Slavoj Zizek Quotes
Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian philosopher, cultural critic, and one of the most prominent public intellectuals working in the broadly Hegelian and Lacanian tradition. The Sublime Object of Ideology, his 1989 breakthrough, applied Lacanian psychoanalysis to ideology and to the cinema of Hitchcock with equal seriousness, and his later The Ticklish Subject and Less Than Nothing reread Hegel and German Idealism through the lens of psychoanalysis and dialectical materialism. The quotes below are attributed to Slavoj Zizek, organized by topic.
Slavoj Zizek on Freedom
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“We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom.”
Introduction: The Missing Ink", in Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates (2002), p. 2 -
“Reflections on WTC: Third Version" , Free Speech (7 October 2001)”
In the electoral campaign, President Bush named as the most important person in his life Jesus . Now he has a unique chance to prove that he meant it seriously: for him, as for all Americans today, "Love thy neighbor!" means "Love the Muslims!" OR IT MEANS NOTHING AT ALL.
Slavoj Zizek on Knowledge
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“A spectre is haunting Western academia (...), the spectre of the Cartesian subject.”
The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London/New York: Verso, 1999), p. 1. -
“The Fragile Absolute: or, why is the Christian legacy worth fighting for?”
It is also crucial to bear in mind the interconnection between the Decalogue... and its modern obverse, the celebrated 'human Rights'. As the experience of our post-political liberal-permissive society amply demonstrates, human Rights are ultimately, at their core, simply Rights to violate the Ten Commandments. 'The right to privacy' — the right to adultery, in secret, where no one sees me or has -
“The Fragile Absolute: or, why is the Christian legacy worth fighting for? (London: Verso, 2000, ISBN 1-85984-326-3 ), p. 111.”
There is a somewhat analogous situation with regard to the heterosexual seduction procedure in our Politically Correct times: the two sets, the set of PC behaviour and the set of seduction, do not actually intersect anywhere; that is, there is no seduction which is not in a way an "incorrect" intrusion or harassment — at some point, one has to expose oneself and "make a pass." So does this mean th -
“Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates (London: Verso, 2002, ISBN 1-859-84421-9 ), p. 16”
[A]t the beginning of November 2001, there was a series of meetings between White House advisers and senior Hollywood executives with the aim of co-ordinating the war effort and establishing how Hollywood could help in the " war against terrorism " by getting the right ideological message across not only to Americans, but also to the Hollywood public around the globe — the ultimate empirical proof -
“Introduction: The Missing Ink", in Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates (2002), p. 2”
We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom. -
“As a Marxist, let me add: if anyone tells you Lacan is difficult, this is class propaganda by the enemy.”
Last remark in an interview for the CN8 show Nitebeat (2003)
Slavoj Zizek on Life
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“In the electoral campaign, President Bush named as the most important person in his life Jesus . Now he has a unique chance to prove that he meant it seriously: for him, as for all Americans today, "Love thy neighbor!" means "Love the Muslims!" OR IT MEANS NOTHING AT ALL.”
Reflections on WTC: Third Version" , Free Speech (7 October 2001)
Slavoj Zizek on Love
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Attributed to Slavoj Zizek:
“Love is not idealization; love is the loved one in his or her ordinary, accidental being.”
Slavoj Zizek on Politics
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“It is much easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”
Žižek! (2005); as Žižek notes on p. 1 of Mapping Ideology (1994), the observation that it is easier to imagine the end of the earth than the end of capitalism was originally made by Fredric Jameson . -
Attributed to Slavoj Zizek:
“The function of ideology is not to offer us a point of escape from our reality but to offer us social reality itself as an escape.”
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“The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology (London/New York: Verso, 1999), p. 1.”
A spectre is haunting Western academia (...), the spectre of the Cartesian subject. -
“[A]t the beginning of November 2001, there was a series of meetings between White House advisers and senior Hollywood executives with the aim of co-ordinating the war effort and establishing how Hollywood could help in the " war against terrorism " by getting the right ideological message across not only to Americans, but also to the Hollywood public around the globe — the ultimate empirical proof that Hollywood does in fact function as an " ideological state apparatus .”
Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates (London: Verso, 2002, ISBN 1-859-84421-9 ), p. 16
Slavoj Zizek on Truth
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Attributed to Slavoj Zizek:
“The truly difficult thing is not to dream of a better world; the truly difficult thing is to wake up.”