There are many good jokes in Žižek’s book, particularly the Jewish jokes and the old Eastern European jokes ridiculing socialism. This is hardly surprising since these were and indeed remain two of the greatest sources and traditions of joke-telling in the twentieth century. But Žižek’s Jewish jokes are not the best of Jewish jokes and his understanding of them is limited. As a Slovenian survivor of the Tito era, he has rather more insight into the jokes about the now defunct socialist system, which Žižek, socialist though he is, freely recognizes was a complete disaster. But there are many other much better collections of and commentaries on the jokes of socialism by sounder scholars than Žižek, notably the works of Bruce Adams, David Brandenberger, Seth Benedict Graham and Arvo Krikmann—and there is another, but modesty prevents me from naming him. The jokes in Žižek’s book are not even the best of Žižek’s own jokes. His best jokes are to be found on his wonderful YouTube recording “Racist Joke” in which jokes about stingy Slovenians jostle with jokes about dirty, lazy Montenegrins, stupid Bosnians, and foul-mouthed Albanians. In his YouTube recording Žižek, dressed in his trademark plain gray t-shirt, shows himself to be a superb comedian and a gifted joke-teller, an engaging and ebullient person with a naturally funny appearance, voice, and manner—a king among jesters.
Žižek’s new book of jokes contains many that are outrageously obscene, and offensively blasphemous. I dare not even quote his mocking proposition
