The Monthly Digestif Presents: Slavoj Žižek on Christian Atheism

hello one two good evening comrades and uh welcome to the moof club tonight is a very special uh event uh it's a spin-off event of the monthly digestif which is a Weekly News Review I am Sydney lemur a writer and documentary filmmaker and I'm very very excited to introduce to the stage slavo zek what do you think nice I've got your favorite yeah yeah Al now I'm changing to Fanta as a pure provocation I'm not kidding you know some of you must know what is the origin of fanta Fanta is Hitler answer to Coke because in 39 the War uh Coke took the copyright or whatever you call it license from Germany and in one month they invented Fanta so just be aware when you drink Fanta so I was going to say how are you unfortunately still alive so that's all I can say uh congratulations another book too many of them I know yeah um so you've been labeled a celebrity philosopher the most dangerous philosopher in the west a rock star philosopher a communist a punk icon the Elvis of cultural Theory and most recently a tick tock hero how did his title sit with you I think as a good stalinist paranoia that these are all forms of attacking me even if they this appears to celebrate me but the idea is he's just a popular figure go to his talk be amused but don't take him seriously no on the on on the in my actual life if there is something like this I'm now more and more returning to Great philosophical questions sorry sorry sorry sorry oh that that yeah you know what I'm now you will be terribly disappointed I will not boast with names but I'm sorry I'm in contact with many great names I don't know why they are so stupid to accept to be in contact with me of uh quantum physics like what does it mean for our notion of reality what's the status of all those wave oscillations and so on and I think this is truly fascinating so I'm deep in that now and my next book will probably be on that you can't talk about the next book we're trying to sell this one um so but this one is ah this one also has a chapter second one even and third one which is on quantum physics so you've previously said the only way really to be an atheist is through Christianity please explain I can as briefly as possible of course because you know to truly be an atheist it's not enough to just say there is no God blah blah blah if you just do this then God usually survives in some different form like you say there is not personal God but there are the Divine ideals and so on we should remain faithful to that and so uh my idea is that to be really an atheist means to as it were self destroy religion from inside did you see for example one of my favorite movies I don't know if I mention it in this book again uh I think it's called uh it's called Rapture 30 years ago done with Mimi Rogers and it's an incredible movie uh I will not tell the entire story but at the end a woman who suffers a lot her children are dead and so on uh what happens is that the end of the world effectively happens and he goes to the edge of a certain precipice it's clear that on the other side it's already Heaven and her child and husband approach her and say just say I love you Christ and you will be permitted to cross over and God exists I mean you see it all and she says no after all the evil that God did to me I will never say this God is too evil and her daughter child that asked her but you know what this means like we will never meet and she said yes I know the end of the movie you know this is a much more radical position and I think that something like this happens uniquely in Christianity I think the whole content of Christianity is the death of God but not in this cyclical sense of God dies and comes back and so on as Hegel my favorite philosopher put it what dies on the cross is not just uh representative of God but God of Beyond himself dies on the cross what survives is what it is simply uh uh uh what Holy Spirit which is for me the first form of a Communist party it is a community of Believers which and this is how I read all those details you remember when Christ says if you don't hate your father and mother you are not my follower how are we to read this not in this stupid way hate your father or mother as a person it means mother and father stand there simply for social hery you can love them but not in their symbolic role in social hierarchy so uh but Christ says this you remember when he's I don't know in which gospel in a tent and they somebody tells him you know your family mother who is outside waiting for you and he says sorry he Christ says listen uh uh here is my family my followers I don't have any family and so on this is quite a unique idea Holy Spirit and Christ returns in Holy Spirit you all this topic of Second Coming blah blah that's [ __ ] read the gospel yes where Christ is asked how will we know after your death that you will return and he says when there will be love between two of you I will be there and that's it nothing nothing more so I think to cut a long story short that the whole history of Christianity is one big struggle against the truly subversive core of uh Christianity I think I often maybe if some of you know my books quote this an do which is not true it's proven but you know when Napoleon was approached by Pope to be crowned in uh in Notre Dame the church he took the crown from Pope's hand and put it himself on his head and that's a meat but it's a beautiful meat then the pope told Napoleon I know what you want to do you want to destroy Christianity but believe me you will fail we the church are trying to do this already for almost 2,000 years we failed I simply believe that there is something truly traumatic in this original message of Christianity my favorite theologist Gilbert K Chesterton said this he said that you know that moment on the cross when Christ says ell ell father why have you forsaken me no that it's the unique moment where God himself Christ no longer believes in himself God becomes an atheist at the end and that's it the the freedom that is given to us as Christians is just this negative Freedom it means the core of Christianity is for me there is no higher Force which takes care of us so that we can be sure that at the end everything will turn well no history is radically open it all depends on us and I think this especially is important today when we no longer can afford to think in this eschatological terms you know the terms of where the history is moving and so on it's clear that we are in a mess even the Marxist solution history is nonetheless moving towards some kind of a socialism communism I think it no longer holds even the idea of a privileged class or group of people which are in their very social position put constructed as potential Fighters for emancipation like for Marx it was the working class in 68 it was students today some people think it is the the the immigrants like those who are deprived of everything and will do the Freedom no I think we are in such a mess today that for example I think that that uh I think that that there are all forms of for example of unseen unpaid labor precarious workers women like in Latin America that's why Evo Morales I am very friendly with his ex vice president linera who explained it to me in old days the left there was focusing on traditional working class but Lera and Morales got it what about all those women working as servants you know and so on nobody counted on them but they were the truly exploited and uh here I think Christianity survives but not as a positive solution just as accepting this abuse the second reason I like Christianity trigger warning now an obscenity will come no is that people forget that in Palestine all are not Muslims there are also now there are just 5% of them Christian Palestinians the best jokes that I've heard but they're I think deeply Christian making fun of Christianity itself I heard them from Christian Palestinians there like the nastiest one almost that Christ his last evening there no he knows he will be crucified next day is alone in the tent so his Apostles disciples said my God our Lord will die tomorrow why don't we make last Mo his last moments happy and call Mari Magdalene who was a prostit go eat and seduce him that he will have some pleasure no okay she goes in and runs out after 2 three minutes crying like crazy and they ask in we wor my God what did he do is he secretly a pervert did he torture you no she says it's much worse I did what was expect of me I undressed myself I spread my legs and approached him and then Christ look at me at that area and say my God what a terrible wound I see there and cross with his fingers and closed everything right this is the spirit of Christianity I claim if a religion doesn't doesn't sustain this you know my favorite philosopher theologist kagar said this beautifully you know how he described kagar the arrival of Christ he says imagine a big state where you expect some Royal figure to emerge and then the curtain open and you see nothing just from behind the curtain a small dirty dock runs on the stage that's the arrival of Christ that's the whole point of it I mean this is what I'm talking about so don't be afraid I mean I'm not in any sense returning to church I think that if anything what I cannot talk about other kinds but I coming to I'm coming from Slovenia where we are a Catholic country if nothing else all these pedophiliac scandals are so Unthinkable you know what's the biggest mystery for me how can the Catholic Church okay now the popes tries to be a little bit better but nonetheless how can they at the same time protect the pedophilia priests and at the same time uh uh uh criticize homosexuality as a croat gay activist my friend said ah now I understand the church position adult men shouldn't do among themselves but if you do it with a small child everything is okay you know it's the position of the of the church is so is so weakened but I don't think this will hurt this What I Call emancipatory Core of Christianity okay I've spoken long enough now it'll be shorter um on the subject of Christianity what's your take on Jordan Peters Jordan Peterson saying the Bible is the foundation of truth I listen I know the guy that you mention I had so-called debate with him where I was very soft of him but you know why because again as I said a couple of times I uh my point was to address his followers and to tell them what Jordan is telling you don't fall into this self-pitying V vitim good stance take your Fai into your hands and so on WE authentic left can deliver this to you better than all the conservatives you know and this is part of my larger totally crazy argument we live in a crazy time did you notice how in last decades with the new right-wing populism what one once we experience as subversive revolutionary activity is becoming also a almost a right-wing prerogative I mean the last thing that looked although it was not as a revolutionary act you remember 6th of January attack on Capital my friends were crying they said we should be doing this people invading the C no sorry which is why when I asked about this I'm saying something very simple I'm saying you know neoconservatives like to attack multiculturalism liberal obscenity cynicism historicism no if there ever was a postmodern president it is Donald Trump he's an obscene guy he doesn't take seriously spoken very highly of him recently when where show me where where no no no because my point is this one that uh if you isn't it paradoxical that he with all his dirty things and so on he is the true postmodern relativist and what is Bernie Sanders in spite of all critical points isn't he a pure figure of what you cannot but call Simple silent decency Moral Majority even and so on it's the system is so decadent today that it is up to us whatever survive of the left to speak about common decency and so on and so on we live in crazy times in a new text that I don't know when it will appear where I speak about the most tragic country at this point for me on the world not Ukraine not Gaza but uh uh but Haiti do you read what is happening there The Gangs criminal gangs simply took over the country they control 80% of the Porto PR Capital uh and so on so now you will say Okay Haiti blah blah let's move further in El Salvador in Ecuador something similar is happening let's go further in uh in uh other places like from uh Israel settlers on the West Bank aren't they also they're basically a criminal gang ille operating illegally and supported by the police why because you know who is now their chief of police itamar benir who was in Israel itself 20 30 years ago convicted as a terrorist against Palestinians then we can go on with all these examples up to of course uh United States proud boys terrorists but collaborating with Trump so the situation in which we are now it looks as if the new political rulers cannot survive without some form of illegal criminal gang support and I think we should not miss this opportunity to get the message to Ordinary People Those Who present themselves as advocates of neoconservative Christian values the other face of them is always vulgar brutal criminality so what are you suggesting is this when you we've spoken about this before about war communism no with war communism I mean something okay I mean to provoke obviously but to make people think with war communism I mean something extremely simple for me almost common sensical War why War communism because we are entering a new Global emergency State we in Western Europe are still playing this game we are not taking crisis the forthcoming crisis seriously enough our problem is still yeah let's do some ecological stuff yeah let's do a little bit of support for Ukraine here there but basically we the main goal is to maintain our level our style of our level of relatively comfortable still relatively poverty is now exploding also in Western Europe level of life and I think as long as we will drag on with this attitude we are lost we are you know what gave me this idea the first remember two and a half years ago I think the summer our beloved places Seattle and so on no you remember temperatures were there Seattle and Vancouver for one week almost 50° celus Vancouver was hotter more warm than than than Gulf State than emirats and so on why you cannot solve this as a local problem you know like no because measured by our ecological standards they were doing relatively good job there it's the perturbation of air around the entire Northern Area is Disturbed if you take into account this if you take into account all the problems of immigration new Wars and so on only some sort of Communism this is Elementary for me and by communism I mean much end of nation states potentially much closer International cooperation it's clear for for example I spoke with my good friend jier dupi who is the greatest today I think theories of catastrophes he visited Fukushima as a special Envoy of European Union two days after the Fukushima tragedy and the Japanese government representative admitted to him that Japanese government was for one day in a total panic they thought the whole Central area of Japan 40 million people will have to be evacuated where in a more collaborative world order the answer is clear Siberia with more than enough space no it would not happen we will need or immigration I hate this liberal approach open the borders yes but it's not enough we have to begin now to change the economic system not in a utopian way but just to prevent immigrants why do people leave their country what pushes them there this is where we are we in the west are guilty all these stupidities you know that without without American attack on Iraq and Russian medling in Syria there wouldn't have been Isis and so on the other Mega mistake the topping of Gaddafi and so on if we don't begin to think in these terms uh we are lost and my prediction is here pretty pessimist that we didn't yet suffer enough we need a catastrophe which will made us aware of the [ __ ] we are in oh yeah but it's we are don't you think that I know it's sad I know no we still we have a meaningful life and so on we will hopefully not starve but but we need listen you know why I like epidemic why I like that pandemic crisis because even guys who were definitely not good guys Boris Johnson here and Trump even they were compelled to do some things which violated the market rules so much that they could be characterized as Elementary forms of Communism like like you know uh uh free distribution of money of help to millions of people of course they immediately Twisted it in went to the big companies and so on and so on but what were you what were you doing in the pandemic sorry what were you doing in the pandemic uh now we come to my private obscenity it was the best years the best years of my life banana bread because for two three years I stayed at home I was able to ignore all my friends and I was just watching old mostly British detective criminal series which ones okay it's too politically correct to say Vera but linly all those you know I I was watching this and good science fiction series and I was working like crazy I loved it immensely I was able because I hate in my old age I'm getting really like hating people in general especially people who think oh let's visit him and so on [ __ ] you I have more serious work to do you know I don't like people too much you know so I it was the Golden Era for me um you recently had an interview with Pierce Morgan who you actually got on with a bit maybe I again I followed my uh uh Jordan Peterson tactic too much but but I just wanted to get through this basic message for example about Gaza and so on you know I still think that and this is one thing that I am really proud of a piece of fiction that I imagined an imagined phone call about between Hamas and Israelis did you see the movie did you see see the movie ghost ghost writer with Ian McGregor an investigator who investigates a a figure who is named differently but basically it's Tony Blair and at the end he is killed because he discovers a secret that Tony Blair was from his student years coached by CIA to become a pro-american prime minister of the United States it's a fiction but it's a beautiful fiction which would have explained everything and my theory is that to get the logic at what goes on in the Middle East imagine a phone call from hardliners in Israel and uh Hamas they call hardliner from Israeli government Hamas hi you remember that we supported you all these years which is true are you aware of it till two years ago Israel was regularly through Qatar supporting Hamas you have proofs you have smots they're crazy totally right-wing Minister admitting it what was the game the game was Palestinians must be divided as long as Gaza is separated politically from the West Bank there will not be serious pressure for a two-state solution so the Israelis said now we have to ask you a favor could you please attack ferociously some of our settlements there close to Gaza and Hamas represent surprisingly why Israel explained to him we have now two problems in Israel a uh you know remember just before October 7th wonderful things were happening in Israel hundreds of thousand were demonstrating against Netanyahu who wanted to abolish the relative Independence of the Supreme Court all that and this was a problem and they needed a war Netanyahu regime to to survive there are many mysterious things which confirm suspicions in this but I will not go into them what I want to send uh the Netanyahu hardliner tells Hamas another problem we have is West Bank you know that we want to do ethnic cleansing there but if we don't have a military crisis we cannot strengthen settlers to per Palestinians there Hamas said okay we will do this gladly but uh in are you aware that this why this fits us because when you will attack us ferly uh anti-Semitism will explode not only in the Arab countries but also elsewhere and the Israeli hardliner says that's wonderful because when there is stronger anti-Semitism we can say we must fight it and become even more militarily aggressive and that they conclude the ation by saying you know the last lines of uh Casablanca they turn it around that this is the beginning of a beautiful hatred something like that and I really think that they have a deadly Tango Hamas and uh and and uh and the hardliners who are crazy if you read in some of my text I discovered if you want to the truth about what is today's Israeli polic politics Google Al e Academy which is the Hardline Academy but not marginal people who collaborate with it are Netanyahu smri and so on and uh and the channel 13 which is the most open public Israeli TV channel published a report on it where some rabbis explain exactly what they want they it's not a joke and I checked with all of my friends in Israel they confirmed it uh rabis are there saying this I will skip the open racism like like that Palestinians are people who are by Nature slaves they need to be enslaved to be happy and so on the crucial point is when it comes to Nazism the rabbi said Hitler was the greatest ethical figure of the 20th century he had the right principle he says the true Holocaust is not the one done by Germans the true Holocaust is multiculturalism so we need Hitler was right he just made a mistake of picking up the wrong people he should have picked up Arabs not the Jews but then comes the ingenious point they said but even like this Hitler was right because he was a divine instrument the Jews got to integrate into Western Europe and Hitler was an instrument of God Jewish god to recall to remind Israelis je sorry that it's their time to go out of Europe and return to the West Bank I was shocked I thought this is a bad joke then I checked through all my friends Jewish friends in Israel they confirmed this to me of course this is a minority view but it is a minority view which uh determines the actual politics of Israel do you know that now did you see it's very set the last opinion Paul 93% of Jews in Israel are opposed to two State solution they accept their version of from The River To The Sea which is great Israel and so on I mean it's uh you know whom I only trust there please Google him AI or Ami Ireland ex boss of sh bet who is the voice of reason now they he says if we don't give Palestinians real hope for political autonomy and so on then we are lost and he openly says he proposes a solution which is clear immediately released from prison uh uh how is it called marvan baruti I think no that it's he's a Palestinian Mandela he never was for killing Jews violence but he was the organizer of first two intifadas and he's already in prison for prison for almost 20 years and he's really a Palestinian Mandela and he is the only one with enough popular support and ready to make peace everybody knows that this is a all reasonable people know that this is so it's not a mystery what to do but I think we live in times of gang Ru and so on where I expect I I'll put it like this to conclude I I prefer to be a pessimist because if you are an optimist today you are just disappointed all the time but if you are a pessimist from time to time some nice thing nonetheless happens no so the only way to happiness is to be a pessimist and then to be pleasantly surprised what wise words no don't don't I hate wisdom you know that's my old story you know what is wisdom I hate it so much wisdom is this platitude where whatever the situation is you can add a wise comment you know once I I took an example you do something risky and if you succeed then I'm sure you can instantly quote some wisdom to justify it no like we have this those who don't risk also never profit or you have the whole series of wise saying then let's say you make the same risk but you fail I don't know how it is with you but in my country we have an wonderful vulgar expression which is uh you cannot urinate Against the Wind so you see whatever you do I will find a wisdom to to justify it no I think we need more madness today just not wisdom yeah um you recently wrote an article about Barbie um but you hadn't seen the film um why why it's a after after I'm a principal guy I already told you my when I write reviews my motto is what I think so I read uh Oscar wild wrote Somewhere that when you're asked to do a review of a book it's better not to read that book because if you read it actually it may make your judgment partial you I feel like everyone should do that everyone should just do that school yeah so again uh I'm not saying it's a totally bad movie and I like Greta gerwick no the director her previous work but something you know what should be made more clear I put a very simple formula that the world of Barbie is really hell and the this aexual world and so on and uh the true problem is why we Ordinary People need to fantasize about hell it I would make it much darker uh the other movie I also had problems with but then I made a crucial mistake I actually saw it it's it's Oppenheimer you must have read what I wrote about it it no it I it's not a bad movie but I hate thato Oriental mystical part you know quoting Bhagavad Gita and oh now am a destroyer of the world it's [ __ ] my favorite scene and at the same time worst scene in the movie is you remember and maybe you know my story which is I got in big trouble in India I was told by friends because you remember quarter of an hour early in the movie there is a sex scene between Oppenheimer and G tlock play by Florence yeah yeah yeah but uh the cat is that in the middle of the sex I don't know who asked whom read Bhagavad Gita and Indian serially protested demanding that scene to be cut no the idea is dirty sex out of not even they are not married how can you mix this with the sacred book then I did a crazy thing I said I agree with this incompatibility but from the other side why not say like this a beautiful sex scene ruined by one of the most obscene books in the history of humanity bhavat Gita is hell you know my story why I'm not kidding I read an a biography of Henrich himler SS and so on this was his sacred book he always had in his pocket a specially bound book Bhagavad Gita you know why himler had I'm sorry to use this term an ethical problem he was well aware that uh SS guys have to do horrible thing killing Jewish uh uh women children who are starving crying and him's problem was how can they do it without becoming devious ugly with themselves without losing their decency and his answer was Bhagavad Gita you remember the central scene where this idea of acting as at a distance is developed this notion like don't identify with your acts you have to do horrible things but do it at a distance and uh this is why maybe I hope I'm not uh offending any of you I prefer the Christian ethics which is for me the ethics of external engagement like [ __ ] you and your inner life I don't care what is there if I look deep into you I will find fit I'm a pessimist here there is no deep core of goodness in you the and uh the important thing is that the truth about you is not in what you fantasize your ethical ideas and so on they are as a rule a fake story you invented so that you can survive deal with the horrors that you do in your actual life what matters like what was that truth that series I forgot of alien invasions where uh the motto was uh uh the truth is out there it's not inside don't look deep into yourself for truth so this spoiled opener for me a little bit so no none of these movies I I really liked I'm a little bit but not quite did you see most more kindly disposed towards the zone of Interest I love some disturbingly vulgar although not explicitly shown details you remember if you saw the movie how the guy this Nazi Commander the hero they bring to him some pale woman obviously for sex and of course then they don't show sex they just show him from behind standing in front of a wash bazine and in such a vulgar detailed way washing his genitals like to get I there is something nice not to mention the heroic act the director did at Oscar no yes yeah I mean this is I know people who know him and they will put even me in contact with him and I admire him you know why because they told me have you spoken to him sorry have you spoken to him not yet I hope it's Justified to say yet but what I heard is that he was although not religious explicitly deeply into Jewish spirituality let's call it f and uh even when the Hamas attack triggered this crisis he was first tempted a little bit by blah blah uh Israeli we in danger patriotism but then when he saw Gaza he exploded and he was honest enough precisely as remaining faithful to Jewish tradition saying sorry I cannot I have to renounce it what we are doing in Gaza is is a total nightmare and you I don't know how much it is supported here here but I just wonder if he will survive if he will get money for next films and so on no you no no they cut that scene like they cut his acceptance speech from the rerun of the Oscars really yeah they did it yeah Michel this is so horrible this is why in another of my recent text I I uh called for cultural boycott at least of Germany what is happening now in Germany is obscene you know that they have not such strict standards for example if you say Palestinians suffer and if you don't say in the same sentence but this suffering was caused by Hamas so it's basically Hamas which is responsible not Israel you are considered already it's not a joke you are considered anti-semitic and uh uh uh so now A friend of mine made a statistic a little bit over 1,000 people were uh seriously affected by this campaign against what they call anti-Semitism uh like losing their job being cancelled and so on in public life but you know the true horror onethird of them are gr as a friend of mine said now the most difficult thing in Germany is not to be a Muslim or Palestinians is to be a Jew who is critical of Israel why typically because if you are Palestinians they say okay you are one of the that b Bunch you know of course you are but if you are a Jew you are considered who is critical of Israel you are considered an ultra traitor and so on what is happening now in Germany is I think the nastiest ethical act as many people not that that you can imagine it's Germans guilty of killing millions of Jews are offering the state of Israel an extremely brutal exchange like uh as an admission of our guilt we now try to repay you for allowing you to do a similar thing that we were doing to others you know it's the worst possible thing that they can do it's absolutely in incredible what is happening now in Germany and after I costed I will not Bor you now with it a scandal when at the opening of the frankort book fair where I just mentioned also suffering of Palestinians I was interrupted some local politicians started to shout at me and so on then friends told me wait one month to it will be over no it's even getting uh worse now and I think just that I finish this line you know whom I who I think proposed the right formula you know that Indian writer uh uh uh arundati Roy yeah she uh made a wonderful comment where she said Till Gaza we all knew that so-called Western values emancipatory values human rights freedoms feminism were a fake hypocritical but still they did provide some kind of moral compass like you could even criticize the West you know say ah you preach this but you yourself don't stick to it like they gave some kind of that with Gaza what's going on there now the whole European Legacy lost is emancipatory potential and to make a philosophical point a little bit more serious if you allow me you know who was the biggest disappointment for me uh habas and two of his closest collaborators they from my private spy sources I learned having me in mind they published a short text totally legitimizing uh Israel claiming no we must unconditionally stand with Israel they published this text in December or January when The Killing in Gaza went on but what I want to say is that as other more reasonable followers of frankwood school set you know what's the problem with kmas he never accepted I think the most truthful part of the previous generation of frankurt theory the so-called dialectic of Enlightenment of claron the idea being that horrible phenomena of 20th century like Fascism stalinism and so on are not simply remainers of some earlier barbarism but are generated by the very Dynamic of Enlightenment style modernization of Europe and kmas never accepted this his idea is no Enlightenment is the only thing we have we can no self criticism of Enlightenment is allowable the only thing we could do is to point out that Enlightenment is not yet radicalized enough and I think that this is a horror that the philosopher who is now practically a German State philosopher celebrated as the high point of Western tolerance culture and so on that uh ended up again uh ended up defending what Israel is doing now as some critics put it in wonderful term critics of habat referring to wter Benjamin you can only be a truly civilized person today if you are aware that we are on the edge of barbarism which doesn't come from outside but from inner tensions of our own European project if we don't do this we are lost I talk too much sorry I like how that was an answer to a question about Barbie about Barbie this was all really about Barbie because habas is a philosophical Barbie you want me to to say this um I'm going to open this up to the audience for questions if you want to put your hands up I'm going to come around with a another mic ah sorry this one still works no I've got I know I know but I uh I don't like I don't like to hold this in my hand because it's too masturbatori and so would you like would you like it in sorry you want you don't want to in your hand no I don't think so um hands up I can't see I must criticize you what Sydney for your filthy liberalism I discovered before that this is a true debate a good stalinist would distribute the questions ahead you said that to me before right okay yeah um what's your name my name is Umar I'm from gold Smiths so is there a Jewish atheism because is there a Jewish atheism that's that's a very good question and I will give you an answer I think that and my friend who is otherwise a right winger but not an idiot Peter Slaughter Dy the German one developed somewhere I forgot where a wonderful idea which is that every great religion has its own specific form of atheism Islam also have an atheism it's even pretty respectful I think it's even in Quran or I don't know where where it says that if you believe it or not Muhammad says this it's your inner life I will not mess with that I just demand to follow the form and so on and so on and I I think that you find in Judaism my Jewish friends Drew my attention to this elements of atheism uh in some very interesting parts of uh talmud for example there is a wonderful passage in talmud and it's not a joke you have two versions of it where it's wonderful where got uh uh where sorry two rabbis debate about uh some theological point doesn't matter and then the one who is losing said but let's call god Jehovah let him decide so Jehovah comes and tooks the S of the guy who was losing the debate and then the other guy the more intelligent rabbi starts to shout at Jehovah proving him Jehovah that he is making a wrong argument and you know what happens Jehovah said oh my God oh my God you are right my pupils are are brighter than me and run away and you have two versions of this another the other version is even more comical and so on but if you speak about Jewish atheism you know which is my favorite book from the Old Testament I'm not very original here the Book of Job of course this is for me the first systematic critique of ideology where you know what happens but I will not deal with that already the beginning is pure OB sanity uh God and Devil or don't who debate behind the table like does job really believe in you or not and they decide it's extremely oene that they will deprive him of all his worldly Goods blah blah blah so okay you know what happens to job he loses his family all his blah blah blah okay then you have three ideologists who came to him the and they precisely do what ideology is doing they try to rationalize justify job's suffering the first one says you think you are Innocent but look deeper into yourself what if nonetheless you did something evil the second theology says something like even if you didn't do anything maybe this is just a god testing like they provide reasons and then so this is ideology then then a miracle happens uh again uh here now in a better role Jehovah don't God comes and takes job's s he says to job J what those three theologist were telling is all [ __ ] I simplify it you were totally right in your complaint now comes the beautiful moment through atheism then job asks God but listen if you agree with me then what what the [ __ ] why did you make me suffer so much now comes the problem God makes his famous speech what do you know about I don't know he enumerates some strange animals blah blah blah all the strength like usually God's answer sorry is read as uh uh depiction of irreducible gap between God and our limited human mind like we are too stupid to understand God but my favorite Catholic theologist Gilbert Chesterton proposes a totally different reading that God's answer is ah you think I screwed thing up with you but look at the world I screwed up everything all my creation and this is the deepest Insight which is thinly masked atheism that I find in talmood and so on that God even if God exists creation is a totally screwed up job a total failure so uh I know I'm simp simplifying things but it can be developed much more in uh much more uh in detail so I think that then in Christianity you have other forms of uh atheism and so on but I again I ah there is another part in talmud which is also very materialist it's almost God quoting marks God says something like sorry I don't know passively I am aware that I only exist through human pray praying prayers and celebrating me and so on and so on so this worth I'm not able to deliver it this is this deserves a much more detailed uh study no atheism is not a simple all the time the same stance it's it's in some sense it's difficult to be truly an atheist for example for me stalinists were not really materialists atheists because you know the whole logic of stalinism was we may be doing horrible things today in purges killing Millions but when communism will arrive what we are doing will be retroactively Justified that is to say all the stalinism is based on this purely theological idea that there is a figure of what Jac Lon would have called Big other some symbolic agency which guarantees the long-term true meaning of what we are doing a true materialist must renounce this I say which is why back to problem of problem of Holocaust the most disgusting theological metaphor that I can imagine is this idea which I found disgusting that uh what we mortal humans perceive as uh as sin or evil is just you know this terrifying metaphor is just like a stain on an image take a beautiful image if you look too close at it it appears a stain if you make a couple of steps back you see that what appear to you as a stain is really something that contributes to the harmony of the image I think that the whole point of authentic Judaism and Christianity is that this vulgar theological reasoning should be abandoned no when we have extreme human suffering there is no way to justify it but oh it's just our illusion let's make a step back and justify it no suffering is in some sense absolute here you cannot justify it but again I talk too much and now you move no you move from the right you can choose from the right to the left finally yeah yeah good evening um car Rogers the humanist psychologist I remember him when I was young okay right so no no evil meant yeah with the book obviously like I haven't read it yet and I don't know how anybody has but there's the subtitle of how to be a real materialist without taking too much time the way that I kind of see the Carl Rogers thing being applicable to it is the idea of the idealism so how kind of there's this trying to keep it short but it feels to me more and more culturally in society there's this investing into the idea of idealism in the sense of materialism so we pursue our own self-worth based on material Goods social media and the kind of it's easy target but the idea of kind of how social media can validate as based on the idea real IST itself being portrayed out there hope this is making some sense I feel like the counter to the core Rogers thing that he talks about is the authenticity of the individual versus the idealism so what I wanted to know from you is based on the book and your own kind of opinion what authenticity is because when I see a lot of people speak about it it tends from things I've seen it tends to like blend into spiritualism and I feel like that's kind of a interesting perspective you say a very good question because it's a big sorry it's a big problem what uh do you mean by materialism I don't mean first we have a very primitive notion inherited from uh 19th century that materialism means that ultimately there is empty space and some small bits of matter jumping there up and down and that all there is is a combination of this small no here I have no problem with the speculative quantum mechanics ultimately there is no matter there are waves or whatever ultimately it's a wonderful thought void itself is not really empty there is a lot of potential in the void so the first thing to renounce to be truly materialist is this very primitive idea of some some hard some tiny bits of real stuff and so on the second thing is that for me and if I interpreted understood your intention correctly we are moving in the same direction is that is that uh uh uh in some sense brutal materialism can be more spiritual in a false sense than idealism you know whom I criticize here although I love him as a movie director tarkovski stalker there is a wonderful feature but I think it's fake in his movies you know what I like in tarkovski in his movies especially stalker spiritual experience is not portrayed as you look up from this dirty earth to some up no you know his Heroes Have let's call it spiritual experience when they usually lie in water dirty water in a mud so in this immersion and so on into it then at the same time linked to this uh German idealists like fing more than Hegel but Hegel also shelling puts this in a wonderful way somewhere I forgot where I think in this his famous short treaties on human Freedom he says that evil is much more spiritual than good goodness goodness is a natural attitude of respecting natural object but the evil is the brutality of destroying materiality which is much more spiritual So my answer to you would be also what do you mean by idealism first my materialism is practically materialism without matter I would even say I am maybe you this of materialism of ideas themselves you know in the sense of ideas themselves behave as material objects interacting and so on so I sorry maybe now it's not the time to go to the end in all I give you his number sorry I'll give you his number sorry I'll give you his number you can talk about it after no no no no no I I wanted to say something dirty like no no no not I'm not not with you I'm interested but when somebody tells me this I like to cheat in this dirty way you know like to say give me your number and or email and uh we'll keep in contact and then you know at the next corner I throw it away and so on you knowon sorry hon no no no but but I honestly I'm saying now that your question what is materialism I think sorry when you said authenticity you know now I will give you the last example where I think authenticity is not go deep into yourself and so on yeah authenticity is sorry if I repeat an example that I used in some of my old books among it's from a rosellini film which I of course haven't seen uh now this one I had after writing about it uh General DEA Ro it's a beautiful movie about a ethical Awakening it takes place in 43 I think in some of those uh Northern Italians still under fascism movies where the Germans capture a cheap thief and they notice that he is uncannily similar resembling General DEA R who is one of the heroes of anti-fascist resistance the true General is already dead but he was killed secretly by the Germans so all the people they have in prison resistance Fighters don't know it so they propos to this guy played by Victorio DEA a simple task go to prison pretend that you are General dear since this is a legendary figure other prisoners will trust you and will tell you all the details about what they plan what they plan against us Nazis Germans and so if you do this properly we will discreetly set you free and then you can imagine what happens the guy does this and becomes so identified with General DEA Ro that he starts to behave as one and doesn't tell anything to Germans and prefers to be shot by German as general there so you see it's just it's fully accepting what what was ultimately a mask he doesn't go deep into himself he just accepts fully identified with an imposed role that would be for me close to authenticity which is the exact opposite of go deep into yourself or whatever I think we've got to those hands up and I think sorry thank you for your question I'm sorry I'm sorry that we don't now more time oh wait actually I should probably oh yeah uh uh hi uh thank you uh I just um I'm working on the C and I have a a sort of a a question related to cosmopolitanism today and and what potential there is for that how that would even uh look today and you talk quite a lot of about suffering and almost like the need in a perverse way or the potentiality for in that and I was wondering how maybe that could connect to the possibility for cosmopolitanism today or if you even think that that could be a possibility for kind of utopian sense of that in in kind of the idea almost that K has sorry yeah and just finally in relation to to suffering uh someone who has a similar sort of leaning to you in a way I mean certainly in the orientation around Christian atheism um Fran LEL I think you wrote an introduction Rec his idea of the the suffering subjects I'm kind of interested in as well so if you could comment on that too that would be you I have one problem I don't know if this was your intention with suffering uh the the Temptation is to elevate suffering itself into a proof of of authenticity if you suffer it's authentic I think this is to be rejected as a perverse uh trap but uh the main point of your question was sorry I am losing my mind slowly the main point of your question was before you can cosmopolit cosmopolitanism yes you know I'm as aelian again against abstract cosmopolitanism in the sense of but above all our peculiarities there is some Universal feature no we are here at those most disgusting UNESCO books about world civiliz this civilization has this great thing today and no you know what I see as true cosmopolitanism where uh a certain particular culture can come to itself can see itself properly only from the outside like it's not that I am me and I can step on my shoulders and see how me and you if you are from another culture have nonetheless something common no it's more like listen let me give you an example uh uh uh Salman roui I have problems with him but one story he told at some uh Round Table in Basque country of all places where I met him once was a very beautiful one maybe you know it he told there at a round table that uh he was attacked often as betraying his Indian Heritage no that he is too much immersed into British white Colonial culture and then his answer was a brilliant one uh he said no the biggest influence of my work are two great English writers sorry two great Indian writers Charles Dickens and Jane Austin and then he gave a wonderful explanation where he says that the poverty poverty in India today slums of uh Mumbai that is to say Bombay incidentally with my evil Gates I noticed when I was there that all my Indian friends were talking about Bombay then I told them I asked them but wait a minute like isn't it now Mumbai they told me oh that's to annoy you white people from the West to we are still know it's B bomb okay but uh and then he said of course that the typical topic of his book this slightly impoverish lower middle class families where the problem is how you marry your daughter this is jostin you know he has a very nice moment here his point is this one that if we read Dickens and Jane Austin today from Indian perspective Indian not American Indians India India then uh incidentally another point about cosmopolitanism maybe you know but it's not a joke my most beautiful metaphysical experience was in missula Montana years ago where there were at a round table some Native Americans I instantly become friendly with them sorry something ah ah sorry too close yeah yeah yeah I in you know why because there was me some Progressive liberals blah blah multi and these Native Americans and they protested no they said we don't they refer to themselves as Indians and then a white liberal said no you're are humiliating yourself you are Native Americans don't accept this and then in the Indian guy with whom I become friendly exploded and said first we don't like the term Native Americans nature versus culture so you are a cultural Americans or what and we are native and he said an an ingenious way he said I much prefer to be called Indian because then at least my name is a monument to white men's stupidity who thought you know they are in India when day this is true cosmopolitanism that you see the limitation of the other so what I want to say is that this is for me true cosmopolitanism how to understand people it's not you know this ppic I'm caught in my culture how do I know if when I speak with a Chinese guy if I really understand his culture no it's a mistake because how do I know that I understand my own culture I need an external gue for example It's a Wonderful detail of my beloved Hollywood the greatest critical films about American everyday life in the 30s 40s were made by fritzlan even hitchock and so on authors who were able to cast to look at United States from outside you see this is for me the true cosmopolitanism not abstract un or another thing which which I find fascinating I like to take a look at what we consider the greatest work of art and see how their Cinema versions are for example the best Shakespeare Hamlet for me forget about all those Laurence Olivier and so on you will be surprised it's for me Akira kurava 62 the Japanese version of satin modern Japan of uh Hamlet where it's a wonderful retelling Hamlet is uh son of a rich American returning from the studies in United States and sees his father murdered and so on and so on and with a beautiful title only good only evil people sleep well which is deeply true because you know if you are if you sleep bad because you did something evil there is goodness in you if you are truly evil you don't care you sleep well or another example idiot dooi the best idiot is again kurava from 47 you know this idea that it's false this historicism to know Shakespeare you must study all the British history in details no it's the opposite to really understand Shakespeare you must erase the pecularities and look at Shakespeare from outside and in this sense you can understand Shakespeare better than Shakespeare himself and these are for me moments of authentic cosmopolitanism where looking from outside you see an unexpected universal dimension of a concrete particular work of art for me all great things come from this class of which cultures which is why for example Ireland for example although I hate James Joyce I'm all for Samuel Becket but both Becket and Joyce you see to did all great things they did about Ireland Joyce wrote uliss We nowhere close to my home in Trieste Becket had even to change language and write in French and so on no so I am not against uh uh cosmop I just think that the there is no authentic cosmopol without how should I put it remaining faithful to your particular Legacy by betraying it by looking at it from the outside in those rare moments you get authentic cosmopolitanism outside that stupidity of you know we are all basically human and uh uh no I think that the only true cosmopolitism is we are both basically evil but each of us is evil in a specific way so we got some more questions in this area oh hello oh hi Sydney how are you great thanks yeah good why don't you take a coffee and talk alone and then we can hear go on uh I I'm looking for a dummy's guide um from either of you really um how to free my mind from ideology wait first what do you mean by ideology here you know for me the problem is this that ideology that's my motive that I repeat all the time ideology is not ideas which dominate us ideologies is inscribed into our very everyday practice is even I like these dirty examples I will not uh repeat them now how we deal with cheat how we deal with cooking and so on all these everyday levels this is why don't be mad at me I will not draw a bad conclusion but although you know in this big conflict between trans and so-called turs trans exclusion radical feminists I of course agree with trans about about how gender identities are constructed and so on but I think turs have hit upon something on pointing out that look to be a woman today concretely it's not just oh some performative joke where I let's say I am a man and I even don't have the decency to have my penis cut off I just put on feminine dresses lipstick and uh oh I am a no oh let's it's at the level of even biology and how this biology is part of our social practices that you get what femin femininity means let me be very vulgar Al not vulgar femininity means my God having periods birth it's easy for us men sorry for the vulgarity but it's on purpose here you screw a woman then you say Hello Goodbye you know and go and then the woman has to go through all the painful process and mostly raising the child and so on you see the problem is not to become in an abstract sense feminist the problem is how to dissolve move over this uh subordination of feminine of women embedded in Daily practices and so for me it's not so much breaking out of of ideology it's not so much about uh seeing things as they truly are the biggest point of breaking out of ideology is not seeing the truth but in understanding how I know this will be an abstract formula but I believe in it in how our reality itself reproduces itself through ideological misperceptions mystification and so on and so on I don't think I think our social reality itself needs ideology to function and this is what Marx as I often developed was discovering in his notion of so-called commodity fetishism commodity fetishism is in some sense an ideological misperception but Marx never calls it ideology because it's a part of the very material practice of capitalism you see so I would just I know I didn't fully answer the question I was just say uh when don't ask directly how to get rid of ideology ask yourself rather why does reality need ideology to reproduce itself that's the key point reality itself needs Illusions and that's why we are coming back to your question that's Barbie you know bar is ideology but one okay right I'm going to go over this way because I have denied this area you coming I hope I will hear you oh yeah you want to shout no I'll take the mic hello um how do I say that um I I partly apologize because this isn't something that has been actually in discussion during this event but during the sort of summary at the beginning part of the discussion points were the future of AI um artificial intelligence you mean yeah yeah sorry sorry yeah sorry um what are your thoughts particularly on cases of um AI such as um large uh neural uh networks and large language models uh specifically such as Google's LDA AI that have been claiming sentients uh within themselves and ultimately is your uh thoughts on the future of AI something that artificial sentients could eventually be something that could come to into fruition I uh it's difficult for me to give you a precise answer because again this is minimally a topic for another long talk so I can only give you sorry a a very general answer I don't like this game of I'm not accusing you of it but generally in the debates on AI you know it's all about uh we people are obviously limited will artificial intelligence become more intelligent than we are and so on I to be as brief as possible I don't see the problem of artificial intelligence in it being more bright than we but in not being being stupid in the way we humans can be what I think is unique for us humans is to be stupid in a proper way so that you make something or say something stupid but then you uh get the message through this very stupidity another dimension opens up to you so I would rather say that uh of course we have now already computers which can which are self learning change adopt to rules but they still take mistakes as something to be overcome they don't see the let's call it the productivity the capacity to open up a new space of the mistake as such to make it a little bit bit clearer what I mean uh I in my book on Hegel and the wired brain I use this examples it's a disgusting movie I hate the actors everybody but you saw afraid to mention it for weddings at the funeral you know but nonetheless you know that scene when Hugh Grant declares love to Andy McDowell I think and in his own fake way he gets confused stutters blah blah blah but in this way he succeed in declaring love if he were to say it clearly how he loves her it would be a fake so you see how the mistake as such renders the message now I enter a very complex domain of what John elster a pretty good Norwegian theorist of rational action calls states which are necessarily by products for example I wrote about this in a text that was published in one of your philosophical monthly journals philosophy now or what if I say I have dignity it's self defeating because if I say this it's ridiculous I must show display dignity through the way I act and the same goes for many of our acts which you cannot it is self-defeating if you directly talk about them at this level I try to circumscribe something that maybe at least the way things stand now artificially intelligence I think cannot do again I repeat not because we humans are brighter but because we humans learned to use in a productive way our stupidity our limitation itself but I'm sorry maybe now it would be too much to to to go into this what time for one more question uh I like this one more then [ __ ] you and all right do you want to pick your last one no ah I love you you I love you you just had the tallest hands oh cheers appreciate it uh hello yes hello pleasure to see you talk tonight thank you very much for your time go to the point I see when I are talking friendly like this you are just sharping the knife I feel like you were actually I feel I feel like you were actually directing the last question at me because it was actually over there but you were looking at me the whole time wasn't even my question right so what's sorry so what's the question hello hello Mr Z yeah I'm just wondering um with the with the with the potential inevitability of what we've been told about the uh beginning of the third world war happening and and some you know the potentiality of boots on the ground happening do you think it is more morally Justified to look at the involvement of British soldiers or I don't know a lot of young men in this room young women young men as well do you think it's more of a Afghanistan Iraq situation do you think it's more of a let's defeat the evil second world war situation should I willingly enter the meat grinder that's uh but you know what problem I have here and you put it M thank you yeah and and it gets very uh it gets complicated for me because for example in my own country Slovenia when the Ukrainian War Began we get a lot of many pacifists who were saying you know uh bringing soldiers or producing arms never brings peace and so on and so on now precisely when this debate was going on we celebrated I don't know which anniversary of the partisan Victory against Germans in World War II no and in some debate I asked these people openly is this that you know there there are no Victorious Wars every war is a tragedy and blah blah blah p is this a general statement or are you making a a particular case a propo Ukraine because if you make a general statement then why not say when Germany attacked uh France let us say let's stay out of the War uh uh producing arms will never bring peace and so on and so on and so on so I'm just saying I wonder if you agree already with my first point that there are definite cases in spite of all the dangers that they will be misused for further militarization and so on but there are definitely cases where early resistance military resistance Counterattack can prevent a much larger violence death and so on later for example I recently read a history of the beginning of World War II which argues that it's a little bit Pro stalinist motive but I think there is an argument of Truth in it you know when Czechoslovakia was under attack by the Germans in 38 already Soviet Union I don't know if it was a fake or not and I'm no friend of Stalin but offered the West let let's defend Czechoslovakia together let's oppose the Germans immediately let's go to war and the West rejected this and then it can be reasonably proven without mean any way celebrating Stalin that then Stalin got so afraid when he saw that the West really wants a war between Germany and Soviet Union so that they would exhaust each other and the W will just collect the wealth whatever remains that Stalin I think he was here sinere made a piece that famous uh agreement ribb androp Molotov p and now new document showed that Stalin was fully aware that there will be War the reason Soviet Union was caught unprepared was that Stalin was in some sense more intelligent than Hitler or his Stalin's General were more intelligent they thought that when did it begin 22nd of June the attack on Russia that that it's that they are safe for this year that if Hitler were to attack and defeat Russia he should have done it at least one or two months earlier so Stalin thought for this year the danger is over so unfortunately maybe this is already too much for you I uh I couldn't read clear because the way you put it at the last should I offer my body to the mid grinder and so on and so on okay this holds for every war but what makes a difference when you said between on the one hand uh uh like World War I evil and on the other hand the examples were of a sorry yeah my God here I'm sorry things get really complicated for me for example what do you think about now I will shock you now you will get my rightwing S I know I spoke with many friends you know when they said Ukrainian world is just a plot by NATO to expand itself no it is obvious already with Ukraine the that NATO doesn't want those countries Finland Baltic countries they are scared like [ __ ] of the Russians they want to join more than more than the other side and again what I also oppose is this idea I'm now trying to shock you of NATO the ultimate Evil so whoever is against NATO there must be something a little bit good in him you know even if it's Putin sorry all the time I'm listening to not just Putin speeches but as because I speak possibly a little bit Russian Russian media and so on and so on listen one thing is and I've written many critical things I will not bore you with it now about Ukraine but sorry this one thing is enough for me I listened carefully to Putin's two speeches uh two years ago it's now already 21st and 23rd of February when he announced began the Invasion the war you know which name Putin mentioned Putin explicitly mentioned there only one name Lenin he said Ukraine should be properly called Ukraine of Vladimir ilich Lenin he said Ukraine is a bolik creation and we have to correct that historical error and so so on and so on so I'm just shocked when Putin is seen as some kind of uh resistance here my God read what he and his people are saying I hope you will agree with me here if I tell you something else they already say it today I don't think I did it that uh the most stupid uh uh uh uh anti- enemy proverb that I know is an enemy is somebody who words or who to whose story you were not ready to listen to sorry this is the first thing I do I read you probably didn't Hitler's my C and it didn't make me more tolerant when I listen to his words it was even worse and you see what I'm saying let's admit real uh real complexity I my answer to you would be that there is no up ract reply yes or no it depends on what war you are talking about and so on and so one one has to be concrete here you know because never forget one thing I'm provoking you now do you know that occupiers also are always sincerely pacifists for example after Germany occupied France in summer of 1940 I think the they were sincerely pacifist they wanted peace because peace meant what we keep France in peace and we exploit it nicely and so on and so on and if somebody was an extreme militarist there it was the goal his basic statement from immigration was no the SEC the war is not over France will continue to resist it's pure militarist in this sense statement so all I'm saying I'm ready to say now is there is no general rule the world is full of uh the world is full of crazy paradoxes it's interesting that in Slovenia uh during World War II this argument is it worth to go meet grinder and so on was used by uh by Pro fascist collaborators who said we slovenes are a small nation and every any kind of resistance against Germany would be suicidal so it's in the interest of sloven nation to safely wait for uh Allied Victory and strictly to do nothing maybe in some sense but it's a it's really a terrible deadlock there is no abstract formula I think so I'm sorry if I disappointed you sorry H be serious I mean I am not satisfied with this but the sheit is real you know what I mean you now be signing books there it's some [ __ ] of my own books yeah okay yeah yeah yeah any book and I think hang around what's the where will I be signing books you'll be signing around here this area and be signing now the people we've got enough Coke to keep you going no no no no but okay so I will rather then move maybe to this table or whatever okay we've got it we've got it um a round of applause ladies and gentlemen GJ thank you very much I hope I hope you get you got my old stalinist joke which I always repeat I will repeat it again watch the speeches of let's say fascist leaders and stalinist leaders when there is Applause a fascist leader just receives the Applause the stalinist leader joins the Applause I'm on stallion site here um sorry I forgot to say it's actually coming up to your birthday I do believe so I'd like to I'd like us all to join in um happy birthday to you happy birthday to you my God my God thank happy birth dear Jes what did I do to you to Desert it's nice did I did I your mother in public or what I know to to to are you know this was thank you okay let's do the timing sorry um books will be on the stage in five minutes 5 minutes sorry what five minutes books will be on the stage in 5 minutes I'm H books are where now

Channel: Sydney Lima

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Id: Wkyc2tay2dw

Length: 99min 40sec (5980 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 26 2024