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The Neighbor: Three Inquiries in Political Theology
In Civilization and Its Discontents , Freud made abundantly clear what he thought about the biblical injunction, first articulated in Leviticus 19:18 and then elaborated in Christian teachings, to love one's neighbor as oneself. "Let us adopt a naive attitude towards it," he proposed, "as though we were hearing it for the first time; we shall be unable then to suppress a feeling of surprise and bewilderment." After the horrors of World War II, the Holocaust, Stalinism, and Yugoslavia, Leviticus 19:18 seems even less conceivable—but all the more urgent now—than Freud imagined.
In The Neighbor , three of the most significant intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory collaborate to show how this problem of neighbor-love opens questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that suggest a new theological configuration of political theory. Their three extended essays explore today's central historical the persistence of the theological in the political. In "Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Žižek's "Neighbors and Other Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of Levinas on contemporary ethical thought.
A rich and suggestive account of the interplay between love and hate, self and other, personal and political, The Neighbor will prove to be a touchstone across the humanities and a crucial text for understanding the persistence of political theology in secular modernity.
In The Neighbor , three of the most significant intellectuals working in psychoanalysis and critical theory collaborate to show how this problem of neighbor-love opens questions that are fundamental to ethical inquiry and that suggest a new theological configuration of political theory. Their three extended essays explore today's central historical the persistence of the theological in the political. In "Towards a Political Theology of the Neighbor," Kenneth Reinhard supplements Carl Schmitt's political theology of the enemy and friend with a political theology of the neighbor based in psychoanalysis. In "Miracles Happen," Eric L. Santner extends the book's exploration of neighbor-love through a bracing reassessment of Benjamin and Rosenzweig. And in an impassioned plea for ethical violence, Slavoj Žižek's "Neighbors and Other Monsters" reconsiders the idea of excess to rehabilitate a positive sense of the inhuman and challenge the influence of Levinas on contemporary ethical thought.
A rich and suggestive account of the interplay between love and hate, self and other, personal and political, The Neighbor will prove to be a touchstone across the humanities and a crucial text for understanding the persistence of political theology in secular modernity.
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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311 people want to read
About the author
Slavoj Žižek
640 books7,558 followersSlavoj 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."
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."
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 30, 2012
Good thing I know tons about psychoanalysis, or else this would have been confusing. No, but really, psychoanalysis remains the one field that can make me laugh out loud with how confusing and/or ridiculous the analysis becomes (I especially liked when Zizek compared psychoanalysts to the monster from Alien). Nevertheless the book was always interesting in it's discussion of the neighbor and also distilled the work of many other experts in a clear and understandable way.
January 8, 2021
One reason to keep reading is to find out where all the dead-ends are. If life is like a journey and each day is another step on the road, how can we be sure that we are not moving toward a dead-end? This is why a universal sweep, something often provided by well articulated maps, can help the wayfarer. If I know I'm on a road that leads nowhere then I can change course. Is this image too crude for you?
Kenneth Reinhard: Consider the possibility that the right road is life is learning how to love your neighbor. What are the names we give to those who find that impossible? Reinhard provides a few for our consideration: "psychosis" and "neurosis." To be psychotic means that one is not even walking down the road because the psychotic has no respect for calendared events. There is no common structure providing opportunities for shared experience. This "person" is not able to love his or her neighbor. To be neurotic is means to be captivated by one's own desire. That makes it impossible to actually listen to another person. If you can't actually listen to another person, you cannot love your neighbor.
Eric Santner: If daily life is like a chess match between you and a dwarf who pulls the levers, how is it possible to love your neighbor? The materiality of life cannot dominate the mind of the wayfarer, however much it is acknowledged. Materiality is a constraint. Those who see materiality in only its most obvious forms will fail to love his or her neighbor. Loving neighbors also means making it possible for them to see how their own energies can arrive at unknown destinies.
Slovj Zizek: If the point of life is to have a good time, to relax and live peacefully, to enjoy the flow of commodities, then we can't be so "intense" when it comes to others, especially our neighbor, now can we? The modern subjectivity of daily life is a "go with the flow," "it's all good," "I'm fine how about you?" (Perhaps the paradigm of modern subjectivity is the prisoner about to be executed by lethal injection. When the warden asks, "Do you have anything you'd like to say?" he says, "No, I'm good, let's get on with it." It's not the fearlessness, but the total disregard for subjective experience that I am calling out here) and other lies too numerous to expose at this point in our exposition. No, by all means, the fragile balance must be maintained. Coffee will be without caffeine, beer will have no alcohol, and when there's a war, there will not be any casualties.
Kenneth Reinhard: Consider the possibility that the right road is life is learning how to love your neighbor. What are the names we give to those who find that impossible? Reinhard provides a few for our consideration: "psychosis" and "neurosis." To be psychotic means that one is not even walking down the road because the psychotic has no respect for calendared events. There is no common structure providing opportunities for shared experience. This "person" is not able to love his or her neighbor. To be neurotic is means to be captivated by one's own desire. That makes it impossible to actually listen to another person. If you can't actually listen to another person, you cannot love your neighbor.
Eric Santner: If daily life is like a chess match between you and a dwarf who pulls the levers, how is it possible to love your neighbor? The materiality of life cannot dominate the mind of the wayfarer, however much it is acknowledged. Materiality is a constraint. Those who see materiality in only its most obvious forms will fail to love his or her neighbor. Loving neighbors also means making it possible for them to see how their own energies can arrive at unknown destinies.
Slovj Zizek: If the point of life is to have a good time, to relax and live peacefully, to enjoy the flow of commodities, then we can't be so "intense" when it comes to others, especially our neighbor, now can we? The modern subjectivity of daily life is a "go with the flow," "it's all good," "I'm fine how about you?" (Perhaps the paradigm of modern subjectivity is the prisoner about to be executed by lethal injection. When the warden asks, "Do you have anything you'd like to say?" he says, "No, I'm good, let's get on with it." It's not the fearlessness, but the total disregard for subjective experience that I am calling out here) and other lies too numerous to expose at this point in our exposition. No, by all means, the fragile balance must be maintained. Coffee will be without caffeine, beer will have no alcohol, and when there's a war, there will not be any casualties.
January 19, 2009
I am a fan of gonzo sociologist/philosopher Zizek. His writing is an acquired taste. He writes some startling things that can make your brain hurt, but are revealing nonetheless. This book discusses the mirror images of friends/enemies and how the boundaries blur. He uses the war on "terror" as an example of the U.S. not being able to define a clear enemy, something that indicates the friend/enemy defintions as breaking down. His book are popular among grad students--not something everyone would want to read.
November 17, 2007
Again, Zizek blows my mind. In this dense book (with Eric Slanter and Kenneth Reinhard), Zizek and others confront the question of the idea of Christian neighborly love within the field of psychoanalysis and critical theory and suggest an ethical inquiry into a new theological configuration of political theory. Zizek makes an argument in favor of ethical violence. Incredible. Again, using for my seminar paper.
October 30, 2017
A bit complex of psychoanalysis reading of the neighbour, maybe because I'm not used to the dialetical arguments of the other two authors. Nevertheless, it does provide great insights on the topic of "neighbour", and the lower rating is only due to first-time read. Will definitely be higher for the second read.
May 18, 2008
Zizek, Eric Santer and Kenneth Reinhard riff on the ethical theological implications of Leviticus (I love how that word sounds) 19:18 for political theory. I couldn't really follow much of what they were saying but i think i liked it...
August 11, 2014
Books like this one make philosophy look bad. The authors have no clear position, no clear arguments, they don't explain the distinctions they make, and they throw in a bunch of weird technical terms and graphs that add to the confusion.
May 5, 2012
I didn't even read the Zizek part! Take THAT, dialectics!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews