Excerpt: "Slavoj Žižek joins Tavis Smiley for an extended conversation on what he says is the damage done to society by political correctness, his views on American culture, and the nation's role in global affairs."
Slavoj Zizek at his home in Lubljana. (photo: David Levene/Guardian UK)
07 December 15
This excerpt is from an extended interview with Slavoj Žižek by Tavis Smiley for the radio program The Tavis Smiley Show. It has been transcribed by RSN - JA/RSN 
lavoj Žižek has been described over the years as “the Elvis of cultural theory” and “the most dangerous philosopher in the West,” among other labels. He joins us for an extended conversation on what he says is the damage done to society by political correctness, his views on American culture and the nation’s role in global affairs.
Tavis Smiley: The leading news story in our country right now - this prevalence of gun violence. And because your perspective is different, living in a different part of the world, I wonder what there is for us in the U.S. to learn from the world about the psychosis, the psychology of why we are so addicted to guns.
Slavoj Žižek: I don't know enough specifically about American culture to give you a good answer, but I would nonetheless tell you, don't blame yourself too much. Maybe, just maybe, that's my modest, optimist view, maybe this explosion of violence with guns that you get from time to time are collateral damage of some attitude towards freedom and so on, which is in itself not so bad. You know what I mean. I think that every civilization, if you look at it closely, has its dark side. And this is what in most of my book I'm trying to elaborate. In what sense, what appears to you as an unnecessary prohibited transgression and so on, is really part of a culture. It's like my big experience, almost epiphany, was serving in the military. I'm a very disciplined man. I like order, things to work, and the big shock for me was the chaos, at least in Yugoslav army. All the nasty rituals and the written rules that you have to obey and so on and so on. So this may sound strange from someone like me who still considers himself some kind of a Marxist. But, I've always had a great admiration for the United States. I think what is at the bottom of all this is a key part of (let me use a bombastic term) American ideology, a certain idea of personal freedom as the foundation of it.
As a more old fashioned European, I think that you Americans sometimes tend to forget that yes, personal freedoms are wonderful thing - I do what ever I want, I walk wherever I want, I travel wherever I want... But in order for this to function, are we aware of what extremely complicated level of laws, customs, manners has to be here in order to enable this. I found two wonderful symptoms of where maybe you got it wrong. Maybe I'm crazy to mention them, but I think they tell something. When I enter an American hotel or any building, for you, first floor is what for us Europeans is a ground floor. For us, you climb to the first floor already. Maybe this is what is wrong with you. You don't see that in order to count one, two ... you need a ground. Ground would be precisely the network of social manners and so on. Another point that amuses me, I think you are too atheist a nation. What do I mean by this? I notice how in many hotels here, if they have more than fifteen, sixteen floors, you cheat (not you, but hotel managers, whatever) 13th floor doesn't exist. Twelve, and then thirteen is fourteen. But don't you believe in God! Whom are you cheating? God knows that fourteen is really thirteen. You see what I mean? What in Europe, in an old-fashioned way we call a common ethical substance, the field of values, manners and so on... Maybe you underestimate a little bit the weight of this. Maybe you accentuate in a wrong way the radical untouchable character of personal freedom. Now again, individual freedom. Now again, I have nothing against it. What I am saying is only that brought to the end, this attitude is self destructive because to much individual freedom destroys (not socially) but destroys human freedom itself.
Tavis Smiley: I hear your point and I take that [...] but, if you write about the fact that the collateral damage of personal freedom might be these incidences of gun violence that happen too often [...] Why does that happen just in this country? This isn't the only country in the world where people have individual ...
