Žižek Chillstep Lofi background lecture for cleaning with ADHD | 2025 Slavoj Zizek Downtempo
Lecture · Moon Sugar ·
2025-09-04 · 1:12:48 · 8,195 words
fascism-populismideologypsychoanalysishistorygeopolitics-warcapitalismsexuality-gendertechnology-ai-cyberspaceecology-climatephilosophy-generalreligion-theologydemocracy
Žižek argues that contemporary right-wing populist figures like Trump, Vance, and Elon Musk are not traditional authoritarian fathers but 'primordial fathers' representing the perverse, final outcome of the 1968 revolution's ideals of creative freedom and sexual liberation. He analyzes Musk as a figure of 'obscene' power who embodies a 'false communism' of unstructured, jumping activity, while simultaneously examining the normalization of state violence in Israel-Palestine, citing the film 'No Other Land' and the firing of the Mossad chief to illustrate the collapse of liberal hypocrisy into open obscenity. Žižek analyzes the paradoxical nature of contemporary Trumpian politics, arguing that it represents a 'liberal fascism' where extreme authoritarian technocracy (network state, AI) coexists with a reactionary appeal to 'common sense' (anti-LGBTQ, climate denial). He contrasts this with Yanis Varoufakis's concept of 'techno-feudalism,' suggesting that while they appear antagonistic, they may be compatible under Trump. He concludes by critiquing Orwell's 1984 as an inadequate model for modern totalitarianism, proposing instead a 'love-capitalist binary' where love, not sex, is the subversive act. Žižek analyzes the current geopolitical landscape, arguing that China is less expansionist than the US and critiquing Western media bias regarding resource exploitation in places like Zambia. He uses historical examples of religious fundamentalism (Old Believers, Canudos) to argue that conservative communities can offer pragmatic, non-resentful alternatives to state capitalism. Finally, he applies Lacan’s distinction between enunciated content and enunciation to the Liar Paradox, using it to explain the political appeal of Trump’s inconsistency versus the inhumanity of a figure like JD Vance.
every located moment in this recording, click one to read it
The ideas in it 20
in the order they first come up; click a row for what he does with the idea here
as “primordial father”
A Freudian/Lacanian concept where the father is not a symbolic authority but a figure of pure, unmediated obscene power, lacking the symbolic law that structures normal society.
The modern capitalist condition (e.g., Uber drivers) where workers are told they are 'small capitalists' owning their means of production, masking exploitation through the illusion of autonomy.
The Lacanian slogan 'enjoy without obstacles,' which Žižek argues was co-opted by the 1968 revolutionaries and now manifests in the obscene freedom of figures like Musk.
An old-fashioned political strategy Žižek proposes for current desperate times: forming alliances with imperfect actors (like progressive Jews or ex-secret police bosses) to fight for basic human rights, rather than demanding purity.
Žižek's ironic label for Elon Musk's lifestyle, which mimics Marx's description of communist freedom (hunting in the morning, criticizing in the afternoon) but in a chaotic, unstructured, and selfish way.
A concept referenced from Esther (likely Dyson) that Žižek hints at as a framework for understanding Musk's political project, though not fully elaborated in this excerpt.
Used ironically by Trump to justify reactionary policies (anti-LGBTQ, climate denial); Žižek argues this 'common sense' is actually insanity and is being boycotted by Trump's actual policies.
Žižek's term for the current political formation: liberalism brought to an extreme, combining democratic forms with authoritarian measures, distinct from standard authoritarianism.
Yanis Varoufakis's concept of a new oligarchic system; Žižek uses it as a foil to argue that it is incompatible with populist neo-fascism, though he remains pessimistic about this incompatibility.
as “Steve Bannon, let's call him ironically the leftist Trumpian”
Žižek's ironic label for Steve Bannon, highlighting the paradox that Bannon was fired for demanding workers' rights and taxing the wealthy, traits Žižek associates with the left.
as “Gaza Trump from the zero point”
Žižek's description of Trump's attempt to reconstruct society in Gaza by emptying the terrain and building a new society from scratch, akin to the 'network state' idea.
as “nature will somehow recuperate itself. No place for humans.”
Žižek's cynical observation on the ecological crisis: nature will recover, but likely without humans, challenging the 'common sense' view of humans as active nature.
Žižek's coinage for the modern political landscape, where love (not sex) is considered suspicious/subversive, contrasting with Orwell's sexual repression model.
Žižek’s self-deprecating label for his controversial, pro-China/anti-Western bias in geopolitical analysis, presented as a 'reproach' to his leftist friends.
The Frankfurt School motto Žižek invokes to argue that desperate situations should increase political activism rather than induce paralysis or false moderate/violent choices.
as “logic of resentment”
The defining feature of state pseudo-fundamentalism and modern right-wing populism, characterized by envy and hatred of the 'other,' contrasted with the non-resentful stance of groups like the Amish or Tibetans.
as “enunciated content vs. enunciatory stance”
Lacanian distinction used to analyze the Liar Paradox: the literal truth value of what is said (content) versus the implied stance or position of the speaker (enunciation), which may contradict the content.
Hannah Arendt’s distinction between the SA (violent, obscene, 'human' in their empirical evil) and the SS (cold, uniformed, inhuman monsters), used to contrast Trump with Vance.
as “obscenity”
The defining feature of the new populist leaders (Trump, Musk), who do not hide their transgression but make their transgression (joking about themselves, breaking norms) the core of their authority.
A form of lying (associated with obsessional neurosis) where the literal statement is true, but the way it is formulated or the context makes it a lie.
Stories he reaches for 4
Dying in his dacha, Lenin learned of an Old Believers group farming nearby and sent friends to offer them electricity, showing Bolsheviks initially saw them as resisting centralized imperial power.
“Lenin himself when he was slowly dying in his dacha outside Moscow he learned that there is an Old Believers group toiling land there and Lenin was so interested in that that he sent one of his friends there offering them and they took it electricity”
Jokes exist in concentration camps and mass graves not as humor, but as a survival mechanism to prevent total depression or numbness in the face of horror.
“To survive, not to be in total depression all time or numbness, you needed stupid jokes.”
Uber claims to be a neutral mediator, but ideologically convinces precarious workers they are 'small capitalists' who own their means of production.
“You who think you are exploited, you are all small capitalists.”
Žižek contrasts Tibetans and Amish, who live by their principles without envy or resentment toward outsiders, with modern fundamentalists who are defined by their hatred of the 'other' (e.g., LGBT).
“I spoke in India with some Tibetans and they don't think like oh you whites are doing horrible things... no they said you live your way we live our way”
Works invoked 8
The German Ideology book
Marx's 'worst work' where he naively describes communist freedom, which Žižek uses to ironically describe Elon Musk's lifestyle.
1984 book
Žižek critiques Orwell's depiction of totalitarianism as 'flawed' and 'wrong,' arguing that the sexual link is not subversive in today's universe.
Totem and Taboo book
Freud's text containing the mythic history of the primordial father (Urvater) and the killing of the father.
No Other Land film
A documentary showing the reality of the West Bank, where an Israeli director is beaten and arrested, illustrating the normalization of obscenity.
Network State book
Refers to Balaji Srinivasan's text/idea, which Žižek finds 'fascinating' and key to understanding the 'network state' concept.
The 18th Brumaire book
One of Marx's serious theoretical works, contrasted with his 'vulgar' German Ideology.
Canudos other
Used as a major example of a successful, non-resentful religious fundamentalist community that thrived outside the state.
Žižek’s favorite text, which he admits will annoy his audience but which he is proud of for analyzing religious fundamentalism.
People invoked 34
Hamdan Ballal positive
Palestinian movie director and co-director of 'No Other Land,' who was beaten and arrested while protected by soldiers.
Yuval Kremnitzer positive
A progressive, scared Israeli Jew and distant relative of Ami Ayalon, whom Žižek wants to visit in Ljubljana.
Groucho Marx positive
Cited for a famous saying about an idiot, which Žižek paraphrases to explain the paradox of admitting one is a 'piece of shit' while still being one.
Kamala Harris negative
Described as 'unfortunate' and speaking in 'flat and void' platitudes to avoid offending anyone, representing calculated caution.
Mentioned as someone who clarified the topic of 'wise liberal fascism' in the previous part of the talk.
Marine Le Pen negative
Condemned for her party's roots in anti-Semitism.
Vladimir Lenin positive
Cited for his interest in Old Believers and resistance to centralized power; Žižek views this positively.
Theodor W. Adorno positive
Cited for his late 1930s text arguing that figures like Hitler are not paternal figures but function differently.
Steve Bannon positive
Used as an ironic example of 'leftist Trumpian' traits (supporting unions, taxing the wealthy) to show the complexity of Trump's coalition.
Jacques Lacan positive
Cited for interpreting Freud, arguing that modern figures like Trump are 'primordial fathers,' and for critiquing '68 with 'Jouir sans entraves.'
Frank Ruda positive
Friend and colleague at Kingston University, cited in the context of humanities departments being attacked.
Jon Stewart negative
Representative of left-liberal comedians whose jokes miss the point because Trump is already a caricature.
Donald Trump negative
A figure of 'primordial father' and obscenity, not a traditional authority, representing the perverse outcome of '68.
JD Vance negative
Described as a 'totally manufactured robot' created by Peter Thiel, representing a colder, inhuman evil worse than Trump.
Elon Musk negative
Described as the 'new right-wing version of '68 revolutionaries' and a figure of 'perverted communism,' embodying obscene, unstructured freedom.
George Orwell negative
Žižek explicitly states he dislikes Orwell's image of future totalitarianism as 'flawed' and 'wrong,' particularly the idea that sexual repression is the core of subversion.
Bertrand Russell negative
Cited as having solved the Liar Paradox 'too simply' by distinguishing levels, which Žižek rejects.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad negative
Cited as a style of Holocaust denial ('maybe it happened maybe not').
Esther Dyson positive
Mentioned as having 'kindly' mentioned Žižek's text on the 'network state' (inferred from context 'mentioned kindly by Esther').
Bernie Sanders positive
Used as a benchmark for leftist policy; Bannon wanted higher taxes on the wealthy even more than Sanders does.
Mentioned in the context of Trump's inconsistent statements about him being a dictator vs. not legitimate.
Jordan Bardella negative
From Le Front National, which has roots in anti-Semitism, and attended a conference in Jerusalem.
Yanis Varoufakis positive
Friend with whom Žižek has great disagreements, but whom he sympathizes with regarding the need to rethink politics under Trump/Musk.
Benjamin Netanyahu negative
Israeli Prime Minister who organized an anti-Semitism conference with far-right figures and fired the Mossad chief for making honest reports.
Ami Ayalon positive
Ex-boss of Shin Bet, now excluded for making progressive statements about Palestinian political subjectivity.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez positive
Cited for discovering the data about her voters supporting Trump, used to illustrate the paradox of political authenticity.
Hannah Arendt positive
Signatory of the New York Times advertisement warning of Nazism-like tendencies in Palestine.
Peter Thiel negative
Identified as the mega billionaire who controlled Vance's career from the beginning.
Jean-Marie Le Pen negative
Founding father of Le Front National, an open Holocaust denier.
Vladimir Putin negative
Mentioned in the context of Trump's shifting views on him.
Balaji Srinivasan positive
Cited as the developer of the 'network state' idea, which Žižek finds fascinating and key to understanding Trump's actions.
Karl Marx positive
Cited for 'The German Ideology' as his 'worst work' where he naively describes communist freedom, which Žižek ironically maps onto Musk.
Sigmund Freud positive
Cited for 'Totem and Taboo' and the myth of the primordial father (Urvater) and the return of the father as a ghost.
Albert Einstein positive
Signatory of a New York Times advertisement warning of tendencies in Palestine resembling Nazism.
Transcript 8 turns
unknown
So, I read Žižek and Žižek doesn't read me.
So, I read Žižek and Žižek doesn't read me.
Slavoj Žižek
It's a rather simple cheap joke but it's very realist. In times which are today, it's suicidal to be an optimist because you are just all the time disappointed. If you are a pessimist, then from time to time something small happens here and there, you know, which gives you some hope. But I really think that here I sympathize with my friend although we had disagreements, Yanis Varoufakis, we have great disagreements, but nonetheless, everything has to be rethought when people like Trump, Vance, Elon Musk in the United States become those who rule. Because what are they? They are no longer traditional, but by traditional I not mean 17th century, I mean even a couple of decades ago, figures of authority. The first thing is that obscenity, even making jokes about himself, is part of their image. That's why I found something terribly wrong with all those left-liberal comedians like Jon Stewart who just repeat this regular jokes making fun of Trump. Sorry, Trump is already a caricature. rethink here especially, I'm saying this without any trace of irony, very seriously, with standard feminist attitude which tries to blame somehow find, it's a patriarchy and so on. Probably it is, but not in the usual traditional sense. I here refer to the best of critical theory already in the late thirties. Adorno, the great one, wrote a wonderful text where he emphasized that figures like Hitler, they are not paternal figures. They function in a totally different way. Now there are debates how do they function. One nice Freudian theory is that, you know, in his Totem and Taboo, Freud has this mythic history of there was Urvater, primordial father, who terrorized all the family, rape, had sex with all women, and then sons gather, kill the father, the father returns as a ghost, as a symbolic authority. That's how we get normal symbolic power. Lacan gave a proper interpretation of this. He said, Freud got it wrong. First comes the symbolic father and today with figures like Kim Jong Un, Trump and so on, these are figures of primordial father in all their obscenity. But are they even, I think things get so perverse, are they even paternal figures, no matter how perverted? Look, I was thinking about, not too much but nonetheless, Elon Musk as a figure, you know. And you know what he reminded me of? Marx in, I think his worst work, in manuscript German Ideology, he gives there a theory of how communism will look. And he says, you will change your do different thing, in the morning you will work on the field, in the afternoon you will write books, in the evening you will and so on. Isn't this how Musk works? For two hours he makes plan how to fly to Mars, then what to do with Tesla, then how to fire more federal employees and so on. With him, you get this absolute madness of, you know, jumping from here to there and it's the same with his sex relations. The last time I read is that he has or children, each of them of course with a different woman, and it's something so perverted. You know that I learned from friends in LA that for his daughters he constructed, it's not just homeschooling that teachers came, but he constructed a small high school just for a couple of his children where they were taught the way he wanted, which meant no humanities, no music, no foreign languages, you know. Just other things. Isn't in this almost something, I would say in a naive way, communist, in the sense of free, it's a false form of freedom, you know. In the sense of as if freedom is you jump here, there, and so on and so on. So my conclusion, so I don't lose myself, isn't a figure like Musk the last outcome, unexpected, of '68 when we were dreaming about how to avoid alienated language or whatever? I think the only way to understand this new right-wing populist politicians is to see them as the final outcome of '68. '68 was a very ambiguous event. It is a big, the biggest model of how the system appropriated what it was perceived to be a subversive movement. There were three main goals. They said against factories for more creative work. They said sexual liberation. And they said against alienated universities, studying must be more individual creative. That's what we are getting today in a perverted form. Instead of this being just one of the numbers putting together a car, you get, you get precarious work, which is I think the most horrible thing you can imagine because you know what it's ingenious. Look, for me a typical capitalist company today is something like Uber. They claim we have nothing to do with capitalism, we are pure neutral mediators, we have people who offer something, cars I mean drives, and people who need them. We just bring them together. And the idea beneath it, it works so well ideologically, is that you who think you are exploited, you are all small capitalists. They claim look at the precarious worker, if you are Uber driver or work artificial on a computer, you own your means of production. This lesson of against alienated factory work was appropriated. Then education. Well, you see this realize not only in United States but now in England how precisely this higher-class humanities departments, now I know what happened with my friend Frank Ruda in Dundee, at Kingston here and so on, they claim precisely this is abstract university not connected with real life and so on. And sexuality, it goes by itself what you, I you get this so-called free sexuality and so on which is very commodified, it's not. So my just to finish my I think that I was there, I'm old enough in '68, like I was I was not participating but observing it and my impression was that something bothered me already at that point. This hidden anti-feminist aspect which was hysteria was perceived as a bad term. Hysterics just provoke but they really need want a new master. Perversion was supposed to be good. The big lesson, and Freud already said this, it's wonderful, Freud says nowhere is the unconscious more inaccessible than in a perversion. Because who would have thought, it's the opposite you know, isn't the pervert one who brings out all the dirty stuff does all the disgusting things? No. Lacan also returns to Freud here and says that every power structure needs at its hidden obscene underground perverts to do it. Lacan's critique of '68 is very interesting. He opposes himself to this formula which was popular if you speak a little bit French, "Jouir sans entraves," enjoy without obstacles. You know, my first association is here Elon Musk. Something very interesting. He says, you revolutionaries want to get rid of the master, but you will get a new master which will be even worse. And I think Lacan was way ahead, not that he was a genius he was lucky, ahead of his time. These guys, Elon Musk, Trump, are the new masters that wouldn't have been possible without the '68 revolution. In what precise sense? Here Lacan. I am going to talk now in the United States, their highest representative, Lipton actor. I am really pissed at you because A, you treated me disrespectfully. You know what I'm referring to, like you didn't even care to mention, oh Slavoj Žižek, no, I am Doctor Doctor Doctor Senator. Okay, what senator I am, I have frequent flyer senator card but it doesn't matter, I have that title. That's first. Then second, you didn't say thank you. Notice. So third, obviously you don't want peace with me. Now I break off with you, when you are ready for peace, come. Thank you very much, I mean it's in my nature you know like if I don't begin with something slightly tasteless then what meaning has life although on the other hand I'm starting to change my mind because you know the our social reality is more and more so vulgar and tasteless, things totally unimaginable are happening, so that I wonder if this is the right way. We cannot move beyond the vulgarity, the vulgarities that we have there. Why? Let me just before I begin properly give you a couple of things which it's no longer a joke or I think one should use jokes for the same reason that, I know I made use of this motive here already, for the same reason then I learn from my old Jewish friend that there were jokes in Auschwitz and after Auschwitz because the situation was so horrible that to survive, not to be in total depression all the time or numbness, you needed stupid jokes. I know from a Bosnian friend that there are jokes in Srebrenica in Bosnia about their own situation. That's the only thing I can say because let me just give you in improvised way a couple of things which really made me depressed. You know what is happening? Did you notice this how we were claiming for years, oh this is like fascism, authoritarianism, but we were always conscious that this was some kind of rhetorical exaggeration that will shock our opponents? No, now it's literally true. For example, I claim at the Frankfurt Book Fair a year and a half ago I draw, drew attention to this link between a certain type of Zionism and fascism. And again, at the origin of this is as you probably know a very honest act, a letter published in in New York Times, a whole page, page advertisement signed among others by Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and so on, where they warn that there are tendencies there in Palestine among the few who resemble Nazism. But now this is becoming reality. If you ask me it was a minor event, then people say but unimportant, marginal. I like this small notes. Did you read in the newspaper, I don't know how much it was reported, even many Jews were embarrassed, that last week in Jerusalem there was a conference, even some members of the government boycotted it, conference organized by Netanyahu and his right-wing partisans on anti-Semitism, how to fight anti-Semitism today. Among the people there, people were shocked. You know who is, I hope I will pronounce the name correctly, who is the second guy who will now probably take over since Marine Le Pen was condemned, Jordan Bardella, did I okay. But you know Le Front National has roots in anti-Semitism. The founding father Jean-Marie Le Pen was an open Holocaust denier, or at least in this Ahmadinejad style, you know, maybe it happened maybe not, we need more, we need more evidence and so on. Now and there were some other people from the extreme right. What this is what's happening now that it's literally coming to a pack between Western European extreme right and at least some trend in Israel and it's clear why, because they both have the same racist agenda. For both of them, Palestinians or Arabs are a threat and so on and so on. But what really worries me is, if this is not a horror then I don't know what horror is. Did you notice with the last incident in Gaza and on the West Bank? We are entering a new period of no deniability when IDF is caught doing something, they didn't don't bother to properly deny it or justify it. They just made some vague statement. I'm not talking so much about this horror a week or two ago, you know killing of some medical Palestinian person and so on. Well that's another one. What shocked me although it's much later, you know who is Hamdan Ballal, the movie director who together with an Israeli director and I think there were four did No Other Land movie. What shocked me so much is, you can find it on YouTube, everything is recorded. Settlers are coming, protected by soldiers, police. They beat Palestinians. The guy, co-director, just goes out, he is beaten by settlers and by police or IDF whoever, and then who is arrested at the end? Him. And another or two Palestinians, him. Okay, okay, it happens. I'm very cynical here. I know so many details about what they're doing in different countries. Like I think I've already told you this story. A Slovenian journalist friend of mine of mine was in towards the end of Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq and a guy wanted to warn him, don't inquire too much, so he took him to a place. He says, this guy is so horrible that even if you tell it around nobody will believe you. And he saw opponents of Saddam still alive hanging from down, only by the by their, how do you say, they were hanging on their balls. Their balls were tied to some rope to the and so on. And then he said, okay, I hope you got the message. So all things happen. But you know what depressed me, usually, it's horrible what I will say but I hope you will get the point, one would at least expect from the Israeli side to say something like, this movie director was there I don't know throwing stones or I don't know. No, they just said because they couldn't accuse him of anything, they said that he was detained for health reasons. Like he being wounded. And then what happened was that his lawyer called the prison, they said we don't know anything about him, he was chained to the floor for hours and then he was released. Absolutely no explanation. We are really entering this new stage when, again, obscenity is becoming open, it's more and more fully normalized. Here I remain at the point that I often made here, a traditional European hypocrite is nonetheless better to be hypocritical because then at least you minimally expose yourself to to to criticism. It's interesting this movie No Other Land because I got caught in some polemics with more radical pro-Palestinians in New York when I was there a month ago and again a strange thing happened, they opposed the movie. They claim that yes, it's a truthful picture of what happens on the West Bank, but that in its form it remains racist. Because first, it proposes to stage inact the idea that above all the confusion there still can be friendship between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian. To this it was easy for me to reply that no, they are not friends in general. It would be, I agree, obscene if the idea was, yes they are killing Palestinians there, maybe some Jew at another place, but let's just be friends and wander around. No, they collaborate the two precisely to show what is happening to Palestinians on the West Bank, so it's not a neutral humanitarian friendship. But second approach which appears more up to the point is that, you know, there is an unwritten rule and I noticed it that even if you are part of, let's call it liberal Zionism and admit there are injustices happening to Palestinians and so on, if you do a movie on it, it's never just Palestinian subjectivity. There has to be a good Jew supporting them, you know, not directly just Palestinians. Well I disagree with the guy. I said yes you made the point, but look about what happened, this arrest of Hamdan Ballal, it happened because of that movie and because the movie got Oscar and so on. You know what I mean. I think we are in such desperate times that maybe while we stick each of us to our point apropos specific problems, project, we have to practice, I will use this old-fashioned term from 1930s, popular front. If somebody is ready to really fight for human rights there, you don't go into this, you know, but how far does he go? Does he admit that Hamas is like for some most radicals they say the only thing that matters is that you admit Hamas as the only true resistance group. I don't buy this for a simple reason. You know what happened now and it's again the shamelessness. You know my old idea, the only guys whom you trust are ex-secret police bosses, Shin Bet or Mossad. I'm more and more convinced of it. Did you read the news that Netanyahu fired a week or two ago, fired the Mossad boss and I looked into what was behind. The official version was they didn't prepare Israel enough for September 7th attack. No, no, no, they did, even warn the government. The point is that this boss of Mossad made nonetheless much more honest report. The point was if we don't open some space for Palestinians for their political sovereignty, autonomy, we are lost, it's eternal warfare and so on. That was behind. Plus another thing, my god this gets nice. Mossad was beginning to investigate the financial dealings of some rich Israelis with Qatar. And now it came out, did you read, now it's not just a rumor, we have the whole chain. One of the best friends of Netanyahu, I forgot his name, a billionaire, was transferring his money to Qatar and you know where the money went? To Hamas. It's not a joke. Israel was the main financial source supporter of Hamas because they judged in a very brutal way that this is the only way to keep Palestinians apart, West Bank and so on and so on. So again, this just goes on, it doesn't even surprise us too much and so on and so on. What on the other hand, yes, so that's why I will tell you before you will read some idiots to attack me, I still have some links among progressive Jews and one of them, the guy who maybe at some point you should invite him here, he is very progressive and today in Israel you can define in a very precise empirical way what progressive is. He is afraid, scared like shit that he will lose his job, oh it's all around. Yuval Kremnitzer is of course one of us, Slovenians, can I say we are the wise guys, but he is, you know I mentioned a couple of times here Ami Ayalon, the ex-boss of Shin Bet I think, who also is now totally excluded because he made incredibly, he didn't quite satisfy us but progressive statements, claiming the source of the troubles there is not Palestinian terror but the fact that Palestinians don't have even a choice, a vision of how to achieve some kind of political subjectivity and that the problem is this. And Yuval told me when he visited us in Ljubljana for some talk that he is a distant relative of Ami Ayalon. My God, I don't know if he's safe because now you know Israel is like United States, you can be simply arrested now. But I'm tempted to go and visit him. You know why? Because for me much more interesting than this, than this comfortable, not for Palestinians, external critique is to meet the guys who were inside and become skeptics, no? So what do we get on the other side? And with this I will stop this introduction. I hope this will amuse you. When I read some texts about the lifestyle of Elon Musk, my first association was my god, he is the new right-wing version of '68 revolutionaries. Literal. He is only possible as the final result, consequence of the '68 ideology. You know what is for me the worst text of Marx? German Ideology. It's pretty vulgar but Marx becomes serious theoretician after that with his mega polyty reactions to '48 revolution, 18th Brumaire and so on and of course texts on political economy. But in German Ideology Marx describes in a slightly too naive way a communist individual like free in the sense of Marx ironically says in the morning you do something in your gardening, in the afternoon you practice critical theory, in the evening I don't know. Isn't this Elon Musk? In the morning he maybe has some plans on the rocket on the rocket to Mars or Tesla or whatever, in the afternoon you if it's a modest day you fire one or people from government job, in the evening I don't know, but I know, ah you know what I do later, my god this is pure almost perverted communism. You know that Musk didn't trust already years ago state schools, so for his two three children in somewhere there in California he organized a private high school, professors well paid but just for his three four children and he made his own how do you call it curriculum so that there was especially there were, I love this, no foreign languages and no music. I'm prone with music here you know I almost am tempted to answer him like a right-winger, what's about patriotic songs? Like where will they learn this? I mean, then of course there are his children, now each with a different woman of course you know. Isn't there something in a perverted way communist in this? I do this, I do that and so on you know. So I that was the point of my text. Now I will don't protest too quickly. I hint at this in one of the texts mentioned kindly by Esther, the on the network state. And here I come to a suicidal mistake that I made. I did something very stupid. I sent you three texts which perfectly, my god how stupid I am, perfectly cover the central line of argumentation of what I wanted to do here. Network state, the first one, and then tomorrow that one about local culture global blah blah whatever and also the other one which already appeared some time ago about the madness of this Musk sorry no, Trump's reference to to common sense and so on and so forth. I hope if you didn't you all got these texts. I propose that we lead if you want I will have things ready that we lead that we do it like this. We leave this topic at its general level for tomorrow and maybe we even begin with you if you didn't already read them you ask me precise questions questions. The basic topic is clear of course. I tried to make it a little bit more clear as Esther said I I mean wise liberal fascism. No I'm not so sure that Yanis Varoufakis for example techno-feudalism, there are so many things different you know. What we are getting today that's why I opted for the term liberal fascism. It's not although now we are getting it, it's not the standard authoritarianism. At some level, at a false level, it's liberalism brought to an extreme and that's the tragedy. But I developed this more in my texts. So the main ideological contradiction but unfortunately this will not ruin Trump. I think if he will properly manipulate it he can thrive on it. Is this open contradiction or rather antagonism? On the one hand this conservative neo-conservative populism return to roots, you know represented by, I call him ironically the Steve Bannon, let's call him ironically the leftist Trumpian and he is in some sense. We have to admit this so that we understand why people vote for Trump. You know that Bannon was fired after two years from the White House during Trump's first four years of presidency because he went pretty far in his demand for more workers' rights. He did not know he supported trade unions, he wanted taxes to be raised for the wealthy to percent not even Bernie Sanders does that. So on the on the other hand we get this what Varoufakis calls techno techno-feudalism whatever, new oligarchs, and why did I emphasize so much then? Because I claim that their idea which is rarely put open is simply incompatible with this populist neo-fascism. It's an idea of such a radical new technocracy that it's even too much for the most Stalinist communist. The idea is as you find in the texts network state which means don't try to change gradually society either through a new dictator and some of these guys already predicted what Trump did. They said the only chance is that in United States when a president a good one our guy for them Trump is democratically elected he proclaims state of emergency and does it and does what. Totally reconstruct the entire society from the zero point following this new pseudo-liberal but at the same time extremely authoritarian measures what Trump is doing now and what I found fascinating is that there was a guy called Balaji Srinivasan something you find references in my texts who developed this idea. He says we can create new music, new band, new product, why not create new state? And he developed very nicely this idea that you get from a state in whatever way occupation contract part of the territory where you build a society through some kind of enlightened monarch supported by good artificial intelligence technocrats. And I think this is the key because people then stop me at this point and say but you are dreaming. No no this is what Trump tried already to do in Gaza. You empty the terrain and then you get this Gaza Trump from the zero point you construct a society. Now some of my leftist friends think this is an antagonism that will ruin Trump. I'm more of a pessimist. I I'm not so sure. But let's not lose time by this. My point is just the old one I already made here my basic point that why Trump in his inaugural speech justified his measures by two key terms. Common sense and all the other stuff it's insanity. Common sense tells you that in nature there are two sexes and all the other stuff. It's insanity. LGBTQ+ all this stuff. My point is and sorry if I'm repeating myself that it's not simply that this is an illusion in the sense of we cannot go back. All the other stuff it's insanity. It's a very sad depressing paradox that Trumpian actual policy deceives this common sense. All the other stuff it's insanity. LGBTQ+ all this stuff common sense. It's a very sad depressing paradox that Trumpian actual policy where all our lives common sense is being boycotted. Look for environment Trump is simply in denial. What will happen? I don't know. Gender liberation whatever we call it Trump return to but and what really worries me is LGBTQ+ all of this stuff artificial intelligence technocracy. Here Trump is fully aware of the importance of it and here thing gets complex but again my point is it's insanity Trump is publicly advocating common sense common sense to common sense it's insanity he is ushering us into a world where precisely all the other stuff it's insanity common sense and LGBTQ+ disappear because in a way this is true. Look at ecological crisis. What does our common sense what does common sense tell us apropos all environmental threat? Yeah but nonetheless nature is much bigger don't be too nervous look out there is sun there are flowers blooming and so on. Nature will somehow recuperate itself. My cynical complementary is of course it will but maybe without us. No place for humans. Or with artificial intelligence and so on. I think that all these things confront us with something with which we certainly cannot be even properly confronted or analyzed by means of our common sense because our common sense tells us we humans are active nature is an inexhaustible background of our activity. It's no longer true and so on and so on. And here I had a meeting with Yanis Varoufakis, I even forgot where was it a couple of months ago where I didn't want to prolong thing too much but later we had a friendly light conflict where maybe you read my texts unfortunately it was payable I don't know why I'm ready to send them all to you on Substack. You know I accept basically the idea of Yanis which is that Trump and Putin even when they appear to be in conflict they basically speak the same language. Did you notice how how Putin immediately had shown understanding for Trump's green light idea claiming but we also have interest in Africa? Because it's crucial what is happening now Soviet soldiers sorry Russian soldiers in the middle of Africa and so on. So they speak the same language which is I've written about it but to amuse you I will repeat my it's not even a joke. I don't like Orwell's I think it's a flawed wrong image of future totalitarianism because first this ridiculous old-fashioned idea that to have a sexual link with a woman is subversive. Not in today's universe of perversion. No I am very romantic here I think that today no sex but if anything love is love is considered suspicious because it's not
It's a rather simple cheap joke but it's very realist. In times which are today, it's suicidal to be an optimist because you are just all the time disappointed. If you are a pessimist, then from time to time something small happens here and there, you know, which gives you some hope. But I really think that here I sympathize with my friend although we had disagreements, Yanis Varoufakis, we have great disagreements, but nonetheless, everything has to be rethought when people like Trump, Vance, Elon Musk in the United States become those who rule. Because what are they? They are no longer traditional, but by traditional I not mean 17th century, I mean even a couple of decades ago, figures of authority. The first thing is that obscenity, even making jokes about himself, is part of their image. That's why I found something terribly wrong with all those left-liberal comedians like Jon Stewart who just repeat this regular jokes making fun of Trump. Sorry, Trump is already a caricature. rethink here especially, I'm saying this without any trace of irony, very seriously, with standard feminist attitude which tries to blame somehow find, it's a patriarchy and so on. Probably it is, but not in the usual traditional sense. I here refer to the best of critical theory already in the late thirties. Adorno, the great one, wrote a wonderful text where he emphasized that figures like Hitler, they are not paternal figures. They function in a totally different way. Now there are debates how do they function. One nice Freudian theory is that, you know, in his Totem and Taboo, Freud has this mythic history of there was Urvater, primordial father, who terrorized all the family, rape, had sex with all women, and then sons gather, kill the father, the father returns as a ghost, as a symbolic authority. That's how we get normal symbolic power. Lacan gave a proper interpretation of this. He said, Freud got it wrong. First comes the symbolic father and today with figures like Kim Jong Un, Trump and so on, these are figures of primordial father in all their obscenity. But are they even, I think things get so perverse, are they even paternal figures, no matter how perverted? Look, I was thinking about, not too much but nonetheless, Elon Musk as a figure, you know. And you know what he reminded me of? Marx in, I think his worst work, in manuscript German Ideology, he gives there a theory of how communism will look. And he says, you will change your do different thing, in the morning you will work on the field, in the afternoon you will write books, in the evening you will and so on. Isn't this how Musk works? For two hours he makes plan how to fly to Mars, then what to do with Tesla, then how to fire more federal employees and so on. With him, you get this absolute madness of, you know, jumping from here to there and it's the same with his sex relations. The last time I read is that he has or children, each of them of course with a different woman, and it's something so perverted. You know that I learned from friends in LA that for his daughters he constructed, it's not just homeschooling that teachers came, but he constructed a small high school just for a couple of his children where they were taught the way he wanted, which meant no humanities, no music, no foreign languages, you know. Just other things. Isn't in this almost something, I would say in a naive way, communist, in the sense of free, it's a false form of freedom, you know. In the sense of as if freedom is you jump here, there, and so on and so on. So my conclusion, so I don't lose myself, isn't a figure like Musk the last outcome, unexpected, of '68 when we were dreaming about how to avoid alienated language or whatever? I think the only way to understand this new right-wing populist politicians is to see them as the final outcome of '68. '68 was a very ambiguous event. It is a big, the biggest model of how the system appropriated what it was perceived to be a subversive movement. There were three main goals. They said against factories for more creative work. They said sexual liberation. And they said against alienated universities, studying must be more individual creative. That's what we are getting today in a perverted form. Instead of this being just one of the numbers putting together a car, you get, you get precarious work, which is I think the most horrible thing you can imagine because you know what it's ingenious. Look, for me a typical capitalist company today is something like Uber. They claim we have nothing to do with capitalism, we are pure neutral mediators, we have people who offer something, cars I mean drives, and people who need them. We just bring them together. And the idea beneath it, it works so well ideologically, is that you who think you are exploited, you are all small capitalists. They claim look at the precarious worker, if you are Uber driver or work artificial on a computer, you own your means of production. This lesson of against alienated factory work was appropriated. Then education. Well, you see this realize not only in United States but now in England how precisely this higher-class humanities departments, now I know what happened with my friend Frank Ruda in Dundee, at Kingston here and so on, they claim precisely this is abstract university not connected with real life and so on. And sexuality, it goes by itself what you, I you get this so-called free sexuality and so on which is very commodified, it's not. So my just to finish my I think that I was there, I'm old enough in '68, like I was I was not participating but observing it and my impression was that something bothered me already at that point. This hidden anti-feminist aspect which was hysteria was perceived as a bad term. Hysterics just provoke but they really need want a new master. Perversion was supposed to be good. The big lesson, and Freud already said this, it's wonderful, Freud says nowhere is the unconscious more inaccessible than in a perversion. Because who would have thought, it's the opposite you know, isn't the pervert one who brings out all the dirty stuff does all the disgusting things? No. Lacan also returns to Freud here and says that every power structure needs at its hidden obscene underground perverts to do it. Lacan's critique of '68 is very interesting. He opposes himself to this formula which was popular if you speak a little bit French, "Jouir sans entraves," enjoy without obstacles. You know, my first association is here Elon Musk. Something very interesting. He says, you revolutionaries want to get rid of the master, but you will get a new master which will be even worse. And I think Lacan was way ahead, not that he was a genius he was lucky, ahead of his time. These guys, Elon Musk, Trump, are the new masters that wouldn't have been possible without the '68 revolution. In what precise sense? Here Lacan. I am going to talk now in the United States, their highest representative, Lipton actor. I am really pissed at you because A, you treated me disrespectfully. You know what I'm referring to, like you didn't even care to mention, oh Slavoj Žižek, no, I am Doctor Doctor Doctor Senator. Okay, what senator I am, I have frequent flyer senator card but it doesn't matter, I have that title. That's first. Then second, you didn't say thank you. Notice. So third, obviously you don't want peace with me. Now I break off with you, when you are ready for peace, come. Thank you very much, I mean it's in my nature you know like if I don't begin with something slightly tasteless then what meaning has life although on the other hand I'm starting to change my mind because you know the our social reality is more and more so vulgar and tasteless, things totally unimaginable are happening, so that I wonder if this is the right way. We cannot move beyond the vulgarity, the vulgarities that we have there. Why? Let me just before I begin properly give you a couple of things which it's no longer a joke or I think one should use jokes for the same reason that, I know I made use of this motive here already, for the same reason then I learn from my old Jewish friend that there were jokes in Auschwitz and after Auschwitz because the situation was so horrible that to survive, not to be in total depression all the time or numbness, you needed stupid jokes. I know from a Bosnian friend that there are jokes in Srebrenica in Bosnia about their own situation. That's the only thing I can say because let me just give you in improvised way a couple of things which really made me depressed. You know what is happening? Did you notice this how we were claiming for years, oh this is like fascism, authoritarianism, but we were always conscious that this was some kind of rhetorical exaggeration that will shock our opponents? No, now it's literally true. For example, I claim at the Frankfurt Book Fair a year and a half ago I draw, drew attention to this link between a certain type of Zionism and fascism. And again, at the origin of this is as you probably know a very honest act, a letter published in in New York Times, a whole page, page advertisement signed among others by Albert Einstein, Hannah Arendt and so on, where they warn that there are tendencies there in Palestine among the few who resemble Nazism. But now this is becoming reality. If you ask me it was a minor event, then people say but unimportant, marginal. I like this small notes. Did you read in the newspaper, I don't know how much it was reported, even many Jews were embarrassed, that last week in Jerusalem there was a conference, even some members of the government boycotted it, conference organized by Netanyahu and his right-wing partisans on anti-Semitism, how to fight anti-Semitism today. Among the people there, people were shocked. You know who is, I hope I will pronounce the name correctly, who is the second guy who will now probably take over since Marine Le Pen was condemned, Jordan Bardella, did I okay. But you know Le Front National has roots in anti-Semitism. The founding father Jean-Marie Le Pen was an open Holocaust denier, or at least in this Ahmadinejad style, you know, maybe it happened maybe not, we need more, we need more evidence and so on. Now and there were some other people from the extreme right. What this is what's happening now that it's literally coming to a pack between Western European extreme right and at least some trend in Israel and it's clear why, because they both have the same racist agenda. For both of them, Palestinians or Arabs are a threat and so on and so on. But what really worries me is, if this is not a horror then I don't know what horror is. Did you notice with the last incident in Gaza and on the West Bank? We are entering a new period of no deniability when IDF is caught doing something, they didn't don't bother to properly deny it or justify it. They just made some vague statement. I'm not talking so much about this horror a week or two ago, you know killing of some medical Palestinian person and so on. Well that's another one. What shocked me although it's much later, you know who is Hamdan Ballal, the movie director who together with an Israeli director and I think there were four did No Other Land movie. What shocked me so much is, you can find it on YouTube, everything is recorded. Settlers are coming, protected by soldiers, police. They beat Palestinians. The guy, co-director, just goes out, he is beaten by settlers and by police or IDF whoever, and then who is arrested at the end? Him. And another or two Palestinians, him. Okay, okay, it happens. I'm very cynical here. I know so many details about what they're doing in different countries. Like I think I've already told you this story. A Slovenian journalist friend of mine of mine was in towards the end of Saddam Hussein's rule in Iraq and a guy wanted to warn him, don't inquire too much, so he took him to a place. He says, this guy is so horrible that even if you tell it around nobody will believe you. And he saw opponents of Saddam still alive hanging from down, only by the by their, how do you say, they were hanging on their balls. Their balls were tied to some rope to the and so on. And then he said, okay, I hope you got the message. So all things happen. But you know what depressed me, usually, it's horrible what I will say but I hope you will get the point, one would at least expect from the Israeli side to say something like, this movie director was there I don't know throwing stones or I don't know. No, they just said because they couldn't accuse him of anything, they said that he was detained for health reasons. Like he being wounded. And then what happened was that his lawyer called the prison, they said we don't know anything about him, he was chained to the floor for hours and then he was released. Absolutely no explanation. We are really entering this new stage when, again, obscenity is becoming open, it's more and more fully normalized. Here I remain at the point that I often made here, a traditional European hypocrite is nonetheless better to be hypocritical because then at least you minimally expose yourself to to to criticism. It's interesting this movie No Other Land because I got caught in some polemics with more radical pro-Palestinians in New York when I was there a month ago and again a strange thing happened, they opposed the movie. They claim that yes, it's a truthful picture of what happens on the West Bank, but that in its form it remains racist. Because first, it proposes to stage inact the idea that above all the confusion there still can be friendship between an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian. To this it was easy for me to reply that no, they are not friends in general. It would be, I agree, obscene if the idea was, yes they are killing Palestinians there, maybe some Jew at another place, but let's just be friends and wander around. No, they collaborate the two precisely to show what is happening to Palestinians on the West Bank, so it's not a neutral humanitarian friendship. But second approach which appears more up to the point is that, you know, there is an unwritten rule and I noticed it that even if you are part of, let's call it liberal Zionism and admit there are injustices happening to Palestinians and so on, if you do a movie on it, it's never just Palestinian subjectivity. There has to be a good Jew supporting them, you know, not directly just Palestinians. Well I disagree with the guy. I said yes you made the point, but look about what happened, this arrest of Hamdan Ballal, it happened because of that movie and because the movie got Oscar and so on. You know what I mean. I think we are in such desperate times that maybe while we stick each of us to our point apropos specific problems, project, we have to practice, I will use this old-fashioned term from 1930s, popular front. If somebody is ready to really fight for human rights there, you don't go into this, you know, but how far does he go? Does he admit that Hamas is like for some most radicals they say the only thing that matters is that you admit Hamas as the only true resistance group. I don't buy this for a simple reason. You know what happened now and it's again the shamelessness. You know my old idea, the only guys whom you trust are ex-secret police bosses, Shin Bet or Mossad. I'm more and more convinced of it. Did you read the news that Netanyahu fired a week or two ago, fired the Mossad boss and I looked into what was behind. The official version was they didn't prepare Israel enough for September 7th attack. No, no, no, they did, even warn the government. The point is that this boss of Mossad made nonetheless much more honest report. The point was if we don't open some space for Palestinians for their political sovereignty, autonomy, we are lost, it's eternal warfare and so on. That was behind. Plus another thing, my god this gets nice. Mossad was beginning to investigate the financial dealings of some rich Israelis with Qatar. And now it came out, did you read, now it's not just a rumor, we have the whole chain. One of the best friends of Netanyahu, I forgot his name, a billionaire, was transferring his money to Qatar and you know where the money went? To Hamas. It's not a joke. Israel was the main financial source supporter of Hamas because they judged in a very brutal way that this is the only way to keep Palestinians apart, West Bank and so on and so on. So again, this just goes on, it doesn't even surprise us too much and so on and so on. What on the other hand, yes, so that's why I will tell you before you will read some idiots to attack me, I still have some links among progressive Jews and one of them, the guy who maybe at some point you should invite him here, he is very progressive and today in Israel you can define in a very precise empirical way what progressive is. He is afraid, scared like shit that he will lose his job, oh it's all around. Yuval Kremnitzer is of course one of us, Slovenians, can I say we are the wise guys, but he is, you know I mentioned a couple of times here Ami Ayalon, the ex-boss of Shin Bet I think, who also is now totally excluded because he made incredibly, he didn't quite satisfy us but progressive statements, claiming the source of the troubles there is not Palestinian terror but the fact that Palestinians don't have even a choice, a vision of how to achieve some kind of political subjectivity and that the problem is this. And Yuval told me when he visited us in Ljubljana for some talk that he is a distant relative of Ami Ayalon. My God, I don't know if he's safe because now you know Israel is like United States, you can be simply arrested now. But I'm tempted to go and visit him. You know why? Because for me much more interesting than this, than this comfortable, not for Palestinians, external critique is to meet the guys who were inside and become skeptics, no? So what do we get on the other side? And with this I will stop this introduction. I hope this will amuse you. When I read some texts about the lifestyle of Elon Musk, my first association was my god, he is the new right-wing version of '68 revolutionaries. Literal. He is only possible as the final result, consequence of the '68 ideology. You know what is for me the worst text of Marx? German Ideology. It's pretty vulgar but Marx becomes serious theoretician after that with his mega polyty reactions to '48 revolution, 18th Brumaire and so on and of course texts on political economy. But in German Ideology Marx describes in a slightly too naive way a communist individual like free in the sense of Marx ironically says in the morning you do something in your gardening, in the afternoon you practice critical theory, in the evening I don't know. Isn't this Elon Musk? In the morning he maybe has some plans on the rocket on the rocket to Mars or Tesla or whatever, in the afternoon you if it's a modest day you fire one or people from government job, in the evening I don't know, but I know, ah you know what I do later, my god this is pure almost perverted communism. You know that Musk didn't trust already years ago state schools, so for his two three children in somewhere there in California he organized a private high school, professors well paid but just for his three four children and he made his own how do you call it curriculum so that there was especially there were, I love this, no foreign languages and no music. I'm prone with music here you know I almost am tempted to answer him like a right-winger, what's about patriotic songs? Like where will they learn this? I mean, then of course there are his children, now each with a different woman of course you know. Isn't there something in a perverted way communist in this? I do this, I do that and so on you know. So I that was the point of my text. Now I will don't protest too quickly. I hint at this in one of the texts mentioned kindly by Esther, the on the network state. And here I come to a suicidal mistake that I made. I did something very stupid. I sent you three texts which perfectly, my god how stupid I am, perfectly cover the central line of argumentation of what I wanted to do here. Network state, the first one, and then tomorrow that one about local culture global blah blah whatever and also the other one which already appeared some time ago about the madness of this Musk sorry no, Trump's reference to to common sense and so on and so forth. I hope if you didn't you all got these texts. I propose that we lead if you want I will have things ready that we lead that we do it like this. We leave this topic at its general level for tomorrow and maybe we even begin with you if you didn't already read them you ask me precise questions questions. The basic topic is clear of course. I tried to make it a little bit more clear as Esther said I I mean wise liberal fascism. No I'm not so sure that Yanis Varoufakis for example techno-feudalism, there are so many things different you know. What we are getting today that's why I opted for the term liberal fascism. It's not although now we are getting it, it's not the standard authoritarianism. At some level, at a false level, it's liberalism brought to an extreme and that's the tragedy. But I developed this more in my texts. So the main ideological contradiction but unfortunately this will not ruin Trump. I think if he will properly manipulate it he can thrive on it. Is this open contradiction or rather antagonism? On the one hand this conservative neo-conservative populism return to roots, you know represented by, I call him ironically the Steve Bannon, let's call him ironically the leftist Trumpian and he is in some sense. We have to admit this so that we understand why people vote for Trump. You know that Bannon was fired after two years from the White House during Trump's first four years of presidency because he went pretty far in his demand for more workers' rights. He did not know he supported trade unions, he wanted taxes to be raised for the wealthy to percent not even Bernie Sanders does that. So on the on the other hand we get this what Varoufakis calls techno techno-feudalism whatever, new oligarchs, and why did I emphasize so much then? Because I claim that their idea which is rarely put open is simply incompatible with this populist neo-fascism. It's an idea of such a radical new technocracy that it's even too much for the most Stalinist communist. The idea is as you find in the texts network state which means don't try to change gradually society either through a new dictator and some of these guys already predicted what Trump did. They said the only chance is that in United States when a president a good one our guy for them Trump is democratically elected he proclaims state of emergency and does it and does what. Totally reconstruct the entire society from the zero point following this new pseudo-liberal but at the same time extremely authoritarian measures what Trump is doing now and what I found fascinating is that there was a guy called Balaji Srinivasan something you find references in my texts who developed this idea. He says we can create new music, new band, new product, why not create new state? And he developed very nicely this idea that you get from a state in whatever way occupation contract part of the territory where you build a society through some kind of enlightened monarch supported by good artificial intelligence technocrats. And I think this is the key because people then stop me at this point and say but you are dreaming. No no this is what Trump tried already to do in Gaza. You empty the terrain and then you get this Gaza Trump from the zero point you construct a society. Now some of my leftist friends think this is an antagonism that will ruin Trump. I'm more of a pessimist. I I'm not so sure. But let's not lose time by this. My point is just the old one I already made here my basic point that why Trump in his inaugural speech justified his measures by two key terms. Common sense and all the other stuff it's insanity. Common sense tells you that in nature there are two sexes and all the other stuff. It's insanity. LGBTQ+ all this stuff. My point is and sorry if I'm repeating myself that it's not simply that this is an illusion in the sense of we cannot go back. All the other stuff it's insanity. It's a very sad depressing paradox that Trumpian actual policy deceives this common sense. All the other stuff it's insanity. LGBTQ+ all this stuff common sense. It's a very sad depressing paradox that Trumpian actual policy where all our lives common sense is being boycotted. Look for environment Trump is simply in denial. What will happen? I don't know. Gender liberation whatever we call it Trump return to but and what really worries me is LGBTQ+ all of this stuff artificial intelligence technocracy. Here Trump is fully aware of the importance of it and here thing gets complex but again my point is it's insanity Trump is publicly advocating common sense common sense to common sense it's insanity he is ushering us into a world where precisely all the other stuff it's insanity common sense and LGBTQ+ disappear because in a way this is true. Look at ecological crisis. What does our common sense what does common sense tell us apropos all environmental threat? Yeah but nonetheless nature is much bigger don't be too nervous look out there is sun there are flowers blooming and so on. Nature will somehow recuperate itself. My cynical complementary is of course it will but maybe without us. No place for humans. Or with artificial intelligence and so on. I think that all these things confront us with something with which we certainly cannot be even properly confronted or analyzed by means of our common sense because our common sense tells us we humans are active nature is an inexhaustible background of our activity. It's no longer true and so on and so on. And here I had a meeting with Yanis Varoufakis, I even forgot where was it a couple of months ago where I didn't want to prolong thing too much but later we had a friendly light conflict where maybe you read my texts unfortunately it was payable I don't know why I'm ready to send them all to you on Substack. You know I accept basically the idea of Yanis which is that Trump and Putin even when they appear to be in conflict they basically speak the same language. Did you notice how how Putin immediately had shown understanding for Trump's green light idea claiming but we also have interest in Africa? Because it's crucial what is happening now Soviet soldiers sorry Russian soldiers in the middle of Africa and so on. So they speak the same language which is I've written about it but to amuse you I will repeat my it's not even a joke. I don't like Orwell's I think it's a flawed wrong image of future totalitarianism because first this ridiculous old-fashioned idea that to have a sexual link with a woman is subversive. Not in today's universe of perversion. No I am very romantic here I think that today no sex but if anything love is love is considered suspicious because it's not
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dynamic enough
dynamic enough
Slavoj Žižek
and I consciously with all my evil sense use this term love-capitalist binary as some politically correct guys told me no so if we talk about multiplicity non-binary logic why not also incest?
and I consciously with all my evil sense use this term love-capitalist binary as some politically correct guys told me no so if we talk about multiplicity non-binary logic why not also incest?
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So what I again what I think is that here Orwell sounds very naive when he advocate this idea of an love relationship
So what I again what I think is that here Orwell sounds very naive when he advocate this idea of an love relationship
Slavoj Žižek
as something subversive and so on and so on no but what I is practically almost true today admit it is you know what the situation on earth according to Orwell in There are three mega-states Oceania Eurasia and East Asia I think. Each of them composed of a big state which controls the land around
as something subversive and so on and so on no but what I is practically almost true today admit it is you know what the situation on earth according to Orwell in There are three mega-states Oceania Eurasia and East Asia I think. Each of them composed of a big state which controls the land around
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itself
itself
Slavoj Žižek
as its own territory. Aren't we gradually approaching this? United States has its own territory, Russia also wanted to have it interest to the south to the west not just Ukraine properly, China a little bit of that although with China it's more complex and the problem of Europe is of course that it doesn't fit into this scheme. Like who will get Europe? I think it's maybe even serious to consider that Trump and Putin will somehow try to divide so now I will tell you something you will get here my Realpolitik worst stance. I think that in spite of all problematic things about China and recently I've written a text about that because Varoufakis still think China is different. Yeah it's capitalist and so on but within certain measure. Did you notice if this were to happen in the developed world this would be headlines? What happened about a month or two ago in Zambia? You see we don't get crucial mega-news. Zambia has one big river and fish is from there they drink water from there on the top of this river there is a big copper mine owned by China, some Chinese companies. Copper mines have a tremendous amount of extremely poisonous residual fluid residual. They were protected by a wall so they didn't spill over into the river this wall broke down and it's unimaginable in one day already more than kilometers of the river down was not metaphorically totally dead. You cannot drink it all the fish is died and so on and so on. So that's what the Chinese did there. And when the Zambian government protested the Chinese didn't give a clear answer yeah yeah so accident but then there is another story about how they exploit workers there but in spite of this I think that nonetheless China is more interested in open trade less expansionist because you know this old leftist argument still convinces me when they say but China is occupying islands around its shore okay but look just at the at the map at where America United States has has its army its army obviously all around you're practically insert China they have a right to what they are doing at this at this level. So what I am saying is that that's my idea so that you will not think that I'm some crazy academic leftist waiting for a big authentic that's my reproach to but you we still my friend. You know whenever something happens Syriza or what was Moralist now it also screwed up in Bolivia and so on oh it's not yet the real thing. Yeah it's very comfortable you sit there write your big academic books and just dismiss everything that happens. I think that we should follow today more than ever the old Frankfurt school motto pessimism in theory optimism in practice. That is to say although you know the situation is pretty desperate this should push you to be even more active and avoid false choice like should we be moderate should we be more violent. No analyze the situation and just do everything possible. So along this lines by doing everything possible in one of my texts which is my favorite but will probably annoy you, the text on that global blah blah and local communities or whatever. I do something I'm really proud of. Why? Because I got many negative reaction that only prove that I'm on the right way. I try to show how even what appears to us religious fundamentalism is often not to be dismissed and I begin with Russia with this long tradition of of say Staro they call them Old Believers who from the time of Peter the Great opposed themselves to the official Orthodox Church. Now you will say these are reactionaries crazy ah ah ah you know when it was their only time when they were allowed to freely flourish? The first ten years after October Revolution. Bolsheviks immediately saw in them something they simply resisted centralized imperial state power and it's incredible to see how many ministers in the first Lenin's government were very close to Old Believers it's wonderful to see how Lenin himself when he was slowly dying in his dacha outside Moscow he learned that there is an Old Believers group toiling land there and Lenin was so interested in that that he sent one of his friends there offering them and they took it electricity do you need anything more and follow how they are doing. So you know you see what's my point here. My biggest example some of you are from Latin America some people are on the web my big example you must know it I've written about it comes from Canudos. It's an incredible thing that happened in Brazil around a little bit later there was a new liberal progressive government quickly capitalizing the country and some old orthodox resisted as they thought. Inside Bahia miles into they build from nowhere a city which at its peak had I think around people. You know who was there? Thieves, criminals, prostitutes, single-mother women, and it's incredible it was thriving. First the authorities thought okay give them one year they will kill each other. They didn't. They have had a very intelligent so-called conselheiro leader who maintained this it was incredibly successful. So the army said three expeditions against them. They were so strong that they not the army the people there they defeated the first two and quest at Canudos with three it begins in with with it begins in keep on Wikipedia and the third one only enabled the army to occupy the city and of course the politics was kill them all. Kill them all. But what was so shocking was that we got there Catholic fundamentalism at its best. They didn't care even what religion you are of. They just wanted to organize their community outside the legal framework state which was pushing for brutal capitalism. And again it was almost this dream coming true. Now all the poor all the poor homeless people prostitutes and so on and nobody bothered them. There was no moral pressure. They just kept it my god it's nice to see that things like this happen. So what I'm saying here that sometimes even what appears as religious conservative fanatics can be of use. Why? In what sense? In my old books I've drawn this distinct for example what I like in spite of all their horror about Amish or Tibetans is that so fundamental and nice they don't have resentment and envy. I spoke in India with some Tibetans and they don't think like oh you whites are doing horrible things fornicating blah blah no they said you live your way we live our way we think we discovered the truthful way it's your problem. If you leave us alone we might collaborate and so on and it's the same with Amish people. I don't idealize them you know like among the dark thing they had the highest rate of how do you call this father screw in his daughter intra-family incest but nonetheless they don't have this logic of resentment while the moment you are dealing with this state pseudo-fundamentalism you get resentment. You always envy the others like the primordial American fear of new fundamentalists who are fake what are all these gay people and LGBT you know your dirty imagination immediately explodes you know. So you see my point let's be faithful to our principles but at the same time absolutely pragmatic opportunistic whoever comes and agrees with our basic orientation should be welcome. Okay after all of this now my God how terribly time is running. Where are we now? Ah it's there. My God. Okay I will nonetheless go on a little bit because it's very interesting and although I will use some part of the old stuff it's not haha you don't have it so it's from the zero point. Since we live in this horrible times I will try quickly to go through today in today's time through the problem of truth and lie. This is a central problem today. Whom do we trust is there objective truth and so on and what you can discover soon is how the fake cancel culture left and political right they are both historicist relativists in a bad sense. Okay now my topic will be if you allow me let's say half an hour and then we go on will be the so-called Liar Paradox. You must know it from philosophy statement like everything I am saying is false. Now if this statement is true then it's false because at least this statement claims something that cannot be true if this statement is true no everything I'm saying is false no this statement is not false if you say this. We know how for example Bertrand Russell tried to solve this problem with I think way too simple way of simply distinguishing levels that a statement about a set of things cannot be itself part of this thing you know. A statement of something is at a different meta-level then you avoid this contradiction. But I will not go into these boring logical problems. I think that and this is very useful today politically, we should turn here to Lacan, Jacques Lacan, who offers a couple of times in his text here and there a unique easy and clear solution by way of distinguishing between the enunciated content of what you are saying simply the content what you are saying and the enunciatory subjunctive stance implied by this enunciation. Like you are saying something but the way you are saying it can and as a rule does imply another stance which contradicts the content. The moment I think the moment we introduce this distinction we immediately see that a statement like everything I say is false can itself be true or false. If you are these are naive terms but here we should not be afraid and use them. If you say if you are honestly in despair, if you discover all my life I was a piece of shit so if you say everything I'm saying is false, it can be an authentic statement of despair. My god I screwed up my life. but it can also be the opposite things are very refined here. If you say I know I'm a piece of shit it can also be the highest lie at the level of enunciation. Why? Because if you say I know I'm a piece of shit you imply that by saying this there is nonetheless an honest part in you. Like you know I said this so you see I know who I am so I'm not totally a piece of shit I'm at least honest about myself. Our reply to this false version should be I think a paraphrase of the well-known Groucho Marx saying. You know it's famous this guy looks an idiot talks as an idiot but this shouldn't deceive you this guy is an idiot. We should say you act like a piece of shit and you admit you are a piece of shit but this will not deceive us you are a piece of shit. No I know years ago I developed mentioned this in what sense that this happened to me he's dead forgotten I will not tell his name. We had half a century ago when I was studying philosophy a professor who was professor of analytical philosophy and probably was informing secret police these were more harsh communist times about what the students are saying and once he was drunk he even admitted to me you know I know I'm a piece of shit but so what I survive and so on. I didn't but I was tempted to tell him yes you are piece of shit so why are you saying it then people you know. It was true he's you know it's the same with it's the same with it's the same with sorry am I here yeah it's it's it's it's it's the same with similar paradoxes in in our rightism the same with I think we cannot even imagine the functioning of today's rightist populism without these paradoxes. Let me give you an example it fascinated me I even mentioned it here radically after Trump was re-elected in well was it October September November sorry Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who retained her seat in Congress through some analysis I don't know how she got this data discovered that many of the people who voted for her at the local level voted for Trump at the federal level. So don't ask me how he got names of many of these people but she wrote a letter to them personal one asking them how can you do this. Aren't our politics totally opposed and it's interesting what answer she got it's back and in a way they were right. It's that the impression of ordinary people you and maybe Bernie Sanders on the left and some Trumpians on the right are the only people who appear to say what they really mean while all the centrist Democrats are extremely calculated cautious not to disturb anyone. And which is true I remember the unfortunate now it's easy to make fun of her Kamala Harris just before elections she was asked I don't know on which network like the usual question what would do Gaza blah blah. And it was immediately visible on her face a trace of fear like my god I'm afraid to say something wrong. So neither should I appear pro-Palestinian nor pro-Israel. So she said something incredibly flat and void. To a concrete answer what would you do as a president with regard to Gaza her answer was something like it's very sad when people are killing each other and I will try to stop it you know. That's why she was losing votes while both Trump and Kamala avoided this. But the paradox on the other side and here we are again at the distinction between enunciated content and enunciation is that what people misperceive as Trump's authenticity brought him new votes even or precisely because when he was caught lying. Because again I read other studies where they show how the reaction of his partisans when he was caught with some inconsistencies their reaction was you see he is a normal human being like us he is not a robot just disciplined by some advisor you know. First I will say something more horrible I up to a point accept this. Up to what point? Listen listening to this latest especially Greenland appearances of J.D. Vance I'm saying please if you are religious I'm not but nonetheless just because Trump will survive because if Trump dies we will get Vance and Vance is Trump is opportunist change you can negotiate with him Vance is a totally manufactured robot. Listen to him he doesn't even make the appearance to actively think he identifies with a certain stance which is totally determined by those who trained him he was you know literally created by Peter Thiel that mega billionaire who controlled his career from the very beginning. He is a much worse horror I think than Trump. But what I'm saying is that Trump again constantly allows himself to be inconsistent you remember at some point he said Zelensky is a dictator in Ukraine then now a week ago or two he said I'm pissed at Putin for saying that Zelensky is not a legitimate and so on but that's what brings him votes because that's the tragedy this inconsistency is perceived as a sign of authentic spontaneity at the level of enunciation. In some sense it is in some sense now I will do something really evil maybe I will write it but then goodbye United States. You see it already happened to some of my friends it's no longer a joke you can be rejected refused entry no it was Hannah Arendt in I forgot which text of her I think it's a text from the late 30s has a pretty good analysis of the difference between do you know a little bit about early years of Nazism the difference between SA and SS. SA were these violent brutal street fighters the brutal popular side of Nazism they were beating Jews illegally breaking windows violent obscene dirty while SS were these you know in nice uniforms cold executioner no passion in them. And I think that maybe if Vance takes over it's like progression from SA to SS no described by so I'm much more afraid of because as Hannah Arendt said there is almost something human in their obscenity itself of SA because this dirty opportunism empirical evil is human while SS were much more inhuman monsters. So by spending so much time on this I wanted to make clear another thing I hope you will agree that when I distinguish enunciation and enunciated content I am not simply saying the enunciated content is lying and the position of enunciation is authentic. No. The most refined lying is lying at the level of enunciation. What you say can be true but the way you say the context into which you put it and so on makes it a lie. what do I mean by this I will here return to my old idea which is very close to me for personal reasons I know I developed this here a couple of times between two complementary forms of lying which I think follow nicely the distinction between hysteria and obsessional compulsive neurosis. A hysteric tells the truth in the guise of a lie. What it says can be literally not true but the lie expresses in a false form an authentic complaint. For example I found an example you find numerous examples from French Revolution anti-October Revolution. Revolutionaries themselves believed in rumors or were spreading them which were as it is now undoubtedly proven not true. But these lies nonetheless mobilized them for the right cause. In French Revolution it was the idea which is proven false now that it the idea in the French Revolution that that that the rich are organizing a big hunger starvation burning field and so on to make people starve. It was not true. Or in October Revolution it was similar so you can have the lie but a lying which nonetheless sustains an authentic complaint. Then you have truth-lying in the guise of sorry truth in the guise of a lie but you can have also the opposite. What you are saying is all literally true but the way it is formulated it serves.
as its own territory. Aren't we gradually approaching this? United States has its own territory, Russia also wanted to have it interest to the south to the west not just Ukraine properly, China a little bit of that although with China it's more complex and the problem of Europe is of course that it doesn't fit into this scheme. Like who will get Europe? I think it's maybe even serious to consider that Trump and Putin will somehow try to divide so now I will tell you something you will get here my Realpolitik worst stance. I think that in spite of all problematic things about China and recently I've written a text about that because Varoufakis still think China is different. Yeah it's capitalist and so on but within certain measure. Did you notice if this were to happen in the developed world this would be headlines? What happened about a month or two ago in Zambia? You see we don't get crucial mega-news. Zambia has one big river and fish is from there they drink water from there on the top of this river there is a big copper mine owned by China, some Chinese companies. Copper mines have a tremendous amount of extremely poisonous residual fluid residual. They were protected by a wall so they didn't spill over into the river this wall broke down and it's unimaginable in one day already more than kilometers of the river down was not metaphorically totally dead. You cannot drink it all the fish is died and so on and so on. So that's what the Chinese did there. And when the Zambian government protested the Chinese didn't give a clear answer yeah yeah so accident but then there is another story about how they exploit workers there but in spite of this I think that nonetheless China is more interested in open trade less expansionist because you know this old leftist argument still convinces me when they say but China is occupying islands around its shore okay but look just at the at the map at where America United States has has its army its army obviously all around you're practically insert China they have a right to what they are doing at this at this level. So what I am saying is that that's my idea so that you will not think that I'm some crazy academic leftist waiting for a big authentic that's my reproach to but you we still my friend. You know whenever something happens Syriza or what was Moralist now it also screwed up in Bolivia and so on oh it's not yet the real thing. Yeah it's very comfortable you sit there write your big academic books and just dismiss everything that happens. I think that we should follow today more than ever the old Frankfurt school motto pessimism in theory optimism in practice. That is to say although you know the situation is pretty desperate this should push you to be even more active and avoid false choice like should we be moderate should we be more violent. No analyze the situation and just do everything possible. So along this lines by doing everything possible in one of my texts which is my favorite but will probably annoy you, the text on that global blah blah and local communities or whatever. I do something I'm really proud of. Why? Because I got many negative reaction that only prove that I'm on the right way. I try to show how even what appears to us religious fundamentalism is often not to be dismissed and I begin with Russia with this long tradition of of say Staro they call them Old Believers who from the time of Peter the Great opposed themselves to the official Orthodox Church. Now you will say these are reactionaries crazy ah ah ah you know when it was their only time when they were allowed to freely flourish? The first ten years after October Revolution. Bolsheviks immediately saw in them something they simply resisted centralized imperial state power and it's incredible to see how many ministers in the first Lenin's government were very close to Old Believers it's wonderful to see how Lenin himself when he was slowly dying in his dacha outside Moscow he learned that there is an Old Believers group toiling land there and Lenin was so interested in that that he sent one of his friends there offering them and they took it electricity do you need anything more and follow how they are doing. So you know you see what's my point here. My biggest example some of you are from Latin America some people are on the web my big example you must know it I've written about it comes from Canudos. It's an incredible thing that happened in Brazil around a little bit later there was a new liberal progressive government quickly capitalizing the country and some old orthodox resisted as they thought. Inside Bahia miles into they build from nowhere a city which at its peak had I think around people. You know who was there? Thieves, criminals, prostitutes, single-mother women, and it's incredible it was thriving. First the authorities thought okay give them one year they will kill each other. They didn't. They have had a very intelligent so-called conselheiro leader who maintained this it was incredibly successful. So the army said three expeditions against them. They were so strong that they not the army the people there they defeated the first two and quest at Canudos with three it begins in with with it begins in keep on Wikipedia and the third one only enabled the army to occupy the city and of course the politics was kill them all. Kill them all. But what was so shocking was that we got there Catholic fundamentalism at its best. They didn't care even what religion you are of. They just wanted to organize their community outside the legal framework state which was pushing for brutal capitalism. And again it was almost this dream coming true. Now all the poor all the poor homeless people prostitutes and so on and nobody bothered them. There was no moral pressure. They just kept it my god it's nice to see that things like this happen. So what I'm saying here that sometimes even what appears as religious conservative fanatics can be of use. Why? In what sense? In my old books I've drawn this distinct for example what I like in spite of all their horror about Amish or Tibetans is that so fundamental and nice they don't have resentment and envy. I spoke in India with some Tibetans and they don't think like oh you whites are doing horrible things fornicating blah blah no they said you live your way we live our way we think we discovered the truthful way it's your problem. If you leave us alone we might collaborate and so on and it's the same with Amish people. I don't idealize them you know like among the dark thing they had the highest rate of how do you call this father screw in his daughter intra-family incest but nonetheless they don't have this logic of resentment while the moment you are dealing with this state pseudo-fundamentalism you get resentment. You always envy the others like the primordial American fear of new fundamentalists who are fake what are all these gay people and LGBT you know your dirty imagination immediately explodes you know. So you see my point let's be faithful to our principles but at the same time absolutely pragmatic opportunistic whoever comes and agrees with our basic orientation should be welcome. Okay after all of this now my God how terribly time is running. Where are we now? Ah it's there. My God. Okay I will nonetheless go on a little bit because it's very interesting and although I will use some part of the old stuff it's not haha you don't have it so it's from the zero point. Since we live in this horrible times I will try quickly to go through today in today's time through the problem of truth and lie. This is a central problem today. Whom do we trust is there objective truth and so on and what you can discover soon is how the fake cancel culture left and political right they are both historicist relativists in a bad sense. Okay now my topic will be if you allow me let's say half an hour and then we go on will be the so-called Liar Paradox. You must know it from philosophy statement like everything I am saying is false. Now if this statement is true then it's false because at least this statement claims something that cannot be true if this statement is true no everything I'm saying is false no this statement is not false if you say this. We know how for example Bertrand Russell tried to solve this problem with I think way too simple way of simply distinguishing levels that a statement about a set of things cannot be itself part of this thing you know. A statement of something is at a different meta-level then you avoid this contradiction. But I will not go into these boring logical problems. I think that and this is very useful today politically, we should turn here to Lacan, Jacques Lacan, who offers a couple of times in his text here and there a unique easy and clear solution by way of distinguishing between the enunciated content of what you are saying simply the content what you are saying and the enunciatory subjunctive stance implied by this enunciation. Like you are saying something but the way you are saying it can and as a rule does imply another stance which contradicts the content. The moment I think the moment we introduce this distinction we immediately see that a statement like everything I say is false can itself be true or false. If you are these are naive terms but here we should not be afraid and use them. If you say if you are honestly in despair, if you discover all my life I was a piece of shit so if you say everything I'm saying is false, it can be an authentic statement of despair. My god I screwed up my life. but it can also be the opposite things are very refined here. If you say I know I'm a piece of shit it can also be the highest lie at the level of enunciation. Why? Because if you say I know I'm a piece of shit you imply that by saying this there is nonetheless an honest part in you. Like you know I said this so you see I know who I am so I'm not totally a piece of shit I'm at least honest about myself. Our reply to this false version should be I think a paraphrase of the well-known Groucho Marx saying. You know it's famous this guy looks an idiot talks as an idiot but this shouldn't deceive you this guy is an idiot. We should say you act like a piece of shit and you admit you are a piece of shit but this will not deceive us you are a piece of shit. No I know years ago I developed mentioned this in what sense that this happened to me he's dead forgotten I will not tell his name. We had half a century ago when I was studying philosophy a professor who was professor of analytical philosophy and probably was informing secret police these were more harsh communist times about what the students are saying and once he was drunk he even admitted to me you know I know I'm a piece of shit but so what I survive and so on. I didn't but I was tempted to tell him yes you are piece of shit so why are you saying it then people you know. It was true he's you know it's the same with it's the same with it's the same with sorry am I here yeah it's it's it's it's it's the same with similar paradoxes in in our rightism the same with I think we cannot even imagine the functioning of today's rightist populism without these paradoxes. Let me give you an example it fascinated me I even mentioned it here radically after Trump was re-elected in well was it October September November sorry Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who retained her seat in Congress through some analysis I don't know how she got this data discovered that many of the people who voted for her at the local level voted for Trump at the federal level. So don't ask me how he got names of many of these people but she wrote a letter to them personal one asking them how can you do this. Aren't our politics totally opposed and it's interesting what answer she got it's back and in a way they were right. It's that the impression of ordinary people you and maybe Bernie Sanders on the left and some Trumpians on the right are the only people who appear to say what they really mean while all the centrist Democrats are extremely calculated cautious not to disturb anyone. And which is true I remember the unfortunate now it's easy to make fun of her Kamala Harris just before elections she was asked I don't know on which network like the usual question what would do Gaza blah blah. And it was immediately visible on her face a trace of fear like my god I'm afraid to say something wrong. So neither should I appear pro-Palestinian nor pro-Israel. So she said something incredibly flat and void. To a concrete answer what would you do as a president with regard to Gaza her answer was something like it's very sad when people are killing each other and I will try to stop it you know. That's why she was losing votes while both Trump and Kamala avoided this. But the paradox on the other side and here we are again at the distinction between enunciated content and enunciation is that what people misperceive as Trump's authenticity brought him new votes even or precisely because when he was caught lying. Because again I read other studies where they show how the reaction of his partisans when he was caught with some inconsistencies their reaction was you see he is a normal human being like us he is not a robot just disciplined by some advisor you know. First I will say something more horrible I up to a point accept this. Up to what point? Listen listening to this latest especially Greenland appearances of J.D. Vance I'm saying please if you are religious I'm not but nonetheless just because Trump will survive because if Trump dies we will get Vance and Vance is Trump is opportunist change you can negotiate with him Vance is a totally manufactured robot. Listen to him he doesn't even make the appearance to actively think he identifies with a certain stance which is totally determined by those who trained him he was you know literally created by Peter Thiel that mega billionaire who controlled his career from the very beginning. He is a much worse horror I think than Trump. But what I'm saying is that Trump again constantly allows himself to be inconsistent you remember at some point he said Zelensky is a dictator in Ukraine then now a week ago or two he said I'm pissed at Putin for saying that Zelensky is not a legitimate and so on but that's what brings him votes because that's the tragedy this inconsistency is perceived as a sign of authentic spontaneity at the level of enunciation. In some sense it is in some sense now I will do something really evil maybe I will write it but then goodbye United States. You see it already happened to some of my friends it's no longer a joke you can be rejected refused entry no it was Hannah Arendt in I forgot which text of her I think it's a text from the late 30s has a pretty good analysis of the difference between do you know a little bit about early years of Nazism the difference between SA and SS. SA were these violent brutal street fighters the brutal popular side of Nazism they were beating Jews illegally breaking windows violent obscene dirty while SS were these you know in nice uniforms cold executioner no passion in them. And I think that maybe if Vance takes over it's like progression from SA to SS no described by so I'm much more afraid of because as Hannah Arendt said there is almost something human in their obscenity itself of SA because this dirty opportunism empirical evil is human while SS were much more inhuman monsters. So by spending so much time on this I wanted to make clear another thing I hope you will agree that when I distinguish enunciation and enunciated content I am not simply saying the enunciated content is lying and the position of enunciation is authentic. No. The most refined lying is lying at the level of enunciation. What you say can be true but the way you say the context into which you put it and so on makes it a lie. what do I mean by this I will here return to my old idea which is very close to me for personal reasons I know I developed this here a couple of times between two complementary forms of lying which I think follow nicely the distinction between hysteria and obsessional compulsive neurosis. A hysteric tells the truth in the guise of a lie. What it says can be literally not true but the lie expresses in a false form an authentic complaint. For example I found an example you find numerous examples from French Revolution anti-October Revolution. Revolutionaries themselves believed in rumors or were spreading them which were as it is now undoubtedly proven not true. But these lies nonetheless mobilized them for the right cause. In French Revolution it was the idea which is proven false now that it the idea in the French Revolution that that that the rich are organizing a big hunger starvation burning field and so on to make people starve. It was not true. Or in October Revolution it was similar so you can have the lie but a lying which nonetheless sustains an authentic complaint. Then you have truth-lying in the guise of sorry truth in the guise of a lie but you can have also the opposite. What you are saying is all literally true but the way it is formulated it serves.