Zizek! Page #6

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- Got out of Algeria.

- Sorry?

Algeria, yes.

But I'm a little bit skeptical...

You really are an intellectual

superstar to me,

so I had to touch you.

Sorry, sorry. Interrupting.

I'm the editor of #Progress.#

- Of?

- "Progress,"

journal of socialist ideas.

Harvard will know it.

- I brought you a copy.

- Perfect.

- I was really impressed.

- Be serious. I was bluffing.

He needs a shower.

It was over there.

Who knows here?

The guy knows.

I'm sorry.

You know things here.

Okay, sir, you know the guy

who did "The Hero,"

the Chinese guy?

"Double Indemnity" is not

on the market now, no?

"Being There" also, I think,

it looks bad, no?

"Being There," you know,

Peter Sellers.

It should be...

Hal Ashby.

No, this is

too intelligent for me.

You know the ape

will not get the banana.

F*** it, I don't get it here.

Ah. U.S. '70s. "Being There."

It's a wonderful movie,

and look, my anal character.

The price is okay,

so definitely.

What more do I need?

"Fountainhead" is the best

American movie of all times.

Then the best German movie

would be "Opfergang."

This is the sacrificial path,

of course,

from '44, by Veit Harlan,

the Nazi director.

So we have Ayn Rand, a Nazi,

and then... unfortunately,

this is a more standard one...

it is "lvan the Terrible,"

Eisenstein.

I would say these three

are the best movies

of all times for me.

Ah, this one I want,

definitely.

So we have these two.

That will be it, I think.

How about if I buy them

for you?

No, wait a minute.

Poor American girl,

working class.

Who pays for that?

Are you serious?

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- I will reimburse.

- Okay, with pleasure.

- I'll let you buy...

No, let it be the eternal

secret of my desire.

Did I suspect this

in advance or not?

If you were not

to make this offer,

I would in the last minute

say, "Maybe not now.

I have too many things to carry."

This one is a little

expensive, actually: $32.

Shut up, or you will

get three more.

I'm so sad that l...

Wait a minute.

What is this?

My God, I would love to have

so that you will not...

- Let me buy this...

- It's got a special booklet.

Where? Which one?

Sorry, can I buy this one also?

Oh, sorry. F*** off.

What are you working on

now, Slavoj?

What's the new book?

The mega... basically,

"Ticklish Subject, Part 2."

Big, big mega thing.

How far along are you?

Pretty close to the end.

It will be mega.

One part philosophy, theology,

one part cognitivism...

I'm now deep in brain sciences...

and one part obscenity,

politics, and so on.

- What's it gonna be called?

- I don't yet know.

Maybe "The Parallax View,"

but I must check it

on amazon. Com,

see if there are already

named "The Parallax View," no?

I must look into that aspect.

What does parallax view mean?

It's very simple.

It comes as close as possible

to what my position is.

You know that...

It's very simple.

When you mistake

an apparent move...

You look at an object.

It appears that the object itself

moves or changes,

but in reality, it's just

that your perspective shifts, no?

Like lunar, stellar,

whatever, solar, parallax.

The idea is, your shift in your

subjective position is refined.

You perceive it

as move in the object.

But, of course,

then I add another twist

that it is in the object

in a way,

because object-subject

can be mediated.

So what interests me

is precisely this radical cut,

like you move from one

to another perspective.

There is no way

to overcome this antinomy.

And then I develop this

systematically

in philosophy,

cognitive science.

In cognitive sciences,

the parallax would have been

either you look

at your inner experience,

or you open the scar,

you see the stupid

there, brains, no?

But you really cannot

make the jump,

and you really cannot...

Even if scientifically

you can explain it,

you really cannot accept

that stupid piece of meat

that you see.

That's thought.

So if we distilled

your canon into three books,

what would they be?

Three of my best books

are unfortunately four,

I would say.

"Sublime Object,"

"Tearing with the Negative,"

"Ticklish Subject,"

and now the new one.

This is the serious

work I've done,

with little pieces

here and there.

But this is what I would...

although I'm more and more

self-critical of the first one.

It's still too liberal.

I'm for democracy there.

I'm ashamed, I'm very sorry to say.

I think there was a thing

called totalitarianism,

which was bad,

and I think there should

be pluralism in society.

My God, what am I talking there?

You know that Marx Brothers joke

"I would never be a member

of a club..."?

You know, if I were not myself,

I would arrest myself.

I have a very complicated ritual

about writing.

It's psychologically

impossible for me to sit down,

so I have to trick myself.

I operate a very simple strategy

which, at least with me,

it works.

I put down ideas,

but I put them down usually

in a relatively elaborate way,

like the line of thought already

written in full sentences.

So up to a certain point,

I'm telling myself, "No,

I'm not yet writing.

I'm just putting down ideas."

Then, at a certain point,

I tell myself, "Everything

is already there.

Now I just have to edit it."

So that's the idea,

to split it into two.

I put down notes, I edit it.

Writing disappears.

I'm sorry. Please.

Just be loud enough.

Good question,

but not in the sense

that now I will say,

"I'm modest, so nice."

No, it's much more serious

phenomenon.

Let's be quite frank.

At a certain superficial level,

I am relatively popular,

but me and my friends,

I don't think you can...

maybe you can...

even imagine how noninfluential

are we within the academia,

which is why

it pisses me off

how many, whoever they are...

the enemies...

portray us Lacanians

as some kind of a phalogocentric

power discourse.

It's very fashionable

to paint us

as kind of a dogmatic

power discourse.

For example, yesterday,

when I delivered

a differently improvised version

of the same talk

at Columbia in New York,

a lady kindly towards the end

asked me "But why"...

Her problem was, why am I

so dogmatically Lacanian.

Which belief?

Perfect.

Perfect question.

Okay, I defy you

with a very simple empirical,

in the best Anglo-Saxon

tradition, question.

Apart from this brief conflict

between Gayatri Spivak

and Derrida,

could you name me one Derridian

who made a small critical

remark on Derrida?

Rudolph Gasche? Avital Ronell?

Name somewhere,

but name me one.

Why are we dogmatic?

Why are they not?

Name me one point

where Sam Weber makes an ironic critical

remark on Derrida.

Name me one point

where Avital Ronell does it.

Name me one point

where Rudolph Gasche does it.

So why are we...

Why is my...

Why am I dogmatically attached

to Lacan, and it's not...

Why did you think

this is disavowed belief?

I am a Lacanian.

You are knocking

on the open door.

You don't have to prove

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