Philosopher Slavoj Žižek on 'soft' fascism, AI & the effects of shamelessness in public life

when I was young we were this old style leftist we thought those in power have dignity but we you know all obscene gestures we spoke uh use dirty words and we got the answer which is that those in power are now more obscene than we even imagined to be we got it so wrong in the last elections how Democrats really cannot learn anything [Applause] I'm seriously not a bad joke honored to be here and uh I will try since I talk too much to keep it short this is more some introductory remarks to give you

an idea where we are so where are we I like to flirt with quantum mechanics but what fascinates me is how to apply Notions of quantum mechanics superpositions collapse and so on to social events to history and uh uh my basic idea is this one while still in some sense a radical leftist but be warranted my official self- designation is now a moderately conservative communist I will explain why uh I think that what we have to leave behind is this either liberal or Marxist dream of a history which even if you say yeah it's contingent

it may not happen which points in a certain direction like with fukuyama we had end of history fukuyama is not an idiot now he is for Bernie Sanders he saw that that doesn't function or uh or we have Orthodox Marxist who thinks yeah there are some complications but nonetheless communism is in the future and uh you know even if they mask their determinism like the famous saying by Rosa Luxemburg the future will be Socialism or barbarism you know what she missed in stalinism we get both at the same time now socialism so my idea is

this one you know this basic idea of quantum superpositions a particle goes I simplify to the utmost from point A to point B but to understand what happens you must presuppose then that in this let's call it virtual state of waves particle takes all possible roots and then in one it collapses and I think we are today in such a moment who knows where we are going we know that we have three four deadly threats crisis ecology War immigration I mean population movements and so on I will not go into it but uh I the

key problem is how they will interact like some people think that if ecology crisis goes even in a more terrible Direction then there will be less Wars I'm not so sure it's completely open so my idea is that we are now in a state of superpositions it may be some new socialism it may be it may be new barbarism with islands of civilization around it murderous violence but now comes my bad news you can ask me question later I think that makes me sad the most probable result will be what I call not that I

like it soft fascism by Soft I mean not direct Nazi fascism killer them but simply what the best definition of fascism is for me uh uh uh uh conservative Revolution that is to say you want to participate in the capitalist Dynamic fast development but you are aware many intelligent fascists knew this you are aware that left to itself free capitalism and Li alism can end up in Social disintegration so the idea is in economy capitalism but controlled by a strong state which legitimizes Itself by a reference to some mostly invented it doesn't matter traditional religious

but not necessarily religious ideology you know now I will maybe hurt some among you but you know who is is here almost my model I closely follow what goes on there China I read people don't notice this two months ago he their leader gave a speech and he began with our youth is not educated enough we have to train them ideologically then I expected the usual stuff oh read more marks ma no he said confian tradition we need that tradition to hold things together Modi is doing the same in India extremely brutal capitalism but and

so on so uh uh this is if you ask me for the majority of the world the most probable Direction so history is not on our history is not on our site another thing that worries me extremely and wonder if you noticed it is that more and more states are so-called Rogue States now don't be afraid I will not use this term in the usual Western develop imperialist way but who is today a rogue State I propose a very simple definition of a rogue state you have a certain legal structure laws police and so on

and a Rog State one of the approaches is the state where the existing order cannot reproduce itself legally in its own ideological terms and needs a support of brutal illegal violence the first idea that comes here is of course Haiti where the state fell apart and even more now than 80% of the territory is uh run by ganks but why remain there let me go to the for some people highest points what about Russia Wagner group was a typical half legal illegal military group as we learned now totally financed by state but nonetheless kept at

some distance from Power then let's be frank till now now the mask has fallen settlers on the West Bank in Israel they were following Israeli laws themselves illegal and that's the tragedy of Israel today itar benu was condemned by Israeli courts some 20 years ago ago as a racist criminal now he is a minister for of course Security even in the United States look at all those groups which are in this mixture today at the same time anti-muslim and anti-semitic and all like proud boys and so on Trump keeps them at distance but nonetheless manipulates

with them this is the true uh failed State a state itself cannot reproduce itself in accord with its own not just ideology but uh legal premises and so on so we should be aware of this radical openness of the situation it's obviously that our situation today cannot go on indefinitely but the situation is not predetermined we don't know how it will get to use in a simplified way the quantum terms into what single reality will it collapse I don't have now time to go into my favorite hegelian topic because I think that Hegel was aware

of this of what of retroactivity in the sense then that when some a certain version takes place retroactively it doesn't of course change the past empirically what happened happened but the narration the way we perceive the past changes we are all the time changing uh the past and although Marx is often uh dismissed as naive progress yes there are these elements in marks but nonetheless in some place in his big manuscript grund he says something wonderful he says in the same way that anatomy of a man is the key to the anatomy of the ape

capitalism provides the anatomy and allow us to interpret all the previous stages but I think Marx is here radically anti theological his point is not oh capitalism was predetermined and so on no his point is much more refined once capitalism won we retroactively read the entire history we rewrite it as leading towards capitalism that's why I love Al don't always agree with them the work of David Graber and the other guy wro they tried to show this superposition in ancient Inca Society you know how it wasn't just sacrificing children horror there was an incredible local

democracy at work it just collapse in so my lesson is to understand what happens always Focus off on what might have happened but didn't happen because what might have happened doesn't simply disappear it remains either as a reactionary dream or as a very Progressive dream I will not go on in this direction just to say that because of all this I think we should be very careful in how we Define progress for example the big question today I'm approaching the end uh artificial intelligence I think we we approach it in a wrong way when we

ask the question will it be able to think really and by this we usually mean Think Like Us humans first I think again that it's an abstract question we don't know the answer in the sense that why do we always formulate it in these terms will it think like us it's possible that a totally different form of we may even call it spirituality will emerge but now this is my psychoanalytic approach and to provoke you I will use it uh when I asked myself and I spoke with many specialists uh this I accepted this stupid

debate of what can artificial intelligence do of course it can calculate whatever much faster than we it can uh uh it can uh it can learn itself self reproduce but my point and my partners in dialogue were usually shocked are two things which are for me specifically human and they are crucial for our Humanity one is the daily rituals no superstitious habits rather you know for example I have one and don't give me that that psychoanalysis is that it has to do with my fear of insemination or what whenever I wash my hands even if

I see that no water is dropping I have to check it with my hand what if I just don't see them but this is an absolute habit but you know all these habits for example I read in a biography of Agata Christi that every evening after finishing her writing she took a bath and ate an apple while what's the point of this stupid habits they have no deeper meaning I think it's wrong to play psychoanalysis here no they are a pure appearance of meaning but you know what I mean meaning as such without any meaning

it's wrong to say oh this means that trauma I don't know aatr was thinking the cheese Eve in Paradise apples whatever no it's just this empty appearance of meaning by means of which we counteract the obvious chaotic meaninglessness of Our Lives now my big surprise comes the second thing I don't think that artificial intelligence can can swear really swearing is for me something very interesting it's not just vulgarity wearing means a proof that we humans we exist in language we think but thinking occurs in words in language but we are never at home really in

language and in swearing when you swear we don't express simply dissatisfaction with some objective event I wanted to this no it's frustration about not being a able to formulate it in your in your language so I have here and I talked about this with my religious friends I have many and they agreed with me that uh I always like this anachronistic topological movements you know that uh imagine Christ on the cross no forget about that uh uh father why have you forsaken and me when he was dying he should be swear swearing maybe that's the

Paradox but I think there is true he should have said oh Christ where I am and and so on but you see what I mean it's a certain embarrassment of our inability to be in language which is constitutive of our uh of our uh Humanity now let me conclude with another maybe surprising moment for you what makes me really sad today is the exploding I cannot but use this term shamelessness things which in public space were simply impossible even 10 years ago you can say them publicly today and I don't mean just the obvious example

all the vulgarities of Donald Trump trump of your own Boris Johnson and so on but uh even for example I'm definitely not anti-semitic I see also the Israeli side but what really shocked me is two things that happened recently in Israel in August they had a debate when in keset their Parliament uh Zionist members protested because in a prison just south of Jerusalem where Hamas prisoners are kept it's nobody denies it now there are even video clips guards were doing pretty rough things like pushing up the rectum big metal sticks with needles in them many

many prisoners died from bleeding okay I'm uh I'm here try to I try to be neutral who knows what other sites are doing I'm not saying but what depressed me is that is the debate in knesset you can find it easily on YouTube when the predominant tone was it's a shame that our guards were arrested for doing this uh Hamas members are less than human we can we can do whatever we want to them you see I think it's better hypocrisy than this type of openness and also uh another thing uh similar thing uh uh

shocked me uh uh now an honest on with decency Israeli soldier his name is Elan mrai returned from Gaza where he was ordered to do horrible thing with the bulldozer he was running over hundreds of De and Alive Palestinians he was in such a crisis that he killed himself and the reaction was not which would be my reaction at least he obviously had some decency no the reaction of official IDF psychologist was how to train soldiers that they will not have ethical problems with acting like with acting like this that's for me the end this

shamelessness so to conclude really what fascinates me so much is that ja laong my teacher gave a seminar the other side of psychoanalysis in 6970 reaction to uh his reaction to 68 events where instead of Simply uh uh simply supporting student revolts and so on he said what you are lacking is shame he said the ultimate goal of psychoanalysis today today in our era of permissiveness is not get rid of paternal oppression realize all your fantasies but it's a lack of Shame which then results in universalized uh perversion laon is here referring to something that

already Freud knew perversion is is much less subversive than hysteria and if you know a little of psycho analysis this couple is usually also sexualized like this is the usual male chauvinist St women are hysterical they just moan but secretly they want a new master no well men are pervert they do what they dream about uh Freud already knew it that he put it literally nowhere is the unconscious more oppressed than in perversion all great things happen through hysteria and this is I think the lesson for us when I was young we were this old

style leftist we thought those in power have dignity but we you know all obscene gestures we spoke uh use dirty words and we got the answer which is that those in power are now more obscene than we even imagined to be we got it so round in the last elections how Democrats really cannot learn anything uh they thought that you know when when Trump was caught lying they thought oh now we caught him no it only helped him when Trump was caught in vulgarities in lies that was the basis of his identification people loved him

for that so the question to ask is now in our era of this type of permissiveness how to restore a basic sense of Shame thank you very much if I was too long