“We don't really want to get what we think that we want. I am married to a wife and relationship with her are cold and I have a mistress. And all the time I dream oh my god if my wife were to disappear - I'm not a murderer but let us say- that it will open up a new life with the mistress.Then, for some reason, the wife goes away, you lose the mistress. You thought this is all I want, when you have it there, you turn out it was a much more complex situation. It was not to live with the mistress, but to keep her as a distance as on object of desire about which you dream. This is not an excessive example, I claim this is how things function. We don't really want what we think we desire” PeoplePhilosophyDesireMarriage Author:Slavoj Žižek
“I agree with Sophocles: the greatest luck is not to have been born - but, as the joke goes on, very few people succeed in it.” PeopleHas BeensBornGoes OnSucceedJokesAgreeLuck Author:Slavoj Žižek
“The horror of Communism, Stalinism, is not that bad people do bad things -- they always do. It's that good people do horrible things thinking they are doing something great.” PeopleThinkingHorrorHorribleCommunismBad ThingsGood PeopleBad PeopleHorrible ThingsStalinism Author:Slavoj Žižek
“My big fear is that if I act the way I am, people will notice that there is nothing to see. So I have to be active all the time, covering up.” PeopleIfsWayBigsActiveCovering Author:Slavoj Žižek
“Friends told me that the latest trend, at least in Europe, is public sex. They showed me some clips, and they're terrifying. A couple enters a streetcar, half-full, simply takes a seat, undresses, and starts to do it. You can see from surprised faces that it's not staged. It's pure working-class suburb. But what's fascinating is that the people all look, and then they politely ignore it. The message is that even if you're together in public with people, it still counts as private space.” PeopleIfsLooksStillsTogetherFacesSexSpaceHalfClassCouplePureMessagesEuropeSeatsFascinatingTrendsWorking ClassSuburbsClipHalf FullLatest Trends Author:Slavoj Žižek
“With Lenin it was always a substantial commitment. I always have a certain admiration for people who are aware that somebody has to do the job. What I hate about these liberal, pseudo-left, beautiful soul academics is that they are doing what they are doing fully aware that somebody else will do the job for them.” PeopleSoulJobsBeautifulCertainHateLeftCommitmentI HateAdmirationPseudoBeautiful Soul Author:Slavoj Žižek
“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.” PeopleMenTogetherSpaceKingsDoctrineLiberalismModestyModestInitials Author:Slavoj Žižek
“This, then, is the truth of the discourse of universal human rights: the Wall separating those covered by the umbrella of Human Rights and those excluded from its protective cover. Any reference to universal human rights as an 'unfinished project' to be gradually extended to all people is here a vain ideological chimera - and, faced with this prospect, do we, in the West, have any right to condemn the excluded when they use any means, inclusive of terror, to fight their exclusion?” PeopleHumansMeanUseFightingRightsWallProjectsUniversalWestHuman RightsTerrorVainCoveredDiscourseProtectiveIdeologicalExclusionUnfinishedUmbrellaExcludedSeparatingChimera Book:Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates Source: Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates