Slavoj Žižek: "Why I Am Still A Communist". The 2019 Holberg Debate with Slavoj Žižek & Tyler Cowen.
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- Опубликовано: 6 дек 2019
- 00:15:45 Event starts
00:23:00 Slavoj Žižek's keynote speech
01:07:28 Slavoj Žižek is interviewed by Tyler Cowen
01:59:25 Q&A
At the 2019 Holberg Debate, we were honoured to be joined by two big thinkers: Slavoj Žižek and Tyler Cowen. Žižek delivered his keynote address, “Why I Am Still A Communist”, before being interviewed by Cowen.
The event took place at the University Aula in Bergen, on 7 December, 2019.
For more information, visit the Holberg Prize website:
holbergprisen.no/en/2019-holb... 
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Don't miss the 2023 Holberg Debate on December 2. Anil Seth, Tanya Luhrmann and Rupert Sheldrake will debate the question: "Does Consciousness Extend Beyod Brains?" ruclips.net/video/ofSUaZOW9h8/видео.html
Feel free to follow the event page on Facebook: facebook.com/events/315569814476878
More information on the Holberg Prize webpage: holbergprize.org/en/2023-holberg-debate-does-consciousness-extend-beyond-brains
Who cares what the caricature Slavoj Žižek thinks he is? Seriously.
@LarsTragel-zh7ei i do its interesting
Cowen is so overrated. I read a 2017 Vox interview with Cowen...he was wrong about literally every prediction. Astoundingly wrong.
Meanwhile, Zizek was right about his warnings, as the US teeters on the edge of authoritarianism, income inequality explodes, and climate crises erupt on a weekly basis.
1:02:00
The extremely rare _triple and-so-on._
but did you become a catcher in the rye
I am complete.
LOL! I wont give you a like just to keep the counter in its current value
Legend has it that, when you hear the triple and-so-on, the spirit of Hegel himself comes and determinately negates your coffee from a coffee without cream to a coffee without milk.
I’m still waiting for the quadruple sniff
22:45 Zizek start
Cheers amigo.
dank you very much, dank you.
They should at least cut off the first 15 and a half minutes of nothing.
Thanks brother. Here's a like for your troubles!
Thanks
"I'm ready to sell my mother into slavery to watch V for Vendetta part 2" - Zizek
It's kind of funny that for all his interjections, lack of focus, impatience, digressions and rambling it seems like it is Zizek who actually listens to and understands Tyler Cowen, while Cowen is just repeating his one point over and over regardless of what Zizek says.
To a degree i cant blame tyler, zizek's ideas are too nuanced in specifics that its hard to "put him into a box" of a known definition. Zizek is in a box of his own and really well into it.
@@diegoveloso3rd isn't it the task of an intellectual, like Cowen, to be nuanced and think "outside of the box"? He's perfectly capable to engage with Zizek, he's just not willing to as he has found a narrative that neutralises Zizek in his mind and allows him to sit there relaxed and smiling. I will admit, though, that Zizek is difficult to engage with, but it is because of the way he talks, as I outlined above, he tends to get carried away so you have to rein him in (in fact, I have yet to see an interviewer who has succeeded in that 100%)
Werd Lert “he has found a narrative that neutralizes Zizek in his mind..”
Yes, and he doubles down by inviting Z to ‘live free’ with him and his ‘moderate right friends’.. 1:15:19 “Why not free yourself by jettisoning the nostalgia and take the next step-if I were your therapist this is what I’d be asking you to do.”
@@Medytacjusz I think Michael Brooks is pretty good at doing that
@@Medytacjusz Why yes i completely agree with you. Thats why i used, "to a degree". Admittedly, i couldnt think of the apt choice of words to best describe the looseness or malleability of my point as i was writing that comment
Hating on current cancel culture does NOT make you a conservative.
it does when you're idea of liberal is Pete *I'm not racist even though I don't like black people* ruclips.net/video/Kt_9n7cHZX0/видео.html
@@III-vg4dp woah dude, you're so far up the libertarian collective butthole...that you've forgotten all Trump voters want is traditional marriage and no abortion...your positions on the power of the STATE don't change your positions on anything. *People don't think things through like that.* You either want a new better world (the left) or you want an idealized version of the same thing's you're used to (the right) *these terms have been used since the French Revolution because they DO IN FACT WORK to describe people's views*
@@III-vg4dp after your description of going facts, what is the antidote ????
II I education agreed-but what content from which perspective?
They wish it did. Makes thing easy for them.
Zizek: Explains his views in detail
Tyler: You're Humour is right wing!!, YoU have nostalgia!!11!!
Tyler is a bit of a simpleton...
Tyler showed a lot patience, what you call EXpLAnation in Zizek's case is just a shower of contradictory bull
Zizek didn't explain much in detail, in fact he refused to respond to his points (esp. about China). You only see politicians do same kind of tricks. (And yes I don't care if its right or left-wing, Tyler for example on his blog has criticized right-wing politicians especially on these polemic tricks.)
65 people upvoted this comment?
@@jirikivaari But sorry, comparing Taiwan and China (as an economist!) was a pretty weak start. I would have done the same like Zizek in order not to waste too much time on stuff like that.
Yea the dude is pretty irritating to listen to it to be honest. Yea lets go to Singapore where they hang people every Friday and where there are no beggers because as soon as you beg you are thrown in jail and where you can't stop working until you're dead. Idk why zizek never challenges these people i guess it's just not his way.
This is essentially Zizek trying to spur fruitful conversation while Cowen tries to ensnare him in some kind of cheap 'gotcha!' moment
I immediately got annoyed. Zizek said some positive things about China and talking seriously about serious things and this guy came out like he was from Reddit trying to drum up some kind of moralistic panic... which had nothing to do with the substance of Zizek's talk.
Would you expect more from an conservative
is that what you got from this? these men are flirting with each other!
The organisers surely made a mistake inviting this guy Cowen to interview Zizek; he comes across as even dumber than Peterson
@@stephenharper5761 Cowen is one of the finest thinkers alive. Zizek came across as a joker, basically making rhetorical arguments and jokes, without actually making an argument for anything. Although I wished Cowen had skipped the jokes and focused on substance.
"Happiness is for pimps" Zizek 2019
Marcin B “Mother nature is a dirty bitch.”
"Where do you think oil comes from?!"
Haha, so true...
Happiness is for whores.
I'M NOT A FUCKING PIIIMP!!! :DD
I did a double take at that one too haha
So the interviewer basically had just one question to fill an hour?
"Because of nostalgia, will you stop using the 'communist' label?"
Such a broad mind!
Lou Sanus true
Because Zizek is one of the most famous Communists of the day and he is not even a Communist. What does that tell you about Communism?
@@samuelboucher1454 yeah, what does that tell us about communism?
@@Fishoilification That even Communists realize its unsustainable and impossible.
@@samuelboucher1454 did you even listen to the interview? He states he is a communist, but not by definition of those liberals who never read a book apart from harry potter
I love how Zizek cracks up at himself when he said he was a member of Liberal Democratic party haha.
it was never a liberal party it was a lefties wreck and later died
I find it funny how the other guy tries to coax Slavoj to stop using the communist label. It really seems to bother him that a communist would make so much sense.
@Elias Håkansson You say that because you mistake communism for Stalinism. Communism is ideologically liberal. Liberal socialism has been made to work, but the circumstances have so far been tenuous. Maybe that will always be the case. Socialism is not ideological. It is a response to crises that cannot be answered by liberalism alone.
Can you explain capitalism to me? I hear utopian tales about a free market without exploitation. I see entrenched power, institutional capture, a miserable lack of vision, the devestation of the commons and a ratchet that pushes social inequality always in the same direction.
I don't agree he favors what is known as social democracy. I understand social democracy to mean that the poor and unemployed and sick get a small cut of the pie and so on but the wider economy and the other social functions are left to be run by a small elite who get to choose in the end how much the poor scrubs get and when they get the austerity and all the rest. And why is it called democracy when it is not? I believe it is Orwellian double speak that happens to work and it keeps the masses content because they think they live in a democracy and that they are taken care of. Yes, to the extent that they can serve as subjects to be exploited by capitalism they are taken care of, and then additionally the rest who can't work are taken care of to the extent that there won't be too much discontent that would overturn the system.
Elias Håkansson Um, no, Zizek said many times that the modern-day social democracy is not the right political structure that can confront problems today. Zizek believes that there needs to be a fundamental change that goes beyond capitalism, and he calls that ”communism.” Tbh today social democracy we have in Europe is not truly free-market capitalism the idea actually goes back to Marxist Revisionism, people like Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, who were socialists but supported a gradual change to socialism rather than revolution. This is where the idea of social democracy originated from; it was actually part of a socialist tradition.
@@thumper8684 communism is ABSOLUTELY NOT ideologically liberal
In a sense, communism is a continuation of the liberalist project that started with the French revolution. Its goals are essentially to realize the goals of that revolution that are summarized by the slogan liberté, egalité, fraternité that were not achieved by it. What the revolution did was take the power away from the king and give it to the capitalists, and then it was realized that this did not achieve the liberation that was the point of the whole thing. Hence communism and socialism were born.
I like how Zizek just talks about whatever he wants regardless of what questions he's asked. What a subtle but effective tactic for dealing with the Neo-Lib establishment. Lol
Yeah I think this is how you have intellectual discussion.
@@jirikivaari not exactly. It's just a good way to deal with bad actors and shills. By all means, have an honest discussion with people who are open minded and intellectually honest, but if someone who has no interest in that just say your piece and move on. Lol
@@Drumz_of_Liberation Yes Tyler is one of the most open-minded and general thinkers.
I was actually interested to hear if he has any arguments in favor of communism but didn't hear any. He just kept dodging the question.
Imagine this being a serious conference on HEP physics and Zizek acting like that. It would be a joke.
No no no!!
Nah it's just Zizek's short attention span and social awkwardness
how silly to assume zizek's fascination with stalinism must be nostalgia... yugoslavia was not stalinist and tito was famously vehemently opposed to stalin and vice versa.
Karsten Stalinism was in fact correct. Tito was wrong
@@kobajughashvili3444 Begone with your authoritarianism
NomadGamer Stalin’s Red Army killed 80% of all Nazis that died in WWII and USSR lost 27 million in Hitler’s war of racial extermination. How dare you put out your cheap little western liberal moralizing based on a one sided understanding of history taught you by the capitalist monsters that are responsible for 300 million deaths to capitalism worldwide.
@@kobajughashvili3444 cringe
@@Ardis160 he has a point though. Although I am definitely not a Stalinist and I think he did a lot of bad authoritarian things, I also think he did some good socialist things
I love seeing how anyone who speaks to Zizek tries to be funny and fails miserably
I actually thought it wasn't really a challenge. Sounded like two men enjoying the humorous mood
The thing about marxists is they are good clowns
@@proximaism the thing about proximais is that no one cares about his funny-cringy opinion
@@proximaism while neoliberals are evil clowns.
I'm not a huge reader of Zizek but I admire that when his critics are polemic to his face he just responds with an argument and encourages debate rather than tautologies like 'That's just nostalgia', 'That's conservative humor', etc.-- or like a conclusion without premises. When one disagrees with a conclusion it is because one disagrees with the premises that support it. Because Cowen's interjections lack premises they are inherently irrational and dialectical dead-ends.
So you admire imbeciles?
Very relevant analysis, anordered.
He talks of a lot of mambo jumbo bullshit.
Someone just took their intro to logic course
Zizek talking a lot of nonsense as usual. Let him talk though so more people can clearly see the idiocy of leftists and communist morons.
what kind of sadist designed these chairs? :D
It's not the chair's fault if people don't know how to sit in them properly. 🙃
An armpit sweat truther. Or a cushion seller.
😭😭😂😂😂
A person who went to college and it wasn't for STEM
XXBloodyElle 😂✊
I like how in Tyler's view of the world, everything can be kind of plastic, everything can change and morph, except for the rightist position, because everything is in relation to them in his view. We all love to eat from the trashcan of ideology, don't we? :D
Nikola Jovic 1:14:58 indeed
well rightism would never change: it has always been and will awlays be "relentlessly serving the powerful of the day, secretly hoping that one day you'd take their place, although that day normally never comes."
Tyler seems like a straight up simpleton. More libertarians are just really stupid and pitifully naive.
@@johnc.wrigley6147 Are you SURE? Are you sure you just know nothing about libertarianism?
@@samuelboucher1454 nah I think John has it down to a tee
Cowens only argument seemed to be “why don’t you just not call yourself a communist” as if that was somehow earth shattering or was a valid argument against Žižek
In today's world, that's actually a decent argument.
@@erniereyes1994 This is a decent argument from those sweatshop owners in China and Vietnam and cobalt mine (which use child labor) owners in Congo and all politicians and police organizations who serve these owners and don't use decent arguments but bloody violence to maintain today's world
1:26:07
Anyone: I loved your books!
Slavoj: your gulag sentence is redoubled now!
WHAT
It was a joke. The joke is that he must be a madman to read his books. He was basically making fun of himself.
@@michaelherscheid9709 Who are you, what are you, nobody will listen to you because you're poor.
Merry Christmas to you comrade Wright. We will double our efforts here in gulag.
@@xspotbox4400 You know Joe?
@@michaelherscheid9709 Everybody know Joe, he's the most common English name.
Tyler Cowen literally sounds like a right wing radio host and it didn't even seem like an interview so much as it was just him trying to persuade Slavoj
I disagree. Cowen is chastising Zizek as using abstract conceptual metaphor to skirt the issue of making distinctions. Distinctions that can then be followed to actionable behaviors or choices.
I like Zizek but still think it's totally credible to push him into corners where his viewpoints may reside more in ideological underpinnings of past structure (nostalgia) that won't allow for assertions/distinctions of progress.
Zizek's discussion with Will Self encountered the same pushback from Will, though he framed his irritation somewhat differently.
The negative tactic of SJW culture currently is that the 'warriors' are hell-bent on destruction vs nurturing progress. The gulags performed a quite equivocal nature...by identifying professed traitors as cancers to be destroyed instead of valid voices to be reckoned with.
This comment section riddled with hatred, disdain, dismissiveness towards a guest who is there to FKING ARGUE POINTS is incredible to watch and shameful, though also a great gauge to show how polarization has overtaken much of societies capability to wrestle with ideas. Comments that do not actually address concerns, but make quips about 'whose side you on, bro?'. Or, worse, 'you expect me to read all that, Boomer?'.
"Why I Am Still A Communist"... This question is much more evident from the periphery of Capitalism than from the center of capitalism. For Latin America and Africa Lenin is much more important than he is for USA or Europe.
I think it's interesting (although not unexpected) how imperialism was not mentioned in this debate. Eurocentrism is still the biggest problem of philosophy.
After seeing the failures in Nicaragua and Venezuela I think the question is very much relevant in Latin America.
@@ramonserna8089 Though as Zizek pointed out, China and Vietnam are thriving. It is difficult for a central planner to know the amount of capital to invest if the potential for profit is ignored. The success of China and Vietnam rely in engaging with the markets rather than ignoring them.
Kevin Lopez. In this cases they have not followed the communist ideal at least not in the purest form and that to me is what fails to many politicians in Latin America (besides enormous corruption) thinking that Marx and Hegel ideas can be implemented as is and not realizing the innate problem with said doctrines. Zizek is an interesting character: He considers himself comunist and Helgenist yet his ideas rarely match and you might wonder why he doesn't call his philosophy something else entirely.
@@ramonserna8089 the "failures" of Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Bolivia, Chile and many other countries are linked directly to USA's actions, at least 41 CIA's backed coups. In Latin America there are two sovereign countries: Cuba and Venezuela, and they're paying the price for that. The other countries are in many levels submitted by the USA's interests. In the periphery of Capitalism the fight is against imperialism and can only be fought through socialism, because the bourgeoisie is totally colonized and don't have the interest of national development.
Gilberto Borello. Really? Then Panama that recovered from a USA invasion and now is a leading economy is not sovereign, Dominican Republic that deposed Trujillo dictatorship and now thrives in the Caribbean with amazing grow and estability is not sovereign. Cuba and Venezuela are jokes because their leaders believed in a failed economic model and that's the price they are paying, blaming USA for all their woes show how little accountability their governments have.
What's shocking is that a bright a mind as Tyler Cowen's seems to fail to understand Zizek's argument despite claiming to have read more than half of his books.
B Wichart Cowen is a paid stooge of the capitalist class, what more do you expect? His paycheck depends on him not understanding
He clearly did not read his books. If he did, some of points seem silly since zizek articulates them in his books. Rather, his staff read half of his books and gave him notes and he tried to use those notes to come up with some "communism = bad. Haha!" moment.
1:35:10 Clowncels LMFAO.
I died
Since when is journalism a crime? #freeassange
Tyler so predictably tried to simplify this debate to a binary way of understanding: yes or no!
Yeah he started with "If you're not a social justice warrior, you're a conservative. Look, we won!" and it got worse and worse.
"When you're left you can't make jokes. When I sit down with my right wing friends we make fun of gays and trans people."
He looks at politics like he looks at economics. He wants to remove every bit of humanity from it and turn it into an academic discipline to avoid personal responsibility.
Zizek's humor isn't right wing, he has more than two jokes
Conservative humor is just finding different ways to call trans people subhuman
@@danilthorstensson8902 It seems reductive, but I cannot recall a single instance when a conservative i know has ever made a joke regarding cultural or political issues that didn't have a disgust for a certain portion of the population be the joke itself.
When he was exasperated he was like "this is the humour of my youth" dude same and im on my 20s I dont know what kind of disaster happened in the industrialized countries but my country's progressives all have the same humour
thanks, amazing event
That interviewer made me a communist. His arguments were of three types: national comparison without controlling for population; reducing the lived experience of Zizeck to nostalgia; imagining the problems of politics without political philosophy.
Omfg this guy just gets worse. They had too much gum on the subway go fuck yourself.
Is that why my friends brother is in Singapore with a life sentence for getting caught with pot? Were people smoking too much weed on the subways?
1:33:44 TC: “Do you agree, you have an increasingly right wing sense of
humor and if we’re going to be true Freudians..”
Z: “But why do you call it right wing?“
TC: “What you’re willing to make fun of, your sense of irony.
Z: “When I was young this was left wing humor.”
TC: “It is no longer left wing humor, the world has moved on..”
Z: “Then so much worse for the left!”
TC: “..perhaps for the worst. Okay, we’re making progress.”
Z: “Maybe.”
TC: “You are indeed the moderate right, communist nostalgia rump state
communist who is maybe almost ready to abandon that final bit of the
nostalgia.”
Z: “Don’t count on that too much because I still think that the crisis
will hit us, I see signs.. here comes my pessimism.”
I hate liberals. I like real Leftists.
@RED PILL PORTAL Well Stalinism wasn't particularly intellectual. :-D
Zizek mentions the Frankfurt school in this speech when he talks about former Yoguslavia and his life there.
I think its you who need to embrace the wast span of intellectual schools, directions and movements growing from Marxist ideology and socialist and communist theory. Its not all the same, not at all. So before you revert to judging and opting out, try to study some of the stuff you pretend to be interested in.
Do you want a serious argument for a week or more? Put a socialist and a communist in the same room. And they will still fiercly disagree at the end of it. (Come to think of it: Maybe that's why Stalin took over back then?)
@@iamnotevenanumber3312 communism is a spirit of openness to otherness, but not in the sense that your brains fall out you know..
I absolutely love how Zizek goes on a tangent or an anecdote whenever Tyler asks a silly binary question; which is pretty much the whole debate.
Spent so much time telling Zizek to shorten his answers, while posing the same shit like "I know all the best food spots in Singapore" and "You have right-wing humour!". I don't think you could even really call this a debate, more like a class lol.
Rambling nonsense
It's not a debate, it's an interview. Look at the itinerary. It's called a debate because it annually it typically is. Some of the questions have been found wanting by many of us in the comments, and probably beyond, but for the most part Zizek was allowed to express himself. They both wasted time and Zizek admitted as much to having such a tendency in the beginning prior to demonstrating it.@@Jomchen
An economist really telling Zizek his jokes sound boomer so he can't be a communist
Tyler cannot see zizek any other way but as a child, that has his views molded by emotional factors like nostalgia, when probably Zizek has a far bigger theoretical basis to justify his views than Tyler. This is a clear example of ideology.
The nostalgia argument is particularly weird. Zizek criticizes Yugoslavia all the time and has written a ton on his theories and opinions. Yet Cowen hinges his whole argument on like "You said you like communist media. So you must just be silly"
Tyler Cowen is to much of a "in the establishment " protecting the system kind of guy
he lacks daring visions....
@Sean Davis I mean.... yeah?
Sean Davis ...how?
Sean Davis toxic ignorant baby, hey.
Communism has been around for almost two hundred years, it is not revolutionary or daring, it has been an abject failure.
@@andrewharris3900 are you that thick?
Don't read the sub-titles, which cannot handle a lot of the longer words, and produce some quite confusing expressions. Many of them say the opposite of what Zizek actually says.
Amazing chairs - whoever chose those deserves a raise
What’s typical in this debate is the other guy is steeped in labels, typical for the right wing, while zizek is more fluid and flexible, real free thinker typical of the ideal left wing. What the other guy should be saying, instead of calling Zizek’s humour right wing, is he should be calling the new left wing more conservative. He’s wasting his time trying to basically divert Zizek from communism based on failures of the new left, he’ll gain nothing by drawing a definitive term for Zizek’s beliefs, that’s a good way of simply moving from free thought. Though I understand why he would want to do that, he needs to know where exactly he stands with Zizek in order to know how to counteract. Why they are friends is up to them but in this interaction even if a bit subtly the fundamental difference between left and right was showcased. Zizek is amicable towards the other guy while he basically acts as someone who’s totally in the right(no pun) only waiting to disprove.
15:45 start
Signalboosting.
Wow his opening statement is damn near clairvoyant of 2020.
This guy is more sympathetic to requiring prescriptions to get chewing gum because people stick it to subway doors than he is to human beings having access to quality health care and education.
These people love police states as long as they're open to foreign investors. They would absolutely be fine with China if they dyed their flag blue.
Thank you.
1:28:45 "for me communism is just the name of a problem not a solution". Zizek
I love the way he just head down reads it, a powerpoint would be an insult.
31:20 second he mentions that as the East fell *their satellite states wanted to be like their neighbors* it's also important to note however, that the "western" states on the border of the USSR, *had their movements for social democracy based on the normalization of things like healthcare coverage in the USSR*
One could indeed argue that the French Assurance Maladie and that the British NHS were inspired by the Semashko system put in place in the USSR... with the distinction that they were actually somewhat competent and efficient, the only successes of the Semashko system being in widespread immunization, not so much for the rest of healthcare acts (it's one thing to offer care to everyone, it's another for this care to actually be of quality, involve well trained professionals and actually increase the quality of life and life expectancy of its patients).
Then again, it can be easily argued that the movements promoting these systems predate the USSR, having their roots in the late 19th century.
@@ethancampbell2422 I was speaking from a grass-roots activism perspective but yes, I'm sure the NHS is better than the old soviet system, if for no other reason than it's modern.
@@jmanakajosh9354
Before its fall, the Soviet Union boasted the highest rates of literacy in Europe, lowest rates of child mortality in Europe, a life expectancy to rival the richest of Western states, and was itself responsible for multiple medical breakthroughs in the field of cardiothoracic surgery, bacteriophage therapy, and so on. The idea that Semashko was inferior to the NHS - which at the time had to bribe doctors through repeated concessions and became highly bureaucratic and alienating ignores the historical achievements of state-borne healthcare. In point of fact, the very contradictions that gave rise to the frictions in the NHS are now being used today, to strangle it.
The betrayal of working class demands to have local control over their own NHS trusts and be able to ringfence their own healthcare funding as well as participate in their own delivery of healthcare was the compromise that Aneurin Bevan had to make to the doctors. This centralisation of funding decisions in Westminster allows austerity to be practiced on NHS trusts at will. And today, with hospital waiting times at sky high, and New Labour and Conservative policies driving state-mandated inefficiency through forced private contracting, forced contracting of the NHS bureaucracy, and steady, annual cuts to the NHS, the system is on the brink of collapse.
It took a CIA backed coup and billions of dollars from the National Endowment of Democracy flooding into Russia to prop up Boris Yeltsin who proceeded to privatise everything by force. Within 5 years, life expectancy drops some 25 years to be the lowest on the continent. Child mortality soars as does the exploitation of women who can no longer rely on a state-borne childcare and obstetrics system and who are forced to stay in bad relationships in order to raise their families in an atomised way. Deaths from hospital acquired infections soared as even the cleaners at the hospital were forced to turn to begging on the street to support themselves.
The stories you hear of the horrors of Semashko come not from the Soviet Union at its height, but at the moment of its CIA backed collapse.
Why was I recommended this? thanks!
C Mikhail good side of the algorithm 25:57 “If a state (that’s the idea) spies on people enough and allows machine learning systems to incorporate their behavior and respond to it, it is possible to provide for everyone’s needs better than a democracy could.’_ That’s the idea..”
This could've just as easily have been titled "Why I'm Still A Moral Reprobate, by Slavoj Zizek"
as a leftist and trans advocate and feminist and all that, who has gone through a phase of high political correctness aimed at earning social credit in progressive spaces, i agree very much on his take about feminism (which i use as encompassing of pro-trans, antiracist, antivalidist and such) needing to be more self-critical. Political correctness is a really stupid strategy (it isn't even a strategy)
@categorille8330 Soooooo very true. I've been trying to find and connect with ant pro-feminist trans groups to counter the massive press given from media to reactionary trans groups in the battles over sport competition and bathroom use. Thanks for ANY leads as www hasn't revealed anything.
It's hard for your side to be critical when you have no solid basis for being critical. Your whole ideology rests on inclusion and laissez-faire groupthink, which is really just a way of saying your side is intellectually incoherent. I've never seen a partisan group so proud of themselves for sounding so illogical and clownish.
@@BrianbeesandbikesDo you want transwomen in womens sports?
@@-AxisA-I want you to touch some grass after going outside for the first time in ten years instead of bringing dumb logical fallacies into a conversation that has no basis in the question you're asking
@@networknomad5600that's a lot of projection there buddy lol
Let the man finish his points for god’s sake.
I get an anxiety attack every time I watch Slavoj speak.
Straight to the Q&A: 1:06:00
And straight to the comments.
Much enjoyment with some popcorn, jerky, and beer.
But don’t make it a drinking game!
“...and so on and so on.” Gulp...
Don’t go there. You won’t make it.
"world's hottest economist" always good to know which fields are clear
If ever a term like _cringe_ was appropriate
That interviewer acting like he understands comedy was funny
Never change Slavoj! we love you :-)
He is still a communist because talking about it he can make a living. In a very capitalist way.
His final statement on love was absolutely mind blowing. What an amazing talk.
The American interviewer has no idea that there are still people who genuinely believe that communism (a reformed version of it) could still work, or might be our only salvation.
Well he lived in Yugoslavia from 1975-1990 they lived better than anyone else on planet ...
Imagine country with free health care free education system and Yugoslavia educational system was wow compared to others ...
He lived in system where you finish school and job is already waiting for you and you work in the same company until retirement in company which gives you apartment and send you on holidays in they own company owned resort almost for free
In country where drugs and prostitution and criminals you could see only on the TV ...
Where people hardly lock the doors ...where almost everyone was middle class where you had tons of days off during year .... where you are not just number in place where you work many other unbelievable things what people in west and all around globe could only wish for and dream to have ....
If you lived in Yugoslavia you would be communist like him hahaha but Yugoslavia after 1970 was more like social democracy than like communist state
the keynote was beautiful. the interview? physically painful.
God, this interviewer can't not lie!
ugh... this Tyler Cowen dude keeps saying that Zizek needs to let go of the communist label, but he's the one that can't let it go and keeps bringing it back up. dude, just engage with the man's words, not his label.
Cowen's criticisms seem short-sighted, but I think they actually got through it in a very amiable manner. It was very cute to see the two of them together here
My main problem is that he calls things right wing that are just very basic, down to earth, agreeable. He accepted that SJWs and the whole political correctness movement and so on were leftists. Zizek's point is exactly the opposite, that these people are not leftists and should be (like anyone else) more leftist. I've seen this a lot with people who aren't familiar with the real left.
If you accept this progressive mainstream as the left, then you're already lost, but very typical for our public debating culture nowadays. If you're not saying you support trans people you're a fascist, if you don't like Jeff Bezos you're a commie and so on.
In what world is Buttigieg #2?
Don't miss the 2021 Holberg Debate on December 4. Topic: Identity Politics and Culture Wars. Panel: Judith Butler, Cornel West and Glenn Greenwald. Moderator: Simon Critchley. Submit your quesitons for the panel now. facebook.com/events/268888201777741/
cowen is biased through training, zizek is free because his grasp on the zeitgeist has more but one school. He actually is "over"aware and is able to embrase hopelessness... (of course, "we will all go to gulag"). German Idealism meets Southpark...
He should have called it "Why I am still a NATO sheepdog".
1:29:20 the big guy, Milton Friedman, advised Augusto Pinochet, while Margaret Thatcher had a closer look on Chile's economy, because it was an experiment to see if neoliberalism would work. At same time, in the 1980's, Reagan enters the White House and starts changing the rules in USA, according to what was being seen in Chile, so to speak.
While Zizek is guilty of not giving direct answers to the first questions, like why he calls himself a communist while being somewhat far from being one, the kind of question made by Cowen can not be really taken seriously and contributed nothing to the debate. Why is he constantly saying such superficial things like calling Zizek's humour "right-wing" and telling him to visit Singapore? It would be much more appropriate to investigate in which points Zizek's thought connects to marxism than to just repeat "Nah, dude, it's just nostalgia!".
I think Zizek explains very clear (in this video and other places) why he still calls himself a communist. Zizek believes that modern-day capitalism is not enough to confront issues we have today (ecology and so on) there needs to be some kind of new alternative emerge. Zizek calls his idea of a post-capitalist society ”communist.”
Cowen is a pos
I like that Zizek introduces chemtrails into official academic discourse...
academic discourse needs official sanction does it?
what a twat.
@@axeman2638 "what a twat."at least we have something in common
Where can I find a Transcript for Zizek?
Wow! Finally, I got this video suggested by RUclips. I actually learned new things about SZ.. Cowen's nostalgia approach was genius to force a new coherence between SZ's communism and the present age - instead of letting it turn into only a regurgitation of SZ's old points.
i think this conversation was so crazy cuz people asking the most complex questions and then telling zizek to condense his anwers, its truly dystopian in itself this is why zizek ends with 2:26:10
Slavoj is king at talking a lot without saying anything.
You should try listening to him
@@taistelusammakko5088 DId you catch why he prefers to call himself communist? If the answer was in there it was very muddled.
@@TheLivirus the answer was that all current ideologies (or whatever you call it) liberalism social democracy fascism Singapore or whatever are not capable of properly tackling let alone solving current problems. the most pressing ones being climate related but others also. so he thinks an entire new system has to be thought up that does not rely on the free market to solve every problem and he calls that communism.
ok, why did i lose my time listening to a debate where one side explicitly fell into the ad hominem fallacy for the whole debate?
I understand that cowen's point is that zizek is not left enough for a communist but i believe zizek's approach on many topics is stalinist/communist, for example the argument about identity policies that cowen used during the debate: how can lgbtqi+ be acceptable in communism? introducing identity freedom means that central power won't be able to regulate that aspect of daily life. my take from this is in today's "intellectual" world the concept of "left" is terribly misunderstood. liberal left, socialist left and communist left are distinct standpoints and generalizing it as "left" because they were progressive ideologies in the last century is unfair. what i observe in many countries is that the left can even be more conservative than the new neo-liberal right, which indicates that these labels are extremely hard to own since everything is changing so fast. i am disappointed by cowen's stance, since he chose to attack the label of zizek and nothing more meaningful or deeper than that.
Anyone know the kindergarten-in-Israel story (1h28m)? Whether real or apocryphal it seems to have something to do with selling out, but haven't been able to find the actual story!
I don't understand how Žižek got to be this international communist
superstar despite taking part in its demise in Yugoslavia
In which parallel universe is Pete Buttigieg second after Biden?
It's cool to see Zizek waver a bit and stand up for something for once.
instead of being the force of pure provocative chaos he usually is i agree. very refreshing. I knew he had it in him.
Zizek so often fails to stand up for the honor of the USSR
@@kobajughashvili3444 **Communism
Koba Jughashvili The USSR wasn’t communist LOL.
@@domoroboto8752 Zizek stands up for communism more than he does the USSR.
Why do I love you? Because I can't stop myself from loving you.
Žižek, the success of Stalin - the man who used to boast that he conquered the United States "from the plow to the atomic bomb in just a generation" - compared to Gorbachev's failure shows that a socialist economy is unable to function with a minimum of efficiency without requiring a massive dose of political violence. In an attempt to reform a decadent regime, Gorbachev moved faster with the process of economic opening in the hope of removing the predictable resistance that the Soviet bureaucracy would create to economic reform measures, as thorough proof with the failed attempt. coup d'état in August 1991 - which ended up precipitating the final crisis of socialism and the dissolution of the USSR itself
Its Chinese parallel - Deng Xiaoping - adopted a logic diametrically opposed to that of Gorbachev: it prioritized the achievement of economic prosperity (adopting in practice capitalism) precisely to delay any attempt at political opening, as was evident with the acceleration of the economy. reforms after the Tiananmen Square massacre.
It is important to note that it was Karl Marx himself who, in his Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, discerned the scenario in which the conditions for a social revolution process are formed, describing it as follows:
“At a certain stage in its development, the material productive forces of society contradict existing production relations or - which is only their legal expression - with the property relations in which they have been active until then. From the forms of development of the productive forces, these relations are transformed into fetters of them. So, it is a time of social revolution. ' (Reproduced according to MARX, K. Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, organized by Florestan Fernandes and published under the title K. Marx: Theory and historical process of the social revolution, In Marx & Engels, Great Social Scientists Collection, History, vol. 36. São Paulo: Ática, 1983. p. 232. Commemorative edition of the centenary of Karl Marx's death)
By rejecting the pursuit of profit maximization as an instrument to stimulate innovation, socialist countries ended up condemning themselves to obsolescence. Thus, they lost the chance to incorporate the productivity gains made possible by technological progress. That is why the capitalist countries managed to provide a greater rise in the standard of living of their population, even without pursuing the egalitarian ideal. Therefore, until the “final crisis of socialism” (to paraphrase K. Marx's own definitions once again), it was only a matter of time. But religious fanatics do not give up on their faith, even against the indisputable proof of the facts, which completely refute it!
1:32:50 “My answer to this is.. _that’s why politically correct leftists are doing all possible to get Trump re-elected,_ if you ask me.”
It would be great if transcript of his opening speech is also shared.
Amazing ending.
Man that moderator is the worst. This was not Zizek at his best, mostly because he seemed to really be rushing through his points in order to stay in the time limits and had to repeatedly challenge or segue out of shallow bad-faith arguments to stay on point.
I wish the whole thing was just him answering those video questions in detail, some of them were really compelling and open-ended
id rather eat a "half rotten" piece of fruit than one marinated in chemicals ,i think the former is more healthy....also our conection to the planet is not just intellectual .
lovely missing of the point there, thanks for the contribution
Tyler sounds like Vizzini from The Princess Bride.
Can't seem to find "Anaestheticized" in my dictionary of theory neologisms, help?
I think he meant " anesthetized."
1. to administer an anesthetic to (a person or animal), especially so as to induce a loss of consciousness.
2. deprive of feeling or awareness.
Edit: I just noticed you said, "dictionary of theory" and not just dictionary.
For some reason whenever I listen to Zizek, Sylvester the cat comes to mind 😸
Does Tyler Cowen only know how to make one argument per debate ?
An American ― whose entire culture is caught in an extreme case of arrested development where the only thing they care about is sterile, bland products based on comic book characters written half a century ago ― is saying that Zizek's nostalgia ought be discarded? Even their president was elected because of an outdated, gaudy ― INHERENTLY NOSTALGIC ― idea of what prosperity looks like. The vapidity of this guy is staggering.
Mats Sypriansen
V A P O R W A V E
Mats Sypriansen I feel this take is missing it’s counterpart as it pertains to the rest of the world. American culture is globalist culture as far as I can tell. The same neoliberalism we see forced on say all EU nations even the unwilling Poland is the same neoliberal empire being propagated and amplified from Washington and Hollywood. Capital’s control over our being isn’t relegated to mere physical plastic products but a set of ideas that increase the rapidity of capitals growth and hegemony cover the world and everyone in it. Practically every element of so called progressive solutions to mankind’s issues is manufactured for an end determined by capital.
What? You're trying to discredit an *individual person's* arguments because of where they were born?
Also-it's always eye-rolling to come across any version of this argument, especially when the person is using an American media platform to say it. "American culture is so vapid and dumb... let me go gram and tweet that from my iPhone, hit up reddit, upvote a baby yoda meme, watch an episode of my favorite tv show, The Leftovers or Breaking Bad, and listen to Drake."
@@steviewonder417 I certainly agree that neoliberalism's perniciousness extends beyond the mere application of nostalgia, but I wanted to comment on that specifically because of how insistent the interviewer was about Zizek discarding his, which, if you think about it, is actually an extension of the cultural imperialism you refer to.
@@jamiegoodnight863 I'm discrediting an individual person because of his myopic perspective. He is telling Zizek that his nostalgia is problematic, while blind to how his own nostalgia is far more harmful (which you inadvertently point out in your comment).
Also, please endeavour to be more interesting than "Yet you live in a society, I am very smart". It's not a compelling conversation to have.
He goes over my head.
I waited in line for an hour to come right at the door and then they said it was full
Or probably longer than an hour
1:48:35 LMAO imagine thinking Pete Buttigieg is #2 in the primary in ANY metric.
Also, Tyler is such a smooth brain.
36:40min That is fine. But at what point does he think power outright to be handed over to people in such a structural way that it always feeds back upon them. Or as he would put it, along with Descartes, and Hegel, what is the micro-social relation that is crucial for us to set up so that we may decide that which will determine us?
THIS IS WOW! Savoj Rules!!
TODAY IS CHOMSKY'S BIRTHDAY TOO, HAPPY SOCIALIST SATURDAY EVERYONE!
Markis Ⓐugustus I thought Chomsky was an Anarchist.
@@aboxintheblack9530 very much so, yes. Anarchism is a strain of socialism so I thought it befitting to be inclusive...
Markis Ⓐugustus I would have said “Happy Leftist Saturday” but to each their own.
@@marksaidso Ancom is a strain of COMMUNISM..but yah know what whatever cause Chomsky says so many right-wing things(I shouldn't say that I should just say inaccurate)...he poorly represents the left anyway
@@jmanakajosh9354 Yea im sure you would be a much better representative. You do not poorly represent the left at all. I especially like how you dont give examples of how Chomsky is wrong and a bad representative.
Ridiculous, using Singapore as an example, a financial and trading outpost with zero reliance on domestic natural resource industries apart from tourism.
not to mention everyone in Singapore goes to Malaysia to buy products because they're far cheaper. It'd be like if everyone in the US got cheap goods from Mexico and thus had more money in their bank accounts.
Singapore, apparently the pinnacle of capitalism, despite having guaranteed public housing of high quality, forced integration to eliminate racial frictions and a national draft for its armed forces.
0/10 not enough property bubbles.
@@MonMalthias It can have a succesfull public housing program because of how liberal its economy is...people are willing to tolerate some restrictions in certain areas as long as they have freedom elsewhere
1:29:20MIN Yes, he is very consistent about this social-relations (possible, but not reason enough to stop capital from exploiting people out of existance), but again since it has been so relevant for so many years, and it is right up the ally of analysis as applied to politics (the Yugoslavia experience while it was together, and after the break-up) what have they been able to come up with? Given the high place they afford this problem.
Great talk, 2 great minds.
I also hope to once be as smart as all the self-proclaimed economists in the comments.
My favorite part of any debate or otherwise philosophically related video is all the enlightened genius philosophers that type out 15 paragraphs on how they have ascended this mortal plane and can declare with every detail who had won and how the winner of the debate is indecipherable to everybody but them because of the sheer force of their intellect.
WTF this guy have with "nostalgia". Does he know some other words?
The word Zizek is looking for is not Communist but revolutionary.
Žižek NI niti komunist in niti revolucionar. On je preprosto skorumpiran liberalec ( ideologist of political party LDS in RS !!... ) in pa indirektni apologet Kapitalizma !... ( Diego Fusaro, Costanzo Preve.press )
@@pinkopalinko2881 estupendo! me encantaría poder entender eso!
@@daaronk vedasi i video di prof.Diego Fusaro sul YT ( Žižek, Greta et simil - le stesse merdazze/"critici" conservatori !..... )
Revolutions are for blood
It's best not to tell people their self-identification is incorrect, especially when it's Zizek and his work is rooted in Marx, as well as Hegel and Lacan.
can one get the text for a second read? in one's own pace?