not saying it's a totally bad movie and I like Greta Gerwig, no, the director, her previous work. But some—you know what should be made more clear? I'll put a very simple formula. That the world of Barbie is really hell. And the—this asexual world and so on. And—the true problem is why we ordinary people need to fantasize about hell. So I—I would make it much darker. The other movie I also had problems with, but there I made a crucial mistake, I actually saw it. It's—it's *Oppenheimer*. Yeah. You must have read what I wrote about it. It—no, it—I—it's not a bad movie, but I hate that pseudo-oriental mystical part, you know, quoting Bhagavad Gita and "oh, now I am a destroyer of the world." It's bullshit. My favorite scene and at the same time worst scene in the movie is—you remember, and maybe you know my story, which is—I got in big trouble in India, I was told by friends. Because you remember about an hour early in the movie, there is a sex scene between Oppenheimer and Jean Tatlock played by Florence Pugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But—the catch is that in the middle of the sex, I don't know who asked whom, read Bhagavad Gita. And Indians seriously protested demanding that scene to be cut, no? The idea is dirty illicit sex out of—not even they are not married—how can you mix this with the sacred book? Then I did a crazy thing. I said I agree with this incompatibility, but from the other side. Why not say like this, a beautiful sex scene ruined by one of the most obscene books in the history of humanity? Bhagavad Gita is hell. You know my story why? I'm not kidding. I read a biography of Heinrich Himmler, SS and so on. This was his sacred book. He always had in his pocket a specially bound—uh—book, Bhagavad Gita. You know why? Himmler had, I'm sorry to use this term, an ethical problem. He was well aware that SS guys have to do horrible thing. Killing Jewish—uh—women, children, who are starving, crying. And Himmler's problem was how can they do it without becoming—uh—devious, ugly—uh—themselves, without losing their decency? And his answer was Bhagavad Gita. You remember the central scene where this idea of acting as if at a distance is developed? This notion, like, don't identify with your acts. You have to do horrible things, but do it at a distance. And—uh—this is why, maybe I hope I'm not—uh—offending any of you, I prefer the Christian ethics, which is for me the ethics of external engagement. Like, fuck you and your inner life. I don't care what is there. If I look deep into you, I will find shit. I'm a pessimist here. There is no deep core of goodness in you. The—and—the important thing is that the truth about you is not in what you fantasize, your ethical ideas and so on. They are as a rule a fake story you invented so that you can survive, deal with the horrors that you do in your actual life. What matters—like, what was that truth, that series, I forgot—uh—of alien invasions where—the motto was—uh—the truth is out there. It's not inside. Don't look deep into yourself for truth. So this spoiled *Oppenheimer* for me a little bit. So no, none of these movies I—I really liked. I'm a little bit but not quite, did you see most—more kindly disposed towards *The Zone of Interest*? I love some disturbingly vulgar, although not explicitly shown, details. You remember if you saw the movie how the guy, this Nazi commander, the—hero—they bring to him some pale woman obviously for sex, and of course then they don't show sex, they just show him from behind, standing in front of a washbasin and in such a vulgar detail way washing his genitals like to get—ah. There is something nice not to
was shocked. I thought this is a bad joke. Then I checked through all my friends, Jewish friends in Israel, they confirmed this to me. Of course this is a minority view, but it is a minority view which—uh—determines the actual politics of Israel. Do you know that now, did you see, it's very sad, the last opinion poll, of Jews in Israel are opposed to two-state solution. They accept their version of "from the river to the sea" which is Great Israel and so on. I mean, it's—you know whom I only trust there? Please—uh—Google him, Avi Ayalon, ex-boss of Shin Bet. Who is the voice of reason now. They—he says, if we don't give Palestinians real hope for political autonomy and so on, then we are lost. And he openly says, he proposes a solution which is clear: immediately release from prison—uh—uh—how is it called, Marwan Barghouti I think, no? That—it's—he is a Palestinian Mandela. He never was for killing Jews, violence, but he was the organizer of first two intifadas, and he's already in prison for almost years. And he is really a Palestinian Mandela and he is the only one with enough popular support and ready to make peace. Everybody knows that this is a—all reasonable people know that this is a—say it's not a mystery what to do. But I think we live in times of gang rule and so on where I expect—I'll put it like this to conclude. I—I prefer to be a pessimist. Because if you are an optimist today, you are just disappointed all the time. But if you are a pessimist, from time to time some nice thing nonetheless happens, no? So the only way to happiness is to be a pessimist and then to be pleasantly surprised. Wise words. No, don't, I hate wisdom. You know? That's my old story. You know what is wisdom? I hate it so much. Wisdom is this platitude where whatever the situation is, you can add a wise comment, you know? Once I took an example: you do something risky, and if you succeed then I'm sure you can instantly quote some wisdom to justify it, no? Like, we have this: those who don't risk also never profit. Or you have the whole series of wise saying. Then let's say you make the same risk but you fail. I don't know how it is with you, but in my country we have a wonderful vulgar expression which is—uh—you cannot urinate against the wind. So you see, whatever you do I will find a wisdom to—to justify it. No, I think we need more madness today, just not wisdom. Hear, hear. Um, you recently wrote an article about *Barbie*, um, but you hadn't seen the film. Um—why, why? It's a—after, after, I'm a principled guy. I already told you. My when I write reviews, my motto is what I think so I read. Oscar Wilde wrote somewhere that when you're asked to do a review of a book, it's better not to read that book because if you read it actually it may make your judgment partial, you know. I feel like everyone should do that at school. Sorry? Everyone should just do that at school. Yeah. So again—I'm not saying it's a totally bad movie and I like Greta Gerwig, no, the director, her previous work. But some—you know what should be made more clear? I'll put a very simple formula. That the world of Barbie is really hell. And the—this asexual world and so on. And—the true problem is why we ordinary people need to fantasize about hell. So I—I would make it much darker. The other movie I also had problems with, but there I made a crucial mistake, I actually saw it. It's—it's *Oppenheimer*. Yeah. You must have read what I wrote about it. It—no, it—I—it's not a bad movie, but I hate that pseudo-oriental mystical part, you know, quoting Bhagavad Gita and "oh, now I am a destroyer of the world." It's bullshit. My favorite scene and at the same time worst scene in the movie is—you remember, and maybe you know my story, which is—I got in big trouble in India, I was told by friends. Because you remember about an hour early in the movie, there is a sex scene between Oppenheimer and Jean Tatlock played by Florence Pugh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But—the catch is that in the middle of the sex, I don't know who asked whom, read Bhagavad Gita. And Indians seriously protested demanding that scene to be cut, no? The idea is dirty illicit sex out of—not even they are not married—how can you mix this with the sacred book? Then I did a crazy thing. I said I agree with this incompatibility, but from the other side. Why not say like this, a beautiful sex scene ruined by one of the most obscene books in the history of humanity? Bhagavad Gita is hell. You know my story why? I'm not kidding. I read a biography of Heinrich Himmler, SS and so on. This was his sacred book. He always had in his pocket a specially bound—uh—book, Bhagavad Gita. You know why? Himmler had, I'm sorry to use this term, an ethical problem. He was well aware that SS guys have to do horrible thing. Killing Jewish—uh—women, children, who are starving, crying. And Himmler's problem was how can they do it without becoming—uh—devious, ugly—uh—themselves, without losing their decency? And his answer was Bhagavad Gita. You remember the central scene where this idea of acting as if at a distance is developed? This notion, like, don't identify with your acts. You have to do horrible things, but do it at a distance. And—uh—this is why, maybe I hope I'm not—uh—offending any of you, I prefer the Christian ethics, which is for me the ethics of external engagement. Like, fuck you and your inner life. I don't care what is there. If I look deep into you, I will find shit. I'm a pessimist here. There is no deep core of goodness in you. The—and—the important thing is that the truth about you is not in what you fantasize, your ethical ideas and so on. They are as a rule a fake story you invented so that you can survive, deal with the horrors that you do in your actual life. What matters—like, what was that truth, that series, I forgot—uh—of alien invasions where—the motto was—uh—the truth is out there. It's not inside. Don't look deep into yourself for truth. So this spoiled *Oppenheimer* for me a little bit. So no, none of these movies I—I really liked. I'm a little bit but not quite, did you see most—more kindly disposed towards *The Zone of Interest*? I love some disturbingly vulgar, although not explicitly shown, details. You remember if you saw the movie how the guy, this Nazi commander, the—hero—they bring to him some pale woman obviously for sex, and of course then they don't show sex, they just show him from behind, standing in front of a washbasin and in such a vulgar detail way washing his genitals like to get—ah. There is something nice not to
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mention the heroic act the director did at Oscar, no? Yes. Yeah. I mean, this is—I know people who know him. And they will
mention the heroic act the director did at Oscar, no? Yes. Yeah. I mean, this is—I know people who know him. And they will
Slavoj Žižek
put even me in contact with him. And I admire him. You know why? Because they told me— Have you spoken to him? Sorry? Have you spoken to him? Not yet. I hope it's justified to say yet. But what I heard is that he was, although not religious explicitly, deeply into Jewish spirituality, let's call it—fanat—and—uh—even when the Hamas
put even me in contact with him. And I admire him. You know why? Because they told me— Have you spoken to him? Sorry? Have you spoken to him? Not yet. I hope it's justified to say yet. But what I heard is that he was, although not religious explicitly, deeply into Jewish spirituality, let's call it—fanat—and—uh—even when the Hamas
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attack triggered this crisis, he was first
attack triggered this crisis, he was first
Slavoj Žižek
tempted a little bit by blah, blah—uh—Israeli, we are in danger patriotism. But then when he saw Gaza, he exploded. And he was honest enough precisely as remaining faithful to Jewish tradition, saying, "Sorry, I cannot br—I have to renounce it. What we are doing in Gaza is—is—a total nightmare." And you, I don't know how much it is supported here, but I just wonder if he will survive, if he will get money for next films and so on. No— They—they cut that scene. They cut his acceptance speech from the rerun of the Oscars. Really? Yeah. They did? Yeah. My God, this is so horrible. This is why in another of my recent texts, I—I called for cultural boycott at least of Germany. What is happening now in Germany is obscene. You know that they have now such strict standards? For example, if you say Palestinians suffer, and if you don't say in the same sentence, "But this suffering was caused by Hamas," so it's basically Hamas which is responsible, not Israel, uh—you are considered already—it's not a joke—you are considered anti-Semitic. And—uh—so now a friend of mine made a statistic. A little bit over people were—uh—seriously affected by this campaign against what they call anti-Semitism. Uh, like losing their job, being canceled and so on in public life. But you know the true horror? One third of them are Jews. As a friend of mine said, "Now the most difficult thing in Germany is not to be a Muslim or Palestinian. It is to be a Jew who is critical of Israel." Why? Typically, because if you are Palestinians they say, "Okay, you are one of those that bunch, you know, ha ha, of course you are." But if you are a Jew you are considered who is critical of Israel, you are considered an ultra-traitor and so on. What is happening now in Germany is I think the nastiest ethical act, as many people noted, that you can imagine. It's Germans, guilty of killing millions of Jews, are offering the state of Israel an extremely brutal—uh—exchange. Like—uh—as an admission of our guilt, we now try to repay you for allowing you to do a similar thing that we were doing to others, you know? It's the worst possible thing that they can do. It's absolutely incredible what is happening now in Germany. And—after I caused—I will not bore you now with it—a scandal when at the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair where I just mentioned also suffering of Palestinians, I was interrupted, some local politicians started to shout at me and so on. Uh, then friends told me, "Wait one month, two, it will be over." No, it's even getting—uh—worse now. And I think—just that I finish this line—you know whom I—who I think proposed the right formula? You know that Indian writer—uh—uh—Arundhati Roy? Yeah. She—made a wonderful comment where she said, "Till Gaza we all knew that so-called Western values, emancipatory values, human rights, freedoms, feminism were a fake, hypocritical, but still they did provide some kind of moral compass. Like, you could even criticize the West, you know, say, 'Ah, you preach this but you yourself don't stick to it.'" Like, they gave some kind—and she said with Gaza, what's going on there now, the whole European legacy lost its emancipatory potential. And to make a philosophical point, a little bit more serious if you allow me, you know who was the biggest disappointment for me? Uh—Habermas and two of his closest collaborators. They, from my private spy sources I learned having me in mind, they published a short text totally legitimizing—uh—Israel. Claiming, "No, we must unconditionally stand with Israel." They published this text in—uh—December or January when the killing in Gaza went on. But what I want to say is that as other more reasonable followers of Frankfurt School said, you know what's the problem with Habermas? He never accepted I think the most truthful part of the previous generation of Frankfurt theory, the so-called Dialectic of Enlightenment, *Aufklärung*. The idea being that horrible phenomena of 20th century like fascism, Stalinism and so on are not simply remainders of some earlier barbarism, but are generated by the very dynamic of Enlightenment style modernization of Europe. And Habermas never accepted this. His idea is no, Enlightenment is the only thing we have, we can have no self-criticism of Enlightenment is allowable. The only thing we could do is to point out that Enlightenment is not yet radicalized enough. And I think that this is a horror. That the philosopher who is now practically a German state philosopher, celebrated as the high point of Western tolerance, culture and so on, that ended up again—ended up defending what Israel is doing now. As—uh—some critics put it in wonderful term, critics of Habermas, close—referring to Walter Benjamin: you can only be a truly civilized person today if you are aware that we are on the edge of barbarism, which doesn't come from outside but from inner tensions of our own European project. If we don't do this, we are lost. I talk too much, sorry. I like how that was an answer to a question about Barbie. About Barbie? This was all really about Barbie because Habermas is a philosophical Barbie, you want me to say to say this? Um, I'm going to open this up to
tempted a little bit by blah, blah—uh—Israeli, we are in danger patriotism. But then when he saw Gaza, he exploded. And he was honest enough precisely as remaining faithful to Jewish tradition, saying, "Sorry, I cannot br—I have to renounce it. What we are doing in Gaza is—is—a total nightmare." And you, I don't know how much it is supported here, but I just wonder if he will survive, if he will get money for next films and so on. No— They—they cut that scene. They cut his acceptance speech from the rerun of the Oscars. Really? Yeah. They did? Yeah. My God, this is so horrible. This is why in another of my recent texts, I—I called for cultural boycott at least of Germany. What is happening now in Germany is obscene. You know that they have now such strict standards? For example, if you say Palestinians suffer, and if you don't say in the same sentence, "But this suffering was caused by Hamas," so it's basically Hamas which is responsible, not Israel, uh—you are considered already—it's not a joke—you are considered anti-Semitic. And—uh—so now a friend of mine made a statistic. A little bit over people were—uh—seriously affected by this campaign against what they call anti-Semitism. Uh, like losing their job, being canceled and so on in public life. But you know the true horror? One third of them are Jews. As a friend of mine said, "Now the most difficult thing in Germany is not to be a Muslim or Palestinian. It is to be a Jew who is critical of Israel." Why? Typically, because if you are Palestinians they say, "Okay, you are one of those that bunch, you know, ha ha, of course you are." But if you are a Jew you are considered who is critical of Israel, you are considered an ultra-traitor and so on. What is happening now in Germany is I think the nastiest ethical act, as many people noted, that you can imagine. It's Germans, guilty of killing millions of Jews, are offering the state of Israel an extremely brutal—uh—exchange. Like—uh—as an admission of our guilt, we now try to repay you for allowing you to do a similar thing that we were doing to others, you know? It's the worst possible thing that they can do. It's absolutely incredible what is happening now in Germany. And—after I caused—I will not bore you now with it—a scandal when at the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair where I just mentioned also suffering of Palestinians, I was interrupted, some local politicians started to shout at me and so on. Uh, then friends told me, "Wait one month, two, it will be over." No, it's even getting—uh—worse now. And I think—just that I finish this line—you know whom I—who I think proposed the right formula? You know that Indian writer—uh—uh—Arundhati Roy? Yeah. She—made a wonderful comment where she said, "Till Gaza we all knew that so-called Western values, emancipatory values, human rights, freedoms, feminism were a fake, hypocritical, but still they did provide some kind of moral compass. Like, you could even criticize the West, you know, say, 'Ah, you preach this but you yourself don't stick to it.'" Like, they gave some kind—and she said with Gaza, what's going on there now, the whole European legacy lost its emancipatory potential. And to make a philosophical point, a little bit more serious if you allow me, you know who was the biggest disappointment for me? Uh—Habermas and two of his closest collaborators. They, from my private spy sources I learned having me in mind, they published a short text totally legitimizing—uh—Israel. Claiming, "No, we must unconditionally stand with Israel." They published this text in—uh—December or January when the killing in Gaza went on. But what I want to say is that as other more reasonable followers of Frankfurt School said, you know what's the problem with Habermas? He never accepted I think the most truthful part of the previous generation of Frankfurt theory, the so-called Dialectic of Enlightenment, *Aufklärung*. The idea being that horrible phenomena of 20th century like fascism, Stalinism and so on are not simply remainders of some earlier barbarism, but are generated by the very dynamic of Enlightenment style modernization of Europe. And Habermas never accepted this. His idea is no, Enlightenment is the only thing we have, we can have no self-criticism of Enlightenment is allowable. The only thing we could do is to point out that Enlightenment is not yet radicalized enough. And I think that this is a horror. That the philosopher who is now practically a German state philosopher, celebrated as the high point of Western tolerance, culture and so on, that ended up again—ended up defending what Israel is doing now. As—uh—some critics put it in wonderful term, critics of Habermas, close—referring to Walter Benjamin: you can only be a truly civilized person today if you are aware that we are on the edge of barbarism, which doesn't come from outside but from inner tensions of our own European project. If we don't do this, we are lost. I talk too much, sorry. I like how that was an answer to a question about Barbie. About Barbie? This was all really about Barbie because Habermas is a philosophical Barbie, you want me to say to say this? Um, I'm going to open this up to
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the audience for questions. If you want to put your hands up, I'm going to come around with a—ah, sorry—this one still works. No, no,
the audience for questions. If you want to put your hands up, I'm going to come around with a—ah, sorry—this one still works. No, no,
Slavoj Žižek
I've got, I've got—no, I know, I know, but I—uh—I don't like to hold this in my hand because it's too masturbatory and so on. Would you like it—would you like it in your hand? Sorry? You don't—you don't want to hold—no, I don't think so. Um, hands up, I can't see. I must criticize you— Sidney, for your filthy liberalism. I discovered before that this is a true debate. A good Stalinist would distribute the questions ahead. You said that to me before. He said that to me before. Right. Okay. Here. Um, what's your name? My name is Umar, I'm from Goldsmiths. So is there a Jewish atheism? Sorry? Is there a Jewish atheism? That's the question. That's a very good question and I will give you an answer. I think that—and my friend who is otherwise a right-winger but not an idiot—Peter Sloterdijk, the German one, developed somewhere I forgot where a wonderful idea, which is that every great religion has its own specific form of atheism. Islam also have an atheism. It's even pretty respectful, I think it's even in Quran or I don't know where where it says that if you believe it or not, Mohammed says this, it's your inner life. I will not mess with that. I just demand to follow the form and so on and so on. And I think that you find in Judaism, my Jewish friends drew my attention to this, elements of atheism in some very interesting parts of—Talmud. For example, there is a wonderful passage in Talmud, and it's not a joke, you have two versions of it, where—it's wonderful. Where God—where, sorry—two rabbis debate about some theological point, doesn't matter. And then the one who is losing said, "But let's call God, Jehovah. Let him decide." So Jehovah comes and took—takes the side of the guy who was losing the debate. And then the other guy, the more intelligent rabbi, starts to shout at Jehovah, proving him, Jehovah, that he is making a wrong argument. And you know what happens? Jehovah said, "Oh my God, oh my God, you are right. My pupils are—are—are brighter than me," and runs away. And you have two versions of this, another—the other version is even more comical and so on. But if you speak about Jewish atheism, you know which is my favorite book from the Old Testament? I'm not very original here. The Book of Job, of course. This is for me the first systematic critique of ideology, where—you know what happens—but I will not deal with that—already the beginning is pure obscenity. Uh—God and Devil or I don't know who debate behind the table: "Like, does Job really believe in you or not?" And they decide, it's extremely obscene, that they will deprive him of all his worldly goods, blah, blah, blah. So okay, you know what happens to Job, he loses his family, all his—blah, blah, blah. Okay. Then you have three ideologists who came to him. The—two—and they precisely do what ideology is doing. They try to rationalize, justify Job's suffering. The first one says, "You think you are innocent, but look deeper into yourself. What if nonetheless you did something evil?" The second theologian says something like—maybe even if you didn't do anything, maybe this is just a—uh—God testing—like, they provide reasons. And then, so this is ideology. Then then a miracle happens. Uh—again—uh—here now in a better role, Jehovah or I don't know who—God comes and takes Job's side. He says to Job, "What those three theologians were telling is all bullshit." I simplify it. "You were totally right in your complaint." Now comes the beautiful moment, true atheism. Then Job asks God, "But listen, if you agree with me, then what the fuck—why did you make me suffer so much?" Now comes the problem. God makes his famous speech: "What do you know about—I don't know, he enumerates some strange animals, blah, blah, all the strange things"—like, usually God's answer—sorry—is read as—uh—uh—depiction of irreducible gap between God and our limited human mind. Like, we are too stupid to understand God. But my favorite Catholic theologian, Gilbert Chesterton, proposes a totally different reading. That God's answer is, "Ah, you think I screwed things up with you? But look at the world. I screwed up everything. All my creation." And this is the deepest insight, which is thinly masked atheism, that I find in Talmud and so on. That God—even if God exists—creation is a totally screwed up job. A total failure. So uh—I know I'm simplifying things, but—it can be developed much more in—much more in detail. So I think that then in Christianity you have other forms of—of atheism and so on. But I again—I—ah, there is another part in Talmud which is also very materialist, it's almost God quoting Marx. God says something like, sorry I don't know precisely—"I am aware that I only exist through human praying,
I've got, I've got—no, I know, I know, but I—uh—I don't like to hold this in my hand because it's too masturbatory and so on. Would you like it—would you like it in your hand? Sorry? You don't—you don't want to hold—no, I don't think so. Um, hands up, I can't see. I must criticize you— Sidney, for your filthy liberalism. I discovered before that this is a true debate. A good Stalinist would distribute the questions ahead. You said that to me before. He said that to me before. Right. Okay. Here. Um, what's your name? My name is Umar, I'm from Goldsmiths. So is there a Jewish atheism? Sorry? Is there a Jewish atheism? That's the question. That's a very good question and I will give you an answer. I think that—and my friend who is otherwise a right-winger but not an idiot—Peter Sloterdijk, the German one, developed somewhere I forgot where a wonderful idea, which is that every great religion has its own specific form of atheism. Islam also have an atheism. It's even pretty respectful, I think it's even in Quran or I don't know where where it says that if you believe it or not, Mohammed says this, it's your inner life. I will not mess with that. I just demand to follow the form and so on and so on. And I think that you find in Judaism, my Jewish friends drew my attention to this, elements of atheism in some very interesting parts of—Talmud. For example, there is a wonderful passage in Talmud, and it's not a joke, you have two versions of it, where—it's wonderful. Where God—where, sorry—two rabbis debate about some theological point, doesn't matter. And then the one who is losing said, "But let's call God, Jehovah. Let him decide." So Jehovah comes and took—takes the side of the guy who was losing the debate. And then the other guy, the more intelligent rabbi, starts to shout at Jehovah, proving him, Jehovah, that he is making a wrong argument. And you know what happens? Jehovah said, "Oh my God, oh my God, you are right. My pupils are—are—are brighter than me," and runs away. And you have two versions of this, another—the other version is even more comical and so on. But if you speak about Jewish atheism, you know which is my favorite book from the Old Testament? I'm not very original here. The Book of Job, of course. This is for me the first systematic critique of ideology, where—you know what happens—but I will not deal with that—already the beginning is pure obscenity. Uh—God and Devil or I don't know who debate behind the table: "Like, does Job really believe in you or not?" And they decide, it's extremely obscene, that they will deprive him of all his worldly goods, blah, blah, blah. So okay, you know what happens to Job, he loses his family, all his—blah, blah, blah. Okay. Then you have three ideologists who came to him. The—two—and they precisely do what ideology is doing. They try to rationalize, justify Job's suffering. The first one says, "You think you are innocent, but look deeper into yourself. What if nonetheless you did something evil?" The second theologian says something like—maybe even if you didn't do anything, maybe this is just a—uh—God testing—like, they provide reasons. And then, so this is ideology. Then then a miracle happens. Uh—again—uh—here now in a better role, Jehovah or I don't know who—God comes and takes Job's side. He says to Job, "What those three theologians were telling is all bullshit." I simplify it. "You were totally right in your complaint." Now comes the beautiful moment, true atheism. Then Job asks God, "But listen, if you agree with me, then what the fuck—why did you make me suffer so much?" Now comes the problem. God makes his famous speech: "What do you know about—I don't know, he enumerates some strange animals, blah, blah, all the strange things"—like, usually God's answer—sorry—is read as—uh—uh—depiction of irreducible gap between God and our limited human mind. Like, we are too stupid to understand God. But my favorite Catholic theologian, Gilbert Chesterton, proposes a totally different reading. That God's answer is, "Ah, you think I screwed things up with you? But look at the world. I screwed up everything. All my creation." And this is the deepest insight, which is thinly masked atheism, that I find in Talmud and so on. That God—even if God exists—creation is a totally screwed up job. A total failure. So uh—I know I'm simplifying things, but—it can be developed much more in—much more in detail. So I think that then in Christianity you have other forms of—of atheism and so on. But I again—I—ah, there is another part in Talmud which is also very materialist, it's almost God quoting Marx. God says something like, sorry I don't know precisely—"I am aware that I only exist through human praying,
unknown
prayers and celebrating me" and so on and so on. So this—worth I'm not
prayers and celebrating me" and so on and so on. So this—worth I'm not
Slavoj Žižek
able to deliver this—this deserves a much more detailed—uh—study, no? Atheism is not a simple all the time the same stance. It's—it's in some sense
able to deliver this—this deserves a much more detailed—uh—study, no? Atheism is not a simple all the time the same stance. It's—it's in some sense
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it's difficult to be truly an atheist. For example, for me Stalinists were not really materialists, atheists, because you know the whole
it's difficult to be truly an atheist. For example, for me Stalinists were not really materialists, atheists, because you know the whole
Slavoj Žižek
logic of Stalinism was: we maybe be doing horrible things today in purges, killing millions, but when communism will arrive, what we are doing will be
logic of Stalinism was: we maybe be doing horrible things today in purges, killing millions, but when communism will arrive, what we are doing will be
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retroactively
retroactively
Slavoj Žižek
justified. That is to say, all the Stalinism is based on this purely theological idea that there is a figure of what Jacques Lacan would have called big Other, some symbolic agency which guarantees the long-term true meaning of what we are doing. A true
justified. That is to say, all the Stalinism is based on this purely theological idea that there is a figure of what Jacques Lacan would have called big Other, some symbolic agency which guarantees the long-term true meaning of what we are doing. A true
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materialist must renounce this,
materialist must renounce this,
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I say. Which is why back to problem of—problem of Holocaust, the most disgusting theological metaphor that I can imagine is this idea
I say. Which is why back to problem of—problem of Holocaust, the most disgusting theological metaphor that I can imagine is this idea
Slavoj Žižek
which I find disgusting, that—uh—what we mortal humans perceive as—uh—as—uh—sin or evil is just, you know, this terrifying metaphor, is just like a stain on an image. Take a beautiful image. If you look too close at it, it appears a stain. If you make a couple of steps back, you see that what appeared to you as a stain is really something that contributes to the harmony of the image. I think that the whole point of authentic Judaism and Christianity is that this vulgar theological reasoning should be abandoned. No. When we have extreme human suffering, there is no way to justify it but, "Oh, it's just our illusion, let's make a step back and justify it." No. Suffering is in some sense absolute here. You cannot justify it. But again, I talk too much. Ah, now you move—no, you move from the right— From the right—from the right to the left finally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good evening. Um, Carl Rogers, the humanist psychologist. I remember him when I was young, sorry. Yeah. No—no evil meant, yeah. With the book, obviously like I haven't read it yet and I don't know if anybody has, but there's the subtitle of "how to be a real materialist." Without taking up too much time, the way that I kind of see the Carl Rogers thing being applicable to it is the idea of the idealism. So how kind of there's this—try and keep it short but—it feels to me more and more culturally in society there's this investing into the idea of idealism in the sense of materialism. So we'll pursue our own self-worth based on material goods, social media and the kind of—it's an easy target, but the idea of kind of how social media can validate us based on the idealist itself being portrayed out there. Hope this is making some sense. I feel like the counter to the Carl Rogers thing that he talks about is the authenticity of the individual versus the idealism. So what I wanted to know from you is based on the book and your own kind of opinion what authenticity is because when I see a lot of people speak about it, it tends—from things I've seen—it tends to like blend into spiritualism and I feel like that's kind of an interesting perspective what you'd say. First, no—it's a very good question because it's a big problem what—uh—do you mean by materialism. I don't mean—first we have a very primitive notion inherited from—uh—19th century that materialism means that ultimately there is empty space and some small bits of matter jumping there up and down and that all there is is a combination of these small. No, here I have no problem with the most speculative quantum mechanics. Ultimately there is no matter, there are waves or whatever, ultimately—it's a wonderful thought—void itself is not really empty. There is a lot of potential in the void. So the first thing to renounce to be truly materialist is this very primitive idea of—some—some hard—some tiny bits of real stuff and so on. The second thing is that for me—and if I interpreted understood your intention correctly, we are moving in the same direction—it's that—it's that—uh—in some sense, brutal materialism can be more spiritual in a false sense than idealism. You know whom I criticize here although I love him as a movie director: Tarkovsky's *Stalker*. There is a wonderful feature but I think it's fake in his movies. You know what I like in Tarkovsky? In his movies, especially *Stalker*, spiritual experience is not portrayed as you look up from this dirty earth to some—no. You know, his heroes have let's call it spiritual experience when they usually lie in water, dirty water, in a mud. So in this immersion and so on into it. Then at the same time linked to this—uh—German idealists like Schelling, more than Hegel, but Hegel also—Schelling puts this in a wonderful way somewhere I forgot where, I think in—uh—his famous short treatise on human freedom. He says that evil is much more spiritual than goodness. Goodness is a natural attitude of respecting natural object, but the—evil is the brutality of destroying materiality which is much more spiritual. So my answer to you would be also what do you mean by idealism? First, my materialism is practically materialism without matter. I would even say I am maybe you meant this—a materialism of ideas themselves. You know, in the sense of ideas themselves behave as material objects interacting and so on. So I—sorry, maybe now it's not the time to go to the end in all of this. Should I give you—should I give you his number? Sorry? I'll give you his number. You can talk about it after. Ah, no, no, no, I—I wanted to say something dirty like—you know? No, no, no. Not—I'm not—with you, I'm interested. But when somebody tells me this, I like to cheat in this dirty way, you know, like to say, "Give me your number and I'll email and—uh—we'll keep in contact" and then you know at the next corner I throw it away and so on, you know. Is he honest with me about it now? No, no, but—but I honestly am saying now that your questions, what is materialism— When you said authenticity, you know, now I will give you the last example where I think authenticity is not—go deep into yourself and so on. Yeah, authenticity is—sorry if I repeat an example that I used in some of my old books among—it's from a—Rossellini film which I of course haven't seen—now this one I had, after writing about it—*General della Rovere*. It's a beautiful movie about—uh—ethical awakening. It takes place in '43 I think in some of those—uh—northern Italian still under fascism movies where the Germans capture a cheap thief and they notice that he is uncannily similar, resembling General della Rovere who is one of the heroes of anti-fascist resistance. The true general is already dead. But he was killed secretly by the Germans, so all the people they have in prison, resistance fighters, don't know it. So they propose to this guy played by Vittorio De Sica a simple task. Go to prison, pretend that you are General della Rovere. Since this is a legendary figure, other prisoners will trust you and will tell you all the details about what they play—what they plan against—uh—us, Nazis, Germans, and so if you do this properly we will discreetly set you free. And then you can imagine what happens. The guy does this and—uh—becomes so identified with General della Rovere that he starts to behave as one and doesn't tell anything to Germans and prefers to be shot by German as General della. So you see, it's just—it's—fully accepting what was ultimately a mask. He doesn't go deep into himself. He just accepts, fully identifies with an imposed role. That would be for me close to authenticity, which is the exact opposite of "go deep
which I find disgusting, that—uh—what we mortal humans perceive as—uh—as—uh—sin or evil is just, you know, this terrifying metaphor, is just like a stain on an image. Take a beautiful image. If you look too close at it, it appears a stain. If you make a couple of steps back, you see that what appeared to you as a stain is really something that contributes to the harmony of the image. I think that the whole point of authentic Judaism and Christianity is that this vulgar theological reasoning should be abandoned. No. When we have extreme human suffering, there is no way to justify it but, "Oh, it's just our illusion, let's make a step back and justify it." No. Suffering is in some sense absolute here. You cannot justify it. But again, I talk too much. Ah, now you move—no, you move from the right— From the right—from the right to the left finally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good evening. Um, Carl Rogers, the humanist psychologist. I remember him when I was young, sorry. Yeah. No—no evil meant, yeah. With the book, obviously like I haven't read it yet and I don't know if anybody has, but there's the subtitle of "how to be a real materialist." Without taking up too much time, the way that I kind of see the Carl Rogers thing being applicable to it is the idea of the idealism. So how kind of there's this—try and keep it short but—it feels to me more and more culturally in society there's this investing into the idea of idealism in the sense of materialism. So we'll pursue our own self-worth based on material goods, social media and the kind of—it's an easy target, but the idea of kind of how social media can validate us based on the idealist itself being portrayed out there. Hope this is making some sense. I feel like the counter to the Carl Rogers thing that he talks about is the authenticity of the individual versus the idealism. So what I wanted to know from you is based on the book and your own kind of opinion what authenticity is because when I see a lot of people speak about it, it tends—from things I've seen—it tends to like blend into spiritualism and I feel like that's kind of an interesting perspective what you'd say. First, no—it's a very good question because it's a big problem what—uh—do you mean by materialism. I don't mean—first we have a very primitive notion inherited from—uh—19th century that materialism means that ultimately there is empty space and some small bits of matter jumping there up and down and that all there is is a combination of these small. No, here I have no problem with the most speculative quantum mechanics. Ultimately there is no matter, there are waves or whatever, ultimately—it's a wonderful thought—void itself is not really empty. There is a lot of potential in the void. So the first thing to renounce to be truly materialist is this very primitive idea of—some—some hard—some tiny bits of real stuff and so on. The second thing is that for me—and if I interpreted understood your intention correctly, we are moving in the same direction—it's that—it's that—uh—in some sense, brutal materialism can be more spiritual in a false sense than idealism. You know whom I criticize here although I love him as a movie director: Tarkovsky's *Stalker*. There is a wonderful feature but I think it's fake in his movies. You know what I like in Tarkovsky? In his movies, especially *Stalker*, spiritual experience is not portrayed as you look up from this dirty earth to some—no. You know, his heroes have let's call it spiritual experience when they usually lie in water, dirty water, in a mud. So in this immersion and so on into it. Then at the same time linked to this—uh—German idealists like Schelling, more than Hegel, but Hegel also—Schelling puts this in a wonderful way somewhere I forgot where, I think in—uh—his famous short treatise on human freedom. He says that evil is much more spiritual than goodness. Goodness is a natural attitude of respecting natural object, but the—evil is the brutality of destroying materiality which is much more spiritual. So my answer to you would be also what do you mean by idealism? First, my materialism is practically materialism without matter. I would even say I am maybe you meant this—a materialism of ideas themselves. You know, in the sense of ideas themselves behave as material objects interacting and so on. So I—sorry, maybe now it's not the time to go to the end in all of this. Should I give you—should I give you his number? Sorry? I'll give you his number. You can talk about it after. Ah, no, no, no, I—I wanted to say something dirty like—you know? No, no, no. Not—I'm not—with you, I'm interested. But when somebody tells me this, I like to cheat in this dirty way, you know, like to say, "Give me your number and I'll email and—uh—we'll keep in contact" and then you know at the next corner I throw it away and so on, you know. Is he honest with me about it now? No, no, but—but I honestly am saying now that your questions, what is materialism— When you said authenticity, you know, now I will give you the last example where I think authenticity is not—go deep into yourself and so on. Yeah, authenticity is—sorry if I repeat an example that I used in some of my old books among—it's from a—Rossellini film which I of course haven't seen—now this one I had, after writing about it—*General della Rovere*. It's a beautiful movie about—uh—ethical awakening. It takes place in '43 I think in some of those—uh—northern Italian still under fascism movies where the Germans capture a cheap thief and they notice that he is uncannily similar, resembling General della Rovere who is one of the heroes of anti-fascist resistance. The true general is already dead. But he was killed secretly by the Germans, so all the people they have in prison, resistance fighters, don't know it. So they propose to this guy played by Vittorio De Sica a simple task. Go to prison, pretend that you are General della Rovere. Since this is a legendary figure, other prisoners will trust you and will tell you all the details about what they play—what they plan against—uh—us, Nazis, Germans, and so if you do this properly we will discreetly set you free. And then you can imagine what happens. The guy does this and—uh—becomes so identified with General della Rovere that he starts to behave as one and doesn't tell anything to Germans and prefers to be shot by German as General della. So you see, it's just—it's—fully accepting what was ultimately a mask. He doesn't go deep into himself. He just accepts, fully identifies with an imposed role. That would be for me close to authenticity, which is the exact opposite of "go deep
unknown
into yourself" or
into yourself" or
Slavoj Žižek
whatever. I was just going
whatever. I was just going
unknown
to—I think we've got to put those hands up. And I think, sorry, thank you for your question. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that we don't have now sincerely more time, yeah. Oh wait, actually I should probably, oh yeah. Uh—hi, uh—thank you. I—I'm working on the Kant and I have a—a sort of a—question related to cosmopolitanism today and—and—what potential there is for that, how that would even—uh—look today. I mean, you talk quite a lot about suffering and almost like the need—in a perverse way—of or the potentiality for in that. And I was wondering how maybe that could connect to the possibility for cosmopolitanism today or if you even think that that could be a possibility for kind of—utopian sense of that in in kind of the idea almost that Kant has. And—uh—just finally in relation to to suffering, someone who has a similar sort of—uh—leaning to you in a way—I mean certainly in the orientation around Christian atheism—uh—François Laruelle, I think you've written an introduction recently to him, his idea of the suffering subject—I'm kind of interested in as well, so if—if you could comment on that too, that would be—
to—I think we've got to put those hands up. And I think, sorry, thank you for your question. I'm sorry, I'm sorry that we don't have now sincerely more time, yeah. Oh wait, actually I should probably, oh yeah. Uh—hi, uh—thank you. I—I'm working on the Kant and I have a—a sort of a—question related to cosmopolitanism today and—and—what potential there is for that, how that would even—uh—look today. I mean, you talk quite a lot about suffering and almost like the need—in a perverse way—of or the potentiality for in that. And I was wondering how maybe that could connect to the possibility for cosmopolitanism today or if you even think that that could be a possibility for kind of—utopian sense of that in in kind of the idea almost that Kant has. And—uh—just finally in relation to to suffering, someone who has a similar sort of—uh—leaning to you in a way—I mean certainly in the orientation around Christian atheism—uh—François Laruelle, I think you've written an introduction recently to him, his idea of the suffering subject—I'm kind of interested in as well, so if—if you could comment on that too, that would be—
Slavoj Žižek
You know, I have one problem—I don't know if this was your intention—with suffering. Uh—the—the temptation is to elevate suffering itself into a proof of—of authenticity. If you suffer, it's authentic. I think this is to be—rejected as a perverse—uh—trap. But—the main point of your question was, sorry, I—am losing my mind slowly. The main point of your question was before you— Cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism, yes. You know, I am—as a Hegelian—again—against abstract cosmopolitanism, in the sense of but above all our peculiarities there is some—universal feature. No, we are here at those most disgusting UNESCO books about world civilization, this civilization has this great thing today another—no. You know what I see as true cosmopolitanism? Where—uh—a certain particular culture can come to itself, can see itself properly only from the outside. Like it's not that I am me and I can step on my shoulders and see how me and you, if you are from another culture, nonetheless have something common. No, it's more like—listen, let me give you an example. Uh—Salman Rushdie. I have problems with him. But one story he told at some—uh—round table in Basque Country, of all places, where I met him once, was a very beautiful one. Maybe you know it. He told there at a round table that—uh—he was attacked often as betraying his Indian heritage, no, that he is too much immersed in British white colonial culture. And then his answer was a brilliant one. Uh—he said, "No, the biggest influence of my work are two—uh—great English writers, sorry, two great Indian writers: Charles Dickens and Jane Austen." And then he gave a wonderful explanation where he says that the poverty—poverty in India today, slums of—uh—Mumbai, that is to say Bombay, incidentally with my evil gaze I noticed when I was there that all my Indian friends were talking about Bombay, then I told them, I asked them, "But wait a minute, like isn't it now Mumbai?" They told me, "Oh, that's to annoy you white people from the West to—we are still know it's Bombay." Okay, but—uh—and then he said of course that the typical topic of his book, this slightly impoverished lower middle-class families where the
You know, I have one problem—I don't know if this was your intention—with suffering. Uh—the—the temptation is to elevate suffering itself into a proof of—of authenticity. If you suffer, it's authentic. I think this is to be—rejected as a perverse—uh—trap. But—the main point of your question was, sorry, I—am losing my mind slowly. The main point of your question was before you— Cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism, yes. You know, I am—as a Hegelian—again—against abstract cosmopolitanism, in the sense of but above all our peculiarities there is some—universal feature. No, we are here at those most disgusting UNESCO books about world civilization, this civilization has this great thing today another—no. You know what I see as true cosmopolitanism? Where—uh—a certain particular culture can come to itself, can see itself properly only from the outside. Like it's not that I am me and I can step on my shoulders and see how me and you, if you are from another culture, nonetheless have something common. No, it's more like—listen, let me give you an example. Uh—Salman Rushdie. I have problems with him. But one story he told at some—uh—round table in Basque Country, of all places, where I met him once, was a very beautiful one. Maybe you know it. He told there at a round table that—uh—he was attacked often as betraying his Indian heritage, no, that he is too much immersed in British white colonial culture. And then his answer was a brilliant one. Uh—he said, "No, the biggest influence of my work are two—uh—great English writers, sorry, two great Indian writers: Charles Dickens and Jane Austen." And then he gave a wonderful explanation where he says that the poverty—poverty in India today, slums of—uh—Mumbai, that is to say Bombay, incidentally with my evil gaze I noticed when I was there that all my Indian friends were talking about Bombay, then I told them, I asked them, "But wait a minute, like isn't it now Mumbai?" They told me, "Oh, that's to annoy you white people from the West to—we are still know it's Bombay." Okay, but—uh—and then he said of course that the typical topic of his book, this slightly impoverished lower middle-class families where the
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problem is how you marry your daughter, this is Jane Austen, you know. He has a very
problem is how you marry your daughter, this is Jane Austen, you know. He has a very
Slavoj Žižek
nice moment here. His point is this one, that if we read Dickens and Jane Austen today from Indian perspective—Indian, not American Indians, India India, then—incidentally another point about cosmopolitanism, maybe you know but it's not a joke. My most beautiful metaphysical experience was in Missoula, Montana, years ago. Where there were at a round table some Native Americans. I instantly become friendly with them. Sorry, something—ah, sorry, too close, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I instan—you know why? Because there was me, some progressive liberals, blah, blah—uh—multiculti, and these Native Americans. And they protested, no? They said—we don't—they referred to themselves as Indians. And then a white liberal said, "No, you're humiliating yourself, you are Native Americans, don't accept this." And then in—the Indian guy with whom I become friendly exploded and said, "First, we don't like the term 'Native Americans.' Nature versus culture, so you are a cultural American or what and we are Native? And he said then an ingenious way, he said, 'I much prefer to be called Indian because then at least my name is a monument to white man's stupidity who thought, you know, they are in India when they—'" This is true cosmopolitanism, that you see the limitation of the other. So what I want to say—this is for me true cosmopolitanism, how to understand people—it's not, you know, this pseudo-topic, "I'm caught in my culture, how do I know if when I speak with a Chinese guy, if I really understand his culture?" No, it's a mistake, because how do they know that they understand their own culture? I need an external gaze. For example, it's a wonderful detail of my beloved Hollywood. The greatest critical films about American everyday life in the thirties, forties were made by Fritz Lang, even Hitchcock and so on, authors who were able to cast to look at United States from outside. You see, this is for me the true cosmopolitanism. Not abstract universal, or another thing which I find fascinating. I like to take a look at what we consider the greatest works of art and see how their cinema versions are. For example, the best Shakespeare *Hamlet* for me, forget about all those Laurence Olivier and so on, you'll be surprised,
nice moment here. His point is this one, that if we read Dickens and Jane Austen today from Indian perspective—Indian, not American Indians, India India, then—incidentally another point about cosmopolitanism, maybe you know but it's not a joke. My most beautiful metaphysical experience was in Missoula, Montana, years ago. Where there were at a round table some Native Americans. I instantly become friendly with them. Sorry, something—ah, sorry, too close, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I instan—you know why? Because there was me, some progressive liberals, blah, blah—uh—multiculti, and these Native Americans. And they protested, no? They said—we don't—they referred to themselves as Indians. And then a white liberal said, "No, you're humiliating yourself, you are Native Americans, don't accept this." And then in—the Indian guy with whom I become friendly exploded and said, "First, we don't like the term 'Native Americans.' Nature versus culture, so you are a cultural American or what and we are Native? And he said then an ingenious way, he said, 'I much prefer to be called Indian because then at least my name is a monument to white man's stupidity who thought, you know, they are in India when they—'" This is true cosmopolitanism, that you see the limitation of the other. So what I want to say—this is for me true cosmopolitanism, how to understand people—it's not, you know, this pseudo-topic, "I'm caught in my culture, how do I know if when I speak with a Chinese guy, if I really understand his culture?" No, it's a mistake, because how do they know that they understand their own culture? I need an external gaze. For example, it's a wonderful detail of my beloved Hollywood. The greatest critical films about American everyday life in the thirties, forties were made by Fritz Lang, even Hitchcock and so on, authors who were able to cast to look at United States from outside. You see, this is for me the true cosmopolitanism. Not abstract universal, or another thing which I find fascinating. I like to take a look at what we consider the greatest works of art and see how their cinema versions are. For example, the best Shakespeare *Hamlet* for me, forget about all those Laurence Olivier and so on, you'll be surprised,
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it's for me Akira Kurosawa '62, the Japanese version of—set in modern Japan of *Hamlet* where it's a
it's for me Akira Kurosawa '62, the Japanese version of—set in modern Japan of *Hamlet* where it's a
Slavoj Žižek
wonderful retelling. Hamlet is a son of a rich
wonderful retelling. Hamlet is a son of a rich
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American returning from the studies in United States and sees his father murdered and so on and so on, and with a beautiful title, "Only Good—Only Evil People Sleep Well," which is deeply true because, you know, if you are—if you sleep bad because you did something evil, there is goodness in you. If you're truly evil, you don't care, you sleep well. Or another example, *Idiot*, Dostoevsky. The best *Idiot* is again Kurosawa from '47. You know, this idea that it's false, this historicism, to know Shakespeare you must study all the British history in detail. No, it's the opposite. To really understand Shakespeare, you must erase the peculiarities and look at Shakespeare from outside. And in this sense, you can understand Shakespeare better than Shakespeare himself. And these are for me moments of authentic cosmopolitanism. Where looking from outside, you
American returning from the studies in United States and sees his father murdered and so on and so on, and with a beautiful title, "Only Good—Only Evil People Sleep Well," which is deeply true because, you know, if you are—if you sleep bad because you did something evil, there is goodness in you. If you're truly evil, you don't care, you sleep well. Or another example, *Idiot*, Dostoevsky. The best *Idiot* is again Kurosawa from '47. You know, this idea that it's false, this historicism, to know Shakespeare you must study all the British history in detail. No, it's the opposite. To really understand Shakespeare, you must erase the peculiarities and look at Shakespeare from outside. And in this sense, you can understand Shakespeare better than Shakespeare himself. And these are for me moments of authentic cosmopolitanism. Where looking from outside, you
Slavoj Žižek
see an unexpected universal dimension of a concrete particular work of art. For me, all great things come from this clash of cu—cultures, which is why, for example, Ireland, for example, although I hate James Joyce, I'm all for Samuel Beckett. But both Beckett and Joyce, you see, to did all great things they did about Ireland—Joyce wrote *Ulysses* we know where, close to my home in Trieste. Beckett had even to change language and write in French and so on, no? So I am not against—uh—cosmopol—I just think that there is no authentic cosmopolitanism without—how should I put it—remaining faithful to your particular legacy by betraying it, by looking at it from the outside. In those rare moments, you get authentic cosmopolitanism outside
see an unexpected universal dimension of a concrete particular work of art. For me, all great things come from this clash of cu—cultures, which is why, for example, Ireland, for example, although I hate James Joyce, I'm all for Samuel Beckett. But both Beckett and Joyce, you see, to did all great things they did about Ireland—Joyce wrote *Ulysses* we know where, close to my home in Trieste. Beckett had even to change language and write in French and so on, no? So I am not against—uh—cosmopol—I just think that there is no authentic cosmopolitanism without—how should I put it—remaining faithful to your particular legacy by betraying it, by looking at it from the outside. In those rare moments, you get authentic cosmopolitanism outside
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that stupidity of, you know, "We
that stupidity of, you know, "We
Slavoj Žižek
are all basically human" and—uh—no. I think that the only true cosmopolitanism is "we are both basically evil, but each of us is evil in a specific way." Sorry. We've got some more questions in this area. Hello. Oh hi Sydney, how are you? Great thanks. Yeah good. Why don't you take a coffee and talk alone? And then we can here go on with. Uh, I'm looking for a dummy's guide, um, from either of you really, um, how to free my mind from ideology. Wait. First what do you mean by ideology here? You know, for me the problem is this, that ideology—that's my motive that I repeat all the time—ideology is not ideas which dominate us. Ideology is inscribed into our very everyday practice. Even, I like these dirty examples, I will not repeat them now, how we deal with shit, how we deal with cooking and so on. All these everyday levels. This is why, don't be mad at me, I will not draw a bad conclusion, but although you know in this big conflict between trans and so-called TERFs, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, I of course agree with trans about how gender identities are constructed and so on. But I think TERFs have hit upon something, on pointing out that look, to be a woman today concretely is not just oh some performative joke where I let's say I am a man and I even don't have the decency to have my penis cut off, I just put on feminine dresses, lipstick and "oh oh, I am a woman." No, a let's—it's at the level of even biology and how this biology is part of our social practices that you get what femininity means. Let me be very vulgar, although it's not vulgar. Femininity means, my God, having periods, birth—it's easy for us men, sorry for the vulgarity, but it's on purpose here. You screw a woman then you say hello, goodbye, you know, and go. And then the woman has to go through all the painful process and mostly raising the child and so on. You see, the problem is not to become in an abstract sense feminist. The problem is how to dissolve, move over, this—uh—subordination of femini—of women embedded in daily practices. And so for me, it's not so much breaking out of ideology. It's not so much about—uh—seeing things as they truly are. The biggest point of breaking out of ideology is not seeing the truth but in understanding how—I know this will be an abstract formula, but I believe in it—in how our reality itself reproduces itself through ideological misperceptions, mystifications and so on and so on. I don't think, I think our social reality itself needs ideology to function. And this is what Marx, as I often developed, was discovering in his notion of so-called commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism is in some sense an ideological misperception. But Marx never calls it ideology because it's a part of the very material practice of capitalism. You see? So I would just, I know I didn't fully answer the question, I would just say, when don't ask directly how to get rid of ideology, ask yourself rather why does reality need ideology to reproduce itself? That's the key point. Reality itself needs illusions and that's why we are coming back to your question, that's Barbie, you know. Barbie is ideology, but—and so on. Okay. Right. I'm going to go over this way because I have denied this area. You? Coming. I hope I will hear you. Oh, do you want to shout? No, I'll take the mic. Hello. Um, how do I say this? Um, I partly apologize because this is not something that has been actually in discussion during this event, but during the sort of summary at the beginning, part of the discussion points were the future of AI. Um— Artificial intelligence, you mean? Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry. Um, what are your thoughts particularly on cases of AI such as—uh—large—uh—neural—uh—networks and large language models—uh—specifically such as Google's LaMDA AI that have been claiming sentience—uh—within themselves? And ultimately is your—uh—thoughts on the future of AI something that artificial sentience could eventually be something that could come into fruition? I—it's difficult for me to give you a precise answer because again, this is minimally a topic for another long talk, so I can only give you, sorry, a very general answer. I don't like this game of—and I'm not accusing you of it, but generally in the debates on AI—you know, it's all about—uh—we people are obviously limited, will artificial intelligence become more intelligent than we are and so on. I—to be as brief as possible—I don't see the problem of artificial intelligence in its being more bright than we, but in not being stupid in the way we humans can be. What I think is unique for us humans is to be stupid in a proper way so that you make something or say something stupid, but then you—get the message through this very stupidity, another dimension opens up to you. So I would rather say that, of course, we have now already computers which can—which are self-learning, change, adopt to rules, but they still take mistakes as something to be overcome. They don't see the, let's call it, the productivity, the capacity to open up a new space of the mistake as such. To make it a little bit clearer what I mean—uh—I—in my book on *Hegel and the Wired Brain* I use this examples. It's a
are all basically human" and—uh—no. I think that the only true cosmopolitanism is "we are both basically evil, but each of us is evil in a specific way." Sorry. We've got some more questions in this area. Hello. Oh hi Sydney, how are you? Great thanks. Yeah good. Why don't you take a coffee and talk alone? And then we can here go on with. Uh, I'm looking for a dummy's guide, um, from either of you really, um, how to free my mind from ideology. Wait. First what do you mean by ideology here? You know, for me the problem is this, that ideology—that's my motive that I repeat all the time—ideology is not ideas which dominate us. Ideology is inscribed into our very everyday practice. Even, I like these dirty examples, I will not repeat them now, how we deal with shit, how we deal with cooking and so on. All these everyday levels. This is why, don't be mad at me, I will not draw a bad conclusion, but although you know in this big conflict between trans and so-called TERFs, trans-exclusionary radical feminists, I of course agree with trans about how gender identities are constructed and so on. But I think TERFs have hit upon something, on pointing out that look, to be a woman today concretely is not just oh some performative joke where I let's say I am a man and I even don't have the decency to have my penis cut off, I just put on feminine dresses, lipstick and "oh oh, I am a woman." No, a let's—it's at the level of even biology and how this biology is part of our social practices that you get what femininity means. Let me be very vulgar, although it's not vulgar. Femininity means, my God, having periods, birth—it's easy for us men, sorry for the vulgarity, but it's on purpose here. You screw a woman then you say hello, goodbye, you know, and go. And then the woman has to go through all the painful process and mostly raising the child and so on. You see, the problem is not to become in an abstract sense feminist. The problem is how to dissolve, move over, this—uh—subordination of femini—of women embedded in daily practices. And so for me, it's not so much breaking out of ideology. It's not so much about—uh—seeing things as they truly are. The biggest point of breaking out of ideology is not seeing the truth but in understanding how—I know this will be an abstract formula, but I believe in it—in how our reality itself reproduces itself through ideological misperceptions, mystifications and so on and so on. I don't think, I think our social reality itself needs ideology to function. And this is what Marx, as I often developed, was discovering in his notion of so-called commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism is in some sense an ideological misperception. But Marx never calls it ideology because it's a part of the very material practice of capitalism. You see? So I would just, I know I didn't fully answer the question, I would just say, when don't ask directly how to get rid of ideology, ask yourself rather why does reality need ideology to reproduce itself? That's the key point. Reality itself needs illusions and that's why we are coming back to your question, that's Barbie, you know. Barbie is ideology, but—and so on. Okay. Right. I'm going to go over this way because I have denied this area. You? Coming. I hope I will hear you. Oh, do you want to shout? No, I'll take the mic. Hello. Um, how do I say this? Um, I partly apologize because this is not something that has been actually in discussion during this event, but during the sort of summary at the beginning, part of the discussion points were the future of AI. Um— Artificial intelligence, you mean? Yeah, yeah, sorry, sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry. Um, what are your thoughts particularly on cases of AI such as—uh—large—uh—neural—uh—networks and large language models—uh—specifically such as Google's LaMDA AI that have been claiming sentience—uh—within themselves? And ultimately is your—uh—thoughts on the future of AI something that artificial sentience could eventually be something that could come into fruition? I—it's difficult for me to give you a precise answer because again, this is minimally a topic for another long talk, so I can only give you, sorry, a very general answer. I don't like this game of—and I'm not accusing you of it, but generally in the debates on AI—you know, it's all about—uh—we people are obviously limited, will artificial intelligence become more intelligent than we are and so on. I—to be as brief as possible—I don't see the problem of artificial intelligence in its being more bright than we, but in not being stupid in the way we humans can be. What I think is unique for us humans is to be stupid in a proper way so that you make something or say something stupid, but then you—get the message through this very stupidity, another dimension opens up to you. So I would rather say that, of course, we have now already computers which can—which are self-learning, change, adopt to rules, but they still take mistakes as something to be overcome. They don't see the, let's call it, the productivity, the capacity to open up a new space of the mistake as such. To make it a little bit clearer what I mean—uh—I—in my book on *Hegel and the Wired Brain* I use this examples. It's a
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disgusting movie. I hate the actors, everybody, but you saw, I'm afraid to mention it, *Four Weddings and a Funeral*. You know, but
disgusting movie. I hate the actors, everybody, but you saw, I'm afraid to mention it, *Four Weddings and a Funeral*. You know, but
Slavoj Žižek
nonetheless, you know that scene where Hugh Grant declares love to Andy McDowell, I think, and in his own fake way he
nonetheless, you know that scene where Hugh Grant declares love to Andy McDowell, I think, and in his own fake way he
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gets confused, stutters, blah, blah. But in this way he succeed in declaring love.
gets confused, stutters, blah, blah. But in this way he succeed in declaring love.
Slavoj Žižek
If he were to say it clearly how he loves her, it would be a fake. So you see how the mistake as such renders the message. Now I enter a very complex domain of what Jon Elster, a pretty good Norwegian—uh—theorist of rational action calls states which are necessarily by-products. For example, I wrote about this in a text that was published in one of your philosophical monthly journals, *Philosophy Now* or what. If I say I have dignity, it's self-defeating because if I say this, it's ridiculous. I must show, display dignity through the way I act. And—uh—the same goes for many of our acts which you cannot—it is self-defeating if you directly talk about them. At this level, I try to circumscribe something that maybe, at least the way things stand now, artificial intelligence I think cannot do. Again, I repeat, not because we humans are brighter, but because we humans learned to use in a productive way our stupidity, our limitation itself. But I'm sorry, maybe now it would be too much to—to go into this. What, time for one more question? Ah, I like this. One more, then fuck you and yeah. All right, you want to pick your last one? No. Ah, I love you, I love you. You just had—you just had the tallest hand. Ah, cheers, appreciate it. Ah. Uh—hello. Yes. Hello. I don't see you, sorry. It's a pleasure—pleasure to see you talk tonight. Thank you very much for your time. Go—go to the point. I see when you are talking friendly like this, you are just sharpening the knife behind. I feel like you were actually—I feel like you were actually directing the last question at me because it was actually over there but you were looking at me the whole time. It wasn't even my question. Hm. So what—sorry, so what's the question? Hello. Hello, Mr. Žižek. Yeah. I'm—I'm just wondering—uh—with the—with the—with the potential inevitability of what we've been told about the—uh—beginning of the Third World War happening—uh—and—uh—potentially boots on the ground happening, do you think it is more morally justified to look at the involvement of British soldiers or, I don't know, a lot of young men in this room, young women, young men as well, do you think it's more of an Afghanistan/Iraq situation or do you think it's more of a let's defeat the evil Second World War situation? Should I willingly enter the meat grinder? That's—uh—but—you know what problem I have here? It's—turned
If he were to say it clearly how he loves her, it would be a fake. So you see how the mistake as such renders the message. Now I enter a very complex domain of what Jon Elster, a pretty good Norwegian—uh—theorist of rational action calls states which are necessarily by-products. For example, I wrote about this in a text that was published in one of your philosophical monthly journals, *Philosophy Now* or what. If I say I have dignity, it's self-defeating because if I say this, it's ridiculous. I must show, display dignity through the way I act. And—uh—the same goes for many of our acts which you cannot—it is self-defeating if you directly talk about them. At this level, I try to circumscribe something that maybe, at least the way things stand now, artificial intelligence I think cannot do. Again, I repeat, not because we humans are brighter, but because we humans learned to use in a productive way our stupidity, our limitation itself. But I'm sorry, maybe now it would be too much to—to go into this. What, time for one more question? Ah, I like this. One more, then fuck you and yeah. All right, you want to pick your last one? No. Ah, I love you, I love you. You just had—you just had the tallest hand. Ah, cheers, appreciate it. Ah. Uh—hello. Yes. Hello. I don't see you, sorry. It's a pleasure—pleasure to see you talk tonight. Thank you very much for your time. Go—go to the point. I see when you are talking friendly like this, you are just sharpening the knife behind. I feel like you were actually—I feel like you were actually directing the last question at me because it was actually over there but you were looking at me the whole time. It wasn't even my question. Hm. So what—sorry, so what's the question? Hello. Hello, Mr. Žižek. Yeah. I'm—I'm just wondering—uh—with the—with the—with the potential inevitability of what we've been told about the—uh—beginning of the Third World War happening—uh—and—uh—potentially boots on the ground happening, do you think it is more morally justified to look at the involvement of British soldiers or, I don't know, a lot of young men in this room, young women, young men as well, do you think it's more of an Afghanistan/Iraq situation or do you think it's more of a let's defeat the evil Second World War situation? Should I willingly enter the meat grinder? That's—uh—but—you know what problem I have here? It's—turned
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into Jeremy Kyle, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And—uh—it gets very complicated
into Jeremy Kyle, thank you. Yeah, yeah. And—uh—it gets very complicated
Slavoj Žižek
for me because, for example,
for me because, for example,
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in my own country, Slovenia, when the
in my own country, Slovenia, when the
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Ukrainian war began, we get a lot of many pacifists who were saying, "You know—uh—bringing soldiers or producing arms never brings peace" and so on and so on. Now precisely when this debate was going
Ukrainian war began, we get a lot of many pacifists who were saying, "You know—uh—bringing soldiers or producing arms never brings peace" and so on and so on. Now precisely when this debate was going
Slavoj Žižek
on, we celebrated I don't know which anniversary
on, we celebrated I don't know which anniversary
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of the partisan victory against Germans in World War II, no? And in some debate, I asked these people openly: is this that, you know—uh—"There are—there are no victorious wars, every war is a tragedy and blah, blah, peace"—is this a general
of the partisan victory against Germans in World War II, no? And in some debate, I asked these people openly: is this that, you know—uh—"There are—there are no victorious wars, every war is a tragedy and blah, blah, peace"—is this a general
Slavoj Žižek
statement or are you making a—particular case apropos Ukraine? Because if you make a general statement, then why not say when Germany attacked France, let us say, "Let's stay out of the war, producing arms will never bring peace" and so on and so on and so on. So I'm just saying, I wonder if you agree already with my first point, that there are definitely cases—in spite of all the dangers that they will be misused for further militarization and so on—but there are definitely cases where early resistance, military resistance, counter-attack can prevent a much larger violence, death and so on later. For example, I recently read a history of the beginning of World War II which argues that—it's a little bit pro-Stalinist motive, but I think there is an argument of truth in it. You know when Czechoslovakia was under attack by the Germans in '38 already? Soviet Union, I don't know if it was a fake or not and I'm no friend of Stalin, but offered the West, "Let's attack—defend Czechoslovakia together. Let's oppose the Germans immediately, let's go to war." And the West rejected this. And then it can be reasonably proven without me in any way celebrating Stalin that then Stalin got so afraid when he saw that the West really wants a war between Germany and Soviet Union so that they would exhaust each other and the West will just collect the wealth, whatever remains, that Stalin—I think he was here sincere—made a peace, that famous agreement, Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. And now new documents show that Stalin was fully aware that there will be war. The reason Soviet Union was caught unprepared was that Stalin was in some sense more intelligent than Hitler or his Stalin's generals were. More intelligent. They thought that when did it begin? 22nd of June, the attack on Russia—that that—that they are safe for this year, that if Hitler were to attack and defeat Russia, he should have done it at least one or two months earlier. So Stalin thought for this year the danger is over. So unfortunately maybe this is already too much for you. I—I couldn't read clearly because the way you put it at the last, "Should I offer my body to the meat grinder" and so on and so on. Okay, this holds for every war. But what makes a difference when you said between on the one hand—uh—like World War II evil and on the other hand the examples where of a—sorry? Intensity? Yeah, my God, here I'm sorry, things get really complicated for me. For example, what do you think about—now
statement or are you making a—particular case apropos Ukraine? Because if you make a general statement, then why not say when Germany attacked France, let us say, "Let's stay out of the war, producing arms will never bring peace" and so on and so on and so on. So I'm just saying, I wonder if you agree already with my first point, that there are definitely cases—in spite of all the dangers that they will be misused for further militarization and so on—but there are definitely cases where early resistance, military resistance, counter-attack can prevent a much larger violence, death and so on later. For example, I recently read a history of the beginning of World War II which argues that—it's a little bit pro-Stalinist motive, but I think there is an argument of truth in it. You know when Czechoslovakia was under attack by the Germans in '38 already? Soviet Union, I don't know if it was a fake or not and I'm no friend of Stalin, but offered the West, "Let's attack—defend Czechoslovakia together. Let's oppose the Germans immediately, let's go to war." And the West rejected this. And then it can be reasonably proven without me in any way celebrating Stalin that then Stalin got so afraid when he saw that the West really wants a war between Germany and Soviet Union so that they would exhaust each other and the West will just collect the wealth, whatever remains, that Stalin—I think he was here sincere—made a peace, that famous agreement, Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. And now new documents show that Stalin was fully aware that there will be war. The reason Soviet Union was caught unprepared was that Stalin was in some sense more intelligent than Hitler or his Stalin's generals were. More intelligent. They thought that when did it begin? 22nd of June, the attack on Russia—that that—that they are safe for this year, that if Hitler were to attack and defeat Russia, he should have done it at least one or two months earlier. So Stalin thought for this year the danger is over. So unfortunately maybe this is already too much for you. I—I couldn't read clearly because the way you put it at the last, "Should I offer my body to the meat grinder" and so on and so on. Okay, this holds for every war. But what makes a difference when you said between on the one hand—uh—like World War II evil and on the other hand the examples where of a—sorry? Intensity? Yeah, my God, here I'm sorry, things get really complicated for me. For example, what do you think about—now
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I will
I will
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shock you, now you will get my right-wing side. I know, I spoke with many friends, you know,
shock you, now you will get my right-wing side. I know, I spoke with many friends, you know,
Slavoj Žižek
when they said, "Ukrainian war is just a plot by NATO to expand itself." No. It is obvious already with Ukraine that NATO
when they said, "Ukrainian war is just a plot by NATO to expand itself." No. It is obvious already with Ukraine that NATO
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doesn't want—those countries, Finland, Baltic countries, they are scared like shit of the Russians. They want to join, more than—more than
doesn't want—those countries, Finland, Baltic countries, they are scared like shit of the Russians. They want to join, more than—more than
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the other side. And
the other side. And
Slavoj Žižek
again, what I also oppose
again, what I also oppose
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is this idea—I'm now trying to shock you—of NATO the ultimate evil, so whoever is against NATO there must be something a little bit good in him, you know, even if it's Putin. Sorry, all the time I'm listening to not just Putin's speeches but—as because I speak passively a little bit Russian—Russian media and so on and so on. Listen, one thing is—and I've written many critical things, I will not bore you with it now about Ukraine. But sorry, this one thing is
is this idea—I'm now trying to shock you—of NATO the ultimate evil, so whoever is against NATO there must be something a little bit good in him, you know, even if it's Putin. Sorry, all the time I'm listening to not just Putin's speeches but—as because I speak passively a little bit Russian—Russian media and so on and so on. Listen, one thing is—and I've written many critical things, I will not bore you with it now about Ukraine. But sorry, this one thing is
Slavoj Žižek
enough for me. I listened carefully to Putin's two speeches two years ago—it's now already 21st and 23rd of February—when he announced, began the invasion, the war. You know which name Putin mentioned, Putin explicitly mentioned there? Only one name: Lenin. He said Ukraine should be properly called Ukraine of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. He said Ukraine is a Bolshevik creation and we have to correct that historical error and so on and so on. So I'm just shocked when Putin is seen as some kind of—uh—resistance hero. My God, read what he and his people are saying. I hope you will agree with me here if I tell you something else. They already say today—I don't think I did it—that the most stupid—uh—uh—anti-enemy proverb that I know is "An enemy is somebody to whose story you were not ready to listen to." Sorry. This is the first thing I do. I read—you probably didn't—Hitler's *Mein Kampf*. And it didn't make me more tolerant when I listened to his words. It was even worse. And you see what I'm saying. Let's admit real—real complexity. I—my answer to you would be that there is no abstract reply: yes or no. It depends on what war you are talking about and so on and so on. One has to be concrete here. You know, because never forget one thing—I'm provoking you now—do you know that occupiers also are always sincerely pacifists? For example, after Germany occupied France in summer of I think, they were sincerely pacifist. They wanted peace because peace meant what? We keep France in peace and we exploit it nicely and so on and so on. And if somebody was an extreme militarist there, it was de Gaulle. His basic statement from emigration was, "No, the war—the war is not over. France will continue to resist." It's pure militarist in this sense statement. So all I'm saying, I'm ready to say now, is there is no general rule. The world is full of—the world is full of crazy paradoxes. It's interesting that in Slovenia—uh—during World War II, this argument "Is it worth to go—meat grinder and so on?" was used by—by pro-fascist collaborators who said, "We Slovenians are a small nation and every—any kind of resistance against Germany would be suicidal. So it's in the interest of Slovenian nation to safely wait for allied victory and strictly to do nothing." Maybe in some sense—but it's a—it's really a terrible deadlock. There is no abstract formula, I think so. I'm sorry if I disappointed you. Sorry? Ah, be serious. I mean, I'm not satisfied with this, but the shit is real, you know what I mean. I do believe we are out of—I do believe we are out of time. But you'll now be signing books up near—some bullshit of my own books, yeah, okay, yeah. If anyone wants to buy a book and then I think hang around, what's—where will I be signing books? You'll be signing around here—this area. And we will—be signing now. We've got enough Coke to keep you going. No, no. But okay, so I will rather than move maybe to this table or whatever. Okay, we've got it, we've got it. Um, a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, Žižek. Thank you very much. I hope—I hope you get—you got my old Stalinist joke, which I always repeat, I will repeat it again. Watch the speeches of let's say fascist leaders and Stalinist leaders. When there is applause, a fascist leader just receives the applause. The Stalinist leader joins the applause. I'm on a Stalinist side here. Um, sorry, I forgot to say, it's actually coming up to your birthday, I do believe. So I'd like—I'd like us all to join in— Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! My God, my God. Happy birthday Žižek! What did I do to you to deserve—it's fine. Did I—did I—your mother
enough for me. I listened carefully to Putin's two speeches two years ago—it's now already 21st and 23rd of February—when he announced, began the invasion, the war. You know which name Putin mentioned, Putin explicitly mentioned there? Only one name: Lenin. He said Ukraine should be properly called Ukraine of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. He said Ukraine is a Bolshevik creation and we have to correct that historical error and so on and so on. So I'm just shocked when Putin is seen as some kind of—uh—resistance hero. My God, read what he and his people are saying. I hope you will agree with me here if I tell you something else. They already say today—I don't think I did it—that the most stupid—uh—uh—anti-enemy proverb that I know is "An enemy is somebody to whose story you were not ready to listen to." Sorry. This is the first thing I do. I read—you probably didn't—Hitler's *Mein Kampf*. And it didn't make me more tolerant when I listened to his words. It was even worse. And you see what I'm saying. Let's admit real—real complexity. I—my answer to you would be that there is no abstract reply: yes or no. It depends on what war you are talking about and so on and so on. One has to be concrete here. You know, because never forget one thing—I'm provoking you now—do you know that occupiers also are always sincerely pacifists? For example, after Germany occupied France in summer of I think, they were sincerely pacifist. They wanted peace because peace meant what? We keep France in peace and we exploit it nicely and so on and so on. And if somebody was an extreme militarist there, it was de Gaulle. His basic statement from emigration was, "No, the war—the war is not over. France will continue to resist." It's pure militarist in this sense statement. So all I'm saying, I'm ready to say now, is there is no general rule. The world is full of—the world is full of crazy paradoxes. It's interesting that in Slovenia—uh—during World War II, this argument "Is it worth to go—meat grinder and so on?" was used by—by pro-fascist collaborators who said, "We Slovenians are a small nation and every—any kind of resistance against Germany would be suicidal. So it's in the interest of Slovenian nation to safely wait for allied victory and strictly to do nothing." Maybe in some sense—but it's a—it's really a terrible deadlock. There is no abstract formula, I think so. I'm sorry if I disappointed you. Sorry? Ah, be serious. I mean, I'm not satisfied with this, but the shit is real, you know what I mean. I do believe we are out of—I do believe we are out of time. But you'll now be signing books up near—some bullshit of my own books, yeah, okay, yeah. If anyone wants to buy a book and then I think hang around, what's—where will I be signing books? You'll be signing around here—this area. And we will—be signing now. We've got enough Coke to keep you going. No, no. But okay, so I will rather than move maybe to this table or whatever. Okay, we've got it, we've got it. Um, a round of applause, ladies and gentlemen, Žižek. Thank you very much. I hope—I hope you get—you got my old Stalinist joke, which I always repeat, I will repeat it again. Watch the speeches of let's say fascist leaders and Stalinist leaders. When there is applause, a fascist leader just receives the applause. The Stalinist leader joins the applause. I'm on a Stalinist side here. Um, sorry, I forgot to say, it's actually coming up to your birthday, I do believe. So I'd like—I'd like us all to join in— Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! My God, my God. Happy birthday Žižek! What did I do to you to deserve—it's fine. Did I—did I—your mother
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in
in
Slavoj Žižek
public or what to to— Okay, let's do the
public or what to to— Okay, let's do the
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signing.
signing.