Against Progress

by Slavoj Žižek

To define 'progress' is to lay claim to the future. Seminal thinker Slavoj Žižek turns essayist to interrogate the competing visions which form the horizons of human possibility and Can things, which have never seemed worse, get better? What would a better world be? And how, when we are constantly besieged by doomers, degrowthers and disorienting relativisms can we make any headway at all in the face of unprecedented ecological, social and political crises?
In thirteen iconoclastic essays, Slavoj Žižek disrupts the death-grip that neoliberalists, Trumpian populists, toxic self-improvement industries and accelerationists alike have established on the idea of progress. Anatomizing what is lost when opponents of the future are allowed to define it, Žižek ruthlessly exposes what different visions of progress exclude or sacrifice and the dynamics of desire, denial and disavowal at work in Hollywood blockbusters, Buddhist economics, decolonization movements and other engines of vision. In a whirlwind tour that takes in everything from gentrification to the theory of relativity, Lacan to Lenin, Putin to Mary Poppins and Marine Le Pen to the end of the world, these essays never stop asking hard questions of imagined futures.
Nor does Žižek shrink from the hardest question of How do we free ourselves from the hypocritical, guilt-ridden dreaming in which we're enmeshed, and begin to build a better world?

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, Essays, Psychoanalysis, Sociology, Technology

121 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 9, 2025

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

[Kai · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is what i imagine crack must feel like: you don’t really need it, but it just feels so good

100+ namedrops,
Less perverted than your avg Zizek,
A+ analogies

[linde · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘There is infinite hope – just not for us.’ (Kafka)

[Bludniq Sin · Rating 4 out of 5]

je sais bien, mais quand même…, i know very well (that’s its true), but all the same…
Ah, yes, the world is ending, but we must go on and if we do it may not end (the way we expect it to do so, at least).
A quiet mix of fury - a normalised contradictory of the quotidian. Climate change, the rising new Right, war, corruption - you can never win - but you are still alive, no? I promenade in the park in the prettiest neighbourhood of my city, accompanied by friends. I worry about the news. I buy myself coffee and still think life is worth living.
The book reads like one grand coping mechanism with a fatalistic, yet optimistic, approach to life. A TV series that never ends; to be continued, but you wake up next week and start the show again.
I think of a conversation Irvin Yalome recalls in his book about accepting grief, the death of his beloved wife and continuing to live without her in “A Matter of Death and Life”; briefly visiting his old friend and mentor, suffering from dementia in a hospice-home. This is Jerry Frank, who says to him:
“Yesterday’s all gone. But i sit in this chair and watch life go by. It’s not so bad, Irv. It’s not so bad.”
This is how we must go on. Zizek suggests a disavowal of the ‘doomed’ reality - acknowledging what is to come, but also leaving a space for surprises. Life goes by, you watch it from the window and observe the state of your world. It’s not so bad, you have today.

[Arnau Gisbert Solà]

He entès, potser, el 5%

[Fríða Þorkelsdóttir · Rating 5 out of 5]

Er einfaldlega alltaf sammála þessum manni og það er gaman að lesa þannig.

[Nick]

Funny reading the last sentence of this book (speculation about how long the left/centrist alliance will last for following the French elections this year) whilst Barnier was being ousted, and also in the penultimate essay which talked about South Korea's comparative 'relaxed indifference' in context to the North like a day after people and politicians essentially physically overturned a coup there

[Alicia Dai · Rating 4 out of 5]

i’ve never felt more intellectually humbled and painfully aware of my shrunken pea brain than when reading this book.

žižek is an encyclopedia of every philosopher and political theorist who’s ever existed so it’s almost impossible to keep up without context of everyone who’s ever written anything important in the history of time. if you happen to have the 10,000 TB of brainpower required to understand, these are some poignant applications of classic existentialism on 2025 issues such as trumpian populism, false fundamentalist anti-colonialism, and technocapitalism that i’m sure are worth appreciating.

for as much anxiety and despair i feel over trump’s ongoing obliteration of our societal order, it did kind of make me feel better to engage with a text that acknowledges the complex interplay between everyday complacency and people’s desire for wide-scale revolution in a way that is sympathetic but rightfully critical of the level of agency we feel we have in a ‘society of choice.’ through ‘disavowal,’ žižek offers a way out of outright denial or gleeful acceptance of a deteriorating society afflicted by far right extremism, perverse neoliberalism, and climate disasters: “one should accept the catastrophe as inevitable – and then act to undo the destiny which is already ‘written in the stars’” (106).

unfortunately, the worst part about this book is that i can hardly recall a single thing i learned due to my own cognitive shortcomings!!! as mentioned, frequent references to kierkegaard, hegel, and lacan were all lost on me and it makes me wonder if it’s even possible for me to engage in dialectics let alone retain any sociopolitical theories IN GENERAL even if i read more. i just know my philosophy and mcc professors would’ve rated this 5 stars.

[Steven · Rating 2 out of 5]

Zizek is always relevant, but I don't like this one very much. Plenty of points that repeat from his talks, he didn't suggest anything new or groundbreaking, and instead letting his Lacanian word salad to carry the day. I don't agree with almost everything he said. He tends to take any left leaning opinion too seriously. If you read too much of him uncritically, you'll be stuck in a whirpool of world problems, paralyzed with overthinking. However, I do share his worry that the world is facing a big crisis in a lot of areas, although I think he's overestimating it.

[JCJBergman · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like Žižek. He is not only refreshing but also often quite amusing to read. As this is a collection of philosophical/political essays, there is favouritism in regards to which appealed to me and those which did not. The first few essays (to do with the concept of "progress") interested me, and the rest not so much (when he doubled down on the subject of politics). The good thing with this kind of book is that it is easy to revisit in the future and see how his comments about contemporary events shine in the light of retrospect.

[Patrick Hewett]

Zizek can be so fun when you're not required to have done a philosophy phd on Lacan and Hegel to understand his writing.

eyes did glaze over for a couple of these essays.

to be honest i dont think there was anything too thought provoking, however he has such a talent with visual metaphors and can (especially not referencing other philosophers) give a funny and clever insight into world politics, failure of the left, the traps of left wing populism, and challenging political narratives.

[Dávid L · Rating 3 out of 5]

Azért érdekelt ez az esszés kötet, mert leginkább arról szól, hogy hogyan kerüljük el a világvégét. Természetesen válaszai nincsenek. Hátha ez, vagy hátha az. Na és addig? Žižek jól látja a megküzdési stratégiákat: a legtöbben a tagadást választják: “jaj nem olyan rossz a helyzet, csak a fiatalok nem akarnak dolgozni!” Mások az üres, szimbolikus “politikai cselekvést”: politikai nyár=bebaszás palesztin zászlóval. Én meg az irodalmat választom. Pótcselekvések mind.

[Karl Kilbo Edlund · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Slavoj Žižek dealing with the dystopia of our present armed with Hegel, Kirkegaard and Lacan. Without training in philosophy myself, some parts remain opaque. Yet, in an odd way, I feel Žižek actually trusts his readers to understand, and refuses to shy away from the complex. The climax, without doubt, is an essay dealing with the concept of authority.

[Jonathan Garvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting thoughts

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Értékelés egy későbbi időpontban. Annyit előrebocsátok, hogy valamiért Žižekről értékelést írni mindig élvezetes, néha élvezetesebb, mint maga Žižek.

[Rita · Rating 5 out of 5]

mi mejor amigo

[Thanos Chatziioannou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed, thought - provoking and engaging in a multitude of subjects (in typical Zizek fashion, using progress as a vehicle to include takes on Israel - Palestine, pop movie culture and climate change). The only downside (essentially why 4/5 and not 5 stars) is a specific mid - end section of the book (the chapter Authority), which is not only disconnected from the rest of the book, but requires extensive familiarity with Lacan and Habermas (EXTENSIVE), while the rest of the book serves as a good prelude and explainer to their work itself. If you come in with more than epidermal comprehension of their work, then you can be sure that your opinion of Against Progress will be of the 5 star variety.

[mia moraru]

‘This, according to Dupuy, is also how we should approach the prospect of an ecological or social catastrophe: not realistically appraising the likelihood of the catastrophe, but accepting it as our fate, as unavoidable, and then, on the basis of this acceptance, mobilize ourselves to perform the act which will change destiny itself, and thereby open up new possibilities within the situation. Instead of saying “the future is still fluid, we still have time, time to act and prevent the worst,“ one should accept the catastrophe as inevitable– and then act to undo the destiny which is already “written in the stars “.

Basically create the miracle that we need (in order to avert the seemingly inevitable, the indomitable, the looming catastrophe. It’s always possible.)

the unanswered question is what happens after the miracle, after the catastrophe that we avoided…we likely/often find ourselves at a crux of instability, tension, general confusion, ripe ground for co-optation. it’s a mess, but probably still better than the would’ve-be catastrophe. we’ve altered history. in real time.

[Isaac Lauren · Rating 3 out of 5]

Classic Žižek: “what the hell is he talking about ……. Oh okay that makes sense”

[Stef]

You are very interesting to read, and I like the call to do what needs to be done even though we’re headed towards disaster. I just think you’d be insufferable to meet in person.

[Arief Bakhtiar D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

MENGGUGAT MITOS KEMAJUAN


“There is infinite hope - just not for us.”—Franz Kafka, dikutip Žižek pada halaman 55

SUATU kali saya pergi ke toko buku dan tertarik dengan buku tipis berwarna hijau neon, cerah, tanpa gambar sampul, dengan nama eksotis dari Slovenia: “Againts Progress” dari Slavoj Žižek. Buku terbitan Bloomsbury Academic setebal 122 halaman itu menyebut soal “progress”—sebuah kata yang membuat kita membayangkan sesuatu yang selalu bergerak ke depan, linier, bersih, menuju “yang lebih baik”. Progres, kemajuan, menjual harapan seperti dalam brosur dan bertanya retoris: siapa yang tak menginginkan kemajuan dalam hidupnya?

Beberapa penulis telah mencoba meyakinkan kita soal kemajuan, bahwa kita tengah berada dalam periode terbaik dalam sejarah umat manusia. Melalui berbagai data, Hans Rosling percaya bahwa dunia telah mengalami banyak kemajuan. Bill Gates bahkan mengagumi pendekatan Hans dalam buku Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think (Begley, 2018). Ray Kurzweil, pakar AI dari Google, memprediksi bahwa kemajuan teknologi telah menghasilkan banyak lapangan kerja baru untuk mengkompensasi pekerjaan-pekerjaan manusia yang hilang, dan dengan pendapatan 10 kali lipat dari gaji pekerja 100 tahun yang lalu (Corbyn, 2024).

Tapi Žižek berbeda. Ia memulai dengan nuansa keresahan. Pertanyannya: seperti apa akhir dunia yang kita bayangkan? Apakah, seperti kata Fukuyama, kita tengah berada “di akhir sejarah”? Dalam politik internasional kontemporer, kita mudah menemukan kutub-kutub dunia yang sedang berjalan berlawanan, seperti Korea Utara-Selatan, Palestina-Israel, atau Ukraina-Rusia. Dengan konflik-konflik tersebut, menurut Žižek, jika orang-orang berharap ketenangan menjelang akhir dunia, mungkin semua orang akan kecewa.

●●●
Žižek, dengan caranya yang khas—kadang cerewet, kadang seperti orang yang sedang bergurau dalam kegilaan—menulis 13 esai pendek dalam Against Progress. Judulnya seperti pukulan pertama: provokatif, frontal, dan mungkin, oleh sebagian orang, dianggap sebagai penistaan terhadap iman zaman modern. Isinya, tidak kalah provokatif, seperti pukulan membabi buta: layaknya petinju yang mengincar luka lama yang dibalut terlalu rapi, berkali-kali. Progres, barangkali, telah menyembunyikan rasa sakit yang tak pernah pulih bagi umat manusia. Kita perlu membuka ‘luka lama’ itu, ‘realitas’ itu. Di halaman 3, Žižek menulis:

“Mao said: ‘Revolution is not a dinner party.’ But what if the reality after the revolution is even less of a dinner party? This in no way implies that we should abandon progress – we should rather redefine it, and the first step towards doing so is to be able to acknowledge uncomfortable realities, even those which appear squalid and mangled, and especially those we find shamefull and grievous and which seem to have no remedy.”

Untuk mengetahui realitas apa yang sebenarnya ada di hadapan kita, Žižek mengamati politik dunia dengan serius. Ia bicara soal Gaza dan Tepi Barat (dalam esai Civil War, Concrete Analysis of a Concrate Situation, We Are Biomass), situasi Ukraina (Acceleration, Worsting, Civil War), BRICS (Against Progress, Worsting), Korea (The End of the World), dan Afrika (From Bad to Worse). Di tangan Žižek, bahkan pop kultur bisa berubah menjadi medan kritik sosial. Ia mencari perumpaan dalam film, seperti Civil War, Serpico (1973), atau Prison Notebooks. Ia menyandingkan Star Wars dengan politik identitas, dan membedah Barbie bukan dengan nostalgia, melainkan dengan kegelisahan tentang tubuh, gender, dan citra.

Dalam esai-esainya, Žižek mengkritik narasi-narasi dominan Barat seperti modernitas, kapitalisme, maupun kebebasan. Žižek tidak membantah kemajuan dengan nostalgia atau romantisisme masa lalu, melainkan dengan menguliti bahasa moral yang menyertainya. Kolonialisme Barat, misalnya, kerap dipresentasikan sebagai jalan masuk ke modernitas, seperti kasus India—sebuah penderitaan yang konon perlu demi masa depan (hal. 3-4). Pencerahan ala Barat, yang menjanjikan rasio dan emansipasi, ternyata juga memproduksi mekanisme kekerasan yang dingin dan sistematis. Dalam kata-kata Marx, kolonialisme Barat menunjukkan “hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization”. Sejarah, dalam pembacaan ini, adalah arsip ambiguitas yang terus disapu bersih oleh kata “progress”.

Tapi yang mengganggu dari argumen Žižek bukan melulu pesimisme, melainkan ketenangan saat menyebut bencana sebagai sesuatu yang normal. Perang, krisis iklim, teror, kecanduan opioid—semuanya bukan gangguan dalam sistem, melainkan bagian dari cara sistem itu bekerja. Dunia maju, dengan seluruh perangkat rasionalitas dan teknologinya, justru hidup dalam ancaman permanen yang ia ciptakan sendiri. Di sini, sains dan teknologi kehilangan aura netralnya. Sainstis dikontrol oleh kepentingan kapital sehingga mengabaikan pengaruh ekologi dari aktivitas manusia (hal. 82). Ada dominasi sosial di sana. Kecerdasan buatan, misalnya, tidak hanya menjanjikan efisiensi, tetapi juga menyimpan fantasi menggantikan manusia yang rapuh dengan sistem yang lebih patuh dan tanpa cela. Progres bergerak cepat, tetapi refleksi tertinggal jauh di belakangnya. Oleh karena itu, menurut Žižek,

“True progress thus occurs in two steps: first, we make a step towards actualizing what we consider progress, and when we become aware of the squashed bird that was the victim of this progress, we then accordingly redefine our notion of progress.” (hal. 8)

Žižek juga mencurigai optimisme yang terlalu mudah percaya pada bahasa kebebasan. Kita harus sadar/bangun dari kebebasan palsu (hal. 83). Demokrasi liberal, dengan ritual pemilihan dan retorika hak individu, sering kali bekerja sebagai tirai yang menutup relasi dominasi dan eksploitasi yang tetap utuh. Kapital itu, kata Marx, seperti vampir atau parasit. Dia menghisap darah kehidupan (hal. 91). Ketimpangan politik dan ekonomi direduksi menjadi perbedaan budaya; ketidakadilan disulap menjadi soal selera hidup (menurut Benjaminian, di situlah terjadi “politicization of culture”, hal. 6). Bahkan janji-janji global seperti “pembangunan berkelanjutan” tampil sebagai penghiburan moral—memberi harapan tanpa mengganggu fondasi sistem yang sama. Karena itu, Žižek tidak menawarkan solusi yang menenangkan. Ia justru mengajak kita berhenti sejenak, menunda iman terhadap kemajuan, dan kembali ke pertanyaan yang lebih tua dari modernitas itu sendiri: apa yang kita maksud ketika mengatakan “hidup yang lebih baik”? Apakah pilihan yang tersedia bagi negara berkembang hanya “bad” (neokolonialisme Barat) atau “worse” (pemerintahan otoriter anti-kolonialisme yang palsu) (hal. 86)?

●●●
Saya rasa Žižek tidak bermaksud menjadi musuh dari perubahan. Ia hanya menulis bahwa dunia bisa dijelaskan oleh kontradiksi—bukan semata-mata oleh harmoni. Sebab menurutnya, dunia ini memang tak rapi. Tapi justru di dalam kekacauan itulah, ada kejujuran. Ia menyerang progresifisme palsu: dari teknologi hijau yang hijau hanya di permukaan, hingga terapi psikis yang menjanjikan penyembuhan tanpa bertanya apa sebenarnya penyakit zaman ini.

Kelebihan esai-esai dalam buku ini, selain analisisnya yang tajam, adalah gaya menantang yang memaksa orang untuk berpikir ulang. Namun, referensi intelektual yang padat mungkin akan membuat buku ini tidak cocok untuk kebanyakan orang. Buku ini filosofis di mana-mana. Pemikiran Marx, Lacan, Lenin, Kierkegaard, Adorno, atau Mary Poppins, bisa jadi terlalu rumit bagi pembaca yang tidak terbiasa dengan tulisan-tulisan filosofis-kritis. Selain itu, kumpulan esainya nampak tak rapi dan berkelok-kelok, seperti pikiran yang menolak disederhanakan. Di awal, Slavoj Žižek membahas akhir dunia, lanjut menulis Korea Utara vs Selatan di pertengahan, lantas bicara budaya populer di akhir.

Tapi tentu, buku ini bukan bacaan bagi kita yang mencari solusi cepat. Againts Progress bukan buku motivasi. Žižek bahkan tidak terlihat berusaha untuk memotivasi. Ini adalah buku yang lebih suka membuat kita gelisah. Pada halaman 97, Žižek mencatat:

“Images of the end of the world, imagined and otherwise, pervade our media. Alenka Zupančič noted ironically that one should not expect tto much from the end of the world – it may disappoint us. I offer similar sentiment, only phrased slighlty differently: don’t worry, sooner or later the end will come.”

Esai-esai dalam Againts Progress bukan akhir dari perbincangan—Žižek hanya memberi kita waktu untuk mulai berpikir lagi: tentang arah kemajuan, siapa yang ikut, dan apa yang diam-diam tertinggal di belakang.

[James Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Žižek is very active in both public speaking and writing and yet rarely establishes a memorable call to action. It’s quite difficult to decipher what Žižek aims to achieve with his writing and public speaking (in fact many would say it’s difficult to decipher what he even means in the first place, and I would concede this describes some of the essays here). What is the audience supposed to do with all this information that he throws up?

His short videos on Big Think are worth a watch and his speech ‘Don’t Act. Just Think.’ might provide the biggest clue as to his position on this. Žižek’s words both spoken and written inevitably turn your worldview upside-down. Prepare to learn how quantum wave functions might provide a framework for thinking about geopolitical catastrophe. I try to avoid ‘ism’s at all costs but Žižek has me sold on one: (Hegelian) idealism. Not in the colloquial sense of naive blue-sky thinking, but the firm position that ideas, thoughts, and stories are the primary movers of the human world and of history. This makes Žižek not only a heretic within his own political circle, but a contrarian thinker in Western society at large.

After all, why is a clear call to action the yardstick by which we so often measure someone’s chain of thought? I’ve seen adverts for conferences where the main selling point was all speakers being obliged to finish their talks with ‘5 practical steps that you can implement right now’. I don’t want your pomodoro techniques and your binaural focus music, I want to think more deeply about what I should be focusing on in the first place.

Žižek wrestles with what it means to be a progressive in a world where ‘progress’ means exploitation and catastrophe.

[Eliya Hashemi · Rating 4 out of 5]

at age 20, the first book I’ve ever finished is now this. for a large sum, it, for the great first half, holds a cohesive lining of anecdotal filmic comparisons that give way to the universality of what is a very sporadic project. halfway down the road, it drops the dead birds and indulges in just about anything, and from a geopolitical centre examined by an external psychoanalytical or philosophical theory, the inverse occurs and it becomes primarily of theory itself applied to theory. this, to a layman like me, is perhaps as unenjoyable as this text can become. this is perhaps best displayed in the longest essay as Authority, alongside the more reductive (at least to a layman like me) chapters like holographic history, and even teetering perhaps in the final chapter, which perhaps may belong as much to be at the end as anywhere else in the ensemble. the final product is, for its majority, immensely engaging whilst engaging with pedestrian qualities of theoretical, at times anecdotal theory in accordance with whatever may be dragged together, and at its worst, completely flat as a piece put inside a collection of essays that gives the impression of non accordance.

[Anthony Acquisto]

Did I understand half of what Žižek was talking about in this book? God no. “Authority” had me genuinely gasping for air trying to get through it. I’m by no means a philosopher or a philosophical thinker at that, but I was able to pull some pretty valuable insight from these essays when he stopped using his jargon and babied me through his examples.

Most of it made me either sad or angry about the state of the world. Some of his religious allegories blew my mind. There were even a few references to media I had already consumed and on which I already have firm opinions, and THAT was fun to annotate.

I think the point is that Žižek is far above me still, but I’m glad I gave this a shot and made a point of engaging with the text and taking notes. Contemporary political philosophy is depressing and complicated as all get out, but most of all it’s very clearly important. Žižek articulates that ultimate sentiment in so many words.

It will be interesting to reread this in a few years.

[Naomi Harris · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this! I thought that it was fun, fluid, and really tied a lot of different ideas together. I felt like I was also introduced to a lot of different writers and ideas. I def recommend as a nice survey of ideas and their refutations. Russian Cosmism, the end of history, why Capitalist degrowth doesn’t work. Might order a copy of Fanged Noumena 😬 also makes me glad that I read that Freud book before I read this. Should probably read up on Lacan though before reading more Zizek…

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic, real, had my thoughts whizzing off the pages even where I didn't agree or wanted to steer the conversation someplace else. He's got the right idea of it.

[Keelan]

Relevant and urgent—Žižek never fails to intrigue!
The essay “Holographic History” is particularly innovative and excellent, but those interested in his prior work will find “Authority” to be of paramount importance.

[Moso de Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Denso, difuso, acertado.

[kiara · Rating 5 out of 5]

she can be pretentious at times, but she's inherently lovely and sobering

[Ella Okko · Rating 3 out of 5]

Powerful, but hopeful cultural commentary. Motivating to action, through writing with great fluidity. Philosophical essays (mainly "Authority") were indecipherable to me - minus for that.

[T. T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are looking for a thorough review, you are at the wrong place. This is a bit like a short diary. Life has been way too demanding lately that I haven't been able to find enough time to read. But I managed to read this short book. Žižek thinks there are three types of reaction towards climate change. I think I am swinging between two of them: disavowal and secretly enjoying that this pathetic species of which I am a part of is coming to its end, because it deserves it. But of course I am feeling sorry for all the animals and human children and human/animal future generations who didn't and don't deserve this, but looking at our current indifference and selfishness, I feel like..... You know. Do we really deserve a planet which gives us infinite resources?
Sorry for gloominess. Maybe there is hope. But I have been thinking about Drake Equation a lot lately. Even if there were 1 or 2 species in our galaxy that managed to come to the point we did, possibly they destroyed themselves and could have never colonized their solar systems and never traveled to other stars. Why? Who would pay for it? It is super expensive and not profitable. That is the point. Survival of our species is not profitable. Eventually, an evolutionary mechanism that favoured competition is doomed to destroy itself. Just like cancer which is also a product of the same evolution. And possibly evolution functions with the same principles somewhere out there too. Yet... I wish I had more time to read on the last days of our planet. Instead, I am a tug in the system that contributes to its destruction. Well, I am a human too after all. What do you expect?

PS: 4 stars, because I miss the more theoretical works of Žižek. But he is also old now and I think he just wants to produce as many books as possible before the end. Understandable and still enjoyable. You see? I finished positive.