The Rise of New Obscene Masters
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2020-01-22 · 1:34:44 · 12,295 words
with Cathy Newman
ideologyfascism-populismpsychoanalysissexuality-genderrace-antisemitismecology-climateliberalism-political-correctnesstechnology-ai-cyberspacecommunism-socialismcinema-art-culturesubjectivityeveryday-life
In a structured public conversation with Cathy Newman in Sweden, Žižek develops his thesis on 'obscene masters', the new populist political figure (embodied by Trump) who exercises power not through symbolic dignity but through shameless vulgarity. The talk spans the sexualization of public space, the constitutive perversity of human sexuality (against PC/MeToo naivety), the contradictions of immigration politics and everyday racism (including the racism of patronizing multiculturalism), and the ideology embedded in ecological discourse. Žižek concludes with reflections on digital surveillance, Neuralink/brain-computer interfaces, and a defence of a renewed left politics of 'common decency' over transgressive subversion.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 18
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
A new type of political leader (exemplified by Trump) who exercises and even amplifies power by publicly displaying vulgarity and personal obscenity rather than concealing a private self behind a dignified public image.
as “postmodern performance (of conservatism)”
Žižek's characterization of Trump's 'conservatism' not as genuine tradition but as a cynical, playful, postmodern act, mixing traditional values with open obscenity in a gigantic ego trip.
The price traditionally paid by figures of authority: the renunciation of one's dirty private side in order to maintain a public image of dignity, thereby also limiting power.
as “split subject / divided subject”
Freud's basic insight that people do not know what they want and do not want what they desire, the unconscious split that PC/consent culture tends to repress in its demand for fully transparent, explicit desire.
Žižek's formula for the structure of all human sexuality: every sexual interaction is potentially structured as masturbation with a real partner, because fantasy always mediates between the subject and the bodily reality of the other.
Following Freud and Lacan, the neighbor is not the fellow man who is 'just like us' but the one who is close yet harbours an abyss of radical, unsettling otherness, making the commandment 'love thy neighbor' genuinely difficult.
Alain Badiou's concept of immigrants/refugees as the new revolutionary proletariat, a notion Žižek explicitly rejects as too simple.
By analogy with Marx's surplus value, the portion of the global population (exemplified by contemporary refugees) that the present international order cannot integrate even as exploited labour, structurally superfluous rather than merely exploited.
The tiny, excessive feature, a surplus detail, that triggers racist or xenophobic unease; Žižek uses it to explain how everyday racism latches onto a small idiosyncratic trait of the Other.
as “moral blackmail (ecological)”
The ideological operation by which systemic/ecological critique is deflected onto individual consumers ('did you recycle your bottles?'), giving people an easy personal escape valve while the system continues unchallenged.
Following Zuboff, Žižek invokes total digital data collection as the most dangerous form of unfreedom because it is experienced as freedom, invisible control that has replaced the visible surveillance of old totalitarianism.
as “wired brain / Neuralink”
Žižek uses the brain-computer interface (Neuralink) as the limit-case of unfreedom: if thought is directly linked to an external machine, the last private refuge of the subject, free inner thought, is colonised.
The APA category Žižek criticises for medicalising what is fundamentally a politico-ideological phenomenon, repeating the error of earlier pathologisation of homosexuality.
Žižek re-reads the '+' in LGBT+ not as an empirical placeholder for unnamed identities but as a figure of the constitutive excess of subjectivity itself, a position of radical non-identification akin to the hysterical subject.
as “hysteria as subversivity”
Against the '68 dismissal of hysteria as soft/feminine, Žižek argues hysteria, the constant questioning of the master ('you say you love me, but why?'), is ideology critique at its most elementary, more radical than perversion.
The clinical-philosophical position of one who believes they know what the big Other wants and presents themselves as its instrument, which Žižek links to authoritarian power rather than subversion.
The symbolic order / ideological agency whose supposed desires perverts believe they can identify and serve, contrasted here with the hysterical subject who perpetually questions it.
as “commons”
For Žižek the contemporary communist horizon: ecology, digital space, and the global migration crisis are all problems of shared commons that cannot be managed within existing capitalism and liberal democracy.
Stories he reaches for 13
Starbucks used to advertise that part of the cost of a cappuccino goes to save Guatemalan children. The message: consumerism and ecological/social responsibility are no longer opposed, your duty is included in the price. For Žižek, the ideal ideological operation.
“consumerism and ecology being an ecologist are no longer opposed because we sell you commodities where your duty towards society and nature is already included in the price”
Žižek's Native American friends prefer 'Indian' to 'Native American' because 'Native American' evokes the nature/culture opposition (placing them on the nature side), whereas 'Indian' is at least a monument to white stupidity, Columbus thinking he was in India.
“Native Americans evokes the opposition nature-culture, so we are nature... our name is a monument to white man's stupidity”
Researcher Dean MacCannell found most people buying expensive organic apples don't really believe in their benefits but buy them because it makes them 'feel good', having done something for Mother Earth. Žižek's model of contemporary ideology as belief-through-action.
“the majority of people don't really believe in this. But they are nonetheless buying these apples because it made them feel good.”
An apartheid-era South African brochure defended apartheid on multicultural grounds: introducing democracy would drown beautiful black minority cultures in Western corruption. Žižek uses this as the origin point of the racist logic of 'you are more authentic than us'.
“if we just introduce democracy in South Africa... all those beautiful black minorities... will be drowned into our Western corruption”
In some Chinese elementary schools children wear metal rings measuring brain activity so the teacher can see on a screen who is not paying attention, an already-realized version of mind-monitoring that Žižek treats as harbinger of the Neuralink threat.
“a kind of a metal ring on their head which registers just the scope of their mental activity so the teacher sees on his computer screen if somebody is not following”
In Brazil diners receive what looks like excrement on a plate with a photo above it of what the food 'really is', a beautiful steak. Used to illustrate that we never have the thing itself; we always need a fantasmatic supplement.
“what you get is on a plate something that looks like a piece of shit... above it a photo of what this really is: a beautiful steak”
People asked those who knew Lacan personally what he was really like behind his mannered public persona; the answer was: exactly the same. No warm hidden person behind the mask, he fully identified with his public image.
“exactly the same as in public. You don't discover a warm person behind.”
Maori painters told Žižek they listen to the mountain for permission before painting. When he got friendly with them they revealed they had a New York agent who told them current artistic fashions and they made sure the mountain 'told' them exactly that fashion. Illustrates that minorities are not authentic primitives but full modern agents.
“they have an agent in New York who tells them what is the latest fashion... they take good care that the mountain tells them this”
Iceland was completely forested before Norse settlers arrived around the 8th century; deforestation was a pre-modern ecological catastrophe. Used to counter the romanticisation of pre-modern ecological harmony.
“before Norwegians moved there... Iceland was totally forested. So catastrophe already happened there.”
Early Soviet thinkers (even Trotsky) entertained the idea that communism would change human nature and introduce a new collective entity; today this returns in the New Age 'singularity' myth of minds merged into a collective digital consciousness.
“communism should change the human nature and introduce a new collective entity of humanity... today this is returning with... singularity”
Žižek mentions that New South Wales enacted a law requiring partners to somehow register consent before sex. He uses this as an example of PC legislation that ignores the constitutive ambiguity and fantasy-structure of sexuality.
“you are legally obliged to somehow register your content [consent]”
In John Ronson's podcast The Butterfly Effect, a male porn actor loses his erection during a scene and regains it by searching Pornhub on his phone, illustrating that even in the most 'real' sexual situation, fantasy support is needed; the body itself is not enough.
“to get the erection back he turns away from the naked woman in front of him and grabs his phone and searches for Pornhub”
Trump publicly imitated an FBI agent's phone sex conversation at a mass rally, an act of spectacular obscenity that his supporters cheered rather than condemned, illustrating that obscenity now strengthens rather than destroys political authority.
“Trump imitated her as if she is having an orgasm and so on.”
Works invoked 8
Brazil film
Called 'one of the absolutely greatest films'; the restaurant scene (excrement on plate, photo of beautiful food above it) illustrates that we never have the thing itself, always a fantasmatic supplement.
Kill All Normies book
Recommended as the key analysis of how shameless obscenity shifted from being a subversive tool of the left to the weapon of the alt-right.
Joker (2019 film) film
Žižek reads Joker as an interesting ethical figure who fully identifies with his mask, contrasted favourably with Trump; the film is about the obscenity of power and the outcast who can no longer maintain the social bond.
An Inuit film retelling an old legend with a modified ending; the Inuit director's reply to a white liberal critic is used to demolish the myth of authentic indigenous culture and to illustrate liberal racism.
The podcast's scene of a porn actor searching Pornhub to maintain his erection is invoked as a 'beautiful example' illustrating the fantasy-structure of all sexuality.
Used as a structural model for everyday racism: the alien identified by one tiny surplus feature parallels how racist perception latches onto an idiosyncratic detail of the Other.
Recommended as a big bestseller that 'you learn a lot' from, though described as 'a little bit simplified'; used to support the argument about invisible digital control as the most dangerous unfreedom.
Called 'an excellent film' for demystifying the poor: in it, the richer characters are the nice ones and the poor are brutal, because you can only afford to be nice when rich enough.
People invoked 25
Cited as an example of the medicalization of ideology: his antisemitic outburst was treated as illness requiring medical cure rather than as a politico-ideological failure.
Alenka Zupančič positive
Described as a 'great Slovene woman philosopher who I think is maybe already greater than me'; her analysis of the new obscene master and the elimination of symbolic castration is credited and adopted.
Edward Snowden positive
Grouped with Assange as someone who did something important in opening spaces of transparency outside state control.
Shoshana Zuboff positive
Her book on surveillance capitalism is recommended (with a caveat that it may be 'a little bit simplified') as essential background for understanding digital unfreedom.
Jacques Lacan positive
Described as Žižek's 'psychoanalytic teacher'; his identical public and private persona is invoked as admirable, and his concept of the neighbour is deployed throughout the talk.
Judith Butler negative
Described as a 'good friend' but criticised: her model of fluid, performative sexual identities is not subversive but merely describes the predominant mode of contemporary subjectivity.
Donald Trump negative
The primary case study of the 'obscene master', analysed as the ultimate postmodern president whose conservatism is pure performance; his supporters are taken seriously but his politics are not.
Terry Gilliam positive
Brazil described as 'one of the absolutely greatest films', a 'comical dystopia' that captures the truth that we never have the thing itself, always needing a fantasmatic supplement.
Álvaro García Linera positive
Bolivia's vice president under Morales; described as a 'true friend'; the coup is said to have been provoked by their success rather than failure.
Jeremy Corbyn positive
Cited alongside Sanders as a genuinely mobilising force enacting 'common decency', not theatrically transgressive but authentically decent.
Alain Badiou negative
Called a 'good friend' but his concept of immigrants as 'nomadic proletarians' is explicitly rejected as too simple, refugees cannot simply be integrated as the new proletariat.
Elon Musk negative
Neuralink is cited by Musk's name as the popular term for the brain-computer interface; Žižek is deeply sceptical of its implications rather than of Musk personally.
Cited as a follower of 1920s Gnostic-communist ideas about changing human nature and creating a collective humanity, a genealogical reference for the singularity myth.
Jon Ronson positive
His podcast The Butterfly Effect about internet pornography's aftershocks supplies the key example of the porn actor searching Pornhub on set.
Bernie Sanders positive
Praised as a figure of 'simple values' and moral majority who genuinely mobilised people; offered as a model for how the left should present itself as decent rather than transgressive.
Julian Assange positive
Despite noting Assange 'made many stupid mistakes', Žižek defends his work as important, Assange acted as 'a spy for the people', opening space outside state control.
Evo Morales positive
Described as a personal acquaintance; the coup against him is called 'a dirty coup d'état'; praised for succeeding economically with a moderate progressive agenda and for connecting indigenous symbolism with actual feminism.
Bong Joon-ho positive
Director of Parasite, not named but implied; the film is praised for demystifying the poor and showing poverty does not make people nice.
Angela Nagle positive
Žižek recommends her book Kill All Normies for its thesis that shameless obscenity, once subversive, is now the tool of the alt-right.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez positive
Praised as extremely bright; her endorsement of Sanders 'because he is an old white man' is presented as a politically astute strategy to recover Trump's white working-class base.
Dean MacCannell positive
San Francisco sociologist of tourism, described as 'an American friend'; his research on people buying organic apples without believing in them is cited as illustrating ideological belief-through-action.
Joe Biden negative
Cited as the wrong Democratic strategy, occupying the moderate centre rather than targeting dissatisfied poor white voters who went to Trump.
Margaret Thatcher negative
Identified as the originator of the neoconservative strategy of normalising/reducing love for the neighbour to a managed, limited benevolence.
Mentioned as having experimented with giving factories to workers in Venezuela; problems in Venezuela are said to have begun already with Chávez, suggesting qualified assessment.
Sigmund Freud positive
Repeatedly invoked as the source of the crucial insight into the split/divided subject and the unconscious; PC culture is criticised for repressing this Freudian legacy.
What it argues
obscene masters and the collapse of symbolic castrationpostmodern conservatism as appropriation of '68 transgressionsexuality as constitutively perverse and fantasy-dependentpolitical correctness and medicalization of social problemsimmigrants as surplus humanity rather than new proletariatecology as ideological terrain and moral blackmaildigital surveillance and brain-computer interfaces as post-human unfreedom
Dialectical moves 9
“The ultimate postmodernists today are not leftist relativists but today's conservatives themselves — Trump is the ultimate postmodern president.”
By inverting the culture-war framing, Žižek shows that cynical identity-play and obscenity, supposedly postmodern vices, are the actual structure of contemporary right-wing populism.
“Far from limiting power, displaying personal obscenity and dirt paradoxically strengthens it — you no longer have to pay the price of castration.”
The classical logic that authority requires repression of the private self is inverted: the new master gains power precisely by exposing what previously would have destroyed it.
“The only thing to psychoanalyze is not Trump but the irrational stupidity of left-liberal reactions to him.”
The expected object of psychoanalytic critique (the demagogue) is displaced onto those who claim to be his rational opponents.
“What horrified the journalist — the actor turning away from a naked woman to search Pornhub — is not a pathological exception but the reality of how everyday sexuality is structured.”
What appears as a distortion or failure of sexuality is revealed as its fundamental condition: fantasy always already mediates between subject and partner.
“The most subtle racism today is not 'you are less' but 'you are more' — the patronising celebration of the authentic, uncorrupted Other.”
Žižek inverts the expected grammar of racism: its most insidious contemporary form is not devaluation but idealization of the minority.
“Anti-anthropocentrism — wanting to be part of nature — is really the most brutally anthropocentric position, because it means creating a natural habitat ideal for us.”
The ecological demand to abandon human exceptionalism secretly reinstates it: the desired 'natural' state is still defined by human needs and survival.
“Digital surveillance is the most dangerous unfreedom because you experience it as the utmost freedom.”
The absence of visible control produces the illusion of pure freedom, making this regime of domination more effective than the transparent coercion of old totalitarianism.
“Perversion, not hysteria, is the truly radical position — but no, perversion is the structure of authoritarian power; hysteria is ideology critique at its most elementary.”
The '68 valorisation of perversion as transgression is reversed: perversion serves power by claiming to know the master's desire, while hysteria permanently destabilises it.
“The left should shamelessly adopt the stance of moral majority — 'we are the decent guys' — rather than playing transgressive subversion.”
The supposedly subversive aesthetic of obscenity and transgression has been fully appropriated by power; the genuinely counter-hegemonic move is now to claim decency.
Claims 23
asserts
Trump is the ultimate postmodern president — his 'conservatism' is a postmodern performance mixing traditional values with open obscenity, not an authentic conservative stance.Trump / postmodern conservatism
asserts
Today's obscene masters do not need symbolic castration: displaying personal vulgarity and dirt no longer limits power but paradoxically strengthens it.obscene masters / symbolic castration
asserts
Trump's followers are not irrational victims of manipulation; they vote for him because his patriotic narrative addresses their real everyday concerns — safety, stable jobs.Trump supporters / populism
reframes
What needs psychoanalysing is not Trump but the irrational stupidity of left-liberal reactions to him, which make his re-election more probable.left-liberal response to Trump
asserts
The great demands of '68 were reappropriated by the reinvented establishment, producing not liberation but precariousness, authoritarian 'coordinator' bosses, and instant sexual gratification.legacy of 1968 / ideology
asserts
Sexuality is constitutively permeated by power, fantasy, and sadomasochism — it cannot be reduced to innocent bodily contact corrupted only by external patriarchal domination.sexuality / psychoanalysis
rejects
Political correctness and consent-culture suppress Freud's most basic insight — the split subject and the unconscious — in their demand for transparent, explicit desire.political correctness / MeToo epistemology
rejects
Judith Butler's model of playful performative sexual identity is not subversive but merely describes the predominant mode of contemporary subjectivity.Butler's performativity theory
rejects
Immigrants should not be patronised as innocent poor victims; the film Parasite correctly shows that poverty does not make people nice.humanitarian/patronising view of immigrants
rejects
Refugees are not the new proletariat but 'surplus humanity' — structurally unable to be integrated even as workers in the present global order.Badiou's 'nomadic proletarians' thesis
reframes
True love of the neighbour means accepting their radical otherness/abyss, not the liberal reassurance that 'they are just like us'.love of the neighbour / immigration ethics
asserts
The most subtle and dangerous racism today is the patronising celebration of the authentic Other — the white liberal fantasy that minorities live more holistic, uncorrupted lives.liberal racism / multiculturalism
reframes
Individual moral blame for racist reactions (e.g. a white woman fearing a black man behind her) ignores the systemic conditions that produce such fears and should not displace structural analysis.everyday racism / individual vs systemic blame
asserts
Ecology is one of the primary domains of ideology today, with five forms of ideological appropriation ranging from Trump's denial to deep ecology's reactionary anti-anthropocentrism.ecology / ideology
reframes
There is no natural ecological balance to which we can return; Earth has always been a site of catastrophe, and the situation is more open and serious than catastrophist narratives imply.ecological catastrophism
asserts
The ideological operation of making individuals personally responsible for ecological problems (recycling etc.) is a form of moral blackmail that depoliticises the systemic crisis.individual ecological responsibility as ideology
asserts
Digital surveillance is the most dangerous unfreedom because it is experienced as freedom — unlike the visible surveillance of old totalitarianism.digital surveillance / freedom
asserts
The brain-computer interface (Neuralink) represents a post-human threshold: once thought is directly linked to an external machine, the last refuge of inner freedom is eliminated.Neuralink / post-human subjectivity
asserts
All major contemporary problems — ecology, digital space, migration — are problems of the commons that cannot be solved within existing capitalism and liberal democracy.communism / commons
asserts
The left should abandon pseudo-transgressive obscenity and adopt the position of moral majority / common decency, as Sanders and Corbyn began to do.left political strategy
rejects
Medicalising 'toxic masculinity' repeats the error of medicalising homosexuality — these are politico-ideological phenomena, not medical ones.APA / medicalization of social problems
asserts
Contemporary upper-middle-class feminism often conceals a class dimension, objecting not to power itself but only to its sexualisation, and wanting women's share of existing power.class dimension of mainstream feminism
reframes
Anti-anthropocentrism in deep ecology is paradoxically the most brutally anthropocentric position, because 'being part of nature' actually means creating a habitat ideal for human survival.deep ecology / anthropocentrism
Quotes 23
“It's an insult to Joker to compare him with Donald Trump.”Slavoj Žižek · Joker vs Trump — ethical distinction
“The ultimate postmodernists are today's conservatives themselves. Once traditional authority loses its power, it is not possible to return to it. All such returns are a postmodern fake.”Slavoj Žižek · conservatives as ultimate postmodernists
“Trump is the ultimate postmodern president. His conservatism is a postmodern performance, a gigantic ego trip.”Slavoj Žižek · Trump as postmodern performance
“The only thing to psychoanalyze is the irrational stupidity of the left-liberal reactions to Trump.”Slavoj Žižek · left-liberal irrationality as the real pathology
“His shameless obscenities serve as signs of solidarity with so-called ordinary people. The message is: you see, I am the same guy as you, we are all red under our skin.”Slavoj Žižek · obscenity as class solidarity signal
“You are no longer castrated in the sense of renouncing your dirty private side so that you can exert power as the figure of dignity. You can bring out all your personal dirt and paradoxically this not only does not limit your power but even strengthens it.”Slavoj Žižek · obscene master: dirt strengthens power
“Something is rotten in the state of sex. Human sexuality is in itself perverted, exposed to sadomasochism.”Slavoj Žižek · constitutive perversity of sexuality
“Every sexual interaction is potentially structured like masturbation with a real partner.”Slavoj Žižek · fantasy structure of sexuality
“Don't fall into this trap that sexuality is in itself domain of gentle activity being nice to each other and just external relations of power corrupt it.”Slavoj Žižek · sexuality not innocent before power
“Neighbor is precisely... a friend of yours... all of a sudden you discover... there is an abyss in him or her. My god that's I didn't know him at all. And that's the neighbor.”Slavoj Žižek · the neighbor as radical otherness
“The solution is not in this that all the poor from third world countries will come to our countries. The solution is... to change the entire international global order.”Slavoj Žižek · global structural change vs humanitarian charity
“They are the true neighbors of our situation... surplus humanity. Something that in the present social international order we will not be able to integrate.”Slavoj Žižek · refugees as surplus humanity
“The most subtle racism today is not direct racism of you are less, no, it's you are more.”Slavoj Žižek · liberal racism as patronising idealization
“Our name is a monument to white man's stupidity — who thought they were in India.”Slavoj Žižek · Native American/Indian name — white man's error as monument
“If ever we lived in an ideological time it's today's ideological time.”Slavoj Žižek · end-of-ideology thesis refuted
“This is the most dangerous unfreedom because you experience it as the utmost freedom.”Slavoj Žižek · digital surveillance as experienced freedom
“If it goes out it also goes in.”Slavoj Žižek · brain-computer interface: bidirectionality of mind control
“What's our sense of freedom? It's I am here free in my thoughts. You can control me but I think what I want. Once there is a direct link between our thoughts and some external machine in some sense everything changes.”Slavoj Žižek · Neuralink eliminates last refuge of freedom
“Hysteria is critique of ideology at its most elementary.”Slavoj Žižek · hysteria as ideology critique
“I am a subject in so far as I am a plus which means I cannot identify myself with a firm objective position.”Slavoj Žižek · subject as constitutive non-identity / plus
“The left should shamelessly adopt the stance of not we are subversive whatever — we are the true moral majority. We stand for common decency.”Slavoj Žižek · left strategy: reclaim moral majority
“Today if you want to have an exhibition that would have succeeded it always helps if you display a dead cow's body, if you put a statue of Jesus Christ in urine.”Slavoj Žižek · transgression fully appropriated by the establishment
“All these problems cannot be solved within the constraints of a democracy the way we know it today and capitalism the way we know it today.”Slavoj Žižek · communism as necessary horizon for commons problems
Transcript 34 turns
Cathy Newman
Thank you very much Per for inviting us here. We are very happy to be in the country of Henning Mankell and also in the city where The Bridge was filmed if I am not mistaken. So
Thank you very much Per for inviting us here. We are very happy to be in the country of Henning Mankell and also in the city where The Bridge was filmed if I am not mistaken. So
Slavoj Žižek
and in a hotel I was told we are staying where Lenin stayed in when he passed here.
and in a hotel I was told we are staying where Lenin stayed in when he passed here.
Cathy Newman
So let me just in short explain how this is going to work tonight. Slavoj will speak about obscene masters and I will just slide through some other themes he's going to cover like the politics of sexuality, immigrants and racism. So I'll be sort of transitioning from one theme to another with my questions. So I would like to start Slavoj with a movie Joker because some critics found that this character the Joker, the villain of this movie, that he is an embodiment of Donald Trump. And we saw the movie and as far as we spoke about it we do not agree with that analysis. I find that movie Joker is much more about the obscenity of government or power today and the Joker is more or less an outcast of certain society that can no longer keep the social bond alive. So let's start with this question. Okay we have the idea of Donald Trump as a Joker but I believe that you will speak about him as an embodiment of a certain obscene political figure. So please.
So let me just in short explain how this is going to work tonight. Slavoj will speak about obscene masters and I will just slide through some other themes he's going to cover like the politics of sexuality, immigrants and racism. So I'll be sort of transitioning from one theme to another with my questions. So I would like to start Slavoj with a movie Joker because some critics found that this character the Joker, the villain of this movie, that he is an embodiment of Donald Trump. And we saw the movie and as far as we spoke about it we do not agree with that analysis. I find that movie Joker is much more about the obscenity of government or power today and the Joker is more or less an outcast of certain society that can no longer keep the social bond alive. So let's start with this question. Okay we have the idea of Donald Trump as a Joker but I believe that you will speak about him as an embodiment of a certain obscene political figure. So please.
Slavoj Žižek
Thanks, I not surprisingly agree with you. As I wrote somewhere I think that it's an insult to Joker to compare him with Donald Trump you know. Because Joker is a very interesting ethical position. The way I read him he fully identifies with his mask. And our ultimate bourgeois dream when you have a person which wears a certain mask of dignity and so on is but what's the real person behind? Does he have an ugly side or he likes pornography, cheap literature, whatever. And my psychoanalytic teacher Jacques Lacan, this was because he always appeared in public in heavily mannered way and so on. And people asked me, no I asked people sorry I didn't know him closely, like but how is he in private? And they told me, I admired him for this, exactly the same as in public. You don't discover a warm person behind. And Trump definitely is not this. Okay, so let me give you the basic plot I want to talk, we want to talk about today. I begin with a reference I hope you will recognize to Star Wars. Not such a long time ago in a galaxy that now appears far far away, the public space, our public space was clearly distinguished from the obscenities of private exchanges. Politicians, journalists and other media personalities were expected to address us with a minimum of dignity. Talking and acting as if the common good is their main preoccupation, avoiding vulgar expressions and references to personal intimacies. There were of course rumors about their private vices. But they remained that, private matters mentioned only in the yellow press. Today however, not only we can read in the mass media about the intimate details of public personalities. Populist politicians themselves often regress to shameless obscenity. One should not lose sight of what is so surprising about this rise of shameless obscenity. This phenomenon was well noted and analyzed by a book that I advise you to read, probably or maybe it is, I don't know if it's translated into Swedish, Angela Nagle Kill All Normies. What's her thesis? Traditionally, at least in our retrospective view of tradition, shameless obscenity worked as subversive, as undermining traditional domination, as depriving our leaders, masters of their false dignity. I remember from my own youth how in the 1960s protesting students liked to use obscene words or make obscene gestures, all that stuff, to embarrass figures of power and, so they claimed, denounce their hypocrisy. However, what we are getting today is not the disappearance of authority, of master figures, but its forceful reappearance. We are getting something unimaginable decades ago: obscene masters. One often hears that today's culture war is fought between traditionalists who believe in a firm set of values and postmodern relativists who consider ethical rules, sexual identities and so on a result of contingent power games. But is this really the case? I claim that the ultimate postmodernists, if by postmodernism you mean cynical attitude, playing with identities, not taking things seriously, utter obscenity in public, the ultimate postmodernists are today's conservatives themselves. Once traditional authority loses its power, it is not possible to return to it. All such returns are a postmodern fake. And I think Trump is such a figure. He is not in any sense an authentic conservative. His conservatism is a postmodern performance, a gigantic ego trip. Playing with traditional values, mixing references to them with open obscenities, Trump is the ultimate postmodern president. It's very interesting that his great, but he will probably fail to be the candidate, progressive counterpoint, that's what I like about him, Bernie Sanders. Did you notice how he is really in a simple, not conservative sense, a figure of moral majority, of simple values? Donald Trump so is the emblematic figure of this new type of obscene populist master. And the usual argumentation against him, that his populism, worry for the well-being of the poor ordinary people is a fake, that his actual politics protects the interests of the rich. I think it's too simple to say just this. The followers of Trump do not act irrationally. They are not victims of primitive ideological manipulations which make them vote against their interests. They are I think, his Trump's followers, quite rational in their own terms. They vote for Trump because in the patriotic vision he is selling around he addresses their ordinary everyday problems: safety, permanent job and so on. When Trump was elected president, I was asked by a couple of publishers to write a book which would submit Donald Trump to a psychoanalytic criticism. And my answer was that we do not need psychoanalysis to explore the pathology of Trump's success. The only thing to psychoanalyze is the irrational stupidity of the left-liberal reactions to Trump. The stupidity which makes it more and more probable that Trump will be re-elected. Trump is not winning just by shamelessly bombarding us with messages which generate obscene enjoyment at how he dares to violate the elementary norms of decency. Through all his shocking vulgarities Trump is providing his followers with a narrative which makes sense. A very limited and twisted sense, but nonetheless a sense which obviously does a better job than left-liberal narrative. His shameless obscenities serve as signs of solidarity with so-called ordinary people. The message is: you see, I am the same guy as you, we are all red under our skin. And this solidarity also signals the point at which Trump's obscenity reaches its limit. Trump is not obscene when he thinks he is not. When he talks about the greatness of America, when he dismisses his opponents as enemies of the people and so on and so on. There he intends to be taken seriously. And his obscenities are meant precisely to point out by contrast the level at which he is serious. So again, don't underestimate Trump. Now I'm supposed to be, we rehearsed everything to be interrupted by you to ask me the next question. Yes, so when you talk about obscenity I'm interested in how do you see the public space today because it seems like that this obscenity has entered the public space. Could you elaborate on? I will here refer to another person, a great Slovene woman philosopher who I think it's maybe already greater than me, Alenka Zupančič. She developed some very interesting simple point. She says that with traditional master figure you have something that in my psychoanalytic jargon we would have called symbolic castration. You are not allowed in your public appearance to be yourself. You have to repress your dirty private side, act with dignity, identify with your public image. This is the price you have to pay to exercise power, which is also limited in this way. But what is appearing today with figures like Trump, it's something that I would like to compare and we both love them with today's crime fiction. You know the figure of detective: may be eccentric but has a certain dignity, honesty and so on. And then it already started three, four decades ago that detective can be an imbecile, crippled, whatever. But he still retains all his power to solve crimes. And the paradox is this one: that you are no longer castrated, castrated in the sense of renouncing your dirty private side so that you can exert power as the figure of dignity. You can bring out all your personal dirt and paradoxically this not only does not limit your power but even strengthens it. You know, this was for me a symptom of where we missed what Trump is about. Maybe you remember years ago when he was still a candidate, how often liberal media said when he did some obscenity publicly like that terrifying, humiliating for me you mean interview where he was talking to a friend of him, you can grab them by their p-organ and so on. And people thought again and again he is finished, now he went too far. No. We swallow everything. Did you follow the last affair when one of his critics, an FBI agent, I don't know how but her phone conversation with her lover became public where there are some erotic scenes and in a big public meeting with his supporters, you can find it immediately on YouTube, Trump imitated her as if she is having an
Thanks, I not surprisingly agree with you. As I wrote somewhere I think that it's an insult to Joker to compare him with Donald Trump you know. Because Joker is a very interesting ethical position. The way I read him he fully identifies with his mask. And our ultimate bourgeois dream when you have a person which wears a certain mask of dignity and so on is but what's the real person behind? Does he have an ugly side or he likes pornography, cheap literature, whatever. And my psychoanalytic teacher Jacques Lacan, this was because he always appeared in public in heavily mannered way and so on. And people asked me, no I asked people sorry I didn't know him closely, like but how is he in private? And they told me, I admired him for this, exactly the same as in public. You don't discover a warm person behind. And Trump definitely is not this. Okay, so let me give you the basic plot I want to talk, we want to talk about today. I begin with a reference I hope you will recognize to Star Wars. Not such a long time ago in a galaxy that now appears far far away, the public space, our public space was clearly distinguished from the obscenities of private exchanges. Politicians, journalists and other media personalities were expected to address us with a minimum of dignity. Talking and acting as if the common good is their main preoccupation, avoiding vulgar expressions and references to personal intimacies. There were of course rumors about their private vices. But they remained that, private matters mentioned only in the yellow press. Today however, not only we can read in the mass media about the intimate details of public personalities. Populist politicians themselves often regress to shameless obscenity. One should not lose sight of what is so surprising about this rise of shameless obscenity. This phenomenon was well noted and analyzed by a book that I advise you to read, probably or maybe it is, I don't know if it's translated into Swedish, Angela Nagle Kill All Normies. What's her thesis? Traditionally, at least in our retrospective view of tradition, shameless obscenity worked as subversive, as undermining traditional domination, as depriving our leaders, masters of their false dignity. I remember from my own youth how in the 1960s protesting students liked to use obscene words or make obscene gestures, all that stuff, to embarrass figures of power and, so they claimed, denounce their hypocrisy. However, what we are getting today is not the disappearance of authority, of master figures, but its forceful reappearance. We are getting something unimaginable decades ago: obscene masters. One often hears that today's culture war is fought between traditionalists who believe in a firm set of values and postmodern relativists who consider ethical rules, sexual identities and so on a result of contingent power games. But is this really the case? I claim that the ultimate postmodernists, if by postmodernism you mean cynical attitude, playing with identities, not taking things seriously, utter obscenity in public, the ultimate postmodernists are today's conservatives themselves. Once traditional authority loses its power, it is not possible to return to it. All such returns are a postmodern fake. And I think Trump is such a figure. He is not in any sense an authentic conservative. His conservatism is a postmodern performance, a gigantic ego trip. Playing with traditional values, mixing references to them with open obscenities, Trump is the ultimate postmodern president. It's very interesting that his great, but he will probably fail to be the candidate, progressive counterpoint, that's what I like about him, Bernie Sanders. Did you notice how he is really in a simple, not conservative sense, a figure of moral majority, of simple values? Donald Trump so is the emblematic figure of this new type of obscene populist master. And the usual argumentation against him, that his populism, worry for the well-being of the poor ordinary people is a fake, that his actual politics protects the interests of the rich. I think it's too simple to say just this. The followers of Trump do not act irrationally. They are not victims of primitive ideological manipulations which make them vote against their interests. They are I think, his Trump's followers, quite rational in their own terms. They vote for Trump because in the patriotic vision he is selling around he addresses their ordinary everyday problems: safety, permanent job and so on. When Trump was elected president, I was asked by a couple of publishers to write a book which would submit Donald Trump to a psychoanalytic criticism. And my answer was that we do not need psychoanalysis to explore the pathology of Trump's success. The only thing to psychoanalyze is the irrational stupidity of the left-liberal reactions to Trump. The stupidity which makes it more and more probable that Trump will be re-elected. Trump is not winning just by shamelessly bombarding us with messages which generate obscene enjoyment at how he dares to violate the elementary norms of decency. Through all his shocking vulgarities Trump is providing his followers with a narrative which makes sense. A very limited and twisted sense, but nonetheless a sense which obviously does a better job than left-liberal narrative. His shameless obscenities serve as signs of solidarity with so-called ordinary people. The message is: you see, I am the same guy as you, we are all red under our skin. And this solidarity also signals the point at which Trump's obscenity reaches its limit. Trump is not obscene when he thinks he is not. When he talks about the greatness of America, when he dismisses his opponents as enemies of the people and so on and so on. There he intends to be taken seriously. And his obscenities are meant precisely to point out by contrast the level at which he is serious. So again, don't underestimate Trump. Now I'm supposed to be, we rehearsed everything to be interrupted by you to ask me the next question. Yes, so when you talk about obscenity I'm interested in how do you see the public space today because it seems like that this obscenity has entered the public space. Could you elaborate on? I will here refer to another person, a great Slovene woman philosopher who I think it's maybe already greater than me, Alenka Zupančič. She developed some very interesting simple point. She says that with traditional master figure you have something that in my psychoanalytic jargon we would have called symbolic castration. You are not allowed in your public appearance to be yourself. You have to repress your dirty private side, act with dignity, identify with your public image. This is the price you have to pay to exercise power, which is also limited in this way. But what is appearing today with figures like Trump, it's something that I would like to compare and we both love them with today's crime fiction. You know the figure of detective: may be eccentric but has a certain dignity, honesty and so on. And then it already started three, four decades ago that detective can be an imbecile, crippled, whatever. But he still retains all his power to solve crimes. And the paradox is this one: that you are no longer castrated, castrated in the sense of renouncing your dirty private side so that you can exert power as the figure of dignity. You can bring out all your personal dirt and paradoxically this not only does not limit your power but even strengthens it. You know, this was for me a symptom of where we missed what Trump is about. Maybe you remember years ago when he was still a candidate, how often liberal media said when he did some obscenity publicly like that terrifying, humiliating for me you mean interview where he was talking to a friend of him, you can grab them by their p-organ and so on. And people thought again and again he is finished, now he went too far. No. We swallow everything. Did you follow the last affair when one of his critics, an FBI agent, I don't know how but her phone conversation with her lover became public where there are some erotic scenes and in a big public meeting with his supporters, you can find it immediately on YouTube, Trump imitated her as if she is having an
Cathy Newman
orgasm and so on. She can, it's it's it's so again I want to point out this paradox which is I think a new phenomenon. You don't have to you don't have to pay the price of castration, castration in the sense of accepting the gap of your miserable personality and your public image. Your ideal image you can directly enact your
orgasm and so on. She can, it's it's it's so again I want to point out this paradox which is I think a new phenomenon. You don't have to you don't have to pay the price of castration, castration in the sense of accepting the gap of your miserable personality and your public image. Your ideal image you can directly enact your
Slavoj Žižek
vulgarities and this does not make you just another ordinary guy. This even strengthens your power. Like it's not you know I'm a stupid vulgar guy like you so you shouldn't take me seriously. No, it strengthens your power. You can much more than the traditional master you can you can do whatever you can do whatever you want. It's something I think again quite unique. This open display of open display of obscenity, which is we don't have time to go into it but which is the opposite of the Stalinist attitude which still survives in China where the dignity of the leader is absolutely untouchable. That's what I retroactively almost find sympathetic in Stalinism. You know, they were obsessed by the idea that if some small private vice becomes public, like can you imagine Stalin telling a dirty joke or having a vulgar moment? It's as if they believed in the power of appearance. And the Chinese are the same today. I read somewhere that the members of the Politburo have to be dressed in the same way and have to have their hair colored so that you don't see that they are old grey and so on. But this is what's happening today it's again something something incredible you know. A king has to have his or her if she is a queen insignia. But today you can say I don't need insignia I am vulgar guy like you but nonetheless my power is even greater. I even don't I'm not sure that I that I understand this mechanism. I only think that's my very evil hypothesis that it's somehow connected with the 60s student revolution and so on. I think this is maybe the biggest ideological success maybe in modern history, how and I know as a very young guy I was there, how all the big demands of '68 were reappropriated by the newly reinvented establishment. One big demand was we no longer need this bureaucratic universities, alienated. Now you don't get them but you get precariousness, you have to study all the time and now I have quite a nostalgia for good old authoritarian alienated universities. Then then for example companies. Now you no longer get this old bureaucratic authoritarianism. I don't know how it is with you but in many cases that I know today's bosses don't even want to be called bosses. They like masters, more neutral expressions like coordinators, that's what sounds more neutral but they if anything they have even more authority than then. And it's the same with we will go later to this, it's the same with sexuality I claim. At that point the big enemy was patriarchal patriarchal traditional heterosexual marriage. Now where are we today now? I think a radical thesis I don't have time to go into it that sexuality is basically the way we knew it disappearing. It's becomes an instant gratification. Passionate love is, many psychiatrists accept this. I will tell you an anecdote which I like. In Argentina they told me that years ago when you were cheating your wife or husband it was considered a symptom to be analyzed you know. Like oh my god do you have some phobic element, why do you always have this compulsion to jump from one man or women to another. Today it's the opposite literally. If you are faithful to one partner oh it's a traumatic fixation, what went wrong with your Oedipus complex and so on. And that's why we like so much this marriage or dating counseling. We no longer I've written a lot maybe some of you know, we no longer want to fall in love. I was told this morning it's beautiful that you in Swedish you also have the verb you use it like in tomber amoureux in French or in English you use the verb fall. What I like about love is to fall in love. It means you fall into it, it's a shock. And true love I think it's not this Buddhist stuff of I love all all the universe even the lowest worm. No, love means now I want to point at the void so that I will not be accused of harassing everybody anybody. I love you which means fuck off all that is around. I I like this egotist passionate aspect of love. And this is more and more considered suspicious, metaphysical or whatever. Here I, we are good friends personally, but here now my provocations begin, you will hear many of them. Here I have a problem with my good friend Judith Butler. She still attacks very much patriarchal hegemony and but my reproach to her is this model of sexuality that she is proposing. There are no fixed sexual identities, we just in playful performative procedures we are reconstructing ourselves, playfully adopting new attitudes. My problem with her is only she is simply describing the predominant mode of subjectivity today. I don't see subversiveness anywhere there. Now it's your question again. Yes, I do I hope you noticed that we had a thorough script written down and this is the only way to improvise is yes absolutely yeah. So I want to go back to the script and back to the the question of obscene masters because as far as I could tell the your thesis is that in a way the private dimension of a personal person's life is now coming entering the public space but what we are witnessing on the other hand is that the field of sexuality is being more and more controlled. Would you agree with that? I mean that this is a sort of paradox we are seeing today. Yes this is the other side because I mean of the phenomenon I was describing, this is for me our tragic predicament today. You have this new obscenity appropriated by alt-right means not old but alternative right and then almost the predominant leftist answer is this political correct obsession with you know a good politically correct guy feels guilty they love to feel guilty all the time. My god I used that expression with my black or Arab friend, did I somewhere commit, was it racist and so on and so on. With concerning racism let me tell you a wonderful crazy story. My solution is that the only way to really beat racism is to universalize it and apply it to ourselves. I like racist stories, but I'm not a racist but it's wonderful to take racism at its extreme when it becomes absolutely ridiculous. Here comes a story. A friend of mine told me that his wife had a friend an old lady who is absolutely a racist. But such a crazy racist like this old lady told my friend's wife that she loves to eat fishes but she no longer can eat them and she was asked why not. She said because now there are many refugees from Africa crossing the Mediterranean and most of them are black and many of them drown and are eaten by fishes. And most of our fishes come from Mediterranean so she said I hate black people I don't want to eat them and I cannot be sure that maybe some parts of them are not. You see, we should playfully I claim accept this it's so crazy that it self-destructs itself. But okay let me go on with more serious stuff. Now comes the theoretical part. You know what I find sad about I totally support in its goals of course, political correctness, MeToo and so on and so on. What I find problematic is that they like to emphasize that don't refer to psychoanalysis, Freud is outdated and so on and so on. But I think that what too many of them are effectively doing is repressing Freud's basic insight, that of a split or divided subject and that of the unconscious. The fact is that people in general don't know what they want and don't want what they desire. This is why like to provoke you a little bit, this is why one of the big politically correct mottos to insist on explicit free consent before every ahead of every sexual act. Of course it should be done, I'm not crazy I'm not for rape I'm not opposed to it. But I think we should be aware that of all the ambiguities that come with it. Do you know incidentally that they were now punished for this by all those bush fires and so on, New South Wales in Australia as a state enacted this, a friend told me. It's you are legally obliged to somehow register your content. But I claim that if there is violence in sexuality you will not prevent it in this way. Because again sexuality for me is constitutively the domain of fictions, of ambiguities and everything can be for this reason perverted, used against. For example, I will tell you a story which really depressed me. One of the politically correct rules is at any point in sexual interplay all of the partners,
vulgarities and this does not make you just another ordinary guy. This even strengthens your power. Like it's not you know I'm a stupid vulgar guy like you so you shouldn't take me seriously. No, it strengthens your power. You can much more than the traditional master you can you can do whatever you can do whatever you want. It's something I think again quite unique. This open display of open display of obscenity, which is we don't have time to go into it but which is the opposite of the Stalinist attitude which still survives in China where the dignity of the leader is absolutely untouchable. That's what I retroactively almost find sympathetic in Stalinism. You know, they were obsessed by the idea that if some small private vice becomes public, like can you imagine Stalin telling a dirty joke or having a vulgar moment? It's as if they believed in the power of appearance. And the Chinese are the same today. I read somewhere that the members of the Politburo have to be dressed in the same way and have to have their hair colored so that you don't see that they are old grey and so on. But this is what's happening today it's again something something incredible you know. A king has to have his or her if she is a queen insignia. But today you can say I don't need insignia I am vulgar guy like you but nonetheless my power is even greater. I even don't I'm not sure that I that I understand this mechanism. I only think that's my very evil hypothesis that it's somehow connected with the 60s student revolution and so on. I think this is maybe the biggest ideological success maybe in modern history, how and I know as a very young guy I was there, how all the big demands of '68 were reappropriated by the newly reinvented establishment. One big demand was we no longer need this bureaucratic universities, alienated. Now you don't get them but you get precariousness, you have to study all the time and now I have quite a nostalgia for good old authoritarian alienated universities. Then then for example companies. Now you no longer get this old bureaucratic authoritarianism. I don't know how it is with you but in many cases that I know today's bosses don't even want to be called bosses. They like masters, more neutral expressions like coordinators, that's what sounds more neutral but they if anything they have even more authority than then. And it's the same with we will go later to this, it's the same with sexuality I claim. At that point the big enemy was patriarchal patriarchal traditional heterosexual marriage. Now where are we today now? I think a radical thesis I don't have time to go into it that sexuality is basically the way we knew it disappearing. It's becomes an instant gratification. Passionate love is, many psychiatrists accept this. I will tell you an anecdote which I like. In Argentina they told me that years ago when you were cheating your wife or husband it was considered a symptom to be analyzed you know. Like oh my god do you have some phobic element, why do you always have this compulsion to jump from one man or women to another. Today it's the opposite literally. If you are faithful to one partner oh it's a traumatic fixation, what went wrong with your Oedipus complex and so on. And that's why we like so much this marriage or dating counseling. We no longer I've written a lot maybe some of you know, we no longer want to fall in love. I was told this morning it's beautiful that you in Swedish you also have the verb you use it like in tomber amoureux in French or in English you use the verb fall. What I like about love is to fall in love. It means you fall into it, it's a shock. And true love I think it's not this Buddhist stuff of I love all all the universe even the lowest worm. No, love means now I want to point at the void so that I will not be accused of harassing everybody anybody. I love you which means fuck off all that is around. I I like this egotist passionate aspect of love. And this is more and more considered suspicious, metaphysical or whatever. Here I, we are good friends personally, but here now my provocations begin, you will hear many of them. Here I have a problem with my good friend Judith Butler. She still attacks very much patriarchal hegemony and but my reproach to her is this model of sexuality that she is proposing. There are no fixed sexual identities, we just in playful performative procedures we are reconstructing ourselves, playfully adopting new attitudes. My problem with her is only she is simply describing the predominant mode of subjectivity today. I don't see subversiveness anywhere there. Now it's your question again. Yes, I do I hope you noticed that we had a thorough script written down and this is the only way to improvise is yes absolutely yeah. So I want to go back to the script and back to the the question of obscene masters because as far as I could tell the your thesis is that in a way the private dimension of a personal person's life is now coming entering the public space but what we are witnessing on the other hand is that the field of sexuality is being more and more controlled. Would you agree with that? I mean that this is a sort of paradox we are seeing today. Yes this is the other side because I mean of the phenomenon I was describing, this is for me our tragic predicament today. You have this new obscenity appropriated by alt-right means not old but alternative right and then almost the predominant leftist answer is this political correct obsession with you know a good politically correct guy feels guilty they love to feel guilty all the time. My god I used that expression with my black or Arab friend, did I somewhere commit, was it racist and so on and so on. With concerning racism let me tell you a wonderful crazy story. My solution is that the only way to really beat racism is to universalize it and apply it to ourselves. I like racist stories, but I'm not a racist but it's wonderful to take racism at its extreme when it becomes absolutely ridiculous. Here comes a story. A friend of mine told me that his wife had a friend an old lady who is absolutely a racist. But such a crazy racist like this old lady told my friend's wife that she loves to eat fishes but she no longer can eat them and she was asked why not. She said because now there are many refugees from Africa crossing the Mediterranean and most of them are black and many of them drown and are eaten by fishes. And most of our fishes come from Mediterranean so she said I hate black people I don't want to eat them and I cannot be sure that maybe some parts of them are not. You see, we should playfully I claim accept this it's so crazy that it self-destructs itself. But okay let me go on with more serious stuff. Now comes the theoretical part. You know what I find sad about I totally support in its goals of course, political correctness, MeToo and so on and so on. What I find problematic is that they like to emphasize that don't refer to psychoanalysis, Freud is outdated and so on and so on. But I think that what too many of them are effectively doing is repressing Freud's basic insight, that of a split or divided subject and that of the unconscious. The fact is that people in general don't know what they want and don't want what they desire. This is why like to provoke you a little bit, this is why one of the big politically correct mottos to insist on explicit free consent before every ahead of every sexual act. Of course it should be done, I'm not crazy I'm not for rape I'm not opposed to it. But I think we should be aware that of all the ambiguities that come with it. Do you know incidentally that they were now punished for this by all those bush fires and so on, New South Wales in Australia as a state enacted this, a friend told me. It's you are legally obliged to somehow register your content. But I claim that if there is violence in sexuality you will not prevent it in this way. Because again sexuality for me is constitutively the domain of fictions, of ambiguities and everything can be for this reason perverted, used against. For example, I will tell you a story which really depressed me. One of the politically correct rules is at any point in sexual interplay all of the partners,
Cathy Newman
both of the partners have the right to say sorry I no longer want to do it, I'm stepping out. Okay. I'm sorry to tell you I know women and men who use this in an extremely brutal way as a further means of humiliation. Like an ex-friend of mine who is for this reason no longer a friend of mine, likes to seduce a woman and when she is totally excited in it he says oh sorry I no longer feel it and so on and so on. So you know that's the that's the reality of sexuality. Don't fall into this trap that sexuality is in itself domain of gentle being gentle activity being nice to each other and just external relations of power corrupt it. If there is a lesson from Freud is that sexuality is in itself permeated
both of the partners have the right to say sorry I no longer want to do it, I'm stepping out. Okay. I'm sorry to tell you I know women and men who use this in an extremely brutal way as a further means of humiliation. Like an ex-friend of mine who is for this reason no longer a friend of mine, likes to seduce a woman and when she is totally excited in it he says oh sorry I no longer feel it and so on and so on. So you know that's the that's the reality of sexuality. Don't fall into this trap that sexuality is in itself domain of gentle being gentle activity being nice to each other and just external relations of power corrupt it. If there is a lesson from Freud is that sexuality is in itself permeated
Slavoj Žižek
by power plays, sadomasochism and so on and so on. Let me develop this by a beautiful example that I found in media. In The Guardian in a recent comment there Eve Wiseman mentioned a moment in The Butterfly Effect, John Ronson's podcast series about the aftershocks of internet pornography. In this podcast you see on the set of a hardcore porn film an actor loses his erection in the middle of male actor in the middle of the scene and to get the erection back he turns away from the naked woman in front of him and grabs his phone and searches for searches for Pornhub and so on. I think this scene is the reality of the reality of our sexuality. The lesson of psychoanalysis is precisely this. Something is rotten in the state of sex. Human sexuality is in itself perverted, exposed to sadomasochism. Even when I am alone with my partner my sexual interaction with him or her is inextricably intertwined with my fantasies. Every sexual interaction is potentially structured like masturbation with a real partner. So I think that this the scene that so horrified this journalist: my god you have a naked woman there, the thing itself, and you lose interest and you go that's how exactly this is how our everyday sexuality is structured I claim. So we cannot reduce this gap between bodily reality of my partner and the universe of fantasy. We cannot reduce it to a distortion opened up by patriarchy and social domination or exploitation. The gap is here from the very beginning. So I quite understand the actor who in order to regain erection searched Pornhub. He was looking for a fantasmatic support of his performance. It is for this reason that as part of the sexual intercourse one partner asks the other to go on talking. I was never doing it, at least I heard that many lovers one partner demands please while we are doing it say some go on talking something dirty, obscenities and so on and so on. It's again the recognition that the body itself is enough not enough. You need a fantasy support. Did you see one of the absolutely greatest films I claim this negative dystopias, comical dystopia, Terry Gilliam's Brazil? Where they go to a group in a future totalitarian society to a restaurant and you order food and then what you get is on a plate something that looks like a piece of shit, like a cake of mud and above it a photo of what this really is: a beautiful steak and so on and so on. That's our reality. We never just have as it were we never just have the thing itself. That's why if you ask me, okay but I will skip this not to lose too much time, the ones whom I admire, do you have them here in Sweden, what in United States they call incels, involuntary celibates? Guys who openly accept that they are ugly, that they will not be able to find partners and so on and so on. I think this is our they they bring out some deep truth about sexuality. We are all incels dreaming about whatever dreaming about whatever means. Another thing that I want to very briefly emphasize here is that not only is sexuality not something innocent in itself, just spoiled by power relations and so on and so on, often what I find even in a certain type of feminism: never forget that in the United States most of the feminists supported attack on Iraq to liberate Iraqi women. Now the result is that women are there oppressed more than ever, much more than under Saddam. But what I want to say is that you have also the opposite idea that it's not so much power relations, relations of domination, exploitation that we should worry about, but we have also power relations which are good, but the problem is when they get sexualized. For example at universities people get disturbed when a powerful professor engages in sex with one of his students. I'm also opposed to it. But nonetheless I do not like the implication that as long as the professor is just exerting all his authority it's okay. Power is okay as long as it doesn't get personal. So I don't like for example the type of feminism where you are not bothered by power relations, it's just we women also want a proper percentage in it no. A comical version of this happened in Slovenia my country after independence where a leftist government organized a group for women's rights and the leader of that government office said as her first goal to organize a golf contest exclusively for women. Remember that golf was at that point the sport of the ruling nomenklatura. I didn't like this because you know like it's the logic was clear: I don't care if the same power relations remain just I want my part of it. Now it's again your turn it says here I want to be spontaneously interrupted please yes. Well I wanted to go off script here but I'll no no no no you get a heart attack yeah yeah. I'll save some questions for the end. So let's go on as we planned. The last thing you mentioned, the the class struggle, the the rules of the wealthy brings us to this topic of class division and so on. And I remember that a lot of leftist theoreticians are considering the flow of immigrants as the new workforce or the new proletarian class that is going to be the base of new leftist revolution. So I wanted to to ask you how do you see the in on which side of the class divide do you see the the immigrants? Is it? Oh I will not fake and say my god I'm surprised by this question. But I think it's a proper question because I think we should not in a patronizing way, this is the most subtle form of racism, to patronize immigrants as poor innocent people and so on and so on. My ultimate example here is I spoke with a couple of you yesterday evening and this morning and I was told by many of you that you like this movie Parasite, the South Korean one. I think it's an excellent film. Because you know it demystifies the poor. The poor who live in the basement or what they are not portrayed as nice people with a heart. No, the nice people with good heart kind are the richer one up there. Why? Because I think as somebody says in the film, you know when you are rich enough you can afford to be nice and so on you know. So I think again the worst kind of patronizing is for me this portrayal: no, poor people are often brutal and so on because my god that's how they survive and so on. The solution is not to idealize them they are really nice people and so on. The solution is to change the circumstances which made them like that. And here also this is how I would reply to a complaint with many of many men who claim I support feminism, I am for women, but nonetheless I feel sometimes brutally manipulated by women. Of course they are really subordinated they have the right to do it. That's the way for them to fight. What do you think if you are a man that we oppressed women but they should be this nice angelic beings they have the right to be brutal often to fight to fight back. So to immigrants so that I don't lose my. First as I define myself as this materialist Christian I would like to return to Freud which in a very who in a very nice way problematized this Christian motto not in the sense that he was supposed to but how problematic it is love your neighbor as yourself. Because you know for Freud and Jacques Lacan later, neighbor is the opposite to your fellow man. Neighbor is precisely you know what would be for me the best definition of a neighbor. You have a friend and you think you know him. But then did it happen to you, it's very interesting experience, all of a sudden you discover that this this friend of yours does something it can be ethically great it can be a dirty obscenity that shatters your image of him. You discover that there is an abyss in him or her. My god that's I didn't know him at all and so on. And that's the neighbor. The neighbor is the one who is close to you but nonetheless has this abyss of radical otherness. Which is why Freud emphasized that to love your neighbor is practically an impossible demand, you have to work hard for it. It's not just they are like us. I never like this approach to immigrants they are good people like us. No, what do I know, but that's the difficult thing to you. What if they are not quite like us? Ah, then you don't love them or what. The difficult thing is to to respect them, love them as as the otherness that they are as neighbors. And I think the neoconservative strategy first it was done by first I think the first one to put it was Margaret Thatcher and then all other neoconservative politicians took it over is to normalize or reduce love for the neighbor in this case for immigrants to this normal love like let's love them but not too much. Let's not forget that we created our wealth, we should first take care of ourselves and then maybe maybe we can we can give something to others. But this kind of normalization: no, I think the problem we have with immigrants is a much more is is a much more radical radical one. They are in some sense the real other. We cannot simply swallow them oh we are all big one big humanity and so on and so on. So what I want to what I want to say here now this may be problematic to some of you that's my problem with humanitarianism. Of course I'm for it helping the immigrants absolutely unconditionally. But I don't think this is enough. A true leftist must say that I always have a suspicion that if you reduce the problem of immigrants to oh they are knocking on our door let's be kind to them it's like let's give them some crumbs so that we can continue to live in a society which we are and we don't have to change the global society in such
by power plays, sadomasochism and so on and so on. Let me develop this by a beautiful example that I found in media. In The Guardian in a recent comment there Eve Wiseman mentioned a moment in The Butterfly Effect, John Ronson's podcast series about the aftershocks of internet pornography. In this podcast you see on the set of a hardcore porn film an actor loses his erection in the middle of male actor in the middle of the scene and to get the erection back he turns away from the naked woman in front of him and grabs his phone and searches for searches for Pornhub and so on. I think this scene is the reality of the reality of our sexuality. The lesson of psychoanalysis is precisely this. Something is rotten in the state of sex. Human sexuality is in itself perverted, exposed to sadomasochism. Even when I am alone with my partner my sexual interaction with him or her is inextricably intertwined with my fantasies. Every sexual interaction is potentially structured like masturbation with a real partner. So I think that this the scene that so horrified this journalist: my god you have a naked woman there, the thing itself, and you lose interest and you go that's how exactly this is how our everyday sexuality is structured I claim. So we cannot reduce this gap between bodily reality of my partner and the universe of fantasy. We cannot reduce it to a distortion opened up by patriarchy and social domination or exploitation. The gap is here from the very beginning. So I quite understand the actor who in order to regain erection searched Pornhub. He was looking for a fantasmatic support of his performance. It is for this reason that as part of the sexual intercourse one partner asks the other to go on talking. I was never doing it, at least I heard that many lovers one partner demands please while we are doing it say some go on talking something dirty, obscenities and so on and so on. It's again the recognition that the body itself is enough not enough. You need a fantasy support. Did you see one of the absolutely greatest films I claim this negative dystopias, comical dystopia, Terry Gilliam's Brazil? Where they go to a group in a future totalitarian society to a restaurant and you order food and then what you get is on a plate something that looks like a piece of shit, like a cake of mud and above it a photo of what this really is: a beautiful steak and so on and so on. That's our reality. We never just have as it were we never just have the thing itself. That's why if you ask me, okay but I will skip this not to lose too much time, the ones whom I admire, do you have them here in Sweden, what in United States they call incels, involuntary celibates? Guys who openly accept that they are ugly, that they will not be able to find partners and so on and so on. I think this is our they they bring out some deep truth about sexuality. We are all incels dreaming about whatever dreaming about whatever means. Another thing that I want to very briefly emphasize here is that not only is sexuality not something innocent in itself, just spoiled by power relations and so on and so on, often what I find even in a certain type of feminism: never forget that in the United States most of the feminists supported attack on Iraq to liberate Iraqi women. Now the result is that women are there oppressed more than ever, much more than under Saddam. But what I want to say is that you have also the opposite idea that it's not so much power relations, relations of domination, exploitation that we should worry about, but we have also power relations which are good, but the problem is when they get sexualized. For example at universities people get disturbed when a powerful professor engages in sex with one of his students. I'm also opposed to it. But nonetheless I do not like the implication that as long as the professor is just exerting all his authority it's okay. Power is okay as long as it doesn't get personal. So I don't like for example the type of feminism where you are not bothered by power relations, it's just we women also want a proper percentage in it no. A comical version of this happened in Slovenia my country after independence where a leftist government organized a group for women's rights and the leader of that government office said as her first goal to organize a golf contest exclusively for women. Remember that golf was at that point the sport of the ruling nomenklatura. I didn't like this because you know like it's the logic was clear: I don't care if the same power relations remain just I want my part of it. Now it's again your turn it says here I want to be spontaneously interrupted please yes. Well I wanted to go off script here but I'll no no no no you get a heart attack yeah yeah. I'll save some questions for the end. So let's go on as we planned. The last thing you mentioned, the the class struggle, the the rules of the wealthy brings us to this topic of class division and so on. And I remember that a lot of leftist theoreticians are considering the flow of immigrants as the new workforce or the new proletarian class that is going to be the base of new leftist revolution. So I wanted to to ask you how do you see the in on which side of the class divide do you see the the immigrants? Is it? Oh I will not fake and say my god I'm surprised by this question. But I think it's a proper question because I think we should not in a patronizing way, this is the most subtle form of racism, to patronize immigrants as poor innocent people and so on and so on. My ultimate example here is I spoke with a couple of you yesterday evening and this morning and I was told by many of you that you like this movie Parasite, the South Korean one. I think it's an excellent film. Because you know it demystifies the poor. The poor who live in the basement or what they are not portrayed as nice people with a heart. No, the nice people with good heart kind are the richer one up there. Why? Because I think as somebody says in the film, you know when you are rich enough you can afford to be nice and so on you know. So I think again the worst kind of patronizing is for me this portrayal: no, poor people are often brutal and so on because my god that's how they survive and so on. The solution is not to idealize them they are really nice people and so on. The solution is to change the circumstances which made them like that. And here also this is how I would reply to a complaint with many of many men who claim I support feminism, I am for women, but nonetheless I feel sometimes brutally manipulated by women. Of course they are really subordinated they have the right to do it. That's the way for them to fight. What do you think if you are a man that we oppressed women but they should be this nice angelic beings they have the right to be brutal often to fight to fight back. So to immigrants so that I don't lose my. First as I define myself as this materialist Christian I would like to return to Freud which in a very who in a very nice way problematized this Christian motto not in the sense that he was supposed to but how problematic it is love your neighbor as yourself. Because you know for Freud and Jacques Lacan later, neighbor is the opposite to your fellow man. Neighbor is precisely you know what would be for me the best definition of a neighbor. You have a friend and you think you know him. But then did it happen to you, it's very interesting experience, all of a sudden you discover that this this friend of yours does something it can be ethically great it can be a dirty obscenity that shatters your image of him. You discover that there is an abyss in him or her. My god that's I didn't know him at all and so on. And that's the neighbor. The neighbor is the one who is close to you but nonetheless has this abyss of radical otherness. Which is why Freud emphasized that to love your neighbor is practically an impossible demand, you have to work hard for it. It's not just they are like us. I never like this approach to immigrants they are good people like us. No, what do I know, but that's the difficult thing to you. What if they are not quite like us? Ah, then you don't love them or what. The difficult thing is to to respect them, love them as as the otherness that they are as neighbors. And I think the neoconservative strategy first it was done by first I think the first one to put it was Margaret Thatcher and then all other neoconservative politicians took it over is to normalize or reduce love for the neighbor in this case for immigrants to this normal love like let's love them but not too much. Let's not forget that we created our wealth, we should first take care of ourselves and then maybe maybe we can we can give something to others. But this kind of normalization: no, I think the problem we have with immigrants is a much more is is a much more radical radical one. They are in some sense the real other. We cannot simply swallow them oh we are all big one big humanity and so on and so on. So what I want to what I want to say here now this may be problematic to some of you that's my problem with humanitarianism. Of course I'm for it helping the immigrants absolutely unconditionally. But I don't think this is enough. A true leftist must say that I always have a suspicion that if you reduce the problem of immigrants to oh they are knocking on our door let's be kind to them it's like let's give them some crumbs so that we can continue to live in a society which we are and we don't have to change the global society in such
Cathy Newman
a way that they will no longer be refugees
a way that they will no longer be refugees
Slavoj Žižek
and so on and so on. That's the that's the true that's the true problem. So I think that
and so on and so on. That's the that's the true that's the true problem. So I think that
Cathy Newman
that's why I find problematic the notion developed by my good friend Alain Badiou of immigrants as the ultimate proletarians. He calls them nomadic proletarians as the figure of which will maybe move our society towards a new revolution or whatever. I think this is a too simple notion. I think that the situation is a much more much more tragic. I doubt if this last wave of immigrants if it will be possible simply to integrate them and to avoid a misunderstanding I don't blame I don't blame them. I think the position of refugees is ultimately much more much more tragic. They are caught in a kind of social limbo. It's not
that's why I find problematic the notion developed by my good friend Alain Badiou of immigrants as the ultimate proletarians. He calls them nomadic proletarians as the figure of which will maybe move our society towards a new revolution or whatever. I think this is a too simple notion. I think that the situation is a much more much more tragic. I doubt if this last wave of immigrants if it will be possible simply to integrate them and to avoid a misunderstanding I don't blame I don't blame them. I think the position of refugees is ultimately much more much more tragic. They are caught in a kind of social limbo. It's not
Slavoj Žižek
that they are exploited proletarians, many of them would precisely like to become this but cannot become. I remember a provocative interview when they were waiting on in Mexican side of the border one of those poor desperate refugees from Guatemala, he was saying that that please Mr Trump allow us in we just want to be good workers earning our modest salary and so on and so on. But this precisely I think their predicament is will not happen their predicament is much more tragic. I think that they are the true neighbors of our situation. They are a part of society which precisely functions as I use this term provocatively as correlative to surplus value Mehrwert of Marx, surplus humanity. Something that in the present social international order we will not be able to integrate. So of course I am for helping them in always and so on. But please never forget that the solution is not in this that all the poor from third world countries will come to our countries. The solution is, it may sound utopian but that's the only solution, to change the entire international global order so because even with so so that they will no longer be forced to to leave their country because also you shouldn't forget that most of those who are coming to us that's the most tragic thing that we don't read a lot I think in our media at least not in my country and in United States where I spend a lot of time. Many of these refugees who come to us are not the truly weak one because I don't know if you know but immigration is big business in southeastern Europe. It turns around about billion euros per year. You have to pay to be smuggled and so on and so on. The truly poor and destitute remain there. So again I think that I think that the situation is very serious and that the solution is not simply they are the proletarians. If they were to be our proletarians the problem would have been solved in some sense. Precisely I think this formula that worked in the 60s and 70s I think when you Sweden also and especially Germany got from my own ex-sphere, Balkan and so on million, two million of immigrants. It worked then, it will not work here. Again I want to be surprised by you the last time. Okay, I think you opened up an important question because politics today is becoming more and more the question of morality of if we are a good individuals and so on and I find this problematic. But let's save this question and problem for the ending and linger a bit longer with the question of immigrants and especially the question of racism which is tightly connected to it. So there is certainly you touched upon this great problem, but I wanted to ask you how do you see the everyday racism? Racism expressed on everyday level by let's say normal average people. It's again I'm not surprised by it but I think this is a crucial question because you know one thing is to speculate about and we all agree big causes of racism, international constellation, global geopolitics and so on but what also fascinated me is how everyday racism functions. It's usually some what in my psychoanalytic jargon I would have called surplus enjoyment. Some tiny feature that disturbs you. I remember the most sacred object, my own mother maybe you know the story if you read some of my work I write about it somewhere. My mother had an old Jewish lady with whom she was good friend. And once they had some business and then the Jewish lady left and my mother turned to me and said you know this is a wonderful lady friend but did you notice the strange intense way she was counting money and so on. It's I think structurally this was the same moment as the one in all those wonderful paranoiac movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you know where aliens are among us and there is some tiny feature they have too much skin here or a strange glow in their eyes that you recognize that they are really aliens. This counting money too intensely was my mother's identifying feature that that lady may appear like one of us but it's really a Jewish alien and so on, you know. And everyday racism especially in our liberal societies is always like this. No, okay there are neo the new right. But many of my liberal friends have this more complex attitude. I love them the other, Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, blacks whoever. But then comes a but. One and it's interesting it would be nice to make a list of these buts, what bothers you. One standard excuse of my racist subtly racist friends is their food smells bad. I just cannot stand that. I love them but they were. Then their music is too loud. This was the standard complaint of white liberal anti-racist of course in United States. Yes, we should help blacks only if they would not be carrying those big radio boxes we too, you know this is what bothers you. But now comes my more problematic point. I don't think that we should here shift the accent to too quickly culpabilizing ordinary people. For example, recently I followed a debate in the United States where a white woman was that was the problem walking on the street and she somehow I don't know how did she turned around or what noticed that there is a big strong black guy walking behind her a couple of steps and she automatically grabbed her purse most strong and the black guy complained this was an act of racism. Yes, I agree but I think it's too simply to just blame her. You know, to claim she is a racist and so on and so on and so on. Because maybe that was her experience, not that she was robbed by black people but the society she lives in and so on and so on. And what if she then comes with statistics claiming yes, many robberies are made by black people and so on and so on. So I'm always distressed when something that's part a systemic problem is turned into a moral problem for individual. Okay, that woman was afraid. What should she do? Should she reason like oh my god yes we whites oppressed black people so please come and rob me we are guilty and so on. And I think that we shouldn't reason at this level but precisely to put it in very naive Marxist terms we should ask but why are many black people so excluded that the only way for them is to steal a little bit and so the problem is there. What is pushing eventually what is pushing black people towards this, how to change things at this level. You know because you know what really worries me. Okay I will give you another example to provoke you. I have in my next book all the data about it. Something beautiful happened, beautiful in the horrible sense for me always, at an American rich campus. There was a swimming pool, student girls were there in their bikinis swimming and next to the swimming pool was a building where the facade was being remade of course by half illegal Mexican workers. And Mexican workers behaved a little bit, not aggressively but nonetheless like male chauvinist and were throwing at women this kind of a no threat but this kind of a hola ah erotic sexist remarks. And the women complained that they felt threatened and then instead of confronting the problem you can imagine what the university authorities did. They built under plastic a special tunnel to that building and made a big plastic wall to separate totally the two groups. And then there was an entire conflict because the the ladies claimed we were victims of male aggressiveness. The men claimed no, it's class distinction, that these were rich ladies, we were too low for them and so on. So I think that the sad lesson that I take from it, especially in the United States where many upper-middle-class feminists they don't say it but implicitly when they talk about male chauvinism it has
that they are exploited proletarians, many of them would precisely like to become this but cannot become. I remember a provocative interview when they were waiting on in Mexican side of the border one of those poor desperate refugees from Guatemala, he was saying that that please Mr Trump allow us in we just want to be good workers earning our modest salary and so on and so on. But this precisely I think their predicament is will not happen their predicament is much more tragic. I think that they are the true neighbors of our situation. They are a part of society which precisely functions as I use this term provocatively as correlative to surplus value Mehrwert of Marx, surplus humanity. Something that in the present social international order we will not be able to integrate. So of course I am for helping them in always and so on. But please never forget that the solution is not in this that all the poor from third world countries will come to our countries. The solution is, it may sound utopian but that's the only solution, to change the entire international global order so because even with so so that they will no longer be forced to to leave their country because also you shouldn't forget that most of those who are coming to us that's the most tragic thing that we don't read a lot I think in our media at least not in my country and in United States where I spend a lot of time. Many of these refugees who come to us are not the truly weak one because I don't know if you know but immigration is big business in southeastern Europe. It turns around about billion euros per year. You have to pay to be smuggled and so on and so on. The truly poor and destitute remain there. So again I think that I think that the situation is very serious and that the solution is not simply they are the proletarians. If they were to be our proletarians the problem would have been solved in some sense. Precisely I think this formula that worked in the 60s and 70s I think when you Sweden also and especially Germany got from my own ex-sphere, Balkan and so on million, two million of immigrants. It worked then, it will not work here. Again I want to be surprised by you the last time. Okay, I think you opened up an important question because politics today is becoming more and more the question of morality of if we are a good individuals and so on and I find this problematic. But let's save this question and problem for the ending and linger a bit longer with the question of immigrants and especially the question of racism which is tightly connected to it. So there is certainly you touched upon this great problem, but I wanted to ask you how do you see the everyday racism? Racism expressed on everyday level by let's say normal average people. It's again I'm not surprised by it but I think this is a crucial question because you know one thing is to speculate about and we all agree big causes of racism, international constellation, global geopolitics and so on but what also fascinated me is how everyday racism functions. It's usually some what in my psychoanalytic jargon I would have called surplus enjoyment. Some tiny feature that disturbs you. I remember the most sacred object, my own mother maybe you know the story if you read some of my work I write about it somewhere. My mother had an old Jewish lady with whom she was good friend. And once they had some business and then the Jewish lady left and my mother turned to me and said you know this is a wonderful lady friend but did you notice the strange intense way she was counting money and so on. It's I think structurally this was the same moment as the one in all those wonderful paranoiac movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you know where aliens are among us and there is some tiny feature they have too much skin here or a strange glow in their eyes that you recognize that they are really aliens. This counting money too intensely was my mother's identifying feature that that lady may appear like one of us but it's really a Jewish alien and so on, you know. And everyday racism especially in our liberal societies is always like this. No, okay there are neo the new right. But many of my liberal friends have this more complex attitude. I love them the other, Jews, Arabs, Palestinians, blacks whoever. But then comes a but. One and it's interesting it would be nice to make a list of these buts, what bothers you. One standard excuse of my racist subtly racist friends is their food smells bad. I just cannot stand that. I love them but they were. Then their music is too loud. This was the standard complaint of white liberal anti-racist of course in United States. Yes, we should help blacks only if they would not be carrying those big radio boxes we too, you know this is what bothers you. But now comes my more problematic point. I don't think that we should here shift the accent to too quickly culpabilizing ordinary people. For example, recently I followed a debate in the United States where a white woman was that was the problem walking on the street and she somehow I don't know how did she turned around or what noticed that there is a big strong black guy walking behind her a couple of steps and she automatically grabbed her purse most strong and the black guy complained this was an act of racism. Yes, I agree but I think it's too simply to just blame her. You know, to claim she is a racist and so on and so on and so on. Because maybe that was her experience, not that she was robbed by black people but the society she lives in and so on and so on. And what if she then comes with statistics claiming yes, many robberies are made by black people and so on and so on. So I'm always distressed when something that's part a systemic problem is turned into a moral problem for individual. Okay, that woman was afraid. What should she do? Should she reason like oh my god yes we whites oppressed black people so please come and rob me we are guilty and so on. And I think that we shouldn't reason at this level but precisely to put it in very naive Marxist terms we should ask but why are many black people so excluded that the only way for them is to steal a little bit and so the problem is there. What is pushing eventually what is pushing black people towards this, how to change things at this level. You know because you know what really worries me. Okay I will give you another example to provoke you. I have in my next book all the data about it. Something beautiful happened, beautiful in the horrible sense for me always, at an American rich campus. There was a swimming pool, student girls were there in their bikinis swimming and next to the swimming pool was a building where the facade was being remade of course by half illegal Mexican workers. And Mexican workers behaved a little bit, not aggressively but nonetheless like male chauvinist and were throwing at women this kind of a no threat but this kind of a hola ah erotic sexist remarks. And the women complained that they felt threatened and then instead of confronting the problem you can imagine what the university authorities did. They built under plastic a special tunnel to that building and made a big plastic wall to separate totally the two groups. And then there was an entire conflict because the the ladies claimed we were victims of male aggressiveness. The men claimed no, it's class distinction, that these were rich ladies, we were too low for them and so on. So I think that the sad lesson that I take from it, especially in the United States where many upper-middle-class feminists they don't say it but implicitly when they talk about male chauvinism it has
Cathy Newman
this subtle class and race dimension. You know it's mostly Mexicans and so on who do this and so on and so on. And to conclude so that we don't lose time you know what is for me the worst kind of race racism. I say this to provoke you. This patronizing celebration of the other. We in relatively affluent Western white societies we like authentic others, you know. The others who are not corrupted the way we are. I remember when I was young a friend from South Africa gave me a brochure it was still apartheid South African brochure defending apartheid. And the reasoning was in a perverted way very multicultural. It was: but if we just
this subtle class and race dimension. You know it's mostly Mexicans and so on who do this and so on and so on. And to conclude so that we don't lose time you know what is for me the worst kind of race racism. I say this to provoke you. This patronizing celebration of the other. We in relatively affluent Western white societies we like authentic others, you know. The others who are not corrupted the way we are. I remember when I was young a friend from South Africa gave me a brochure it was still apartheid South African brochure defending apartheid. And the reasoning was in a perverted way very multicultural. It was: but if we just
Slavoj Žižek
introduce democracy in South Africa, you know all those beautiful black minorities Hottentot, Bushman, all these wonderful cultures will be drowned into our Western corruption. The most subtle racism today is not direct racism of you are less, no, it's you are more. We may be rich but you, sorry not you you, let's say you are some minority, but you live much more authentic holistic life and so on and so on. I have some Native American, I don't like the name, I prefer to call them Indian and all my Indian friends prefer this name. They're intelligent my friends there, they claim the term Native American is more racist. You know what was the reasoning, I'm sorry if I repeat myself maybe you know it. They told me Native Americans evokes the opposition nature-culture, so we are nature, what are you, cultured Americans or what white people. And they told me we much prefer to be called Indians at least our name is a monument to white man's stupidity you know who thought they were in India and so on. What I admire these my Native American friends they hate this white liberals who come there, okay you live your authentic life. Their message was they told me, okay then let's exchange our roles, give me your LA Los Angeles suburb villa and you come to live in our shitty wooden house there and so on you know. What I really this is the most hated, this white attitude of this underprivileged group have some kind of deeper holistic authenticity and so on and so on. All the minorities I know and that's where I love them. No, they really want to succeed on our terms in our society. To conclude my favorite example. I was once in New Zealand and I encountered some Maori painters. And first before they knew who I am they gave me all that bullshit you know, you white people manipulate nature and so on while we before we paint a mountain we listen to the mountain, we ask the mountain for permission to paint it, all that stuff. Then when I became friendly with them they told me that nonetheless they have an agent in New York who tells them what is the latest fashion no. And then they take good care that the mountain tells them this. At that point the fashion was old sacred objects in ruins and some naked body usually woman among them. So this is what they were doing. And I think this wasn't a manipulation. Did you see, sorry I improvise a little bit to the end, did you see that was the biggest lesson against racism that I heard. Did you see an excellent Inuit, to use the old term that now is abandoned Eskimo, film Fast Runner (*Atanarjuat*)? A Canadian Inuit film. It tells an old story, an old Inuit legend, conflict between two groups in a tribe. But it changes the story. In the old myth it's a total catastrophe, the tribe is destroyed they kill each other. In the film version they just throw out not kill just throw out two evil members and it's in some sense happy ending. And then a stupid white liberal attacked the film that it's not faithful to the old legend but it makes a Hollywood compromise, happy ending and so on and so on. And the director of the film an Inuit who unfortunately was dying of cancer gave him the perfect answer. He told him no you are a racist here. Because he told him this obsession with authentic culture and so on is your Western notion. He said it's our Inuit tradition that you retell myths, ancient myths, always in a different way appropriating it to a present situation and so on and so on. They don't have this myth of authenticity. So and incidentally now really to conclude it's the same with a similar way my problem with deep ecology. I even find the term "Anthropocene" a little bit a little bit problematic. Because you know some deep ecologists argue that we are just which we are of course one species on this earth and we expanded too much we should reduce ourselves to accept that we are just one of the species, be more modest, be aware that we are part of nature and so on and so on. I think that this position against anthropocentrism is really the most brutally anthropocentric. When we are saying we are for we want to be part of natural inhabitant, what we really mean is so that we can survive. A natural habitat which will be ideal for us. I think to provoke you to end the only true ecology today is to say maybe earth is our mother but this mother is a dirty bitch, evil one. Just think about how many Earth is a permanent catastrophe. How did we get coal and oil? Can you imagine what ecological catastrophes must have happened? I think that's why I think our ecological predicament is much more serious than it may appear. There is no natural balance to which we can return. The situation is much more dangerous. I don't believe in simple solutions. We are often in ecology thinking in magical terms like you know the use of these temperatures like if temperatures rise for Celsius it's still okay. If they rise degrees Celsius or more it's a catastrophe. How do we know this? The situation is confused. We and this is not the reason to say okay doesn't matter we can't do anything. No. The the problem today I think and I take ecology extremely seriously but the problem is that that's why we should also avoid this morbid fascination. People especially in developed Western countries like to have these dark scenarios: we are already lost, catastrophes approaching and so on and so on. Did you notice how everybody today almost is a catastrophist? Right-wingers claim that leftists are catastrophists. Right-wingers like to claim that leftists lose the hope in political revolution so they have to invent new catastrophic threats like ecology, threat of nature, like like new forms of almost fascism, racism in the West and so on. But did you notice that the right-wingers have their own catastrophy catastrophic scenarios? One is immigrants, they are here to ruin our civilization and so on. The other is anti-LGBT and so on you know. The idea is I love this paranoiac theory that critical theory, today's feminism were invented by communists when they failed in the 20s. They discovered that they failed because we Western people were still too deeply embedded in Christian culture so our society should be undermined from within, our Christian morality ruined and that's happening today according to but so it's interesting this predominance of catastrophic catastrophic reasoning. And I simply claim that this morbid fascination with a catastrophe is dangerous not because the situation is really better but because the situation is much more open, who knows where we are. I think that again the situation is much more serious we live in a time of uncertainty. But I got lost in this improvisation so please say some deep concluding thought. I will not give a concluding thought but I would like you to contemplate on a thing which I think is the center of your talk here today. I think that what we were circling around when talking about social inequality or class struggle, ecology, racism is the fact maybe the greatest maneuver of conservative politics was to place all these problems or frame all these problems as moral problems. Problems of good or bad personality. Racism is conceived as a problem of individuals who are racists and not as a systemic problem, which it is. Or the problem of immigrants is the question of are we charitable enough and so on, not a systemic question of how to accept I don't know a mass of newcomers and so on. So I want you to reflect a little bit on this shift of politics from politics in proper proper meaning as dealing with political problems and then shifting blame to individuals for being I don't know too racist or not recycling enough and therefore causing the ecological catastrophe. When did this happen? I again think maybe I'm too fanatic here that it has something to do with '68 and aftermath. And the true victim of '68 rebellion was the left. The left moved to the cultural domain. It became the cultural left. And I think Trump is a revenge for this ultimately. It's Trump who won because he as a right-winger mobilized this as all good proto-fascists do some form of class struggle. But yes I totally agree with you know where because ecology is now I claim one of the model domains of ideology today. We have four five forums of how the ruling ideology appropriates ecology. First is Donald Trump: the simple denial, there is no global warming blah blah. Then you have the capitalist solution: market can do it just tax the polluters and so on. Then there is the naive scientific solution: don't worry too much science will invent new forms of clean energy whatever everything will be okay. Then we have this deep ecological point: mother earth and we and we offended her so return to some old conservative local community type of reasoning. I'm very skeptical there because you know many bad things happened with modernity but it's good to remind yourself ourself of pre-modern ecological catastrophes. Like when I was in Iceland a couple of years ago, it was explained to me that you know that before Norwegians moved there I think around eight century I don't know exactly when, Iceland was totally forested. So catastrophe already happened there. But now I come to what you mentioned: the most disgusting form of ideology today is this moral blackmail. Like the true speech of power today is when you criticize, blame state politics, big companies for ecological trouble is: but who are you to talk about this? What did you do? Did you recycle all Coca-Cola bottles? Did you put all paper aside and so on. It's wonderful operation because the system makes you responsible like don't criticize look at you and is at the same time giving you providing you an easy way out. You know like recycle all your bottles or whatever and so on and you did your duty. And I'm sorry if some of you know this story I like to repeat it. That's why the almost ideal company for me today ecologically is I hope you don't have them here, it's Starbucks. I remember years ago at every Starbucks place they had posters like our cappuccino is more expensive but of it goes to save some Guatemala children or whatever and so on and so on. I found this a wonderful operation. The message is that consumerism and ecology being an ecologist are no longer opposed because we sell you commodities where your duty towards society and nature is already included in the price you know. The price is a little bit higher you did your duty and so on and that's why a serious ecological approach for me is to precisely look at how much of what we are doing to be ecologically aware is really a form of ideology. An American friend of mine, I think it was Dean MacCannell who does also sociology of tourism from San Francisco, investigated this for example. You know when you go to a store you get all those genetically modified beautiful apples you leave them one week on a Sunday they remain the same. And then you get those half-rotten apples which cost twice the price but are organically grown. And he discovered that the majority of people don't really believe in this. But they are nonetheless buying these apples because as they put it it made them feel it makes them feel good. You know like oh my god I bought organic apples which means I did something from for mother earth I showed my solidarity and so on and so on. Here ideology is at work. So I think again that against those who claim the end of the end of ideology and so on if ever we lived in an ideological time it's today's ideological time. Just to conclude this reflection, I think that the threat to freedom is today greater than ever. Why? Because these new modes of control that we are getting today digital control and so on we no longer even experience it as control. We are did you read the book it's maybe a little bit simplified but you learn a lot that big bestseller what's her name Zuboff the surveillance capitalism no. You know what's like in good old days of normal totalitarianism the control was visible. You looked back you saw a guy oh my god is he a policeman following me. Today you don't see anything. You see it behind of computer you watch hardcore porn you whatever you buy things you surf around everything is registered. This is the most dangerous unfreedom because you experience it as the utmost freedom. This is what we should be afraid of. And and to go to the end if you ask me what is the true game changer. It's I've just finished a book on it it will appear this summer: it's what the popular term is Neuralink by Elon Musk or the wired brain. The idea of a direct connection between we are far from that but not as far as you think. The direct link with our brain and computer. It sounds wonderful. You think about something it has consequences in reality. And of course when official media present you this you hear only good side of the story like isn't it wonderful a guy who is totally crippled can move his wheelchair just by thinking and so on. Yes but don't forget that if it goes out it also goes in. And I don't like to blame China for everything. It's now so fashionable
introduce democracy in South Africa, you know all those beautiful black minorities Hottentot, Bushman, all these wonderful cultures will be drowned into our Western corruption. The most subtle racism today is not direct racism of you are less, no, it's you are more. We may be rich but you, sorry not you you, let's say you are some minority, but you live much more authentic holistic life and so on and so on. I have some Native American, I don't like the name, I prefer to call them Indian and all my Indian friends prefer this name. They're intelligent my friends there, they claim the term Native American is more racist. You know what was the reasoning, I'm sorry if I repeat myself maybe you know it. They told me Native Americans evokes the opposition nature-culture, so we are nature, what are you, cultured Americans or what white people. And they told me we much prefer to be called Indians at least our name is a monument to white man's stupidity you know who thought they were in India and so on. What I admire these my Native American friends they hate this white liberals who come there, okay you live your authentic life. Their message was they told me, okay then let's exchange our roles, give me your LA Los Angeles suburb villa and you come to live in our shitty wooden house there and so on you know. What I really this is the most hated, this white attitude of this underprivileged group have some kind of deeper holistic authenticity and so on and so on. All the minorities I know and that's where I love them. No, they really want to succeed on our terms in our society. To conclude my favorite example. I was once in New Zealand and I encountered some Maori painters. And first before they knew who I am they gave me all that bullshit you know, you white people manipulate nature and so on while we before we paint a mountain we listen to the mountain, we ask the mountain for permission to paint it, all that stuff. Then when I became friendly with them they told me that nonetheless they have an agent in New York who tells them what is the latest fashion no. And then they take good care that the mountain tells them this. At that point the fashion was old sacred objects in ruins and some naked body usually woman among them. So this is what they were doing. And I think this wasn't a manipulation. Did you see, sorry I improvise a little bit to the end, did you see that was the biggest lesson against racism that I heard. Did you see an excellent Inuit, to use the old term that now is abandoned Eskimo, film Fast Runner (*Atanarjuat*)? A Canadian Inuit film. It tells an old story, an old Inuit legend, conflict between two groups in a tribe. But it changes the story. In the old myth it's a total catastrophe, the tribe is destroyed they kill each other. In the film version they just throw out not kill just throw out two evil members and it's in some sense happy ending. And then a stupid white liberal attacked the film that it's not faithful to the old legend but it makes a Hollywood compromise, happy ending and so on and so on. And the director of the film an Inuit who unfortunately was dying of cancer gave him the perfect answer. He told him no you are a racist here. Because he told him this obsession with authentic culture and so on is your Western notion. He said it's our Inuit tradition that you retell myths, ancient myths, always in a different way appropriating it to a present situation and so on and so on. They don't have this myth of authenticity. So and incidentally now really to conclude it's the same with a similar way my problem with deep ecology. I even find the term "Anthropocene" a little bit a little bit problematic. Because you know some deep ecologists argue that we are just which we are of course one species on this earth and we expanded too much we should reduce ourselves to accept that we are just one of the species, be more modest, be aware that we are part of nature and so on and so on. I think that this position against anthropocentrism is really the most brutally anthropocentric. When we are saying we are for we want to be part of natural inhabitant, what we really mean is so that we can survive. A natural habitat which will be ideal for us. I think to provoke you to end the only true ecology today is to say maybe earth is our mother but this mother is a dirty bitch, evil one. Just think about how many Earth is a permanent catastrophe. How did we get coal and oil? Can you imagine what ecological catastrophes must have happened? I think that's why I think our ecological predicament is much more serious than it may appear. There is no natural balance to which we can return. The situation is much more dangerous. I don't believe in simple solutions. We are often in ecology thinking in magical terms like you know the use of these temperatures like if temperatures rise for Celsius it's still okay. If they rise degrees Celsius or more it's a catastrophe. How do we know this? The situation is confused. We and this is not the reason to say okay doesn't matter we can't do anything. No. The the problem today I think and I take ecology extremely seriously but the problem is that that's why we should also avoid this morbid fascination. People especially in developed Western countries like to have these dark scenarios: we are already lost, catastrophes approaching and so on and so on. Did you notice how everybody today almost is a catastrophist? Right-wingers claim that leftists are catastrophists. Right-wingers like to claim that leftists lose the hope in political revolution so they have to invent new catastrophic threats like ecology, threat of nature, like like new forms of almost fascism, racism in the West and so on. But did you notice that the right-wingers have their own catastrophy catastrophic scenarios? One is immigrants, they are here to ruin our civilization and so on. The other is anti-LGBT and so on you know. The idea is I love this paranoiac theory that critical theory, today's feminism were invented by communists when they failed in the 20s. They discovered that they failed because we Western people were still too deeply embedded in Christian culture so our society should be undermined from within, our Christian morality ruined and that's happening today according to but so it's interesting this predominance of catastrophic catastrophic reasoning. And I simply claim that this morbid fascination with a catastrophe is dangerous not because the situation is really better but because the situation is much more open, who knows where we are. I think that again the situation is much more serious we live in a time of uncertainty. But I got lost in this improvisation so please say some deep concluding thought. I will not give a concluding thought but I would like you to contemplate on a thing which I think is the center of your talk here today. I think that what we were circling around when talking about social inequality or class struggle, ecology, racism is the fact maybe the greatest maneuver of conservative politics was to place all these problems or frame all these problems as moral problems. Problems of good or bad personality. Racism is conceived as a problem of individuals who are racists and not as a systemic problem, which it is. Or the problem of immigrants is the question of are we charitable enough and so on, not a systemic question of how to accept I don't know a mass of newcomers and so on. So I want you to reflect a little bit on this shift of politics from politics in proper proper meaning as dealing with political problems and then shifting blame to individuals for being I don't know too racist or not recycling enough and therefore causing the ecological catastrophe. When did this happen? I again think maybe I'm too fanatic here that it has something to do with '68 and aftermath. And the true victim of '68 rebellion was the left. The left moved to the cultural domain. It became the cultural left. And I think Trump is a revenge for this ultimately. It's Trump who won because he as a right-winger mobilized this as all good proto-fascists do some form of class struggle. But yes I totally agree with you know where because ecology is now I claim one of the model domains of ideology today. We have four five forums of how the ruling ideology appropriates ecology. First is Donald Trump: the simple denial, there is no global warming blah blah. Then you have the capitalist solution: market can do it just tax the polluters and so on. Then there is the naive scientific solution: don't worry too much science will invent new forms of clean energy whatever everything will be okay. Then we have this deep ecological point: mother earth and we and we offended her so return to some old conservative local community type of reasoning. I'm very skeptical there because you know many bad things happened with modernity but it's good to remind yourself ourself of pre-modern ecological catastrophes. Like when I was in Iceland a couple of years ago, it was explained to me that you know that before Norwegians moved there I think around eight century I don't know exactly when, Iceland was totally forested. So catastrophe already happened there. But now I come to what you mentioned: the most disgusting form of ideology today is this moral blackmail. Like the true speech of power today is when you criticize, blame state politics, big companies for ecological trouble is: but who are you to talk about this? What did you do? Did you recycle all Coca-Cola bottles? Did you put all paper aside and so on. It's wonderful operation because the system makes you responsible like don't criticize look at you and is at the same time giving you providing you an easy way out. You know like recycle all your bottles or whatever and so on and you did your duty. And I'm sorry if some of you know this story I like to repeat it. That's why the almost ideal company for me today ecologically is I hope you don't have them here, it's Starbucks. I remember years ago at every Starbucks place they had posters like our cappuccino is more expensive but of it goes to save some Guatemala children or whatever and so on and so on. I found this a wonderful operation. The message is that consumerism and ecology being an ecologist are no longer opposed because we sell you commodities where your duty towards society and nature is already included in the price you know. The price is a little bit higher you did your duty and so on and that's why a serious ecological approach for me is to precisely look at how much of what we are doing to be ecologically aware is really a form of ideology. An American friend of mine, I think it was Dean MacCannell who does also sociology of tourism from San Francisco, investigated this for example. You know when you go to a store you get all those genetically modified beautiful apples you leave them one week on a Sunday they remain the same. And then you get those half-rotten apples which cost twice the price but are organically grown. And he discovered that the majority of people don't really believe in this. But they are nonetheless buying these apples because as they put it it made them feel it makes them feel good. You know like oh my god I bought organic apples which means I did something from for mother earth I showed my solidarity and so on and so on. Here ideology is at work. So I think again that against those who claim the end of the end of ideology and so on if ever we lived in an ideological time it's today's ideological time. Just to conclude this reflection, I think that the threat to freedom is today greater than ever. Why? Because these new modes of control that we are getting today digital control and so on we no longer even experience it as control. We are did you read the book it's maybe a little bit simplified but you learn a lot that big bestseller what's her name Zuboff the surveillance capitalism no. You know what's like in good old days of normal totalitarianism the control was visible. You looked back you saw a guy oh my god is he a policeman following me. Today you don't see anything. You see it behind of computer you watch hardcore porn you whatever you buy things you surf around everything is registered. This is the most dangerous unfreedom because you experience it as the utmost freedom. This is what we should be afraid of. And and to go to the end if you ask me what is the true game changer. It's I've just finished a book on it it will appear this summer: it's what the popular term is Neuralink by Elon Musk or the wired brain. The idea of a direct connection between we are far from that but not as far as you think. The direct link with our brain and computer. It sounds wonderful. You think about something it has consequences in reality. And of course when official media present you this you hear only good side of the story like isn't it wonderful a guy who is totally crippled can move his wheelchair just by thinking and so on. Yes but don't forget that if it goes out it also goes in. And I don't like to blame China for everything. It's now so fashionable
Cathy Newman
to focus on China. But one should read what happens in China because there in China they are just doing more openly what our secret services and so on are already doing. Namely was it in your media this wonderful again in my sense wonderful terrifying news: in some elementary schools in China it's already obligatory for children to put a kind of a metal ring on their head which registers just the scope of their mental activity so the teacher sees on his computer screen if somebody is not following. I don't have even to look at you and so on. And things are developing so fast here. I know people who know people who know people who at the end of the chain do very obscure things for secret services and so on. And they told me forget about all those bullshit nuclear arms and so on. The true obsession of military with all big countries, United States, Russia, China is mind mind control this direct link. Because you know what this
to focus on China. But one should read what happens in China because there in China they are just doing more openly what our secret services and so on are already doing. Namely was it in your media this wonderful again in my sense wonderful terrifying news: in some elementary schools in China it's already obligatory for children to put a kind of a metal ring on their head which registers just the scope of their mental activity so the teacher sees on his computer screen if somebody is not following. I don't have even to look at you and so on. And things are developing so fast here. I know people who know people who know people who at the end of the chain do very obscure things for secret services and so on. And they told me forget about all those bullshit nuclear arms and so on. The true obsession of military with all big countries, United States, Russia, China is mind mind control this direct link. Because you know what this
Slavoj Žižek
means? In some sense it is a post-human era because what's our sense of freedom? It's I am here free in my thoughts. You can control me but I think what I want. Once there is a direct link between our thoughts and some external machine in some sense in some sense everything changes. And it's so interesting to see the genealogy of this idea. You know who was the first who did it? In 1920s so-called they they had a whole new vague of Gnosticism where the idea was that communism should change the human nature and introduce a new collective entity of humanity and so on. Even Trotsky I have a quote followed this line. And so today this is returning with this all this new age mythology of new age mythology of singularity. Our minds will be brought together in direct communication in some collective mind. Of course we are far from there. But nonetheless even if it's scientifically I don't know a fiction, it's a fiction which already has effects today. So again I just think we live in really dangerous times. I was too long. No you went completely off script so now I'll take revenge and surprise you with another question. What will be the question? I was just I was thinking about political correct discourse and what bothers me is that I think that it arises from the right questions or it arises from the real social traumas but I think that the real effect of political correctness and this sensitivities that are being encouraged today is they they actually prevent social bond. So the discourse that was invented to make relations between people better is in fact now preventing from it's preventing social bond from happening. Because if you look for aggressors or abusers or the toxic others it is sort of impossible to create any new relations because every other that comes to your way it's potentially he she he or she is potentially toxic endangering and so on. So I was wondering do you? It's nice that you mention this term this I feel very uneasy now because I'm sorry to tell you this was not staged in advance you know now. But I like the term that you mentioned "toxic". Because do you remember I was opposed to it but not as an anti-feminist on the contrary I think from authentic you remember when was it half a year a year ago when American Psychological Association introduced as a medical category the term was it reported in your media "toxic masculinity"? I was opposed to it not because men are not doing horrible things but because you know what's the danger? Aren't we doing the same thing as among others you remember when they castrated Alan Turing and then pushed him to suicide. They medicalized half a century ago or more it was years more they medicalized homosexuality as an illness. Now we are medicalizing toxic masculinity. We should fight it but we should be aware this is not a medical phenomenon. This is a toxic masculinity men being brutal and so on towards whatever it's a phenomenon politico-ideological phenomenon. You don't fight it by pills against toxic masculinity and so on and so on. I found horrible this this medicalization. For example it began years ago you know that horrible actor Mel Gibson? He was caught having an antisemitic outburst. And then you know what was the formula: that this is an illness and he promised to take a medical cure against anti antisemitism. No sorry it's not a medical cure my god you know. And this is where I provoke and why many people hate me. At all levels we should not be afraid even what appears to be most progressive positions, MeToo and so on, to have a little bit of critical skepticism. For example MeToo. I sincerely admire it. I think there's something extremely important is happening. The basic formula matrix of relation between sexes which was operative maybe even before class societies already in developed tribal societies is now problematized, changing. But such but but but I have problem I will tell you okay I don't want to get lost just one example where I am if I like something is LGBT. But you know what I like about it? The plus. You know the official formula is LGBT or you can go on LGBT Q whatever plus. For me the basic philosophical even problem is the status of this plus. Usually it's taken in a British nothing against UK British empiricist way. The idea is we have all possible sexual identities but we cannot ever be sure if there are not some other identities that we didn't yet admit so we have to keep it open. Plus means you have even lists now the state of New York some committee I quoted it established positions. Butch, bisexual, trisexual, two-spirit whatever and so on and so on. But the idea is maybe it's not complete. But I would like to propose and that's for me as an old Freudian Lacanian maybe the key to feminine subjectivity what if you take plus in a much more radical sense. And you know the idea was given to me by some I have good connections with them some Australian very intelligent LGBT theorists. They told me but isn't it possible to be plus as such? What if plus is not just a placeholder for other identities? What if plus like plus I don't know what a subjective position as such which is the basic hysterical position. Which is the basic wait a minute I am a good Freudian for me hysteria is the true subversivity. I'm when was young participating a little bit in '68 events one of the male chauvinist trick of them was hysteria was considered they didn't say it like this but it was added soft feminine you know you just question the master you don't really want perverts were considered radical they go to the end and so on. No I think perversion is a position which must be behind every authoritarian power. Perversion is part of power. Hysteria is critique of ideology at its most elementary. You know even at everyday level. Sorry for this but I don't mean it in a male chauvinist way. I love this woman's question: You say you love me but why do you love me? It's a question which has no answer you know because the moment you answer it because of your hair, funny talk, whatever it's not love. So but this is the nature of subjectivity. I am a subject in so far as I am a plus which means I cannot identify myself with a firm objective position. Perverts can do it. The clinical definition of a pervert is the one who knows what the big other ideological agency wants from he who is an instrument of it. So this is why I think that it fascinates me the struggles which are going on in LGBT community and so on and so on very interesting things. It's really happening there. But again what I don't trust is this popular in some feminist or rather transgender circles this idea of the big binary masculine feminine is oppressive patriarchal. If we just open up the space for enough identities instead of then everything will be they don't say it but they imply it: okay we will everybody will find his her there whatever identity and there will
means? In some sense it is a post-human era because what's our sense of freedom? It's I am here free in my thoughts. You can control me but I think what I want. Once there is a direct link between our thoughts and some external machine in some sense in some sense everything changes. And it's so interesting to see the genealogy of this idea. You know who was the first who did it? In 1920s so-called they they had a whole new vague of Gnosticism where the idea was that communism should change the human nature and introduce a new collective entity of humanity and so on. Even Trotsky I have a quote followed this line. And so today this is returning with this all this new age mythology of new age mythology of singularity. Our minds will be brought together in direct communication in some collective mind. Of course we are far from there. But nonetheless even if it's scientifically I don't know a fiction, it's a fiction which already has effects today. So again I just think we live in really dangerous times. I was too long. No you went completely off script so now I'll take revenge and surprise you with another question. What will be the question? I was just I was thinking about political correct discourse and what bothers me is that I think that it arises from the right questions or it arises from the real social traumas but I think that the real effect of political correctness and this sensitivities that are being encouraged today is they they actually prevent social bond. So the discourse that was invented to make relations between people better is in fact now preventing from it's preventing social bond from happening. Because if you look for aggressors or abusers or the toxic others it is sort of impossible to create any new relations because every other that comes to your way it's potentially he she he or she is potentially toxic endangering and so on. So I was wondering do you? It's nice that you mention this term this I feel very uneasy now because I'm sorry to tell you this was not staged in advance you know now. But I like the term that you mentioned "toxic". Because do you remember I was opposed to it but not as an anti-feminist on the contrary I think from authentic you remember when was it half a year a year ago when American Psychological Association introduced as a medical category the term was it reported in your media "toxic masculinity"? I was opposed to it not because men are not doing horrible things but because you know what's the danger? Aren't we doing the same thing as among others you remember when they castrated Alan Turing and then pushed him to suicide. They medicalized half a century ago or more it was years more they medicalized homosexuality as an illness. Now we are medicalizing toxic masculinity. We should fight it but we should be aware this is not a medical phenomenon. This is a toxic masculinity men being brutal and so on towards whatever it's a phenomenon politico-ideological phenomenon. You don't fight it by pills against toxic masculinity and so on and so on. I found horrible this this medicalization. For example it began years ago you know that horrible actor Mel Gibson? He was caught having an antisemitic outburst. And then you know what was the formula: that this is an illness and he promised to take a medical cure against anti antisemitism. No sorry it's not a medical cure my god you know. And this is where I provoke and why many people hate me. At all levels we should not be afraid even what appears to be most progressive positions, MeToo and so on, to have a little bit of critical skepticism. For example MeToo. I sincerely admire it. I think there's something extremely important is happening. The basic formula matrix of relation between sexes which was operative maybe even before class societies already in developed tribal societies is now problematized, changing. But such but but but I have problem I will tell you okay I don't want to get lost just one example where I am if I like something is LGBT. But you know what I like about it? The plus. You know the official formula is LGBT or you can go on LGBT Q whatever plus. For me the basic philosophical even problem is the status of this plus. Usually it's taken in a British nothing against UK British empiricist way. The idea is we have all possible sexual identities but we cannot ever be sure if there are not some other identities that we didn't yet admit so we have to keep it open. Plus means you have even lists now the state of New York some committee I quoted it established positions. Butch, bisexual, trisexual, two-spirit whatever and so on and so on. But the idea is maybe it's not complete. But I would like to propose and that's for me as an old Freudian Lacanian maybe the key to feminine subjectivity what if you take plus in a much more radical sense. And you know the idea was given to me by some I have good connections with them some Australian very intelligent LGBT theorists. They told me but isn't it possible to be plus as such? What if plus is not just a placeholder for other identities? What if plus like plus I don't know what a subjective position as such which is the basic hysterical position. Which is the basic wait a minute I am a good Freudian for me hysteria is the true subversivity. I'm when was young participating a little bit in '68 events one of the male chauvinist trick of them was hysteria was considered they didn't say it like this but it was added soft feminine you know you just question the master you don't really want perverts were considered radical they go to the end and so on. No I think perversion is a position which must be behind every authoritarian power. Perversion is part of power. Hysteria is critique of ideology at its most elementary. You know even at everyday level. Sorry for this but I don't mean it in a male chauvinist way. I love this woman's question: You say you love me but why do you love me? It's a question which has no answer you know because the moment you answer it because of your hair, funny talk, whatever it's not love. So but this is the nature of subjectivity. I am a subject in so far as I am a plus which means I cannot identify myself with a firm objective position. Perverts can do it. The clinical definition of a pervert is the one who knows what the big other ideological agency wants from he who is an instrument of it. So this is why I think that it fascinates me the struggles which are going on in LGBT community and so on and so on very interesting things. It's really happening there. But again what I don't trust is this popular in some feminist or rather transgender circles this idea of the big binary masculine feminine is oppressive patriarchal. If we just open up the space for enough identities instead of then everything will be they don't say it but they imply it: okay we will everybody will find his her there whatever identity and there will
Cathy Newman
be just love blah blah blah. I think that no, what if sexuality always implies a plus? In the sense that
be just love blah blah blah. I think that no, what if sexuality always implies a plus? In the sense that
Slavoj Žižek
what if the impossibility to identify is a constitutive part of human
what if the impossibility to identify is a constitutive part of human
Cathy Newman
subjectivity. And that would be for me a really great breakthrough and so on. Sorry I got lost a little bit. Okay you didn't ask answer my question so I'm going to try and get you terrorist intellectual terrorist to answer in another way and we should wrap it up slowly. Slowly yeah because I'm returning to the beginning of your lecture at the question of obscene masters and I'm trying to combine this with the question of political correct discourse which is very attentive to all kinds of possible potential aggressions. And I'm just thinking do you think that the way to overcome these predicaments in politics and maybe even in the prevailing
subjectivity. And that would be for me a really great breakthrough and so on. Sorry I got lost a little bit. Okay you didn't ask answer my question so I'm going to try and get you terrorist intellectual terrorist to answer in another way and we should wrap it up slowly. Slowly yeah because I'm returning to the beginning of your lecture at the question of obscene masters and I'm trying to combine this with the question of political correct discourse which is very attentive to all kinds of possible potential aggressions. And I'm just thinking do you think that the way to overcome these predicaments in politics and maybe even in the prevailing
Slavoj Žižek
discourse is to return to some kind of basic I don't know kindness, politeness, to accept the you know the public appearance of generosity and so on? Do you find? I would almost say this may surprise you because I'm some idiots even called me I'm Trump of the left full of the same obscenities. But I'm tempted to say yes. What I admired about politicians like I know they are basically good old social democrats but don't underestimate Bernie Sanders and Corbyn. Look at least they moved things you know there was some kind of mass mobilization. Is that as I already said apropos the opposition between Trump and Bernie Sanders: Yes I think we the left should shamelessly adopt the stance of not we are subversive whatever we are the true moral majority. We stand for common decency and so on and so on. I am all for it. That's why you know not just because sorry for male chauvinism not just because she is beautiful you know Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The young Spanish she did something one she's extremely bright her beauty shouldn't blind you for her how bright she is. She did a month or two ago something wonderful she supported Sanders Bernie by a wonderful argument. She said I'm for him not in spite of the fact that he is an old white man but because of it. And then she explained it. No it's not only old white men can lead us. Her point was a very intelligent one. Why did Trump win? Because he mobilized this also among other things of course this poor dissatisfied half unemployed white people and so on. And she saw it very correctly that the way for Democrats to win is to repeat from the left what Trump did from the right. It's not what Joe Biden is doing to occupy the center be more moderate but to aim directly at those dissatisfied poor white people who were then seduced by Trump. No compromise with Trump or with any of his ideologists but be aware how Trump succeeded. And she sees this very well that this opposition old white man versus I don't know young marginals is not the right way to think. We should be together against the true postmodern obscene conservatives and so on and so on. So yes it may appear a very naive position and don't tell me I'm a utopian here because my god in the West developed countries again they lost they didn't yet win maybe they will never but of the it's not really radical left but a little bit more radical than mainstream left there were only two movements again which really became a movement. It was again left of the Democratic Party Bernie Sanders and others and Jeremy Corbyn. And it's crucial to note how I don't think even they were planning to do it. I know some people who know some people who are very close to Corbyn and they told me no he wasn't acting this it's simply to enact this common decency and so on and so on. And I think it would be extremely stupid to miss this opportunity to mobilize to mobilize people. To to play this pseudo-transgressive radical role no we must be obscene subversive and so on. Sorry but now I will return to you a low blow because being who I am I know what you are doing and writing no and you did many things about wrote many things about how the extent to which today art can integrate all those obscene transgressions and so on and so on. So the the amount to which this old-fashioned subversive transgression dirty words whatever it's part of the for example among other things academic sorry artistic establishment. Today if you want to have a exhibition that would have succeeded you have to do thing it's always helps if you display a dead cow's body if you put a statue of Jesus Christ in urine and so on and so on. Or a banana on a wall. On and then you sell it for and so on or how much. So I think that this game of who is more subversive is a deadlock it's totally appropriated by those in power. And I would really advise the left to play the game of sorry we are the decent guys and so on and so on. Okay on this point I'm gonna stop terrorizing you and thank you for the your talk today.
discourse is to return to some kind of basic I don't know kindness, politeness, to accept the you know the public appearance of generosity and so on? Do you find? I would almost say this may surprise you because I'm some idiots even called me I'm Trump of the left full of the same obscenities. But I'm tempted to say yes. What I admired about politicians like I know they are basically good old social democrats but don't underestimate Bernie Sanders and Corbyn. Look at least they moved things you know there was some kind of mass mobilization. Is that as I already said apropos the opposition between Trump and Bernie Sanders: Yes I think we the left should shamelessly adopt the stance of not we are subversive whatever we are the true moral majority. We stand for common decency and so on and so on. I am all for it. That's why you know not just because sorry for male chauvinism not just because she is beautiful you know Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The young Spanish she did something one she's extremely bright her beauty shouldn't blind you for her how bright she is. She did a month or two ago something wonderful she supported Sanders Bernie by a wonderful argument. She said I'm for him not in spite of the fact that he is an old white man but because of it. And then she explained it. No it's not only old white men can lead us. Her point was a very intelligent one. Why did Trump win? Because he mobilized this also among other things of course this poor dissatisfied half unemployed white people and so on. And she saw it very correctly that the way for Democrats to win is to repeat from the left what Trump did from the right. It's not what Joe Biden is doing to occupy the center be more moderate but to aim directly at those dissatisfied poor white people who were then seduced by Trump. No compromise with Trump or with any of his ideologists but be aware how Trump succeeded. And she sees this very well that this opposition old white man versus I don't know young marginals is not the right way to think. We should be together against the true postmodern obscene conservatives and so on and so on. So yes it may appear a very naive position and don't tell me I'm a utopian here because my god in the West developed countries again they lost they didn't yet win maybe they will never but of the it's not really radical left but a little bit more radical than mainstream left there were only two movements again which really became a movement. It was again left of the Democratic Party Bernie Sanders and others and Jeremy Corbyn. And it's crucial to note how I don't think even they were planning to do it. I know some people who know some people who are very close to Corbyn and they told me no he wasn't acting this it's simply to enact this common decency and so on and so on. And I think it would be extremely stupid to miss this opportunity to mobilize to mobilize people. To to play this pseudo-transgressive radical role no we must be obscene subversive and so on. Sorry but now I will return to you a low blow because being who I am I know what you are doing and writing no and you did many things about wrote many things about how the extent to which today art can integrate all those obscene transgressions and so on and so on. So the the amount to which this old-fashioned subversive transgression dirty words whatever it's part of the for example among other things academic sorry artistic establishment. Today if you want to have a exhibition that would have succeeded you have to do thing it's always helps if you display a dead cow's body if you put a statue of Jesus Christ in urine and so on and so on. Or a banana on a wall. On and then you sell it for and so on or how much. So I think that this game of who is more subversive is a deadlock it's totally appropriated by those in power. And I would really advise the left to play the game of sorry we are the decent guys and so on and so on. Okay on this point I'm gonna stop terrorizing you and thank you for the your talk today.
Cathy Newman
Why should thank you why are you thanking me. Sorry I'm just being polite. Ah that's okay now I'm okay okay yeah yeah I agree that that's good. For a moment I was afraid that she means it seriously and I was in a panic you know. So thank you Slavoj again and thank
Why should thank you why are you thanking me. Sorry I'm just being polite. Ah that's okay now I'm okay okay yeah yeah I agree that that's good. For a moment I was afraid that she means it seriously and I was in a panic you know. So thank you Slavoj again and thank
Slavoj Žižek
you all of you for coming. Thank you because I I think I must apologize to you and to all of you you know since I am for the time being only I'm getting old a little bit better known than you we had to do this arrangement and so on but I didn't like it. My nonetheless authentic in spite of all my bad jokes feminism did ring a bell in me. I didn't like it how you appeared here nonetheless as my appendix. Oh thank you so much. I hope now I will return you the blow I hope you didn't take it seriously no what I said now it was just yeah yeah okay. Okay so thank you again. But listen to save where are you Per to save democracy could we at least one person ask us a question. Because we are early enough I think. Per where are you. How would you realize how do we realize communism within the next decade. Ah a good question I admit it. First no no no I will try to give you a very precise answer. For me I first I admit it I don't have a simple
you all of you for coming. Thank you because I I think I must apologize to you and to all of you you know since I am for the time being only I'm getting old a little bit better known than you we had to do this arrangement and so on but I didn't like it. My nonetheless authentic in spite of all my bad jokes feminism did ring a bell in me. I didn't like it how you appeared here nonetheless as my appendix. Oh thank you so much. I hope now I will return you the blow I hope you didn't take it seriously no what I said now it was just yeah yeah okay. Okay so thank you again. But listen to save where are you Per to save democracy could we at least one person ask us a question. Because we are early enough I think. Per where are you. How would you realize how do we realize communism within the next decade. Ah a good question I admit it. First no no no I will try to give you a very precise answer. For me I first I admit it I don't have a simple
Cathy Newman
formula I'm
formula I'm
Slavoj Žižek
sure it will not be the 20th century way a new Leninist party. The reason I still as I always repeated that I still call myself communist is that the problems that we are facing today are the problems of commons. Nature ecology is our commons which shouldn't be privatized blah blah. Digital space big battle today is a problem of commons: how will digital space be controlled and so on. Immigrants and so on it's again a problem of commons to even to approach probably problem of this mass migrations which will become more and more necessary will be some type of and that's all that communism means for me some type of I claim that all these problems cannot be solved within the constraints of a democracy the way we know it today and capitalism the way we know it today. So some kind of trans-state and outside market collective mobilization will have to be invented. I don't know how we have models and although he wasn't so popular here in Sweden for well known reasons he made many stupid mistakes he is sorry Julian Assange. But I think what he did was not only he but Snowden and others is something important he was as he told in an interview to you a spy for the people you know to open a space outside state control and so on and so on.
sure it will not be the 20th century way a new Leninist party. The reason I still as I always repeated that I still call myself communist is that the problems that we are facing today are the problems of commons. Nature ecology is our commons which shouldn't be privatized blah blah. Digital space big battle today is a problem of commons: how will digital space be controlled and so on. Immigrants and so on it's again a problem of commons to even to approach probably problem of this mass migrations which will become more and more necessary will be some type of and that's all that communism means for me some type of I claim that all these problems cannot be solved within the constraints of a democracy the way we know it today and capitalism the way we know it today. So some kind of trans-state and outside market collective mobilization will have to be invented. I don't know how we have models and although he wasn't so popular here in Sweden for well known reasons he made many stupid mistakes he is sorry Julian Assange. But I think what he did was not only he but Snowden and others is something important he was as he told in an interview to you a spy for the people you know to open a space outside state control and so on and so on.
Cathy Newman
One field: ecology, what will
One field: ecology, what will
Slavoj Žižek
happen I don't know I'm not an optimist. If you ask me we need a more serious catastrophe we are not yet fully awakened. I really I I don't have clear formulas here and one of the reasons of
happen I don't know I'm not an optimist. If you ask me we need a more serious catastrophe we are not yet fully awakened. I really I I don't have clear formulas here and one of the reasons of
Cathy Newman
my despair is that all attempts, for example I know very
my despair is that all attempts, for example I know very
Slavoj Žižek
well I had links there the situation in Venezuela,
well I had links there the situation in Venezuela,
Cathy Newman
problems began already
problems began already
Slavoj Žižek
with Chavez. He experimented in all possible ways giving
with Chavez. He experimented in all possible ways giving
Cathy Newman
factories to
factories to
Slavoj Žižek
workers and so on and so on. We don't have a model of an alternate economy. So whom I do admire there and this was really a dirty coup d'etat against them, I'm
workers and so on and so on. We don't have a model of an alternate economy. So whom I do admire there and this was really a dirty coup d'etat against them, I'm
unknown
much
much
Slavoj Žižek
more modest here my true friends there was I knew him personally Morales vice president Linera. You know why there was a coup against Morales and Linera? Not they were not the usual story of the left: radical left takes power they screw it up economically and so on. They succeeded. Economy did well, more justice. That's why that's why they were a scandal. Because they genuinely succeeded with moderate but very clear progressive agenda. Morales did ideologically something wonderful. Okay he did all that crap you know some ancient Inca goddesses and so on but how beautifully he connected this with actual feminism. Because you know here also things are complex. To conclude I'm sorry with a wonderful.
more modest here my true friends there was I knew him personally Morales vice president Linera. You know why there was a coup against Morales and Linera? Not they were not the usual story of the left: radical left takes power they screw it up economically and so on. They succeeded. Economy did well, more justice. That's why that's why they were a scandal. Because they genuinely succeeded with moderate but very clear progressive agenda. Morales did ideologically something wonderful. Okay he did all that crap you know some ancient Inca goddesses and so on but how beautifully he connected this with actual feminism. Because you know here also things are complex. To conclude I'm sorry with a wonderful.