Latest Slavoj Žižek Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• There is an initial modesty in Liberalism. Liberalism was not originally a doctrine of "man is the king." No, it was a very modest attempt to build a space where people could live together without slaughtering one another.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Kings, Men, Space

  Source: www.electronicbookreview.com

• We should not oppose something just because it was appropriated by the wrong guys; rather, we should think about how to reappropriate it.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Thinking, Guy, Wrong Guy

  Source: www.electronicbookreview.com

• Probably never in human history did we live in a society in which, at the microlevel of personal behavior, our lives were so strongly regulated.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Behavior, Humans, Our Lives

  Source: www.electronicbookreview.com

• What interests me is the following paradox: of how, precisely in our liberal societies, where no one can even imagine a transcendental cause for which to die, we are allowed to adopt a hedonistic, utilitarian, or even more spiritually egotistical stance - like, the goal of my life is the realization of all my potential, fulfillment of my innermost desires, whatever you want.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Goal, Desire, Realization

  Source: www.electronicbookreview.com

• Often, the worst way to become prisoner of a system is to have a dream that things may turn better, there is always the possibility of change. Because it is precisely this secret dream that keeps you enslaved to the system.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Dream, Possibility Of Change, Secret

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• The problem for me is not that Schwarzenegger is governor, but the extent to which even politicians who are not actors are functioning like actors.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Actors, Problem, Politician

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• You can be a fanatical millennialist religious mystic, and you are, in a certain way, not outside of ideology. Your position can be that of perfectly describing the data and nonetheless your point is ideological.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Religious, Data, Way

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• The duty of a politician for me is to be a representative: a politician is not an expert, experts are experts, hired for their expertise and so on.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Experts, Politician, Duty

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• For me, ideology is defined only by how the coordinates of your meaningful experience of the world, and your place within society, relate to the basic tensions and antagonisms of social orders.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Meaningful, Order, World

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• You can be an extreme materialist, thinking that economic development ultimately determines everything; then you are truly ideological.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Thinking, Development, Economic

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• A typical guy who buys organic food doesn't really buy it in order to be healthy; he buys it to regain a kind of solidarity as the one who really cares about nature. He buys a certain ideological stance.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Order, Guy, Healthy

  Source: www.believermag.com

• In Stalinism the tragedy is that its origin is some kind of radical emancipatory project. In the origins you had a kind of workers' uprising; the true enigma is how this project of emancipation went so wrong.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Uprising, Tragedy, Kind

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• Global capitalism is simply accepted as a fact that you cannot do anything about. The only question is, Will you accommodate yourself to it, or will you be dismissed and excluded?

  Slavoj Žižek

  Facts, Accepted, Capitalism

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• In Stalinism, everybody was potentially a victim in a totally contingent way.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Way, Victim, Stalinism

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• Fascism is relatively easy to explain. It is a reactionary phenomenon. Nazism was some bad guys having some bad ideas and unfortunately succeeding in realizing them.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Ideas, Guy, Nazism

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• In Fascism, if you were a Jew, you were simply killed. Nobody had the idea of arresting Jews and torturing them to confess the Jewish plot. Because in Fascism, you are guilty for your whole being.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Ideas, Plot, Guilty

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.

• For me, Stalinism was even a greater philosophical problem than Nazism. Under Nazism, if you were a Jew, you were simply killed, no questions asked, you had nothing to prove. Under Stalinism, of course, most [victims] were on trial for false accusations; most of them were not traitors. There is one interesting feature: that they were tortured or through some kind of blackmail forced to confess to being traitors.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Philosophical, Interesting, Trials

  Source: www.believermag.com

• Ideology is a certain unique experience of the universe and your place in it, to put it in standard terms, which serves the production of the existing power relations and blah blah blah.

  Slavoj Žižek

  Unique, Blah, Standards

  Interview with Dianna Dilworth, www.believermag.com. July 2004.