Slavoj Zizek Vs Will Self in Dangerous Ideas 

See more of Slavoj here: ru-vid.com/group/PLFIigLLitqDlMcyK7zER5I8s9AgGwSPgj

"My pessimism is at the same time...a cause of optimism....don't worry there will be new crisis" -Zizek

When they asked Zizek to participate to this he said: "Ok, even if it means that I Will Self torture a bit"

What makes Zizek brilliant is that he's willing to be wrong and tries to understand other persons point of view instead of doing the usual sidestepping.

Self: Give me a simple answer Zizek: There are no simple answers.

this is like watching a Zizek speach but every minute a caricacture of an englishman interrupts him to bully him so he can impress his Oxford Friends.

I'd never ve guessed that zizek is also a very patient person

Oh my god this reminds me of every time I talk to my dad.

Self is a good name for this guy, he is so in love with the sound of his own voice, dripping with smug self-satisfaction

Zizek arguing with a child (full footage)

When i feel depressed, I listen to Zizek and he always lifts me up! I love you Zizek.

The level of stand-up comedians of these guys is unparalleled. Roasted the whole audience more than once and we just applaud. Timeless.

I noticed that Zizek interrupts his opponent when they agree with him, which I find extremely fitting for the man. He is more excited to find common grounds, than to engage in conflict or disagreement.

First time I've seen Will Self - I get that he's trying to force the ultimate point out of Zizek's thesis (which is open-ended), but he does it in such a condescending way, he sacrifices the answers in exchange for his own self promotion, with no answers other than "don't buy cell phones because they contain coltan". Dealing with this line of questioning, no wonder half of Zizek's face is paralyzed today.

Zizek, a truly remarkable thinker and charming human being sits down with a smarmy child

Seems like Zizek is just trying to say: as we approach the crisis point, some will be attracted to totalitarianism, some to anarchy, but some will have real solutions, so we should look out for them and support them when they arise. He can't give solutions to a crisis that hasn't arrived yet, the crisis itself creates the solution and the key is to watch it carefully and act appropriately when it comes. Self is basically asking him to predict the future like the Communists of old and he is refusing. I expected Self to put forward his own ideas, but he was really just an interrogator. Which is fine, I guess.

The negative comments about Will Self's performance here indicates how people often confuse a debate and an interview or chat. Will Self was unashamedly pragmatic - almost cringe inducingly so. And his insistence on practical solutions actually allows us to see a certain shade of Zizek which is rare to see. These questions help us to see Zizek's engagement with the complex problem of political praxis. This is what an interview is supposed to do; Self doesn't have to be right or wrong here. His job is to provoke by persisting in a certain mode of questioning so that we the audience get a fresh look at the author being interviewed.

this is hard to watch, can’t stand will self I admire zizek’s patience

"You're a philosopher. I want you to tell me how to live." This is such a strange statement and it underlies the problem at the heart of this interview.

Is astonishing how much Will Self criticizes Zizek for not offering any specific proposition on how to solve world's problems while he also doesn't.

Self misses the point several times, and tries to play to the crowd when his own definitions are lacking. He has nothing to say here, he only attempts to play the contrarian to Zizek's ideas, and fails miserably.

This is like watching a complicated and nuanced subject debated between a professor and a high school student

"Do they know how much we need violence just for things to go on as they are. " --- zizek This is very deep , and in a way To become disassociated from this truth is the first step toward becoming inhumane , but the truth is we have been inhumane for centuries.

What I understood Zizek was saying: It's still no time to act. We are living in a time when major traits of our civilization are deteriorating. We know we are in decline, we just don't know when will water spill out of glass and what will make it spill out (immigration, economic inequalities, anti-globalism and so on, and so on). But until that moment comes, lets use the time to think about what we want for the future and be prepared for when the shit hits the fan. At least we ought to know the direction we want to go. Because if we don't know what to do, there will be imminent clashes between different ideologies, policies, races, religions... Had ancient world, the Roman Empire, been aware their Empire was to fall apart in a century or two time, and if they used time to think what people should do after it disintegrates, we probably wouldn't have had cultural Dark Ages and following 15 centuries of constant wars in Europe. Zizek is warning about this, but this bloke is trying to be hip.

Audience member "We should be confused but we are not". That is a brilliant observation and simply describes our situation. And may even approach Zizek's position in some ways

Will Self has such a sarcastic, bitter, passive-aggressive tone throughout this debate. And why does he keep quoting the title of Slavoj's book? It becomes ludicrous after a while.

"Stalinist! Stalinist! Stalinist!" (Slavoj in the end) :D You just got to love him.

One thing I admire about Zizek here is, he doesn't shy away from confrontation with over-privileged Oxford liberals. He's obviously miles ahead of Self intellectually but is decent enough not to buy into Selfs silly needles. Really good composure. He was never going to give straight one-sentenced answers. I don't know if Self intended it as some kind of funny or edgy interplay or if it was just a mechanism to cope with his own inferiority.

I'd rather see Slavoj with Karl Pilkington.

This was great! I love Zizek but finally someone who relentlessly pokes Slavoj and holds him to account to every point, otherwise he has a tendency to ramble on. I have found my Yin and Yang, my angel and devil.

When Self is asking his "questions" he's looking more at the audience than he's looking at Zizek and that kind of says it all. Cringe

Zizek is the only intellectual on the stage.

“Will Self” is the sign I’d be holding if I were homeless.

Self can speak French, I hope you all have noticed, really noticed, Self really needs to know that you have all. Remarquez son remarquable vocabulaire 🤣🤣🤣

With all the contentious behaviors and remarks from Will Self towards Žižek throughout the entire debate, I nonetheless think that it was a great conversation because Self was able to force Žižek to answer important questions such as: why Lacan? What does he mean by still being a communist? Why Marx back to Hegel? And so on. If you're familiar with Žižek, he is easily carried away in public discourses and often forgets to finish a sentence before moving. It can be really frustrating to listen to him. But I also appreciate the fact that in almost every situation where the opponent or interviewer behaves in a rude, aggressive and challenging way (such as the BBC Hard Talk and this one), Žižek always patiently answers back without being angry or disrespected. It's these kinds of debates that people who are interested in Žižek's work can get a clear sense of what his theoretical positions and his justifications for it. btw I think that the last person asked a really good and serious question out of the rest

Will Self: Lay out a detailed program for a new world Slavoj Zizek: People have to do that for themselves, not me. Rinse and repeat.

british accent won't always save you

What on earth happened to Will Self? 10/15 years ago, amazing! These days? Your boring uncle, trying to impress another man's daughter

the chad continental philosopher vs the virgin ironic cynic

The ego of this self guy is through the roof, asking pointless questions all the time and interjecting.

Zizek is able to output 1 TB of info in the time that Self can get out .5 MB

Self is constantly putting words into Zizek's mouth by intentionally misinterpreting what Zizek is saying for the sake of discrediting him.

People are slagging Will Self off but to be fair he is playing his part to disagree and get closer to the vulnerable areas in Zizeks points which I think he gave a good shot.

Been a fan of both of these guys at different times in my life, but looking at it now, with all the problems we're facing, and understanding now the wider context he is pointing at, Zizek is truly a brilliant mind.

Around 23:00 Zizek refers to the "first and second edition's of Hegel's LOGIC," but Mr. Self is so dense that he can only hear "phenomenology" and proceeds to demand that an audience member differentiate between the "first and second editions of Hegel's Phenomenology," which anyone with a basic knowledge of Hegel can tell you is not a real distinction. What a poseur.

ZIZEK: "I will be brief" *12 MINUTES LATER*

Will Self postulates and tries to intimidate using nice long words that really aren't needed. He's uses other ideas and a thesaurus of seven+ letter words like a drunk using a lamp post; for support, never for illumination.

47:35 lol "and soever". He uses "and so on and so on" and "or whatever" so often that the two have finally merged :D

Best Monty Python skit I've seen in a while.

I love Zizek, but I think it wouldn't hurt him to have more of these types of conversations. Will Self is obviously slightly confrontational on purpose, but when you heard enough of Zizek, you understand that it may be the only way to force him to be specific about the implications of the principles he is pushing. I very much enjoyed this one!!

Will Self is pure ideology and deserves gulag.

I'm 20 Minutes in and I'm getting more and more impressed with Zizek's patience with that insufferable guy.

At minute 58 I began to realize that I was listening to an argument between Gandalf and Saruman.

Self's snide laugh at his own snide jokes is about the most pathetic sound in existence

Self is acting like some sort of useless BBC journalist in a 5-minute interview rather than a facilitator of a long-form conversation

“I don’t trust experts, there is no expert ruling class that knows what’s going on- but I don’t trust ordinary people either.”

Will Self isn't 'cool' by any stretch

Comrade Zizek has brought be to tears with his appreciation of the dialectic lmao

Will Self spent more time grooming his mutton chops than getting ready for the debate

Self: TELL US WHAT TO DO ABOUT PEOPLE TELLING US WHAT TO DO!

Self postures as a snarky provocateur and contributes nothing substantive. His grotty Ichabod persona seems like an overcompensation for a failed interview at Monty Python's Argument Clinic.

Zizek is much more mindful of the presence and request of others. I think is Will is not willing (willing :D) to look into it but just arguments endlessly. Zizek seems to genuinely stay interested even if being constantly attacked. It's like constant anticipation and affirming to the audience. You can tell by the look he gives to the audience, its a need of being accepted. While zizek is really occupied with the content

24:45 Will uses this debate to make Zizek re-state some of oldest works. So basically this is a catch up session for Will on Zizek's work lol

That lanky scarecrow sure has a chip on his shoulder.

Will Self needs to learn the difference between activism and theory.

watching will self was more embarrassing than watching Theresa May dancing

"You were right about wanting to name him Will Cringe", Will's Mom to her husband after watching this interview

This entire conversation is so funny, I laughed all the way, beginning to end. I felt Self had clearly read 'courage of hopelessness', disliked it and had premeditated a lot of critique he never planned to use, but he got hot and bothered during the course of the talk and keep pulling out these verbal assaults that Zizek seemed completely oblivious to. This is a fantastic premise for intellectual comedy. I 'Will' say Self had possibly the most pompous response at some point a group of words so untouchable and intellectual I couldn't intuitively grasp his point because I'm a pleb...and then ten minutes later he's trying to side with the every man who apparently just wanks and smokes weed.

I'm not a native English speaker, but god do i recognize haughty accents...

Will Self is quite rude and passive aggressive. Bad conversationist .

Well surely Self needs to better distinguish political activism and political philosophy, and why has he found a need to reiterate that worn out placard "what should we do about it" in relation to entrenched and entangled global capitalism... This is a collective problem and deserves a collective resolution.

Moderator: "Slavoj Žižek" Automated captions: "Slobbery Shack" Both accurate.

You only need to hear a word from will self to hate him.

I usually love irony in debate, but Self uses it as one might use a fleshlight. Good debate nonetheless

27:40 "you are too intellectual for me" is a stinging cynical put-down on behalf of Zizek lol

Will Self: "Shut up, I'm the moderator! I guide the discourse! I am the censor and the judge! Praise me audience, praise me!" Audience: "Wait, can you shut up for a moment? What was Zizek trying to say?" Will Self: "No! Coltan! Coltaaaann!

Will Self is like the physical manifestation of the idea of "devil's advocate".

Two fantastic intellects fencing with words. The world needs more of this kind of thing.

Sartre was a visionary whom warned us well in advance of the dangers of the inauthentic self.

This is my first exposure to the thinking of Will Self and this is to say I know very little about him. The fact of the matter that for me demands Self-respect is that he is asking the right questions and provoking Slavoj to elucidate his personal views in an almost confessional manner. Clarifying Slavoj's ideas without such push-back for the lay-reader is nearly impossible and therefore clarification is the best thing for Slavoj--until he says he believes in elites--I kid!

Is SELF just playing towards audience?

Zizek killed Will.

Self reminds me of the underground man from Dostoevsky.

Self-centred (insert Will)

0:42: Will Self is perhaps the coolest British Novelist of the 21st Century?!? Who on Earth are these people?!?

My small brain enjoyed this bullshit. Will asks Slavoj what we should do. Slavoj never really answers his question. We simply don't know what to do, to possibly reach some sort of utopia. But what we need is broad discussions, so many thanks to this channel.

How nice to come back to this video.

Self's irritability is a narcissistic performance and he does it everywhere, not just here. It's kind of sad.

Will is definitely projecting about Slavoj's "grandstanding." He should probably read more Freud.

Will Self spoils so much of this conversation.

I've watched this so many times despite not being able to understand parts of it. pause, google the reference or person they are talking about, continue. so good

..his sarcasm...is gooey..will self..is unlearned..!

Will Self is really annoying, unsavoury character.

50:32, the defining moment of the debate.

Slavoy is a genius who has fooled the world into thinking he has tics, but actually sways his hands around to confuse his opponents

37:52 "I believe in elites..." 1:11:56 "Think of what Gregory Bateson said..."

Nobody got to talk, the activist liberal phrases by Self is constantly making this onto a game of who the smartest guy on the stage is. Childish...

Will Self is coming from Jeremy Paxman's tedious condescending Oxbridge debating society contempt for truth under the disguise of seeking answers. Debating societies teach the privileged that truth doesn't matter, and students may alternate positions to learn that attitude. Debating under these terms is the perfect forum for sociopaths and psychopaths, and Self fits the bill here in exactly the way Paxman did. Slavoj Zizek has the distracting habit of interrupting himself without Self being there; add Self's facile objections and you get pointless circuitous babbling, which Self, for whom sincerity is something to fake, is happy to settle for.

This debate really is just Self's failed attempt to convince Žižek he believes something he doesn't isn't it?

Self does sound rude but his response isn't wrong when he says that Slavoj sometimes for no reason gives 15 sentences long answer which still is deviated from the question asked