We need a bigger crisis to change anything.

Kaja Puto: In your new book you describe the contemporary world as a perfect storm: wars, climate catastrophe, uncontrolled growth of inequalities, migrations, and political crises overlapping. When did this actually begin? In 2008 with the financial crisis? Or perhaps in 1989, when capitalism was without real competition?

Slavoj Žižek: The first clear sign of the end of this era for me was the September 11 attacks, when it became clear that liberal democracy with elements of the welfare state had not taken over the entire world, as predicted by Francis Fukuyama. But in a sense, you're right: it all started already in 1989–1990. The fall of real socialism also devastated Western social democracy.

German director Alexander Kluge once told me an anecdote about Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to Berlin. That supporter of the liberalization of the Soviet Union knocked on Willy Brandt’s door, a legend of German social democracy. He was not received. Brandt later said that Western social democracy only works when it has a dark, oppressive East. When the USSR existed, capitalism had to show that it could offer workers something more.

Let’s look at what’s happening today in the United States. Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or Zohran Mamdani are portrayed almost as communists. Yet their programs are much less radical than the social democratic programs of half a century ago. This tells us something. Neo-feudal capitalism has become so powerful, yet so fragile, that even moderate social democratic demands are treated as a mortal threat.

Some time ago, Sławek Sierakowski, your absent, retired monarch, visited me in Ljubljana. I asked him a simple question: “What are you fighting for? For a government that is a bit more leftist, or for something more?” He answered somewhat naively that we must keep doing our thing. That he’s waiting for some crisis, after which people will wake up and the right will lose. But I don’t believe in that great awakening.

Just like Sławek, you also believe that a proper crisis can change something.

I believe that when a disaster greater than COVID and forest fires combined comes, people will accept that something in the world needs to change to save it. The pandemic showed that even conservative politicians can, in extraordinary situations, implement almost communist measures. Trump was handing out checks to citizens, Boris Johnson intervened in the economy.

They also supported corporations. Meanwhile, you advocate for a system you call wartime communism.

The free market can exist, but it must be subordinated to restrictions. We need new taxes and regulations to limit the dominance of technobourgeoisie. Key resources – environment, energy, knowledge, technology – must become common goods. Politics should be subordinated to the shared goal of survival.

Today, I call myself a moderately conservative communist. Vladimir Lenin supposedly once said that a good trait of conservatives – but not reactionaries – is that when they do something, they immediately think about what will happen if everything goes wrong. And we can be sure it will go wrong.

This your “wartime communism” requires a very strong state. And at the same time, in the chapter dedicated to Julian Assange, you show why we should not trust the state and its secrets. How can we build a strong public organ that will not have greater power over citizens?

Democratic control by citizens over the state apparatus does not guarantee that power will not become corrupt and act in an authoritarian manner. As the aphorism attributed to Mark Twain goes: “If voting mattered, they wouldn’t let us do it.”

My absolute political idol is Saint-Just, an incorruptible hero of revolutionary terror. Why incorruptible? Because he risked his own life, fully aware that he would eventually lose his head on the guillotine. His terror was not directed against ordinary people, but against the political elite. Therefore, we need the threat of terror directed against the state apparatus – it’s the only way to minimize state corruption.

You probably idealize your idol a bit, but I can’t deny your rhetorical skill. I have one more problem with your vision. The right already exploits the current multi-crisis. It promises to break with existing rules, to revolutionize. How can the left make its radical change attractive, when the language of rebellion and change has been taken over by the right?

Donald Trump is the greatest contemporary Gramscist. He understood Antonio Gramsci’s lesson about hegemony. He took the real grievances of lower-wage workers and incorporated them into his narrative: big corporations along with migrants exploit ordinary people.

So, should the left adopt not its answers, but its ability to name problems?

Exactly. Take migration. The left’s response cannot simply be: open the borders, accept everyone. If that’s the only answer, sooner or later we will face a choice: dictatorship or elections won by the right. Meanwhile, migrants are drawn to Europe because capitalism in its current form needs them as cheap labor, because it fuels the climate catastrophe that destroys their homes. It’s the fault of global capitalism, not of migrants.

In 1968, the situation was the opposite of today. The authorities pretended to be worthy and decent, and we, the leftists, performed obscene gestures. Those times are over. Today, it’s the authorities that are obscene – just look at Trump. And we should stand for decency. Tell people: no, we do not want to destroy your habits or family values. It’s global capitalism doing that.

Ronald Reagan started a trend that destroyed gathering places in the United States. In small towns, there was a central square, diners, cafes where people met. Now all that has disappeared, first shopping malls appeared, then e-commerce. We need to tell people: do you want your way of life? We are on your side.

Contemporary leftists like big plans, and when they fail, they retreat to universities to write voluminous tomes about how evil imperialism is. We should be more pragmatic. Support local uprisings when they arise, form unlikely alliances – for example, with the Catholic Church, which in Western Europe and parts of South America, in some respects, e.g., resistance to global Darwinism, is now a progressive element.

Unlikely alliances are unacceptable to a large part of the contemporary left. I mean the woke left, which demands unanimity on issues of language, identity, and cultural norms. You criticize this way of thinking, as well as the so-called cancel culture, which involves ostracizing people who have violated leftist norms. So imagine a young philosophy student trying to cancel you for a sexist joke. What do you do? Try to convince her, apologize, ignore? In other words: what is a practical answer to woke and cancel culture?

Of course, I try to convince her. I try to show her that cancel culture is a line of defense for the establishment against genuine leftism. This phenomenon exists mainly in the United States, on campuses – and it has a clear class dimension.

My main problem with identity politics is that it does not build solidarity. Different minorities present themselves as the most oppressed, and then turn to society: it’s you who are responsible for our oppression. In a sense, yes, but what’s the point if this tactic is not about creating solidarity, but about guilt?

The language of describing discrimination against minority groups can be unbearably moralistic. I fight this myself in our pages. But that doesn’t mean discrimination isn’t a fact…

Of course not. But focusing on identity often goes hand in hand with denying the material dimension of exclusion. I was in Mexico when the first high-profile #MeToo phase was happening in the United States. Much attention was given then to well-off women who experienced sexual harassment from influential men capable of destroying their careers. And these Mexican women told me: “Well, that might be a problem too. But imagine another woman. She’s 35, has three children, no income of her own. Her husband doesn’t beat her, but he’s basically lost interest, spends evenings outside the home. She can’t leave because she has no means to support her children alone. Isn’t her situation a much more widespread problem?”

Fortunately, prominent leftist politicians – Mamdani and Ocasio-Cortez – ignore absurd debates about political correctness. They focus on material issues: public transport, lack of housing, healthcare. That’s a good strategy. Theoretically crazy people like me can criticize cancel culture. But in practice, it’s better to ignore it.

Who should be the subject of this revolution that will save us? Because it’s probably not the misunderstood Marxist class of workers, which is not a political subject today…

The global precariat class – people without stable income, social protections, or prospects for retirement. Globally, that’s most of the population. Many of these people are well-educated, but in today’s world, they cannot find work.

But is the Western left still a credible partner for the rest of the world? The West has repeatedly discredited its own universality.

And I believe in European universalism, especially without the US in the background. I have a problem with initiatives like BRICS. Their principle is: we cooperate economically, but what you do with your citizens is solely your business. China does not interfere in Taliban policies towards women, and the Taliban are not interested in what China does with the Uighurs. And I still naively believe in universal values: human rights, women’s rights, LGBT+ rights, access to education, the welfare state.

And do you consider these values exclusively European?

Of course, we can discuss how many of them, in their specific form, are historically Western. I am well aware of the crimes Europe has committed: colonization of India, Africa, Latin America, opium wars. I could talk about this for hours. But even the way we criticize European colonialism partly stems from European concepts: socialism and universal equality.

The most valuable legacy of the European Enlightenment is the break from the vision of a world where the entire universe is hierarchically and sexually pre-ordered. It is precisely in European modernity that modern feminism and LGBT+ rights could emerge. Feel free to call me an eurocentrist – I won’t change my mind.

Interestingly, today everyone declares that Europe is dead and irrelevant, yet everyone is obsessed with it. Trump says the real opponent is Europe. Putin also attacks it. Some leftists in Latin America and Africa also focus their criticism on Europe. Why, if it’s so insignificant?

The answer is: because the European legacy of universalism does not fit into the new world of local empires: the American, Russian, or Chinese spheres of influence.

Can the crisis-ridden European Union be a political carrier of this universalism?

Despite all its problems, I still believe in the European Union. It’s a unique case of a group of states that maintain their own cultures while agreeing on a certain set of freedoms and social rights. I don’t see a better alternative. It seems that for the world too, we are still attractive, as thousands of people try to get here.

As Europeans, we are extremely privileged: we live in countries that defend our right to rest, pleasure, and idleness. On the streets of European cities, it’s visible that we still know how to enjoy life. It’s completely different in Asia.

In China, there is a phenomenon called tang ping – young people find the most modest jobs that allow them to survive and withdraw from the pursuit of career, status, and constant productivity. Xi Jinping reportedly considered this phenomenon more dangerous than traditional opposition, because dissidents still want to actively participate in society and influence it. And these people simply say: I don’t want to play this game. The same is true in Japan and South Korea.

In your book, you describe the Ukrainian fight for independence as a model example of emancipatory and anti-imperialist struggle. At the same time, you write that supporting Ukraine cannot mean pretending that Ukrainian nationalism does not exist. We recently published in Krytyka Polityczna an interview with Ukrainian nationalism researcher Vyacheslav Lichaczow. He pointed out that the word “nationalism” has lost its negative connotations in Ukraine today: it mainly means the fight for independence, and the memory of Stepan Bandera and UPA has been incorporated into a new anti-imperialist identity. Russian propaganda further fuels this process – since the Kremlin calls Ukrainians Nazis, some people provocatively adopt such labels or aesthetics. How, in such circumstances, can we expect Ukrainians to renounce nationalism as Western Europe did after World War II?

That’s a serious problem. I try to convince my Ukrainian friends that playing the nationalist card risks gradually losing support in Western Europe. This also applies to military aid. We should already be asking ourselves what kind of country Ukraine will be when it survives. Every fight for independence is not only against the enemy.

I tell my Ukrainian friends: look at Europe. Nationalists are becoming stronger there, and everyone, as if in unison, opposes supporting Ukraine. They also want to destroy a united Europe. And if there’s a lesson to be learned from the war in Ukraine, it’s that Europe can only survive as a united whole. The worst scenario is that both Ukraine and the main European states shift towards sovereigntist nationalism.

If I were Ukrainian, I wouldn’t say: “boycott all Russian composers.” I would say: “People like Putin have no moral right to appropriate Tolstoy.”

But this boycott is not only about the “nationality” of that culture, but also its imperialist character…

Of course, you’re right. Dostoevsky already planted this myth that since Napoleon, Russia has been saving Europe. And many figures we associate with Russia – like Nikolai Gogol – were Ukrainians.

Besides, it’s hard to nuance your aversion to the enemy when you live in a constant sense of threat to life. When I am in Ukraine, I often feel animalistic hatred towards Russians. When I cross the Polish border – it disappears.

I understand all this. It does not change the fact that nationalist Ukraine cannot count on support from Europe in the long run. If Ukraine falls into this sovereigntist nationalism, it will become part of that Europe which does not want it.

But does this argument still have a chance to shake Ukrainian decision-makers in light of Ukraine’s recent military successes in Russia? I increasingly hear voices in Ukraine: we don’t need Europe because we are stronger, more capable, brave. And, to be honest, that’s not out of thin air…

I also admire Ukraine; they have achieved extraordinary things, faced Goliath. Innovations in drone technology, and so on. Such thinking can boost morale, but in the long run, Ukrainians without tactical nuclear weapons or a new offensive supported by Europe are doomed to defeat. Today, they dream of managing on their own. But look at their relations with Trump – you never know which way he will turn.

So I tell my friends: if you truly want a strong, independent Ukraine, don’t fall for these illusions. A great power like Russia becomes most dangerous precisely when it weakens and loses. Only a united Europe can save us all.

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Slavoj Žižek – Slovenian sociologist, philosopher, Marxist, psychoanalyst, and cultural critic. He is a professor at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Ljubljana, also teaches at the European Graduate School and American universities. His book Revolution at the Gates (2002), whose Polish edition titled Rewolucja u bramach was published by Krytyka Polityczna Publishing in 2006 (second edition, 2007), sparked the most prominent recent public debate about a foreign book published in Poland. He is also the author of In Defense of Lost Causes (2009), Fragile Absolute (2009), and From Tragedy to Farce (2011).

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