University of Pennsylvania
90-минутна видеолекция
Официален запис,
изд. 13 февр.' 2026
Жижек започва от 6-тата минута
Моя извадка:
"I remember... I was very young, but I was already there in 68. Protesters had 3 big demands: end for this manual, boring, repetitive labor; then sexual liberation; and then end of alienated university up there, elitist education. And they in some perverted sense got what they wanted. Now you have precarious work. It's much more intense. You feel self-responsible. You worry all the time. Will it succeed?... Education: the alienated academic institutions are gradually... very limited at least. And not to mention sexuality. If there is a reincarnation of a 68 person, I remember when I was young, it was considered subversive to do obscene gestures, speak in a vulgar way, subvert the fake dignity of those in power. And now we have the power itself. You bring all of the dirt that is in you out. But effect is not that in liberation, but even an effect of much worse repression. Nowhere is the unconscious more out of reach than in perversion. This goes against the spirit of 68. Enjoy fully without obstacles, and so on. No. What you bring out in this way are the dirty fantasies which are mystification at its most radical. What hysterics only dream about perverts do it... 'Harmonious society': society in which everyone plays its proper role... 'Are there still cannibals among you? - No, we ate the last last week.' Shamelessness. Hypocrisy in this matters is better than openness. Shame is needed. A proper sense of shame is not directed against your desire, but it's a way to redeem, save your authentic desire from perversion.
To have an effective market, you need 'strong' regulation. 'After his wife underwent a long and risky surgery, her husband approaches the doctor, and inquires about the outcomes. - Your wife survived, she will probably live longer than you. But there are some minor complications. She will no longer be able to control her anal muscles. There will also be a continuous flow of a jelly from her vagina. Her mouth will malfunction, and food will be falling out. - The husband gets more and more warried, his look... The doctor says: Don't worry, I was just joking, she died in the first ten minutes of the operation!' 'Our democracy is well and alive. There are just some minor complications. We have to throw out millions of immigrants, limit abortion, probably use the national guard to crush protest... Don't worry, it's just a joke, democracy will quickly die.' What we have to do here? We need more than ever today ethical universalism, more than just ethical universalism: global cooperation! What is it that machines cannot do? At least two things. It only produces an effect of empty effect of meaning. One is daily rituals. The other is swearing, dirty words, curses, the zero level of symbolic act, speech act. We live in language, but at the same time we are not at home in language. Not simply realistically accept the danger, but we should nonetheless act madly against it. Destiny doesn't control us totally.
When you applaud, people like me will get in power; and then you will have to applaud. The most dangerous unfreedom is the unfreedom that you experience as freedom. Privatized commons which still remain commons... Immanuel Kant, who in a wonderful way distinguishes between private and public use of reason. Thinking begins not by offering solutions, but by asking. And the way we perceive a problem is often part of the problem... We are such friends that we are allowed to say all the dirty things, and it will not hurt as. If I see a dignified old lady, I will not say certain things. But can you imagine an authentic openness towards the other without an exchange of obscenities! I'm aware that it's not a simple game. Like I meet an old dignified lady, I will not tell her 'old bill, do you want me to fuck you up your ass'. I got wonderful surprises on this level. There was a dignified old lady. I said something like this to her, and we became friends. She replied in a much more dirty way to me."
