Slavoj Žižek: Trump, Himmler, Putin and 'Atheist Christianity' | Žižek's plot to save the West

one of the most stupid tolerant politically correct saying is I hate it it's uh an enemy is just somebody to whose story you didn't listen no sorry I read mine comp of Hitler and I became even more enemy and I listen to Russian media all the time and I'm becom even more I think we should do everything possible to stop Russia not just to help Ukraine but to get ready for a long-term conflict because you know the plan of Putin is obviously to get Baltic states and so it will go on you know now no

way for Trump I think you know that sorry I mean this at that point although the result was a little bit disappointing I think that four years of Trump's presidency made it clear to everybody what Trump stands for we needed that experience the the truth is out there the truth is not deep in you that's for me the lesson of Christianity no sorry to use this vulgar word if you go deep into yourself you discover uh we we are economically militarily ecologically approaching a deadlock there will be a need for a radical change if we

the enlightened people don't do it sorry then the true right- Wingers will do it slavo is probably as close as you can get to philosophers Mick Jagger he's debated Jordan Peterson has over 100 million views on Tik Tok and has been dubbed the most dangerous philosopher in the west his new book Christian atheism is out on the 4th of April and he joins us now on times radio a very good afternoon to you um before we get on to the book there's been a lot of discussion about Russia this week and I know you'll be

an excellent person to talk to this about Vladimir Putin earlier this week winning a fifth term as president with a land slide faced with you know three other candidates all pretty much rubber stamped by the Kremlin what I would like to know is is this the time for the West to intervene would there be Merit to calling Vladimir Putin an illegitimate president yes it this may sound strange because unfortunately what is now emerging in the West in parts of the so-called I don't call them that left and many on the right is this idea that

we should have a more balanced view maybe ukrainians provoke it too much maybe we are giving too much money to Ukraine and so on and the most horrible position is for me those of the leftists who say whoever is against NATO there must be something good in him I mean are they crazy I think this is what Russia did there I know that also in Ukraine many things they did it wrong but listen it was such a clear pure aggression first as a warning to any leftist I remember the two speeches just before the aggression

21st and 23rd of February speeches Putin speeches Putin speeches yes you know which was the only name he pronounced there Lenin he said ukraina should be called Ukraine of Vladimir ilich Lenin for him this is the original bolik scene Putin is not a kind of a KGB old communist hardliner no his entire terminology is explicitly a returning to the Imperial times of Empire expansion and point to I can understand vaguely Russian so as much as possible through podcast I'm listening to their media it's night marage what a deep uh fanatically religious fundamentalism you hear there

they speak in the terms of uh eschatological struggle Russia protector of Christian civilization against the Godless West I mean it's you have to again you have just to listen to them you know one of the most stupid tolerant politically correct saying is I hate it it's uh an enemy is just somebody to whose story you didn't listen no sorry I read M comp of Hitler and I became even more enemy and I listen to Russian media all the time and I'm BEC in more so that's the Paradox as uh still radical leftist I think we

should do everything possible to stop Russia not just to help Ukraine but to get ready for a long-term conflict because you know the plan of Putin is obviously to get Baltic states and so it will go on do you think so let's follow this on then um and talk about NATO and whether Russia will force NATO to get involved by their actions or whether NATO should Step Up further on Russia and I want to throw into this as well the fact that you know are we in the west complicit by not delegitimizing Vladimir Putin by

not calling him the so-called Russian president after an undemocratic election are we are we complicit yes we are now I know there is the danger of global war and so on so I'm not saying we should do crazy things but we should first set a clear Red Line how do you call it limit mhm and uh so and if Russia crosses that limit I agree here with macron everybody was shocked when he said we cannot totally exclude the possibility that Western NATO soldiers we have to what is the line for you slavo just just just

out of Interest the line is this one uh I'm here pretty open I know that uh that ukrainians were making mistakes nationalistic mistakes that Russians in the donbas region were oppressed and so on but you know I remember the first day of the intervention Biden was asked what will be the reaction and he said something very sensible for me he says let's wait and see is this just a limited operation to just gain a little bit of territory there no now it's clear Putin is repeating it again we have to get rid of the Nazi

whatever regime there so that should be the limit Ukraine should survive if there any naivity to Vladimir Putin he's got this very set idea of what he wants to do he wants to claim back territory he wants to create another Soviet Union is there any naivity to that it's creative naivity what do I mean by this it's this type of most intelligent naivity where he says all the time openly what he wants but he counts on the fact that we in the west will not take him seriously I remember even the days before Russian aggression

of Ukraine began all my political friends I had many of them not only in Slovenia were think this is retoric don't take it too seriously and so and and so on but Putin is playing this game which is I think the most intelligent form of cheating cheat deceive with truth itself you just say what you really want and count on the fact that people will not uh take you seriously so naivity is a very dangerous thing we learn the same from Hitler from all the totalitarians and so on let's talk about your book Christian atheism

um I want to ask you this for the first time in a census of England and world less than half the population here 46% describe themselves as Christian okay so for the first time ever it went below 50% Christian people describing themselves as Christian no religion was the second most common response in that census that increased by 12 percentage points so you can see where this is going um I wonder whether the rise of the white rightwing in Europe whether the rise of Maga in the US I wonder whether that means we feel less unified

by religion what is the reason that we're falling out of love with religion uh with which religion I read somewhere that it's for me an extremely interesting data that in the United States if you focus on top corporate managers you know what the large majority of them is not atheist not Christians but what I call ironically Western Buddhists some kind of enlightened meditation and so on and this has a very dangerous conservative role why you know that it always shocked me Henry himler if there ever was a bad guy it's him SS the organizer of

Holocaust you know what was his favorite book Bhagavad Gita you know why his question was we are doing horrible things which sess how can we retain our dignity without us becoming beasts even if we are doing beastly things like an SS officer killing a Jewish small child and mother crying his answer was Bhagavad Gita this teaching could act at a at a distance don't identify with your acts and this is why I prefer Christianity because Christianity is for me an outward religion in the sense of no there is no deep truth in yourself go out

of yourself commit yourself that's why in this sense I am a Christian atheist you know my favorite part of gospels is you know when I think in Matthew all good things are in Matthew uh gospel people ask Christ but how will we know after you will die how will we know that you returned you know what Christ says when there will be love between two of you I will be there so I reject all that stupid story Second Coming blah blah blah no Holy Spirit the spirit of community of Believers is already Christ it's already

here it's already here it is we don't have to wait foral and so we don't have to label it then either do we I I wonder why you think you know now the majority under 50% of people in the UK now declare themselves as Christian are are people shamed people worried about declaring themselves as Christian are are people falling out of the love with religion maybe in its traditional sense but maybe this is not so bad you know why because in the sense that I speak about atheism which is which is for me Christian atheism

the lesson of Christianity is God dies not only representative of God God himself dies on the cross what is left is we a community with a firm commitment and so on and so on and I think that most of people who call themselves Christians are still committed unfortunately to some kind of a pagan version whereas there is God up there we are here and God sent a messenger Christ okay it didn't work okay my child come back to me I will try again no no Christianity is for me literally an atheist religion and especially important

again a religion of commitment it's not what you think deep into yourself you know what you find in Christianity a very deep Insight that if I look deep into myself I will not discover some inner truth and so on I will discover probably a lie stories I invent to myself that legitimize the horrors I'm doing in actual life for me the truth is out there like that series years ago the the truth is out there the truth is not deep in you that's for me the lesson of Christianity here Christianity is the opposite of all

those Oriental meditation religions where they say go deep into you no sorry to use this vulgar word if you go deep into yourself you discover we are all dirty deep in ourselves that's interesting so let's um let's talk about the second part to that question then and the rise of the rightwing in Europe um and also Maga in the US and I wonder whether if we're less unified by religion if we're yet less less prepared to um to you know say that we follow organized religion traditional religion if you talk about Christianity Etc whether whether

the rise of the right wing whether the rise of the Maga movement make America great again whether that unifies us whether we need a common cause if we're not all following the Bible if we're not all following Christianity do we need another common cause and is that why we've seen uh the rise of other we will not find it there because you know I know you won't to give AEF answer you know once in United States I gave an interview to conservative commentator who asked me about Moral Majority and I my answer was I'm totally

for Moral Majority but not for Trump trump is for me a model of a politician who preaches Christian values and so on but look at how Trump acts isn't he in his actions the ultimate postmodern relativist cynical politician he even doesn't believe himself he changes his position all the time he makes cynical vulgar jokes and so on so for me Trump is the ultimate postmodern cynical politician while if there is any politician admitted in the United States that's why I really like him is uh Bernie Sanders isn't he a simple Common Man never lost in

any big rhetorics is for me the very notion of Moral Majority my solution is the left should take over the ter ter of respect peace even Law and Order Moral Majority why we live now in a very dangerous time where in developed and third world countries gang rule or illegal organizations are taking over you read horrible news in Haiti these days gangs practically took over the state and other countries like Salvador all around uh it is as if the system cannot any longer reproduce itself without Subterranean links to Illegal violent gangs in United States it's

the same Trump and the proud boys and all those half terrorist half illegal organization unfortunately in Israel it's similar don't forget that now the minister of State security itamar bengu he was condemned by the Israeli Court as a terrorist at 20 or 15 years ago so this where me very much and as a guy with whom I don't always agree but sometimes he has good ideas yal Harari Said Today We Live in a crazy world where the right wing took over the Revolutionary rhetoric and activity you remember 6th of January two years ago a popular

crowd tried to overtake three years ago we should say sorry three yeah but you know what was the Paradox my leftist friends cried they said but we the people should be doing this no no this vulgarity brutality is now the domain of the right and the left should discover common decency civility politeness and so on but do you think arguably the left has less power and influence on that on that level and I'm talking about you know the fact that Bernie Sanders was you know discussed the left of American politics was discussed a lot in

the 2020 election certainly more than it is in the runup to this one in this country we had Jeremy Corbin lead the L the labor party now that all went terribly wrong but there was a definite nod To the Left To socialism and now we have a very Centrist labor party a conservative party who are desperate to claim and identify with the right and in America you've had the centralist President Biden and now you know again you are leaning into to the right with Donald Trump so does this then you know leave out the liberal

left does this mean they they actually carry less influence here pessimist and I agree with my friend uh yanis vakis who claims that the key to this events is something very tragic the left the moderate left is losing because it is still obsessed it's very conservative power force political force because its dream is still let's return to the Golden Era of Social Democratic welfare state that's over vakis is right when he says that what we are having today is something that that's problematic but he calls it techn falis this Mega corporations today Apple Amazon and

so on they are no longer ordinary capitalist agencies they are neopal Corporation controlling a certain domain and this changes entire picture controlling what controlling what we for extion of books yeah and here uh so the problem is not how to counter capitalism the problem is that capitalism is no longer the good old capitalism against which traditional social democracy worked relatively well and you know what is so sad that uh Trump knows this in some sense he very intelligently uses this when he paints as the enemy The Deep state that is to say big corporations controlling

us he is simply up to a point right here so I'm here totally opportunistic I don't exclude anything I'm even tempted to say that maybe at some strategic point the left should join forces with sorry to use this very naive term uh small creative capitalists against big corporations we are now in such a suffocating pseo dnamic where everything changes but the situation is getting more and more oppressive democracy is reaching an end and especially here I deplore the British brexit for me in spite of all Horrors that it did I like the idea of European

Union which means different countries with different culture come together just to guarantee certain basic coordinates ecology women's rights human rights and so on what we have now in all around the globe is this new nightmare is global capitalism combined politically and religiously with returning to strong nation state look at China this is something new going on there now they are putting all the pressure on Ur on Tibetans China is taking from the west from Western Enlightenment precisely that a thing that we should abandon today which is strong nation state look at Modi in India Hindu

nationalism doing the same Putin is basically doing the same and so on so I there's lots of Nations wanting to claim that that that kind of strong nation state you know Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps we more selfish perhaps perhaps we want to take back ownership I think you know certainly here in the UK one of the most common reasons why people voted brexit is that we whether this is right or not we want our country back we want to be making the decisions that affect us as the UK we don't want a court in Brussels making

them for us now you know like you what's the problem ironically most of our most of our laws legislation the way we live is still according to what happens in Europe most of it is with a few small caveat only but I think that in today's Global situation when there are new power blocks Russia China India United States uh this United Europe will simply become a popular tourist place and no longer what it could have been in terms of power in terms of power military power economic power and so on but to be concerned isn't

it about the power of India the power of China yeah yeah and that's very dangerous because already now for the Chinese I have many friends there they told me Europe very interesting if we are interested in development we go to the United States but Europe yeah yeah London ven tourist Place treat us as a tourist but do you also notice sorry let to conclude another important Point that's what makes me a little bit pro-european still do you notice how now anti- eurocentrism is appropriated by almost everybody Latin American leftist against eurocentricism Trump is terribly against

centralized Europe he want to dismember Europe into autonomously Putin is against Euro cism everybody is against eurocentrism precisely now when the European Legacy what is hopefully authentic in this Legacy human rights feminism and all that some economic Justice is under threat everywhere let's talk about a potential second term in presidency for Donald Trump's so in 2016 I was watching an interview and you said you would vote for Trump um mainly because you didn't like what Hillary Clinton had to offer you didn't like her version of capitalist that she presented as seally Progressive but actually she's

she's a capitalist and you also said that if Trump was elected back in 2016 it would disturb the political consensus it did I think without Trump there wouldn't have been a small level of democratic socialism but let me interrupt you I'm sorry but you know now no way for Trump I think you know what you mean by that sorry I mean this at that point although the result was a little bit disappointing I think that four years of Trump's presidency made it clear to everybody what Trump stands for we needed that experience and I think

another thing then why do Americans want to go back to that because the majority of the Americans fav Donald Trump Center left no they they really don't this is why they are escaping into woke culture cancel culture and so on do they really have any Clear Vision apart from simply returning to the old social democratic ideal and so on and so on Biden is not even so bad here you remember a couple of months ago he went to Chicago or where to support the auto workers strike and so on but no I think that we

are approaching that's why I call myself a communist ironically but what warning a moderately conservative communist no communist means this look look at ecology look at all these temperature oscillations and so on these are problems which cannot be resolved locally we it's a matter of survival to invent a more tight International cooperation m concerning immigration here I also here I disagree with many of my leftist friends whose solution is oh let's just open borders and so on and so on no this is a catastrophe for me because then you will have here right Wingers returning

to power listen see what's happening now in Germany but especially in Denmark Sweden and so on maybe in France it will be so uh we we are economically militarily ecologically approaching uh deadlock and I think that the liberal left still approaches the problem in the sense of let's just do it a little bit in a more moderate careful way basically they don't want to change anything just let's try with our lives going on the way they are no there will be the need for radical change if we the enlightened people don't do it sorry then

the true right-wingers will do it let's finish off yeah with the shades of time and when we look back on this generation this era how do you think it will be defined ah wonderful that you said this I now my love is to study uh uh quantum physics and you know this idea of hologramic approach where the same situation could be retroactively redefined in different ways our situation now I think is hologramic in the sense that it it can be read in three four different ways and the situation is open I'm no longer Marxist in

the sense of there is the goal of Socialism or whatever we don't know we are really in a radically open situation we will see retroactively what is really happening today but we will what is happening today sorry what is happening today but again my point is here much more paradoxical uh what is happening today is an open situation where it's not clear where it leads it's up to us maybe if Western Europe collapses they will say Western Europe was just an aberation really we are in this new bricks era which I find night marriage and

so on you know it's a okay I will draw a megalomania comparison with culture I admire Shakespeare but you know that Shakespeare became Shakespeare only in the late 18th century after his death he was ignored more or less for 100 years the French classicist Rin and so on took over I think it's the same situation today it's we are like Shakespeare Europe is European Legacy is like Shakespeare will it be rediscovered the way Shakespeare was discovered or will it remain some marginal aberation in global progress toward something much more uh night marriage so again I

think you know who is my ideal here last I read a book on uh uh true and lie the second guy after M you know when he was in 53 in Geneva I think negotiation to end the Korean War a French journalist asked him what do you think about French Revolution and you know what true and I answered it's too early to say and he was right because when socialism collapsed in 1900 uh 889 it was exactly 200 years under French Revolution and still now a struggle is going on the liberal conservative version is all

that revolutionary period was an aberation but maybe not I'm still sympathetic to Jacobin and you see it becomes clear retroactively it depends on us I don't believe in faith or I believe in faith but through our activity we are creating our faith yeah we in some sense are changing the past you don't believe me I will quote to you your biggest conservative poet whom I like TS Elliot who said somewhere in his traditional individual talent that each new work of art great one it's not only a cut with the past but in some sense changes

our perception the logic of the entire past that's we are where we are today in an open situation to use the quantum terminology there are many superpositions but we don't know know in what new form they will collapse it's an open situation let's leave it there absolutely fascinating and I've enjoyed our conversation very much thank you slavo and it was an honor for me a great pleasure to have you with us and a reminder that slavo new book Christian atheism is out on the 4th of April thank you