SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

Our thesis eleven today should be:

"Critical leftists have hitherto only dirtied with dust the balls of those in power – the point is to cut them off."

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
Sex and the Failed Absolute

Trump's twisted 'greatness' is that he effectively acts - he is not afraid to break the unwritten (and written) rules to impose his decisions. As we learned (not only) from Hegel, our life is regulated by a thick web of written and unwritten rules, rules which teach us how to practice the explicit (written) rules. While Trump (more or less) sticks to explicit legal regulations, he tends to ignore the unwritten silent pacts which determine how we should practice these rules - the way he dealt with Kavanaugh was just one example of it.

Instead of just blaming Trump, the Left should learn from him and do the same. When a situation demands it, we should shamelessly do the impossible and break the unwritten rules. Unfortunately, today's Left is in advance terrified of any radical acts - even when it is in power, it worries all the time:'If we do this, how will the worlds react? Will our acts cause panic?' Ultimately, this fear means: 'Will our enemies be mad and react?' In order to act in politics, one has to overcome this fear and assume the risk, make a step into the unknown.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

God was a lazy programmer.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
[When asked about the dangers of Internet trolls being able to say whatever they want because of false profiles]

What interests me in this phenomenon – let's call them 'staged identities' – is how there can be more truth in the mask that you adopt than in your real, inner self. I always believed in masks; I never believed in the emancipatory potential of this gesture of 'let's tear off the masks.'

Let me give you a simple example. Let us say that I'm in reality a shy, impotent, stupid person, afraid…but then, in Internet reaction, I adopt a screen persona of a brutal, racist guy who humiliates people, beats women and so on…It's too easy to say, 'Oh, I'm really a coward, but there I imagined to be a powerful macho.' What if it's the opposite? What if I really am that brutal guy – but in real life, because of social pressure and so on, I oppress it so that the true mask is my authentic, real self? And the truth comes out precisely in the guise of a fiction.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World

The really difficult thing to accept is the fact that the ongoing epidemic is a result of natural contingency at its purest, that it just happened and hides no deeper meaning. In the larger order of things, we are just a species with no special importance

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
The Sublime Object of Ideology

A well-known joke - a fool who thought he was a grain of corn. After some time in a mental hospital he was cured; now he knew that he was not a grain, but a man. So they let him out; but soon after he came running back saying, "I met a hen and I was afraid she would try to eat me." The doctors tried to calm him down. "What are you afraid of? You know you are not a grain, but a man." The fool answered: "Yes of course I know that, but does the hen know?"

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

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With Lenin it was always a substantial commitment. I always have a certain admiration for people who are aware that somebody has to do the job. What I hate about these liberal, pseudo-left, beautiful-soul academics is that they are doing what they are doing fully aware that somebody else will do the job for them.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK
The Sublime Object of Ideology

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As Bertolt Brecht puts in his Threepenny Opera: ''What is the robbery of a bank compared to the foundation of a new bank?"

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK

I despise the kind of book that tells you how to make yourself happy. The first duty of philosophy is making you understand what deep shit you are in.