What Does the Future Hold?
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2020-08-06 · 1:00:44 · 8,897 words
ideologypsychoanalysishegel-dialecticstechnology-ai-cyberspaceliberalism-political-correctnessecology-climatecommunism-socialismconsciousness-mindphilosophy-general
Žižek is interviewed about his book on the COVID-19 pandemic and his book 'Hegel in a Wired Brain'. He argues against assigning any deeper natural meaning to the virus, situates it within a Hegelian framework of contingency and necessary catastrophe, and then explores the philosophical implications of brain-computer interface (Singularity/Neuralink). Along the way he addresses cancel culture, political correctness, neoliberalism, the virtual status of the Freudian unconscious, and the open political possibilities of a post-Covid society.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 17
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek treats Covid-19 as an empty signifier, a real biochemical mechanism with no inherent meaning, onto which ideological and phantasmatic projections are layered.
Žižek's label for the ideological move of reading natural disasters as nature sending humanity a moral warning, a form of meaning-projection onto a fundamentally meaningless contingent event.
The lifeworld or spontaneous everyday ontology, Žižek argues the pandemic is shattering the unwritten norms that regulate ordinary interaction, causing psychic breakdown beyond mere practical inconvenience.
Lacan's object-cause of desire, defined here as a purely virtual phantasmatic reference point, not a hidden depth but an empty locus around which fantasy organizes visible features, illustrated by the je ne sais quoi of love and the racist essence of 'Jewishness'.
Not named explicitly but implicitly present in Žižek's claim that Covid functions as a symbolic/ideological operation (the focus on its numbers versus cancer deaths) beyond its purely biochemical reality.
Hegelian sublation/reconciliation, which Žižek redescribes not as harmonious synthesis but as reconciliation with horror, accepting the necessity of failure and unintended consequences.
Žižek's counter-formula to Brandom's 'spirit of trust': the genuine Hegelian spirit is one of distrust, things necessarily go wrong no matter how well planned, and this failure is the real motor of history.
Žižek's phrase for Hegel's asymmetrical certainty: we cannot predict what will succeed but we can be sure things will go wrong, a guaranteed catastrophe without a guaranteed resolution.
The projected technological event where all human brains are merged into a collective digital intelligence; Žižek reads this as blind machinery, not collective consciousness, and likens it to Beckett's Unnamable.
Descartes' 'I think therefore I am', read by Žižek as a pure vanishing point of subjectivity that neither is nor thinks, a formal remainder that would elude even total neural transparency in Singularity.
as “transcendental apperception”
Kant's pure formal 'I' accompanying all representations, distinct from any empirical (pathological) inner content, invoked as the dimension of subjectivity that cannot be read off by a brain-computer interface.
Hegel's logical figure that joins two maximally opposed terms (spirit = bone); Žižek proposes the contemporary equivalent: 'our spirit is a virus', since cognitive science already defines spirituality as a viral entity parasitizing the biological body.
Dawkins' concept of a viral cultural unit that parasitizes the brain; Žižek uses it to support Hegel's infinite judgment 'spirit is a virus'.
as “fake radicality”
Political correctness / cancel culture as a mode of appearing radical (obsessing over language, representation) while leaving the structural causes of racism and injustice entirely untouched.
The project of directly connecting human neural processes to a digital network, eliminating the mediation of language; Žižek's term for the Neuralink/Singularity technological horizon he subjects to Hegelian critique.
Žižek's conception of materialism as commitment to a blind, meaningless, unintentional process, requiring no reference to tiny physical particles; quantum physics as its highest expression.
as “virtual unconscious”
Žižek's reinterpretation of the Freudian unconscious as a purely virtual (not deep or instinctual) reference point, like the shape of a magnetic field that exists nowhere in itself but organizes visible phenomena.
Stories he reaches for 7
A customer in a Lubitsch film asks for coffee with cream; the waiter says they have no cream, only milk, so he can only offer coffee without milk. The same plain coffee is materially delivered, but 'coffee without cream' and 'coffee without milk' are symbolically distinct because of the purely virtual absent element.
“sorry we don't have cream we just have milk so since we don't have cream I cannot give you coffee without cream I can only give you coffee without milk”
At a Politburo meeting debating whether communism will have money, Bukharin says yes (natural exchange medium), Trotskytes say no (alienation). Stalin proposes the dialectical synthesis: there will be money and there will not be money. Asked to explain, he answers: some people will have money, other people will not.
“some people will have money other people will not have money”
Just before his death, Hawking's wheelchair was wired so that thinking 'forward' moved it forward, a simple but functioning brain-computer interface illustrating the early reality of the wired-brain project.
“they enabled a computer in his wheelchair to read...his thought he just had to think forward his wheelchair moved forward”
In some Chinese elementary schools, children wear metal rings measuring brain activity so teachers receive real-time data on who is inattentive, a real, already-deployed precursor to the wired brain.
“small kids are already obliged to wear a kind of a not even helmet a metal ring on their head which measures their brain activity attention and so on”
Žižek reads Beckett's novel The Unnamable, a confused self-conversation of an autistic, quasi-mad voice, as the true image of what Singularity would feel like: not collective divine awareness but blind, autistic machinery.
“I read singularity as something that will effectively if it will be realized look like Sam Beckett's Unnamable”
In his Philosophy of History lectures, Hegel states that we cannot yet know what Russia and the United States will be in the next century, demonstrating that even at the 'end of history' Hegel explicitly refused to predict the future.
“we cannot yet know what these countries will be next century will be that”
Žižek admits he and some friends are obsessional neurotics who enjoyed quarantine: the injunctions to wash hands constantly and not touch oneself are a neurotic's paradise.
“wash your hands all the time don't touch even yourself it's a neurotics paradise I mean obsessional”
Works invoked 12
Ninotchka film
Ernst Lubitsch film from which Žižek takes his favorite 'coffee without cream' joke, used to illustrate the virtual nature of the unconscious and symbolic negation.
Philosophy of Right book
Hegel's work cited for the owl of Minerva passage and for the rational state, which Žižek argues Hegel himself recognized as already past its time the moment it was conceptualized.
Žižek's book applying Hegelian dialectics to brain-computer interfaces and Singularity; its seven theses, including the Beckett analogy, are discussed.
The X-Files tv
The series' tagline 'the truth is out there' is invoked to illustrate the false (non-Freudian) idea that truth is hidden deep within; Žižek uses it to clarify that the Freudian unconscious is not a deep inner secret.
Hegel's lectures cited for the passage where Hegel refuses to predict what Russia and the United States will become in the next century, key evidence for Žižek's anti-teleological reading.
The Unnamable book
Beckett novel cited in Žižek's preferred thesis (the last of his seven): if Singularity is realized, it will look like the Unnamable's confused autistic self-conversation, not collective divine awareness.
A Spirit of Trust book
Robert Brandom's book on Hegel; Žižek says he appreciates it but argues its central thesis (spirit of trust) misses the essential Hegelian spirit of distrust and necessary catastrophe.
Pierre Bayard's book, mentioned approvingly for the empirical finding that the best interpretations of Hegel come from those who haven't properly read him.
Glas book
Derrida's book cited for the eagle/debris image; Žižek's interlocutor quotes it to replace the owl of Minerva with an eagle taking wing amid the debris of civilization.
Pandemic! book
Žižek's own book on Covid-19, discussed at length; its central argument (no hidden meaning in the virus) is defended and elaborated.
Store of the Worlds other
Robert Sheckley short story called Žižek's favorite sci-fi story; used to capture the current political moment of unknowingly choosing between possible post-Covid futures.
Frank Ruda's book, endorsed by Žižek as capturing his own non-reductive materialist position (materialism as commitment to blind, meaningless process, not tiny particles).
People invoked 26
Jair Bolsonaro negative
Mentioned as one of the populist leaders whose pandemic approach demonstrably failed.
Jacques Derrida positive
Named at the end as one of Žižek's two big philosophical names / orientations; Žižek says he doesn't agree with Derrida but finds him intelligent. Derrida's Glas also referenced for the eagle/debris image.
Robert Brandom negative
His book A Spirit of Trust is said to miss the basic Hegelian motive; Žižek argues the true spirit of Hegel is distrust, not trust.
Pierre Bayard positive
Author of How to Talk About Books That You Haven't Read; mentioned approvingly as empirically proving that the best interpretations of Hegel come from people who haven't properly read him.
Jacques Lacan positive
Invoked for objet petit a as virtual phantasmatic reference point; Žižek uses Lacanian framework to explain the Covid projection phenomenon and the structure of the unconscious.
Mentioned as a populist whose bluffing failed to manage Covid, and also as a conservative politician who enacted quasi-communist measures (rail nationalization) during the pandemic.
Georgi Plekhanov negative
Identified as the inventor of 'dialectical materialism', a term not found in Marx or Engels, and the beginning of all stupidity in Marxism.
Francis Fukuyama negative
End-of-history thesis presented as a naïve misreading of Hegel, now obviously falsified; exemplifies the 'not-yet Hegelians' who think liberal democracy just hasn't been fully realized yet.
Mentioned as the right-wing Bolshevik who argued money is a natural exchange medium and should exist under communism, in the Stalin money joke.
Frank Ruda positive
Called a friend; cited for his book Materialism Without Matter, which Žižek endorses as capturing his own non-reductive materialist position.
Daniel Dennett positive
Named alongside Dawkins as a cognitive scientist who explicitly defines spirituality as a viral entity parasitizing the biological body, supporting Žižek's infinite judgment 'spirit is a virus'.
Donald Trump negative
Cited as a populist whose bluffing strategy cannot work against hard empirical pandemic numbers; also (paradoxically) noted for introducing near-universal basic income during Covid.
Elon Musk negative
Associated with the Neuralink / wired brain project; Žižek uses Musk's stated vision (computers reading thoughts directly) as the starting point for his philosophical critique of Singularity.
Robert Sheckley positive
Sci-fi author whose short story 'Store of the Worlds' Žižek calls his favorite; used to illustrate the current moment of choosing between futures without realizing the choice is already being made.
Mentioned as representative of the radical faction that opposed money in communism as alienation, in the context of the Stalin money joke.
Samuel Beckett positive
The Unnamable cited as Žižek's preferred image of what Singularity would actually feel like, an autistic, self-referring blind machinery, not collective divine consciousness.
Yanis Varoufakis positive
Called a friend who is not stupid, though Žižek does not always agree with him; cited for the critique of 'neoliberalism' as a false or misleading term.
Carl Jung negative
Jungian unconscious (deep archetypal core) is contrasted unfavorably with Žižek's virtual Freudian unconscious; collective consciousness/Singularity would be 'really Jungian'.
Richard Dawkins positive
His concept of the meme (cultural virus parasitizing the brain) is deployed to support Žižek's claim that 'our spirit is a virus'; Dawkins also names cognitive spirituality viral.
Vladimir Putin negative
Cited alongside Trump and Bolsonaro as an authoritarian populist whose approach to the pandemic failed.
Joseph Stalin negative
Satirized in the money joke; his method of 'dialectical synthesis' shown as vulgar class inequality dressed up in Hegelian rhetoric.
Karl Marx positive
Cited as less advanced than Hegel in that he retained belief in an objective historical agent (the working class); dialectical materialism not Marx's own term.
René Descartes positive
The cogito as a pure vanishing point that neither is nor thinks is used as the first dimension of subjectivity that eludes Singularity.
Sigmund Freud positive
Žižek rereads the Freudian unconscious as purely virtual rather than deep or instinctual; invokes Freud's lesson that we don't know how to communicate even with ourselves.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel positive
Central figure of the talk; Žižek reads him as a philosopher of contingency, distrust, and catastrophe, not a teleological rationalist, and applies Hegelian infinite judgment to Covid and the wired brain.
Immanuel Kant positive
Transcendental apperception cited as the pure formal 'I' that would elude Singularity; Kant's Ding an sich briefly contrasted with Lacanian objet petit a.
What it argues
the virus as empty signifier without deeper meaningHegelian contingency and the necessity of things going wrongbrain-computer interfaces and Singularity as philosophical problemthe virtual status of the Freudian unconsciouspolitical correctness as fake radicalismthe open political horizon of post-Covid societyeroticism and the constitutive role of the gap in communication
Dialectical moves 8
“If nature is our mother, it is a dirty bitch of a mother.”
Inverts the New Age/ecological image of nature as benevolent homeostatic mother; nature is inherently violent and contingent, not a guardian disrupted by human hubris.
“Reconciliation for Hegel is precisely reconciliation with the horror — the necessity of mistake.”
Reverses the common reading of Aufhebung as harmonious synthesis: Hegelian reconciliation is acceptance of the inevitability of catastrophic failure, not resolution into a higher unity.
“The spirit of Hegel is, on the contrary, a spirit of distrust.”
Counter to Brandom's 'spirit of trust', Žižek argues Hegel's core insight is that plans necessarily misfire and the future is irreducibly open and catastrophe-prone.
“Our spirit is a virus.”
Applies Hegel's 'infinite judgment' (spirit is a bone) to contemporary cognitive science: spirituality/mind is already theorized as a viral entity parasitizing the biological body, collapsing the spirit/matter opposition.
“Coffee without milk is not the same as coffee without cream — they are materially identical, but symbolically entirely different.”
Demonstrates the virtual status of symbolic difference: two materially identical objects differ through a purely negative reference point (absent cream vs. absent milk), illustrating how the unconscious and fantasy work.
“You can be radical in a false way — without addressing the true causes of racism and injustice.”
Political correctness performs radicality at the level of language while leaving structural conditions intact; apparent excess of radicalism is actually its deficiency.
“To really understand Shakespeare, read him from today's perspective — Shakespeare didn't know what he really wanted to say.”
Reverses historicist hermeneutics: the later perspective illuminates the original better than the original's own context, because meaning is constitutively retroactive.
“Some people will have money, other people will not have money [as Stalin's dialectical synthesis].”
Parodies Hegelian synthesis as Stalinist vulgarity: the 'dialectical' resolution of the money debate collapses into brute inequality, exposing how authoritarian power exploits dialectical rhetoric.
Claims 17
asserts
The coronavirus has no hidden deeper meaning; it is a contingent biochemical mechanism of self-replication with no intention, and projecting meaning onto it obstructs confronting the catastrophe.Covid-19 as empty signifier / New Age meaning-projection
rejects
Nature is not a benevolent homeostatic mother disrupted by human hubris; it has always been radically contingent and capable of catastrophic events independent of human activity.Gaia / ecological homeostasis myth
asserts
Right-wing populism has demonstrably failed to manage the pandemic because its bluffing strategy collapses before brute empirical facts.populism and pandemic management
asserts
The pandemic has shattered our spontaneous everyday ontology — the unwritten norms of social interaction — causing breakdowns that go deeper than economic or health crises.pandemic and lifeworld / normativity
rejects
Hegel is above all a thinker of contingency and unpredictability; he explicitly refuses to speak about the future and insists that things necessarily go wrong.orthodox reading of Hegel as rationalist teleologist
reframes
Hegelian reconciliation is not harmonious synthesis but reconciliation with the horror of failure — accepting that unintended catastrophic consequences are necessary.Aufhebung / Hegelian dialectical synthesis
asserts
Marx's belief in an objective historical agent (working class / Communist Party) that knows and acts in accordance with history is the zero level of Stalinism; Hegel is more advanced precisely because he forbids this.Marxist historical agency and Stalinism
asserts
Wiring the brain directly to a digital network would eliminate the productive gap of language — the fact that in saying something you always say more than you intended — and thereby destroy creativity and eroticism.Singularity / wired brain and human subjectivity
asserts
Even if Singularity were realized, two dimensions of subjectivity would elude it: the pure formal cogito and the virtual Freudian unconscious.Singularity's limits / residual subjectivity
reframes
The Freudian unconscious is not a deep instinctual core but a purely virtual reference point — a negative locus like a magnetic field's shape — that orders conscious experience without itself existing anywhere.Freudian unconscious
rejects
Political correctness is a fake radicality: it obsesses over language and identity while leaving the structural causes of racism and injustice untouched, and harbors its own unwritten hierarchies of which minorities count.political correctness / cancel culture
rejects
Neoliberalism is a misleading term because in practice states have grown stronger under so-called neoliberal regimes, and successful capitalist economies (China, Singapore, South Korea) require very strong state intervention.neoliberalism as analytical concept
reframes
Materialism does not require reference to tiny material particles; it means commitment to a blind, meaningless, unintentional process — making quantum physicists the true materialists.dialectical materialism / Stalinist materialism
asserts
The pandemic has opened an exquisitely political moment in which different futures are being experimentally formed, including a form of what Žižek provocatively calls communism — evidenced even by conservative politicians nationalizing railways and instituting near-universal basic income.post-Covid political possibilities
asserts
What is inner (private fantasy, dirty secrets) is not interesting or worthy of psychoanalytic attention; what matters is what one does publicly.psychoanalysis applied to oneself / interiority
asserts
Hegel is anti-Kantian in privileging the external consequences of an act over the inner moral intention; the truth of an act is in its consequences.Hegel vs. Kant on ethics and intention
asserts
Historical meaning is always retroactive: we cannot know in advance whether events are good or bad; only future rearrangements allow retroactive judgment.historical meaning and retroactivity
Quotes 14
“If nature is our mother it's a dirty bitch of a mother.”Slavoj Žižek · nature as contingent and violent, not homeostatic
“Virus is maybe the stupidest form of existence that you can imagine — most scientists claim it's a chemical mechanism of self-replication, it doesn't have any intention.”Slavoj Žižek · virus as empty, meaningless mechanism
“The spirit of Hegel is, on the contrary, a spirit of distrust — no matter how well your plans are thought in advance there will always be a catastrophe.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegelian spirit of distrust vs. Brandom's spirit of trust
“Reconciliation is precisely for Hegel reconciliation with the horror — the necessity of mistake, the fact that no you cannot plan it in advance.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegelian reconciliation as acceptance of catastrophe
“Our spirit is a virus.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegelian infinite judgment applied to cognitivist theory of mind
“The truth of your act is in its consequences.”Slavoj Žižek · Hegel's externalist / consequentialist ethics against Kantian moral intention
“You can be radical in a false way — that is to say without addressing the true causes of racism injustice and so on.”Slavoj Žižek · political correctness as fake radicality
“What is within us is shit.”Slavoj Žižek · critique of interiority; public acts over private psychology
“Awareness is irreducibly singular.”Slavoj Žižek · against collective consciousness / Jungian collective unconscious / Singularity
“I myself hate psychoanalysis — I don't want it applied to myself.”Slavoj Žižek · Žižek's personal rejection of being psychoanalyzed despite his work in psychoanalysis
“We live now in an exquisitely political moment — it's clear that the old form of life is disappearing.”Slavoj Žižek · post-Covid as open political moment of experimental futures
“I never enjoyed jargon as such — through jokes and so on people will get what I'm saying.”Slavoj Žižek · Žižek's rhetorical self-description: jokes as entry point to serious thought
“The dialectical materialism is not a term which you find anywhere in Marx or Engels — it was invented by Georgy Plekhanov, the beginning of all stupidity in Marxism.”Slavoj Žižek · genealogical critique of dialectical materialism as Stalinist invention
“Some people will have money — other people will not have money.”Slavoj Žižek · Stalinist vulgarity masking as Hegelian dialectical synthesis
Transcript 82 turns
unknown
Very nice to see very nice to meet you welcome from Ljubljana I think you are
Very nice to see very nice to meet you welcome from Ljubljana I think you are
Slavoj Žižek
thanks very much I am honored to be at least in my spirit there yeah
thanks very much I am honored to be at least in my spirit there yeah
unknown
very good so clearly these are strange times and it would be a very odd thing for me not to ask you about the pandemic not least because you've already managed to put a book out about it it came out three or four months ago already I think Pandemic! with an exclamation mark like a maybe like a horror film would have an exclamation mark after it though it also made me think of musicals as well you know Pandemic! The Musical but I wanted to ask you first of all I guess to say a little bit about your views there and I suppose especially this point that you make which was a little bit controversial at the time that there's no hidden meaning to this pandemic that the virus is a kind of empty signifier of some kind so I wanted you to maybe explain a little bit what you meant by that and then secondly if you still believe that that's true
very good so clearly these are strange times and it would be a very odd thing for me not to ask you about the pandemic not least because you've already managed to put a book out about it it came out three or four months ago already I think Pandemic! with an exclamation mark like a maybe like a horror film would have an exclamation mark after it though it also made me think of musicals as well you know Pandemic! The Musical but I wanted to ask you first of all I guess to say a little bit about your views there and I suppose especially this point that you make which was a little bit controversial at the time that there's no hidden meaning to this pandemic that the virus is a kind of empty signifier of some kind so I wanted you to maybe explain a little bit what you meant by that and then secondly if you still believe that that's true
Slavoj Žižek
it's true which doesn't mean that it's that the epidemics is not simply a purely biochemical or whatever natural phenomenon of course it's conditioned by complex social even ideological and so on circumstances just imagine the same thing happening let's say in early 1950s in Wuhan probably we wouldn't even have heard about it you know I'm not saying this I am just afraid of this I call it maybe I am unjust here New Age temptation to look for some deeper meaning in the sense of Mother Nature is sending us a warning or whatever of course we are co-responsible for it and so on but we should never forget that virus is maybe the stupidest form of existence that you can imagine for some people I read
it's true which doesn't mean that it's that the epidemics is not simply a purely biochemical or whatever natural phenomenon of course it's conditioned by complex social even ideological and so on circumstances just imagine the same thing happening let's say in early 1950s in Wuhan probably we wouldn't even have heard about it you know I'm not saying this I am just afraid of this I call it maybe I am unjust here New Age temptation to look for some deeper meaning in the sense of Mother Nature is sending us a warning or whatever of course we are co-responsible for it and so on but we should never forget that virus is maybe the stupidest form of existence that you can imagine for some people I read
unknown
stupid in the sense that they simply exist to reproduce stupid in the
stupid in the sense that they simply exist to reproduce stupid in the
Slavoj Žižek
sense that some biologist even don't count it as a form of life it's just a kind of a most scientists claim chemical mechanism of self-replication it doesn't have any intention there is no deeper meaning in it and so on and so on that's all I meant don't fall into this New Age stuff or Mother Nature is sending us a warning you know why I think why I insist on this because I think that's the only way to really confront catastrophes like this my enemy here
sense that some biologist even don't count it as a form of life it's just a kind of a most scientists claim chemical mechanism of self-replication it doesn't have any intention there is no deeper meaning in it and so on and so on that's all I meant don't fall into this New Age stuff or Mother Nature is sending us a warning you know why I think why I insist on this because I think that's the only way to really confront catastrophes like this my enemy here
unknown
theoretical enemy
theoretical enemy
Slavoj Žižek
are those New Agers but not only New Agers who see all natural catastrophes as results of our human hubris as if prior to us nature found some kind of balance homeostasis then we disturb this homeostasis exploiting it too much and so on and so on to be very short let
are those New Agers but not only New Agers who see all natural catastrophes as results of our human hubris as if prior to us nature found some kind of balance homeostasis then we disturb this homeostasis exploiting it too much and so on and so on to be very short let
unknown
me just challenge Slavoj you're I don't think you're saying this but let me check you're saying that there was no human agency that played any part in the outbreak of the virus
me just challenge Slavoj you're I don't think you're saying this but let me check you're saying that there was no human agency that played any part in the outbreak of the virus
Slavoj Žižek
no absolutely not all I'm saying is that we should never forget that our main sources of energy today coal and oil can we even imagine what kind of mega catastrophes on earth had to happen well before human race emerged on earth for these catastrophes to happen that is to say it's not that before humanity nature was a kind of a benevolent mother in balance and so on and so on no if I may put it in slightly but still tolerably vulgar terms if nature is our mother it's a dirty bitch of a mother you know and things can happen we have to accept it virus an asteroid may hit earth and so on and so on nature has this element of contingency not in the sense that it doesn't nature follow so-called natural laws if a mega asteroid hits earth and destroys at least human life of course it's not a natural contingency it will follow precise laws but from the standpoint of human history it's a contingent nonsense but I deeply agree with you that one has to use the old-fashioned Hegelian term a little bit too bombastic here that we have to see the phenomenon of epidemic in its totality it's a biochemical phenomenon it's of course as everyone knows dependent on the on the explosive development in China on their habits of how they nourish themselves on international travel and so on and so on and that should also give us don't be afraid I will finish very soon some hope because if it were simply a natural phenomenon we couldn't do practically anything but let me
no absolutely not all I'm saying is that we should never forget that our main sources of energy today coal and oil can we even imagine what kind of mega catastrophes on earth had to happen well before human race emerged on earth for these catastrophes to happen that is to say it's not that before humanity nature was a kind of a benevolent mother in balance and so on and so on no if I may put it in slightly but still tolerably vulgar terms if nature is our mother it's a dirty bitch of a mother you know and things can happen we have to accept it virus an asteroid may hit earth and so on and so on nature has this element of contingency not in the sense that it doesn't nature follow so-called natural laws if a mega asteroid hits earth and destroys at least human life of course it's not a natural contingency it will follow precise laws but from the standpoint of human history it's a contingent nonsense but I deeply agree with you that one has to use the old-fashioned Hegelian term a little bit too bombastic here that we have to see the phenomenon of epidemic in its totality it's a biochemical phenomenon it's of course as everyone knows dependent on the on the explosive development in China on their habits of how they nourish themselves on international travel and so on and so on and that should also give us don't be afraid I will finish very soon some hope because if it were simply a natural phenomenon we couldn't do practically anything but let me
unknown
ask you this let me come in and ask you this so there is a sense in which the you know the earth is bigger than the human species but you're not invoking any kind of Gaia principle around this what I wanted to ask you about then is the human interaction with the pandemic in terms of the politics of the handling of the virus and what's your view of that currently and whether that's moved on from your book in the spring
ask you this let me come in and ask you this so there is a sense in which the you know the earth is bigger than the human species but you're not invoking any kind of Gaia principle around this what I wanted to ask you about then is the human interaction with the pandemic in terms of the politics of the handling of the virus and what's your view of that currently and whether that's moved on from your book in the spring
Slavoj Žižek
the only good thing that I see in it although it's not yet clear is that populism obviously didn't and doesn't work at the beginning you remember a couple of months ago many people and even if we have different views we are basically horrified by the ongoing right-wing anti-immigrant and so on populism that this will be their moment it doesn't look so bad look at United States Brazil even in your country Boris Johnson playing a little bit of a populist card Putin in a different authoritarian way playing a populist card it doesn't work because you know you cannot bluff endlessly like Trump does here we have a real problem numbers tell something but if I may add another thing which interest I hope thing which interest should interest both of us as philosophers you know people know that it's not only a health problem there is also an obviously it will explode more in the fall a problem of economy what will it mean and I don't mean just this fall of gross national product and so on but these serious problems like if borders are not opened and they open and they shouldn't be I agree who will do the harvest in the fall especially in the countries which rely on hundreds of thousand of immigrant workers coming that's one thing the other thing where I was a little bit disappointed but let me just stop you on that point about closing borders are you saying or are you not saying there's some way in which the closure of borders will or won't be recruited or exploited by political groups of the right or left they already are exploited of course but I nonetheless think that we should naive as it may sound keep a strict distinction between all the necessary measures
the only good thing that I see in it although it's not yet clear is that populism obviously didn't and doesn't work at the beginning you remember a couple of months ago many people and even if we have different views we are basically horrified by the ongoing right-wing anti-immigrant and so on populism that this will be their moment it doesn't look so bad look at United States Brazil even in your country Boris Johnson playing a little bit of a populist card Putin in a different authoritarian way playing a populist card it doesn't work because you know you cannot bluff endlessly like Trump does here we have a real problem numbers tell something but if I may add another thing which interest I hope thing which interest should interest both of us as philosophers you know people know that it's not only a health problem there is also an obviously it will explode more in the fall a problem of economy what will it mean and I don't mean just this fall of gross national product and so on but these serious problems like if borders are not opened and they open and they shouldn't be I agree who will do the harvest in the fall especially in the countries which rely on hundreds of thousand of immigrant workers coming that's one thing the other thing where I was a little bit disappointed but let me just stop you on that point about closing borders are you saying or are you not saying there's some way in which the closure of borders will or won't be recruited or exploited by political groups of the right or left they already are exploited of course but I nonetheless think that we should naive as it may sound keep a strict distinction between all the necessary measures
unknown
quarantine closing the borders not only our nation state and the other one but even within nation states and the rightist exploitation of this topic isn't it interested what interests me okay we cannot lose time here but the supreme paradox how in the opposition to quarantine and other state-controlled measures populist right is often united with some extreme leftists like did you follow a couple of days ago almost a week ago the big demonstrations in Berlin Berlin capital of Germany people demonstrated against coronavirus claiming even that the only conspiracy is the conspiracy that there is a virus epidemic at all interestingly enough just
quarantine closing the borders not only our nation state and the other one but even within nation states and the rightist exploitation of this topic isn't it interested what interests me okay we cannot lose time here but the supreme paradox how in the opposition to quarantine and other state-controlled measures populist right is often united with some extreme leftists like did you follow a couple of days ago almost a week ago the big demonstrations in Berlin Berlin capital of Germany people demonstrated against coronavirus claiming even that the only conspiracy is the conspiracy that there is a virus epidemic at all interestingly enough just
Slavoj Žižek
look at the photos on the one hand old hippies playing reggae and so on on the other hand PEGIDA the extreme right-wing national party and so on they both see all these measures controlling your movement quarantine and so on as means for the state to control us to control the population to install panic fear and so on and so on I don't buy this I think that the paradox is that if anything the populist right is in large majority the anti anti-mask tendency how should I call that you know but can I add just something which may interest you as a philosopher I don't just make fun of them are we aware and even more than this empirical problem like economy international conflict wars we can go into this later what people are not aware enough is something which is more than just mental psychic breakdowns it's that our basic I'm almost tempted to say spontaneous ontology the way we relate to external reality to social reality how we communicate with others and so on is shattered and psychic mental breakdowns are going around it's literally that our everyday normativity if I may use this word here norms not in an idealist way but simply unwritten rules norms which regulate our interaction is threatened so that literally the way we behave now I don't want to be accused of biological determinism but let's say the way it appears to us natural to behave to others is threatened so that isn't it some critics noticed I love this that it's not just the paranoic psychotic reactions I like also the obsessional neurotic reactions like some I have some friends I am among them who are obvious obsessional neurotics and in a way I enjoyed the quarantine wash your hands all the time don't touch even yourself it's a neurotics paradise I mean obsessional so what I'm saying is don't underestimate this radical dimension our whole the popular term would have been Lebenswelt life world is changing and it's again deeply unnatural in the sense we were accustomed to I want to pivot a little bit if I may Slavoj and we're going to come on and talk about your book on Hegel and the Wired Brain and I suppose I wanted to ask you a question of a slightly more philosophical nature which will kind of decode I didn't read your book on the pandemic but I know your book on Hegel your new one on Hegel and I wondered whether and you were stupid enough to read it do you know sorry to interrupt you a French guy called Pierre Bayard wrote a wonderful book which is not comical How to Talk About Books That You Haven't Read and he proves empirically he takes precisely books on Hegel and he proves that the best interpretations of Hegel are from people who obviously haven't really read Hegel but that's another story I'm sorry go on but I know Hegel is one of the key figures in your dossier as it were and two of the other key figures in your dossier I suppose would be Lacan and maybe even your Kant as well up to a point Kant and then Marx up to a point up to a point exactly but I wondered in relation to the pandemic whether there's an argument to be made for something of the status of the virus as something like what Lacan calls l'objet petit a now we'll have to decode that in some way but it has it has some connections with the Kantian Ding an sich the idea of something that's there which is determinative but
look at the photos on the one hand old hippies playing reggae and so on on the other hand PEGIDA the extreme right-wing national party and so on they both see all these measures controlling your movement quarantine and so on as means for the state to control us to control the population to install panic fear and so on and so on I don't buy this I think that the paradox is that if anything the populist right is in large majority the anti anti-mask tendency how should I call that you know but can I add just something which may interest you as a philosopher I don't just make fun of them are we aware and even more than this empirical problem like economy international conflict wars we can go into this later what people are not aware enough is something which is more than just mental psychic breakdowns it's that our basic I'm almost tempted to say spontaneous ontology the way we relate to external reality to social reality how we communicate with others and so on is shattered and psychic mental breakdowns are going around it's literally that our everyday normativity if I may use this word here norms not in an idealist way but simply unwritten rules norms which regulate our interaction is threatened so that literally the way we behave now I don't want to be accused of biological determinism but let's say the way it appears to us natural to behave to others is threatened so that isn't it some critics noticed I love this that it's not just the paranoic psychotic reactions I like also the obsessional neurotic reactions like some I have some friends I am among them who are obvious obsessional neurotics and in a way I enjoyed the quarantine wash your hands all the time don't touch even yourself it's a neurotics paradise I mean obsessional so what I'm saying is don't underestimate this radical dimension our whole the popular term would have been Lebenswelt life world is changing and it's again deeply unnatural in the sense we were accustomed to I want to pivot a little bit if I may Slavoj and we're going to come on and talk about your book on Hegel and the Wired Brain and I suppose I wanted to ask you a question of a slightly more philosophical nature which will kind of decode I didn't read your book on the pandemic but I know your book on Hegel your new one on Hegel and I wondered whether and you were stupid enough to read it do you know sorry to interrupt you a French guy called Pierre Bayard wrote a wonderful book which is not comical How to Talk About Books That You Haven't Read and he proves empirically he takes precisely books on Hegel and he proves that the best interpretations of Hegel are from people who obviously haven't really read Hegel but that's another story I'm sorry go on but I know Hegel is one of the key figures in your dossier as it were and two of the other key figures in your dossier I suppose would be Lacan and maybe even your Kant as well up to a point Kant and then Marx up to a point up to a point exactly but I wondered in relation to the pandemic whether there's an argument to be made for something of the status of the virus as something like what Lacan calls l'objet petit a now we'll have to decode that in some way but it has it has some connections with the Kantian Ding an sich the idea of something that's there which is determinative but
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which we cannot properly cognitively comprehend does that make any sense to you at all as a in some sense yes but I want to I hope I will make myself not to you but to public who doesn't know it understandable you know there is a key difference between Kantian thing in itself the way it is independently of us and what Lacan calls object small a I will not get lost now in philosophy just to give you an for Lacan object
which we cannot properly cognitively comprehend does that make any sense to you at all as a in some sense yes but I want to I hope I will make myself not to you but to public who doesn't know it understandable you know there is a key difference between Kantian thing in itself the way it is independently of us and what Lacan calls object small a I will not get lost now in philosophy just to give you an for Lacan object
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a is more a kind of a core of a fantasy it's phantasmatic let me give you a simple example I always use it but it's
a is more a kind of a core of a fantasy it's phantasmatic let me give you a simple example I always use it but it's
Slavoj Žižek
understandable when you fall in love you cannot you don't ever know it's not true love if you can perfectly answer the question why do I love let's say that woman the moment you can do a list it's not love you must say it's simply some invisible property the French have their nice expression je ne sais quoi something I don't know what which colors all visible properties like it's not that I like her eyes but I like her eyes because through them that mysterious
understandable when you fall in love you cannot you don't ever know it's not true love if you can perfectly answer the question why do I love let's say that woman the moment you can do a list it's not love you must say it's simply some invisible property the French have their nice expression je ne sais quoi something I don't know what which colors all visible properties like it's not that I like her eyes but I like her eyes because through them that mysterious
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property
property
Slavoj Žižek
comes
comes
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through shines and it's the same even in racism you are not antisemite if you say Jews are dirty gather money and so on you have to say they are like that because they are Jews and what makes them Jews we don't know so you see the paradox of Lacan's object a is that it is the real outside our language operation symbolization but at the same time it's an empty space for for sorry for phantasmatic projection and exactly this happens with Covid we are not dealing with simple reality we project so many things onto it okay so Covid-19 could be understood as the vehicle of that phantasmatic projection yes it's it's absolutely clear because you know if you look at it in a totally rational okay we cannot do this but at least in common sense rational way those who claim
through shines and it's the same even in racism you are not antisemite if you say Jews are dirty gather money and so on you have to say they are like that because they are Jews and what makes them Jews we don't know so you see the paradox of Lacan's object a is that it is the real outside our language operation symbolization but at the same time it's an empty space for for sorry for phantasmatic projection and exactly this happens with Covid we are not dealing with simple reality we project so many things onto it okay so Covid-19 could be understood as the vehicle of that phantasmatic projection yes it's it's absolutely clear because you know if you look at it in a totally rational okay we cannot do this but at least in common sense rational way those who claim
Slavoj Žižek
but look much more people are still dying of of of cancer or whatever we don't talk about that in these pure numerical numbers and so on and so on it's a symbolic operation ideological even our absolute focus on Covid you know what makes what makes me really sad there are quite a lot of non-developed countries countries in crisis where they are in such a horrible situation that Covid is for them simply not the main threat they almost ignore it we should never we should never forget this okay thank you for that Slavoj can I move us on a bit then I mean we've talked a tiny bit about you are the boss don't ask me master and the slave absolutely I want to move us on then to talk a little bit about your new book on Hegel the title of the book is Hegel in a Wired Brain which is perhaps a surprising coming together of two two well a name and a phrase there so we'll come on to that what the wired brain means but just to start with Hegel for a moment I I confess that I was surprised reading the book in your account of Hegel because I guess to put it in fairly simple terms I see Hegel as a philosopher committed to resolution to the resolution of opposites and we know he has this phrase in German which is Aufhebung sometimes translated as sublation in English or houlève in French and so on and essentially what he's saying to put it very simply is that we have a positive thing and then we have a negative thing and the two can be resolved into a third higher thing which includes them both to put it very simply my understanding of your reading of Hegel
but look much more people are still dying of of of cancer or whatever we don't talk about that in these pure numerical numbers and so on and so on it's a symbolic operation ideological even our absolute focus on Covid you know what makes what makes me really sad there are quite a lot of non-developed countries countries in crisis where they are in such a horrible situation that Covid is for them simply not the main threat they almost ignore it we should never we should never forget this okay thank you for that Slavoj can I move us on a bit then I mean we've talked a tiny bit about you are the boss don't ask me master and the slave absolutely I want to move us on then to talk a little bit about your new book on Hegel the title of the book is Hegel in a Wired Brain which is perhaps a surprising coming together of two two well a name and a phrase there so we'll come on to that what the wired brain means but just to start with Hegel for a moment I I confess that I was surprised reading the book in your account of Hegel because I guess to put it in fairly simple terms I see Hegel as a philosopher committed to resolution to the resolution of opposites and we know he has this phrase in German which is Aufhebung sometimes translated as sublation in English or houlève in French and so on and essentially what he's saying to put it very simply is that we have a positive thing and then we have a negative thing and the two can be resolved into a third higher thing which includes them both to put it very simply my understanding of your reading of Hegel
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he's about almost anything but resolution and that he keeps
he's about almost anything but resolution and that he keeps
Slavoj Žižek
keeps us in a state of irresolution or non-closure or again to put it slightly more philosophically I read Hegel's dialectic as being about sameness in difference whereas you emphasize difference in sameness I suppose to want to put a little bit of a spin on it so can I just understand and again bearing in mind that not everybody in the audience will be a Hegel scholar can I just ask you to I guess paint the broad outlines of how you see Hegelian thought in in its broadest in terms of that fundamental move between positive negative and the reconciliation into a third term I think I of course cannot explain it now in detail just to give you a couple of formulas first I think Hegel is a
keeps us in a state of irresolution or non-closure or again to put it slightly more philosophically I read Hegel's dialectic as being about sameness in difference whereas you emphasize difference in sameness I suppose to want to put a little bit of a spin on it so can I just understand and again bearing in mind that not everybody in the audience will be a Hegel scholar can I just ask you to I guess paint the broad outlines of how you see Hegelian thought in in its broadest in terms of that fundamental move between positive negative and the reconciliation into a third term I think I of course cannot explain it now in detail just to give you a couple of formulas first I think Hegel is a
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thinker most open I don't know any other philosopher to such an extent open to the contingency unpredictability of what is coming everybody likes to quote Hegel's phrase from the from the forward to his philosophy of right where he says the owl of Minerva philosophical insight flies takes off only when the darkness sets in with the evening light you know but Hegel says what he means he says that philosophy can only paint its own time reality gray on gray philosophy can only grasp a form of life when its time has already passed Hegel says this and Hegel says future is not the task of philosophy that's where I trust Hegel people who dismiss Hegel as a conservative celebrating Prussian authoritarian state they forget that if Hegel was not a total idiot maybe he wasn't that isn't it clear that the same holds for the image of rational state that he presents in his philosophy of right he was able to conceptualize it meaning its time is over and that's where I see Hegel as a step forwards from Marx very briefly Marx still thought and I am ready to see in this the zero level of Stalinism if you want that we can have a unique historical agent working class or rather Communist Party which knows objectively the history and can act in accordance with history you do something and you exactly know the historical meaning of it what you are doing Hegel strictly prohibits this although at the common sense level everyday his insight are sometimes wonderful he wasn't an idiot read the introduction to his philosophy of history where and this was written or rather held as a part of a course in or when he speaks about Russia and United States you know what he says we cannot yet know what these countries will be next century will be that so Hegel is very much here in contrast to a book that I otherwise appreciate very much Robert Brandom's A Spirit of Trust I think that if there is a basic motive that runs through all of Hegel
thinker most open I don't know any other philosopher to such an extent open to the contingency unpredictability of what is coming everybody likes to quote Hegel's phrase from the from the forward to his philosophy of right where he says the owl of Minerva philosophical insight flies takes off only when the darkness sets in with the evening light you know but Hegel says what he means he says that philosophy can only paint its own time reality gray on gray philosophy can only grasp a form of life when its time has already passed Hegel says this and Hegel says future is not the task of philosophy that's where I trust Hegel people who dismiss Hegel as a conservative celebrating Prussian authoritarian state they forget that if Hegel was not a total idiot maybe he wasn't that isn't it clear that the same holds for the image of rational state that he presents in his philosophy of right he was able to conceptualize it meaning its time is over and that's where I see Hegel as a step forwards from Marx very briefly Marx still thought and I am ready to see in this the zero level of Stalinism if you want that we can have a unique historical agent working class or rather Communist Party which knows objectively the history and can act in accordance with history you do something and you exactly know the historical meaning of it what you are doing Hegel strictly prohibits this although at the common sense level everyday his insight are sometimes wonderful he wasn't an idiot read the introduction to his philosophy of history where and this was written or rather held as a part of a course in or when he speaks about Russia and United States you know what he says we cannot yet know what these countries will be next century will be that so Hegel is very much here in contrast to a book that I otherwise appreciate very much Robert Brandom's A Spirit of Trust I think that if there is a basic motive that runs through all of Hegel
Slavoj Žižek
it's a spirit on the contrary of distrust no matter how well your plans are thought in advance there will always be a catastrophe French revolutionaries wanted the best ha ha you get terror Bolsheviks maybe wanted great emancipation you get Stalinism Hegel is interested in how things go necessarily wrong and now I'm coming to your question I haven't lost the thread what comes afterwards is not some cheap synthesis reconciliation is precisely for Hegel reconciliation with the horror the necessity of mistake the fact that no you cannot plan it in advance you cannot ever take into account the unpredictable consequences of your act that's the actuality of Hegel we feel this more than ever today Fukuyama he thought oh end of history and so on ha ha then we are where we are now let me just clarify one thing there because as you know that's not that's not an orthodox reading of Hegel I just wanted to ask you one thing then are you saying that Hegel is committed to unpredictability in the way absolutely he even explicitly says this he says we cannot talk about the future he repeatedly says this people just ignore because people think that Hegel is some kind of a stupid rationalist who thinks reason is progressing now we are at the end of history the best imaginable state form is discovered and then we have people with whom I disagree today I call them the not yet Hegelians they say yes Hegel was basically right but he didn't know that we are not yet there for Fukuyama it's liberal democracy and so on thank you let me just finish the question I was about to ask you I'm sorry I'm horrible yes so you're saying that Hegel is the philosopher kind of par excellence of unpredictability but you're also I think saying he he pretty firmly predicts catastrophe so there are some certainties that he is projecting yes but this is yes but this is a kind of a negative predictability things necessarily go wrong okay and Hegel is obsessed by this how Hegel here Hegel is anti-Kantian Kant is the philosopher of inner intention what matters is your moral intention Hegel is almost exactly the opposite he is a good pragmatic externalist it doesn't matter what you mean the truth of your act is in its consequences he says this okay so we've got a we've got a fix I think on your your reading of Hegel as this committed thinker of the unpredictable I suppose and the fact that things will necessarily go wrong let's then put it together with or make the conjunction that you make in this book of yours Hegel in a Wired Brain because those two that phrase it's an unusual phrase I think you'll grant me it's meant as one yes right so let's let's do the other side of the equation let's talk about the wired brain and then maybe we can connect the two Hegel and the wired brain so for those of us in the audience perhaps not so familiar with the notion of wired brain or neuralink and particularly the notion of Singularity with a capital S which may be unfamiliar to some people could you just take us through perhaps step by step what what those terms or at least how you're using those terms so wired brain first of all and then singularity second at the origin of it all is a rather simple although scientifically and technically very complex idea that the idea of directly wiring connecting to a digital network our brain processes so that you don't even this is Elon
it's a spirit on the contrary of distrust no matter how well your plans are thought in advance there will always be a catastrophe French revolutionaries wanted the best ha ha you get terror Bolsheviks maybe wanted great emancipation you get Stalinism Hegel is interested in how things go necessarily wrong and now I'm coming to your question I haven't lost the thread what comes afterwards is not some cheap synthesis reconciliation is precisely for Hegel reconciliation with the horror the necessity of mistake the fact that no you cannot plan it in advance you cannot ever take into account the unpredictable consequences of your act that's the actuality of Hegel we feel this more than ever today Fukuyama he thought oh end of history and so on ha ha then we are where we are now let me just clarify one thing there because as you know that's not that's not an orthodox reading of Hegel I just wanted to ask you one thing then are you saying that Hegel is committed to unpredictability in the way absolutely he even explicitly says this he says we cannot talk about the future he repeatedly says this people just ignore because people think that Hegel is some kind of a stupid rationalist who thinks reason is progressing now we are at the end of history the best imaginable state form is discovered and then we have people with whom I disagree today I call them the not yet Hegelians they say yes Hegel was basically right but he didn't know that we are not yet there for Fukuyama it's liberal democracy and so on thank you let me just finish the question I was about to ask you I'm sorry I'm horrible yes so you're saying that Hegel is the philosopher kind of par excellence of unpredictability but you're also I think saying he he pretty firmly predicts catastrophe so there are some certainties that he is projecting yes but this is yes but this is a kind of a negative predictability things necessarily go wrong okay and Hegel is obsessed by this how Hegel here Hegel is anti-Kantian Kant is the philosopher of inner intention what matters is your moral intention Hegel is almost exactly the opposite he is a good pragmatic externalist it doesn't matter what you mean the truth of your act is in its consequences he says this okay so we've got a we've got a fix I think on your your reading of Hegel as this committed thinker of the unpredictable I suppose and the fact that things will necessarily go wrong let's then put it together with or make the conjunction that you make in this book of yours Hegel in a Wired Brain because those two that phrase it's an unusual phrase I think you'll grant me it's meant as one yes right so let's let's do the other side of the equation let's talk about the wired brain and then maybe we can connect the two Hegel and the wired brain so for those of us in the audience perhaps not so familiar with the notion of wired brain or neuralink and particularly the notion of Singularity with a capital S which may be unfamiliar to some people could you just take us through perhaps step by step what what those terms or at least how you're using those terms so wired brain first of all and then singularity second at the origin of it all is a rather simple although scientifically and technically very complex idea that the idea of directly wiring connecting to a digital network our brain processes so that you don't even this is Elon
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Musk's big motto we don't even have to talk to use language the computer will directly read our thoughts
Musk's big motto we don't even have to talk to use language the computer will directly read our thoughts
Slavoj Žižek
and we will be able to learn directly this is the first step and it's easy to make fun of it that it's a utopia and so on but you know that first steps are already made in this direction let me give you I don't think I have it to put it in the book I read just before corona in February January that in some Chinese elementary schools small kids are already obliged to wear a kind of a not even helmet a metal ring on their head which measures their brain activity attention and so on so that the teacher gets just a signal from his computer that guy is not really listening to me and so on and this elementary stuff it's already possible for
and we will be able to learn directly this is the first step and it's easy to make fun of it that it's a utopia and so on but you know that first steps are already made in this direction let me give you I don't think I have it to put it in the book I read just before corona in February January that in some Chinese elementary schools small kids are already obliged to wear a kind of a not even helmet a metal ring on their head which measures their brain activity attention and so on so that the teacher gets just a signal from his computer that guy is not really listening to me and so on and this elementary stuff it's already possible for
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example somebody told me that Stephen Hawking just before his death he no longer had to use that legendary finger they enabled a computer in his wheelchair to read it was very elementary but it worked his thought he just had to think forward his wheelchair moved forward and so on now the idea of a wired brain is that this can explode into a full-blown contact between
example somebody told me that Stephen Hawking just before his death he no longer had to use that legendary finger they enabled a computer in his wheelchair to read it was very elementary but it worked his thought he just had to think forward his wheelchair moved forward and so on now the idea of a wired brain is that this can explode into a full-blown contact between
Slavoj Žižek
our mind and digital network and then next idea logical extrapolation of this if you are connected with the mega digital network and I am wouldn't it be possible then to directly link our brains through the digital mediation I think about something I don't have to explain it to you you immediately read my thought then the extreme point of this is so-called singularity the
our mind and digital network and then next idea logical extrapolation of this if you are connected with the mega digital network and I am wouldn't it be possible then to directly link our brains through the digital mediation I think about something I don't have to explain it to you you immediately read my thought then the extreme point of this is so-called singularity the
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idea is that if this happens our brains ultimately of all humanity participate in a collective digital brain and basically the idea is we got a kind of a synthesis between humanity and some divine entity even moving over the fall we our self-awareness becomes directly the self-awareness of God and so on and so on I don't know very much about the technology of it what interests me in the book is a the social consequences not just social but also subjective consequences what would have meant for the two of us to be able to have this type of direct access to the other's mind what would this do to our sense of freedom and so on and second point which is crucial there only I see a maybe serious contribution of the book is there a dimension of I'm a materialist but what I'm tempted to call human spirituality which will nonetheless elude this wired brain or singularity or
idea is that if this happens our brains ultimately of all humanity participate in a collective digital brain and basically the idea is we got a kind of a synthesis between humanity and some divine entity even moving over the fall we our self-awareness becomes directly the self-awareness of God and so on and so on I don't know very much about the technology of it what interests me in the book is a the social consequences not just social but also subjective consequences what would have meant for the two of us to be able to have this type of direct access to the other's mind what would this do to our sense of freedom and so on and second point which is crucial there only I see a maybe serious contribution of the book is there a dimension of I'm a materialist but what I'm tempted to call human spirituality which will nonetheless elude this wired brain or singularity or
Slavoj Žižek
whatever will be will we be totally enslaved to it like I think about something it's readable to the others no first so what I my first I go into detailed analysis of how this would have changed our daily lives let's just take but for me this is an exemplary case the case of eroticism what would remain of erotic interaction let's say you are not you but sorry for male chauvinist sexism a nice lady I am not such a nice man there is no seduction we look at each other do you want to do it yes or no you know but this is not just to make it easier the whole point of human language and this you find already very nicely in Hegel and German idealists is that you want to say something but through saying it that's a dogma of Hegel you always say more that you than you wanted to say and creativity is ultimately this surprise so we need this gap the second point I try to make is that isn't our entire sorry please yes is this the Hegel part of the connection between Hegel and the wired brain the fact that the singularity implies an excess of communication that there's something more than we ever wish to intend which I think even ruins communication it's no longer communication that would be my point now why does Hegel see it not because he was an atemporal genius who somehow saw the future no what fascinates me is precisely the idea let's take a philosopher who had no idea about wired brain and I try to imagine how with his totally shocked view what would he said about it I think if he were to see it I think his first reaction would have been what does this mean to subjectivity so on the one hand he would have seen this direct shortcut which in a way deprives us of what we consider as the focus of our spirituality which is I make numerous half-funny boring repetitive examples I use in my book from jokes to sexuality where failure is part of the success like the success is not a direct success you try something you fail and only in this way when you try to co-opt or come to terms cope with your failure something something new emerges that would have disappeared but I nonetheless then I go on and I try to isolate this is more problematic part I think two dimensions where nonetheless something will elude singularity or this collective brain one is and that's a nice paradox for me the authentic Freudian unconscious Freudian unconscious I provide here a Lacanian sorry just before you go onto the Freudian your phrase the collective brain just to clarify a point are you saying that the collective brain is what I meant by singularity I think you think we all participate in the same self-awareness I understand that but are you saying the collective brain is the aggregation of subjectivities or is it now something new where there is no subject it's something new where it may appear that's my problem what is subjectivity ah that's the problem I raise if we mean by subjectivity our inner life in the usual sense of the term I have my inner life I smile at you hi nice to meet you who knows what I think and isn't this maybe the basic component of our sense of freedom at least in my thoughts I'm free my inner reality is here outer reality is there the ultimate horror is if outer reality is directly sorry if my inner reality becomes totally transparent to some machinery in outer reality so I try to do something which I can go into now it's a pure philosophical exercise as an old also Cartesian Descartes I try to draw a distinction between what Descartes called cogito cogito this pure self-reflecting entity of I think therefore I am which paradoxically if you read Descartes in a close way you will see that this cogito neither is it's just a vanishing point nor does it think it just thinks that it thinks so that this subject is to be distinguished from wealth of inner life that as already in Kant it's clear that this what Kant calls transcendental apperception is a pure form not to be confused with what Kant would have called pathological which means for him just contingent content so this is one thing that avoids sorry but I talk too much please that's good no that's good so Hegel no but can I go to the second point which is more interesting why is there talk about the Freudian unconscious I think ah for me unconscious is not some
whatever will be will we be totally enslaved to it like I think about something it's readable to the others no first so what I my first I go into detailed analysis of how this would have changed our daily lives let's just take but for me this is an exemplary case the case of eroticism what would remain of erotic interaction let's say you are not you but sorry for male chauvinist sexism a nice lady I am not such a nice man there is no seduction we look at each other do you want to do it yes or no you know but this is not just to make it easier the whole point of human language and this you find already very nicely in Hegel and German idealists is that you want to say something but through saying it that's a dogma of Hegel you always say more that you than you wanted to say and creativity is ultimately this surprise so we need this gap the second point I try to make is that isn't our entire sorry please yes is this the Hegel part of the connection between Hegel and the wired brain the fact that the singularity implies an excess of communication that there's something more than we ever wish to intend which I think even ruins communication it's no longer communication that would be my point now why does Hegel see it not because he was an atemporal genius who somehow saw the future no what fascinates me is precisely the idea let's take a philosopher who had no idea about wired brain and I try to imagine how with his totally shocked view what would he said about it I think if he were to see it I think his first reaction would have been what does this mean to subjectivity so on the one hand he would have seen this direct shortcut which in a way deprives us of what we consider as the focus of our spirituality which is I make numerous half-funny boring repetitive examples I use in my book from jokes to sexuality where failure is part of the success like the success is not a direct success you try something you fail and only in this way when you try to co-opt or come to terms cope with your failure something something new emerges that would have disappeared but I nonetheless then I go on and I try to isolate this is more problematic part I think two dimensions where nonetheless something will elude singularity or this collective brain one is and that's a nice paradox for me the authentic Freudian unconscious Freudian unconscious I provide here a Lacanian sorry just before you go onto the Freudian your phrase the collective brain just to clarify a point are you saying that the collective brain is what I meant by singularity I think you think we all participate in the same self-awareness I understand that but are you saying the collective brain is the aggregation of subjectivities or is it now something new where there is no subject it's something new where it may appear that's my problem what is subjectivity ah that's the problem I raise if we mean by subjectivity our inner life in the usual sense of the term I have my inner life I smile at you hi nice to meet you who knows what I think and isn't this maybe the basic component of our sense of freedom at least in my thoughts I'm free my inner reality is here outer reality is there the ultimate horror is if outer reality is directly sorry if my inner reality becomes totally transparent to some machinery in outer reality so I try to do something which I can go into now it's a pure philosophical exercise as an old also Cartesian Descartes I try to draw a distinction between what Descartes called cogito cogito this pure self-reflecting entity of I think therefore I am which paradoxically if you read Descartes in a close way you will see that this cogito neither is it's just a vanishing point nor does it think it just thinks that it thinks so that this subject is to be distinguished from wealth of inner life that as already in Kant it's clear that this what Kant calls transcendental apperception is a pure form not to be confused with what Kant would have called pathological which means for him just contingent content so this is one thing that avoids sorry but I talk too much please that's good no that's good so Hegel no but can I go to the second point which is more interesting why is there talk about the Freudian unconscious I think ah for me unconscious is not some
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kind of a half-biologically instinctual deeper core what I instinctually feel but cannot be rationally formulated rationally for me the Freudian unconscious its status is purely virtual
kind of a half-biologically instinctual deeper core what I instinctually feel but cannot be rationally formulated rationally for me the Freudian unconscious its status is purely virtual
Slavoj Žižek
virtual in the sense that it's just a virtual it exists nowhere reference point of what I am conscious of you know which example one of the examples sorry in that sense Slavoj the it's more like the Jungian unconscious than the Freudian unconscious no because Jungian unconscious is precisely this deeper how should I call it archetypal deeply ingrained and so on but the Freudian unconscious I claim is virtual you know in what sense you shouldn't think about unconscious as something deep in you and so on it's just imagine like ah you know what would be a nice example maybe magnetism you throw some little bits of iron and if the field is magnetic they will be disposed let's say in an inverted U letter but this U letter doesn't exist it exists just as a virtual reference point and I use some similar examples in my book like the one hopefully you I'm sure know it my readers although they know it but many people don't know it my favorite Hegelian joke from Ernst Lubitsch's movie Ninotchka where you know somebody comes to a cafeteria and says can I get coffee with cream please the waiter says sorry we don't have cream we just have milk so since we don't have cream I cannot give you coffee without cream I can only give you coffee without milk no and you see the paradox we get in each case you get the same plain coffee but one thing is coffee just plain coffee in symbolic space another thing is coffee without milk a third thing is coffee without cream they are materially the same just this
virtual in the sense that it's just a virtual it exists nowhere reference point of what I am conscious of you know which example one of the examples sorry in that sense Slavoj the it's more like the Jungian unconscious than the Freudian unconscious no because Jungian unconscious is precisely this deeper how should I call it archetypal deeply ingrained and so on but the Freudian unconscious I claim is virtual you know in what sense you shouldn't think about unconscious as something deep in you and so on it's just imagine like ah you know what would be a nice example maybe magnetism you throw some little bits of iron and if the field is magnetic they will be disposed let's say in an inverted U letter but this U letter doesn't exist it exists just as a virtual reference point and I use some similar examples in my book like the one hopefully you I'm sure know it my readers although they know it but many people don't know it my favorite Hegelian joke from Ernst Lubitsch's movie Ninotchka where you know somebody comes to a cafeteria and says can I get coffee with cream please the waiter says sorry we don't have cream we just have milk so since we don't have cream I cannot give you coffee without cream I can only give you coffee without milk no and you see the paradox we get in each case you get the same plain coffee but one thing is coffee just plain coffee in symbolic space another thing is coffee without milk a third thing is coffee without cream they are materially the same just this
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purely virtual reference milk cream is there
purely virtual reference milk cream is there
Slavoj Žižek
but just as a negative point of reference and my claim is for example to make the most brutal quick parallel this is the status of incestuous
but just as a negative point of reference and my claim is for example to make the most brutal quick parallel this is the status of incestuous
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desire for the mother it's just like that shape of of magnetic field it doesn't exist
desire for the mother it's just like that shape of of magnetic field it doesn't exist
Slavoj Žižek
it doesn't mean I really want to eff my mother God forbid it's just that to account for what happens you need a purely virtual reference point so we have another kind of phantasmatic operation in play there I want we only have a couple more minutes of the conversation between you and me Slavoj let's take time on the at the expense of the working class we can go on yeah so I'm going to in a second I'm going to turn to the Q&A and people have been posting yeah I want to play communist leaders who know better than the people themselves for what is good for them okay so that's quite right but unfortunately semi-democratic this evening but I just wanted to ask you before we finish this part of the conversation we've covered we've covered the Hegel part and the wired brain part and a bit about the connection between the two I guess what's your well to put it very crudely what's the message the the single thing the the key idea you'd like people to take away from your new book it's not in the book even I developed it later but you know what fascinated me in Hegel you find this notion of infinite judgment which brings together two totally opposite phenomena like Hegel's example in his phenomenology is der Geist ist ein Knochen spirit is a bone today's infinite judgment would have been our spirit is a virus now you will say it's a cheap trick a a a you know that in today's cognitive theory at least the big names Daniel Dennett Dawkins and so on explicitly before Covid define our spirituality as a viral entity a virus parasitizing on our biological body so in this sense in our brain is also a viral entity parasitizing on our body it can kill it literally if we get obsessed by some as Dawkins calls them meme and so on so I want readers to take this all this madness of epidemic as an example to think in a Hegelian way not in this gentrified way of everything will end up well in some kind of final synthesis no
it doesn't mean I really want to eff my mother God forbid it's just that to account for what happens you need a purely virtual reference point so we have another kind of phantasmatic operation in play there I want we only have a couple more minutes of the conversation between you and me Slavoj let's take time on the at the expense of the working class we can go on yeah so I'm going to in a second I'm going to turn to the Q&A and people have been posting yeah I want to play communist leaders who know better than the people themselves for what is good for them okay so that's quite right but unfortunately semi-democratic this evening but I just wanted to ask you before we finish this part of the conversation we've covered we've covered the Hegel part and the wired brain part and a bit about the connection between the two I guess what's your well to put it very crudely what's the message the the single thing the the key idea you'd like people to take away from your new book it's not in the book even I developed it later but you know what fascinated me in Hegel you find this notion of infinite judgment which brings together two totally opposite phenomena like Hegel's example in his phenomenology is der Geist ist ein Knochen spirit is a bone today's infinite judgment would have been our spirit is a virus now you will say it's a cheap trick a a a you know that in today's cognitive theory at least the big names Daniel Dennett Dawkins and so on explicitly before Covid define our spirituality as a viral entity a virus parasitizing on our biological body so in this sense in our brain is also a viral entity parasitizing on our body it can kill it literally if we get obsessed by some as Dawkins calls them meme and so on so I want readers to take this all this madness of epidemic as an example to think in a Hegelian way not in this gentrified way of everything will end up well in some kind of final synthesis no
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everything it's quite possible that it will not end up well it's open okay that's that's a great point in which to to make our shift
everything it's quite possible that it will not end up well it's open okay that's that's a great point in which to to make our shift
Slavoj Žižek
now um I don't think you can see these Slavoj but I can see a list of questions no I can't okay so I'm going to um put some of these to you and and those of you in the audience do will you read the questions or will I see them how will it be I'll read them to you um I'll pick out a few and uh you guys in the audience if you would like to add to this Q&A now's the time to do so um unlikely we'll have a chance to get through them all but I I will pick out see I will try to be short here yes if you okay so the first one I will pick out here we go do you have any opinions on cancel culture especially after the recent riots in the US I can only say this I am a well-known opponent of political correctness but I think that the famous letters letter signed by I don't know how many intellectuals published in Harpers no I think people didn't notice enough that two types of individuals sign it on the one hand the old-fashioned liberals for whom political correctness goes too far it's too fanatic and so on I also problematize political correctness but from the opposite side I think its radicality it's a fake one yes you are obsessed did I use that expression was it a little bit racist already and so on but there is a deep hypocrisy in it in the sense of for me political correctness is an example of how you can be radical in a false way that is to say without addressing the true causes of racism injustice and so on and so on so never confuse the two that would be my answer to this I am against cancel culture I was often target for it and so on but I never saw it as oh my god these guys are too fanatic no they are compromised like just one detail to the guy who maybe it will also amuse you you know whenever I get debates with
now um I don't think you can see these Slavoj but I can see a list of questions no I can't okay so I'm going to um put some of these to you and and those of you in the audience do will you read the questions or will I see them how will it be I'll read them to you um I'll pick out a few and uh you guys in the audience if you would like to add to this Q&A now's the time to do so um unlikely we'll have a chance to get through them all but I I will pick out see I will try to be short here yes if you okay so the first one I will pick out here we go do you have any opinions on cancel culture especially after the recent riots in the US I can only say this I am a well-known opponent of political correctness but I think that the famous letters letter signed by I don't know how many intellectuals published in Harpers no I think people didn't notice enough that two types of individuals sign it on the one hand the old-fashioned liberals for whom political correctness goes too far it's too fanatic and so on I also problematize political correctness but from the opposite side I think its radicality it's a fake one yes you are obsessed did I use that expression was it a little bit racist already and so on but there is a deep hypocrisy in it in the sense of for me political correctness is an example of how you can be radical in a false way that is to say without addressing the true causes of racism injustice and so on and so on so never confuse the two that would be my answer to this I am against cancel culture I was often target for it and so on but I never saw it as oh my god these guys are too fanatic no they are compromised like just one detail to the guy who maybe it will also amuse you you know whenever I get debates with
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politically correct people how often I notice that behind their radicality they have secret unwritten unspoken rules like we have
politically correct people how often I notice that behind their radicality they have secret unwritten unspoken rules like we have
Slavoj Žižek
to fight against racism but then you learn that there are unwritten codes of which
to fight against racism but then you learn that there are unwritten codes of which
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minority really counts as far and which not and so on there is so much hypocrisy so again I'm from a more
minority really counts as far and which not and so on there is so much hypocrisy so again I'm from a more
Slavoj Žižek
radical position against cancel culture great okay thank you um so that first question was from David David thank you I've got one now from
radical position against cancel culture great okay thank you um so that first question was from David David thank you I've got one now from
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Ronan he asks is there any sense in which mother nature as intelligent could communicate through a stupid virus it seems obvious to me the pandemic is a means of life communicating with itself why it all depends you must know better than me as a philosopher about this you know it all depends on what do you mean by
Ronan he asks is there any sense in which mother nature as intelligent could communicate through a stupid virus it seems obvious to me the pandemic is a means of life communicating with itself why it all depends you must know better than me as a philosopher about this you know it all depends on what do you mean by
Slavoj Žižek
communication do you mean does communication imply intention the if you imply intention in the sense of there is some deeper spiritual or however you conceive it subject called nature which wants to give us a message then I would say no because my answer would have been surprised here if we can learn anything from Freud is that we don't even know how to communicate with ourselves my god you know it's all one big mess it's I'm not saying we shouldn't analyze epidemics as to its social conditions possible effects but in a Hegelian spirit just allow me seconds I find here this is for me the Hegelian spirit of contingency many paradoxes possible you know it's horrible but you know what I read somewhere you remember in the middle of the epidemics when the ecological not the the pollution of the air above China and India got much lower the air was better but there well there were meteorologists who convinced me with their analysis I read them in detail I was even able to understand them that precisely of this cleaner air the you remember a couple of months ago late spring tornadoes in India Bangladesh
communication do you mean does communication imply intention the if you imply intention in the sense of there is some deeper spiritual or however you conceive it subject called nature which wants to give us a message then I would say no because my answer would have been surprised here if we can learn anything from Freud is that we don't even know how to communicate with ourselves my god you know it's all one big mess it's I'm not saying we shouldn't analyze epidemics as to its social conditions possible effects but in a Hegelian spirit just allow me seconds I find here this is for me the Hegelian spirit of contingency many paradoxes possible you know it's horrible but you know what I read somewhere you remember in the middle of the epidemics when the ecological not the the pollution of the air above China and India got much lower the air was better but there well there were meteorologists who convinced me with their analysis I read them in detail I was even able to understand them that precisely of this cleaner air the you remember a couple of months ago late spring tornadoes in India Bangladesh
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were so much stronger you always pay the price you don't know what will happen you know so this in this sense I
were so much stronger you always pay the price you don't know what will happen you know so this in this sense I
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think there is no deeper message all messages for me are retroactive they come afterwards I believe also in this
think there is no deeper message all messages for me are retroactive they come afterwards I believe also in this
Slavoj Žižek
sense in the hermeneutic
sense in the hermeneutic
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openness of history you know idiots my good friends but I call them like this say to really understand Shakespeare you have to know Elizabethan England no I would say to really know what
openness of history you know idiots my good friends but I call them like this say to really understand Shakespeare you have to know Elizabethan England no I would say to really know what
Slavoj Žižek
Elizabethan England really was really was read Shakespeare and to
Elizabethan England really was really was read Shakespeare and to
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understand Shakespeare you have to read him from today's perspective Shakespeare didn't know really what he wanted to say it's a
understand Shakespeare you have to read him from today's perspective Shakespeare didn't know really what he wanted to say it's a
Slavoj Žižek
confusion today we can understand him better than he was able to understand himself okay um thank you Slavoj here we go a question from Jeff it would be interesting to hear how Slavoj squares this concept of digital consciousness vis-à-vis the wired brain with dialectical materialism which admits to exclusively physical or cellular existence in all things two points here first when I used my god the term dialectical materialism it's of course meant as the ultimate serious joke but a joke like if you mean by a dialectical materialism what Stalin did and his followers and so on and so on do you know by the way the dialectical materialism is not a term which you find anywhere in Marx or Engels it was I think invented by the beginning of all stupidity in Marxism the Russian first great Marxist Georgy Plekhanov never they so what I'm saying is that especially I insist this and my friend Frank Ruda wrote a book on it Materialism Without Matter for me materialism doesn't mean if you look in detail you will find some tiny parts which are jumping around there materialism just mean it's a blind blind meaningless process meaningless in the sense of not controlled by any awareness intention and so on otherwise it can be purely bodiless or whatever for me the greatest materialist are quantum physicists and so on so that's my first point dialectical materialism is not this Stalinist obsession with you must find some tiny bits of matter no sorry what was the first part of the question this was the second part yeah so it'd be interesting to hear how you square the concept of digital consciousness ah I don't I don't believe in this concept I think it's a myth I don't think if singularity will exist it will be just blind machinery and still our individual consciousnesses I don't this is
confusion today we can understand him better than he was able to understand himself okay um thank you Slavoj here we go a question from Jeff it would be interesting to hear how Slavoj squares this concept of digital consciousness vis-à-vis the wired brain with dialectical materialism which admits to exclusively physical or cellular existence in all things two points here first when I used my god the term dialectical materialism it's of course meant as the ultimate serious joke but a joke like if you mean by a dialectical materialism what Stalin did and his followers and so on and so on do you know by the way the dialectical materialism is not a term which you find anywhere in Marx or Engels it was I think invented by the beginning of all stupidity in Marxism the Russian first great Marxist Georgy Plekhanov never they so what I'm saying is that especially I insist this and my friend Frank Ruda wrote a book on it Materialism Without Matter for me materialism doesn't mean if you look in detail you will find some tiny parts which are jumping around there materialism just mean it's a blind blind meaningless process meaningless in the sense of not controlled by any awareness intention and so on otherwise it can be purely bodiless or whatever for me the greatest materialist are quantum physicists and so on so that's my first point dialectical materialism is not this Stalinist obsession with you must find some tiny bits of matter no sorry what was the first part of the question this was the second part yeah so it'd be interesting to hear how you square the concept of digital consciousness ah I don't I don't believe in this concept I think it's a myth I don't think if singularity will exist it will be just blind machinery and still our individual consciousnesses I don't this is
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why in the chapter that I prefer poetically in the book the last of the seven the seven theses you remember I I read singularity as something that will effectively if it will be realized look like Sam Beckett's
why in the chapter that I prefer poetically in the book the last of the seven the seven theses you remember I I read singularity as something that will effectively if it will be realized look like Sam Beckett's
Slavoj Žižek
Unnamable you know this confused self-conversation of an autistic madman or whatever no I don't I absolutely precisely don't believe in this collective that would have been Jung really collective awareness I think awareness is irreducibly singular it's um interesting that you called dialectical materialism a joke because to annoy friends to annoy friends because the next question from Ruth is can you tell us a joke so maybe you've already told it it's dialectical materialism maybe we'll get a few laughs about that Slavoj Slavoj I'll let I'll save that for the last question so you have ten minutes to prepare your best joke for us to end on okay my god I cannot because you know all good jokes I use them I use them obsessively you know so okay I'll try let's go on okay moving on to the next one does assigning blame for present political oppositions to ideas and institutions suggested by the term neoliberalism reasonable or irritating irritating not you know why first as all good analysts beginning by my friend Varoufakis who is not stupid although I don't always agree with him but I love him point out neoliberalism wouldn't you agree it's a false term it can be proved even economically that even under Reagan Bush even Margaret Thatcher state apparatus is effectively where gaining strength I think neoliberalism doesn't if you look at the actuality of today's capitalism capital needs more and more state regulations even direct interventions to function I think neoliberalism is in this sense a fake term states are getting stronger and even I would say even within the capitalist universe those states which function well today let me take three examples at least till now China South Korea Singapore extremely strong state intervening combining in a
Unnamable you know this confused self-conversation of an autistic madman or whatever no I don't I absolutely precisely don't believe in this collective that would have been Jung really collective awareness I think awareness is irreducibly singular it's um interesting that you called dialectical materialism a joke because to annoy friends to annoy friends because the next question from Ruth is can you tell us a joke so maybe you've already told it it's dialectical materialism maybe we'll get a few laughs about that Slavoj Slavoj I'll let I'll save that for the last question so you have ten minutes to prepare your best joke for us to end on okay my god I cannot because you know all good jokes I use them I use them obsessively you know so okay I'll try let's go on okay moving on to the next one does assigning blame for present political oppositions to ideas and institutions suggested by the term neoliberalism reasonable or irritating irritating not you know why first as all good analysts beginning by my friend Varoufakis who is not stupid although I don't always agree with him but I love him point out neoliberalism wouldn't you agree it's a false term it can be proved even economically that even under Reagan Bush even Margaret Thatcher state apparatus is effectively where gaining strength I think neoliberalism doesn't if you look at the actuality of today's capitalism capital needs more and more state regulations even direct interventions to function I think neoliberalism is in this sense a fake term states are getting stronger and even I would say even within the capitalist universe those states which function well today let me take three examples at least till now China South Korea Singapore extremely strong state intervening combining in a
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wonderful way liberal market you can invest reap profit and so on with very strong social state intervention that's for me what is deceiving in the term neoliberalism it's used to put pressure on less developed
wonderful way liberal market you can invest reap profit and so on with very strong social state intervention that's for me what is deceiving in the term neoliberalism it's used to put pressure on less developed
Slavoj Žižek
states like if you want to screw some African state you say you should liberalize enough it means they should open up more for our neocolonial exploitation but neoliberalism in the sense of importance of state is disappearing is just big corporation which no big corporation absolutely need state mechanisms that's what irritates me okay um here's an anonymous question is there an issue with self-awareness to inner unconscious or are there parts to our unconscious we will never understand first the unconscious ultimately is not something that we can understand this now we are in Lacanian sphere I think that if you look deeply into your mind already with Freud you don't find some ultimate deep message you find fantasies imaginary formations with which your unconscious tries to introduce some order into the chaos of your life and they in some sense they are meaningless they are contingent formations and so on and so on also this inner unconscious I don't like the term but I don't have the time to go into it now for precise theoretical reasons I often like to quote how was it that series my god with David Duchovny about extraterrestrial which began with you know the truth is out there I think unconscious for Freud is not hidden hidden deep within you this is why even if I may
states like if you want to screw some African state you say you should liberalize enough it means they should open up more for our neocolonial exploitation but neoliberalism in the sense of importance of state is disappearing is just big corporation which no big corporation absolutely need state mechanisms that's what irritates me okay um here's an anonymous question is there an issue with self-awareness to inner unconscious or are there parts to our unconscious we will never understand first the unconscious ultimately is not something that we can understand this now we are in Lacanian sphere I think that if you look deeply into your mind already with Freud you don't find some ultimate deep message you find fantasies imaginary formations with which your unconscious tries to introduce some order into the chaos of your life and they in some sense they are meaningless they are contingent formations and so on and so on also this inner unconscious I don't like the term but I don't have the time to go into it now for precise theoretical reasons I often like to quote how was it that series my god with David Duchovny about extraterrestrial which began with you know the truth is out there I think unconscious for Freud is not hidden hidden deep within you this is why even if I may
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betray to you and people who listen to us now
betray to you and people who listen to us now
Slavoj Žižek
my inner secret I myself hate psychoanalysis I don't want it applied to myself yeah sorry you cut out at the key moment there you said I myself something hate psycho hate to be psychoanalyzed I think if you look deep into me as in every other person you find some shit dirty private secrets and so on and so on I'm not worthy of attention for this I don't want I believe in what's interesting is what I do publicly if you look deep into me you will find what what you find with every person some dirty private fantasy some nasty I don't know what sexual perverted secret is this really
my inner secret I myself hate psychoanalysis I don't want it applied to myself yeah sorry you cut out at the key moment there you said I myself something hate psycho hate to be psychoanalyzed I think if you look deep into me as in every other person you find some shit dirty private secrets and so on and so on I'm not worthy of attention for this I don't want I believe in what's interesting is what I do publicly if you look deep into me you will find what what you find with every person some dirty private fantasy some nasty I don't know what sexual perverted secret is this really
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interesting no so I for me to be inner is not a good thing what is within us is shit thank you um thank you and can I we've got time for just probably a couple more questions from let's try I will try to be even shorter okay
interesting no so I for me to be inner is not a good thing what is within us is shit thank you um thank you and can I we've got time for just probably a couple more questions from let's try I will try to be even shorter okay
Slavoj Žižek
okay today we can see many ways of life disintegrate or possibly come to an end this is sad
okay today we can see many ways of life disintegrate or possibly come to an end this is sad
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but is it necessarily bad is it a bad thing that we see some things evaporate in our current culture yeah here I'm a Hegelian we don't know it in advance
but is it necessarily bad is it a bad thing that we see some things evaporate in our current culture yeah here I'm a Hegelian we don't know it in advance
Slavoj Žižek
that's the problem maybe it's good maybe it's bad and it's not even objectively predetermined it doesn't mean that if we were to know everything we would be able to say that species that species of fish is off they can disappear oh that other species place plays a crucial role because every radical change rearranges all of it and only through this contingent rearrangement can we retroactively say this was good this was bad I want to be very attentive here I'm not saying everything can be retroactively justified there are some crazy antisemites but even some radical Jews that I know who claim this partially justifies Holocaust we did nonetheless Jews got their state you know some crazy antisemites even claim that Jews themselves organized Holocaust to get the state there were ready to sacrifice half of them I think this is a false perspective it's nothing can be justified in this sense retroactively just something horrible happens and then it may serve to something which wasn't part of the intention at all at the beginning so we don't know in advance it's open the owl of Minerva takes wing at dusk yeah yeah ah that's wonderful what you say I want to quote you you exchange the stupid owl with the eagle you said the eagle take wing perfect yes you know what it's from and I was going to quote it to you earlier it's from Derrida's book Glas where he talks about the
that's the problem maybe it's good maybe it's bad and it's not even objectively predetermined it doesn't mean that if we were to know everything we would be able to say that species that species of fish is off they can disappear oh that other species place plays a crucial role because every radical change rearranges all of it and only through this contingent rearrangement can we retroactively say this was good this was bad I want to be very attentive here I'm not saying everything can be retroactively justified there are some crazy antisemites but even some radical Jews that I know who claim this partially justifies Holocaust we did nonetheless Jews got their state you know some crazy antisemites even claim that Jews themselves organized Holocaust to get the state there were ready to sacrifice half of them I think this is a false perspective it's nothing can be justified in this sense retroactively just something horrible happens and then it may serve to something which wasn't part of the intention at all at the beginning so we don't know in advance it's open the owl of Minerva takes wing at dusk yeah yeah ah that's wonderful what you say I want to quote you you exchange the stupid owl with the eagle you said the eagle take wing perfect yes you know what it's from and I was going to quote it to you earlier it's from Derrida's book Glas where he talks about the
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debris of civilizations that Hegel goes on to talk about he talks about the eagle yeah that's why I like the period of
debris of civilizations that Hegel goes on to talk about he talks about the eagle yeah that's why I like the period of
Slavoj Žižek
romantic sorry romanticism you know that at that point they discovered debris as something beautiful not like they even some German princes around I read somewhere before they directly built on that estate's debris like a half-ruined house but they built it like that that's a great thing for me okay I think probably this might be our last question before I ask you to tell your joke if we're to this is about how to resist Singularity so if we're to resist Singularity do we resist it in a traditional form i.e. by opposing it directly as an oppositional force standing outside or can we subvert Singularity as a form of resistance from within it so do we resist Singularity I would use the term resistance I was just say I would translate this into my terms is there a dimension in our being subject which eludes Singularity and my answer is yes pure form of subjectivity and the unconscious so the point is not to resist it I think we will have
romantic sorry romanticism you know that at that point they discovered debris as something beautiful not like they even some German princes around I read somewhere before they directly built on that estate's debris like a half-ruined house but they built it like that that's a great thing for me okay I think probably this might be our last question before I ask you to tell your joke if we're to this is about how to resist Singularity so if we're to resist Singularity do we resist it in a traditional form i.e. by opposing it directly as an oppositional force standing outside or can we subvert Singularity as a form of resistance from within it so do we resist Singularity I would use the term resistance I was just say I would translate this into my terms is there a dimension in our being subject which eludes Singularity and my answer is yes pure form of subjectivity and the unconscious so the point is not to resist it I think we will have
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to go through this zero point if it will be technically
to go through this zero point if it will be technically
Slavoj Žižek
possible I just want to raise this question will we be doomed just a cog in the machinery of the collective Singularity I think no I'm not a pessimist here my message of my book is not as pessimist as it may sound okay um well maybe I can squeeze in one other question which is sort of related how do you see a post-Covid society will you will you foresee a radical shift of sorts possible but again the same answer as to your is the disappearance of some species good as bad that's why I'm saying in short to
possible I just want to raise this question will we be doomed just a cog in the machinery of the collective Singularity I think no I'm not a pessimist here my message of my book is not as pessimist as it may sound okay um well maybe I can squeeze in one other question which is sort of related how do you see a post-Covid society will you will you foresee a radical shift of sorts possible but again the same answer as to your is the disappearance of some species good as bad that's why I'm saying in short to
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many of my friends that we live now in an exquisitely political moment it's
many of my friends that we live now in an exquisitely political moment it's
Slavoj Žižek
clear that the old form of life is
clear that the old form of life is
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disappearing and but that's my point Covid epidemic is not this zero point where politically nothing happens just an emergency no now
disappearing and but that's my point Covid epidemic is not this zero point where politically nothing happens just an emergency no now
Slavoj Žižek
already we are although we are not explicitly fighting it in the process of experimented experimenting with different forms of future we have Trump-Bolsonaro future the old order should be maintained even if many people die and so on we have the technocratic digital vision new culture everything is kept at a distance and so on and so on and I hope that something that I provocatively call communism but I don't mean with here this Central Committee or a new collectivism I mean how even conservative politicians are did you notice this are doing things which if somebody were to propose them a year ago he would have been called oh crazy radical leftist Boris Johnson temporarily nationalized the railways Trump is introducing some form of almost universal basic income and so on and so on so just keep this in mind again it's open there are three four options which is why I wrote
already we are although we are not explicitly fighting it in the process of experimented experimenting with different forms of future we have Trump-Bolsonaro future the old order should be maintained even if many people die and so on we have the technocratic digital vision new culture everything is kept at a distance and so on and so on and I hope that something that I provocatively call communism but I don't mean with here this Central Committee or a new collectivism I mean how even conservative politicians are did you notice this are doing things which if somebody were to propose them a year ago he would have been called oh crazy radical leftist Boris Johnson temporarily nationalized the railways Trump is introducing some form of almost universal basic income and so on and so on so just keep this in mind again it's open there are three four options which is why I wrote
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a text which
a text which
Slavoj Žižek
unfortunately I think is not included in the book it's published somewhere do
unfortunately I think is not included in the book it's published somewhere do
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you know or some my readers if they know it my favorite science fiction short story Robert Sheckley Store of the Worlds that's our situation now we are like choosing the problem is that we are not even aware
you know or some my readers if they know it my favorite science fiction short story Robert Sheckley Store of the Worlds that's our situation now we are like choosing the problem is that we are not even aware
Slavoj Žižek
of it but the future is forming now what will be the post-Covid society on the other hand it will not be a simple post-Covid even if we cope with this viral infection there is global warming and so on and so
of it but the future is forming now what will be the post-Covid society on the other hand it will not be a simple post-Covid even if we cope with this viral infection there is global warming and so on and so
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on you know yeah so Slavoj our time is is pretty much up and we're going to let let people get on with their evening in a moment so now we're going to have
on you know yeah so Slavoj our time is is pretty much up and we're going to let let people get on with their evening in a moment so now we're going to have
Slavoj Žižek
the big drumroll and you are going to tell us your joke it better be a good one it's my favorite joke but I repeat it from one of my books and it's maybe it will be a nice comment on your idea of Hegel as dialectical synthesis no it's not a very funny joke but I like it because I'm still traumatized by Stalinism it's a joke from 1930s
the big drumroll and you are going to tell us your joke it better be a good one it's my favorite joke but I repeat it from one of my books and it's maybe it will be a nice comment on your idea of Hegel as dialectical synthesis no it's not a very funny joke but I like it because I'm still traumatized by Stalinism it's a joke from 1930s
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one of my earlier books I used it at the Politburo they debate debate will there be money in
one of my earlier books I used it at the Politburo they debate debate will there be money in
Slavoj Žižek
communism or not first you have Bukharin right-winger of course money is a natural medium of exchange of course there will be money then there are radical Trotskytes who say no money is alienation there will be no money and then comrade Stalin wisely intervenes and says no it will be here I come to you dialectical synthesis of course there will be money and there will not be money they ask him oh my god what a great idea but tell us comrade Stalin how do you mean it you know what he answers very simply some people will have money other people will not have money I like this turn towards vulgarity you know not bad Slavoj but there you go it doesn't work out as a philosopher you know you may have another career on the comedy circuit so thank you but you know why I'm doing this I compare myself to American preachers in Wild West who first they were magicians telling jokes to attract attention then they went to the serious stuff I like very much to have this idea that through jokes and so on people will get what I'm saying I never enjoyed jargon as such Slavoj Žižek thank you so much for taking the time to be with us this evening it's been a pleasure talking with you thank you to everybody honored by your questions can you just give me one word as the last question you
communism or not first you have Bukharin right-winger of course money is a natural medium of exchange of course there will be money then there are radical Trotskytes who say no money is alienation there will be no money and then comrade Stalin wisely intervenes and says no it will be here I come to you dialectical synthesis of course there will be money and there will not be money they ask him oh my god what a great idea but tell us comrade Stalin how do you mean it you know what he answers very simply some people will have money other people will not have money I like this turn towards vulgarity you know not bad Slavoj but there you go it doesn't work out as a philosopher you know you may have another career on the comedy circuit so thank you but you know why I'm doing this I compare myself to American preachers in Wild West who first they were magicians telling jokes to attract attention then they went to the serious stuff I like very much to have this idea that through jokes and so on people will get what I'm saying I never enjoyed jargon as such Slavoj Žižek thank you so much for taking the time to be with us this evening it's been a pleasure talking with you thank you to everybody honored by your questions can you just give me one word as the last question you
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kept this as a secret you are a philosopher what kind of give me one two big names what's your orientation
kept this as a secret you are a philosopher what kind of give me one two big names what's your orientation
Slavoj Žižek
Derrida that's interesting I didn't know that I don't agree with Derrida but he is intelligent you know well let's not end on that note thank you
Derrida that's interesting I didn't know that I don't agree with Derrida but he is intelligent you know well let's not end on that note thank you
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Slavoj and thank you
Slavoj and thank you
Slavoj Žižek
everyone for joining us tonight.
everyone for joining us tonight.