What would be my...
how should I call it,
spontaneous attitude
towards the universe?
It's 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,
it's 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 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 it's
just not nothing...
Things are out there.
It means something
went terribly wrong...
that what we call creation
is a kind of a cosmic imbalance,
cosmic catastrophe,
that things exist by mistake.
And I'm 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.
It's called love.
Isn't love precisely this kind
of a cosmic imbalance?
I was always disgusted
with this notion
of "I love the world,"
universal love.
I don't like the world.
I don't know how...
Basically, I'm somewhere
in between "I hate the world"
or "I'm indifferent towards it. "
But the whole of reality,
it's just it.
It's stupid. It is out there.
I don't 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 it's, 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 today's 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
it's 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 wasn't 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 accepts it.
The Stalinist leader
applauds himself.
The message being
"It's not at me.
I'm just your tool. We are all
just serving history. "
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,
"You know, but nonetheless,
I'm basically like you.
I like small pleasures of life.
I'm human like you.
I'm not human.
I'm a monster, I claim.
It's not that I have a mask
of a theoretician,
and beneath,
I'm a warm, human person.
I like chocolate cake,
I like this, I like that,
which makes me human.
I'd rather prefer myself
as somebody who,
not to offend others,
pretends... plays
that he's human.
You come in?
I hid it, of course.
It means "Welcome to welfare,"
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?
Isn't it a crazy combination?
You have this,
and then you have...
The clothes are here.
But it's not only clothes.
It's more.
It's also...
how do you call it?...
covers, sheets for the...
No, no. Everything is here.
Here. Isn't 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.
- Oh, this is...
- Do you keep everything?
I am narcissist here.
Yes, I keep everything.
- Do you keep...
- What is this doing here?
This should go elsewhere.
I'm sorry. I just...
I'll 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.
Let's see what's 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 don't 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.
"Listen, we all know
that your I.Q. Is twice as all
of us others combined,
but nonetheless, could you
let us a little bit to talk?"
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.
"IDEOLOG Y"
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. That's it.
French politics, revolutionary:
s**t should disappear
as soon as possible.
Anglo-Saxon/American:
Let's be pragmatic.
German metaphysic poetry, inspection:
You inspect,
you reflect on your s**t.
So isn't it totally crazy
that in a vulgar,
common phenomenon like that
you find certain differences
which you truly cannot account
in any functional terms,
but you have to evoke all this.
I mean, you claim,
"Okay, I'm out of ideology
at a conference
post-ideological era. "
Then you go to the toilet,
produce s**t.
You are up to your s**t,
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 it's 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, I'm 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 don't 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 said
something like,
"If we accept
the metaphysical notion
of language identifying
clearly objects,
and taking all this into account,
then may we not"...
she likes to put it
in this rhetorical way...
"... reach the hypothesis that,
in the conditions
of our language game,
this can be said to be
a bottle of tea?"
So it's always this need
to distanciate.
It goes even for love,
like nobody almost dares
to say today "I love you. "
It has to be,
as a poet would have put it,
"I love you," or some kind
of a distance.
But what's the problem here?
The problem is that...
why this fear?
Because I claim that,
when the ancients
directly said "I love you,"
they meant exactly the same.
All these distanciations
were included.
So it's we today who are afraid
that, if we were to put it
directly, "I love you,"
that it would mean too much.
We believe in it.
You know what I learned
in the high school?
- What?
- English and Russian.
- You know why Russian?
- Why?
It's so disgusting,
the reasoning behind it.
Because all my friends...
most of my friends...
took either French or German
as a second language.
Okay, my idea was, you know,
there was a code word
to superpowers.
Isn't it good to play it safe?
Whoever wins, I will
speak their language.
There were three levels
of dissidents.
The first in theory...
I mean, if you dealt with theory
or whatever or writing.
The first level was,
"Were you allowed to teach?"
This was the first level
of exclusion.
The second level were,
"Are you allowed to publish books?"
The third level was,
"Are you allowed to get a job
at all in your domain?"
And the fourth level is,
you are arrested
or whatever, no?
I was between the second and third.
My God, I was unemployed.
It was humiliating.
I was 27, and my parents
supported me, my God.
Then for two years,
it was that humiliating job
at the central committee.
They knew that I am not
an idiot
and that I will probably succeed.
So they were afraid
that I would simply move abroad
and succeed there.
This would then be bad for...
you know, another victim
who wasn't allowed
to make a career in Slovenia.
So they want me
to vegetate on the margin,
but there in Slovenia.
It was in a way
an intelligent move,
but they didn't know
that the way they did it,
they made it even easier
for me to move abroad.
Give him 7. It's okay.
Oh, sorry.
Okay. "Gracias. "
- This is it.
- Yeah.
- Oh, my God!
- Spectacular.
I thought this would be
some kind of old building
with Peron and...
not Peron, with Borges
and so on.
Oh, yeah. No, it's super-modern.
Oh, my God, I didn't like
the way that guy looked at me.
It's only an idiot coming.
I hate this. Let's move there.
- I really hate this.
- What do you hate?
I hate when...
I think that idiot...
friendly, bright person...
recognized me,
and I hate this,
because then they stare.
They descend on you?
Oh, my God.
Okay, for you.
- To whom do I put it to?
- Flora
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
Did you ever expect this,
to have all these fans?
No, but that's what
I really hate this.
I cannot tell you
how much I hate it.
You don't love it
just 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.
Who's that hysterical woman?
She's 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 documentary
supposed to present
Lacanian theory
to a wide public,
I think for
the second channel
of the French state TV.
What I appreciate
is this inversion...
reversal of the role
between public image and private.
It's this total denigration...
disappearance of this
warm, human person.
This for me is the idea
of ideology.
The central idea
of ideology for me
is not these ideas determine you...
you are a Christian,
you are a Marxist, whatever,
today liberal, I don't know.
But the idea is precisely
that ideological propositions
do not determine us totally.
We cannot be reduced
to 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 me...
and 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 I'm...
I like philosophy
as an anonymous job,
not as this kind of...
look at the way he moves now,
these gestures.
I find this ridiculous.
He emphasizes
"One cannot say all the truth.
It's impossible materially. "
This ridiculous emphasis.
I think it's pure fake,
an empty gesture,
as if he makes a deep point there.
He does not.
I think Lacan,
in a very classical way...
what interests me
are his propositions:
The underlying logic,
not his 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 people
with obscure statements,
but I hate
this kind of approach.
I'm a total
enlightenment person.
I believe in clear statements.
And I'm for Lacan because, again,
I think, to make it very clear,
it's 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, I've just had enough of this.
Now, live from the CN8 Studios,
This is CN8 Nitebeat,
with Barry Nolan.
Jacques Lacan was
a French psychoanalyst.
He makes Freud sound
like a simple Valley girl.
Lacan's theory
of how the self works
is so complicated,
it makes my teeth hurt
to think about it.
Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher
at the University
of Ljubljana, Slovenia...
I think I said this fairly close
to the way it's pronounced...
who has written a book called
The Puppet and The Dwarf.
The book takes a look
at modern Christianity
from the viewpoint
of Lacanian psychoanalysis,
or at least that's
what I think it's about.
Welcome, Mr. Zizek.
Did I say that...
Tell me the right way.
Slavoj Zizek, but again,
I prefer it the wrong way.
It makes me paranoid
if 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.
Let's say you have a good
old-fashioned father.
It's Sunday afternoon.
You have to visit Grandma.
The father would...
old-fashioned totalitarian father...
will tell you, "Listen,
I don't care how you feel"...
if you are a small kid, of course...
"I don't care how you feel.
- You have to go"...
- "You're going. "
"Going Grandmother
and behave there properly. "
- Okay.
- That's good. You can resist.
Nothing is broken.
But let's say you have
the 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...
know that this apparent
free choice
secretly contains an even more
stronger, much stronger order:
"Not only you have
to visit your grandmother,
but you have to like it. "
I'm beginning to like this book
all the more.
That's 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. It's 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, it's pure desperate
strategy of surviving.
- Right.
- How to pass the time
without getting
too nervous without...
and this is easy,
because he eats
and shuts up for 20 minutes
after he eats.
- What does he get nervous about?
- No, I get nervous.
Okay, this will go.
He's perplexed, as you can see.
Now he's narcissistically amused.
It's just to keep him calm,
in a non-demanding state,
so it's eating, it's this,
it's whatever, no?
Or at least negotiating.
Yesterday, he was building
some Lego castles.
He wasn't 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 don't know where,
but it's 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.
It's incredible how you think
it's chaotic, no?
But he's the big wise guy.
He observes.
Here, he's very profane.
He wanted to have a woman
as the boss, the queen.
Then he said,
"But she will be alone.
Why not have two girls?"
This is the two girls talking.
You see, lesbian, progressive,
politically correct, no?
Two lesbians, and...
but I like this one.
Isn't this a beautiful one?
I bought it in Greece.
A kind of a nice old Roman.
Over. Let's 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 don't need philosophy.
For example, let's 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 don't 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 don't 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.
It's simply our life would be...
or okay, the more vulgar, even,
simpler science fiction
scenario.
It's kind of "Armageddon"
or whatever.
No, "Deep Impact. "
A big comet threatening
to hit Earth.
You don't need philosophy here.
You need... I don't know.
To be a little bit naive,
I don't know.
Strong atomic bombs
to explode, maybe.
I think it's maybe too utopian.
But you know what I mean.
I mean the threat is there,
you see.
In such a situation,
you don't need philosophy.
I don't 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.
Philosophers just ask stupid metaphysical
questions and so on,
play with absolute truths,
which we all know
is inaccessible.
No, I think philosophy's
a very modest discipline.
Philosophy asks
a different question,
the true philosophy.
How does a philosopher approach
the problem of freedom?
It's 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 doesn't 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, it's a very
modest thing, philosophy.
Philosophers are not the madmen
who search for some eternal truth.
What we encounter here, I think,
is precisely Lacan's reversal
of the famous Dostoyevsky model,
"If God doesn't exist,
everything is permitted.
If God doesn't exist,
everything is prohibited. "
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 cannot eat fat,
you cannot have coffee,
you cannot have nothing
precisely in order to enjoy.
So today's 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, it's something
much more paradoxical.
It's 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 don't know if you can buy it
also here in New York...
is chocolate laxative.
And there it says
as a propaganda,
"Do you have still constipation?
Eat more of this chocolate. "
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 cannot 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 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 don't notice
that there is nothing.
Well?
- Okay. You also, you also.
- Go ahead.
One of the big reproaches
to psychoanalysis
is that it's 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 whatnot
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 it's not just
that most of us, as normal,
we socialize ourself normally.
Some idiots didn't 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 it's only through
the strict psychoanalytic
Lacanian notion of fantasy
that we can really grasp
what Marx was aiming at
with his notion
of commodity fetishism.
It's, 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
today's 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 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.
- They are not bad.
- They are all vegetarian.
Sorry?
Degenerate.
You'll turn into monkeys.
There is a table free here
if you want to be
absolutely opportunist.
Aqua Congas.
- Aqua Congas?
- Yeah.
Why shouldn't I order?
Could you put it there?
Thank you.
No, I mean, where to put it.
- You want to show it?
- Yeah.
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.
s**t, what do I know?
Some people expect...
You feel like that's what
that audience was looking for.
- Specifically?
- No.
It's a simple
common sense insight:
Wait a minute. 2,000 people...
although I think
they exaggerated...
whatever, thousand people
cannot all have
the same interest in Lacan
as I do, no?
- Can I ask you a simple question?
- What?
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,
it's even worse.
It's 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 it's a fake.
- What?
Not in the sense
that I'm faking,
that I don't mean it,
but my heart is not in it.
The book that I really
enjoyed writing
was the one on Hegel...
sorry, on Schelling.
- "Ticklish Subjects. "
- Right.
And that part of the message
doesn't get through.
You can immediately see also
in the way it...
For example, of my last books,
the one that I really loved,
"The Opera's Second Death. "
That one is doing
very modestly, nothing.
But that's what I love.
No, we didn't yet, no?
I'll tell you...
Wait a minute.
Is this just drinks?
First you should look here,
the Venice.
You have calarinas,
filet Milanese,
ensalada csar.
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.
That's the only fun.
Has it ever worked?
- Yeah.
- Really?
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 very form of sarcasm.
It's the form of the joke
which masks the effect
that I'm serious.
But people still have this idea
that this guy did some big crimes.
No.
Of course it's not
as simple as that
that I'm simply a Stalinist.
It would be crazy,
tasteless, and so on.
But...
obviously, there is
something in it
that it's not simply a joke.
When I say the only chance
that the left appropriate fascism,
it's 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 don't think
this is inherently fascist.
Often, friends tell me,
"But why do you provoke
people unnecessarily?
Why don't you simply
say what you mean,
that, of course,
you are against fascism?"
I tell them,
"Yes, this is good
as an abstract theoretical"...
not even theoretical...
intellectual, whatever, statement.
But it doesn't work like that.
For example,
concerning Stalinism,
my God, I've probably
written more about Stalinism,
about its most horrible
aspects,
than most of the people
who reproach me with Stalinism.
And that's my wager here,
that sorry, the only way
to get the message
If you say, "Of course
I'm against fascism.
There are just some attitudes
which were traditional
even more to the left,
but fascism appropriated them,"
I think it doesn't 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 don't I
give you a massage with some oil?"
I enjoyed it,
but I felt so obscene,
as if I paid for masturbation.
- Masturbating is so obscene.
- It is a little bit.
But it was relaxing. It is nice.
- Really?
- But it's 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 you're not here.
But they wait for us,
you see?
Yeah, they didn't
start without you.
They were waiting for us.
Let's start as soon as possible.
Let's go in.
The majority of academics
who are obsessed
with this idea
"The left needs a new answer":
Isn't it basically
"We want a radical revolution,
but at the same time,
we want our relatively
prosperous lives
to go on undisturbed"?
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?
Isn't 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,
we'll have socialism," and so on?
I'm too stupid.
I don't understand.
- I'm sorry.
- I really wanted you to read this.
Thank you very much.
Again, I have to accept this,
again, almost Lacanian
decenterment of subjectivity,
which is that
"I stand for something,
but I don't really master...
dominate what I stand for. "
People see things in me.
They have some expectations.
There may be political
expectations
that I will provide the formula,
the big question that everybody's
expecting today
from a leftist intellectual...
"What should we do?"...
or 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
"It's all a big misunderstanding,
they're missing my big point,"
but my duty's 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...
- Got out of Algeria.
- Sorry?
Algeria, yes.
But I'm a little bit skeptical...
You really are an intellectual
superstar to me,
so I had to touch you.
Sorry, sorry. Interrupting.
I'm the editor of #Progress. #
- Of?
- "Progress,"
journal of socialist ideas.
Harvard will know it.
- I brought you a copy.
- Perfect.
- I was really impressed.
- Be serious. I was bluffing.
He needs a shower.
It was over there.
Who knows here?
The guy knows.
I'm 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.
f**k it, I don't get it here.
Ah. U.S. '70s. "Being There. "
It's a wonderful movie,
and look, my anal character.
The price is okay,
so definitely.
What more do I need?
"Fountainhead" 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?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- I will reimburse.
- Okay, with pleasure.
- I'll 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.
I'm so sad that I...
Wait a minute.
What is this?
My God, I would love to have
so that you will not...
- Let me buy this...
- It's got a special booklet.
Where? Which one?
Sorry, can I buy this one also?
Oh, sorry. f**k off.
What are you working on
now, Slavoj?
What's 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...
I'm now deep in brain sciences...
and one part obscenity,
politics, and so on.
- What's it gonna be called?
- I don't 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," no?
I must look into that aspect.
What does parallax view mean?
It's very simple.
It comes as close as possible
to what my position is.
You know that...
It's very simple.
When you mistake
an apparent move...
You look at an object.
It appears that the object itself
moves or changes,
but in reality, it's 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 object
in a way,
because object-subject
can be mediated.
So what interests me
is 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 cannot
make the jump,
and you really cannot...
Even if scientifically
you can explain it,
you really cannot accept
that stupid piece of meat
that you see.
That's 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 I've done,
with little pieces
here and there.
But this is what I would...
although I'm more and more
self-critical of the first one.
It's still too liberal.
I'm for democracy there.
I'm ashamed, I'm 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.
It's 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,
I'm telling myself, "No,
I'm not yet writing.
I'm just putting down ideas. "
Then, at a certain point,
I tell myself, "Everything
is already there.
Now I just have to edit it. "
So that's the idea,
to split it into two.
I put down notes, I edit it.
Writing disappears.
I'm sorry. Please.
Just be loud enough.
Good question,
but not in the sense
that now I will say,
"I'm modest, so nice. "
No, it's much more serious
phenomenon.
Let's be quite frank.
At a certain superficial level,
I am relatively popular,
but me and my friends,
I don't 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 Lacanians
as some kind of a phalogocentric
power discourse.
It's very fashionable
to paint us
as kind of a dogmatic
power discourse.
For example, yesterday,
when I delivered
a differently improvised version
of the same talk
at Columbia in 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 Anglo-Saxon
tradition, question.
Apart from this brief conflict
between Gayatri Spivak
and 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 it's not...
Why did you think
this is disavowed belief?
I am a Lacanian.
You are knocking
on the open door.
You don't have to prove
to some deconstructive analysis,
"But he's 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,
I'm 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 Lenin's...
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, Lenin's text,"
Their reproach was,
"Where are the jokes?
Nobody will buy the book. "
So, you know, much more
than it may appear
is going on here.
It's quite a complex phenomenon.
I'm almost tempted to say
that making me popular
is a resistance against
taking me serious.
And I think it's my duty,
for this reason,
to do a kind
of a public suicide
of myself as a popular comedian
or whatever.
Let's hope we can enter here.
I don't 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 I...
if you take the shot up.
That's it.
From up there, it was practical
to jump down, no?
Go up, you jump down,
and it's kind of a nice,
modest, ethical suicide.
It's 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...
$5.00, no small children
will be here.
I even have the idea that,
the 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 don't have AIDS,
you're mentally stable.
Obviously, doesn't 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 psychiatric
advisory 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 it's 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 I'd have
this much fun talking about this.
- Thank you.
- Have a great weekend. Take care.