Žižek at Loyola University 2009.
For our struggle it is not against flesh and blood but against world rulers, against spiritual wickedness in the heavens. Our struggle is not against concrete corrupted individuals but against those in power in general.
Abstract propositions (freedom, democracy) ideology is the very density of symbolic network, schematizes these abstract propositions, renders them liveable, provides concrete background, so they become liveable.
Obscene rituals
Army one big obscenity, improvisation, but what appears to be secret resistance to power, obscenity etc, no, this is how power is experienced. Harry Frankfurt wrote a book on bulls**t. Do you have an example of politician who doesn’t b.s. He said John McCain.
When we are in ideology up to our knees. During a public debate with Bernard Henri Levi
When we both our case in these abstract terms we both couldn’t but agree with each other. This means that we were in ideology. We obliterated this dense background. The whole set of unwritten rules. What a complex phenomenon rules, norms. They don’t just tell you how to act. Norms are never consistent. Whenever you want to be part of a certain collective. It isn’t just explicit rules, what matters even more are meta, higher level rules that tell you how to deal with the explicit rules.
When you are solicited to do something on condition that you don’t really do it. You are given a free choice on condition that you make the right choice. To give you a choice on condition that you choose right. One guy when it came to signing the oath, he said no, I’m not signing the oath, are you crazy you must sign it, Am I obliged, are you ordering me to sign it. NO! This is an oath, its your free choice. The officer then wrote on a piece of paper an order to freely sign the oath. Ideology, it’s never what it says, its how you relate to what it says.
Spontaneous acts are not spontaneous outbursts, they are codified, precisely when you learn how to violate the explicit rules. Drinking alcohol or smoking.
You cough at first, you come to enjoy it, be a man. It’s strictly a second level pleasure more to do with social groups, participating in collective act of transgression, if you want to drink for pure pleasure you usually go for fruit juice.
Violating public rules is not done by private rules, but is enjoined by very private rules that prohibit them.
Here is his critique of Sound of Music
Ayn Rand digression
undermines ruling ideology but through over-identification. Her status is ambiguous, she is liberal capitalist individualism at its purest, but she does it so openly … she is an embarrassment.
The NEIGHBOUR He tells the story about being asked “sexual orientation.” Americans have their levels of comfort, Europeans have theirs. He then goes on to give the Santner story about a beach on Adriatic coast topless beach. The point is that each culture for you its not a problem sexual orientation, but much more difficult for women to walk topless. What Santner feared is FEAR OF NEIGHBOUR. The desiring other of jouissance that invades …. Hard core porn. You either have serious story and can’t see it all, or see it all but story is ridiculous. Breillat seriously artistic hardcore, you see everything and same time engaging story … Today the predominant porn is Gonzo. They no longer even pretend its a story. But censorship is even more here than ever, its like you have to be reminded all the time, no its just a joke, we’re just filming, the fear is precisely the FEAR of the NEIGHBOUR, if you had to fear that there is real desire, that is the NEIGHBOUR, that dimension has to be repressed.
Keeping Neighbour at a Distance.
customs habits rules of civility. Political correctness
Indonesian Documentary: 1966 President Sukharo ethnic political cleansing. Boast about their killing. Talk about most efficient and pleasurable way to kill, there is no shame. They appear on a talk show.
While they were torturing and killing, they liked Cagney and Hollywood gangster actors. Which fantasmatic screen made it possible for guys like this to do what they were doing. What kind of society are we living in, where even minimal public shame is disappeared. Even Nazi Germany had shame, they denied everything. Here they have no shame, they admit everything.
Dislocating effects of capitalist globalization: what kinds of obscenities and shamelessness.