Slavoj Žižek
Senior Researcher, Institute for Sociology and Philosophy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World.
Slavoj Žižek LIVE: Pandemic! Protests! Panic!
Watch Slavoj Žižek's live interview with Big Think, moderated by Samo Burja.
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Is it even possible to oppose capitalism anymore?
"Global capitalism and local traditions are no longer opposites, they are on the same side," says Slavoj Zizek. The traditions of anti-capitalist protest are upended by this fact.
Is political correctness a solution — or a desperate cover-up?
No offense, says Slavoj Žižek, but maybe we need to incorporate some "gently racist" icebreakers into our conversations.
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10 min
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Who Is Responsible for the Refugee Crisis, and Who Must Act?
Slavoj Žižek examines the situation out of which refugees are created, and criticizes conservatives and liberals alike for their "conspiracy theories".
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23 min
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Why There Are No Viable Political Alternatives to Unbridled Capitalism
"Behind every rise of fascism is a failed revolution," said the Frankfurt School thinker Walter Benjamin. Here, Slavoj Žižek revives that statement in the context of the failed left.
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16 min
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Top Video of 2016 #10: Trump Against the Machine: How Political Elites Failed
Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek thinks the U.S. political machinery is truly broken. He guides a verbal tour through the failure of manufactured consent, the appeal of human baseness, and politics as a real struggle of life and death.
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8 min
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Slavoj Žižek: ‘I’m Not Afraid of This New World’
Google is just a privatized NSA; the powerful are continuously trying to control the weak. Slavoj Žižek may have some misgivings about our brave new world, but that doesn't mean he's going to buckle beneath the weight of unnecessary fears.
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2 min
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Slavoj Žižek on Synthetic Sex and ‘Being Yourself’
Philosopher and social critic Slavoj Žižek dislikes the sense of self-commodification and self-manipulation innate in online dating.
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10 min
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Slavoj Žižek: Political Correctness Is a More Dangerous Form of Totalitarianism
Is political correctness just a spineless form of self-discipline that doesn’t really allow you to overcome racism?
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12 min
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Slavoj Žižek on Why You’re Never Really Alone With Your Sexual Partner
Slavoj Žižek draws from examples in literature, film, and advertising to explain a phenomenon in which no sexual liaison is complete without a third element — an intruder, something like a fantasy.
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5 min
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Slavoj Žižek: Democracy and Capitalism Are Destined to Split Up
Philosopher Slavoj Žižek argues that our current brand of global capitalism is quickly outgrowing democracy. This leads to a bevy of social and geopolitical concerns all related to the public commons.
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17 min
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Slavoj Žižek: Events and Encounters Explain Our Fear of Falling in Love
The renowned philosopher discusses his new book on events, detailing how they retroactively create their causes and why they explain the 21st century fear of falling in love.
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7 min
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The Purpose of Philosophy is to Ask the Right Questions
"I’m not a philosophical megalomaniac," says Slavoj Žižek. Philosophy is not here to provide all of the answers. What it can do however, which is more powerful, is ask the right questions.
How I’m So Much Younger Now
I’m getting old – my God, you know. It’s horrible because I am, in a way, in a good sense, a pathological person, in the sense that for a long […]
The Purpose of Philosophy is to Ask the Right Questions
“I’m not a philosophical megalomaniac,” says Slavoj Žižek. Philosophy is not here to provide all of the answers. What it can do however, which is more powerful, is ask the […]
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Philosophy is Not Dying
I claim that reading quantum physics through Hegel and vice versa is very productive.
The Optimism of Melancholia
The philosopher on why Melancholia is actually an optimistic movie.
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1 min
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Why be happy when you could be interesting?
We don't really want what we think we desire, says philosopher Slavoj Žižek.
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2 min
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We Need Thinking
Slavoj Zizek answers the question, “Do you think science has replaced philosophy in discovering the bigger questions of life?” Philosophy is not dying, he says — in fact, we need […]
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Slavoj Žižek on Buddhism and the Self
The self is a disruptive, false, and, as such, unnecessary metaphor for the process of awareness and knowing: when we awaken to knowing, we realize that all that goes on in us is a flow of “thoughts without a thinker.”