I WOULD PREFER NOT TO · Transcript · · Updated
Slavoj Zizek — "I Would Prefer Not To" – Transcript
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Summary
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- The speaker explains the ambiguity of spirit, noting how gajst means pure thinking while gajster refers to those who terrorize us.
- A joke about ordering coffee without cream versus coffee without milk illustrates how it matters what is negated.
- An erotic film scene where a character declines coffee because she has none demonstrates how unmentioned backgrounds function in everyday ideology.
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predikajte. Kaj je to? Zelo, da ješ življen. If you are not dead. But if I say, and I hope you know Stephen King and all that, if I tell you not you are not dead but you are undead, ah, this means something different, living dead, monster and so on.
And this between the two domain, this is in a way the domain of spirit in the wonderful ambiguity of the word. Spirit, gajst, means spirit as pure thinking and gajster, those who make a sphere, terrorize us.
And I think this ambiguity is crucial. Das erinnert mich ane vitz, den die immer so gerne erzelen, der vitz, den dem es um die Betonung geht, der negativität. Erzeln immer diesen vitz von einem Gast, der in ein Restaurant kommt. Er bestelt ein Café ohne Rahm. Und der Kellner sagt, leider haben wir kein Rahm mehr.
Ich bring Ihnen ein Café ohne Milch. Geht das auch? Weil wir nur Milch haben, ja. Genau, weil wir nur Milch haben. Warum ist esn unterschied? Café ohne Milch, oder café ohne Rahm?
Café ohne Milch is the same as coffee without cream. It's just plain coffee. But it's not the same. And this precisely because it matters what it negates and I will give you a wonderful variation of this joke from my youth.
When, you know, I lived in a communist country, it wasn't too bad liberal communism, but nonetheless, you didn't get things all the time. Nijen so len je in auf gewachsen, ja. And I remember the joke was this one because there are things. Somebody enters a store and asks there, is it that you still don't have butter?
And the person there answers, sorry, you're the wrong store. We are the store which doesn't have oil. The store which doesn't have butter is across the street there, you know? Like this is, and again, I could give, I think that even.
Ja, bo, was ist jetzt genau übertragen auf den Alltag? Sie haben ja gesagt, ich soll da in des Erziehungslager gehen. Was lern ich da, bez kigistem des Alltag? Okay, I will refer to philosophical every day, sorry, ideological every day. That's, I think, one of the ways, but I don't have time to explain it now, it would take too long time, how ideology cheats, it offers you coffee and it implies that it's coffee without milk,
but it's really coffee without cream. That's like, in this background, what is missing, but it's there, it's crucial. Let me give you another example that I use in my books of how this unmentioned background functions.
In a nice old English leftist film, Brust Off, you have one of the most erotic scenes that I've ever seen, even McGregor plays. She plays an ordinary worker who is in love with some young manager girl.
She accompanies her home and she invites him up, she tells him, would you like to come up for a coffee to my apartment? He says, I would love to, but unfortunately I don't drink coffee. You know what she answers?
No problem, I don't have any. Can you imagine a more direct erotic invitation, but precisely nothing dirty is said. And this phenomena, they embody ideology, how it functions in everyday life, I like them.
You know, it's for me like, grunt phenomena, zero level of ideology. I'm always fascinated by it. So-called gestures, which are meant to be rejected. Like, let's say we are in a restaurant. You are rich, I am poor, you invite me.
I think you have it here in this country also as in my country. Even if we both know that you will pay, when the bill arrives, we have this, yes, yes, I should insist a little bit not too much, because if I insist too much, you are evil, you can say, okay, then you pay if you want.
But you see, so the result is zero, nonsense. I did something, I knew it will be rejected. But the magic of everyday ideology is that, although the result was zero, nonetheless, our link was established. The link of kindness, you know, the signal was we are polite to each other, maybe we like each other. This is where ideology is alive.