YouSaid · the spoken record

Slavoj Žižek

lines on the record: 82
first: 2020-01-08
most recent: 2020-01-08
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“You see him how evil he is. He interrupted me exactly at this pessimist point, you know. And then he stiffered and brutally with his fascist boots oppressed the good message that I wanted to finish it. Thank you very much.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Are you Fukuyama a little bit more efficient system? Do you want all social democratic welfare? Do you want old-style communism? And I will be very critical leftist. I'm the first one to admit that the left doesn't have, I don't, I'm not talking about legalistic details, but a general vision of a future society. I don't see. Thank you very much.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Majority because poor are getting poorer and so on and so on. Is there a political party talking for them but not in this traditional Marxist way doesn't work? But, you know, because so many in United States politically correct people, you can see that their political correctness quite often has a secret class bias. They don't say it, but politically incorrect are the poor primitive people, working class and so on and so on. It's a much more complex situation and I will say now something that you will like, but for this you will get to Gulag for that. The problem is much bigger one. Does the left, I was there in Occupy Wall Street and I was asking them, what do you want? Do you have a project? Many of them just get a vague idea, less corruption, big banks are corrupted. What do you want?”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, first, when you say poor are getting poorer, richer getting richer, but still, you know, Norway is still an ideal for many of us, if I may say this, you know. Like this I got from my good friend Varoufakis, who said, you know, everybody protests austerity and so on. But for us or you in the developed West, austerity means, oh my God, purchase power fell for half a percent and so on. Austerity is what happens in Greece where it fell for thirty percent and so on. What I would say is again Alexandria Ocasio Cortes formula. I'm totally again for all this new feminism and so on, gay rights and so on but don't fall into this gap of cultural politics find a link with the”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A very difficult question because I hope Julian, he doesn't have a TV, cannot watch it, no, because I'm more of a pessimist. We are trying to do what can be done, organize things here and there, but the entire establishment is against him and so on and so on. But nonetheless, there are good signs.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not too much, yes. Because in my ultimate evil, once I did this to a friend of mine, it was very evil, he insisted, let me pay. I said, okay, pay. And he was totally desperate. He had to claim, oh, I forgot my credit card. But what I'm saying, isn't this something wonderful? This specific human communication, you make an offer, a gesture, which is expected to be rejected. But nonetheless, it has to be made. And all our communication is like this. Like you walk on the street, you stumble upon a friend and you tell him, oh, nice to see you, how are you doing? Usually this is a total lie. You are thinking, why didn't I seek him five seconds before to cross? You know, and for this we need, I'm asking your question, I'm not lost. For this, we need idiots. There is no civilization. Without this idiot.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“About it. How you know this, I call them sincere hypocrisies. For example, I don't know how you do this here, but in my country, let's say, I'm sorry, it's my old story, some of you may know it, let's say, but we are, I don't know, let's say you are a millionaire, I'm a poor guy. You invite me to dinner. The bill to a restaurant. The bill arrives. In my country, it's absolutely crucial to go through this empty ritual. At the end, the bill arrives. We both know that you will pay. But I have to insist a little bit. No, let's at least share it.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Incredibly complex, but it was a mixture of tracking the person that he's not corrupted with lottery, with lot. So if on the other hand, you know, he is not yours, but you were once their colony. I mean, Denmark, no. Kierkegaard also was well aware of this, you know. I wrote in a biography of how to pronounce it correctly, Kierkegaard. Okay, we in the corrupted way. He was, I think, a Retna once called by the king and like what lessons should I learn? And he expected some deep theological philosophical wisdom career. No, you must learn how to be polite, how to say polite, platitudes, and so on and so on. I believe in empty manners. All our humanity is based on empty manners. And this is what absolutely fascinates me. I've written a lot.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Up to a point? Yes, very good question. I would refer here to my Japanese friend, very intelligent, read him. His books are translated most of them into English, causing karatani. And he's provocative. But he said, now the passage from bourgeois to proletarian democracy, I quote him, is the passage from voting to lottery, you know, that there must be a dimension of lottery chance and so on to prevent expert rule and so on. So I believe that in every whatever we call it, more authentic democracy and so on, an element of chance is needed. And that's why from ancient Greece to Venice, which was not exactly democratic, but nonetheless, they were also obsessed with lottery. How did was the how do you call the boss?”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm sorry, I'm very sorry. Yes, I will go into my Buddhist mode. You know this bullshit like clap with one hand, listen to my silence or whatever. Please, sorry.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And the party officials used the same language, attacking it. That's what made my identity. Through the French experience, but I'm sorry if I disappointed you, but again, my point is this one, simply, that we are approaching problems, catastrophic potentials, and it will not be able to deal with it within the liberal democratic capitalist system. That's my foundation, very simple one.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A short text of mine, the East European Republic of Gilead, reference to Margaret Edward's handmaid's tale, where it was clear to me that predicted their explicitly death European post-communism will take this nationalist fundamentalist turn and so on and so on. So again, it's not that I ever was a traditional Marxist because you know what was my formative experience. I remember when I was a young student, the big conflict in Slovenia was between Marxist, Frankfurt School and Hedegarians. Hedegarians more dissidents, Frankfurt School Official Marxist, then the big French wave exploded, so-called structuralism, post-structuralism, and both sides.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Outside the Western tradition. So again, so that I don't get lost, it's not that once I was a traditional authentic communist, but I was very lucky in Yugoslavia. You know why? Because I don't have any illusions about ex-Yugoslavia. I'm not nostalgic. But you know what was our luck? From early 60s, borders were maybe for literally 20 dissidents, but other side were completely open. As a student, late 60s, I was going once, at least every two months, if not more often, by train to London, Paris or Munich to buy books and so on. So for us in ex-Yugoslavia, the end of communism was not this dramatic experience. Oh my God, now we know what it is. No, we were there all the time going to the West, no illusions. And maybe this was my luck, that I had no illusions about Yugoslav, communism. I didn't buy the stupidity of some Western communism.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In very simplistic common sense terms. That's why I'm so distrustful about this usual liberal optimism. Like, you know, of course all my sympathy goes with, for example, refugees, but don't turn it into a humanitarian problem, but not in this politically correct way. Western people like to from developed countries like to blame themselves. Like, yeah, yeah, whatever happens in third world, it's colonialism, we are guilty, and so on. No, we are not responsible because what one should never forget here, I'm still, I'm sorry to disappoint you, staunchly pro-European enlightenment tradition. Even political correctness itself is, I think, misdirected application of something that is part of European tradition of enlightenment. You cannot even, I think, imagine something like political correctness.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With you that all these problems reappeared only now we are discovering all the ecological catastrophes go to East Germany whole areas are there totally contaminated go to parts of the Soviet Union which are even now prohibited and so on and so on but to put it very simply you know I was never naively pro-communist. My diploma work in this was early 70s late 60s was rejected by university these were still communist time as not Marxist this may surprise many of you but you know that I began as a Heideggerian my first book was on Heidegger and language in Slovene no I don't today I would settle accounts with the book in Nazi style burn it you know but what I'm saying is that this is to put it”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think I implicitly, maybe I failed, answered this in my whatever you call it, bombastic word speech talk or whatever, that it's simply the big dilemma is for me this one. It's still, again, as I said, the Fukuyama dilemma. We are confronting a series of problems today. Among them, not only global migrations, the new forms of dominations based on digital universe, ecology and so on and so on. Is the existing liberal democratic capitalist strong enough to cope with these problems or not? And my answer is unfortunately no. I'm not saying now that this means anything go, let's reinvent, let's return to 20th century communism. I'm totally agree.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, it's a mega difficult question. Just to explain to you, you know what Rebecca Komei incidentally, here I am a sincere, not politically correct feminist. I'm organizing next October New York a big Hegel conference. The majority will be women. And I already brutally apologize to people. No, no, I'm not politically correct, feminist. It's simply that the best Hegelian statist come from women today. So, okay, held in paragraph, you know this passage from Hilderlin, the general romantic poem all that I'm quoted by Hidegger Wodas Gefaris, Wex das Retende Aux, where the danger is the greatest, the point of salvation is also near and so on.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Usually some military contract, or if the private hobby and so on. So what I advise you, if you are here at the university is, don't believe in this mantra of you are here bourgeois spending money, hard-earned workers money and so on, be more useful. No, what's great about university is they are not useful in the immediate sense. That's what we should expect from you academics. All great things, again, to use the guy whom you mentioned this morning, John Elster. Yes. He has wonderful term years ago of states which are necessary a byproduct. It just comes, you cannot plan it. Academia should be a place for this. Last video question, please.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Years ago he went for a weekend to Volkswagen top manager and explained them, you know, this bullshit, what's going on today, postmodernity, the situation and so on. And God, I didn't ask. So what I'm saying is that this reminds me in an uncanny way to the worst years in ex-Yugoslavia 70s of the communist oppression. This focus on also human sciences has to work for society, experts, solve problems. No, we don't need that today. We need precisely academia, humanities in their useless character. Also in sciences, I think if you look closely, isn't it that practically all big inventions, as far as I can judge, emerge either in a totally contingent external way?”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Labour Party, more than Tecker, began this in England. My friend philosopher are telling me you got labour representatives coming to universities, philosophy department. Let's say we will give you more money, but we will just make it if you get some money from private companies and so on and so on. But what I like about today is, I think, this is certainly not a traditional leftist idea that what's good about academia is precisely that it's a space with no concrete attachment to any needs of society. You can go crazy, you can freely debate and so on and so on. And this is more and more difficult today, even in Germany they are telling me. My good friend, conservative, but bright Peter Slotterdike. He told me to get more money, you know what he likes to do? Business weekend.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So on. On the other hand, I must say what makes me so depressive and the United States are big enough are not the worst, but especially UK, I don't know how it is here. It's this pragmatic turn of philosophy has to serve concrete social needs.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Do you want financial support and so on and so on? Then we got democracy 1990. The first thing that the city town council, whatever, dominated by conservatives, is abolish all half to this gay organization. So in some paradoxical sense, it was a golden era, I would say, the second half, but I don't have any illusions. It's not that communists were good. But communists in power knew they were fighting for survival. This is incidentally also how I read the explosion of nationalism. Milosevic got this. Communist nomenclatura had the problem. Democracy is coming. How to regain some type of democratic legitimacy without cancelling themselves as nomenclatura. The answer obvious was paint yourself as a defender of national interest and so on, nationalism.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a very nice question, and again, you will accuse me of nostalgia, but I would say in the last decade, 1980s, Yugoslavia was better. You know why? There was not yet a total economic fiasco, and that was the beauty. From 1980 at least, maybe 82, the ruling nomenclatura were already preparing for the fiasco. So actually, I think that some of the governments in different republics were pretty good. You know why? Because they knew they don't have democratic legitimacy. So they tried to do to learn some legitimacy. Think, for example, a very sad story. In mid-80s or 67, gay organization formed itself in Slovenia. Immediately a delegate from Central Committee came there. Yes, you are progressive.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“did this not just as a good direction if you are a dogmatic Marxist you can show that Lenin totally overturned Marx and so on in this sense Lenin was not the one of the fidelity to Marx he pretended to be but you know how religious revolutions also work all great revolution proclaims itself return to origins Martin Luther the greatest religion oh we just want to return to the original Bible and so on so no I think again that with all objective study and so on see the good bad sides but the 20th century communism was ultimately a failure an absolute failure”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In any sense the return to it. So my idea, unfortunately I'm here maybe a little bit more, let's call it pessimist. I really think and incidentally in this metaphor of returning to zero level, I quote Lenin, who wrote in 21-22, a wonderful text where he said nothing worked. Then he said, it's not that we should stabilize our achievements, but we should return to the zero level, begin from nowhere. And quoting data which also you mentioned, the horrible fact that the only livable communism today, communism in the formal sense, the Chinese one, means ecological problems, more digital control and so on and so on. We have to begin in some sense from the zero.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“spirit isn't it clear that in 1917 it was a total mess Lenin often didn't know what to do some even liberal communists praised his state and revolution but what he says there is something that he immediately abandoned then what interests me is especially Lenin in 2122 and this was the big failure of the October revolution they won the civil war and then it would have been my moment okay now it's everyday life invent new forms if you can they fail but Lenin was at least the one who he said openly our situation is totally desperate we don't have any formula he didn't have any trust in the future he he saw this total openness that's what fascinates me but I'm not preaching”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Again, another two hours answer question. What I would say is that first, I didn't, Michael, I'm not crazy. I didn't edit collected works of Lenin. I haven't read them never. What interested me is Lenin at a very precise moment, what fascinates me in Lenin, and I said this in both of my introductions to some texts that first Lenin's time is over. I don't play the boring Trotsky game of this crazy dream. Oh, if only Lenin were to survive two years longer, he would have made it packed with Trotsky, Stalin would be sidestepped, and so on. No, the deadlock was there from the beginning. And maybe that's what we need today, is this totally pragmatic voluntary...”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“His theory of commodity fetishism. It's not simply we believe in fetishism. No, Marxist theory is that we, bourgeois subjects in our actual life, we are usually pragmatic Anglo-Saxon utilitarians, the fetishist inversion is in how we act our reality structure. Marx has a wonderful theory where it's not this enlightenment vision, you know, we dream illusions, the other thing is...”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They are all my friends. I know who will be, so on the other hand, these are difficult theoretical questions. We need another two hours. I would just say that, yes, I agree with, I cannot go into it now with Adrian's point how the relationship between ideology, economic infrastructural change, and so on and so on. But all I can do now is point out what he knows and most of us know, that already in March, and that's one of the critical points, that we need to read March, what I really admire in March, because it's not what you idiots, not you personally, but think.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will tell you a story, very brief one. Don't be afraid, low time. That's what I like. I hope you will like this. My favorite passage in Marx is, maybe you know it, 1870 Paris Commune. There was a dream that maybe there will be a European revolution. And Marx wrote a letter to Engels. I love him for that, where he says, oh my God, they want a revolution now, but I haven't yet finished the capital. Not now. I have to finish my book. That's the true spirit.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But don't you suspect me? I still have zero seconds. But don't you suspect me? How come that you don't have, don't you trust me, that fear that now I'm talking soft, but if I get too close to power, you will see the style inside of me. You don't suspect me of really being a bad guy. You trust me.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The third version that you will like, I hope, is while Crayon and Antigone are fighting. The chorus steps over, said you are both traitors ruling the city, you should both be liquidated and they establish a kind of Jacobin terror and they're both liquidated. Nobody likes this.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of Tibet, the city is in ruin, and at the end of the second version, she walks desperate in the city and cries like that famous hitline of Antigone. I was created for love, not for war, death. And the chorus answers her, fuck you bitch, but that's what you created. Then comes the third verse.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I love that one. You know what I did? I took it precisely alternate scenario. I took, and you will not like the third version. I took Antigone. But you should like it because it's very pragmatic. I took first its pure alternate logic like Kislovsky's film and that Lola runs and so on. First, I took the way the story you have in Sophocles, which incidentally is not the original story, the original Greek myth is totally different. Okay, you know what happens? I will not repeat them. Then, at the moment of her big conflict in the middle of the play with Creon, I play alternate reality. She wins. Creon says, okay, you are right, let's allow the bureaucraial. In my scenario, what happens is that S crayon suspected, there is again a revolt again the traitor, the whole...”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But I will tell you I'm not trying to make chip propaganda for myself, but I did try to practice this, you know, or one of my books, which was not full failure, but close to a failure, my rewriting of Antigone. Did you read that book?”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Equator is too hot for me if I retire. If I retire and I'm not lying to you now, two, three times I've written about it. I won't retire to the part of Norway which is not even Norway. I'm not kidding. I wrote about it. It's my ideal place. Longier Bien Svalbard Island. That's my ideal place. It's half empty, nothing there, and it's very good prospects for survival because you know the joke. It's prohibited to die there.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A friend brought me a cup of coffee, plastic cover. I took the cover off and drank young coffee and put coffee back on the table in two seconds, literally. A guard was there, very gentle, soft, no terror. I just said, please put the cover, plastic cover back on the coffee. I asked afterwards. I didn't want to cause problems there. Why? They told me you were sitting opposite a song an evil man. It was for my own good they told me they wanted to block the possibility that evil men like A Sons will grab the boiling coffee and threw it into my face and so on.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But not the usual notion of femininity promoted by the media today, holistic dialogue. No, no, no. She is quite dogmatic in system. That's what we need today. And I don't need anything more. Okay, we can debate the name, but I think that what she is doing is definitely communists today for me, Greta Thunberg, Asongs, and so on. Incidentally, do you know the story? I must repeat it to you. I hope all of you don't know it when I visited him two weeks ago in prison. It's wonderful. I couldn't believe it. I'm sorry, some of you know it. I was sitting close to him like this in open space at the table.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's not ironic. There's got some complicated theory. Fully. You know why I know, forget about Ms. Carlson is a communist. But you know what I like about Greta Thunberg? First, you remember some media in Europe tried to blame her parents, you know. They are manipulating her. My answer was, I hope they do. I hope. Why shouldn't we, the left also manipulate? But what I like is precisely I didn't like her at the beginning, you remember, when she played that innocent girl who is telling us that the emperor is naked. But did you notice how in the last year old man she has this almost a little bit of diabolic aggressive smile? I like the mean Greta Thunberg. I don't like the good innocent girl and I also refer to her, you know, for me she is deeply fan.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Her idea was this one. Bernie Sanders can get us, we don't need center Democrats are obsessed if you go to match the left, we lose these centers and so on. Trump did exactly the opposite. I think the target of the Democratic Party should be those impoverished white half-unemployed workers who otherwise would have voted for Trump, not those middle of the road and so on and so on. Trump is a genius here, how he broke all the rules and so on. Because do you remember how often in his campaign when he said something, I know preposterous, horrible, liberal press said, oh, Trump just showed himself he's over and so on. No, it's not over. Trump proved that sometimes the only way to majority is through extremes. It's not always that center works.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Against Bernie Sanders. Sure. That's why I admire Alessandria Ocasio-Cortez who said something very ingenious. You must have read it, who said recently endorsing Bernie Sanders, I endorsed him not in spite of him being an old white man, but because.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Maybe years of cope. We don't have time to quit, but let me be specific. Democrats who go for identity politics, already Hillary tried this against Donald Trump.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Here and now we touch the true problem. Sorry, now I'm not losing time. You know where I am a pessimist? Some of my liberal friends tell me, oh, she's so much with full political liberalization, they would have achieved even more, I doubt it.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But what's then your problem with China? Because do you know you must know that at the beginning of his reforms Deng Xiaoping came to Singapore, everywhere there they saw it and said Singapore should be a model for”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But what made it, is it kind of one incidental conjunction? That was, I would have maybe said about Singapore of this Chinese proclivity to hard work and English legislation or what, there must have been some unique combination there.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let's work for 60, right? Yeah, but on the other hand, my only not criticism of Norway is that you have oil, gas, and so on. Of course. I would like to learn from Norway, but I would like even more if you give me your natural record.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what was so interesting with Leibach? Here you have the complexity of ideological process that all this fear, will they be manipulated by radical right and so on? They never were, whenever they are popular, I know what the right wingers, at least in Europe, are listening. The German version of Leibach, there was some influence. Do you know Ramstein, the group? Links, links, they are left and it's a beautiful, the right thing to do for the left to appropriate this horrible totalitarian sounding stuff and so on and so on. The right wingers that I know, they think beautiful romantic songs, You say, no, no, no, it's not. I know ecology and so on, digital control. Have you any idea what more will be needed? What do you think that the Ecological Party will be elected? I hope so, maybe.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I can tell you from my personal contact with Libach that they don't mean it as an ironic spectacle. They are very serious in their harsh line. That's what I like about them. They are not, don't be afraid, we are not really totalitarians. It's just one big social game and so on and so on. But at a certain point, I didn't want to join them because they wanted me, you probably know, two years ago when they went to...”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They are my friend, my God. I'm with them from late 80s. And now things get complicated there. You know why? Because many leftists who support them are nonetheless afraid. Okay, they are staging totalitarian rituals. What if some people will take it seriously and so on?”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, but again, don't you see where my communism comes seriously? It's precisely, I don't think there is any link with me clinging to the name communism and my nostalgia. Those times I'm well aware were more or less a nightmare, I mean. Listen, one reason against nostalgia is that I was jobless. Although you may know this joke, something wonderful happened. When people ask me which was the key factor for your relative success in the West, I told them communist oppression because I applied for a job when I finished my postdoctoral studies in 1970. I couldn't get the job. And then I was for a couple of years unemployed. I was looking for contacts in the West without communist oppression. I would have been now an un Unknown professor in the city of Ljubljana, Slovenia.”
2020-01-08 · Conversations with Tyler · Slavoj Žižek on His Stubborn Attachment to Communism · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source