Superstar Communist Slavoj Zizek is The Most Dangerous Philosopher in the West

ah, now you stopped, now we can say a lot Le Stalin or what and we're not recorded there or slavo gek is a great friendly Slovenian Marxist intellectual who spends as much time yammering on about Batman movies as he does about Hegel, about whom he has written 75 books ,

most

of which remain impenetrable to me, but it is his public appearances, both at conferences and at events like Occupy Wall Street, that have really cemented his position as the

most

popular anti-capitalist

philosopher

today, this is because who, unlike almost all other anti-capitalists, capitalist

philosopher

actually has a sense of humor his latest project is a film The Perverted Guide to Ideology directed by Sophie Fines in Eslava uses Hollywood blockbusters to explain why most Of us remain so captivated by capitalist power structures that we cannot even escape them. while we were sleeping I wanted to know why he was such a sheep so I went to Slovenia to meet the man hello I hate life hello you hate life running away from Seven around one hell of a day well hello it's me okay whatever, so let's go to my house. "There's nothing great when you're in town.

Do you ever get approached by local fans or something? What do you mean by fans? People hate me quite a bit here. I'm not kidding. I wasn't in favor of independent Slovenia. I did it". I don't care about that nor did I have any Yugoslavian nostalgia. Many leftists have it and consider me a traitor. My nostalgia for the old days 40 years ago when I was young. You know, even phones weren't used that much. This was nice because once a day in the morning the mail came and that was it, that was all the communication, yeah, then you know you're free for 24 hours.

I noticed you have Jo St in your this is just so no, I'm not talking about you personally. idiots when they come into the apartment they ask me why you have them it's strictly for this it's just to annoy people absolutely just to annoy people I've read on the cover of your books it's quoted that you're the most

dangerous

philosopher in the

west

You don't seem like that to me very

dangerous

here. I must disappoint you. You know I'm this kind of Joker. I mean Batman's Joker. You know, I laugh, etc., but I can be a Stalinist when, if you give me power.

I know how to use it that's why I'm almost afraid of myself I don't want to be able to I'm extremely sensitive it's beautiful that you arrived on time yes you know that even in love relationships you know what my motto is I quote L when he says that my fiancé is never late for a date because the moment he arrives late he is no longer my fiancé that is the attitude you know what one of my tricks is I like when I give a talk or especially if it is a debate it is good to start on time or even a little earlier because then the People who are on time or 2 minutes late feel a little guilty, do you know why you want them to feel guilty just because they don't ask stupid and annoying questions?

I hate debates. People think that I like to give talks, no, I like to write, if you don't like to give talks, how do you feel about making films? because obviously the guide to ideology for perverts is coming out. Now you touched a very traumatic point. It makes me sick just looking at myself. screen so it's not some kind of extravagance to say I really didn't see I didn't see perverse movie guides or this perverse ideology guide I'm too horrified to look at myself on the screen, ordinary Americans like ordinary people in all countries we have a multitude of fears We fear all kinds of things that we fear, perhaps immigrants or people we perceive as inferior to us who attack and rob us in J by Steven Spielberg, the function of the shark is to unite all these fears so that we can somehow change all these fears for one fear, smile, son of a bitch, why is cinema such a useful tool for you when you are trying to analyze the world?

Basically, the way I talk about film is simply to use it to illustrate where we are today ideologically, how do we experience our lives? Why do we consider it worth fighting for? What is the meaning of our life or a small ritual? You have to look to Hollywood, where you get it in pure, distilled form. Hey friend, are you going to pay for that or what, friend, no. Today I don't want any house, you don't pay for it or return it. Your film begins with a clip of them living John G's movie, which is a great movie if we could put on those glasses.

Yeah, what do you think would happen if everyone in the world suddenly put on the glasses of them living what would it be like the next day would be the end of the ideology I mean, I think I say it, okay, I'll give you an example, a boss Typical doesn't want to be a boss anymore, you know, mhm. imagine this post companies like some digital programming company creative agency a boss comes in jeans hugs you with all the vulgarities you had a good time last night whatever but then he is still a boss, he gives orders anyway, but the social game is that you have to pretend that we are friends and so on in these relationships, the first step towards Liberation is to force him to really behave like a boss, tell him no, no, no comrade, treat me like a boss, give me explicit orders, etc., which I'm sorry, seriously, can I give them? some fruit juice or C.

I love some fruit juice please, yes, Coca-Cola, I see, so the cancer that you have is included here because it's zero, which means that instead of sugar you get all those sugar-coated movies that seem to interest you even though they are very critical. They are like Christopher Noan's movies Batman has become that crazy Batman has returned to Gotham you want order in Gotham Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in oh and every day he doesn't do it people will die starting tonight I think he is a great director I don't think Christopher Noan has a conservative agenda.

He is a liberal. He is a liberal who fears too much commotion. Too much too violent. He says this is the success of Ledger's Joker. It's really a Bush era movie because in the end you have to reaffirm the need for a lie, not like Batman has to take the blame, blah, blah, blah, and it's interesting how the idea of ​​feeding a myth is, yeah, basically, the message is that our societies can only survive through a benevolent lie or whatever makes sense. where you're talking about Taxi Driver, yes, and that was a problematic point, by the way, in the sense that the state secret I don't like Scorsi.

In the movie, you have two SCH movies in the movie, which is the other, uh Last Temptation Of. Christ, yes, but this was because Sophie wanted me to do something about Christianity, blah blah, but my heart wasn't in it. I see you say you don't like school Cy, but I feel like you identify with Travis Pickle, he was on the right path. in a way, Travis in the Taxi Driver you should have the outburst of violence and you should direct it towards yourself, but in a very specific way to what in yourself chains you to the dominant ideology within the film, you seem to use his uh his The Suicide is an example of what people should be doing and people should tear themselves apart violently, ideologies aside, but there are smarter ways to do it, like my favorite example here of Fight Club, you know when he confronts his boss and then it begins. defeating himself, this is a much more painful and shocking scene than if he attacked the boss directly, this is a better example.

I think that if you want to make a critique of ideology, if you really want to liberate yourself, you first have to defeat yourself. Jack's smile Revenge, what the hell are you doing? Ideology is not only the world we live in, but especially the wrong ways we imagine, how to escape from there, precisely when you dream, how to escape from reality, you simply reproduce the same world that I was in in the London riots. and you talk about London and what struck me when I was there reporting on them was how different they were from R.

I've been to Greece or Germany. Yes, every violent behavior is a sign that there is something you are not. capable of putting into practice even the most brutal violence is the staging of a certain symbolic stalemate. I wanted to know if you thought this was an example of the true power of ideology when for one night the superstructure collapsed and people seemed to be allowed to do whatever they wanted, but all they wanted to do was steal more sneakers and consume more. ex, but that's why a lot of leftists hate me and desperately try to redeem the London riots they claim, and I partially very partially agree with what they claim, even if it was just uh uh attacking the supermarket, whatever, though, It was a large-scale blind protest, but where I don't agree with them is that they say you start like that and then you turn it into a proper political movement.

I tell them it's okay, but this second step will never do it. This happens, you know, it's like the Stalinists say, "Okay, now we've got some purges of violence, ghouls," but wait a generation and then we'll have, sorry, that second step will never come if you look at virtually all revolutions, they happen. when things get a little better. A little openness, then expectations explode and they are disappointed, and so on. Look even at Egypt. I'm sorry to tell you that it's horrible to say, but you know that under Mubarak Egyptians probably lived relatively well on average, there was a new middle class and so on. and so on and they, yes, it was the middle class that rose back, yes, and there we also saw in a tragic way the limitation because, uh, the middle class there was no broader popular left to connect with, I think some people in Egypt seem to assume that because of this kind of changing situation, all revolutions have become useless.

I wonder if they think it's some kind of seed of something more revolutionary that has been sown in the long term. Yes, because I know that I am not a total pessimist, it is not simply that we return to the Mubarak era. Something happened, to put it in pathetic terms. Civil society woke up, you have a whole network of unions, women, organized intellectuals, society, secular social life, nor a corrupt industrial army. complex nor the Muslim Brotherhood woke up and this is something that you know. Today I always quote Walter Benjamin, who said that behind every fascism there is a failed Revolution.

We must never forget that the so-called Muslim fundamentalists are an advertisement for the failed left. The key event in Arab history. Afghanistan was not a conservative fundamentalist country. I remember 40 years ago it was a progressive monarchy with a pro-Western king and then they had a local

communist

party that was so strong that it even took power and then Russia intervened. Americans supported fundamentalist Muslims, that is, 40 years ago. Afghanistan was a relatively open technocratic secular country. It is through his involvement in international politics that he became fundamentalist and even Islamic fundamentalism has its roots in a kind of psi tube and his Marxist view of Islam, yes, yes, yes, yes, and I think so.

I think this is the big task today, how to get out of this vicious circle of pro-Western liberalism and the fundamental thing is that they really feed off each other. I think what do you think is going to happen with Syria? Because there doesn't seem to be anything. I was attacked a lot for saying when I wrote that it was published in a guardian on the Internet that it is a pseudo conflict. Do you mean it's a yes? I know there is an Oho conflict, but people are dying, how can you be so cynical? There is no BYO conflict.

I mean, of course, it's a tragedy that people are dying, etc., it's simply an ethno-religious conflict, there are no big emancipatory risks involved. Now I am totally against Assad. I believe in the incredible brutality they are committing, but with these poisonous gases, okay, which makes me furious. Here, now the media is starting to tell this story, oh my God. They are poisoning their own population. Where was Saddam? This against the Iranians in Kurts United States were giving him satellite photos that we all know and even providing him with gases. I don't like being manipulated and shown by the media.

You see, what happens there is horrible, yes, it is horrible, but my God, not all revolutions are. Only if it is an authentic Revolution that not only heads towards the future but also redeems the failed revolutions of the past, will all the ghosts, as if they were the Living Dead of the past Revolution, wandering around dissatisfied, finally find their home in the New Freedom. You know what you're going to do to me then so I have to sign a paper that basically means tough, you can use me, you can put my head on a guy fighting three women and I can't complain, I can't, I can't, you wouldn't complain if we did.

I don't care, that's true. I don't care, that's true. Yeah.