Professor Slavoj Žižek | Full Address and Q&A | Oxford Union

[Music] I am really really grateful for this invitation and you may be surprised by this but I even like the weather hell is for me some stupid Mediterranean Mediterranean Beach with with all the Sun and so on oh this is the weather that I like okay so I am a little bit afraid that in which direction to take because most of you are not philosophers so I will try in this maximum quarter of an hour introduction to maybe I will do it like this to begin with - to begin with more not purely philosophical stuff but some stuff with philosophical consequences and then conclude with some political remarks let me it will be a little bit I will be associating and so on I don't want to bore you I would like to begin with two Jewish jokes which has a deep properly metaphysical meaning one I've already used in my old books hopefully you all don't know it the other one is fresh only now I learned about it the first one is that classical one you knows on Shabbat on Saturday Jewish believers meet in a synagogue and each of them says something so first a big rabbi said oh my god I know buddy I am NOT not worthy of your attention God then rich Jewish merchant comes and says oh my god I'm also nobody don't even consider me I'm not worthy of your attention then I hope you know the joke a poor Jew stands up and says God I'm also a nobody and then the rich merchant kicks the rabbi and said who is this guy that you think he can also say that he there is deep truth in this whenever somebody's apparently humiliates himself and so on adopts this attitude of I despise my name my identity blah blah be very careful for looking for secret privilege what is the Lacanian I would have called surplus enjoyment that I will give an example which may be even provocative to some of you and written about it extensively in United States in this politically correct Isles there is one basic rule very simple further that you are from a white male Protestant whatever elite more you are allowed to assert your particular ethnic religious identity like Native American so-called they hate this term Indians I prefer to call them you know my clock which really happened in Missoula Montana one Indian refer to it to himself as Indian and immediately a white well-meaning liberal interrupted him no your Native American don't you know them you are humiliating yourself and the Indian gave a perfect answer he says no sorry Native Americans for me much more racist it means I am Native American part of nature and what are you cultural Americana was he said I prefer to be called Indian in this way at least my name is a sign of white men's UPD do you know they thought there in India he got it correctly no sorry let's go so Native Americans okay black okay then Chinese suspicion begins Italians may be German Scandinavia's but if white was anglo-saxon or whatever if you just say I also want to assert my identity you are a fascist you're decried as the fascist and so on now I know well found that reasoning behind this because this is effectively the hegemonic position it's not the same for you or for a poor Native American to say I want to assert my identities but at ulta something else how beneath and now talking about these typical multicultural leftist liberals beneath this self humiliating lecture oh we are guilty for everything imperialist colonizers will we don't have the right renouncing all your particular figures always comes with in a discreet way asserting your position of universality all these apparently modest self denigrating white people at the same time I noticed have no problems behaving in a very patronizing way towards others correcting them telling them when they when they are making a mistake or whatever whatever so clearly the secret profit is this moral authority given to you in this way I think there is something of the same with how in Europe and I have all sympathy for them but nonetheless how in Europe leftists left liberals behaved towards immigrants of course we should be my god my position is do not be afraid very less this year I just know this crowd in their very understanding of immigrants how they always already patronize them like if immigrants do and like all people they are a mixed crowd there are criminals among them and so if they do something horrible rape and so on white liberals are always looking for an excuse oh this is just general human nature we are all like that or they were so victimized by us we should understand this and so on and so on and one of my immigrant friends exploded and told me that he's it's a beautiful peridot philosophical he told me my god my basic human right is at least to be recognized as an adult responsible person which practically means to be able to do something horrible are they aware that by treating me almost like a child in this way they are humiliating me and so on and so on so I think that again ok I will not go into political consequences here just be aware how also with political correctness all often the position of a victim can be used as a nice instrument to justify your exerting of in academia American it's typical in outside victims are really victims but in academia playing with victimhood if you're a privileged victim gives you an incredible power de-facto that would be my first point let's go to the second point so I mentioned the lotion this surplus enjoyment profit that you get from apparently denigrating humiliating yourself and this is my regalian Lacanian standpoint that every position of subject every subject even the most empty cartesian subject has to rely on this type of small filter surplus enjoyment which sustains his/her/its subjectivity I will give you another example here short philosophical idea I although I was accused of I don't know what I really for theoretical reasons read the last chapter in my last book where I explained it but I really believe in subversive potential not in descriptions they cause disorder but some deep insights on which LGBTQ this trans grander ism is based but since we are here also among some of your list philosophers I would like to draw an attention to it you know that the official term is now LGBT plus or LGBTQ whatever plus now usual sorry to be critical against at least part of your tradition but usually this plus is understood in empiricist way a British empiricism is this one it's not just the binary sexuality male or female blah blah there are dozens multiplicity of gender or sex positions and since no classification can be really exhausting what is another guy comes and says I read your classification but I'm not neither by gender nor boobs nor death nor a sexual and something else so it's the simple worry what if we nonetheless miss some position so let's leave the space open I think and it's not me it's a I forgot her name but it's a very good lgbtq+ theoretician lady from Australia who did a proper Galleon move and said no what if we when you have LGBT you plus what if we define this plus itself as a specific position I can be a plus and this is I think even the best definition of a subject a subject is not simply something a subject is always in excess of what he/she it is and this is why and very fast here if you want to know more read my books or whatever this is why not only psychoanalysis is not male chauvinist but it's eminently feminist in the sense that subject as such is ultimately feminine why because this defines for me ultimately femininity this self questioning attitude which can be discerned even in some most superficial annoying features you know like you are in love with the woman and she will sooner or later ask you tell me why do you love me but it's a very deep question you know why because of course it has no answer I mean the moment you know it the moment you can say because of your eyes because of your legs because of your laughter it's not love laugh must be that plus X in other words hysterical questioning is the most elementary forum for me of critique of ideology ideology is in very very central ideology is an order aleady ology if it is most elementary what society tells you that you are you are a man a Muslim a Christian atheist Democrat worker whatever works but the most elementary questioning is this why am i what you are saying that I earn this not accepting any objective position as yours and here again the function of the plus is crucial that's why intelligent psychoanalysis always prefers hysteria to perversion perversion is a claim even in clinical terms always conformist perversely simply the hidden aspect of a power structure but ok let's not lose time my second my second joke and then some political remarks which goes more into because I am an atheist but the Christian idea is there is not green to this what this means what does this mean for theology a Jewish friend told me and for at least for me this joke is new I didn't hear it before a wonderful story it's I warn you it's no trigger warning is needed nothing dirty happens but it's a very cruel joke and I discovered with wonder and respect how do you know that there is a whole tradition of Jewish jokes about Auschwitz not triply making fun but drawing out the paradoxes and there is something we don't have time to go into it now very deep in it I claim that when for tragedy to take place it must happen what is going on within certain limits where the victim retains its dignity you know tragic victim when things get really terrifying amount of comedy has to enter which is not a comedy where you just laugh but horrifying comedies ok so the joke is this one in paradise some Jews who were slaughtered at Auschwitz nice life there sit at the bend and talk about their memories of how they were killed making fun of it like one says to another do remember Drake of how when they direct you to gas chamber you slipped on something and hit your head and died even before you entered gas chamber in the area that was so funny and so on now comes the deep inside then God also taking a break God Himself walks by them listens at these drugs and says sorry guys I don't understand it now I'm sorry too for you to understand the point of this joke you must know that this whole theological tradition of claiming God died at Auschwitz things that happened there are so horrible that they cannot be in any way combined with the idea of divinity as the hidden master of the universe lake goddess God as they put it that's crucial as many theologies put it God was not there ok so God comes there and says sorry guys I don't understand it then one of the truth goes to God embrace the scheme in the petraju gran says don't worry our lord you were not there so of course you cannot understand it you know but you know what's the beauty it's not in this version it's not that God cannot understand the horror he can is all-powerful she cannot understand how it's possible to make a joke out of it God doesn't get the joke in this sense I will not go into it now I think that what I call materialist theology has retains God not as real God old guy up there but as some kind of an presupposed agency which registers things you know and we all rely on it as Jacques Lacan put it the moment we talk we believe in God why because we believe that when something is spoken out registered it exists in a different way to give an extremely simple example didn't it happen to you unfortunately with my bad manners if Toffler happens to me you are with a couple of friends and some of you in that case it was me did something horrible and faithful you know that everybody else knows it and everybody knows that all other knows it but nonetheless everything claimed rest the moment one says this publicly at the moment of registration but what I want to say is that I like this theological idea that God is like a benevolent master who allows you small leafless where like where you can violate even his prohibitions you know they got like a proper severe old-fashioned father today in our post patriarchal era I almost like them because no matter how severe dates pretend to be that's how traditional Authority functions the idea is always do it violate my prohibitions but discreetly I don't want to know about it and according to some good geologists this is even what you have in 10 commandments you know the commandment don't celebrate other gods this is not the correct transition it's in the Bible Old Testament a much more ambiguous statement which basically means don't don't press other gods in my presence like you know do it but discreetly and okay I will not get lost here I'm talking too much so we can go on in the debate if you want about modes of authority today I would just like conclude with a very simple joke abused in some of my texts but they were not published in big media you probably don't know it where are we today I am still some kind of critique of ideology and what is happening I claim is that ideology is now alive but in new modes there are two I think main modes one a week two you probably know the old formula of Marx religion is the opium of the people I think now we have to change this formula that we have now I hope you will get the joke I often use it in talks but not here we have today two new Opium's of the people you can guess which ones literally opium and the people one is opium literally if you read statistics at least in the generate spaces like academia and so on you know that literally in United States rate around 80 percent of professors students already into pro-second all that stuff like we literally need a support in chemistry and so on just two functions relatively normally and at all levels from this simple anti-depressive to drugs proper whatever what's so interesting is the circular nature of this support first if you are too excited you take a Kuhlman to calm you down but then you miss desire you take another drug to recess it so this is a very important thing how for our daily cycle our life to function we have more and more to rely on different drugs in this metaphoric sense opium ii people i think that precisely the big opium today is people populism and for reasons that we can debate later i don't want to go into it now that's why i have doubts about bodies getting popular now among some european leftist leftist populism in the sense of oh if the right can do it successfully rightist populism it's kind of I call it ironically perverted me too why not me too why we'll know I think that populism is always this gesture of simplification you create an image of the enemy and it may work in short term but not really for example in the United States today of course stamp is the enemy but my god if you want to be an intelligent political analyst an agent you should also ask the obvious question where big drum come from what were we by this I mean Liberal Democratic hegemony per atom what were we doing wrong to open up the space for Trump I will not list your time here just I will finish with ones conclusive said thought to set the point to conclude first already mentioned talking with some of you before people say communism has failed it has but at the same time and that's bad news for me look what is happening in China now I mean it is still a communist power in this combination communism with capitalism are you aware what the Chinese Communist achieved something absolutely unique never in the history of mankind I think did you have such a tremendous economic development in just a couple of decades and do you know what they did to simplify it very much leftist rate two things on the one hand this wild capitalist competition market on the other hand strong authoritarian state which controls regulates everything the Chinese have combined the two the worst in an extremely successful way so what to do here it's a very difficult question what if our future will be and this is not good news I don't sympathize with them what if this type of authoritarian capitalism is our futures second reason of my pessimism Marxism at least the traditional one relied on a certain hosta Khalid pre-established harmony that we when we are just before the Revolution or in modern times are facing a unique are in a unique situation where the highest theoretical inside communism breaking out of capitalist blah blah can somehow be rooted in the concrete living experience of the majority of the people we are palet Aryans we need radical trend and so on and so on I think that with problems that we are facing today ecology biogenetics and so on I'm more of a pessimist I doubt if problems with which we are really confronting today can be in this way applied or connect the truth mobilizing the people for example and I will be very brutal last sentence I promise for example here I disagree with my otherwise good friend I support him politically Yanis varoufakis who says we need more democracy in Europe and I'm always asking me and I think at least he didn't give me a good answer okay but are you aware that for example with immigrant refugees entering Europe if we were to do a truly democratic election the result would have been much more than a phobic than the predominant reaction in practically all European countries they would have say stop stop that's what I also learned from my diplomatic friends when they were dealing with this problem when the crisis was at least hype at its high point two years ago urban for example politicians from my country I learned it's terrible irony they were relatively fair saying we are nonetheless co-responsible we have - we are among the causes of this crisis in the Middle East and so on in closed sessions publicly they were much more anti-immigrant because they knew they would lose votes in their own country and so on and so on so I think we live in a very dangerous situation where maybe the gap between what needs to be done and simple opinion of the many inclusive inclusive many intellectuals I'm not saying ordinary people are stupid intellectuals are not they are also and just what I mean is I'm blessed I'm just a pessimist here miracles happen but we no longer can have this Marxist trust in history you know so to conclude with another one line don't be afraid job that I quote in my book you know when my leftist friends remain optimists and say don't worry the situation may be dark but there is light at the end of the tunnel you know what's my answer of course it is it's another train thanks very much for your kind my god I feel as if I am in a movie set where you know they are now changing the scene I hope you did it in a proper cinematic Stalinist way when we will have a Q&A with the people I hope you did distribute the questions and the yeah please I'm sorry I talk too much now I'm your slave please my first question is in the opening chapter of the new book you talk about philosophers becoming States philosophers and negating the radical potential of their philosophies to the subservient of the existing order how do you think philosophers can still be a part of radical movements and what distinguishes people like yourself who are energized and radical politics from those like you say like Hamas who are just supporting the state structures oh wait a minute maybe I was there not fair enough now I will be very honest here and as simple as possible I am NOT dismissing state philosophers wait a minute our institutions the way we think politically and so on do do imply a certain not philosophical in a technical sense but a certain basic view here I would even agree with Abram as his great opponent Peter slaughtered Ike right-winger but my good friend intelligent right-winger who says that that and although his right winger he means is positively that the greatest thing of our Western European insofar as they still exist less and less welfare state is that we don't just get what he calls subjective social democracy socialism we have something that he very nicely calls objective social democracy that is to say social democratic values human rights social justice and so on inscribed into political institutions themselves or even more silently accepted as shared by all you know which was the great example of this I remember you are too young I think it was mid seventies or a little bit later when Social Democrats for the first time lost power in Sweden but then that coalition of what we when I was young called bourgeois parties liberals conservatives nothing changed they nationalized even more fur it went on because this basic social pact not so much written rules but unwritten rules was there and it's here it I have a certain respect it's almost a heroic role for habermas to say I know I will be despised as a conformist but ok I will play the idiot who is this but for me if you remember then I go on and I say that today the situation is getting more complex and I really think that so-called alright especially in the United States and some other countries change the rules because the popular here in the UK the book by that Irish girl who now lives in New York I met her there in Brooklyn even angela Nagler or what he wrote a book you should have it at kill all the normies his idea is that what half a century ago was a typical left subversive attitude you know the institutional power is severe strict speaks with decent terms we should provoke tell dirty jokes use f-word all this subversive marginal cultural tradition but is that what happens now is it's not symmetrical inversion but almost an inversion all right now behaves as formally as the new counterculture and the horror is that the left whatever remains of it took refugee in political correctness in helpless moralism and so on and so on I don't think so this complicated thing and that's why I am a Leninist it's a joke but not quite you know in what sense you know it's very interesting to read last Lenin's writings when he was totally desperate he saw no socialism what can we do and you know it what learning was obsessed in the last two years of his life with good manners civility and so on you know you all if you know history of politics and so on know that famous short Testament that learning dictated proposing to politburo to depose Stalin but did you notice what our Lenin's arguments about Stalin it's not wrong economic politics wrong politics it is simply Stalin doesn't have good manners is too rough and so on now today with Trump and so on and many other Trump's like that borscht anuraga in Brazil and so on wouldn't it be that's my secret dream now you will say this is a joke because I am obscene no but I try to be obscene in a non offensive way that it would be wonderful for me for the left to say no we are the true force of Moral Majority we are the true force of decency you are the dirty subversive the right-wingers and so on I love this strategy of changing the cards I will give another examples in Germany one of my friend their friends wrote a wonderful comment where he says we should change this perception although I don't ideally swear that Angela Merkel is too weak allowed too many immigrants like an old mother losing power and then and the immigrant nationalists present themselves as you know courageous we fight for our nation the point of my friend was shouldn't we rather say Angela Merkel is the last in the good sense of the term great German Patriot and strong nationalist why because to say two million refugees you can come it means you have great task in your nation that it will be able to integrate them and so on and so on and the point is we should rather treat all tried anti-immigrant as weak people who don't trust their nation and so on and so on you know I think it's very good to mix cart like this in political struggle so I didn't properly answer your question but but you see in what direction I go is not I want to ask about the Christian materialism and the importance of the church do you've written about do you think that the theological the philosophical the normative tools that Christianity that you find helpful are going to survive if the church continues to decline or do you think that the institution of the church and adherence the church has no bearing on those surviving materialistic aspects it's an open question especially Catholic Church I don't believe in it it can be Franciscus or not I have doubts but you know it's okay I will very briefly give it to you the way I read Christianity if you take it really seriously it's really a religion of atheism in what sense and Hegel knew this he says the big problem is what died on the cross Hegel says it's not just you read Christianity in a pagan way if you think God is up there he sent as a messenger and then messenger died and cry and God says God the Father okay my son come back to me it didn't work next time better luck and so on no Hagel says God dies on the cross is the very God of beyond this idea that there is a higher power up there you know what so paradoxical of Christianity for me again in all other all more or less religions the way we are here leave we leave a fallen life and the only way to get back God contact is to do good work purify yourself whatever through mystical exercise to good deeds and so on to climb up again I came in Christianity don't people notices something totally different happens and glass curtain my go-to Catholic theology snoo it he says that that moment le le lama sabachthani God why have you forsaken me it means this how do you identify with God let's say I feel abandoned God has left me I'm in a godless world the Christian answer again is not ok let me pray hard do good things maybe I will re-establish contact is to say but at that very point when I feel abandoned by God I'm identified with with Christ on the cross who felt the same that is to say a struggle puts it very precisely I overcome the division from God by transposing it into God himself this idea that my distance from God is inscribed into God himself the consequences of this are then pretty radical for example I think it's totally wrong reading the usual one that what will be second coming somehow Christ will come again now Christ is dead he is already here in holy spirit what is holy spirit or ghost I don't know robbery it is a simplified very much it is it is the community of believers and as Christ says my God in the gospel when he is asked by one of his people how will we know that you are still alive that you will come he says whenever there is love between two of you I am there and I take this totally literally Second Coming means that you discover that what you are waiting for oh my God God left just maybe he will come again if already here in the community of believers you don't need God as an old guy up there a secret guarantee and throne and so on intelligent theologies nudies like even a conservative like Claudell paul claudel the great poet he said the ultimate mystery of christianity is not that we are important without God but that God is important without us okay it gets more complex but in this sense I mean it quite literally about being an atheist Christian I specifically don't mean all those simplistic ideas that Christianity can be realized in new communist society or whatever all those drinks no I think that again the secret core of Christianity is precisely this acceptance of being on your own as precisely divine gift you know what is the Christian answer when you feel alone abandoned by God just depending on yourself the messy trees but this is God's gift to you this is freedom that God gave us it's much more complex situation I don't want to lose time now I just want to tell you that don't don't you just think that this is some crazy obscenity many geologists today are moving in this direction let's take some questions for the audience now we are in democratic faith Democratic race only very occasionally vela my last job before I give you the word you know I'm an old Platonist I already am repeating the joke already used there so I'm all for a dialogue with you but you know as a lover of Plato you know it is my favorite I look did you read late Plato's dialogues you know how they are written one guy talks all the time and the other guy says every 10 minutes by Hughes so it is Socrates and so on so let's get this dialogue now please wait for the microphone to come to you let's get to the hand on the end of the oil there in the dark blue cave yeah actually that may ask you to do this this is a moment of anxiety this is one three things I can do said yeah yeah yeah but how did you know this politically correct and then somebody will say what did you ignore that woman and throw on ok sorry please professor Dziedzic fan of yours from South Africa yeah I wanted to ask you in Oxford now and sorry ask me ask you yes we're in Oxford now and the analytical school of philosophy is big yeah and it seems as though that the burden always falls on to continental philosophers to justify their existence and I wanted you to talk to this point the value the the the value of continental philosophy in 21st century thank you my position is here much more integrated complex first I must tell you I said there is much boring stuff going on in so called analytic philosophy but there are many things which I fully admire going on there and also for example I don't know he now disappeared I don't know why philosophers like saul kripke some others and so on they did one or even cognitivists there are very intelligent cognitivists who raised the right questions and so on but nonetheless and also there is a lot of not taking scientific breath truth seriously going in so-called continental philosophy the big problem for me today is what I call the gap between realism and transcendental approach on the one hand we have scientific or realist philosophical approach don't be afraid I will try to which simply pretends to describe reality the way it is to put it in very simplistic terms you forget about who you are from where you are speaking then we have transcendental reasoning which is not something mystical and so on but it's based on the simple fact that our argumentation is ultimately always circular for example their reproach for example to mention the guy that you brought habermas his basic contribution is to claim that from the scientific perspective one thing you cannot explain is the normative discursive structures of this scientific procedure itself if you you can be very good at scientific explanations evolutionary and so on of this stuff what goes on how the human intelligence arise but in all this all this is possible because you approached nature in a certain way as a as a complex cobweb of causes effects and so on and so on this doesn't go by itself so the idea is that we all approach reality from a certain perspective and we cannot ever break out of this circle and now so that ultimately but on the other hand it's clear that somehow although we are always caught in our symbolic universe and so on and if some of you follow modern thought the ultimate in my sense of the term now not in the strict Kantian transcendental philosopher would have been for example somebody like Michel Foucault for him the ultimate horizon of our knowledge is what he calls a pitched me the idea that in every epoch a certain it may be conflictual but opposite sides always share some presuppositions the a certain base for example the opposition between empiricism and irrationally but they share a whole set of propositions about reality and so on so the idea is this one that this is the ultimate thing so for example if you were to ask Michelle Foucault do we have an immortal soul or not his answer would have been all I can do is to describe the epistle the set of implicit presuppositions within with this question has meaning at all and if you asked him do you believe in evolutionary account of humanity his answer would have been I can only tell you that this evolutionary account is part of a modern scientific paradigm and a--such totally different from for example medieval paradigm no within which meaning was something imminent to reality itself the universe is meaningful so what I'm saying is that on the other hand of course we all admit at least almost all of us that although this is the earth another point if there are some Marxists here Marxists at least so-called Western Marxists are also fully transcendental in what sense for radical Marxist the ultimate horizon is social practice and as look at in the ultimate Western Marxist work his first big book history and class consciousness he even says this is a classic statement nature is historical social category which means of course somehow we did humanity we did emerge out of nature but what we understand by nature is something which is always historically over determined and as part of our social practice nature means something totally different in modernity then in early then in early Renaissance and so on I want so we have this ultimate Tanjung on the one hand naive scientific realism on the other hand this transcendental approach and what I'm obsessed with in my last works I'm always writing the same book and so on is precisely is it possible to break out of this circle is it possible to move beyond this transcendental approach that we can just describe the historical horizon of meaning into which we were thrown without returning to naive realism here we should be creative for example who was that guy I forgot his name often here and that's for me the strength of continental approach some criticism even theological of science which can appear stupid and it is stupid at the level of direct scientific value can be extremely interesting if we read it in a slightly different way as theory of ideology for example do you know that I forgot the guy's name Darwin had a friend who was who knew his work Darwin's and was at the same time theology yes the one who did his reply to Darwin was I forgot the name it's a Latin name I'm too stupid for navel you know it's the old problem Adam is depicted with a navel but wait a minute Adam was not born he was created by them does he have it so the idea is this one and its second in green es solution he said there been conclusively proved through fossils and the one that our earth or our universe was created at least million years ago if you take Bible literally it was 4,000 and some years so where is the truth you know what is the answer of course Bible is true my god it cannot be not true so how do we explain fossils and so on the idea is this the same way when you paint a state you paint the background to create a false impression of depth that God directly created fossils and so on to give us a false opening of the past and this is the best definition of ideology I can imagine and so on aren't we all the time inventing traditions in this sense and so on and so on so again to answer you properly it may be too complex now but I try to first I have tremendous you know what one of my interests here maybe this Versa returns to the latest result in the far as I understand them I'm the first to admit my limitation now what is happening now in quantum physics I was told and I read some popular books but I try to track it with my friends who are quantum physicists like am I totally bluffing or does it have something that with this quantum gravity theory and so on there is a tremendous progress beyond string theory going on now and I think that some of the things that you find in quantum physics are I think of incredible significance to resolve this problem because the basic presupposition of quantum physics it's precisely that what we perceive as natural reality is not the ultimate reality that there is whatever we call it quantum oscillations and so on another level and I think that this is cow and let's call it ontology at the level of today's world should function if I may go on for two three minutes you will like it I promise I'm sorry and I hope you don't know this joke but I love it a philosopher I'm very sorry I forgot his name you notice my senility that I forget youth a wonderful example to explain quantum physics and my point is the basic paradox of quantum physics my point is to apply it to reality as such his idea is this one wonderful simple metaphor a parallel between quantum universe with lists as you know Heisenberg uncertainty principle although Bohr puts it in a slightly different way but the point is this one you know what everybody knows you cannot measure simultaneously the the position and the velocity movement of a particle ok now you can read this in a decimal logical way we just cannot measure it Niels Bohr went a step further and claimed it is in itself that it's not determined in this is a wonderful vision of reality which is in itself ontologically incomplete and now comes the parallel with video games aren't they in the same similar very superficial and a lottery incomplete in what sense you remember I don't play them but I watch my son doing it and I envy him and so on when you play a video game let's say you see a house there but if it's not part of the game to enter that house then the interior of the house is not programmed you know this you know in the video universe it's or in the background that is the forest but it's meaningless to say let's go there and look in detail at the trees no because it's not part of the game that you can go there so in this book the idea is this one it's very cynical one but I love it God did something similar he underestimated us humans a little bit he thought that we will never be intelligent enough to move beyond atoms to micro particles so he said suck it why should I lose time programming their everything so we at least their first dot with this pencil you know but my point is we can how would it be to think reality as unfinished without this subjectivity god whatever come is it possible to think reality as unfinished and here I think utopian as it may appear only a kind of a collaboration between the best of continental tradition no those arrogant Europeans who despise analytic philosophy just and the best of analytical philosophers can do the drop sorry I'm too long can I wait let's take another question yeah let's go to the hand over here alright you're a political I know you move to the left no I was afraid the centrist yeah behind in the red shirt yeah there we are prophecies they come another fan of yours and here yeah yeah my Nazi instict are you Spanish no I'm Indian and from India I'm so sorry I'm not I'm so sorry I'm so sorry I just I I'm your pick you know it's not racism yeah yeah so I am studying here a course on environmental change and management and we get to hear this one word like Anthropocene every now and then oak species are going extinct when the caps are melting you know forests tropical forests deforestation yeah and we Club this one thing Anthropocene always and always like a plus what do you think about this word I find it very uncomfortable at times I find it funny I find it very serious what is this word Anthropocene the word entre pashya body what is your take on this - Club on this young Maria well I'm not qualified enough to Drudge it scientifically but I like the paradox is that this word implied namely there is one insight in it which is correct that all this modern progress ISM humanity should develop further add further that unfortunately you find it as an unquestioned unquestionable base even in Marx presupposes that we can count on nature as that vast background weak as they say however we will screw it up destroy ourselves and so on the Sun will rise there will be another season and so on that nature is inexhaustible background I think that what we are gradually discovering and that's for me the first step of correct a colored three it's not that we should go a step further and not only admit our responsibility with humans screwed it up in this nice irony that precisely when we become incredibly powerful we have we are confronted by our limit we may destroy the very material conditions of our life but what I like is this what if we change perspective and ask ourselves if this entire perspective of human hubris you know nature is some kind of a balance circle but we men were too aggressive exploitative and then you have the idea is let's return to our proper place and so on and so on I think that the true horror in danger is that if I may put it in these terms we cannot rely on Mother Nature is this good caring entity and we shouldn't provoke her too much by making violent interval what if nature is in itself a pretty cruel not a good mother and I always evoke these simple examples you know whenever we talk about human catastrophes and so on caused by humanity don't forget that for example our own sources of energy oil coal can we even imagine what kind of mega catastrophes must have happened in prehistory of the earth prehistory with regard to human history that we have all these reserves so my position is here even more tragic I am all for ecology but without illusions I think that we there is no natural balance to which we can simply return it's open it's full of risks and so on and so on the situation is much more over on the second hand what interests me is this thing we talk about Anthropocene danger humanity blah blah blah and here psychoanalysis maybe enters why don't we do more something I think that the best term some of my friends even now published a book where they develop this notion that it's what psycho analysts call the mechanism of disavowal it's not simply negation you admit it but in an isolated forum you reflect to draw the consequences of it like the French term for this disavowal phalloidin kiss the german term is just a bien Mecca mem I know very well that it's like this but nonetheless I don't really believe in it so I ignore it I think there is something of this mechanism at work like we all know yes global warming this there but then you know you go out ok now not in Oxford but in general sun is shining and so on and you simply cannot accept it we'll all these really beat be threatened now the problem is then how to awaken us truly I want to avoid the conclusion that many of my leftist friends are attracted to that we need one big mega catastrophe that only this will awaken humanity you know while I am afraid of this because again it's this typical traditional Marxist mr. how do they know that the result of this catastrophe will be some Society of solidarity socialism what if it will be a much more authoritarian society and so on but my point where maybe I if I got your the if I got the trust of your question correctly where I share your interest is that although ecology is the topic today we should all the more carefully analyze all the ideological threats that are there and in this way I will now very briefly Libya return to your question I forgot what can philosophers do I don't believe philosophers can answer they can raise the right question they can this is philosophy at its best when with ecology with racism and so on it shows how the very way we formulate a problem is part of the problem reproduces the problem and so on and so on my classical example is fierce harassment harassment okay real harassment sexual harassment nothing against but the term harassment even tolerance are of limited use even in fighting racism because I always make this experiment which right right go to the web and download Martin Luther King's speeches and look for tolerance in them practically non-existing terms when you confront racism as a problem of Tolerance it's already a certain reduction to cultural tolerance we should tolerate each other and so on with harassment it's the same harassment has always dissed as it were narcissistic undertone in the sense of you know keep at a distance don't come too close to me I think that harassment the fear of harassment is not simply the fear of beth harassment it is always also the fear of simply the over proximity of the real actual other and you find this against even with leftist who like immigrant but then if you look closely at their emitter of immigrants you see that it's that's my dirty word it's like you know in today's society I always use this example we like to get a product but in its cleansed form like like beer yes but without alcohol chocolate yes but without fat coffee yes but without coffee and I claim that what we call sex is precisely sex with the hot sex and and what we claim as standard bourgeois multiculturalism is precisely culturalism without the real other you know there is nothing more racist for me than this for example American liberal image of so-called Native Americans who their holistic they don't just exploit nature they're in a dialogue with nature and so on and so on I cannot imagine more implicitly racist thing than this false respect of the other I know again I didn't answer your question but it that's life thank you one more we take yeah just one more final question let's go this one can be a room my god I feel learning woman you want to ask a question yes there's a woman at the back I think I don't see anything very patronizing but I want to save my or as I like to say ironically precisely because privately I'm not a good feminist I have to cover it up by okay so in your talk you define populism not as an active perhaps cult of personality surrounding a leader or even a leader being promoted through things like means an internet culture but as an active enemy creation would you say that even for example the British like left at the moment because you said this was a problem both on the left and the right that's specifically in Britain that perhaps like Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party at the moment have created an enemy and if so what would you say it is no I'm greatly sympathetic to Corbin although I'm not an economist and I don't know what would have happened but it's not that they are economically stupid you know our economic reality is not an objective fact the way markets react it's full of prejudices fears and so on and so on and what I fear is all my friends is that lets say Corbin Labour Party comes to power and then there is some kind of a panicky market reaction and so on and you can say it's irrational but the effects can be very real but another point I wonder if you would agree I follow a little bit the debate and precisely what I maybe I'm wrong relatively like about Corbin is that whatever he is people usually even reproach him for that but I like that he is not a demagogic charismatic populist if there is almost a bland person effort it not it's him and I thought I think he cannot compare with real European police although they are not all bad but look at podemos is for me what I have in mind as long as they played this game of and when I said in my introductory five minutes which lasted 25 minutes when I said that how how we cannot count on this in advance harmony this is why the populist formula at least of Iglesias in Spain was forget he even used virgle words all the screw ideologies socialism communism turn to ordinary people listen to their actual demand troubles and so on and so on unfortunately I don't believe in this of course up to a point we should do it but look where it brought podemos they got their 15 percent or whatever and you know I'm always fascinated by it's easy to be a protest party you register protest of the people and so on but then look at their electoral program in the last elections it wasn't even a very radical social democracy and people were disappointed because all the big rhetorics listening to real people and so on ended up in very very modest proposes raise the taxes a little bit here and so on up and down you see that's another problem that I have with a very notion of populism is that it is for me this will be a general reflection too much it relies too much to an idea of emergency state populist moment is it's not normal it's antagonism Tanjung and so on but I think and here radical leftist but very earth careful one I think that the really crucial moment of every revolution is when things sooner or later stabilized when life returns to normal how do ordinary people feel the differ at that point I hate this big thing clue 1 million people on the square there yeah and what happens then like in Arab Spring you have 1 million people on Tahrir Square and then you get Muslim Brotherhood and now you get military regiment so on and so on in Greece it was a tragedy I blame them but you got the biggest popular mobilization syriza at the end are we aware what totally crazy things happened there syriza which built its reputation on rejecting austerity became the most faithful executor of austerity so you see that much sketches of populism I I don't think it addresses or answers the true question that I'm very naive old-fashioned also I don't believe in traditional Marxist answers Marxist here the big problem is and all other things are do we have a serious feasible alternative to global capitalism or are we all enlightened leftist Fukuyama lists which means Fujiyama was basically right democracy capitalism with rush let's move it a little bit towards the left and so on and so on and I don't see any communist party or whatever saving us I'm a pessimistic communist in the sense that I think that with regard to problems that we are facing today ecology immigrants or this not just immigrants this global world disorder mega topic biogenetics all the experiments today prospects of directly wiring or brain linking that who will control this what will be the result of all this I don't think that the way our societies are structured now economically and politically is appropriate to even properly confront these questions and I'm here pessimists because I'm the first to admit that what we knew till now as communism was if anything even worse in it I just am again a communists out of despair I see the need for a radical trend but there is no predetermination maybe it will not happen maybe Hollywood is right by Hollywood is right I mean it's incredible how even Hollywood sees this dark prospect in all this in all this post catastrophic movies hunger game and so on and so on in some sense they are right we are approaching a new divided society I mean are we aware what trump means every functioning democracy has to rely on a set of shared presuppositions you can have all the Poli mix and so on but against the background on not just procedural but even more substantial presuppositions about the basics of economic order about the basis of democratic decision and turbulent ones and that's what is happening now in the United States it's literally already an ideological civil war this shared ground which was still now very operative between Republicans and Democrats is disintegrating and my belief is that what Trump did I will not say his great result but he did something he ruined this liberal democratic consensus shared by all and maybe we should be courageous enough to admit that the solution is not simply to re-establish that consensus but that we should propose another consensus a little bit more to the left what fluttered I called objective social democracy because I think again that it's a tremendous strain that today it's not only Trump Trump is part of the global movement what happens in China and so on where a new authoritarian capitalism is emerging and again it's a very dangerous situation that's right to conclude I don't agree with those who cry fascism fascism this is the worst manner of old leftists they are too lazy to think which is when something emerges which nobody likes instead of thinking it seriously they just reduce it to some old things which already happened and we don't like Trump fascism no sorry Trump is not simply a fascist my god even this alt-right populism now is not simply it is not simply fascism I think we really live in a dangerous situation but again my hope is I often although I'm well aware of the horrors of Maoism Great Leap Forward up to 50 million dead and so on but I still admire that saying by Mao there is disorder under the heaven so the situation is excellent we we shouldn't be afraid to act in this situation I stop thank you very much thank you very much you

Channel: OxfordUnion

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Length: 75min 8sec (4508 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 01 2019