Uyanmak İçin Çok Geç – Gelecek Yoksa Bizi Ne Bekliyor?

by Slavoj Žižek, Barış Gönülşen (Translator)

“Küresel kıyamete beş dakika kaldığını, bu yüzden şu an felaketin önüne geçmek için köprüden önceki son çıkışta olduğumuzu hep duyuyoruz. Peki ya facianın zaten yaşandığını, kritik anı şimdiden beş dakika geçmiş olduğumuzu varsaymak, bu faciayı önlemenin tek yoluysa?”

Küresel iklim krizi, ekolojik yıkım, kıtlıklar ve salgın hastalıklar gibi birbirini besleyen ve ancak küresel bir işbirliğiyle çözülebilecek krizlerle karşı karşıya olduğumuz bir dönemde, Rusya-Ukrayna savaşı vesilesiyle “medeniyetler çatışmasının” tüm şiddetiyle geri döndüğüne tanık oluyoruz.

Žižek Uyanmak İçin Çok Geç’te mevcut jeopolitik durumdan yola çıkarak, geleceği değiştirmek için acil ihtiyaç duyulan özgürleştirici siyaset imkânlarını değerlendiriyor; sıklıkla düşünülenin aksine, felaketi kaçınılmaz bir şey olarak kavramanın ve gelecekle birlikte geçmişi de bu açıdan yeniden tahayyül etmenin tek çare olabileceğini savunuyor.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Politics, War, 21st Century, Psychoanalysis, Theory

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

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

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

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

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

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

Reviews

[inciminci · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very accessible, this almost feels like sitting with Žižek talking about the world and all over a beer. Although I don't always agree, he does make consistent points in most of the cases.

[Ints · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ko lai saka uz riņķi vien par svarīgām lietām. Par Krievijas Ukrainas karu, par voukismu un citām aktualitātēm. Neskatoties uz grāmatas plānumu autors pamanās konstatēt vienas un tās pašas problēmas vairākas reizes. Tās tiek gari un plaši iztirzātas, apskatītas no vēsturiskiem un ne tik skatu punktiem. Bet kā tautā saka "Gudri dirst nav malku cirst!" Problēmas tiek identificētas un uz tām tiek paradīts ar pirkstu, taču konkrētus risinājumu ieteikumus no autora nesagaidīju. Iespējams, ka tas tādēļ, ka lai arī tas viss mums liekas drausmīgi aktuāls, patiesībā ir tikpat vecs kā visas cilvēces vēsture. Pasaules galu ir bijis modīgi visos laikos un tādēļ ar pēdējiem laikiem ir grūti kādu nobaidīt. Tāpat ka pārsteigt ar dziļo atklāsmi, ka uz vēsturiskiem notikumiem cilvēka prāts spēj izveidot taciņu taisnu kā saulstariņš, kas sevī ietver visas "pēcnotikuma acīmredzamos pavērsiena punktus un izšķirošos lēmumus". Bet lai tādēļ no šī pakaļprāta atvasinātu pieņēmumu, ka notikumus vairs nav iespējams ietekmēt un, ja kas ir slikti, tad viss jau par vēlu. Nevar teikt, ka nepatika. Varbūt nevajadzēja lasīt visu uzreiz? Atstāja tādu tukšmuldēšanas (lai ar par aktuālām tēmām) pieskaņu 6 no 10 ballēm.

[Bludniq Sin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most important book I’ve read for this year. I am giving this to all my friends as a ‘must read’.

“We should do precisely what historicist relativisation forbids: we should measure the past with today’s standards. Once we see that slavery is wrong, we simultaneously see that it was always wrong, and become able to read history differently.”

[nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

if you follow zizek periodically this is nothing new (much of what he writes here can be easily found through different youtube interviews), but he is such nicer to follow on the page rather that listen him talk. even if he abundantly makes it clear that we (the ones who want to consider themselves leftists) should and must stand on the Ukraine side during this ongoing war, zizek takes the effort to actually extricates the implications of such a statement. very insightful and approachable even if written from a guy who studies lacan and hegel for fun; three stars just because much of it I already knew and I expected more philosophy than present politics. but that's what you get from not reading the blurbs. like, ever.

[heptagrammaton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eclectic, rambling, recursive, but at times valuably insightful. Mostly essayistic, concerning the Russo-Ukranian war and the problems of effective political action, the mechanisms whereby our struggles against global capitalism and its apocalypses are deflected.
   We must, according to Žižek go unmasked, go ready to lose parts of ourselves in the necessary processes of revolution.

[W]e need an awakening to what we are not yet, and could still become.

   To wit, he draws on George Orwell, in The Road to Wigan Pier:

We all rail against class-distinctions, but very few people seriously want to abolish them. Here you come upon the important fact that every revolutionary opinion draws part of its strength from a secret conviction that nothing can be changed … The fact that has got to be faced is that to abolish class-distinctions means abolishing a part of yourself … I have got to alter myself so completely that at the end I should hardly be recognizable as the same person.
       {Emphasis in bold mine.}

   It is a radical rethinking of agency in space and time, a reorganization of the self that is demanded. The future is always configured as somehow determined, inevitable and necessary in retrospects. What we should do first "in order to do so [change the fututre], we should first (not ‘understand’ but) change our past, reinterpreting it in such a way that it opens up towards a different future."
   Žižek's reoccurring thesis's is (in my hot take of an interpretation/metaphor) that we as political actors are all in the grips of a sort of generalized anxiety disorder: we are perversely hoping that the world is for the worse and unchangeable, the false comfort of pessimism, the known security and all-embracing companionship of misery. Avoidance promises peace for a time, and as long as one keeps running, time need never catch up. (That happens to be a lie, but still...) Like the neurotic, we "make sure that nothing really changes by pretending to act frantically."

We solace ourselves with the thought that there is still time to act, and then, all of a sudden, we realize that there isn't.
   . . .
   What we get in today's cunical functioning of ideology is interpassive non-knowledge, the other DOESN'T know for me – I comfortably dwell in my knowledge, ignoring thisd knowledge to an Other.
   . . .The cynical reasoning is: 'I know very well what I'm doing so you cannot reproach me that I don't know what I am doing.' This is how, in today's capitalism, hegemonic ideology includes (and thereby neutralizes the efficiency of) critical knowledge: critical distance towards the social order is the very medium through which this order reproduces itself.
   . . .
  [The fetish is not the element to which I hold do that I can act ignoring what I know–fetish is this knowledge itself.

(The eclecticism doesn't much endear me to Žižek's writing. Drawing on disparate and diverse sources, pulling on others' quatation and framing—these are good techniques, and I will fight for the right of anyone to be an intellectual magpie—but I like my philosophical thought traceable, and Žižek is not one to bother with explaining, introducing or systematising in his reaches into the fermenting stomachs of human thought.)

The psychosexual metaphor of invasion and occupation as rape is, if crude, insightful - and an accurate representation of how conquering states have always been inclined to, whether unconsciously or taking a perverse pride in the openness of their transgression, view the conquered (I am reminded of that relief of Claudius poised victorious, pulling at the hair of a bare-breasted Britannia at his feet, from the Augusteum in Aphrodisias, in modern-day Turkey.)

I find Žižek is often inclined to reify some reactionary talking points. There is a distinct risk, I suppose, whenever one is doing cultural analysis of elevating a niche idiosyncratic event to something representative of a whole global phenomenon. (Can I be justified in meandering away from my current point to explain how, once (okay, twice, actually, iirc) my classmates took the door of the art room off from its hinges and carried it around, and in diving into the ideological superstructures which may explain such behaviour? Maybe. And maybe there's interesting stuff there. However, it should require some extraordinary reasoning on my part to convince you that teenaged dumbasseries actually matter, in any pragmatic sense.
  I have grown tired of the often perverse, dubiously relevant, obliquely self-congradulatory elevation of anecdotes about college students into the political discourse (as if higher education nullifies that we are still talking about children (I say, from the high tower of my mid-20s.)))

[Kurkulis (Lililasa) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Varbūt šajā grāmatā man bija par daudz Ļeņina citātu (jā, tā man jaunības trauma -vēl paspēju klausīties kompartijas vēsturi), toties mans favorīts ir "bezkofeīna protestētājs".

"Šim sarakstam jāpievieno vēl kāda svarīga mūsu kultūrtelpas figūra: bezkofeīna protestētājs, nomodā guļošais protestētājs, kurš saka visas pareizās lietas, bet kritiskos aspektus iemanās nogludināt. Viņu šausmina globālā sasilšana un karš Ukrainā, viņš apkaro dzimumdiskrimināciju un rasismu, viņš pieprasa radikālas sociālas pārmaiņas un ikviens ir aicināts piedalīties lielajā globālās solidaritātes sentimentā, kas paredz: neviens jums neprasa mainīt savu dzīvi (varbūt tikai šad un tad ziedot labdarībai), jūs rūpējaties par savu karjeru, nesaudzīgi konkurējat ar citiem, taču jūs atrodaties pareizajā pusē."

Man patīk būt nīgrai jautājumos par politkorektumu (pastrādājiet valsts pārvaldē un jums vemt gribēsies no daiļdi..nas), tāpēc šo Žižeka grāmatas sadaļu baudīju kā desertu.

"[..] voukisma kultūra ir lielisks paraugs tam, kā visatļaušana pārvēršas vispārējā aizliegumā, - politkorektuma režīmā mēs nekad nezinām, vai un kad kāds no mums taps atcelts savas rīcības vai vārdu dēļ, kritēriji allaž ir duļķaini."

Savukārt, lielākā daļa, kas ir veltīta Krievijas iebrukumam Ukrainā - nu, nekas diži jauns vai svaigs, bet tomēr vienkopus salikti akcenti. Galvenais - piekāpšanos Krievija sapratīs tikai kā vājumu. Nedrīkst!

Bet citādi - interesanti, pat ja ne visur viņam piekritu. Šo vīru es varētu gribēt dzirdēt klātienē.

"Dažas cildenākās emancipācijas tradīcijas sastāvdaļas (antifašisms un cīņa pret rasismu, iestāšanās pret mūsdienu dzīves komercializāciju un hedonismu, cīņa pret ekspluatāciju, ko elite īsteno attieksmē pret vienkāršo tautu, centieni likvidēt kolonizācijas paliekas u.tml.) ir norijuši politiskie līderi visā pasaulē. Viņu neofašistiskie vai neoliberālie gremošanas enzīmi iedarbojas uz aprītajām idejām, atņemot tām pārmērīgo skābumu un pārvēršot tās sūdu gabaliņos, kas sevi prezentē kā rīku kapitālisma sagrāvei, tomēr visnotaļ gludi iekļaujas pastāvošajā globālā kapitālisma sistēmā."

P.s. grāmatu nopirku, jo nekādi netiku uz JRT izrādi "Žižeks. Pītersons. Gadsimta duelis". Tas laikam bija labs sākums, jo pēc tam tiku arī pie teātra biļetes.

[Raimonds Škapars · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nu man patīk Žižeks
1. visu laiku lasīju viņa balsī to grāmatu ar visiem roku žestiem un šnaukāšanos.
2. Nebiju gaidījis, ka tiks apspriests tikai pārsvarā viens temats karš Ukrainā, tomēr paldies Dievam, ka tika, jo nu Žižeks ir vienīgais populārais filozofs no austrumeiropas, kas var pastāstīt mūsu un viņu sāpi.
3. Pilnīgi piekrītu par problēmu, ka daži kreisie koķetē ar Krieviju (neapzinoties) un tā ir nopietna problēma.
4. Grāmatas nosaukums un ievads bija daaudzsološs uz rīcību vērsts, tomēr nobeigums lika dziļi vilties, jo visa rīcība aprobežojas divos teikumos.
5. Man patīk, cik daudz viņš ņem piemērus gan no pop kultūras, gan no augsti intelektuālām aprindām, tomēr dažreiz neredzu jēgu, jo tas netiek izvērsts. (dažreiz liekas, ka vnk vins brago)
6. Kopumā iesaku izlasīt, jo viņam jau lielos vilcienos taisnība - mēs turpinam dzīvot tagadnē, darot lietas, kas nākotnē izvertisies par katastrofu un mes to ļoti labi zinām, bet pašiem negribas mainīt sevi, lai mainīti vēstures turpinātību.

[Patrick Laverty · Rating 4 out of 5]

too late to go back tooo sleeeeep!

[Juan Pablo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Siempre es lindo leer a un europeo con culpa, aunque sea esloveno

[Diego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bien escrito, Zizek se molesta bastante en explicar lo que cuenta con ejemplos que para la gente que aún está aprendiendo sobre estos temas son bastante útiles, porque ayudan a no perderse con conceptos complicados.

[Cliff M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Insightful, incisive, and informed. I have given copies to many friends and regard doing so as one of my better investments.

Ukraine is one of my favourite countries (I had work responsibilities there as well as in Russia, Poland and Romania). I am still involved in the country, though for different reasons now. It is good to read such a well informed book about the invasion and what it means for the people of Ukraine. This is infinitely preferable to listening to yet another person who learned everything they know about the country from Facebook.

Zizek combines a deep knowledge of the terrible history of the 20th century, with an incisive but fair assessment and understanding of modern politics and the eternal quest for power that bedevils it. For in the end, ideology and history are being used as smokescreens by old-fashioned warlords to fool us while they seek more territory and power to feed their enormous egos.

Sometimes I feel Zizek over-reaches by reminding us repeatedly that we are fiddling while Rome burns (literally). Ie that we are ourselves guilty of using a local crisis somewhere else to avoid making hard choices relating to climate change. He is right of course, but when you have yet another mad Russian dictator who wants to kill everyone it is sometimes hard to concentrate on issues that might take another 200 years to kill us all. Zizek’s point is a good one, but it still feels clunky when inserted into a book about the invasion of Ukraine and what it means for us all.

Highly recommended. For one reason or another it won’t be current for long but while it is I think as many people as possible should read it.

[Kyrill · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know I’m being one of the dull oppressive woke scolds he’s complaining about in this book, but what does he want to signal by calling Chelsea Manning “Bradley”? Surely by now everyone is used to calling her Chelsea and you really have to go out of your way to retrieve the old name

[VBV · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zizek always brings few brilliant insights and funny obscenities to the table. The text is much more optimistic than the title suggests.
Despite being a bit hectic, it is a fun read.

[Keen Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

“This is how ideology functions today: ideology tells the truth but creates conditions which guarantee that the truth itself will be perceived as a lie.”

“Occupiers always sincerely want peace in the territory they hold.”

“If we cut the noble rhetorical crap, the message of these new pacifists is roughly this; bearing in mind our economic interest, as well as the danger of showing too much support for Ukraine and thus getting enmeshed in a military conflict, we should allow Ukraine to be swallowed by Russia, and limit ourselves to peaceful protests and shows of sympathy.”

Zizek is usually good value and worth reading, this focuses on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as well as addressing perceived ideas of democracy, pacifism and late-stage capitalism, with predictably grim conclusions. This is a decent collection of essays, with some memorable points made here and there, but nothing really essential and Zizek has done much better.

[Casareska · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tiene buenas ideas, lo leí en tandem con el film sobre ideología que está en YouTube y tuvo más sentido.

[Iz · Rating 2 out of 5]

hat viele themen aufgemacht, aber nicht in für mich sinnvoll erscheinender art und weise zusammengeführt. 160 seiten vielleicht ein bisschen knapp um erfolgreich zu ukrainekrieg, nahostkonflikt, klimakrise, kulturkampf, cancel culture etc. zu philosophieren, dann kommt man am ende bei takes wie „die aussenpolitik der grünen ist super“ raus lol.

[Tristan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every chapter of this book contained an original thought. At a minimum, Žižek’s thoughts contained commonly touted ideology viewed from original perspectives. He has the unique ability to use metaphor to turn your view of an idea or situation on its head. Despite being indifferent to some of his arguments and outright disagreeing with others, I was deeply fascinated by this book from start to finish.

Favorite quotes:

“Can we be free in such a predicament?”

“A minor proposal: anyone who publicly declares that he is ready to use nuclear weapons should be treated as an obscene freak.”

“We should analyze the ambiguity of our support for Ukraine with the same scrutiny with which we analyze Russia’s stance.”

“Ukraine is ‘provoking’ Russia - it is provoking Russia’s imperial ambitions by way of resisting even when the situation is desperate. Today, not provoking Russia means surrender.”

“No - as we’ve seen, to really counter Putin, we have to gather the courage to take a critical look at ourselves.”

[Leo Paes · Rating 5 out of 5]

In writing about Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, and US and China, Zizek gives us the greatest call to action of the recent years. I’ll leave you with this:

“Instead of just trying to escape, postpone, or minimize the threat posed by the four new riders of the apocalypse; instead of continuing to dwell in our melancholic apathy and frantically doing nothing, let’s mobilize ourselves to attack the root of our crisis, with all the risks that this involves. Because the greatest risk today is doing nothing and allowing history to follow its course.”

[Rênas · Rating 3 out of 5]

einige kluge gedanken, gerade zum möglichen fetischcharakter der ideologie im kapitalismus, aber auch viel geramble über aktuelle kriege und konflikte, bisschen hegel, mehr lacan

[Edgars Bernāns · Rating 4 out of 5]

Laba analīze! Dara to gana neitrāli, bet paturu prāta, ka Žižeks biežāk savā diskursā nogriežas pa kreisi. Grāmata jālasa tagad, spriedumiem ir potenciāls ātri novecot, lai gan izvērtējums balstās ne tikai aktuālitātēs. Dažiem personāžiem nepamatoti piekarina pārāk kategoriski formulētas birkas. Citus - mazliet par daudz slavē, bet tādi jau mēs esam.

[Patryk · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book contains several new thoughts on the current political problems, mostly focusing on European landscape. It’s less philosophical and easier to read than some of his other works.

[Levi Czentye]

1.
However, recent historical experience rather seems to demonstrate the opposite: there is no right moment to awaken. We either freak out too early and thus appear to spread empty panic, or we come to our senses when it’s already too late.
2. (Pessimism is a sign we love sth)
It’s easy, from today’s perspective, to mock the ‘pessimists’, from the Right to the Left, from Solzhenitsyn to Castoriadis, who deplored the blindness and compromises of the democratic West, its lack of ethico-political strength and courage in dealing with the Communist threat, and who predicted that the West had already lost the Cold War, that the Communist bloc had already won it, that the collapse of the West was imminent – but in fact it was precisely their attitude that did the most to bring about the collapse of Communism. In Dupuy’s terms, it was their very ‘pessimistic’ prediction of the future, of how history would inevitably unfold, that mobilized them to counteract it.
3.
Once a full military conflict has broken out (between the US and Iran, between China and Taiwan, between Russia and NATO …), it will appear to us all as necessary; that is to say, we will automatically read the past that led to it as a sequence of events that necessarily caused the explosion. If it doesn’t happen, we will read it the way we read the Cold War today: as a series of dangerous moments where catastrophe was avoided because both sides were aware of the deadly consequences of a global conflict.
4.
This is how ideology functions today: ideology tells the truth but creates conditions which guarantee that the truth itself will be perceived as a lie.
5.
There is no way to avoid the conclusion that a radical social change – a revolution – is needed to civilize our civilizations. We cannot afford to hope that a new war will lead to this revolution: a new war would much more probably mean the end of civilization as we know it, with the survivors (if any) organized in small authoritarian groups.
6.
A patriot, a person who really loves her or his country, is someone who is deeply ashamed of it when it does something bad.
7.
And some others on the ‘Left’ (I cannot use the word here without quote marks) have actually gone so far as to place the blame on the West – parroting the Russian line that NATO was slowly strangling and destabilizing Russia, encircling it militarily, ignoring Russia’s quite reasonable fears; after all, Russia was twice attacked from the West in the last century … There is, of course, an element of truth in this, but this reasoning is the same as justifying Hitler’s regime on the basis that the unjust Versailles treaty crushed the German economy. It also implies that the big powers have the right to control their own spheres of influence, sacrificing the autonomy of small nations on the altar of global stability.
8.
demands to boycott Russian culture are also extremely counter-productive since they de facto elevate the Putin regime into a defender of Pushkin, Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy. We should on the contrary insist that we are defending the great Russian tradition against its abusers. And we should avoid triumphalism – we should not demand that Russia should be humiliated. Our goal should remain positive: not ‘Russia must lose!’ but ‘Ukraine must survive!’
9.
We have today two main opposed ideological blocs. The religious neo-conservatives (from Putin and Trump to Iran) advocate a return to old orthodox Christian (or Muslim) traditions against ‘Satanic’ postmodern decadence – usually focussing on LGBT+ and transgender issues; however, their actual politics is full of barbarian obscenity and violence. On the opposite side, the Politically Correct liberal Left preaches permissiveness to all forms of sexual and ethnic identity; however, in its endeavour to guarantee this tolerance, it needs more and more rules – more ‘cancelling’ and regulating – which introduce constant anxiety and tension in this ostensibly happy permissive universe. These limitations are in some sense much stronger than the paternal prohibition that solicits the desire for transgression, and they do little to help the cause of genuine emancipation – they distract from it.
10.
With all its declared opposition to the new forms of barbarism, the woke Left fully participates in it, promoting and practising a flat discourse without irony. Although it advocates pluralism and promotes difference, its subjective position of enunciation – the place from which it speaks – is extremely authoritarian, allowing very limited debate and imposing exclusions that are often based on arbitrary premises.
11.
Cancel culture with its implicit paranoia is a desperate (and obviously inefficient) attempt to compensate for the actual troubles and tragedies faced by LGBT+ individuals, the violence and exclusion to which they are permanently subjected. The answer to this violence cannot be a retreat into a cultural fortress, a pseudo ‘safe space’ whose discursive fanaticism leaves intact and even strengthens the resistance of the majority to it.
12.
And it is exactly the same with much of the ongoing ‘woke’ movement: they awaken us (to the horrors of racism and sexism) precisely to enable us to go on sleeping, that is, ignoring the true roots and depth of racial and sexual trauma.
13.
The correct Leftist stance is: bring out the hidden antagonisms of your own culture, link it to the antagonisms of other cultures, and then engage in a common struggle between those who fight here, against the oppression and domination at work in our own culture, and those who do the same in other cultures around the world.
14.
The paradox is here double: Political Correctness is a displacement of good old class struggle – the liberal elite pretends to protect oppressed minority to obfuscate the basic fact of their privileged economic and political position. This lie allows the alt-Right populists to present themselves as a defense of the ‘real’ working class against the big corporations and the ‘deep state’ elites.
15.
(Orwell)
We all rail against class-distinctions, but very few people seriously want to abolish them.
(Zizek)
Orwell’s point is that radicals invoke the need for revolutionary change as a kind of superstitious token that should achieve the opposite, i.e. prevent the change from really occurring – today’s academic Leftists who criticize capitalist cultural imperialism are in reality horrified at the thought of their field of study really breaking down.
(Later on)
We should not underestimate the secret satisfaction provided by the passive life of depression and apathy, of just dragging on without a clear life-project. However, the change that is required is not just a subjective one but a global social change.
16.
But there is a deeper reason Assange causes such unease: he has made it clear that the most dangerous threat to freedom does not come from an openly authoritarian power, it takes place when our unfreedom itself is experienced as freedom...
17. (some sort of a solution)
To cope with our ongoing, escalating crises, from threats to our environment to unfolding wars, we will need elements of what, in this book, I provocatively call ‘war Communism’: mobilizations that will have to violate not only the usual market rules but also the established rules of democracy (enforcing measures and limiting freedoms without democratic approval). [...] ...let’s mobilize ourselves to attack the roots of our crisis, with all the risks that this involves. Because the greatest risk today is doing nothing and allowing history to follow its course.

[GONZA · Rating 4 out of 5]

The process of getting active when all is lost is still somewhat obscure to me, but it is certainly more useful than what is happening now, i.e. absolutely nothing.

Il processo che ci permette di darci da fare quando ormai tutto é perduto mi risulta ancora un po' oscuro, ma sicuramente é piú utile di quanto sta succedendo ora e cioé assolutamente niente.

I received from the Publisher a complimentary digital advanced review copy of the book in exchange for a honest review.

[Theocharis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can relate as I also start yapping when I’m scared about the future.
Worth a quick read but I expected something more from my Hegel understander brother.

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zizek is such a joy to read and has a unique ability to shrug and self relativise, a quality very few other communists possess. This is however a serious and bleak book. «We should have no illusions, in a sense World War III has already begun». He sketches the situation in the entire world today with the biggest part being a multi facetted view of the situation in Russia and Ukraine. Zizek being Zizek I’m always keen to hear him out on where we initially disagree (like sending weapons to Ukraine, or limiting migration to protect the lowest wages).

Some of my favourite parts:
x
The culture war raging in the developed West is thus a false war, a war between two versions of the same global capitalist system: its unrestrained, pure market-individualist version and its neo-Fascist conservative version which tries to unite capitalist dynamism with traditional values and liberties?

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The predominant critical stance in our big media still avoids capitalism. Here is an exemplary case. Harry and Meghan have joined Ethic, a company that invests in sustainable projects, as 'impact officers' - Ethic's website says: 'They're deeply committed to helping address the defining issues of our time - such as climate, gender equity, health, racial justice, human rights, and strengthening democracy - and understand that these issues are inherently interconnected.' One cannot but note that something is missing in this list of the'defining issues of our time': yes, these issues are 'inherently interconnected', but not directly- what mediates their
connection is global capitalism and its destructive effects."

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The Rightist nationalist version is: respect your own culture and despise others, which are inferior to it. The politically correct formula is: respect other cultures, but despise your own, which is racist and colonialist (that's why politically correct woke culture is always anti-Eurocentric).
The correct Leftist stance is: bring out the hidden antagonisms of your own culture, link it to the antagonisms of other cultures, and then engage in a common struggle

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Cancel culture with its implicit paranoia is a desperate (and obviously inefficient) attempt to compensate for the actual troubles and tragedies faced by LGBT+ individuals, the violence and exclusion to which they are permanently subjected. The answer to this violence cannot be a retreat into a cultural fortress, a pseudo 'safe space' whose discursive fanaticism leaves intact and even strengthens the resistance of the majority to it.

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The paradox is here double: Political Correctness is a displacement of good old class struggle - the liberal elite pretends to protect oppressed minority to obfuscate the basic fact of their privileged economic and political position. This lie allows the alt-Right populists to present themselves as a defense of the 'real' working class against the big corporations and the 'deep state' elites.

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A type of political leader is emerging who - to quote from Alenka Zupanic's Let Them Rot -
take|s] pride in committing [a] crime openly rather than secretly, as if it amounted to some kind of fundamental moral difference or difference of character, namely,'having the courage,' 'the guts, to do it openly. But what may appear to be their courageous transgression of state laws by avoiding the 'hypocrisy' that those laws sometimes demand is nothing more than a direct identification with the obscene other side of state power itself. It does not amount to anything else or different.
They are 'transgressing' their own laws. This is why, even when they are in power, these leaders continue to act as if they are in opposition to the existing power, rebelling against it - call it the 'deep state' or something else.

[Ben Gordon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty much brilliant all the way through.

Challenging chapters in the middle of the book on wokism and the current state of the left, chapters The Unmistakable Signs of Ethical Decay and Against False Awakenings. By the end of Against False Awakenings, I understood what Žižek meant, and thought it was actually quite a good point, and essential for understanding the book However, I really struggled with the chapter The Unmistakable Signs of Decay… the second half of the chapter, discussing the plight of cis white men, felt a bit… tone deaf to me. I agree strongly with his point that cancel culture and culture wars are obfuscations, used by those in power to distract us from the real issues at hand. I just don’t really see the connection between that and spending two pages begging for justice for white men.

This criticism I feel probably just has to knock the rating down from 5 to 4 stars. However, outside of these 20 pages, and really outside of just 4 or 5 of them, I did find the book to be truly brilliant. Amazing points throughout. Very important ideas. This book is a must read for anyone who wants to understand what it means to be truly a leftist in the current day, and how we must address all global issues.

[Emilie · Rating 5 out of 5]

When an explorer encounters an aboriginal tribe he asks, “are there any cannibals among you?”

“No,” the tribe replies, “we ate the last one yesterday.”

This joke reveals the vital re-definition of that final act of cannibalism to becoming a civilised community. What makes it funny, is that it is plain to see that eating a cannibal to end the scourge of cannibalism is hypocritical and ineffective.

Yet political leaders like Trump and Putin continually transgress their own laws and position themselves as courageous patriots. In this right-wing brand of ‘heroism’, it “is easy to act nobly on behalf of one’s country – short of sacrificing one’s life for it – but only the strong of heart can bring themselves to commit crimes for it.”

Moving to the climate crisis but retaining this notion of continuation / change, Zizek splits the future into ‘le futur’ and ‘l’avenir’. ‘Le futur’ refers to the future as a continuation of the present whereas ‘l’avenir’ presents a radical break from the present.

To act decisively, we have to abandon hope for the future and embrace ‘l’avenir’. We need to believe that the worst has already happened. Rather than gradually counting down to Doomsday, we need to realise we are already late, awaken, and scramble out of bed.

[Executionereniak · Rating 5 out of 5]

If right bad and left bad too, what you do? LIZARD PEOPLEEE LESGOO!

I've always been of an opinion that religion and (super)ego (somewhat tied to simple testosterone in many cases) (and notwithstanding numerous other things I don't relate to here as they seem of a smaller importance) are the biggest plight of this here not so humble a world. I've been reinforced in the belief numerous times since forming the thought. While it's refreshing to read a bouquet of sober thoughts for once, I always find it lacking in the presentation of real solutions. And while it's not an easy undertaking by any means to change the global (mental) issue, there are some things you can try right now. Take a dose of psilocybin once or twice a year and you won't feel the oppressive compulsions to steal and conquer, whether it be someone's girlfriend or a piece of land that just simply doesn't belong to you, no matter how elaborate and prevalent a lie you fabricate; unless you want to ride (or better still, be led) in circles of 'you must but you cannot because you shouldn't'.

[Louis Mertens de Leur · Rating 2 out of 5]

Žižek opent het boek met een filosofisch concept over tijd. Bij gebrek aan een woord buiten 'future' in het Engels om naar de toekomst te verwijzen, haalt hij het onderscheid tussen futur en avenir in het Frans aan.

De futur -- het pad dat we richting de toekomst aan het bewandelen zijn-- moet de vuilbak in en we moeten een avenir vinden, om catastrofes te vermijden.

Voor de rest van het boek verdwijnt de filosofische analyse (naast een vergelijking van het binnenvallen van Oekraïne door Rusland met verkrachting en een korte psychoanalyse die overgenomen is van Lacan) op de achtergrond voor, wat lijkt, een politiek historisch overzicht van het Rusland-Oekraïne conflict (oorlog) met een enorm aantal onderwerpen die hij lichtjes behandelt, zoals 'wanneer verschrompelt een ethisch systeem?' Waar hij de volle 9blz de ruimte voor heeft overgelaten...

Kortom: voor een filosoof, zeer weinig filosofie, en veel geleuter over een revolutie die de mensheid zal redden. Nota bene: hij pleit voor een anti-fundamentalistische kijk, om vervolgens twee mogelijkheden weer te geven: oftewel komt er een wereldoorlog die leidt tot een revolutie, of er komt een revolutie voor de wereldoorlog. Fundamentalistisch dichotoom, toch?

[Nils · Rating 4 out of 5]

Zizek in a more reasonable mode than usual, though as always he careens from one topic and observation to the next, and the pleasure the text resides in the perverse helicoptering between radically different sorts of cultural objects: high theory, detective novels, B-list television, Russian film, German game shows, and so on.

The throughline is actually a series of subtle observations about why supporting Ukraine’s struggle against Russia is an essential test for Europe and for human decency more broadly, which also deconstructing the rhetoric of reaction that has been used to avoid offering such support. He doesn’t let anyone off the hook: yes, NATO expansion was threatening to Russia; yes, Ukrainian nationalists’ celebrations of Stepan Bandera is disgusting; yes, the military-industrial complex is exploring the situation — and yet, Putin is still a criminal and the invasion is an abomination and the Ukrainians deserve European support.