Slavoj Žižek: "Why I Am Still A Communist". The 2019 Holberg Debate with Slavoj Žižek & Tyler Cowen.

00:15:45 Event starts
00:23:00 Slavoj Žižek's keynote speech
01:07:28 Slavoj Žižek is interviewed by Tyler Cowen
01:59:25 Q&A
At the 2019 Holberg Debate, we were honoured to be joined by two big thinkers: Slavoj Žižek and Tyler Cowen. Žižek delivered his keynote address, “Why I Am Still A Communist”, before being interviewed by Cowen.
The event took place at the University Aula in Bergen, on 7 December, 2019.
For more information, visit the Holberg Prize website:
holbergprisen.no/en/2019-holb...

[@HolbergPrize]

Don't miss the 2023 Holberg Debate on December 2. Anil Seth, Tanya Luhrmann and Rupert Sheldrake will debate the question: "Does Consciousness Extend Beyod Brains?" kzbin.info/www/bejne/pZe2hpSQhLxsnpo Feel free to follow the event page on Facebook: facebook.com/events/315569814476878 More information on the Holberg Prize webpage: holbergprize.org/en/2023-holberg-debate-does-consciousness-extend-beyond-brains

[@LarsTragel-zh7ei]

Who cares what the caricature Slavoj Žižek thinks he is? Seriously.

[@diegodlv1001]

​@LarsTragel-zh7ei i do its interesting

[@hw-rg7gn]

Cowen is so overrated. I read a 2017 Vox interview with Cowen...he was wrong about literally every prediction. Astoundingly wrong. Meanwhile, Zizek was right about his warnings, as the US teeters on the edge of authoritarianism, income inequality explodes, and climate crises erupt on a weekly basis.

[@dububro]

1:02:00 The extremely rare _triple and-so-on._

[@TheIshuCool]

but did you become a catcher in the rye

[@carlosescudero9845]

I am complete.

[@mushkin2600]

LOL! I wont give you a like just to keep the counter in its current value

[@Javier-il1xi]

Legend has it that, when you hear the triple and-so-on, the spirit of Hegel himself comes and determinately negates your coffee from a coffee without cream to a coffee without milk.

[@TheQuiltedNorthern]

I’m still waiting for the quadruple sniff

[@gencshehu]

22:45 Zizek start

[@goon143]

Cheers amigo.

[@Universalist32]

dank you very much, dank you.

[@patrickholt2270]

They should at least cut off the first 15 and a half minutes of nothing.

[@jaymendoza4616]

Thanks brother. Here's a like for your troubles!

[@Phil-uj4lj]

Thanks

[@s2260]

"I'm ready to sell my mother into slavery to watch V for Vendetta part 2" - Zizek

[@jcrass2361]

Hating on current cancel culture does NOT make you a conservative.

[@jmanakajosh9354]

it does when you're idea of liberal is Pete *I'm not racist even though I don't like black people* kzbin.info/www/bejne/gaXCaqFtmK2NjpI

[@jmanakajosh9354]

@@III-vg4dp woah dude, you're so far up the libertarian collective butthole...that you've forgotten all Trump voters want is traditional marriage and no abortion...your positions on the power of the STATE don't change your positions on anything. *People don't think things through like that.* You either want a new better world (the left) or you want an idealized version of the same thing's you're used to (the right) *these terms have been used since the French Revolution because they DO IN FACT WORK to describe people's views*

[@Thewonderingminds]

@@III-vg4dp after your description of going facts, what is the antidote ????

[@nightoftheworld]

II I education agreed-but what content from which perspective?

[@cow_tools_]

They wish it did. Makes thing easy for them.

[@Medytacjusz]

It's kind of funny that for all his interjections, lack of focus, impatience, digressions and rambling it seems like it is Zizek who actually listens to and understands Tyler Cowen, while Cowen is just repeating his one point over and over regardless of what Zizek says.

[@diegoveloso3rd]

To a degree i cant blame tyler, zizek's ideas are too nuanced in specifics that its hard to "put him into a box" of a known definition. Zizek is in a box of his own and really well into it.

[@Medytacjusz]

@@diegoveloso3rd isn't it the task of an intellectual, like Cowen, to be nuanced and think "outside of the box"? He's perfectly capable to engage with Zizek, he's just not willing to as he has found a narrative that neutralises Zizek in his mind and allows him to sit there relaxed and smiling. I will admit, though, that Zizek is difficult to engage with, but it is because of the way he talks, as I outlined above, he tends to get carried away so you have to rein him in (in fact, I have yet to see an interviewer who has succeeded in that 100%)

[@nightoftheworld]

Werd Lert “he has found a narrative that neutralizes Zizek in his mind..” Yes, and he doubles down by inviting Z to ‘live free’ with him and his ‘moderate right friends’.. 1:15:19 “Why not free yourself by jettisoning the nostalgia and take the next step-if I were your therapist this is what I’d be asking you to do.”

[@Mendaz]

@@Medytacjusz I think Michael Brooks is pretty good at doing that

[@diegoveloso3rd]

@@Medytacjusz Why yes i completely agree with you. Thats why i used, "to a degree". Admittedly, i couldnt think of the apt choice of words to best describe the looseness or malleability of my point as i was writing that comment

[@SimenTheDeamon]

So the interviewer basically had just one question to fill an hour? "Because of nostalgia, will you stop using the 'communist' label?" Such a broad mind!

[@vackrakristaller]

Lou Sanus true

[@samuelboucher1454]

Because Zizek is one of the most famous Communists of the day and he is not even a Communist. What does that tell you about Communism?

[@Fishoilification]

@@samuelboucher1454 yeah, what does that tell us about communism?

[@samuelboucher1454]

@@Fishoilification That even Communists realize its unsustainable and impossible.

[@Fishoilification]

@@samuelboucher1454 did you even listen to the interview? He states he is a communist, but not by definition of those liberals who never read a book apart from harry potter

[@Zen-rw2fz]

Zizek: Explains his views in detail Tyler: You're Humour is right wing!!, YoU have nostalgia!!11!!

[@robertstan298]

Tyler is a bit of a simpleton...

[@sacredsoma]

Tyler showed a lot patience, what you call EXpLAnation in Zizek's case is just a shower of contradictory bull

[@jirikivaari]

Zizek didn't explain much in detail, in fact he refused to respond to his points (esp. about China). You only see politicians do same kind of tricks. (And yes I don't care if its right or left-wing, Tyler for example on his blog has criticized right-wing politicians especially on these polemic tricks.) 65 people upvoted this comment?

[@P8Dealer]

@@jirikivaari But sorry, comparing Taiwan and China (as an economist!) was a pretty weak start. I would have done the same like Zizek in order not to waste too much time on stuff like that.

[@agiftfromdracosfather3490]

Yea the dude is pretty irritating to listen to it to be honest. Yea lets go to Singapore where they hang people every Friday and where there are no beggers because as soon as you beg you are thrown in jail and where you can't stop working until you're dead. Idk why zizek never challenges these people i guess it's just not his way.

[@ruhl1045]

This is essentially Zizek trying to spur fruitful conversation while Cowen tries to ensnare him in some kind of cheap 'gotcha!' moment

[@kontankarite]

I immediately got annoyed. Zizek said some positive things about China and talking seriously about serious things and this guy came out like he was from Reddit trying to drum up some kind of moralistic panic... which had nothing to do with the substance of Zizek's talk.

[@lizzyfrizzle8986]

Would you expect more from an conservative

[@alquinn8576]

is that what you got from this? these men are flirting with each other!

[@stephenharper5761]

The organisers surely made a mistake inviting this guy Cowen to interview Zizek; he comes across as even dumber than Peterson

[@jirikivaari]

@@stephenharper5761 Cowen is one of the finest thinkers alive. Zizek came across as a joker, basically making rhetorical arguments and jokes, without actually making an argument for anything. Although I wished Cowen had skipped the jokes and focused on substance.

[@MistThief]

I find it funny how the other guy tries to coax Slavoj to stop using the communist label. It really seems to bother him that a communist would make so much sense.

[@thumper8684]

@Elias Håkansson You say that because you mistake communism for Stalinism. Communism is ideologically liberal. Liberal socialism has been made to work, but the circumstances have so far been tenuous. Maybe that will always be the case. Socialism is not ideological. It is a response to crises that cannot be answered by liberalism alone. Can you explain capitalism to me? I hear utopian tales about a free market without exploitation. I see entrenched power, institutional capture, a miserable lack of vision, the devestation of the commons and a ratchet that pushes social inequality always in the same direction.

[@MistThief]

I don't agree he favors what is known as social democracy. I understand social democracy to mean that the poor and unemployed and sick get a small cut of the pie and so on but the wider economy and the other social functions are left to be run by a small elite who get to choose in the end how much the poor scrubs get and when they get the austerity and all the rest. And why is it called democracy when it is not? I believe it is Orwellian double speak that happens to work and it keeps the masses content because they think they live in a democracy and that they are taken care of. Yes, to the extent that they can serve as subjects to be exploited by capitalism they are taken care of, and then additionally the rest who can't work are taken care of to the extent that there won't be too much discontent that would overturn the system.

[@LeonWagg]

Elias Håkansson Um, no, Zizek said many times that the modern-day social democracy is not the right political structure that can confront problems today. Zizek believes that there needs to be a fundamental change that goes beyond capitalism, and he calls that ”communism.” Tbh today social democracy we have in Europe is not truly free-market capitalism the idea actually goes back to Marxist Revisionism, people like Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky, who were socialists but supported a gradual change to socialism rather than revolution. This is where the idea of social democracy originated from; it was actually part of a socialist tradition.

[@endel4]

@@thumper8684 communism is ABSOLUTELY NOT ideologically liberal

[@MistThief]

In a sense, communism is a continuation of the liberalist project that started with the French revolution. Its goals are essentially to realize the goals of that revolution that are summarized by the slogan liberté, egalité, fraternité that were not achieved by it. What the revolution did was take the power away from the king and give it to the capitalists, and then it was realized that this did not achieve the liberation that was the point of the whole thing. Hence communism and socialism were born.

[@KarstenOkk]

how silly to assume zizek's fascination with stalinism must be nostalgia... yugoslavia was not stalinist and tito was famously vehemently opposed to stalin and vice versa.

[@kobajughashvili3444]

Karsten Stalinism was in fact correct. Tito was wrong

[@Jwtrucking15]

@@kobajughashvili3444 Begone with your authoritarianism

[@kobajughashvili3444]

NomadGamer Stalin’s Red Army killed 80% of all Nazis that died in WWII and USSR lost 27 million in Hitler’s war of racial extermination. How dare you put out your cheap little western liberal moralizing based on a one sided understanding of history taught you by the capitalist monsters that are responsible for 300 million deaths to capitalism worldwide.

[@Ardis160]

@@kobajughashvili3444 cringe

[@psych0536]

@@Ardis160 he has a point though. Although I am definitely not a Stalinist and I think he did a lot of bad authoritarian things, I also think he did some good socialist things

[@anorderedhole2197]

I'm not a huge reader of Zizek but I admire that when his critics are polemic to his face he just responds with an argument and encourages debate rather than tautologies like 'That's just nostalgia', 'That's conservative humor', etc.-- or like a conclusion without premises. When one disagrees with a conclusion it is because one disagrees with the premises that support it. Because Cowen's interjections lack premises they are inherently irrational and dialectical dead-ends.

[@LarsTragel-zh7ei]

So you admire imbeciles?

[@peterjensen3076]

Very relevant analysis, anordered.

[@dudsulugulugan7639]

He talks of a lot of mambo jumbo bullshit.

[@Max-mn1qn]

Someone just took their intro to logic course

[@dudsulugulugan7639]

Zizek talking a lot of nonsense as usual. Let him talk though so more people can clearly see the idiocy of leftists and communist morons.

[@marcinb6090]

"Happiness is for pimps" Zizek 2019

[@meshzzizk]

Marcin B “Mother nature is a dirty bitch.”

[@NoradNoxtus]

"Where do you think oil comes from?!" Haha, so true...

[@JB-op4ty]

Happiness is for whores.

[@METin25vidEOS]

I'M NOT A FUCKING PIIIMP!!! :DD

[@pablohowardcello4925]

I did a double take at that one too haha

[@howtomakeamonster]

I love seeing how anyone who speaks to Zizek tries to be funny and fails miserably

[@willorn]

I actually thought it wasn't really a challenge. Sounded like two men enjoying the humorous mood

[@proximaism]

The thing about marxists is they are good clowns

[@paranoiknabloku]

@@proximaism the thing about proximais is that no one cares about his funny-cringy opinion

[@Weissenschenkel]

@@proximaism while neoliberals are evil clowns.

[@fawwazanvilen6625]

I love how Zizek cracks up at himself when he said he was a member of Liberal Democratic party haha.

[@degla232]

it was never a liberal party it was a lefties wreck and later died

[@Drumz_of_Liberation]

I like how Zizek just talks about whatever he wants regardless of what questions he's asked. What a subtle but effective tactic for dealing with the Neo-Lib establishment. Lol

[@jirikivaari]

Yeah I think this is how you have intellectual discussion.

[@Drumz_of_Liberation]

@@jirikivaari not exactly. It's just a good way to deal with bad actors and shills. By all means, have an honest discussion with people who are open minded and intellectually honest, but if someone who has no interest in that just say your piece and move on. Lol

[@jirikivaari]

@@Drumz_of_Liberation Yes Tyler is one of the most open-minded and general thinkers. I was actually interested to hear if he has any arguments in favor of communism but didn't hear any. He just kept dodging the question. Imagine this being a serious conference on HEP physics and Zizek acting like that. It would be a joke.

[@nanakokuroi3619]

No no no!!

[@ottolehto]

Nah it's just Zizek's short attention span and social awkwardness

[@DouglasTheMagicBean]

Cowens only argument seemed to be “why don’t you just not call yourself a communist” as if that was somehow earth shattering or was a valid argument against Žižek

[@erniereyes1994]

In today's world, that's actually a decent argument.

[@tianyiliu856]

@@erniereyes1994 This is a decent argument from those sweatshop owners in China and Vietnam and cobalt mine (which use child labor) owners in Congo and all politicians and police organizations who serve these owners and don't use decent arguments but bloody violence to maintain today's world

[@nikolajovic7686]

I like how in Tyler's view of the world, everything can be kind of plastic, everything can change and morph, except for the rightist position, because everything is in relation to them in his view. We all love to eat from the trashcan of ideology, don't we? :D

[@nightoftheworld]

Nikola Jovic 1:14:58 indeed

[@Rayhuntter]

well rightism would never change: it has always been and will awlays be "relentlessly serving the powerful of the day, secretly hoping that one day you'd take their place, although that day normally never comes."

[@johnc.wrigley6147]

Tyler seems like a straight up simpleton. More libertarians are just really stupid and pitifully naive.

[@samuelboucher1454]

@@johnc.wrigley6147 Are you SURE? Are you sure you just know nothing about libertarianism?

[@seankelly378]

@@samuelboucher1454 nah I think John has it down to a tee

[@qu4ku]

what kind of sadist designed these chairs? :D

[@michel-jeantailleur]

It's not the chair's fault if people don't know how to sit in them properly. 🙃

[@patrickholt2270]

An armpit sweat truther. Or a cushion seller.

[@taalatchouf5427]

😭😭😂😂😂

[@XXBloodyElle]

A person who went to college and it wasn't for STEM

[@vackrakristaller]

XXBloodyElle 😂✊

[@danieldelucia9036]

Tyler Cowen literally sounds like a right wing radio host and it didn't even seem like an interview so much as it was just him trying to persuade Slavoj

[@JH-ji6cj]

I disagree. Cowen is chastising Zizek as using abstract conceptual metaphor to skirt the issue of making distinctions. Distinctions that can then be followed to actionable behaviors or choices. I like Zizek but still think it's totally credible to push him into corners where his viewpoints may reside more in ideological underpinnings of past structure (nostalgia) that won't allow for assertions/distinctions of progress. Zizek's discussion with Will Self encountered the same pushback from Will, though he framed his irritation somewhat differently. The negative tactic of SJW culture currently is that the 'warriors' are hell-bent on destruction vs nurturing progress. The gulags performed a quite equivocal nature...by identifying professed traitors as cancers to be destroyed instead of valid voices to be reckoned with. This comment section riddled with hatred, disdain, dismissiveness towards a guest who is there to FKING ARGUE POINTS is incredible to watch and shameful, though also a great gauge to show how polarization has overtaken much of societies capability to wrestle with ideas. Comments that do not actually address concerns, but make quips about 'whose side you on, bro?'. Or, worse, 'you expect me to read all that, Boomer?'.

[@heatblade]

What's shocking is that a bright a mind as Tyler Cowen's seems to fail to understand Zizek's argument despite claiming to have read more than half of his books.

[@kobajughashvili3444]

B Wichart Cowen is a paid stooge of the capitalist class, what more do you expect? His paycheck depends on him not understanding

[@ZacharyBittner]

He clearly did not read his books. If he did, some of points seem silly since zizek articulates them in his books. Rather, his staff read half of his books and gave him notes and he tried to use those notes to come up with some "communism = bad. Haha!" moment.

[@riccardocuciniello2044]

1:26:07 Anyone: I loved your books! Slavoj: your gulag sentence is redoubled now! WHAT

[@michaelherscheid9709]

It was a joke. The joke is that he must be a madman to read his books. He was basically making fun of himself.

[@xspotbox4400]

@@michaelherscheid9709 Who are you, what are you, nobody will listen to you because you're poor.

[@xspotbox4400]

Merry Christmas to you comrade Wright. We will double our efforts here in gulag.

[@michaelherscheid9709]

@@xspotbox4400 You know Joe?

[@xspotbox4400]

@@michaelherscheid9709 Everybody know Joe, he's the most common English name.

[@emi_mono]

Tyler so predictably tried to simplify this debate to a binary way of understanding: yes or no!

[@user-wo3yj6jm3l]

Yeah he started with "If you're not a social justice warrior, you're a conservative. Look, we won!" and it got worse and worse.

[@sonofzizek2922]

1:35:10 Clowncels LMFAO.

[@farewelltome.]

I died

[@maratonec5]

thanks, amazing event

[@nicobaby6218]

Since when is journalism a crime? #freeassange

[@akrylic_]

15:45 start

[@JeremyGluckStuff]

Signalboosting.

[@ss_avsmt]

I absolutely love how Zizek goes on a tangent or an anecdote whenever Tyler asks a silly binary question; which is pretty much the whole debate.

[@Jomchen]

Spent so much time telling Zizek to shorten his answers, while posing the same shit like "I know all the best food spots in Singapore" and "You have right-wing humour!". I don't think you could even really call this a debate, more like a class lol.

[@WiseOwl_1408]

Rambling nonsense

[@chrysology]

It's not a debate, it's an interview. Look at the itinerary. It's called a debate because it annually it typically is. Some of the questions have been found wanting by many of us in the comments, and probably beyond, but for the most part Zizek was allowed to express himself. They both wasted time and Zizek admitted as much to having such a tendency in the beginning prior to demonstrating it.@@Jomchen

[@pritch481]

Don't read the sub-titles, which cannot handle a lot of the longer words, and produce some quite confusing expressions. Many of them say the opposite of what Zizek actually says.

[@gilbertoborello7746]

"Why I Am Still A Communist"... This question is much more evident from the periphery of Capitalism than from the center of capitalism. For Latin America and Africa Lenin is much more important than he is for USA or Europe. I think it's interesting (although not unexpected) how imperialism was not mentioned in this debate. Eurocentrism is still the biggest problem of philosophy.

[@ramonserna8089]

After seeing the failures in Nicaragua and Venezuela I think the question is very much relevant in Latin America.

[@kevinclass2010]

@@ramonserna8089 Though as Zizek pointed out, China and Vietnam are thriving. It is difficult for a central planner to know the amount of capital to invest if the potential for profit is ignored. The success of China and Vietnam rely in engaging with the markets rather than ignoring them.

[@ramonserna8089]

Kevin Lopez. In this cases they have not followed the communist ideal at least not in the purest form and that to me is what fails to many politicians in Latin America (besides enormous corruption) thinking that Marx and Hegel ideas can be implemented as is and not realizing the innate problem with said doctrines. Zizek is an interesting character: He considers himself comunist and Helgenist yet his ideas rarely match and you might wonder why he doesn't call his philosophy something else entirely.

[@gilbertoborello7746]

​@@ramonserna8089 the "failures" of Nicaragua, Venezuela, Guatemala, Mexico, Bolivia, Chile and many other countries are linked directly to USA's actions, at least 41 CIA's backed coups. In Latin America there are two sovereign countries: Cuba and Venezuela, and they're paying the price for that. The other countries are in many levels submitted by the USA's interests. In the periphery of Capitalism the fight is against imperialism and can only be fought through socialism, because the bourgeoisie is totally colonized and don't have the interest of national development.

[@ramonserna8089]

Gilberto Borello. Really? Then Panama that recovered from a USA invasion and now is a leading economy is not sovereign, Dominican Republic that deposed Trujillo dictatorship and now thrives in the Caribbean with amazing grow and estability is not sovereign. Cuba and Venezuela are jokes because their leaders believed in a failed economic model and that's the price they are paying, blaming USA for all their woes show how little accountability their governments have.

[@franklinbongo6893]

"When you're left you can't make jokes. When I sit down with my right wing friends we make fun of gays and trans people."

[@aagantuk7370]

He looks at politics like he looks at economics. He wants to remove every bit of humanity from it and turn it into an academic discipline to avoid personal responsibility.

[@francismikula7900]

Zizek's humor isn't right wing, he has more than two jokes

[@danilthorstensson8902]

Conservative humor is just finding different ways to call trans people subhuman

[@kaizal3161]

@@danilthorstensson8902 It seems reductive, but I cannot recall a single instance when a conservative i know has ever made a joke regarding cultural or political issues that didn't have a disgust for a certain portion of the population be the joke itself.

[@TheTrueReiniat]

When he was exasperated he was like "this is the humour of my youth" dude same and im on my 20s I dont know what kind of disaster happened in the industrialized countries but my country's progressives all have the same humour

[@sebastianconrad6823]

Amazing chairs - whoever chose those deserves a raise

[@onemorecowswag]

Wow his opening statement is damn near clairvoyant of 2020.

[@cmikhail7289]

Why was I recommended this? thanks!

[@nightoftheworld]

C Mikhail good side of the algorithm 25:57 “If a state (that’s the idea) spies on people enough and allows machine learning systems to incorporate their behavior and respond to it, it is possible to provide for everyone’s needs better than a democracy could.’_ That’s the idea..”

[@Kid_Ikaris]

That interviewer made me a communist. His arguments were of three types: national comparison without controlling for population; reducing the lived experience of Zizeck to nostalgia; imagining the problems of politics without political philosophy.

[@Kid_Ikaris]

Omfg this guy just gets worse. They had too much gum on the subway go fuck yourself.

[@Kid_Ikaris]

Is that why my friends brother is in Singapore with a life sentence for getting caught with pot? Were people smoking too much weed on the subways?

[@sinisamarovic]

I get an anxiety attack every time I watch Slavoj speak.

[@daemondif7051]

Tyler cannot see zizek any other way but as a child, that has his views molded by emotional factors like nostalgia, when probably Zizek has a far bigger theoretical basis to justify his views than Tyler. This is a clear example of ideology.

[@ZacharyBittner]

The nostalgia argument is particularly weird. Zizek criticizes Yugoslavia all the time and has written a ton on his theories and opinions. Yet Cowen hinges his whole argument on like "You said you like communist media. So you must just be silly"

[@katiemiaana]

I love the way he just head down reads it, a powerpoint would be an insult.

[@silverdragon710]

What’s typical in this debate is the other guy is steeped in labels, typical for the right wing, while zizek is more fluid and flexible, real free thinker typical of the ideal left wing. What the other guy should be saying, instead of calling Zizek’s humour right wing, is he should be calling the new left wing more conservative. He’s wasting his time trying to basically divert Zizek from communism based on failures of the new left, he’ll gain nothing by drawing a definitive term for Zizek’s beliefs, that’s a good way of simply moving from free thought. Though I understand why he would want to do that, he needs to know where exactly he stands with Zizek in order to know how to counteract. Why they are friends is up to them but in this interaction even if a bit subtly the fundamental difference between left and right was showcased. Zizek is amicable towards the other guy while he basically acts as someone who’s totally in the right(no pun) only waiting to disprove.

[@networknomad5600]

This could've just as easily have been titled "Why I'm Still A Moral Reprobate, by Slavoj Zizek"

[@jmanakajosh9354]

31:20 second he mentions that as the East fell *their satellite states wanted to be like their neighbors* it's also important to note however, that the "western" states on the border of the USSR, *had their movements for social democracy based on the normalization of things like healthcare coverage in the USSR*

[@ethancampbell2422]

One could indeed argue that the French Assurance Maladie and that the British NHS were inspired by the Semashko system put in place in the USSR... with the distinction that they were actually somewhat competent and efficient, the only successes of the Semashko system being in widespread immunization, not so much for the rest of healthcare acts (it's one thing to offer care to everyone, it's another for this care to actually be of quality, involve well trained professionals and actually increase the quality of life and life expectancy of its patients). Then again, it can be easily argued that the movements promoting these systems predate the USSR, having their roots in the late 19th century.

[@jmanakajosh9354]

@@ethancampbell2422 I was speaking from a grass-roots activism perspective but yes, I'm sure the NHS is better than the old soviet system, if for no other reason than it's modern.

[@MonMalthias]

@@jmanakajosh9354 Before its fall, the Soviet Union boasted the highest rates of literacy in Europe, lowest rates of child mortality in Europe, a life expectancy to rival the richest of Western states, and was itself responsible for multiple medical breakthroughs in the field of cardiothoracic surgery, bacteriophage therapy, and so on. The idea that Semashko was inferior to the NHS - which at the time had to bribe doctors through repeated concessions and became highly bureaucratic and alienating ignores the historical achievements of state-borne healthcare. In point of fact, the very contradictions that gave rise to the frictions in the NHS are now being used today, to strangle it. The betrayal of working class demands to have local control over their own NHS trusts and be able to ringfence their own healthcare funding as well as participate in their own delivery of healthcare was the compromise that Aneurin Bevan had to make to the doctors. This centralisation of funding decisions in Westminster allows austerity to be practiced on NHS trusts at will. And today, with hospital waiting times at sky high, and New Labour and Conservative policies driving state-mandated inefficiency through forced private contracting, forced contracting of the NHS bureaucracy, and steady, annual cuts to the NHS, the system is on the brink of collapse. It took a CIA backed coup and billions of dollars from the National Endowment of Democracy flooding into Russia to prop up Boris Yeltsin who proceeded to privatise everything by force. Within 5 years, life expectancy drops some 25 years to be the lowest on the continent. Child mortality soars as does the exploitation of women who can no longer rely on a state-borne childcare and obstetrics system and who are forced to stay in bad relationships in order to raise their families in an atomised way. Deaths from hospital acquired infections soared as even the cleaners at the hospital were forced to turn to begging on the street to support themselves. The stories you hear of the horrors of Semashko come not from the Soviet Union at its height, but at the moment of its CIA backed collapse.

[@HolbergPrize]

Don't miss the 2021 Holberg Debate on December 4. Topic: Identity Politics and Culture Wars. Panel: Judith Butler, Cornel West and Glenn Greenwald. Moderator: Simon Critchley. Submit your quesitons for the panel now. facebook.com/events/268888201777741/

[@wheredidugo6739]

Never change Slavoj! we love you :-)

[@Alex-xp9lu]

This guy is more sympathetic to requiring prescriptions to get chewing gum because people stick it to subway doors than he is to human beings having access to quality health care and education.

[@user-wo3yj6jm3l]

These people love police states as long as they're open to foreign investors. They would absolutely be fine with China if they dyed their flag blue.

[@LordBlk]

Thank you.

[@nightoftheworld]

1:33:44 TC: “Do you agree, you have an increasingly right wing sense of humor and if we’re going to be true Freudians..” Z: “But why do you call it right wing?“ TC: “What you’re willing to make fun of, your sense of irony. Z: “When I was young this was left wing humor.” TC: “It is no longer left wing humor, the world has moved on..” Z: “Then so much worse for the left!” TC: “..perhaps for the worst. Okay, we’re making progress.” Z: “Maybe.” TC: “You are indeed the moderate right, communist nostalgia rump state communist who is maybe almost ready to abandon that final bit of the nostalgia.” Z: “Don’t count on that too much because I still think that the crisis will hit us, I see signs.. here comes my pessimism.”

[@ElDrHouse2010]

I hate liberals. I like real Leftists.

[@iamnotevenanumber3312]

@RED PILL PORTAL Well Stalinism wasn't particularly intellectual. :-D Zizek mentions the Frankfurt school in this speech when he talks about former Yoguslavia and his life there. I think its you who need to embrace the wast span of intellectual schools, directions and movements growing from Marxist ideology and socialist and communist theory. Its not all the same, not at all. So before you revert to judging and opting out, try to study some of the stuff you pretend to be interested in. Do you want a serious argument for a week or more? Put a socialist and a communist in the same room. And they will still fiercly disagree at the end of it. (Come to think of it: Maybe that's why Stalin took over back then?)

[@nightoftheworld]

@@iamnotevenanumber3312 communism is a spirit of openness to otherness, but not in the sense that your brains fall out you know..

[@youmothershouldknow4905]

Straight to the Q&A: 1:06:00 And straight to the comments. Much enjoyment with some popcorn, jerky, and beer.

[@youmothershouldknow4905]

But don’t make it a drinking game! “...and so on and so on.” Gulp... Don’t go there. You won’t make it.

[@aliblanco2757]

Let the man finish his points for god’s sake.

[@blarblablarblar]

"world's hottest economist" always good to know which fields are clear

[@JH-ji6cj]

If ever a term like _cringe_ was appropriate

[@firedog235]

God, this interviewer can't not lie!

[@LainIwakura905]

Tyler Cowen is to much of a "in the establishment " protecting the system kind of guy he lacks daring visions....

[@davidr5284]

@Sean Davis I mean.... yeah?

[@brotheroats880]

Sean Davis ...how?

[@clockfixer5049]

Sean Davis toxic ignorant baby, hey.

[@andrewharris3900]

Communism has been around for almost two hundred years, it is not revolutionary or daring, it has been an abject failure.

[@clockfixer5049]

@@andrewharris3900 are you that thick?

[@blarblablarblar]

Cowen's criticisms seem short-sighted, but I think they actually got through it in a very amiable manner. It was very cute to see the two of them together here

[@user-wo3yj6jm3l]

My main problem is that he calls things right wing that are just very basic, down to earth, agreeable. He accepted that SJWs and the whole political correctness movement and so on were leftists. Zizek's point is exactly the opposite, that these people are not leftists and should be (like anyone else) more leftist. I've seen this a lot with people who aren't familiar with the real left. If you accept this progressive mainstream as the left, then you're already lost, but very typical for our public debating culture nowadays. If you're not saying you support trans people you're a fascist, if you don't like Jeff Bezos you're a commie and so on.

[@michealcherrington6531]

1:28:45 "for me communism is just the name of a problem not a solution". Zizek

[@chim-choo-ree]

He should have called it "Why I am still a NATO sheepdog".

[@abhishekpundir5648]

It would be great if transcript of his opening speech is also shared.

[@demit189]

His final statement on love was absolutely mind blowing. What an amazing talk.

[@TheLivirus]

Slavoj is king at talking a lot without saying anything.

[@taistelusammakko5088]

You should try listening to him

[@TheLivirus]

@@taistelusammakko5088 DId you catch why he prefers to call himself communist? If the answer was in there it was very muddled.

[@grimmbleaper9981]

@@TheLivirus the answer was that all current ideologies (or whatever you call it) liberalism social democracy fascism Singapore or whatever are not capable of properly tackling let alone solving current problems. the most pressing ones being climate related but others also. so he thinks an entire new system has to be thought up that does not rely on the free market to solve every problem and he calls that communism.

[@mostlyaditya]

the keynote was beautiful. the interview? physically painful.

[@RealSavfsimonandres]

An economist really telling Zizek his jokes sound boomer so he can't be a communist

[@categorille8330]

as a leftist and trans advocate and feminist and all that, who has gone through a phase of high political correctness aimed at earning social credit in progressive spaces, i agree very much on his take about feminism (which i use as encompassing of pro-trans, antiracist, antivalidist and such) needing to be more self-critical. Political correctness is a really stupid strategy (it isn't even a strategy)

[@Brianbeesandbikes]

@categorille8330 Soooooo very true. I've been trying to find and connect with ant pro-feminist trans groups to counter the massive press given from media to reactionary trans groups in the battles over sport competition and bathroom use. Thanks for ANY leads as www hasn't revealed anything.

[@networknomad5600]

It's hard for your side to be critical when you have no solid basis for being critical. Your whole ideology rests on inclusion and laissez-faire groupthink, which is really just a way of saying your side is intellectually incoherent. I've never seen a partisan group so proud of themselves for sounding so illogical and clownish.

[@-AxisA-]

​@@BrianbeesandbikesDo you want transwomen in womens sports?

[@Masturbation65]

​@@-AxisA-I want you to touch some grass after going outside for the first time in ten years instead of bringing dumb logical fallacies into a conversation that has no basis in the question you're asking

[@Masturbation65]

​@@networknomad5600that's a lot of projection there buddy lol

[@heatblade]

The American interviewer has no idea that there are still people who genuinely believe that communism (a reformed version of it) could still work, or might be our only salvation.

[@user-op9yy5xh4j]

Well he lived in Yugoslavia from 1975-1990 they lived better than anyone else on planet ... Imagine country with free health care free education system and Yugoslavia educational system was wow compared to others ... He lived in system where you finish school and job is already waiting for you and you work in the same company until retirement in company which gives you apartment and send you on holidays in they own company owned resort almost for free In country where drugs and prostitution and criminals you could see only on the TV ... Where people hardly lock the doors ...where almost everyone was middle class where you had tons of days off during year .... where you are not just number in place where you work many other unbelievable things what people in west and all around globe could only wish for and dream to have .... If you lived in Yugoslavia you would be communist like him hahaha but Yugoslavia after 1970 was more like social democracy than like communist state

[@bennguyen1313]

Anyone know the kindergarten-in-Israel story (1h28m)? Whether real or apocryphal it seems to have something to do with selling out, but haven't been able to find the actual story!

[@XCorvus777]

Tyler sounds like Vizzini from The Princess Bride.

[@benjammin4840]

That interviewer acting like he understands comedy was funny

[@DaFunkz]

Where can I find a Transcript for Zizek?

[@gonzogil123]

36:40min That is fine. But at what point does he think power outright to be handed over to people in such a structural way that it always feeds back upon them. Or as he would put it, along with Descartes, and Hegel, what is the micro-social relation that is crucial for us to set up so that we may decide that which will determine us?

[@Terryburgerful]

I like that Zizek introduces chemtrails into official academic discourse...

[@axeman2638]

academic discourse needs official sanction does it? what a twat.

[@Terryburgerful]

@@axeman2638 "what a twat."at least we have something in common

[@hsl7168]

Wow! Finally, I got this video suggested by KZbin. I actually learned new things about SZ.. Cowen's nostalgia approach was genius to force a new coherence between SZ's communism and the present age - instead of letting it turn into only a regurgitation of SZ's old points.

[@lizthor-larsen7618]

Amazing ending.

[@ppuunncctt]

THIS IS WOW! Savoj Rules!!

[@GenshinX]

In what world is Buttigieg #2?

[@JakenFren]

It's cool to see Zizek waver a bit and stand up for something for once.

[@silverdragon710]

instead of being the force of pure provocative chaos he usually is i agree. very refreshing. I knew he had it in him.

[@kobajughashvili3444]

Zizek so often fails to stand up for the honor of the USSR

[@JakenFren]

@@kobajughashvili3444 **Communism

[@domoroboto8752]

Koba Jughashvili The USSR wasn’t communist LOL.

[@JakenFren]

@@domoroboto8752 Zizek stands up for communism more than he does the USSR.

[@lizthor-larsen7618]

Why do I love you? Because I can't stop myself from loving you.

[@Marveb2000]

For some reason whenever I listen to Zizek, Sylvester the cat comes to mind 😸

[@meryemowl]

ok, why did i lose my time listening to a debate where one side explicitly fell into the ad hominem fallacy for the whole debate? I understand that cowen's point is that zizek is not left enough for a communist but i believe zizek's approach on many topics is stalinist/communist, for example the argument about identity policies that cowen used during the debate: how can lgbtqi+ be acceptable in communism? introducing identity freedom means that central power won't be able to regulate that aspect of daily life. my take from this is in today's "intellectual" world the concept of "left" is terribly misunderstood. liberal left, socialist left and communist left are distinct standpoints and generalizing it as "left" because they were progressive ideologies in the last century is unfair. what i observe in many countries is that the left can even be more conservative than the new neo-liberal right, which indicates that these labels are extremely hard to own since everything is changing so fast. i am disappointed by cowen's stance, since he chose to attack the label of zizek and nothing more meaningful or deeper than that.

[@LuceroLucifer]

ugh... this Tyler Cowen dude keeps saying that Zizek needs to let go of the communist label, but he's the one that can't let it go and keeps bringing it back up. dude, just engage with the man's words, not his label.

[@Cyberphunkisms]

i think this conversation was so crazy cuz people asking the most complex questions and then telling zizek to condense his anwers, its truly dystopian in itself this is why zizek ends with 2:26:10

[@sherlockholmeslives.1605]

He goes over my head.

[@ZanuDA9711]

In which parallel universe is Pete Buttigieg second after Biden?

[@MadJackChurchill1312]

Also, Tyler is such a smooth brain.

[@drageben145]

I waited in line for an hour to come right at the door and then they said it was full

[@drageben145]

Or probably longer than an hour

[@gonzogil123]

1:29:20MIN Yes, he is very consistent about this social-relations (possible, but not reason enough to stop capital from exploiting people out of existance), but again since it has been so relevant for so many years, and it is right up the ally of analysis as applied to politics (the Yugoslavia experience while it was together, and after the break-up) what have they been able to come up with? Given the high place they afford this problem.

[@hutchsawyer]

cowen is biased through training, zizek is free because his grasp on the zeitgeist has more but one school. He actually is "over"aware and is able to embrase hopelessness... (of course, "we will all go to gulag"). German Idealism meets Southpark...

[@QwertyNPC]

Does Tyler Cowen only know how to make one argument per debate ?

[@irenee800]

If you ask Slavoj a question ..expect a long-winded lecture

[@cameronrobson4216]

Can't seem to find "Anaestheticized" in my dictionary of theory neologisms, help?

[@zblofu]

I think he meant " anesthetized." 1. to administer an anesthetic to (a person or animal), especially so as to induce a loss of consciousness. 2. deprive of feeling or awareness. Edit: I just noticed you said, "dictionary of theory" and not just dictionary.

[@andr0oS]

1:48:35 LMAO imagine thinking Pete Buttigieg is #2 in the primary in ANY metric.

[@MattMatonti]

audio is pretty low, check your levels next time you upload

[@D2A962]

as an anglophone that struggles sometimes with Zizek's accent, this would be appreciated for future uploads.

[@rustagaz]

Volume button

[@Weissenschenkel]

1:29:20 the big guy, Milton Friedman, advised Augusto Pinochet, while Margaret Thatcher had a closer look on Chile's economy, because it was an experiment to see if neoliberalism would work. At same time, in the 1980's, Reagan enters the White House and starts changing the rules in USA, according to what was being seen in Chile, so to speak.

[@ZS-rw4qq]

I don't understand how Žižek got to be this international communist superstar despite taking part in its demise in Yugoslavia

[@nightoftheworld]

1:32:50 “My answer to this is.. _that’s why politically correct leftists are doing all possible to get Trump re-elected,_ if you ask me.”

[@richardfinlayson1524]

id rather eat a "half rotten" piece of fruit than one marinated in chemicals ,i think the former is more healthy....also our conection to the planet is not just intellectual .

[@5UH9VQLVE5]

lovely missing of the point there, thanks for the contribution

[@diegohenriquez1542]

Listening to this as I go to sleep. I am Nirvana

[@davidlamb7524]

20 minutes in and the introduction is still going on ! She then says "Without further ado..." followed by a bit more "ado" !

[@gonzogil123]

1:59:40min "“Why I Am Still A Communist” may this be an expression of a sort of linguistic displacement, condensation, or, metaphor? Not "Why..." but the real title is "How..."

[@ericpersel1037]

Refers to F.A.Hayek's Why I am not a Conservative

[@gonzogil123]

@@ericpersel1037 That is good to know. I had no idea Hayek did say that. You could tell why during the Einsehower period he might have not idenitfied with them. The tax rates, and social security etc. I was just refering to something else out of the analysis of the lecture, and then discussion.

[@tatjanaronchi7014]

1:26:45 "short" 😂😂😂😂

[@g2trashtxd781]

Great talk, 2 great minds. I also hope to once be as smart as all the self-proclaimed economists in the comments.

[@paracosmicabsurdity6235]

My favorite part of any debate or otherwise philosophically related video is all the enlightened genius philosophers that type out 15 paragraphs on how they have ascended this mortal plane and can declare with every detail who had won and how the winner of the debate is indecipherable to everybody but them because of the sheer force of their intellect.

[@SalvadoreBogdanov]

2:32:58 Freudian Slip Paul Keating + Kevin Rudd = Paul Rudd from Ant Man

[@gonzogil123]

An interesting thing, as a political-economist, I always get to witness is that what is presented to us as "left" and "right" in a universe of oligopolies means of communication is that China has been a success story. The paradox arises out of the following verifiable observation: How can it be the case that the Amazonization of the labor force in the States is a failure, but in China a success (the chinese model for the chinese working class? why does it lift people out of poverty in China, and sinks people closer, and closer to the edge of material existance in the United States?. Is it limited to the standards being used: ideological ones? forcing us to find the truth of the matter in the unsaid remainders of the present discourse?

[@GnomeReagan]

>"How can it be the case that the Amazonization of the labor force in the States is a failure, but in China a success (the chinese model for the chinese working class? why does it lift people out of poverty in China, and sinks people closer, and closer to the edge of material existance in the United States?." How is this even a question for an alleged specialist? China and the US have radically different starting points vis-a-vis extreme poverty; when comparing late 80s China to the US, the before and after pictures alone are completely different. The fact that a chasm in material conditions this wide isn't mentioned in your post is so telling of your critique's superficiality. What market liberalization did for China under those decades (btw, under a heavily state-managed transitional economy that repeatedly resisted the traditional model of IMF/SAP-style neoliberalization), is totally different from recent US history. Again, this is a category error because the successes in China are described relative to the conditions of extreme poverty of the massive population, particularly in the countryside. The fact that this has to be pointed out is just silly.

[@Haganenno121]

@Gonzalo it's good that you're asking questions, but this one is a question that even the sheer basics of political economy already try to answer. I'm talking about various models of trade like the H-O model or the S-S model.

[@gonzogil123]

@@GnomeReagan I simply do not agree. The point of the comment is that the way to call it a success is simply a lie. For Zizek to rely, as evidence of success of the Chinese model, by pointing to a nice set of nice buildings, or speed trains, being built here, and there in China is not the way for a Marxist, or, any worker to access how they have benefited per hour of labor power spent. What is not done, particularly by him, is to incorporate the rate of exploitation into the analysis. He takes absolute numbers "look how many people have come out of poverty" not relative to the entire working class, and their working conditions as well as standards of living. If the conditions to raise out of poverty (this needs to be strictly defined and in his case, and ours the standards are leftists standards not bourgeoise standards like Larry Summers), let us say, is a total number of 200 million chinese (I think this might be the total number of millionares), but let us bump it up another 100 million. If the condition to lift out of "poverty" 300 million people is the super-exploitation of 700+ million people plus all the externalities of destroying their own environment then the actual balance sheet is a negative one for the working class as a whole. It is not a model to be imitated.

[@gonzogil123]

@@Haganenno121 I really fail to see how that refutes the points that I am making. I studying balance of payments, but I am unaware as to why those models refute the points that I elaborate upon. You may want to give me a hand, and tell me where I can read more about them…perhaps?

[@GnomeReagan]

@@gonzogil123 Oh please, stop posturing as if you had remotely been considering extreme poverty all along. It is obvious this was news to you in your formulation: your starting post made zero mention of the vast difference in relative starting points between the market reforms of China and the recent history of neoliberalization in the US, a difference that for anyone would be the first consideration. This recent post is just ad hoc adaptation and moving targets. Even your soapboxing reply itself is more evidence you have no idea what you're talking about; namely, putting aside that you still seem to have no consideration for the actual conditions of extreme poverty (yes, even relative to what privileged Americans would decry as exploitation if it happened to them!), there is also no understanding of the regional distribution of those conditions (given you are still referring to urban-centered stereotypes like "nice buildings," and not remotely focused on the basic interregional dynamics that any first-year area studies major would start with). I'm not able or willing to engage in your constant shifting of the targets, but what I can do is demonstrate the clear signs of your lack of knowledge. You simply want to talk in generalities and abstract principles, but have no idea what you're talking about. I'm not saying you're clueless faker (who wants to play-act as post-ideological), but your behavior is indistinct from that of an ignorant poser continually amending their views to save face and play catch-up. Goodbye!

[@gyozop]

He is still a communist because talking about it he can make a living. In a very capitalist way.

[@vaneakatok]

can one get the text for a second read? in one's own pace?