Slavoj Žižek on The Courage of Hopelessness | Vienna Lecture

[00:00:25][Applause] so Ren into the city Thomas here exclusive from the of hopelessness [Music] is Project n State Venice Pavilion in Vienna this is pro is kler collectives IR V in v in the here is n car pass um this e the this The Final Countdown this is this [Music] exive um welcome slavik thank you for coming welcome at the Vienna [Applause] Festival can direct sorry I have to go to English I spoke with W gang before and he told me no no only he will ask me questions so I like this step from burgly Liberal democracy to V folks democracy where the leader knows best what is good for the people and He will speak for you you know thank you very much I will please have a little bit of patience because I will not do I'm getting tired of them my usual jokes I will really try to cover the topic so let me begin with a wonderful quote from George Orwell I quoted it often in my work where he describes the typical attitude of academic radical leftists the text was written in 1937 quote we all rail against class distinctions but very few people seriously want to abolish them here you come upon the important fact that every revolutionary opinion draws part of its strength from a secret conviction that nothing can really be changed end of quote Orwell's point is that many radicals invoke the need for revolutionary change as a kind of superstitious token that should achieve the exact opposite prevent the change from really taking place again like today's academic leftists who criticize capitalist cultural imperialism but are in reality horrified at the idea that his or her field of study would really break down and as I mentioned in Vedic in Venice a week ago I think that big banales like Vedic banal are a model of this did you notice how all these big banal I don't know Castle Vedic their ideology is more and more the ideological presentation of banales that of radical left is self-criticism we are all penetrated by Capital we know we know we are just a tool for capitalist investment we should criticize ourselves but you know you know the famous quote from your greatest compatriot here zigmund Freud he quotes that famous Jewish jokes of two Jews used to lie to each other so that the way to really lie is to tell the truth because you are expected to lie and the other so one Jew says to the other why are you telling me that you are going to elov when you are really going to elov I know so again my answer to that self-critical attitude is why are you saying that you are just an instrument in the reproduction of cultural capital when you are really just an instrument in the reproduction of of uh of cultural capital so uh how then to break this circle it is only when we despair at and don't know anymore what to do that change can be enacted we hope to go through some kind of zero point of hopelessness the lesson of the 20th century communism is that we have to gather the strength to fully assume this hopelessness georgo agamben said in an interview that thought does denen is the courage of hopelessness an Insight again which is especially pertinent for our historical moment when even the most pessimist Diagnostics as a rule finishes with an uplifting hint at some version version of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel the true courage is not to imagine an alternative but to accept the consequences of the fact that there is today no clearly discernable alternative the dream of an alternative is a clear sign of theoretical cowardice it functions as a fetish which prevents us from thinking to the end the deadlock of our predicament in short the true courage is to admit that the light at the end of the tunnel is most likely the headlight of another train approaching us from the opposite direction this train approaching us from the opposite direction assumed lately many forms in the last year or so troubles in our Global capitalist Paradise exploded at four levels the renewed so-called fundamentalist terrorist threat the our declaration of war against Isis Boh Haram and so on geopolitical tensions between and within non-european new powers China especially Russia the flow of refugees crossing crossing the wall that separates us from them and so on and so on and I would like to begin with this problem which now appears to be temporarily resolved but which I think will explode again the so-called I even don't like the name problem of refugees my God I was of accused of playing some kind of a racist euroc Centrist game here like some Journal leftist uh author even accused me of that I'm already waiting in line to join pegida or whatever no on the contrary I think we should change the field radically we should move away from this uh humanitarian approach of course we should do what we can all we can to help the refugees but the problem is not a humanitarian one it's ridiculous to claim that if we Europeans open up our heart again then what all the poor people will come here and what isn't it much more crucial to begin thinking now it's not an improper moment now and acting in view of this thinking about but what caused the refugees what are we Europe also doing wrong our economic neocolonialism buying the best fertile land in Africa the crazy geopolitics of the big powers are we aware that without American Russian Saudi Arabia and so on Intervention there would have been no refugees from Syria from from Iraq and so on and so on we have to change this coordinates it's I think that precisely this fascination with refugees suffering is the ultimate fetish because it changes a mega serious political problem into a humanitarian concern and sentimental liberals always like this to to change again to avoid critical political analysis and begin to talk I know all this rubbish like are our hearts open enough no we don't need open Open Hearts we need precise political action to break this cycle of global geopolitics which creates and will continue to create refugees uh so what should be our theoretical starting point I would like to begin with a reference to someone who is close to me he's even not a leftist Marxist more a Zionist liberal Jean CLA milir but in in an interesting way he reactivated the old Infamous for some people difference between human rights and citizens rights Jean clot milir rejects the Marxist critical notion of human rights as the rights of the egotist members of the boura Civil Society for mire citizen is the member of a community sharing its specific culture while a human being is what remains of a citizen when he or she is deprived of his her citizenship human rights are natural only in this sense of the externality to a particular culture they have nothing to do with some Eternal nature since they apply to what remains of a citizen after he or she is subtracted from a specific polic community in this sense the nature of Human Rights human rights as natural means precisely rights which should apply to every human being reduce to the zero level of what are we basically bodies animals which speak a nice although a little bit too long maybe quote from Milner one gains a glimpse into the real of the rights of the body in examining what goes on when they are denied to individuals Every Day brings us a new example I do not have to think about bombs and poisonous gases I think about Cal you know the camp which is now dismantled there in France those who are assembled there from the year 2000 are not guilty of anything they are not accused of anything they do not infringe upon any part of the law they are simply there and they live the proof that they live is that sometimes they die nobody knows what languages they are speaking and anyway one doesn't listen to them one only knows that they speak they are therefore reduced to the status of speaking bodies by the settlement to which they are submitted they literally render visible in a negative way the real of the rights of men or women these rights are distinguished from the rights of a citizen since refugees are precisely not the citizens of Cal and mostly also do not want to become that end of quote mire insists on the vulgar materiality of these rights they are more basic than the rights to reunion Free Speech opinion and so on before that comes the material base of a body water Food hygiene minimal space of privacy if individuals are deprived of this their higher human rights disappear human rights are first such basic material rights toilets kitchen health care and so on rights begin even with the space for secretion toilets in so far as human rights were first proclaimed by the French Revolution one should note the irony of the fact that is a French city of course these rights are not natural in the sense of Eternity they are always redefined by a specific historical contexts uh we can say but I already find this problematic that people refugees who are covered by these rights who are reduced two speaking bodies are proletarians in the sense of being deprived of citizenship but I find this fashionable designation problematic now comes the polemical aspect some of my friends claim refugees are the new proletariat I find this attitude extremely cynical and mystifying why one of my friends I will not embarrass him and uh name him even developed this Theory we in Europe have good revolutionary critical theory but and you know this is the problem of Marxism from the beginning but we don't have a revolutionary subject who will do this so now we have a unique chance to Outsource as it were the Revolutionary subject maybe the refugees will be our proletariat it doesn't work it's too optimistic this not because let me emphasize immediately refugees are too stupid or whatever but for Marx proletariat means something very precise workers who generate wealth but are deprived of the substance of their being exploited and so on and so on the irony is that as far as I can see most or if not most at least many among the refugees would precisely like to become proletarians in this sense the irony is that uh and this is what complicates everything the irony is that the traditional working class let's say you're a traditional workers you are okay alienated in the Marxist sense blah blah but you have a permanent job where you are permanently exploited and so on but you survive and so on this is almost a privileged position today we have permanently unemployed we have refugees we have precarious workers and so on who I'm tempted to say strive all the time to become good old-fashioned exploited proletarians in this sense you know that's the problem with Marxism today it is in a way Marxist analysis of capitalism it is more true than ever the Marxist uh description of the capitalist Dynamics the famous lines in capital Communist Manifesto and so on they reach today a level that Marx couldn't even have imagined you know when Marx says uh everything solid melts and incredible Dynamics all natural relations dissolve could he even have imagined for example the consequences at the level of sexuality with transgenderism and so on and so on so it's more radical than mark imag ined but at the same time and that's the nice hegelian lesson precisely when some concept is fully realized directly seems to describe reality a gap appears the victory is the moment of defeat so to if I try to describe in the best possible way where Marx stands today I tempted to quote one of my favorite rabinovic radio aravan jokes from ex Soviet Union you know radio aravan was a legendary there is a real radio aravan but I'm talking about Legend radio station to which listeners were allowed to they were allowed to call it to ask questions and the answer of radio aravan was always in principle yes it's true but so one of these famous questions to radio Aran is is it true that the Jew rabinovich this is the Legendary Legendary figure of Soviet jokes that the Jew rabinovic won a new car at a state lottery radio Aran answers yes in principle it's true but it wasn't a new car but an old bicycle and he didn't win it it was stolen from him so it was something similar that we have to say concerning is it true that proletarians are today a threat to existing system blah blah blah yes in principle it's true but the true proletarians are not proletarians at all and so on and so on now I want to do another complication here which I also think Marx didn't take fully into account what and many of my friends hate even the very term ways of life that's the big problem with refugees not their problem our problem in no way do I blame them or even held them for inferior listen we are not only citizens or humans in this abstract sense all of us at least initially belongs to a certain Community with a specific way of life and of course the problem with refugees and our problem is that this that again refugees don't come as cartisian subjects I'm just a I am just a speaking body and nothing more no they come uh with the burden of a specific way of life how to combine this specific ways of life is a problem why and again I know I'm here threading Dangerous Waters because for some of my leftist friends the very term of way of life is aha are you joining Leen or pegida or what except if we speak about Marginal Way of lives you know uh so what I'm saying is that my first correction of the standard view a way of life is not just what we call about civilization customs and so on but a civilization Customs which if you permit me here a reference to theories of Jac laon ptic theories which signal how you deal with what laon calls Ron excessive enjoyment in which doesn't mean kind of a half traumatic uh like sexual Med enjoyment but it means not direct pleasure but the enjoyment maybe I can put it in this way the enjoyment of organizing pleasure for example what is a way of life of a certain Community typically this is very evil what I will say when I debate with my multiculturalist friends they said each group that comes to Europe should be allowed to maintain their way of life okay no problem but then I asked them okay what do you mean by way of life and then they start to enumerate their food their dances their songs blah blah whatever you want but all of them as far as I knew then stop at a certain level they never add their sexual customs and their relations of hierarchy but they're at the very core of a way of life I remember from my own miserable country south from here there was I've written often about it there was a big conflict big not too big nobody really cared but okay polemics in Slovenia some 15 20 years ago I think uh Roma oldfashioned wrong term Gypsy a Roma girl escaped her home because her father when she was 12 in an arranged marriage wanted to force her to marry a colleague of him and he took Refuge with the police and what to do then of course all the feminists exploded we should protect the girls rights and so on and so on I noticed with real vicious spirit that the same fists otherwise were all against eurocentrism for the protection of different ways of life multiculturalism but then one key figure of sloven Roma Community said something which was deeply true true he said but wait a minute arranged marriages are the key component of our way of life you take this away from us in two three generations the latest we will become you know the usual gypsies maybe we will have our spicy food our music and so on we will disappear so where do you stop here and I not to avoid a misunderstanding in no way am I claiming yes they are Barbarian we should impose of them our way of life I'm just or another aspect uh hierarchy social hierarchy for example in India cast system I'm sorry to tell you this is their way of life and consequent postcolonial theorists there accept it for example when I was in India I asked them what are you doing to abolish casts and they said who are you to preach us to this western western Democrat racist neoc colonialist culturalist who wants to ruin our traditional way of life again in a way they were right you know this is I think an impossible dream that you think you can bring together what we in Europe and I'm not saying we are right I'm just describing that we in Europe uh uh have certain fights for you know gay struggle abortion femininity human rights and so on and uh the the the problem is no longer just theoretical when and at the same time we want to be tolerant and so on where does tolerance end and I claim there is no simple solution here Multicultural culturalists like to say we should be all one big family tolerant towards each other and so on and so on I am opposed to this formula but to avoid a misunderstanding not because I think our universality is the right one and we can impose our universality onto others I see a totally different way out s it I immediately discovered in India there is no neutral way of life what those and this is typical although they present themselves as leftist what Indian uh postc Colonial cultural studies people presented as their way of life has an extremely strong class Dimension and there is a white resistance in India which is totally obfuscated by this topic of some way of life cultural identity you know that there is for example dinit a maist rebellion almost 1 million armed men fighting in what remains of the Jungle you don't read about this what about uh I uh encountered them I immediately establish contact in India the so-called Untouchables and the lowest among them those who are U cleaning dry toilets they provide to me the best definition of what is a proletarian I asked them what is your program they told me our program is not to be ourselves what we are they totally rejected all this you know we are poor but isn't it something wonderful in our way of life in how we are no they don't want that and I think that you see that should be our first starting point uh all these communities of refugees and so on and so on don't buy the talk of a unique homogeneous way of life in the same sense as we our societies are deeply divided by antagonisms the visible and the less invisible antagonism for example so-called culture wars and so on and so on the same the same goes there with very interesting paradoxes that some authentic anti- centes don't like for example I discovered and I was given text which analyzed this that in India I'm totally for the predomination of English language you know why I discovered isn't it a paradoxical nice result that the lower you go in Social letter in India the more they like English you know why because as Untouchables explained to me their own languages are so much penetrated by social hierarchies like if you are member of different cast you will use different expressions or how you address others that for them English with its simplistic University it's the language of equality and openness and again we have to accept this Paradox I have it at home one of these uh uh theories of The Untouchables wrote appraise appraisal of English language as the only means to bring social and so on and so on so uh here this is my first point it is not that we have ways of life and then we should tolerate each other and this is the usual stupid formula in an open Society each of us each Community can develop its way of life but when one Community oppresses the other of course the other Society the oppressed can turn into fundament mentalism is thwarted and so on and so on no almost I'm tempted to say the opposite there are no authentic ways of life or ways of life are traversed cut with radical antagonisms what is Indian way of life it's one great struggle and so on it's the same with China the regime tries to propose some kind of Confucian way of life as specifically Chinese no it's a cover up for almost permanent Civil War in India and so on and so on so again we should be very open here and never talk about another's way of life when I'm come to a society I never ask what's your way of life in a foreign country I ask them what are your fights and try to orient so for me universalism is not a Brotherhood of ways of life I respect you you respect me no universalism is we have a struggle here emancipation workers right Fist and so on they have their struggles can we bring these struggles together now comes my paradoxical result uh uh here I praise but in a very sad almost cynical way here I praise the wisdom of British imperialism for example Indian way of life is embodied this traditional cast system in one of the most horrible books that I ever read the loss of Manu it's a basically systematic description of the cast system in all these tiny daily material practices and an obscene old guy like me I love it you know because for example you have there oh my God how I love it descriptions like if you don't want during sexual act for a man who cares about women in that book to make her pregnant and after you pull in the last minute out the penis in what way should you turn around and in a correct way wipe your penis or whatever and so on it's Madness it's the madness but what I want to say is this then I spoke with some Indians good friends of mine and then I checked it up with others it's true they gave me a wonderful explanation they said do you know that before British colonization in 17th century this cast system was already disintegrating but it got a great Boost from the British occupation because the British got it IM immediately if they tried to impose their way of life they would be breeding revolutionary proletarian social chaos what capitalism brings so so literally this loss of Manus were rediscovered printed by the British and so on because they got it that if the silent Indian majority is in the hands of the worst hierarchic patriarchy it will make their rule much easier so you know this is already a nice example of how it's not as some postcolonial theorists try to convince us there are some harmonious okay maybe with conflicts but well doing living in Natural Balance holistic you know all that we imperialist just come to a mountain and mine it no the authentic ways to ask the spirits of a mountain can we rape you and only then you do it and so on no the point uh the point is that it's not like this is that paradoxically authentic imperialism always was in this sense Multicultural especially today I claim are you aware what is happening now the significance of the last political events how precisely those countries who stand economically for the most radical open uh global capitalism culturally move more and more towards some kind of authoritarian ethnic stance China I find no contradiction in the fact that on the one hand China insists on its kuchan Legacy not just Western culture at the same time as a very sh I think reaction to Trump's stupidities you saw what K the Chinese president said A week ago or so he presented himself and China as the true agent of global open market against protectionis M and so on the same with erdogan in Turkey the same in India with Modi and so on uh and so on and so on so again we are encountering here real problems that's all I'm saying let me take mention I learned it from a Tibetan friend this a wonderful terrifying example from Tibet uh I'm totally horrified but what the Chinese by what the Chinese are doing there I'm just asking you one thing don't paint Tibet as some kind of holistic harmonious uh society which was then brutally destabilized by the Chinese intervention in 49 and especially later in 59 look uh I read this again I was told by a friend and then I checked this B in a book which is totally Pro Tibetan you know that in ancient Tibet and this lasted till 59 when the Chinese intervene directly because till 59 for the first 10 years of occupation the Chinese basically left the way of life as it was there you know Tibet is mountains just narrow path so if two persons walking in the opposite dire Direction meet on a path one has to step aside and it was strictly codified those who is lowest let's say an ordinary Guy meets a high priest or a FAL Master he has not only to step aside but do a certain gesture which is so disgusting humiliating adopt a spec bow his head but the same time make a specific expression with his face like look with eyes as an idiot up like basically you see what a disgusting idiot I am and it's so nice I like this always being Devil's Advocate when in the late 50s Chinese wanted to prohibit this of course what was the outcry oh imperialist you are meddling in our way of life and so on and so on now chines were extremely brutal I agree but the situation was more complex you know when red guards in the mid-60s were thousands of them ruining monasteries in Tibet and so on it's nice to ask one simple question who were these red gists the rumor was Chinese brought them by trains by planes and so on hords of wild no now we know the data you know how many red gists came from China to Tibet between 50 and 100 all those thousands of people were their own dissatisfied young people so again what I'm saying is that it's a wrong opposition specific way of life versus that Universal imperialism yes the universality of imperialist culture is often oppressive one-sided but don't play particular culture as as the good thing to resist universality I think that the point is to show how our European universality is a false universality and true shared struggle impose another universality uh another thing I want to uh make clear here uh that I'm sorry uh here psychoanalysis comes useful why is it so traumatic for people to really integrate into a society you know this endless debates why some refugees don't want to be integrated I just think that it's good to include also this element of enjoyment enjoyment in the sense of regulating sexual mors and so on and so on this is what really a way of life is not some abstract cultural values but how you make love how you laugh how you treat authorities and so on and so on and uh uh that's the core of way of life so when I said some ways of life are incompatible I was accused of being a western racist and so on and so on no I just claim that this is a real problem in the sense that uh it's what's my main point not we should impose some standards on others no no no we should be here very open to dialogue and so on and so on but my thesis to put it in very abstract even hegelian terms my thesis is that universality is not something above particular ways of life in the sense that we have each our own way of life but we are all Universal we love but each of us loves in a different way and so on no universality is something that corrodes from within every way of life for example fighting for universality does not mean impose our universality on others and the same goes for ourselves but fighting for the universality which is part of our own way of life as the critical energy which fights all that this particular reactionary in it for example for me gay rights abortion and so on it's universality fight in our culture women's rights and so on struggles in the far as they emerge in Arab countries are their own fight fight for universality and here uh it's very interesting point of how I learned from my Palestinian friends even uh Israeli government idea of the occupation of the West Bank plays the same game as the British they still have among Palestinians so-called honor killings and the Israeli occupiers practically whenever possible ignore them don't intervene because they got the British lesson that it's much better to dominate the West Bank to have this traditional Palestinians with their honor killings and so on and so on so what we should connect to on the west bank is those and they exist I know them wonderful rapper singers and so on people cultural groups women who are at the same time opposing Israeli occupation of the West Bank and their own traditional culture claiming that they are ultimately on the same side rejecting this idea that simple recourse to one's traditional identity is uh enough to resist Universal capitalism or whatever because you know the way we organize our enjoyment it's a very ambiguous one let me give you an example sorry for this brief detour but I love it are you watching now it's very popular okay now I do something for which I can be arrested uh if you don't have it yet on your TV go to Pirate Bay you get it immediately uh this new TV series based on uh Margaret's Margaret edwood's classical novel handmade stale uh I watched this series it's not ever the full first year but Nel I watch it with pleasure but then I caught myself enjoying it very much and I was horrified why because then I asked my friends and the same suspicion was confirmed I asked them why do you like this series their official excuse was because it depicts the danger of this CRI fundamentalist Society where women are not allowed even to read and blah blah blah but then I duck a little bit deeper and discover that it's not as simple as that what we enjoy we find a strange perverted pleasure to enjoy this universe how women are controlled all the details how this works and so on and so on there is a strange pleasure with it or to give you another example which is even crazier uh of this link between pleasure and guilt I was shocked to read recently a report on a legal case in Mexico and the title of this report as it was reported in the guardian says it all Quote Mexican man cleared in seexual assault of school girl because he didn't enjoy it and then I uh emailed my Mexican friend and got the story It's a Wonderful One wonderful in a terrifying sense uh group of three rich young men raped a young girl one of them the wealthiest of course from a family was pardoned why he there was no debate about facts it was all clear but he the guy his defense was not I didn't do that he admitted that he sorry to to be tasteless in details that we played with squeez the girl's breasts he penetrated her vagina with fingers all that but his defense was that he acted without caral intent he didn't sexually enjoy it and the judge claimed this makes him innocent because if he didn't enjoy it it was not a sexual assault of course feminists explode that Pro but what was what was this judge think thinking my first idea was I'm sorry if it appear problematic but I mean it in a totally honest way I'm totally against any rape but if I were to have to choose a guy who rapes a girl in some kind of a blind passion and a guy who does it not even enjoying it just in a cold way sorry but for me the second thing is nonetheless minimally worse because it why did he do it if he didn't enjoy it obviously out of pure brutality to humiliate her to he didn't even have the excuse of I couldn't resist my passion or whatever obviously the silent premise of the judge was experiencing pleasure as such makes us guilty with quite a logical conclusion if you didn't experience pleasure you are not guilty and I think this is uh maybe part of our Christian Legacy and it goes even further the first step is pleasure is guilty but as every good psychoanalyst knows you must bring this to the end not only pleasure makes us guilty but without guilt there is no pleasure and isn't this the maybe I simplify the basic premise of protestantism you know like as we say that was a common saying when I was young in Catholicism and in protestantism you can do whatever you want just in Catholicism if you confess it at the end of the week it's okay in protestantism if you feel guilty when you are doing it it's okay and uh you know this is what I wanted to make clear with enjoyment yes pleasure is pleasure but guilt transforms simple enjoyment sorry simple pleasure to enjoyment you take away guilt pleasure is just a stupid physiological pleasure and I'm so sad I don't have time here to go deeply into this crucial opposition between pleasure and enjoyment enjoyment would be pleasure generated by all the detours and so on in our approach to pleasure like sex is not just I see you I jump on you or whatever sex are all the detours of Seduction and so on and so on there is no direct sex let me quote you an anecdote from my friend the British lenan Darian leader I used it in just one of my books so it's safe to repeat it here which I love it he is a practicing analyst and he told me he had a patient who uh who uh reported to him one how to call it slip of Tong F life Tong or what he take a lady with whom he was flirting to a restaurant which was in the basement of a hotel of course his dirty plan was a good dinner and then oh I'm tired why don't don't we go up for a room and so on but you know what happened when he entered the restaurant instead of saying a table for two please he said a room for two a bed for two please now here you see that Darian leader is a good psychoanalyst his reading was not the obvious one which is of course he was already thinking at sex at sex no it was the opposite one he was afraid that he will enjoy too much the for for pleasure eating and that this will make him forget why is he truly here to sleep with the so it was kind of a ethical reminder don't get too much caught into eating remember your true duty is up there later and so on you know this is why uh uh he was afraid in this sense of his enjoyment or another example wonderful of enjoyment another friend informed me about it who is now in United States now that they have still a crisis my the friend of mine in the evening wanted so he went into one of these big uh Walmart Mega stores and noticed something very mysterious close to the exit of the store there were many how to call it those cards where you put what you want to buy but still full there full of stuff abandoned and he asked a guy working for Walmart what does this mean and he told him something very tragic almost beautiful impoverished middle classes who had this ordinary R ritual of going to shop now cannot afford it so they came there just to do the ritual they walk around put stuff in and so on and they deliver there they go it's a wonderful example how they get enjoyment without pleasure I don't have time to uh show you another example which is the purest for me and it's terrifying I hope you saw it not to to be terrorized not to enjoy it uh yoseph gel's totaler Creek uh Speech took it you find it in 10 versions at YouTube and so on and you know what's so surprising she doesn't promise pleasure it's just more suffering like gel said in almost Canan terms do you want a war which will be so total that you cannot even imagine how total it will be do you want to suffer so much more that you cannot even imagine how much you will suffer and it's a this is really in a terrifying sense a great speech because there is no promise at the end but at the end you no he just promises more suffering this is enjoyment shs at it purest without pleasure so okay uh now uh let me check it up because okay okay what I will do is this if you allow me to go a little bit over I wanted before coming to the conclusion to do uh another the tour through apocalypse since we already that uh how we in here I wanted also to refer to my good friend Robert fer who is here how this dimension of enjoyment Beyond pleasure is as a rule embodied en acted in all those blind Superfluous rituals and so on that accompany our Acts or as Robert far developed this in detail in one of the most wonderful institutions that I imagine this is the title of one of his books belief with no believer with no beerer you know this is was always for me the basic Miracle of social life how there are beliefs which can function socially without anyone believing in the first person like allow me to repeat I hope you don't know it another wonderful story that really happened in my country in the' 70s ex Yugoslavia uh there was enough toilet paper in the stores but a rumor started to circulate that there will be a shortage of toilet paper so now comes the beauty what happened people in contrast to what we usually assume did not distrust Powers they accepted it that there is enough toilet paper but they reasoned in this way but what if there are some idiots who really think that there is not enough toilet paper so to make it sure that they have it they will start to buy it like crazy and there really will not be enough toilet paper to prevent that it's good for me now to go and buy a lot of toilet paper so you see the point nobody believed that there really is not enough toilet paper it's enough to presuppose that there is another one who believes in it and uh at the end the result is the same I will not bore you here with the standard stories of that I like to repeat of uh of this uh beliefs of of look Santa Claus you know like ask parents do you believe in Santa Claus they say of course not I'm not an idiot I buy the presents you ask children do you believe in Santa Claus of course not so why do you act as if well not to offend my CH my parents and to get you know like there are numerous examples of this belief which functions so socially beliefs without anyone in the first person believing in them and we can go even a step further uh now because I know that Robert doesn't quite like Hegel I will make a hegelian Twist on his theory and introduce here B neg I will quote a joke probably you know it but I like to repeat it one of the best joke in nka ER luit film you know a guy comes to a cafe Thea and says can I get coffee without cream please you know what's the answer you must know he gets sorry we don't have cream so I cannot really give you co coffee without cream but we have milk so I can give you coffee without milk you know this is what heel meant with bestin NE you know that although it's materially the same coffee without it's not the same coffee it's without milk or without cream and from my youth oh those were Paradise times not really communism I remember we had exactly the same joke you when something was missing for example that was the joke socialist joke you enter a store and ask uh do you already have or do you still not have let's say toilet paper and you know that was the classic answer sorry you are in the wrong store we are not the we are the store which doesn't have oil the store which doesn't have toilet paper it's the one across the street and so on so but now you will think it's just a cheap joke no I don't have time to go it and I hope Robert that for this what we'll add now I will be a little bit pardoned not totally liquidated for hegelian deviation that I think that ideology mostly lies in this way today it's not like it it g brings you coffee without milk and it claims that it brings you coffee without cream the footage you know what I mean it's the it's the the implied negation which is a false one how does this work uh uh how does ideology function today well I tried to develop it uh when I wrote a text not the one in independent but the one that I didn't get published nobody wants to publish it this is too crazy about the French elections I still think they are the lowest point of our so-call democracy why okay we had Leen we know what she is Proto fascist whatever you want although I don't like this term Proto fascist or fascist not that she is any better uh the problem is that don't you think that leftists are often quite lazy they see something they don't like and instead of think thinking what is specifically new here you simply apply the old term fascism you miss the point I think but okay we have Leen we know what he is danger then who is macron he is it's clear establishment at its purest and when I just expressed some doubts in macron I was immediately accused of being slave of fascism of supporting Fascism and so on and so on so do you see the Absurd situation how uh okay I will repeat you remember the radio aravan joke let's ask radio aravan is it true that in France uh Emmanuel macron uh independent Outsider United on all the people in a great anti-fascist struggle and so on again in principle it's true but hey he's not an outsider but the very insight and B he stands he embodies the very politics which produced Marine Leen he stands for what gives space to phenomena like like Leen so as a guy who hates me very much he attacked me ferociously a biographer of Michelle fuk dibon but he Prov provided here wonderful he said the choice is this one if you vote for marine Leen now you vote for marine Leen if you vote for macron a vote for macron is a vote for marine Leen 4 years from now in the future that's all I meant not that I am for marine Leen but this tragic closure how and so here what does this tell of ideology today alen bad at some point put it in a wonderful way when he wrote that the main function of ideolog iCal censorship today is not to crush actual resistance repressive apparatuses do that but to crush hope to immediately denounce every critical project as opening a path at the end of which there is something like uh gulak so uh I think that that's the crucial thing that happened in France you know we had Marine Leen for what she is and we had established ment at its purest no actual alternative and the Paradox being if you wanted to move more to the left you were proclaimed an instrument of the right that's what Centrist liberals like to do today they claim there is no longer a difference between left and right just between liberal openness which means global capitalism the way we have it today and right-wing uh and right-wing uh populism so I think that one one of the great prospects this makes me really sad for Europe is that this standard politics Will Go On The Way It Is which brought us into trouble just every four years we will be mobilized to vote for these politics in order to prevent the fascist danger you know and then if you will move to the left they will say no no objectively you serve you serve uh you serve Fascism and so and so on so we are in a very sad situation I had another long part but one has to you know at least from what I said now you know what uh why people call me Fidel not because of politics but you know comrades 5 minutes and then 5 hours no so I'm a little bit too long I admit it but now if you ask me a more fundamental question what can we do what ethical attitude is the proper one today when I say courage of hopelessness I of course don't mean it we should just despair I'm just saying that courage of hopelessness means not renounce hope but get rid of the false Solutions recognize a false solution which appears as a solution but it's really a train moving towards you that's the only way to really invent something new now I will do something quite surprising uh for some of you I will show you a clip have patience some 5 seven minutes of a film which I really like it's from this new Danish Noir series about a detective called Carl Merk he designates himself as a terminally depressed detective and this is towards the end what you will see of the film original title is FL composed message flushing post message in a bottle but the title was very nicely changed in English it a conspiracy of Fate just so that you see the situation not yet wait for half a minute after the situation is that in a in a small Hut close to the coast in the sea there are four people there is this detective terminally depressed Detective broken chain there and then there is the serial murderer called johanes he holds in chained Merc inspector as prisoner and two kidnapped children a boy and a girl and Johannes is a pathological killer who presents himself as one of devil's son whose task is to destroy faith and he says to mer and now I will take away your faith and I just if it will work should I maybe put this away I don't know so that you will see more let us please now you can do it show this uh clip H wait a minute if you take it away then I will take it this way thank you ah we are here yes please put voice got think behind not oh my do yeah the evidence have got got the for for we are J satans so did here [Music] hi Uncle K his mother so [Music] you [Music] I just L bur in far for them to H forign foreign fore spee no for foreign [Applause] skill youis youis hands your you you so w fighting and some got good come for what take you for let nowhere oh good come Al got still no goodness heaven stick of M stick M free I good for m stop stop okay perfect uh so uh I think that if there is again an ethical position which embodies what I try to render with my idea of Courage of hopelessness this is it the beauty of this scene is for me not just that you see also a man who doesn't believe can be good no I'm more crazy it's a radical atheist ethics in the sense of what I call atheist Christianity in order to be really radical good or believer but in this materialist sense you have to survive the fact that there is no God no guarantee and so on you have to go through this zero point of course it would be easy to read this scene in a cheap religious point and said but it's not true that God is not here but God was here two times when he wanted the detective thepress to sacrifice himself and when the girl who is the sister of the drowned boy didn't want to take revenge but my point again is what only very intelligent theologists even some Protestants and so on know that uh like uh ethics again not only is independent of belief in the sense of we can all be good no to be truly good you have not to believe in the this sense of believing in any higher authority that controls you directs you provides General uh guarantee that's so difficult to accept for us the 20th century Marxism was I think still part of this transcended almost religious ethics you know like history is on our side we act with accordance of History we get direction from history today we have to act alone in this sense there is no higher sense there is no higher authority that will guarantee provide meaning to our acts there is no meaningful totality it no longer works that classical theology which was still operative in traditional Marxism you know that the most disgusting metaphor I can imagine for religion the so-called big painting metaphor that we limited humans are like idiots staring as a picture which means reality too close and you see just stains if you step back you see that what appeared to you stains creates contributes to the harmony of the entire picture in my reading atheist of Christianity this is what dies on the cross this idea of God as someone who when you are in deep Feit you can say but don't worry there is a higher authority which provides guarantee well tell this to gulak prisoners or to Jews in awit don't worry your pain your suffering here is just a stain step back and you will see how it contributes to the harmony of the universe the prop Christian ethics is much more paradoxical is no your unique suffering here insignificant as it may appear from the abstract standpoint of some Cosmic perspective this is what absolutely matters this absolute engagement this Paradox to put it in theological terms although we are obviously a small piece of dust in a small planet as they say on the outskirts of our universe but nonetheless in some existential sense of course not literally but existentially when you are in a difficult ethical predicament your only experience is the whole world was created so that for me you know everything will be decided the fate of the universe in this fight here and now and that's how I even read the radical notion of love it's not love in this this Buddhist love you know oh all the universe all the the living beings no love is unique that person and I don't care if all the world Falls disintegrates that's why true love for me is not simply love for this on those reasons it's there is an you know when you truly love someone if you are asked why do you love him her the only answer is because I cannot do it without it's impossible POS simply to step out to leave behind love is not this Cosmic Buddhist all embracing perspective love is a link to an absolute Singularity it's a total imbalance in the universe so that would be if you ask me my existential perspective the only hope given to us today you have to be radically atheist we are approaching deep sheet it's clear at multiple levels uh ecological crisis uh uh uh uh biogenetics just name it and I'm provoke to provoke you Peter I can do it because haha only leader will be able to ask questions you will not be able to ask me I even think that Protestant predestination means this it is predestination in the sense of Our Fate is decided but the secret premise of protestantism is not okay if our faith is decided so sorry to be vulgar let's sit down get drunk drugs and watch pornography who cares no you have to fight all the time you know why because we are predestined but we never can know what is our destiny and that's for me paradoxically the highest Freedom the highest freedom is to guess which of course it means select create your Eternal Destiny no matter how limited we are in our practical choices we can always choose our destiny as it were in to put it in philosophical terms trans and that that's how we should react to today's crisis we have a destiny pred we are predestined if things go the way they go in 50 years either which will a total ecological social catastrophe or in the best case as Hollywood teaches us wisely it will be in films like hungers Hunger Games and so on it will be a new class Society those who are in those who are out of the Kola it will be worse than the old class Society this is our destiny and the thing to do is to radically change the entire frame to change Destiny itself to change change the entire perspective that's why I think we should reject that simple strategy you know what are the realistic options let's diminish pollution a little bit you know all this idea if if a temperature raiseed for two 2° it's still good if for two and a half it's bad these are totally imaginary numbers I claim that's super no we have as they say to change more radically our own way of life now we will say I'm Dreaming listen Maybe I'm Dreaming but I'm not alone even intelligent conservatives know this read please the one who certainly is not a leftist Marxist Peter slauter in his book V vases in transing yund he paints very clearly this picture of unbridled capitalism and the nation state logic of the highest ethics as sacrifying for your state brings catastrophe radical change is needed and so on and so on everybody knows it my God capitalism is changing into something new we don't know what and the horror why we are like the detective Merc is that again we cannot any longer rely on on any safe Marxist theology you know like yeah but progress or digitalization we will become whatever the stupidities are Singularity or a new brain and so on and so on it's an open situation we don't know where we are going this is the wisdom of true revolutionaries robespier and San knew this exactly their metaphor was not we revolutionaries are developing some higher necessity the most beautiful metaphor of sanjust was a revolutionary is like a navigator on a ship in the middle of a storm without a compass and so on and even planning at the end of his life in some tragic moments he wrote we don't know at all what is happening and so on that's the only hope I'm sorry if I was too long that's nature and I'm very extremely grateful for your P I like I hope for a new Renaissance of Vienna to flatter you at the end but I mean it's seriously you know that a little bit over 100 years ago your city was as they say in Star Wars the center of the known universe name it Science music shenberg all of them I mean Freud you were it you were it and you know why Ador not precisely because you are not at the center of technological inventions and so on and so on there was space for this and I just hope that you will become that again I'm sure that the official big cities Paris London New York they are lost it's change with cities like yours here thank you very much and I'm sorry for stop let me repeat my old joke don't waste your energy now when we take over in different official conferences you will be forced to applaud you know keep your energy for our dictator later okay now thank you very much for no I'm grateful to you seriously always interesting lecture and to be with us um I have here two pages of questions and I try I hope you wrot the questions before knowing what I will talk about in a way to be honest I I I choose uh the questions after the or during the lecture and there was one uh interesting question question fitting in uh the context of the film sorry question that you also got from listeners from listeners yes yeah but before the the the lecture sent by email and this question it's really true it was how did you sleep yesterday I mean I know you love the the the detective stories and we saw the the film so maybe it fits to the film what is what is the point of this question I don't Sean it in a naive way but if you put it the way you put it it would be like as if yesterday I raped five children and was I able to look I must tell you this the same as you as a heavy diabetic whatever problems I have there are no problems with sleep I sleep more than well the only problem and I can confirm this the truth of Freud's interpret sorry I rather go to this yes okay the of Freud's reading of that famous father you know we don't just escape from traumatic situation into sleep and then dreams what regularly happens and it happens to be all the time is that okay there is something unpleasant going on you escape your dream but then the big question that Freud asks a very naive question is why do you awaken in the dream his answer is implicit you sleep but like he uses this example you know we have soall dreams which quickly incorporate an external disturbance so that you can continue to sleep like the classic stupid things it happened to me often happens something is disturbing your sleep let's say phone ringing what you do is you quickly construct a dream in which a phone is ringing so that you gain time now the big question is but why do you then awaken the standard primitive answer is that simply the external intrusion gets too strong like you can to be vulgar go on sleeping if I just say something you can but if I start to beat you there will be a limit no but Freud's answer is the opposite one you escape from external dis disturbance into a dream but what you then encounter in a dream can be the trauma of your life so you in a dialectical sense you awaken to be able to continue the dream which is the dream of your daily life let's say you are uh you did something horrible you want to forget it and you dream but you awaken when in the dream you confront that trauma so it's a beautiful idea which is I think a correct one not in this metaphysical romantic sense our life is just a dream but that our everyday reality is structured not as a dream but as an repression ferlo whatever of something traumatic so that will be I answer I have no problem falling asleep but unfortunately I quite often awaken in the problem is Awakening I awaken in nightmares confronting different traumas and so on and so on so that would be the the answer to that question so uh the second question interesting question but not so far away from your theories is uh do you think politics and comedy has something in common yes but on one condition my God I didn't pay you for these questions because they are so till now so easy and nice that you know what's crucial if you permit me a brief improvisation here The crucial thing is to learn and I often V this point that comedy is not only the easy thing when things get really horrible then they are too horrible to do a tragedy out of them the only thing you can do is a comedy the idea came to me I'm sorry if you know some of you but this line of thought of mine uh uh I approach the question why is it that all good films about Holocaust are comedies because again it's too horrible to for example let's imagine that you were to do a heroic tragedy a Nazi torturer approaching a Jew and a Jew says heroically you can kill me but not break my spirit opens his shirt or whatever it underestimates the horror of concentration camp or the you know you are so broken down that from for an external view at least it's a comedy you know where also came this idea to me did you uh uh did you see uh uh no did you read I hope you did Primo leev sequest this is a man and I discovered that some of the most horrifying scene that he depicts are objectively comical scenes like you know when you had once a month or every two months in awit so-called seleca in Polish selection all inmates had to run quickly in front of an SS doctor just half a second and you just put you into one of the two lists to be burnt or to and how it was a whole comedy to do it the prisoners exchanged um advises how the point was to appear healthy no so how to pinch your skin to appear more lively red how to even if you are that tired and exhausted that you are appear strong it's a comedy but it's even the worst of aitz the so-called musl manner the Muslims the living de the way they acted was like comic dolls and that's the it's not uh comedy where you laugh it's comedy at its most terrifying that's I wonder if you would agree I'm sorry if I already developed at some of my other talks here this point you saw the movie to which I'm opposed although it fits my description of concentration camp comedy Ben Lavita I think the Movie cheats because first it's not comical enough at the very end when father sacrifices himself for the Sun and mocks as if they take me away but he knows he will die and when the son at the very end describes this uh to his I don't know who uh at that point you're are supposed even to cry probably I don't know it's I think that's why I'm telling you this where does the film cheat how to make a truly desperate film you know the story I will be very brief father and son are captured in Italy as Jew sent to outre there father in order to spare the son of the horror tells to the son a story with a different spin he said we can leave whenever we want this is just one big competition for a price if you stay here if you don't escape then at the end we will get some big prize whatever blah blah blah and uh the tragedy is that allegedly the son doesn't suspect the truth and father in This Way saves the Sun from to Big trauma but imagine there would have been a way to make a movie much more horrible along the lines of the story that I said about Santa Claus what if just before he's taken away to be shot the father benini himself were to learn that his son he pretended to his son this is just a comedy his son knew the truth all the time and he also pretended to believe his father just not to make it too harsh for his father and so on that would have been what I would have called in Kart's term infinite resignation and so on I think that the other horrible film with uh how is it called pasalo maybe you know it it's another desperate I think it's Liliana Cavani or lenina ver Miller Holocaust comedy is much better because at the end when laugh stops you don't get some Sublime moment of crying you just get total Despair and so on and so on you know sorry as they say you know when I was young we were still reading now it's forgotten Carl May vinu and then the chief said at the end okay um um the last question what do you think about Austrian politics at the moment I it's very difficult for me to talk about Austrian politics without laughing but not for the reasons that you think no no no you are wrong you know that the name of your foreign minister who will now even maybe be your prime minister cours in my slaven language this is some extremely vulgar term for penis much worse than swans and so on so when they say kurz is coming to Liana everybody dies laughing you know and I think that in a way in a way even now that kurs will visit Slovenia the titles in sloven was kurs is looking at you and this sounds because it's a Kur when I'm tired of you I say like let the prick look at you which means off you know no but I'm saying that although he's supposed to be intelligent nice well maybe ultimately he is ands in slen you know that he could have done much more precisely taking into account the unique Austrian position even KY I think as much I don't like this Je decadent types as per but wasn't Bruno KY okay he was celor but nonetheless actually he was much more I think intelligent in playing in knowing how to nonetheless play an international role with this unique neither here nor there Austrian uh position like your position enables you to do more I claim your unique geopolitical position but listen if this is all you have why don't we break all the rules of it's prohibited I know it's horrible for old fascists like us and allow at least symbolically one question from there it's a good idea one so that then we can say but the public also debated and so on you know because I feel bad even the better thing would be to this is deepest anti-feminist manipulation to have a lady ask the question so that we can say but no ladies were also you know sorry do you agree did I something too much like at least one question if you want to because I really all the jokes that I made but like maybe maybe we shouldn't totally dominate the people do you does any of you sorry you are okay problem in France is that after 4 years of mron we will have maybe lean because the causes which will yeah in German we say better so as is better I I know what you are saying and when I said although I was misunderstood that I prefer Trump I was attacked for the same reason my think would yeah you know what I hoped no in France I didn't support Leen because I think she is more dangerous with all the openly fascist tradition than Trump but listen I think still basically I was right my logic was this one first and we can see it clearly now no Trump is a confused guy he is not a fascist and so on my he's evil dangerous my point was this one about uh Trump only kind of a shock which hopefully will not be too dangerous can awaken the American left I hoped for a more Dynamics faced with the trauma of Trump's victory in the Democratic party unfortunately it's horror what is now happening and as some of my leftist friends like Colin West said it's not uh the problem of United States now it's not even primarily Trump it's the catastrophic reaction to him of Democratic party they were first horrified Trump the end of the world now Democratic party is radically renormalizing Trump Nancy Pelosi said recently uh Don't Be Afraid Trump is like Reagan or bush after four or eight years will be back and the Democratic party establishment is now using all its energy not to really fight Trump but to throw out the Bernie Sanders danger so I still you know it's not an a prior statement I'm not this old-fashioned crazy Marxist like communist in Germany 33 Bess H Hitler the the lines would be clear it's a very strategic statement I'm just afraid as I said that we are entering a new cycle isn't this a very sad Prospect but but what you said I deeply appreciate that logic because do you remember I think I found a Wonder example even with my limited knowledge of German I remember some 20 years ago was it when against Co the candidate was Hans Yan Fogle and I know enough of vulgar German that I know fold means F brand with Co no and f fergal means we know what and one of the leftist motto was a nice lady saying better for f as for C you know I like it I'm sorry but what I'm I'm saying to no I'm not so crazy I'm well aware of dangers I just I'm desperate I know all the r and again in France lean Is Not Innocent we are witnessing a entering now a terrible New Era not so much France not even new Austria but some of post communist e European countries my own Croatia Hungary up to a point Poland Baltic countries a new narrative is emerging which is terrifying which is not only Rehabilitation nor Rehabilitation denial whatever of Holocaust but the idea is this one to cut a long story short uh Holocaust was organized by Jews how and why Jews wanted to dominate Europe to ruin Christianity and in a cold calculation they knew that Germany is the only hard moment defending Europe French are degenerated and British are in their Island so Germany has to be broken they consciously provoked Hitler to do the Holocaust so that now Germany is uh just in this regressive mood non-aggressive uh accepting refugees now come with the second point the claim is there is no Arab Israeli conflict is just a mask to Blind us the Arab Invasion refugees of Europe is a Jewish plot to ruin Europe why I'm telling you this not to shock you but for one reason isn't this sad and Trump is part of the same movement this uh regression decadence of public speech such rumors were circulating all the time but till 5 years ago maybe 10 they were a private obscenity you talk like this if you're crazy with your friends at an gasp state or where now they more and more penetrate the public speech I think this is a catastrophe so that's how the title of the book is meant not The Final Countdown will we be swallowed by refugees no I think we should be more proud but in the right way as Europeans European Legacy of enlightment and so on it's a great legacy the true threat to it are not refugees our own Defenders of Europe are the true threat to it imagine Europe when lean is a president in France and so on that would no longer have been Europe whatever maybe if there is is still worth fighting for in Europe but again to calm you down I'm not totally crazy in just engaging in provocations I'm just deeply afraid if just this type of conflicts we get repeated macron macron Leen macron lean then at certain point lean will win we have to change the field that's my only Point thank you slav very [Applause] much I like to say in my provocative style using very problematic terms I like to use the term in different way thank you very much I was proud to be [Music] here from one of the