Changes

It is a sparkling Sunday morning in early autumn, and one of the world* "[[Joker Apart]]." ''The Guardian''s leading public intellectuals, dressed in a mod jacket and sandals and swigging from a can of Diet Coke, is giving me the benefit of his experience on cheap London hotels. "This one" - he points to it - "is pretty reasonable8 October 2005. [[James]] Harkin. <http://www.guardian.co. Not cheapuk/comment/story/0, you know3604, but cheap for London. There are other good ones around here1587546, if you know where to look. And you can walk everywhere from here00."html>

Zizek positively fizzes with enthusiasm for anything that might be hoisted into It is a sparkling Sunday morning in early autumn, and one of the [[world ]]'s leading [[public]] intellectuals, dressed in a mod jacket and sandals and swigging from a can of ideasDiet Coke, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to get him to shut up. When giving me the photographer tells him to keep benefit of his mouth closed for the pictures, he dutifully obeys for about two seconds before launching into a half[[experience]] on cheap [[London]] hotels. "This one" -serious aside in which he compares the camera points to a phallusit - "is pretty reasonable. "You spokeNot cheap," fumes the photographer in jokey exasperation. On discovering that the photographer is Scottishyou [[know]], Zizek assures him that they share a bond of kinshipbut cheap for London. "We Slovenians There are even better misers than [[other]] [[good]] ones around here, if you Scottishknow where to look. You know how Scotland began? One of us Slovenians was spending too much money, so we put him on a boat and he landed in ScotlandAnd you can walk everywhere from here."

For someone like We are in the heart of bohemian Bloomsbury, but this is a far cry from what I had expected. When I agreed to meet Slavoj [[Zizek]] in Tavistock Square, even it was because he mentioned that he'd like to look at a joke can be an exercise house in theorythe square where [[Lenin]] had once lived and written one of his books. In the flesh, the beardedWhen we get there, intense Slovenian looks a there is little like Jesus might have done, if Jesus had lasted another 10 years, upped sticks to see apart from a statue of Gandhi - Lenin no longer packs in the chillier climes tourists, and there is no record of eastern Europe him having stayed here - and so he entertains me and the photographer with quips and converted apercus from everyone from [[Brecht]] to revolutionary Marxism[[Kierkegaard]].

A one-man heavy industry Zizek positively fizzes with enthusiasm for anything that might be hoisted into the world of cultural criticism[[ideas]], so much so that it is sometimes difficult to get him to shut up. When the 58photographer tells him to keep his mouth closed for the pictures, he dutifully obeys for [[about]] two seconds before launching into a half-year-old Zizek has authored more than 50 books, serious aside in which have been translated into more than 20 languageshe compares the camera to a [[phallus]]. "You spoke, on subjects as diverse as Hitchcock" fumes the photographer in jokey exasperation. On discovering that the photographer is Scottish, Lenin, and the terrorist attacks Zizek assures him that they share a bond of September 11kinship. His brand "We Slovenians are even better misers than you Scottish. You know how Scotland began? One of social theory - a peculiar amalgam of Karl Marxus Slovenians was spending too much [[money]], the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and the trash can of contemporary popular culture - has long afforded so we put him on a cult following among fashionable young academicsboat and he landed in Scotland."

No longer tethered to For someone like [[Slavoj Zizek]], even a single institution[[joke]] can be an exercise in [[theory]]. In the flesh, Zizek spends his time roving between speaking engagements at institutions all over the world. He is leaving London first thing tomorrow, he tells mebearded, for Paris to be profiled by the newspaper Libération. Then he is off to headline intense Slovenian looks a Design Congress in Copenhagen ("€7little like [[Jesus]] might have done,500if Jesus had lasted [[another]] 10 years," he shouts upped sticks to me, still under the photographer's cosh, "first-class everything, and all that for 40 minutes selling them some old stuff") chillier climes of eastern [[Europe]] and then it is back converted to Sloveniarevolutionary [[Marxism]].

On April 1 this year ("a great day to get married")A one-man heavy industry of [[cultural]] criticism, he married a 27the 58-year-old Argentinian former lingerie model Zizek has authored more than 50 books, which have been translated into more than 20 [[languages]], on [[subjects]] as diverse as [[Hitchcock]], Lenin, and now spends one third the terrorist attacks of [[September 11]]. His brand of his time in Slovenia looking after his young son from a former marriage, [[social]] theory - a third peculiar amalgam of his time with his new wife in Buenos AiresKarl [[Marx]], the [[French]] [[psychoanalyst]] Jacques [[Lacan]] and the rest trash can of his time on the roadcontemporary popular [[culture]] - has long afforded him a cult following among fashionable young academics.

No longer tethered to a single institution, Zizek spends his [[time]] roving between [[speaking]] engagements at institutions all over the world. He is leaving London first [[thing]] tomorrow, he tells me, for [[Paris]] to be profiled by the newspaper Libération. Then he is off to headline a [[Design]] Congress in Copenhagen ("€7,500," he shouts to me, still under the photographer's cosh, "first-[[class]] everything, and all that for 40 minutes selling [[them]] some old stuff") and then it is back to [[Slovenia]]. On April 1 this year ("a great day to get [[married]]"), he married a 27-year-old Argentinian former lingerie [[model]] and now spends one [[third]] of his time in Slovenia [[looking]] after his young son from a former [[marriage]], a third of his time with his new wife in Buenos Aires, and the rest of his time on the road. As soon as he has been released from the photographer's grip, I decide to whisk him off for Sunday lunch. I am a little lost, and take out my map, but Zizek immediately grabs it. It turns out that he [[knows ]] the area well - he stays here whenever he is in town - and he decides to take me on a tour of it. He delights in showing me the restaurant in Russell Square that is using the [[name ]] of Virginia Woolf ("that nasty bitch, a [[total ]] snob") to sell its pasta and burgers. He pokes gentle fun at the Brunswick Centre for its attempts to use architecture to create a [[community]]. And he leads me directly to the pub I have been trying to find on his behalf.

While he is not a believer himself, he sees it as his mission to rage against the demise of our Judaeo-[[Christian ]] heritage and its replacement by a burgeoning palette of destructive, new-age attempts at spirituality. Typically, his soft spot for both [[Leninism ]] and [[Christianity ]] is a deliberate kick against the tide of the [[times]].

Whereas it is now de rigueur for intellectuals to profess a certain grudging respect for Marx and his [[analysis]], Lenin's reputation - even among leftists - remains that of a brutal authoritarian pragmatist. Zizek begs to differ. For him, Lenin was the St [[Paul ]] of [[communism]], the organisational [[genius ]] who, just as [[St Paul ]] invented the Christian [[church]], turned communism from an [[idea ]] into a [[global ]] movement. We should miss both Lenin and St Paul, he argues, because these days we are retreating into a new-age spirituality that turns up its nose at any engagements in the [[real ]] world.

Zizek is keen to rubbish the assumption that we live in a decadent, consumption-obsessed [[society]]. There is, he maintains, plenty of [[belief ]] around. It is just that our beliefs are secreted within the fabric of our lifestyles, and we profess not to take them very seriously - [[witness]], he says, the popularity of everything from books like The [[Da Vinci ]] [[Code ]] to newspaper horoscopes.

Zizek sees it as his job to keep alive the revolutionary [[conscience]], and he specialises in needling leftwingers and [[liberals ]] who have moved on to make their peace with the [[political ]] [[system]]. It has won him some interesting [[intellectual ]] bedfellows, and a few enemies. He is critical, for example, of the [[liberal ]] [[notion ]] of harassment in contemporary western societies. He agrees that [[The Real|the real ]] experience of [[sexual ]] or racial harassment can be terrifying, but goes on to argues that - almost imperceptibly - the idea of harassment has slid into a social [[neurosis ]] that means no more than an [[injunction ]] to keep out of our personal [[space]]. "The liberal idea of [[tolerance]]," he argues, "is more and more a kind of [[intolerance]]. What it means is leave me alone, don't harass me, I'm intolerant towards your over-proximity." He sees something suspicious in the way that smokers are increasingly kept at a distance and seen as polluters who are intent on violating space. It is part of the antiseptic [[nature ]] of contemporary culture, he says - coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, cakes without sugar.

But, I protest, he has just ordered a Diet Coke to go with his chocolate fudge brownie. "Come on," he says. "I don't have any problem violating my own insights in [[practice]]." Even the [[Iraq ]] war, he points out, was initially conceived as a decaffeinated [[conflict ]] - a war without victims, at least on our side. "Nowadays," he says, "you can do anything that you [[want ]] - [[anal]], [[oral]], fisting" - I stare down momentarily into my Yorkshire pudding - "but you [[need ]] to be wearing gloves, condoms, protection."

He is struck, he says, in his debates with American advocates of [[multiculturalism]], by how much their professed respect for other cultures is defined by their distance from the culture at hand. "For the multiculturalist," he argues, "white [[Anglo-Saxon ]] Protestants are prohibited, Italians and Irish get a little respect, blacks are good, native Americans are even better. The further away we go, the more they deserve respect. This is a kind of inverted, patronising respect that puts everyone at a distance."

As a former [[citizen ]] of [[Yugoslavia]], Zizek argues that, prior to its break-up, ethnic [[jokes ]] told by the different peoples of the country about each other were cathartic, helping to bond them to the devil they knew. The only effective antidote to our antiseptic multiculturalism, he remains convinced, "is the [[exchange ]] of obscenities, the practice of telling racist or xenophobic jokes in a non-racist manner".

Zizek's jokes are very funny, but it is about time that I let him go. He is leaving the next day, after all, and [[needs ]] to go to Tottenham Court Road to [[search ]] out some PlayStation [[games ]] for his son. His son's current favourite, he tells me, is one where the player assumes the [[role ]] of taxi [[driver ]] and is rewarded for ferrying passengers neatly to their various destinations. But instead of following the rules, Zizek's son delights in flooring just about everything in [[sight]]: cars, traffic lights, even passing pedestrians. Though I am too polite to say so, it strikes me that the boy Zizek might well have a [[future ]] in the [[family ]] business.