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Totalitarianism, as an ideological notion, has always had a precise strategic function: to guarantee the liberal-democratic hegemony by dismissing the leftist critique of liberal democracy as the obverse, the twin, of the rightist Fascist dictatorship. Slavoj Zizek, addresses the prevalence of the consensus-view of totalitariansim, which invariably focuses on one of four things: the Holocaust as the ultimate, diabolical evil; the Stalinist gulag and the alleged truth of the Socialist revolutionary project; the recent waves of ethnic and fundamentalism to be fought through multiculturalist tolerance; or the deconstruction idea that the ultimate root of the totalitarianism is the ontological closure of thought. In exploring this cobweb of family resemblances, Zizek concludes that the Devil lies not so much in the detail of what constitutes totalitarianism but in what enables the very designation.
From the Back Cover
'The most formidably brilliant exponent of psychoanalysis, indeed of cultural theory in general, to have emerged from Europe in some decades.' Terry Eagleton
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A highly readable book that makes the world look different.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: Four Interventions in the (mis)use of a Notion (Wo es War) (Hardcover)
From his opening musings on the 'benefits' of Celestial Green Tea in 'taming free radicals' to the closing considerations of the Millennium Bug as a Hitchcockian 'Maguffin', Slavoz Zizek casts a different perspective on the Global Village and consumerist society. Along the way he compares consumerism with self-centered melancholy - the loss of what was never possessed - and links the celebration of excessive wealth with the psychotic thrift of the Miser, as symptoms of widespread madness in society. He argues that the 'triumph of Western democracy' has, far from bringing the freedoms that had been the promise of the Cold War, introduced a pressure to conform that stifles individual and creative thought. How many times has one heard the phrase - from a woman's lips - 'I'm not a feminist' (usually followed by 'but')? Zizek exposes the manner in which the desire to 'fit in' causes individuals to work against their own interests - drawing parallells with the suicidal madness of senior Russian Communist Party members during the Stalinist era confessing to crimes they had not and could not have committed, 'for the good of the Party'. One cannot help but smile sardonically as the writer describes the lengths to which apparatchiks went in order to fulfil their monthly quotas of 'counter-revolutionaries' uncovered - and see an uncomfortable comparison with today's obsession with target-setting and key performance indicators. Even the media's current darling of genetic science does not escape Zizek's surgical strikes: he describes Dawkins' 'Chicago Gangster' theory of the Selfish gene as the expression of the "bourgeois individualistic competitive society", and more revealing of a political stance of the author than an insight into genetics. Slavoj Zizek writes in a style that is accessible and entertaining. While there are sections that are difficult at first reading, it is usually because of the unfamiliarity of the thought pattern. The Left was supposed to have been completely vanquished and banished to the outer darkness: Zizek demonstrates that, not only is radical thought not dead, but also that it has much to say that is of great value. Anyone - that is, anyone - who wants to try and make sense of a world that seems to be spinning into madness, where everyone seems to be burdened by the expectations of some non-existent 'other' - maybe 'the board', 'the shareholders' or even a dead loved one - where sportspeople are treated as contemporary saints and the world's only superpower feels obliged to increase its military spending to stratospheric levels in order to 'defend itself', should read this book. Anyone who has despaired of any alternative to empty consumer obsessions should read this book. Anyone who wants to rediscover the delight of non-conformist thought should read this book. It is an outstanding critique of modern society and a blast of sanity in a crazy world. I've been carrying it with me everywhere since I bought it. The only potential disappointment is that there is unlikely to be anything better - or anywhere near as good - for quite some time.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Did somebody say it's yet another Zizek book?,
By
This review is from: Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: Four Interventions in the (mis)use of a Notion (Wo es War) (Hardcover)
This book was published quite soon after the success of The Ticklish Subject and A Plague of Fantasies, and around the time of Zizek's falling-out with Ernesto Laclau. This context bears heavily on the main theme of the book, because the accusation of totalitarianism is one of the main barriers separating the Zizekian and Laclauian versions of Lacanian political theory (as shown in the debate in Contingency, Hegemony, Universality). Zizek likes to posture as a revolutionary, even though there is little concrete in his politics which sets him aside from his opponents, and even though his Lacanian ontology is basically conservative (i.e. it suggests that lack, alienation, violence, exclusion, etc. are inevitable and so cannot be eliminated in any possible society). He has taken to denouncing capitalism and liberal-democracy, which he conflates into a single concept, but his denouncements often seem to be in fact directed against Laclau and his supporters, or more generally at critical theorists whom Zizek knows he can antagonise with his bellicose rhetoric. Zizek doesn't stay on one subject for long enough to offer anything amounting to a systematic analysis of capitalism, and the rare occasions where he ventures into concrete analyses are marked by a speculative style devoid of empirical reference-points and often relying on a dogmatic postulating of Lacanian ontological positions.One should not expect this to be a book about totalitarianism. As is usual with Zizek's themes, the idea slips in and out, mainly via discussions of issues relating to the Soviet Union. Zizek at times comes very close to embracing Stalinism, although it is never quite clear how much of what he says he actually means and how much is just there to provoke his opponents. This book is likely to be of most interest to people who are already following Zizek's work (whether as supporters or critics) and who are interested in the formation and development of his ideas.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A book that makes you see the world differently,
By Ruari McCallion (Shaftesbury, Dorset, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: Four Interventions in the (mis)use of a Notion (Wo es War) (Hardcover)
I'm re-entering this review because it had my name and accreditation taken off - harrrummmppph!
Was it something I said? From his opening musings on the 'benefits' of Celestial Green Tea in 'taming free radicals' to the closing considerations of the Millennium Bug as a Hitchcockian 'Maguffin', Slavoz Zizek casts a different perspective on the Global Village and consumerist society. Along the way he compares consumerism with self-centered melancholy - the loss of what was never possessed - and links the celebration of excessive wealth with the psychotic thrift of the Miser, as symptoms of widespread madness in society. He argues that the 'triumph of Western democracy' has, far from bringing the freedoms that had been the promise of the Cold War, introduced a pressure to conform that stifles individual and creative thought. How many times has one heard the phrase - from a woman's lips - 'I'm not a feminist' (usually followed by 'but')? Zizek exposes the manner in which the desire to 'fit in' causes individuals to work against their own interests - drawing parallells with the suicidal madness of senior Russian Communist Party members during the Stalinist era confessing to crimes they had not and could not have committed, 'for the good of the Party'. One cannot help but smile sardonically as the writer describes the lengths to which apparatchiks went in order to fulfil their monthly quotas of 'counter-revolutionaries' uncovered - and see an uncomfortable comparison with today's obsession with target-setting and key performance indicators. Even the media's current darling of genetic science does not escape Zizek's surgical strikes: he describes Dawkins' 'Chicago Gangster' theory of the Selfish gene as the expression of the "bourgeois individualistic competitive society", and more revealing of a political stance of the author than an insight into genetics. Slavoj Zizek writes in a style that is accessible and entertaining. While there are sections that are difficult at first reading, it is usually because of the unfamiliarity of the thought pattern. The Left was supposed to have been completely vanquished and banished to the outer darkness: Zizek demonstrates that, not only is radical thought not dead, but also that it has much to say that is of great value. Anyone - that is, anyone - who wants to try and make sense of a world that seems to be spinning into madness, where everyone seems to be burdened by the expectations of some non-existent 'other' - maybe 'the board', 'the shareholders' or even a dead loved one - where sportspeople are treated as contemporary saints and the world's only superpower feels obliged to increase its military spending to stratospheric levels in order to 'defend itself', should read this book. Anyone who has despaired of any alternative to empty consumer obsessions should read this book. Anyone who wants to rediscover the delight of non-conformist thought should read this book. It is an outstanding critique of modern society and a blast of sanity in a crazy world. I've been carrying it with me everywhere since I bought it. The only potential disappointment is that there is unlikely to be anything better - or anywhere near as good - for quite some time.
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