Slavoj Žižek Vs Will Self in Dangerous Ideas

hello and welcome to this incredibly exciting how-to Academy event I made a Wordsworth and it's my honor to introduce our two speakers for this evening slobbery shack is one of the most influential thinkers of our time a cycle analytical philosopher critic self-described complicated communist and political theorist jejak is no stranger to either high or low culture from describing tulips as dental vaginas to modern ideology as a kind of unfreedom which experiences freedom Dziedzic has views on every issue Under the Sun all injected with the hag alien marxist philosophy he follows will self is perhaps the coolest British novelist journalist and political theorist of the 21st century likely Jack self is no stranger to controversy describing George Orwell as English as England's supreme mediocrity and calling free speech a Western sexual fetish nonetheless his many performances on panel shows such as question time interrogating the status quo have captured the heart of the nation with one viewer commenting that he is the voice of reason and compassion in a world of political chaos and uncertainty self and ggx political commentaries shine through as beacons of intelligence and understanding and we are extremely honored to have them here today please give a warm round of applause for will self inflation [Applause] okay if I okay if I do or do not need if I will hold it in my hand ah identity okay I will really try to be sure 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-winger even by the left-wingers and we can see exactly we can isolate kick seven points where I am in trouble first there is my Eurocentrism because of it I was even accused of being close to the pen or whatever and so on my racism then my my celebration of violence I am FM on Crickley put it a week coward who is dreaming of some revengeful great violence and so on then I was wrong about grief that I didn't support grexit then I was wrong about the refugees again my brutal Eurocentric racism came out then I was wrong about LGBT my again my fascism but especially my homophobia and so on came out there and finally I found my cart openly by supporting Donald Trump now things are clear in this book I simply try to but I didn't want to do this rhetoric leave a notice I try to elaborate my position on all this point so by the book I will not talk about this but less briefly about what preoccupied me first okay what really preoccupied me is Hegel Locke own ideology and so on and I'm even very conservative here people always miss Mia some kind of crazy postmodernist no I think somewhere between her Kant and Hegel everything that had to happen happen and now with Mark things go already with mark things go just down so we have to return from Marx to Hegel and so on but what fascinating 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 is predominant ideology I claim is not is no longer except with fundamentalist but it's another question so-called religious fundamentalist 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 this always intrigued me two things first first the strength status of belief today as they developed widely 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 guy today or a lady do you believe in God you would get something like not really bad I go to the read well 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 are children do you really believe they would of course have told you I'd just pretend for the sake of my parent to get the press not sure 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 80s live in a godless 80s era maybe we believe more than ever but in this displaced way and this always fascinated me how belief 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 five hundred years the year loader 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 needs a set of unwritten usually obscene rules theology is not just what it says it always always a set of rules which regulate not only how you can but how are you given expected to violate the explicit rules to be a member of a community it's not enough to know the rules is 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 postmodernist would have put it sites of resistance to ruling ideology it's really it's stronger strongest constitutive part this obscene ritual it can be sexual power plays humiliating but I don't have to teach you about this I think your English this how to call them schools boarding schools are they a kingdom of this yes explains everything about everything yes second topic that interests me is violence I'm here usually abused of some fascination with virulence notes I just like to point out a couple of things first is that 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 strange 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 it's done practiced class for the things to go on the way they are the small aside it's 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 I got the country's practically the stake Democratic Republic of Congo and so on I told my Palestinian friends when I was in Ramallah you live in a paradise compared to it so how much violence is going on second thing you know I will do it to provoke you I as a certain level with 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 bla bla I met a doctor who comes up to me and I was so disgusted that when there was military dictatorship there he worked for the secret police they said the prisoner whom they wanted to torture and his drop of the doctor relative of distant relative my wife was to examine that 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 to march in that way because he lunch a week 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 kicking at the table with him and somehow magically a little capsule of poison in my tent and I look around there is nobody looking it 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 shuttle the goal in 1940 are you aware that from a legal standpoint marshal Petain was the assemblée nationale moves to the south when General and he was elected by the majority not only this all agree even communist that in there were to be free elections in France till 40 to the 10 would have been reelected with 90 percent but I think the goal did that I think it was totally illegal he called to resistance and so on so there are examples where I am ready good examples although currently not the sort of violence that your critics accuse you of endorsing nobody's kills and ignite or we begin ok let's go here yes yes because they said detailing for okey okey yes okay I know that I'm not that provoked I mean I'm not raised to violence but your examples aren't very good I mean there there are kind of knocking off a kind of Argentinian torture with the secret vial of poison or historically counterfactually censoring de gaulle and supporting pitar this is not the kind of violence you're accused your accusers say you know what pain make you the kind of violence your your accusers hold you guilty of in a numinous way 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 even Vegas because I claim okay maybe I'm wrong and it I agree with you let's be British empiricism this is a question which can be decided with concrete textual references a real point there so give me an example oh well I mean you quote there's an argument I would say in the carriage of hopelessness that goes from for example a quote very later on where you quote now we're saying in the kingdom of heaven everything is in chaos excellent or something like that yeah so conditions of chaos of social disintegration ideological complexity represent to you a breakpoint that this is a point where we should carpathian we must seize the day yes where you see here any this we don't do it situation is coward yes why not seize the opportunity to do something good yes but it is each point in the text which is I enjoyed the book very much by the way and kind of a rollicking good read give me much in my sector so that we repent it will self I enjoyed the book very much yeah you know I actually think the cover blurb on the type crack will be a rollicking good read and then unstoppable I'm down potable water be arranged 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 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 Adger and I'd say that the left liberals are your main thing you're attacking you're not expecting your book to be read by right-wingers who are going to throw up their hands like you oh you know slider is right after all we don't you know that one of the mean guys around Trump was it Richard Beynon of who did say the time disfavor Marxist but the step is favored masses 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 if I left calling for whatever violence and so on don't forget it in my viral that book on violent I end up with saying that sometimes the most violent thing is to do nothing to obsess and I quote I still love this example I love it even more than your book of that Saramago novel is the blindness or no seeing the eyes of looking we're a total crisis explodes when people simply refuse to vote and so no you know what my view here I will tell you it's not celebration of violence is this one when think go and that's how I read now when an incidentally bit mal I'm far from celebrating it like a land but you almost broke all contact with me because of that introduction tomorrow where I also praised mal but also show him 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 change there mmm and I'm not celebrating it I know it's listen I don't know if you did and even though wait a minute fat but we even get there right at the beginning in your last book actually before this on violence you talked about this idea and you mentioned it before of what 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 little whole time in it I don't care and they only show you in a minute if I say systemic I don't mean we are all guilty because now you talk like like those ideologist of ecology who instead of demanding for the systemic change I hope you will agree here try to appreciate the situation by treating us individually like you know who are you to criticize the system what did you do did you put aside old coats of candy to separate so I'm not trying to make people feel guilty about like we are all part of it now we are not one 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 coltan in their pocket everybody is paying their taxes to the British government to do that is there a your mama da Arabia not only 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 responsible blessed more in this active passive sense of tolerating key we know it right we know it but we nonetheless you know what I'm here hypocrisy enters and I expect you even to as a native land of the hypocrites yes even to I expect you even to agree with it you know when there were old all those disclosures what were the prison Abu Ghraib a great stuff I write a very good leftist analogy 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 discreetly we don't want to know about it that's our predominant autocracy and I don't have any grief you know that 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 with knowing what is happening but they also don't have ordinary people the thing is when I read your stuff do you trust them trust ordinary PEO I I believe in the wisdom of holes but your words to me often like you know create savoir faire Pope or Legion Jean and it looks to me look drive revolution 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 coltan in their pocket who do look to you as somebody to propose positive actions that people can undertake now only one very rarely did I express admiration or engage myself I did it up to a point with syriza already with podemos I kept 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 llanera in vice president and you can see they do a very reasonable politic rationally it's the best rational lab that was modest progress and so on hey wait a minute and very careful here well yes incidentally many people are frustrated by me I'm not taking all the criticism but where is the knowledge talking about a partisan program yes I'm talking talking about first of your critique of the liberal humanists the liberal bourgeois position suggests that you should offer some cause 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 low I loved it well I think that says when people asked me in what sense a millennium explicitly no but you know where I don't know what we should do just learn learn and learn not get rid of it oh well you're Aaronic here I think yes but we are in England right know what I mean sorry is this you know I hate this proverb and I hope we agreed that proverbs are one of the greatest domains of cupidity no I mean in the sense of whatever you do you can cover it up with a problem let's say I'm a Christian all's well that ends well yet that's one way all all for example I'm in the risky position I take a risk I succeed then I don't know what you have in England in my language have a product with vaguely translated says only those who read can succeed yes but I take risk and fail ah I have another product I like it vulgar you cannot urinate against the wind which means does you know that so no I think I shade this proverb enough talk do something maybe as always repeated in the 20th century we were trying to do too many things that's what I'm saying uses an inverted from Omelas don't just do something sit where you don't think they are saving 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 Lacan yeah and and I want to know I want to understand a little better I mean for example should everybody here I mean I assume everybody here is deeply familiar with Lacan right just as you're deeply familiar with Hegel's phenomenology of spirit it's not enough audible sigh uneasiness now come on enough a taxi drivers like the one in your book of day via read phenomenology yeah but my side know the difference between first and second edition of Cagle slow okay you will not get me so easily you know I know what you want if you're a holding do you know the difference between the first and the second edition of behaviors phenomenology is a good communist you know and I promise Stalin say something said something you applause you don't oppress me sorry let me be quite serious it's only looking at work let me be quite serious wouldn't you say that today with what is happening ecological crisis 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 I do agree a lot but why would one want to necessarily refer to a French psychoanalytic theorists his main contribution was to vary the length of analytic sessions maybe the main in order that could make more cash presumably no I would I was spreading curious about Lacan and we can go on here I love them like a bird seriously swabbo it should these people really understand lock onto this very very high level ok so if you I mean in order yes that their actual thinking about the predicament where in should being informed allegory guys unsure of course who has time to read all of Lacan and so on either don't so what we just look at you to put in oh no no God is a lot let's be frank let me know concretely need you know that it's clear from recent biographies that Mao didn't read not even one book by Marx and so on no darling didn't read anything so don't be afraid what I want to say Rock to be very precise why Lacan 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 permittivity you can do today this way that way with doc whatever you want the more our societies are permitted the murderous frigidity in importance feeling of guilt and so on and so on as many friends who are real psychoanalyst stealthy today the main guilt feeling is no longer I said illicit desires and I feel guilty but I don't enjoy sex enough I feel guilty for death and the world so where does this paradox come from that people in some sense counteract their liberation they are not able to enjoy all politically it's obvious that subordination itself brings some perverse pleasure and so on for all this I think that still psychoanalysis give the best instruments that we have yeah but you could just read a couple of essays by frightened you could just read beyond our own didn't know what she is saying and this is not a critique of Freud it's with all great inventors that in the first act you think you see something but then you immediately for example magic example death dries freud immediately regressive the Koski 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 my book a business now not not been brilliantly but simply that website calls death dries is really some kind of obscene immortality my model for death drive is i hope no you don't have you're too intellectual for me the same dirty pleasures of for example and death zombie movies or video games this is it you know you are there but you are not that an obscene undead nests that exists and so on and this is part fundamental part of our culture today we are blessed with zombies eternal this is a side question no no it's not because this is how freud but you and though he deaf died and immediately misinterpreting Jeff died a monavie is the shoppin Aaron you know what was the greatest mistake oh yeah freely any shopping power that's not what really I'm not talking about what I want to understand because we're meant to go away and learn learn learn I want to understand how I am to fit your favorite theorist Hegel look more marks to some extent because I'm expendable 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] nobody i okay if you again it depends on what you will expect I think in a minute you know I mean I may try to act immediately while are you afraid to just try to understand what's going on okay you have too much of a Marxist here we want wicked clear the way we're not going to answer for example on you now we can on jr. we shouldn't go at all now if you ask me I would say either abstain or Corbyn but which carbon you know what makes me afraid no no no wait a minute I didn't gauge myself of like Bernie Sanders my you've you endorsed Saunders in the courage Robeson's yeah but you know why for a very precise reason because he did something unique I hope we agree here in the United States this cultural left screwed it up with their obsessions and maybe this is a meta 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 trumpet that kind of people and Bernie Sanders brought some fresh air here he it was a unique achievement he succeeded in mobilizing those who would have otherwise voted for Trump and the great tragedy of Democratic Party not only even now after elections what my god instead of planning how to beat Graham you know they're too Inc now they are renormalizing Trump Nancy Pelosi said recently dump it like Reagan Bush don't worry for eight years we have him then we will be we will be out earned 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 cause I'd support of Trump or whenever I thought maybe I was wrong on all account it was an empirical judgment i according to my judgment he is dangerous but not really as dangerous you know some of my leftist French claim it's fascism now in power now this is typical leftist to be Bible you're you're wavering of the point we want to know about your support to Jeremy Corbyn whose manifesto I would sorry 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 tawdry gallon more free is probably super keen on lgbtq+ you know what is it why are we putting our shoulders at the Corbin wheel here tell us why because because nonetheless even if we don't know as it were the final result with work to replace that my advice the system we produce every opportunity to start battles for example and I mean here very open none of secret Lenin is total variant 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 to go back in America against level we have socialized medicine here and indeed our elections rumors all about it not you're in England no they were great okay so cash audience please okay I will say 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 if they're in it anything beyond what you just characterized as this old welfare state lost well I mean I will bring your characterization on it I I mean from my own feeling my problem with Corbin is that that he should stay his truth which is if we wish to try and pull Britain out of the neoliberal globalized economy that it's going to have to be an autist economy pretty much and 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 the city like water out of a bathtub you cha know exactly was a live problem my problem is seem like something in abstract higher taxation and so on may sound good and under certain conditions it can function it's not a priori excluded by capital sorry just a brief the 30 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 author key exists behind breakfast and so 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 race I'm totally football squeezed but let's just nail you on the dreaded and I fear your Eurocentrism your love absolute of the logos you know you feel reading you I feel that my head is thrust between Socrates sighs you're so in love with the Lord go back about it nothing wrong with a Virgil puffing along our did you know although yes while - although Ogden yeah but you would seem then to be in despair about brexit and about the way that the Britain is retreating into a kind of keep calm and carry on nostalgic got me in my ignorant if Corbin really stands for this then I don't agree with ya the point was here because some friends are telling me that he doesn't yeah no no no he was basically proactive but wouldn't admit it anyway Pro breaks it on the auto test welfare socialism nostalgia no question about my position oh you're a psycho but now you're too young with yourself 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 she do is he but he will not win if he triggers anger because you know I think we should improvise and try mmm 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 Yanis varoufakis I have many doubts if his idea of democratizing Europe has any serious meaning at all the point that I always repeat and I asked him a couple of times I didn't get a good call is he aware that concerning here is a government and concerning refugee a democratized Europe in the simple sense of Europe where represent that is really listening to the voice of the people would have been much more rough against the regime be like is 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 forma Angela Merkel so what I'm saying is that but what Yanis varoufakis so clearly is that both choices capitulation what syriza later did or grexit grexit would have been madness you know I learned from my political friends who knew joy black welcome then big bad wolf that she actively wanted great everything was hacking plan let's greet him there great ship it would be humanitarian catastrophe chaos maybe military power but the left would be learn a lesson for a long time and what Barack is always so clearly is that it the only way to fight what will hate about Europe it's true new pan-european or even wider global index my point we have to do something expiry there is something wrong with global capitalism but the way to fight it is not national author right so so we just stuffed here in our little island of the coast of Europe and we can have no impact because what I get from the courage focuses on the positive side um action is you I'm not saying you dream but you still hope the courage of hopelessness you still hope for a wide popular movement to get going in your I never set white popular movement where you go you talk about maybe finally you believe in the lead absolutely yes but if wait a minute all popular movements at actively work like this you have an elite let's not that's your Leninist sorry yeah well you can you can be also a multi guard of the revolution yeah but not among us which then introduces gula but like you were these people should they be in the vanguard of the revolution problem not mine I mean I yeah no sorry but where there isn't your problem their problem for it isn't your problem their problem no my problem is I just have a theoretical position and why why don't you accepted and not you see I'm not saying anything great in every revolution till now or even progressive movement it was always an arrow not maybe not a lead but maximum ten fifteen percent and in the luckiest moment you get a kind of a silent passive sympathy of the majority and I'm ready to adapt that for these people required to do the silent I know they're more than welcome to be active why do you read prescription into everything that I say because we agree with my statement because if I read your stuff that's descriptive it doesn't really take me anywhere it's 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 description so we just read use a cultural critic and you would have no no tension or significant and a lot of photos yet we maybe it depends on 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 that's all similarly going direct but let me draw a couple of other pieces let's not worry about the election art let's dance ah incidentally about this now the flyer man we're all part of doing that systemic violence that you don't like so you know what are we going to do about this fiber first a big pot coming collections hmm since even Corbin doesn't have a serious chance to win I think one should openly say they're held 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 it will then return the revolutionaries angle yeah you are fake with this irony of elite and so on that you have a changing Guardian all notes other members of Sara Lee advertising perhaps we should advertise in Lonely Hearts columns I'm a future member of the Leninist elite will you meet me outside the Emmanuel centre now I'll tell you to okay listen here you are wrong 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 earth but don't agree I want you to address the predicament of a nation in which quite clearly the mostly and you write very well on this and the courage purposes you write about our 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 a lot is in a sense yeah now 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 the declivity cuts completely across traditional right left a traditional right left access so people are confused I think you are again to activists here there are first now I will say something call in at home all day smoking dope and wanking like everybody else no no no no but yes because you accept what like I know what's the mistake do you know what is happening today do I know what yeah things like I agree with you I think the light at the end of the tunnel is the approaching train I agree with you 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 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 carry here a tote especially with the matter absolutely listen you know what Hegel says just taking literally the oil of Minerva wisdom hmm fly off at night at night which means none of this revolutionary prediction we can only read or actively explain what is going on Hegel was here anti-mask nonetheless you you're enough of a a galleon to evoke the idea of human history as a process that is is part of a self-organizing and generating prince i wouldn't operate what i would say is the Derek some kind of a progress and in some of my books I give as an example and very naive here take the idea of democracy not in that Chinese they propagated now substantial deliberative sense which means you debate the party keeps all the power the big in this radical European sense this was an incredible progress something really new emerge 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 in M is empty here is the basic presupposition so the fact that the throne is empty is no longer perceive at nightmare nightmare but it can 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 reason feminism against slavery and so on and so on I'm very Eurocentric in the naive sense here with all the geological mystifications and so on this is some progress and you know when I said just allow me this the problem with you you say no no the product what do you expect you know I'm sorry hold on sorry asthma yeah no no I don't like I mean can you imagine me people wanted me I got offers to Keiko analyzed to be their Anna you now remember the famous story bear will embarrass an Allen Ginsberg the Bears tokens Bergen being psychoanalyzed already so I'll psychoanalyze you for free no no my point is much more evil let's say you were to have trouble and asked me to be your Keiko and I would like that yeah yes no you know why because like can you really imagine me listening to you and your stupid associations for more than 30 seconds you know so I'm not to be your analyst I'm not interested in like I am a seer misanthrope why are you applauding this is the brain but none of us let's go back to the by 0 hf 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 passion ISM is at the same time a cause of optimism don't worry there will be new crisis ok you talk about anxiety and I mean this very serious it's not some distant cope what will happen with refugees the old rival you got to be better than this man you've 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 political change comes from elites we're not looking to the mass you talk about international agreements in order to be pure logical be back in the lens of don't you think that like problems that we are facing today even let's take ecology and so on this local democracy non-representative stuff locally we share water it's not enough it's crucial for all the true horror problem today the impact of biogenetics of brain sciences who will control death and so on for this we need even larger than state strong mechanisms with authority and so on world government world kindness government no not really what will it be like living under the world communist government ok well you're my luggage I hope you're an imagine the guy paint us a little picture of that future which you do wave in a diaphanous way around the GU the edges of you okay so let me return back to you because you are avoiding it's so easier I'm claiming that's my basic premise seeing chefs terrifying potential what is going on today and it's so easy to say for you elite but I don't mean a lead in the sense of some stupid student meeting halfway between Cambridge and Oxford and so ever I mean changes always begin with the minority even French roots all popular revolutions began with the Maine yep is it going to big bin with the minority people who really know their Lacan is that where the revolution is going to begin well it's not necessary like this I never implied this but I do have this you know my reading of Lacan says D strange things are happening today in sexual mores here and there the way people relate to Authority and so on which theory can explain the why are you blaming me for this I claim the best that I know is look I can strip out all of the references to lock on 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 mind that the theory helps to explain your opinions to me justify your opinions to me or make them frankly any more palatable so what sit there for a pie Claire I cannot go in detail in to eat now really what is it therefore apart from in place of grandstanding you say you don't believe in The Hague alien idea that with the world Spirit is evolving towards some kind of end state you take a pop up an R because you no longer believe in dialectical materialism what exactly do you believe in I you said you had a problem with belief I like loads three miles line beliefs their ideas going bold maybe you just have ideas no beliefs at all no idea what to locate I would it like deep allow me to finish what I believe in is that the global system we are in is approaching some kind of catastrophe collision they understand that and Marxist terms is that a series of internal contradictions yes apples no basically yes yes yes so he's worried Marx is right about that about this yeah not in the way he meant it for example could be the working class today the problem is that refugees are not authentic but I really think the capitalism is hitting the buffers because we're running out 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 to inferred overall growth rates for example in economies have been under 3% for many many years now that these big ways yeah you and I will be able to extend disagree with you when I develop this crisis of capitalism two years ago in Korea they started to laugh at me and they said no you Westerner opening crisis even America is doing better we are doing better and so on and 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 there is a delusion that is blowing away okay so what would you do what would either just masturbate as you set and hit there no I think we should only at least prepare organize think about solutions and precisely become aware of the crisis we are yes but the basic form you know the transnational agreement between elites to limit the construction of coal fire yellow fire 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 for the shiny idea to awaken emulator now you are confusing I think so two types of elite and it's in the usual sense of our power elite and if anything now I will shock 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 the old Marxist paranoia that we find these elites Lavoie the problem for these Western economies is well you know you live in a while our way this theorem elites where did where did communism come where does it come and with all horrors that it produced it will emerge critical opinion on mercury maybe it's me naughty man you say yourself in the courage of hopelessness in a large part socialism was an idiotic grew out of the mode of capitalist production in which it found itself yes with manufacture me now in a tower today is alienated precariat at home in their little cell clicking away when they're not wanking and smoking dope as restless how are they actually going to form the kind of solidarity or the kind of networks you know the editor you know enable them because now even with all the talk about that Val Farkas 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 is crisis crisis is not if your standard calls 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 the war will happen then is what always happens which is the 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 and people have been sitting at home reading Lacan are going to be slaughtered in no beds no no no no you are wrong here I think that the danger is of another type in these difficult situations it's precisely very non practical in the sense of efficient solution but brutal pragmatic ideally who can take over you know it's not that some reasonable British practical people will take over so I will transmit to the idea always resisted by people who are utopian which is you know what is the ideal that the will plant pragmatists will be working towards what does this future communist society given our the way our relationship with technology our relationship with our own sexualities and to be fair to use Lavoie I think your analysis and discussion of lgbtq+ it's extremely perspicacious so how are these polymorphously perverse Lacanian going to and what are they going to do in this future society what will its mode of production be again how will it be governed is mistaken a wither away or you know most brutally magnetically organ Agha don't forget that the title of my last subchapter in the second chapter of a book about harissa a plea for a bureaucratic social yes yes you're keen on bureaucratic so i'm philomon you you have the lovely line about casca and and bureaucracy and all of that stuff what's that going to look like i mean a lot more office work don't you listener i still claim that with new exploding crisis why are you so ironic here and don't allow that yes there will be pragmatist there will be fascist already lepen and so on our reaction to Christ not your Nigel Farage a maximal by mistake at BBC he is not your future fear he is a clown and so on so don't be afraid of them but not of Nigel for us you know another saying is that why do you a priori exclude that in the same way it happened in Spain and so on when people will still the pressure without reading too much Lacan you have become some kind of so you some kind of radical more reasonable movement of the left will arrive I don't exclude but one of the arguments against Corbin is that he has been brought to power by can click two vests people who just paid three quid and voted for him in that way one of the problems it 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 to make a precarious and exactly so how are these people to find each other today to join in a top of them in a movement of some kind now all of that seems startlingly absent from your thinking to me I'm not looking just for you to add the cake somebody we should get behind or something like them 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 it you know 20 million people have died in the war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in the last 15 or 20 years so that when you can all have your little mobile phones and look at Grindr so you can get bummed later on you know okay okay or you are saying yeah you're glad you see my dilemma I think too naive why I become Ptolemies nie sorry how can an ethical dilemma be naive things all right I need a relief in the sense that you can always isolate for these four codes and so on but all right well I prefer to dance about that too no problem as madness no the same less rhyme you do answer to my friend what did you mean exactly by some pragmatist with look we are let's say approaching some kind of shitty situation yeah and why don't you exclude that with going tensions and so on maybe even precarious people with somehow I wouldn't exclude it connect because remember who gear Ackles do happen in what sense who would have predicted 15 years ago something like harissa which screwed it up but one in salalah learning that with two while the gas I think it's a much much wilder prediction to imagine that the precariat is a moment the cute social crises are somehow going to find the connectivity the sense of solidarity that is necessary to form a progressive leftist Union just there on the spin over 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 practice measures ways of organizing platforms people can consolidate around and what sort of ethical attitudes they should take towards paying their taxes contributing to British Aerospace's ability to trade arms to the Saudi Arabians or the coltan in your pocket that comes from killing people in the Congo Guinea you should advocate positions on all of that because that's where you set yourself up to be but wait a minute why do you think that they exclude this for example I I was for Obamacare for all other night everyone order that now God's socialized medicine here but we're still helping the Saudis drop bombs in Yemen we've got fantastic out there I know that the contradiction here contradiction and EE them even stronger like what is the money for your NHS system that you still care partially comes precisely from selling cars you don't be a rat yeah so what should we do about that ethical dilemma what should we what is your answer here well I'm not personally I'd go private and I say you will go I'd go private go to private notes no no you know what the problem that's my position has always been the same I made a programme on the AL Yamamah 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 that it's time for questions there boy 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 slough boys 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 continue now forgiven you were talking about Ohio stand up as well you were talking about genetics you mention like a race biogenetic yeah by genetics could you maybe expand on what your thoughts are around Harry okay I repeated this lecture that I don't want to speak too much but it's very simple from what I know and I had connections even in China not shy 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 it that even Stephen Hawking no longer need his finger to move his Wilker 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 cells identity all our minimum of personal dignity and self identity is based on this I'm here you out there I have mic 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 kindness 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 thing because it says there that the task of biogenetics 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 you think it's fundamentally destructive of a key notion of human subjectivity but nonetheless I'm not simply a pessimist we will be robots or whatever I think who knows what will happen you not think that our engagement with the web is already altering the on to logic character of human away yeah that's not quite so 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 says 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 Gary fighting to death slicing each other in the next seat even if Gary was starting to pieces in the next scene he's already done the first month I was using maps for revolution rebalance will be like no and another all just no no no what I'm saying is that this type of in a way even primitive and that subjectivity all again things go wrong I can begin again the father of this is Marquis de Sade this is the mystery of Lacan so it clearly of the victim Juliet she's endlessly torture that all the time were made and this is this is how our immersion into digital universe works like you know it 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 erased it I start again and so on and so on this all this earth and also the new mode of control that we have digitalization our Chinese friends again our break innovate I read now that in China they already have a plan which is also happening in a subtler way 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 tax is any small criminal acts do they read dissident literature they visit the bath 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 confusion 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 think that I think that and again I refuse to be Hinkley and old-fashioned humanist here you know everything is lost we will lose our individuality now we have to admit that we don't know what is here but we should follow it closely so what your position here what would you have done do you know something more what would water I what would I have done not you I what your opinion I think technology is something that happens to humans it's not something that humans do 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 that's ineluctable and I follow but if I directly problem after reading people all this transhumanist idealist like Ray Kurzweil and so on is the day ontologically kid because they described this new super human singularity but as if they imply they don't sail at the same time it keeps all our properties free thinking internal project onto the road yes Yemen humanist illusions about yeah I don't want to be in a too abstract way a passionate but at some point I agree with you we should become aware to work extend 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 poor sir I think we're much too hung up on on autonomy and on the idea of the discrete psyche anyway it has always struck and strikes me the consciousness is much more of a collective phenomenon than we dare allow for example I know exactly what you're thinking Oh could we take another query can not because you know to bring out what I'm thinking you would need not three exits of hardcore burn like it's just they'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 like it is a def Dib 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 really much faster than politics it will continue to do so so much more so glad you started talking about it already are you here I'm more skeptical you know in what sense that I still believe maybe here I'm old-fashioned even humanist or what 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 embedded in set of capitalist relations and so on and so on what do you think capitalism is level Oh Here I am a good Marxist which means although I am critical of it I think it's a miracle it absolutely the most dynamic economic system that humanity ever knew because the genius of capitalism is this one you must know this that how you know Marxist are always expecting you know like Mao says like sorry marks late 19th century capitalism is approaching its final crisis the Lenin said imperialism the final stage of capitalism then Mao said 40 years later American imperialism this rotting class state is getting even more often and so on okay starting crowding and the more it's rotten can indicate the more it the better its functioning in some sense so what I'm saying is that never forget and this would have been my criticism of generally high daguerreian 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 fitted onto logically it wanted to get rid of capital but to retain all the dynamic as always overcoming getting over which for me is deeply embedded precisely in capitalist dynamic you know but here I hit the paradoxes today my reason of my pessimism isn't it the ultimate irony that ok even if Fukuyama was right now like capitalism won that today almost I'm tempted to say that what among at least the best managers of capitalism are ex-communists were destined in power I always think though you can play to things and people who are influenced by Marxist yeah lot of Italy imply few things when I look at Catholicism well capitalism isn't an ideology it has ideologies associated with it no exactly is a mode of production but it's a tool the tool it's a tool capitalism is a tool what do you mean baby it's a way of effecting change the distance like any other but nonetheless I would say it's not a tool in the things we usually understand a tool like now if I get to be camera behind I'm no no I think it's a certain show they leave anything for a mark Gregory Bateson says you know if the axe is the tool then the man's arm is the tool and if the man's arm is the tool than the man standing on the earth is part of the tool and so is the trees that he's chopping I don't get that but I think nonetheless all these complex can be part of a certain mechanism but I think the problem view Malthus 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 I will not love elevator I resonate with the house I remember being here because here I claim that precisely the greatness of Marx was that he wasn't a simple vulgar materially you know ideologies just a mere or real thing there is a naturalist Manas lawyer is a materialist money not just money but he's not clearly that and that's why we don't have time to go now into it when he developed his notion of commodity fetishism it's clearly that he speaks about an ideology but he never calls it ideology because it has superstructure it's in the very heart of economic structure of capitalism and capitalism is outside ideology in the sense of outside all cultural identity there is the miracle of capitalism today you can get you can get I don't know at the best thing a Chinese a Latino American that's because it's just what people do so avoid okay you have rapture to prevent a decent fiction that I would English let's have another question before we all die first first I like to say something to wealth out and I will give a question for professor Dziedzic no you can question him a little bit no ok ok ok so the thing is like you question about like gjx position on like we should think but the point is let me give a marked quote from car marks the point of to know about the world is to change it because well we were knowing it we we already made we are already making the change and this is the dialectic so I think the problem that from the GX position is that people really have is we should be confused but we're not and this is in my opinion the last portability catastrophe so I think GX also at this book is very authentic here because the point in the way I understand it is like the confusion itself is a stage of transformation well yes so the question for Dziedzic is that what like we you talked about we should sit and think and I'm thinking about like a very tiring proposition that maybe are we going to move on to a new age another age of philosophy in the future because from my personal empirical experience I think it is quite demanding but is it really I mean what is in your opinion the biggest restricted sense for it okay so the resistance of whom again what what yeah I know that was a bit of a sort of strange cutoff point 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 we were driving out yeah somehow that we can you point the point where capitalism is moving or what is what is resisting the point of which we're going to get some clarity of thought on these issues you know what is reason here my god I am a market 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 like we can know something that for me as I repeatedly wrote in my book is a problem ideology today you can know like most of the people know at least rationally about ecological threat but they don't take it serious they don't believe it really I don't think that we really believe that is at rest and so on so my point is this one that in a way knowing I'm not simply breaking heat and learn because knowing about things is also a way of not doing it of you know like I know it's and so on there is wrong and false knowledge not at the simple level of it reflects truth over but how it practically engage you what you said about philosophy and so on here very naively yes I agree with you in the sense that I think that in this new age ecological threat biogenetic digitalization and so on the very basic definitions of what is the human being will claim that's it that's a frittata finally the woman I love - I enjoy others thank you so much for you [Applause]

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Views: 256,843

Rating: 4.7805247 out of 5

Keywords: Slavoj, Zizek, will Self, Trump, politics, immigration, Hegel, Marxist, Marxism, socalism, capatalism, debate, ted, intelligence sqaured

Id: CId1iOWQUuo

Length: 77min 33sec (4653 seconds)

Published: Thu May 25 2017