What Is Ideology?
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2022-03-31 · 1:08:01 · 9,521 words
with Vivek Chibber, Jeremy (Jacobin host)
ideologycapitalismcommunism-socialismliberalism-political-correctnessrace-antisemitismdemocracyhistoryphilosophy-general
A three-way discussion between Slavoj Žižek, Vivek Chibber, and a Jacobin host around Chibber's book on class, ideology, and socialist organizing. The conversation moves from the Uber driver as a case study in material ideology through questions of working-class cynicism, the 1968 moment, Western left exoticism toward the Global South, and the role of ideology critique today. Both Žižek and Chibber converge on rejecting paranoid theories of total manipulation, defend the material basis of working-class consciousness, and critique the middle-class identitarian left for its contempt toward working people.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 12
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “fetishism of choice”
Žižek's phrase for the dominant ideological form in contemporary capitalism: the experience of choosing, even between vacuous options like Pepsi vs. Coca-Cola, constitutes subjects as free agents and entrepreneurs of the self.
as “entrepreneur of the self”
The subjective form produced by gig/platform capitalism, in which workers like Uber drivers experience themselves as autonomous small entrepreneurs rather than exploited wage-laborers.
Žižek notes how the category of anachronism is deployed ideologically: when workers try to organize, ruling discourse brands trade unions and collective action as remnants of old industrial capitalism, rendering them illegitimate.
Implicitly invoked when Žižek argues that material organization of work (e.g., Uber's structure) produces ideology as a feature of the labor process itself, not as a superstructural addition.
Žižek cites Badiou's usage, branding the entire Western working class as bribed beneficiaries of imperialism and therefore disqualified as revolutionary agents, in order to reject it.
Žižek's phrase for a variant of colonialism that does NOT demand imitation of the colonizer but instead preserves native culture as a tool of stable exploitation, illustrated by the British resuscitation of the Laws of Manu.
The condition of neoliberal subjects who are so consumed with material survival, constantly on the treadmill, that they have no time or energy for political organization or collective solidarity.
as “cynical distance”
Žižek's term for the predominant mode of ideology today, in which people do not believe sincerely but act as if they do, a posture that paradoxically stabilizes rather than undermines the system.
as “ideology as illusion”
Žižek follows Marx in locating ideology not as a set of explicit doctrines but as operative presuppositions embedded in material daily life and practice, even when consciously disavowed.
Žižek invokes Marx's commodity fetishism to describe illusions embedded in everyday material life, not elaborated by professors or priests but built into daily experience itself.
Žižek's label for ultra-leftists who refuse every actually existing reform or movement on the grounds that it falls short of true revolution, thereby guaranteeing permanent inaction.
The patronizing gesture by which left intellectuals claim to know nothing more than workers in order to appear egalitarian, which workers themselves reject as condescending.
Stories he reaches for 4
Niels Bohr had a horseshoe above his country-house door to ward off evil spirits. When a scientist friend challenged him as a man of science, Bohr replied: 'Of course I don't believe in it. But I was told it works even if you don't believe in it.' Žižek uses this as his favorite illustration of how cynical ideology functions.
“of course i'm a scientist, i don't believe in it. but i have it there because i was told that it works even if you don't believe in it.”
The Laws of Manu, a terrifying Hindu legal text regulating everything including sexual conduct, was half-forgotten in the 17th-18th centuries; British colonizers deliberately revived it because preserving native culture proved more effective for exploitation than demanding assimilation.
“the british colonizers resuscitated it. because they got it that it's much better for the exploitation... let them have their own culture.”
In the week before UK general elections near the end of Blair's tenure, opinion polls showed Blair was the most-hated person in the UK. He won anyway. Žižek uses this to illustrate a genuine discontent that has no channel in the existing political space.
“who is the most hated person in the uk. tony blair won. a week later there were elections, tony blair won.”
An Uber driver tells Žižek he faces no capitalist exploitation because he owns his car (his means of production) and the company merely provides a 'general frame'; Žižek tries to argue with him about long-term precarity but the driver is not convinced. The point: material organization of the work itself produces the ideological perception, without any need for propaganda.
“i own my own means of production, my car. so nobody is exploiting me. the company is just providing to me the general frame.”
Works invoked 4
Capital book
Žižek highlights Capital as the model for materialist ideology critique because Marx analyzes commodity fetishism as operative illusion in daily life, not as abstract doctrine.
The Laws of Manu book
Žižek calls it 'one of the most terrifying books I know' for its totalizing regulation of life; uses it intellectually to illustrate colonialist multiculturalism, the British revived it to stabilize colonial rule.
The implied Orwell text (pre-1937, class observation) from which Žižek draws the observation about progressive intellectuals' hyperactive discourse ensuring stasis; Žižek finds Orwell 'often too liberal' but values this passage.
The Class Matrix book
Vivek Chibber's book under discussion; Žižek praises it as finally articulating what many on the left have sensed but could not formulate.
People invoked 13
Vladimir Lenin positive
Briefly cited as one of the 'great classics' who sensed the problems of political organization without fully conceptualizing them.
Theodor W. Adorno negative
Grouped with Horkheimer as representatives of extreme Frankfurt School speculation that paints a picture of total manipulation from which nothing can follow.
Vivek Chibber positive
Žižek praises Chibber's work as finally 'saying the word', formulating clearly what many on the left have sensed; describes him as providing the materialist grounding missing from Western Marxism. Engages as a genuine intellectual partner throughout.
Alain Badiou negative
Žižek says he currently has problems with him and calls his Maoist argument that the Western working class is bribed workers' aristocracy 'ultra-Maoist' and a kind of brutal Leninist move that writes off the actual working class, echoing the idealist mistakes of 1968.
Terry Eagleton positive
Žižek says Eagleton told him the story of the British historian addressing factory workers, cited as a trusted anecdote source and friendly intellectual contact.
George Orwell positive
Žižek finds Orwell 'often too liberal' but cites an early Orwell passage (pre-1937) on progressive intellectuals who are hyperactive about change precisely in order to ensure nothing changes.
Žižek tentatively identifies him (though uncertain) as the British historian who gave the patronizing 'I'm here to learn from you' speech to factory workers in the late 60s/70s.
Bernie Sanders positive
Žižek says he doesn't idealize Sanders but uses him as an example of a real, modest reform politician who is attacked by ultra-leftists for not being revolutionary enough, an example of principled opportunism.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez positive
Žižek says he has some disagreements with AOC but calls her 'the beautiful one' and approvingly quotes her defense of Bernie Sanders as precious precisely because he is an old white man.
Herbert Marcuse negative
Žižek singles out some of Marcuse's texts as exemplifying the Frankfurt School tendency toward a 'paranoid theory of total manipulation' that is practically self-defeating.
Niels Bohr positive
Referred to as 'the great guy, Copenhagen'; his horseshoe anecdote is Žižek's favorite and most-used illustration of cynical ideology.
Max Horkheimer negative
Grouped with Adorno as co-author of the extreme Frankfurt School positions Žižek criticizes for a self-defeating theory of total ideological manipulation.
Karl Marx positive
Žižek admires Marx's Capital for its analysis of commodity fetishism as an illusion embedded in material life rather than in superstructural doctrine; treats Marx as the genuine model of materialist ideology critique.
What it argues
material basis of ideology vs. false consciousnessUber precarity and the fetishism of choicecynicism as the dominant ideological form todayWestern left's romanticization of the Global Southidentity politics as middle-class upward mobilitythe role of ideology critique in socialist organizingprincipled opportunism and ultra-leftist abstentionism
Dialectical moves 6
“Cynicism today is not a failure of ideology but is itself the most popular, almost common everyday ideology.”
What appears to be distance from ideology (cynical disbelief) is actually the dominant ideological form, ideology operates through disavowal, not sincerity.
“It is not that colonizers wanted the colonized to imitate them; there is also a very strong colonialist multiculturalism—let them have their own culture.”
Colonialism is inverted: the apparent respect for indigenous culture is not its opposite but is itself a mechanism of colonial domination.
“The regime prefers cynicism—politics always gets corrupted, you will always be screwed, just stick to your private interests—so cynical distance serves the capitalist system.”
Cynical withdrawal, which feels like critical independence from the system, is precisely what the system requires for its own reproduction.
“Many progressive intellectuals talk all the time about change to make sure that nothing will really change.”
The performance of radical commitment to change functions as a substitute for, and barrier to, actual change; hyperactive discourse about transformation ensures stasis.
“It is not ideology in the abstract sense but illusions that are part of material reality—commodity fetishism is an illusion which is not ideology in the sense elaborated by professors and priests.”
The real site of ideology is not the superstructural realm of explicit doctrine but the operative presuppositions built into everyday material practice.
“I prefer to be called Indian because at least my name is then a sign of your white man's stupidity who thought you were in India when you came.”
The apparently offensive colonial name 'Indian' is reclaimed as a register of the colonizer's ignorance, the politically correct replacement 'native American' is exposed as a new form of imposition.
Claims 15
asserts
The very material organization of gig work (Uber) structurally prevents solidarity by making co-workers appear as competitors rather than allies, without any need for complex psychological or ideological manipulation.ideology and material structure of Uber precariat
asserts
Cynicism is not a failure of ideology but is itself the predominant ideological form today, and it does not threaten the system—it actively stabilizes it.cynicism as ideology
rejects
The Western Marxist tradition (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse at their extremes) paints a picture of total manipulation so complete that it is self-defeating and practically implies nothing can change.Frankfurt School theory of total ideological manipulation
asserts
The predominant liberal-left critical thought today enjoys its own defeat—it finds the situation of total manipulation appealing because it exempts it from the obligation to act.liberal-left culture of defeat
rejects
Badiou's Maoist argument that the Western working class is already a bribed workers' aristocracy and can be written off as a revolutionary subject is wrong and mirrors the same idealist abandonment of the actual working class that plagued 1968.Badiou's dismissal of Western working class
rejects
The search for an idealized revolutionary subject—from students in 1968 to the peasantry, to indigenous peoples today—is an ongoing romanticizing temptation of the Western left that evades engagement with the actual working class.romanticization of revolutionary subject
asserts
The 1960s as culturally remembered (sex, drugs, freedom) is actually a falsified reinvention of what was predominantly the 1970s; the real 1968 was student-worker solidarity at Renault factories, which has been erased.cultural memory of 1968
asserts
Hyperactivity of survival under neoliberalism is not just an obstacle to organizing but is itself a systemic mechanism of stabilization.neoliberal hyperactivity and system stability
asserts
Marx's concept of commodity fetishism is not ideology in the traditional sense but an illusion embedded in material daily life that operates even when consciously disavowed.commodity fetishism vs. ideology
asserts
The Niels Bohr horseshoe story perfectly illustrates cynical ideology: it works even if you don't believe in it, which is precisely how contemporary cynicism functions.cynicism and ideological belief
asserts
Many progressive critical-theory intellectuals talk endlessly about change as a way of ensuring that nothing actually changes.activist/academic pseudo-radicalism
rejects
Ultra-leftist 'principled opportunism'—waiting for the authentic revolution and dismissing every actual movement as still within bourgeois limits—is more dangerous than cynicism.ultra-leftist abstentionism
asserts
Ordinary people are acutely sensitive to the falsity of patronizing left-intellectual 'solidarity' that pretends to know no more than them.false solidarity and working-class intelligence
asserts
White liberal use of the term 'native American' instead of 'Indian' is itself a form of patronizing identity imposition that the people named resent.identity politics and naming
asserts
Colonialism has a 'multiculturalist' variant—not demanding assimilation but preserving native culture as a tool of stable exploitation—illustrated by the British revival of the Laws of Manu.colonialism and multiculturalism
Quotes 10
“of course i'm a scientist, i don't believe in it. but i have it there because i was told that it works even if you don't believe in it. that's how cynicism today works.”Slavoj Žižek · cynical ideology—belief is unnecessary for ideology to function
“cynicism today it is not a failure of ideology, it's the most popular, almost common everyday ideology.”Slavoj Žižek · cynicism as the dominant ideological form
“what the regime prefers is something like politics always gets corrupted, you will always be screwed up, just stick to your private interests.”Slavoj Žižek · cynical privatism as systemic ideology
“many progressive intellectuals... are hyperactive. but you can feel like, let's talk all the time about change. to make sure that nothing will really change.”Slavoj Žižek · activist hyperactivity as guarantor of stasis
“the very material organization of precarious work in the sense of uber driving prevents social solidarity.”Slavoj Žižek · material structure produces ideological effect without propaganda
“logos is not at the beginning but at the end. at the beginning, it's a mess. then somebody has to say the word. has to clearly formulate it.”Slavoj Žižek · materialist inversion of logos—clarity as achievement, not origin
“i much prefer to be called indian because at least my name is then a sign of your white man's stupidity who thought you were in india when you came.”Slavoj Žižek · reclaiming the colonial name as record of colonizer's ignorance
“i almost absolutely hate today even more than cynicism... this principled opportunism. you wait for some true authentic revolution, which means whenever some movement really begins, you say, oh, this is still in bourgeois limits.”Slavoj Žižek · principled opportunism as ultra-left abstentionism
“think about illusions that you follow in your daily life, even if you in your full awareness would say of course i don't believe it.”Slavoj Žižek · ideology as operative illusion disavowed in practice
“not ideology in the abstract sense, but actual life experience, ideas, presuppositions which are part of material reality.”Slavoj Žižek · Marxist ideology critique grounded in material practice, not doctrine
Transcript 45 turns
Slavoj Žižek
thanks very much and again, although i am often identified as a in my style. crazy postmodern guy who includes dirty jokes, jumps here and there. i try not to be. i try to, i often fail. write and talk like vivek. because i know that there are many so-called postmodern marxists, and one of them even gave me the most disgusting pseudo-hegelian justification of it. i told him, but you are inconsistent. it's not clear what you want to say. you know what was the answer i got? this inconsistency is in reality itself. so precisely through being inconsistent and self-contradictory, i give the adequate image of reality, blah, blah, blah. so let me just improvise a couple of points. you, vivek? wonderfully pointed out how. the great classics, marx, lenin, and so on. it's not simply. that they didn't see what you, vivek were saying about in their political practice, even in their descriptions. they like smelled it, but something was missing in poor conceptualization. and that's again what i think about your vivec your work, we were all many of us. who are all bothered by the same problem, what's the deep seat we are in, what's wrong, why action doesn't happen. we smelled it, knew it, but... you know, here i am... materialist christian in the sense of the word is logos is not at the beginning but at the end. at the beginning, it's a mess. then somebody, here, yith vivek, has to say the word. has to clearly formulate it and all of a sudden. even if you don't agree. we. everything but you know the proper terrain is formulated. so first, let me begin by self-critical remark. for somebody who ich. perceived as lacian psychoanalytic, marxist, whatever. i think, and this was even my... founding experience, if i may permit myself this new age term. bet. uh psychoanalysis. was often unfortunately used. indeed. western marxist tradition. exactly in the way you vive. describe the reference to ideology. it was marxist economic analysis is correct and so on, blah, blah, but there is no. revolution? no! collective organization. so not even ideology. they claimed psychoanalysis will give the answer. and then you evoke all the obscurity of, you know, death drive, perversion, and so, as if we will get the answer. there. back, where? that's the temptation we should absolutely resist. and let me give you an example. allow me to make a couple of points. that's my first point of this what you devec called the materialism. i think that for me, the formative experience wosh! not mine, i was happy to have a permanent state. yo. academic but my experience with precarious workers like it was in london of all places that a couple of times i i don't like uber, they exploit workers too much, but how? das uber exploit. workers. in a way which not as an ideal force up there, but in their very material experience of work. in some sense, it makes them feel free, not only free, but even small entrepreneurs of their own. an uber guy told me, listen, it's wonderful. aye, there is no capitalist exploitation. i, he even knew about marxism. he says, you see, i own my own means of production, my car. so nobody is exploiting me. the company is just providing to me the general frame. and i work when i want to work in my conditions, in this sense and so on and so on. and then i failed, but i engaged in a debate with a guy. because i tried to tell him. but do you know to what extent like your long-term perspectives are uncertain? you don't have healthcare, security and all other stuff. and he was aware of it, but he said, and i am now. doing pretty well. i don't care about that. and he wasn't stupid. i understood him. in a way, he lived relatively well. he said, if i want, i take a weekend off. i work when i want. another thing. and here i come back to your point, dvec. is that i told him. but are you aware that? instead of experiencing your situation. like we all uber drivers against der kompanie über blala. you perceive your competitors. as the other uber drivers. you know, the very form of this uber precarious work. in its materiality, not in some complex collective technology level. pre solidarity. because again, in your material everyday life. your company, which is really reaping the profit, appears innocent. oh, they're just organizing it. and the bad guys are your co-workers, precisely. so here i see a simple situation where without any beach. deep psychology notions or whatever, you can see how in this specific case, how? the very material organization. off. precarious sweat. in the sense of uber. driving? prevent social solidarity. and especially important since we live in an era where fetishism of choice is almost the main choice, you know. even if choices are vacuous. what are our choices, even in politics? mostly they are like you know. pepsiola or coca-cola and that type of stuff. but... but... the point is that they. make you experience. but again, in your concrete material life circumstances, they make you experience as a free. agent, a small entrepreneur of the self. because again, that's the big category of today's capitalism. the idea is, and again, i read it in a materialist way, in vivek sense. it's not something freaked out. it that's the
thanks very much and again, although i am often identified as a in my style. crazy postmodern guy who includes dirty jokes, jumps here and there. i try not to be. i try to, i often fail. write and talk like vivek. because i know that there are many so-called postmodern marxists, and one of them even gave me the most disgusting pseudo-hegelian justification of it. i told him, but you are inconsistent. it's not clear what you want to say. you know what was the answer i got? this inconsistency is in reality itself. so precisely through being inconsistent and self-contradictory, i give the adequate image of reality, blah, blah, blah. so let me just improvise a couple of points. you, vivek? wonderfully pointed out how. the great classics, marx, lenin, and so on. it's not simply. that they didn't see what you, vivek were saying about in their political practice, even in their descriptions. they like smelled it, but something was missing in poor conceptualization. and that's again what i think about your vivec your work, we were all many of us. who are all bothered by the same problem, what's the deep seat we are in, what's wrong, why action doesn't happen. we smelled it, knew it, but... you know, here i am... materialist christian in the sense of the word is logos is not at the beginning but at the end. at the beginning, it's a mess. then somebody, here, yith vivek, has to say the word. has to clearly formulate it and all of a sudden. even if you don't agree. we. everything but you know the proper terrain is formulated. so first, let me begin by self-critical remark. for somebody who ich. perceived as lacian psychoanalytic, marxist, whatever. i think, and this was even my... founding experience, if i may permit myself this new age term. bet. uh psychoanalysis. was often unfortunately used. indeed. western marxist tradition. exactly in the way you vive. describe the reference to ideology. it was marxist economic analysis is correct and so on, blah, blah, but there is no. revolution? no! collective organization. so not even ideology. they claimed psychoanalysis will give the answer. and then you evoke all the obscurity of, you know, death drive, perversion, and so, as if we will get the answer. there. back, where? that's the temptation we should absolutely resist. and let me give you an example. allow me to make a couple of points. that's my first point of this what you devec called the materialism. i think that for me, the formative experience wosh! not mine, i was happy to have a permanent state. yo. academic but my experience with precarious workers like it was in london of all places that a couple of times i i don't like uber, they exploit workers too much, but how? das uber exploit. workers. in a way which not as an ideal force up there, but in their very material experience of work. in some sense, it makes them feel free, not only free, but even small entrepreneurs of their own. an uber guy told me, listen, it's wonderful. aye, there is no capitalist exploitation. i, he even knew about marxism. he says, you see, i own my own means of production, my car. so nobody is exploiting me. the company is just providing to me the general frame. and i work when i want to work in my conditions, in this sense and so on and so on. and then i failed, but i engaged in a debate with a guy. because i tried to tell him. but do you know to what extent like your long-term perspectives are uncertain? you don't have healthcare, security and all other stuff. and he was aware of it, but he said, and i am now. doing pretty well. i don't care about that. and he wasn't stupid. i understood him. in a way, he lived relatively well. he said, if i want, i take a weekend off. i work when i want. another thing. and here i come back to your point, dvec. is that i told him. but are you aware that? instead of experiencing your situation. like we all uber drivers against der kompanie über blala. you perceive your competitors. as the other uber drivers. you know, the very form of this uber precarious work. in its materiality, not in some complex collective technology level. pre solidarity. because again, in your material everyday life. your company, which is really reaping the profit, appears innocent. oh, they're just organizing it. and the bad guys are your co-workers, precisely. so here i see a simple situation where without any beach. deep psychology notions or whatever, you can see how in this specific case, how? the very material organization. off. precarious sweat. in the sense of uber. driving? prevent social solidarity. and especially important since we live in an era where fetishism of choice is almost the main choice, you know. even if choices are vacuous. what are our choices, even in politics? mostly they are like you know. pepsiola or coca-cola and that type of stuff. but... but... the point is that they. make you experience. but again, in your concrete material life circumstances, they make you experience as a free. agent, a small entrepreneur of the self. because again, that's the big category of today's capitalism. the idea is, and again, i read it in a materialist way, in vivek sense. it's not something freaked out. it that's the
Vivek Chibber
can i just say one thing?, let me say one thing. please. taking uber as an example. my view, my general approach, which i think is the approach socialists used for more than a century, is that you start on the assumption that workers have a pretty good understanding of their working conditions. they're not fooled by it, they're not duped by it. so let's look at uber. okay, uber drivers are exploited in some way. they are part of the working class in some way. but then they have this feeling, as you said, that look, i'm my own boss. yeah, yeah. now, is that... a mistake. well, it's not in the following way. that they are capturing accurately a dimension of their laboring experience because they are in fact in a labor process where they have a great deal of autonomy from managerial control compared to somebody in a walmart or an amazon warehouse or in a factory or in a fast food restaurant. now, this has been true throughout the history of capitalism. workers, uber drivers are sort of like owner operators or like farmers, independent farmers. who sell their products to a marketing board or to a merchant who then exploits them through manipulating prices. if you asked a word, throughout the history of capitalism. we will give you a choice. you can work in a factory where there's an overseer bossing you around every minute of the day, or you can work at home or drive your own rickshaw or drive your own bicycle or drive your own taxi. you'll still be subject to some controls, but it'll be a different kind of control. which of these two would you like? they have always preferred some degree of independent control. control over their own labor. so what's distinguishing the uber driver from a factory worker is what we call the labor process, the facts about the labor process. and when he says to an intellectual, hey, i'm much more free here. a lot of intellectuals will then try to convince him that he's not. but he in fact is. he is driving the car and he'd much rather be driving the car than being bent over a production line. manipulating physical objects. but those same uber drivers today, in fact, are trying to organize. this is true across the capitalist world. there is a growing wave. of organizing drive amongst uber drivers, which means they are aware of the fact that they have some autonomy and they are aware of the fact that their bosses, uber or whatever company it is, is taking a very large cut. of the money that they're making. and in fact is subjecting them to all sorts of other kinds of liabilities and injustices. so both facts are true. and there's nothing that the uber drivers, that we're going to tell the uber drivers as we are highfalutin intellectuals that they don't already know. now, why is there organizing? having experiencing such mixed success, is's for the reason savoy says. they are workers, but they're atomized. they don't interact with other workers. they only see them for five minutes, ten minutes, and in fact they might even be competing with those workers in many ways, which is kind of true in capitalism generally. i mean, maybe you don't see them at all, right? there's not...
can i just say one thing?, let me say one thing. please. taking uber as an example. my view, my general approach, which i think is the approach socialists used for more than a century, is that you start on the assumption that workers have a pretty good understanding of their working conditions. they're not fooled by it, they're not duped by it. so let's look at uber. okay, uber drivers are exploited in some way. they are part of the working class in some way. but then they have this feeling, as you said, that look, i'm my own boss. yeah, yeah. now, is that... a mistake. well, it's not in the following way. that they are capturing accurately a dimension of their laboring experience because they are in fact in a labor process where they have a great deal of autonomy from managerial control compared to somebody in a walmart or an amazon warehouse or in a factory or in a fast food restaurant. now, this has been true throughout the history of capitalism. workers, uber drivers are sort of like owner operators or like farmers, independent farmers. who sell their products to a marketing board or to a merchant who then exploits them through manipulating prices. if you asked a word, throughout the history of capitalism. we will give you a choice. you can work in a factory where there's an overseer bossing you around every minute of the day, or you can work at home or drive your own rickshaw or drive your own bicycle or drive your own taxi. you'll still be subject to some controls, but it'll be a different kind of control. which of these two would you like? they have always preferred some degree of independent control. control over their own labor. so what's distinguishing the uber driver from a factory worker is what we call the labor process, the facts about the labor process. and when he says to an intellectual, hey, i'm much more free here. a lot of intellectuals will then try to convince him that he's not. but he in fact is. he is driving the car and he'd much rather be driving the car than being bent over a production line. manipulating physical objects. but those same uber drivers today, in fact, are trying to organize. this is true across the capitalist world. there is a growing wave. of organizing drive amongst uber drivers, which means they are aware of the fact that they have some autonomy and they are aware of the fact that their bosses, uber or whatever company it is, is taking a very large cut. of the money that they're making. and in fact is subjecting them to all sorts of other kinds of liabilities and injustices. so both facts are true. and there's nothing that the uber drivers, that we're going to tell the uber drivers as we are highfalutin intellectuals that they don't already know. now, why is there organizing? having experiencing such mixed success, is's for the reason savoy says. they are workers, but they're atomized. they don't interact with other workers. they only see them for five minutes, ten minutes, and in fact they might even be competing with those workers in many ways, which is kind of true in capitalism generally. i mean, maybe you don't see them at all, right? there's not...
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
because's not like a haul like there would be if you're a taxiicab driver.
because's not like a haul like there would be if you're a taxiicab driver.
Vivek Chibber
so when you do an analysis of uber and you try to ask two questions, why has there been less organizing amongst uber drivers than other kinds of workers? and then why is the organizing when it happens? somewhat less successful. it's all material and social factors. it's not ideology. the material and social factors are doing all the work of explaining it here. the the role of ideology is that they need to be able to generate a collective identity so that they can make their drive successful. but it's the material and social factors that explain why generating the identity is so difficult for the reasons you just said. they don't see each other, they compete with each other, they have all sorts of other constraints. so from an organizer, from a socialist standpoint, even something like uber, the basic facts about their subordination and their organizing are all structurally explained. you don't have to resort to ideology to explain any of them. and their own perceptions are quite accurate.
so when you do an analysis of uber and you try to ask two questions, why has there been less organizing amongst uber drivers than other kinds of workers? and then why is the organizing when it happens? somewhat less successful. it's all material and social factors. it's not ideology. the material and social factors are doing all the work of explaining it here. the the role of ideology is that they need to be able to generate a collective identity so that they can make their drive successful. but it's the material and social factors that explain why generating the identity is so difficult for the reasons you just said. they don't see each other, they compete with each other, they have all sorts of other constraints. so from an organizer, from a socialist standpoint, even something like uber, the basic facts about their subordination and their organizing are all structurally explained. you don't have to resort to ideology to explain any of them. and their own perceptions are quite accurate.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
but vivek, just really briefly on that. i mean, couldn't an organizer sometimes use shorthand and like, hey, don't be a dope. like the boss is really, you know, the boss wants you to think that you're free, but really, like, look at it. how much do you get to determine?
but vivek, just really briefly on that. i mean, couldn't an organizer sometimes use shorthand and like, hey, don't be a dope. like the boss is really, you know, the boss wants you to think that you're free, but really, like, look at it. how much do you get to determine?
Vivek Chibber
the point is this, when you say to him, the wants you to think you're free, but you're not. for your disc for your argument to be successful, you have to point to actual facts about their laboring conditions and their laboring experience, which means that you have to respect their knowledge. you cannot treat them as people who don't understand their circumstances. what you're doing is highlighting some circumstances over others. now, but for the organizer, that means the first task is not to come out of your seminar or your party training and lecture to them about the nature of the proletariat. the first task is to learn the everyday, quotidian, ordinary aspects of their existence, which you don't yet know. but what are you doing when you try to learn those everyday aspects of their existence? you are admitting that it's there circumstances to which they are responding and not the wrong-headed conceptions in their heads. and until you understand those circumstances, you can't organize them. which is a tacit acceptance. that it is their location in the structure and the facts about the structure. that explain why they're doing what they're doing. and not simply phantoms in their head.
the point is this, when you say to him, the wants you to think you're free, but you're not. for your disc for your argument to be successful, you have to point to actual facts about their laboring conditions and their laboring experience, which means that you have to respect their knowledge. you cannot treat them as people who don't understand their circumstances. what you're doing is highlighting some circumstances over others. now, but for the organizer, that means the first task is not to come out of your seminar or your party training and lecture to them about the nature of the proletariat. the first task is to learn the everyday, quotidian, ordinary aspects of their existence, which you don't yet know. but what are you doing when you try to learn those everyday aspects of their existence? you are admitting that it's there circumstances to which they are responding and not the wrong-headed conceptions in their heads. and until you understand those circumstances, you can't organize them. which is a tacit acceptance. that it is their location in the structure and the facts about the structure. that explain why they're doing what they're doing. and not simply phantoms in their head.
Slavoj Žižek
if i mean, i deeply agree with what vivek you said, you know, in what level. i think that although we were all trained by them, learned a lot from them from western marxists. but especially in their extreme forms, like he's not always bad, but some of the texts by Marcuse, some speculations by Adorno and Horkheimer. you know, it's really behind it a kind of almost paranoid theory of total manipulation. ordinary people are totally manipulated and so on and so on. so they paint a picture which is in a way self-defeating. they paint a picture from which it is already clear that. nothing can happen and i don't have time to develop this. but d... is a sense in which i think much of today the predominant. liberal left. critical thought? almost i will be now cynical myself. enjoys its defeat, enjoys f the situation as the one of total manipulation where we cannot win and so on and so on. but let's not lose time on this. i want to go to another point which seems to me crucial. the way you, vivek. turned around this notion of ideology. yes, you know. what's the strategy of i don't use this term in pariac way of both in power. uh. the moment workers try to organize, okay, if i were to be. official ideology. i try to use this term in a non-paranoia way. or. propagator. and you read this all the time and uber drivers try to organize themselves. i would tell them, but no, we live in a post-ideological world. you are anachronistic, you know. the ruling discourse and again, i agree with you, vivek, this is not a couple of big guys paid by i don't know whom. but this is their experience that if you mention trade unions and so on, no, you are talking about the old industrial capitalism, we live in a different world and so on and so on. so how the category of anachronism is crucial here. next thing. aye. this is not now i come to... i don't think we have a disagreement here. i will try to be still... materialist? . but i would say this. debt. the line of reasoning which is present by some disappointed marxists i wonder, vivek, if you would. also reject it like i do if. my, now i have problems with him. ultra maoist, Alain Badiou. you know what is very brutally his answer to? revolutionary non-activity of the working class in western countries in a kind of a brutal leninist. maoist way, he says, yes, they are all from. from the global. perspective of the entire world. all of the western europe and united states is already workers' aristocracy. they are already bribed. so! we should simply discount that. they are no longer, and then they are involved into this, it's the worst thing. this app. eternal, i remember it from my youth, i must be older than you, vivek, how in 68, you know. the big problem was, yes, revolution, but who will be the subject? they, in their idealist way, wrote off the actual working class.
if i mean, i deeply agree with what vivek you said, you know, in what level. i think that although we were all trained by them, learned a lot from them from western marxists. but especially in their extreme forms, like he's not always bad, but some of the texts by Marcuse, some speculations by Adorno and Horkheimer. you know, it's really behind it a kind of almost paranoid theory of total manipulation. ordinary people are totally manipulated and so on and so on. so they paint a picture which is in a way self-defeating. they paint a picture from which it is already clear that. nothing can happen and i don't have time to develop this. but d... is a sense in which i think much of today the predominant. liberal left. critical thought? almost i will be now cynical myself. enjoys its defeat, enjoys f the situation as the one of total manipulation where we cannot win and so on and so on. but let's not lose time on this. i want to go to another point which seems to me crucial. the way you, vivek. turned around this notion of ideology. yes, you know. what's the strategy of i don't use this term in pariac way of both in power. uh. the moment workers try to organize, okay, if i were to be. official ideology. i try to use this term in a non-paranoia way. or. propagator. and you read this all the time and uber drivers try to organize themselves. i would tell them, but no, we live in a post-ideological world. you are anachronistic, you know. the ruling discourse and again, i agree with you, vivek, this is not a couple of big guys paid by i don't know whom. but this is their experience that if you mention trade unions and so on, no, you are talking about the old industrial capitalism, we live in a different world and so on and so on. so how the category of anachronism is crucial here. next thing. aye. this is not now i come to... i don't think we have a disagreement here. i will try to be still... materialist? . but i would say this. debt. the line of reasoning which is present by some disappointed marxists i wonder, vivek, if you would. also reject it like i do if. my, now i have problems with him. ultra maoist, Alain Badiou. you know what is very brutally his answer to? revolutionary non-activity of the working class in western countries in a kind of a brutal leninist. maoist way, he says, yes, they are all from. from the global. perspective of the entire world. all of the western europe and united states is already workers' aristocracy. they are already bribed. so! we should simply discount that. they are no longer, and then they are involved into this, it's the worst thing. this app. eternal, i remember it from my youth, i must be older than you, vivek, how in 68, you know. the big problem was, yes, revolution, but who will be the subject? they, in their idealist way, wrote off the actual working class.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
yeah.
yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
so! then there was this search eternal romanticizing temptation, either students, the idea was students are truly exploited then. and i never liked it. did you notice how even today the western left is desperately searching for an idealized third world country where it's the real thing.
so! then there was this search eternal romanticizing temptation, either students, the idea was students are truly exploited then. and i never liked it. did you notice how even today the western left is desperately searching for an idealized third world country where it's the real thing.
Vivek Chibber
now the thing is not, it used to be,avooy, it was the peasantry under the influence of mais on the peasants we're supposed to. now it's the indigenous.
now the thing is not, it used to be,avooy, it was the peasantry under the influence of mais on the peasants we're supposed to. now it's the indigenous.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, yeah, intelligent colonizers. always knew how to incorporate. indigenous element. to make the system of colonization stable. for example, i know maybe you also do a little bit of a little bit, very little bit of situation in india where, you know, there is one of the most terrifying books that i know. The Laws of Manu, I think, a systematic description. off of... everything, even, you know. how do you make love? i love this.
yeah, yeah, intelligent colonizers. always knew how to incorporate. indigenous element. to make the system of colonization stable. for example, i know maybe you also do a little bit of a little bit, very little bit of situation in india where, you know, there is one of the most terrifying books that i know. The Laws of Manu, I think, a systematic description. off of... everything, even, you know. how do you make love? i love this.
Vivek Chibber
there's a very good section on how to take a shit.
there's a very good section on how to take a shit.
Slavoj Žižek
yeah, yeah, yeah!
yeah, yeah, yeah!
Vivek Chibber
they love them too.
they love them too.
Slavoj Žižek
a part there on you know. after. after ejaculation, in what way do you wipe your penis whatever whatever? but you know what i learned then? through my indian friends. in. 17th, 18th century. this book was half forgotten. the british colonizers resuscitated it. because they got it that it's much better. for the exploitation. not! not that formula i never liked it that under capitalism they all. colonizers wanted us to imitate them. no, there is also a very strong colonialist multiculturalism, not in the authentic sense, but in the sense of let them have their own culture.
a part there on you know. after. after ejaculation, in what way do you wipe your penis whatever whatever? but you know what i learned then? through my indian friends. in. 17th, 18th century. this book was half forgotten. the british colonizers resuscitated it. because they got it that it's much better. for the exploitation. not! not that formula i never liked it that under capitalism they all. colonizers wanted us to imitate them. no, there is also a very strong colonialist multiculturalism, not in the authentic sense, but in the sense of let them have their own culture.
Vivek Chibber
although i want to go back to what you said about Badiou, because it's very important. i don't want that point to get lost. because it's a very widely held notion among the white left in europe and the united states and some sections now of the left coming out of minorities. that the working class has been bought off in the west and that its its standards of living are too high or that it's living on the fruits of imperialism and therefore it cannot be a political agent. and it's a... profoundly idiotic notion because on the one hand is completely unaware of the recent history of the west. and secondly, it has a ridiculous theory of imperialism, which is also completely false. now, for a second, i want to set aside the issue of the theory of imperialism. let's just focus on the empirical descriptive claim they're making. that the working class has been bought off or is too well off. these theories are promulgated, as you said in 68, the generation of 68 that new left. let's just examine 68 for a second. what happened in 68? 68 was the last great wave of strikes and labor uprisings in the west. exactly at the moment that the student left is writing off the western working class, the western working class went into the largest wave of strikes we had seen since the 1940s. that was in the midst of the highest wages that the working class had had in the 20th century. so first of all, the idea that wage levels, rising wages make workers conservative was blown to bits right there, right in 1968, because their wages were so, so high. secondly, the idea that the working class is therefore too well off to do anything is also blown to bits right there in 1968, yeah? the question for us is why? and i addressed this in my book a little bit. why, when wages are so high, did workers organize in 68 and go into strike activity? it's because the material well-being of workers. includes many things other than just wages. what was happening in the late 60s in the united states and europe? wages had gone up, but so had work intensification. so had the level of injuries. work days were getting longer and longer. unions were no longer responding. that's why so many of these strikes are what we call wildcat strikes. they were strikes that the unions had not authorized. workers were angry not just at their bosses, but also at the unions and wanted to disrupt the unions. all of this happens in 1968, in the middle of the greatest prosperity that capitalism has ever seen. and in the middle of rising standards of living if you just measure them through wages. even at that moment, this theory was blown to bits. but now let's look what's happened in the past 30 years. the notion. that the white working class has been living high on the hog or has been having this incredibly lavish lifestyle. since the 1980s is for the left to advance such ideas is disgraceful. not only have standards of living been stagnating not only has the workplace conditions been getting worse. not only has there been more and more speed up, for the first time. in a century, the white working class in the united states has found its life expectancy shortening. for the first time, with all the medical advances, with all this glorious, somehow, this supposed increase in standard of living, they are dying faster than they did 10 years ago. they're in the middle of an opioid crisis where they are the level of death in this country from opium overdoses, from drug overdoses and there's a reason why Angus Deaton calls it deaths of despair. it's coming from, on the one hand, a steady deterioration in their standards of living, and on the other, a conviction that nobody cares. nobody gives a shit. the political parties don't care, the intelligentsia doesn't care, the media doesn't care. in fact, they're told if we you're white and you're poor, you must be the biggest loser in the world because all of the imperial profits in the world come to you and you're still poor. it's all your fault. this is the reality that they face. and this is what i think finally the left is, you're right, there are a lot of sections of the left that still prefer a dark-skinned person in a hula dress as their universal subject. they still prefer that because it's exotic. but finally, there is, i think, in the united states and in some parts of europe, a realization that white people can also be exploited. and that the struggle for justice isn't a tribal struggle between different colored people. it's a struggle between classes. and there's multicolored people on top and multicolored ones on the bottom. this is coming around. but this view that you described accurately is repellent. this notion that the entire, the majority of the western european population can be written off. because they don't abide by some mistaken picture that the left has in its head. that left does more damage.
although i want to go back to what you said about Badiou, because it's very important. i don't want that point to get lost. because it's a very widely held notion among the white left in europe and the united states and some sections now of the left coming out of minorities. that the working class has been bought off in the west and that its its standards of living are too high or that it's living on the fruits of imperialism and therefore it cannot be a political agent. and it's a... profoundly idiotic notion because on the one hand is completely unaware of the recent history of the west. and secondly, it has a ridiculous theory of imperialism, which is also completely false. now, for a second, i want to set aside the issue of the theory of imperialism. let's just focus on the empirical descriptive claim they're making. that the working class has been bought off or is too well off. these theories are promulgated, as you said in 68, the generation of 68 that new left. let's just examine 68 for a second. what happened in 68? 68 was the last great wave of strikes and labor uprisings in the west. exactly at the moment that the student left is writing off the western working class, the western working class went into the largest wave of strikes we had seen since the 1940s. that was in the midst of the highest wages that the working class had had in the 20th century. so first of all, the idea that wage levels, rising wages make workers conservative was blown to bits right there, right in 1968, because their wages were so, so high. secondly, the idea that the working class is therefore too well off to do anything is also blown to bits right there in 1968, yeah? the question for us is why? and i addressed this in my book a little bit. why, when wages are so high, did workers organize in 68 and go into strike activity? it's because the material well-being of workers. includes many things other than just wages. what was happening in the late 60s in the united states and europe? wages had gone up, but so had work intensification. so had the level of injuries. work days were getting longer and longer. unions were no longer responding. that's why so many of these strikes are what we call wildcat strikes. they were strikes that the unions had not authorized. workers were angry not just at their bosses, but also at the unions and wanted to disrupt the unions. all of this happens in 1968, in the middle of the greatest prosperity that capitalism has ever seen. and in the middle of rising standards of living if you just measure them through wages. even at that moment, this theory was blown to bits. but now let's look what's happened in the past 30 years. the notion. that the white working class has been living high on the hog or has been having this incredibly lavish lifestyle. since the 1980s is for the left to advance such ideas is disgraceful. not only have standards of living been stagnating not only has the workplace conditions been getting worse. not only has there been more and more speed up, for the first time. in a century, the white working class in the united states has found its life expectancy shortening. for the first time, with all the medical advances, with all this glorious, somehow, this supposed increase in standard of living, they are dying faster than they did 10 years ago. they're in the middle of an opioid crisis where they are the level of death in this country from opium overdoses, from drug overdoses and there's a reason why Angus Deaton calls it deaths of despair. it's coming from, on the one hand, a steady deterioration in their standards of living, and on the other, a conviction that nobody cares. nobody gives a shit. the political parties don't care, the intelligentsia doesn't care, the media doesn't care. in fact, they're told if we you're white and you're poor, you must be the biggest loser in the world because all of the imperial profits in the world come to you and you're still poor. it's all your fault. this is the reality that they face. and this is what i think finally the left is, you're right, there are a lot of sections of the left that still prefer a dark-skinned person in a hula dress as their universal subject. they still prefer that because it's exotic. but finally, there is, i think, in the united states and in some parts of europe, a realization that white people can also be exploited. and that the struggle for justice isn't a tribal struggle between different colored people. it's a struggle between classes. and there's multicolored people on top and multicolored ones on the bottom. this is coming around. but this view that you described accurately is repellent. this notion that the entire, the majority of the western european population can be written off. because they don't abide by some mistaken picture that the left has in its head. that left does more damage.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
i wanted to ask like, you know, sort of along these lines, vivek, what you're saying is, you know, your book, i think, does a really good job at giving sort of the negative case of why, especially when we're thinking about working people's organizing, there are so many obstacles that are bound up with the class structure itself that, you know, we can think very, it doesn't require a big, as slai also said, a big, complex ideological theory, a big complex psychological theory. i'm curious, though, about, you know, i mean, it's interesting to write this kind of book at this time, say in the united states context, because there are some like genuinely crazy things that people seem to believe, like, for instance, that the 2020 election was stolen or and and there is, you know, around figures like an intense seeming adherence to personalities on the right, eta, that relatively neglected, exploited people like some of the people you're describing are often beholden to. and obviously there's a long history of thinking about you know, ideology as helping to explain kind of the seeming irrationalism in the history of ideology, theory of ideology about racism and then you know today in thinking about why do people believe, you know, some people believe vaccines have chips in them or whatever. so i'm just curious like what you think about
i wanted to ask like, you know, sort of along these lines, vivek, what you're saying is, you know, your book, i think, does a really good job at giving sort of the negative case of why, especially when we're thinking about working people's organizing, there are so many obstacles that are bound up with the class structure itself that, you know, we can think very, it doesn't require a big, as slai also said, a big, complex ideological theory, a big complex psychological theory. i'm curious, though, about, you know, i mean, it's interesting to write this kind of book at this time, say in the united states context, because there are some like genuinely crazy things that people seem to believe, like, for instance, that the 2020 election was stolen or and and there is, you know, around figures like an intense seeming adherence to personalities on the right, eta, that relatively neglected, exploited people like some of the people you're describing are often beholden to. and obviously there's a long history of thinking about you know, ideology as helping to explain kind of the seeming irrationalism in the history of ideology, theory of ideology about racism and then you know today in thinking about why do people believe, you know, some people believe vaccines have chips in them or whatever. so i'm just curious like what you think about
Vivek Chibber
but the view that i hold is not that ideology does not exist or that people don't misunderstand things about the world or they're not misinformed. the view that i hold is quite simple. which is that the more you ask questions about people's immediate experiences. the less they're going to be fooled by ideology. so for socialists, the first order of business was always organizing workers against their bosses, organizing workers at the workplace around their interests. now, on those issues, what are my basic interests with regard to my job conditions, my wages, the speed of work? what i need outside the workplace, i need as a working person. on those issues, you should expect workers aren't fooled. they have a pretty good understanding of what their interests are. but the more you move outside their direct experience. and ask them their judgments about matters for which they need access not to their direct experience, phenomenological experience, but to information. so an example. economic policy. if you ask a worker, what are your basic needs, your economic needs? they're going to be pretty accurate in what they tell you. pretty accurate as in you have no reason to misjudge what they're saying. because they experience it every day. they know that if i don't have a good enough wage, i can't buy food. they know that if i don't have some sort of limit to the working day, i'm working myself to death. they know that if i don't have some sort of child, we have very difficult decisions in our family about who's going to stay at home. and take care of the child. they know these things. they will have a pretty good understanding of it. now you ask them. what kinds of economic policies can and make it better on these very dimensions for you. what policies will help you hold on to your job? what policies will help you have rising, higher wages? what are they supposed to tell you? on that, they have no direct experience. they have to rely on the views of experts. now ask them, what kinds of policies, what do you think went down in this election? do you think it was a fair election? were the votes counted fairly? they don't know. for these sorts of things, the last two, policies, what happened in election, they have to rely on information that other parties are giving them. that information can be manipulated. now, in the united states, why do so many... working class people believe that the election was stolen when it clearly was not. i think it's not that hard to understand. first of all, they believe the system is rigged top to bottom. they believe everybody on both sides of the political spectrum is corrupt in the political establishment. they also believe that nothing is beyond these people. they believe that if they can, they'll take everything away from me because they've been taking it away for the last 40 years. and they also understand that they are powerless to stop it. they're completely cynical about the system. they believe it's been captured by the elites. they believe the elites will do anything to hold on to it. and now, along comes trump, somebody who they believe is contemptuous, which he is. of the system because he's a sociopath. and they, he says to them, look, this party stole, and why would they believe trump? two reasons. the party's been screwing them over for 40 years. the party's candidates openly tell them. that there's nothing we can do when clinton and his... hill bill and hillary clinton passed nafta and in the aftermath of nafta. when people's lives were devastated, what did the democratic party tell them? free trade, man. free trade is like the laws of gravity. there's nothing you can do. you lost your job? tough shit. suck it up. go find a better job. this is their party telling them this. now... they're told that that same party has stolen the election. there is a chunk of them that will believe it because they're utterly cynical about the system. and what did i say in my book? for the working class, when it finds that it has no power. in its class position, its go-to ideology, its natural ideology is cynicism. and a belief that the entire system is corrupt because in fact, that's how you rationalize what's happening to you. now when you're already disposed to believing that the system is corrupt, of course, they're easy to manipulate on matters that you don't directly experience every day. because you're dependent on information. i don't think it's a mystery at all, to be honest. i really don't. i think it's astounding that the left thinks... that theories of false consciousness are to be tested in the electoral arena. elections are the most complicated thing on earth. it's a very... complex mix of emotions, rationality, and teasing all those things out is extremely difficult. the place you go if you really want to see if people are cognitively deficient, if they don't understand themselves, is't matters that they directly experience every day. and on those matters, you ask, for 40 years, americans have been asked, what's the most important thing for you in your life? they always give the same answer, economic issues. it's always the same answer, economic issues. now they're asked, what should we do about them? and then they're all over the place because at that moment they reach for information. external information and they have no source. there are every single avenue of information in america is a bourgeois institution. every single one. what do you expect these people,? they you supposed to spontaneously have a... trade policy spontaneously have political this is just nonsense. it's from an intelligentsia that despises the poor. you hold your standards up high and you go, if you don't meet these standards, you're... irrational. yeah, false. it's just nonsense.
but the view that i hold is not that ideology does not exist or that people don't misunderstand things about the world or they're not misinformed. the view that i hold is quite simple. which is that the more you ask questions about people's immediate experiences. the less they're going to be fooled by ideology. so for socialists, the first order of business was always organizing workers against their bosses, organizing workers at the workplace around their interests. now, on those issues, what are my basic interests with regard to my job conditions, my wages, the speed of work? what i need outside the workplace, i need as a working person. on those issues, you should expect workers aren't fooled. they have a pretty good understanding of what their interests are. but the more you move outside their direct experience. and ask them their judgments about matters for which they need access not to their direct experience, phenomenological experience, but to information. so an example. economic policy. if you ask a worker, what are your basic needs, your economic needs? they're going to be pretty accurate in what they tell you. pretty accurate as in you have no reason to misjudge what they're saying. because they experience it every day. they know that if i don't have a good enough wage, i can't buy food. they know that if i don't have some sort of limit to the working day, i'm working myself to death. they know that if i don't have some sort of child, we have very difficult decisions in our family about who's going to stay at home. and take care of the child. they know these things. they will have a pretty good understanding of it. now you ask them. what kinds of economic policies can and make it better on these very dimensions for you. what policies will help you hold on to your job? what policies will help you have rising, higher wages? what are they supposed to tell you? on that, they have no direct experience. they have to rely on the views of experts. now ask them, what kinds of policies, what do you think went down in this election? do you think it was a fair election? were the votes counted fairly? they don't know. for these sorts of things, the last two, policies, what happened in election, they have to rely on information that other parties are giving them. that information can be manipulated. now, in the united states, why do so many... working class people believe that the election was stolen when it clearly was not. i think it's not that hard to understand. first of all, they believe the system is rigged top to bottom. they believe everybody on both sides of the political spectrum is corrupt in the political establishment. they also believe that nothing is beyond these people. they believe that if they can, they'll take everything away from me because they've been taking it away for the last 40 years. and they also understand that they are powerless to stop it. they're completely cynical about the system. they believe it's been captured by the elites. they believe the elites will do anything to hold on to it. and now, along comes trump, somebody who they believe is contemptuous, which he is. of the system because he's a sociopath. and they, he says to them, look, this party stole, and why would they believe trump? two reasons. the party's been screwing them over for 40 years. the party's candidates openly tell them. that there's nothing we can do when clinton and his... hill bill and hillary clinton passed nafta and in the aftermath of nafta. when people's lives were devastated, what did the democratic party tell them? free trade, man. free trade is like the laws of gravity. there's nothing you can do. you lost your job? tough shit. suck it up. go find a better job. this is their party telling them this. now... they're told that that same party has stolen the election. there is a chunk of them that will believe it because they're utterly cynical about the system. and what did i say in my book? for the working class, when it finds that it has no power. in its class position, its go-to ideology, its natural ideology is cynicism. and a belief that the entire system is corrupt because in fact, that's how you rationalize what's happening to you. now when you're already disposed to believing that the system is corrupt, of course, they're easy to manipulate on matters that you don't directly experience every day. because you're dependent on information. i don't think it's a mystery at all, to be honest. i really don't. i think it's astounding that the left thinks... that theories of false consciousness are to be tested in the electoral arena. elections are the most complicated thing on earth. it's a very... complex mix of emotions, rationality, and teasing all those things out is extremely difficult. the place you go if you really want to see if people are cognitively deficient, if they don't understand themselves, is't matters that they directly experience every day. and on those matters, you ask, for 40 years, americans have been asked, what's the most important thing for you in your life? they always give the same answer, economic issues. it's always the same answer, economic issues. now they're asked, what should we do about them? and then they're all over the place because at that moment they reach for information. external information and they have no source. there are every single avenue of information in america is a bourgeois institution. every single one. what do you expect these people,? they you supposed to spontaneously have a... trade policy spontaneously have political this is just nonsense. it's from an intelligentsia that despises the poor. you hold your standards up high and you go, if you don't meet these standards, you're... irrational. yeah, false. it's just nonsense.
Slavoj Žižek
i cannot agree. more than i do with you, vivek. why? let me first just a couple of short, i hope short notes. first, 68. did you notice? i noticed because i'm old enough, blah blah, i was there. how some commentators put this nicely. the way we remember today 60s is basically not 60s but 70s. because when the system stabilized itself, all the social components in france, you remember the highest moment students joining striking workers from renault factory and so on. all that disappears and 60s remain orgyies, sexual freedom, free use of drugs and so on and so on. it's incredible how we... falsely reinvented the 60s. next point, i think it's very important, vivek, what you mentioned. it's not just... it's not just quantitatively determined standard of living how much you earn. it's. one factor which concerns very much daily experience, which is, as you pointed out, this intensity, hyperactivity, and so on and so on. and would you agree? that's my question to you, vivek. would you agree about two points? first, that. one, paradoxically, of the reasons of the stability of the system. it's precisely it's hyperactivity. it's not that you don't do anything. you have to survive today. you have to be hyperactive all the time. and precisely this hyperactivity doesn't... give you not even a chance to withdraw but more important now i come to my topic hey. it's crucial what you said about this. people don't believe it, cynical distance and so on. would you agree or am i going a little bit too far? but i tend to believe myself here that cynicism today it is not a failure of ideology, it's the most popular, almost common everyday ideology. and as such, i don't think it really bothers the system. it's almost, i would say, in the interest of the capitalist system that people don't take seriously. how to get politically organized and so on. what the regime prefers is something like politics always gets corrupted, you will always be screwed up, just stick to your private interests. so we have this paradox that. maybe the predominant mode of, i still call it ideology, is this cynical distance towards every. pink.
i cannot agree. more than i do with you, vivek. why? let me first just a couple of short, i hope short notes. first, 68. did you notice? i noticed because i'm old enough, blah blah, i was there. how some commentators put this nicely. the way we remember today 60s is basically not 60s but 70s. because when the system stabilized itself, all the social components in france, you remember the highest moment students joining striking workers from renault factory and so on. all that disappears and 60s remain orgyies, sexual freedom, free use of drugs and so on and so on. it's incredible how we... falsely reinvented the 60s. next point, i think it's very important, vivek, what you mentioned. it's not just... it's not just quantitatively determined standard of living how much you earn. it's. one factor which concerns very much daily experience, which is, as you pointed out, this intensity, hyperactivity, and so on and so on. and would you agree? that's my question to you, vivek. would you agree about two points? first, that. one, paradoxically, of the reasons of the stability of the system. it's precisely it's hyperactivity. it's not that you don't do anything. you have to survive today. you have to be hyperactive all the time. and precisely this hyperactivity doesn't... give you not even a chance to withdraw but more important now i come to my topic hey. it's crucial what you said about this. people don't believe it, cynical distance and so on. would you agree or am i going a little bit too far? but i tend to believe myself here that cynicism today it is not a failure of ideology, it's the most popular, almost common everyday ideology. and as such, i don't think it really bothers the system. it's almost, i would say, in the interest of the capitalist system that people don't take seriously. how to get politically organized and so on. what the regime prefers is something like politics always gets corrupted, you will always be screwed up, just stick to your private interests. so we have this paradox that. maybe the predominant mode of, i still call it ideology, is this cynical distance towards every. pink.
Vivek Chibber
so let me take up both points.. i very much agree with both of them. and let me... rephrase what you've said. as regards the first point, what you call hyperactivity. i think this is a... absolutely natural and pervasive consequence of neoliberalism. now by this hyperactivity, what are we really talking about? what we're talking about is... in the last 40 years, all of the protective institutions that the working class had built up from the 19-te. trade unions, social safety nets, medical care, childcare, neighborhood associations, social gatherings of any kind. have all been torn apart. productivity has been stagnant, wages have been stagnant. precararity has become now pervasive. so what do workers do? they are constantly on the treadmill trying somehow to survive. the hyperactivity, slavoy, that you're talking about. is the hyperactivity of somebody trying not to sink. when they had been thrown in the water. they're just working their asses off. they're terrified. they don't know what old age is going to bring them. they don't know what will happen if they fall sick. the biggest cause of bankruptcies in the united states today is when somebody falls sick. how barbaric is a system? where if you fall ill, you lose everything you have. so the hyperactivity is a material hyperactivity when you shut off everything else in your universe and you just look at getting through the day. and there is no better way of stabilizing the system. than to turn people into hamsters who are just on this roller thing, constantly working, constantly just trying to stay alive. your second point about cynicism flows directly from this. the cynicism, you're 100% right. you can call it ideology, and i do. it's a rationalization. but what is cynicism really? cynicism is the belief that nothing can be changed. now, it is a natural and accurate understanding of the reality around them when they are atomized, when they don't have political parties, when they don't have institutions, of course they'll become cynical because it's the only way they can make sense of the lives that they're living. when they have no choice in any important decision in their lives, the natural response to say is this is just a fact of nature and i will never be able to change it. now, your point was, doesn't this serve the ruling class? of course. because when you're cynical, what's your natural next step? is to opt out. is to give up. is to not try to change anything. no, chomsky said this a very long time ago. he said, the genius of the american system is this. it doesn't try to take away your rights. it just makes it not only impossible, but also to you it seems pointless to try to exercise those rights. you don't need authoritarianism in america. half the population already doesn't vote. you don't need to make people. scared of changing something because they already believe they can't change anything. that is a natural response to cynicism and it is astounding to see self-styled progressive and liberals now come and heap shit on these people. because they're cynical about the system, because they're not organizing, because they'll be easily manipulated, because they feel that the election is stolen. election is stolen. trump didn't invent this, hillary clinton did. for four years, he said, she won the election, but the russians stole it. four years. and it's supposed to be trump who is the stolen election dude. both parties are doing this. both parties are slowly encroaching on the democratic space. and as long as the left continues to heap opprobrium, and... criticism towards the majority of the population because they're too white, too male, too hetero, this and that or the other. it just tells you it's not a left. it is a section of the middle class that has found a way to express its contempt for working people, contempt for the working class, either through writing them off, or through the exoticism. why are they exotic? i'll tell you why. because you can't go to bolivia and organize these indigenous. you could just watch movies about them and talk about it. so look at your life. you are now a revolutionary socialist who has written off the working class and who thinks the revolutionary agent is somebody who you'll never actually be able to see in your life. what's the result? very convenient. i never have to do anything. i can simply watch black and white documentaries about the sexual morres of bolivian peasants. and talk shit about the working class as being white supremacist. that's your left. i mean, i totally.
so let me take up both points.. i very much agree with both of them. and let me... rephrase what you've said. as regards the first point, what you call hyperactivity. i think this is a... absolutely natural and pervasive consequence of neoliberalism. now by this hyperactivity, what are we really talking about? what we're talking about is... in the last 40 years, all of the protective institutions that the working class had built up from the 19-te. trade unions, social safety nets, medical care, childcare, neighborhood associations, social gatherings of any kind. have all been torn apart. productivity has been stagnant, wages have been stagnant. precararity has become now pervasive. so what do workers do? they are constantly on the treadmill trying somehow to survive. the hyperactivity, slavoy, that you're talking about. is the hyperactivity of somebody trying not to sink. when they had been thrown in the water. they're just working their asses off. they're terrified. they don't know what old age is going to bring them. they don't know what will happen if they fall sick. the biggest cause of bankruptcies in the united states today is when somebody falls sick. how barbaric is a system? where if you fall ill, you lose everything you have. so the hyperactivity is a material hyperactivity when you shut off everything else in your universe and you just look at getting through the day. and there is no better way of stabilizing the system. than to turn people into hamsters who are just on this roller thing, constantly working, constantly just trying to stay alive. your second point about cynicism flows directly from this. the cynicism, you're 100% right. you can call it ideology, and i do. it's a rationalization. but what is cynicism really? cynicism is the belief that nothing can be changed. now, it is a natural and accurate understanding of the reality around them when they are atomized, when they don't have political parties, when they don't have institutions, of course they'll become cynical because it's the only way they can make sense of the lives that they're living. when they have no choice in any important decision in their lives, the natural response to say is this is just a fact of nature and i will never be able to change it. now, your point was, doesn't this serve the ruling class? of course. because when you're cynical, what's your natural next step? is to opt out. is to give up. is to not try to change anything. no, chomsky said this a very long time ago. he said, the genius of the american system is this. it doesn't try to take away your rights. it just makes it not only impossible, but also to you it seems pointless to try to exercise those rights. you don't need authoritarianism in america. half the population already doesn't vote. you don't need to make people. scared of changing something because they already believe they can't change anything. that is a natural response to cynicism and it is astounding to see self-styled progressive and liberals now come and heap shit on these people. because they're cynical about the system, because they're not organizing, because they'll be easily manipulated, because they feel that the election is stolen. election is stolen. trump didn't invent this, hillary clinton did. for four years, he said, she won the election, but the russians stole it. four years. and it's supposed to be trump who is the stolen election dude. both parties are doing this. both parties are slowly encroaching on the democratic space. and as long as the left continues to heap opprobrium, and... criticism towards the majority of the population because they're too white, too male, too hetero, this and that or the other. it just tells you it's not a left. it is a section of the middle class that has found a way to express its contempt for working people, contempt for the working class, either through writing them off, or through the exoticism. why are they exotic? i'll tell you why. because you can't go to bolivia and organize these indigenous. you could just watch movies about them and talk about it. so look at your life. you are now a revolutionary socialist who has written off the working class and who thinks the revolutionary agent is somebody who you'll never actually be able to see in your life. what's the result? very convenient. i never have to do anything. i can simply watch black and white documentaries about the sexual morres of bolivian peasants. and talk shit about the working class as being white supremacist. that's your left. i mean, i totally.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
i.
i.
Vivek Chibber
but.
but.
Slavoj Žižek
please please.
please please.
Vivek Chibber
please.
please.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
so one other question, i think like. i think that is right and i think there's you know, a kind of call in this book to organize for the left to think of themselves as organizers rather than as sort of contemplative outsiders looking at the irrationality of the social scene and sort of being, you know, whatever, eating your popcorn while the world collapses. i think one question i have, i guess for both of you really, because, you know, slavoy, you're, in many ways, i think you're of like your life's work is like ideology critique. and so i'm wondering, you know, the call for leftists to take organizing seriously, to think about interests, is there a place, what place does ideology critique have in that? is there a future for ideology critique and also for the more kind of constructive project of ideology, sort of socialist ideology construction that vivek, you point to? i'm curious about both of your thoughts. on that.
so one other question, i think like. i think that is right and i think there's you know, a kind of call in this book to organize for the left to think of themselves as organizers rather than as sort of contemplative outsiders looking at the irrationality of the social scene and sort of being, you know, whatever, eating your popcorn while the world collapses. i think one question i have, i guess for both of you really, because, you know, slavoy, you're, in many ways, i think you're of like your life's work is like ideology critique. and so i'm wondering, you know, the call for leftists to take organizing seriously, to think about interests, is there a place, what place does ideology critique have in that? is there a future for ideology critique and also for the more kind of constructive project of ideology, sort of socialist ideology construction that vivek, you point to? i'm curious about both of your thoughts. on that.
Slavoj Žižek
let me very. please, vivek,, if you want to go on.
let me very. please, vivek,, if you want to go on.
Vivek Chibber
i think there this ideology critique is in fact central. for the left, even though i think that the world runs on material interests. how is it central? well, there are two ways, one obvious and one perhaps not so obvious, to today's left. one way in which it's central is that even though workers make their choices based on material considerations, they rationalize those choices through an ideological apparatus. and oftentimes when you encounter workers, you will find them steeped in what you regard to be ideology. because they have to live with their lives. some of that ideology will be h harmless cynicism. some of it will be quite pernicious. so for example, the racism that one sees in a lot of american workers is a way of dealing with their own insecurity. there's this ridiculous concept that left academics like to work with called racial resentment. which means that white workers are angry and they're racist because they resent the fact that blacks have better lives. which is... really absurd. and someday in catalyst we need to have an article on this because the very same data that seems to show racial resentment is actually showing racial anxiety and that's two very different things. it's one thing to be anxious about your jobs and not want a mexican to take it over. it's quite another to say, why does this mexican lead a decent life? i resent him for doing so. resentment is a wrong term. but you will find racism, you will find a lot of misogyny. and you have to now try to get workers to come out of it. they will not come out of it if you simply wag your finger at them. they will come out of it if you talk to them about why they hold these notions and if you explain to them everything they have to gain. by ditching those notions. so you get out of ideology. through organizing around people's material interests, not by shaming them, not by dismissing them. you encounter workers typically in some way or form steeped in ideology. so all organizing starts as ideological critique. the point of my book is that ideological critique cannot work unless it's anchored in an understanding of people's actual interests. and they'll tell you what those interests are. you don't have to go tell them. they already understand them. that's point number one. point number two is this. a lot of the work of ideological critique has to do with undoing the damage of the intelligentsia. the problem, if you really want to find ideology, don't look to workers, look to intellectuals. nobody believes bullshit ideology and bullshit ideas more than intellectuals do. so some of what we're doing on the left today, why do i write a book like the class matrix? it's no worker is going to read it. very few are. it's designed to show that the real problem right now is the left intellectuals. and the garbage theories that they've been propagating. so much, you look at the organization you're in, jeremy, the dsa, it's filled with garbage. it's filled with virtue signaling. it's filled with notions this pandering to identity politics, all of which is middle class politics. a lot of what the work inside political organizations right now has to be ideological critique, not of workers, but of the middle class that claims to be on the left. much of what marx did, what was the capitalist a critique of political economy? he is not only trying to develop political economy, he's also critiquing political economy that he has received. from the classical tradition as being steeped in ideology. so we do ideology critique in two ways. one is as organizers, you critique the everyday spontaneous ideological rationalizations that workers have. that's the easy part. the harder part, is if you're circulating among intellectuals. to try to get parts of the intelligentsia. to see the ideology in their work and in their colleagues' work. because unlike workers who have a material interest, in ditching. nonsensical notions. intellectuals do not. today's intelligentsia has a material interest in propagating bullshit. that's the heart. now, why should you do that? because the fact is a lot of the left today is in middle class circles, in universities, in academia, and you're going those who are well-intentioned, those who want to do good. are misled by what we would call. ideology, which is these forms of liberal identitarianism, virtue signaling, genuflecting in various ways, and one has to try to equip them with a better understanding of capitalism and hopefully motivate them to do real politics and not this symbolic cosplay politics that so much of the left does. that's all i have to say.
i think there this ideology critique is in fact central. for the left, even though i think that the world runs on material interests. how is it central? well, there are two ways, one obvious and one perhaps not so obvious, to today's left. one way in which it's central is that even though workers make their choices based on material considerations, they rationalize those choices through an ideological apparatus. and oftentimes when you encounter workers, you will find them steeped in what you regard to be ideology. because they have to live with their lives. some of that ideology will be h harmless cynicism. some of it will be quite pernicious. so for example, the racism that one sees in a lot of american workers is a way of dealing with their own insecurity. there's this ridiculous concept that left academics like to work with called racial resentment. which means that white workers are angry and they're racist because they resent the fact that blacks have better lives. which is... really absurd. and someday in catalyst we need to have an article on this because the very same data that seems to show racial resentment is actually showing racial anxiety and that's two very different things. it's one thing to be anxious about your jobs and not want a mexican to take it over. it's quite another to say, why does this mexican lead a decent life? i resent him for doing so. resentment is a wrong term. but you will find racism, you will find a lot of misogyny. and you have to now try to get workers to come out of it. they will not come out of it if you simply wag your finger at them. they will come out of it if you talk to them about why they hold these notions and if you explain to them everything they have to gain. by ditching those notions. so you get out of ideology. through organizing around people's material interests, not by shaming them, not by dismissing them. you encounter workers typically in some way or form steeped in ideology. so all organizing starts as ideological critique. the point of my book is that ideological critique cannot work unless it's anchored in an understanding of people's actual interests. and they'll tell you what those interests are. you don't have to go tell them. they already understand them. that's point number one. point number two is this. a lot of the work of ideological critique has to do with undoing the damage of the intelligentsia. the problem, if you really want to find ideology, don't look to workers, look to intellectuals. nobody believes bullshit ideology and bullshit ideas more than intellectuals do. so some of what we're doing on the left today, why do i write a book like the class matrix? it's no worker is going to read it. very few are. it's designed to show that the real problem right now is the left intellectuals. and the garbage theories that they've been propagating. so much, you look at the organization you're in, jeremy, the dsa, it's filled with garbage. it's filled with virtue signaling. it's filled with notions this pandering to identity politics, all of which is middle class politics. a lot of what the work inside political organizations right now has to be ideological critique, not of workers, but of the middle class that claims to be on the left. much of what marx did, what was the capitalist a critique of political economy? he is not only trying to develop political economy, he's also critiquing political economy that he has received. from the classical tradition as being steeped in ideology. so we do ideology critique in two ways. one is as organizers, you critique the everyday spontaneous ideological rationalizations that workers have. that's the easy part. the harder part, is if you're circulating among intellectuals. to try to get parts of the intelligentsia. to see the ideology in their work and in their colleagues' work. because unlike workers who have a material interest, in ditching. nonsensical notions. intellectuals do not. today's intelligentsia has a material interest in propagating bullshit. that's the heart. now, why should you do that? because the fact is a lot of the left today is in middle class circles, in universities, in academia, and you're going those who are well-intentioned, those who want to do good. are misled by what we would call. ideology, which is these forms of liberal identitarianism, virtue signaling, genuflecting in various ways, and one has to try to equip them with a better understanding of capitalism and hopefully motivate them to do real politics and not this symbolic cosplay politics that so much of the left does. that's all i have to say.
Slavoj Žižek
i just want to add something because again, something is missing here. at the end somebody should pull out a knife because we are just agreeing with each other. i like this. one point. i see not a hope. it's a very dangerous phenomenon, but we should build on it. maybe this is more typically european. i followed through my friend and so on. something specific about, and they are not always the good guys, this new type of social protests in western europe. like gilets jaunes yellow vests in france, podemos in spain and so on. this is... discontent, but which is not, so it's not cynicism, passivity. they want to do something. but it's obvious that they cannot articulate themselves in the existing options of the political space. the moment podemos did this, they are out. a very modest social democratic very modest social democratic party. and that's one argument often listed that i like to mention again and again how, you know, when in america they were saying bernie sanders's crazy socialist. if you compare bernie sanders' most radical statements by let us say swedish, i don't idealize them, but around the swedish social democracy program in the 60s. they are ultra, more radical and so on. but the point i want to make is that. d! movement with yellow shirts protesting in france, it's even more ambiguous. cannot clearly identify them. i mean, you have even elements of anti-immigrant racism but it is a genuine discontent. which cannot be translated into existing political space. you know where i experienced this at its purest once in the middle of. or towards the end of tony blair's reign in the uk, i was in london and i watched a week before elections, general elections, some big popular tens of thousands of people participating opinion polls. who is? the most hated person in the uk. tony blair won. a week later there were elections, tony blair won. so obviously... there is some discontent here very. dangerous one which may be. gives some hope. the second thing about cynicism of this. pseudo-radical liberal middle class left. you know what is, now i will not go into theory, but a very personal experience. that's why i hate that. a friend asked me, are you against death penalty? my answer was, yes, i am, but after we shoot some of the people who deserve it, and among them the aesthetes, these great art biennales. they are art at its purest. totally immersed into capitalism. but their ideology, their introduction, it has to be anti-eurocentric. they even include awareness of it. how? we know we are totally manipulated by, but as such, they fit. perfectly. inquiry. so i totally agree with you. yes, stalin is purish, sorry, not literally. and next, my final point. where would you agree or not? but i... not that i try to save traditional critique of ideology, but you know. the part which i often emphasize and i would really like to conclude your possible critical opinion. that what i find so fascinating in Marx is that in Capital. well he, where he? earth. analyze this, not ideology in the abstract sense, but actual life experience, ideas, presuppositions which are part of material reality. he speaks about things like commodity fetishism, which interestingly enough, he doesn't dare to call, he never calls it ideology. right it is an illusion. which is not ideology in the sense that elaborated by professors, priests, whatever. it's part of your daily experience. and i think we should even with when ordinary people, and by this i mean us also, when we are confused. don't think ideology in the sense of all the books behind. think about illusions that you follow in your daily life, even if you. in your full awareness would say of course i don't believe it. if you allow me to conclude with the joke which is my favorite joke on ideology today which i used i would say about 40 50 times in my work but it's perfect. Niels Bohr, the great guy, copenhagen. you know the story you must know it. he was visited by a friend in his country house where he saw a horseshoe above the entrance to the house. and the friend, another scientist, asked him, but. you are a scientist, this is superstition. in europe, this means a horseshoe above the entrance prevents the entrance, prevents evil spirits to enter the house. and Niels Bohr gave a perfect answer. he says, of course i'm a scientist, i don't believe in it. but i have it there because i was told that it works even if you don't believe in it. that's how cynicism today works. you don't have to believe in it. look, that would be my lesson 2. ordinary people among whom i include myself, especially university professors, workers and so on. isn't it that often my last question to you, vivek. i found a passage in, otherwise he's often too liberal for me, but nonetheless, a nice one in george orwell, the early orwell, for 37, when he noticed at that point already that many progressive intellectuals, they see injustice in the world, they protest against it. but that if you look closely at it, they are hyperactive. but you can feel like, let's talk all the time about change. to make sure that nothing will really change. you know, that's the horror that i feel with many today's critical theory intellectuals. they talk about change. but the moment change comes close, they withdraw. and there is another thing which i especially hate. pseudo-opportununist radicalism. whenever there is a chance of maybe a small change, like bernie sanders, i don't idealize him. but you know... i have many disagreements with aoc, the beautiful one, but she said something wonderful when bernie was attacked by some feminists. he said, in your spirit, vivek, i think. she said, he is so precious to us precisely because he is an old white man. such people can also be for us. and okay, some of my radical friends said, no, he's just an old social democrat. this is not yet the true revolution and so on and so on. i i almost absolutely hate today even more than cynicism which is as you pointed out be back our everyday experience understandable is. this how should i call it uh principled opportunism. you wait for some true authentic revolution, which means whenever some movement really begins, you say, oh, this is still in bourgeois limits, it means nothing and so on and so on. that's what really horrifies me.
i just want to add something because again, something is missing here. at the end somebody should pull out a knife because we are just agreeing with each other. i like this. one point. i see not a hope. it's a very dangerous phenomenon, but we should build on it. maybe this is more typically european. i followed through my friend and so on. something specific about, and they are not always the good guys, this new type of social protests in western europe. like gilets jaunes yellow vests in france, podemos in spain and so on. this is... discontent, but which is not, so it's not cynicism, passivity. they want to do something. but it's obvious that they cannot articulate themselves in the existing options of the political space. the moment podemos did this, they are out. a very modest social democratic very modest social democratic party. and that's one argument often listed that i like to mention again and again how, you know, when in america they were saying bernie sanders's crazy socialist. if you compare bernie sanders' most radical statements by let us say swedish, i don't idealize them, but around the swedish social democracy program in the 60s. they are ultra, more radical and so on. but the point i want to make is that. d! movement with yellow shirts protesting in france, it's even more ambiguous. cannot clearly identify them. i mean, you have even elements of anti-immigrant racism but it is a genuine discontent. which cannot be translated into existing political space. you know where i experienced this at its purest once in the middle of. or towards the end of tony blair's reign in the uk, i was in london and i watched a week before elections, general elections, some big popular tens of thousands of people participating opinion polls. who is? the most hated person in the uk. tony blair won. a week later there were elections, tony blair won. so obviously... there is some discontent here very. dangerous one which may be. gives some hope. the second thing about cynicism of this. pseudo-radical liberal middle class left. you know what is, now i will not go into theory, but a very personal experience. that's why i hate that. a friend asked me, are you against death penalty? my answer was, yes, i am, but after we shoot some of the people who deserve it, and among them the aesthetes, these great art biennales. they are art at its purest. totally immersed into capitalism. but their ideology, their introduction, it has to be anti-eurocentric. they even include awareness of it. how? we know we are totally manipulated by, but as such, they fit. perfectly. inquiry. so i totally agree with you. yes, stalin is purish, sorry, not literally. and next, my final point. where would you agree or not? but i... not that i try to save traditional critique of ideology, but you know. the part which i often emphasize and i would really like to conclude your possible critical opinion. that what i find so fascinating in Marx is that in Capital. well he, where he? earth. analyze this, not ideology in the abstract sense, but actual life experience, ideas, presuppositions which are part of material reality. he speaks about things like commodity fetishism, which interestingly enough, he doesn't dare to call, he never calls it ideology. right it is an illusion. which is not ideology in the sense that elaborated by professors, priests, whatever. it's part of your daily experience. and i think we should even with when ordinary people, and by this i mean us also, when we are confused. don't think ideology in the sense of all the books behind. think about illusions that you follow in your daily life, even if you. in your full awareness would say of course i don't believe it. if you allow me to conclude with the joke which is my favorite joke on ideology today which i used i would say about 40 50 times in my work but it's perfect. Niels Bohr, the great guy, copenhagen. you know the story you must know it. he was visited by a friend in his country house where he saw a horseshoe above the entrance to the house. and the friend, another scientist, asked him, but. you are a scientist, this is superstition. in europe, this means a horseshoe above the entrance prevents the entrance, prevents evil spirits to enter the house. and Niels Bohr gave a perfect answer. he says, of course i'm a scientist, i don't believe in it. but i have it there because i was told that it works even if you don't believe in it. that's how cynicism today works. you don't have to believe in it. look, that would be my lesson 2. ordinary people among whom i include myself, especially university professors, workers and so on. isn't it that often my last question to you, vivek. i found a passage in, otherwise he's often too liberal for me, but nonetheless, a nice one in george orwell, the early orwell, for 37, when he noticed at that point already that many progressive intellectuals, they see injustice in the world, they protest against it. but that if you look closely at it, they are hyperactive. but you can feel like, let's talk all the time about change. to make sure that nothing will really change. you know, that's the horror that i feel with many today's critical theory intellectuals. they talk about change. but the moment change comes close, they withdraw. and there is another thing which i especially hate. pseudo-opportununist radicalism. whenever there is a chance of maybe a small change, like bernie sanders, i don't idealize him. but you know... i have many disagreements with aoc, the beautiful one, but she said something wonderful when bernie was attacked by some feminists. he said, in your spirit, vivek, i think. she said, he is so precious to us precisely because he is an old white man. such people can also be for us. and okay, some of my radical friends said, no, he's just an old social democrat. this is not yet the true revolution and so on and so on. i i almost absolutely hate today even more than cynicism which is as you pointed out be back our everyday experience understandable is. this how should i call it uh principled opportunism. you wait for some true authentic revolution, which means whenever some movement really begins, you say, oh, this is still in bourgeois limits, it means nothing and so on and so on. that's what really horrifies me.
Vivek Chibber
yeah, let me pick up on a couple of points, slo boy, because i agreed with everything you said. we are both now talking about ideology critique. within the intelligentsia and within the middle class. that's what we're talking about. and what you find it in two different ways. one is their interests coming out. in the narrowing of what the ambitions are for social change. and fundamentally, this is narrowing it so that social change becomes upward mobility for the middle class. what we call identity politics today is not any longer anti-oppression politics. it's not changing the lives of working class black people or working class women. it is increasing the chances for mobility for black professionals, black politicians, black business people, and for women, exactly the same, women professionals, women politicians, etc. so... racism is now something that inhabits the top echelons. what it's astounding. here's bernie sanders talking about making community colleges free for everybody. but in new york city, the debates around education are about why there aren't more black students in the most selective high school in the city. in universities, the debate is why harvard, yale, princeton don't have a more diverse student body. not about why schools for black working class people are crumbling. so this so-called movement for racial justice is actually a movement for upward mobility of elites. within these sections of the population. that's counter to social change, but it in fact is simply a naked expression of class interests. now let's talk about the cynicism that you're talking about. the other way in which you see, so this is one way, i call it simply contempt for the poor. what today's identitarianism is a contempt. for working class black people and working class women by their own elites. it's just like nationalism has been throughout the history of the world. nationalism was always captured by elites and then turned into a program for their own upward advancement. now, let's look at this ultra-leftism. well, why is nothing good enough for you? if you're an ultra-leftist, because it absolves you of the responsibility of trying to do anything. you're still waiting. you're waiting for that perfect moment, that perfect movement, that perfect upheaval. and this is exactly what the exoticism is. why is the exoticism so appealing to so much of the western left? because it's a faraway land. it's all occurring someplace, somewhere that you'll never have to be, never have to go. and now you can commodify it, you can aestheticize it, you can talk about it all you want, but at no cost to yourself, no sacrifice to yourself. it's no surprise that a lot of this aestheticized, exoticized discourse is also incomprehensible. it's impenetrable. because when you're saying things, as you saw in my books, boy, the orientalism, when i'm my critique of post-colonial theory, why is post-colonial theory impossible to understand? it's because they're racist. is because they openly say dark people can't do math. brown people don't understand their interests. it'll sound a lot like 19th century colonialists. so they have to couch it. in an impenetrable language to give it the appearance of profundity whereas in fact it's garden variety racism. so we are in an intelligentsia right now. that not only has given up. on trying to change the lives of the vast majority. it never had any interest in it. the left, if it's going to come about again, will have to be a left that recaptures the spirit. of humility. sacrifice, clarity. and ambition. that it's not enough to open up some spaces for upward mobility. for minority elites. the project is about changing the lives of the vast majority, which means taking on those very elites that are trumpeting these tiny little edies right now of social progress, what they call social progress. i think we're only at the very earliest stages of that. i think the left from the days of lenin has basically died. and in its wake has left a great deal of quite destructive cultural, intellectual and political baggage. i think we are now going to have to rediscover as the left in the late 19th century did. that the way to social progress is through and with working people, not around them. and it's our responsibility to make ourselves relevant to them, not their responsibility to make themselves appealing to us.
yeah, let me pick up on a couple of points, slo boy, because i agreed with everything you said. we are both now talking about ideology critique. within the intelligentsia and within the middle class. that's what we're talking about. and what you find it in two different ways. one is their interests coming out. in the narrowing of what the ambitions are for social change. and fundamentally, this is narrowing it so that social change becomes upward mobility for the middle class. what we call identity politics today is not any longer anti-oppression politics. it's not changing the lives of working class black people or working class women. it is increasing the chances for mobility for black professionals, black politicians, black business people, and for women, exactly the same, women professionals, women politicians, etc. so... racism is now something that inhabits the top echelons. what it's astounding. here's bernie sanders talking about making community colleges free for everybody. but in new york city, the debates around education are about why there aren't more black students in the most selective high school in the city. in universities, the debate is why harvard, yale, princeton don't have a more diverse student body. not about why schools for black working class people are crumbling. so this so-called movement for racial justice is actually a movement for upward mobility of elites. within these sections of the population. that's counter to social change, but it in fact is simply a naked expression of class interests. now let's talk about the cynicism that you're talking about. the other way in which you see, so this is one way, i call it simply contempt for the poor. what today's identitarianism is a contempt. for working class black people and working class women by their own elites. it's just like nationalism has been throughout the history of the world. nationalism was always captured by elites and then turned into a program for their own upward advancement. now, let's look at this ultra-leftism. well, why is nothing good enough for you? if you're an ultra-leftist, because it absolves you of the responsibility of trying to do anything. you're still waiting. you're waiting for that perfect moment, that perfect movement, that perfect upheaval. and this is exactly what the exoticism is. why is the exoticism so appealing to so much of the western left? because it's a faraway land. it's all occurring someplace, somewhere that you'll never have to be, never have to go. and now you can commodify it, you can aestheticize it, you can talk about it all you want, but at no cost to yourself, no sacrifice to yourself. it's no surprise that a lot of this aestheticized, exoticized discourse is also incomprehensible. it's impenetrable. because when you're saying things, as you saw in my books, boy, the orientalism, when i'm my critique of post-colonial theory, why is post-colonial theory impossible to understand? it's because they're racist. is because they openly say dark people can't do math. brown people don't understand their interests. it'll sound a lot like 19th century colonialists. so they have to couch it. in an impenetrable language to give it the appearance of profundity whereas in fact it's garden variety racism. so we are in an intelligentsia right now. that not only has given up. on trying to change the lives of the vast majority. it never had any interest in it. the left, if it's going to come about again, will have to be a left that recaptures the spirit. of humility. sacrifice, clarity. and ambition. that it's not enough to open up some spaces for upward mobility. for minority elites. the project is about changing the lives of the vast majority, which means taking on those very elites that are trumpeting these tiny little edies right now of social progress, what they call social progress. i think we're only at the very earliest stages of that. i think the left from the days of lenin has basically died. and in its wake has left a great deal of quite destructive cultural, intellectual and political baggage. i think we are now going to have to rediscover as the left in the late 19th century did. that the way to social progress is through and with working people, not around them. and it's our responsibility to make ourselves relevant to them, not their responsibility to make themselves appealing to us.
Slavoj Žižek
can i add an important conclusion? sorry, just applied, but you, this was crucial for me when you said. yes! uh. error. everyday experience of ordinary people, but at a certain point. economic politics and so on they need experts and. what i liked so much. whenever and even through my obscenities, i can, it's easy for me to find link, i'm not patronizing them, i'm dirty them with the so-called ordinary people. but you know what i always respected? from them. they have all so-called, sorry to use the term, ordinary people. were immensely sensitive to. for high intellectuals to patronize them. in the way which appears egalitarian. i was told by terry eagleton that one big british historian that's the lesson for me. in the 70s, late 60s. wanted to do it was fashionable there. he went, i don't think it was Eric Hobsbawm maybe it was him, i'm not sure. he went to a big factory and gave a speech to workers and he began with this falsely solidary, egalitarian view. he said, i'm here to learn from you. i don't know anything more than you. and then something sublime happened. an ordinary worker interrupted him and told him, sorry, no, you are paid to know things that you cannot know. you are here to teach us. don't give us bullshit that you don't know more than us and so on and so on. you see, there is also this false solidarity of the left and vivek, maybe this is my own example that will maybe amuse you. another of my sublime experiences, i repeat it all the time story, was when i was decades ago in Missoula, Montana. and. i met some, how do you call them now officially, native americans. and then i met some actual native americans there. of course, through exchange of obscenities, we immediately became friends. and then... i use the term. indian and immediately there was a politically correct white liberal who interrupted me, no, this is racist, they're native americans. and you know what my, whatever you call it, native american indian friend did? i fell in love. with him. he said to the white liberal. first, please allow us to call ourselves the way we want. he said, i don't like to be called native american because, sorry, the opposite of nature is culture. what are you? cultural american. then he finished with something beautiful. maybe you know the joke and sorry. he said, i much prefer to be called indian because at least my name is then a sign of your white man's stupidity who thought you were inde when you came.
can i add an important conclusion? sorry, just applied, but you, this was crucial for me when you said. yes! uh. error. everyday experience of ordinary people, but at a certain point. economic politics and so on they need experts and. what i liked so much. whenever and even through my obscenities, i can, it's easy for me to find link, i'm not patronizing them, i'm dirty them with the so-called ordinary people. but you know what i always respected? from them. they have all so-called, sorry to use the term, ordinary people. were immensely sensitive to. for high intellectuals to patronize them. in the way which appears egalitarian. i was told by terry eagleton that one big british historian that's the lesson for me. in the 70s, late 60s. wanted to do it was fashionable there. he went, i don't think it was Eric Hobsbawm maybe it was him, i'm not sure. he went to a big factory and gave a speech to workers and he began with this falsely solidary, egalitarian view. he said, i'm here to learn from you. i don't know anything more than you. and then something sublime happened. an ordinary worker interrupted him and told him, sorry, no, you are paid to know things that you cannot know. you are here to teach us. don't give us bullshit that you don't know more than us and so on and so on. you see, there is also this false solidarity of the left and vivek, maybe this is my own example that will maybe amuse you. another of my sublime experiences, i repeat it all the time story, was when i was decades ago in Missoula, Montana. and. i met some, how do you call them now officially, native americans. and then i met some actual native americans there. of course, through exchange of obscenities, we immediately became friends. and then... i use the term. indian and immediately there was a politically correct white liberal who interrupted me, no, this is racist, they're native americans. and you know what my, whatever you call it, native american indian friend did? i fell in love. with him. he said to the white liberal. first, please allow us to call ourselves the way we want. he said, i don't like to be called native american because, sorry, the opposite of nature is culture. what are you? cultural american. then he finished with something beautiful. maybe you know the joke and sorry. he said, i much prefer to be called indian because at least my name is then a sign of your white man's stupidity who thought you were inde when you came.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
yeah.
yeah.
Slavoj Žižek
don ben. i admire this with my black friends, my native american, indian, whatever friends, how sensitive they are to the falsity of this white liberal, patronizing respect for their identity and so on.
don ben. i admire this with my black friends, my native american, indian, whatever friends, how sensitive they are to the falsity of this white liberal, patronizing respect for their identity and so on.
Vivek Chibber
absolutely. couldn't agree more.
absolutely. couldn't agree more.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
before we close, is there anything you two disagree about?
before we close, is there anything you two disagree about?
Slavoj Žižek
you know, it looks very bad when the two people are so close as we are, i think it looks very bad. i really enjoyed it so much. thanks very much and i hope it's not the last time.
you know, it looks very bad when the two people are so close as we are, i think it looks very bad. i really enjoyed it so much. thanks very much and i hope it's not the last time.
Vivek Chibber
i very much appreciate your taking the time, slavo.
i very much appreciate your taking the time, slavo.
Slavoj Žižek
i will try to make a jump over to to new york. if everything will not go wrong. who knows, maybe the universal money will already.
i will try to make a jump over to to new york. if everything will not go wrong. who knows, maybe the universal money will already.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
be rubles at that point.
be rubles at that point.
Slavoj Žižek
i will come there andu nyu washington square, that's my territory so.
i will come there andu nyu washington square, that's my territory so.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
we can meet.
we can meet.
Vivek Chibber
i
i
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
i look forward to thank you. thank you. really. thank you vivek, thank you to jjak. i love the rhyme. i forgot to mention, but i immediately noticed it. and you.
i look forward to thank you. thank you. really. thank you vivek, thank you to jjak. i love the rhyme. i forgot to mention, but i immediately noticed it. and you.
Slavoj Žižek
think reject. be back! it's not zec or what, so it rhymes even more than it may appear.
think reject. be back! it's not zec or what, so it rhymes even more than it may appear.
Jeremy (Jacobin host)
yeah. so thank you to you both. thanks to our audience for watching. please hit like, subscribe, and share the channel, jacobin channel, with your friends. and again, vivek, and see it, i can't even pronounce the names now. vivek and slavoy, thank you so much for being with us today. thank you all..
yeah. so thank you to you both. thanks to our audience for watching. please hit like, subscribe, and share the channel, jacobin channel, with your friends. and again, vivek, and see it, i can't even pronounce the names now. vivek and slavoy, thank you so much for being with us today. thank you all..
Slavoj Žižek
bye-bye.
bye-bye.