1
00:00:58,496 --> 00:01:00,481
<i>I'm giving you a choice:</i>

2
00:01:01,185 --> 00:01:04,593
<i>either put on these glasses
or start eating that trashcan.</i>

3
00:01:04,769 --> 00:01:09,111
I already am eating from
the trashcan all the time.

4
00:01:09,287 --> 00:01:12,477
The name of this trashcan
is ideology.

5
00:01:13,614 --> 00:01:16,608
The material force
of ideology

6
00:01:16,783 --> 00:01:22,120
makes me not see
what I'm effectively eating.

7
00:01:22,295 --> 00:01:26,021
It's not only our reality
which enslaves us.

8
00:01:26,197 --> 00:01:28,924
The tragedy of
our predicament

9
00:01:29,099 --> 00:01:31,927
when we are within
ideology, is that

10
00:01:32,103 --> 00:01:35,817
when we think that we
escape it into our dreams -

11
00:01:35,992 --> 00:01:39,543
at that point we
are within ideology.

12
00:02:16,832 --> 00:02:22,721
<i>They Live</i> from 1988
is definitely one of the

13
00:02:22,896 --> 00:02:27,110
forgotten masterpieces
of the Hollywood left.

14
00:02:29,806 --> 00:02:32,960
It tells the story of
John Nada.

15
00:02:33,134 --> 00:02:36,139
'Nada' of course is Spanish
means 'nothing'.

16
00:02:36,313 --> 00:02:41,100
A pure subject, deprived
of all substantial content.

17
00:02:41,276 --> 00:02:45,764
A homeless worker in L.A.
who, drifting around

18
00:02:45,938 --> 00:02:48,942
one day enters into
an abandoned church

19
00:02:49,117 --> 00:02:54,564
and finds there a strange
box full of sunglasses.

20
00:02:58,307 --> 00:03:03,102
And when he put one of them on,
walking along the L.A. streets

21
00:03:03,276 --> 00:03:06,014
he discovers
something weird:

22
00:03:07,182 --> 00:03:13,520
that these glasses function like
critique-of-ideology glasses.

23
00:03:18,953 --> 00:03:24,164
They allow you to see
the real message beneath:

24
00:03:24,340 --> 00:03:29,328
all the propaganda, publicity
glitz, posters and so on.

25
00:03:33,180 --> 00:03:36,252
You see a large publicity
board telling you

26
00:03:36,426 --> 00:03:38,500
have your holiday
of a lifetime

27
00:03:38,675 --> 00:03:40,259
and when you
put the glasses on

28
00:03:40,435 --> 00:03:45,491
you just see just on the white
background a gray inscription.

29
00:03:47,272 --> 00:03:51,573
We live, so we are told,
in a post-ideological society.

30
00:03:51,747 --> 00:03:54,700
We are interpolated,
that is to say

31
00:03:54,876 --> 00:03:57,403
addressed by
social authority

32
00:03:57,579 --> 00:04:02,588
not as subjects who should
do their duty, sacrifice themselves

33
00:04:02,764 --> 00:04:05,409
but subjects of pleasures.

34
00:04:05,585 --> 00:04:08,582
Realise your true potential.

35
00:04:08,758 --> 00:04:10,631
Be yourself.

36
00:04:11,889 --> 00:04:14,812
Lead a satisfying life.

37
00:04:18,214 --> 00:04:21,865
When you put the
glasses on

38
00:04:23,375 --> 00:04:26,550
you see dictatorship
in democracy.

39
00:04:26,725 --> 00:04:33,016
It's the invisible order which
sustains your apparent freedom.

40
00:04:33,192 --> 00:04:37,841
The explanation for the existence
of these strange ideology glasses

41
00:04:38,016 --> 00:04:42,872
is the standard story of the
<i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i>.

42
00:04:45,699 --> 00:04:50,187
Humanity is already under
the control of aliens.

43
00:04:50,362 --> 00:04:52,398
<i>Hey buddy!</i>

44
00:04:52,572 --> 00:04:54,685
<i>You gonna pay for that or what?</i>

45
00:04:59,451 --> 00:05:02,247
<i>Look buddy, I don't want
no hassle today.</i>

46
00:05:02,422 --> 00:05:04,822
<i>Either pay for it
or put it back.</i>

47
00:05:06,449 --> 00:05:10,137
According to our common sense

48
00:05:10,312 --> 00:05:15,223
we think that ideology is
something blurring, confusing

49
00:05:15,399 --> 00:05:17,591
our straight view.

50
00:05:17,766 --> 00:05:23,300
Ideology should be glasses
which distort our view,

51
00:05:23,475 --> 00:05:28,793
and the critique of ideology
should be the opposite -

52
00:05:28,968 --> 00:05:33,538
like, you take off the glasses
so that you can finally see

53
00:05:33,713 --> 00:05:36,266
the way things really are.

54
00:05:36,441 --> 00:05:39,386
This precisely, and here
the pessimism of

55
00:05:39,560 --> 00:05:41,187
the film, of <i>They Live</i>

56
00:05:41,362 --> 00:05:45,457
is well justified, this precisely
is the ultimate illusion:

57
00:05:45,632 --> 00:05:49,807
ideology is not simply
imposed on ourselves.

58
00:05:49,981 --> 00:05:56,706
Ideology is our spontaneous
relationship to our social world -

59
00:05:56,882 --> 00:05:59,906
how we perceive each meaning
and so on and so on.

60
00:06:00,081 --> 00:06:04,285
We in a way
enjoy our ideology.

61
00:06:04,459 --> 00:06:05,382
<i>All right.</i>

62
00:06:05,557 --> 00:06:08,512
To step out of ideology -

63
00:06:08,687 --> 00:06:11,295
it hurts.
It's a painful experience.

64
00:06:11,470 --> 00:06:13,764
You must force yourself to do it.

65
00:06:13,939 --> 00:06:17,970
This is rendered in a
wonderful way with

66
00:06:18,144 --> 00:06:19,884
a further scene in the film

67
00:06:20,060 --> 00:06:26,471
where John Nada tries to force
his best friend, John Armitage

68
00:06:26,646 --> 00:06:29,286
to also put the glasses on.

69
00:06:29,461 --> 00:06:31,413
<i>- I don't want to fight you.
- Come on!</i>

70
00:06:31,588 --> 00:06:32,778
<i>- I don't want to fight you.
- Come on!</i>

71
00:06:32,954 --> 00:06:34,194
<i>- Stop it!
- No!</i>

72
00:06:34,369 --> 00:06:37,112
And it's the weirdest
scene in the film.

73
00:06:37,286 --> 00:06:38,889
The fight takes eight,
nine minutes.

74
00:06:39,064 --> 00:06:40,572
<i>Put on the glasses!</i>

75
00:06:40,747 --> 00:06:44,795
It may appear irrational
because why does this guy

76
00:06:44,970 --> 00:06:47,558
reject so violently to
put the glasses on?

77
00:06:47,733 --> 00:06:52,930
It is as if he is well aware
that spontaneously he lives

78
00:06:53,105 --> 00:06:57,547
in a lie. That the glasses
will make him see the truth,

79
00:06:57,721 --> 00:07:00,295
but that this truth
can be painful.

80
00:07:00,471 --> 00:07:05,136
Can shatter many
of your illusions.

81
00:07:07,084 --> 00:07:09,560
This is a paradox
we have to accept.

82
00:07:09,735 --> 00:07:13,202
<i>Put the glasses on!
Put 'em on!</i>

83
00:07:13,377 --> 00:07:17,404
The extreme violence
of liberation.

84
00:07:17,579 --> 00:07:20,428
You must be forced
to be free.

85
00:07:20,603 --> 00:07:23,990
If you trust simply your
spontaneous sense of

86
00:07:24,165 --> 00:07:25,173
well-being or whatever -

87
00:07:25,348 --> 00:07:26,754
you will never get free.

88
00:07:26,930 --> 00:07:27,983
<i>Look!</i>

89
00:07:28,158 --> 00:07:30,490
Freedom hurts.

90
00:07:34,281 --> 00:07:37,687
The basic insight
of psychoanalysis

91
00:07:37,862 --> 00:07:44,534
is to distinguish between
enjoyment and simple pleasures.

92
00:07:44,709 --> 00:07:46,682
They are not the same.

93
00:07:48,603 --> 00:07:53,665
Enjoyment is precisely enjoyment
in disturbed pleasure -

94
00:07:53,841 --> 00:07:56,728
even enjoyment in pain.

95
00:07:56,903 --> 00:08:01,990
And this excessive factor
disturbs the apparently simple

96
00:08:02,165 --> 00:08:07,927
relationship between
duty and pleasures.

97
00:08:09,822 --> 00:08:15,175
This is also a space
where ideology up to

98
00:08:15,175 --> 00:08:19,428
and especially religious
ideology, operates.

99
00:08:22,180 --> 00:08:25,915
This brings me to maybe
my favourite example -

100
00:08:26,091 --> 00:08:30,500
the great classical Hollywood film
<i>The Sound of Music</i>.

101
00:08:31,459 --> 00:08:37,399
We all know it's the story
of a nun who is too alive -

102
00:08:37,573 --> 00:08:39,648
with too much energy -

103
00:08:39,822 --> 00:08:42,048
ultimately sexual energy,

104
00:08:42,222 --> 00:08:45,860
to be constrained
to the role of a nun.

105
00:08:46,036 --> 00:08:48,604
<i>Oh, Reverend Mother.
I'm so sorry. I just couldn't</i>

106
00:08:48,778 --> 00:08:50,633
<i>help myself. The gates
were open and</i>

107
00:08:50,807 --> 00:08:52,070
<i>the hills were beckoning</i>
<i>and before I...</i>

108
00:08:52,245 --> 00:08:54,706
<i>Maria, I haven't summoned
you here for apologies.</i>

109
00:08:54,880 --> 00:08:57,072
<i>Oh, please mother do let me
ask for forgiveness.</i>

110
00:08:57,246 --> 00:08:59,808
<i>One, two three.
One, two, three.</i>

111
00:08:59,984 --> 00:09:02,477
<i>One, two, three.
Step together. Now...</i>

112
00:09:02,653 --> 00:09:07,003
So, Mother Superior sends her
to the Von Trapp family

113
00:09:07,177 --> 00:09:09,821
where she takes care
of the children...

114
00:09:09,995 --> 00:09:11,860
<i>Under.</i>

115
00:09:12,034 --> 00:09:16,101
<i>- Kurt, we'll have to practice...
- Do allow me, will you?</i>

116
00:09:17,259 --> 00:09:20,582
and at the same time,
of course, falls in love

117
00:09:20,758 --> 00:09:23,408
with the baron Von Trapp.

118
00:09:28,657 --> 00:09:30,875
And Maria gets too
disturbed by it -

119
00:09:31,049 --> 00:09:35,086
cannot control it,
returns to the convent...

120
00:09:35,260 --> 00:09:36,801
<i>Oh there were times when
we would look at each other...</i>

121
00:09:36,975 --> 00:09:39,034
<i>Oh, Mother,
I could hardly breathe.</i>

122
00:09:39,210 --> 00:09:40,505
<i>Did you let him
see how you felt?</i>

123
00:09:40,681 --> 00:09:42,865
<i>If I did, I didn't know it.
That's what's been</i>

124
00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:45,379
<i>torturing me, I was there
on God's errand.</i>

125
00:09:45,553 --> 00:09:49,188
No wonder that in old
communist Yugoslavia

126
00:09:49,364 --> 00:09:53,090
where I saw this film
for the first time,

127
00:09:53,264 --> 00:09:57,222
exactly this scene,
or more precisely

128
00:09:57,398 --> 00:10:01,386
the song which follows this
strange hedonist, if you want,

129
00:10:01,648 --> 00:10:03,761
advice from the mother superior:

130
00:10:03,937 --> 00:10:06,850
"Go back, seduce the guy,
follow this path,

131
00:10:07,024 --> 00:10:09,618
"do not betray your desire..."

132
00:10:09,793 --> 00:10:14,619
Namely the song which begins
with "Climb every mountain's

133
00:10:14,793 --> 00:10:18,537
the song which is an
almost embarrassing display

134
00:10:18,711 --> 00:10:20,740
and affirmation of desire.

135
00:10:20,916 --> 00:10:24,162
This three minutes were censored.

136
00:10:24,336 --> 00:10:28,557
<i>Climb every mountain</i>

137
00:10:28,731 --> 00:10:32,852
<i>Search high and low</i>

138
00:10:33,028 --> 00:10:37,302
<i>Follow every by-way</i>

139
00:10:37,477 --> 00:10:41,100
<i>Every path you know...</i>

140
00:10:41,275 --> 00:10:45,356
I think the censor was
a very intelligent man.

141
00:10:45,532 --> 00:10:48,640
He knew, as probably
an atheist communist,

142
00:10:48,816 --> 00:10:54,298
where the power of attraction
of catholic religion resides.

143
00:10:55,148 --> 00:10:59,017
<i>'Till you find your dream</i>

144
00:11:00,417 --> 00:11:04,388
If you read intelligent
catholic propagandists

145
00:11:04,562 --> 00:11:09,746
and if you really try to discern,
what deal are they offering you?

146
00:11:09,922 --> 00:11:14,604
It's not to prohibit,
in this case sexual pleasures.

147
00:11:14,778 --> 00:11:18,453
It's a much more cynical
contract, as it were,

148
00:11:18,629 --> 00:11:22,903
between the church as
an institution and the believer

149
00:11:23,078 --> 00:11:26,951
troubled with, in this case,
sexual desires.

150
00:11:27,125 --> 00:11:31,489
It is this hidden obscene
permission that you get -

151
00:11:31,663 --> 00:11:34,139
you are covered by
the divine 'Big Other' -

152
00:11:34,313 --> 00:11:36,322
you can do
what ever you want.

153
00:11:36,496 --> 00:11:38,379
Enjoy.

154
00:11:40,830 --> 00:11:43,394
<i>A dream that will need...</i>

155
00:11:43,570 --> 00:11:46,144
This obscene contract
does not belong

156
00:11:46,320 --> 00:11:48,695
to Christianity as such.

157
00:11:48,870 --> 00:11:55,034
It belongs to catholic church
as an institution.

158
00:11:55,210 --> 00:11:59,797
It is the logic of institution
at its purest.

159
00:11:59,971 --> 00:12:03,820
<i>Climb every mountain...</i>

160
00:12:03,995 --> 00:12:11,365
This is again a key
to the functioning of ideology.

161
00:12:11,539 --> 00:12:16,159
Not only the explicit message:
renounce, suffer and so on,

162
00:12:16,335 --> 00:12:19,547
but the true hidden message -

163
00:12:19,721 --> 00:12:24,015
pretend to renounce and
you can get it all.

164
00:12:27,466 --> 00:12:32,346
My psychoanalytic friends are
telling me that typically today

165
00:12:32,522 --> 00:12:37,366
patients who come to the analyst
to resolve their problems

166
00:12:37,542 --> 00:12:42,243
feel guilty, not because of
excessive pleasures,

167
00:12:42,418 --> 00:12:46,493
not because they indulge in
pleasures which go against

168
00:12:46,668 --> 00:12:50,442
their sense of duty or
morality, or what-so-ever.

169
00:12:50,618 --> 00:12:55,692
On the contrary, they feel
guilty for not enjoying enough.

170
00:12:55,868 --> 00:12:59,113
For not being able to enjoy.

171
00:13:33,975 --> 00:13:37,802
Oh my god, one is thirsty
in the desert and

172
00:13:37,977 --> 00:13:41,554
what to drink but Coke?

173
00:13:41,730 --> 00:13:44,200
The perfect commodity.
Why?

174
00:13:44,375 --> 00:13:47,595
It was already Marx who
long ago emphasized that

175
00:13:47,769 --> 00:13:53,274
a commodity is never just a simple
object that we buy and consume.

176
00:13:54,033 --> 00:13:59,040
A commodity is an object
full of theological,

177
00:13:59,216 --> 00:14:02,125
even metaphysical niceties.

178
00:14:02,301 --> 00:14:07,875
Its presence always reflects
an invisible transcendence.

179
00:14:08,051 --> 00:14:15,826
And the classical publicity for Coke
quite openly refers to this

180
00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:18,576
absent, invisible quality.

181
00:14:18,750 --> 00:14:22,826
Coke is 'The Real Thing' or
'Coke - That's it'.

182
00:14:23,000 --> 00:14:25,264
What is that 'it', the 'real thing'?

183
00:14:25,438 --> 00:14:30,514
It's not just another positive
property of Coke -

184
00:14:30,688 --> 00:14:34,191
something that can be
described or pinpointed

185
00:14:34,365 --> 00:14:35,764
through chemical analysis -

186
00:14:35,938 --> 00:14:39,710
it's that mysterious
'something more'.

187
00:14:40,355 --> 00:14:45,707
The indescribable excess
which is the Object-Cause

188
00:14:45,915 --> 00:14:47,996
of my Desire.

189
00:14:49,436 --> 00:14:53,575
In our post-modern,
how ever we call them, societies -

190
00:14:53,750 --> 00:14:56,463
we are obliged to enjoy.

191
00:14:58,085 --> 00:15:02,927
Enjoyment becomes a kind or
a weird, perverted duty.

192
00:15:04,764 --> 00:15:07,779
The paradox of Coke is that
you are thirsty -

193
00:15:07,955 --> 00:15:10,455
you drink it but,
as everyone knows,

194
00:15:10,629 --> 00:15:13,958
the more you drink it
the more thirsty you get.

195
00:15:14,134 --> 00:15:21,171
A desire is never simply
the desire for certain thing.

196
00:15:21,346 --> 00:15:24,838
It's always also a desire
for desire itself.

197
00:15:25,014 --> 00:15:29,403
A desire to continue to desire.

198
00:15:29,578 --> 00:15:33,988
Perhaps the ultimate
horror of a desire is

199
00:15:34,163 --> 00:15:36,890
to be fully filled-in, met,

200
00:15:37,066 --> 00:15:39,988
so that I desire no longer.

201
00:15:40,163 --> 00:15:44,485
The ultimate melancholic
experience is the experience

202
00:15:44,659 --> 00:15:49,100
of a loss of desire itself.

203
00:15:49,275 --> 00:15:54,642
It's not that in some return
to a previous era

204
00:15:54,817 --> 00:15:57,870
of natural consummation

205
00:15:58,046 --> 00:16:02,309
where we got rid of this excess
and were only consuming

206
00:16:02,485 --> 00:16:03,831
for actual needs -

207
00:16:04,005 --> 00:16:06,945
like you were thirsty,
you drank water, and so on.

208
00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:08,543
We cannot return to that.

209
00:16:08,717 --> 00:16:11,365
The excess is with us forever.

210
00:16:11,539 --> 00:16:14,864
So, let's have a drink of Coke.

211
00:16:17,221 --> 00:16:18,921
It's getting warm.

212
00:16:19,071 --> 00:16:22,405
It's no longer 'The Real Coke'
and that's the problem.

213
00:16:22,556 --> 00:16:28,899
You know, this passage from
sublime to excremental dimension.

214
00:16:29,049 --> 00:16:33,769
When it's cold, properly served,
it has a certain attraction -

215
00:16:33,820 --> 00:16:36,813
all of a sudden
this can change into shit.

216
00:16:36,963 --> 00:16:41,087
It's the elementary dialectics
of commodities.

217
00:16:41,337 --> 00:16:45,028
We are not talking about
objective, factual properties

218
00:16:45,278 --> 00:16:51,013
of a commodity. We are talking
only here about that elusive surplus.

219
00:16:58,977 --> 00:17:01,225
'Kinder Surprise egg'.

220
00:17:01,375 --> 00:17:03,928
A quite astonishing commodity.

221
00:17:04,078 --> 00:17:09,169
The surprise of the 'Kinder
Surprise egg' is that

222
00:17:09,318 --> 00:17:14,147
this excessive object,
the cause of your desire

223
00:17:14,298 --> 00:17:18,771
is here materialized.
In the guise of an object -

224
00:17:18,922 --> 00:17:23,692
a plastic toy which fills in
the inner void

225
00:17:23,842 --> 00:17:25,597
of the chocolate egg.

226
00:17:25,748 --> 00:17:30,758
The whole delicate balance
is between these two dimensions:

227
00:17:30,907 --> 00:17:35,008
what you bought, the chocolate
egg, and the surplus -

228
00:17:35,157 --> 00:17:37,893
probably made in some Chinese
gulag or whatever -

229
00:17:37,942 --> 00:17:40,486
the surplus that
you get for free.

230
00:17:40,635 --> 00:17:47,732
I don't think that the chocolate
frame is here just to send you

231
00:17:47,883 --> 00:17:51,827
on a deeper voyage towards
the inner treasure -

232
00:17:51,978 --> 00:17:57,887
the, what Plato calls the 'Agalma'
which makes you a worthy person,

233
00:17:58,038 --> 00:18:01,544
which makes a commodity
the desirable commodity -

234
00:18:01,693 --> 00:18:04,493
I think it's the other way around.

235
00:18:04,544 --> 00:18:10,546
We should aim at the higher goal,
the gold in the middle of an object -

236
00:18:10,695 --> 00:18:15,173
precisely in order to
be able to enjoy the surface.

237
00:18:15,324 --> 00:18:19,376
This is what is the
anti-metaphysical lesson,

238
00:18:19,551 --> 00:18:23,278
which is difficult to accept.

239
00:18:42,523 --> 00:18:47,440
What does this famous
'Ode to Joy' stand for?

240
00:18:47,589 --> 00:18:51,020
It's usually perceived as
a kind of ode to humanity

241
00:18:51,171 --> 00:18:56,890
as such, to the brotherhood
and freedom of all people.

242
00:18:56,965 --> 00:19:01,730
And what strikes the eye here
is the universal adaptability

243
00:19:01,880 --> 00:19:04,912
of this well-known melody.

244
00:19:11,061 --> 00:19:13,613
It can be used
by political movements

245
00:19:13,762 --> 00:19:17,105
which are totally opposed
to each other.

246
00:19:17,355 --> 00:19:24,943
In Nazi Germany it was widely used
to celebrate great public events.

247
00:19:25,294 --> 00:19:28,525
In Soviet Union
Beethoven was lionized

248
00:19:28,674 --> 00:19:32,108
and the 'Ode to Joy' was
performed almost as

249
00:19:32,284 --> 00:19:35,646
a kind of a communist song.

250
00:19:37,556 --> 00:19:42,265
In China during the time
of the great Cultural Revolution -

251
00:19:42,414 --> 00:19:45,619
when almost all western
music was prohibited -

252
00:19:45,769 --> 00:19:48,327
the 9th symphony
was accepted.

253
00:19:48,478 --> 00:19:53,596
It was allowed to play it as a piece
of progressive bourgeois music.

254
00:20:01,057 --> 00:20:04,780
At the extreme right
in South Rhodesia -

255
00:20:04,955 --> 00:20:06,483
before it became Zimbabwe -

256
00:20:06,659 --> 00:20:08,465
it proclaimed independence
to be able

257
00:20:08,641 --> 00:20:12,546
to postpone the
abolishment of apartheid.

258
00:20:13,317 --> 00:20:15,376
Therefore those couple of
years of independence -

259
00:20:15,551 --> 00:20:19,019
South Rhodesia, again
the melody of 'Ode to Joy' -

260
00:20:19,193 --> 00:20:24,788
with changed lyrics of course,
was the anthem of the country.

261
00:20:33,377 --> 00:20:35,070
At the opposite end -

262
00:20:35,246 --> 00:20:38,848
when Abimael Guzman
President Gonzalo,

263
00:20:39,023 --> 00:20:43,573
the leader of 'Sendero Luminoso',
the 'Shining Path',

264
00:20:43,748 --> 00:20:47,503
the extreme leftist
guerrilla in Peru -

265
00:20:47,679 --> 00:20:50,968
when he was asked by
a journalist which piece of music

266
00:20:51,143 --> 00:20:53,201
is his favourite,
he claimed

267
00:20:53,375 --> 00:20:58,731
again Beethoven's 9th
symphony 'Ode to Joy'.

268
00:21:01,153 --> 00:21:03,234
When Germany was
still divided

269
00:21:03,410 --> 00:21:07,160
and their team was appearing
together at the Olympics -

270
00:21:07,917 --> 00:21:12,310
when one of the Germans
won golden medal -

271
00:21:13,186 --> 00:21:15,336
again Old to Joy
was played

272
00:21:15,511 --> 00:21:19,646
instead of either East or
West German national anthem.

273
00:21:19,821 --> 00:21:24,326
And even now today
'Ode to Joy' is the unofficial

274
00:21:24,501 --> 00:21:28,808
anthem of European union.

275
00:21:47,868 --> 00:21:53,802
So it's truly that we can imagine
a kind of a perverse scene of

276
00:21:53,978 --> 00:21:57,358
universal fraternity
where Osama Bin Laden is

277
00:21:57,534 --> 00:22:01,126
embracing President Bush,
Saddam is embracing

278
00:22:01,301 --> 00:22:05,655
Fidel Castro, white races
are embracing Mao Tse Tung

279
00:22:05,830 --> 00:22:08,868
and all together they
sing 'Ode to Joy'.

280
00:22:09,044 --> 00:22:15,363
It works. And this is how
every ideology has to work.

281
00:22:15,538 --> 00:22:17,587
It's never just meaning.

282
00:22:17,762 --> 00:22:22,851
It always has to also work
as an empty container -

283
00:22:23,026 --> 00:22:26,015
open to all
possible meanings.

284
00:22:26,190 --> 00:22:29,946
It's, you know, that
gut feeling that we feel

285
00:22:30,122 --> 00:22:32,798
when we experience something
pathetic and we say:

286
00:22:32,973 --> 00:22:36,616
"Oh my God, I am so moved,
there is something so deep."

287
00:22:36,791 --> 00:22:38,864
But you never know
what this depth is.

288
00:22:39,038 --> 00:22:41,309
It's a void.

289
00:22:41,484 --> 00:22:43,736
Now, of course
there is a catch here.

290
00:22:43,911 --> 00:22:47,497
The catch is that of course
this neutrality of a frame

291
00:22:47,672 --> 00:22:52,836
is never as neutral
as it appears.

292
00:22:56,636 --> 00:22:59,365
Here, I think the
perspective of Alex from

293
00:22:59,539 --> 00:23:01,946
the <i>Clockwork Orange</i> enters.

294
00:23:02,122 --> 00:23:05,722
<i>We were all feeling a bit
shagged and fagged and fashed.</i>

295
00:23:05,897 --> 00:23:09,214
<i>It having been an evening of
some small energy expenditure,</i>

296
00:23:09,390 --> 00:23:10,500
<i>oh my brothers.</i>

297
00:23:10,675 --> 00:23:13,494
<i>So we got rid of the auto
and stopped off at The Korova</i>

298
00:23:13,670 --> 00:23:15,059
<i>for a nightcap.</i>

299
00:23:15,234 --> 00:23:21,192
Why is Alex, this ultimate
cynical delinquent, the hero of

300
00:23:21,366 --> 00:23:25,030
<i>Clockwork Orange</i>,
why is he so fascinated -

301
00:23:25,205 --> 00:23:26,248
overwhelmed -

302
00:23:26,423 --> 00:23:31,615
when he sees the lady
singing Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy'?

303
00:23:31,789 --> 00:23:34,032
<i>And it was like for a moment,
oh my brothers,</i>

304
00:23:34,208 --> 00:23:37,320
<i>some great bird had
flown into the milk bar</i>

305
00:23:37,496 --> 00:23:40,824
<i>and I felt all the malanky
little hairs on my plott</i>

306
00:23:40,999 --> 00:23:44,492
<i>standing endwise and
the shivers crawling up</i>

307
00:23:44,667 --> 00:23:48,807
<i>like slow malanky lizards,
and then down again.</i>

308
00:23:48,981 --> 00:23:51,652
<i>Because I knew
what she sang.</i>

309
00:23:51,826 --> 00:23:56,410
<i>It was a bit from the glorious
ninth by Ludwig van.</i>

310
00:23:57,859 --> 00:24:02,115
Whenever an ideological
text says: "all humanity,

311
00:24:02,289 --> 00:24:05,192
"unite in brotherhood,
joy" and so on,

312
00:24:05,367 --> 00:24:06,737
you should always ask

313
00:24:06,912 --> 00:24:09,570
"OK, OK, OK, but are this all,
really all

314
00:24:09,746 --> 00:24:12,411
"or is someone excluded?"

315
00:24:12,586 --> 00:24:16,222
I think Alex, the delinquent
from <i>Clockwork Orange</i>,

316
00:24:16,397 --> 00:24:20,472
identifies with this
place of exclusion.

317
00:24:22,150 --> 00:24:25,648
And the great genius
of Beethoven is that

318
00:24:25,824 --> 00:24:29,263
he literally states
this exclusion.

319
00:24:29,439 --> 00:24:33,114
All of a sudden the whole
tone changes into a kind of

320
00:24:33,288 --> 00:24:35,827
a carnavalesque rhythm.

321
00:24:36,002 --> 00:24:40,740
It's no longer this
sublime beauty.

322
00:24:42,664 --> 00:24:45,566
<i>Excuse me brother,
I ordered this two weeks ago -</i>

323
00:24:45,740 --> 00:24:48,582
<i>can you see if
it's arrived yet please?</i>

324
00:24:49,269 --> 00:24:51,173
<i>Just a minute.</i>

325
00:24:56,022 --> 00:25:00,583
We hear this vulgar music
precisely when Alex enters

326
00:25:00,758 --> 00:25:04,457
a shopping arcade and
we can see from his movements

327
00:25:04,632 --> 00:25:06,507
that now he feels at home.

328
00:25:06,682 --> 00:25:10,491
He is like fish in the water.

329
00:25:15,817 --> 00:25:16,800
<i>Pardon me, ladies.</i>

330
00:25:16,976 --> 00:25:18,851
Beethoven is not the
cheap celebrator

331
00:25:19,026 --> 00:25:21,101
of the brotherhood
of humanity and so on -

332
00:25:21,276 --> 00:25:24,028
we are one big happy family
enjoying freedom,

333
00:25:24,202 --> 00:25:25,598
dignity, and so on.

334
00:25:25,773 --> 00:25:27,220
<i>Enjoying that, are
you my darling?</i>

335
00:25:27,394 --> 00:25:30,263
The first part, which is falsely
celebrated today -

336
00:25:30,439 --> 00:25:32,413
you hear it in
all official events -

337
00:25:32,588 --> 00:25:35,532
is clearly identified
with Beethoven

338
00:25:35,708 --> 00:25:39,815
as ideology, and then
the second part tells

339
00:25:39,990 --> 00:25:44,265
the true story of that which
disturbs the official ideology

340
00:25:44,440 --> 00:25:47,807
and of the failure
of the offical ideology

341
00:25:47,981 --> 00:25:50,523
to constrain it,
to tame it.

342
00:25:50,699 --> 00:25:54,441
This is why Beethoven
was doing something

343
00:25:54,615 --> 00:25:56,936
which may appear
difficult to do.

344
00:25:57,112 --> 00:26:00,606
He was already in
the purely musical work

345
00:26:00,781 --> 00:26:03,976
practicing critique
of ideology.

346
00:26:06,989 --> 00:26:11,579
If the classical ideology
functioned in the way

347
00:26:11,755 --> 00:26:15,064
designated by Marx
in his nice formula

348
00:26:15,239 --> 00:26:16,614
from Capital Volume One:

349
00:26:16,788 --> 00:26:18,713
<i>"Sie wissen es nicht,
aber sie tun es."</i>

350
00:26:18,888 --> 00:26:20,276
"They don't know
what they are doing

351
00:26:20,451 --> 00:26:22,659
"but they are
none the less doing it."

352
00:26:22,834 --> 00:26:27,273
Cynical ideology functions
in the mode of

353
00:26:27,449 --> 00:26:29,928
"I know very well
what I am doing

354
00:26:30,103 --> 00:26:32,997
"but I am still none
the less doing it."

355
00:26:36,927 --> 00:26:41,588
This paradoxical constellation
is staged in a beautiful way

356
00:26:41,763 --> 00:26:46,503
in the famous song 'Officer Krupke'
in Bernstein's and Sondheim's

357
00:26:46,679 --> 00:26:48,101
<i>West Side Story.</i>

358
00:26:48,276 --> 00:26:49,891
<i>Hey, you!</i>

359
00:26:50,066 --> 00:26:52,310
<i>- Who me, officer Krupke?
- Yeah, you!</i>

360
00:26:52,486 --> 00:26:53,810
<i>Give me one good
reason for not</i>

361
00:26:53,986 --> 00:26:56,947
<i>dragging you down
to station house, you punk.</i>

362
00:26:57,122 --> 00:26:58,477
<i>Dear...</i>

363
00:26:58,652 --> 00:27:01,614
<i>kindly Sergeant Krupke,
you gotta understand</i>

364
00:27:01,788 --> 00:27:04,770
<i>it's just our bringin' up-ke,
that gets us out of hand.</i>

365
00:27:04,945 --> 00:27:08,064
<i>Our mothers all are junkies,
our fathers all are drunks.</i>

366
00:27:08,239 --> 00:27:10,935
<i>Golly Moses,
natcherly we're punks!</i>

367
00:27:11,111 --> 00:27:14,462
<i>Gee, Officer Krupke,
we're very upset.</i>

368
00:27:14,637 --> 00:27:15,386
<i>We never had the...</i>

369
00:27:15,561 --> 00:27:19,853
The delinquent gang enact
a whole explanation,

370
00:27:20,028 --> 00:27:24,854
as a musical number of course,
of why they are delinquents.

371
00:27:25,028 --> 00:27:27,804
<i>there is good,
there is untapped good!</i>

372
00:27:27,979 --> 00:27:29,382
<i>Like inside,
the worst of us is good!</i>

373
00:27:29,557 --> 00:27:31,792
Addressing the police officer Krupke,

374
00:27:31,968 --> 00:27:35,782
who is not there but all is
addressed at the police officer.

375
00:27:35,958 --> 00:27:37,032
<i>That's a touchin' good story.</i>

376
00:27:37,208 --> 00:27:38,583
<i>Lemme tell it to the world!</i>

377
00:27:38,758 --> 00:27:40,440
<i>Just tell it to the judge.</i>

378
00:27:40,615 --> 00:27:43,759
So one of them adopts
the position of a judge:

379
00:27:47,185 --> 00:27:50,530
<i>Dear kindly Judge, your Honor,
my parents treat me rough.</i>

380
00:27:50,705 --> 00:27:53,381
<i>With all their marijuana,
they won't give me a puff.</i>

381
00:27:53,556 --> 00:27:55,719
Then the psychological
explanation:

382
00:27:55,894 --> 00:27:57,169
<i>he shouldn't be here.</i>

383
00:27:57,344 --> 00:28:00,758
<i>This boy don't need a couch,
he needs a useful career.</i>

384
00:28:00,932 --> 00:28:03,909
<i>Society's played him
a terrible trick -</i>

385
00:28:04,084 --> 00:28:05,659
<i>und sociologically
he's sick!</i>

386
00:28:05,834 --> 00:28:06,795
<i>I am sick!</i>

387
00:28:06,970 --> 00:28:07,815
<i>We are sick, we are sick...</i>

388
00:28:07,990 --> 00:28:13,683
The paradox here is how can
you know all this and still do it?

389
00:28:13,858 --> 00:28:17,723
This is the cynical
functioning of ideology.

390
00:28:17,898 --> 00:28:22,387
They're never what they appear
to be cynical brutal delinquents.

391
00:28:22,563 --> 00:28:25,644
They always have
a tiny private dream.

392
00:28:25,819 --> 00:28:28,922
This dream can be many things.

393
00:28:31,329 --> 00:28:34,434
It can even be something
quite ordinary.

394
00:28:34,609 --> 00:28:40,051
Let's take the English riots
of August 2011.

395
00:28:40,227 --> 00:28:43,492
The standard liberal explanation
really sounds like

396
00:28:43,667 --> 00:28:46,893
a repetition of
'Officer Krupke' song.

397
00:28:47,067 --> 00:28:52,674
We cannot just condemn this
riot as delinquent vandalism.

398
00:28:52,849 --> 00:28:56,528
You have to see how these people
live in practically ghettos -

399
00:28:56,703 --> 00:28:58,115
isolated communities -

400
00:28:58,289 --> 00:29:01,315
no proper family life,
no proper education.

401
00:29:01,490 --> 00:29:05,388
They don't even have a prospect
of a regular employment.

402
00:29:05,564 --> 00:29:10,167
But this is not enough
because man is not simply

403
00:29:10,343 --> 00:29:14,233
a product of objective
circumstances.

404
00:29:15,834 --> 00:29:22,050
We all have this margin
of freedom in deciding

405
00:29:22,226 --> 00:29:27,824
how we subjectivise these
objective circumstances

406
00:29:27,999 --> 00:29:30,490
which will of course
determine us.

407
00:29:30,665 --> 00:29:37,715
How we react to them by
constructing our own universe.

408
00:29:38,145 --> 00:29:42,046
The conservative solution
is we need more police.

409
00:29:42,221 --> 00:29:45,197
We need courts, which pass
severe judgements.

410
00:29:45,372 --> 00:29:48,816
I think this solution
is too simple.

411
00:29:49,701 --> 00:29:53,219
If I listen closely to some of
David Cameron's statements

412
00:29:53,394 --> 00:29:56,248
it looked as if OK,
they are beating people,

413
00:29:56,423 --> 00:29:59,612
burning houses, but the
truly horrible thing is

414
00:29:59,787 --> 00:30:03,586
that they were taking objects
without paying for them.

415
00:30:03,760 --> 00:30:06,154
The ultimate things
that we can imagine.

416
00:30:06,329 --> 00:30:09,035
In a very limited way,
Cameron was right -

417
00:30:09,210 --> 00:30:12,636
there was no
ideological justification.

418
00:30:12,811 --> 00:30:17,936
It is the reaction of people
who are totally caught into

419
00:30:18,112 --> 00:30:23,483
the predominant ideology
but have no ways to realise

420
00:30:23,659 --> 00:30:27,815
what this ideology demands
of them so it's kind of

421
00:30:27,990 --> 00:30:34,822
a wild acting out within this
ideological space of consumerism.

422
00:30:35,672 --> 00:30:38,359
Even if we are dealing
with apparently

423
00:30:38,535 --> 00:30:41,423
totally non-ideological
brutality -

424
00:30:41,598 --> 00:30:45,792
I just want to burn houses,
to get objects.

425
00:30:45,968 --> 00:30:51,111
It is the result of a very specific
social and ideological

426
00:30:51,286 --> 00:30:55,667
constellation where big ideology,
striving for justice,

427
00:30:55,843 --> 00:30:59,259
equality etc,
disintegrates.

428
00:30:59,433 --> 00:31:03,099
The only functioning ideology
is pure consumerism

429
00:31:03,275 --> 00:31:08,130
and then no wonder what you
get as a form of protest.

430
00:31:08,750 --> 00:31:12,265
Every violent acting out
is a sign that

431
00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:16,547
there is something you are not
able to put into words.

432
00:31:16,721 --> 00:31:20,949
Even the most brutal violence
is the enacting

433
00:31:21,124 --> 00:31:25,327
of a certain
symbolic deadlock.

434
00:31:27,423 --> 00:31:30,971
The great thing about
the <i>Taxi Driver</i>

435
00:31:31,145 --> 00:31:36,643
is that it brings this brutal
outburst of violence

436
00:31:36,817 --> 00:31:41,317
to its radical
suicidal dimension.

437
00:31:44,825 --> 00:31:46,257
We are not dealing
here with something

438
00:31:46,432 --> 00:31:53,098
which simply concerns
the fragile psychology

439
00:31:53,273 --> 00:31:57,976
of a distorted person,
what Travis in <i>Taxi Driver</i> is.

440
00:31:58,151 --> 00:32:01,512
It has something to do
with ideology.

441
00:32:01,688 --> 00:32:04,063
<i>Listen you fuckers,
you screw-heads.</i>

442
00:32:04,238 --> 00:32:06,815
<i>Here is a man who would
not take it anymore.</i>

443
00:32:06,990 --> 00:32:08,876
<i>Who would not let...</i>

444
00:32:09,051 --> 00:32:12,434
<i>Listen you fuckers,
you screw-heads.</i>

445
00:32:12,609 --> 00:32:15,576
<i>Here is a man who would
not take it anymore.</i>

446
00:32:15,750 --> 00:32:17,880
<i>A man who stood up
against the scum -</i>

447
00:32:18,055 --> 00:32:20,340
<i>the cunts, the dogs,
the filth, the shit.</i>

448
00:32:20,516 --> 00:32:23,313
<i>Here is someone
who stood up.</i>

449
00:32:23,488 --> 00:32:26,740
In the <i>Taxi Driver</i>,
Travis, the hero,

450
00:32:26,915 --> 00:32:31,932
is bothered by the young prostitute
played by Jody Foster.

451
00:32:32,106 --> 00:32:36,305
What bothers him are,
of course as is always the case -

452
00:32:36,480 --> 00:32:38,828
precisely his fantasies.

453
00:32:39,003 --> 00:32:40,550
Fantasies of her.

454
00:32:40,726 --> 00:32:45,180
Victim who of her
hidden pleasures...

455
00:32:45,960 --> 00:32:50,449
And fantasies are not just
a private matter of individuals.

456
00:32:50,624 --> 00:32:56,913
Fantasies are the central stuff
our ideologies are made of.

457
00:32:57,087 --> 00:32:58,989
<i>Don't look at him.</i>

458
00:32:59,163 --> 00:33:03,106
Fantasy is in psychoanalytical
perspective

459
00:33:03,281 --> 00:33:05,416
fundamentally a lie.

460
00:33:05,592 --> 00:33:07,763
Not a lie in the sense that
it's just a fantasy

461
00:33:07,939 --> 00:33:11,520
but not a reality,
but a lie in the sense that

462
00:33:11,695 --> 00:33:16,944
fantasy covers up a certain
gap in consistency.

463
00:33:17,119 --> 00:33:19,682
When things are blurred,
when we cannot really get

464
00:33:19,857 --> 00:33:25,711
to know things, fantasy
provides an easy answer.

465
00:33:28,483 --> 00:33:33,463
The usual mode of fantasy
is to construct a scene -

466
00:33:33,638 --> 00:33:36,352
not a scene where
I get what I desire -

467
00:33:36,527 --> 00:33:43,588
but a scene in which I imagine
myself as desired by others.

468
00:33:46,102 --> 00:33:50,076
<i>Taxi Driver</i> is an
unacknowledged remake of

469
00:33:50,251 --> 00:33:53,104
perhaps the greatest
of John Ford's westerns -

470
00:33:53,278 --> 00:33:56,233
his late classic <i>The Searchers</i>.

471
00:33:56,409 --> 00:34:00,855
<i>- I take many...?
- Scalps.</i>

472
00:34:05,223 --> 00:34:08,458
In both films,
the hero tries to save

473
00:34:08,634 --> 00:34:16,271
a young woman who is perceived
as a victim of brutal abuse.

474
00:34:20,777 --> 00:34:23,583
In <i>The Searchers</i> the
young Nathalie Wood

475
00:34:23,757 --> 00:34:26,931
was kidnapped and lived
for a couple of years

476
00:34:27,106 --> 00:34:32,137
as the wife of an Indian chief.

477
00:34:32,311 --> 00:34:34,911
In <i>Taxi Driver</i>
the young Jodie Foster

478
00:34:35,085 --> 00:34:37,795
is controlled by
a ruthless pimp.

479
00:34:37,971 --> 00:34:40,172
<i>You walk out with those
fucking creeps and lowlifes</i>

480
00:34:40,347 --> 00:34:42,072
<i>and degenerates
out on the streets,</i>

481
00:34:42,246 --> 00:34:44,909
<i>and you sell your little pussy
for nothing, man?</i>

482
00:34:45,083 --> 00:34:47,085
<i>For some low life pimp?</i>

483
00:34:47,260 --> 00:34:50,148
<i>Stands in a hall?</i>

484
00:34:50,322 --> 00:34:51,548
<i>I'm the- I'm square?</i>

485
00:34:51,724 --> 00:34:53,485
<i>You're the one
that's square, man.</i>

486
00:34:53,659 --> 00:34:55,235
<i>I don't go screw and
fuck with a bunch of killers</i>

487
00:34:55,409 --> 00:34:56,755
<i>and junkies the way you do.</i>

488
00:34:56,931 --> 00:35:02,501
The task is always to save
the perceived victim.

489
00:35:03,626 --> 00:35:07,541
But what really drives
this violence of the hero

490
00:35:07,715 --> 00:35:12,597
is a deep suspicion that
the victim is not simply a victim.

491
00:35:12,771 --> 00:35:16,094
That the victim, effectively
in a perverted way

492
00:35:16,269 --> 00:35:22,025
enjoys or participates in what
appears as her victimhood.

493
00:35:22,201 --> 00:35:24,266
So that, to put it very simply -

494
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,690
she doesn't want to be redeemed,
she resists it.

495
00:35:36,094 --> 00:35:38,322
<i>Let's go home, Debby.</i>

496
00:35:42,601 --> 00:35:45,300
And this is the big problem -

497
00:35:45,476 --> 00:35:48,137
if I make an immediate jump
to the political dimension -

498
00:35:48,313 --> 00:35:51,273
the big problem of American
military interventions,

499
00:35:51,449 --> 00:35:54,608
especially so-called
humanitarian interventions.

500
00:35:54,782 --> 00:36:01,391
From Iraq to already
Vietnam half a century ago.

501
00:36:01,567 --> 00:36:04,034
We try to help them,

502
00:36:04,210 --> 00:36:08,469
but what if they really
did not want our help?

503
00:36:08,643 --> 00:36:10,516
The result of this
debilitating deadlock

504
00:36:10,692 --> 00:36:13,427
can only be an
outburst of violence.

505
00:36:17,751 --> 00:36:20,237
We do get, towards
the end of the film

506
00:36:20,413 --> 00:36:24,141
Travis exploding
in a killing spree.

507
00:36:24,317 --> 00:36:29,864
Killing the pimps, all the
people around the young girl.

508
00:36:35,315 --> 00:36:39,309
Violence is never
just abstract violence.

509
00:36:39,485 --> 00:36:44,344
It's a kind of brutal
intervention in the real -

510
00:36:44,518 --> 00:36:49,679
to cover up a certain
impotence concerning

511
00:36:49,853 --> 00:36:52,365
what we may call
cognitive mapping.

512
00:36:52,541 --> 00:36:56,632
You lack a clear picture
of what's going on.

513
00:36:56,806 --> 00:36:58,617
Where are we?

514
00:36:58,793 --> 00:37:03,278
Exactly the same holds
for the terrifying outburst of

515
00:37:03,454 --> 00:37:09,849
violence: Anders Behring Breivik's
murder spree in Oslo.

516
00:37:10,023 --> 00:37:12,963
Exploding a bomb in front
of the government building

517
00:37:13,139 --> 00:37:16,164
and then killing dozens
of young members

518
00:37:16,338 --> 00:37:17,956
of the social democratic party

519
00:37:18,130 --> 00:37:20,996
in an island close to Oslo.

520
00:37:23,617 --> 00:37:26,188
Many commentators
tried to dismiss this as

521
00:37:26,362 --> 00:37:29,579
a clear case of personal insanity.

522
00:37:29,755 --> 00:37:34,485
But I think Breivik's manifesto
is well worth reading.

523
00:37:34,661 --> 00:37:40,380
It is palpably clear
there how this violence -

524
00:37:40,554 --> 00:37:45,985
that Breivik not only theorised
about but also enacted -

525
00:37:46,159 --> 00:37:50,101
is a reaction
to the impenetrability

526
00:37:50,277 --> 00:37:53,052
and confusion of global capital.

527
00:37:53,226 --> 00:37:58,806
It's exactly like Travis Bickle's
killing spree

528
00:37:58,981 --> 00:38:02,550
at the end of the <i>Taxi Driver</i>.

529
00:38:05,197 --> 00:38:07,244
When he is there,
barely alive,

530
00:38:07,420 --> 00:38:11,085
he symbolically with
his fingers points a gun

531
00:38:11,260 --> 00:38:13,068
at his own head.

532
00:38:13,244 --> 00:38:17,168
Clear sign that all this
violence was basically suicidal.

533
00:38:18,119 --> 00:38:20,898
He was on the right path,
in a way -

534
00:38:21,072 --> 00:38:23,266
Travis in the <i>Taxi Driver</i>.

535
00:38:23,440 --> 00:38:25,313
You should have the
outburst of violence

536
00:38:25,489 --> 00:38:28,045
and you should
direct it at yourself

537
00:38:28,219 --> 00:38:33,313
but in a very specific way
at what in yourself

538
00:38:33,489 --> 00:38:38,445
change you, ties you
to the ruling ideology.

539
00:38:50,228 --> 00:38:52,887
<i>Pippin? Pippin?</i>

540
00:38:53,063 --> 00:38:55,704
In Steven Spielberg's <i>Jaws</i>

541
00:38:55,878 --> 00:39:01,346
a shark starts to attack
people on the beach.

542
00:39:01,521 --> 00:39:03,905
What does this attack mean?

543
00:39:04,081 --> 00:39:07,280
What does the shark stand for?

544
00:39:11,342 --> 00:39:14,190
There were different,
even mutually exclusive

545
00:39:14,365 --> 00:39:16,717
answers to this question.

546
00:39:23,076 --> 00:39:25,253
On the one hand
some critics claimed

547
00:39:25,427 --> 00:39:30,019
that obviously the shark stands
for the foreign threat

548
00:39:30,195 --> 00:39:32,516
to ordinary Americans.

549
00:39:32,690 --> 00:39:36,719
The shark is a metaphor
for either natural disaster -

550
00:39:36,893 --> 00:39:39,960
storms or immigrants
threatening

551
00:39:40,135 --> 00:39:42,478
United States citizens
and so on.

552
00:39:42,653 --> 00:39:45,934
On the other hand
it's interesting to note that

553
00:39:46,110 --> 00:39:48,559
Fidel Castro,
who loves the film,

554
00:39:48,733 --> 00:39:52,199
once said that for him
it was obvious that

555
00:39:52,373 --> 00:39:55,048
<i>Jaws</i> is kind of
a leftist Marxist film

556
00:39:55,224 --> 00:39:58,175
and that the shark
is a metaphor for

557
00:39:58,351 --> 00:40:05,016
brutal big capital
exploiting ordinary Americans.

558
00:40:06,867 --> 00:40:09,655
So which is
the right answer?

559
00:40:09,831 --> 00:40:14,911
I claim none of them and
at the same time all of them.

560
00:40:15,086 --> 00:40:18,452
Ordinary Americans, as ordinary
people in all countries

561
00:40:18,628 --> 00:40:20,942
have a multitude of fears.

562
00:40:21,117 --> 00:40:22,947
We fear all kind of things.

563
00:40:23,123 --> 00:40:27,150
We fear maybe,
immigrants or people

564
00:40:27,324 --> 00:40:30,400
whom we perceive as lower
than ourselves attacking us,

565
00:40:30,574 --> 00:40:33,791
robbing us. We fear people
raping our children.

566
00:40:33,967 --> 00:40:37,117
We fear natural disasters,
tornados, earthquakes,

567
00:40:37,293 --> 00:40:41,208
tsunamis; we fear
corrupted politicians.

568
00:40:41,382 --> 00:40:44,458
We fear big companies
which can basically

569
00:40:44,632 --> 00:40:47,784
do with us
whatever they want.

570
00:40:53,958 --> 00:40:54,938
The function of the shark
is to unite all these fears

571
00:40:55,112 --> 00:40:58,411
so that we can in a way
trade all these fears

572
00:40:58,585 --> 00:41:00,969
for one fear alone.

573
00:41:03,405 --> 00:41:04,804
<i>Smile, you son of a...</i>

574
00:41:10,556 --> 00:41:16,186
In this way our experience
of reality gets much simpler.

575
00:41:16,362 --> 00:41:19,762
Why am I mentioning this?
Because isn't it that

576
00:41:19,938 --> 00:41:24,168
for example, the most extreme
case of ideology,

577
00:41:24,342 --> 00:41:26,853
maybe in the history
of humanity -

578
00:41:27,028 --> 00:41:30,541
the Nazi fascist anti-Semitism

579
00:41:30,715 --> 00:41:32,943
work precisely in
the same way?

580
00:41:33,119 --> 00:41:36,672
Imagine an ordinary
German citizen

581
00:41:36,847 --> 00:41:39,400
in the late 20s/early 30s.

582
00:41:39,574 --> 00:41:43,237
His situation is,
in an abstract way

583
00:41:43,411 --> 00:41:46,090
the same as that
of a small child.

584
00:41:46,266 --> 00:41:48,027
He's totally perplexed.

585
00:41:48,202 --> 00:41:52,260
Social authority, symbolic
order is telling him

586
00:41:52,436 --> 00:41:55,891
you are a German worker,
banker, whatever -

587
00:41:56,065 --> 00:41:57,876
but nothing functions.

588
00:41:58,050 --> 00:41:59,990
What does society
want from him?

589
00:42:00,166 --> 00:42:02,494
Why is everything
going wrong?

590
00:42:02,668 --> 00:42:04,567
The way he perceives
the situation

591
00:42:04,742 --> 00:42:06,492
is that newspapers
lie to him.

592
00:42:06,668 --> 00:42:08,708
He lost his work
because of inflation.

593
00:42:08,882 --> 00:42:14,085
He lost all his
money in the bank.

594
00:42:14,260 --> 00:42:17,094
He sees moral degradation
and so on...

595
00:42:17,269 --> 00:42:19,248
So what's the
meaning of this all?

596
00:42:30,789 --> 00:42:34,141
The original fascist
dream is to -

597
00:42:34,315 --> 00:42:37,101
of course as the dream
of every ideology -

598
00:42:37,275 --> 00:42:40,871
to have a cake
and to eat it.

599
00:42:41,840 --> 00:42:45,242
As it was often pointed
out, fascism is,

600
00:42:45,418 --> 00:42:49,724
at it's most elementary,
a conservative revolution.

601
00:42:49,898 --> 00:42:51,927
Revolution: economic
development,

602
00:42:52,103 --> 00:42:54,168
modern industry, yes.

603
00:42:54,342 --> 00:42:56,940
But a revolution which
would none the less

604
00:42:57,115 --> 00:43:04,465
maintain or even reassert
a traditional hierarchal society.

605
00:43:08,806 --> 00:43:11,143
A society which is
modern, efficient,

606
00:43:11,318 --> 00:43:13,666
but at the same time
controlled by

607
00:43:13,842 --> 00:43:18,920
hierarchal values with no
class or other antagonisms.

608
00:43:22,581 --> 00:43:26,003
Now, they have a problem
here, the fascists,

609
00:43:26,179 --> 00:43:30,996
but antagonism, class
struggle and other dangers

610
00:43:31,170 --> 00:43:35,034
is something inherent
to capitalism.

611
00:43:35,210 --> 00:43:37,358
Modernisation,
industrialisation -

612
00:43:37,534 --> 00:43:39,514
as we know from
the history of capitalism -

613
00:43:39,690 --> 00:43:43,490
means disintegration
of old stable relations.

614
00:43:43,666 --> 00:43:46,114
It means social conflicts.

615
00:43:46,289 --> 00:43:52,057
Instability is the way
capitalism functions.

616
00:43:53,045 --> 00:43:56,786
So how to solve
this problem? Simple.

617
00:43:56,961 --> 00:44:01,097
You need to generate
an ideological narrative

618
00:44:01,271 --> 00:44:05,215
which explains how
things went wrong

619
00:44:05,389 --> 00:44:09,353
in a society, not
as a result of the

620
00:44:09,527 --> 00:44:13,335
inherent tensions in the
development of this society

621
00:44:13,510 --> 00:44:18,597
but as the result
of a foreign intruder.

622
00:44:20,677 --> 00:44:27,501
Things were okay until Jews
penetrated our social body.

623
00:44:27,675 --> 00:44:31,476
The way to restore the
health of our social body

624
00:44:31,650 --> 00:44:35,635
is to eliminate the Jews.

625
00:44:38,349 --> 00:44:41,179
It's the same operation
as with

626
00:44:41,353 --> 00:44:43,014
the shark in <i>Jaws</i>.

627
00:44:43,188 --> 00:44:45,628
You have a multitude
of fears

628
00:44:45,804 --> 00:44:49,128
and this multiplicity
of fears confuses you -

629
00:44:49,302 --> 00:44:51,099
like you simply
don't know

630
00:44:51,273 --> 00:44:53,128
what's the meaning
of all this confusion.

631
00:44:53,304 --> 00:44:56,364
And you replace this
confused multitude

632
00:44:56,539 --> 00:44:59,144
with one clear figure:

633
00:44:59,320 --> 00:45:03,092
the Jew. And everything
becomes clear.

634
00:45:03,268 --> 00:45:05,617
<i>The search for cuts in</i>
<i>the social security provision</i>

635
00:45:05,793 --> 00:45:09,163
<i>to lone parent families</i>
<i>in part spurred this report.</i>

636
00:45:09,338 --> 00:45:10,820
<i>The social security</i>
<i>department fears</i>

637
00:45:10,996 --> 00:45:12,056
<i>that the accelerating budget</i>

638
00:45:12,231 --> 00:45:13,614
<i>for single mothers</i>
<i>on benefits</i>

639
00:45:13,789 --> 00:45:15,554
<i>could reach nearly</i>
<i>5 billion pounds</i>

640
00:45:15,730 --> 00:45:17,166
<i>by the end of the decade.</i>

641
00:45:17,342 --> 00:45:19,045
<i>But the issue</i>
<i>of the lone parent</i>

642
00:45:19,221 --> 00:45:20,811
<i>has increasingly been</i>
<i>seen as the heart</i>

643
00:45:20,987 --> 00:45:23,382
<i>of John Major's back to</i>
<i>basics crusade.</i>

644
00:45:23,556 --> 00:45:27,414
Remember, I think around
two, three decades ago -

645
00:45:27,588 --> 00:45:30,027
when the prime minister of
the United Kingdom was

646
00:45:30,202 --> 00:45:31,710
John Major -

647
00:45:31,885 --> 00:45:34,501
there was a kind of
ideological campaign

648
00:45:34,677 --> 00:45:37,115
to return to
morality and so on.

649
00:45:37,291 --> 00:45:41,501
And all the evils of society

650
00:45:41,677 --> 00:45:45,400
were embodied in the
conservative narrative

651
00:45:45,576 --> 00:45:48,632
in the figure of

652
00:45:49,474 --> 00:45:52,179
unemployed single mother.

653
00:45:52,355 --> 00:45:55,237
Like, there is violence
in our suburbs?

654
00:45:55,411 --> 00:45:57,938
Of course, because single
unemployed mothers

655
00:45:58,114 --> 00:46:00,465
cannot take care
of their children -

656
00:46:00,639 --> 00:46:02,809
don't properly educate
them and so on.

657
00:46:04,094 --> 00:46:07,552
We have a lack in our budget,
not enough money -

658
00:46:07,728 --> 00:46:11,894
of course, because we have
to support unwed

659
00:46:12,070 --> 00:46:14,817
single mothers
and so on and so on.

660
00:46:15,570 --> 00:46:17,699
In an ideological edifice

661
00:46:17,873 --> 00:46:21,155
you need some pseudo
concrete image like this

662
00:46:21,329 --> 00:46:23,237
to fixate your imagination,

663
00:46:23,411 --> 00:46:26,159
and then this image
can mobilise us.

664
00:46:32,228 --> 00:46:36,527
Imagine ideology
as a kind of a filter.

665
00:46:36,702 --> 00:46:40,648
A frame, so that if
you look at the same

666
00:46:40,822 --> 00:46:44,813
ordinary reality through
that frame -

667
00:46:44,987 --> 00:46:47,338
everything changes.
In what sense?

668
00:46:47,512 --> 00:46:52,344
It's not that the frame
actually adds anything;

669
00:46:52,519 --> 00:46:58,677
it's just that the frame opens
the abyss of suspicion.

670
00:47:05,943 --> 00:47:08,826
If we look at the anti-Semitic
image of the Jew

671
00:47:09,001 --> 00:47:11,362
it's crucial to notice how
contradictory this figure

672
00:47:11,536 --> 00:47:12,943
of the Jew is.

673
00:47:25,260 --> 00:47:28,141
Jews are at the same time
extra intellectual -

674
00:47:28,317 --> 00:47:30,501
like mathematicians,
whatever -

675
00:47:30,677 --> 00:47:32,083
and vulgar.

676
00:47:38,063 --> 00:47:40,501
Not washing regularly.

677
00:47:46,172 --> 00:47:50,204
Seducing innocent girls all the
time and so on and so on.

678
00:48:48,286 --> 00:48:50,724
This is typical for racism.

679
00:48:50,900 --> 00:48:55,023
You try to imagine how
the other enjoys

680
00:48:55,197 --> 00:48:59,231
all the secret orgies or
whatever, because in racism

681
00:48:59,407 --> 00:49:02,554
the other is not
simply an enemy;

682
00:49:02,728 --> 00:49:06,630
usually it is also
invested with

683
00:49:06,804 --> 00:49:10,528
some specific
perverse enjoyment or

684
00:49:10,704 --> 00:49:13,762
in an inverted way,
the other can be someone

685
00:49:13,938 --> 00:49:18,327
who tries to steal from us
our enjoyment, our...

686
00:49:18,501 --> 00:49:22,844
to disturb, as we usually
put it: our way of life.

687
00:49:24,836 --> 00:49:27,630
We should be here
very precise

688
00:49:27,806 --> 00:49:31,925
not to fall into the usual
trap of disqualifying

689
00:49:32,101 --> 00:49:37,420
all elements out of which
the Nazi ideological edifice

690
00:49:37,594 --> 00:49:42,869
is composed, to disqualify all
them as proto-fascist.

691
00:49:45,836 --> 00:49:48,692
We should never forget that
the large majority

692
00:49:48,867 --> 00:49:53,528
of these elements which we
today associate with fascism

693
00:49:53,704 --> 00:49:57,400
were taken from
the workers' movement.

694
00:50:00,989 --> 00:50:05,862
This idea of large numbers of
people marching together -

695
00:50:06,038 --> 00:50:11,135
this idea of strict bodily
discipline as our duty -

696
00:50:12,153 --> 00:50:17,072
the Nazis directly took this over
from social democracy,

697
00:50:17,246 --> 00:50:18,978
from the left.

698
00:50:19,153 --> 00:50:21,679
Let me just take some other
central concepts

699
00:50:21,853 --> 00:50:23,273
of the Nazi world-view:

700
00:50:23,449 --> 00:50:25,445
the solidarity of the people.

701
00:50:25,619 --> 00:50:28,900
My God, there is nothing bad
in this notion as such.

702
00:50:29,876 --> 00:50:33,552
The problem is solidarity
to what kind of people?

703
00:50:33,728 --> 00:50:36,697
If by people you mean
'Volksgemeinschaft' -

704
00:50:36,873 --> 00:50:38,737
the organic community
of people -

705
00:50:38,911 --> 00:50:41,661
where then the enemy
is automatically

706
00:50:41,835 --> 00:50:43,876
the foreign intruder,

707
00:50:44,050 --> 00:50:47,065
in this case
we are in Nazism.

708
00:50:49,989 --> 00:50:56,103
The crucial thing is to locate
ideology where it belongs.

709
00:50:56,278 --> 00:50:58,938
Let's take a clear example.

710
00:50:59,114 --> 00:51:02,438
The well known song
'Tomorrow Belongs To Me'

711
00:51:02,614 --> 00:51:04,610
from the film <i>Cabaret</i>.

712
00:51:04,784 --> 00:51:10,963
<i>The sun on the meadow</i>
<i>is summery warm</i>

713
00:51:11,137 --> 00:51:17,760
<i>The stag in the forest</i>
<i>runs free...</i>

714
00:51:17,936 --> 00:51:21,452
Some of my friends after
seeing the film -

715
00:51:21,628 --> 00:51:23,172
Bob Fosse's <i>Cabaret</i> -

716
00:51:23,347 --> 00:51:26,027
thought that after
they heard this song

717
00:51:26,202 --> 00:51:29,711
they finally understood
what at it's deepest,

718
00:51:29,887 --> 00:51:34,713
as to its emotional impact,
what fascism is.

719
00:51:34,887 --> 00:51:39,579
But I think this precisely
is the mistake to be avoided.

720
00:51:40,586 --> 00:51:44,070
This song is rather ordinary
popular song.

721
00:51:44,244 --> 00:51:47,259
Incidentally it was composed
while they were

722
00:51:47,434 --> 00:51:50,280
shooting the movie
by a Jewish couple.

723
00:51:50,454 --> 00:51:52,085
Nice irony.

724
00:51:52,882 --> 00:51:57,161
If you look not only at the
music, at the way it is sung,

725
00:51:57,336 --> 00:51:59,594
but even at the words

726
00:51:59,769 --> 00:52:03,204
"awakening of a nation,
tomorrow belongs to me..."

727
00:52:03,378 --> 00:52:06,938
one can well imagine with
a slight change of words

728
00:52:07,114 --> 00:52:10,253
radically leftist,
communist song.

729
00:52:13,190 --> 00:52:19,358
<i>But soon says the whisper:</i>
<i>arise, arise...</i>

730
00:52:26,744 --> 00:52:29,806
The German hard rock
band Rammstein

731
00:52:29,981 --> 00:52:33,416
are often accused of flirting,
playing with

732
00:52:33,590 --> 00:52:36,478
the Nazi militaristic
iconography.

733
00:52:36,653 --> 00:52:39,416
But if one observes
closely their show -

734
00:52:39,590 --> 00:52:42,646
one can see very nicely
what they are doing.

735
00:52:42,822 --> 00:52:48,018
Exemplarily in one of their best
known songs 'Reise Reise'.

736
00:52:55,864 --> 00:52:59,472
<i>Reise, reise,
Seemann reise</i>

737
00:52:59,648 --> 00:53:03,123
<i>Jeder tut's auf seine Weise</i>

738
00:53:03,298 --> 00:53:06,724
<i>Der eine stφίt den</i>
<i>Speer zum Mann</i>

739
00:53:06,900 --> 00:53:09,880
<i>Der andere zum Fische dann.</i>

740
00:53:10,054 --> 00:53:13,487
<i>Reise, reise,</i>
<i>Seemann reise...</i>

741
00:53:13,663 --> 00:53:16,802
The minimal elements
of the Nazi ideology

742
00:53:16,978 --> 00:53:20,159
enacted by Rammstein
are something like

743
00:53:20,335 --> 00:53:24,608
pure elements of
libidinal investment.

744
00:53:32,748 --> 00:53:35,434
Enjoyment has to be,
as it were,

745
00:53:35,608 --> 00:53:39,083
condensed in some
minimal tics: gestures,

746
00:53:39,259 --> 00:53:43,153
which do not have any
precise ideological meaning.

747
00:53:44,204 --> 00:53:47,141
What Rammstein does is -

748
00:53:47,315 --> 00:53:52,596
it liberates these elements
from their Nazi articulations.

749
00:53:53,182 --> 00:53:58,889
It allows us to enjoy them in
their pre-ideological state.

750
00:54:10,681 --> 00:54:15,505
The way to fight Nazism
is to enjoy these elements,

751
00:54:15,681 --> 00:54:17,688
ridiculous as they
may appear,

752
00:54:17,862 --> 00:54:22,010
by suspending the
Nazi horizon of meaning.

753
00:54:22,184 --> 00:54:27,380
This way you undermine
Nazism from within.

754
00:54:48,949 --> 00:54:51,802
So how does none the less
ideology do this?

755
00:54:51,976 --> 00:54:56,795
How does it articulate
pre-ideological elements?

756
00:54:56,971 --> 00:55:02,746
These elements can also be
seen as a kind of a bribe.

757
00:55:02,922 --> 00:55:08,208
The way ideology pays us to
seduce us into it's edifice.

758
00:55:08,384 --> 00:55:11,230
These bribes can be
purely libidinal bribes,

759
00:55:11,405 --> 00:55:14,041
all those tics which are
condensed enjoyment.

760
00:55:14,215 --> 00:55:17,356
Or they can be explicit
discursive elements like

761
00:55:17,530 --> 00:55:23,231
notions of solidarity
of collective discipline,

762
00:55:23,405 --> 00:55:27,090
struggle for one's destiny
and so on and so on.

763
00:55:27,266 --> 00:55:32,588
All these in itself are
free floating elements

764
00:55:32,762 --> 00:55:38,882
which open themselves to
different ideological fields.

765
00:55:39,056 --> 00:55:45,516
Let's turn to the high point
of our consumerism.

766
00:55:46,307 --> 00:55:50,141
Let me take a drink...

767
00:55:51,887 --> 00:55:55,380
Some of it -
'Starbucks' coffee.

768
00:55:55,556 --> 00:56:00,416
I am regularly drinking it,
I must admit it.

769
00:56:00,590 --> 00:56:04,577
But are we aware that
when we buy a cappuccino

770
00:56:04,753 --> 00:56:09,869
from 'Starbucks', we also buy
quite a lot of ideology.

771
00:56:10,043 --> 00:56:11,565
Which ideology?

772
00:56:11,739 --> 00:56:14,545
You know when you enter
a 'Starbucks' store

773
00:56:14,719 --> 00:56:17,371
it's usually always displayed
in some posters there,

774
00:56:17,545 --> 00:56:18,809
their message which is:

775
00:56:18,983 --> 00:56:22,353
Yes, our cappuccino is more
expensive than others,

776
00:56:22,528 --> 00:56:24,820
but - and then
comes the story -

777
00:56:24,994 --> 00:56:28,621
we give one percent of
all our income to some

778
00:56:28,797 --> 00:56:31,909
Guatemala children
to keep them healthy.

779
00:56:32,085 --> 00:56:35,250
For the water supply
for some Sahara farmers,

780
00:56:35,425 --> 00:56:39,873
or to save the forests, to enable
organic growing coffee...

781
00:56:40,048 --> 00:56:41,364
whatever, whatever.

782
00:56:41,539 --> 00:56:45,320
Now I admire the ingeniosity
of this solution.

783
00:56:45,494 --> 00:56:49,891
In the old days of
pure simple consumerism

784
00:56:50,067 --> 00:56:53,231
you bought a product
and then you felt bad.

785
00:56:53,407 --> 00:56:55,902
My God, I'm just
a consumerist

786
00:56:56,077 --> 00:56:58,164
while people are
starving in Africa.

787
00:56:58,338 --> 00:57:03,096
So the idea was you had to
do something to counteract

788
00:57:03,271 --> 00:57:05,561
your pure distractive
consumerism.

789
00:57:05,737 --> 00:57:07,925
For example, I don't know,
you contribute

790
00:57:08,130 --> 00:57:09,724
to charity and so on.

791
00:57:09,898 --> 00:57:15,735
What 'Starbucks' enables you
is to be a consumerist and-

792
00:57:16,762 --> 00:57:19,331
be a consumerist without
any bad conscience

793
00:57:19,505 --> 00:57:22,516
because the price
for the counter measure -

794
00:57:22,692 --> 00:57:24,418
for fighting consumerism -

795
00:57:24,592 --> 00:57:28,168
is already included into
the price of a commodity.

796
00:57:28,342 --> 00:57:30,840
Like you pay a little bit more
and you are not just

797
00:57:31,014 --> 00:57:37,621
a consumerist but you do also
your duty towards environment -

798
00:57:37,795 --> 00:57:41,885
the poor, starving people in
Africa and so on and so on.

799
00:57:42,061 --> 00:57:45,585
It's, I think, the ultimate
form of consumerism.

800
00:57:45,760 --> 00:57:49,900
We should not simply
oppose a principal life

801
00:57:50,076 --> 00:57:57,710
dedicated to duty and enjoying
our small pleasures.

802
00:57:57,885 --> 00:58:00,894
Let's take today's capitalism.

803
00:58:01,070 --> 00:58:04,954
We have, on the one hand,
the demands of the circulation

804
00:58:05,128 --> 00:58:09,731
of the capital which push us
towards profit making,

805
00:58:09,907 --> 00:58:15,074
expansion, exploitation and
destruction of nature and,

806
00:58:15,250 --> 00:58:18,775
on the other hand,
ecological demands:

807
00:58:18,949 --> 00:58:23,141
let's think about our posterity
and about our own survival,

808
00:58:23,317 --> 00:58:27,713
let's take care of
nature and so on.

809
00:58:27,889 --> 00:58:31,362
In this opposition between
ruthless pursuit of

810
00:58:31,536 --> 00:58:36,242
capitalist expansion and
ecological awareness -

811
00:58:36,418 --> 00:58:39,581
duty, a strange perverted
duty of course -

812
00:58:39,757 --> 00:58:45,541
duty is on the side
of capitalism,

813
00:58:45,717 --> 00:58:50,679
as many perspicuous
analysts noted.

814
00:58:50,855 --> 00:58:56,588
Capitalism has a strange
religious structure.

815
00:58:56,762 --> 00:59:00,543
It is propelled by this
absolute demand:

816
00:59:00,719 --> 00:59:06,092
capital has to circulate to
reproduce itself to expand -

817
00:59:06,268 --> 00:59:08,764
to multiply itself and
for this goal

818
00:59:08,938 --> 00:59:12,103
anything can be sacrificed,
up to our lives,

819
00:59:12,278 --> 00:59:14,005
up to nature and so on.

820
00:59:14,179 --> 00:59:17,806
Here we have a strange
unconditional injunction.

821
00:59:17,981 --> 00:59:20,222
A true capitalist is a miser
who is ready

822
00:59:20,396 --> 00:59:25,000
to sacrifice everything
for this perverted duty.

823
00:59:33,373 --> 00:59:36,764
What we see here in
Mojave desert

824
00:59:36,940 --> 00:59:40,824
at this resting place for
abandoned planes

825
00:59:40,998 --> 00:59:46,012
is the other side of
capitalist dynamics.

826
00:59:49,197 --> 00:59:52,384
Capitalism is all
the time in crisis.

827
00:59:52,559 --> 00:59:57,161
This is precisely why it appears
almost indestructible.

828
00:59:57,336 --> 00:59:59,525
Crisis is not its obstacle.

829
00:59:59,699 --> 01:00:01,682
It is what pushes
it forwards

830
01:00:01,858 --> 01:00:05,278
towards permanent
self-revolutionising -

831
01:00:05,454 --> 01:00:09,030
permanent, extended
self-reproduction -

832
01:00:09,204 --> 01:00:10,878
always new products.

833
01:00:11,054 --> 01:00:15,554
The other invisible side
of it is waste -

834
01:00:15,730 --> 01:00:19,510
tremendous amount of waste.

835
01:00:20,230 --> 01:00:24,237
We shouldn't react to
these heaps of waste

836
01:00:24,411 --> 01:00:29,425
by trying to somehow
get rid of it.

837
01:00:30,505 --> 01:00:35,282
Maybe the first thing to do
is to accept this waste.

838
01:00:35,458 --> 01:00:38,777
To accept that there
are things out there

839
01:00:38,952 --> 01:00:41,706
which serve nothing.

840
01:00:41,880 --> 01:00:47,202
To break out of this eternal
cycle of functioning.

841
01:00:54,858 --> 01:00:57,273
The German philosopher
Walter Benjamin

842
01:00:57,447 --> 01:01:00,150
said something very deep.

843
01:01:00,324 --> 01:01:03,592
He said that we
experience history -

844
01:01:03,766 --> 01:01:06,572
what does it mean for us to
be historical beings -

845
01:01:06,746 --> 01:01:11,349
not when we are engaged in
things, when things move;

846
01:01:11,525 --> 01:01:14,637
only when we see
this, again,

847
01:01:14,813 --> 01:01:18,182
rest waste of culture being
half retaken by nature -

848
01:01:18,358 --> 01:01:25,119
at that point we get an intuition
of what history means.

849
01:01:28,304 --> 01:01:31,284
Maybe this also accounts
for the redemptive value

850
01:01:31,458 --> 01:01:34,315
of post-catastrophic movies

851
01:01:34,490 --> 01:01:38,014
like <i>I Am Legend</i> and so on.

852
01:01:38,528 --> 01:01:42,278
We see the devastated
human environment,

853
01:01:42,454 --> 01:01:45,105
half empty factories,
machines falling apart,

854
01:01:45,280 --> 01:01:47,621
half empty stores.

855
01:01:47,797 --> 01:01:51,373
What we experience
at this moment,

856
01:01:51,547 --> 01:01:54,507
the psychoanalytic term
for it would have been

857
01:01:54,681 --> 01:01:57,023
the 'Inertia of the Real' -

858
01:01:57,199 --> 01:02:01,751
this mute presence
beyond meaning.

859
01:02:03,240 --> 01:02:04,628
What moments like

860
01:02:04,802 --> 01:02:07,608
confronting planes
here in Mojave Desert

861
01:02:07,782 --> 01:02:09,949
bring to us is
maybe a chance

862
01:02:10,125 --> 01:02:13,824
for an authentic
passive experience.

863
01:02:14,000 --> 01:02:17,061
Maybe without this
properly artistic

864
01:02:17,237 --> 01:02:19,989
moment of
authentic passivity

865
01:02:20,164 --> 01:02:23,637
nothing new can emerge.

866
01:02:25,128 --> 01:02:30,367
Maybe something new only
emerges through the failure,

867
01:02:30,543 --> 01:02:33,913
the suspension of proper
functioning of the

868
01:02:34,088 --> 01:02:36,996
existing network of our life -

869
01:02:37,170 --> 01:02:39,873
where we are.

870
01:02:42,030 --> 01:02:47,322
Maybe this is what we need
more than ever today.

871
01:03:02,119 --> 01:03:06,434
What does the wreck of
the Titanic stand for?

872
01:03:08,592 --> 01:03:10,597
We all know the
standard reading

873
01:03:10,771 --> 01:03:14,480
of the impact of
the sinking of the Titanic.

874
01:03:14,655 --> 01:03:18,764
Not only the film
but the real accident.

875
01:03:19,432 --> 01:03:23,543
This sinking had such an
impact because it happened

876
01:03:23,717 --> 01:03:29,606
in a society still at that point
in all its glitz and glory,

877
01:03:29,780 --> 01:03:34,280
unaware of the decay that
awaited it in the near future -

878
01:03:34,456 --> 01:03:37,313
the World Wars and so on.

879
01:03:37,487 --> 01:03:39,603
But there is something
in excess

880
01:03:39,778 --> 01:03:41,731
of this entire field
of meanings

881
01:03:41,905 --> 01:03:44,762
which is the very
fascinating presence

882
01:03:44,936 --> 01:03:49,438
of the ruin of the Titanic
at the bottom of the ocean.

883
01:03:52,519 --> 01:03:54,523
When James Cameron
organised

884
01:03:54,699 --> 01:03:56,938
a trip to the real
wreck of Titanic

885
01:03:57,114 --> 01:04:00,431
he also made a similar remark.

886
01:04:00,606 --> 01:04:03,976
When the explorers
approached the wreck,

887
01:04:04,152 --> 01:04:07,317
they had this almost
metaphysical experience

888
01:04:07,492 --> 01:04:10,143
that they are approaching
a forbidden territory

889
01:04:10,318 --> 01:04:14,766
in which the sacred and
the obscene overlap.

890
01:04:14,940 --> 01:04:16,512
<i>Yeah, Roger that.</i>
<i>OK, drop down</i>

891
01:04:16,688 --> 01:04:18,824
<i>and go into the first</i>
<i>class gangway door.</i>

892
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:20,572
<i>I want you guys</i>
<i>working with...</i>

893
01:04:20,746 --> 01:04:24,271
Every effective political,
ideological symbol

894
01:04:24,445 --> 01:04:28,123
or symptom has to rely
on this dimension of

895
01:04:28,298 --> 01:04:31,155
petrified enjoyment.

896
01:04:31,331 --> 01:04:37,114
Of the frozen grimace of
an excessive pleasure in pain.

897
01:04:52,630 --> 01:04:56,228
What am I doing here
in the middle of the ocean -

898
01:04:56,402 --> 01:05:00,389
alone in a boat surrounded
by frozen corpses?

899
01:05:00,570 --> 01:05:01,570
<i>Jack?</i>

900
01:05:01,746 --> 01:05:06,246
I am in a scene from
James Cameron's <i>Titanic</i>...

901
01:05:06,420 --> 01:05:07,427
<i>Jack?</i>

902
01:05:07,603 --> 01:05:14,157
which is the supreme case of
ideology in recent Hollywood.

903
01:05:15,186 --> 01:05:18,525
Why? Beause
of the imminent

904
01:05:18,699 --> 01:05:20,836
tension to the story
of the film.

905
01:05:21,012 --> 01:05:22,429
<i>- I don't know this dance.</i>
<i>- Neither do I.</i>

906
01:05:22,605 --> 01:05:24,896
<i>Just go with it.</i>
<i>Don't think.</i>

907
01:05:25,070 --> 01:05:26,746
We have at least three levels.

908
01:05:26,920 --> 01:05:30,496
First there is what people
ironically refer to as

909
01:05:30,670 --> 01:05:34,452
James Cameron's
Hollywood Marxism -

910
01:05:36,251 --> 01:05:41,952
this ridiculous fake sympathy
with lower classes.

911
01:05:43,648 --> 01:05:45,601
Up there, first class
passengers -

912
01:05:45,775 --> 01:05:49,197
they are mostly evil,
egotistic, cowardly...

913
01:05:49,371 --> 01:05:51,818
<i>You know I don't</i>
<i>like that, Rose.</i>

914
01:05:51,992 --> 01:05:53,976
embodied in Kate
Winslet's fiancι

915
01:05:54,150 --> 01:05:56,442
played by Billy Zane.
<i>- She knows.</i>

916
01:05:56,800 --> 01:05:59,422
This whole narrative
is sustained

917
01:05:59,597 --> 01:06:02,760
by a much more
reactionary myth.

918
01:06:05,998 --> 01:06:08,875
<i>Did you see</i>
<i>those guys' faces?</i>

919
01:06:09,050 --> 01:06:13,704
We should ask what role does
the iceberg hitting the ship

920
01:06:13,878 --> 01:06:16,992
play in the development
of the love story?

921
01:06:17,166 --> 01:06:21,769
<i>When the ship docks</i>
<i>I'm getting off with you.</i>

922
01:06:22,695 --> 01:06:24,905
<i>- This is crazy.</i>
<i>- I know.</i>

923
01:06:25,079 --> 01:06:28,449
My claim is here
a slightly cynical one.

924
01:06:28,625 --> 01:06:31,583
This would have been
the true catastrophe.

925
01:06:31,759 --> 01:06:36,155
We can imagine how maybe
after two three weeks of

926
01:06:36,331 --> 01:06:39,032
of intense sex in New York

927
01:06:39,208 --> 01:06:42,474
the love affair would
somehow fade away.

928
01:06:42,650 --> 01:06:45,096
<i>As a paying customer</i>

929
01:06:46,019 --> 01:06:48,795
<i>I expect to get what I want.</i>

930
01:06:51,518 --> 01:06:55,268
Kate Winslet is
an upper class girl -

931
01:06:55,443 --> 01:06:59,224
in psychological
distress, confused,

932
01:06:59,400 --> 01:07:02,666
her ego is in shatters.

933
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:05,902
And the function
of Leonardo DiCaprio...

934
01:07:06,077 --> 01:07:08,831
<i>Over on the bed,</i>
<i>the couch.</i>

935
01:07:09,007 --> 01:07:16,384
is simply that he helps her
to reconstitute her ego.

936
01:07:16,559 --> 01:07:18,798
<i>Good. Lie down.</i>

937
01:07:18,974 --> 01:07:21,983
Her self image, literally
he draws her image.

938
01:07:22,159 --> 01:07:23,217
<i>Tell me when it looks right.</i>

939
01:07:23,391 --> 01:07:25,117
<i>Put your arm back</i>
<i>the way it was.</i>

940
01:07:25,293 --> 01:07:28,972
It's really a new version
of one of the old -

941
01:07:29,146 --> 01:07:32,157
favourite imperialist myths.

942
01:07:32,331 --> 01:07:35,342
The idea being that when
the upper class people

943
01:07:35,518 --> 01:07:37,809
lose their vitality

944
01:07:37,983 --> 01:07:41,559
they need a contact
with lower classes.

945
01:07:41,733 --> 01:07:46,902
Basically ruthlessly exploiting
them in a vampire like way -

946
01:07:47,077 --> 01:07:50,088
as it were sucking
from them the life energy.

947
01:07:50,262 --> 01:07:54,556
Revitalised they can join their
secluded upper class life.

948
01:07:54,731 --> 01:07:57,536
<i>My heart was pounding</i>
<i>the whole time.</i>

949
01:07:57,711 --> 01:08:02,059
<i>It was the most erotic</i>
<i>moment of my life.</i>

950
01:08:05,244 --> 01:08:09,251
<i>Up until then at least.</i>
The ship hits the iceberg -

951
01:08:09,425 --> 01:08:16,033
not immediately after sex but
when the couple goes up

952
01:08:16,207 --> 01:08:20,605
to the open space and
decide to stay together.

953
01:08:20,913 --> 01:08:24,202
<i>Oh yes. Hey, look at this.</i>

954
01:08:26,309 --> 01:08:28,722
You know, often in history

955
01:08:28,898 --> 01:08:32,524
the event which may
appear as a catastrophe

956
01:08:32,699 --> 01:08:34,939
saves persons or an idea,

957
01:08:35,114 --> 01:08:37,970
elevating it into a myth.

958
01:08:38,145 --> 01:08:41,104
Remember the intervention
of the Soviet army -

959
01:08:41,279 --> 01:08:46,962
and other Warsaw backed armies
in 1968 in Czechoslovakia -

960
01:08:48,144 --> 01:08:51,997
to strangle the so
called Prague Spring.

961
01:08:52,171 --> 01:08:55,592
The attempt of the Czech
democratic communists

962
01:08:55,768 --> 01:09:00,011
to introduce a more
human faced socialism.

963
01:09:00,783 --> 01:09:04,583
Usually we perceive this
brutal Soviet intervention

964
01:09:04,759 --> 01:09:08,899
as something that destroyed
the brief dream of Prague Spring.

965
01:09:09,074 --> 01:09:12,136
I think it saved the dream.

966
01:09:13,216 --> 01:09:16,658
Either Czechoslovakia would
have turned into an ordinary

967
01:09:16,832 --> 01:09:19,637
liberal capitalist state

968
01:09:19,813 --> 01:09:22,668
or at a certain point - which
was usually the fate of

969
01:09:22,844 --> 01:09:26,420
reformist communists,
the communist in power -

970
01:09:26,595 --> 01:09:28,680
would be obliged
to set a certain limit.

971
01:09:28,854 --> 01:09:31,248
OK, you had you fun,
your freedom -

972
01:09:31,423 --> 01:09:36,078
that's enough, now we
again define the limits.

973
01:09:36,252 --> 01:09:40,086
Again, the paradox is precisely
the Soviet intervention

974
01:09:40,261 --> 01:09:43,323
saved the dream of
the possibility of

975
01:09:43,497 --> 01:09:45,685
another communism
and so on and so on.

976
01:09:45,860 --> 01:09:48,152
So, here again

977
01:09:48,769 --> 01:09:51,850
through the temporal
catastrophe

978
01:09:52,025 --> 01:09:55,962
we have a love story
which is, as it were,

979
01:09:56,136 --> 01:10:00,328
redeemed in it's idea,
saved for eternity.

980
01:10:01,819 --> 01:10:04,541
We can ultimately
read the catastrophe

981
01:10:04,716 --> 01:10:07,243
as a desperate manoeuvre

982
01:10:07,418 --> 01:10:11,220
to save the illusion
of eternal love.

983
01:10:15,125 --> 01:10:18,876
We can see how ideology
works effectively here.

984
01:10:19,051 --> 01:10:21,649
We have two
superficial levels.

985
01:10:21,824 --> 01:10:26,069
All the fascination of
the accident, then

986
01:10:26,243 --> 01:10:29,664
the love story - but all this
which is quite acceptable

987
01:10:29,840 --> 01:10:32,131
for our liberal
progressive minds -

988
01:10:32,305 --> 01:10:35,521
all this is just a trap.

989
01:10:35,697 --> 01:10:39,015
Something to lower
our attention -

990
01:10:39,190 --> 01:10:42,971
threshold, as it were,
to open us up -

991
01:10:43,146 --> 01:10:48,057
to be ready to accept the
true conservative message

992
01:10:48,233 --> 01:10:52,784
of rich people having tried
to revitalise themselves

993
01:10:52,960 --> 01:10:58,796
by ruthlessly appropriating the
vitality of the poor people.

994
01:10:58,970 --> 01:11:00,029
<i>There's no one here, sir.</i>

995
01:11:00,203 --> 01:11:02,701
There is a wonderful detail
which tells everything.

996
01:11:02,876 --> 01:11:03,934
<i>Come back.</i>

997
01:11:04,109 --> 01:11:07,015
When Kate Winslet notices
that Leonardo DiCaprio

998
01:11:07,190 --> 01:11:10,510
is dead, she, of course,
starts to shout

999
01:11:10,685 --> 01:11:12,667
"I will never let go,
I will never let go"

1000
01:11:12,841 --> 01:11:15,853
while at the same moment...
<i>- I will never let go.</i>

1001
01:11:16,028 --> 01:11:19,551
<i>- I promise.</i>
she pushes him off.

1002
01:11:20,579 --> 01:11:25,872
He is what we may call ironically
a vanishing mediator.

1003
01:11:27,463 --> 01:11:29,930
This logic of the
production of the couple

1004
01:11:30,104 --> 01:11:32,909
has a long history
in Hollywood.

1005
01:11:33,085 --> 01:11:34,502
Whatever the story is about -

1006
01:11:34,677 --> 01:11:37,328
it may be about the end of
the world, an asteroid

1007
01:11:37,503 --> 01:11:40,925
threatening the very
survival of humanity

1008
01:11:41,100 --> 01:11:43,493
or a great war, whatever.

1009
01:11:43,668 --> 01:11:47,963
As a rule we always
have a couple whose

1010
01:11:48,139 --> 01:11:52,279
link is threatened and
who somehow through

1011
01:11:52,453 --> 01:11:57,880
this ordeal at the end
happily gets together.

1012
01:11:59,471 --> 01:12:02,658
This logic does not hold
only for Hollywood films.

1013
01:12:11,032 --> 01:12:14,474
In the late forties,
in Soviet Union,

1014
01:12:14,649 --> 01:12:17,197
they produced arguably
one of the most expensive

1015
01:12:17,372 --> 01:12:18,585
film of all times:

1016
01:12:18,760 --> 01:12:20,792
<i>The Fall of Berlin.</i>

1017
01:12:21,615 --> 01:12:24,698
The chronicle of the
second World War

1018
01:12:24,872 --> 01:12:26,239
from the Soviet standpoint.

1019
01:12:26,414 --> 01:12:28,756
And it's incredible how
closely this film

1020
01:12:28,931 --> 01:12:32,970
also follows the logic of
the production of a couple.

1021
01:12:33,637 --> 01:12:35,487
The story begins just before

1022
01:12:35,662 --> 01:12:37,439
the German attack
on the Soviet Union,

1023
01:12:37,614 --> 01:12:40,317
when the model worker
who is in love

1024
01:12:40,492 --> 01:12:45,762
with a local girl but is too
shy to propose to her,

1025
01:12:45,938 --> 01:12:50,591
is called to Moscow to get
a medal from Comrade Stalin.

1026
01:12:51,413 --> 01:12:56,501
There Stalin notices his
confusion, distress,

1027
01:12:56,676 --> 01:12:59,069
and Stalin gives
him some advice -

1028
01:12:59,244 --> 01:13:01,279
which poetry
to quote and so on.

1029
01:13:01,453 --> 01:13:04,259
This part unfortunately
was lost

1030
01:13:04,434 --> 01:13:08,060
because in the background
of this scene there was Beria -

1031
01:13:08,234 --> 01:13:10,680
a Soviet politician who
after Stalin's death

1032
01:13:10,855 --> 01:13:12,735
became a 'non-person' -

1033
01:13:12,911 --> 01:13:15,099
was shot as a traitor.

1034
01:13:15,274 --> 01:13:19,311
But we know from the
screenplay what was there.

1035
01:13:19,487 --> 01:13:22,087
If Stalin gives you love
advice it has to succeed -

1036
01:13:22,261 --> 01:13:25,220
so the couple embraces.

1037
01:13:33,492 --> 01:13:37,087
He carries her probably
to make love.

1038
01:13:41,814 --> 01:13:44,332
At that very moment
there is the triumphant,

1039
01:13:44,507 --> 01:13:47,210
violent entrance
of the obstacle:

1040
01:13:47,385 --> 01:13:51,216
German planes come,
dropping bombs.

1041
01:14:01,337 --> 01:14:02,983
The girl is taken prisoner.

1042
01:14:08,737 --> 01:14:11,152
The boy of course joins
the Red Army

1043
01:14:11,327 --> 01:14:14,594
and we follow him through
all the great battles.

1044
01:14:14,769 --> 01:14:19,011
The idea being that in a
deeper logic of the film -

1045
01:14:19,186 --> 01:14:21,581
what these battles
were about -

1046
01:14:21,756 --> 01:14:25,126
was really to
recreate the couple.

1047
01:14:25,301 --> 01:14:28,363
The boy has to get his girl.

1048
01:14:28,537 --> 01:14:30,725
This is what happens
at the end,

1049
01:14:30,900 --> 01:14:34,559
but in a very strange
way which reconfirms

1050
01:14:34,734 --> 01:14:39,152
Stalin's role as the supreme
divine matchmaker.

1051
01:14:42,953 --> 01:14:46,756
The scene itself, Stalin
emerging himself into

1052
01:14:46,930 --> 01:14:51,072
a crowd of ordinary people
never happened.

1053
01:14:51,247 --> 01:14:54,359
Stalin was totally paranoid
about flying,

1054
01:14:54,534 --> 01:14:56,774
about taking planes.

1055
01:14:56,949 --> 01:15:01,757
But none the less when he
saw this scene he cried.

1056
01:15:12,238 --> 01:15:17,016
Of course he himself as you
know, wrote the lines.

1057
01:15:17,479 --> 01:15:20,305
When the couple
encounters each other

1058
01:15:20,479 --> 01:15:24,158
the girl first sees Stalin,

1059
01:15:24,332 --> 01:15:27,497
then she turns around
and, surprised,

1060
01:15:27,672 --> 01:15:28,885
sees her lover

1061
01:15:29,060 --> 01:15:31,967
for whom she was waiting
all the time of the war.

1062
01:15:34,434 --> 01:15:37,105
So it's only through
the presence of Stalin

1063
01:15:37,280 --> 01:15:39,983
that the couple
gets reunited.

1064
01:15:52,877 --> 01:15:55,292
This is how ideology works.

1065
01:15:55,467 --> 01:15:57,759
Not the explicit
ideology of the film -

1066
01:15:57,934 --> 01:15:59,814
which we hear at the
end Stalin saying:

1067
01:15:59,988 --> 01:16:02,435
now all the free people
will enjoy peace

1068
01:16:02,609 --> 01:16:03,667
and so on and so on.

1069
01:16:03,842 --> 01:16:08,650
But precisely ideology
at its more fundamental.

1070
01:16:10,706 --> 01:16:15,226
This apparently totally
subordinated motive -

1071
01:16:15,402 --> 01:16:17,282
unimportant in itself -

1072
01:16:17,457 --> 01:16:22,573
the story of a couple, this is
what is the key element,

1073
01:16:22,748 --> 01:16:25,862
which holds the
entire film together,

1074
01:16:26,037 --> 01:16:30,896
that small surplus element
which attracts us,

1075
01:16:31,072 --> 01:16:33,774
which maintains
our attention.

1076
01:16:33,948 --> 01:16:37,164
This is how ideology works.

1077
01:16:38,501 --> 01:16:40,350
<i>Nice.</i>

1078
01:16:41,840 --> 01:16:44,255
<i>Everything clean.</i>

1079
01:16:44,738 --> 01:16:46,670
<i>Oiled.</i>

1080
01:16:48,519 --> 01:16:51,345
<i>So that your action</i>
<i>is beautiful.</i>

1081
01:16:55,043 --> 01:16:56,277
<i>Smooth, Charlene.</i>

1082
01:16:56,452 --> 01:16:58,280
We usually think that
military discipline

1083
01:16:58,456 --> 01:17:02,340
is just a matter of mindlessly
following orders.

1084
01:17:02,515 --> 01:17:04,497
Obeying the rules.

1085
01:17:04,672 --> 01:17:07,323
You don't think - you do
what is your duty.

1086
01:17:07,498 --> 01:17:08,864
It's not as simple as that.

1087
01:17:09,039 --> 01:17:13,796
If we do this, we just
become machines.

1088
01:17:13,971 --> 01:17:16,417
There has to be
something more.

1089
01:17:16,591 --> 01:17:20,591
This <i>more</i> can have
two basic forms.

1090
01:17:20,765 --> 01:17:26,086
The first more benign form
is an ironic distance.

1091
01:17:26,261 --> 01:17:29,173
Best epitomised by the
well known movie

1092
01:17:29,349 --> 01:17:31,634
and TV series 'M.A.S.H.'...

1093
01:17:31,809 --> 01:17:32,942
<i>Hawkeye?</i>

1094
01:17:33,117 --> 01:17:35,506
where the military
doctors are involved

1095
01:17:35,680 --> 01:17:38,122
in sexual escapades,

1096
01:17:38,297 --> 01:17:40,845
make jokes all the time.

1097
01:17:41,211 --> 01:17:44,141
Some people took Robert
Altman's movie

1098
01:17:44,317 --> 01:17:48,800
as a kind of antimilitaristic,
satiric product,

1099
01:17:48,975 --> 01:17:50,161
but it's not.

1100
01:17:50,336 --> 01:17:53,038
We should always bear
in mind that these

1101
01:17:53,213 --> 01:17:55,498
soldiers with all their
practical jokes -

1102
01:17:55,673 --> 01:17:58,220
making fun of their
superiors and so on -

1103
01:17:58,395 --> 01:18:01,412
operated perfectly
as soldiers.

1104
01:18:01,587 --> 01:18:03,663
They did their duty.

1105
01:18:03,838 --> 01:18:06,019
<i>This one's for you, babe.</i>

1106
01:18:06,194 --> 01:18:10,206
Much more ominous
is a kind of obscene

1107
01:18:10,381 --> 01:18:15,596
supplement to
pure military discipline.

1108
01:18:15,771 --> 01:18:19,260
In practically all movies
about U.S. Marines,

1109
01:18:19,435 --> 01:18:22,819
the best-known embodiment
of this obscenity

1110
01:18:22,993 --> 01:18:25,592
are marching chants.

1111
01:18:25,768 --> 01:18:29,518
A mixture of nonsense...
<i>- I don't know but I've been told.</i>

1112
01:18:29,693 --> 01:18:32,238
<i>Eskimo pussy is mighty cold.</i>

1113
01:18:32,413 --> 01:18:34,646
and obscenity.

1114
01:18:36,164 --> 01:18:41,293
This is not undermining,
making fun of military discipline.

1115
01:18:42,444 --> 01:18:46,161
It is it's inner most constituent.

1116
01:18:46,336 --> 01:18:50,015
You take this obscene
supplement away -

1117
01:18:50,190 --> 01:18:54,796
and military machine
stops working.

1118
01:18:54,970 --> 01:18:58,041
<i>Well, no shit.</i>
<i>What have we got here?</i>

1119
01:18:58,216 --> 01:19:00,396
<i>A fucking comedian?</i>
<i>Private Joker.</i>

1120
01:19:00,572 --> 01:19:02,436
<i>I admire your honesty.</i>

1121
01:19:02,612 --> 01:19:04,112
<i>Hell, I like you.</i>
<i>You can come over</i>

1122
01:19:04,287 --> 01:19:06,939
<i>to my house and</i>
<i>fuck my sister.</i>

1123
01:19:07,409 --> 01:19:08,979
<i>You little scumbag!</i>

1124
01:19:09,154 --> 01:19:11,595
<i>I've got your name!</i>
<i>I've got your ass!</i>

1125
01:19:11,770 --> 01:19:13,742
<i>You will not laugh.</i>
<i>You will not cry.</i>

1126
01:19:13,917 --> 01:19:16,306
<i>You will learn by the numbers.</i>
<i>I will teach you.</i>

1127
01:19:16,481 --> 01:19:18,347
<i>Now get up!</i>
<i>Get on your feet!</i>

1128
01:19:18,766 --> 01:19:21,435
<i>You had best unfuck yourself</i>
<i>or I will unscrew</i>

1129
01:19:21,610 --> 01:19:23,476
<i>your head and shit</i>
<i>down your neck.</i>

1130
01:19:23,652 --> 01:19:25,203
<i>- Sir, yes, sir!</i>
<i>- Private Joker,</i>

1131
01:19:25,378 --> 01:19:27,402
<i>why don't you join</i>
<i>my beloved corps?</i>

1132
01:19:27,577 --> 01:19:29,966
I think that the
drill sergeant -

1133
01:19:30,140 --> 01:19:36,176
the way it is played in
an exemplary way in

1134
01:19:36,351 --> 01:19:38,863
Stanley Kubrick's
<i>Full Metal Jacket</i> -

1135
01:19:39,038 --> 01:19:42,579
that the drill sergeant
is rather a tragic figure.

1136
01:19:42,755 --> 01:19:45,877
I always like to imagine
him as the person who

1137
01:19:46,051 --> 01:19:49,958
after his work returns home,
is quite decent and so on.

1138
01:19:50,134 --> 01:19:52,000
<i>This is my rifle,</i>
<i>this is my gun.</i>

1139
01:19:52,175 --> 01:19:55,769
All this obscene shouting
is just a show put on

1140
01:19:55,944 --> 01:19:58,646
not so much to impress
ordinary soldiers

1141
01:19:58,822 --> 01:20:01,787
whom he is training
as to bribe them

1142
01:20:01,962 --> 01:20:04,613
with bits of enjoyment.

1143
01:20:06,444 --> 01:20:09,637
It's not just a question
of these obscenities,

1144
01:20:09,813 --> 01:20:11,521
which sustains the
military machinery;

1145
01:20:11,730 --> 01:20:15,185
it's another more general rule
which holds for

1146
01:20:15,360 --> 01:20:18,692
military communities,
but even more

1147
01:20:18,867 --> 01:20:22,354
I would say, for all
human communities.

1148
01:20:22,529 --> 01:20:26,070
From the largest nations,
ethnic groups,

1149
01:20:26,246 --> 01:20:29,212
up to small university
departments and so on.

1150
01:20:29,386 --> 01:20:33,345
You don't only have
explicit rules.

1151
01:20:33,520 --> 01:20:38,475
You always, in order to become
part of a community,

1152
01:20:38,649 --> 01:20:42,190
you need some implicit
unwritten rules

1153
01:20:42,365 --> 01:20:45,122
which are never
publicly recognised

1154
01:20:45,296 --> 01:20:48,314
but are absolutely crucial
as the point of

1155
01:20:48,489 --> 01:20:51,193
the identification
of a group.

1156
01:20:53,444 --> 01:20:56,113
In the U.K. everyone
knows about

1157
01:20:56,287 --> 01:20:58,520
the obscene
unwritten rituals,

1158
01:20:58,694 --> 01:21:03,543
which regulate life
in public schools.

1159
01:21:03,719 --> 01:21:05,201
<i>That'll be all. Thank</i>
<i>you, Finchley.</i>

1160
01:21:05,376 --> 01:21:07,261
<i>I want to see all whips</i>
<i>in my study after break.</i>

1161
01:21:07,435 --> 01:21:09,614
<i>- Right, sir.</i>
<i>- Oh, how was India? Enjoy it?</i>

1162
01:21:09,789 --> 01:21:10,871
<i>- Jolly good.</i>
<i>- Bridges!</i>

1163
01:21:11,046 --> 01:21:13,435
<i>I'll labor night and day...</i>

1164
01:21:13,610 --> 01:21:18,302
Just think about Lindsay
Anderson's classic 'If...'.

1165
01:21:19,350 --> 01:21:21,390
The public life
is democratic -

1166
01:21:21,565 --> 01:21:24,270
we have professors who
interact with their pupils,

1167
01:21:24,444 --> 01:21:28,090
nice atmosphere,
teaching, friendship,

1168
01:21:28,265 --> 01:21:29,921
spirit of cooperation -

1169
01:21:30,096 --> 01:21:32,904
but then we all know
what happens

1170
01:21:33,079 --> 01:21:35,417
beneath the surface.

1171
01:21:39,342 --> 01:21:43,319
Older pupils torturing, sexually
abusing the younger.

1172
01:21:43,494 --> 01:21:48,554
This same mixture of obscenity
and sadistic violence.

1173
01:21:50,072 --> 01:21:52,426
And again what is
crucial here is

1174
01:21:52,601 --> 01:21:55,358
we should not simply
put all the blame

1175
01:21:55,533 --> 01:21:59,545
or all the enjoyment
on the older pupils.

1176
01:22:02,632 --> 01:22:04,149
The victims even are

1177
01:22:04,324 --> 01:22:08,493
part of this infernal
cycle of obscenity.

1178
01:22:09,173 --> 01:22:12,680
It's as if in order to really be
a member of a community

1179
01:22:12,855 --> 01:22:14,878
you have to render
you hands dirty.

1180
01:22:15,054 --> 01:22:19,328
And I think even the
Abu Ghraib scandal -

1181
01:22:19,502 --> 01:22:23,252
of American soldiers
torturing or

1182
01:22:23,427 --> 01:22:26,759
especially humiliating
Iraqi prisoners -

1183
01:22:26,934 --> 01:22:28,695
is to be read in this way.

1184
01:22:28,871 --> 01:22:32,149
It's not simply, we the
arrogant Americans

1185
01:22:32,324 --> 01:22:34,192
are humiliating others.

1186
01:22:34,367 --> 01:22:37,645
What Iraqi soldiers
experienced there

1187
01:22:37,820 --> 01:22:41,413
was the staging of
the obscene underside

1188
01:22:41,588 --> 01:22:44,868
of the American
military culture.

1189
01:22:46,961 --> 01:22:50,676
In <i>Full Metal Jacket</i> it's
the character of Joker -

1190
01:22:50,851 --> 01:22:52,194
played by
Matthew Modine -

1191
01:22:52,369 --> 01:22:55,387
who is close to what we
would call a normal soldier.

1192
01:22:55,563 --> 01:22:58,162
A  type of soldier.

1193
01:22:58,528 --> 01:23:00,935
He has proper
ironic distance.

1194
01:23:01,109 --> 01:23:03,447
He proves, at
the end, militarily,

1195
01:23:03,622 --> 01:23:06,274
the most efficient soldier.

1196
01:23:13,234 --> 01:23:14,595
Returning back to me.

1197
01:23:14,770 --> 01:23:17,578
Why then will I soon
shoot myself?

1198
01:23:17,752 --> 01:23:20,457
Something went wrong
there. But what?

1199
01:23:20,631 --> 01:23:21,765
<i>Lock and load!</i>

1200
01:23:21,939 --> 01:23:25,743
I did not just run amok.

1201
01:23:26,265 --> 01:23:28,412
<i>Order.</i>

1202
01:23:30,034 --> 01:23:32,023
<i>This is my rifle.</i>

1203
01:23:32,198 --> 01:23:35,615
<i>There are many like it,</i>
<i>but this one is mine.</i>

1204
01:23:35,791 --> 01:23:38,827
But I got too
directly identified

1205
01:23:39,002 --> 01:23:40,972
with these obscene rituals.

1206
01:23:41,148 --> 01:23:42,595
I lost the distance.

1207
01:23:42,770 --> 01:23:44,583
I took them seriously.

1208
01:23:44,759 --> 01:23:46,606
<i>What in the name</i>
<i>of Jesus H. Christ</i>

1209
01:23:46,782 --> 01:23:48,770
<i>are you animals doing</i>
<i>in my head?</i>

1210
01:23:48,945 --> 01:23:51,545
If you get too close to it,

1211
01:23:51,720 --> 01:23:54,685
if you over
identify with it,

1212
01:23:54,859 --> 01:23:57,930
if you really immediately
become the voice

1213
01:23:58,104 --> 01:24:01,908
of this super ego,
it's self destructive.

1214
01:24:02,082 --> 01:24:03,478
You kill people around you -

1215
01:24:03,653 --> 01:24:06,512
you end up
killing yourself.

1216
01:24:28,546 --> 01:24:30,430
<i>Oh, shh, shh, shh.</i>

1217
01:24:30,605 --> 01:24:34,304
<i>So you think Batman's made
Gotham a better place? Hm?</i>

1218
01:24:34,774 --> 01:24:36,396
<i>Look at me.</i>

1219
01:24:36,572 --> 01:24:38,280
<i>Look at me!</i>

1220
01:24:42,259 --> 01:24:45,818
<i>You see, this is how crazy
Batman's made Gotham.</i>

1221
01:24:45,993 --> 01:24:48,121
<i>You want order in Gotham -</i>

1222
01:24:48,296 --> 01:24:52,516
<i>Batman must take off his
mask and turn himself in.</i>

1223
01:24:52,692 --> 01:24:56,599
<i>Oh, and every day he
doesn't, people will die.</i>

1224
01:24:56,774 --> 01:24:58,692
<i>Starting tonight.</i>

1225
01:24:58,867 --> 01:25:00,211
<i>I'm a man of my word.</i>

1226
01:25:00,386 --> 01:25:03,820
So who is Joker?

1227
01:25:04,449 --> 01:25:09,631
<i>- If we're gonna play games...</i>
Which is the lie he is opposing?

1228
01:25:10,416 --> 01:25:12,667
<i>I'm gonna need</i>
<i>a cup of coffee.</i>

1229
01:25:12,841 --> 01:25:17,063
<i>Ah, the 'good cop,</i>
<i>bad cop' routine?</i>

1230
01:25:17,238 --> 01:25:18,738
<i>Not exactly.</i>

1231
01:25:18,912 --> 01:25:23,867
The truly disturbing thing
about <i>The Dark Knight</i>

1232
01:25:24,042 --> 01:25:32,292
is that it elevates lie into
a general social principal -

1233
01:25:32,467 --> 01:25:34,648
into the principal
of organisation

1234
01:25:34,823 --> 01:25:36,740
of our social political life.

1235
01:25:36,916 --> 01:25:40,927
As if our societies
can remain stable,

1236
01:25:41,103 --> 01:25:43,649
can function, only
if based on a lie.

1237
01:25:43,824 --> 01:25:46,685
As if telling the truth,
and this telling the truth

1238
01:25:46,859 --> 01:25:51,710
embodies in Joker
means distraction.

1239
01:25:51,885 --> 01:25:53,751
Disintegration of
the social order.

1240
01:25:53,926 --> 01:25:55,110
<i>Never start with the head.</i>

1241
01:25:55,286 --> 01:25:56,810
<i>The victim gets all fuzzy.</i>

1242
01:25:56,984 --> 01:25:58,618
<i>He can't feel the next...</i>

1243
01:25:58,792 --> 01:26:02,229
Toward the end it is
as if lie functions

1244
01:26:02,404 --> 01:26:05,159
as a hot potato passing from

1245
01:26:05,335 --> 01:26:07,777
one person's hand to
another person's hand.

1246
01:26:07,952 --> 01:26:10,394
First there is Harvey Dent.

1247
01:26:11,806 --> 01:26:13,480
<i>So be it. Take the Batman</i>
<i>into custody...</i>

1248
01:26:13,655 --> 01:26:16,622
The public prosecutor
who lies.

1249
01:26:17,250 --> 01:26:20,024
<i>- I am the Batman.</i>
Claiming that he is the real

1250
01:26:20,198 --> 01:26:24,628
person behind Batman's mask.
That he is Batman.

1251
01:26:25,832 --> 01:26:27,298
Then we have Gordon -

1252
01:26:27,474 --> 01:26:30,125
honest policeman,
Batman's friend, who

1253
01:26:30,300 --> 01:26:34,469
fakes, stages his
own death.

1254
01:26:41,639 --> 01:26:45,039
<i>Five dead.</i>
<i>Two of them cops.</i>

1255
01:26:45,215 --> 01:26:46,819
<i>You can't sweep that off.</i>

1256
01:26:46,994 --> 01:26:52,262
At the end, Batman himself
takes upon himself...

1257
01:26:52,438 --> 01:26:55,297
<i>- But the Joker cannot win.</i>
the crimes, murders committed

1258
01:26:55,472 --> 01:26:59,694
by Harvey Dent, the public
prosecutor turned criminal...

1259
01:26:59,869 --> 01:27:02,886
<i>Gotham needs</i>
<i>its true hero.</i>

1260
01:27:03,829 --> 01:27:08,730
in order to maintain
the trust of the public

1261
01:27:08,905 --> 01:27:11,104
into the legal system.

1262
01:27:11,279 --> 01:27:14,453
The idea is if the ordinary
public were to learn

1263
01:27:14,628 --> 01:27:18,309
how corrupt was or
is the very core of our

1264
01:27:18,484 --> 01:27:21,623
legal system then everything
would have collapsed -

1265
01:27:21,798 --> 01:27:25,548
so we need a lie
to maintain order.

1266
01:27:25,724 --> 01:27:27,328
<i>A hero.</i>

1267
01:27:27,503 --> 01:27:31,149
<i>Not the hero we deserved,</i>
<i>but the hero we needed.</i>

1268
01:27:31,323 --> 01:27:35,179
<i>Nothing less than</i>
<i>a knight, shining.</i>

1269
01:27:35,354 --> 01:27:36,854
There's nothing new in this.

1270
01:27:37,029 --> 01:27:40,046
This is an old
conservative wisdom

1271
01:27:40,220 --> 01:27:44,337
asserted long ago by
philosophers from Plato

1272
01:27:44,512 --> 01:27:47,059
especially, and then
Immanuel Kant,

1273
01:27:47,234 --> 01:27:48,996
Edmond Burke and
so on and so on.

1274
01:27:49,171 --> 01:27:52,555
This idea that the truth
is too strong.

1275
01:27:52,729 --> 01:27:56,427
That a politician should
be a cynicist who,

1276
01:27:56,603 --> 01:28:00,038
although he
knows what is true,

1277
01:28:00,213 --> 01:28:04,748
tells to ordinary people what
Plato called 'a noble fable' -

1278
01:28:04,923 --> 01:28:06,057
a lie.

1279
01:28:06,233 --> 01:28:10,976
<i>Um, the United States</i>
<i>knows that Iraq</i>

1280
01:28:11,152 --> 01:28:13,802
<i>has weapons of</i>
<i>mass destruction.</i>

1281
01:28:13,978 --> 01:28:15,739
<i>The U.K. knows</i>
<i>that they have</i>

1282
01:28:15,914 --> 01:28:17,047
<i>weapons of mass destruction.</i>

1283
01:28:17,222 --> 01:28:18,984
<i>Any country on</i>
<i>the face of the earth</i>

1284
01:28:19,159 --> 01:28:20,868
<i>with an active</i>
<i>intelligence program</i>

1285
01:28:21,043 --> 01:28:24,270
<i>knows that Iraq has weapons</i>
<i>of mass destruction.</i>

1286
01:28:24,445 --> 01:28:27,568
<i>Which could be activated</i>
<i>within forty five minutes</i>

1287
01:28:27,743 --> 01:28:30,185
<i>including against his</i>
<i>own Shia population.</i>

1288
01:28:30,359 --> 01:28:33,587
<i>The choice is his and</i>
<i>if he does not disarm,</i>

1289
01:28:33,761 --> 01:28:37,407
<i>the United States of America</i>
<i>will lead a coalition</i>

1290
01:28:37,582 --> 01:28:40,337
<i>and disarm him</i>
<i>in the name of peace.</i>

1291
01:28:40,756 --> 01:28:43,896
Let's be frank.
We can have a state -

1292
01:28:44,072 --> 01:28:46,304
public system of power -

1293
01:28:46,479 --> 01:28:50,229
as legitimate as you want
submitted to critical press,

1294
01:28:50,404 --> 01:28:53,161
democratic elections and
so on and so on,

1295
01:28:53,336 --> 01:28:56,823
apparently just
serves us.

1296
01:28:56,998 --> 01:28:59,912
But nonetheless, if you
look closely into

1297
01:29:00,087 --> 01:29:05,774
how even the most democratic
state power functions

1298
01:29:05,948 --> 01:29:09,122
in order for it to display
true authority,

1299
01:29:09,297 --> 01:29:12,787
and power needs authority,
there has to be, as it were,

1300
01:29:12,962 --> 01:29:17,916
between the lines all the
time this message of:

1301
01:29:18,091 --> 01:29:20,951
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we are
legalised through elections

1302
01:29:21,126 --> 01:29:25,190
"but basically we can do with
you whatever we want."

1303
01:29:25,975 --> 01:29:28,591
<i>Because that's what</i>
<i>needs to happen.</i>

1304
01:29:29,377 --> 01:29:32,988
<i>Because sometimes,</i>
<i>truth isn't good enough.</i>

1305
01:29:34,192 --> 01:29:36,547
<i>Sometimes people</i>
<i>deserve more.</i>

1306
01:29:39,635 --> 01:29:41,414
<i>Sometimes people</i>
<i>deserve</i>

1307
01:29:41,590 --> 01:29:43,404
<i>to have their</i>
<i>faith rewarded.</i>

1308
01:29:43,578 --> 01:29:45,654
One of the
great platitudes -

1309
01:29:45,828 --> 01:29:47,015
which are popular today

1310
01:29:47,189 --> 01:29:51,916
when we are confronted
with acts of violence -

1311
01:29:52,091 --> 01:29:56,279
is to refer to Fyodor
Dostoyevsky's

1312
01:29:56,453 --> 01:29:59,365
famous statement from
'The Brothers Karamazov':

1313
01:29:59,541 --> 01:30:03,710
"If there is no God then
everything is permitted."

1314
01:30:03,885 --> 01:30:06,867
Well, the first problem with
this statement is that

1315
01:30:07,042 --> 01:30:10,216
Dostoyevsky, of course,
never made it.

1316
01:30:10,695 --> 01:30:13,514
The first one who used
this phrase as

1317
01:30:13,689 --> 01:30:15,747
allegedly made by
Dostoyevsky was

1318
01:30:15,921 --> 01:30:17,979
Jean-Paul Sartre in '43,

1319
01:30:18,154 --> 01:30:21,809
but the main
point is that this

1320
01:30:21,984 --> 01:30:24,945
statement is simply wrong.

1321
01:30:25,121 --> 01:30:28,456
Even a brief look at our
predicament today

1322
01:30:28,631 --> 01:30:30,742
clearly tells us this.

1323
01:30:34,305 --> 01:30:36,060
It is precisely:

1324
01:30:36,234 --> 01:30:41,057
if there is God, that
everything is permitted

1325
01:30:41,233 --> 01:30:44,036
to those who not
only believe in God

1326
01:30:44,211 --> 01:30:47,545
but who perceive
themselves as instruments,

1327
01:30:47,720 --> 01:30:50,735
direct instruments
of the divine will.

1328
01:30:52,278 --> 01:30:56,000
If you posit or perceive
or legitimise yourself

1329
01:30:56,175 --> 01:30:58,765
as a direct instrument
of the divine will,

1330
01:30:58,939 --> 01:31:03,657
then of course all narrow
petty moral considerations

1331
01:31:03,832 --> 01:31:06,155
disappear.

1332
01:31:08,601 --> 01:31:11,261
How can you even think
in such narrow terms

1333
01:31:11,435 --> 01:31:15,673
when you are a direct
instrument of God?

1334
01:31:16,046 --> 01:31:19,609
This is how so-called religious
fundamentalists work,

1335
01:31:19,783 --> 01:31:21,682
but not only them.

1336
01:31:21,858 --> 01:31:25,724
Every form of so called
totalitarianism

1337
01:31:25,899 --> 01:31:29,552
works like that even
if it is presented

1338
01:31:29,728 --> 01:31:33,381
or if it presents
itself as atheist.

1339
01:31:33,555 --> 01:31:35,082
Let's take Stalinism.

1340
01:31:35,257 --> 01:31:40,931
Officially Stalinism was based
on atheist Marxist theory,

1341
01:31:41,106 --> 01:31:45,877
but if we look closely at
the subjective experience

1342
01:31:46,051 --> 01:31:50,449
of a Stalinist
political agent,

1343
01:31:50,625 --> 01:31:52,561
leader, we see that

1344
01:31:52,737 --> 01:31:55,235
it's not a position of
an arrogant master,

1345
01:31:55,411 --> 01:31:57,096
who can do
whatever he wants.

1346
01:31:57,271 --> 01:32:01,243
It's, on the contrary, the
position of a perfect servant.

1347
01:32:01,418 --> 01:32:05,338
In a Stalinist universe
there definitely is

1348
01:32:05,514 --> 01:32:09,380
what in psychoanalytic theory
we call the 'Big Other'.

1349
01:33:18,345 --> 01:33:21,270
This 'Big Other' in the
Stalinist universe

1350
01:33:21,445 --> 01:33:23,557
has many names.

1351
01:33:25,100 --> 01:33:27,599
The best known of them
are the necessity of

1352
01:33:27,774 --> 01:33:30,256
historical progress
towards communism

1353
01:33:30,431 --> 01:33:32,916
or simply history.

1354
01:33:33,091 --> 01:33:34,884
History itself is the 'Big Other'.

1355
01:33:35,059 --> 01:33:39,510
History as the necessary
succession of historical stages.

1356
01:34:02,747 --> 01:34:06,043
A communist experiences
himself as simply

1357
01:34:06,219 --> 01:34:10,137
an instrument whose
function is to actualise

1358
01:34:10,313 --> 01:34:12,636
a historical necessity.

1359
01:34:16,944 --> 01:34:19,550
The people, the
mythic people -

1360
01:34:19,725 --> 01:34:23,591
whose instrument the
totalitarian leader is -

1361
01:34:23,765 --> 01:34:28,588
are never simply the actually
existing individuals,

1362
01:34:28,764 --> 01:34:30,291
groups of people and so on.

1363
01:34:30,466 --> 01:34:35,076
It's some kind of imagined
idealised point of reference

1364
01:34:35,251 --> 01:34:39,489
which works even when,
for example in

1365
01:34:39,664 --> 01:34:42,362
rebellions against
the communist rule

1366
01:34:42,537 --> 01:34:44,328
like in Hungary '56,

1367
01:34:44,503 --> 01:34:48,795
when the large majority
of actually resisting people

1368
01:34:48,970 --> 01:34:52,305
raises up, is opposed
to the regime.

1369
01:34:52,837 --> 01:34:56,292
They can still say: "No,
these are just individuals,

1370
01:34:56,467 --> 01:34:59,057
"they are not
the true people."

1371
01:34:59,377 --> 01:35:00,813
When you are accused
of: "My God,

1372
01:35:00,988 --> 01:35:03,099
"how could you have been doing
all of these horrible things?"

1373
01:35:03,274 --> 01:35:05,014
You could have said,
and this is the

1374
01:35:05,189 --> 01:35:07,300
standard Stalinist excuse:

1375
01:35:07,475 --> 01:35:10,543
"Of course my heart bleeds
for all the poor victims,

1376
01:35:10,719 --> 01:35:13,467
"I am not fully
responsible for it.

1377
01:35:13,643 --> 01:35:17,403
"I was only acting on
behalf of the 'Big Other'".

1378
01:35:24,103 --> 01:35:26,975
"As for myself, I like cats,

1379
01:35:27,149 --> 01:35:28,569
"small children",
whatever -

1380
01:35:28,744 --> 01:35:30,855
this is always part
of the iconography of

1381
01:35:31,030 --> 01:35:32,823
a Stalinist leader.

1382
01:35:33,886 --> 01:35:36,757
Lenin in Stalinism is
always presented as

1383
01:35:36,932 --> 01:35:40,427
someone who likes small
children and cats.

1384
01:35:40,603 --> 01:35:41,603
The implication being -

1385
01:35:41,778 --> 01:35:44,894
Lenin had to order many
killings and so on, but

1386
01:35:45,069 --> 01:35:46,488
his heart
was not there -

1387
01:35:46,663 --> 01:35:48,828
this was his duty
as instrument of

1388
01:35:49,003 --> 01:35:52,019
historical progress and
so on and so on.

1389
01:35:53,136 --> 01:35:55,742
The way to undermine
Stalinism is not simply

1390
01:35:55,917 --> 01:35:58,240
to make fun of the
leader which can be,

1391
01:35:58,416 --> 01:36:00,845
up to a point
even tolerated.

1392
01:36:01,020 --> 01:36:04,408
It is to undermine
this very reference,

1393
01:36:04,583 --> 01:36:08,328
mythic reference which
legitimises the Stalinist leader:

1394
01:36:08,832 --> 01:36:09,886
the people.

1395
01:36:30,198 --> 01:36:32,484
This is how I read

1396
01:36:32,659 --> 01:36:36,631
the by far best work
of Miloš Forman -

1397
01:36:36,806 --> 01:36:39,981
his early Czech films.

1398
01:36:52,425 --> 01:36:55,083
<i>Black Peter</i>,
<i>The Loves of a Blond</i>,

1399
01:36:55,259 --> 01:36:58,167
and <i>Firemen's Ball</i>
where he mocks

1400
01:36:58,342 --> 01:37:01,465
precisely the
ordinary people.

1401
01:37:03,963 --> 01:37:06,091
In their daily
conformission,

1402
01:37:06,265 --> 01:37:09,122
stupidity, egotistic lust

1403
01:37:09,296 --> 01:37:11,248
and so on and so on.

1404
01:37:21,404 --> 01:37:24,648
It may appear that this is
something very arrogant -

1405
01:37:24,823 --> 01:37:27,573
but no, I think that
this is the way to

1406
01:37:27,747 --> 01:37:31,454
undermine the entire structure
of the Stalinist universe.

1407
01:37:31,630 --> 01:37:34,645
To demonstrate not that
leaders are not leaders,

1408
01:37:34,819 --> 01:37:36,240
they are always ready to say:
"Oh, but we are just

1409
01:37:36,416 --> 01:37:37,783
"ordinary people like you."

1410
01:37:37,957 --> 01:37:41,557
No! That there is no
mythic people

1411
01:37:41,733 --> 01:37:45,704
which serves as the
ultimate legitimisation.

1412
01:37:55,755 --> 01:37:58,095
So what is the 'Big Other'?

1413
01:37:58,270 --> 01:38:03,572
This basic element of
every ideological edifice?

1414
01:38:03,747 --> 01:38:07,560
It has two quite
contradictory aspects.

1415
01:38:07,734 --> 01:38:09,207
On the one hand,
of course,

1416
01:38:09,382 --> 01:38:13,143
the 'Big Other' is the secret
order of things like

1417
01:38:13,318 --> 01:38:16,439
divine reason, fate
or whatever,

1418
01:38:16,614 --> 01:38:19,099
which is controlling
our destiny.

1419
01:38:19,274 --> 01:38:21,545
But it is maybe the least
interesting aspect

1420
01:38:21,720 --> 01:38:23,177
of the 'Big Other'

1421
01:38:23,353 --> 01:38:25,426
as the agents, which
guarantees meaning

1422
01:38:25,600 --> 01:38:26,809
of what we are doing.

1423
01:38:28,137 --> 01:38:30,478
Much more interesting
is the 'Big Other'

1424
01:38:30,653 --> 01:38:33,987
as the order of appearances.

1425
01:38:35,742 --> 01:38:38,240
Many things which
are prohibited

1426
01:38:38,416 --> 01:38:40,581
are not simply
prohibited but

1427
01:38:40,756 --> 01:38:44,728
they should not happen
for the 'Big Other'.

1428
01:38:46,430 --> 01:38:49,034
A supreme
example of this

1429
01:38:49,210 --> 01:38:52,863
agency of the 'Big Other'
as the agency of

1430
01:38:53,038 --> 01:38:57,862
appearance is the
prattling busybody

1431
01:38:58,037 --> 01:39:02,966
in David Lean's masterpiece,
<i>Brief Encounter</i>.

1432
01:39:03,141 --> 01:39:04,988
At the very beginning
of the film,

1433
01:39:05,162 --> 01:39:08,337
the two lovers, Celia Johnson
and Trevor Howard,

1434
01:39:08,511 --> 01:39:11,528
arrange for their last
meeting in a cafeteria

1435
01:39:11,703 --> 01:39:13,389
of a small train station.

1436
01:39:13,564 --> 01:39:15,250
<i>Laura, what a lovely surprise.</i>

1437
01:39:15,425 --> 01:39:16,425
<i>Oh, Dolly.</i>

1438
01:39:16,600 --> 01:39:18,228
<i>My dear, I've been shopping</i>
<i>till I'm dropping.</i>

1439
01:39:18,403 --> 01:39:20,194
<i>My feet are nearly off,</i>
<i>and my throat's parched.</i>

1440
01:39:20,369 --> 01:39:21,685
<i>I thought of having</i>
<i>tea in Spindle's</i>

1441
01:39:21,859 --> 01:39:23,332
<i>but I was terrified</i>
<i>of losing the train.</i>

1442
01:39:23,507 --> 01:39:26,363
<i>- Oh, dear.</i>
<i>- This is Dr. Harvey.</i>

1443
01:39:26,538 --> 01:39:28,278
<i>- How do you do?</i>
<i>- Would you be a perfect dear</i>

1444
01:39:28,453 --> 01:39:29,872
<i>and get me my cup of tea?</i>
<i>I really don't think I could</i>

1445
01:39:30,047 --> 01:39:31,356
<i>drag my poor old bones</i>
<i>over to the counter.</i>

1446
01:39:31,532 --> 01:39:33,913
Why is this situation
so interesting?

1447
01:39:34,088 --> 01:39:38,646
Because on the one hand we
cannot but experience

1448
01:39:38,822 --> 01:39:42,635
this annoying lady as
a brutal intruder.

1449
01:39:42,810 --> 01:39:44,123
<i>- There's your train.</i>
<i>- Yes, I know.</i>

1450
01:39:44,298 --> 01:39:45,346
<i>Oh, aren't you coming</i>
<i>with us?</i>

1451
01:39:45,521 --> 01:39:46,729
<i>No, I go in the opposite</i>
<i>direction.</i>

1452
01:39:46,904 --> 01:39:48,217
<i>- My practice is in Churley.</i>
<i>- Oh, I see.</i>

1453
01:39:48,393 --> 01:39:49,813
<i>I'm a general practitioner</i>
<i>at the moment.</i>

1454
01:39:49,988 --> 01:39:51,462
<i>Dr. Harvey's going out</i>
<i>to Africa next week.</i>

1455
01:39:51,636 --> 01:39:52,791
<i>Oh, how thrilling.</i>

1456
01:39:52,966 --> 01:39:56,992
Instead of the two lovers
being allowed at least their

1457
01:39:57,167 --> 01:39:59,065
final moments alone,

1458
01:39:59,240 --> 01:40:01,246
they have to maintain
the appearances

1459
01:40:01,421 --> 01:40:03,426
that nothing is happening
between them,

1460
01:40:03,600 --> 01:40:06,085
that they are just acquaintances
and so on and so on.

1461
01:40:11,667 --> 01:40:13,422
<i>He'll have to run,</i>
<i>or he'll miss it.</i>

1462
01:40:13,597 --> 01:40:15,550
<i>He's got to get right over</i>
<i>to the other platform.</i>

1463
01:40:16,081 --> 01:40:19,271
This precisely is the function
of the 'Big Other'.

1464
01:40:19,447 --> 01:40:23,260
We need for our stability,
a figure of 'Big Other'

1465
01:40:23,435 --> 01:40:26,503
for whom we maintain
appearances.

1466
01:40:26,679 --> 01:40:28,507
<i>And I arrived at the station</i>
<i>with exactly half</i>

1467
01:40:28,682 --> 01:40:31,448
<i>a minute to spare.
My dear, I flew.</i>

1468
01:40:31,623 --> 01:40:34,957
But are things really
as simple as that?

1469
01:40:35,132 --> 01:40:37,244
The next scene, the
scene of Celia Johnson

1470
01:40:37,420 --> 01:40:40,168
totally desperate, she knows
she will never again

1471
01:40:40,344 --> 01:40:41,765
see her lover.

1472
01:40:41,939 --> 01:40:43,412
<i>Yes, he's a nice creature.</i>

1473
01:40:43,587 --> 01:40:46,921
<i>- You known him long?</i>
<i>- No, not very long.</i>

1474
01:40:47,506 --> 01:40:48,715
<i>I hardly know him</i>
<i>at all, really.</i>

1475
01:40:48,890 --> 01:40:51,533
<i>Well, my dear, I've always</i>
<i>had a passion for doctors.</i>

1476
01:40:51,707 --> 01:40:55,643
Then we hear the line of
Celia Johnson's thought.

1477
01:40:56,068 --> 01:40:58,621
<i>I wish I could trust you.</i>

1478
01:40:59,046 --> 01:41:01,863
<i>I wish you were</i>
<i>a wise, kind friend</i>

1479
01:41:02,038 --> 01:41:03,710
<i>instead of a gossiping</i>
<i>acquaintance I've known</i>

1480
01:41:03,885 --> 01:41:06,436
<i>casually for years and never</i>
<i>particularly cared for.</i>

1481
01:41:06,612 --> 01:41:09,627
What is the nature of this
deadlock of Celia Johnson?

1482
01:41:09,802 --> 01:41:12,978
She is split between
the two figures

1483
01:41:13,153 --> 01:41:15,902
in the film
of the 'Big Other'.

1484
01:41:16,434 --> 01:41:19,038
On the one hand
it's her husband -

1485
01:41:19,213 --> 01:41:21,856
the ideal listener, but

1486
01:41:22,032 --> 01:41:25,314
it's out of question
to confess to him.

1487
01:41:33,715 --> 01:41:35,310
<i>Fred.</i>

1488
01:41:35,735 --> 01:41:37,596
<i>Fred.</i>

1489
01:41:38,341 --> 01:41:39,936
<i>Dear Fred.</i>

1490
01:41:40,734 --> 01:41:43,287
<i>There's so much that</i>
<i>I want to say to you.</i>

1491
01:41:44,030 --> 01:41:46,104
<i>You're the only one in the</i>
<i>world with enough wisdom</i>

1492
01:41:46,279 --> 01:41:47,966
<i>and gentleness</i>
<i>to understand.</i>

1493
01:41:49,029 --> 01:41:51,262
<i>Wild horses wouldn't drag</i>
<i>me away from England</i>

1494
01:41:51,438 --> 01:41:53,070
<i>and home and all the</i>
<i>things I'm used to.</i>

1495
01:41:53,246 --> 01:41:55,783
<i>I mean, one has one's roots</i>
<i>after all, hasn't one?</i>

1496
01:41:55,957 --> 01:41:57,591
<i>Oh, yes, one has</i>
<i>one's roots.</i>

1497
01:41:57,962 --> 01:42:01,206
On the other hand, you
have here this stupid

1498
01:42:01,381 --> 01:42:04,184
person who is available
as a confessor,

1499
01:42:04,359 --> 01:42:07,853
but there is not even
an elementary trust.

1500
01:42:08,028 --> 01:42:10,246
<i>I wish you'd stop talking.</i>

1501
01:42:10,421 --> 01:42:13,435
<i>I wish you'd stop prying and</i>
<i>trying to find things out.</i>

1502
01:42:13,610 --> 01:42:15,296
<i>I wish you were dead.</i>
<i>No, I don't mean that.</i>

1503
01:42:15,471 --> 01:42:17,850
<i>That was silly and unkind,</i>

1504
01:42:18,231 --> 01:42:20,720
<i>but I wish you'd stop talking.</i>
<i>- My dear, all her hair</i>

1505
01:42:20,895 --> 01:42:23,060
<i>came out, and she said the</i>
<i>social life was quite,</i>

1506
01:42:23,234 --> 01:42:25,771
<i>quite horrid. Provincial, you know,</i>
<i>and very nouveau riche.</i>

1507
01:42:25,947 --> 01:42:27,101
<i>- Oh, Dolly.</i>
<i>- What's the matter, dear?</i>

1508
01:42:27,277 --> 01:42:28,595
<i>Are you feeling ill again?</i>

1509
01:42:28,770 --> 01:42:30,823
So that's the tragedy
of our predicament.

1510
01:42:30,998 --> 01:42:34,014
In order to fully
exist as individuals

1511
01:42:34,189 --> 01:42:37,099
we need the fiction
of a 'Big Other'.

1512
01:42:37,274 --> 01:42:41,511
There must be an agency
which, as it were,

1513
01:42:41,686 --> 01:42:43,851
registers our predicament.

1514
01:42:44,027 --> 01:42:49,328
An agency where the truth of
ourselves will be inscribed,

1515
01:42:49,502 --> 01:42:52,359
accepted. An agency
to which to confess.

1516
01:42:52,534 --> 01:42:55,603
But what if there is
no such agency?

1517
01:42:55,778 --> 01:43:01,559
This was the utmost despair
of many women raped -

1518
01:43:01,734 --> 01:43:03,898
in the post Yugoslav war -

1519
01:43:04,073 --> 01:43:05,971
in Bosnia in
the early nineties.

1520
01:43:06,146 --> 01:43:09,587
They survived their
terrible predicament

1521
01:43:09,762 --> 01:43:12,938
and what kept them alive was
the idea I must survive

1522
01:43:13,113 --> 01:43:14,533
to tell the truth.

1523
01:43:14,707 --> 01:43:19,690
If/when - if they survived they
made a terrible discovery:

1524
01:43:19,865 --> 01:43:22,561
there is no one to
really listen to them.

1525
01:43:22,737 --> 01:43:25,381
Either some ignorant
bored social worker

1526
01:43:25,555 --> 01:43:27,347
or some relative

1527
01:43:27,523 --> 01:43:30,645
who usually made
obscene insinuations like

1528
01:43:30,819 --> 01:43:32,559
are you sure you were not
enjoying a little bit -

1529
01:43:32,734 --> 01:43:34,052
the rape and so on
and so on.

1530
01:43:34,228 --> 01:43:37,610
They discovered
the truth of what

1531
01:43:37,786 --> 01:43:41,386
Jacques Lacan claims:
there is no 'Big Other'.

1532
01:43:41,560 --> 01:43:44,417
There may be
a virtual 'Big Other'

1533
01:43:44,591 --> 01:43:46,225
to whom you
cannot confess.

1534
01:43:46,399 --> 01:43:49,734
There may be a 'Real Other'

1535
01:43:49,908 --> 01:43:51,382
but it's never
the virtual one.

1536
01:43:51,557 --> 01:43:54,413
We are alone.

1537
01:44:11,162 --> 01:44:14,512
I think Kafka was right
when he said that

1538
01:44:14,688 --> 01:44:19,140
for a modern secular
non-religious man

1539
01:44:20,203 --> 01:44:24,404
bureaucracy, state bureaucracy
is the only remaining

1540
01:44:24,578 --> 01:44:28,231
contact with the
dimension of the divine.

1541
01:44:32,273 --> 01:44:35,037
It is in this scene
from <i>Brazil</i>

1542
01:44:35,212 --> 01:44:37,271
that we see
the intimate link

1543
01:44:37,447 --> 01:44:40,675
between bureaucracy
and enjoyment.

1544
01:44:41,471 --> 01:44:44,184
What the impenetrable
omnipotence of

1545
01:44:44,359 --> 01:44:46,257
bureaucracy harbours

1546
01:44:46,432 --> 01:44:48,332
is divine enjoyment.

1547
01:44:53,436 --> 01:44:55,404
<i>My name's Lowry,</i>
<i>Mr. Warren, Sam Lowry.</i>

1548
01:44:55,617 --> 01:44:58,753
The intense rush of
bureaucratic engagement

1549
01:44:58,929 --> 01:45:00,296
serves nothing.

1550
01:45:00,470 --> 01:45:02,269
<i>Glad to have you on board.</i>

1551
01:45:04,230 --> 01:45:08,804
It is the performance of
its very purposelessness

1552
01:45:10,239 --> 01:45:12,738
that generates
an intense enjoyment

1553
01:45:12,913 --> 01:45:16,514
ready to reproduce
itself forever.

1554
01:45:22,150 --> 01:45:23,798
<i>Between you and</i>
<i>me, Lowry, this... no, no!</i>

1555
01:45:23,974 --> 01:45:25,712
<i>departement... tell Records</i>
<i>to get stuffed!</i>

1556
01:45:25,887 --> 01:45:27,362
<i>is about to be</i>
<i>upgraded and the...</i>

1557
01:45:27,537 --> 01:45:30,073
<i>Ah!</i>

1558
01:45:30,248 --> 01:45:31,403
<i>Here we are.</i>

1559
01:45:31,578 --> 01:45:34,381
<i>Your very own number</i>
<i>on your very own door.</i>

1560
01:45:34,555 --> 01:45:37,252
<i>And behind that door,</i>
<i>your very own office.</i>

1561
01:45:37,426 --> 01:45:40,548
<i>Congratulations, DZ-015.</i>

1562
01:45:40,724 --> 01:45:42,302
<i>Welcome to the team.</i>

1563
01:45:42,478 --> 01:45:45,653
<i>Yes. No. Cancel that.</i>
<i>Send two copies to Finance.</i>

1564
01:45:45,828 --> 01:45:48,578
The adverse of that is
a wonderful scene

1565
01:45:48,752 --> 01:45:51,662
more towards the
beginning of the film.

1566
01:45:51,837 --> 01:45:53,735
<i>Harry Tuttle, heating</i>
<i>engineer, at your service.</i>

1567
01:45:53,911 --> 01:45:56,394
The hero who has a problem
in his apartment

1568
01:45:56,569 --> 01:46:01,234
with plumbing tries to get
the State agency to fix it.

1569
01:46:01,408 --> 01:46:03,520
<i>Are you from</i>
<i>Central Services?</i>

1570
01:46:03,694 --> 01:46:06,497
Of course, two guys come,
they just want forms

1571
01:46:06,672 --> 01:46:08,783
to fill in, they do nothing.

1572
01:46:08,958 --> 01:46:10,538
<i>I called</i>
<i>Central Services.</i>

1573
01:46:10,713 --> 01:46:14,527
And then the ultimate
subversive figure comes:

1574
01:46:14,702 --> 01:46:18,621
a kind of clandestine plumber,
played by Robert De Niro...

1575
01:46:18,796 --> 01:46:21,917
<i>Just a minute. What was that</i>
<i>business with the gun?</i>

1576
01:46:22,092 --> 01:46:24,948
<i>Just a precaution, sir.</i>
<i>Just a precaution.</i>

1577
01:46:25,123 --> 01:46:28,086
who tells him: "Just tell me
what is the problem"

1578
01:46:28,261 --> 01:46:30,532
and promises quickly
to fix it.

1579
01:46:30,707 --> 01:46:35,318
This of course is the ultimate
offense to bureaucracy.

1580
01:46:35,493 --> 01:46:37,711
<i>Are you telling me</i>
<i>this is illegal?</i>

1581
01:46:43,771 --> 01:46:45,101
<i>Thanks.</i>

1582
01:46:45,277 --> 01:46:48,025
<i>Listen kid, we're all in
it together.</i>

1583
01:46:48,201 --> 01:46:49,201
<i>Go on.</i>

1584
01:46:49,376 --> 01:46:52,121
In the ordinary
theological universe

1585
01:46:52,296 --> 01:46:54,886
your duty is imposed
onto you by God

1586
01:46:55,060 --> 01:46:57,757
or society or another
higher authority, and

1587
01:46:57,932 --> 01:47:00,574
your responsibility
is to do it.

1588
01:47:02,064 --> 01:47:05,095
But in a radically
atheist universe

1589
01:47:05,270 --> 01:47:09,349
you are not only responsible
for doing your duty,

1590
01:47:09,524 --> 01:47:13,815
you are also responsible
for deciding

1591
01:47:13,990 --> 01:47:15,836
what is your duty.

1592
01:47:18,707 --> 01:47:21,952
There is always
in our subjectivity,

1593
01:47:22,127 --> 01:47:24,556
in the way we
experience ourselves -

1594
01:47:24,731 --> 01:47:28,597
a minimum of hysteria.

1595
01:47:28,773 --> 01:47:32,001
Hysteria is what? Hysteria
is the way

1596
01:47:32,176 --> 01:47:35,882
we question our social,
symbolic identity.

1597
01:47:36,057 --> 01:47:39,180
<i>You're sure it's God? You're</i>
<i>sure it's not the devil?</i>

1598
01:47:39,551 --> 01:47:42,423
<i>I'm not sure. I'm not</i>
<i>sure of anything.</i>

1599
01:47:42,599 --> 01:47:44,710
<i>If it's the devil, the devil</i>
<i>can be cast out.</i>

1600
01:47:44,885 --> 01:47:46,518
<i>But what if it's God?</i>

1601
01:47:46,693 --> 01:47:49,069
<i>You can't cast out</i>
<i>God, can you?</i>

1602
01:47:49,707 --> 01:47:53,430
What is hysteria at
it's most elementary?

1603
01:47:53,802 --> 01:47:57,418
It's a question addressed
at the authority which

1604
01:47:57,594 --> 01:47:59,757
defines my identity.

1605
01:47:59,932 --> 01:48:05,554
It's: "Why am I what you are
telling me that I am?"

1606
01:48:06,139 --> 01:48:09,595
In psychoanalytic theory,
hysteria is much more

1607
01:48:09,770 --> 01:48:11,721
subversive than perversion.

1608
01:48:11,896 --> 01:48:14,594
A pervert has no
uncertainties while again

1609
01:48:14,769 --> 01:48:17,359
the hysterical position
is that of a doubt,

1610
01:48:17,533 --> 01:48:20,603
which is an extremely
productive position.

1611
01:48:20,778 --> 01:48:25,175
All new inventions come
from hysterical questioning,

1612
01:48:25,350 --> 01:48:29,162
and the unique character
of Christianity is that

1613
01:48:29,337 --> 01:48:32,672
it transposes this
hysterical questioning

1614
01:48:32,847 --> 01:48:36,555
onto God himself
as a subject.

1615
01:48:41,340 --> 01:48:44,476
<i>Who's that? Who's following</i>
<i>me? Is that you?</i>

1616
01:48:46,551 --> 01:48:49,635
This is the ingenious
idea of

1617
01:48:49,810 --> 01:48:52,719
<i>The Last Temptation of Christ</i> -

1618
01:48:56,016 --> 01:48:58,833
as Kazantzakis' novel and
Scorsese's film -

1619
01:48:59,009 --> 01:49:02,556
namely the idea that
when Jesus Christ

1620
01:49:02,731 --> 01:49:06,757
in his youth is told
that he is

1621
01:49:06,932 --> 01:49:10,957
not only the Son of God,
but basically God himself,

1622
01:49:11,132 --> 01:49:13,137
he doesn't simply accept it.

1623
01:49:13,313 --> 01:49:16,806
This is for Jesus Christ, boy,

1624
01:49:16,981 --> 01:49:19,626
traumatic news like, my God,
why am I dead?

1625
01:49:19,801 --> 01:49:21,327
Am I really dead?

1626
01:49:24,463 --> 01:49:27,069
How did we come to
that unique point,

1627
01:49:27,244 --> 01:49:31,430
which I think, makes
Christianity an exception?

1628
01:49:32,653 --> 01:49:36,002
It all began with
the Book of Job -

1629
01:49:36,177 --> 01:49:39,671
as we all know things
turn out bad for Job.

1630
01:49:39,846 --> 01:49:41,108
He loses everything.

1631
01:49:41,283 --> 01:49:45,680
His house, his family, his
possessions and so on.

1632
01:49:46,052 --> 01:49:49,509
Three friends visit him
and each of them

1633
01:49:49,684 --> 01:49:54,082
tries to justify
Job's misfortunes.

1634
01:49:54,560 --> 01:49:56,846
The greatness of Job is that

1635
01:49:57,021 --> 01:50:01,738
he does not accept this
deeper meaning.

1636
01:50:03,069 --> 01:50:08,546
When, towards the end of the Book
of Job, God himself appears,

1637
01:50:09,184 --> 01:50:12,426
God gives right to Job.

1638
01:50:12,601 --> 01:50:15,724
He says everything that the
theological friends

1639
01:50:15,899 --> 01:50:18,222
were telling Job is false;

1640
01:50:18,398 --> 01:50:20,775
everything that Job
was saying is true.

1641
01:50:20,951 --> 01:50:23,488
No meaning in catastrophes.

1642
01:50:25,827 --> 01:50:30,293
Here we have the first step
in the direction of

1643
01:50:30,469 --> 01:50:33,855
delegitimizing suffering.

1644
01:50:36,462 --> 01:50:39,811
<i>Father stay with me,</i>
<i>don't leave me.</i>

1645
01:50:44,011 --> 01:50:47,469
The contrast between
Judaism and Christianity

1646
01:50:47,644 --> 01:50:52,945
is the contrast between
anxiety and love.

1647
01:50:57,890 --> 01:51:02,145
The idea is that the Jewish
God is the God of the

1648
01:51:02,319 --> 01:51:06,770
abyss of the other's desire.
Terrible things happen,

1649
01:51:06,945 --> 01:51:10,279
God is in charge
but we do not

1650
01:51:10,454 --> 01:51:14,854
know what the 'Big Other',
God, wants from us.

1651
01:51:15,029 --> 01:51:18,523
What is the divine desire?

1652
01:51:20,862 --> 01:51:23,573
To designate this
traumatic experience

1653
01:51:23,748 --> 01:51:27,774
Lacan used the Italian
phrase 'che voglio'?

1654
01:51:27,949 --> 01:51:30,859
"What do you want?"
This terrifying question:

1655
01:51:31,033 --> 01:51:33,623
but what do you
want from me?

1656
01:51:37,345 --> 01:51:41,333
The idea is that Judaism
persists in this

1657
01:51:41,509 --> 01:51:45,269
anxiety, like God remains
this enigmatic

1658
01:51:45,444 --> 01:51:47,235
terrifying other.

1659
01:51:47,411 --> 01:51:50,108
And then Christianity
resolves

1660
01:51:50,283 --> 01:51:52,712
the tension through love.

1661
01:51:52,887 --> 01:51:56,154
By sacrificing his son,
God demonstrates

1662
01:51:56,328 --> 01:51:58,083
that he loves us.

1663
01:51:58,259 --> 01:52:00,211
So it's a kind
of a imaginary,

1664
01:52:00,386 --> 01:52:04,039
sentimental even,
resolution of a situation

1665
01:52:04,215 --> 01:52:07,176
of radical anxiety.

1666
01:52:26,532 --> 01:52:29,935
<i>Father, forgive them.</i>

1667
01:52:30,109 --> 01:52:32,114
If this were to be the
case, then Christianity

1668
01:52:32,289 --> 01:52:35,677
would have been a kind of
ideological, reversal

1669
01:52:35,853 --> 01:52:38,868
or pacification of the
deep, much more

1670
01:52:39,042 --> 01:52:41,632
shattering Jewish insight.

1671
01:52:41,807 --> 01:52:44,877
But I think one can read
the Christian gesture

1672
01:52:45,051 --> 01:52:47,961
in a much more radical way.

1673
01:52:49,716 --> 01:52:52,427
This is what the sequence
of crucifixion

1674
01:52:52,603 --> 01:52:55,275
in Scorsese's film shows us.

1675
01:52:55,451 --> 01:52:59,438
What dies on the
cross is precisely

1676
01:52:59,613 --> 01:53:02,456
this guarantee
of the 'Big Other'.

1677
01:53:02,631 --> 01:53:06,930
The message of Christianity
is here radically atheist.

1678
01:53:07,104 --> 01:53:10,051
It's the death of Christ
is not any kind of

1679
01:53:10,225 --> 01:53:12,965
redemption of commercial
affair in the sense of

1680
01:53:13,140 --> 01:53:15,618
Christ suffers to
pay for our sins.

1681
01:53:15,792 --> 01:53:18,011
Pay to whom?
For what? And so on.

1682
01:53:18,185 --> 01:53:22,172
It's simply the disintegration
of the God which

1683
01:53:22,347 --> 01:53:26,490
guarantees the meaning
of our lives.

1684
01:53:26,666 --> 01:53:29,092
And that's the meaning
of that famous phrase:

1685
01:53:29,268 --> 01:53:31,225
"Eli Eli lama sabachthani?"

1686
01:53:31,400 --> 01:53:34,868
"Father, why have you
forsaken me?"

1687
01:53:36,845 --> 01:53:43,140
<i>Father, why have you</i>
<i>forsaken me?</i>

1688
01:53:50,943 --> 01:53:53,805
Just before Christ's
death, we get

1689
01:53:53,979 --> 01:53:56,770
what in psychoanalytic
terms we call

1690
01:53:56,945 --> 01:54:00,100
subjective destitution.

1691
01:54:01,349 --> 01:54:04,261
Stepping out totally of
the domain of

1692
01:54:04,436 --> 01:54:07,176
symbolic identification,

1693
01:54:08,579 --> 01:54:12,793
cancelling or suspending
the entire field

1694
01:54:12,969 --> 01:54:14,563
of symbolic authority,

1695
01:54:14,738 --> 01:54:17,893
the entire field
of the 'Big Other'.

1696
01:54:23,564 --> 01:54:25,748
Of course, we cannot know

1697
01:54:25,923 --> 01:54:30,534
what God wants from us
because there is no God.

1698
01:54:35,426 --> 01:54:38,078
This is the Jesus Christ
who says,

1699
01:54:38,253 --> 01:54:42,552
among other things,
"I bring to earth not peace."

1700
01:54:42,728 --> 01:54:44,529
"If you don't hate your
father, your mother,

1701
01:54:44,704 --> 01:54:46,247
"you are not my follower."

1702
01:54:46,421 --> 01:54:49,368
Of course this does not mean
that you should actively

1703
01:54:49,542 --> 01:54:51,189
hate or kill your parents.

1704
01:54:51,363 --> 01:54:54,466
I think that family relations
stand here for

1705
01:54:54,641 --> 01:54:57,484
hierarchic social relations.

1706
01:54:57,659 --> 01:54:59,617
The message of Christ is:

1707
01:54:59,792 --> 01:55:03,987
I'm dying but my death
itself is good news.

1708
01:55:04,162 --> 01:55:07,630
It means you are alone,
left to your freedom,

1709
01:55:07,805 --> 01:55:10,439
be in the Holy Ghost,

1710
01:55:10,958 --> 01:55:14,600
Holy Spirit, which is just
the community of believers.

1711
01:55:14,775 --> 01:55:16,474
It's wrong to think that

1712
01:55:16,649 --> 01:55:21,051
the second coming will be
that Christ as a figure will

1713
01:55:21,226 --> 01:55:23,029
return somehow.

1714
01:55:23,203 --> 01:55:26,099
Christ is already here when

1715
01:55:26,274 --> 01:55:29,844
believers form an
emancipatory collective.

1716
01:55:30,019 --> 01:55:32,654
This is why I claim that

1717
01:55:33,278 --> 01:55:36,712
that the only way really
to be an atheist

1718
01:55:36,886 --> 01:55:39,729
is to go through Christianity.

1719
01:55:39,904 --> 01:55:43,527
Christianity is much
more atheist than

1720
01:55:43,702 --> 01:55:47,220
the usual atheism which

1721
01:55:47,395 --> 01:55:49,873
can claim there is no
God and so on -

1722
01:55:50,048 --> 01:55:53,307
but none the less
retains a certain trust

1723
01:55:53,483 --> 01:55:56,117
into the 'Big Other', this
'Big Other' can be called

1724
01:55:56,292 --> 01:55:59,186
natural necessity,
evolution or whatever.

1725
01:55:59,362 --> 01:56:03,453
We humans are none
the less reduced to a

1726
01:56:04,024 --> 01:56:08,448
position within a harmonious
whole of evolution or whatever,

1727
01:56:08,622 --> 01:56:11,569
but the difficult thing
to accept is again -

1728
01:56:11,743 --> 01:56:13,597
that there is no 'Big Other'.

1729
01:56:13,773 --> 01:56:19,164
No point of reference which
guarantees meaning.

1730
01:56:33,264 --> 01:56:38,154
We are in John
Frankenheimer's <i>Seconds</i>,

1731
01:56:38,328 --> 01:56:42,264
a neglected Hollywood
masterpiece from 1966 -

1732
01:56:42,439 --> 01:56:45,333
from the very heart
of the hippy era

1733
01:56:45,509 --> 01:56:48,506
which preached
unrestrained hedonism.

1734
01:56:48,681 --> 01:56:52,252
Realise your dreams,
enjoy life fully.

1735
01:56:52,427 --> 01:56:56,570
The film is the story of a late
middle age businessman

1736
01:56:56,746 --> 01:57:00,005
leading a gray, totally
alienated life,

1737
01:57:00,180 --> 01:57:02,710
and then he decides
at some point

1738
01:57:02,885 --> 01:57:05,154
that he has enough of it.

1739
01:57:05,329 --> 01:57:08,588
Through one of his
friends he contacts

1740
01:57:08,764 --> 01:57:11,970
a mysterious agency,
which offers him a deal.

1741
01:57:12,145 --> 01:57:15,195
They will reorganise
his life so that

1742
01:57:15,371 --> 01:57:17,590
he will be reborn.

1743
01:57:25,289 --> 01:57:27,578
<i>The cost runs in the</i>
<i>neighborhood of</i>

1744
01:57:27,752 --> 01:57:29,659
<i>thirty thousand dollars.</i>
<i>I know this seems</i>

1745
01:57:29,835 --> 01:57:32,832
<i>rather high but in</i>
<i>addition to the rather</i>

1746
01:57:33,007 --> 01:57:36,110
<i>extensive cosmetic</i>
<i>renovation by way of</i>

1747
01:57:36,286 --> 01:57:39,336
<i>plastic surgery for you,</i>
<i>CPS has to provide</i>

1748
01:57:39,511 --> 01:57:42,145
<i>a fresh corpse that</i>
<i>perfectly matches your</i>

1749
01:57:42,320 --> 01:57:45,422
<i>physical dimensions and</i>
<i>medical specifications.</i>

1750
01:57:46,846 --> 01:57:49,273
<i>Oh, Cadaver</i>
<i>Procurement Section.</i>

1751
01:57:49,689 --> 01:57:54,423
They use some corpse; they
change it to look like

1752
01:57:54,599 --> 01:57:58,845
his own body. They plant this
corpse, stage a pseudo accident

1753
01:57:59,020 --> 01:58:01,395
so that police think he is dead.

1754
01:58:01,569 --> 01:58:03,475
<i>Now, mister Wilson, you</i>
<i>represent something</i>

1755
01:58:03,650 --> 01:58:05,712
<i>of a milestone around here.</i>

1756
01:58:07,118 --> 01:58:12,164
And then, the agency
organises an ultimate life

1757
01:58:14,974 --> 01:58:18,043
in a nice villa somewhere
around L.A. -

1758
01:58:18,219 --> 01:58:21,997
they even organise a nice
lady who conveniently

1759
01:58:22,171 --> 01:58:24,755
stumbles upon him when
he is taking a walk

1760
01:58:24,930 --> 01:58:26,836
along the beach.

1761
01:58:29,073 --> 01:58:31,310
He is thus reborn...

1762
01:58:31,829 --> 01:58:34,274
no longer as a boring
businessman but as a

1763
01:58:34,449 --> 01:58:37,552
modernist painter...

1764
01:58:37,728 --> 01:58:38,783
<i>Tony Wilson.</i>

1765
01:58:38,957 --> 01:58:40,725
called Tony Wilson,

1766
01:58:40,900 --> 01:58:45,720
played by none other
than Rock Hudson.

1767
01:58:49,987 --> 01:58:53,472
So, the woman, Nora,
his new love,

1768
01:58:53,648 --> 01:58:57,011
tries to engage him in life,
even takes him to some

1769
01:58:58,519 --> 01:59:01,015
wine orgy where
people get drunk,

1770
01:59:01,190 --> 01:59:03,358
dance naked and so on.

1771
01:59:03,533 --> 01:59:06,011
Everything seems OK,

1772
01:59:08,091 --> 01:59:13,970
but Tony Wilson starts
to miss his old life.

1773
01:59:15,427 --> 01:59:20,109
More and more he is
haunted by his past.

1774
01:59:20,284 --> 01:59:22,711
Finally he breaks down,

1775
01:59:22,886 --> 01:59:25,780
approaches again
the agency,

1776
01:59:25,956 --> 01:59:28,590
telling them that
he wants to return

1777
01:59:28,765 --> 01:59:31,034
to his old life.

1778
01:59:33,533 --> 01:59:36,497
The boss of this
mysterious company,

1779
01:59:36,672 --> 01:59:39,047
a kind of kindly cruel...
<i>- Hello, son.</i>

1780
01:59:39,222 --> 01:59:41,440
superego paternal figure

1781
01:59:41,615 --> 01:59:43,626
tells him the truth.

1782
01:59:43,801 --> 01:59:46,798
He disappointed them
by not being able to

1783
01:59:46,974 --> 01:59:49,765
adapt himself to
his new life.

1784
01:59:49,939 --> 01:59:52,314
<i>You know, I sure hoped</i>
<i>you'd make it,</i>

1785
01:59:52,488 --> 01:59:54,654
<i>find your dream come true.</i>

1786
01:59:54,829 --> 01:59:55,829
<i>What?</i>

1787
01:59:56,005 --> 01:59:58,088
<i>I said, I sure hoped</i>
<i>you'd make it,</i>

1788
01:59:58,264 --> 02:00:00,274
<i>find your dream come true.</i>

1789
02:00:00,448 --> 02:00:03,707
<i>You can call it wishful</i>
<i>thinking, son,</i>

1790
02:00:03,882 --> 02:00:05,944
<i>but life is built on wishing.</i>

1791
02:00:06,119 --> 02:00:08,649
<i>You've got to just keep</i>
<i>plugging away at them.</i>

1792
02:00:08,824 --> 02:00:10,886
<i>You can't give up...</i>

1793
02:00:11,355 --> 02:00:15,465
<i>and you can't let the mistakes</i>
<i>jeopardize the dream.</i>

1794
02:00:15,640 --> 02:00:17,025
So what went wrong here?

1795
02:00:17,201 --> 02:00:19,627
The problem was
that his past

1796
02:00:19,801 --> 02:00:22,801
in it's material
existence was erased.

1797
02:00:22,975 --> 02:00:24,673
<i>Well, here's your</i>
<i>transportation.</i>

1798
02:00:24,849 --> 02:00:26,078
<i>- What?</i>
<i>- Surgery, sir.</i>

1799
02:00:26,252 --> 02:00:30,689
He lived in a totally new
environment, new job,

1800
02:00:30,864 --> 02:00:32,634
new friends and so on.

1801
02:00:32,809 --> 02:00:36,536
What remained the same
were his dreams -

1802
02:00:36,711 --> 02:00:40,542
because when the company
organised his rebirth,

1803
02:00:40,716 --> 02:00:44,131
when the company
provided a new existence

1804
02:00:44,306 --> 02:00:47,617
for him, they simply
followed his dreams.

1805
02:00:47,792 --> 02:00:50,998
His dreams were
wrong dreams -

1806
02:00:51,173 --> 02:00:55,680
and this is quite a deep lesson
for the theory of ideology.

1807
02:00:55,855 --> 02:00:57,502
<i>Just remember, son. We've</i>
<i>got to keep plugging away</i>

1808
02:00:57,676 --> 02:01:00,676
<i>at the dream. The mistakes teach</i>
<i>us how. It wasn't wasted.</i>

1809
02:01:00,850 --> 02:01:02,059
<i>Remember that.</i>

1810
02:01:02,234 --> 02:01:05,462
On the way to the operation
hall, he discovers

1811
02:01:05,636 --> 02:01:07,542
the horrible truth.

1812
02:01:07,717 --> 02:01:12,902
He will not be reborn
but he will be used as a

1813
02:01:13,077 --> 02:01:18,104
cadaver for another person
who wants to be reborn.

1814
02:01:22,024 --> 02:01:24,139
We should draw a line
of distinction

1815
02:01:24,314 --> 02:01:27,001
within the very field
of our dreams.

1816
02:01:29,238 --> 02:01:32,306
Between those who
are the right dreams

1817
02:01:32,481 --> 02:01:36,261
pointing towards a dimension
effectively beyond

1818
02:01:36,435 --> 02:01:40,162
our existing society
and the wrong dreams:

1819
02:01:40,337 --> 02:01:43,024
the dreams which
are just an idealised

1820
02:01:43,199 --> 02:01:46,563
consumerist reflection,

1821
02:01:46,738 --> 02:01:49,891
mirror image of our society.

1822
02:01:52,284 --> 02:01:55,146
We are not simply
submitted to our dreams -

1823
02:01:55,322 --> 02:01:58,163
they just come from
some unfathomable

1824
02:01:58,338 --> 02:02:01,442
depths and we can't
do anything about it.

1825
02:02:01,617 --> 02:02:04,511
This is the basic lesson
of psychoanalysis

1826
02:02:04,685 --> 02:02:06,488
and fiction cinema.

1827
02:02:06,662 --> 02:02:09,713
We are responsible
for our dreams.

1828
02:02:09,889 --> 02:02:12,730
Our dreams stage
our desires,

1829
02:02:12,905 --> 02:02:16,320
and our desires are
not objective facts.

1830
02:02:16,496 --> 02:02:19,286
We created them,
we sustained them,

1831
02:02:19,461 --> 02:02:21,680
we are responsible for them.

1832
02:02:21,854 --> 02:02:24,385
This is an area of ancient
lakebeds deposited

1833
02:02:24,560 --> 02:02:26,778
five to ten million years ago.

1834
02:02:30,108 --> 02:02:33,801
The scene of mass orgy
in <i>Zabriskie Point</i>

1835
02:02:33,976 --> 02:02:36,975
is a nice metaphor
of what went wrong

1836
02:02:37,149 --> 02:02:40,408
with the 1960s
hippy revolution.

1837
02:02:42,801 --> 02:02:47,796
It's crucial that <i>Zabriskie Point</i>
was made in 1970

1838
02:02:47,970 --> 02:02:50,865
when the authentic
revolutionary energy

1839
02:02:51,041 --> 02:02:56,069
of the sixties was already
losing its strength.

1840
02:02:57,368 --> 02:03:00,542
This orgy is somewhere
between subversion

1841
02:03:00,717 --> 02:03:03,247
of the existing
social order

1842
02:03:03,422 --> 02:03:06,837
and already the
full estheticised

1843
02:03:07,012 --> 02:03:09,648
reincorporation
of this allegedly

1844
02:03:09,823 --> 02:03:15,213
transgressive activities into
the hegemonic ideology.

1845
02:03:16,203 --> 02:03:19,011
Although Antonioni
meant this

1846
02:03:19,186 --> 02:03:23,381
as a kind of transcendence
of the existing constraints,

1847
02:03:23,556 --> 02:03:26,452
we can easily
imagine this shot

1848
02:03:26,627 --> 02:03:29,729
in some publicity campaign.

1849
02:03:30,822 --> 02:03:33,838
The first step to freedom
is not just to

1850
02:03:34,014 --> 02:03:37,117
change reality to
fit your dreams -

1851
02:03:37,292 --> 02:03:39,457
it's to change
the way you dream.

1852
02:03:39,632 --> 02:03:43,515
And again, this hurts
because all satisfactions

1853
02:03:43,690 --> 02:03:47,314
we have come from
our dreams.

1854
02:03:47,521 --> 02:03:49,759
<i>The great supreme</i>
<i>commander chairman Mao</i>

1855
02:03:49,934 --> 02:03:52,360
<i>issued a world shaking
call to us:</i>

1856
02:03:52,536 --> 02:03:55,170
<i>you should pay attention</i>
<i>to state affairs</i>

1857
02:03:55,345 --> 02:03:58,291
<i>and carry the great proletarian</i>
<i>Cultural Revolution</i>

1858
02:03:58,466 --> 02:04:00,007
<i>through to the end.</i>

1859
02:04:02,869 --> 02:04:05,262
One of the big problems
of all great

1860
02:04:05,438 --> 02:04:09,216
revolutionary movements
of the 20th century -

1861
02:04:09,391 --> 02:04:12,337
such as Russia,
Cuba or China -

1862
02:04:12,512 --> 02:04:15,823
is that they did change
the social body,

1863
02:04:18,269 --> 02:04:22,796
but the egalitarian communist
society was never realised.

1864
02:04:22,970 --> 02:04:25,813
The dreams remained
the old dreams

1865
02:04:25,988 --> 02:04:29,766
and they turned into
the ultimate nightmare.

1866
02:04:30,652 --> 02:04:33,512
Now what remains of
the radical left

1867
02:04:33,688 --> 02:04:35,957
waits for a magical event

1868
02:04:36,132 --> 02:04:40,305
when the true revolutionary
agent will finally awaken.

1869
02:04:40,480 --> 02:04:44,421
While the depressing lesson of
the last decades is that

1870
02:04:44,596 --> 02:04:48,552
capitalism has been the true
revolutionising force.

1871
02:04:48,728 --> 02:04:52,153
Even as it serves only itself.

1872
02:04:55,302 --> 02:05:00,568
How come it is easier for us to
imagine the end of all life on earth -

1873
02:05:00,743 --> 02:05:02,934
an asteroid hitting the planet -

1874
02:05:03,109 --> 02:05:07,408
than a modest change
in our economic order?

1875
02:05:07,582 --> 02:05:12,505
Perhaps the time has come
to set our possibilities straight

1876
02:05:12,680 --> 02:05:16,521
and to become realists
by way of demanding

1877
02:05:16,697 --> 02:05:21,318
what appears as impossible
in the economic domain.

1878
02:05:23,152 --> 02:05:27,536
The surprising explosion of
Occupy Wall Street protests,

1879
02:05:27,711 --> 02:05:30,436
the mass mobilisation in Greece,

1880
02:05:30,612 --> 02:05:32,997
the crowds on Tahrir square -

1881
02:05:33,171 --> 02:05:38,203
they all bear witness for the hidden
potential for a different future.

1882
02:05:38,377 --> 02:05:41,979
There is no guarantee that
this future will arrive.

1883
02:05:42,154 --> 02:05:46,095
No train of history on which
we simply have to take a ride.

1884
02:05:46,270 --> 02:05:50,948
It depends on us,
on our will.

1885
02:05:57,488 --> 02:06:01,737
In revolutionary
upheavals some energy

1886
02:06:01,912 --> 02:06:06,751
or rather some utopian dreams
take place, they explode -

1887
02:06:06,926 --> 02:06:12,815
and even if the actual result
of a social upheaval is just a

1888
02:06:12,990 --> 02:06:20,386
commercialised everyday life,
this excess of energy,

1889
02:06:20,561 --> 02:06:26,271
what gets lost in the result,
persists not in reality, but

1890
02:06:26,447 --> 02:06:31,305
as a dream haunting us
waiting to be redeemed.

1891
02:06:31,480 --> 02:06:34,108
In this sense,
whenever we are engaged

1892
02:06:34,300 --> 02:06:36,795
in radical
emancipatory politics

1893
02:06:36,970 --> 02:06:41,650
we should never forget
as Walter Benjamin put it

1894
02:06:42,731 --> 02:06:43,731
almost a century ago -

1895
02:06:43,907 --> 02:06:48,836
that every revolution, if it is an
authentic revolution,

1896
02:06:49,011 --> 02:06:52,127
is not only directed
towards the future

1897
02:06:52,301 --> 02:06:58,310
but it redeems also
the past failed revolutions.

1898
02:06:58,484 --> 02:07:03,176
All the ghosts, as it were; the living
dead of the past revolution

1899
02:07:03,351 --> 02:07:07,820
which are roaming around,
unsatisfied, will finally

1900
02:07:07,996 --> 02:07:11,868
find their home
in the new freedom.

1901
02:09:59,760 --> 02:10:04,002
I may be freezing to death
but you'll never get rid of me.

1902
02:10:04,252 --> 02:10:09,207
All the ice in the world
cannot kill a true idea.

1903
02:10:18,009 --> 02:10:23,009
From transcript to subtitle:
TJL and tom_elkrider

1904
02:10:25,010 --> 02:10:30,010
Published 03/02/2014
@ www. podnapisi. net