Zizek! Page #5

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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.

Sh*t, 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 csar.

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...

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