Slavoj Žižek in Conversation with Will Self (May 2017)

it would be much better okay if I okay if I do or do not need this I will hold it in my hand oh then that's okay [Music] um I will really try to be short because a lively debate is much better than boring introductions so I will just say introduce my new book what I you may have noticed some of you that I don't really care about it but that lately I'm in big trouble by the attack by the right Wingers even by the left Wingers and we can see exactly we can isolate six seven points where I am in trouble first there is my eurocentrism because of it I'm even accused of being close to Le Pen or whatever and so on my racism then my my celebration of violence I am a Simon greatly put it a weak coward who is dreaming of some revengeful great violence and so on then I was wrong about Greece that I didn't support Greek then I was wrong about refugees again my brutal eurocentric racism came out then I was wrong about LGBT my again my fascism but especially my homophobia and karon came out there and finally I've shown my cards openly by supporting Donald Trump now things are clear in this book I simply try to but I didn't want to do this retroactive and notice I tried to elaborate my position on all these points so by the book I will not talk about this but just briefly about what preoccupies me first okay what really preoccupies me is Hegel Lacon ideology and so on and I'm even very conservative here people always dismiss me as some kind of crazy postmodernist no I think somewhere between Kant and Hegel everything that had to happen happens and now with Mark things go already with Mark things go just down so we have to return from March to Hegel and so on but what fascinates me is first ideology today I think we live in an extremely interesting area where ideology more and more functions and in this way it's mystifying power is even stronger it functions as a weird mode of critique of ideology today's predominant ideology I claim is not is no longer accept which fundamentalists but it's another question so-called religious fundamentalists how they work it's something like if I try to describe it don't take things too seriously don't trust big projects it's all just a vague dream try to get out of your life what you can don't engage yourself too much and so on and so on what this brings us to is and this always intrigued me two things first uh uh first the strange status of belief today as I developed widely in most of my books more and more we believe through others if you ask a typical even in working class not only in so-called middle classes a guy today or a lady do you believe in God you would get something like not really but I go to the ritual and then you have different out of respect for my culture not to offend my children or whatever and so on and so on and you can develop this to the end if you ask children do you really believe they would of course have told you I just pretend for the sake of my parents to get the parents no so we really have this Paradox of beliefs which function socially without any subject in the first person believing in them so in a way I'm not saying we are a Godless atheist he live in a Godless eight days era maybe we believe more than ever but in this displaced way and this always fascinated me how believe he actually function maybe the very idea of this heroic first person belief I believe is something modern I think it begins only with we are celebrating 500 years this year Luther with protestantism I don't think in medieval times they really believed in any literal sense okay first point second point about ideology that fascinates me is how every ideological edifice in order to be operative need a set of Unwritten usually obtain rules ideology is not just what it says ideology is always a set of rules which regulate not only how you can but how are you even expected to violate the explicit rules to be a member of a community it's not enough to know the rules it's to know how to violate the rules my first experience of this was of course the Socialist Yugoslavia my youth and then I noticed everywhere around the world you have it and this is always what's so fascinating for me how what appears to be a transgression as postmodernists would have put it sites of resistance to ruling ideology it's really it's stronger strongest constitutive part this obscene rituals it can be sexual power play humiliating but I don't have to teach you about this I think your English this how do you call them schools boarding schools aren't they a kingdom of this yes it explains everything about everything yes second interests me is violence I'm here usually accused of some fascination with violence notes I just like to point out a couple of things first is that uh you know violence for me is not just what we perceive as direct violence usually we associate violence with change and then the topic is we need change but should we do it in violent way or not and so on and so on well my first thing would be but are we aware how much violence is needed and is done practiced just for the things to go on the way they are that's why I find it so hypocritical the way our media report on violence for example it is reported but underreported take Yemen today it's constantly bombarded by Saudi Arabia with Americans agree in it my God the country is practical it will take Democratic Republic of Congo and so on I told my Palestinian friends when I was in Ramallah you live in a paradise compared with Congo so how much violence is going on second thing now I will do it to provoke you I at a certain level weak violence we can go later into it I'm ready to come down okay to provoke you I am ready under certain conditions which I will precisely describe to kill a man who did never kill another person but was just doing his job and I met such a man years ago in Argentina relative of my ex-wife blah blah I met a doctor who confessed to me and I was so disgusted that when there was military dictatorship there he worked for the secret police they had the prisoner whom they wanted to torture and his drop of the doctor relative of decent relative my wife was to examine that prisoner and then give a precise analysis you can do this to this guy and he will not suffer consequences if you then don't care if he suffocates a little bit of a couple of Bones broken you can do this but don't torture him too much in that way because his lunch are weak and so on and so on I find this so disgusting because he at the same time emphasized listen I just gave my opinion I didn't do anything if I were to be sitting at the table with him and somehow magically a little capsule of poison in my hand and I look around there is nobody looking cute I would be ready to poison him one another example can you imagine supporting a call to military resistance against a legal government which undoubtedly has the support of the majority of population I can and you would even agree when you I tell you whom Charlotte de goal in 1940 are you aware that from a legal standpoint Marshal peten was the assembly National moved to the South when German and he was elected by the majority not only this all agree even Communists that if there were to be free elections in France still 42 but then would have been re-elected with 90 percent but I think the goal did the right thing it was totally illegal he called to resistance and so on so there are examples where I am ready good examples are they sorry they're not the sort of violence that your critics accuse you of endorsing nobody's accused how do we begin okay let's go here yeah yeah yeah yeah because I okay I'm not that provoked I mean I'm not raised to violence but your examples aren't very good I mean they're they're kind of knocking off a kind of Argentinian torture with the secret vial of poison or historically counterfactually censoring de Gaulle and supporting Peter this is not the kind of violence you're accused your accusers say yes the kind of violence your your accusers uh hold you guilty of of in a numerous ways supporting is the idea that the Revolutionary moment needs to be seized and possibly pressed home by violent means and the Ghost of this does kind of lurk around the courage of hopelessness I mean perhaps you can take us because I claim okay maybe I'm wrong and it's I agree with you let's be British this is a question which can be decided with concrete textual references so give me example oh well I mean you you quote uh there's an argument I would say in the courage of hopelessness that goes from for example a quote very late on where you quote Mao where saying in the Kingdom of Heaven everything is in chaos excellent or something like that yeah so conditions of chaos of of social disintegration ideological complexity represent to you a break point this is a point where we should Carpe Diem we must seize the day yes where do you see here any first we don't do it situation is yes why not seize the opportunity to do something good yes but it but at each point in the text which is I enjoyed the book very much by the way and found it a rollicking good read it we'll self I enjoyed the book very much I actually think the cover blurb on the paperback will be a Roller King goodread and then Unstoppable uh yes but the book is really a sustained critique of a kind of left liberal position that still wishes to reside in a kind of democratic formula where power is transferred without regime change of any kind now I'm not saying at any point in the book do you actively Advocate violence but it's always on the table it's always there as a possibility and you've very strongly adjure and I'd say that the left Liberals are your main thing that you're attacking you're not expecting your book to be read by right-wingers who are going to throw up their hands as you know slavo is right after all don't you know that one of the mean guys around Trump who did say the time his favorite Marxist but his favorite Marxist so he's got more than one right but you wouldn't deny that you I'm not saying you condone violence but it's on the table absolutely and why not I'm not calling for whatever violence and so on don't forget it in my book on violence I end up with saying that sometimes the most violent thing is to do nothing and I quote I still love that example I love it even more than your book of days that Sarah Margo novel is it blindness or no seeing the art of seeing where a total crisis explodes when people simply refuse to vote and so no you know what's my view here I will tell you it's not celebration of violence it's this one when things go and that's how I read Mao when an incidentally with MAO I'm far from celebrating it like Allen but you almost broke all contact with me because of that introduction to Mao where are you also Praise My but also show some but okay my point is this one when there is an open difficult situation confusion and so on the point is not to lose nerves but to grab a chance there and I'm not celebrating it I know it listen I don't know if you did and still now Enlightenment before you before we even get there right at the beginning in your last book actually before this on violence you talk about this idea and you mentioned it before of what we we call systemic violence yeah so everybody in this hall for example you would surely say is guilty of participating in that systemic violence everybody's got a mobile phone in their pocket with a bit cold systemic I don't mean we are all guilty because now you talk like like those ideologies of ecology who instead of demanding for the systemic change I hope we will agree here try to obfuscate the situation by treating us individually like you know who are you to criticize the system what did you do did you put aside all coats of Ken did you separate so I'm not trying to make people feel guilty absolutely like we are all part of it no we are not all and you'd see that as a liberal Creed occur We're All To Blame one to be pushed to one side but nonetheless everybody's got a bit of cultan in their pocket everybody is paying their taxes to the British government who did their all your mama you mentioned the current bombing in Saudi Arabia everybody in this Auditorium is contributing to the Saudis being able to undertake that bombing so I don't understand why you don't see us not individually but collectively responsible for the systemic violence we are a responsible that's more in this active passive sense of tolerating Keith we know it right we know it but we nonetheless you know what's out here hypocrisy enters and I expect you even to the native land of the hypocrite so you know yeah yeah yeah yeah even to I expect you even to agree with it you know uh when there were all those disclosures uh what were the prison stuff I write a very good leftist analysis in American Press where they say people were shocked but it wasn't oh my God Horrors are happening there on behalf of democracy it was more they should do it but discreetly we don't want to know about it that's our predominant hypocrisy and I don't have any great you know that's brings me with trouble into trouble with some leftists where I said okay I don't trust in experts there is no expert ruling class Elite which knows what is happening but they also don't trust Ordinary People the thing is when I read your stuff do you trust them trust Ordinary People I I believe in the wisdom of [ __ ] uh but your work looks to me often like you know I mean it looks to me by Raul weinerjen it looks to me like an advocacy of a certain position and I think there are young people here I can see them in the audience young people with Colton in their pocket who do look to you as somebody to propose positive actions that people can undertake now tell me one very rarely did I express admiration or engage myself I did it up to a point with hiriza already with podemos I have in Latin America I never fell into Travis things I have still now a certain sympathy I think they are the wisest for Bolivia not so much Morales as linera his vice president as you can see they do a very reasonable politics rationally it's the best rational level was modest progress and so on so wait a minute I'm very careful here but this is incidentally many people are frustrated by me I'm not they said all the criticism but where is that I'm not talking about a partisan program yes I'm talking talking about the thrust of your critique of the uh liberal humanists the liberal Bourgeois position suggests that you should offer some course of action for people to take what we have in the courage of hopelessness is kind of don't just do something sit there and and the quote about Lenin and his mistress learn learn love I loved it in that sense when people ask me in what sense I am a learning no but you know where I so is that what we should do just learn learn and learn not get rid of it so ironic here I think yes but we are in England right no what I mean sorry is this you know I hate this Proverbs and I hope you agree that Proverbs are one of the greatest domains of stupidity no I mean in the sense of whatever you do you can cover it up with a problem let's say I make a risk it close well it ends well yeah that's one way or or for example I'm in a risky position I take a risk I succeed then I don't know what you have in England in my language you have a proverb which vaguely translated says only those who risk can succeed yeah yeah but I take a risk and fail ah I have another proverb I like it vulgar you cannot urinate Against the Wind which means don't you know that's so no I I think I hate this proverb enough talk do something maybe as always repeat it in the 20th century we were trying to do too many things yeah but that's what I'm saying yours is an inverted homily it's don't just do something sit there yes it didn't think because without this we don't know what we are doing right but now I want to ask you about the sort of thinking we should be doing now for example in the courage of hopelessness is in much of your other work there are frequent references to Lacon yeah and and I want to know I want to understand a little better I mean for example should ever everybody here I mean I assume everybody is deeply familiar with liquor right just as you're deeply familiar with hegel's phenomenology of spirit that's not enough taxi drivers like the one in your book of David phenomenology yeah but my types know the difference between first and second edition of okay okay [Applause] he's a good communist you know it's like comrade Stalin say something says something you applaud you don't ask questions let me be quite serious it's so it's looking now right no let me this quite serious wouldn't you say that today with what is happening ecological crisis uh refugees Global crisis and but at the same time we have economic progress on the top of it biogenetics what will this mean we are entering a space where we don't really know what is happening where we are going it's time to think don't you agree uh I do agree a lot but why would one want to necessarily refer to a French psychoanalytic theorist his main contribution was to vary the length of analytic sessions maybe the main uh in order that you could make more cash presumably why would I was spreading stories about Lacon and we can go on here I love them like no but seriously slavoy should these people really understand look at to this very very high level I mean in order the the the their actual thinking about the predicament we're in should be informed of course who has time to read all of Lacon and John either don't say what we just look at you to produce but let's be frank let's go concretely into it you know that it's clear from recent biographies that Mao didn't read not even one book by Marx and so on no Stalin didn't read anything so don't be afraid what I want to say wrong to be very precise why Lacon I think that we are witnessing today many paradoxes in our love life even for example it's a beautiful Paradox that with all the permissivity you can do today this way that way with dogs whatever you want the more our societies are permissive the more there is free importance think of guilt and so on and so on as many friends who are real psychoanalysts tell me today the main guilt feeling is no longer uh I kept illicit desires and I feel guilty but I don't enjoy sex enough I feel guilty for that and so on so where does this Paradox come from that people in some sense counteract their Liberation they are not able to enjoy or politically it's obvious that subordination itself brings some perverse pleasure and so on for all this I think that still psychoanalysis gives the best instruments that we have yeah but you could just read a couple of uh essays by Freud couldn't you could just read Beyond he often didn't know what he is saying and this is not a critique of Freud it inventors that in the First Act you think you see something but then you immediately for example my big example death Drive Freud immediately regresses because he brings it back to that episode Oriental stupidity Nirvana the wish to disappear but I think it can be so brilliantly shown I did it in my book I've been now not been brilliantly but simply that what Freud calls uh Death Drive is really some kind of obscene immortality my model for that drive is I hope no you don't have you are too intellectual for me the same dirty pleasures of for example uh undead zombie movies or video games this is it you know you are dead but you are not that an obscene undeadness that exists and so on and this is part fundamental part of our culture today we are obsessed with zombies so this is a side question no no it's not because this is how Freud produced an ocean Death Drive and immediately misinterested the Freudian test drive is is the schopenhower in you know that was the greatest mistake so it was really anti-shopping however that's not what really I'm not asking you about what I want to understand because we're meant to away and learn learn I want to understand how I am to fit your favorite theorists Hegel Lacon marks to some extent to some extent how I am to fit them into my learning so that I'm going to understand what the [ __ ] I should do about the [ __ ] we're in and that's what I'm not quite getting from you man [Applause] no but I I okay if you again it depends on what you really expect I think I mean you know I mean I want to act immediately why are you afraid to just try to understand what's going on okay you have too much of a Marxist so you want we're clear that we're not going to act so for example on June no we can on June the 8th we shouldn't vote at all no if abstain or Corbin but with Corbin you know what makes me afraid no no wait a minute I did engage myself of like Bernie Sanders if you endorse Saunders in the courage of hopelessness yeah but you know why for a very precise reason because he did some did something unique I hope we agree here in United States this culture left screwed it up with their obsessions and maybe this is a Mythic category maybe there is some truth in it so-called ordinary working people the only way for them to vent out to express their frustration was offered by Trump and that kind of people and Bernie Sanders brought some fresh air here she it was a unique achievement she succeeded in mobilizing those who would have otherwise voted for Trump and the great tragedy of Democratic party not only even now after elections was my God instead of planning how to beat Trump you know what they are doing now they are renormalizing Trump Nancy Pelosi said recently uh Trump is like Reagan Bush don't worry for eight years we have him then we will be we will be our turned again and they spend their energy crushing whatever remains of Bernie Sanders there in this way they are literally prolonging the career of trump I claim and that was my very cynical reasoning in that quasi support of trump or whatever uh I judged maybe I was wrong on all accounts it was an empirical judgment I according to my judgment he is dangerous but not really as dangerous you know some of my leftist friends claim it's fascism now in power no this is typical you're wavering off the point we want to know about your support for Jeremy corbyn who's manifested to be exactly an example of the kind of nostalgic welfare socialism that you've got no time for his program is a rather sort of tortry Gala more free he's probably super keen on LGBT plus you know what is it why are we putting your shoulder to the Corbin wheel here tell us why because uh because nonetheless even if we don't know a little the final result we taught to replace that's my advice the system we should use every opportunity to start battles for example and I mean here very open none of Secrets totalitarian dreams for example I still think that among a couple of good things that Obama did was Obamacare this was such a shock for United States something so Unthinkable that you may remember they dragged him up you're back in America again slavoy we have socialized medicine here in indeed our elections are almost all about it no you're in England Please okay I will say it like this my doubt about Corbin is double as far as I know but I don't know I must admit it a lot about it first is there in it anything beyond what you just characterize as this old welfare state I mean I wouldn't bring your characterization on it I I mean for my own feeling my problem with Corbin is uh that that he should State his truth which is if we wish to try and pull Britain out of the neo-liberal globalized economy that it's going to have to be an autoarchist economy pretty much and uh it's fine guys you can have Jeremy in power and you can have everything in his program and more but you must accept that foreign capital is going to disappear out of the city like water out of a bathtub you've chucked exactly it was my problem what's my problem with him like something in abstract higher taxes and so on may sound good and under certain conditions it can function it's not a priori excluded by capitalism sorry let's talk to United States don't forget that when capitalism was most successful in United States the taxes went up to 90 95 percent but in today's global capitalism it's precisely the problem that you pointed out it's not only otaki it's this behind brexit and so on on this leftist idea of even European Union is an instrument of international capital and so on so the only way to protect workers rights and so on is to withdraw into a stronger nation state I'm totally opposed to it but let's let's nail you on the the dreaded and hate feared eurocentrism Your Love of the logos you know you feel reading you I feel that my head is thrust between Socrates thighs you're so in love with the Lord so bad about it nothing wrong with that at all having a long hour that you know although yes but you would seem then to be in despair about brexit and about the way that that Britain is retreating into a kind of keep calm and carry on nostalgic you see here you got me in my ignorance if Corbin really stands for this then I don't agree with you well the point was here because some friends are telling me that he doesn't yeah no no he was basically pro-brexit but wouldn't admit it he was pro-brexit on the autarkist yeah welfare socialism Nostalgia no question about it so you're anti-corbit now no no no wait a minute here I'm more of a stalinist in the sense that it doesn't matter what he thinks what can he do if he but he will not win if he triggers somewhere because you know I think we should improvise and try like for example my line who whom in whom would I put a little bit of trust today a little bit not quite in the guy who was here I think a couple of weeks ago Janice varufakis I have many doubts if his idea of democratizing Europe has any serious meaning at all the point that I always repeat and I ask him a couple of times it didn't get a good question is he aware of that concerning here is a government and concerning refugees a democratized Europe in the simple sense of Europe where Representatives really listening to the voice of the people would have been much more rough against the refugees like if Angela Merkel well to say let's consult the German people should I invite them out with them and so on and I'm here for my Angela Merkel so what I'm saying is that but what uh Janis varufak is so clearly is that both choices capitulation what series are later did or grexit grex it would have been Madness you know I learned from my political friends who knew soybe Wolfgang the German big bad wolf that he actively wanted greatly everything was set in plan let Greek have their brexit it would be humanitarian catastrophe chaos maybe military power but the left would be learned a lesson for a long time and what varufak is always so clearly is that the only way to fight what we all hate about Europe it's through new pan-european or even wider globalism that's my point we have to do something it's clear that there is something wrong with global capitalism but the way to fight it is not National author right so so we're just stuffed here in our little island off the coast of Europe then we can have no impact because what I get from the courage of Hope is on the positive side of action is you I'm not saying you dream but you still hope the courage of hopelessness you still hope for uh a wide popular movement to get going in Europe I never said white popular movement you talk about things you believe in the lead absolutely yes but this wait a minute all popular movements affect work like this usually that's your leninist side yeah but you can you can be also a mother god of the Revolution yeah but not avant-garde which then introduces Gula but like you have all of these people should they be in the Vanguard of the Revolution their problem not mine yeah no no sorry but isn't your problem their problem sorry isn't your problem their problem no my problem is I just have a theoretical position and why why don't you accept it and not you see I'm not saying anything great in every Revolution till now or even Progressive Movement it was always a narrow not maybe not Elite but maximum 10 15 and in the luckiest moments you get a kind of a silent passive sympathy of the majority and I'm ready so that's that's all that these people are required to do be a silent path no they are more than welcome to be active why do you read prescription into everything that I say because do you agree with my statement because if I read your stuff as descriptive it doesn't really take me anywhere it's the the ghost of prescriptivism lingering around your prose that draws people to it I think people do want to hear what your prescriptions are they don't just want to hear your descriptions or we just read you as a cultural critic and you would have no no tension or significance here we maybe how you'd like to be read in which case fine you're a cultural critic and we can just kick it all around and you know let's watch the movies there are a couple of other distincts let's not worry about the election [ __ ] off Let's Dance incidentally about this now we're all participating in that systemic violence that you don't like so you know what are we going to do about this forthcoming collections since even Corbin doesn't have a serious chance to win I think one should openly say their pseudo elections they have no importance for me it's not worth your time so should we be participating in some other sort of popular movement or should we be seeking out the 15 or 20 percent who will constitute the elite who will then within the Revolutionary Vanguard here you are fake with this irony of elite and so on that's not advertising Guardians Soul notes for other members advertising well perhaps they should advertise in Lonely Hearts columns I'm a future member of the leninist elite will you meet me out okay but listen here you are around you know why I think because but all political movements work like this what do you want a really authentic movement where Millions would gather and so on they don't exist I want you to address the predicament of a nation in which quite clearly the most and you write very well on this in the courage of hopelessness you write about how democracy is necessarily a kind of Shadow play it exists in order to facilitate regime change without violence the important thing you say about democracy is that that we know that we aren't electing the people who are most suited to do the job and it's why the ancient Greek system of Select leaders by lotus in a sense and these points are all very very well made but how do they speak to people who are actually living in this democracy at this moment and who feel that the democracy is simply not fit for purpose for example the brexit remain declivity Cuts completely across traditional right left a traditional right left axis so people are confused I think you are again two activists here there are first now I will say something horrible I've been at home all day smoking dope and wanking like everybody else no no no no but yes because you accept what like uh I don't know what's the mistake do you know what is happening today do I know what is happening today I agree with you I think the light at the end of the tunnel is the approaching train I agree with you I I and I assume you agree with the International Panel on climate change that if there is a four percent or five percent rise in global temperatures by the end of this Century we're all toast and I don't mean that metaphorically yeah yeah are you agree with me on that as well and but you still seem to your great belief in the logos your great belief in Hegel leads you know absolutely listen you know what Hegel says just take him literally the all of Minerva wisdom flies off at the night at night which means none of this revolutionary prediction we can only retroactively explain what is going on anti-marks nonetheless you're enough of a hegelian to evoke the idea idea of human history as a process that is is part of a self-organizing and generating principles I would say is that there is some kind of a progress and in some of my books I give as an example I'm very naive here take the idea of democracy not in that Chinese they propagate it now substance deliberative sense which means you debate the party keeps all the power but this in this radical European sense this was an incredible progress something really new emerged for the first time in the history of humanity what in usual state regimes is perceived as a moment of Crisis my God the throne amp is empty here is the basic presupposition so the fact that the throne is empty it's no longer perceived at nightmare nightmare but it's an opening it means nobody has the full right I I I think this or even with all my mocking human rights and so on but listen feminism against slavery and so on and so on I'm very eurocentric in a naive sense here with all the ideological mystifications and so on this is some progress and you know where I have just allow me this the problem with you you'd say no no the first is what do you expect you know I'm sorry I realize me yeah no no I don't like I mean can you imagine me people wanted me I got offers to psychoanalyze to be their anal you now remember the famous story about William Bowers and Alan Ginsburg though Burris tall Ginsburg I'm being psychoanalyzed already so I'll psychoanalyze you for free no no but my opponent is much more evil let's say you were to have trouble and ask me to be your psychoanalyst I would like that yeah yes no you know why because like uh can you really imagine me listening to you and your stupid associations for more than 30 seconds you know so I'm not [Applause] speaking like [Applause] like here misanthrope why are you uploading because for Brian's no no but let's go back to the point you know my position is very modest yes I agree with you we are in the shitty situation there is nothing great to do now but my pessimism is at the same time a cause of optimism don't worry there will be new crisis okay but you talk about things like you and I mean this very seriously it's not some distant cope what will happen with refugees remember you got to do better than this man you got to be do better than these pathetic one-liners you've got to address things that you say in your book you you say that that political change comes from Elites we're not looking to the mass you talk about International agreements in order to to no this is pure logical deduction in the sense of don't you think that like problems that we are facing today even let's take ecology and so on this uh local democracy non-representative staff locally we share what blah blah blah it's not enough it's crucial for or the true horror problem today the impact of biogenetics of brain Sciences who will control that and so on for this we need even larger than State strong mechanisms with authority and so on world government a little picture of that future which you do wave in a diaphanous way around the edges let me return back to you because you are avoiding it's so easy or I'm claiming that's my basic premise think have terrifying potentials what is going on today and uh it's so easy to say for you Elite but I don't mean Elite in the sense of some stupid student meeting halfway between Cambridge and Oxford and so ever I mean change is always begin with the minority even French rules all popular revolutions began with the minority is it going to begin with a minority of people who really know their Le Car is that where the revolution is going to begin well it's not necessary like this I never implied this but why do we have this you know my reading of Lacon says this strange things are happening today in sexual mores here and there the way people relate to Authority and so on which Theory can explain this why are you blaming me for this I claim the best that I know is because I can strip out all of the references to Lacon to Hegel to Marx and to Freud in your book the courage of hopelessness and it reads as a series of declarative statements that are your opinions and I don't find that the theory helps to explain your opinions to me justify your opinions to me or make them frankly any more palatable so what's it therefore you cannot go in detail into it no really what is it there for apart from intellectual grandstanding you say you don't believe in the hegelian idea that the world spirit is evolving towards some kind of end State you take a pop-up marks you no longer believe in dialectical materialism what exactly do you believe in I believe you said you had a problem with belief I like lowest Grandma's line beliefs or ideas going bold maybe you just have ideas no beliefs at all allow me to finish what I believe in is that the global system we are in is approaching some kind of catastrophe we understand that in Marxist terms is that a series of internal contradictions basically yes yes yes yes so he's Marx is right about that about this yeah not in the way he meant it for example who would be the working class today the problem is that refugees are not authentic do you really think that capitalism is hitting the buffers because we're running out of the earth that we need no it's not no you're too naive I think that capitalism has an incredible capacity to change any obstacle to its expansion but overall growth rates for example uh in in economies have been under three percent for many many years now but these big questions you when I develop this of these years ago in Korea they started to laugh at me and they said no you Western European crisis even America is doing better we are doing better and so on and so on so but no you know what I'm trying to tell you do you agree or not that for me the greatest Utopia is that things can go on just go on the way they are I couldn't agree with you more in 2016 is when it became clear that that is a delusion that is blowing away from people so what would you do what would I just masturbate as you said and sit there [Applause] no I think we should slowly at least prepare organize think about Solutions and precisely become aware of the crisis we are in yes but but the basic problem you know you know a transnational agreement between Elites to limit the construction of coal and coal-fired power stations for example yeah you really think that the Chinese are going to play ball with that no I of course I don't but why so the challenge is going to do now you're confusing I think so two types of Elites Elite in the usual sense of our power elite and if anything now I will instruct you with my authoritarian approach if anything we are lacking efficient Elites today I have more and more the impression that Western Europe and United Kingdom it's not this old Marxist where do we find these Elites Lavoy the problem for these Western economies is not a way this term Elites Earth where did where did Communism come where does it come and with all the horrors that It produced it will emerge critical opinions maybe it will not imagine you say it yourself in the courage of hopelessness that in a large part socialism was an ideology that grew out of the mode of capitalist production in which it found itself which was the manufactured nowadays today's alienated prokaryote at home in their little cells clicking away when they're not wanking and smoking dope but the rest was how are they actually going to form the kind of solidarity or the kind of networks you know that are going to enable them because now even with all the talk about that gave a wonderful answer with all the talk about crisis and so on in most of Western European countries we still don't have even an idea what this Crisis crisis is not if your standard Falls for half a percent crisis is what happens in Greece when it fell for 30 percent and so on and I'm saying don't you agree that if we both agree with this prediction we are approaching [ __ ] and so on then that some crisis will explode what will happen then let's begin thinking about that well I think what will happen then is what always happens which is that people who are practical and as we say the English idiom would be handy will really start to take control at that point that's right and the people who have been sitting at home reading the car are going to be slaughtered in their beds no no no no no you are wrong here I think that the danger is of another type in this difficult situations it's precisely very non-practical in the sense of efficient Solutions but brutal pragmatic idealists who can take over you know it's not that some reasonable British practical people will take over so I I returned to the to the idea that always resisted by people who are utopian which is you know what is the ideal that the brutal plant pragmatist will be working towards what does this Future come into society given our the way our relationship with technology our relationship with our own sexualities and to be fair to you slavoy I think your analysis and discussion of LGBT plus is extremely perspicacious so how are these polymorphously perverse lacanians going to what are they going to do in this future Society what will this mode of production be uh again uh how will it be governed is the stake in a Wither away or you know or is this brutally pragmatically don't forget that the title of my last sub chapter in the second chapter of a book about series a plea for bureaucratic social yes yes you're keen on bureaucratic socialism and you you have the lovely line about Kafka and and uh bureaucracy and all of that stuff but what's that going to look like is it I mean a lot more office work I still claim that with new exploding crisis why are you so ironic here and don't allow that yes there will be pragmatists there will be fascists already Le Pen and so on are a reaction to crisis not your Nigel farage I met him once by mistake at BBC she is not your future fearer he is a clown and so on so be afraid of them but not of Nigel for us you know but what I'm saying is that why do you upriori excluded in the same way it happened in Spain and so on when people will feel the pressure without reading too much Lacon some some kind of solute some kind of radical more reasonable movement of the left will arrive right I don't exclude but one of the arguments against Corbin is that he has been brought to Power by on collectivists people who just paid three quid and voted for him in that way one of the problems that seems to me with the Socialist project as I've already said is that people are not engaged in Social modes of production so how are they talking about yeah exactly so how are these people to find each other how are they to join in a popular in a movement of some kind now all of that seems startling the absent from your thinking to me I'm not looking just for you to Advocate somebody we should get behind or something like that I'm looking to you for more as a philosopher I want you to tell me how to live I want you to tell me whether I should Chuck away my mobile phone because it contains coltan that was obtained in a you know 20 million people have died in the war in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last 15 or 20 years so that you can all have your little mobile phones and look at grinder so you can get bummed later on you know [Music] what did you mean exactly by some pragmatists with look we are let's say approaching some kind of shitty situation yeah why don't you exclude that with growing tensions and so on maybe even precarious people will somehow I wouldn't exclude it connect because remember who will miracles do happen in what sense who would have predicted 15 years ago something like series which screwed it up but one and so on I don't think that would be too wild I guess I think it's a much much Wilder prediction to imagine that the Marriott in a moment of acute social crisis are somehow going to find the connectivity the sense of solidarity that is necessary to form a progressive leftist Union just on on the spin of a of a moment when other forces are in play and it seems to me that people who are advocating and believe in some idea of social and political progress and who see this Crisis coming should be advocating you know practical measures ways of organizing platforms people can consolidate around and what sort of ethical attitude they should take towards paying their taxes contributing to British aerospace's ability to trade arms to the Saudi Arabians or the Colten in your pocket that comes from killing people in the country you should Advocate positions on all of that because that's what you set yourself up to be but wait a minute why do you think that they assume this for example I I I was for ObamaCare for all others and I agree with it now you've got socialized medicine here but we're still helping the Saudis drop bombs in Yemen we've got fantastic I know but the contradiction is here antagonism even stronger like what if the money for your NHS system that you still have partially comes precisely from selling currencies what should we do about that ethical dilemma what should we what is your answer here well I I'm not personally I'd go private so you would go I'd go private go to private medicine no no I you know what the problem what's my position has always been the same I made a program on the Alia Mama deal 20 years ago I have consistently opposed the arms trade in this country I think it's a pile of [ __ ] and we shouldn't be in it at all I think that's an indication that a woman is walking around with a microphone which means it's time for questions Savoy um actually I can't really see into the house if there were any way to bring the lights up so so we could actually see everybody that would be a real help in terms of taking questions no anyway questions please for for slavoy the microphone is up I think we'll take them in groups of three if we could microphone person hello can you hear me we can hear you now you were talking about all right I'll stand up as well um you were talking about genetics you've mentioned that quite a bit recently yeah biogenetics could you maybe expand on what your thoughts are around that area okay I repeat the dishwasher that I don't want to speak too much but it's very simple from what I know and I have connections even in China but not high connection but some scientists that I met in United States and so on well we should be aware what is already happening for example I hope you've read about this that even Stephen Hawking no longer needs his finger to move his wheelchair it's already his brain is directly wired and so on so this Prospect of directly connecting our brain to computers is near it's something that can be done but are we aware what this means for our let's call it naively self-identity all our minimum of personal dignity and self-identity is based on this I am here you're out there I have my space to think when this Falls it's not only that I become a little bit like God like I think about something it happens it goes also the other way around the new ways we can be controlled and so on and so on and China is for me always the future here A friend gave me a program of the brain Sciences division of Chinese Academy of Sciences it's a beautiful Tech because it says there that the task of biodynamics in China is to regulate physical and psychic welfare of Chinese citizens and so on so I'm just saying that something tremendous potentially at least is happening here and if it's left simply to private companies or to the state or to any combination of both well I prefer not to think what can happen but you think it's fundamentally destructive of a key notion of human subjectivity yeah but nonetheless I'm not simply a pessimist we will be robots or whatever I think who knows what will happen do you not think that our engagement with the web is already altering the ontologic character of human awareness yeah but not quite too much although again I agree with you here but it's almost it fascinates me because we were talking before about death drive and I interpreted it as Death Drive is really immortality compulsion to repeat that's what fascinates me I can draw very briefly a line here you know it all began when I was very young with my love for cartoons you know the immortality you find there Tom and Jerry fighting to death slicing each other in the next seat even if Gary was cut into pieces in the next scene he is already there the first one do you think that's what revolutionary violence will be like no and then they'll all just look together you know what I'm saying is that this type of in a way even primitive and that subjectivity it's all again things go wrong I Can Begin Again the father of this is Marquis De Sada that's the mystery of Lacon saw it clearly of the victims Juliet he is endlessly tortured but all the time remains and this is this is how our immersion into Digital Universe works like you know in as in again and I will say but these are games no love life I was told begin to function in the same way let's be open I try with one woman or man it doesn't work I erase it I start again and so on and so on this all these uh uh and also the new modes of control that we have with digitalization our Chinese friends again are great you know that I read now that in China they already have a plan which is also happening in a subtle array in our countries the idea is this all citizens will be registered in some Mega computers which will simply collect data did they commit any small crimes any political crimes do they regularly pay taxes any small criminal acts do they read dissident literature did they visit Tibet or whatever and base of this you will each one will get in a numeric way kind of a level of social trust they call it in this Confucian way and in a more refined way we are doing it so who will control all who will control all this and so on I I think that I think that and again I refuse to be simply an old-fashioned humanist here you know so everything is lost we will lose our individuality no we'll have to admit that we don't know what is here but we should follow it closely so what's your position here what would you have done do you know something more what would what I what would I have done not you I like what's your opinion I think technology is something that happens to humans it's not something that humans do it's it's a complete misconstrue yeah and and what will be will be but without the collapse without a major collapse in our civilization it seems to me indisputable that the beginning of human machine transhumanist existence is already underway and so on is the day ontologically kit because they describe this new superhuman Singularity but as if they imply they don't say it at the same time it keeps all our properties free thinking and so they project onto it their own yeah humanist Illusions I don't want to be in a 2 -struct way a pessimist but at some point I agree with you you know where to what extent what appears as our human limitations mortality ambiguity of language and so on is not simply imperfection but sustains the space of our whatever you call it creativity and so on and so on also I think we're much to hang up on uh on autonomy and on the idea of the discrete psyche anyway it is always Struck it strives me that Consciousness is much more of a collective phenomenon than we dare allow for example I know exactly what you're thinking all right should we take another question you cannot because you know to bring out what I'm thinking you would need not three axes of Hardcore but it's just because you've written so many bloody books all right we have another question please hello thanks for listening this question is for everybody and both of you I'm over here on your left so sorry yeah it's not unrelated so do you agree that a political system like capitalism is a data processing system style is it that do you believe that and if so do you think that the next changes in data processing that are so huge will be more of a centralized political system with everybody's data much because technology is moving much faster than politics it will continue to do so so much more so I'm glad you started talking about it already here I'm more skeptical you know in what sense that uh I still believe maybe here I'm an old-fashioned even humanist or about that technology doesn't stand of its own it always relies on implies certain social relations of power and so on and so on today's digital system is not simply a natural property of a certain technology it's always uh embedded in set of capitalist relations and so on and so on what do you think capitalism is slow for you oh here I'm a good Marxist which means although I'm critical of it I think it's a miracle it's absolutely the most dynamic uh economic system that Humanity ever knew because the genius of capitalism is this one you must know this that how uh you know marxists are always expecting you know like Mao set late no sorry uh Marx late 19th century capitalism is approaching its final crisis then Lenin said imperialism the final stage of capitalism then Mao said 40 years later American imperialism this rotting class state is getting even more rotten and so on okay it's rotting rotting and the Moritz rotting can indicate the more it's the better it's functioning in some sense so what I'm saying is that never forget and this would have been my criticism of General early heideggerian approach when we talk about technology today it's not abstract technology it's technology the way it was generated and sustained by capitalism and as you pointed out my critique of traditional Marxism is that it heated ontologically it wanted to get rid of capital but to retain all the Dynamics of always overcoming getting over which for me is deeply embedded precisely in capitalist Dynamics you know but here I see the paradoxes today my reason of my pessimism isn't it the ultimate irony that okay even if fukuyama was right no like capitalism one that today almost intended to say that what among at least the best managers of capitalism are ex-communists where they are still in power I always think that you you conflate two things and and people who are influenced by marxists yeah plus we tend to inflate two things when they look at capitalism well capitalism isn't an ideology it has ideologies associated with it nor exactly is it a mode of production but it's a tool the two it's a tool capitalism is a tool what do you mean by this it's a way of affecting change at a distance like any other yeah but nonetheless I would say it's not at all in the sense we usually understand at all like now you have to be cameras says you know if if the ax is the tool then the man's arm is the tool and if the man's arm is the tool then the man standing on the earth is part of the tool and so is the tree that he's chopping but I think nonetheless all this complex can be part of a certain mechanism but I think the problem for you Mars is you're always identifying capitalism as if it were an ideology it's not an ideology it's just what people do which is why we'll do these good leftists because here I claim that precisely the greatness of Marx was that he wasn't a simple vulgar materialist you know ideology is just a mirror real things yeah it's a materialist modest social is a materialist moment not last month but he so clearly dead and that's why we don't have time to go now into it when he developed his notion of commodity feticism it's clearly that he speaks about an ideology but he never calls it ideology because it's not super structure it's in the very heart of economic structure of capitalism and capitalism is outside ideology in the sense of outside all cultural identity that's the miracle of capitalism today you can get uh you can get I don't know a Tibetan a Chinese a latino-american that's because it's just what people do slavoy okay that I would insist let's have another question before we all die first first I'd like to say something to yourself and I will give a question for uh Professor Zizek no you can question him a little bit no okay okay so the thing is like you question about like Giza Exposition on like uh which you think but the point is let me give Marx quote from Karl Marx the point of to know about the world is to change it because while we were knowing it we we already made we are already making the change and this is a uh dialectic so I think the problem like uh from the GX position is that people really have is we should be uh confused but we're not and this is in my opinion catastrophe so I think Jesus also at this book is very authentic here because the point in my uh the way I understand it is like the confusion itself is a stage of transformation well yeah so the question for Zizek is that uh what like we you talk about we should sit and think and I'm thinking about like a very darling proposition that maybe are we going to move on to a new age another age of philosophy in the future uh because from my personal uh empirical experience I think it is quite demanding but is it really I mean what is in your opinion the biggest uh resistance for it okay sorry resistance of whom against what what yeah I know that was a bit of a sort of strange cut-off point there oh sorry but I think I think what he was driving at is is what is the resistance to this new point of change what are the forces that arranged is that why you were driving out yeah something like that reach new point the point where capitalism is moving or what what is what is resisting the point at which we're going to get some clarity of thought on these issues you know what is resistance here my God I am a Marxist in the sense that you know the problem is this one is not simply knowing but because the greatness of Marx Marx is implicit not what he often said theory of ideology is that uh like we can know something that's for me as I repeatedly wrote in my book is the problem of ideology today you can know like most of the people know at least rationally about ecological threat don't take it seriously they don't believe it really I don't think that we really believe there is a threat and so on so my point is this one that in a way knowing I'm not simply preaching hit and learn because knowing about think is also a way of not doing kit of you know like I know it and so on there is wrong and false knowledge not at the simple level of it reflects truth or but how it practically engages you what you said about philosophy and so on here very naively yes I I agree with you in the sense that I think that in this new age ecological threats biogenetics digitalization and so on the very basic definitions of what is a human being will change that's it thank you [Applause]

Channel: Ippolit Belinski

Views: 79,824

Keywords: Zizek, Slavoj Žižek, Conversation, Will Self, 2017

Id: _OAWRinR6GM

Length: 75min 51sec (4551 seconds)

Published: Tue May 30 2017