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Violence (Big Ideas)
 
 

Violence (Big Ideas) (Paperback)

by Slavoj Zizek (Author) "In 1922 the Soviet government organised the forced expulsion of leading anti-communist intellectuals, from philosophers and theologians to economists and historians ..." (more)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Profile Books (10 Jan 2008)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1846680174
  • ISBN-13: 978-1846680175
  • Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.2 x 2.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 194,248 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review
"The Elvis of Cultural theory" The Chronicle of Higher Education "A one-person culture mulcher...a fast-forward philosopher of culture for the post-war period" The Village Voice "An Academic Rock Star" In these Times"

Product Description
The premise of Zizek's theory is that the subjective violence we see - violence with a clear identifiable agent - is only the tip of an iceberg made up of 'systemic' violence, which is essentially the catastrophic consequence of the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems. With the help of Marx, Engels, Sartre, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Lacan, Brecht and many more, Zizek examines the hidden causes of violence, delving into the supposed 'divine violence' which propels suicide bombers and the unseen 'systemic' violence which lies behind outbursts, from Parisian suburbia to New Orleans. For Zizek, the controversial truth is that sometimes doing nothing is the most violent thing you can do. He calls for a forceful confrontation with the vacuity of today's democracies - using an unconventional plethora of references: Hitchcock, Orwell, Fukuyama, Freud and more.

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In 1922 the Soviet government organised the forced expulsion of leading anti-communist intellectuals, from philosophers and theologians to economists and historians. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but not a stand-alone source on the subject., 3 Mar 2009
By Robert Loughney - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Violence (Big Ideas) (Paperback)
I have never felt that Zizek is a particularly good writer, as good writers go: he doesn't have Lacan's gymnastics, Derrida's self-reflexive argument-as-content wizardry, Foucault's strategic reemployment of established words, and so on, and yet neither does his prose flow with the clear coherency and well rounded arguments of other marxist writers, like Jameson or Eagleton. And certainly this book does not break him out of that status.

That having been said, a number of his 'look at things from a different direction' insights are genuinely interesting, and one thing you can always, ALWAYS count on Zizek for is this: he has balls. Though his argument to get to the point is highly warbling and not particularly neat or convincing, when he states that emancipatory violence exists within the realm of love, you have to imagine Che Guevara smiling a bit in revolutionary heaven (it's not as well furnished as normal heaven, but there's more camaraderie). He will run, hell, he will CHARGE at your preconceptions, and he will show no quarter.

I would recommend reading this as part of a range of works on the subject of global violence and terrorism. It is too messy and rambling to give any coherent picture by itself, but together with his other work 'Welcome to the Desert of the Real', and such works as 'Philosophy in a Time of Terror' with Habermas and Derrida, 'Ground Zero' and 'Desert Screen' by Virilio, and such Baudrillard essays as 'The Violence of the Global' and 'The Spirit of Terrorism', it can give a good, interesting, and even (!) semi-coherent view of the world's more virulent mechanics.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Violence & The Political, 9 Mar 2009
By Karl-Fredrik Lindegaard "L-gard" (Oslo, Norway) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Violence (Big Ideas) (Paperback)
We regularily express our concerns on the preponderance of violence in the world, while (sub)consciously we filter out the essence of this violence, as we go on to live our own. western, protected, lives. For that reason, violence may be used as objects of ideological manipulation. A fundamental trait in today's liberal/democrat society is the condemnation of violence, while only occasionally, if ever, we see violence as a dyad: 'subjective' and 'objective' violence. I hence think that Berthold Brecht put this dyad into perspective in saying: "what is the more violent act; robbing a bank compared to founding one?" In "Violence", Slavoj Zizek points out 'objective' violence as an important substrate, or indirectly causative element, of 'subjective' violence. For this reason alone, this book is strongly recommended.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars polemic, insightful but without the foundation, 10 Feb 2008
By Mr. R. Crich (London) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
as ever Zizek twists and manipulates everything in his grasps....provactive, challenging and purposely against our common (mis)conceptions.

However without the deeper links to his Lacanian and Hegelian structuralism sometimes his arguments here feel a little unrooted. I would certainly recommend reading the last section of the parallax view first as this is very much an updated version of his arguments on violence there.

Probably the most refreshing thing in the structure of this book is the epilogue which is a rather nice summary which joins the dots of the wide range of ideas thrown at us within the hundred or so pages which is rather unusual for Zizek.

Only possible reservation of buying this would be that 'lost causes' comes out soon and i can only imagine much of what is here will also be there but in a rather more advanced/theoretical form.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Missed Opportunity
There is a lot of recycled material in this book and a lot that is off the point altogether. So a typical Zizek book. Read more
Published 26 days ago by Ian M. Buchanan

5.0 out of 5 stars Meticulous and appropriate!
Some there are that opine that Slavoj Zizek is a twister. Others sincerely hold that he is in fact a typewriter. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Professor Bjorn Hagforth

5.0 out of 5 stars sparky, as ever
Yes, it is flawed; yes, it is full of arguments that he has used at length elsewhere - but few can write prose that is as stimulating to read. Read more
Published 18 months ago by 666

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