What is the Question?
Talk · zizekpodcast.com ·
2008-09-23 · 1:02:42 · 10,315 words
ideologycapitalismliberalism-political-correctnesscinema-art-culturegeopolitics-wardemocracyfascism-populismcommunism-socialismhegel-dialectics
Recorded around the time of the 2008 US financial crisis and presidential election, this interview-format talk has Žižek analyzing the Wall Street meltdown, the Republican-Democrat ideological landscape, and the Sarah Palin phenomenon. He argues that the crisis exposed the hollowness of anti-statist rhetoric and that both parties lack a genuine global alternative to capitalism. The talk ranges across Hollywood ideology (They Live, Wall Street, Batman, Kung Fu Panda, Fight Club), the state of the left, Russia and authoritarian capitalism, and ends with literary recommendations including Henry James's The Wings of the Dove.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 13
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
Žižek's reading of Republican populism as a performance, the true message to voters is 'let's pretend we have a revolt' while backroom operators do the real dirty work.
as “phallic feminine politician”
Žižek's term for the pre-Palin model of successful female politicians (Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir) who succeeded by presenting themselves as more masculine and tough than men.
Žižek invokes Kant's mathematical sublime to explain why a trillion-dollar bailout fails to register psychologically, the quantity is so vast it becomes irrepresentable and effectively meaningless to ordinary perception.
Žižek's label for the Democratic Party's structural failure: offering the same capitalist politics as Republicans but with a more humane face, never proposing a genuine global alternative.
Borrowed from Fredric Jameson, used here to name the general theoretical orientation, a sense of where we are and what to do, that Žižek says the contemporary left entirely lacks.
Operative in the discussion of presupposed belief: the symbolic order that is assumed to believe even when no individual does, keeping rituals and institutions functioning.
as “presupposed belief”
The structural condition in which nobody actually believes but everyone assumes someone else does, so the system of belief functions without any real believer, illustrated by Santa Claus and by democracy itself.
as “ruling ideology”
Used in a Marxist sense: the dominant interpretive framework that must represent the financial crisis as a contingent malfunction rather than a systemic flaw, in order to save the system.
as “silent ethical revolution”
The imperceptible drift by which previously unacceptable positions, torture as a topic of polite debate, neo-fascist parties in government, become normalized without anyone declaring a shift in standards.
as “Asian values capitalism”
Žižek's label for the authoritarian-capitalist model promoted under the banner of 'Asian values,' which he treats as a code phrase for capitalism that does not require liberal democratic governance.
Žižek's characterization of Russian capitalism as quick profiteering through natural-resource extraction rather than building productive capacity, contrasted unfavorably with the Chinese model.
Žižek's term for the rhetorical veneer, patriotism, Starbucks ethics, populist honesty, layered onto global capitalism to render it meaningful without altering its underlying logic.
Implicitly operative when Žižek discusses financial virtualization and the trillion-dollar edifice that appears firm but can suddenly melt down, the gap between abstract financial value and real economic substance.
Stories he reaches for 7
Niels Bohr was asked why he had a horseshoe above his country house door if he didn't believe in magic; he replied: 'I was told it works even if you don't believe in it.' Žižek uses this as the structure of cynical ideology, you can be totally disbelieving and still have the belief-object in place, performing its function.
“of course 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”
In John Carpenter's They Live, the hero finds sunglasses in an abandoned church; when he puts them on, billboards that appear as innocent ads reveal their true message: 'Don't think, consume, obey.' Žižek uses this to argue that looking at the Republican campaign with ideological demystification reveals a different, hidden message beneath the populist surface.
“the guy the hero of the film finds some strange sunglasses in an abandoned church puts them on and then you see reality”
Žižek presents the animated film Kung Fu Panda as a perfect diagnosis of contemporary ideology: it combines oriental mysticism with utter self-aware cynicism, mocking its own ideology throughout, yet the system of belief continues functioning. The audience can laugh at it and still act as if they believe.
“How to be totally naively ideological but at the same time utterly cynical. You can make fun of everything but the system of belief goes on functioning.”
Children believe in Santa Claus to reassure their parents; parents play along to reassure the children, but nobody really believes. The whole system of belief functions through the mutual presupposition that someone else believes.
“nobody really believes. Everybody just presupposes that somebody else believes. Nobody believes. But the whole system of belief functions.”
In pre-nationalist Yugoslavia, people from different republics exchanged dirty racist jokes about each other as a sign of genuine solidarity. When ethnic tensions exploded in the mid-1980s, these jokes disappeared, proving that politically incorrect mockery was a vehicle of real friendship, not hostility.
“Typically when ethnic tensions really started to explode these jokes disappeared.”
The Marx Brothers joke: 'This man looks like an idiot, acts like an idiot, but this should not deceive you, this man is an idiot.' Žižek applies it to Republicans: they talk and act as if they want mere performative change, but don't be fooled, they really mean it, and that is the danger.
“Republicans talk about change, act as if they want change, but this should not deceive you, they really will change things.”
In The Dark Knight, when the admired district attorney is revealed to be a murderer, Batman heroically takes the crimes upon himself so that the public's moral foundations are not shaken. Žižek reads this as ideology at its purest: the system requires a lie to sustain itself.
“this idea we need a lie to save the system. This is very dangerous message this need of a lie”
Works invoked 15
They Live film
Used repeatedly as an illustration of ideological demystification, sunglasses that reveal the hidden commands beneath the surface of ads and politics.
Fight Club film
Declared a progressive film; Žižek uses it to argue that the left should reclaim the fighting spirit, solidarity, community, discipline, rather than leaving it to the right.
Kung Fu Panda film
Called 'an incredible film' and 'a wonderful diagnosis of where we are': oriental mysticism combined with utter cynicism, exemplifying how contemporary ideology can mock itself and still function.
The Dark Knight film
Criticized (without having seen it) for its ideology: the humanizing of superhero psychology and, especially, its central message that 'we need a lie to save the system.'
The Pelican Brief film
Appears anti-capitalist but its underlying message is optimistic affirmation of American democracy, one honest journalist can bring down the corrupt President.
Grouped with Pelican Brief as a Hollywood liberal thriller that is superficially critical but structurally affirmative of the system.
Thomas Frank's book recommended as one of the few texts asking the right questions about how Republican ideology functions, why working-class voters support a party against their economic interests.
Wall Street film
Oliver Stone's film is criticized as an example of how progressive intent is undermined by form: all libidinal attraction goes to Gordon Gekko, making the film ideologically complicit with what it pretends to criticize.
Žižek's favorite Spielberg film; he values it precisely because the expected narrative resolution didn't come through and the story got caught in its own over-complexity.
Platoon film
Cited as another example of Oliver Stone's recurring son-split-between-two-fathers narrative (Tom Berenger as bad father, Willem Dafoe as good); the narrative structure is conservative despite progressive intent.
Syriana film
Distinguished from the others as 'more complex' and genuinely ambiguous, Žižek says he liked it for that reason even though it 'relatively failed.'
Identified as 'the only great movie' from a Henry James novel, with Helena Bonham Carter as Kate Croy.
300 film
Žižek briefly mentions and rejects (against leftist readings) the film as a kind of proto-fascist support for American intervention; he dismisses this reading and calls for reclaiming the left's fighting spirit instead.
Paul Veyne's essay cited for opening the theoretical question of what belief means, distinguishing literal conviction from symbolic commitment.
Michael Clayton film
Singled out as somewhat more ambiguous than the Pelican Brief type, the protagonist wins the case but 'the global shit remains the global shit.'
People invoked 39
Dick Cheney negative
Cited as one of the 'dark backroom boys' who do the real dirty work while the Republican populist performance plays out.
Mentioned alongside Khodorkovsky as oligarchs who 'broke the pact' with Putin.
Cited as an example of an oligarch who broke Putin's deal and paid the consequences.
Thomas Frank positive
Recommended for What's the Matter with Kansas as someone asking the right questions about how Republican ideology functions, even if Žižek doesn't fully agree politically.
Mentioned as the type of authoritarian leader Western liberals expected would eventually fail, Zimbabwe as the predicted endpoint, but this assumption no longer holds for China.
John Carpenter positive
Director of They Live, used as a source for ideological critique via the sunglasses motif.
George Clooney/The Cranberries positive
Defended against leftist friends who dismiss Hollywood progressives; Žižek says they are 'not totally bad' and 'do an honest job.'
Listed alongside Thatcher and Golda Meir as examples of successful women politicians who adopted the masculine tough-guy style.
The actor playing Gordon Gekko; Žižek notes that Douglas as Gekko carries all the libidinal charge of the film.
William James positive
Invoked by the interviewer in connection with Žižek's call for a 'militarized left', the moral equivalent of war, which Žižek agrees with.
Marine Le Pen negative
Cited as a European right-wing populist who successfully appeals to the working class, a role the left has ceded.
Jacques Lacan positive
Mentioned as one of the theorists Žižek invokes; the theoretical framework throughout (presupposed belief, the big Other, ideology) is implicitly Lacanian.
Identified as the actress who played Kate Croy in the film adaptation of The Wings of the Dove.
Henry James positive
Called 'the greatest American' and championed via The Wings of the Dove; Kate Croy is Žižek's ethical hero, interpreted as a Leninist revolutionary.
Oliver Stone negative
Appreciated for some works but criticized as the exemplary case of a filmmaker whose progressive message is undermined by the way it is delivered; his films consistently betray their own critique.
Newt Gingrich negative
Mentioned as a prior instance of the same Republican populist revolt ('Contract with America') that proved to be rhetorical performance.
Wendy Brown positive
Recommended for her book on tolerance, praised for its self-critical stance toward the left itself, showing what is problematic in today's ideology of tolerance.
Francis Fukuyama negative
9/11 is described as marking the symbolic end of the Fukuyama dream that liberal democratic capitalism is the final answer.
George W. Bush negative
Described as someone who expanded state debt and intervention while preaching anti-statism; sarcastically nominated for honorary American Communist Party membership for the trillion-dollar bailout.
Mentioned only as Wendy Brown's partner.
John Kerry negative
Gives his name to 'John Kerry syndrome', offering Bush with a human face rather than a genuine alternative.
Described as a 'great left icon' who diagnoses how the system works but is 'afraid to commit herself' to saying what the alternative is, illustrating the left's theoretical impasse.
Mikhail Gorbachev positive
Used as an example of how small symbolic gestures (a little glasnost) can trigger avalanche-scale change; illustrates the point about Obama's potential.
Karl Rove negative
Mentioned alongside Dick Cheney as one of the backroom operators behind Republican rhetoric.
Howard Dean positive
Mentioned as the one Democrat who briefly attempted left-populist rhetoric four years before, but it 'ruined him', the sensitivity of the liberal establishment could not tolerate it.
Mentioned as the period when the West had more influence over Russia and democracy was discredited through the chaotic nineties.
Fredric Jameson positive
Called a 'surviving dinosaur American Marxist friend'; Žižek borrows his concept of 'cognitive mapping' as the name for what the contemporary left lacks.
Adolf Hitler negative
Cited as the historical example of a narrative winning the ideological battle after Germany's economic collapse, warning that the right can capture the interpretation of a crisis before any left alternative forms.
Listed alongside Thatcher and Gandhi as the pre-Palin model of phallic feminine leadership.
Sarah Palin negative
Žižek analyzes her as a new type of female politician who deploys femininity and sarcastic mockery of male authority rather than the traditional iron-lady phallic style; he is worried about her as a sign of genuine right-wing change.
Jörg Haider negative
Cited alongside Le Pen as a European right-wing populist capturing former working-class voters.
Cited as a partial example of the phallic feminine politician type, 'cold bitch tougher than Bill.'
Niels Bohr positive
The anecdote of his horseshoe is used to illustrate cynical belief: 'it works even if you don't believe in it.'
Paul Veyne positive
French historian cited for his book Did the Ancient Greeks Really Believe in Their Myths?, used to open the theoretical question of what belief actually means.
Cited as the archetype of the pre-Palin phallic feminine politician, the iron lady who succeeded by being tougher than men.
Barack Obama positive
Žižek has no illusions about Obama but sees him as 'closer to awakening' and as having space for symbolic gestures, rehabilitating the state, closing Guantánamo, ending the Cuba embargo, that could shift ideological coordinates.
Vladimir Putin negative
Analyzed as president of the nouveau riche whose deal with the oligarchs is 'leave politics to me, I secure your rule'; not a communist but a defender of authoritarian capitalism.
Joseph Stalin negative
Ironically invoked as the model for blaming contingent traitors (English spies, saboteurs) when the five-year plan failed, analogous to how financial crisis will be blamed on bad individuals rather than the system.
Ronald Reagan negative
Cited for his dismissive attitude toward exploding public debt ('it's big enough to take care of itself'), illustrating the gap between anti-statist rhetoric and fiscal reality.
What it argues
The 2008 financial crisis as ideological reality checkRepublican anti-statist rhetoric versus actual state expansionHollywood film as symptom of ideological formationsThe left's lack of a global alternative to capitalismAuthoritarian capitalism as a new, unprecedented modelThe need for theory and cognitive mapping in disoriented timesCynicism and belief: how ideology functions without genuine conviction
Dialectical moves 9
“Republicans talk about less state spending and less state intervention, but in reality it was Republicans who strengthened Washington most — the very opposite of their rhetoric.”
Anti-statist rhetoric is the ideological cover for the actually-existing massive expansion of state power under conservative governance.
“The true message of Republicans is not 'we will change something' but 'we will change something so that basically nothing will change.'”
Conservative populist rhetoric of change functions to preserve the status quo by offering a performance of revolt that substitutes for real transformation.
“This man looks like an idiot, acts like an idiot — but this should not deceive you, this man is an idiot. Republicans talk about change and act as if they want change, but don't be deceived: they really will change things — in the worst direction.”
The Marx Brothers logic inverted: the danger is not that Republicans are merely performing change as cover, but that they actually mean it and will deliver destructive change.
“Far from being an awakening, the crisis is only an opening — disasters do not produce political enlightenment; they open a field that can be captured by the right as easily as the left.”
Historical shocks are ideologically indeterminate; the outcome depends entirely on which narrative successfully organizes the experience.
“Political correctness is itself a form of inverted racism — fighting racism by treating people with exaggerated respectful difference is still racism.”
The liberal anti-racist stance reproduces the very structure it opposes by maintaining the salience of racial difference as the governing category.
“The true believers are always atheists — genuine belief is not literal conviction but an ethical commitment made without foundation, a crazy wager.”
Real faith requires acknowledging that belief has no guarantee, which is structurally atheistic; naive literalism is the opposite of authentic commitment.
“Nobody really believes in democracy but we all act as if we do — the Kung Fu Panda formula.”
Democratic belief operates through the same structure as cynical ideology: universal disbelief coexisting with universal performative participation.
“It is not only that we don't have answers — we don't even have the right questions.”
The deeper theoretical crisis is not the absence of solutions but the absence of an adequate conceptual framework that would even allow the right problems to be posed.
“Putin is not the president of some new hidden communist tendency — he is the president of the nouveau riche.”
Correcting the Western misreading of Putin: his class base is the new capitalist elite, not a KGB or communist restoration.
Claims 15
asserts
The 2008 financial crisis exposed as pure ideology the Republican claim that the free market needs less state intervention, since in reality capitalism requires massive state support to avoid self-destruction.Republican anti-statism and the nature of contemporary capitalism
asserts
Shocking events such as 9/11 or the financial crisis do not by themselves produce political awakening; they open an ideological field whose outcome depends on which narrative wins the struggle for interpretation.ideology and historical events
asserts
The contemporary left has no genuine global alternative to capitalism; its horizon remains liberal democratic capitalism with a human face.the left's theoretical and political bankruptcy
asserts
China may have invented a genuinely new social order in which authoritarian rule and dynamic capitalist productivity are stably combined, falsifying the liberal thesis that capitalism requires democracy.authoritarian capitalism and the limits of liberal theory
asserts
The dominant ideological task today is to present the financial crisis as a contingent malfunction due to bad decisions rather than a systemic flaw, in order to save the capitalist system.ideology and the 2008 financial crisis
asserts
Political correctness and multicultural tolerance are themselves a form of inverted racism — a patronizing attitude of distrust toward working-class and ordinary people.political correctness and liberal ideology
rejects
Words and discourse matter; the cynical view that 'these are just words' is fatally wrong because how we talk shapes how we perceive and act in the world.cynicism about political discourse
asserts
True belief in the modern sense is not literal conviction but an ethical commitment to act as if something is true — which is why the true believers are always atheists.the nature of belief and faith
asserts
Hollywood films like Wall Street ultimately betray their ostensibly progressive messages because the libidinal attraction of the film is invested in the villain rather than the moral lesson.Hollywood ideology and cinematic form
asserts
We do not merely lack answers today; we lack the right questions — the deeper problem is the absence of an adequate theoretical framework for understanding the current situation.the crisis of theory and cognitive mapping
asserts
The greatest defeat of the Bush era was losing Latin America, not Iraq or Afghanistan, and this is where an Obama presidency could realistically reverse ground.US geopolitics and Latin America
asserts
Russia's authoritarianism under Putin is rooted in a class base of nouveau riche rather than communism or KGB ideology, and its authoritarian-capitalist model is something the West helped produce by discrediting democracy in the 1990s.Putin's Russia and Western co-responsibility
asserts
Sarah Palin represents a new kind of female politician who, unlike Thatcher or Indira Gandhi, proudly deploys femininity and uses sarcasm to mock male authority rather than outmanning men.Sarah Palin and feminine political rhetoric
asserts
Fight Club is a progressive film, and the left should reclaim notions of solidarity, community spirit, sacrifice, and discipline rather than ceding them to the right.left politics and the aesthetics of discipline
asserts
The Pelican Brief and similar Hollywood thrillers appear anti-capitalist but their underlying message is optimistic affirmation of the system — the honest individual can overthrow corruption, so the system is basically fine.Hollywood liberal thrillers and ideology
Quotes 12
“It's not only that we don't have answers, we don't even have the right questions. That's the problem.”Slavoj Žižek · crisis of theory — absence of adequate questions
“President Bush should be nominated I think an honorary member of the American Communist Party now.”Slavoj Žižek · Republican anti-statism exposed as ideology by the bailout
“The true believers are always atheists. You know that your belief has no foundation. It's a kind of a crazy wager.”Slavoj Žižek · authentic belief as ethical commitment without foundation
“Nobody really believes. Everybody just presupposes that somebody else believes. Nobody believes. But the whole system of belief functions.”Slavoj Žižek · presupposed belief — the big Other as the locus of belief
“How to be totally naively ideological but at the same time utterly cynical. You can make fun of everything but the system of belief goes on functioning.”Slavoj Žižek · Kung Fu Panda as diagnosis of contemporary cynical ideology
“We need words today. We need to talk differently my God. What we do is always rooted in how we talk in the sense of how we perceive a situation.”Slavoj Žižek · language and perception — against cynicism about mere words
“I'm a moderate pessimist in what sense: the system we have now, global financial system, is in a way fragile.”Slavoj Žižek · systemic fragility of global financial capitalism
“Disasters only open the situation. The old legitimization disintegrates. But then it's an open field who will win the struggle for imposing the predominant interpretation.”Slavoj Žižek · ideological indeterminacy of historical shocks
“You can have this ethos lipstick, Starbucks lipstick, you can have the patriotic lipstick... But that's not what our system is.”Slavoj Žižek · ideological lipstick on global capitalism
“I like none of them. That's my problem. I like none of them.”Slavoj Žižek · Žižek's refusal of all existing political-economic models
“Kate Croy communist. Kate Croy my hero. That's how you treat friends.”Slavoj Žižek · Henry James's Kate Croy as Žižek's ideal of ruthless revolutionary commitment
“I'm for a militarized left, I'm for a disciplinary left. Sounds crazy but that's me.”Slavoj Žižek · left reclaiming discipline and solidarity from the right
Transcript 47 turns
unknown
Slavoj Žižek it’s such a pleasure to hear you again. If you were keeping a diary of these times in America, your times, our times, what would you be noting down? Movies, media, the end of Yankee Stadium, Sarah Palin, up down or sideways, the fall of Wall Street, where do we begin? Ah what
Slavoj Žižek it’s such a pleasure to hear you again. If you were keeping a diary of these times in America, your times, our times, what would you be noting down? Movies, media, the end of Yankee Stadium, Sarah Palin, up down or sideways, the fall of Wall Street, where do we begin? Ah what
Slavoj Žižek
fascinated me is the contrast between Republican Convention and its rhetorics and this Wall Street banking crash whatever, no? Because how on the one hand, you know all this rhetorics, less state, less state spending, no bullshitting, all this posturing, and then all of a sudden you have a nice banking crash and we are back to socialist big unimaginable state intervention. My God, almost one trillion dollars. My God, President Bush should be nominated I think a honorary member of the American Communist Party now, no? No, you see we got here, I liked it, a touch of reality. Like it reminded us that all that stuff about less state spending, less state intervention is truly one big bullshit. This is capitalist reality today. It’s not just market. It’s how it was a great reminder how market in order not to self-destruct itself needs more and more mega-state interventions. This is the reality of today’s capitalism, so forget about all that bullshit we need less state and so on and so on. On the contrary, the state mechanisms are getting stronger and stronger, the security military apparatus, the financial interventions, all that stuff and so on and so on. And isn’t it how all that Sarah Palin posturing and McCain, I’m an honest guy, experienced and so on, it all of a sudden became irrelevant. Did you notice how when the topic shifted to this financial problems all they started to mumble, the whole rhetoric changed. It was a wonderful reminder, a kind of how do you call it, reality check, like where we are. And all that talk about Washington, we’re against Washington, we don’t believe in Washington, we don’t believe in government. Yeah but do you see the irony? I mean what I claim is that I mean what does this effectively mean? Because isn’t it that when they say we don’t believe in Washington and so on and so on but as even many intelligent or minimally honest conservatives noticed, but the reality of the last twenty thirty years here politically, political reality is that Republicans strengthened Washington much more. Like it started with President Bush, public debt exploded with him. I remember a wonderful almost funny answer by no sorry Bush, Reagan, remember when a journalist asked Reagan when he was President what about the exploding public debt, he he said something like oh it’s big enough to take care of itself I don’t worry about it and so on and so on. So the irony is that it was as we all know Clinton who stabilized a little bit, diminished the debt and then it exploded now. So what interests me is how the whole scene has changed and what I mean about functioning of the market, state intervention and so on. And it’s almost a miracle how the old rhetorics of you know Washington bashing and so on survived. But for me this is just the same old story. Do you remember when Newt Gingrich became the speaker, no? How he also he also led a whole populist revolt and so on and so on. Contract with America. Contract yeah and and all that stuff. So I don’t think it’s a change even at this level. What interests me is again what is the real message. I used in some of my talks recently this reference to you know a good old Hollywood leftist film, John Carpenter’s They Live, where the guy the hero of the film finds some strange some strange sunglasses in an abandoned church puts them on and then you see reality. Where you see with your ordinary eyes just a nice publicity for a trip to Mexico whatever, laying on the sun on a beach, the true message says don’t think, consume, enjoy or whatever, no? So what we were to see if we were to observe the presidential campaign with all this? I think we get a different message. The first message would have been like all this talk about change, real change, it’s like we will the true message of the Republicans is we will change something so that basically nothing will change. And I think this is not some big Marxist denouncing, it’s how their own message really functions. Everybody knows that how should I put it naively you know all that lipstick metaphor, no? That McCain is Bush with a lipstick, a rhetorical lipstick of honesty, no bullshitting and so on. But it’s the same so I think that the message the true message to Republican voters is let’s have some fun, let’s pretend that we have a populist revolt, but you can trust us, we have dark backroom boys like Dick Cheney, like Karl Rove and others who will do the dirty job, it’s better for you not to know about it and so on and so on. I think the true message to Republican voters is you have the right not to understand what has to be done. You have the right, you our voters, to play the game, the game of populism, transparency and so on and so on. The second thing which worried me a little bit more is this Sarah Palin operation. Namely as I improvised in some of my talks recently, what fascinated me and some guys friends of mine in France noticed it is that there is something new in the Palin phenomenon. What? Did you notice how till now the majority of successful feminine politicians played the phallic masculine game? They presented themselves as more masculine, more tough guys than men themselves. Margaret Thatcher, the true iron lady, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, up even to a little bit clearly Hillary Clinton has had some of this cold bitch tougher than Bill who is soft and so on. And I claim that here it’s a different phenomenon. Sarah Palin proudly displays her femininity. It’s a kind of a dream of I can be a woman so the way she rhetorically tries to win over men is not by being more masculine than men, it’s mobilizing this typical feminine rhetorical resort which is this sarcastic undermining of male authority. Like ha ha ha community organizing, like it mobilizes this deeply feminist rhetorical device which is mocking male authority. You know this division like men are bombastic big phrases and so on, a woman can afford this kind of sarcasm and so on. And I think of course at a certain level rhetorically it rhetorically it it works. So but you know what I really worry about? Now I come to my real worry about these elections. I claim that the way it functions is that the message the Republican message between the lines is look this is all a big game we will try to do it a little bit better but don’t worry there will be no real change. But what if what if they will really change something? But change in the worst change in the direction of our country first, drill baby drill and so on and so on. In other words what if we should apply to Republicans you know that old Marx Brothers joke? This man looks as an idiot, acts as an idiot, but this should not deceive you, this man is an idiot, no? Something like Republicans talk about change, act as if they want change, but this should not deceive you, they really will change things. That’s the greatest danger I think, that they mean it serious. I want you to go back a minute because you’re describing what the whole country in a way is going through. Ordinary people one by one are waking sort of from a dream or coming out of a movie and they’re saying I guess it was bullshit about a you know an open free market where people take risks and suffer losses. Yeah yeah. We’re waking up to something. And it’s a what what are we going through? I claim, now to just give you a of course simplified but nonetheless I think basically accurate formula, the the Republican message is we will do the dirty job we we allow you to go on dreaming. That it’s just the big state Washington nothing really wrong, with a little bit of honesty we can fix it and so on. The game goes on but you you owe another trillion dollars. Yeah but but yeah yeah but they somehow
fascinated me is the contrast between Republican Convention and its rhetorics and this Wall Street banking crash whatever, no? Because how on the one hand, you know all this rhetorics, less state, less state spending, no bullshitting, all this posturing, and then all of a sudden you have a nice banking crash and we are back to socialist big unimaginable state intervention. My God, almost one trillion dollars. My God, President Bush should be nominated I think a honorary member of the American Communist Party now, no? No, you see we got here, I liked it, a touch of reality. Like it reminded us that all that stuff about less state spending, less state intervention is truly one big bullshit. This is capitalist reality today. It’s not just market. It’s how it was a great reminder how market in order not to self-destruct itself needs more and more mega-state interventions. This is the reality of today’s capitalism, so forget about all that bullshit we need less state and so on and so on. On the contrary, the state mechanisms are getting stronger and stronger, the security military apparatus, the financial interventions, all that stuff and so on and so on. And isn’t it how all that Sarah Palin posturing and McCain, I’m an honest guy, experienced and so on, it all of a sudden became irrelevant. Did you notice how when the topic shifted to this financial problems all they started to mumble, the whole rhetoric changed. It was a wonderful reminder, a kind of how do you call it, reality check, like where we are. And all that talk about Washington, we’re against Washington, we don’t believe in Washington, we don’t believe in government. Yeah but do you see the irony? I mean what I claim is that I mean what does this effectively mean? Because isn’t it that when they say we don’t believe in Washington and so on and so on but as even many intelligent or minimally honest conservatives noticed, but the reality of the last twenty thirty years here politically, political reality is that Republicans strengthened Washington much more. Like it started with President Bush, public debt exploded with him. I remember a wonderful almost funny answer by no sorry Bush, Reagan, remember when a journalist asked Reagan when he was President what about the exploding public debt, he he said something like oh it’s big enough to take care of itself I don’t worry about it and so on and so on. So the irony is that it was as we all know Clinton who stabilized a little bit, diminished the debt and then it exploded now. So what interests me is how the whole scene has changed and what I mean about functioning of the market, state intervention and so on. And it’s almost a miracle how the old rhetorics of you know Washington bashing and so on survived. But for me this is just the same old story. Do you remember when Newt Gingrich became the speaker, no? How he also he also led a whole populist revolt and so on and so on. Contract with America. Contract yeah and and all that stuff. So I don’t think it’s a change even at this level. What interests me is again what is the real message. I used in some of my talks recently this reference to you know a good old Hollywood leftist film, John Carpenter’s They Live, where the guy the hero of the film finds some strange some strange sunglasses in an abandoned church puts them on and then you see reality. Where you see with your ordinary eyes just a nice publicity for a trip to Mexico whatever, laying on the sun on a beach, the true message says don’t think, consume, enjoy or whatever, no? So what we were to see if we were to observe the presidential campaign with all this? I think we get a different message. The first message would have been like all this talk about change, real change, it’s like we will the true message of the Republicans is we will change something so that basically nothing will change. And I think this is not some big Marxist denouncing, it’s how their own message really functions. Everybody knows that how should I put it naively you know all that lipstick metaphor, no? That McCain is Bush with a lipstick, a rhetorical lipstick of honesty, no bullshitting and so on. But it’s the same so I think that the message the true message to Republican voters is let’s have some fun, let’s pretend that we have a populist revolt, but you can trust us, we have dark backroom boys like Dick Cheney, like Karl Rove and others who will do the dirty job, it’s better for you not to know about it and so on and so on. I think the true message to Republican voters is you have the right not to understand what has to be done. You have the right, you our voters, to play the game, the game of populism, transparency and so on and so on. The second thing which worried me a little bit more is this Sarah Palin operation. Namely as I improvised in some of my talks recently, what fascinated me and some guys friends of mine in France noticed it is that there is something new in the Palin phenomenon. What? Did you notice how till now the majority of successful feminine politicians played the phallic masculine game? They presented themselves as more masculine, more tough guys than men themselves. Margaret Thatcher, the true iron lady, Indira Gandhi, Golda Meir, up even to a little bit clearly Hillary Clinton has had some of this cold bitch tougher than Bill who is soft and so on. And I claim that here it’s a different phenomenon. Sarah Palin proudly displays her femininity. It’s a kind of a dream of I can be a woman so the way she rhetorically tries to win over men is not by being more masculine than men, it’s mobilizing this typical feminine rhetorical resort which is this sarcastic undermining of male authority. Like ha ha ha community organizing, like it mobilizes this deeply feminist rhetorical device which is mocking male authority. You know this division like men are bombastic big phrases and so on, a woman can afford this kind of sarcasm and so on. And I think of course at a certain level rhetorically it rhetorically it it works. So but you know what I really worry about? Now I come to my real worry about these elections. I claim that the way it functions is that the message the Republican message between the lines is look this is all a big game we will try to do it a little bit better but don’t worry there will be no real change. But what if what if they will really change something? But change in the worst change in the direction of our country first, drill baby drill and so on and so on. In other words what if we should apply to Republicans you know that old Marx Brothers joke? This man looks as an idiot, acts as an idiot, but this should not deceive you, this man is an idiot, no? Something like Republicans talk about change, act as if they want change, but this should not deceive you, they really will change things. That’s the greatest danger I think, that they mean it serious. I want you to go back a minute because you’re describing what the whole country in a way is going through. Ordinary people one by one are waking sort of from a dream or coming out of a movie and they’re saying I guess it was bullshit about a you know an open free market where people take risks and suffer losses. Yeah yeah. We’re waking up to something. And it’s a what what are we going through? I claim, now to just give you a of course simplified but nonetheless I think basically accurate formula, the the Republican message is we will do the dirty job we we allow you to go on dreaming. That it’s just the big state Washington nothing really wrong, with a little bit of honesty we can fix it and so on. The game goes on but you you owe another trillion dollars. Yeah but but yeah yeah but they somehow
unknown
you know what you know the
you know what you know the
Slavoj Žižek
Kantian I need philosophy European philosophy to understand this. You know that Kantian notion of sublime? He speaks about mathematical sublime which is overwhelming irrepresentable because the quantity is so great. What does it mean a trillion? It’s irrepresentable. It means nothing. And you can play with this. Like what do the people, okay some big money you know. When you go beyond a couple of billions of dollars the differences basically become irrelevant. And I think Republicans are playing on this. They they’re doing the exact opposite the biggest state spending imaginable but somehow it doesn’t catch on. People don’t really perceive it. So I think again that that’s their basic message. It’s we will allow you to go on dreaming. That dreaming what? The old American dream. It’s still this good old America where honesty and hard work helps and so on all this. We will keep it alive but then the message is we all know that this is not reality, that somebody has to do things like this want spend one trillion dollars, do all the dirty things, but we have our backroom boys who will do it discreetly. So I think that with all my doubts about I have no illusions about Barack Obama and so on but he is nonetheless closer to awakening. He is closer to awakening I think.
Kantian I need philosophy European philosophy to understand this. You know that Kantian notion of sublime? He speaks about mathematical sublime which is overwhelming irrepresentable because the quantity is so great. What does it mean a trillion? It’s irrepresentable. It means nothing. And you can play with this. Like what do the people, okay some big money you know. When you go beyond a couple of billions of dollars the differences basically become irrelevant. And I think Republicans are playing on this. They they’re doing the exact opposite the biggest state spending imaginable but somehow it doesn’t catch on. People don’t really perceive it. So I think again that that’s their basic message. It’s we will allow you to go on dreaming. That dreaming what? The old American dream. It’s still this good old America where honesty and hard work helps and so on all this. We will keep it alive but then the message is we all know that this is not reality, that somebody has to do things like this want spend one trillion dollars, do all the dirty things, but we have our backroom boys who will do it discreetly. So I think that with all my doubts about I have no illusions about Barack Obama and so on but he is nonetheless closer to awakening. He is closer to awakening I think.
unknown
You know I was going to say the Chinese Olympics woke some people up, this trillion dollar bill will wake others up, Iraq... Maybe maybe. I I
You know I was going to say the Chinese Olympics woke some people up, this trillion dollar bill will wake others up, Iraq... Maybe maybe. I I
Slavoj Žižek
doubt I doubt you know it all depends on ideological constellation. Like you know sorry to interrupt you but this is for me a crucial lesson. Whenever you have shocking events in any sense, natural disaster, military terrorist disaster, economic disaster now, disasters only open the situation. The old legitimization you are awakened in the sense of the old legitimization disintegrates. But then it’s an open field who will win the struggle for imposing the predominant interpretation. Like for me September 11th in this sense was a lost opportunity. Because the right-wingers determined the field, determined how September 11th was perceived. They imposed their narrative. What I’m afraid is again that the same thing can happen here. What I’m saying is that look the big example is what, megalomaniac, and I’m not playing the stupid game of comparing Bush to Hitler, I don’t go so far, but remember Germany in the twenties. It was all one big shock. And the battle was which ideology will impose itself as a predominant narrative. Hitler won. Hitler won before winning in reality he won the ideological battle in the sense of people when they experience the situation, I lost my I lost all my savings in the bank, I lost my job, there is too much immorality in cinema, decadence, Weimar. How did they understand it? They accepted into their guts Hitler’s narrative. What I’m afraid is that not only there is no real radical left here but even the Democrats it looked at some point but I wonder if they will succeed in imposing their narrative. But I agree with you it’s a crucial situation today. This is a danger but at the same time a chance. This open situations, who will impose a narrative. It’s a big question do you do you want to try out a left narrative in this conversation? What would it sound like? Okay the left narrative is a is a simple one is that the first but it cannot be unfortunately translated into a convincing convincing ideological edifice to to mobilize to mobilize people, no? Give it to us straight we’ll see if we can translate it. No no my point is only that it’s much more modest point that that no because wait a minute the left today has a real problem I think. The problem is that the left really does not have cannot even pretend today to have a global alternative. Everybody knows we read Naomi sorry Naomi Klein and so on how the system works blah blah blah. But what’s the alternative? Like do we have a global alternative or is it all we want in the same sense that when I was young we were talking dreaming about socialism with a human face, global capitalism with a human face. Like that’s my point I think that the left although Obama looked it appeared that he is offering more but I don’t think the Democratic Party really stepped out of what I call John Kerry syndrome. You remember four years ago what was the problem with John Kerry is that he was Bush what he was offering
doubt I doubt you know it all depends on ideological constellation. Like you know sorry to interrupt you but this is for me a crucial lesson. Whenever you have shocking events in any sense, natural disaster, military terrorist disaster, economic disaster now, disasters only open the situation. The old legitimization you are awakened in the sense of the old legitimization disintegrates. But then it’s an open field who will win the struggle for imposing the predominant interpretation. Like for me September 11th in this sense was a lost opportunity. Because the right-wingers determined the field, determined how September 11th was perceived. They imposed their narrative. What I’m afraid is again that the same thing can happen here. What I’m saying is that look the big example is what, megalomaniac, and I’m not playing the stupid game of comparing Bush to Hitler, I don’t go so far, but remember Germany in the twenties. It was all one big shock. And the battle was which ideology will impose itself as a predominant narrative. Hitler won. Hitler won before winning in reality he won the ideological battle in the sense of people when they experience the situation, I lost my I lost all my savings in the bank, I lost my job, there is too much immorality in cinema, decadence, Weimar. How did they understand it? They accepted into their guts Hitler’s narrative. What I’m afraid is that not only there is no real radical left here but even the Democrats it looked at some point but I wonder if they will succeed in imposing their narrative. But I agree with you it’s a crucial situation today. This is a danger but at the same time a chance. This open situations, who will impose a narrative. It’s a big question do you do you want to try out a left narrative in this conversation? What would it sound like? Okay the left narrative is a is a simple one is that the first but it cannot be unfortunately translated into a convincing convincing ideological edifice to to mobilize to mobilize people, no? Give it to us straight we’ll see if we can translate it. No no my point is only that it’s much more modest point that that no because wait a minute the left today has a real problem I think. The problem is that the left really does not have cannot even pretend today to have a global alternative. Everybody knows we read Naomi sorry Naomi Klein and so on how the system works blah blah blah. But what’s the alternative? Like do we have a global alternative or is it all we want in the same sense that when I was young we were talking dreaming about socialism with a human face, global capitalism with a human face. Like that’s my point I think that the left although Obama looked it appeared that he is offering more but I don’t think the Democratic Party really stepped out of what I call John Kerry syndrome. You remember four years ago what was the problem with John Kerry is that he was Bush what he was offering
unknown
was Bush with a human face, you know more respect for our allies, more this more that but basically this is why I think the so-called
was Bush with a human face, you know more respect for our allies, more this more that but basically this is why I think the so-called
Slavoj Žižek
liberal left in United States is so much legalistic and moralizing. Like they they like these problems of you know human rights, legal status whatever because because they they don’t really have a truly global vision of what to do with the global system. And I’m not reproaching them. I think that simply how should I put it, I’m a moderate pessimist in what sense. I think that it’s clear from all these signs and so on that the system we have now, global financial system not only capitalist system is in a way fragile. The fact is that United States are are losing their hegemony of the nineties, we are moving slowly towards a new multicentric world with China, Russia, other local centers of power. And in this process of transition we haven’t yet found a new stability. It may appear that nothing is happening but I think slowly the contours of a new world order are forming themselves and it’s a dangerous moment. It’s a dangerous moment because nobody really has even a clear idea where to move and so on. United States simply I think too much still behave as if they are the world policeman they almost were for some time in the nineties. Which is why all this ridiculous complications with China or on the other hand with with Georgia. This was for me a symptom as it were of the situation, the Gruzia Georgian crisis, no? We’ll talk about that yeah. Yeah yeah so so no no the problem for me was simply that United States as it were got back the same message from from Russia that it that United States itself was giving to Russia. Like did you notice how Russians wonderfully referred to Kosovo? Like if Kosovo can secede from Serbia why not Ossetia and Abkhazia and so on? All that stuff. I mean it’s like they just did what United States were doing all the time. They just did that. I claim that it’s all to put it ironically of course a question of politeness. In the sense of the the rule of the nineties post of post-Soviet Russia was this kind of an obscene pact between Western great powers and Russia. The rule was we treat you Russia respectfully, you are invited to G7 summits and so on on condition that you don’t really act as a great power. You know we treat you respectfully if you don’t really act on it. You are recognized as a great power but don’t act as one. And I think Russia got a little bit tired of this role. They they they they saw a chance for them to reassert their role. And I think United States here are at a loss. I mean it’s easy to occupy to occupy a weak really weak as we know country like Iraq not to mention Afghanistan, but my God already with North Korea they can do anything basically and so on, no? I think very soon and this will be the dangerous moment United States will will have to find a formula to dealing with the limitation of its external politics. And I’m not here playing the usual America bashing because let me be very frank, now this will annoy my leftist friends, I like to be hated by everyone, no? That in today’s world, multicentric world, it’s not necessary that United States are always internationally the bad guy. I think one should be very open here. For example in Burma, how do you call it now politically correct Myanmar, no? There it’s obviously a case of and this is what leftist friends told me Myanmar it’s de facto it’s a pure case of neocolonialism, it’s a Chinese colony. Okay. And so again there we have a totally different constellation and all other all other examples where as I usually put it, the problem I see today is that we have a couple of models competing. We have the model of American liberal global capitalism. We have the model of so-called Asian values capitalism, a code word of course for kind of authoritarian capitalism. Which for me is something totally new we don’t have an answer to it. Like you just if you allow me to make this point I think it’s important. Like you know all this hope of Western liberals that you can be critical of capitalism but at the end of the day capitalism needs democracy. You can have ten twenty years of of authoritarian rule like in Chile, like in South Korea but after some time you need democracy. So in other words capitalism nonetheless brings democracy. I doubt if this still holds for China. I don’t think that China will necessarily in ten years or what turn democratic. What if they really invented a new social order where you can have capitalism which is maybe even more creative in the capitalist sense of social dynamic, dynamic, creative, productive than Western capitalism but at the same time perfectly fitting some kind of authoritarian rule? I think that there is genuinely something new here. So the point is that all these options that are presenting themselves today, Western liberal capitalism, Asian values, Oriental more authoritarian capitalism, Latino American populism and so on and so on, I like none of them. That’s my problem. I like none of them. I I don’t think we have a formula of what to strive. And I will go even a step further here, it’s horrible thing to say for a leftist. I don’t even think that we really know where we are moving. What is happening today? What’s the situation? All these formulas postmodern society, informational society whatever, they don’t really work. They are still I claim how should I call them journalistic formulas. Yes. Which is why I always plead for theory. Today is the time for theory. I hate those humanitarian emergency rhetoric, people are starving, forget about ideologies, let’s do something. No we need basically to withdraw and think. What is going on today? We lack what my friend, one of the surviving dinosaur American Marxist friends Fredric Jameson likes to call cognitive mapping. You know a kind of a general idea where we are and what to do. We lack it. The old the old narratives liberal narrative. If something happened if there is some truth in September 11th namely in the claim that September was a historical event, it was for me a historical event only in the sense that symbolically it marked the end of the Fukuyama dream that in spite of all the problems wars that we go on, that in liberal democratic capitalism we have the answer. Yes. And the point is only you know to make it better more tolerant blah blah blah. And the tragedy is that we should really accept it that we don’t have the answer. But isn’t it that even the large majority of today’s left cannot think beyond this horizon? Their horizon is still liberal again liberal democratic capitalism with a human face, more human rights, more tolerance, more whatever you want. I claim that’s not enough. You’ve written about, you know it’s a laundry list of gay rights, minority rights, tolerance, anti-patriarchy all that sort of thing and it’s not it’s not a theory. But let me stick on this theory question because it intrigues me whenever I hear you and read you. You said a moment ago we need European philosophy to know what’s going on. You’re also a god on campus of the student generation growing up on postmodern theory and you’re always quoting Lacan, Derrida and Walter Benjamin, Heidegger as well as Freud and Marx. When I was in college in the sixties we never heard the word theory. And that was at Yale and in a modern time. I I keep wondering what do the kids know, what are they learning from theory and what did my generation miss? Let me give you here a precise answer. First don’t exaggerate don’t overrate my influence. Unfortunately I’m here very self-critical. You know people like me up to a point as a clown and the game I’m consciously playing is the game that I read somewhere I love this, a history of preachers in the Wild West. How they were most of them they were magicians you know. Magicians in this simple sense you know rabbit out of the hat tricks no. First they they performed some tricks Snake oil. Yeah some tricks to attract the public and then came the god’s message no. Yes. I play this game popular culture blah blah blah all that to grasp the attention and then try to use this short attention span to get through a slightly more serious message. What I think is that maybe I’ve risked too much I sacrifice too much that much of the message gets lost. People want to hear this endless dirty jokes, structure of European toilets, whatever you want no. But but nonetheless I think it’s risk worth. So again I’m not as optimistic as you are. I think if anything and this is for me the sad result of all this political correctness postcolonial stuff and so on that the if anything the attitude today is maybe even more than it was anti-theoretical. The predominant notion in campuses today as far as I see it, it’s still no theory is white dead men, we need narratives where each each each group tells of their suffering and so on. I always find repellent this idea
liberal left in United States is so much legalistic and moralizing. Like they they like these problems of you know human rights, legal status whatever because because they they don’t really have a truly global vision of what to do with the global system. And I’m not reproaching them. I think that simply how should I put it, I’m a moderate pessimist in what sense. I think that it’s clear from all these signs and so on that the system we have now, global financial system not only capitalist system is in a way fragile. The fact is that United States are are losing their hegemony of the nineties, we are moving slowly towards a new multicentric world with China, Russia, other local centers of power. And in this process of transition we haven’t yet found a new stability. It may appear that nothing is happening but I think slowly the contours of a new world order are forming themselves and it’s a dangerous moment. It’s a dangerous moment because nobody really has even a clear idea where to move and so on. United States simply I think too much still behave as if they are the world policeman they almost were for some time in the nineties. Which is why all this ridiculous complications with China or on the other hand with with Georgia. This was for me a symptom as it were of the situation, the Gruzia Georgian crisis, no? We’ll talk about that yeah. Yeah yeah so so no no the problem for me was simply that United States as it were got back the same message from from Russia that it that United States itself was giving to Russia. Like did you notice how Russians wonderfully referred to Kosovo? Like if Kosovo can secede from Serbia why not Ossetia and Abkhazia and so on? All that stuff. I mean it’s like they just did what United States were doing all the time. They just did that. I claim that it’s all to put it ironically of course a question of politeness. In the sense of the the rule of the nineties post of post-Soviet Russia was this kind of an obscene pact between Western great powers and Russia. The rule was we treat you Russia respectfully, you are invited to G7 summits and so on on condition that you don’t really act as a great power. You know we treat you respectfully if you don’t really act on it. You are recognized as a great power but don’t act as one. And I think Russia got a little bit tired of this role. They they they they saw a chance for them to reassert their role. And I think United States here are at a loss. I mean it’s easy to occupy to occupy a weak really weak as we know country like Iraq not to mention Afghanistan, but my God already with North Korea they can do anything basically and so on, no? I think very soon and this will be the dangerous moment United States will will have to find a formula to dealing with the limitation of its external politics. And I’m not here playing the usual America bashing because let me be very frank, now this will annoy my leftist friends, I like to be hated by everyone, no? That in today’s world, multicentric world, it’s not necessary that United States are always internationally the bad guy. I think one should be very open here. For example in Burma, how do you call it now politically correct Myanmar, no? There it’s obviously a case of and this is what leftist friends told me Myanmar it’s de facto it’s a pure case of neocolonialism, it’s a Chinese colony. Okay. And so again there we have a totally different constellation and all other all other examples where as I usually put it, the problem I see today is that we have a couple of models competing. We have the model of American liberal global capitalism. We have the model of so-called Asian values capitalism, a code word of course for kind of authoritarian capitalism. Which for me is something totally new we don’t have an answer to it. Like you just if you allow me to make this point I think it’s important. Like you know all this hope of Western liberals that you can be critical of capitalism but at the end of the day capitalism needs democracy. You can have ten twenty years of of authoritarian rule like in Chile, like in South Korea but after some time you need democracy. So in other words capitalism nonetheless brings democracy. I doubt if this still holds for China. I don’t think that China will necessarily in ten years or what turn democratic. What if they really invented a new social order where you can have capitalism which is maybe even more creative in the capitalist sense of social dynamic, dynamic, creative, productive than Western capitalism but at the same time perfectly fitting some kind of authoritarian rule? I think that there is genuinely something new here. So the point is that all these options that are presenting themselves today, Western liberal capitalism, Asian values, Oriental more authoritarian capitalism, Latino American populism and so on and so on, I like none of them. That’s my problem. I like none of them. I I don’t think we have a formula of what to strive. And I will go even a step further here, it’s horrible thing to say for a leftist. I don’t even think that we really know where we are moving. What is happening today? What’s the situation? All these formulas postmodern society, informational society whatever, they don’t really work. They are still I claim how should I call them journalistic formulas. Yes. Which is why I always plead for theory. Today is the time for theory. I hate those humanitarian emergency rhetoric, people are starving, forget about ideologies, let’s do something. No we need basically to withdraw and think. What is going on today? We lack what my friend, one of the surviving dinosaur American Marxist friends Fredric Jameson likes to call cognitive mapping. You know a kind of a general idea where we are and what to do. We lack it. The old the old narratives liberal narrative. If something happened if there is some truth in September 11th namely in the claim that September was a historical event, it was for me a historical event only in the sense that symbolically it marked the end of the Fukuyama dream that in spite of all the problems wars that we go on, that in liberal democratic capitalism we have the answer. Yes. And the point is only you know to make it better more tolerant blah blah blah. And the tragedy is that we should really accept it that we don’t have the answer. But isn’t it that even the large majority of today’s left cannot think beyond this horizon? Their horizon is still liberal again liberal democratic capitalism with a human face, more human rights, more tolerance, more whatever you want. I claim that’s not enough. You’ve written about, you know it’s a laundry list of gay rights, minority rights, tolerance, anti-patriarchy all that sort of thing and it’s not it’s not a theory. But let me stick on this theory question because it intrigues me whenever I hear you and read you. You said a moment ago we need European philosophy to know what’s going on. You’re also a god on campus of the student generation growing up on postmodern theory and you’re always quoting Lacan, Derrida and Walter Benjamin, Heidegger as well as Freud and Marx. When I was in college in the sixties we never heard the word theory. And that was at Yale and in a modern time. I I keep wondering what do the kids know, what are they learning from theory and what did my generation miss? Let me give you here a precise answer. First don’t exaggerate don’t overrate my influence. Unfortunately I’m here very self-critical. You know people like me up to a point as a clown and the game I’m consciously playing is the game that I read somewhere I love this, a history of preachers in the Wild West. How they were most of them they were magicians you know. Magicians in this simple sense you know rabbit out of the hat tricks no. First they they performed some tricks Snake oil. Yeah some tricks to attract the public and then came the god’s message no. Yes. I play this game popular culture blah blah blah all that to grasp the attention and then try to use this short attention span to get through a slightly more serious message. What I think is that maybe I’ve risked too much I sacrifice too much that much of the message gets lost. People want to hear this endless dirty jokes, structure of European toilets, whatever you want no. But but nonetheless I think it’s risk worth. So again I’m not as optimistic as you are. I think if anything and this is for me the sad result of all this political correctness postcolonial stuff and so on that the if anything the attitude today is maybe even more than it was anti-theoretical. The predominant notion in campuses today as far as I see it, it’s still no theory is white dead men, we need narratives where each each each group tells of their suffering and so on. I always find repellent this idea
unknown
that your story, the story of your suffering and so on that it has any truth value. It doesn’t have. I’m here absolute European terrorist. The only truth is a theoretical truth. When you say the story of your suffering it’s meaningless without theory. And we need terribly a kind of a mapping. And I don’t think that we already are in a how should I call it theory revival. We are not yet enough there. Precisely because the list that you enumerated you know one has to introduce distinctions there. You mentioned for example postmodernism Lacan and so on. But you know that we we are the last Stalinists in the sense that we fight all the time. And I would say no that my true theoretical endeavor is precisely to break with the whole series of these deconstructionist, postmodern, politically correct, multiculturalist dogmas. Like I’m here going to the end just to awaken people. For example to provoke people
that your story, the story of your suffering and so on that it has any truth value. It doesn’t have. I’m here absolute European terrorist. The only truth is a theoretical truth. When you say the story of your suffering it’s meaningless without theory. And we need terribly a kind of a mapping. And I don’t think that we already are in a how should I call it theory revival. We are not yet enough there. Precisely because the list that you enumerated you know one has to introduce distinctions there. You mentioned for example postmodernism Lacan and so on. But you know that we we are the last Stalinists in the sense that we fight all the time. And I would say no that my true theoretical endeavor is precisely to break with the whole series of these deconstructionist, postmodern, politically correct, multiculturalist dogmas. Like I’m here going to the end just to awaken people. For example to provoke people
Slavoj Žižek
when I’m asked about racism no. I like to to do my line which is I love racism, I cannot imagine my life without racism. There is no progressive movement today without racism. Okay I’m not crazy. What do I now now comes the preacher part the real. What do I mean by this? It’s that isn’t there something false in this respectful multiculturalist tolerance? My God that’s it’s for me political correctness is still inverted racism. It’s still you are just fighting all the time. Isn’t it that let’s cut the crap. Let’s say we want to become friends. Isn’t it that in order for us to signal to each other that we really want to be friends there has to be a politically incorrect exchange of obscenity. You know some dirty joke whatever whose meaning is cut the crap we are now real friends. And I can tell you this from my wonderful experience here. You wanted a shocking story you will hear it. How did I become here a friend a true friend, I’m not advising anybody to do it, it was a risk gesture, but it worked wonderfully with a with a with a black African American guy no. How did I become? We were very friendly already but not really. And then I risked and told him it’s a horrible thing I warn you. Is it true that you blacks not only you have you know a big penis no but that you can even move it so if you have on your leg above your knee a fly you can buff smash it with your penis. The guy embraced me and told me dying of laughter now you can call me a nigger. Like you know when blacks tell you you can call me a nigger means they really accept you no. I mean you know what I mean the only way to fight racism is to mockingly play it to the end. And I claim if it’s immediately discernible that you are not a racist if you do it properly how should I put it no. I mean my God I want to redeem the left from this politically correct stuffiness and worry and so on and so on. This worked in my own country. Do you know the story that I always repeat in ex-Yugoslavia? Before that country turned nationalistic from the mid-eighties onwards, we different nations were all the time telling dirty racist jokes not against each other but above us to others. I met a Serb friend I told him did you hear the last one about Slovenes, he told me did you hear the last one about Serbs or Montenegrins and so on. Typically when ethnic tensions really started to explode these jokes disappeared. Only now they are around. So I just sorry what I am where Republicans want this is another symptom for me is that how left liberals today have this upper class patronizing attitude which is an attitude as far as I can judge of deep distrust toward rednecks, ordinary people and so on and so on. It’s typical that Sarah Palin with her blue collar husband although it’s a fake blue collar I know but he is Republicans for see they are I think in an intelligent way mobilizing trying to mobilize even the whatever what once was called a working class vote. And it’s the same phenomenon in Europe even more. In Europe isn’t this a sad thing? The only serious not fringe leftist parties of one percent. The only serious political force which still appeals to working class are the right-wing populists, Le Pen in France, Haider in Austria and so on and so on. This is my maybe maybe utopia. I know that Howard Dean tried to do it but it didn’t catch up. Wasn’t Howard Dean I remember four years ago the only Democrat who tried a little bit of this left populist rhetorics no? Just barely I mean just barely. Yeah but already it was too much. It ruined him I claim. Already it was too much. It ruin it it disturbed I claim too much this sensitivity whatever. No but how should I put it, I hope that I got my basic message through. Which is we really need to withdraw and understand my God. My basic message is even a more pessimistic one. Dangerous moments are coming. Dangerous moments are always always also a chance to do something. But in such dangerous moments you have to think. You have to try to understand. And today obviously all the predominant narratives, the old liberal left welfare state narrative, the postmodern third-way left narrative, the neoconservative narrative, of course the old standard Marxist narrative, they don’t work. We don’t have a narrative. What where are we? Where are we going? There is of course a vague discontent this Porto Alegre thing about dangers of global capitalism. But my God I I when I when I met Naomi Klein I tried to talk this about her and she’s also afraid even she the great left icon to commit herself like what to do? Like you know these very stupid elementary questions. Is capitalism here to stay? Are there serious limits to capitalism? Can we imagine a popular mobilization outside democracy or is this enough should we play this game? Or how should we properly react to ecology? What does it mean or the biogenetic stuff? What does it mean how to deal with intellectual property today and so on and so on. I mean things are happening and we don’t yet have a proper approach to them. It’s not that we don’t have answers, now this will be my formula sorry, it’s not only that we don’t have answers, we don’t even have the right questions. That’s the problem. Amen. I did my big thought now you go on. Well the rest is details let me let me reframe it in in movie terms and you you know everything about movies. Ah I love this now you are talking my language. Yeah but to paraphrase you tell us everything we want to know about Wall Street and capitalism but were afraid to ask Oliver Stone. Ah it’s good that you mentioned this example because Oliver Stone is for me although I appreciate some of his works and so on is for me a good example of how how should I put it the me the way you deliver a message undermines the message. Even if his message is often progressive the way he delivers the message is the opposite. Like Oliver Stone Wall Street of course it’s his Wall Street no? We saw the movie you did I hope. Of course. Michael isn’t the paradox that although officially the story is supposed to be a condemnation of this immoral profiteering Wall Street tycoons like the what’s he called Gordon Gekko the bad guy the Michael Greed is good and all that. Yeah yeah but isn’t it that now ask yourself if you are a normal human being and I am here ask yourself an elementary question isn’t Gordon Gekko Michael Douglas the only truly charismatic attractive person in the movie? All the jokes are his. I know all that do you need a friend buy yourself a dog, breakfast is for wimps and so on name it no. All the libidinal attraction, all the fascination of the film is on his side. And what do you get as the opposite? The old paternal patriarchal narrative of the son returning to his true authentic father. It’s basically did you notice this that this is one of the big obsessions of Oliver Stone? You find the formula in a couple of his films of his basic narrative is a son split between good or bad father. Even his first hit Platoon. The good the bad father is Tom Berenger, the good father is Willem Dafoe. Split between two paternal figures at the end you find the way towards you find the way towards good father. So but back to my analysis so what Oliver Stone does often again is that he tries to be a good guy in the sense of you know criticizing the excesses of capitalism blah blah blah. But the way he delivers the message betrays it in a way. And there ideology remains. In a similar way I’m distrustful about great Hollywood hits anti-capitalist hits like you know Pelican Brief, all the President’s Men and so on. They appear to be very critical these new left Hollywood thrillers like again Pelican Brief and so on. Do you put Syriana in that bag? Syriana is more complex that’s why it relatively failed. I like the ambiguity of the film. It’s very ambiguous. I liked when you know why I like this kind of films? Which is why also my favorite Spielberg is Artificial Intelligence. It failed because kind of a this basic narrative that people expect it didn’t come through. The narrative got
when I’m asked about racism no. I like to to do my line which is I love racism, I cannot imagine my life without racism. There is no progressive movement today without racism. Okay I’m not crazy. What do I now now comes the preacher part the real. What do I mean by this? It’s that isn’t there something false in this respectful multiculturalist tolerance? My God that’s it’s for me political correctness is still inverted racism. It’s still you are just fighting all the time. Isn’t it that let’s cut the crap. Let’s say we want to become friends. Isn’t it that in order for us to signal to each other that we really want to be friends there has to be a politically incorrect exchange of obscenity. You know some dirty joke whatever whose meaning is cut the crap we are now real friends. And I can tell you this from my wonderful experience here. You wanted a shocking story you will hear it. How did I become here a friend a true friend, I’m not advising anybody to do it, it was a risk gesture, but it worked wonderfully with a with a with a black African American guy no. How did I become? We were very friendly already but not really. And then I risked and told him it’s a horrible thing I warn you. Is it true that you blacks not only you have you know a big penis no but that you can even move it so if you have on your leg above your knee a fly you can buff smash it with your penis. The guy embraced me and told me dying of laughter now you can call me a nigger. Like you know when blacks tell you you can call me a nigger means they really accept you no. I mean you know what I mean the only way to fight racism is to mockingly play it to the end. And I claim if it’s immediately discernible that you are not a racist if you do it properly how should I put it no. I mean my God I want to redeem the left from this politically correct stuffiness and worry and so on and so on. This worked in my own country. Do you know the story that I always repeat in ex-Yugoslavia? Before that country turned nationalistic from the mid-eighties onwards, we different nations were all the time telling dirty racist jokes not against each other but above us to others. I met a Serb friend I told him did you hear the last one about Slovenes, he told me did you hear the last one about Serbs or Montenegrins and so on. Typically when ethnic tensions really started to explode these jokes disappeared. Only now they are around. So I just sorry what I am where Republicans want this is another symptom for me is that how left liberals today have this upper class patronizing attitude which is an attitude as far as I can judge of deep distrust toward rednecks, ordinary people and so on and so on. It’s typical that Sarah Palin with her blue collar husband although it’s a fake blue collar I know but he is Republicans for see they are I think in an intelligent way mobilizing trying to mobilize even the whatever what once was called a working class vote. And it’s the same phenomenon in Europe even more. In Europe isn’t this a sad thing? The only serious not fringe leftist parties of one percent. The only serious political force which still appeals to working class are the right-wing populists, Le Pen in France, Haider in Austria and so on and so on. This is my maybe maybe utopia. I know that Howard Dean tried to do it but it didn’t catch up. Wasn’t Howard Dean I remember four years ago the only Democrat who tried a little bit of this left populist rhetorics no? Just barely I mean just barely. Yeah but already it was too much. It ruined him I claim. Already it was too much. It ruin it it disturbed I claim too much this sensitivity whatever. No but how should I put it, I hope that I got my basic message through. Which is we really need to withdraw and understand my God. My basic message is even a more pessimistic one. Dangerous moments are coming. Dangerous moments are always always also a chance to do something. But in such dangerous moments you have to think. You have to try to understand. And today obviously all the predominant narratives, the old liberal left welfare state narrative, the postmodern third-way left narrative, the neoconservative narrative, of course the old standard Marxist narrative, they don’t work. We don’t have a narrative. What where are we? Where are we going? There is of course a vague discontent this Porto Alegre thing about dangers of global capitalism. But my God I I when I when I met Naomi Klein I tried to talk this about her and she’s also afraid even she the great left icon to commit herself like what to do? Like you know these very stupid elementary questions. Is capitalism here to stay? Are there serious limits to capitalism? Can we imagine a popular mobilization outside democracy or is this enough should we play this game? Or how should we properly react to ecology? What does it mean or the biogenetic stuff? What does it mean how to deal with intellectual property today and so on and so on. I mean things are happening and we don’t yet have a proper approach to them. It’s not that we don’t have answers, now this will be my formula sorry, it’s not only that we don’t have answers, we don’t even have the right questions. That’s the problem. Amen. I did my big thought now you go on. Well the rest is details let me let me reframe it in in movie terms and you you know everything about movies. Ah I love this now you are talking my language. Yeah but to paraphrase you tell us everything we want to know about Wall Street and capitalism but were afraid to ask Oliver Stone. Ah it’s good that you mentioned this example because Oliver Stone is for me although I appreciate some of his works and so on is for me a good example of how how should I put it the me the way you deliver a message undermines the message. Even if his message is often progressive the way he delivers the message is the opposite. Like Oliver Stone Wall Street of course it’s his Wall Street no? We saw the movie you did I hope. Of course. Michael isn’t the paradox that although officially the story is supposed to be a condemnation of this immoral profiteering Wall Street tycoons like the what’s he called Gordon Gekko the bad guy the Michael Greed is good and all that. Yeah yeah but isn’t it that now ask yourself if you are a normal human being and I am here ask yourself an elementary question isn’t Gordon Gekko Michael Douglas the only truly charismatic attractive person in the movie? All the jokes are his. I know all that do you need a friend buy yourself a dog, breakfast is for wimps and so on name it no. All the libidinal attraction, all the fascination of the film is on his side. And what do you get as the opposite? The old paternal patriarchal narrative of the son returning to his true authentic father. It’s basically did you notice this that this is one of the big obsessions of Oliver Stone? You find the formula in a couple of his films of his basic narrative is a son split between good or bad father. Even his first hit Platoon. The good the bad father is Tom Berenger, the good father is Willem Dafoe. Split between two paternal figures at the end you find the way towards you find the way towards good father. So but back to my analysis so what Oliver Stone does often again is that he tries to be a good guy in the sense of you know criticizing the excesses of capitalism blah blah blah. But the way he delivers the message betrays it in a way. And there ideology remains. In a similar way I’m distrustful about great Hollywood hits anti-capitalist hits like you know Pelican Brief, all the President’s Men and so on. They appear to be very critical these new left Hollywood thrillers like again Pelican Brief and so on. Do you put Syriana in that bag? Syriana is more complex that’s why it relatively failed. I like the ambiguity of the film. It’s very ambiguous. I liked when you know why I like this kind of films? Which is why also my favorite Spielberg is Artificial Intelligence. It failed because kind of a this basic narrative that people expect it didn’t come through. The narrative got
unknown
caught into its own overcomplexity. But back to Pelican Brief. It may appear anti-capitalist, big companies corrupted, the corruption goes up to the President. But the underlying
caught into its own overcomplexity. But back to Pelican Brief. It may appear anti-capitalist, big companies corrupted, the corruption goes up to the President. But the underlying
Slavoj Žižek
message is nonetheless what a great country we are
message is nonetheless what a great country we are
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that an ordinary journalist honest guy can overthrow the President and the great company or whatever no? It’s this underlying underlying optimism that I distrust. But
that an ordinary journalist honest guy can overthrow the President and the great company or whatever no? It’s this underlying underlying optimism that I distrust. But
Slavoj Žižek
let me give you another twist example. It sounds a little like Michael Clayton too, the the one good lawyer in a rotten rotten barrel. Yeah but Michael Clayton is I think if I remember it correctly a little bit more ambiguous because his victory at the end is not totally unambiguous how should I put it no. It’s a little bit more it’s it is more ambiguous in the sense of okay I win this one but the global shit remains the global shit how should I put it no. That’s what I that’s what I like. No no no I mean many my leftist friends laugh at this Hollywood progressives like George Clooney but I think no they are not totally bad. Often they do an honest job. No no no I’m ready to give a chance but you know what worries me let me go on for example where do I see Hollywood ideology and so on. Take a film like the new Batman, The Dark Knight. Which I haven’t seen but go ahead. No I also haven’t seen it but I talk about it. My God I’m a theorist I’m a Hegelian. I don’t have to see something in order to talk about it no? Okay two things about it that I don’t like a priori. First this psychologizing the human side you know. It’s all the time with these superheroes it’s the same with Spiderman and so on the story is you know critics even hailed it like it’s no longer Batman or Superman or Spiderman just a flat cartoon hero. It’s we see his traumas, his anxieties, uncertainties and so on no? It is as if I’m also a human with my limitations this it is as if this makes it more authentic. I think this is how ideology works today. When I was in Israel I saw the same thing. The IDF Israel Defense Forces it’s very intelligent operation. Their self-presentation is not we are the perfect Israeli soldiers we can one battalion of us can defeat an Arab army no it’s we are afraid when there is a battle, we cry. As one Israeli officer put it military is not in our genes you know we are humans like we all are. In this sense in a nice way you avoid asking a question but if you’re a human why are you doing what you are doing there I mean you know what I mean? So that’s one thing. The other thing is where I find very the least to say is ambiguous Batman. Doesn’t it contain this message at the end that the necessity of a lie to save public morality? You know how I read this friends told me. The Batman ends so that the the one who was looked at the beginning this new district attorney who is a popular hero is discovered to be himself a murderer. And the solution at the end of the film is that Batman heroically takes this murders upon himself because he and another politician his friends judge that if this central figure district attorney would if he were to be denounced publicly as a criminal it would be bad for morality for public ethics and so on. So this idea we need a lie to save the system. This is very dangerous message this need of a lie to and that’s the message of the film. There you find ideology. The same maybe you heard it my favorite example of ideology at its pure pure purest. Kung Fu Panda, an apparently innocent cartoon. It’s an incredible film. On the one hand you have all this Kung Fu sacred fate
let me give you another twist example. It sounds a little like Michael Clayton too, the the one good lawyer in a rotten rotten barrel. Yeah but Michael Clayton is I think if I remember it correctly a little bit more ambiguous because his victory at the end is not totally unambiguous how should I put it no. It’s a little bit more it’s it is more ambiguous in the sense of okay I win this one but the global shit remains the global shit how should I put it no. That’s what I that’s what I like. No no no I mean many my leftist friends laugh at this Hollywood progressives like George Clooney but I think no they are not totally bad. Often they do an honest job. No no no I’m ready to give a chance but you know what worries me let me go on for example where do I see Hollywood ideology and so on. Take a film like the new Batman, The Dark Knight. Which I haven’t seen but go ahead. No I also haven’t seen it but I talk about it. My God I’m a theorist I’m a Hegelian. I don’t have to see something in order to talk about it no? Okay two things about it that I don’t like a priori. First this psychologizing the human side you know. It’s all the time with these superheroes it’s the same with Spiderman and so on the story is you know critics even hailed it like it’s no longer Batman or Superman or Spiderman just a flat cartoon hero. It’s we see his traumas, his anxieties, uncertainties and so on no? It is as if I’m also a human with my limitations this it is as if this makes it more authentic. I think this is how ideology works today. When I was in Israel I saw the same thing. The IDF Israel Defense Forces it’s very intelligent operation. Their self-presentation is not we are the perfect Israeli soldiers we can one battalion of us can defeat an Arab army no it’s we are afraid when there is a battle, we cry. As one Israeli officer put it military is not in our genes you know we are humans like we all are. In this sense in a nice way you avoid asking a question but if you’re a human why are you doing what you are doing there I mean you know what I mean? So that’s one thing. The other thing is where I find very the least to say is ambiguous Batman. Doesn’t it contain this message at the end that the necessity of a lie to save public morality? You know how I read this friends told me. The Batman ends so that the the one who was looked at the beginning this new district attorney who is a popular hero is discovered to be himself a murderer. And the solution at the end of the film is that Batman heroically takes this murders upon himself because he and another politician his friends judge that if this central figure district attorney would if he were to be denounced publicly as a criminal it would be bad for morality for public ethics and so on. So this idea we need a lie to save the system. This is very dangerous message this need of a lie to and that’s the message of the film. There you find ideology. The same maybe you heard it my favorite example of ideology at its pure pure purest. Kung Fu Panda, an apparently innocent cartoon. It’s an incredible film. On the one hand you have all this Kung Fu sacred fate
unknown
oriental mysticism combined with the utter
oriental mysticism combined with the utter
Slavoj Žižek
cynicism. They make fun of their own ideology all the time. But how these two attitudes are combined. You can be cynical you dismiss everything but at the same time although you make fun and cynical you still act as if you believe in it. And if I’m permitted to repeat my old joke isn’t this like the story I always quote it the answer Niels Bohr gave when he was asked why do you have the superstitious item above the door of your country high house horseshoe which prevents evil spirits to enter even if you don’t believe in this kind of magic? You know his answer was of course 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 that’s the message of Kung Fu Panda. How to be totally naively ideological but at the same time utterly cynical. You can make fun of everything but the system of belief goes on functioning. It’s a wonderful diagnosis of where we are. In this sense I believe in Hollywood. You can learn really everything you want to learn from Hollywood about where we are ideologically today. You’ve covered a lot of ground this reminds you also of something I’ve heard you say that the kids believe in Santa Claus to reassure their parents, parents say yes we believe in Santa Claus to reassure the kids so it’s one great circular... Yeah but the mystic is that nobody really believes. Everybody just presupposes that somebody else believes. Nobody believes. But the whole system of belief functions. That’s the miracle of this presupposed belief no. Okay but come back. And I wonder and I wonder incidentally but this would be now to to step from here into more serious theory, one would have to ask what do we mean when we believe. Do we really believe? You know there are wonderful essays for example the French historian Paul Veyne wrote a wonderful short book with a wonderful title also Did the ancient Greeks really believe in their myths? Like when they said when they when they said Zeus Aphrodite did they really believe that if you climb to the top of the mountain Olympus of course not. So what did they mean when they evoked gods? What do we mean today? I claim that the only one but even about them I have doubts some fundamentalists really believe. But for the majority of us belief doesn’t mean you really believe it. It’s more like a kind of a symbolic commitment. Okay it’s a complex question but you see here theory begins. Yes yes. I I think that in order to be in the authentic sense a true believer not fundamentalist sense, it doesn’t mean that you really believe. It’s more an ethical commitment. For example when you say I believe in human equality in human dignity. Yes. You don’t believe that people are really equal or whatever. It’s just an ethical commitment to act as if this is a fact and so on. Which is why paradoxically I claim that the true believers are always atheists. You know that your belief has no foundation. It’s a kind of a crazy wager. I know people are shit and so on but I will act as if they have dignity and so on. But this is theory okay ask me another question. Well the question in my mind is after the Wall Street meltdown what do we believe about capitalism, free capitalism as we call it, and if we get settled with a you know trillion dollar bill for this what you know by by a shuffle of committees in Washington what do we really believe about democracy? First democracy I think as to democracy the Kung Fu Panda formula fits perfectly. I mean like nobody really believes in democracy but we act all as if we believe. But the more interesting question for me is this Wall Street meltdown no. I think now I will talk in a old-fashioned Marxist way which is I think appropriate here. The main task of the ruling ideology today no is to make this crisis this meltdown appear not as a something inscribed into the very dynamic of the system, but some kind of a contingent malfunction of the system due to I don’t know bad legislation bad politics and so on. To sacrifice individuals wrong decisions and to save the system. I think that what and this is what everybody is looking for today. This
cynicism. They make fun of their own ideology all the time. But how these two attitudes are combined. You can be cynical you dismiss everything but at the same time although you make fun and cynical you still act as if you believe in it. And if I’m permitted to repeat my old joke isn’t this like the story I always quote it the answer Niels Bohr gave when he was asked why do you have the superstitious item above the door of your country high house horseshoe which prevents evil spirits to enter even if you don’t believe in this kind of magic? You know his answer was of course 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 that’s the message of Kung Fu Panda. How to be totally naively ideological but at the same time utterly cynical. You can make fun of everything but the system of belief goes on functioning. It’s a wonderful diagnosis of where we are. In this sense I believe in Hollywood. You can learn really everything you want to learn from Hollywood about where we are ideologically today. You’ve covered a lot of ground this reminds you also of something I’ve heard you say that the kids believe in Santa Claus to reassure their parents, parents say yes we believe in Santa Claus to reassure the kids so it’s one great circular... Yeah but the mystic is that nobody really believes. Everybody just presupposes that somebody else believes. Nobody believes. But the whole system of belief functions. That’s the miracle of this presupposed belief no. Okay but come back. And I wonder and I wonder incidentally but this would be now to to step from here into more serious theory, one would have to ask what do we mean when we believe. Do we really believe? You know there are wonderful essays for example the French historian Paul Veyne wrote a wonderful short book with a wonderful title also Did the ancient Greeks really believe in their myths? Like when they said when they when they said Zeus Aphrodite did they really believe that if you climb to the top of the mountain Olympus of course not. So what did they mean when they evoked gods? What do we mean today? I claim that the only one but even about them I have doubts some fundamentalists really believe. But for the majority of us belief doesn’t mean you really believe it. It’s more like a kind of a symbolic commitment. Okay it’s a complex question but you see here theory begins. Yes yes. I I think that in order to be in the authentic sense a true believer not fundamentalist sense, it doesn’t mean that you really believe. It’s more an ethical commitment. For example when you say I believe in human equality in human dignity. Yes. You don’t believe that people are really equal or whatever. It’s just an ethical commitment to act as if this is a fact and so on. Which is why paradoxically I claim that the true believers are always atheists. You know that your belief has no foundation. It’s a kind of a crazy wager. I know people are shit and so on but I will act as if they have dignity and so on. But this is theory okay ask me another question. Well the question in my mind is after the Wall Street meltdown what do we believe about capitalism, free capitalism as we call it, and if we get settled with a you know trillion dollar bill for this what you know by by a shuffle of committees in Washington what do we really believe about democracy? First democracy I think as to democracy the Kung Fu Panda formula fits perfectly. I mean like nobody really believes in democracy but we act all as if we believe. But the more interesting question for me is this Wall Street meltdown no. I think now I will talk in a old-fashioned Marxist way which is I think appropriate here. The main task of the ruling ideology today no is to make this crisis this meltdown appear not as a something inscribed into the very dynamic of the system, but some kind of a contingent malfunction of the system due to I don’t know bad legislation bad politics and so on. To sacrifice individuals wrong decisions and to save the system. I think that what and this is what everybody is looking for today. This
unknown
unfortunately I think this reading will win. The reading which will redeem the system. No it wasn’t in the system itself just some wrong decisions I don’t know Republicans will say you saw we were we were make too much trust we didn’t regulate it enough or we or we overregulated
unfortunately I think this reading will win. The reading which will redeem the system. No it wasn’t in the system itself just some wrong decisions I don’t know Republicans will say you saw we were we were make too much trust we didn’t regulate it enough or we or we overregulated
Slavoj Žižek
it and so on and so on. You know like to make it to make it contingent. Like we need to put it and I’m consciously ironic here, you know that this was the problem that our great Comrade Stalin when things started to get wrong with five-year plan no. The point was how to save the party. The idea was it must be traitors, you need traitors no. You need traitors to save the system so that you can say yes there are troubles but it’s not we the Communist Party our five-year plan is the English spies saboteurs and so on. Here okay hopefully we don’t go so far no we will not hopefully discover a Trotskyite Jewish plot against the meltdown behind the meltdown, but the tendency will be to to localize culpability. And I think what is the true question to approach is precisely what is it in the system itself today with all this highly virtualized future speculations and so on which renders it so fragile that everything appears so firm but all of a sudden it’s like kind of a financial tsunami. The edifice which you think it’s so firm all of a sudden it starts to meltdown no. Again that’s for me the true task. That’s for me the crucial point. This is for me a duty of a truly progressive not only Marxist whatever this means today but even Democrat today is to really ask where is the danger in the where is the flaw in the system itself, not necessarily and not say we should do a revolution but at least we can fight such dangers better if you are aware what fundamental flaw in the system conditions them. I mean what annoys me with Republican or Democratic mainstream, more Republican is that they act as if you know oh this was just some mismanagement or
it and so on and so on. You know like to make it to make it contingent. Like we need to put it and I’m consciously ironic here, you know that this was the problem that our great Comrade Stalin when things started to get wrong with five-year plan no. The point was how to save the party. The idea was it must be traitors, you need traitors no. You need traitors to save the system so that you can say yes there are troubles but it’s not we the Communist Party our five-year plan is the English spies saboteurs and so on. Here okay hopefully we don’t go so far no we will not hopefully discover a Trotskyite Jewish plot against the meltdown behind the meltdown, but the tendency will be to to localize culpability. And I think what is the true question to approach is precisely what is it in the system itself today with all this highly virtualized future speculations and so on which renders it so fragile that everything appears so firm but all of a sudden it’s like kind of a financial tsunami. The edifice which you think it’s so firm all of a sudden it starts to meltdown no. Again that’s for me the true task. That’s for me the crucial point. This is for me a duty of a truly progressive not only Marxist whatever this means today but even Democrat today is to really ask where is the danger in the where is the flaw in the system itself, not necessarily and not say we should do a revolution but at least we can fight such dangers better if you are aware what fundamental flaw in the system conditions them. I mean what annoys me with Republican or Democratic mainstream, more Republican is that they act as if you know oh this was just some mismanagement or
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whatever. Well it’s in the media too, it’s the basic the problem with Abu Ghraib was a few bad apples so we’ll turn the page and keep going. Exactly exactly exactly yes but again here I must specify my position. The problem for Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
whatever. Well it’s in the media too, it’s the basic the problem with Abu Ghraib was a few bad apples so we’ll turn the page and keep going. Exactly exactly exactly yes but again here I must specify my position. The problem for Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo
Slavoj Žižek
and so on for me is not the fact of torture as torture as such. Here I’m a very cynical realist. When friends tell me but wait a minute in China or I don’t know where they probably torture infinitely more. Yeah yeah I know I know. But nonetheless what I find it dangerous is the way we publicly talk about torture. This is for me again a sign of a dangerous regression. Things that a couple of years ago were unimaginable as a topic of polite public debate, torture and so on, now we can simply talk about them. And I’m not engaged here in America bashing. Listen in Europe it’s the same. I remember twenty years ago the very we had as you know these neo-fascist parties no in Italy and so on Austria France. Twenty years ago it was a silent pact everyone respected it that okay we had to tolerate them it’s a democracy but they shouldn’t be allowed to govern. It was a total taboo to imagine a neo-fascist party in a government coalition. Now we swallowed it in Italy, in Austria maybe in France and so on and so on. That what worries me this how should I call it regression of public standards. And in Europe it’s a very dangerous tendency. Now the tendency in Europe is to rehab not so much to rehabilitate fascism as to levelize the distinction. Like wasn’t in a way communism worse and then the other part of the story is that you try to introduce secondary distinctions within fascism. Like Hitler was bad but was Mussolini really so bad? Was Franco really so bad and so on? You know this kind of relativization I think again that this is what I call the silent ethical revolution. That we are not even aware of how our standards are changing. We simply something that was unimaginable ten fifteen years ago today it’s a matter of fact. That’s what worries me. And here I think maybe Obama has some chance if he will be elected. Not so much in doing some big economic changes but in changing setting the new coordinates, the new limits of what we can talk about, of how you talk about problems. This is not unimportant, it’s not we are just talking. One of the most stupid wisdoms is oh these are just words we need to do something. No we need words today. We need to talk differently my God. What we do is always rooted in how we talk in the sense of how we perceive a situation and so on and so on. I think cynics who think oh these are just words, cynics are fatally wrong here. Slavoj Žižek how do you suppose Barack Obama if he were elected might mediate this transition toward a multicentric multicolored global consciousness? Is is that a strand that we want to invest hope in? Not too much but yes yes. I think that there is I mean I’m not saying here even as a leftist but almost how should I put it in the interest of the United States no? That you just do a couple of things like change the way you deal with allies, do some things like Guantánamo
and so on for me is not the fact of torture as torture as such. Here I’m a very cynical realist. When friends tell me but wait a minute in China or I don’t know where they probably torture infinitely more. Yeah yeah I know I know. But nonetheless what I find it dangerous is the way we publicly talk about torture. This is for me again a sign of a dangerous regression. Things that a couple of years ago were unimaginable as a topic of polite public debate, torture and so on, now we can simply talk about them. And I’m not engaged here in America bashing. Listen in Europe it’s the same. I remember twenty years ago the very we had as you know these neo-fascist parties no in Italy and so on Austria France. Twenty years ago it was a silent pact everyone respected it that okay we had to tolerate them it’s a democracy but they shouldn’t be allowed to govern. It was a total taboo to imagine a neo-fascist party in a government coalition. Now we swallowed it in Italy, in Austria maybe in France and so on and so on. That what worries me this how should I call it regression of public standards. And in Europe it’s a very dangerous tendency. Now the tendency in Europe is to rehab not so much to rehabilitate fascism as to levelize the distinction. Like wasn’t in a way communism worse and then the other part of the story is that you try to introduce secondary distinctions within fascism. Like Hitler was bad but was Mussolini really so bad? Was Franco really so bad and so on? You know this kind of relativization I think again that this is what I call the silent ethical revolution. That we are not even aware of how our standards are changing. We simply something that was unimaginable ten fifteen years ago today it’s a matter of fact. That’s what worries me. And here I think maybe Obama has some chance if he will be elected. Not so much in doing some big economic changes but in changing setting the new coordinates, the new limits of what we can talk about, of how you talk about problems. This is not unimportant, it’s not we are just talking. One of the most stupid wisdoms is oh these are just words we need to do something. No we need words today. We need to talk differently my God. What we do is always rooted in how we talk in the sense of how we perceive a situation and so on and so on. I think cynics who think oh these are just words, cynics are fatally wrong here. Slavoj Žižek how do you suppose Barack Obama if he were elected might mediate this transition toward a multicentric multicolored global consciousness? Is is that a strand that we want to invest hope in? Not too much but yes yes. I think that there is I mean I’m not saying here even as a leftist but almost how should I put it in the interest of the United States no? That you just do a couple of things like change the way you deal with allies, do some things like Guantánamo
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maybe Cuba. I was very sad when Obama when Obama made a compromise there and basically didn’t committed himself to
maybe Cuba. I was very sad when Obama when Obama made a compromise there and basically didn’t committed himself to
Slavoj Žižek
prolonging the embargo of Cuba no. I think from a liberal standpoint this is a madness. I totally believe those liberals who claim that listen if America were totally to to abolish embargo communism is over in half a year up to a year in Cuba. Or they will have to isolate themselves totally to change into a truly closed society. Can you imagine Cuba surviving tens of thousands maybe more Americans everybody would wanted to visit Cuba you know it would be in all the human contacts and so on and so on. It it would have changed the entire the entire scene. So I think he has some space for gestures Obama which one shouldn’t dismiss them as oh this is only rhetorics and so on and so on. They would have changed the entire scene. I think that Obama in this sense without doing any big gestures and so on has a has a chance. But what Obama maybe I’m not sure if he is ready to do it you know. A true revolution would have been to rehabilitate he had some rhetorics in this sense and I agreed with it, to stop this Washington bashing and so on, to rehabilitate state. My God state democratic representation they can do horrible things they can also they can also do great things and so on. I think it’s one should end with this cheap populism and so on. That would no he can do things, they may appear minor but they are really not minor. You know the other lesson often forgotten about big changes is that you always start small. You know how I know this from my own past in communism no? You know you made communists made a couple of in power a couple of small compromises like Gorbachev just allowed a little bit glasnost here there and then all of a sudden everything changes. No no no you always open up a way not the way to big deeds are usually small gestures which you think oh this is nothing just a small symbolic compromise it means really nothing but all of a sudden you trigger it the great avalanche. We must speak a little bit about Russia. Russia is back in American consciousness around Georgia some people would love to revive a Cold War. Sarah Palin seemed to to to love the prospect of a NATO rescue of President Saakashvili. What is to say about what’s going on in Russia and Russia and the world? It’s another example I think of this so-called authoritarian capitalism. You know when first
prolonging the embargo of Cuba no. I think from a liberal standpoint this is a madness. I totally believe those liberals who claim that listen if America were totally to to abolish embargo communism is over in half a year up to a year in Cuba. Or they will have to isolate themselves totally to change into a truly closed society. Can you imagine Cuba surviving tens of thousands maybe more Americans everybody would wanted to visit Cuba you know it would be in all the human contacts and so on and so on. It it would have changed the entire the entire scene. So I think he has some space for gestures Obama which one shouldn’t dismiss them as oh this is only rhetorics and so on and so on. They would have changed the entire scene. I think that Obama in this sense without doing any big gestures and so on has a has a chance. But what Obama maybe I’m not sure if he is ready to do it you know. A true revolution would have been to rehabilitate he had some rhetorics in this sense and I agreed with it, to stop this Washington bashing and so on, to rehabilitate state. My God state democratic representation they can do horrible things they can also they can also do great things and so on. I think it’s one should end with this cheap populism and so on. That would no he can do things, they may appear minor but they are really not minor. You know the other lesson often forgotten about big changes is that you always start small. You know how I know this from my own past in communism no? You know you made communists made a couple of in power a couple of small compromises like Gorbachev just allowed a little bit glasnost here there and then all of a sudden everything changes. No no no you always open up a way not the way to big deeds are usually small gestures which you think oh this is nothing just a small symbolic compromise it means really nothing but all of a sudden you trigger it the great avalanche. We must speak a little bit about Russia. Russia is back in American consciousness around Georgia some people would love to revive a Cold War. Sarah Palin seemed to to to love the prospect of a NATO rescue of President Saakashvili. What is to say about what’s going on in Russia and Russia and the world? It’s another example I think of this so-called authoritarian capitalism. You know when first
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one thing I was in Russia and things are in a way even more sad than the American media represent them and that’s what makes me sad. Like it’s not that there is a thriving democratic civil
one thing I was in Russia and things are in a way even more sad than the American media represent them and that’s what makes me sad. Like it’s not that there is a thriving democratic civil
Slavoj Žižek
society brutally oppressed by Putin and so on. The tragedy is that according to all even Western I follow them opinion polls like eighty to ninety percent of people really distrust more democracy and want stability under Putin. And you cannot dismiss this as only Putin’s Putin’s control of the media manipulation or whatever. I think again the West has a co-responsibility here. The way when United States did have a much stronger influence there when Yeltsin was in power no. How democracy was discredited throughout the nineties. How democracy was experienced as equal national humiliation and all that stuff and so on and so on. So again you know the problem is that something new is emerging there in Russia. It’s not it’s of course not not Western liberal democracy but there are freedoms up to a point in cultural life, in economy and so on and so on there is genuine private property like don’t have any illusions. To put it in old-fashioned Marxist terms, Putin is not the president of some new hidden communist tendency. He is a president of the nouveau riche. His deal with the nouveau riche is you leave politics to me I secure your safe rule. And the problem with Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky and so on it’s only that they broke this pact. But again Putin is not the president against capitalism. He is his class base are the new rich, not working people or KGB or whoever you want. So let’s not have let’s not have the illusion something new. You see this is what worries me. That you can have capitalist dynamics with authoritarian rule. This is something totally new my God. Up till now we could always laugh at authoritarian guys some authoritarian guy takes it over and we Western liberals could sit down and say ha ha give him ten years it will be another Zimbabwe Mugabe they will screw up and so on. What if they don’t screw up my God? What if they do better than than we for their own country I mean economically no? No no no the situation here is a is a is a true problem. So again of course Russia is turning into a new form of authoritarian rule. But first we should ask is where did we fail when we had a chance. We I mean West where Russia was open to the West. What did we do wrong? The way we were treating Russia, the advices we were giving them and so on. For example it’s absolutely clear that the way Russia introduced capitalism in the early
society brutally oppressed by Putin and so on. The tragedy is that according to all even Western I follow them opinion polls like eighty to ninety percent of people really distrust more democracy and want stability under Putin. And you cannot dismiss this as only Putin’s Putin’s control of the media manipulation or whatever. I think again the West has a co-responsibility here. The way when United States did have a much stronger influence there when Yeltsin was in power no. How democracy was discredited throughout the nineties. How democracy was experienced as equal national humiliation and all that stuff and so on and so on. So again you know the problem is that something new is emerging there in Russia. It’s not it’s of course not not Western liberal democracy but there are freedoms up to a point in cultural life, in economy and so on and so on there is genuine private property like don’t have any illusions. To put it in old-fashioned Marxist terms, Putin is not the president of some new hidden communist tendency. He is a president of the nouveau riche. His deal with the nouveau riche is you leave politics to me I secure your safe rule. And the problem with Berezovsky, Khodorkovsky and so on it’s only that they broke this pact. But again Putin is not the president against capitalism. He is his class base are the new rich, not working people or KGB or whoever you want. So let’s not have let’s not have the illusion something new. You see this is what worries me. That you can have capitalist dynamics with authoritarian rule. This is something totally new my God. Up till now we could always laugh at authoritarian guys some authoritarian guy takes it over and we Western liberals could sit down and say ha ha give him ten years it will be another Zimbabwe Mugabe they will screw up and so on. What if they don’t screw up my God? What if they do better than than we for their own country I mean economically no? No no no the situation here is a is a is a true problem. So again of course Russia is turning into a new form of authoritarian rule. But first we should ask is where did we fail when we had a chance. We I mean West where Russia was open to the West. What did we do wrong? The way we were treating Russia, the advices we were giving them and so on. For example it’s absolutely clear that the way Russia introduced capitalism in the early
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nineties was the very the very opposite of the way China did it. And China the Chinese way proved much wiser. To do it starting with consumer with small companies which produce mass products for consume and so on on the margins. Russians did the exact opposite they started with banks, natural resources, mining and so on. So because of
nineties was the very the very opposite of the way China did it. And China the Chinese way proved much wiser. To do it starting with consumer with small companies which produce mass products for consume and so on on the margins. Russians did the exact opposite they started with banks, natural resources, mining and so on. So because of
Slavoj Žižek
this how should I put it most of their capitalism till now is how should I call it non-productive capitalism. It’s quick profiteering by selling natural resources abroad and so on and so on. Quite the opposite of China. No no it’s here this is I think a model study. I really sincerely think that nineties were maybe a chance for a different global world order and that the West screw it up. So now it’s a now it’s a totally new situation as you said now the rule is how to cope with it and I think where Obama does have a chance is for example Latin America. I think with intelligent politics of United States it can be won back because I think that Russia China were in any case lost. Maybe the greatest defeat of Bush was to put it in simplistic terms losing Latin America. Slavoj I have two more questions before we’re done two quick ones but yeah one has to do with individual ideology one has to do with theory and I want you to wrap that up. But the on an individual level you’ve said in the eighties it was all about keeping up with the Joneses, now it became a matter of consumers as individuals to be actualized. Yeah like I entered yesterday a Starbucks and I saw Starbucks you have now a new poster there like why why why ethos, why ethics matters. And then they describe again how with each coffee you help a Guatemala kid all that stuff and so on and so on. That’s the whole point. So what is the what is the ideology that’s being sort of market-tested by Starbucks and being sold to us in this election year? Well I first I don’t think there is a direct connection between what big companies are doing there and with but in a way you are right. I think that as we all know capitalism is one big meaningless profiteering machinery that’s great about it that’s not even a critical point no. And all the time the problem is how to rendering meaningful. Like no that it’s just nothing about not just about making money and so on and so on. And I think paradoxically the left this liberal capitalist strategy Starbucks strategy of making consummation a meaningful experience ecologically spiritually and what Republicans are doing through their our country first patriotism and so on and so on, they all know that this pure market consumerist model is not enough. You need something more. And these are only different answers but they are all reactions. The big beast in the background is global capitalism. Is this big capitalist machinery. Which is why I don’t take very seriously again this Republican rhetorics is for me another version of Starbucks. It’s lipstick, it’s strictly lipstick. You can have this ethos lipstick, Starbucks lipstick, you can have the patriotic lipstick and so on no like real hard working America whatever no. But that’s not what our system is. Last question, you say maybe we ought to just go home and read or think or stop doing things just sit there. Give us a short reading list or meditation list on theory. Who are the who are the sources of the kind of vision or wisdom that might get us to the next round? That’s a nice dirty question because I will be very honest and frank here, I don’t have a clear answer. In the sense of I don’t think this good theory even even exists. But I think there are some beginnings. For example I don’t even fully agree with him politically but how is that guy called he’s a bestseller even now Thomas Frank What Happened in Kansas. He’s got a new one too. I know I know I know he at least is asking the right questions. Namely drawing the
this how should I put it most of their capitalism till now is how should I call it non-productive capitalism. It’s quick profiteering by selling natural resources abroad and so on and so on. Quite the opposite of China. No no it’s here this is I think a model study. I really sincerely think that nineties were maybe a chance for a different global world order and that the West screw it up. So now it’s a now it’s a totally new situation as you said now the rule is how to cope with it and I think where Obama does have a chance is for example Latin America. I think with intelligent politics of United States it can be won back because I think that Russia China were in any case lost. Maybe the greatest defeat of Bush was to put it in simplistic terms losing Latin America. Slavoj I have two more questions before we’re done two quick ones but yeah one has to do with individual ideology one has to do with theory and I want you to wrap that up. But the on an individual level you’ve said in the eighties it was all about keeping up with the Joneses, now it became a matter of consumers as individuals to be actualized. Yeah like I entered yesterday a Starbucks and I saw Starbucks you have now a new poster there like why why why ethos, why ethics matters. And then they describe again how with each coffee you help a Guatemala kid all that stuff and so on and so on. That’s the whole point. So what is the what is the ideology that’s being sort of market-tested by Starbucks and being sold to us in this election year? Well I first I don’t think there is a direct connection between what big companies are doing there and with but in a way you are right. I think that as we all know capitalism is one big meaningless profiteering machinery that’s great about it that’s not even a critical point no. And all the time the problem is how to rendering meaningful. Like no that it’s just nothing about not just about making money and so on and so on. And I think paradoxically the left this liberal capitalist strategy Starbucks strategy of making consummation a meaningful experience ecologically spiritually and what Republicans are doing through their our country first patriotism and so on and so on, they all know that this pure market consumerist model is not enough. You need something more. And these are only different answers but they are all reactions. The big beast in the background is global capitalism. Is this big capitalist machinery. Which is why I don’t take very seriously again this Republican rhetorics is for me another version of Starbucks. It’s lipstick, it’s strictly lipstick. You can have this ethos lipstick, Starbucks lipstick, you can have the patriotic lipstick and so on no like real hard working America whatever no. But that’s not what our system is. Last question, you say maybe we ought to just go home and read or think or stop doing things just sit there. Give us a short reading list or meditation list on theory. Who are the who are the sources of the kind of vision or wisdom that might get us to the next round? That’s a nice dirty question because I will be very honest and frank here, I don’t have a clear answer. In the sense of I don’t think this good theory even even exists. But I think there are some beginnings. For example I don’t even fully agree with him politically but how is that guy called he’s a bestseller even now Thomas Frank What Happened in Kansas. He’s got a new one too. I know I know I know he at least is asking the right questions. Namely drawing the
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attention to the fact that how should I put it the mystery of how ideology politics functions today. Like Republicans they are saying one thing they are doing a totally different thing and how the public accepts this. How we are really having a politics functioning functioning in a new way. So do this thing. Then do there is some interesting I don’t know even the authors economic
attention to the fact that how should I put it the mystery of how ideology politics functions today. Like Republicans they are saying one thing they are doing a totally different thing and how the public accepts this. How we are really having a politics functioning functioning in a new way. So do this thing. Then do there is some interesting I don’t know even the authors economic
Slavoj Žižek
theories about financial markets today and so on and so on. No but I think for the majority of people I would just say go move a step beyond this standard liberal accusation of of how fundamentalist Bush and so on I mean Republican
theories about financial markets today and so on and so on. No but I think for the majority of people I would just say go move a step beyond this standard liberal accusation of of how fundamentalist Bush and so on I mean Republican
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fundamentalists are the danger towards the United States. The point is to move a little bit further from this
fundamentalists are the danger towards the United States. The point is to move a little bit further from this
Slavoj Žižek
liberal self-satisfaction and to start asking questions but what if we we liberal politically correct multiculturalist left what if we are up to a point at least responsible for it? Where are we also wrong where even if we criticize it where we play the same game? For example it’s not a big example but one theoretician that interests me a lot is Wendy Brown, the partner of Judith Butler, who recently wrote a wonderful book I’ve forgotten the title on tolerance, where she points in a wonderful way what is problematic about today’s ideology of tolerance. It’s very self-critical of the left itself. So here I’m very old-fashioned. It’s not enough just to attack. We should always ask the question where is our responsibility in it. So I hear Thomas Frank, I hear Wendy Brown, make one more and maybe an artist, maybe a novelist, maybe a poet, maybe a painter. Oh I will give you a shocker. You will get what you want here. I think two left Hollywood films, now comes the final shock. Fight Club, I think it’s a progressive film. I
liberal self-satisfaction and to start asking questions but what if we we liberal politically correct multiculturalist left what if we are up to a point at least responsible for it? Where are we also wrong where even if we criticize it where we play the same game? For example it’s not a big example but one theoretician that interests me a lot is Wendy Brown, the partner of Judith Butler, who recently wrote a wonderful book I’ve forgotten the title on tolerance, where she points in a wonderful way what is problematic about today’s ideology of tolerance. It’s very self-critical of the left itself. So here I’m very old-fashioned. It’s not enough just to attack. We should always ask the question where is our responsibility in it. So I hear Thomas Frank, I hear Wendy Brown, make one more and maybe an artist, maybe a novelist, maybe a poet, maybe a painter. Oh I will give you a shocker. You will get what you want here. I think two left Hollywood films, now comes the final shock. Fight Club, I think it’s a progressive film. I
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totally reject reading Spartans you know it’s a kind of it’s a kind of support for American intervention quite of the on the contrary. I think the left should
totally reject reading Spartans you know it’s a kind of it’s a kind of support for American intervention quite of the on the contrary. I think the left should
Slavoj Žižek
recapture back this fighting spirit. Why should we leave to the right-wingers notions like solidarity, community spirit, sacrifice, discipline? We should take it over. I’m for a militarized left, I’m for disciplinary left. Sounds crazy but that’s me. Some people called me a leftist fascist, why not? Sounds like William James and the moral equivalent of war. Absolutely. What’s the problem? His brother Henry James is for me the greatest American. Oh you and I you and I are twins man you oh. Yeah can you but let me finish with a detail, his Wings of the Dove no? Kate Croy is the ethical hero. All others are softies. Milly screw her she should disappear. The the boy how is he called the hero who marries Milly in a plot with Kate Croy in Wings of the Dove. Densher. Yeah Densher. Soft liberal, screw him. Kate Croy communist. Kate Croy my hero. That’s how you treat friends. Yeah. That’s fascinating. Oh man we gotta we should talk once a week. This is this is fantastic. Ah I will be the weekly idiot. Why not? I would like to be Rush Limbaugh of the left here. No no I want to be Rush you’ll be my guest. Okay okay. This is great and we’ll talk we’ll read a little chapter of Wings of the Dove every episode. Absolutely. We should
recapture back this fighting spirit. Why should we leave to the right-wingers notions like solidarity, community spirit, sacrifice, discipline? We should take it over. I’m for a militarized left, I’m for disciplinary left. Sounds crazy but that’s me. Some people called me a leftist fascist, why not? Sounds like William James and the moral equivalent of war. Absolutely. What’s the problem? His brother Henry James is for me the greatest American. Oh you and I you and I are twins man you oh. Yeah can you but let me finish with a detail, his Wings of the Dove no? Kate Croy is the ethical hero. All others are softies. Milly screw her she should disappear. The the boy how is he called the hero who marries Milly in a plot with Kate Croy in Wings of the Dove. Densher. Yeah Densher. Soft liberal, screw him. Kate Croy communist. Kate Croy my hero. That’s how you treat friends. Yeah. That’s fascinating. Oh man we gotta we should talk once a week. This is this is fantastic. Ah I will be the weekly idiot. Why not? I would like to be Rush Limbaugh of the left here. No no I want to be Rush you’ll be my guest. Okay okay. This is great and we’ll talk we’ll read a little chapter of Wings of the Dove every episode. Absolutely. We should
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have like meeting every Sunday morning like
have like meeting every Sunday morning like
Slavoj Žižek
church you know. Today friends you will be the priest we will start reading this chapter you know. Kate Croy the heroine the tough minded get that money get the money and get out of here. Absolutely. She’s a Marxist. She’s the Marxist revolutionary Leninist even I would say. Woof. It’s the
church you know. Today friends you will be the priest we will start reading this chapter you know. Kate Croy the heroine the tough minded get that money get the money and get out of here. Absolutely. She’s a Marxist. She’s the Marxist revolutionary Leninist even I would say. Woof. It’s the
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only it’s also the only great
only it’s also the only great
Slavoj Žižek
novel of Henry James that made a great
novel of Henry James that made a great
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movie in my
movie in my
Slavoj Žižek
opinion. Yeah yeah yeah. Who was Kate Croy that Helena Bonham Carter no? Absolutely and
opinion. Yeah yeah yeah. Who was Kate Croy that Helena Bonham Carter no? Absolutely and
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there
there
Slavoj Žižek
was an Iranian screenwriter
was an Iranian screenwriter
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whose name I forget but but we’ll get it we’ll talk
whose name I forget but but we’ll get it we’ll talk
Slavoj Žižek
about it
about it
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again. No no
again. No no
Slavoj Žižek
no absolutely. Slavoj Žižek this is such a pleasure. It was a pleasure.
no absolutely. Slavoj Žižek this is such a pleasure. It was a pleasure.
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Such a pleasure.
Such a pleasure.
Slavoj Žižek
Bless you. Thank you.
Bless you. Thank you.
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Bye bye. Bye bye.
Bye bye. Bye bye.