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:

Shit should disappear

as soon as possible.

Anglo-Saxon/American:
Let's be pragmatic.

German metaphysic poetry, inspection:

You inspect,
you reflect on your shit.

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 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 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 lmpact."

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.

Shit, 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 c�sar.

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.
Fuck 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 "lvan 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 l...

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. Fuck 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 l...

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.