Slavoj Žižek - What does it mean to be a revolutionary today? Marxism 2009

Debate with Alex Callinicos at Marxism 2009
www.counterfire.org

[@lcsalas]

I love how he always starts his conclusions at the middle of the talks.

[@farrelliux]

Let's be glad that we still have political philosophers like Zizek, he shows that the very essence of marxist thought is still here whilst proven to be falsifiable. Marxism can and should be reformed according to different times. Let's preserve what basis marx has laid out for us and use it wisely. If we are to ignore marxist thought then as he points out, we are simply capitalists with a human face.

[@AgentHomer]

***** let me guess, you hate foreigners, don't you? you believe people should stay put where they are born, right? different skin colors shouldn't mix, according to you, right? also it quite so happens that marxism is mostly famous for trying to bring an end to state and capitalism. One more thing: we love culture, but you are right about the rest, we do believe all these things (religion, patriotism, distinct races, nations…) belong to the dustbin of history…

[@AgentHomer]

farrelliux So tell me, what reforms does Marxism need? I'm not trying to imply Marxism has all the answers, I'm genuinely interested! While I'm wary of revisionism (which is something entirely different than trying to further Marxist theory, revisionism is to marxism like intelligent design is to darwinism), Marxism can never fall into dogmatism.

[@sambutler9927]

***** "Marxism is a state capitalistic ideology that sees culture, religion, patriotism and ethnicity as a source of perversity" What are you talking about?

[@AgentHomer]

***** He's merely drawing attention to the fact that you are so mistaken that your statement appears ridiculous. I don't know why news hasn't broken to you yet, but Marxism is out to abolish the state and capitalism, not join the two. You are sort of right about religion and patriotism. Marxists are not intolerant to religion in general, sometimes they fight their worldly representatives, but Marxists are mostly people which hope that in free societies, people will see through religion on themselves. What they see as a perversity is the popularized version of religion so widely disseminated, which is merely an ideology full of lies keeping the people down and presenting them with a pie and the sky. Patriotism in the sense of putting one nation above the rest is merely a perversity to Marxists. However, Marxists love culture, people like Adorno, Benjamin or indeed Zizek can't stop talking about it. They are critical of many aspects of mainstream and elite culture, but that is just because they want to save it from becoming an instrument of subjection. And by Marxists, I mean people like myself.

[@AgentHomer]

***** oh, so you're not a conservative? this is exciting, what are you? you're against democracy, both major bourgeois political philosophies (conservatism and liberalism) and you hate capitalism but love Jesus, so my guess is: fascist? Or are you some other kind of anti-modern reactionary? Oh, and you're right, I'm a demon from hell and I do want world domination, no catching me by surprise that way, buddy. But how on earth I'm a sectarian?

[@amac333]

the delivery on that joke was quality

[@thebenallen]

i've listened to this lecture like a zillion times and it always owns

[@laurevalentius]

2024 and this speech is still one of my favorites.

[@bilfo71]

zizek's ability to present his arguments in a practical method is like awesome, he provides meaningful, simple examples which easily explains his ideas without insulting the listener which says more about where he comes from rather then a school of thought he practices, I guess this is more for Slovenians, whatever you teach your children to produce this guy, the world needs more of it.

[@VideoAssociates]

“How can you be a revolutionary today” - at the core of what motivates someone

[@p4n0pt1c]

one of my favourite speeches by now. srsly

[@srikarpamidi1946]

Years later, and this is still relevant and insightful analysis into ideology and its function in global capitalism.

[@kurtralske4026]

38:10 never seen Zizek this sincerely emotional and vulnerable

[@nindzha]

Its been only once I have seen zizek live. He was reading a book while waiting on a pedestrian crossing for a green light. When the pedestrian light actually turned green this huge mass of people crossed the street, but zizek didn't move. He stood there dwelling in that book as he would be in the comfort of his living room. The light turned red again, and i just said to myself, well thats a man that doesn't allow himself to be bothered.

[@affeofen]

i love him as well

[@prasantbanerjee8199]

This is one of the most impressive of presentations by the Slovenian polymath on Marxism and Communism in the present international context. Also, Dr Zizek is quite strongly emphatic here on the historical importance of Europe and the concept of modernization. Compared to this lecture, again, almost all his later talks are much more Hegelian and Lacanian, with less and less emphasis made on the role of Marxism and Communism in the process of the emancipatory changes that are, as he yet underscores, quite inevitable.

[@udhavn]

Splendid speech especially towards the end. Bravo.

[@RoxanneDesforges]

This video made my day. Thank you!

[@Peippy1]

His ball analogy has officially made him the coolest philosopher ever.

[@sextusloverlord]

I'm spending my new year's watching this Slavoj Zizek speech lol!

[@pgk7285]

Excellent: "...an ominous moment of awareness." Thanks for uploading.

[@abolenator]

This is really restorative laughter upon laughter that somehow the universal can still shine through the particular for being singular. Well done Zizek.

[@merakjetcinematography7011]

we love you

[@mzambo666]

I love Slavoj Žižek thank yopu so much for the post

[@marietagon]

the question once and again is what it is to be re-volucionary, how we embrace such a word and how we are constraint by ideological right forces, always towards a better world

[@angelsea21]

I love this man.

[@shakeyourdimsims]

Very few people can do what Zizek does. i am constantly blown away. he is an animal

[@immacali9562]

Existe una versión subtitulada al castellano???? Por favor, si alguien lo sabe ruego lo comunique.... Gracias.

[@spoonerbooner]

note to self: take action

[@HCLcoasters]

The amount of views this video has makes me happy.

[@camaples]

thanks for this up

[@Civilis1980]

Go Slavoj! Glad not everyone has switched off yet..

[@blacng]

Please does anyone know the scholar Alex who Slavoj made constant reference to during his lecture? (I get the impression that Alex must have spoken before Slavoj).

[@farrider3339]

What happened ? Was it a natural FORCE coming over me ? Yes, my friend. Twas an early Zizek lecture. Great stuff 🤓💪🥇

[@GuitarWithBrett]

Here's a sincere question: What is one specific idea from Zizek that you can explain which has led you to some new action or some clear understanding about an issue? ... I've never heard Zizek mention anything specific about technology, so I assume he doesn't program, but I could be wrong.

[@ketch_up]

I've never seen Zizek speak with this kind of conviction before.

[@loboarmado]

Alguien podria traducir al español el discurso completo, por favor, lo agradeceria mucho. hay una traducción por allí pero es de un fragmento solamente y con este tipo hay que escuchar de donde para entender a donde quiere llegar, Gracias. Somebady could plis translate the full speech to Spanish, I'll be really thanksful. There's a translate fragment but with this guy you have to now where he start to know where he's going. My english is good but with he's accent a can't understand fully this!

[@pipacspapucs]

thanx for the video! but what happened to the homepage? why is it "closed"?

[@Spiffyparsley]

Zizek is a wonderful speaker and an certainly an accomplished politician and philosopher. One thing he is not, however, is a hope-bringer. I would very much like to hear your rebuttal on this.

[@ChibiOlia]

it's a shame that the vid is not subtitled. he talks very fast >

[@KrutoyPostowoy]

wow just gotta love this man!

[@wangeric4354]

I hope there could be an English subtitle for people like me who are not native speakers of English.

[@not2tees]

He deserves his spontaneous applause. Delightfully insightful and original is the Zizek!

[@percymate]

Zizek! It is so inspiring to hear him speak.

[@ranXerox09]

Can somebody help me? I'm translating this entire speech into spanish to share it with some friends who were extremely interested to understand it. But I just want to know what does he say at the beggining, it is really hard to understand for me. Until the part where he says "I would like to begin with Adorno..." Well.. THANKS A LOT to all of you in advance, and thanks @adycousins for sharing this amazing stuff!

[@79898325]

I may not agree with him about everything, but I do love this man. "His voice will get suddenly higher" Hahah, bless you Zizek!

[@ctrl2win]

i had a debate with Slavoj about the future of europe and Slovenia and there were many point that we agree to!

[@shakeyourdimsims]

@jacobscamell please can you explain what you mean ?thank you for your post also

[@IvoMaropo]

A simple task to unveil this distinction: Ask a Philosophy student to unveil Nietzsche’s arguments then ask him the same for Hegel’s or Kant’s... At that split-second difference, many difficulties may “spontaneously” appear.

[@carlmalmberg]

@oihhow "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again." - Andre Gide ;)

[@TokugawaMainframe]

He hinted briefly at maybe the small reforms will lead to the castration but apart from that does he have any other concrete ideas. He says at other points lately that no one really knows how to do this. Any ideas anyone?

[@rajkumarpachauri606]

wow blog of this article is very nice and wonderful . seriously i like that post

[@arzoyan]

The historic evolution of PRIVATE PROPERTY RELATIONSHIP of alienation,exploitation,suffering and the emergence of CLASS,STATE,FAMILY as the template of control and suppression for MINORITY RULE is the fractal nature of our limited mode of interacttion.

[@PtAltmVansanTarr]

@Klllakmet My problem with that is that asking the right questions and stating the obvious can be awfully close to one another. All war is started with the hope that things will change and ended with the bitter realization that they haven't. At this point

[@RarianRakista]

Where is the other half of this?

[@12er5t7y]

If it's genuine enlightenment, it doesn't matter who realizes it. When one seeks emancipation, one seeks it on behalf of everyone who is oppressed.

[@Prunesqualer]

In the sense that he helped change the way we see ourselves yes. I dare say many of Freud's ideas where silly, but the basic Idea that all people have drives and impulses that they dont have conscious awareness of or full control over is still valid and relevant (and not sufficiently acknowledged in this speech).

[@K2nsl3r]

a fiery speech by a fiery speaker... top class.

[@Powerphail]

Fantastic talk

[@freudvsmickeymouse]

Interesting observation. Apparently, during Greco-Roman antiquity the beard was that which defined philosophers against 'normal' folk - maybe it has something to do with that. I know that I feel more special when I have a beard.

[@bondebeats]

It seems I can't post links here. Check out: Rasmus Elling 'Who is a reformist' Hamid Dabashi 'Looking in the wrong places' Hamid Dabashi 'Left is wrong on Iran' Reese Erlich 'Iran and Leftist confusion'

[@johnvhirst]

great stuff

[@alexanderforsberg7944]

According to the video's description, his namee is Alex Callinicos :)

[@Johnny75416]

@nelica59 could you enlarge on this gibberish? I'm afraid I fail to get your point....

[@sextusloverlord]

Can anyone please recommend a book by Slavoj Zizek that explains his philosophy and his ideas? Thanks!

[@420xHustlerxB0SS]

29:30 I haven't heard Zizek explicitly criticize anarchists like Noam Chomsky their communes, and historical events like the Spanish Revolution. Is there any clip where he is less vague about the subject?

[@exoomerko]

and so on, and so on...

[@IvoMaropo]

I, for one, am really interested in some of Slavoj's ideas but one particular and general feature about him really stands out to me: He is a typical continental phisolopher in the almost same sense and breath as Nietzsche was: He has many creative solutions and interesting ideas but he never (or rarely) goes rigidly skin-deep into the distinctive nature of these abstract categories the same way someone like Spinoza or Kant would.

[@Johnny75416]

@MrC2H5OH I do know what Lenin said, but could you clarify for me - what was Lenin's role after the Russian revolution? Was he in fact not head of state? Wouldn't a dictatorship of the prolitariiat cause certain administrative problems - or is that term merely semantics; meaning dictatorship of the party? Would that therefore make the party and the state one and the same. In which case we still would have a state run by an apperatchik which could not be voted out - a dictatorship in fact.

[@bondebeats]

Moussavi is not a free-market supporter, he is for some privatization with strong government regulation. In the eighties he was an outspoken proponent of a collectivistic economy.

[@12er5t7y]

The reform is the enlightenment of the working class. The flash of insight that comes with the realization of one's own alienation. Once this insight occurs, everything else follows.

[@Metaldude1945]

@rockit353 I don't consider myself a communist, but conservative what concerns culture, identity, nature,... and progressive what concerns economy. With our feet in our own roots, and with our eyes towards the future and growth.

[@harisbbbbaaa]

how should I put it..

[@Johnny75416]

@IiiERT Perhaps it's your standards that are low, but tell me as you are too young to have ever visited the workers paradise that was Yugoslavia - where do you get your information?

[@axe863]

@AnotherWayFilms How exactly is capitalism, "anti-democratic"? I would love to hear you explain this :) Btw, how do you think capital is formed? I would love to hear you explain this,too :)

[@asadatta]

you are so right

[@alexanderforsberg7944]

damn you comrade. I was hoping no one would ever notice my mistake :(

[@kkhan1981]

Well said.

[@bapyou]

"take things into their own hands" Well, yes, but, the more you delve into the reality of Iranian life & Iranian politics, the more you see how the U.S. exacerbates problems. Stephen Kinzer's book on the '53 coup against Mossadegh is particularly revealing in this respect. Hell, the introduction alone is worth reading. In it, Akbar Ganji (imprisoned for 6 yrs by the gov for criticising it) states US military threats give the gov "a freer hand in repressing Iran's budding civil society."

[@IvoMaropo]

(...) in the way that, although not strictly logical in its thought sequences, their assertions usually go deep enough into the matter, mixing the word play habilities and erudition of the continental humor and expressivity with the will to delve skin-deep into the abstraction and unveil more its philosophical potential per se than its privileged lireracy through the eruption of erudite metaphors and jokes with a somehow accessible content underneath.

[@AhmadAbba]

My God, i luv his constant 'howshouldiputit'

[@Prunesqualer]

From my perspective My guess is that, power struggles will continue. Darwin and Freud where not mentioned once.

[@ChibiOlia]

@iwpoe i'm also an eastern european XD but from different country. since english is my 3rd language, following him becomes a bit diffecult when he talks fast. then i'm not sure if i actually hear everything. it's a shame to miss out on things. i guess i'll just watch this again after awhile.

[@RatatRatR]

Only so much more obviously correct now than it was then.

[@Tfrne]

@truevoice08 I'll try again, it seems I'm being unclear. The part of Bohm-Bawerk's theories that are deemed correct is that he said that workers cannot be paid the full future values of their labours given that their earnings from working are payment, not investment. However, some of the people who supposedly exploit workers really ARE workers, because they increase the value of the products developed by conventional workers. A new "line" between exploiter and exploited must thusly be drawn.

[@Vpopov81]

Wonderful

[@truevoice08]

@Tfrne It's either you contradict yourself or do not fully understand Bohm-Bawerk's argument which you admittedly agree with. Wages are discounted from their 'full value' not by the discretion of the employer but by differences in time preference. There is nothing stopping the worker from waiting for the realization of proceeds in which time he receives his full value. If I am wrong and capital investment lowers wages then you should be happy that capital is leaving the US for China.

[@MrSkate4weed]

this guy is on wikipedia's list of western philosophers....i think they need to raise a few bars

[@saxz99]

@mistarcraw: Thanks for replying, it's a shame people are downvoting me instead of engaging, after all, this is a Zizek video... I am saying this because of the way he answered some questions. For example, Tariq Ali sees opportunities in the new movements in Latin America, I don't entirely agree with him either (I don't see many positive things in Chavez) but then Zizek mocks him directly. He's also been known to provoke only to get people to listen.

[@SweetDee96]

its because of passion.

[@emilysevastou5075]

To be a revolutionary today means to combine Philosophy with Theology and Physics.

[@beholdmyswarthyface0]

Nigga's on fire! Thx for uploading!

[@Johnny75416]

@IiiERT 500 BILLION Dinar notes. I once felt as you do - that the inequities of unrestrained capitalism could be corrected by Marxist governance. Now I feel we'd merely be replacing one curruptable system with another. I was an activist for a long time before I realised that no-one was listening and that is we really want change we must operate within democratic systems. The swing towards the right in my country sickens me, but merely enforces my belief we failed to make our case.

[@Johnny75416]

@rockit353 AFTER the state is established, the worker would have no choice but to learn. Is that what you're saying?

[@Johnny75416]

@checkmeta I concur completely, though with the caveat that unregulated capitalism leaves the rest of us at the mercy of the rich. We ought therefore to place social concerns at the heart of government and the most vulnerable as our highest priority. Democracy isn't about protecting vested interest and wealth, it's about representing people. Our society has many flaws and we need novel, innovative solutions to them, not tired and failed ideas from past centuries. That's what we should debate.

[@chris8hr]

I never understood cult leaders until I listened to Zizek. He could lead me off a cliff and I would probably think I was bringing down capitalism.

[@MrSkate4weed]

because the list for the 20th/21st centuries is like 4x as long as the one for the 19th century and way longer than any before, and there were more brilliant men back then...humanity's standards have become disturbingly low...

[@mistarcraw]

he talks about his eurocentrism and he's dead on. there are universalities, but as far as rational progress goes it doesn't matter whether it springs forth from the dead heart of capital or some bourgeois liberal capital democracy, it's relevant and should be integrated when fully developed. such as the zero, paper, etc. it's innovation. perhaps zizek would answer this in a different, more satisfactory way. i don't recall where he addressed this issue however.

[@koreindian1]

@NetworkHuman It is a proposal of a society that very few people would enjoy living in.

[@Ladida386]

Žižek vas a high school classmate of my profesor of inorganic chemitry.

[@PtAltmVansanTarr]

I wonder whether a struggle will get people anywhere. If you have any links of Zizek explaining why he is a Marxist more clearly and not by telling us the problems with capitalism I would be very interested.

[@truevoice08]

@Tfrne "labourers generally have a greater need to be paid immediately, they can't afford to speculate on their earnings" Again, this is because of differences in time preference. You need to get comfortable with the reality of natural inequality. I don't see how being greedy makes one undeserving of profit nor do I see any qualifier for exceptions in the discounting of marginal revenue product. I believe in the freedom of the investor NOT to reinvest his profits. Do you?

[@Johnny75416]

Lenin, Stalin & Brezhnev were passengers on a train which inexplicably broke down. "Comrades" said Lenin, "Let us unite & push the train to our destination" Stalin replies "No, lets shoot the driver & set an example!" Finally Brezhnev says, "There is really no need for all this fuss, lets just draw the blinds and pretend that the train is moving" After 70 yrs of this the other passengers made their own way home. - a potted history of the USSR as told by a Russian ex-party member.