Freedom: A Disease Without Cure

by Slavoj Žižek

We are all afraid that new dangers pose a threat to our hard-won freedoms, so what deserves attention is precisely the notion of freedom.

The concept of freedom is deceptively simple. We think we understand it, but the moment we try and define it we encounter contradictions. In this new philosophical exploration, Slavoj Žižek argues that the experience of true, radical freedom is transient and fragile. Countering the idea of libertarian individualism, Žižek draws on philosophers Hegel, Kierkegaard and Heidegger, as well as the work of Kandinsky and Agatha Christie to examine the many facets of freedom and what we can learn from each of them.

Today, with the latest advances in digital control, our social activity can be controlled and regulated to such a degree that the liberal notion of a free individual becomes obsolete and even meaningless. How will we be obliged to reinvent (or limit) the contours of our freedom?

Tracing its connection to everything from capitalism and war to the state and environmental breakdown, Žižek takes us on an illuminating and entertaining journey that shows how a deeper understanding of freedom can offer hope in dark times.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychoanalysis, 21st Century

328 pages, Hardcover

Published October 5, 2023

About the author

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovene sociologist, philosopher, and cultural critic.

He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).

Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."

Reviews

[Emīls Ozoliņš · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zizek is incredibly in-touch with and attentive to the ongoing. This book feels ridiculously fresh, as most of it tends to pertain to topical events of the 2022/23.
That is, however, its problem to some extent (albeit a minor one) - it might feel dated later on, but more importantly, at times it boils down to Zizek talking about the current events of the time while sometimes not intertwining his message to a full contextual extent.
And I bought this because it’s 2023 Zizek, so I can’t complain, but I can imagine someone walking away from this with more disappointment.

But a lot of this information (having not read any Hegel and only being super surface-level familiar with the intricacies of Marxism) went over my head, so maybe I just didn’t get some of the today-based moments. I gave it a good shot, though.

[scrapespaghetti]

and this terrifying situation where we have to decide what to do, knowing that our decision is decided in advance, is perhaps the only case of real freedom, of the unbearable burden of a really free choice—we know that what we will do is predestined, but we still have to take a risk and subjectively choose what is predestined.

[Leila Gharavi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like how Žižek de-holifies freedom, stripping it of its status as an absolute, worship-worthy value and exposing it as a deeply paradoxical concept. Rather than treating freedom as something pure or self-evident, he shows how it is always shaped, distorted, and reconfigured by context: political systems, social structures, technology, and ideology. What makes the book compelling is this insistence that freedom is not a fixed ideal but something that is constantly projected differently depending on the inputs of the society that claims to value it.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining. Zizek is best at describing the strange world we are living in. Nothing groundbreaking, just description and interesting analysis. However, at times I feel like he engages too much in pseudo-scientific jargons and trying to apply it to social science.

[Peter Banachowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

As always, Zizek goes way over my head with a savant like knowledge of philosophy and other philosophers in what seems to be a madman's stream of conscious. That being said, I always read Zizek for his interesting takes on culture and his ability to shift my perspective.

This is a particularly interesting read in 2023 as the word "freedom" gets tossed around more than ever from truck commercials to insurrectionists. One hot take I walked away with, is given that America is one of the "freest" nations on earth where you buy guns, burn books, burn the flag, worship any religion, etc., the subtextual sentiment is "my freedom". People want to impose their freedoms onto you. Oppression through freedom. While those who generally believe their freedoms are being taken away are generally the ones wanting to take away freedoms such as abortions, book banning, deligitimizing same sex marriage, etc.

You would think the old addage of "Your right to swing your arms ends just where the other man’s nose begins" would be simple and pragmatic for any person, but no, a new wave of American's have grown where they use "patriotism" and "freedom" really as a tool of oppression.

If these are the thoughts you enjoy musing over and contemplating, this book is for you.

[That show will never end · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Jestem za słaby by to zrobić, a mimo wszystko zrobię to” to maksyma, która zawsze przyświeca mi przy czytaniu takich pozycji, bo mam tendencję do sabotowania samej siebie, a bo nie zrozumiem itd. I bardzo się cieszę, że udaje mi się to wysłać do lamusa bo ilość ekscytacji jaka jest później przy czytaniu jest nie do zastąpienia. Debaty na temat wolności pojawiają się w każdej mojej pracy więc w tym zakresie byłam bardzo zadowolona. Dodatkowo pojawia się od groma omówień obecnych sytuacji emancypacyjnych, które należy prowadzić i propozycji w jaki sposób to robić. Głowa spokojniejsza.

[Lowell AfdahlRice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I always learn something from reading Zizek. However, after reading 30 of his books over 20 years, I still understand less than 70% of the dense Continental philosophy references. This one was a little easier to understand than Surplus Enjoyment from last year, so I would recommend this one over that one if it's your introduction to Zizek. And by introduction, I mean if you've read less than 5 of his philosophical tomes. The political punditry volumes don't count-lol

[Liam Bakar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't have enough of a philosophy background to have understood most of what I read. I was definitely missing some prerequisites. I thought that the book had a lot of random thoughts, which I actually appreciated, but resulted in straying away from the main topic of conversation (freedom). Zizek is quite humorous and does a good job of keeping his writing entertaining with a healthy mix of modern and antique references. I appreciated learning about Buridan's Ass.

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Such 'corruption' is needed today especially in the liberal-permissive West where most people are even not aware of the way the establishment controls them precisely when they appear to be free—the most dangerous unfreedom is the unfreedom that we experience as freedom. None other than Goethe already knew this: 'None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.'"

[Hasan Almış · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zizek is like Abed from Community—who else would bring up the 1913 Red Revolution and an episode of Sex and the City to explain rewriting the past?

And

Thoughts on Bulletproof Monk... You are sick mister. You are sick.

[Victor :P · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just love Zizek. What was the overlaying point the book was making? I don't really know. Did he talk about everything possible? Yes! Did I like it? Yes!

I can't tell if Zizek is more wisdom or more philosophy. I'd like to think it's philosophy

[Keelan]

For those interested in the topic of freedom amidst the reductive, deterministic paradigm of modern science, the first two chapters are exceptional. For Žižek in his characteristic polemical wit and cleverality, keep reading. Much of this book is worth revisiting.

[Jeff]

Solid. The last view pages of this are particularly worth revisiting.