Peter Sloterdijk & Slavoj Žižek | Festival INDIGO 2023

Peter Sloterdijk in conversation with Slavoj Žižek
Organized and produced by the Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana
Co-organized and co-produced by steirischer herbst ʼ23
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Cukrarna Gallery (Museum and Galleries of Ljubljana)
Poljanski nasip 40
Slovenia
indigo.ooo
cukrarna.art
All rights reserved, 2023.
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Video by
y0yproduction
#festivalIndigo #cukrarnagallery

[@fenrilorf534]

Sloterdijk had an article in a major german newspaper, where he argued against high taxes in germany, and critizised it somewhat as a Kleptocracy. I was a student back then, found his mail and wrote him a mail stating some thoughts from my exam paper about the Lay of the Nibelungs, about the „milte“ of the ruler in the middle ages, because he mention in the article how it influences a society if people can help poorer fellows voluntarily. So very geeky stuff. Anyway, I was absolutely delighted when I got a almost 2 pages answer back (send at 3 pm. in the night) by Sloterdijk, where he answered my question friendly, defending his point. I think it is rare that somone takes the time to do that with a random person he has otherwise no connection with. My point: The man cares about the content and is a great guy!

[@fritz0r]

thats a cool little Story and its great to hear

[@olivierlaliberte1]

Wholesome, thanks.

[@nicholastaylor9398]

Heartening indeed. I wonder whether the Internet, by killing paper and promoting self-expression, has also killed real thoughtful two-way communication.

[@fritz0r]

@@nicholastaylor9398 seems to me to be unnecessarily pessimistic. After all, the Internet is what made that communication possible and easy.

[@wolfnaujoks3480]

I Remember that article. Published in Die Zeit. I was very upset About that article.

[@valardohaeriz5163]

We need 4 hours of this, truly the boss should go to gulag for only giving us 2 hours

[@asdf_asdf_asdf]

I already spent more than 4 hours digesting this Edit: Nevertheless, the more content the better

[@LeZylox]

​@@asdf_asdf_asdfsame just pausing and thinking and looking up stuff takes more than double the length of the video

[@DostoevskyGrandson]

I completely agree with Mr. Zizek when he said we like to deceive ourselfs, we all live in a illusion to some extent, it's a mechanism to make ourselfs more comfortable in our skin .

[@zayna6668]

Según el psicoanálisis a todos nos hace falta algo, todos aparentan estar completos pero no es así...

[@punchgod]

surreal seeing zizek sit and talk with one of his most ubiquitous references!

[@Sinthom-fg7ub]

oh god, thank you for the upload! I was waiting very excitedly for it!

[@Steven-ct5my]

So beautiful.

[@birdwatching_u_back]

Is this his first time publicly talking in person with Sloterdijk? I swear Žižek brings him up and compliments him in like half of his lectures

[@korpen2858]

Sloterdijk and Judith Butler his favourite people

[@birdwatching_u_back]

@@korpen2858 I feel like every time he brings up Sloterdijk it’s always to say “I think he’s an intelligent conservative and I agree with him on this point, and here’s how”; and when he brings up Butler it’s always to say “we’re nominally on the same side but I disagree with them theoretically, and here’s how”. But he always mentions how he’s friends with both lol

[@definite-reality6861]

what a phenomenal talk! thank you!!!

[@jasonchristenson1]

a tad spectacular but phenomenal notwithstanding

[@04opocin]

Friday, October the 6th, 2023.

[@benjisailing]

Slavoj, you are one of my favorite living humans 🙌🙌🙌

[@conforzo]

1:25:23 Funny how she talks about Lacan and then asks for an authentic left xD

[@stephencooper3494]

Please can someone put some subject points or something so we have a small clue what this chat covers?

[@samuelworthington5466]

Sloterdijk goes so fuckin hard at 53:00 on ~ “matrix”

[@videoarbeiter]

Nice Freudian slip by Sloterdijk, changing gulag in Zizek’s joke into concentration camp

[@jodawgsup]

and that is a Freudian slip because..?

[@aufheben555]

@@jodawgsup Because Sloterdijk is "right wing" and I've seen it claimed that he has defended eugenics but I haven't looked into the matter.

[@letdaseinlive]

Rousseau's inclination or desire "tended towards a neo-Spartanic Society". Typical Sloterdijk formulations 101. In order to be chic he recasts the anecdote out of its ordinary pronunciation. Usually, the emphasis is on the question "Base slave! I didn't ask about my sons. I asked about the battle." Then she learns of the victory and goes to pronounce some sacred prayers and perform rituals of gratitude. Instead, he says, she is grateful her sons died. Died in such a noble cause to further the eternal Heimat. Heimat, that which sustains and saves us. Anti nomadic-liquidity.

[@letdaseinlive]

Dude don't seem all that fröhlich or whatever... I couldn't hear the second part of what Mr Zizek said when he interrupted during the introduction. Did he say "Cheerful?...like Nietzche."

[@blbaugctvc8071]

bcs he is a conservative @@jodawgsup

[@okaytoletgo]

Flawless. Slavoj loves to say Gulag. The properly presented Mahayana trick is to taste Vows as Master. It's either habitual patterns or vows--each to bring our knacks--wrong view, liking being bad, ...etc. to light. The sole presenter of dharma now is Dzongsar Khyentse. Slavoj (Shopenhauer, Nietzsche and on and on) has been misrepresenting dharma in books, talks too long. He has taken the tricks to be the findings, and not gone through the whole product line, and not with the salesman, and not used the repertoire, anyway. Starting with the abhidharma talks, go through a talk by Dzongsar. He, in his own singularity, is as good as Noam whose cool intimacy is so moving. dz is into lighting up the impossibility of...so much.

[@deepfocusinside4685]

Interesting. I recently saw another discussion with Zizek on YT where he condemns the Baghavad Ghita because it was a favorite book of Heinrich Himmler. It was obvious that he has never seriously tried to comprehend this great book and interprets it in a childish and absolutely superficial and false way.

[@aufheben555]

@@deepfocusinside4685 That's not entirely true, he has repeatedly said he doesn't dismiss the wisdom of these great books, but rather ideology (in the case of the Nazis) produces new functions for these texts that are complicit in total horror. Even a Zen Buddhist monk makes this claim about his own religion in the book Zen at War.

[@deepfocusinside4685]

@@aufheben555 Ok, that is important to notice. a lot of these wisdom texts are naturally prone to become misinterpreted or even misused as a foundation to totalitarian and unethical thinking. Because of that, a good zen teacher always emphasizes the danger of these pitfalls but you are right that there is a sad history of japanese zen culture which supported fascism. Because of that I find myself often in the position to firstly try to understand how a religious person understands his philosophy or an atheist on the other side. In my understanding many poeple don't see basic inconsistencies in their religious or philsophical attitudes and sadly they mostly are not interested in discussing these openly and seriously. The phenomena of the new rights movements is a dangerous fact of these circumstances, because these populists do well know how to take advantage of that.

[@MendeMaria-ej8bf]

I also would have preferred to be born in another time and in another society.

[@joshbaino3087]

Home is where we are not

[@MendeMaria-ej8bf]

@@joshbaino3087 Maybe you are right, but it may also depend on conditions.

[@TheTrueReiniat]

youll feel out of place and time until you find true love, according to Zizek

[@MendeMaria-ej8bf]

@@TheTrueReiniat He certainly knows as an expert in matters of love. :;)

[@kovvvas]

56:14 - "____ calls humans the ____ of the cosmos" - can someone fill these blanks for me?

[@logangarfield3401]

Can anyone give searchable names of the books about China referenced by Zizek 1:48:30 ?

[@perobusmaximus]

One of them is probably Anthony James Gregor, whose focus are both subjects.

[@logangarfield3401]

@@perobusmaximus Thanks!

[@perobusmaximus]

@@logangarfield3401 one of his books might be "A Place In The Sun"

[@NasbotX]

[@anirbellahcen5551]

Great discussion. Nevertheless, Zizek uses a kind of generalization of an individual opinion upon an entire continent. If an African writer thinks that Africans don't care about inequality, it doesn't make it true. and I noticed that Zizek has been using this kind of logical fallacies frequently, and that is not a good influence on the audience as a contemporary well-known thinker.

[@user-wo3yj6jm3l]

He doesn't use this as a general, positive statement. As far as I've seen interviews with him, he only brings these - yes, selective - counter arguments up against this loud minority of social justice hardliners, what he likes to call "white western liberals" to disprove this idea of white people being guilty of everything, anything bad happening in Africa is the result of Colonialism and so on, no here are the counter arguments. It doesn't mean that, to use your example, he thinks that Africans wouldn't care about inequality.

[@Tiergaden]

Zizek is making a reference to a study of values in africa vs. europe. You can critique that study (if you can find it). It might be full of flawes - i dont know. But it is not correct to say, that Zizek generalises. + it is not Zizeks job to have a "good influence on the audience". Whatever that means.

[@Bigobe244]

@@Tiergaden??????

[@injuryandinsult]

​@@Tiergadenwhich study are you talking about? Zizek quoted a lady that he met and from her statement generalized that all South Africans are actually secretly longing for old Apartheid. That's what he says in the video and it is an incredibly broad and dangerous generalization

[@Tiergaden]

The comment is not about South Africa. @anirbellahcen5551 mentions an African writer and the topic of inequality. It can only be At 1:29:35 Zizek mentions a book by "Remy ad deoya" (from the auto-subs). This book is supposedly a study with data, not just an opinion/generalisation. If our dear Zizek spoke at bit more clearly, we could find the book, at check the data and method.

[@vmartme]

What would say Greek philosophers about this guys?

[@jonas6120]

I don't think they would say anything univocally.

[@tisiaan]

I think the Greek old philosophers would have their heads spinning because of the amount of references they use. If you’re not born in the western world of the 70s or something you probably don’t understand a word even if it was translated.

[@maximilianosotomayorga4977]

first

[@Lmoes]

Congratulations!

[@Johnny-gc1er]

Amerika thirst?

[@theclash3015]

I read the interview of O.Sloterdijk for the Slovenian weekly "Mladina". Politically biased on the trail of standard German politics. Full of prejudices and old German Russophobia. A pity for such an intellectual in a connoisseur.

[@LeZylox]

Where do you think his russophobia is rooted in?

[@theclash3015]

@@LeZylox In an interview for the Slovenian weekly"Mladina".

[@peterk.6930]

babble in the air

[@LeZylox]

And someone still breathes it in

[@camilofrias4466]

why does zizek keep translating basic words into german like names of countries, when sloterdijk clearly speaks english perfectly? Like I get why 'Herrschaft' might be get the point across better than 'the master', but 'China'?

[@jodawgsup]

why aren't you asking him?

[@daydreamer83]

Simply put, because he's neurodivergent, which isn't a criticism. It's the same impulse as that which drives him towards telling 'bad taste' jokes , above and beyond rhetorical strategy (to get the audience onside, to make a point). I think all the English-fluent Germans/Austrians/Swiss he does it to, find it part of the 'charm' though....

[@rseguizabal]

he's stated in interviews that he's most uncomfortable in english and is quicker on his feet in slovenian, german, and french. It might be in that middle bit where he subconsciously wants to talk german to sloterdijk, he seems to be getting stuck more than usual, dont think he means anything by it

[@vardendela]

For the same reason why you would read Hegel in German, and not in English. Languages are not equivalent, and Hegel/Freud precisely used the "Herrschaft" to describe a certain concept. "Vorstellung" is sometimes translated into English as "imagination", but these words are in fact completely different. "Vorstellung" is composed of "vor" (before) and "stellung" (to place), meaning "to place before" (one's mind's eye), while "imagination" is closer to "the mind's business of producing images". Also, phonology is important, and "Herrschaft" has a particular sound that gets across his point: that he is using an analysis inherited from Germany to discuss China.

[@michael585]

That's normal, as a German-Croatian I'm always like that with other German-Croats. For example, we talk in Croatian and suddenly a whole sentence comes out in German, that's because this German sentence would have a completely different meaning in the Croatian translation or not exactly the meaning you want to express.

[@miguelrotaeche8582]

I do not appreciate jokes about Gulag. Who likes jokes about Gulag?

[@ceyi3710]

" Maybe we should send these people to Dubai" Well we could also send these people to the US although they won't see the slavery unless they are black and in Jail. That was such a emotional and nonsensical comment.. but go on

[@lukecroft8920]

honestly, I listened to the first 45 minutes and couldn't get any further. It really just sounded like 'these young folks don't use their brains, they don't know what truth is' most of the time. There are nuggets in here, but by god it's tedious finding them.

[@bonaface]

because you have gen Z adhd!

[@tisiaan]

Is it only about the young people?

[@michaelrahnfeld8538]

Sloterdijk s Bad English...

[@owenintheagon]

What on earth was this lady talking about at first? There is a law that there must be two women on stage..Can we please have non idiots hosting these things thanks

[@fenrilorf534]

She seemed nice and very capaple to navigate the discussion. Also her remark at the beginning was clearly making fun of this rule, a lighthearted jap of a silly woke rule.

[@MrFrussel]

She was just having fun with a newly introduced law in Sweden. There is nothing nefarious going on here. Calling her an idiot for something so insignificant makes you kinda look like one.

[@owenintheagon]

she goes to gulag and you and your family can enjoy her company there@@MrFrussel

[@MrFrussel]

@@owenintheagon Thank you for proving my initial point. Good day!

[@Snozzery]

@@owenintheagon It's ok to accept that you made a mistake :)