When I first use an example, I am usually too stupid to understand fully its implications - I am not yet at the level of this example. It’s only in the next book, or even later, when I return to the same example that I fully develop its potential.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058632400698331136 http://bit.ly/2G1kKF0

Fascism…obfuscates the real antagonisms which cut across our societies. Exactly the same holds for the figure of “fascist” in today’s liberal imagination: it enables people to obfuscate deadlocks which lie at the root of our crisis.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058617289426243584 http://bit.ly/2Uqyz2Y

The way to over­come an idea is to exemplify it,..an example never simply exemplifies a notion; it..tells..what is wrong with this notion… Stating it as a certain life practice…produces something more which undermines it,…minimally undermines what it is an example of.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058612253526814720 http://bit.ly/2DFN4dB

The obscenity of the situation is breath-taking: global capitalism is now presenting itself as the last protection against fascism, and if you try to point this out you are accused of complicity with fascism.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058603442313351169 http://bit.ly/2SdUIUG

Every minimal doubt and reserve is immediately proclaimed a sign of secret collaboration with fascism.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058600060185952256 http://bit.ly/2G97Q7p

What happens to democracy when the majority is inclined to vote for racist and sexist laws? I am not afraid to conclude: Emancipatory politics should not be bound a priori by formal-democratic procedures of legitimization.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058586021997264896 http://bit.ly/2G3Befe

All our attempts to generate new meanings are ..a longing to regain the lost ..Thing.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058584338734952448 http://bit.ly/2HuDkqv

hermeneutics, the Frankfurt School, deconstructionism…are clearly in some kind of a crisis and appear to have exhausted their possibilities

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058478954024198146 http://bit.ly/2UghrwD

Giorgio Agamben…defines twentieth-century contentration camps as the ‘truth’ of the entire Western political project.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058441244974690304 http://bit.ly/2MusuzC

The automatic dismissal of entertaining any thoughts outside the established postpolitical coordinates as “populist demagoguery” is hitherto the purest proof that we effectively live under a new Denkverbot.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058407203831533569 http://bit.ly/2U86NrZ

some of my readers, I know, get annoyed, that some of my books may appear repetitive. But this is not simple repetition; it is, rather, that I have to clarify, I have to make the point which I missed the first time.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058393339018522627 http://bit.ly/2FGqgwL

Far from expressing tasteless disrespect,..jokes are the only way to deal with the unbearably traumatic reality: they render quite adequately our helpless perplexity, belying all pathetic compassion with the victims as a truly tasteless blasphemy.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058380783726006272 http://bit.ly/2FKNroW

the most arrogant position is this apparent, multidisciplinary modesty of ‘what I am saying now is not unconditional, it is just a hypothesis’, and so on.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058366914081292289 http://bit.ly/2Hl3Brf

ironically, the rightist racist populism is [a sign] that “class struggle,” [is] far from..“obsolete”… The lesson the Left should learn from it is that one should…merely oppose populist..racism on behalf of multiculturalist openness, obliterating its displaced class content.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058356844320690177 http://bit.ly/2sCbnmE

‘I want to buy some land for a house close to Srebrenica - do you know what the prices are?’ 'Prices vary, they depend on what kind of land you want - with or without bones.’ …Such jokes are the only way to deal with the unbearably traumatic reality

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058343045618376705 http://bit.ly/2APyRt4

For the enlightened liberal-technocratic elite, populism is inherently protofascist, the demise of political reason, a revolt in the guise of the outburst of blind utopian passions.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1058316582982770690 http://bit.ly/2FzO30o

I love the other…on account of the very troubling excess of life in him/her. …As they say, there is something cold in perfect beauty. …This “imperfection,” the obstacle which makes me love someone, is objet petit a, the “pathological” tic

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057751615237693440 http://bit.ly/2Fsbolo

democratic struggle should not be fetishized; it is one form of struggle, and its choice should be determined by a global strategic assessment of circumstances, not by its immanent superior value.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057681155451949057 http://bit.ly/2D7tDKq

insofar as Communism is supposed to abolish “oppressive” prohibitions that serve…domination, the subject has to confront the..deadlock of desire. …Instead of introducing…solidary satisfaction, Communism threatens to unleash..imbalances & selfdestructive cycles of resentment

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057673971305451520 http://bit.ly/2RpZqzd

We just want local communal organization.” I don’t believe in that. I always try to enumerate how many things have to function at a state level so that they could do their so-called “local self-management or communal organization.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057391765215428613 http://bit.ly/2TJmRQF

that the Putin regime is harsh but effective…is..not true. He’s..the voice of the majority of the oligarchs. …In the financial crisis, the state used its enormous reserves to help the oligarchs much more than ordinary people who were in trouble.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057381665209831424 http://bit.ly/2TGX2R8

the left should get rid of this idea..that..we must be subversive… No! …The…triumph of the ruling ideology has been to keep this moral majority on their side & to present the left as crazy… The left hasn’t yet reached the zero level of crisis.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057377898926088192 http://bit.ly/2FgZ33v

everything you do can be misread. …It…happened to me in the US. I looked a woman in the eye & was accused of visual rape . …We perceive any excessive proximity of other people to be violence: “Just don’t come too close to me.”

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057372863869673475 http://bit.ly/2RjFD4v

when Western European social democracy is still successful, what is so bad about this? Nothing. But the point is that, unfortunately, because of economic necessities, this social democratic system is approaching its end.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057371595449229312 http://bit.ly/2CWBfQd

for them, the enemy is still patriarchal… But, as I tell them all the time, this is no longer the ruling ideology… The ruling ideology today is “Realize yourself! Experiment! Be satisfied! Do what you want with your life.” It’s a kind of generalized hedonism.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057371595335966720 http://bit.ly/2Au5JHq

the left should drop this model of immediate transparent democracy. It cannot be globalized in order to function. It needs a very strong state apparatus, which regulates things. If not, things will happen, as you can see today, just like capitalism which is getting so chaotic

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057360267380690945 http://bit.ly/2FciWYH

What fascinates me, therefore, is the idea that we the left should now take over this ideology: “We are the true law and order. We are the true morality.” I very much like this idea of the left taking this position.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057330475855962115 http://bit.ly/2s9isuq

It’s too easy to say that state power is corrupted, so let’s withdraw into this role of ethical critic of power. If you want revolution, you should be a part of law and order. There’ s nothing dishonorable about people wanting basic security.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057330346113617922 http://bit.ly/2CNxoEY

I like to feel safe. Horrible things happen if you don’t have..basic law and order. …People believe that the police are usually much more efficient and aligned in authoritarian countries. But this is the myth of strong authoritarian countries.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057330086029000704 http://bit.ly/2F24t25

The problem is that when the situation is totally desperate…it’s much more probable that some dictator or new authoritarian figure will emerge.

http://twitter.com/extimacy/status/1057329695451176960 http://bit.ly/2CLhhI1