{"id":34835,"date":"2013-10-14T12:00:36","date_gmt":"2013-10-14T11:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=34835"},"modified":"2015-05-06T08:58:56","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T07:58:56","slug":"slavoj-zizek-most-of-the-idiots-i-know-are-academics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2013\/10\/slavoj-zizek-most-of-the-idiots-i-know-are-academics\/","title":{"rendered":"Slavoj \u017di\u017eek: “Most of the Idiots I Know Are Academics”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cultural theorist and ideas machine on Obama, stupidity and his favourite quasi-fascist industrial metal outfit – Rammstein.<\/i><\/p>\n

\""Rammstein<\/a>

“Rammstein are my guys” – \u017di\u017eek\u2019s top tip. Image: BFI.<\/p><\/div>\n

Slavoj \u017di\u017eek is brimming with thought. Each idea sprays out of the controversial Slovenian philosopher and cultural theorist in a jet of words. He is like a water balloon, perforated in so many areas that its content gushes out in all directions.<\/p>\n

The result is that, as an interviewer, trying to give direction to the tide is a joyfully hopeless enterprise. Perhaps more significantly, the same seems to be true for \u017di\u017eek himself.<\/p>\n

We meet in a room with one glass wall – an apt setting for a discussion of freedom, ideology, surveillance and \u201880s dystopias on film. Picturehouse HQ is playing host to our discussion, on the launch of \u017di\u017eek\u2019s new film The Pervert\u2019s Guide to Ideology<\/i>.<\/p>\n

httpv:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=NUKbhKV7Ia8<\/p>\n

Before I even ask my first question, Slavoj is off: he tells me that I\u2019m better than some interviewers he\u2019s met. The fact that I\u2019ve barely spoken yet doesn\u2019t seem a barrier to that.<\/p>\n

“You know, I hate it so much, when I was in Korea, I gave a couple of interviews, and they ask me ‘What do you think we should do in Korea? What\u2019s our situation here?’ F*ck you! What do I know?! You know? This crazy idea\u2026”<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek\u2019s demeanor is rabidly energetic. He delivers his responses with an acerbic wit and a gloriously foul mouth, which has earned him the moniker “the Elvis of cultural theory”, though something like “the Richard Pryor of radical philosophy” strikes me as more appropriate.<\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t seen the film yet, I tell him, though I\u2019m going to the premiere at The Ritzy in Brixton, where he\u2019ll be doing a Q&A. Then he drops a bomb: he hasn\u2019t seen it either. It dawns on me: what are we both doing here? Two guys in a room discussing a film neither of us has seen.<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m serious,” he says. “People think that this is my extravagant postmodern joke. No, I just, with all my nervous ticks and so on I hate seeing myself on screen: I cannot.”<\/p>\n

In an effort to get us back on track, I joke “well, hopefully you know what you said in it!” Another brick wall:<\/p>\n

“No I don\u2019t, because many things were not used, I was just improvising. I don\u2019t in all honesty.” I start thinking that this could be a long half hour.<\/p>\n

“I mean I was just blah blah<\/i> improvising there. And then, Sophie [Director – Sophie Fiennes], I mock her – she was like Leni Riefenstahl – you know after she shot Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl had some 200 hours of stuff and she spent one year just going through all of it and selecting. So, Sophie was our leftist Leni Riefenstahl.”<\/p>\n

Thankfully I know that Slavoj covers Terry Gilliam\u2019s Brazil<\/i> in The Pervert\u2019s Guide to Ideology<\/i>, and happily it\u2019s one of my favourite films, so I push us onto that. It\u2019s a bonding point:<\/p>\n

Oh my god that\u2019s the best British movie of all time. It really shows in advance how the new authoritarianism will be full of these jokes, self-irony: it will no longer be this dignified fascism, or whatever, you know? So many detailed tricks, like – I quoted it at least some ten times – it\u2019s wonderful, you remember when they go to a restaurant and you get the photo of the meal and then some sh*tty stuff [is put out] and you look at it.<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek pulls a face I never thought I\u2019d see a philosopher pull. Somewhere between throwing up and the dull-eyed facial sag of someone suffering a stroke. “This is worth a Nobel prize”, he says. Another moment in this scene, where a terrorist bomb goes off in the restaurant – following which a screen is drawn up to preserve the dining experience of those unharmed is “really the work of a genius.”<\/p>\n

As an unashamed proponent of the importance of theory, \u017di\u017eek has previously said that while the concept of “humanity” is fine by him, that “99 per cent of people are idiots”. I ask him if The Pervert\u2019s Guide to Ideology<\/i> is in some way an attempt to communicate theory to “idiots”.<\/p>\n

“Yeah, but who are the idiots? I didn\u2019t mean so-called poor, uneducated, ordinary people. If anything, most of the idiots that I know are academics. That\u2019s why I don\u2019t have any interest in communicating too much with academics.”<\/p>\n

I suggest that 99 per cent of people would probably include both. \u017di\u017eek seems unfazed and moves on: “I do feel some kind of stupid responsibility, as a public intellectual, and then I ask myself, sincerely, what can I do? It would be bluffing to claim that I can give answers. As I always repeat, what we philosophers can do is just correct the questions.”<\/p>\n

So what are the questions that \u017di\u017eek is trying to correct? Well the first is the way in which we conceive of ideology. It\u2019s not some “big social, political, project” which “died in 1990” with the fall of the USSR: ideology, he says, “still well and alive – not as a big system – but precisely in [a] most self-evident, normal everyday form.”<\/p>\n

“The way we, everyday people are addressed by social authority, whatever we call it – it\u2019s no longer telling us ‘sacrifice your life’ for British empire, for socialism, whatever. It\u2019s not. It\u2019s some kind of permissive bullsh*t basically. Society is telling us, like, be true to yourself, authentic, develop your potential, be kind to others. It\u2019s kind of what I ironically call a slightly enlightened Buddhist hedonism.”<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek sees the controversy over Obama-aid in the US – and the Republican-forced government shutdown – as emblematic of Obama touching “the nerve of what is false in American everyday ideology of freedom.”<\/p>\n

“What Americans don\u2019t want to admit\u2026 is that not only is there not<\/i> a contradiction between state regulation and freedom, but in order for us to actually be free in our social interactions, there must be an extremely elaborated network of health, law, institutions, moral rules and so on.”<\/p>\n

“Ideology today”, says \u017di\u017eek, is “unfreedom which you sincerely personally experience as freedom.”<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, he claims, many Americans see universal healthcare as a restriction on their freedom to choose a doctor: “well f*ck it, I feel much more free if I simply don\u2019t have to think about that. Like with electricity. I\u2019m very glad to renounce the freedom to choose my water or electricity suppliers: because can you imagine having to make all these choices?”<\/p>\n

I decide to force some choices out of \u017di\u017eek.<\/p>\n

Foucalt or Chomsky? “Er, you know this classical answer ‘Coffee or Tea? Yes please.'” Foucault or Chomsky? “No thanks,” he says with a cackle.<\/p>\n

Joseph Stalin or Joe Strummer? “Is there even a choice here?!” laughs \u017di\u017eek. As a self-proclaimed Stalinist I say that\u2019s really for him to tell me.<\/p>\n

“No nono – I would put it in this way. I would love to say Stalin, because that would be expected from me, you know \u2026 he was a nightmare.”<\/p>\n

On The Clash: “I like their activity \u2026 they were engaged [politically]. So I like everything about them \u2026 except their music.”<\/p>\n

“Basically, unfortunately I must tell you, I\u2019m a \u201868 generation conservative. I secretly think that everything really interesting in pop music, rock, happened between \u201865 and \u201875. I\u2019m sorry!” One contemporary band he does have time for, perhaps surprisingly, is German industrial metal outfit Rammstein.<\/p>\n

“They\u2019re very hard – I think they\u2019re extremely progressive. It\u2019s totally wrong to read them as almost a proto-fascist band. My god, they explicitly supported Die Linke, the leftists there, and so on. I like their extremely subversive from within, undermining of all this – you know? Like, it gives me pleasure. Psychologically I\u2019m a fascist – everyone knows it, no? Who published this – Daily Telegraph<\/i>? That jerk who pronounced me a leftist fascist, you know? Alan Johnson or who? So – I mean – I think we should take over these – all of these – authoritarian gestures, unity, leader, sacrifice, f*ck it! Why not? No? So, Rammstein are my guys.”<\/p>\n

I never imagined these would be the closing words of our discussion.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 newstatesman.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The cultural theorist and ideas machine on Obama, stupidity and his favourite quasi-fascist industrial metal outfit – Rammstein.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-focus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34835\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}