Zizek!

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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.

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:

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,

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