Slavoj Žižek | Why Be Happy When You Could Be Interesting? | Big Think

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Interesting?
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Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and Event: A Philosophical Journey Through a Concept.

Žižek received his Ph.D. in Philosophy in Ljubljana studying Psychoanalysis. He has been called the "Elvis of philosophy" and an "academic rock star." His work calls for a return to the Cartesian subject and the German Ideology, in particular the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. Slavoj Žižek's work draws on the works of Jacques Lacan, moving his theory towards modern political and philosophical issues, finding the potential for liberatory politics within his work. But in all his turns to these thinkers and strands of thought, he hopes to call forth new potentials in thinking and self-reflexivity. He also calls for a return to the spirit of the revolutionary potential of Lenin and Karl Marx.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Slavoj Zizek: You know, happiness is for me a very conformist category. It doesn't enter the frame. You have a serious ideological deviation at the very beginning of a famous proclamation of independence -- you know, pursuit of happiness. If there is a point in psychoanalysis, it is that people do not really want or desire happiness, and I think it’s good that it is like that.

For example, let’s be serious: when you are in a creative endeavor, in that wonderful fever--“My God, I’m onto something!” and so on--, happiness doesn't enter it. You are ready to suffer. Sometimes scientists--I read history of quantum physics or earlier of radiation--were even ready to take into account the possibility that they will die because of some radiation and so on. Happiness is, for me, an unethical category.

And also, we don't really want to get what we think that we want. The classical story that I like, the traditional male chauvinist scenario: I am married to a wife, relations with her are cold, and I have a mistress, and all the time I dream, “Oh my God, if my wife were to disappear . . . ,” I’m not a murderer, but let us say, “it would open up new life for me with the mistress.” You know what every psychoanalyst will tell you quite often happens? That then, for some reason, wife goes away, you lose the mistress, also.

You thought this is all I want. When you had it there, you found out that it was a much more complex situation, where what you want is not really to live with the mistress but to keep her at a distance as an object of desire about which you dream. And this is not just an excessive situation. I claim that this is how things function. We don't really want what we think we desire.
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[shankarlakshmanan]

“There are only two tragedies in life: One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.” - Oscar Wilde

[King_of_carrot_flowers]

These pieces should be better named. He criticized the true desirability of happiness, but said nothing about being interesting.

[samuelmontenegroserniotti]

Land owner: Your rent is late.

Me, as a man of culture: *You dont really want what you think you desire.*

[fsands]

his accent makes him sound even wiser. Sounds like the wise man in the mountain you find when you're lvl 90

[JoeMcKenzie]

In German, passion is called "Leidenschaft", the ability to endure "Leid" (suffering).

[Killerean]

We're not really pursuing happiness, we are pursuing the pursuit of happiness.

[michaelgonzalez]

"He who has a why for his existence can bear almost any how."

Friedrich Nietzsche

[ulasgursoy]

“Ultimately, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love.”
“Whoever reaches his ideal transcends it eo ipso.”
F. Nietzsche

[sreeharip]

This topic is so interesting and he even forgot about touching his nose.

[tylerelliott]

What a fantastic combination of accents and speech impediments. He sounds incredible.

[opedromagico]

Lesson learned: get a mistress. Thanks Slavj!

[schroeder]

People misunderstand the point of this video. Slavoj is not laying out an argument on what happiness is, or saying happiness is bad. He is saying that attempting to establish a lucid, conscious category of substantive happiness is faulty and delusional because you are really chasing the strength of your desire, and the sustainability of that desire as it lingers on some horizon, rather than happiness itself.

[patodiblasi]

We - don't - really - want - to get - what... think - that we want.

[Eemes]

In the immortal words of Don Draper: what is happiness? It's the moment before you want more happiness.

[quantumastrologer]

Zizek on a lifelong quest to make everybody miserable. Love this guy so much.

[SkyeFische]

Happiness erases boredom and boredom is the root of learning and exploration. People don't want to be bored, but boredom motivates us to create, investigate and discover.

[Nicole-rqix]

"After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true"-Spock

[brunobonisiol]

Slavoj Zizek VS Pharrell Williams. The final clash!

[an]

i think the reason we willingly face pain is because we seek happiness that will come from it... like creative ventures might be painful and frustrating and exhausting, but it's because we want to create something that is interesting and will cause some type of happiness/peace.

[Karlwasright]

"Happy" is an emotion. Happiness is a misconception.