First as Tragedy, Then as Farce

by Slavoj Žižek

From the tragedy of 9/11 to the farce of the financial meltdown.

Billions of dollars have been hastily poured into the global banking system in a frantic attempt at financial stabilization. So why has it not been possible to bring the same forces to bear in addressing world poverty and environmental crisis?

In this take-no-prisoners analysis, Slavoj Zizek frames the moral failures of the modern world in terms of the epoch-making events of the first decade of this century. What he finds is the old one-two punch of history: the jab of tragedy, the right hook of farce. In the attacks of 9/11 and the global credit crunch, liberalism dies twice: as a political doctrine and as an economic theory.

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce is a call for the Left to reinvent itself in the light of our desperate historical situation. The time for liberal, moralistic blackmail is over.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Economics, Theory, Sociology, History

164 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2009

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

[Trevor · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first line of this book is, “The title of this book is intended as an elementary IQ test for the reader: if the first association it generates is the vulgar anti-communist cliché—‘You are right—today, after the tragedy of twentieth-century totalitarianism, all the talk about a return to communism can only be farcical!’—then I sincerely advise you to stop reading here.”

This book has two chapters, one is called, It’s the Ideology, Stupid! And the other The Communist Hypothesis. I didn’t really know all that much about this guy before reading this book. I had seen him in the film (that I can highly recommend – though you should remember, this is coming from someone who doesn’t watch films, so beware!) The Examined Life. His bit is available here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGCfiv.... Now, clearly this guy is a bit of an iconoclast – if not also a shit-stirrer. This is actually a remarkable book and one that demands to be thought about.

His argument is essentially that despite all of the talk of the end of history and the glorious victory of capitalism, the history of the last few years since 2008 has shown that the world can’t really afford to go on as if nothing bad has happened. He makes the stunningly uncomfortable point that of all the crises facing the world – AIDS, global warming, world poverty, starvation, water shortages, malaria and so on and so forth – the only one to get instantly solved, to gain universal and immediate consensus, was the global financial crisis. And as he says, “And let us also not forget that the sublimely enormous sums of money were spent not on some clear ‘real’ or concrete problem, but essentially in order to restore confidence in the markets, that is, simply to change people’s beliefs!” In a world where we are constantly told it is impossible to have fair trade, or to stop wars, or even to stop the endless merchants of death selling arms or even cigarettes to third world babies – this immediate and universal act of government support for finance capital at taxpayer expense really was quite remarkable. Can you think of anything else that would get immediate support of both Bush and Obama, Senate and House to spend 750 billion dollars as a first off measure?

His fear is that we are moving further and further away from even the shadow of parliamentary democracy that we have been allowed up until now by those who hold real power. No one watching US politics over the last few years can be in any doubt that democracy is in deep trouble. Not only because of the manufactured inertia of the US government, but because there is a clear sense that the entire ‘game’ of government is literally a farce. He traces this back to Reagan – Nixon may have been a crook, but at least people took him seriously enough to take him seriously. With Reagan we got, “a ‘Teflon’ president whom one is tempted to characterise as post-Oedipal: a ‘postmodern’ president who, being no longer even expected to stick consistently to his electoral program, has become impervious to criticism (recall how Reagan’s popularity went up after every public appearance, when journalists enumerated his mistakes). This new kind of president mixes (what appear to be) spontaneous naïve outbursts with the most ruthless manipulation.” And we get them time and again all over the world – Berlusconi, Bush, Netanyahu, that rapist guy that nearly became France’s President.

There is also what he thinks may well be the ironic situation where so many in the West are waiting for China to suddenly realise it needs democracy as the missing element in its capitalist economic miracle, but where what might well happen instead is that the West will learn that democracy was little more than a mistake and that we need to return to more authoritarian forms of government instead. Klein’s The Shock Doctrine has a staring role here. But this shift away from rights has been going on for some time. The loss of citizens’ rights in the US since 9/11 has been disturbing mostly for how simply it has been accomplished and how almost gleefully accepted it has been by what seems from afar as the majority of the population over there. As he points out, rights are being increasingly converted to privileges – that is, privileges that are granted under sufferance and that can be snatched away when they prove inconvenient to those with real power. He also predicts that one of the things that is possible to save capitalism is a turn to socialism in the West – in much the same way that social democratic parties worked to hinder the growth of communist parties in Europe following the Second World War.

It is not that he is a great fan of Soviet style communism. He sees the history of Eastern Europe over the twentieth century without rose-coloured glasses. However, his point is that capitalism will literally kill the planet and we need communism in the sense that perhaps our only hope is in us holding the world in common. We need a commons, because the rape and pillage of capitalism simply isn’t able to cope with what are increasingly ‘the commons’. And not just ecologically – but the commons of intellectual property which turns capitalists into rent-seekers rather than market capitalists.

As he points out, globalisation means capitalism steams ahead under increasingly centralised power, but the myth that must be maintained at any cost – at the cost of denying what is obvious and in front of our noses – is the myth of the independent businessman who makes it big due to the sweat of his brow and a remarkable personal acumen. Books such as Fooled By Randomness and Thinking, Fast and Slow dispel these myths as the delusions of ideology, but these myths are so central to capitalism that disconfirmation is actually impossible, whatever the evidence.

My favourite part of this book, the bit I will remember long after the rest has faded, is his discussion of ‘the inner life’. He begins by discussing ‘a partisan of the Middle East’ who said that, “An enemy is someone whose story you have not yet heard”. This all sounds well and good, but then he takes this apart. “The first lesson of psychoanalysis here is that this ‘richness of inner life’ is fundamentally fake: it is a screen, a false distance, whose function is, as it were, to save my appearance, to render palpable (accessible to my imaginary narcissism) my true social-symbolic identity. One of the ways to practice the critique of ideology is therefore to invent strategies for unmasking this hypocrisy of the ‘inner life’ and its ‘sincere’ emotions. The experience we have of our lives from within, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves in order to account for what we are doing, is thus a lie—the truth lies rather outside, in what we do.” To make that plain, I’m sure Hitler had a difficult childhood and probably was pretty annoyed about not making it as a painter, but as upsetting as I’m sure all that was, it doesn’t quite excuse six million Jewish deaths, say, or the twenty million Russians exterminated as part of his nightmare.

At the moment here in Australia the Prime Minister has recently accused the Opposition Leader of sexism. His response has been to drag out his wife and female members of his party to say what a loving father and all-round great bloke he is to work with and for. But all of this ‘inner life’ stuff misses the point. The point is to ask will the policies he and his party endorse make Australia a better or a worse place for women? And on that criteria only the most partisan would say he would make Australia a better place for women. By the way, you don’t need to be a communist to prefer to judge people by their deeds rather than their words – even that crazy Matthew guy from the Bible said much the same thing.

I’m going to end pretty much where he starts. Although he thinks reasserting communism is the only way forward, it is anything but clear what force is likely to be doing this assertion of communal ownership. He says this is fine, as the only way to change the future is to assume the catastrophe is inevitable – as a kind of reverse causality – imagine there’s nothing you can do to stop the tragedy and maybe you will be able to do something to stop it because at least then it is real. At the start of the book he makes it clear that the first response to the financial crisis wasn’t calls to tear down the Bastille, but rather to kill immigrants. The swing has been more to the right than the left – witness Golden Dawn in Greece as a terrifying example of this. As he says, “There is a real possibility that the main victim of the ongoing crisis will not be capitalism but the left itself, insofar as its inability to offer a viable alternative was again made visible to everyone.”

This book didn’t exactly leave me overjoyed and humming the chorus to The Internationale, but I did find it very interesting and often very confronting.

[Riku Sayuj · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Wolf and the Lamb

Wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him. He thus addressed him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me." "Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born." Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture." "No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted grass." Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well." "No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me." Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I won't remain supper-less, even though you refute every one of my imputations." The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny. ~ Aesop

This brilliant book has too many strands of thoughts to be tied together in a review but Žižek shows in how many wide ranging fields one has to delve into to be able to challenge the foundations of capitalism. It is an intellectual feat of the highest order.

The early part of the book is quite easy reading, almost light in fact; and one wonders at the reputation for difficulty that Žižek has acquired. You find yourself comfortable and keep reading at an easy pace till you start realizing that arcane reference and hyphenated complex phrases (effects of translating complex ideas from foreign philosophers) soon dominate the telling. At some point you might even find yourself panting with exertion that your mind is being subjected to, at the torrent of ideas, of the wide but inter-connected web that maintains a unity throughout the entire work.

As I said, it is impossible to pull all these strands together in a review and show how it is connected to the the central theme. In effect, the book is “A Call to the Left” - to a “Hegelian Left” that Zizek takes pains to describe in detail. It is also a good summation on the failures of communism and explanation of why it happened and why that is no cause to claim that socialism is dead.

Žižek asks the Left to forget the dreams of classical Marxism where "history is on our side" (where the proletariat fulfills the predestined task of universal emancipa­tion). He says to the Left: In the contemporary constellation, the big Other is against us: the form of the old Hopi saying, with a wonderful Hegelian twist from substance to subject: "We are the ones we have been waiting for.”

(This is a version of Gandhi's motto: "Be the change you want to see in the world”)

The Left should thus abandon the prejudice that the linear direction of evolution is "on our side:' that History is "working for us” and start the revolution again. Of course, this call is given at the very end of the book, after some good argumentation on why democracy and capitalism are not one and the same as some leaders want us to believe, and are not necessary complements of each other.

It is a brilliant work of great anger and stinging criticism and should be read very widely. After all, the biggest injunction is to stop the tragedies of history from repeating itself, first as tragedy and then as farces, increasingly terrible despite being farces. That should be in the best interests of all parties. We should be able to agree on the diagnosis, if not on the prescription.

[Geoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won’t try to convince you that Žižek is right, though I believe he is onto something- but I would like to convince you to read this book. I think it is an important little volume, for many reasons, among them being that this is an urgent Žižek, the cultural critic at his most honed. He is talking to you. This is a very distilled, clarified Žižek, almost without the heady historico-philosophical digressions (...almost) that bewilder some readers, myself included, in his more theory-based work. He is not addressing someone necessarily familiar with The Phenomenology of Spirit or Gramscian critique of ideology, etc.. This feels like Žižek out to save the world. I would like Obama, Hillary, John Boehner, Chris Christie, Ted Cruz, Putin, Angela Merkel, François Hollande, Xi Jinping, all of them, to read this, and I’d like their reaction (written, in essay form, and please restrict yourself to 3,000 words or less, I do have other responsibilities to attend to...) Because no matter whether you think Žižek is a genius or a charlatan, there are undeniable facts he is confronting in this book, antagonisms in the fabric of reality we are all forced to live in today, gaps and fissures in the structure of global society that are butting up against each other, colliding and emerging as looming catastrophes, and the overwhelming response from leaders and citizens alike up to this point has been to sink further and further into our own personal ideological mire and keep on keeping on as if nothing is happening.

This book centers around dispelling the notion of Fukuyama’s “end of history” that was supposed to coincide with the events of 1989, and the “victory” of liberal democratic capitalism over ideological based “utopian” societies of the twentieth century like Soviet communism. Žižek identifies the attacks of September 11 and the financial collapse of 2008, the opening and closing of the first decade of the 21st century, as signifiers that the Clinton-era 90’s was a kind of midsummer night’s dream, that we all were brutally awakened from on that Tuesday morning 12 years ago. Hegel’s idea that all historical events happen twice (revised by Marx into the famous phrase that gives this book its title) is developed in the context of these two major catastrophes and the historical/political events surrounding them, the point being that modern capitalist democracies and their liberal social democratic counterparts (with the rising cousin of China’s “totalitarian capitalism”) do not proffer solutions to the coming crises of the commons- urgent global situations not restricted by national borders, that cannot be resolved by localized, state-based, market-determined political decisions. These are problems that threaten humanity as a whole, where our communal interests overlap and our very survival is at stake: ecological catastrophes (pollution, climate change, species extinction); resource shortages (food, water, oil); intellectual property (the localizing and private ownership of information); biogenetic engineering (the idea of agency of the “post-human”) and the emerging “white spaces” on the global map- proliferating slums and extreme wealth division- “the gap that separates the Included from the Excluded”. (Žižek gives this last antagonism particular importance and a fascinating, thought-provoking analysis in the last third of this book.) These problems not only cannot be dealt with by relying on the libertarian/capitalist delusion of a self-regulating free market, or the failed system of modern socialism (which in reality is simply “adjusted” capitalism)- but the rise of these problems can be traced back to a successful implementation of these systems themselves. In other words, in the context of the modern capitalist ideology, “things are working fine”.

If socialism is but a further corrupt authoritarianism, that will always imply a gross imbalance of power, and if capitalism is bankrupt and incapable of recreating itself in a sustainable way, virtually collapsing in on itself, is there a third way? Žižek proposes a rethinking of communism- not the communism of the past two centuries that led to horrible incarnations of destructive totalitarianism- but a renewed, revived concept of communism that restarts from the zero point and directly confronts these issues on a Universal scale (“Universal” meaning a re-incorporation of the Excluded into the sociopolitical space). It is sad, and dangerous, that the ideology of late capitalism has so affected our essential beings that to even dream of another kind of civilization is considered decadent, unthinkable. At one point, Žižek quotes Joseph Brodsky, “Along with air, earth, water, and fire, money is the fifth natural force a human has to reckon with most often.” Why must we accept that this fractured, frantic, corrupt society is the best of possible worlds? It is clearer than ever that the crises of economics, cultures, and ecology are not “blips” in the system, “destructive cycles”, mainly innocuous and self-healing, that enable capitalism to evolve, but are failures that are symptomatic of the system itself, inherent in the way it emerges and produces reality. The reality that we are dealing with right now is the consequence of these economic systems, unto our very beings and the fundamental motivations that determine how we are to live out our lives, when "we are forced to live as if we are free”. I refuse to believe that the world I confront every morning, in my personal interrelations and as represented by the media, is the best possible world. I see so much more potential, everywhere. We must simply decide how to act. Žižek, at least, is attempting to theorize a way forward.

”...left to itself, the inner thrust of our historical development leads to catastrophe, to apocalypse; what alone can prevent such a calamity is, then, pure voluntarism, in other words, our free decision to act against historical necessity.”

[KSS · Rating 3 out of 5]

كتاب جيد للفيلسوف السلوفينيى سلافوى جيجك يطرح عدة أفكار فيما يخص إشكالية الرأسمالية والمجتمع الإستهلاكى فى بدايات القرن الحالى, بدءاً من أحداث الحادى عشر من سبتمبر- التى يعتبرها الكاتب مأساة - إنتهاءاً بالأزمة المالية العالمية نتيجة إنهيار أسواق العقارات الأمريكية عام 2008 – التى يعتبرها الكاتب مهزلة – عملاً بمقولة الفيلسوف الألمانى هيجل أن التاريخ يعيد نفسه وإضافة كارل ماركس للجملة أن التاريخ يعيد نفسه فى المرة الأولى كمأساة والثانية كمهزلة.
يرى الكاتب أن هزلية النظام الرأسمالى أنه لا يمكن تطبيق نظام السوق الحر ومبدأ العرض والطلب بشكل مطلق لكن لا بد من وجود تدخلات حكومية كما حدث فى عام 2009 من إنقاذ الحكومة الأمريكية لشركة جنرال موتورز من الإفلاس بشراء أسهم من الشركة بنسبة 60% فى مقابل ضخ 30 مليار دولار فى الشركة لإنقاذ واحدة من أكبر الشركات الأمريكية.
ويضرب الكاتب مثالاً آخر لفشل النظام الرأسمالى فى الأزمات الكبرى كالأزمة المالية العالمية فى 2008 – أزمة الرهن العقارى - والتى تدخلت الحكومة الأمريكية بدفع مبلغ 700 مليار دولار لشراء أصول هالكة مرتبطة بالرهن العقارى لإنقاذ النظام المالى الأمريكى من الانهيار, مولَت الحكومة الأمريكية عملية الانقاذ تلك من أموال دافعى الضرائب وعليه فإنها تقوم بتحميل خسائر النظام الرأسمالى للشعب.

كما تلمح من الاقتباس السابق يقدم الكاتب لمحة سخرية عن النظام الرأسمالى لكونه لا يستطيع حماية نفسه وأن أباطرة المال والأعمال فى العالم ممن يعيشون فى يوتوبيات منعزلة عن باقى البشر والذين يرون باقى البشر فى مرتبة دونية عنهم, يضعون أيديهم - عن طريق الحكومة فى وقت الأزمات - فى جيوب الفقراء ودافعى الضرائب فى محاولة منهم لستر عورة نظامهم الاقتصادى بورقة توت.

هنا ينتقد جيجك بوضوح الطغمة الحاكمة التى تحمى مصالح رجال المال والأعمال وفى نفس الوقت تحاول أن تفرض نفسها على المجتمع فرضاً بأساليب مختلفة منها ما يتبعه برلسكونى رئيس وزراء إيطاليا السابق سياسة "أنا واحد منكم" وما عداى إما شيوعى أو مهاجر يريد الخراب لهذه البلاد.
فشلت الاشتراكية .. وأفلست الرأسمالية
فى طرحه لإشكالية الرأسمالية مقابل الإشتراكية و الشيوعية يؤكد الكاتب على أن الإنسان – حتى وإن كان مخلصاً للشيوعية - يجب عليه أن يتخذ موقف من خصومات الواقع التاريخية للشيوعية.
ويفرق الكاتب بين الرأسمالية والاشتراكية والشيوعية فيعرف الرأسمالية على أنها الملكية الخاصة والاشتراكية على أنها ملكية الدولة أما الشيوعية فتجاوزت فكرةالملكية كما فى المشاعات.
ولقد بيّنا أعلاه كيف الكاتب يرى أن الرأسمالية لم توضع حتى الآن قيد التنفيذ الحقيقى الذى لا يُخضع التجربة الرأسمالية محل إنقاذ من الحكومات والدول وعليه فإنه لا يوجد تطبيقاً فعلياً للرأسمالية على أرض الواقع كما يتضح من سخرية غاندى من الحضارة الغربية حين سُأل عن الرأسمالية فقال "إنها فكرة جيدة .. ربما علينا وضعها فى موضع التطبيق".
كما يرى الكاتب بأن التجربة الرأسمالية لا تقف عند الحد الفاصل مع حماية البيئة و حفظ النفس البشرية ولكن تتجاوز كل تلك الخطوط إذا لم تجد أمامها قوة البروليتاريا لتتصدى لهذا العدوان, وعليه فإن ثورة يقوم بها الإنسان هى محاولة جديدة وحركة تكرارية وليس تقدماً تراكمياً.
يتلاعب بك الكاتب فتحس أثناء القراءة أنه رافض تماماً للتجربة الرأسمالية لكنه سرعان ما يبين نقاط الخلاف مع الرأسمالية فى نهاية الكتاب ويؤكد على عدم إلغاء الرأسمالية ولكن لتطويع الرأسمالية للصالح العام أو إجبارها على الإحساس بثقل الصالح العام وأهميته.
هذا الكتاب هو مجموعة من الأفكار والرؤى عن مجموعة كبيرة من الطروحات الاقتصادية والسياسية والاجتماعية وليس طرحاً فكرياً أو مذهب اقتصاد .. هى دعوة لتأمل نتاج العقل البشرى من أنظمة سياسية واجتماعية واقتصادية.
ما يعيب الكتاب وجود الكثير من المصطلحات والأسماء التى تدفع للملل والبحث كثيراً من خلال الانترنت ومحاولة ربط هذا الكم الكبير من الأفكار بعضها ببعض.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 1 out of 5]

It is always commendable when an author makes it clear right from the start what he/she stands for. In the case of Slavoj Zizek, of course, his reputation precedes him, but that does not prevent him from immediately propagating his communist convictions. This book was published in 2009, i.e. during the severe financial crisis that shook the entire globalized economy to its foundations. Zizek's analysis of the direct causes of that crisis - the too far-reaching liberalization of the financial world in particular - certainly remains valid, more than 10 years later. But he connects this with the older anti-capitalist discourse, and sees in that crisis a sweet-tasting revenge for the debacle of 1989-1990: “The moral of the story: the time for liberal-democratic moralistic blackmail is over. Our side no longer has to go on apologizing; while the other side had better start soon.” 'Our' side obviously is that of the radical left. Not just any left, of course: in typical Leninist tradition Zizek knocks at least as hard on the socialists and social democrats as the liberal democracies themselves.

There certainly are a number of points where Zizek's polemical views make sense. He rightly emphasizes, for example, the power of ideologies, both positive and negative. And that any economy or state building always is the result of political choices, although on this he seems to follow Jacques Lacan rather than Michel Foucault. And he also rightfully points to the creative capacity of capitalism to constantly adapt to changing circumstances, although he sees this more as a perversion (a tragedy turned farce) than as an opportunity. Finally, there’s no question that the core drive of pure capitalism, namely maximizing profits, has a number of structurally destructive consequences, both on the individual, the collective and the ecological level.

Zizek is a polemicist and both his points of analysis and his radical outbursts follow each other in rapid succession. Sometimes he shoots in all directions, and sometimes he goes sideways, using an almost inscrutable jargon reminiscent of the best days of Marxism. It is also typical that he does not seem to be selling any real alternative at all, at most an ecologically reformed form of the familiar communism. His self-assured and sometimes downright arrogant tone seems to me to be an extra argument for taking this writer off his pedestal. And for those who need another one, this quote seems sufficient enough: “communism is to be opposed to socialism, which, in place of the egalitarian collective, offers an organic community (Nazism was national socialism, not national communism). In other words, while there may be a socialist anti-Semitism, there cannot be a communist form. (If it appears otherwise, as in Stalin's last years, it is only as an indicator of a lack of fidelity to the revolutionary event).” For me, this expression of ideological blindness was enough to slam the door.

[Sarah ~ · Rating 5 out of 5]

بداية كمأساة وأخرى كمهزلة - سلافوي جيجك

يتحدث سلافوي جيجيك في كتابه العظيم هذا عن العقد الأول من الألفية
من أحداث الحادي عشر من ستمبر عام 2001 وحتى الأزمة المالية عام 2008 .
عن الشيوعية وأفول نجمها / وربما رغبتها بالعودة، عن الرأسمالية وإفلاسها وقروض صندوق النقد، ماذا يعني الإرهاب والسياسيات البغيضة التي يدار بها عالم اليوم ومن يسيطر حقًا على الكوكب .
كل هذا (ومواضبع أخرى كثيرة لا يمكن حصرها) مكتوب بسلاسة بالإضافة إلى أراء سياسيين وصحفيين وفلاسفة .
مزيج عجيب يجعل هذا الكتاب رائعًا ومصدرًا هامًا لمعلومات جمّة وأراء ثرية، إنه من تلك الكتب - التي أحب قراءتها كثيرًا، السياسة والإقتصاد جنبًا إلى جنب وتأثيرهما على الحاضر والمستقبل .

[Jonfaith · Rating 4 out of 5]

We are forced to live as if we were free. -- John Gray

First as Tragedy, Then as Farce is my favorite work yet by Žižek. Despite its many passages being recycled in later works, there is a clarity here which moved me. The specific grasp was Žižek's viewing the newly inaugurated President Obama. Certainly the philosopher fears a hegemon with a human face, he rightly critiques the vaunted 2009 speech in Cairo. The philosopher then betrays himself as a sentimentalist by comparing the 2008 Obama victory with the 1791-1804 Haitian Revolution. Hegel and the rest of the Enlightenment were all about the concept of liberation from slavery, except where actual slaves were involved. That simply didn't enter the equation. Thus when French peacekeepers arrived to find natives singing La Marseillaise , there was a historic realization: these black people might be more French than we are. Such is the drenched weight of ideology.

[Bruce · Rating 2 out of 5]

A book review. A dialogue.

Žižek: The title of this book is intended as an elementary IQ test for the reader:...

Me: Wait, I just opened the book, why are you already picking a fight with me?

Žižek: ...if the first association it generates is the vulgar anti-communist cliche -- "You are right -- today, after the tragedy of twentieth-century totalitarianism, all the talk about a return to communism can only be farcical!" -- then I sincerely advise you to stop here.

Me: But, but... I was only kidding, and...

Žižek: Indeed, the book should be forcibly confiscated from you...

Me: What?! Wait a minute, doesn't that undermine your previous... oh, I-I-I get it, you're satirizing totalitarian cliche, right? Um, right? Hey, you give metheboOKBACK it belongs to the public LIBRARY!!!

Žižek: ...since it deals with an entirely different tragedy and farce, namely, ... the attacks of September 11, 2001 and the financial meltdown of 2008.

Me: Now there I have to disagree with you. I didn't find anything funny in the financial meltdown. Sure, having economists tell us we had to bail out the banks was darkly ironic, but...

Žižek: {N}ote the similarity of President Bush's language in his addresses to the American people.... Both times he called for the partial suspension of American values (guarantees of individual freedom, market capitalism) in order to save these very same values. From whence comes this similarity?

Me: From the breadth and ambiguity of the term "American values," silly. Don't you follow politics? You can't use such statements as the basis for any kind of analysis. There's no way to code it for a single meaning. I doubt Bush had any clear definition in mind when he said them. Such statements are ultimately gibberish. Anyway, how would you present them?

Žižek: Badiou also recognizes the exceptional ontological status of capitalism, whose dynamic undermines every stable frame of re-presentation: the task usually performed by critico-political activity (that of undermining the re-presentational frame of the state) is already performed by capitalism itself -- which poses a problem for Badious's notion of "evental" politics...

Me: What? You're losing me. Who's Badiou and why should I care what he has to say?

Žižek: ...a point of "symptomal torsion," a "part of no-part..."

Me: Are you high? Where is this coming from?

Žižek: ...a "world-less" universe (which is today's universe of global capitalism)...

Me: Ooookaayyy... um, were you going to finish that brownie? I'll just... no, no, I'm listening. You were saying? [munch, munch]

Žižek: ...the aim of emancipatory politics should be... its "traditional" modus operandi...

Me: Dude, your nonstop finger quoting nearly poked my eye out...

Žižek: ...the task today is to form a new world, to propose new Master-Signifiers that would provide "cognitive mapping." (p. 127)

Me: You know, these brownies taste suspiciously like word salad. As Dictionopolis' King Azaz said, "You should have made a tastier speech."

Ah, well. Where'd you get your great book title from at least?

Žižek: Marx...

Me: Of course! I love the Marx Brothers! Which one? Groucho? Chico?

Žižek: {Karl} Marx began his Eighteenth Brumaire with a correction of Hegel's idea that history necessarily repeats itself.

Me: A correction of Hegel?! Presumptuous git. Well, okay, I'll bite, what'd he say about Hegel?

Žižek: "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great events and characters of world history occur, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce."

Me: Oh! Oh! That'd make an awesome parlor game! Erm... I mean, 'an interesting filter for armchair historians recharacterizing similar chains of cause and effect.' Ahem. Allow me to start us off:

'From Napoleon's perspective, his Russian campaign was the tragedy leading to Elba, and Waterloo the farce culiminating in Saint Helena.' Okay, now you go!

Žižek: {snatching my book and walking away in disgust}

Me: Žižek? Where are you going? I even gave you an example from the 19th century?!

Well, fine, walk away. At least you can't say I took you out of context.

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow, what a mind! This almost feels like a Communist Manifesto for the 21st century.

The premise of the book is simple: Capitalism sucks, here are a lot of reasons why, and here are some reasons why we should give Communism (not socialism!) another chance. His basic question upon which he bases the whole book is a good one: why is it that we have now accepted the capitalist system when only forty years ago we were still weighing other options? What has happened in contemporary society (i.e. what has Capitalism done lately) to lull people (i.e. Americans and Western Europeans) into the belief that despite the bugs in the system, we’re still living in the best of all possible ideologies? I find this completely fascinating, startling and refreshing—-after eight years of Bush and the conservatives, having the Democrats back in power in Washington did feel like a radical change. Yet here is a book that defies that idea, a book in which the word “liberal” is a bad word not because it represents the left but because it is too far to the right!

Beyond a belief in the abstract beauty and effectiveness of Communism, Zizek doesn’t really give any real recommendations about how to achieve it without also inducing that familiar 20th century problem: the rise of totalitarianism post-revolution. (Not that he ignores this either: he himself asks the question of why this phenomenon occurs repeatedly in various times and situations.) Yet his belief that there must be a way out, that the reality we’re living in, from the damaging effect Capitalism is having on psyches and lives around the world in our current recession to the imminent global catastrophes that appear to be fast approaching, must be changed, and quickly, is very inspiring. His sense of urgency lends his writing great relevancy in our era of friendly-faced-yet-still-exploitative Big Business.

Whether or not a return to Communism is the answer, Zizek certainly makes his point effectively; one of the best things about his writing is how clear his ideas are. In college, my exposure to continental philosophy tended to be limited to Derrida and his acolytes. The dense, impregnable prose of those writers was a real turn-off. To be honest, Zizek does not fully escape jargon completely—there are a number of passages where the layman might become frustrated due to annoying cultural theory-isms from Lacanian psychoanalysis—but for the most part, Zizek manages to present very exciting ideas with lucid prose.

Zizek’s pop culture approach to argumentation also involves the reader in otherwise abstruse areas. Zizek uses everything from the current economic crisis to Obama’s election to Starbucks’ Ethos water to the film, The Baader Meinhof Complex to make his points. His brain and writing jump almost chaotically from point to point but like a fractal, the pieces start to form a very clear and organized picture.

I have heard that Zizek tends to repeat ideas from book to book. Since this was my first exposure to him, I can’t really confirm that idea in First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, but looking at his bibliography, it would make sense if it were true: he has about 40-or-so odd books and this is the third book he’s come out with this year (and apparently there’s another one on the way for the winter!) Hence, I don’t know if this is the best book to start with, if he articulates his ideas best in this book, etc., etc. I do know that this was a very exciting and fun read and would recommend it to anyone whose mind is open enough to try and envision a world beyond global Capitalism. If Zizek is right, those minds might be needed very soon!

[Tintarella]

ابتدا تراژدی، سپس مضحکه/ اسلاوی ژیژک/ نشر نیماژ

کتاب سه بخش داره:
مقدمه؛ درس‌های دهه‌ی نخست
۱. این ایدئولوژی است، احمق!
۲. فرضیه‌ی کمونیسم
کتاب سال ۲۰۰۹ درومده و تمرکزش روی بحران مالی ۲۰۰۸ و عبور از سرمایه‌داری به کمونیسمه، یه مکمل برای کتاب مانیفست کمونیستِ ژیژک. این‌جا زیاد با روان‌کاوی و هنر درگیر نیستیم و تمرکز اصلی روی بحث‌های سیاسیه.
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زمانی‌که لاکان هدف میل را به عنوان چیزی اصالتاً ازدست‌رفته تعریف می‌کند، منظور اوصرفاً این نیست که ما نمی‌دانیم به چه چیزی میل داریم و محکومیم به جستجوی ابدی برای ابژه‌ی حقیقی که مغاک میل به معنای واقعی کلمه است، حال آن‌که تمامی ابژه‌های قطعی صرفاً جانشین‌های مجازی آن هستند. بحث او بس رادیکال‌تر است: ابژه‌ی از دست رفته در نهایت خودِ سوژه است، سوژه به معنای ابژه؛ این بدان معناست که، مسئله‌ی میل، معمای اصلی آن، در اصل نه «چه می‌خواهم؟» بلکه «دیگران از من چه می‌خواهند؟ کدام ابژه (ابژه‌ی آ) را در من می‌بینند؟» است. به همین دلیل است که لاکان در باب پرسش هیستریکِ «چرا من به این اسم خوانده می‌شوم؟» اشاره می‌کند که سوژه بالذاته هیستریک است. وی سوژه را به شکلی همان‌گویانه به مثابه‌ی «آن‌چه یک ابژه نیست» تعریف می‌کند. مراد از این تعریف آن است که ناممکنی یکی دانستن خود به مثابه‌ی ابژه (یعنی آگاهی به این موضوع که از منظر لیبیدوئی چه جایگاهی برای دیگران دارم)، به سوژه شکل می‌دهد. به این ترتیب، لاکان دگرسانی تمام و کمال موقعیت‌های سوبژکتیو «آسیب‌شناختی» را ایجاد می‌کند و آن را به عنوان ناهمسانی پاسخ‌ها به پرسش هیستریک قرائت می‌کند: فرد هیستریک و وسواسی دو ماهیت این پرسش را به اجرا در می‌آورند؛ روان‌پریش خود را به عنوان ابژه‌ی ژوئیسانس دیگری قلمداد می‌کند، حال آن‌که فرد منحرف خود را ابزار ژوئیسانس دیگری قرار می‌دهد. (صفحه ۱۰۴)
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در مورد قسمت‌های سانسورشده (کتاب اصلی رو از سایت لایبرری جِنسیس می‌شه دانلود کرد) این‌که دو جای کتاب این اتفاق افتاده (البته توی کتاب با علامت (...) مشخص شده)؛ قسمت اول با بحث
رئالیسم روان‌شناختی شروع می‌شه و واکنشی به این بحثه که اگر ما روایت هیتلر رو هم می‌شنیدیم احتمالاً بهش حق می‌دادیم و در نهایت به مقایسه راه حل اعراب و هیتلر در برابر مسئله‌ی یهودیان پرداخته. پاراگراف حذف شده در این مورده که: هیتلر خواستار جمع کردن اون‌ها توی کشور واحد بود ولی سران عربی روی هویت کولی‌وار و پراکنده‌ی یهودیان تاکید دارند و به ایده‌ی جمع کردن‌شون اعتقاد ندارند.
قسمت دوم کمی طولانی‌تر هست و به تحلیل وقایع ۸۸ پرداخته: این‌جا قسمتی از کتاب رو آوردم:
There are a couple of crucial consequences to be drawn from this insight. First, Ahmadinejad is not the hero of the Islamist poor, but a genuine corrupted Islamo- Fascist populist, a kind of Iranian Berlusconi whose mixture of clownish posturing and ruthless power-politics causes unease even among the majority of ayatollahs. His demagogic distribution of crumbs to the poor should not deceive us: behind him are not only organs of police repression and a very Westernized PR apparatus, but also a strong new class of the rich, the result of the regime's corruption (Iran's Revolutionary Guards are not a working class militia, but a mega-corporation, the strongest center of wealth in the country) . Second, one should draw a clear difference between the two main candidates opposed to Ahmadinejad, Mehdi Karroubi and Mousavi. Karroubi effectively is a reformist, basically proposing the Iranian version of clientalism, promising favors to all the particular groups. Mousavi is something entirely different: his name stands for a genuine resuscitation of the popular dreams which sustained the Khomeini revolution. Even if this dream was a utopia, one should recognize in it the genuine utopia of the revolution itself
در نهایت هشدار می‌ده که ما (غربی‌ها) باید مواظب احمدی‌نژادهای خودمون باشیم (ژیژک روی مقایسه‌ی برلوسکونی و احمدی‌نژاد تاکید داره)، از پوتین گرفته تا ترامپ خودمون که یه احمدی‌نژادِ آمریکائیه
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اگر به طور اتفاقی رخدادی به وقوع بپیوندد، زنجیره‌ی پیش از خود را می‌سازد و این باعث می‌شود ناگزیر به نظر برسد: این مخلص کلام دیالکتیک هگلی امکان و ضرورت است نه حرف‌های پیش پا افتاده و مبتذل مبنی بر این‌که چگونه ضرورت، خود را در/از طریق بازی تصادفی ظواهر نمایان می‌کند. با این منطق اگرچه تقدیر است که زندگی‌مان را رقم زده است، دست کم در انتخاب سرنوشت خود آزادیم؛ پس رویکردمان در برابر بحران زیست‌محیطی نیز باید این‌گونه باشد: نه ارزیابی واقع‌بینانه‌ی احتمالات فاجعه، که پذیرفتن تقذیر به معنای هگلی آن؛ اگر فاجعه اتفاق بیفتد، می‌توان گفت به وقوع پیوستنش، حتی پیش از آن‌که رخ بدهد، مقدر شده بود. بنابراین تقدیر و عمل آزاد (برای جلوگیری از اما و اگر)دست به دست هم می‌دهند: رهایی در رادیکال‌ترین حالتش آزا��ی برای تغییر سرنوشت خویش است. (صفحه ۲۳۳)
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شاید با نظر به حمایت نوظهور شماری از شاعران از «نسل‌کشی قومی»، آدمی باید سوءظن افلاطون نسبت به شعرا را حفظ کند و حتی بر آن بیفزاید و در عوض در رابطه با افلاطون بر نقض دیگری صحه بگذارد: یعنی رها کردن اعتقادش به شهریاران فیلسوف. آدمی باید این‌کار را بکند اما نه به حساب هشدار رایج لیبرالی در مورد رهبران تمامیت‌خواهی که بهتر از مردم عادی صلاحشان را می‌دانند، بلکه به دلیلی جدی‌تر: ارجاع به دیگری بزرگ رهبر را در مقام «سوژه‌ای که قرا است بداند» قرار می‌دهد، سوژه‌ای که اعمالش برپایه‌ی علم سرشار است (براساس قوانین ��اریخ و غیره)؛ بدین طریق راه برای بلاهتی همچون تقدیس استالین به عنوان بزرگ‌ترین زبان‌شناس، اقتصاددان، فیلسوف و غیره باز است. به محض زوال «دیگری بزرگ»، رهبر دیگر نمی‌تواند ادعای رابطه‌ای ویژه با دانش داشته باشد و بدل می‌شود به ابلهی شبیه دیگران. (صفحه ۲۳۵)

[Steven R. Kraaijeveld · Rating 4 out of 5]

An eye-opener for those whose eyes are already slightly opened. That is to say, if you have ever found yourself questioning the self-evidence of capitalism as the 'natural' economic system, you are likely to take a lot from this book.

Praise
Žižek tackles a heavy topic: is capitalism really the best-among-imperfect economic systems? Is capitalism 'sustainable' in the sense that it can steer us past the looming ecological and financial disasters and ensure the survival and well-being of the species? He does so with particular wit, dense and often counterintuitive analysis, and eminent examples that force the reader into performing mental gymnastics both to understand as well as extend the implications of what is being argued.

His presentation of the Haitian use of French revolutionary ideas in order to free themselves from the French rule is but one of many intriguing historical cases that he presents in order to make his case for communism, which I would define as the true intent of First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.

Criticism
There is a reason why I did not give it 5/5 stars. It is not that his references are a mess, with quotations rarely given where they might be expected, and that he acknowledges at a certain point that he is "relying heavily upon the wikipedia entry for..." It is also not that he does not explain a set of crucial concepts in his analysis, which are borrowed from Lacan, Marx, Hegel, Kant, and Badiou. You may justify this by arguing that the reader should be aware of these concepts given the 'special interest' nature of this book, or else may look them up where necessary.

No, the 4/5 stars is because Žižek, aside from not doing the concepts he employs justice by defining them, also leaves some of his arguments unsatisfactorily unexplained. His writing style is highly erratic - he often leaps from one big idea to the other - which is engaging, challenging, and beautiful if you can follow it. Yet I do feel that sometimes he uses the 'deepness' of the 'big ideas' that he presents as part of their argument. That is, the reader is sometimes simply supposed to accept concepts like the 'big Other' or 'the Neighbor' as if they /really exist/ and as if they /explain something in and of themselves/ rather than explicitly telling us, the reader, what he means by them.

This is a weakness in my eyes. The argument, like with the concepts, that the reader must 'look them up' or 'think for him/her self' does not apply here, because this is Žižek's book - he has to convince us of the Truth of his arguments by laying bare that Truth as clearly as he can. I should make it clear that I do not believe he purposefully obscures some parts of his argument, but I think he could have taken the time to elaborate a bit more here and there.

This criticism may be applied to not a few works of philosophy however, and given that the sometimes-obscure passages are more than counteracted by other clear, striking, brilliant, and potentially mindset-changing passages, I deduct only one star.

Audience
One more point I would like to make. I already called this book an "eye-opener for those whose eyes are already slightly opened." What I meant was that, if you are someone who already has Leftist ideas, this book will greatly supplement your thoughts. If are more to the Right, it is unlikely that you will take much from this book. Not only because it proposes a communist solution to contemporary problems, but also because Žižek is not exactly subtle in his analysis and criticism. He is fond of sweeping statements. And while that is potentially a greatly thought-provoking style, if you do not agree with the initial premise or any of the important ideas, it is likely to put you off rather than bring you closer to his ideas.

Suggested Reading
I just thought I'd add a section on thinkers who influenced Žižek and on whom he builds (some of his) ideas:
- Lacan (on the self and others)
- Hegel (on history and on enthusiasm)
- Kant (on public space vs. private space)
- Badiou (most can be gleaned from the text)

I don't think you necessarily need to be familiar with all of them, but it would help if you understood their basic ideas (added in parentheses) to save yourself from either ignoring the relevant concepts that he invokes or having to look them up, which takes away from the main thread of the book.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Analisi brillante e originale dell'ultimo decennio. Dalla destabilizzazione post 11 settembre alla crisi economica del 2008 ancora pienamente in corso, con spunti di riflessione non comuni e mai banali. Resta pero' la seconda parte, la parte progettuale, l'agenda per il poi, la scelta dell'utopia per l'utopia, la riscoperta dell'Eterno Comunismo, per l'azione volontaristica piuttosto che per l'agire "scientificamente" sulla societa'. Tra momenti di stupore ammirato e soddisfazione, emerge una concreta sensazione di fumosita' e approssimazione. Al prossimo tentativo......

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book, first and foremost, written by a communist, for communists. Zizek is ultimately trying to reinvent the left as a competent and able agent of revolution against the clearly corrupt and failing bourgeois capitalist global system.

The title, "First As Tragedy, Then as Farce", is in reference to a section of Hegel that Marx remembers in his "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right", in which he postulates that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce. Zizek takes this comment about the continuation of the German feudal aristocracy and applies it to the epoch of liberalism. After hegemony had been won in 1989, the first cracks of ideology as it failed in tragedy was that of 9/11, when clearly the global hegemony that had been supposed by the Fukuyama devotees was shown to be false; the second crack was the financial crash of 2008-9. Written in the direct aftermath of the latter, Zizek shows an incredibly canny analysis of how both politically and economically, the bourgeois world is crumbling at the seams.

Split into two chapters, Zizek first examines the political situation under his traditional witty, but exacting scalpel. Taking from a truly rhizomatically eclectic knowledge of modern politics and culture, he leaves absolutely no stone unturned in terms of resolutely defending his Marxo-Hegelian-Lacanian conception of ideology as both fetish or symptom depending on its variety. The second chapter is where his philosophical genius truly bleeds through after his initial analysis. The 'Communist hypothesis' is not only that which criticises the bourgeois world, but also absolutely self-excoriates the left for its weakness and impotence and lack of understanding of its own philosophical grounding as well as how to effectively challenge the bourgeois world. His use of Kant, Hegel, Lacan, Bruckner, Marx, Badiou etc... is absolutely astounding and shows him to be one of the most well-read thinkers we currently have.

The enduring criticism I would have of Zizek is perhaps his reliance on Hegel as a backstop in order to dissuade any Marxist criticism thereof. His usage of Hegel sometimes obfuscates his point, using complex 'Hegelese' as he puts it to mask the problems put forward by new spirits of repression. Whilst his insistence on a dictatorship of the proletariat is indeed admirable, it is perhaps not strong enough, and in order to make sure that he has a truly competent analysis of the revolutionary struggle, he ought to shift towards an even more radical call for action. He thinks too much as to be good to him! (Not necessarily a criticism, but an observation).

Nonetheless, a truly powerful call to arms, as well as analysis of the postmodern capitalist condition. Zizek is just as powerful in writing, as he is in speech.

[Bo · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of Zizek's most topical, readable, coherant, and reigned-in books. Throughout, he skewers some of the irrationalities, embedded contradictions & structural global class hypocrisies embedded in international capitalism. He convincingly describes the bank bailout as an amnesiac continuation of spiral descent of global financial markets, that effectively defends the institutions from any possible repercussions, and psychoanalyzes cultural and political reactions to the bailout. He concludes that many of society's angry, convoluted reactions to the bailout and the financial crisis are delusions (i.e. fear of socialism, a fear of financial collapse which rationalize the continuation of propping up the banks) that are effectively managed by a pervasive capitalist ideology, which undermine any actual apprehension of ways to improve the system, or find real (read:radical) solutions (Zizek is an avowed communist). Zizek the theorist then convincingly goes on to describe how we, in the age of liberal economic markets and the supposed freedom of the individual/consumer, consider ourselves absolutely free of ideology (in the sense of fascistic or communistic ideological systems that plagued the 20th century), but that this belief itself the myth at the core of capitalist ideology. Namely, this myth is the driving force behind the large-scale delusions that have allowed the financial markets to go crazy, that drove Bernie Madoff to cheat with any thought towards the end-game, that allows for the free-from-consequences moral hazard of the financial systems. As always, Zizek is shockingly funny and entertaining- he casts Berlusconi as a destructive cultural force as dangerous as Kung Fu Panda, tells dirty jokes from the Soviet Union, and merrily skewers his opponents. He also writes extremely honestly and eloquently about Obama's election. Only towards the end, in a chapter called The Communist Hypothesis, he uses Hegelian Dialectics to discuss the possible rebirth of a Communist movement to act as a corrective to Global Capitalism gone amok- which could only be activated by a vibrant transnational protaletarian. It's here when things get dense and harder to follow, especially coming after the breezy, penetrating and polemical first 3/4 of the book. But in general, a great book, an ideal place to first experience the power and pleasure of Zizek, that deserves wider readership in universities and colleges all over the world.

[Declan · Rating 4 out of 5]

We live, it's clear, in the age of the problem without a solution; the Manichean dilemma in which every proposition is as unconvincing as its opposite. Syria, for example, has a President who should be deposed. His crimes against the people he purports to rule are immense and brutal. But, post-Iraq. post-Libya, is the case so convincing? Look at those who violently oppose them? Would a country in which Daesh had complete control be an improvement? What about the smaller groups such as the Free Syrian Army, the Kurds, the supposed 70,000 'moderate' fighters ready, according to David Cameron, to side with those who want 'regime change' in Syria? How well, if they even exist. would they work together and, in an imaginary post-Assad Syria, how like Libya - with its multitude of violent factions, in an ungovernable country -would Syria become?

Zizek's book was written several years ago and so it doesn't ask any of the above questions, but it does probe brilliantly through many of the quandaries that seem equally difficult to resolve in any satisfactory fashion. But then Zizek does not claim to know, in any holistic way, how we move from here to the apparently impossible-to-achieve world we would wish to live in and it would be a frustrated person who went to him for answers, especially as he is, as anyone who has ever watched him or read any of his other books will know, not a person who analysis is a coherent and systematic way. Instead he flits about in what can often seem like a free association of ideas. This brings that to mind which leads to him recalling a joke, and then that comment that Badiou made about some aspect of Marxist theory, and so on and so on (as he so often says himself). He asks, he probes, he offers glib asides, but above all he is a provoking presence who initiates unanticipated though processes.He makes us uncomfortable, he challenges the cosy liberal self-congratulators, he infuriates with his perverse opposition to something we believe in, or with an apparent word of praise for Mao or Stalin. He spins our head on a roulette table and neither he nor we know where we will land. We can't even bet on ourselves!

We finish, both elated and enraged. But then, this is the age of the problem without a solution

[MichaelK · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bought this because it was billed, somewhere, as 'Žižek for Beginners'; I probably won't read any more Žižek. Across this book's 157 pages, Žižek rambles on about capitalism, communism, liberalism, populism, radicalism, finance, the French and Haitian revolutions, religious fundamentalism, Obama, and many, many other things. There was quite a bit that I found interesting, and some parts were genuinely (intentionally, I hope and think) funny.

His main argument is that liberal capitalism has died twice, first in the tragedy of 9/11, then in the farce of the 2008 financial crisis. The adherents of liberal capitalism are now only pretending to believe their economic doctrines, not willing to accept that they've been seduced by a false faith, and so now is the time for the Left to start presenting a new communism as an alternative to capitalism.

Communism, not socialism. Socialism is an enemy of communism, according to Žižek.

I skimmed through this all very quickly, so can't deal with his arguments in detail. Žižek's digressionary style was very annoying and distracting; sometimes the tangents were entertaining or interesting, but they made the book feel almost structureless. I like my argumentative books to have structure, the points proceeding logically to their conclusion.

In the book's introduction, Žižek seems to want to start a fight with the reader. I often get the impression that many groups on the Left isolate themselves by not being welcoming to newcomers, to those who don't already share the faith, or by using esoteric language that is very off-putting. Žižek cites an awful lot of Left intellectuals, whose opinions I couldn't bring myself to care about, and his vocabulary is aggressively academic.

I was, I guess very erroneously, expecting 'Žižek for Beginners' to be a mass-market-friendly intro to his radical leftist thoughts and arguments. It seems this is a book for Marxists by a Marxist, and I can't see it converting anyone not part of the choir. As someone who sympathizes strongly with the criticisms of capitalism, I was looking forward to cogent arguments for the alternative system. Alas, they were not found here.

P.S. Read this review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Hammam · Rating 1 out of 5]

لا شيء أكثر بعثا للكآبة من ترجمة رديئة لكتاب كنت متحمسا لقراءته.. بعض الصفحات لا تفهم منها أي جملة بالمرة. أضطررت لإعادة قراءة الكتاب مترجما للإنجليزية.

[Cody Sexton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about the failures of liberalism, in particular the failures of liberal democratic capitalism. According to its author liberalism has died and he articulates his reasons for believing so while offering us a possible alternative, namely, a return to communism. The only true revolutionary act he says, "involves not a gradual process, but a repetitive movement, a movement of repeating the beginning again and again." But as far as I can tell there is no viable alternative to capitalism and any proposed alternative only gets assimilated into the already existing system and becomes new opportunities for investment. Capitalisms main function is to erase meaning, which is why it is so easily assimilated.
But the most interesting thing in here to me is his critique of ideology especially today's cynicism towards it. Cynicism itself is an inconsistent philosophical standpoint, since it fails to account for the full efficacy of illusions to structure our very reality. Ideology is something we believe in without realizing it. Ideology today presents itself as non-ideological, obscuring it’s reach. A most apt definition of ideology and how it functions is to look at it as such, nobody takes democracy or justice seriously, but we participate in them, we display our belief in them, because we assume that they work even if we do not believe in them.
"In a democracy, every citizen is effectively a king - but a king in a constitutional democracy, a monarch who decides only formally, whose function is merely to sign off on measures proposed by an executive administration. I am free to choose on condition that I make the right choice, so that the only thing left for me to do is make the empty gesture of pretending to accomplish freely what expert knowledge has imposed upon me." This sadly is the essence of every election.
Maybe history necessarily repeats itself the first time as tragedy the second time as farce because it allows mankind to "part happily with its past."

[David Sarkies · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New Aristocracy
12 January 2015

The title of this book comes from a quote from Hegel (whom Zizek references quite a lot throughout this text) in relation to the collapse of the German aristocracy in the mid-nineteenth century. The reason for the statement was that historical events always happen in pairs – the first is a tragedy (in reference to the collapse of the French aristocracy) and the second time it occurs it is farcical. In using this reference Zizek indicated that the attacks of 9/11 were the tragedy while the global financial crisis was the farce. In a way I have to agree with him, despite the fact that the two events had nothing in common (and I doubt that this is what Hegel was referring to). In a way 9/11 was somewhat unavoidable in that it came almost as a complete surprise (though one could argue otherwise in that there was quite a lot of chatter leading up to the events that the Bush administration ignored). However, the farce surrounding the global financial crisis, and its response, was nothing short of laughable – how can one expect that a loan made to somebody who doesn't have any money, and has no way of getting any money, will ever pay it back.

In a way I not entirely sure if any form of credit crisis can be considered a tragedy, in a sense that when people make incredibly risky investments there is always going to be the possibility that they will lose all of their money – and the riskier the investment the higher the possibility to the point where the loss of the investment is an absolute certainty – give money to a person who has none to buy a flat screen TV and go on a holiday then that money is gone, for good.

In essence the book is about capitalism, and also a call for the disenchanted communists to come back and once again raise the call to change the narrative. In a way what Zizek is saying is that we simply cannot sit around and wait for something to happen – it already has – because if we do then nothing is going to change. The Global Financial Crises was seen by many at the time as the death knell of capitalism (I know I saw it as such) – however seven years after the event capitalism, or as Zizek says 'Post-Modern Capitalism', is still very much alive and well. The same goes with the figure that could change the narrative – Obama was seen to be that man, yet the United States is still the same United States as it was prior to his election – it is just that it now has a more human face. Eight years after his election we are all now looking to 'Feel the Bern'ie Saunders as our new hope (in the same way that the Libertarians have been looking to Rand Paul for, well, forever, as theirs).

Anyway, as with many of Zizek's writings, there is a substantial amount of information packed into this little book, and he writes in a way that all he needs to do is make a statement and a whole heap of ideas suddenly start flooding into my head. Further, Zizek wouldn't be Zizek unless he makes at least one reference to his favourite movie of all time – Kung Fu Panda. Anyway, I will try to discuss some of the major themes that came out of this book here:

The Narritive as Truth
The modern economic system is not based upon any provable assumptions but rather a narrative. This is why I believe he keeps on referring to the modern system as post-modern capitalism. It isn't that it is based upon any proven economic theory – that went out the window long ago – but it is rather based on a narrative. While many of us on the left hailed the global financial crisis as the end of modern capitalism, it didn't actually turn out that way, namely because the narrative never changed. In fact the narrative continued on as it did before. In the end the workers are still being exploited, the bosses are getting richer, and the income gap is wider than it has ever been.

Many of us believed, at the time, that another Great Depression would come about as a result, and in a way we welcomed it. The reason for this, I believe, is because as history demonstrated, when the economic system collapsed in 1929 the narrative began to change,.The people saw that the unrestrained capitalism of the 1920s had failed, and in came John Maynard Keynes and Franklin Delanore Roosevelt who managed to change the narrative and shift the American culture back to the left, which involved placing heavy regulations on the banks to prevent the wholesale speculative lending that brought about the crash. Mind you, this created a lot of concern within the wealthy class to the point that they even attempted to coup, which was only brought down because their proxy, General Smedley Butler, had become sick of fighting wars for big business and blew the whistle on them (though none of the agitators were never changed with treason).

However come 2008 and there was no change in the narrative. No doubt the wealthy class had learnt their lessons from the past and did all they could to keep the narrative in place. Of course that narrative, as it has always been, boils down to one word – jobs. In fact it is a narrative that has kept the right in power for a long time, and also dragged the traditional left leaning parties over to the right. If there is one thing that the average voter on the street is concerned about and that is their job – without their job they can't meet the mortgage payments on their houses and they can't feed their families. As such, by creating a fear within the voting public that they would lose their jobs, they agreed to let the governments do whatever they could to keep the economy afloat – including pouring over a trillion dollars into the financial system to buy up the bad debts.

The End of Capitalism
As far as I am concerned this is not capitalism as it is supposed to be. The whole idea of capitalism is that people take risks, and by taking risks they can earn money, however the reason that it is a risk is because they can lose it all. This is how capitalism is supposed to work – by creating risk people learn to mitigate their risks, and those who are reckless lose everything, and those who a smart can make it. What 2008 did (and this wasn't the first time it happened – in 1998 Long Term Capital Finance was bailed out after their wonderful money making equation turned out to be a dud) is that it removed risk, but not for everybody. The thing is that us small timers still have to risk our money, while the big banks can play wild games of speculation and if they lose everything they can expect the government to come and bail them out.

Not so with poor Joe the plumber. The classic idea of capitalism is that Joe the Plumber, who works for himself, competes with the other small plumbers in the town, and he makes a decent living by the work of his hands. Sure, we have companies that come along that provide services to assist them in running their business, but they also have to confront something known as economies of scale. Many of the small business simply cannot compete with the likes of Walmart. Tom the butcher, and Dan the grocer simply do not have the logistical support to be able to compete against Walmart – and when Walmart is handed huge tax breaks it works further to undermine the competitive nature of the market. This isn't a more efficiently run business driving the less efficient ones out of business, this is a huge company that uses its influence to force the government to pretty much give it what it wants.

The truth is that after the Global Financial Crisis capitalism had died and no matter what the governments have attempted to do they haven't managed to revive it. The problem is that capitalist theory shuns government intervention, and many of the right wing commentators have been decrying this ever since. The more the government does to try to save the economy, the more of a mess it creates. For instance the central bank not only lowered interest rates to 0, but that also started printing money (though we can't use that term anymore because it doesn't fit the narrative: it brings back memories of hyperinflation, which will cause panic, and that is the last thing the government wants because the modern economic systems runs on confidence, and when there is no confidence the market suffers – once again we see the need to control the narrative to save the economic system). However, even after seven years, the economy is still suffering, and further shocks are coming about that are preventing a full recovery (first there was Europe, then there was Greece, and now there is China). Of course, lowering interest rates only works to exacerbate the problem because then people become addicted to easy credit, and once interest rates are raised well, you have 2008 all over again.

Another Solution
To be honest with you, I'm not a communist – I'm a democratic socialist. I believe that there are merits in the capitalist system that benefits all of society – such as the spirit of the entrepreneur. All you need to do is walk through the streets of Melbourne and see all of the small businesses flourishing. Even then the might of the fast food duopoly is being challenged with the rise of the gourmet burger bar. In fact these burger bars have learnt to create a narrative of their own – namely they are not McDonalds. As such people are willing to pay more just to not eat burgers at McDonalds.

However, along with capitalism I believe you need safe guards. The problem with capitalism is that it believes that everybody is fit and healthy and can work to a ripe old age. Unfortunately that is not true. It also assumes that everybody is a shrewd and canny businessman, able to sell their skills to the highest bidder – once again that is not true. The thing is that just as we need the government to fund the police and the military to protect the peace, we also need to government to keep a tight reign of the power of the businesses so that they don't grow too big and end up exploiting people. That is why I yearn for the Republicans of old – the Abraham Lincolns, the Teddy Roosevelts, and the Dwight D Eisenhowers. They understood the limits of capitalism, and were willing to impose those limits.

My economic solution is to give money to people who will spend it, but also encourage them to save. You see by putting money into the hands of the working class will mean that they will spend it, and by spending it they will keep the wheels of economy spinning. Tax cuts for the rich does not encourage investment, it just means that more money is being taken out of circulation. Allowing mega-coporations to dominate the landscape who pay employees as little as they are legally allowed once again takes money out of the system. For the economy to work, and to grow, the money needs to be put into the hands of people that will spend it.

World of the Neo-Fuedalist
Gee, I seem to just keep on writing this review, namely because there is so much that I could say, despite the fact that one normally finished with 'the solution'. However the thing about the modern world is that we are once again returning to the age of the feudal society. We have a new aristocracy – the bosses – who will go from business to government and back again. Sure, you can enter their world, however you need to be invited. Many of us, even if we make it to middle management, can never get to the point where we pass through the door into their world. You see these people sit in the position that was once held by the lords and ladies of the land, and even had power over the king. In fact the king had little power unless he enjoyed the favour of the feudal lords – just as these days governments rise and fall on the favour of the media barons.

We, however, are the new serfs. Sure we may have a semblance of freedom, but many of us are debt slaves, needing to work to service our debt. In fact the modern world seeks to make us debt slaves as soon as possible with the idea of turning universities into private institutions. While in Australia one's university debt is still a clayton's debt (it's a debt, but you don't actually have to pay it off), this is not the case in the United States. These days it is very hard, if not impossible, for the average middle class punter to ever pay of their debt. Once they are out of university and have a job, they then go into debt to buy a house, and then must continue to go into debt, or pay rents, to be able to survive.

The power of the feudal lords came from the fact that they would collect rents off of their serfs, and their serfs were bound to their lands. Our modern debt binds us to our jobs, meaning that to survive we need a stable and secure job, which gives power to those in authority. Whenever the spectre of losing our jobs arises, we immediately flee to those who promise (and are no doubt lying) to protect their jobs. This is why the Republican Party, despite being so extreme, and are acting against the interests of the middle and lower classes, are able to remain in power – the fear of one losing one's job.

When we take out a loan to buy a house we aren't actually buying a house, but rather paying rent to the bank that holds the mortgage. In many cases we will never see the day when we will pay off our mortgage (especially since banks are always keen to encourage us to draw down on our mortgage, thus extending the period on which we will eventually pay it off). In fact most corporations these days are little more than rent seekers. They don't offer anything of practical purpose, just a piece of paper that promises something. Health insurance is a classic example. The reason that Obama is having so much difficulty enacting health care reform in the United States is because the HMOs see that their rents will be attacked. If people have free and available healthcare, people will not take their services. Once again this is the lie that is being peddled here in Australia to boost the profits of the HMOs – the government can't sustain the burgeoning medical costs, so we have to take out private health insurance (with its huge yearly increases) in case we become sick (and it turns out that if we claim under our health insurance it ends up costing us more).

The Truth About Freedom
I remember writing an essay back in high school about freedom. It began with 'freedom is a state of mind, freedom is a lie'. I had just come off of unemployment benefits, and was now on Austudy (the payment made to school students). The reason I wrote that was because I was not economically free. I was living a hand to mouth existence, which meant that I did not have freedom of choice or freedom of action. My choices were limited by the amount of money that I did not have. Now I find myself in a different situation. While I am not on a huge income, I am on enough that I am no longer living a hand to mount existence, and have learnt to be content so that I no longer am restricted by my financial situation. However my lack of freedom comes from the fact that I spend eleven hours either at work, or travelling to and from work (though the hours I spend travelling to and from work are spent reading).

These days the word freedom is thrown around a lot, however it is a misnomer. George Bush talked about freeing the Iraqi people from tyranny, however that, as we all know, was partially a lie. Sure, he wanted to free the Iraqis, but when the Americans talk about spreading freedom, it is not political freedom, or even economic freedom, it is what we call free trade. This has always been the way that the term freedom has been used – to the people in power, to the businessman, freedom is the freedom to trade without government interference. However to the people it is freedom from tyranny, and this is why it is used so much because people see it differently (which is why the American people fear universal healthcare – the Republicans claim it to be an attack against freedom, that is free trade, while the general masses is it a the beginning of the path to tyranny).

Zizek looks back to the revolution of 1968, a period that I will refer to as the summer of love. In a way it is similar to the Chinese revolution of 1989. The people went to the streets demanding freedom, however the governments by that time realised that they could maintain power by simply giving some freedoms, while maintaining control. When the French revolution occurred the entire system collapsed because the government refused to give any freedoms to the people (or moreso the bourgeoisie). Since then when periods of protest have come about governments have initially responded with violent suppression (and this happened in 1968 as well), however after the initial protests were put down, they gave up some of their controls. This has worked, and has worked really well. Throughout the 19th century the English government enacted systems of universal healthcare and education, in 1905 in Russia Czar Nicholas established the Duma. In 1968 the Western governments began to gradually removing the 'morality' laws, such as a lot of sexual acts that were at the time criminal offences. In China they allowed economic freedom.

Anyway, I have written quite a lot, so I think I will finish it off here (especially since I am really close to the Goodreads limit). A part of me wishes that I have more time to really flesh out these ideas, and do a lot more research, however I have read this book and it is time for me to move on to the next one (and there are a couple of more Zizek books on my self, including The Year of Dreaming Dangerously, which is about the Arab Spring).

[Mr Shahabi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Zizek's writing, he rants about alot of nonsense but he also have some deeply sighted perspectives as well, of course he always starts off with the same way: Fuck Capitalism!!! Then he starts off gradually stating how evil it is.. Communism is the way... Blah blagh

But he's method is entertaining as always

Drink tea

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a kind gesture that the author admits his purported intent upfront in the introduction, this is indeed not recommended reading for anyone for whom the term "communism" holds immediate connotations of despotism.

That said, Zizek's brand of politics doesn't preclude appreciation of his writing and position, at least until the last chapter of the book. What is argued for here is a revival of the radical left, against the backdrop of postmodern absurdity which, for Zizek, is best embodied by the 2008 financial crisis and resultant economic disruption throughout the West.

There really isn't much to contest in the man's mastery at explaining his position. Most of this is well reasoned and very accessible argument for a new left-wing that puts less emphasis on moral blackmail and focuses more on arguing the efficiency and practicality of collectivism instead. Zizek would like very much for those who identify with his views to part ways with the "hippy" as well as the "cultural revolutionary." If a vision of utopian collectivism is to take root alongside the upheaval of global capitalism, it is going to have to be in every way as productive and efficient, while supposedly serving more "justifiable" means to this end.

I'm not going to insert myself or my take on this position into this review. Suffice it to say I don't entirely agree with the man, but I can appreciate how dialectically sound his argument is, especially when he argues against one of the central tenets of Marx/Engels - that history is essentially "on the side of the Left" and that the thrust of history will ensure an eventual global worker's revolution. Zizek argues instead that in the absence of true identity, revolutions will often occur cyclically, and the present age of dissatisfied acquiescence ('capitalism is the end of evolution in human civilization') is instead the result of so many disappointed and disenchanted revolutions around the world.

The man soundly impugns global capitalism, and is especially salient and frightful when raising the spectre of Chinese capitalism as the true future. This warning, if nothing else, is the one universal part of the book that can sound for any political stripe. The Western world would probably do well to heed the warning that certain Eastern nations have succesfully divorced capitalism from the "freedom" and "democracy" that are supposedly its direct consequences, and some healthy caution should be adopted when examining how successful this has been. The future of capitalism may very well be authoritarian in nature, when one faces how effective outsourcing at the cost of human rights has been in expanding nations.

What could be argued here is how effective his suggested replacement would be at remedying the evils he perceives in our current system.

Post-note: I really wish the guy would use less French demonstrative language. For some reason I just can't stand it when an author goes to such lengths to demonstrate how many "nomes guerres" and "je nai se quois" they can cram into their treatise.

[Mark Hebden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Firstly, this book has the worst opening paragraph of any book I’ve ever read. It demands that the person reading the book should stop right there and not bother, unless they already conform to a belief in communism. Not only is that self-defeating, it is arrogant and separatist.

That aside this is a very passionate cry for communism, and does for socialism what atheism does for agnosticism. It’s all or nothing with Zizek which can be viewed with passion or cynicism as is your wont. There is a lot of academic hiding of what the author really feels and the expansion of topics that could be written much more concisely, this is the curse of the philosopher I suppose.

Zizek would like to see history stop apologising for communism, or perhaps for communism to stop apologising for history and to begin again from the beginning, in the classic Leninist style. Unfortunately reality doesn’t work in this format and communism as an ideology will forever be tainted by its historical actors, sadly, and in some cases unfairly. Zizek does make a valid point regarding the time frame of when capitalists are going to start their apologies for historical tragedy and multiple catastrophes related to the economic superstructure we are all now forced to subscribe to.

The book is split in to two parts the first being the reawakening of ideology where some have claimed it is dead, and that we live in a post ideological world. To be post ideological is an ideological standpoint in itself, and is the overwhelming paradox of postmodernism. The second part deals with the communist platform and the discovery of space in which to posit the idea.

The future battle in Zizek’s world will be between communism and socialism, as even opposing figures such as Adam Smith and Karl Marx agreed on the inevitability of democracy leading to socialism. It isn’t easy to get on with the style of writing let alone the arguments themselves but it is passionate and well argued with some terrific insight from one of the greatest and most unafraid leftist thinkers in the world today who tells us that Communism itself is not the solution, it is the vehicle for the solution to become apparent in the cyclical war against capital.

[Teo Mechea · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone who comes from a post-Communist East European country and is still haunted by the horrors my parents told me about the regime, this was a hard read.
Partly because if you have my background but want to get the best of this book you need to rewire your brain around what "Communism" actually means for Žižek - and he is right in separating the core ideas of Communism from the failed terror regimes of actual enforcement of those ideas in the 19th and 20th Century. Because those regimes had nothing to do with the actual ideology of the original revolutionary movement, and more people nowadays should realise that.
I especially resonated with his anti-capitalism stance, and his environmental activism.
-
That being said, I do not agree with everything he says, and I don't think the point of this book is to read it with the goal of accepting his every stance. But I do believe that more people should read this book, because it explores some themes worth crossing paths with, even if you disagree with them.
We need more militant exploration of this sort, and Žižek is great at creating the urgency to solve crucial issues before we collectively drive humanity off a cliff.

[Tanuj Solanki · Rating 4 out of 5]

The rock star philosopher of our times writes yet another book censuring the liberal democratic capitalist hegemony, using precisely its recent shows of weakness (9/11 and 2008) to drive home his single point agenda - communism as the only alternative.

The critique of the current order is precise. But the presentation of the new order is almost you-have-to-take-it-coz-I-am-saying-so. This, I find, is a common thing in Zizek's books. Many here have criticized the opening of the book, though my specific problem is the maintenance of that same intellectual aloofness when posing solutions.

[6655321 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written, sloppy sloppy ideology, false disjunctions, cites wikipedia... it is not worth my time to write out all the reasons this book is an utter failure. However, as a gift, here is the only valuable insight in entire book: capitalism maintains itself through "green" and "humanitarian" capitalist projects that don't challenge the actual roots of capitalist exploitation. I just saved you money and time... you are welcome.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is all over the place:
25% has a tendency to loop into academic circular theorizing
25% dreary... as communists we lost, how/can we win?
50% a great collection of ideas and tidbits from culture, philosophy, and history that I wouldn't have bumped into otherwise.

[Syed Fathi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Žižek criticized many paradoxes in the thought of many people, but if we carefully read his book, he himself entangled with so many paradoxes. Marxis thought was heavily influenced by the idea of materialism and it despise abstraction, in this sense however, Žižek also revolve many of his thought in abstraction. Especially when he emphasized that communism is an idea that persist and refused to give-up, it is a bravery to start again at a new beginning, these kind of ideas for me lack material sense and is fully abstract. There are part which I disagree with Žižek , especially his attempt to whitewash Marx from his colonial writings. Žižek tried to promote the idea that colonialism has its positive effect which I didn't buy. There are also discussion which I found to be very insightful, for instance, on the limitation and flaws of democracy. I also find that the discussion on how crisis in itself unable to create changes to be very interesting. Žižek argued that crisis also can be used as a tool to strengthen the status quo. The utility of crisis depends on who manage to sell their narrative about the crisis to the general public. I remained sceptic that the future will be communism, but I also find that Žižek have some valid points in his analysis.

[imane · Rating 5 out of 5]

التعصب هو نتاج كل ثورة فاشلة وهذا يفسر ظهور الفاشية الاسلامية. الاشتراكية فشلت والراسمالية افلست. الحل هو راسمالية منظمة. اختر الدم الاسواط المسدسات او الدولارات. انه نوع جديد من العبودية والاستعمار باستخدام القوة الناعمة والذكاء والافتتان. وفي نفس الوقت لا يمكن مواجهة القلة التي تمتلك الذكاء والمعرفة والقوة بالعواطف والشعبوية التي لا تعترف بالحقائق كما هي لكن تحلم بما يجب ان يكون وفي النهاية تفشل ثوراتها لانها ليست قائمة على المعرفة وليس لديها مشروع بديل قابل للتطبيق ينافس الراسمالية
https://youtu.be/U7JgfB8PaAk

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somehow I can disagree with most of what Zizek says in most of his books and he still remains a favorite. This one was written in the peak of the recent financial crisis. In it he has his usual weird jokes and counterintuitive points. He also predicts that the west will soon succumb to authoritarian capitalism like exists in Russia. Fun stuff.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The last really compelling Žižek I read was The Ticklish Subject (published in 1999), and in the last ten years I have become increasingly irritated with his reliance on Lacan to make sense of materialist politics and our place in the material world, but even more so by his tendency to argue by analogy (and concede a bit of the pot and kettle in that criticism, according to some who have critiqued me). But this, alongside In Defence of Lost Causes (at least according to the reviews – it is in the read in the next month or so pile), sees a return to the politics of struggle.

In this case, the tragedy is the 11 September 2001 attacks on NYC & Washington DC, while the farce is the banking crisis of 2008. In between Žižek sees the exposure of the limits of capitalist triumphalism and liberalism's path to a future world. Instead, and developing work by Badiou, he argues that in the contemporary world we are faced with two options only: capitalism or communism. Socialism, even if it was ever a viable alternative before Labour parties and Stalin crippled it, is now more obviously than ever a means to save capitalism – witness the banking crisis solved by protecting the privatisation of profit and effecting the socialisation of debt.

He sees contemporary political struggles centred on three commons that are being enclosed: culture (including cognitive culture such as language and education, as well as our shared social and economic infrastructure), external nature (the world around us), and internal nature (what he calls the biogenetic inheritance of humanity). It is not these three contradictions (oddly, for a Hegelian, Žižek prefers antagonisms) that distinguish new communism, but a fundamentally transformative struggle with and on behalf of the excluded against the included.

Unlike Negri & Hardt who see the struggle as that of a (poorly defined and delineated) multitude, Žižek finds inspiration elsewhere: in Hegel. In particular he looks to the young Hegel's support for the Haitian revolution of the 1790s to remind us that a genuinely revolutionary act occurs when the excluded (in this case, Black slaves) force their way into the world of the included (in this case by claiming a struggle for freedom against colonial France – by now republican – in the very terms of that republic).

The book is frustrating, at times circuitous but more direct than recent other book length work, and inspiring. For all its faults, it is one of the most compelling attempts to make sense for the Left of current confused and contradictory world where we are voices on the margin. What is more, it helped me clarify the politics of work I have been doing for some time now dealing 'intellectual property'.