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Zizek! Full transcript

December 7, 2009 in Slavoj Zizek | Tags: movies, Slavoj Zizek, zizek Slavoj Zizek What would be my how should I call it, spontaneous attitude towards the universe? Its a very dark one. The first thesis would have been a kind of total vanity: there is nothing, basically. I mean it quite literally,like ultimately there are just some fragments, some vanishing things. If you look at the universe, its one big void. But then how do things emerge? Here, I feel a kind of spontaneous affinity with quantum physics, where, you know,the idea there is
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that universe is a void,but a kind of a positively charged void. And then particular things appear when the balance of the void is disturbed. And I like this idea of spontaneous very much that the fact that its just not nothingThings are out there.It means something went terribly wrongthat what we call creation is a kind of a cosmic imbalance, cosmic catastrophe,that things exist by mistake. And Im even ready to go to the end and to claim that the only way to counteract it is to assume the mistake and go to the end. And we have a name for this. Its called love. Isnt love precisely this kind of a cosmic imbalance? I was always disgusted with this notion of I love the world, universal love. I dont like the world. I dont know how Basically, Im somewhere in between I hate the world or Im indifferent towards it. But the whole of reality, its just it. Its stupid. It is out there. I dont care about it. Love, for me, is an extremely violent act. Love is not I love you all. Love means I pick out something, and its, again,this structure of imbalance. Even if this something is just a small detail a fragile individual person I say I love you more than anything else. In this quite formal sense, love is evil. They inform me they play chess. I like that. Think about the strangeness of todays situation. 30, 40 years ago,we were still debating about what the future will be: Communist, Fascist, capitalist, whatever. Today, nobody even debates these issues. We all silently accept global capitalism is here to stay. On the other hand, we are obsessed with cosmic catastrophes: the whole life on Earth disintegrating because of some virus, because of an asteroid hitting the Earth, and so on. So the paradox is that its much easier to imagine the end of all life on Earth than a much more modest radical change in capitalism, which means that we should reinvent Utopia, but in what sense? There are two false meanings of Utopia. One is this old notion of imagining an ideal society,which we know will never be realized. The other is the capitalist Utopia in the sense of new perverse desires that you are not only allowed but even solicited to realize. The true Utopia is when the situation is so without issue, without a way to resolve it within the coordinates of the possible,that out of the pure urge of survival you have to invent a new space. Utopia is not kind of a free imagination. Utopia is a matter of innermost urgency. You are forced to imagine it as the only way out, and this is what we need today. I hope I wasnt too long. I thank you very much for your patience. Another very short comment that I can make. You know why I applauded? If you watch old documentary movies, you will see a big difference between a Fascist and a Stalinist leader. The Fascist leader, when he is applauded, he just
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accepts it. The Stalinist leader applauds himself. The message being And this was my side. So we are on. Okay. The worst thing is to play this We are all humans game that some intellectuals like to play.You project a certain intellectual persona cold thinker, whatever but then you signal, through small details, to socialist wealth. A good, honest guy. I put everything here I love this so that By everything, I mean Look even here it is. You see? Isnt it a crazy combination? You have this, and then you have The clothes are here. But its not only clothes. Its more. Its also how do you call it? covers, sheets for the No, no. Everything is here. Here. Isnt this nice, close to the kitchen? Here are socks, underwear. This is all my stuff, and basically, this is all my stuff: newspapers, journals. These are my books in foreign languages. Two copies of each one. So this is strictly prohibited. It looks bad. I think they are lower there, because this is mostly new stuff. I am narcissist here. Yes, I keep everything. This should go elsewhere. Im sorry. I just Ill go far back, so this is there. Just let me Okay, if you need the Mladina stuff, Ah, yes, there are some of them here. Lets see whats here, because these are the big format thing. These are some early Mladina from Ah, this is from the dissident times. Yes. Mid-80s, I started to write from time to time. For two years, some people even claim that I was the most influential. But then new political divisions start, and I was too combative, attacking everyone. This was me. This was my fame. I worked like crazy at that time,because I was writing in English my first books. I never wanted to endanger, not even minimally, the theory, which is why I was never, never interested in any kind of political career, because it simply takes time. Two days before the election, there was a big round table with all the candidates: 20 of them, I dont know how much. A right wing naive good guy, but basically an idiot, made a fatal mistake, which everybody remembered. Not even a mistake, a kindness: namely, as usual, as you can imagine, I talked quite a lot, too much, and then this guy wanted to censor me friendly, and turned to me this was all live, big debate, central TV. But everybody remembered that, you know? You see? Even they admit that he is the bright guy. I remember then, you know, after it was over,when the lights went off, the cameras went off, all other candidates started to shout at this guy, like Are you idiot? Are you crazy? Because then I jumped up immediately and almost got elected. When I first visited the States, I was shocked by your toilets here. IDEOLOGY Romanticism onwards. That was the idea of so-called European trinity Anglo-Saxon economy, French politics, German metaphysics, poetry, philosophy as the basic how should I put it? spiritual stances of Europe. Sorry. Thats it. French
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politics, revolutionary: shit should disappear as soon as possible. Anglo-Saxon/American: lets be pragmatic. German metaphysic poetry, inspection: you inspect, you reflect on your shit. So isnt it totally crazy that in a vulgar, common phenomenon like that you find certain differences which you truly can not account in any functional terms, but you have to evoke all this. I mean, you claim, Then you go to the toilet, produce shit. You are up to your shit, or how do you put it in ideology, no? Who believes what today? I think this is an interesting question, much more complex than it may appear. The first myth to be abandoned, I think, is the idea that we live in a cynical era where nobody believes no values, and that there were some times, more traditional, where people still believed, relied of some sort of substantial notion of belief, and so on and so on. I think its today that we believe more than ever, and, as Fuller develops it in a nice, ironic way, the ultimate form of belief for him is deconstructionism. Why? Again, Im going back to that question of, quote, Marx, no? Look how it functions, deconstructionism, in its standard version, already at the texture of style. You cannot find one text of Derrida without A, all of the quotation marks, and B, all of this rhetorical distanciations. Like I dont know. To take an ironic example, if somebody like Judith Butler were to be asked What is this?she would never have said, This is a bottle of tea.She would have saidsomething like,she likes to put itin this rhetorical waySo its always this needto distanciate.It goes even for love,like nobody almost daresto say today I love you. It has to be,as a poet would have put it,I love you, or some kindof a distance.But whats the problem here? The problem is thatwhy this fear?Because I claim that,when the ancientsdirectly said I love you,they meant exactly the same.All these distanciationswere included.So its we today who are afraidthat, if we were to put itdirectly, I love you,that it would mean too much.We believe in it. You know what I learnedin the high school?Its so disgusting,the reasoning behind it.Because all my friends most of my friendstook either French or German as a second language.Okay, my idea was, you know, there was a code wordto superpowers.Isnt it good to play it safe?Whoever wins, I willspeak their language. There were three levelsof dissidents.The first in theoryI mean, if you dealt with theoryor whatever or writing.The first level was,Were you allowed to teach?This was the first levelof exclusion.The second level were,Are you allowed to publish books?The third level was,Are you allowed to get a jobat all in your domain?And the fourth level is,you are arrestedor whatever, no?I was between the second and third.My God, I was unemployed.It was humiliating.I was 27, and my parentssupported me, my God.Then for two years,it was that humiliating jobat the central committee.They knew that I am notan idiotand that I will
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probably succeed.So they were afraidthat I would simply move abroadand succeed there.This would then be bad foryou know, another victimwho wasnt allowedto make a career in Slovenia.So they want meto vegetate on the margin,but there in Slovenia.It was in a wayan intelligent move,but they didnt knowthat the way they did it,they made it even easierfor me to move abroad.Give him 7. Its okay.Oh, sorry.Okay. Gracias. - Oh, my God!I thought this would besome kind of old buildingwith Peron andnot Peron, with Borgesand so on.Oh, yeah. No, its super-modern.Oh, my God, I didnt likethe way that guy looked at me.Its only an idiot coming.I hate this. Lets move there. I hate whenI think that idiotfriendly, bright personrecognized me,and I hate this,because then they stare.They descend on you?Oh, my God.Okay, for you. Did you ever expect this,to have all these fans? No, but thats whatI really hate this.I cannot tell youhow much I hate it.You dont love itjust a little bit? No, no, no, no, no. I think people are evil.This is horrible.You see all these creeps,all these creeps here?This is horrible. Whos that hysterical woman?Shes a fan, Slajov.Yeah, but what is she doing here?She should go up there and wait in line,not annoying me here.It was simply made as a documentarysupposed to presentLacanian theoryto a wide public,I think forthe second channel of the French state TV.What I appreciate is this inversionreversal of the rolebetween public image and private.Its this total denigrationdisappearance of thiswarm, human person.This for me is the ideaof ideology.The central ideaof ideology for meis not these ideas determine youyou are a Christian,you are a Marxist, whatever,today liberal, I dont know. But the idea is preciselythat ideological propositionsdo not determine us totally.We cannot be reducedto our public image:there is a warm human being behind. I think this is ideology at its purest. The most horrible and ideological act for meand really horrible, terrifying is to fully identify with the ideological image.The ultimate act is what we think is our true self. There is the true acting, and usually, our truth to that to which we are really committed existentially is in our acts more than importance supposed to be behind the act. So again, my point is that ImI like philosophyas an anonymous job,not as this kind ofIook at the way he moves now,these gestures.I find this ridiculous.He emphasizesThis ridiculous emphasis.I think its pure fake,an empty gesture,as if he makes a deep point there. He does not.I think Lacan,in a very classical waywhat interests me are his propositions:the underlying logic,not his
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style.His style is a total fake, I think. I try to forget it. I try to repress it.Maybe it works as a strategy. At a certain point,why not? First, you have to seduce peoplewith obscure statements, but I hatethis kind of approach.Im a total enlightenment person. I believe in clear statements.And Im for Lacan because, again, I think, to make it very clear,its not that Lacan is just bluffing in the sense that there is nothing behind this obscurity.The whole point of my work is that you can translate Lacan into clear terms.Well, Ive just had enough of this. Now, live from the CN8 Studios,This is CN8 Nitebeat,with Barry Nolan.Jacques Lacan wasa French psychoanalyst.He makes Freud soundlike a simple Valley girl.Lacans theoryof how the self worksis so complicated,it makes my teeth hurtto think about it.Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher at the University of Ljubljana, SloveniaI think I said this fairly close to the way its pronouncedwho has written a book calledThe Puppet and The Dwarf.The book takes a lookat modern Christianityfrom the viewpointof Lacanian psychoanalysis,or at least thatswhat I think its about. Welcome, Mr. Zizek.Did I say thatTell me the right way.Slavoj Zizek, but again,I prefer it the wrong way. It makes me paranoidif I hear it the right way. This is the most complicated book I have ever tried to read. Strange, because the goal of the book is, on the contrary, to make Lacan back into someone whom even your grandma could understand. Lets say you have a good old-fashioned father. Its Sunday afternoon. You have to visit Grandma. The father would old-fashioned totalitarian father will tell you, Listen, I dont care how you feel if you are a small kid, of course Going Grandmother and behave there properly. Thats good. You can resist. Nothing is broken. But lets say you have the so-called tolerant post-modern father. What he will tell you is the following: Now, every child who is not an idiot and they are not idiots know that this apparent free choice secretly contains an even more stronger, much stronger order: Im beginning to like this book all the more. Thats one example of how apparent tolerance, choice, and so on, can conceal a much stronger order. So we should go back to more like the dad that just says Because I said so! Absolutely. Its more honest. You went to the McDonald breakfast? This is not so ridiculous. Look what you get. You know, you get this with Happy Meal. Yeah, to make you happy. Yeah, but this is for the kids. I go there to make him happy. He pretends to be happy there not to disappoint me, But what the hell. The game functions. This means that, again, you know, I love him, but my perspective is time, you know. We go there, up and down, one hour passes. No, its pure desperate strategy of surviving.without getting too nervous without and this is easy, because
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he eats and shuts up for 20 minutes after he eats. Okay, this will go. Hes perplexed, as you can see. Now hes narcissistically amused. Its just to keep him calm, in a non-demanding state, so its eating, its this, its whatever, no? Or at least negotiating. Yesterday, he was building some Lego castles. He wasnt satisfied with them, but then he gave me the role of just collecting a certain type of these small plastic cubes. I start to shoot at the animals, then I love this one, American Army. You know, this one, I bought it. I dont know where, but its beautiful. You can open it, you see? And put soldiers in so that then he attacks me from there. He destroyed this castle that I had here. This was his original, but destruction is very precise. Its incredible how you think its chaotic, no? But hes the big wise guy. He observes. Here, hes very profane. He wanted to have a woman as the boss, the queen. Then he said, This is the two girls talking. You see, lesbian, progressive, politically correct, no? Two lesbians, and but I like this one. Isnt this a beautiful one? I bought it in Greece. A kind of a nice old Roman. Over. Lets show them all, huh? Okay, philosophy. This, I can do it, at least traditionally, in two lines, no? Philosophy does not solve problems. The duty of philosophy is not to solve problems but to redefine problems, to show how what we experience as a problem is a false problem. If what we experience as a problem is a true problem, then you dont need philosophy. For example, lets say that now there would be a deadly virus coming from out there in space, so not in any way mediated through our human history, and it would threaten all of us. We dont need, basically, philosophy there. We simply need good science desperately to find We would desperately need good science to find the solution, to stop this virus. We dont need philosophy there,because the threat is a real threat, directly. You cannot play philosophical tricks and say No, this is not the You know what I mean. Its simply our life would be or okay, the more vulgar, even, simpler science fiction scenario. Its kind of Armageddon or whatever. No, Deep Impact. A big comet threatening to hit Earth. You dont need philosophy here. You need I dont know. To be a little bit naive, I dont know. Strong atomic bombs to explode, maybe. I think its maybe too utopian. But you know what I mean. I mean the threat is there, you see. In such a situation, you dont need philosophy. I dont think that philosophers ever provided answers, but I think this was the greatness of philosophy, not in this common sense that philosophers just ask questions and so on. What is philosophy? Philosophy is not what some people think, some crazy exercise in absolute truth, and then you can adopt this skeptical attitude: we, through scientists,are dealing with actual, measurable solvable problems.
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Philosophers just ask stupid metaphysical questions and so on, play with absolute truths, which we all know is inaccessible. No, I think philosophys a very modest discipline. Philosophy asks a different question, the true philosophy. How does a philosopher approach the problem of freedom? Its not Are we free or not? Is there God or not? It asks a simple question, which will be called a hermeneutic question: What does it mean to be free? So this is what philosophy basically does. It just asks, when we use certain notions, when we do certain acts, and so on, what is the implicit horizon of understanding? It doesnt ask these stupid ideal questions: Is there truth? No. The question is,What do you mean when you say this is true? So you can see, its a very modest thing, philosophy. Philosophers are not the mad men who search for some eternal truth. What we encounter here, I think, is precisely Lacans reversal of the famous Dostoyevsky model, How? On the one hand, again, you are allowed to have a full life of happiness and pleasure, but in order, precisely, to be happy, you should avoid dangerous excesses. So at the end, everything is prohibited. You can not eat fat, you can not have coffee, you can not have nothing precisely in order to enjoy. So todays hedonism combines pleasure with constraint. It is no longer the old notion of the right measure between pleasure and constraint. Like sex, yes, but not too much. Proper measure. No, its something much more paradoxical. Its a kind of immediate coincidence of the two extremes, like as if action and reaction coincide. The very thing which causes damage should already be the counter-agent, the medicine. The ultimate example I encountered recently in California I dont know if you can buy it also here in New York is chocolate laxative. And there it says as a propaganda, The thing is already its own counter-agent. And the negative proof of the calamity of this stance, I think, is the fact that today, the true unconstrained consumption in all its main forms drugs, free sex, smoking is emerging as the main danger. The traditional notion of psychoanalysis is that, because of some inner obstacles you internalized, identified excessively with paternal or other social prohibitions you can not set yourself free to enjoy, to Pleasure is not accessible for you. It is accessible to you only in pathological forms, of feeling guilty and so on. So, then, the idea is, psychoanalysis allows you to suspend, overcome this internalized prohibitions so that it enables you to enjoy. The problem today is that the commandment of the ruling ideologies enjoy in different ways. It can be sex and enjoyment, consumption, commodity enjoyment, up to spiritual enjoyment, realize yourself, whatever. And I think that the problem today is not how to get rid of your inhibitions and to be able to spontaneously enjoy. The problem is how to get rid of this injunction to enjoy. Organizations, such as the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, have helped gain general acceptance for theories
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considered radical when first advanced some 50 years ago by Dr. Sigmund Freud. The relationship between childhood frustrations and disturbed adult behavior has been clearly traced by such authorities as Dr. Rene Spitz of New York. Distressing experiences in childhood may set up patterns which in later life will produce mental conflicts. Such conflicts lead to the same feelings of insecurity which was felt as a child. When such conflicts paralyze the individual, preventing him from acting freely, he is said to have a neurosis. Let us see how a neurosis develops. My eternal fear is that if, for a brief moment, I stopped talking, you know, the whole spectacular appearance would disintegrate. People would think there is nobody and nothing there. This is my fear, as if I am nothing who pretends all the time to be somebody, and has to be hyperactive all the time, just to fascinate people enough so that they dont notice that there is nothing. Well? One of the big reproaches to psychoanalysis is that its only a theory of individual pathological disturbances, and that applying psychoanalysis to other cultural or social phenomena is theoretically illegitimate. It asks in what way you as an individual have to relate to social field, not just in the sense of other people, but in the sense of the anonymous social as such to exist as a person. You are, under quotation marks, normal individual person only being able to relate to some anonymous social field. What is to be interpreted and what not is that everything is to be interpreted. That is to say when Freud says, Unbehagen in der Kultur civilization and its discontent, or more literally, the uneasiness in culture he means that its not just that most of us, as normal, we socialize ourself normally. Some idiots didnt make it. They fall out. Oh, they have to be normalized. Culture as such, in order to establish itself as normal, what appears as normal involves a whole series of pathological cuts, distortions, and so on and so on. There is, again,a kind of a Unbehagen,uneasiness: we are out of joint, not at home in culture as such, which means, again,that there is no normal culture. Culture as such has to be interpreted. When people ask me why do I combine Lacan with Marx, my first answer is, Lacan already did it. I think, for example, that its only throught he strict psychoanalytic Lacanian notion of fantasy that we can really grasp what Marx was aiming at with his notion of commodity fetishism. Its, I think, precisely the use of Lacanian notions like, again, fantasy fantasy in the strict Lacanian sense, or excess plus de joie, excess enjoyment, and so on and so on. The real not to mention the real that we can understand todays phenomena, like new fundamentalist forms of racism, like the way our so-called permissive societies are functioning. Again, here, the psychoanalytic notion, especially the way it was conceptualized by Lacan. The psychoanalytic notion of superego as injunction to enjoy as an obscene category, not as a properly ethical category, is of great help. So again, I think that if Freud, in his
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Freudian theory in its traditional configuration, was appropriate to explain the standard capitalism which relied to some kind of a more traditional ethic of sexual control, repression, and so on, then Lacan is perfect to explain the paradoxes of permissive late capitalism. When did you have the last meal breakfast or down there? Down there. We should probably No, no, I mean, one,two hours later, we should maybe go down there. Or do you know any At the place where you had your coffee, they do have good menus, you know,like very nice ones, like simple steak or whatever. Sorry? Degenerate. Youll turn into monkeys. There is a table free here if you want to be absolutely opportunist. Aqua Congas.Why shouldnt I order? Could you put it there? Thank you. No, I mean, where to put it. Why do you want to Why did you say it was a fundamental misunderstanding that so many people came? No, in the simple sense that I have this terrible feeling that they expect something which they will not get, and I wonder what. Many leftists expect the formula, you know: I will teach them what to do. Shit, what do I know? Some people expect You feel like thats what that audience was looking for. Its a simple common sense insight: although I think they exaggerated whatever, thousand people can not all have the same interest in Lacan as I do, no? If you were to have a daughter, would you allow this guy to take your daughter to cinema? Be honest. The answer is, no. I hate the way I appear. In some documents, its even worse. Its really as a kind of a criminal that I appear, you know. You think they were expecting just a sort of political advisor? No, the problem is, whenever I talk about politics,- I feel it as if its a fake. Not in the sense that Im faking,that I dont mean it, but my heart is not in it. The book that I really enjoyed writing was the one on Hegel sorry, on Schelling. And that part of the message doesnt get through. You can immediately see also in the way it For example, of my last books, the one that I really loved, The Operas Second Death. That one is doing very modestly, nothing. But thats what I love. No, we didnt yet, no? Ill tell you Wait a minute. Is this just drinks? First you should look here, the Venice. You have calarinas, filet Milanese, ensalada cesar. This is just for people who come to be shocked and hopefully to get out. So that is why you have it? So when people open the door,they go Yeah, there is a small hope that I will get rid of them. Thats the only fun. Has it ever worked? As a matter of fact, yeah. Some people were actually offended. My big worry is not to be ignored, but to be accepted. When I appear to be sarcastic, the point is not to take seriously. What is not to be taken seriously is the
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very form of sarcasm. Its the form of the joke which masks the effect that Im serious. But people still have this idea that this guy did some big crimes. No.Of course its not as simple as that that Im simply a Stalinist. It would be crazy, tasteless, and so on. But obviously, there is something in it that its not simply a joke. When I say the only chance that the left appropriate fascism, its not a cheap joke. The point is to avoid the trap of the standard liberal oppositions: freedom versus totalitarian order, discipline, and so on, to rehabilitate notions of discipline, collective order, subordination, sacrifice, all that. I dont think this is inherently fascist. Often, friends tell me, I tell them,not even the oretical intellectual, whatever, statement. But it doesnt work like that. For example, concerning Stalinism, my God, Ive probably written more about Stalinism, about its most horrible aspects, than most of the people who reproach me with Stalinism. And thats my wager here, that sorry, the only way to get the message If you say, Of courseIm against fascism. There are just some attitudes which were traditional even more to the left, but fascism appropriated them,I think it doesnt have the desired precise political effect. It enables the liberal consensus to reappropriate it.You must say it with this excess. One hour be enough, or you need more? These are, of course, again, the Lufthansa socks. I stole two of them today. I went to wash my hair, and then I was in an intense situation, and then the woman hairdresser notice it,and told me, Why dont I give you a massage with some oil? I enjoyed it,but I felt so obscene, as if I paid for masturbation.But it was relaxing. It is nice.- But its too much. My God, where are you? This reminds me of socialism, carrying water in plastic bottle. Really? Yeah, because they were waiting for us. You see? We were not late. I realize it, because youre not here. But they wait for us, you see? Yeah, they didnt start without you. They were waiting for us. Lets start as soon as possible. Lets go in. The majority of academics who are obsessed with this idea The left needs a new answer: isnt it basically Like precisely as already Robespierre said,We want revolution without revolution. There is, I notice, a fundamental difference between the standard plurality of struggles which progressive liberals What does it mean? Isnt it in a way false even to expect such a clear political formula in the sense of All we need is a bright intellectual to tell us what to do, and then capitalism will be over, well have socialism, and so on? Im too stupid. I dont understand.- Im sorry. Thank you very much. Again, I have to accept this, again, almost Lacanian decenterment of subjectivity, which is that People see things in me. They have some expectations. There may be political expectations that I will provide the formula, the big question that everybodys expecting today from a leftist intellectual What should we do? or
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some kind of spiritual guidance to help them psychologically, or theoretical amusement in the sense of many dirty jokes or examples from movies. And I honestly accept that. I think that my reaction to this should be not so much but my dutys basically to try and occupy the position of the analyst, which is basically to play, in a way of transference, with these expectations, and to undermine, frustrate them, to make it clear to them that the question is not what I can give them, but are these expectations legitimate? What this expectation should tell them about themselves. It was usually that big progressive act was like it was Nixon, not Democrats, who had to do it with China. This paradox It was in France. It was de Gaulle, not socialists, who Algeria, yes. But Im a little bit skeptical You really are an intellectual superstar to me, so I had to touch you. Sorry, sorry. Interrupting. Im the editor of Progress journal of socialist ideas. Harvard will know it. He needs a shower. It was over there. Who knows here? The guy knows. Im sorry. You know things here. Okay, sir, you know the guy who did The Hero, the Chinese guy? Double Indemnity is not on the market now, no? Being There also, I think, it looks bad, no? Being There, you know, Peter Sellers. It should be Hal Ashby. No, this is too intelligent for me. You know the ape will not get the banana. Fuck it, I dont get it here. Ah. U.S. 70s. Being There. Its a wonderful movie, and look, my anal character. The price is okay, so definitely. What more do I need? Fountain head is the best American movie of all times. Then the best German movie would be Opfergang. This is the sacrificial path, of course,from 44, by Veit Harlan, the Nazi director. So we have Ayn Rand, a Nazi, and then unfortunately, this is a more standard one it is Ivan the Terrible, Eisenstein. I would say these three are the best movies of all times for me. Ah, this one I want, definitely. So we have these two. That will be it, I think. How about if I buy them for you? No, wait a minute. Poor American girl, working class. Who pays for that? Are you serious? Okay, with pleasure.- Ill let you buy No, let it be the eternal secret of my desire. Did I suspect this in advance or not? If you were not to make this offer, I would in the last minute say, Maybe not now. I have too many things to carry. This one is a little expensive, actually: $32. Shut up, or you will get three more. Im so sad that l Wait a minute. What is this? My God, I would love to have so that you will not Its got a special booklet. Where? Which one? Sorry, can I buy this one also? Oh, sorry. Fuck off. What are you working on now, Slavoj? Whats the new book? The mega basically, Ticklish Subject, Part 2. Big, big mega thing. How far along are you? Pretty close to the end. It will be mega. One part philosophy, theology, one part cognitivism Im now deep in brain sciences and one part obscenity, politics, and so on.- Whats it gonna be called?- I dont yet know. Maybe The Parallax View, but I must check it on amazon. Com, see if there are already 20 books named The Parallax View,
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no? I must look into that aspect. What does parallax view mean? Its very simple. It comes as close as possible to what my position is. You know that Its very simple. When you mistakean apparent move You look at an object. It appears that the object itself moves or changes, but in reality, its just that your perspective shifts, no? Like lunar, stellar, whatever, solar, parallax. The idea is, your shift in your subjective position is refined. You perceive it as move in the object. But, of course, then I add another twist that it is in the objectin a way,because object-subjectcan be mediated.So what interests meis precisely this radical cut,like you move from one to another perspective. There is no way to overcome this antinomy. And then I develop this systematically in philosophy,cognitive science.In cognitive sciences,the parallax would have been either you look at your inner experience,or you open the scar,you see the stupid there, brains, no? But you really can not make the jump, and you really can not Even if scientifically you can explain it, you really can not accept that stupid piece of meat that you see. Thats thought. So if we distilled your canon into three books, what would they be? Three of my best books are unfortunately four, I would say. Sublime Object, Tearing with the Negative, Ticklish Subject, and now the new one. This is the serious work Ive done, with little pieces here and there. But this is what I would although Im more and more self-critical of the first one. Its still too liberal. Im for democracy there. Im ashamed, Im very sorry to say. I think there was a thing called totalitarianism, which was bad, and I think there should be pluralism in society. My God, what am I talking there? You know that Marx Brothers joke I would never be a member of a club? You know, if I were not myself, I would arrest myself. I have a very complicated ritual about writing. Its psychologically impossible for me to sit down, so I have to trick myself. I operate a very simple strategy which, at least with me, it works. I put down ideas, but I put them down usually in a relatively elaborate way, like the line of thought already written in full sentences. So up to a certain point, Im telling myself, No,Im not yet writing. Im just putting down ideas. Then, at a certain point, I tell myself, Everything is already there. Now I just have to edit it. So thats the idea, to split it into two. I put down notes, I edit it. Writing disappears.Im sorry. Please. Just be loud enough. Good question, but not in the sense that now I will say, Im modest, so nice. No, its much more serious phenomenon. Lets be quite frank. At a certain superficial level, I am relatively popular, but me and my friends, I dont think you can maybe you can even imagine how noninfluential are we within the academia, which is why it pisses me off how many, whoever they are the enemies portray us Lacaniansas some kind of a phalogocentric power discourse. Its very fashionable to paint usas kind of a dogmatic power discourse. For example, yesterday, when I delivered a differently improvised version of the same talk at Columbia in
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New York, a lady kindly towards the end asked me But why Her problem was, why am I so dogmatically Lacanian. Which belief? Perfect. Perfect question. Okay, I defy you with a very simple empirical, in the best AngloSaxontradition, question. Apart from this brief conflict between Gayatri Spivakand Derrida,could you name me one Derridian who made a small critical remark on Derrida? Rudolph Gasche? Avital Ronell? Name somewhere,but name me one. Why are we dogmatic? Why are they not? Name me one point where Sam Weber makes an ironic critical remark on Derrida. Name me one point where Avital Ronell does it. Name me one point where Rudolph Gasche does it. So why are we Why is my Why am I dogmatically attached to Lacan, and its not Why did you think this is disavowed belief? I am a Lacanian. You are knocking on the open door. You dont have to prove to some deconstructive analysis, But hes a Lacanian. I am a card-carrying Lacanian. Something is going on here, and I just wanted to draw the attention to this, how all this popular, and I think so to give you now the true answer.I think that I admit it. There is a clownish aspect to me, like they put it in New York Times,Marx Brother, or whatever. All that, I maybe flirt with it. But nonetheless, Im getting tired of it,because I notice that there is, as it were, when there are some stupid reports on me, reactions to me, a kind of a terrible urge, comparison, to make me appear as a kind of a funny man. And the true question would be, where does this urge come from? Why is there this necessity to portray me as somebody who can only thrive through jokes? And even my publishers buy it. You know that my Lenin book introduction of Lenins was almost turned down by Verso? Why? First, they always, at Verso, gave kinks at me Oh, you are just making jokes, then I told them, Okay, now you have a book, Lenins text, Their reproach was, So, you know, much more than it may appear is going on here. Its quite a complex phenomenon. Im almost tempted to say that making me popular is a resistance against taking me serious. And I think its my duty, for this reason, to do a kind of a public suicide of myself as a popular comedian or whatever. Lets hope we can enter here. I dont know how this functions now. This is it. Here you should do your Hitchcockian shot like from Vertigo. I saw two, three times that I came here, because when it was still open, you took there the elevator to the top. And often I saw here some policemen are cordoned off,and an object here, covered. Because you will immediately see what l if you take the shot up. Thats it. From up there, it was practical to jump down, no? Go up, you jump down, and its kind of a nice, modest, ethical suicide. Its not this spectacle that on the street, you embarrass other people. You go here, and you jump down. Of course, my idea was to organize this. You want to kill yourself. We organize it. We prevent so that we guarantee that no small will be here. I even have the idea that, the
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way they do it in this society of biopolitics, as Foucault would have put it, where they ask you In order to get married: you dont have AIDS, youre mentally stable. Obviously, doesnt work, because if it were to work, I would never be allowed to get married. But they should do it the same like if you want to kill yourself, no? I was thinking about it. I think that only people some medical or psychiatricadvisory committee, team, should decide is it a case of a true metaphysical suicide, or just a short crisis, like you were just dropped by your girlfriend or boyfriend, and there is a reasonable hope that its a momentary depression, then, in two or three weeks, it will be over. So it can be medical crisis. it can be this kind of psychological crisis,or pure metaphysical suicide. As a Marxist, if somebody tells me that Lacan is difficult, this is class propaganda by the enemy. I never thought Id have this much fun talking about this.

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9 comments
Comments feed for this article May 28, 2010 at 9:09 am Letha Newman

Hehe Im honestly the only comment to this amazing writing. Reply May 29, 2010 at 11:23 pm Eleanor Stevenson

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If I had a nickel for every time I came here.. Incredible post! Reply December 11, 2011 at 4:29 pm Daniel Marton

Lets say you have a good old-fashioned father. Its sunday afternoon, you have to visit grandma. The father oldfashioned, totalitarian father will tell you: Listen! I dont care how you feel if you are a small kid, of course You have to go to grandma and behave there properly. Thats good. You can resist, nothing is broken. But lets say you have this so-called tolerant post-modern father! What he will tell you is the following: You know how much your grandmother loves you, but nonetheless, you should only visit her if you really want to. Now every child who is not an idiot and they are not idiots! knows that this apparent free choice secretly contains an even stronger order: You not only have to visit grandma and behave properly, but you also have to like it. Reply December 11, 2011 at 4:31 pm Daniel Marton

The duty of philosophy is not to solve problems, but to redefine problems! To show how what we experience is a problem is a false problem. If it is a true problem, then we dont need philosophy.
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For example: lets say that now there would be a deadly virus coming from outer space so not in any way mediated through our human history and it would threaten all of us. Basically, we dont need philosophy there. We need good science to stop this virus. We dont need philosophy, because the threat is real. You cannot play philosophical tricks and say no, this is not a threat, or You know what I mean? [...] The threat is there. You can see it. Reply December 11, 2011 at 4:33 pm Daniel Marton

You are free to delete these comments and paste them into the appropriate sections of the transcript. Reply December 11, 2011 at 5:06 pm Daniel Marton

The duty of philosophy is not to solve problems, but to redefine problems! To show how what we experience is a problem is a false problem. If it is a true problem, then we dont need philosophy. For example, lets say that now there would be a deadly virus coming from outer space so not in any way mediated through our human history and it would threaten all of us. Basically, we dont need philosophy there. We need good science to stop this virus. We dont need philosophy, because the threat is real. You cannot play philosophical tricks and say no, this is not a threat, or whatever. You know what I mean? The threat is there. You can see it.
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threat, or whatever. You know what I mean? The threat is there. You can see it. I dont think philosophers ever provided answers, but I think this was the greatness of philosophy No! Not in this common sense, that philosophers just keep asking questions, and so on. I mean, what is philosophy? Philosophy is not what some people think: some crazy exercise in absolute truth, and then you can adopt, you know, this sceptical attitude: We true scientists are dealing with actual, measurable, solvable problems while philosophers just ask stupid metaphisical questions, play with absolute truth which we all know is inaccessible! No! I think philosophy is a very modest discipline. Philosophy asks a different question, the true philosophy. How does the philosopher approach the problem of freedom? Its not Are we free or not? or Is there god or not? It asks a simple question, which would be called a hermeneutic question: What does it mean to be free? So this is what philosophy basically does. It just asks: when we use certain notions, when we do certain acts, what is the implicit horizon of understanding? It doesnt ask these stupid ideal questions: Is there truth?. No! The question is: what do you mean when you say this is true? So you can see, its a very modest thing, philosophy is. Philosophers are not the mad men who search for eternal truth, and so on Reply January 16, 2012 at 6:48 pm wnvanravenhorst

I was writing up some quotes from the documentary, and just to check the spelling of some names, I came across this! Brilliant! Thanks so much! Reply February 23, 2012 at 3:10 am
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doubanhu

Thank you for your interest. I offer one tip for you. Go to websites that provide movie subtitles, extract the text from subtitle files. Thats how I got the transcript. Reply May 31, 2012 at 6:16 pm everdrunk

How do we create a better illusions people? We need a new virtual reality which is more real in order to shield ourselves from the fear of death and the fear of life. Phylosophy is too weak. Sensual pleasures have palled. Computer games are too unrealistic. Drugs can kill. Wheres the next great illusion? Something as powerful as religion. Reply

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