From Conversations with Žižek.
Now in Slovenia the structure was that if you wanted to go abroad as a researcher you had to submit an invitation, and if the invitation was a serious one, then it was pretty automatic that you got the money. So, for example, a typical scene consisted of one of my friends coming to me and saying he wanted to go abroad. I say, ‘fine, where do you want to go?’ He says ‘Chicago’. I say ‘let’s see what I have for Chicago’. At some stage I think I have picked up notepaper from the University of Chicago’s German Department, and I think I have some from Northwestern also. ‘So, OK, here is the option, which would you prefer?’ He chooses one, and then I ask what kind of colloquium he would like to be invited to? So we faked it all, whatever was needed, all the data – and of course we always invented the colloquium. I mean, I simply said ‘on behalf of’ and I faked the name so that none of my friends would be offended if it all came out. At some point I remember once that there truly was a colloquium, but I said, no, this is not ethical and so I invented another one. I said I cannot stand writing the truth, it must be a lie. So although it would have been easier to tell the truth, I invented the colloquium. I am a workaholic: I do my work, but I have this terrible desire to fake things at this level; to fake institutional things. I think that everything to do with institutions should be faked. I don’t know what this is, I never analyze myself. I hate the very idea of analyzing myself.
