Slavoj Žižek: 'Humanity is OK, but 99% of people are boring idiots'
A genius with the answers to
the financial crisis? Or the Borat of philosophy? The cultural theorist talks
about love, sex and why nothing is ever what it appears to be.
Slavoj Žižek at his home in
Lubljana. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian.
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Slavoj Žižek
doesn't know the door number of his own apartment in Ljubljana. "Doesn't
matter," he tells the photographer, who wants to pop outside. "Come back in
through the main door, and then just think in terms of politically radical
right; you turn from left to right, then at the end, right again." But what's
the number, in case he gets lost? "I think it's 20," Žižek suggests. "But who
knows? Let's double check." So off he pads down the hallway, opens his door and
has a look.
Waving the photographer off, he points in the
distance across the Slovenian capital. "Over there, that's a kind of
counter-culture establishment – they hate me, I hate them. This is the type of
leftists that I hate. Radical leftists whose fathers are all very rich." Most of
the other buildings, he adds, are government ministries. "I hate it." Now he's
back in the living room, a clinically tidy little sliver of functional space
lacking any discernible aesthetic, the only concessions being a poster for the
video game Call Of Duty: Black Ops, and a print of Joseph Stalin. Žižek pours
Coke Zero into plastic McDonald's cups decorated in Disney merchandising, but
when he opens a kitchen cupboard I see that it's full of clothes.
"I live as a madman!" he exclaims, and leads me
on a tour of the apartment to demonstrate why his kitchen cabinets contain only
clothing. "You see, there's no room anywhere else!" And indeed, every other room
is lined, floor to ceiling, with DVDs and books; volumes of his own 75 works,
translated into innumerable languages, fill one room alone.
If you have read all of Žižek's work, you are
doing better than me. Born in 1949, the Slovenian philosopher and cultural
critic grew up under Tito in the
former Yugoslavia, where suspicions of dissidence consigned him to academic
backwaters. He came to western attention in 1989 with his first book written in
English, The Sublime Object of Ideology, a re-reading of Žižek's great hero Hegel through the
perspective of another hero, the psychoanalyst Jacques
Lacan. Since then there have been titles
such as Living in the End Times, along with films – The Pervert's Guide To Cinema – and more articles than I can count.
By the standards of cultural theory, Žižek sits
at the more accessible end of the spectrum – but to give you an idea of where
that still leaves him, here's a typical quote from a book called Žižek: A Guide for the Perplexed, intended to render him more comprehensible: "Žižek
finds the place for Lacan in Hegel by seeing the Real as the correlate of the
self-division and self-doubling within phenomena."
At the risk of upsetting Žižek's fanatical
global following, I would say that a lot of his work is impenetrable. But he
writes with exhilarating ambition and his central thesis offers a perspective
even his critics would have to concede is thought-provoking. In essence, he
argues that nothing is ever what it appears, and contradiction is encoded in
almost everything. Most of what we think of as radical or subversive – or even
simply ethical – doesn't actually change anything.
"Like when you buy an organic apple, you're
doing it for ideological reasons, it makes you feel good: 'I'm doing something
for Mother Earth,' and so on. But in what sense are we engaged? It's a false
engagement. Paradoxically, we do these things to avoid really doing things. It
makes you feel good. You recycle, you send £5 a month to some Somali orphan, and
you did your duty." But really, we've been tricked into operating safety valves
that allow the status quo to survive unchallenged? "Yes, exactly." The obsession
of western liberals with identity politics only distracts from class struggle,
and while Žižek doesn't defend any version of communism ever seen in practice,
he remains what he calls a "complicated Marxist" with revolutionary
ideals.
To his critics, as one memorably put it, he is the Borat of
philosophy,
churning out ever more outrageous statements for scandalous effect. "The problem
with Hitler was that he was not violent enough," for example, or "I am not
human. I am a monster." Some dismiss him as a silly controversialist; others
fear him as an agitator for neo-Marxist totalitarianism. But since the financial
crisis he has been elevated to the status of a global-recession celebrity,
drawing crowds of adoring followers who revere him as an intellectual genius.
His popularity is just the sort of paradox Žižek delights in because if it were
down to him, he says, he would rather not talk to anyone.
You wouldn't guess so from the energetic flurry
of good manners with which he welcomes us, but he's quick to clarify that his
attentiveness is just camouflage for misanthropy. "For me, the idea of hell is
the American type of parties. Or, when they ask me to give a talk, and they say
something like, 'After the talk there will just be a small reception' – I know
this is hell. This means all the frustrated idiots, who are not able to ask you
a question at the end of the talk, come to you and, usually, they start:
'Professor Žižek, I know you must be tired, but …' Well, fuck you. If you know
that I am tired, why are you asking me? I'm really more and more becoming
Stalinist. Liberals always say about totalitarians that they like humanity, as
such, but they have no empathy for concrete people, no? OK, that fits me
perfectly. Humanity? Yes, it's OK – some great talks, some great arts. Concrete
people? No, 99% are boring idiots."
Most of all, he can't stand students.
"Absolutely. I was shocked, for example, once, a student approached me in the
US, when I was still teaching a class – which I will never do again – and he
told me: 'You know, professor, it interested me what you were saying yesterday,
and I thought, I don't know what my paper should be about. Could you please give
me some more thoughts and then maybe some idea will pop up.' Fuck him! Who I am
to do that?"
Žižek has had to quit most of his teaching posts
in Europe and America, to get away from these intolerable students. "I
especially hate when they come to me with personal problems. My standard line
is: 'Look at me, look at my tics, don't you see that I'm mad? How can you even
think about asking a mad man like me to help you in personal problems, no?'" You
can see what he means, for Žižek cuts a fairly startling physical figure – like
a grizzly bear, pawing wildly at his face, sniffing and snuffling and
gesticulating between every syllable. "But it doesn't work! They still trust me.
And I hate this because – this is what I don't like about American society – I
don't like this openness, like when you meet a guy for the first time, and he's
starting to tell you about his sex life. I hate this, I hate this!"
I have to laugh at this, because Žižek brings up
his sex life within moments of our first meeting. On the way up in the lift he
volunteers that a former girlfriend used to ask him for what he called
"consensual rape". I had imagined he would want to discuss his new book about Hegel, but what he really seems keen to talk about is
sex.
"Yeah, because I'm extremely romantic here. You
know what is my fear? This postmodern, permissive, pragmatic etiquette towards
sex. It's horrible. They claim sex is healthy; it's good for the heart, for
blood circulation, it relaxes you. They even go into how kissing is also good
because it develops the muscles here – this is horrible, my God!" He's appalled
by the promise of dating agencies to "outsource" the risk of romance. "It's no
longer that absolute passion. I like this idea of sex as part of love, you know:
'I'm ready to sell my mother into slavery just to fuck you for ever.' There is
something nice, transcendent, about it. I remain incurably romantic."
I keep thinking I should try to intervene with a
question, but he's off again. "I have strange limits. I am very – OK, another
detail, fuck it. I was never able to do – even if a woman wanted it – annal
sex." Annal sex? "Ah, anal sex. You know why not? Because I couldn't convince
myself that she really likes it. I always had this suspicion, what if she only
pretends, to make herself more attractive to me? It's the same thing for
fellatio; I was never able to finish into the woman's mouth, because again, my
idea is, this is not exactly the most tasteful fluid. What if she's only
pretending?"
He can count the number of women he has slept
with on his hands, because he finds the whole business so nerve-racking. "I
cannot have one-night stands. I envy people who can do it; it would be
wonderful. I feel nice, let's go, bang-bang – yes! But for me, it's something so
ridiculously intimate – like, my God, it's horrible to be naked in front of
another person, you know? If the other one is evil with a remark – 'Ha ha, your
stomach,' or whatever – everything can be ruined, you know?" Besides, he can't
sleep with anyone unless he believes they might stay together for ever. "All my
relationships – this is why they are very few – were damned from the perspective
of eternity. What I mean with this clumsy term is, maybe they will
last."
But Žižek has been divorced three times. How has
he coped with that? "Ah, now I will tell you. You know the young Marx – I don't
idealise Marx, he was a nasty guy, personally – but he has a wonderful logic. He
says: 'You don't simply dissolve marriage; divorce means that you retroactively
establish that the love was not the true love.' When love goes away, you
retroactively establish that it wasn't even true love." Is that what he did?
"Yes! I erase it totally. I don't only believe that I'm no longer in love. I
believe I never was."
As if to illustrate this, he glances at his
watch; his 12-year-old son, who lives nearby, will be arriving shortly. How is
this going to work when he gets here? Don't worry, Žižek says, he's bound to be
late – on account of the tardiness of his mother: "The bitch who claims to have
been my wife." But weren't they married? "Unfortunately, yes."
Žižek has two sons – the other is in his 30s –
but never wanted to be a parent. "I will tell you the formula why I love my two
sons. This is my liberal, compassionate side. I cannot resist it, when I see
someone hurt, vulnerable and so on. So precisely when the son was not fully
wanted, this made me want to love him even more."
By now I can see we're not going to get anywhere
near Žižek's new book about Hegel, Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of
Dialectical Materialism. Instead, he tells me about the holidays he takes with
his young son. The last one was to the Burj Al Arab hotel, a grotesque temple to tacky ostentation in Dubai. "Why
not? Why not? I like to do crazy things. But I did my Marxist duty. I got
friendly with the Pakistani taxi driver who showed to me and my son reality. The
whole structure of how the workers there live was explained, how it was
controlled. My son was horrified." This summer they are off to Singapore, to an
artificial island with swimming pools built on top of 50-storey skyscrapers. "So
we can swim there and look down on the city: 'Ha ha, fuck you.' That's what I
like to do – totally crazy things." It wasn't so much fun when his son was
younger. "But now, we have a certain rhythm established. We sleep 'til one, then
we go to breakfast, then we go to the city – no culture, just consumerism or
some stupid things like this – then we go back for dinner, then we go to a movie
theatre, then we play games 'til three in the morning."
I wonder what all Žižek's earnest young
followers will make of this, and worry they will be cross with me for not
getting anything more serious out of him. But to Žižek, Dubai tells us just as
much about the world as a debate about the deficit, say, ever can. When his
sweet-looking, polite young son arrives, I try to steer Žižek on to the
financial crisis, and to the role his admirers hope he will play in formulating
a radical response.
"I always emphasise: don't expect this from me.
I don't think that the task of a guy like me is to propose complete solutions.
When people ask me what to do with the economy, what the hell do I know? I think
the task of people like me is not to provide answers but to ask the right
questions." He's not against democracy, per se, he just thinks our democratic
institutions are no longer capable of controlling global capitalism. "Nice
consensual incremental reforms may work, possibly, at a local level." But
localism belongs in the same category as organic apples, and recycling. "It's
done to make you feel good. But the big question today is how to organise to act
globally, at an immense international level, without regressing to some
authoritarian rule."
How will that happen? "I'm a pessimist in the
sense that we are approaching dangerous times. But I'm an optimist for exactly
the same reason. Pessimism means things are getting messy. Optimism means these
are precisely the times when change is possible." And what are the chances that
things won't change? "Ah, if this happens then we are slowly approaching a new
apartheid authoritarian society. It will not be – I must underline this – the
old stupid authoritarianism. This will be a new form, still consumerist." The
whole world will look like Dubai? "Yes, and in Dubai, you know, the other side
are literally slaves."
There is something inexplicably touching about
all Žižek's mischievous bombast. I hadn't expected him to be so likable, but he
really is hilariously good company. I had hoped to find out if he was a genius
or a lunatic – but I fear I leave none the wiser. I ask him how seriously he
would recommend we take him, and he says he would rather be feared than taken
for a clown. "Most people think I'm making jokes, exaggerating – but no, I'm
not. It's not that. First I tell jokes, then I'm serious. No, the art is to
bring the serious message into the forum of jokes."
Two years ago his front teeth came out. "My son
knows I have a good friend; none of us is gay, just good friends. So when he saw
me without teeth, he said: 'I know why.' My son! He was 10! You know what he
told me? Think, associate, in the dirtiest way." I think I can guess. "Yes!
Sucking! He said my friend complained that my teeth were in the way." Žižek
roars with laughter, great gales of paternal pride.
"And you know what was tragicomic? After he told
me this, he said: 'Father, did I tell this joke well?'"
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