- Hardcover: 512 pages
- Publisher: Verso Books; First edition edition (30 May 2008)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1844671089
- ISBN-13: 978-1844671083
- Product Dimensions: 23 x 15.6 x 4.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 490,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
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Review
Zizek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation --New Yorker
Zizek is a thinker who regards nothing as outside his field: the result is deeply interesting and provocative. --Guardian
The most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged in many decades. --Terry Eagleton
Zizek is a thinker who regards nothing as outside his field: the result is deeply interesting and provocative. --Guardian
The most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged in many decades. --Terry Eagleton
Product Description
'The era of grand explanations is over; we should no longer aim at all-explaining systems and global emancipatory projects; the violent imposition of grand solutions should leave room for forms of specific resistance and intervention. ... If the reader feels a minimum of sympathy with these lines, she should stop reading and cast aside this volume. This book is unashamedly committed to the Messianic standpoint of the struggle for universal emancipation.' - Slavoj Zizek . . . . . . . . . . . Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In fear of the horrors of totalitarianism should we submit ourselves to the reactionary third way of economic liberalism and government-as-administration? In this combative major new work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Zizek takes on the reigning ideology with a plea that we should re-appropriate several lost causes, and looks for the kernel of truth in the totalitarian politics of the past. Examining Heidegger s seduction by fascism and Foucault s flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the right steps in the wrong direction. Highlighting the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the Bolsheviks, i ek argues that while these struggles ended in historic failure and monstrosity, this is not the entire story. There was, in fact, a redemptive moment that gets lost in the outright liberal-democratic rejection of revolutionary authoritarianism and the valorization of soft, consensual, decentralized politics. Zizek claims that, particularly in the light of the forthcoming ecological crisis, we should reinvent revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the struggle for universal emancipation. We need to courageously accept the return to this Cause even if we court the risk of a catastrophic disaster. In the words of Samuel Beckett: 'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
43 of 48 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book started extremely well: the promise of a sustained argument drawing in the usual references from film, popular culture and the history of philosophy. I looked forward to his engaging Hegelian inversions - how true he is to Hegel I cannot say much in the same way I am not convinced Badiou is faithful to Plato. Anyway, it started well, some nice touches on Michael Crichton films but then suddenly something quite odd happened: the book seemed to fall apart in my hands. It began with a mediocre reading of the abysmal film of `300', using a Zizekian cliché to invert mainstream reading but adding nothing new. And then Zizek seemed to go off topic and began meandering - in the way Derrida does, the drift and focus of argument shifted and suddenly the worst features of Zizekian thought came into play: alluding to Badiou to give philosophical weight to what is a pretty weak position, arguing against some feature or trend in Hollywood films - the truth is he covered many of the same points in the DVD `The Pervert's Guide To Cinema' and added nothing new here - moving between one topic and another, making comments along the way which don't seem to accumulate any force, nor through sheer juxtaposition open up new avenues of thought. It became so boring - something I would never think of Zizek. But it has to be said: once you enter the syntax of Zizek's thought and can negotiate his grammar and language you then look for something substantial being argued for. I couldn't find it. So my overall conclusion is not so good: early Zizek: excellent, genuinely fresh and challenging and occasionally innovative. Recent Zizek: repetitive, re-working old ideas without adding anything, self-referring in a way that is irritating - he often gives you the impression that his position, in parts, has been well established through some earlier discussion - but it hasn't. There is something lazy in this book - something of the obsessional turning out books but not really developing his thought.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The Capacity to Govern: a Report to the Club of Rome; Crazy States: A Counter-conventional Strategic Issue (Lexington Books)
This book is divided against itself: parts of it are outstanding while other parts are esoteric and non-sense other than for members of a strange sect of what I call novo-Marxists.
Its basic theses that failures of the actual praxis of revolutions do not negate some of their values and that global capitalism should not be accepted as irreplaceable by better alternatives are well taken. The discussions of coping with biogenetics are fascinating. And many other insights make the book as a whole worth reading.
However, instead of focusing on main theses and working out coherent alternatives to global capitalism, or at least indicating ways to inventing such alternatives, the book gets lost in at least four labyrinths: (1) It devotes a lot of space to debates with other "sect members" on esoteric issues and responses to their criticism of the author's writings; (2) the book is one-dimensional in its assumptions on human psychology, relying i on some versions of Lacan and Lacanian reinterpretations of Freud, completely ignoring alternative and not less "scientific" schools of psychology; (3) it is captive to Marxian paradigms, making artificial efforts to fit important ideas into outdated language games, instead of bravely developing new paradigms; and (4) the authors pins his hopes on "trust in the people" without any non-anecdotal justification either in history or social sciences.
The fourth error is the most serious of all, undermining the main thrust of the book. The author relies on the new global excluded population of slum-dwellers as the new "good old Marxist...proletarian revolutionary subject " (page 425), where one should look for "signs of the new forms of social awareness that will emerge from the slum collectives: they will be the germs of the future." (page 426). This ignores the realities of slum populations as revealed in empirical studies, ignores radical differences between various groups of slum populations, and leaves out of account the near-certainty that if they should endanger a state or the global order, they will be easily and effectively "repressed" in one way or another.
The author demonstrates in this book ability to contribute to an urgently needed paradigmatic global revolution, but not as long as he is captive to phantasm. What is really needed is some kind of a "Global Leviathan" containing the danger of "the acts of a single socio-political agent [who] can really alter and even interrupt the global historical process [for the worse, up to global calamity] (page 421, my additions in brackets) and to take care of new forms of the "common" as rightly discussed by the author. But such a Global Leviathan can probably only take the form of an authoritative oligarchy of main powers, contrary to from the dreams of the authors.
To make a real contribution of at least some historic significance, the author needs a good dose of "subtraction" (to use a favorite term of the book) from the ideological traps in which this book is caught.
Professor Yehezkel Dror
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
msdror@mscc.huji.ac.il
This book is divided against itself: parts of it are outstanding while other parts are esoteric and non-sense other than for members of a strange sect of what I call novo-Marxists.
Its basic theses that failures of the actual praxis of revolutions do not negate some of their values and that global capitalism should not be accepted as irreplaceable by better alternatives are well taken. The discussions of coping with biogenetics are fascinating. And many other insights make the book as a whole worth reading.
However, instead of focusing on main theses and working out coherent alternatives to global capitalism, or at least indicating ways to inventing such alternatives, the book gets lost in at least four labyrinths: (1) It devotes a lot of space to debates with other "sect members" on esoteric issues and responses to their criticism of the author's writings; (2) the book is one-dimensional in its assumptions on human psychology, relying i on some versions of Lacan and Lacanian reinterpretations of Freud, completely ignoring alternative and not less "scientific" schools of psychology; (3) it is captive to Marxian paradigms, making artificial efforts to fit important ideas into outdated language games, instead of bravely developing new paradigms; and (4) the authors pins his hopes on "trust in the people" without any non-anecdotal justification either in history or social sciences.
The fourth error is the most serious of all, undermining the main thrust of the book. The author relies on the new global excluded population of slum-dwellers as the new "good old Marxist...proletarian revolutionary subject " (page 425), where one should look for "signs of the new forms of social awareness that will emerge from the slum collectives: they will be the germs of the future." (page 426). This ignores the realities of slum populations as revealed in empirical studies, ignores radical differences between various groups of slum populations, and leaves out of account the near-certainty that if they should endanger a state or the global order, they will be easily and effectively "repressed" in one way or another.
The author demonstrates in this book ability to contribute to an urgently needed paradigmatic global revolution, but not as long as he is captive to phantasm. What is really needed is some kind of a "Global Leviathan" containing the danger of "the acts of a single socio-political agent [who] can really alter and even interrupt the global historical process [for the worse, up to global calamity] (page 421, my additions in brackets) and to take care of new forms of the "common" as rightly discussed by the author. But such a Global Leviathan can probably only take the form of an authoritative oligarchy of main powers, contrary to from the dreams of the authors.
To make a real contribution of at least some historic significance, the author needs a good dose of "subtraction" (to use a favorite term of the book) from the ideological traps in which this book is caught.
Professor Yehezkel Dror
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
msdror@mscc.huji.ac.il
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I am halfway through reading this book for the second time. I am adding yet more notes in the margins. this book is a joy to read, it does take some concentration in parts, but is well worth the effort. I have read 4 of his books and I think this his best so far. It answers just about every question anyone on the left of centre might have on: the inner contradictions of Maoism and the cultural revolution, the nature of the Stalinist regime, and the meaning of the term, 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Most importantly he sets the stage for the rehabilitation of the ideal of 'Communism' for today's world, and provides the arguments in defense of that ideal. He gives a thorough critique of philosophers from Kant onwards, and some interesting insights into Hollywood films and Soviet composers. A riveting and enlightening book for me. Highly recommended.
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