 Zizek appeals much more to the radical, but the radical, a particular type of radical. I think they're very, the typical kind of nihilist radical that exists today, but he combines it with, you know, so you've got two types of nihilists. You've got the one type of nihilist that is attracted to identity politics. And Zizek's nihilism, I think, is much more of a, I don't know, transnationalist, anti-capitalist, viscerally anti-capitalist, but without really the kind of postmodern element added onto it that exists in so much of the left today. And I don't know exactly how to explain it, but it's, he definitely, he definitely got, he definitely is, he definitely is, you know, for smashing the system. And he's definitely for smashing the system without presenting what he views as an alternative. He's vaguely for some kind of form of democracy, but he rejects and is skeptical about democracy often. He's generally anti-state, so he's generally for some kind of internationalism, not globalism. He's very against globalism, free trade. He's much more for, he's much more for a UN, a European Union that's even stronger and more powerful than it is today. For example, he talks about the migration crisis, which he blames on, he says this was caused by the West, so the West owes it to these people because they caused the crisis in Syria. The crisis in Syria would have never happened unless the West, so he has that kind of neocolonialism. All the problems in the world were caused by colonialism. All the problems of the world are caused by the West. So the West job is to help all these struggling places around the world because we cause them to struggle, which is so ahistorical because while exactly where these places before the West even got involved with them, they were some kind of Ottoman paradise in the Middle East before the West got involved, maybe post-World War I, I mean it's complete nonsense and complete garbage, but it feeds off of this, in this sense he's very similar to the academic left, it feeds off of this notion that everything is the West's fault because everything is capitalism's fault. He calls himself, I should say something about who he is, he's a professor at the Institute of Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Lubidia, something like that, whatever. In Slovenia, one of the few countries in Europe I've not been to, so in Slovenia he has several doctorates in a number, I think it's psychology and philosophy. He is also the International Director of the Birbeck Institute of the Humanities at the University of London, so the guy's got a massive, if you will, a massive reputation, and again it's followed by hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, and is respected to this important intellectual. Now I've listened to a lot of his stuff and at the end of the day he doesn't say much, he calls himself a Christian atheist and he gets into all kinds of weird theological discussions which are interesting but at the end of the day add up to not very much. He again talks about democracy as if he supports it but then he says he's not really supports it because he doesn't really believe in the wisdom of the masses, he is a Hegelian, he says explicitly he's a Hegelian, he calls himself an old Platonist, he is a continental philosopher, so he aligns up with the Plato-Cant German romantic philosophies, continental philosophy in a sense the rejection, the rejection of reason, he never talks about reason that's one thing and in that sense you know Jordan Peterson rarely talks about reason but Zizek never talks about reason and really everything that comes out of him is this mishmash of it sounds mystical but of course he claims not to be a mystic. He despises Buddhism because he says Buddhism, what did he, I mean he had some interesting things to actually to say about Buddhism, you know he says Buddhism is just a superficial way to justify you know Western consumerism. He says it's what the Westerners who feel guilty about consumerism kind of latch onto and they study Buddhism in order to justify them continuing to live their consumerist life. He's very critical of modern society, he's very critical of modern values and in that sense I think again he's very appealing, he talks about in the modern world people are afraid of falling in love, they're afraid of love, they're much more comfortable with you know instant gratification of sex and one-night stands and they're much more it's much more difficult for them to actually engage in a fully immersive experience of love and that's interesting. And then he has a completely distorted, completely Marxist but completely zero-sum view of capitalism and at the same time, and this is I guess he is eating the alien because he embraces contradictions, at the same time he says and he said this, he says capitalism has improved the lives of more people than any other human system, it is fantastic at creating economic wealth, there is no system like it at creating economic wealth but then he says capitalism is basically driven by envy, he says capitalism is not the system of egoism or egotism as he says it, he says capitalism is a system and envy and you know so the striving to improve oneself is just driven by envy not driven by actual self-fulfillment, he's anti-materialist, he's anti-consumerism, he's just like in that sense he's like Marx, Marx believed that capitalism was the best system for creating material goods, he just, and indeed I talked about this last time when I talked about the debate, Marx believed that you reach a point where inevitably that will turn, that will turn into the workers will rebel and a new you know dictatorship of the parliament will emerge in which we will go to the next stage beyond capitalism which will be even more materially successful and that ultimately will dissolve into some kind of utopia where there is no totalitarianism, there's just people doing their thing completely free I guess from one another expressing themselves, I mean it's very vague as to what and it's certainly vague how these things actually happen, it's completely, I mean Marxism is completely mystical in that sense, it leaves us up to kind of a general positive sense of how all this evolves and how it all happens and Zizik exploits that, Zizik is very mystical in that sense, I mean one of the things that I find interesting about both Zizik and and Jordan Peterson is they go on long long rants where they say pretty much nothing, it sounds profound but it's nothing or if it is I don't understand it in my sense from looking at people who are listening to them in the glaze they get in their eyes is that the people nobody nobody understands them of course you can't say you don't understand it because if you say you don't understand them that means that you're an idiot right because they're smart right I always if you watch Ben Shapiro and and Jordan Peterson a lot of times Jordan Peterson will ramble on about something and Ben Shapiro will not as if he understands and it's clear he doesn't understand a word the questions he asked also indicative of the fact that he doesn't understand a word Jordan's saying but you can't say what did you just say it's meaningless you can't say that because then you seem stupid so people play along with them I think I think I think Dave Rubin does the same thing I think you know I would do what would I say I don't know what the hell you're talking about I mean maybe I would in a debate but it's it's that's exactly what happens is that the complete it's completely floating it's completely unconnected it's completely it's completely gibberish because it's unconnected to reality that's the sense in which they are the divorced from reality divorced from logic divorced from reason and when you divorce himself from reason then anything goes you can just ramble it's magic thinking it's it's it's completely it's completely mystical and you can say whatever you want to say and vaguely eludes the things and you know and once in a while you say something I mean you have to say stuff that's interesting otherwise it doesn't work so so you spend a significant amount of time saying something that's interesting and then you go into these rants where it's completely unintelligible but people go home well he was interesting before him this must be good like was this a when he analyzes movies it's quite interesting so here's the profound thing he said about Atlas Shrugged which I thought was really interesting I can't remember fully the I can't remember now because I saw a couple of days ago and anything I see anything where two days pass I can't remember but I can't remember the context right that he says this in so he's obviously not pro I meant but he but he sees this obviously he's read Atlas Shrugged and he sees something in Atlas Shrugged that I think very few people who claim to be fans of Inrand see what he says is that in Atlas Shrugged John Galt's enemy John Galt's opposition the people the person most preventing John Galt from achieving his goal are not the statists it's not the government it's not our unboil it's not the leftists it's Dagny Taggart it's the woman he loves most because it's her actions which makes everybody everybody everything else possible it's her actions that prevent that prevent the entire society from collapsing which is Galt's goal right oh now I remember the context I'll give you the context in a minute it's kind of funny so it's Dagny that's holding that's that's preventing civilization or collapse it's Dagny that is preventing the achievement of Galt's goal right yeah the spoiler alert sorry guys it's not who you would think the bad guys are right now she's not bad in the same sense right she's not evil she's not but she's wrong and her actions are what he needs to thwart he needs to destroy her in order to achieve his goal or convince her there's no nothing else he either needs to convince her or destroy her now that's absolutely true that's exactly what happens in Atlas Shrugged that's right he Muhammad Ali tells me he said this is a New York public library appearance that's right that's where I saw it and the context is yeah I and Rick says Dagny is Atlas and Atlas has to shrug for Galt to achieve his goals Atlas has to shrug or Atlas needs to be destroyed so Galt doesn't spend any time trying to destroy all in Boyle but he spends lots of time trying to destroy target transcontinental Dagny's company to destroy her company that's his only way to succeed now for Zizik to get that I give him a lot of credit now how does this translate in his mind to his struggles right he wants to see civilization collapse and we will get to that in a minute he wants civilization to collapse and he sees as his enemies those who sustain civilization and they include academic left they include much of the political left particularly the political left that is trying to moderate capitalism he wants to see it crushed he wants to see it disappear he wants to see it go away and he views as his enemy the kind of traditional leftists or even the communists who want some kind of communist utopia which he thinks is a complete disaster and it you know and he's hugely critical of of the Soviet Union although and again this is this is his he calls himself a Leninist sometimes and when you walk into his house when you walk into his apartment in Slovenia the first thing you see is a picture of Stalin on the wall and when asked why there's a picture of Stalin he says I put it up there on the wall so that stupid people like you ask that question basically that's what he says right he he says he rejects Stalin elsewhere but I think what he admires at the end of star with Stalin is that Stalin was willing to smash things I think he doesn't deny that the end was a disaster he doesn't deny that the end was failure but I think what he admires about Lenin and what he admires about Stalin is their willingness to destroy their willingness to kill their willingness to smash and again that's a sense in which he is a nihilist now let me just cover is he a communist I mean not the way right actually Greg so many he says he wrote a whole article and I read years ago I that that's interesting that would be an interesting that would be an interesting read because he's obviously not an idiot and again it is observation about about Dagny and and Golt is is interesting is correct you know where a lot of people get it incorrect and at least I haven't seen him in his videos criticize Einwand although I'm sure he does and it would be interesting whether he straw man sir in the same way as so many intellectuals of the left today straw man so he strikes me as not being a communist in any kind of conventional sense he's not striving towards a kind of communist state I mean first to the extent that he's a communist he's an internationalist in a sense that I think he probably believes that communism can only come about if it's international if it's global but he's he's also not willing to project what that future utopia looks like he's not willing to say he was not willing to follow Marx's line in terms of what is going to happen what does utopia what is the vision for utopia he's not and he certainly not willing to say right he's not willing to say that there's some kind of inevitable historical process as Marx says he actually rejects that idea what he does say is this system the way it is today is a disaster and then he goes from there to I'm a pessimist I think the world is gonna end and and here he constantly comes back to this thing it's unavoidable there's just no out and I think part of the reason he's a pessimist and I think he's a metaphysical pessimist part of the reason I think he's a pessimist is because I don't think he can see a utopia I think he's too cynical about human beings he's not like Marx who believes we can kind of evolve into this being that just is in this Marxist utopia I think Zizek is cynical about human beings and what they are and what they're capable of what they can and cannot do right and therefore he can envision this future and then on the other hand he completely buys into the ecological he calls it ecology which is interesting he's an old line in that sense and what is it is his discussion of environmentalism is very interesting I want to get to that in a second he talks about you know the big threats to the world which are gonna be ecological you know nature and he thinks the biggest threat to the world is you know the ability the first genetic engineering and then the ability for us to implant ships in people's brains kind of the the development of technology is gonna destroy the world but let me let me say something about his view on environmentalism because I think it's interesting he says the problem with the environmentalist movement is that it glorifies nature he says no nature is brutal nature's horrible nature is is is is is you know attacks man it's almost impossible for us to live in nature it mother mother nature is not there's no benevolent mother earth out there nature in and of itself is incredibly dangerous and and human beings you know human beings spend their life or spend their existence trying to change nature to fit themselves in that sense you know it I agree with him right and it's it's you know we're not we're not we shouldn't glorify nature in and of itself you know so he says he's an ecologist but without illusions but he says on the other hand right we need nature in order to survive as human beings so in that sense he's human centric he's not he does not see the intrinsic value of nature so he's much more sophisticated he's much more sophisticated than than they the common environmentalist out there he does not see the intrinsic he says we need a certain balance in nature not balance because he rejects the idea balance we need nature in order to survive we need I don't know oxygen we need water we need these things and he says it's inevitable because we're such crummy beings and because of the incentives capitalism provides us we are going to destroy nature and therefore we're going to commit suicide we're going to destroy ourselves so he sees whether it's global whether it's climate change or whether it's something else he sees us destroying the natural infrastructure human beings need in order to survive and he can't imagine a solving those problems because of his cynical view of man and because of his cynical view of capitalism second he worries about a ability to genetically engineer he worries in particular about our ability to combine computer with mankind and therefore to have the authoritarians be able to control our minds he's generally generally very very worried about authoritarianism while still mildly seemingly admiring Lenin and Stalin because he worries about control he worries about absolute control he worries right now about China because what really scares him about China is the combination of authoritarianism and capitalism because he admits that capitalism creates the goods and yet China's managed to create the goods and be authoritarian at the same time and that's a very scary combination the the good thing about the Soviet Union is their authoritarianism destroyed their capacity to create the goods and therefore they were poor and therefore they would destroy it what destroys China what brings down this new form of authoritarianism now I think all of that is a lack of understanding what's really going on in China which is that it is the absence of authoritarianism in particular realms of life which creates the space for capitalist innovation and capitalist creativity and wealth creation to occur entrepreneurship and as the authoritarian state in China tries to do social scoring and tries to regulate every aspect of human life as it becomes more totalitarian again as it was under communism under Mao that ability to create wealth will go away that is the wealth creation in China was created in the spaces left free of authoritarianism that the Chinese government allowed to exist and that's one of the difference between China post Mao China before Mao China and and the and the Soviet Union is the Soviet Union did not allow those spaces to exist Mao did not allow those spaces to exist quite the contrary they crushed those spaces they destroyed those spaces they did not allow any form of individual freedom to exist that that is not what happened in China over the last 40 years now so certainly from 1978 on now it's true that over the last few years authoritarianism is being reinstituted in China but slowly cautiously because they realize they're playing a dangerous game and we will see what its ultimate outcome is but already you're seeing significant reductions in economic growth in China and I think it's a direct consequence of the increase of authoritarianism in China so I think it's physics complete lack of understanding what capitalism is complete lack of understanding of how capitalism functions that that causes this other interesting thing about Zizek and here he is he's I think he's more of a Marxist than he will acknowledge as Zizek is not interested like Jordan Jordan is interested in some degree in individual redemption in in individual success and in individual being able to be successful in some aspect of their life Zizek rejects that Zizek reviews everything as social so even in the debate with with Peterson Peterson was talking about you know individual actualization or whatever and Zizek says well but you can't actualize yourself in the kind of society we live in what matters is the social context it's all about society so in a sense Zizek excuses any individual problem you might have as caused purely by these social issues and until you solve the social issues individual redemption or individual success or individual happiness is impossible so here's amazingly pessimistic which which fits I think the I think fits the attitude of young people today the world is going to end and they love that and and he's not offering a utopia to replace it what he's offering is to embrace the fact that the world is going to end and relish it and hope that what happens on the other side of it is somehow better than what we have today and it almost according to him has to be better than what we have today because what we have today is awful both spiritually and in a sense materially because we are so materialistic we're so consumer driven we're so obsessed with our work he never uses the kind of Marxist term alienation though I haven't never is I shouldn't say never because there's thousands of hours of him online and I've only listened to some anyway so I think he appeals to the pessimism of young people today he also appeals to this idea that it's not about fixing yourself it's about fixing the world and you know that's an interesting question right I mean this is what is more important to a young person fixing themselves are fixing the world right now as objectives we would say the only way to fix the world is to fix yourself first right you have to first but what interests people who are young I mean what interests young people you know 16 to 25 what interests them more self-help happiness being good people or achieving self-fulfillment in some way or fixing the world and we're talking about I'm talking here about people who are intellectually active people who are questioning and looking and seeking and and being out there right I'm not talking about the ones who just want to get a job or the ones who just want to get an engineer who wound up understand the world and you know just be engineers or something and it's an interesting debate because it's actually a debate that is going on I think within objectivism it's what appeal would work more with young people this is how objectivism can help you be happy or this is how object isn't can fix the world now in a sense Jordan Peterson is appealing to this is how philosophy can in a sense make you a better person he's not using the happiness word but make you a better person I think Zizek is much more appealing to this is how my ideas can help fix the world or at least change the world that destroy the world which is horrible which is destroying is fixing is better better and I don't know I mean it's an interesting question where the where there's a bigger desire I mean I happen to be in in the in the camp that believes that young people are primarily focused out there and less introspective and they primarily focus is wanting to I mean again young people who are active now maybe that's a self-selecting already bias they want to go out and fix the world they're upset about injustices out there in the world or perceived injustice and they understand that they're quite politically oriented politically active so you've got to offer them so you know if I do a talk and maybe it's just because it's me but if I do a talk on here's how to be here's how to find purpose in life or meaning in life or if I try to do what Jordan Peterson does or if I do a talk on here's the evils of socialism the one on socialism will get a lot more views than the one on trying to better yourself now I don't know what you know which appeal appeals to more people I just don't know I you know it just seems to me from what I've seen is that peer the appeal to changing the world is bigger than the appeal to changing yourself because you know when when do people stop buying self help books when do people get engaged in the process of self help of buying all those books of attending seminars and figuring out how to achieve happiness it's usually later in life it's not people in their 20s it's usually in their 30s or 40s it's usually kind of a pre or during midlife crisis type of phenomena I don't think self help books sell for 20 year olds I think they sell for much older people I think that realization that we should be more conscious of what we're doing who we are and how we can shape our own consciousness our lives in the world in which we live in today that comes later I think the first thing young people want to do is they want to shape the world out there and and the idea that they can shape their own world the way they should engage with themselves and therefore with the world that's that's tough for them that's difficult for them it's difficult so it strikes me that self-hopka anyway I'm rambling now I'm doing as I'm doing a what I criticized others for doing all right so that to me is is zizik I mean there's tons to talk about I mean one of the things I talked about this early one of things that he shares with Jordan is the lack of clarity and of course there are all kinds of issues about the specifics how he holds specific issues in politics his criticisms of Trump and and in his criticisms of the European of Europe and nationalism and populism and all of that and some of those I agree with him on some of them are complete nonsense I think it's another interesting character out there an intellectual space and what's interesting is how do we appeal how do we go how do we appeal to the kind of people who zizik and Peterson appeal to or of course those are different people the people zizik appeals to the people although I think there's some overlap there more than maybe either one of them would like to admit and in the debate you saw that there was a lot of commonality okay I'm getting a lot of super chat questions and I'm falling behind my friend take over you go to gulag