Chapo Trap House - 582 - Heaven: Out of Order feat. Slavoj Žižek (12/6/21)

Episode Date: December 7, 2021

Friend of the show Slavoj Žižek stops by to discuss new political implications of the pandemic, advocate for conservative communism, praise Matt’s call for a new carnation revolution, and review Squid Game. Žižek’s new book, Heaven in Disorder, is out now: https://www.orbooks.com/catalog/heaven-in-disorder/ Few tickets remain to our show this Wednesday in Buffalo, NY: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chapo-trap-house-tickets-201713088277 Ticket presales for our Southern Tour will be up on patreon.com/chapotraphouse 12/7 @ 10 am, then available to the general public Friday, 12/10 @ 10 am.

Folks, we are doing what they, and by they, I mean, we said we would never do. That's right. We're going to do what they say can't be done. What we said we wouldn't do and that they said we couldn't do. That's right. We're officially announcing dates for the Chapo Trap House tour of the South. Insert banjo music here. That's right.

all our boys and girls in the South, we're coming. We're coming next year. Chris, should we roll down the dates and cities? Yes, we've got seven dates for you. Starting Tuesday, February 24th. It says Thursday, February 24th. God damn it. Thursday, February 24th, Charlotte, North Carolina at the Underground.

Sunday, February 27th in Atlanta at Buckhead Theater. Thursday, March 3rd in Nashville, Tennessee at the basement east. Friday, March 18th in Dallas at the Echo Lounge and Music Hall. Then Tuesday, March 22nd at Houston, the White Oak Music Hall. And rounding it out Thursday, March 24th in Nalens at the Civic Theater. That's right. Chappo is doing the South. We will also have a date in Austin sometime between March 13th and 16th.

That will be announced soon, so if you're in Austin, keep those dates open. Pre-sale for these shows will start tomorrow, December 7th, at 10 a.m. For Patreon subscribers only, I will be posting a promo code to Patreon that you can use to get pre-sale tickets. Regular sale for all of these. For the general public, we'll go on sale this Friday at 10 a.m. So if you're a Patreon, subscriber, go check out Patreon. There will be a code there for you. you to buy all these tickets beforehand, and then regular sale starts this Friday at 10 a.m.

I cannot stress it enough. They said it would never happen. They said three guys from, let's run it down, Manhattan, New York City, Hyde Park, Chicago, Illinois, Manitouac, Wisconsin, just three of the most northern boys on the planet, that's right, we're crossing over. I cannot wait for all of the hijinks, culture clashes, and comedic opportunities. abound on our tour of the American South and Texas. So get your tickets for those and a few tickets left as well for our show in Buffalo in just two days on Wednesday, December 8th.

We'll put the link to those tickets in the episode description. But otherwise, we'll see you in the South in February and March. Cheers. Because I'm in a bad mood here in Slovenia, it's a total speed. Numbers, we are dead, not even dark red. Black zone now. Slovenia, Austria, central Europe,

central eastern Europe is the worst area in the world now. No, no. The sad thing is that people are in a strange, depressive, apathetic, indifference. They don't care.

Life goes on, you know. We are beyond fear and anxiety and all that stuff. You were just talking about how, you know, Slovenia, Central Europe is the worst place in the world because people are just sort of depressed or whatever. But I just want to get into something you wrote about at least as it regards one of the current cascading catastrophes

roiling the world. You've read about this state, and it's something that I've certainly felt right now about the COVID, like the COVID passing from a state of fear into depression, especially post-vaccine. And it's this realized that like realization that people aren't afraid so much anymore of dying of COVID, but there are deeply depressed because it's this feeling that like there is no going back

to normal. And I guess that's, I just want to start with that. Like, this transition from fear into depression. Yes. First, I must say, I must praise myself a little bit. I must say that I said this two years ago at the beginning. Okay. It was a risky thing to say that there will not be a return to normal as we know it. And maybe. If you allow me to improvise a little bit on my favorite point, which is how you can measure the growth of this depression in different time units. Do you remember, if you still remember, a little bit less than two years ago, the first wave, the unit was two weeks? At the beginning, February, March, we will tell even your legendary Dr. Fauci, that just suffer, it will be back for two weeks, be paid.

And I remember he said, April will already be yours. It will be better, three and so on, just two weeks. Then in the summer, it became half a year, six months. Then in winter, it became two years, like three waves and so on and so on, And now nobody even talks about it. Nobody wants to predict it and so on and so on. But what worries me even more than this psychic consequence in the sense of depression and so on and so on is maybe we can talk about these two, three other points. The first is, and my good friend Janis Varofakis, the economist who was the minister of,

finance in the Kira government. How? I am not an anti-vexer. Absolutely not. But I still think that we have here a model how, let's call it, the system, the establishment, used the pandemic, not just in this primitive way. You know, people usually mention two things. One is big pharmaceutical companies are behind it to profit.

No. I looked at the numbers. Profits at this level are not so tremendous. Second thing is how a big state agencies use these to enhance their control over us. This is also not a topic that's very important. And why? Let me mention you an example, which is very convincing for me. When anti-vexer said even, some of them even, like Georgia Agamben, the pandemic was basically invented,

or at least blown up, so that those in power digital company, state administration could enhance tremendously their control. I think this line of argumentation is catastrophically wrong. Why? Because first, are we aware that we. most of us at least in so-called developed countries. Here I include also China, of course, and Russia. They all, our countries have such an efficient, detailed system of control, not only all that we buy, what we read,

but what we do in our free time when you watch TV, when you use things. We are already so controlled that the new control, control measures, especially digital one, applied by in the course of the campaign against the pandemic, are relatively modest. The idea was to follow where we move and so on and so on. And if we follow this line of argument, we really serve the establishment. You know why? Because let me give you again, now I'm trying to improvise it, an extremely primitive example. Let's say that you are doing something horrible. It will be in my style a bad taste example.

Okay, me, why you? Me. I am a bad guy, which I'm not at least not at this level. I'm regularly beating my wife. Then once my wife eats something which almost chokes her, you know. And I, you know, one of the strategies you put your body forward, you beat of the person who is getting suffocated, you beat her on her back so that it comes out. So you catch me doing this and you attack me, that it wasn't really the fear of strangulation.

I just used this as an excuse to make her suffer. But this is a very unfortunate example, because for me it's difficult to say, no, I can prove it to you. I helped her, I saved her life. You see the parallel. We shouldn't attack the establishment at the level where it's even doing something which may be at least up to a certain level. So like, yeah, you know, like in this metaphor here,

they may be like abusing us regularly, but at this moment when we're choking to death and they do something that looks like similar to that abuse, you shouldn't attack them for performance. the Heimlich maneuver on you when you're choking, even if they've hit you, hit you in a face. Pick up an example where we are really abused totally,

where we are really controlled. Don't make it easy to them, you know. So let me finish this line. Recently, two other things are much more interesting for me. The first one is how the pandemic was used to, and we can return to it later if you want, the pandemic was used.

to make a passage in today's global capitalism much faster, the passage which is so radical, again, Varoufak is my friend, even claims, maybe he goes a little bit too far here, but basically I think he is right. And Jody Dean in the United States claims the same, that we are passing from what we call neoliberal capitalism rule of the market. And so, want to something called different names are used here. I will stick to, although I find this name problematic, the corporate neo-feudalism. The idea is that there is a new, let's call it class opposition. On the one hand, stronger, greater and greater number of precarious workers,

which is a wonderful way to exploit us, because you experience yourself as a freelancer, free small owner of a small business of yours. You are not directly subordinated to anyone. On the other hand, we are getting mega corporations, which I will not talk for too long. You find everything this in my book. This mega corporation are doing something

that was unimaginable for Marx. they privatized or are privatizing our commons. They don't privatize directly the products, but the very medium in which we communicate to exchange products. You use Bill Gates as the primary example of someone who like, he makes money not from creating Microsoft. Yeah, Bill Gates or Zuckerberg, Facebook, and so on and so on.

So I think I have to be. has to be more precise here, what the source of their extreme wealth is not the classical profit, it's rent. If we today are talking, we in different ways, I don't know how it works with Zoom, but with others and so on, they get a profit for this. They own the very common space within which we interact now. And now the catastrophe is this one, that this neo-seudalism of the new masters, and it's really, this shocks me too much how these figures are even in the big media,

more and more accepted as our feudal lords, but in a very traditional way that they are presented even as wise men, advising cascal. For example, I was shocked when recently Bill Gates

said, you know, we will have to organize differently our pharmaceutical companies so that

everybody, even in the third world will be vaccinated, blah, blah, blah, blah.

My shock is, wait a minute, what does this guy know? He is not a medical specialist.

He is not an epidemiologist. You know? Or even we all, or with other economic. So these guys really function like this new wise persons. And you know who is much worse than Bill Gates, for me at least.

Did you all, you William Matt, but also our public, I hope it's worth listening to. I am doubtful about death penalty. But in this case, I said, my God, maybe death penalty should be used. Mark Zuckerberg presentation of. of his meta. Oh, yeah, we, yes, the metaverse is, oh man, we had a whole episode about the metaverse.

Yeah, isn't this a kind of a feudal manifesto? Slavlo, did you know that? He is literally offering us an artificial digital space, which, within which we will fluently communicate and so on and so on, within which our actual differences will be somehow obliterated in this space freedom, but a space which will be controlled, regulated by him. This is, again, the biggest neo-theud manifesto. I was wondering, did you see the article in the New York Times the other week

about how basically real estate speculators are already buying property in the metaverse, like entirely imaginary digital property or they're buying up like you know location location location but in a completely imaginary digital world that's owned and created by Mark Zuckerberg. Yeah but what I like here is that it's a little bit similar I know the analogy is too vague but it's similar for me to crypto coins and the world.

You know you thought there is one medium of payment for one common space controlled by state and so on. Now we get multiple commons and so on and so on. And I think that this multiple commons also make open up the space of new, that's the other side of this neo-feudalism, of new tribal communities. Like I think, that's why I will say now something horrible to provoke,

maybe even you, but definitely our listeners. I am as an old-fashioned totalitarian. I think we will come to a point where we will regret the good old-fashioned, simple totalitarianism. I am for obligatory vaccination. Because the big wife, I remember even a relatively undeveloped,

but well-organized till the chaos of last two decades, country like Yugoslavia. We have some epidemics, one of these old-fashioned once, even forgot for which illness. And you know, the state was well organized. They mobilized all the doctors,

army doctors, and so on, in a totally apolitical way. None of these political debates, whatever ends. In a little bit over one week, the entire population, at that point 80 million was

vaccinated. No talk about the free choice and so on. Why is this important? It sounds non-democratic. But I think it's much more fair than what we are getting today. My country is here even, you know, sometimes in small, as your beloved ex-president would have put it in a small sheethole of a country in Pennsylvania. You get the case, the example in a much clearer way. On the one hand, those

the authorities want to get people vaccinated. But they don't want to make a step towards mandatory vaccination. So on the one hand they insist it's free. It's your disease. On the other

hand, they are piling up complications. practically it will be total lockdown for those who are not vaccinated, I see indeed the worst possible combination of state regulation and pseudo personal freedom. And in my country, again, I think about three weeks ago, an announcement from our Ministry of Health, even by a slip of of course, directly produce the truth. When they said it's obligatory for all pupils in elementary school to freely choose vaccination. They literally pronounce the formula.

I think it would have been much more liberating to deeply, again, to depoliticize this film. The horror is that this purely, it's not medical. I know all the economic background and so on. But isn't it horrible that this, at least in its form of appearance, medical emergency got caught into this neo-tribal debates of, you know, each group, its identity, I have my freedom, you have your freedom, and so on and so on. This is the worst combination of state authority with this fake individualism. This is one big problem for me.

And I think we are paying the price. So sorry, yes, you want to ask. I mean, how does this fit into your idea that you argue for in the new book of, you know, of calling for like a mobilization of a kind of like permanent wartime communism? Like what does that mean? And how does that finish? I will tell you. I will tell you.

Even now, take this please with a grain of salt, how do they say, you know? But even I did something horrible when I gave, I forgot to which country, although it was in English, an interview where they asked me, what do you think about this as a democratic socialist? And automatically, I couldn't control myself. I said, sorry, I'm not a democratic socialist. I'm a non-democratic communist. It didn't end well.

What I meant is this. Do you know Monty Python? Of course. The movie The Life of Brian. Classic. Do you know it's endlessly repeated even use in politics? That joke and some kind of a anti-Roman Palestinian liberation from. What are the Romans ever done for us outside the aqueducts?

And then at the end, the conclusion is they brought road, regular water supply, health, safety. and but basically nothing, you know. All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health, what has the Romans ever done for us? Brought peace? Oh, peace. Shut up! And so, I would say, do we want communism?

Absolutely not. Nothing with it. We just want global health care. some kind of social control over economy and so on and so on. And then basically we enumerate measures, which for me sound like already some kind of communism. By communism, I don't mean, don't be afraid. I try to be, that's the paradox I will use. Recently, I don't know if I use this in the book, not recently, so it must be one year ago,

a German conservative daily making an interview with me, ask me, in what sense, are you a communist? And I answered, I'm a moderately conservative communist, you know. And then they gave me a wonderful answer. They say, that's nice because we are moderately communist conservatives. My point is this one. I'm very sensitive to all of these personal freedoms, social solidarity and so on.

That's also why, if you ask China, what they are doing now, this new order imposed, although there are obviously some correct insights to help the poor, the impoverished, and so on, will not work. Because their ideal is that against this modern consumerism to return to forums of organic community, They use the term neoconservative, neoconservative solidarity. But the form in which they are doing it is a typically authoritarian state of emergence. You know, it will not work. But again, what I'm saying is just this. Look at what they are saying they were saying in Glasgow.

The big demands are clear. And especially the case of Omicron now made it clear my argument for what I call communism. First, specialists are confirming that new variants, the breeding ground for new variants, are countries where a little, very small percentage of, relatively small percentage of the population is vaccinated. Second thing, and we developed countries or the world totally failed in establishing even a basic mechanism of solidarity which would profit ourselves even. Not even in the long term, even in the short term to control as much as it is possible the pandemic. So this is first thing. there was no actual, although everybody was calling for worldwide vaccination, nothing was really done.

Second thing that I find really ethically terrified, do you know that in many developed countries, I don't know who it is in the United States, but I know this is the case in Europe, states were hoarding big amounts of vaccines. We don't know what to do with them. And now discreetly they're already doing it. States are destroying vaccine because their deadline date has passed. They can no longer be used. Nobody thought at least of giving them a little bit earlier quickly to non-developed countries. So no cooperation and so on, no global healthcare.

And we are now all paying the price for it. By communism, I mean simply theories of things like this. I'm not saying we should privatize. Sorry, we should nationalize things. No. For example, I would allow companies competition to produce. Otherwise, if state simply nationalizes health industry. I know this is then a ground.

It opens up a space. for immense corruption. But nonetheless, the state should set the standards in the sense of here is the money, we need vaccines and so on and so on. Now, we are making steps towards this. Just look what happened in the last two years. As again, Varoufakis pointed out

the whole logic of investment and so on, of market profitability was at some level abandoned. States printed money spent incredible amounts of it. But of course, then this money was diverted in another way. But it is as if there was a worldwide fear panic and ordinary, not only ordinary people, but even capital, even big capital, couldn't manage. the situation. Everybody, most of the people, expected the state to strongly intervene. And that's why I don't buy the story of this crisis was invented by big companies, by states. The moment of truth

was for me, I remember around a year ago in United Kingdom, in England, where Boris Johnson tried to, his government tried to postpone for as long as possible carers measures, lockdown of schools and so on. And it was the demand from below people, parents, teachers, who demanded stronger measures. So something happened, which was, I now use the formulation of my friend, I really appreciate him, Alvaro Garcia Linera. the ex-vice president of Bolivia, he's a great theorist also.

He said, are we aware what a strange thing happened with the pandemic? It was as if global capitalism organized its own general strike. Most of the production closed down, people were and so on and so on and so on. And then we all expected from the state, local communities and so on, to do something to make our life livable in ways which are not done with regard to the profitability. We were all in panic. So this, let's call it, this was the fact of a step towards communism. But now I know how the establishment tried to turn this around, how the money which was printed was used. I don't know.

In Europe, there is an incredible example described by Barufakis, how this money was used. Deutsche Bank gave Volkswagen a couple of billions of euros. to survive the crisis. And what Volkswagen did is it used this money to buy back its own stocks, which were not owned by Volkswagen itself, etc. This is a horrible story. But what is happening is that, like, it's no longer for me, so that I don't get lost, it's no longer for me just the choice, neoliberal capitalism or whatever we call,

call it socialism. No, liberal capitalism, that should be the lesson is already in the form that we all knew disappearing. And the real choice today is neo-feudalism, corporate rule, or something that I call common. Right. Well, I mean, like, you know, to one example of that, you're writing the book about, like, this sort of worst of all worlds that we find ourselves in in America and the West, in terms of like the way we have dealt with this crisis. You read about like, we all know that like these sort of half lockdowns that were imposed totally don't work. And then, but we also all agree that the economy in our country can't handle another even half lockdown or even a full lockdown, which would be like, you know, the stronger measure of what is necessary. But so if that's the case, like left unsaid in all this is the idea, well, if the economy can't take it, we need to change the economy.

Yeah, but this, again, I think that this process. precisely is the lesson of the continuing pandemic. Because after the first wave of lockdowns in the spring of 2020, a year and a half ago, it's obvious that the system as it is cannot sustain other strong lockdowns. And in some sense, we lost and we will be paying the price now. But I think the problem in this way, we call this elegantly to learn to live with COVID. You learn to live, people are dying and so on and so on. I think this in the long term will not be a solution.

Not only will the pandemic go on, but I think that it will get combined with new ecological forms of ecological crisis. it will be again and again a pressure. I know what's the temptation here. The temptation is to do it the Chinese way, in a strong authoritarian way. That's the Chinese dream. To allow even a strong amount of capitalism, but the state administration, the party,

there is a higher agency which controls it and so on and so on. I think this doesn't work because this, higher agency less what I in my philosophical mood call following Emmanuel Can the public use of reason. The space of

communication is closed, is controlled and so on and it doesn't work. But nonetheless, I am saying that this whole view of let's suffer for a year or two then things will return back to normal again. It doesn't work.

And back to my, another point that may interest our viewers, wouldn't you agree that also this is how we can explain the rise of conspiracy theory? Not only the old Marxist or liberal modes of cognitive mapping. By cognitive mapping, I mean we have a general view of history. We know there is progress. Like the last big liberal cognitive mapping was Fukuyama, the end of history. We are there. and it's just how slowly all will catch up with this. We have the communist cognitive mapping. Even that one, at least in its traditional form, no longer works.

Here I much prefer. I don't know who said this, St. Dris or Robespierre, one of my favorite Jacobins, who said that revolution is not, you follow a higher plan and then just gradually realize it. One of them said that a revolutionary leader is like a captain on a ship in wild, roaring sea without a compass, without orientation. We have to improvise, things will go wrong, we have to get used to this openness. And I think conspiracy theories are, as my good friend Alenka Zupanchich developed, are the close.

Moses, we can come today to theology. Nobody, or at least most of us, we don't believe in divine providence and so on, like, you know, the divine attitude is, sorry, the believers' attitude, religious attitude is, don't worry, these are problems, but there is an old guy up there. This old guy can also be called historical providence, direction of history. it will take us out. We no longer trust this. So the lesson of conspiracy theories is for me something like better an evil god than no god. Because it's the same as with anti-Semitism. I like this parallel.

Hitler, what did Hitler do in the late 20th early 30? Ordinary citizens were totally confused in Germany. No? What's happening? Strikes, moral decadence, hyperinflation, economic crisis. The world was falling apart. Hitler provided a simple answer. It's the Jews, the Jewish conspiracy. Isn't something similar that the anti-pandemic conspiracy theories are doing?

Isn't something similar to this? They provide a clear answer, although there are multiple versions. But the clear answer is there is a big conspiracy of state controlling agencies, secret services, big corporations, so on and so on. So to put it in a condensed way, better an evil god than no god. At least we know where history is moving. But I think what is behind this, now I will say, I wonder if you would agree, is something very, Naïel. Till now, okay, there was an earthquake here and there problems, but basically life went

on. At least we in the West experienced catastrophes as something, boom, it happens, then we have mourning, it's horrible, but somehow we had this trust in daily life, which somehow goes on. And with the pandemic, and it will get even stronger, I think. With global warming, we will really find ourselves in this radical uncertainty. And it will be a very concrete thing. I mean, for example, take, I don't know, take Seattle, although my favorite city on the upper west coast of the United States,

it's not Seattle, it's Portland. Why? Because they have the best book story in the United States, I think, but it's another story. What I'm saying is that, look, in the summer, you got almost 15 degrees Celsius heat, then you get tremendous floods now, and so on and so on. And these catastrophes are no longer exceptions which happen once in a lifetime. Like, I remember when there was, was it with floods now, it was with that, heat wave in southwest Canada, northwest, United States, when they said, this happens every 200 years. Yes, but now every year, something that should have happened every 200 years will be coming.

Now, I'm not saying the situation is lost. I'm saying we will have to reorganize our life. And again, I am not breaking for a Chinese way. There are other possibilities. I will give you, although usually in these days we only hear bad news, sorry, bad things about Modi and India, and I'm very opposed to it. But look how combining vaccination with local measures, self-mobilization of people, how well India dealt with the pandemic. When was it half a year ago? when it exploded in India, we thought, oh, that will be the big catastrophe. No, now there are, I don't know, 5 to 10,000 cases a day.

It can be done. Just think about how, I'll put it this way. That's my message to some conservatives, maybe they're listening to us. That was the point of my Monty Python job. Please think as an anti-communist. And you will end up on my side. You know, the German and French philosophers have a wonderful way that when you, precisely when you try to repel the truth, you unknowingly embrace it.

It's the same as, sorry, if I'm jumping, a wonderful detail that I remember I read about the end of civil war, Lincoln versus Confederacy in the United States. United States. You know what the South had to do to survive in the last year of the war? They tried to mobilize black slaves as soldiers. They offered them freedom and so on just to fight for them. They had, because they lacked industry, armaments and so on, they have to socialize whatever little industry they had and so on and so on. That's what we be. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. That's my totally crazy, optimistic wager. Precisely when we think how to do it without falling into the Chinese way of authoritarian order,

if we want to be anti-communist in this way, no, I don't want that. That's maybe the only chance today to slowly arrive at a more open type of communism. Because by communism, I mean again, we have to have global health coordination. Soon, we will have to have global food coordination. It's clear that things are, for example, I already read it's not yet felt, but because of the drought and floods in Brazil and main coffee producing countries. Everybody knows there will be a crisis in soy, in coffee and so on and so on. It can be done, and I'm not talking about some stupid,

government, no, that would have been a breeding ground for incredible corruption, but cooperation, cooperation, global cooperation, because there will be millions of new refugees, how to avoid wars. But the lesson we have to take is what happened in Glasgow now. It was a model of how, what they were saying, all the idiots there from Prince Charles down, It's basically true. We have only this earth, we have to do something. But the way they put it was precisely to make it sure with no precise obligations and so on,

that nothing really will happen. And that's the perversity. Would you agree of the situation today, you try to sabotage truth, by truth, I mean, what we really need to do precisely by. talking about it all the time. In a new text of mine, I quote again my favorite text by, it's George Orwell, who said in a wonderful text from 37 that he knew where we are today. It is as if he is writing about liberal, leftist, politically correct ones, and so on,

that progressive intellectuals talk all the time about the need. to change. But they talk in such a way that it really means let's talk all the time about it to make it sure that nothing will really change. If I could just go back for a second to somebody who's talking earlier about conspiracy theories and anti-Semitism. And I want to talk about like the sections of the book where you talk about what happened to like Corbyn's expulsion from the Labour Party in the UK over allegations. Not only but you know what's the Madness. Sorry to drop you.

Now immediately. Alec, what happened to Corbyn? I don't agree. I support, as it's clear, for my book, fully Corbyn. But I can understand it as this revenge of Blair-Centrist, Labour Party against the left. But you know what's so horrible? Here you get this surplus revenge. They threw out also can loads.

A movie director who was just solidarity with the Labour Party that was not necessary. He was just helping them. He wasn't in any way active and so on. And this is what I find today. This unnecessary access. You know, in the old days it was

we have different streams in the Labour Party and so on. One wins, the other wins. Now the conflicts are going. getting much harsher, and I can understand why. Because the only true difference in the United Kingdom is within Labour Party, Kier Starrb versus the left. Here Starm and Johnson and Boris Johnson, these are small differences, accents are different and so on and so on.

And what worries me is, but you should teach me here, tell me, What's the situation in the United States? Because I, on the one hand, I'm very pragmatic. Although I was, and in the book you still have this very critical of Biden, but some of his measures are already, let me put it like this, transcapital. I don't buy the idea of some of my radical leftist friends, no, this is just a trick to keep capitalism alive. The trillions of dollars that Biden wants to spend on, this is already a kind of a trans-market

social intervention. But the true tragedy is another one, if I may improvise a little bit. I find this the danger. You know, we in Slovenia, we have a saying, when the devil has young children, he usually have a lot of them at the same time. Not one but many. So combined with global warming pandemic and so on, we have now, I think, a real threat of war. People think it will be local, but you don't know how it can explode.

I think that, and let me tell you, I'm not here simply anti-China and Russia. But I see, first, I have friends in China who are now scared like cheat. They are afraid to email me from there. If somebody goes to another country where probably Chinese authorities don't control, they are telling me that all the signs, and there are too many signs to dismiss them as contingent. All the signs are pointing that China is getting ready for military action to liberate, occupy, use your term, Taiwan. First thing, I like in a Freudian way this small details.

It tells a lot. Do you know that China just this year produced, I mean produced. It was already shown in movie theaters. They're biggest. Oh, they're big of the Battle of the... The Battle at the Lake Shosen, the Korean War Battle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's, although it wasn't quite a spontaneous big hit,

but it is immensely popular. And the message that all my friends read into it is that it's not about a revolutionary fight, war, to liberate, China. It's about foreign intervention, you know. Right. Chinese army to say goes out to safe North Korea. Second thing, friends are telling me, it's this immense wave of new patriotism in China, this anti-West stance. At the same time, combine this patriotism with again a shift of China towards nation state. Till now, China was very

proud, I spoke with many people there, to point out, don't apply to us the Western notion of nation state. We are just a large shared civilization, but we don't have this homogeneity. Now

they're getting it. For example, I learned that even in all those parts from Tibet to how is that part called, I forget the name, where Uyghurs live, Muslims, Khan is taught in schools as the first language. They try to unify the country. It's a move toward nation state.

Then I know a very good Slovene journalist who was for years in China, and even now, she, an old lady, follows Chinese military journals, not the secret ones, but you know, they have one or two big representative military journals where it's meant for the public, although for a narrow public, where they present strategic thinking and so on. And already for more than 10 years, he told, the fear of the Chinese military theories is this one, that United States and other Western countries wisely always engaged in small wars, small, for 10, like Afghanistan, Iraq and so on, to keep their army battle ready. You have to test your armed forces in real conflict, even if it's a limited one. And they worry the Chinese strategist that the last real conflict, small one they had was this was already 30, 40 years ago, 30.

You remember when as a punishment for, in. invading Campucia, then Xioping ordered an operation occupying part of northern Vietnam. And then they immediately withdrew. It was a scandalous failure. But they claim we need to test our country. If you combine this with all the worrying science about, again, Taiwan and so on. And now I don't know what is true, But wait a minute.

I'm not now buying the Western story, because I will tell you immediately also the other side. If you combine this with new tensions in Ukraine, between Russia and Ukraine, there are many signs pointing in the direction that these two superpowers, Russia, China, are planning simultaneous attack. They count that the West is so tired in its liberalism,

and so on, peaceful multiculturalism, that they will not risk a global war. Now you will say I'm dreaming. Oh, I will tell you another nice story that a friend of mine who lives in the West, that is Chinese citizen, read there and it was also in our media. Something very mysterious happened. About two months ago, you must have read it in your media. Chinese authorities advised people, ordinary people, families, to gather food supplies for at least a month or two. Now, they didn't give a reason.

Maybe it was just they feared some ecological breakdown, weather, drought or whatever. But it sounded also like get ready for a possible war. Because the irony is that this friend of mine told me that another friend of him just wanted to do a report in the media about this and started to ask politicians, you know, what is the sense of this measure? Why should people court buy get supplies? The guy disappeared. But now the other side of the story, it's not that we in the West are weak, liberty. and so on and these evil countries are just collecting to attack us. You know, another thing, here again, Varusakis and some other economists warns me.

Very worrying. Let's face it. And it's not bad. This is, though I will sound like you as propagandist, great American creativity, you, the United States, more or less dominate digital software and. hardware, hardware and software. You know, you do the great digital project and so on, all that. It's yours.

You have only one serious competition, China. That's why such an accent on against Huawei and so on, they will control us, listen to us, and so on, it's really a battle for monopoly. And that's why, did you notice how, although there was, a big change, big, I don't know how big, also in foreign politics from Trump to Biden, but this obsession with China, trade war with China, remained, if anything, it got a little bit worse even with Biden. Here, I think the United States are guilty and I understand a little bit

the Chinese paranoia. As for Soviet Union and Ukraine, I also think that it's not as clear as it may appear. The people say, yes, Russia broke the rule

because when Soviet Union fell apart, there was an explicit deal, which is that, between at that point, Yelchin and the West, which was Russia should retain all nuclear weapons, but it should unconditionally recognize all borders with other republics, especially

Ukraine as they are. So they claim Putin violated this. Yes, but the other part of this agreement was that no ex-Soviet republics will join NATO. And there also the West broke the promise. So, you know, it's as if secretly both types are getting ready for this conflict. And this is what, again, makes me a pessimist. I talk too much, please. If I could be sort of an American chauvinist and refocus here at home in America. And you've written in this book and before that the true postmodernists in present culture are conservatives. And I want to talk about that in the context of the...

The January 6th Capitol Riot, you describe it as sort of a carnival, a farce, but like, isn't it also like a kind of expression of a postmodern conservative? And I mean, like, you use the example of the Q&ONM, the guy with the Viking hat, which is like not, which is a product of a 19th century romantic imagination about who the Vikings were. But as part of this spectacle of, they showed up to the Capitol and then like, you know, looked around and then went home. Like how do you see like the January 6th riot and like the reactions to it as like a indicative? You know, now I try to develop.

I think there is some sub chapter maybe in the book where I go into it. That's why I think that I'm not saying that Trump is good, both good or better than fascists, but that he is still not the old way fascists. all the way fascists really want to abolish even the form of democracy, they have a program. I think that Trump's strategy is to remain within what is formally a democratic space, and that's the postmodern feature. But at the same time, profit from accusing the deep state or whatever that it's a false democracy, controlled by hidden elites and so on and so on.

That's for me the logic of populism. Populism in this sense is not fascism. Fascists simply want power, full power. They really want to abolish democracy. What Trump and this new rights want is this, call it, democracy which loses its legitimacy, but still remains as an empty form. That's why, and here enters post-modernizing.

I think I used in the book a couple of examples. For example, this is, again, the moment of truth, like the one I mentioned in Slovenia, when a government representative said, it's obligatory that all pupils in a school do voluntary voluntary facilitation. Do you remember one of those propagandists, A lady, senator,

vernalist, doesn't matter. I quote the example, for Trump, celebrated the Congress riot. And then, you know, when he was put to court, you know what was her defense?

What? Isn't it clear that what I said was so crazy that it couldn't have been true? Oh, this is, I think, the lawyers, was so like, like, how, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You see, this is, for me, typical post-modern politics. It's not, but it's wrong to say it doesn't matter since they don't think, take it truthfully. No, even if you, that's the lesson to be learned from this. Even if you consciously lie, lies become a material reality. They have a certain efficiency. So I hear in this sense, an obscenity, again, a moderately conservative communist. I think that we should abandon this liberal left-marginalist stance, you know.

So what we should do, now comes my conservative communism, is to take from the right the motive. Don't be afraid of the majority of ordinary people. Many of them are just confused. but they are basically honest people and so on. We should trust them or to use my provocative formula, which I regularly use. Our message should be, and Bernie Sanders knew how to play this game. Our message should be, we are the true moral majority.

If you mention to a liberal leftist moral majority, but what about the minorities, they immediately think about some crazy concerns. No, they are the crazy minority. They are the attention. We shouldn't be afraid to go this way. Well, you also write in the book about this, this ongoing deadlock and you described this, the conflict between AOC and her, like, you know,

a qualified support for Joe Biden and what his administration is trying to do. Yeah. And it's sort of like radical, the Democratic socialists who are, you know, saying that, you know, she's selling out by, like, propping up this, you know, like awful capitalist government or whatever. And this deadlock over like race first class and like these these things that are just seemingly

continue to be unresolved in like American democratic socialism or whatever you want to call it. But I mean like you take the position that basically both sides are wrong, but they are each right about the other. Yeah, that's my Stalinist president. of Strait-Let because I think that strategically, in that, no, sorry, tactically, in that at that precise point, I think ALC was right that this mega-financial measures, spending trillions on new investments, ecology, and so on, we have to support here, Biden, especially since it's a question how much it was even Biden, to what extent it was. Janet Yellen and some others.

But at the same time, we should keep a critical distance. Our stance should be, okay, we support you here, but let's see will you really do it? But where I don't agree with so-called leftist radicals, it's this comfortable position, you know. We are waiting for an authentic change. Well, sorry, if you wait for it, it will never come. You will end up with, like that, how is he called? Bob Avakian or what? You remember that small community working.

No, we should shamelessly use all means, invest, engage ourselves, even if we know that probably they will fail. don't wait for the right moment. The right moment arises only through failed attempt. For example, that I like, now it's fashionable to say among some radical leftists that occupy Wall Street was just a minority thing, a couple of upper middle class students and so on. It didn't have real popular support.

Well, maybe, and it disappeared. But I think it formed the fertile ground for Bernie Sanders and all those. You know, slowly, slowly things are changing. Like, although I have doubts about the term socialism, because, you know, it's such a vague term that once even who was it, Bill Gates or Elon Musk called himself a socialist. But it's a big progress for the United States that, Democratic socialism was nonetheless legitimized as a term in the mainstream discourse.

So slowly, slowly, what I would advise is this, a combination of patient approach with the urgency. Yes, the situation is urgent. Here I agree with the guy who was still now, now he's old and tired, attacking me, no, I'm Tomski. But I agree with him when he said, we don't have time to afford this slow approach, you know. Now it's not yet the time. Let's wait and so on and so on. If we just wait, it will be a horrible awakening that is ahead. And this is if you ask me my basic pessimism, unfortunately.

I first, what needs to be done, or what I ironically call war communism measures, we cannot afford this Marxist opportunism. We are following the loss of historical progress. No, it's against the spontaneous tendency. The spontaneous tendency is towards suicide, global, ecological and so on suicide. So, but it's not that we can. can have this trust in the future. It's voluntary isn't what we need today.

It's doing things which are not grounded in any deeper historical law. And what I am afraid is that we had a couple of half-awakening. Pandemic put forward this necessity of new modes of social solidarity and so on. global warming will lead to this, but obviously it was not enough. I think, unfortunately, what I'm afraid of is that, and don't be afraid, they will come much stronger catastrophic shocks. Well, we're running in time here. I have one more question for you, but before that, I just want to see if Matt,

please, I don't know. Remember, you are my censor. Matt, do you have any? questions or comments for Slavo here. I mean, if we're good, I'm just really curious if we're going to have a war between, I guess, China and the U.S., who do you got? Who do you put your money on? Who do you think will win?

I'm here. I must admit my limitation. I'm here. There are so many things that I don't know. I hope at least that maybe they are already. in advance making some secret negotiations and so on, you know. So I hope it will be, if it will happen, everything is possible. I don't want to laugh too much.

On the one hand, I don't think that the West will risk a total war, which is why even in reaction to this threat, Western powers, in some recent declaration, clearly talk about economic boycott, other defensive measures, but they don't talk about we will fully counter-attack militarily, you know. So what I would like to is not for this threat to give rise to Western militarism. I think the deepest answer to be the Such wars are madness because we should be all together in a much more urgent fight for ecology and so on and so on. And China is also becoming aware of it.

What is relatively good news from my friends in China is that the leadership, the new one, is taking very seriously now ecological threat. It's not a fake because they are, you know, we don't read all of it. Information are controlled from China, but do you know, for example, that the last year or so was catastrophic for Chinese agriculture? They had to import much more. They had drought, they had floods and so on and so on. It was a catastrophe. They are simply no longer self-sufficient. and they know they have to do it.

On the other hand, China is already, to such an extent, interconnected with other countries, for example, getting meat and especially soy from Argentina, although China's relations with Australia are now there, but China imports so much roasts, minerals, and so on from Australia. You know, China is just for the bear, survival at a certain level, much more dependent on import export than, for example, the United States. The United States would have survived with total isolation in a much easier, in a much

easier way. So I simply don't know enough. Is this a kind of a double-level game where secretly unknown to us, ordinary people, some basic rules are. already established or whatsoever. I just finally said that in a situation where we are at war with ourselves, at war of survival because of pandemic, ecological crisis and so on and so on, that at the same time, this very situation instead of, so we're in caste, my God, we don't have time for our stupid conflicts. What I would have be obsessed with these today is.

What if the desertification in some parts of the world is going on? On the other hand, because of global warming in Siberia now, enormous land will become de-frozen, fertile and so on. It's clearly that for all of us to survive. There will have to be tremendous exchanges of movements of millions, hundreds of millions of people. For example, the whole Middle East oil producing area, which means Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait, Southern Iraq and Iran, is now getting too hot even for ordinary people. I don't want them in subordinates, but local Arab people there.

It's simply too much. So what will happen? That's what I would be dealing with. But we don't know enough. I'm stupid, I don't know enough. And I would be very grateful for your critical reaction here. Do you have another idea? It may be a more paranoiac one.

Like those in power don't care about it and so on. They're ready to risk total war. It may be a meta-paranoiac theory that they're just trying to scare us. They're already secret, understand, secret facts and so on. I don't know enough. I'm really asking you here. It does feel like as crises metastasized that these forms, these nation states are going to start bumping up against each other in more and more violent ways, and that's going to have to be

a process somehow. I mean, if there is hope for American socialism, sometimes I think it really, our only real hope is some sort of free officers movement in the American military, because the U.S. military really is the only institution in America that has legitimacy and power. What do you mean free officers? I didn't get it. Oh, I'm just like a movement of like middle officers in the United States military,

deciding essentially to seize control of the American economic system in an emergency capacity rather than just allow liberal capitalism to produce itself into oblivion. This is a wonderful idea. I love you. You cannot even imagine

to what extent you start my deep totalitarian. But on the other hand, you know that this middle officers are very ambiguous creatures. I hope United States is an exception here. But in Chile, Pinotchette and the other, you have quite often the opposite situation.

Where top army is relatively enlightened, the meat officers can be new right, neo-fascist and the one. But this idea, yes, I immediately, because supported, you know why. because army nonetheless is not fully, even in reality, even if in reality, army is interconnected with economy, civil life. But nonetheless, you are at some kind of symbolic distance. You have a minimum of distance towards the madness of economic, political life.

You have a different type of safety, and that maybe enables it, my God, I will, use this. I have to write about it what you said. It's a wonderful theory of enlightened mid-level officers because somehow taking control, you know, like

severe good parents saying sorry, guys, you screwed it up, we will just chat some minimal standards and so on. And I don't care if this happens. Sometimes you

sometimes it has to be done and anybody who comes, I don't care who it is. I was always against this demonization of the army as if they are automatically fascists and so on and so on. There are progressive interventions of state forces, but I like your idea, especially for the obvious reason. that it will be so shocking for the white public. Like, you know, United States, the greatest democracy in the world of all times, only a military could attack and say it yourself. That's maybe precisely the situation, you know why, because, again, because of this neo-tribalism and so on,

what you already have in the United States, it's a de facto state of civil war, ideological for the time being, but who knows where it will go. And don't underestimate here the state power. It's very important now this Roy versus Wade abolition of move towards further limitations on abortion. But we in Europe are in a sad negative sense further than you. You know what Poland is now experiencing. a new wave of demand for total prohibition.

You know what's happening there? Till now, they had three exceptions. If it was rape, especially a family rape, if mother's life is in danger, so if you don't stop the pregnancy, she may die. Or if the baby is defected. It's clear that. it will be a birth of a death.

But now they won't, they already, I don't know which one, one of the three, I think this one that even if the pregnancy poses danger for the mother, it's already prohibited and, you know, they already had a couple of deaths. Yeah, so what I think is that in such a situation of total, almost civil war, There are two Americas, there are two Poland, there are, in the Western of Europe, it's not yet at that. It's still the populist neoconservatives are a little bit more limited. But in Hungary and so on. And you know what makes me really sad, as many intelligent observers notice, that this conflict between, how do we call them, neoconservative populist

and traditional liberals in power, it's basically a pseudo-conflict. We cannot simply take side there because, as we all know, some intelligent neo-conservative populists are assumed, included into their program, some measures which were traditionally left liberal measures. For example, as my friends from Poland explained to me, this horrible party, of a Kachinsky justice and law or whatever but do you know the day

race lower the retirement age made very good credit loans for students, better health care and so on and so on so we have always to reject this statistic fascination with my God

right-wing populism no they are the symptom of what the liberal mainstream was doing wrong, inclusive of political correctness, what they are doing wrong. We have always to be aware of this. And so the acts maybe can only come from somebody who is simply neutral, neutral, not really nobody is neutral, but in the formal sense of, because of their professional position, standing outside this direct conflict. And yes, Yes, frankly, I don't see any other force than the army here. It's horrible what we are saying today.

I hope we will be linked by all the leftists and so on, you know. But we're leaving terrible times and we have to be very. Do you make, you said this. Did you dare already to write somewhere about this? Uh-huh? Manasur and the Carnation Revolution in Portugal, you know, like that's a more realistic path than any kind of mass political path in the U.S. Very good idea, because you know why? I was in Portugal. I made some of them, and they are so, they were so deeply honest. I read in a bourgeois centrist media, an interview with all the surviving officers of this carnation.

revolution. They did try to push revolution a little bit further, but when it didn't go, they very honorably stepped back, not one case of corruption, they all now live retired lives. They did it. My God, they did it, you know, in a relatively honest way and so on. That's important what you say. they did it, not the political opposition. Well, I'm going to say both of you

and our listeners from going full Mishima here, you know, before Matt, you know, arms himself and forms a cadre to, you know, occupy West Point.

No, no, I want army. I don't want, we don't want a writer doing this. You want people already in the army. That was Mishima. That was his problem. No nerds. I don't know the sidelines.

I'm not doing it. But do you know, incidentally, if we are, I don't like Mishima as a writer, blah, blah, but do you know that many leftists in Japan like him and saw him as a kind of a model? Like he's doing right thing just in the wrong direction. Well, okay. So I'm going to save us from going down the Mishima route. So I'm just like, last thing I want to talk to you about is movies. And it's just simply what you've been watching, seen anything good lately. No, no, I'm getting bored.

Again, we are coming back to my totalitarian temptations. I liked, but it's not a mega movie, more because of this fake, sacred war, Islamist, almost fantasy. Doom. Yeah. I like Doom. Oh, you like June? Okay, I like Dude, too. I thought it was great.

Absolutely. People will tell me, but it's a kind of Islam of fascism, new leader. I told them, but that's why I like it. Good. Yes, yes. But the movie I hate, I read about it, is... Oh, is this Nomadland? Is that the way you critique that in the book?

No Man Land. And it's clear why. Yeah. Yes, because I think it's class identity politics. The message is each class, even the poorest nomadic proletarians. They have their own way of life. Sort of nice and earthy and sort of there's a beauty in it or whatever. Yeah, yeah. I must say I don't like that.

Yes. Otherwise, I watch more TV series. I don't know. I watch old movies and so on. What TV series? What TV shows are you watching? I have some problems with ice, nothing really great. For example, but it kind of disappeared.

It didn't do so well. You know, there was a TV series Clarice about Hannibal Lecter and so on. Oh, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, it's not, it's just, it's just see Clarice. it happens takes place after silence of the lens

I watched the first episode of it but I did not stick with it if you go on it's get even the beginning is not so good but what I like is that it is kind of

a leftist twist it moves that's what I like from this solo serial murderers to a big medical company making horrible experiments and so on

so on, the usual thing. The one I wrote about it also, I don't think it's in the book. My friends convinced me that it's my South Korean friends. You know that, how is it in your country squid game? It was a huge hit.

Yeah, but do you know that it is, first, it was greater hit in the West than in South Korea itself. Yeah, I was told. Second thing, be careful, it's not even perceived as anti-capitalist. And I know a guy who knows the creator of the series and compare this to me, because it's not like the message is not the one that was even, do you know, this taken over by North Korean media. You see, this is the real portray of South Korea. People have to get killed to survive, to get out of them.

So the obsession of the guy is he has nothing against the game as such. The point is that the game is twisted spin, you know, that it's not a fair game. Yeah, no, no, like the worst part of it is that like is that the people involved in the game are adulterating the purity of it by giving advantages to like, you know, one player to help them out in exchange for, you know, harvesting someone's organs or whatever. Yeah, yeah. So the desire beneath it is, the basic premise is, yes, life is too dull today, we need such violent games, but they should be fair just against, no cheating. So the whole direction is against cheating.

It's for honest capitalism. It's like this. It's totally false to perceive it as a radical critique of capitalism. In the same way as, you know, as I... Squid game, they just want to get rid of crony squid game. They just want the pure real squid game. Yeah, that's it. Yes.

You see, this is the big danger today of pseudo-antic capitalism. It pretends to be anti-capitalist, but if you look at it closely, you know. I'm not saying now there is another leftist paranoia to be avoided here. You know, the idiots think everything is already cooperated, there is no space. You just, no, it's not as simple as that. Just don't look at suburb, don't look for subversive elements in places which are the most obvious, you know. No, you have to find, yeah, you're more like going to find the actually subversive threads in, in media that is not, like, you know, openly right wing or like, like, just sort of jingoistic or stupid. I'm not afraid to say this.

Yes. For example, I was told by friends from Hong Kong, who are now not doing well, how you remember that, how was he called, my God, the great era of those Kung Fu movies, not Jet Li, who was the great one? No, no, no, he sold himself to the same establishment. Bruce Lee. Bruce Lee. But you know that in Eastern Asia there, this series. had a real anti-capitalist twist. The idea was we poor people, we don't have big armies and so on, we only have our bodies.

The only thing we can do is with disciplining our bodies and so on and so on. Don't underestimate the progressive background of this, whatever they will call, like Bruce Lee, Kung Fu Heroes and so on and so on. It's very interesting. So I am, and my big advice is, as you already said, don't be afraid to fully enjoy this dirty pleasure, you know. You like Kung Fu, no problem, enjoy it and so on. I'm always suspicious of this leftist puritanism, you know. That's why, on the other hand, I stopped watching it the last season.

That was my problem with, as I've written often. with especially more than the novel with the TV series handmade tale. Yeah, I did not like that show. It's so ambiguous because I think the ideal viewer is the one who under the pretext that, oh, it's a horrible portrait of patriarchal order, so let's, we enjoy it critically. But it allows you to fully enjoy it. see how kind of like secretly fun it would be to be enslaved in that manner.

Yeah, yeah. All my friends, even women, enjoy this, you know, how this new modes, how they screwed up women there, this obligation that they all enjoyed it secretly. And that one I don't like, I must say. Already in the novel, you know,

it was a sad till failure. I forgot what was the title of the part two novel? Oh, of the sequel that Margaret Hakel? Oh, man, I forget. I don't know. Yeah, it doesn't matter. But you see, you were right to forget it because it's over. Like, it disappeared.

It didn't succeed in finding a formula of how to destroy Gila. The failure of the novel is not just a narrative one. It demonstrates the lack of so-so-political even imagination, I would say. But you know where are my true loves in movies? I'm here for classical slapstick against the big catastrophe for me, for me, for me, shift this with actor's studio. You know, this psychological, Marlon Brando is a bad guy. Yeah, yeah.

With this. My ideal actor is Carrie Grant, if you ask, this totally artificial, non-expressive face and so on and so on, you know. So I think that all these slapstick comedies and so on, they are maybe a secret, secret treasure to be. If you watched Bringing Up Baby recently. Are you crazy? These are my eternal movie. The one I like, although it's based on a play, it's not original story, Argenic and the old places, in a purely formal way. I haven't seen a more nervous movie. Carragrant is fron, running around all the time, you know,

this pure hysterical nervousity and so on. So those are great movies if you are. All right. That's a movie mindset from Slavo Gijsac. I think we've got to end it there. Slavo, thank you so much for your time. I'm very grateful to help publicize the book because I am now so,

how do you survive? Like you are the leftists who are not political recollect by you, I mean trap or the left house. You must be also attacked from all sides, whatever. So somehow we get by. I don't know. I mean, like, you know, I'm God's most punished man,

but you know, I suffer for for everyone on their behalf. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, although I prefer slightly others to suffer for me. It's always, listen, I am really grateful that you gave me change. Thus, please, who is the master?

Not you met. You will, you're the master. Yes. Please do the proper censorship. I cannot but appear an idiot, but try to lower a little bit the level of my stupidity. I will do my best, Lava.

The book is Heaven in Disorder. I want to thank you again so much for spending some time with us. But you know, can I tell you something? There are my friends calling Robin's on Orr books, but a slight tab at them. didn't they exaggerate it a little bit with that Mao portrait of me in the cover? You know, I have nothing against this, but, you know, in this politically correct times where everything is taken literally. What I'm afraid is that some idiots will really mean, look, she thinks he's the new Mao.

You know, you never know when you will be taken seriously, no? Listen, I wish you all the best sincerely. I think you and a couple of other podcasts are literally, I mean, our only hope today. To debate crazy things like that, you know, the repetition of Portuguese, Portugal Revolution here. This is what can't call public use of reason. You don't care about institutional. background, how it will work. You just go to the end

in exploring crazy idea. That's the only thing that can say that. He said it, not me, but I agree. Ah, you will not do the usual trick claiming he said something, but basically you already said it better earlier and so on, you know. Okay.

Thanks very much. Thank you. I'm grateful.