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The Courage of Hopelessness: Chronicles of a Year of Acting Dangerously
In these troubled times, even the most pessimistic diagnosis of our future ends with an uplifting hint that things might not be as bad as all that, that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Yet, argues Slavoj Žižek, it is only when we have admit to ourselves that our situation is completely hopeless - that the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact the headlight of a train approaching us from the opposite direction - that fundamental change can be brought about.
Surveying the various challenges in the world today, from mass migration and geopolitical tensions to terrorism, the explosion of rightist populism and the emergence of new radical politics - all of which, in their own way, express the impasses of global capitalism - Žižek explores whether there still remains the possibility for genuine change. Today, he proposes, the only true question is, or should be, this: do we endorse the predominant acceptance of capitalism as a fact of human nature, or does today's capitalism contain strong enough antagonisms to prevent its infinite reproduction? Can we, he asks, move beyond the failure of socialism, and beyond the current wave of populist rage, and initiate radical change before the train hits?
Yet, argues Slavoj Žižek, it is only when we have admit to ourselves that our situation is completely hopeless - that the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact the headlight of a train approaching us from the opposite direction - that fundamental change can be brought about.
Surveying the various challenges in the world today, from mass migration and geopolitical tensions to terrorism, the explosion of rightist populism and the emergence of new radical politics - all of which, in their own way, express the impasses of global capitalism - Žižek explores whether there still remains the possibility for genuine change. Today, he proposes, the only true question is, or should be, this: do we endorse the predominant acceptance of capitalism as a fact of human nature, or does today's capitalism contain strong enough antagonisms to prevent its infinite reproduction? Can we, he asks, move beyond the failure of socialism, and beyond the current wave of populist rage, and initiate radical change before the train hits?
336 pages, Paperback
First published July 18, 2017
256 people are currently reading
2389 people want to read
About the author
Slavoj Žižek
638 books7,549 followersSlavoj Žižek is a Slovene sociologist, philosopher, and cultural critic.
He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).
Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."
He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).
Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."
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October 16, 2020
When All Else Fails: Read the Instructions
It is a principle of psychotherapy and religious conversion that the need to change one’s views about life does not become compelling until all other attempts to get things to ‘work’ fail. The remaining option is unpalatable but unavoidable. Breakdown is a necessary condition for repair.
Žižek has an interesting though paradoxical take on this principle in The Courage of Hopelessness. Everywhere in the world, socialism is in retreat. Global capitalism has never been healthier in its manipulative exploitation of those who benefit through it as well as those exploited by it. The political Left is in disarray and probably prefers the status quo in any case. There is no coherent alternative intellectual argument on the horizon which might impede the further expansion of capitalist self-interest.
So, guided by the established principles of psychotherapy, religious conversion, and the general aphorism ‘when in a deep hole stop digging,’ it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect some sort of intellectual reversal by Žižek, at least a modification of his long-term Marxist analysis. Bot no, instead world events, for him, point more urgently than ever to the truth and usefulness of communism as an explanation of these events and as an ideal around which to rally for world betterment.
Don’t get me wrong: I admire Žižek’s intellect. His resistance to the idea of immigrants as the new proletariat, his defence of European culture as the source of anti-colonialism as well as the original malaise, his mistrust of academic and bourgeois Leftists as mere ‘jobs worth’ types concerned more with ideological credential rather than the political fate of the world are all things I can agree with.
But Žižek’s unmitigated devotion to Marxism seems to distort his considered observations about the way the world is. His response is more of the same that he has been preaching for decades: “The task confronting us today is precisely the reinvention of communism, a radical change that moves well beyond some vague notion of social solidarity.” Note: a reinvention of communism, an adaptation of the same underlying theory of the physical alienation of human beings from themselves.
But as he documents in his own arguments, people apparently want to be alienated from whatever Žižek thinks they really are. The proletariat seems to resolve itself into those who, for the moment, find themselves outside the protective bubble of capitalism. But capitalism is inexorably sweeping in these outliers. It is avoiding the mistake of that other global European institution, the Catholic Church, by accepting entirely local customs and traditions and transforming them into brands and desirable objects for sale.
For those already inside the global capitalist bubble, Žižek can only plead for a raising of consciousness about the ‘objective’ situation: “Our ethico-political duty is not just to become aware of the reality outside our cupola, but to fully assume our co-responsibility for the horrors outside it.” Sure, that’ll work. Just look at the great successes of the Green movement in changing national environmental policies. Their progress depends as much upon convincing folk of their own direct interests as any other political party. And what is there left but “ some vague notion of social solidarity”?
Perhaps I’ve missed it in my intermittent reading of Žižek’s work, but nowhere can I recall an admission of error, the recognition of an intellectual mistake that he regrets making, an apology for a lack of understanding or for misdirecting the understanding of others. He continuously returns to the same tired tropes of Marxism just as evangelical Christians harp endlessly about the real, the authentic, the eternal message of the gospels. His attempts to reinterpret Marxist doctrine as if a century and a half of ideological ‘experimentation’ has never taken place is just silly. Perhaps other people are reading a different manual.
It is a principle of psychotherapy and religious conversion that the need to change one’s views about life does not become compelling until all other attempts to get things to ‘work’ fail. The remaining option is unpalatable but unavoidable. Breakdown is a necessary condition for repair.
Žižek has an interesting though paradoxical take on this principle in The Courage of Hopelessness. Everywhere in the world, socialism is in retreat. Global capitalism has never been healthier in its manipulative exploitation of those who benefit through it as well as those exploited by it. The political Left is in disarray and probably prefers the status quo in any case. There is no coherent alternative intellectual argument on the horizon which might impede the further expansion of capitalist self-interest.
So, guided by the established principles of psychotherapy, religious conversion, and the general aphorism ‘when in a deep hole stop digging,’ it wouldn’t be unreasonable to expect some sort of intellectual reversal by Žižek, at least a modification of his long-term Marxist analysis. Bot no, instead world events, for him, point more urgently than ever to the truth and usefulness of communism as an explanation of these events and as an ideal around which to rally for world betterment.
Don’t get me wrong: I admire Žižek’s intellect. His resistance to the idea of immigrants as the new proletariat, his defence of European culture as the source of anti-colonialism as well as the original malaise, his mistrust of academic and bourgeois Leftists as mere ‘jobs worth’ types concerned more with ideological credential rather than the political fate of the world are all things I can agree with.
But Žižek’s unmitigated devotion to Marxism seems to distort his considered observations about the way the world is. His response is more of the same that he has been preaching for decades: “The task confronting us today is precisely the reinvention of communism, a radical change that moves well beyond some vague notion of social solidarity.” Note: a reinvention of communism, an adaptation of the same underlying theory of the physical alienation of human beings from themselves.
But as he documents in his own arguments, people apparently want to be alienated from whatever Žižek thinks they really are. The proletariat seems to resolve itself into those who, for the moment, find themselves outside the protective bubble of capitalism. But capitalism is inexorably sweeping in these outliers. It is avoiding the mistake of that other global European institution, the Catholic Church, by accepting entirely local customs and traditions and transforming them into brands and desirable objects for sale.
For those already inside the global capitalist bubble, Žižek can only plead for a raising of consciousness about the ‘objective’ situation: “Our ethico-political duty is not just to become aware of the reality outside our cupola, but to fully assume our co-responsibility for the horrors outside it.” Sure, that’ll work. Just look at the great successes of the Green movement in changing national environmental policies. Their progress depends as much upon convincing folk of their own direct interests as any other political party. And what is there left but “ some vague notion of social solidarity”?
Perhaps I’ve missed it in my intermittent reading of Žižek’s work, but nowhere can I recall an admission of error, the recognition of an intellectual mistake that he regrets making, an apology for a lack of understanding or for misdirecting the understanding of others. He continuously returns to the same tired tropes of Marxism just as evangelical Christians harp endlessly about the real, the authentic, the eternal message of the gospels. His attempts to reinterpret Marxist doctrine as if a century and a half of ideological ‘experimentation’ has never taken place is just silly. Perhaps other people are reading a different manual.
November 16, 2017
Given the choice between a wife and a mistress, I would choose both; so that I can tell my mistress I have to spend time with my wife, and my wife I am off to be with my mistress, when in reality I will be cloistered away from the world reading...
Walter Benjamin said something to the effect that when each age passes, it reveals its monsters. Let us all hope our current predicament is just a temporary revealing of the monsters of a swiftly passing age...
Zizek's newest book is an illumination and contemplation of some of these monsters. Read it.
Walter Benjamin said something to the effect that when each age passes, it reveals its monsters. Let us all hope our current predicament is just a temporary revealing of the monsters of a swiftly passing age...
Zizek's newest book is an illumination and contemplation of some of these monsters. Read it.
February 14, 2020
-Entre el entretenido cajón de sastre, el fuego a discreción y el suave ajuste de cuentas.-
Portada del libro El coraje de la desesperanza, de Slavoj Zizek
Género. Ensayo.
Lo que nos cuenta. El libro El coraje de la desesperanza (publicación original: The Courage of Hopelessness. Chronicles of a Year of Acting Dangerously, 2017), con el subtítulo Crónicas del año en que actuamos peligrosamente, repasa la actualidad política y socioeconómica del mundo desde la crítica al capitalismo y sus consecuencias, poniendo el acento en sociedades, lobbies, naciones, tendencias, movimientos y otra gran variedad de actores que, para el autor, tienen mucho que decir en la situación y, en muchos casos, en la evolución de los acontecimientos.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...
Portada del libro El coraje de la desesperanza, de Slavoj Zizek
Género. Ensayo.
Lo que nos cuenta. El libro El coraje de la desesperanza (publicación original: The Courage of Hopelessness. Chronicles of a Year of Acting Dangerously, 2017), con el subtítulo Crónicas del año en que actuamos peligrosamente, repasa la actualidad política y socioeconómica del mundo desde la crítica al capitalismo y sus consecuencias, poniendo el acento en sociedades, lobbies, naciones, tendencias, movimientos y otra gran variedad de actores que, para el autor, tienen mucho que decir en la situación y, en muchos casos, en la evolución de los acontecimientos.
¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:
https://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com...
June 20, 2017
This book follows the typical format for any of Zizek's minor works: start with a clear introduction of the intent behind the book (in this case it is Zizek's responses to the major criticisms of his views over the last year); explain clearly how the book will be divided into sections and sub-sections to explore the arguments systematically; finally, sack it all off and start gluing ideas together in a patchwork of weirdness and rhetorical questions.
I admit I love him, but there's always a slight disappointment when you reach the midpoint and find that he's back to repeating himself, jumping erratically between news items and Lacanian readings of movies, then throwing in a few assertions to make it seem like a point has been made. It's only disappointing because when he's on form, he's really really on form.
When this book is good, it's damn good. His usual criticisms of left-liberalism are as biting as ever, and he never shies away from asking painful questions to even the heartiest of his supporters- forcing them to turn their critical gaze back upon their own actions (or inaction, as it may be). However, too many of his bigger points (on political correctness, for example) are just based upon anecdotes surrounding "a friend of mine from __________" or some asserted piece of Lacanian logic. And I say this as a fan! There is also too much explanation of what he isn't saying rather than what he is, and even then he seems to flip back and forth between "I'm not saying we should do nothing" and "sometimes the most radical thing is to do nothing", followed by "we must go away and learn learn learn" and "but I am not saying we should ignore the very real struggles of others". I don't expect concrete solutions, but I'd at least like to not have to deduce what he's saying via negativa like a game of Lacano-Marxist bingo.
Anyway, I enjoyed it nonetheless and await his big book on Lenin as he may get back to doing his big theory. I've not been as enamored with his last two books as I have been with some of the classics. Over-saturation may be a problem.
I admit I love him, but there's always a slight disappointment when you reach the midpoint and find that he's back to repeating himself, jumping erratically between news items and Lacanian readings of movies, then throwing in a few assertions to make it seem like a point has been made. It's only disappointing because when he's on form, he's really really on form.
When this book is good, it's damn good. His usual criticisms of left-liberalism are as biting as ever, and he never shies away from asking painful questions to even the heartiest of his supporters- forcing them to turn their critical gaze back upon their own actions (or inaction, as it may be). However, too many of his bigger points (on political correctness, for example) are just based upon anecdotes surrounding "a friend of mine from __________" or some asserted piece of Lacanian logic. And I say this as a fan! There is also too much explanation of what he isn't saying rather than what he is, and even then he seems to flip back and forth between "I'm not saying we should do nothing" and "sometimes the most radical thing is to do nothing", followed by "we must go away and learn learn learn" and "but I am not saying we should ignore the very real struggles of others". I don't expect concrete solutions, but I'd at least like to not have to deduce what he's saying via negativa like a game of Lacano-Marxist bingo.
Anyway, I enjoyed it nonetheless and await his big book on Lenin as he may get back to doing his big theory. I've not been as enamored with his last two books as I have been with some of the classics. Over-saturation may be a problem.
Read
February 10, 2018I honestly thought I'd sworn off reading these Popular Audience Zizek books. Fail. Got to remember to stick only to the theoretical and philosophical works. I mean, these little books are perfectly fine ; but I've read them enough ;; like back in the day when I got from Chomsky about as much as I needed. I mean, political discussion that does not have at least one of these two figures as touchstone simply won't likely get off the ground. If you're interested in emancipatory politics. If you're not, you're not on the Left. And we know how well the Middle and the Right are working out. Let's finally give the Left a try, eh.
At any rate, here are some titles if you want to read the (serious) Zizek ::
The Sublime Object of Ideology
Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology
The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Casuality
The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters
The Plague of Fantasies
The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology
The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?
The Parallax View
In Defense of Lost Causes
Living in the End Times
Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism
Or just that last one and the Schelling one. But maybe just rather these more Popular books. That's fine too. But personally, I should be a bit more disciplined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRcgQ...
At any rate, here are some titles if you want to read the (serious) Zizek ::
The Sublime Object of Ideology
Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology
The Metastases of Enjoyment: On Women and Casuality
The Indivisible Remainder: On Schelling and Related Matters
The Plague of Fantasies
The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology
The Fragile Absolute: Or, Why Is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For?
The Parallax View
In Defense of Lost Causes
Living in the End Times
Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism
Or just that last one and the Schelling one. But maybe just rather these more Popular books. That's fine too. But personally, I should be a bit more disciplined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRcgQ...
August 14, 2018
Though I continue to find Hegel to be an utterly ridiculous thinker representing far better than anybody else the futility and absurdity of 'philosophical projects,' I continue to read (almost) all of the major works of Slavoj Žižek, certainly that particular German Idealist's best known contemporary adherent. (I have always been far more amenable to Lacan, but let's leave that aside for the time being.) Why do I keep coming back to Žižek? Why, indeed, did I get get so much pleasure out of reading ABSOLUTE RECOIL, the last major Žižek I read, and as thoroughly Hegelian an investigation as he has ever dispatched? A lot of it has to do with the qualities Žižek possesses as a writer and rhetorician. It might be overstating it marginally to call Žižek accessible, but there is no denying that his thought process lends itself to a fluid, playful, and often amusing mode of address. While it might be wrong to say he is easy to read, he certainly is fun to read, and this distinguishes him from nearly everybody else in his field. I have been reading Žižek seriously and regularly since the dawn of the twenty-first century even though our theoretical pedigree could hardly be more different and we conceptualize our worlds very differently. I know well that Žižek would criticize me the same way he criticizes people like Judith Butler or Deleuze and Guattari: he would say that what is supposedly radical about my way of thinking and living in fact totally plays into commodity culture, consumerism, and global capitalism. Well, fair enough. He wouldn't be wrong. I'm not losing sleep over it. THE COURAGE OF HOPELESSNESS, appearing as it did in 2017, would seem to appear at a decisive, even critical, historical moment. If you want long riffs on dialectics qua dialectics and the negation of negation, this will not be the book for you. This is all-hands-on-deck critical theory addressing the lay of the (multi-centric) global land. We probably all know that irony is a major weapon in Žižek's arsenal. How serious is he about hopelessness as courage? Well, Žižek isn't one bit more hopeless than he has ever been (and the hopeless situation probably isn't ACTUALLY any more hopeless than it has ever been (which is to say almost completely hopeless)). In the book's Introduction, Žižek appropriates Girogio Agamben's statement that "thought is the courage of hopelessness." Žižek goes on to bemoan how these days "even the most pessimistic diagnosis as a rule finishes with an uplifting hint of some version of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel." Žižek suggests that the "light at the end of the tunnel" represents theoretical cowardice; perhaps the light is another train heading straight at us etc. Žižek warns that this book will be a dark one, appropriate for dark times. But the thing is: THE COURAGE OF HOPELESSNESS is guilty of precisely the form of theoretical cowardice it upbraids. A variation on the expression "courage of hopelessness" returns in the book's conclusion: "once we embrace the courage that comes with hopelessness, we should embark on the long and difficult work of changing the coordinates of the entire situation." Which is to say: err, there may (?) be light at the end of the tunnel (?). Žižek's fundamental political outlook has never changed. He believes in class struggle, the need for universal emancipatory values, and some yet-to-be-either-theorized-or-actualized form of communism. This is still his light at the end of the tunnel. It is not only vague, but pretty clearly a pipe dream. So what does Žižek offer us that is of use? He thinks the system, thinks the territory. He is a peerless and inexhaustible critic-clinician. At a time when the level of popular discourse has degenerated to such a dire extreme, it is revivifying to encounter someone doing adequate justice to current geopolitics and the concurrent mystifications of ideology. THE COURAGE OF HOPELESSNESS looks at banking and exploitation; Greek resistance to Brussels and austerity; Chinese authoritarian capitalism and other diverse political structures that adapt themselves to global capitalism; Islam, fundamentalist and not; PC culture and populist rage as two sides of the same coin. Žižek sees the PC policing of language as little more than an attempt to neutralize intractable immanent antagonisms. The contemporary arena becomes one of "ethico-politcal fiasco." This is the fundamental Hegelian core of Žižek: reverse-engineering back to basic antagonisms. And what of universal values? The terrain is variegated and messy. Progressive western values are often seen as an extension of neocolonial power. The world is populated by disparate and innately antagonistic social models. For Žižek the fundamental antagonism will always be class struggle (stop calling him a "class essentialist," he pleads, though that is what he is). He has obviously been attacked for saying that in 2016 Donald Trump was a better choice than Hilary Clinton. He has been accused of being an accelerationist. This isn't exactly correct. Žižek doesn't see Populist Rightism, unspeakably vile though it is, as an alternative to neoliberalism but rather as a dire symptom of it. What Trump brings with him is the sense that an urgent situation is in fact urgent, and (hopefully) the realization that new forms of political organization are now critical. The threat with the status quo was that we were going to continue marching calmly toward catastrophe. It is not that the collapse of global capitalism will be accelerated, but rather that the reality of crisis becomes impossible to ignore. Most of the philosophical or critical-theory-type texts I have read since I last read Žižek were books that would have been easy to break down into fairly short lists of pertinent bullet points. If you break THE COURAGE OF HOPELESSNESS down into bullet points you will have a very long list indeed and it will lack straightforward linearity. Again, the pleasure of reading Žižek is following his thinking hither and thither across a rich and populated topography. We find ourselves at a point in history where we are desperate to make sense of things. Žižek, if we simply see him as the critic-clinician, has never been more vital. Hope? Hopelessness? You don't necessarily have to be committed to one or the other to find much of value here. And do you want to know what Žižek's real secret of secrets is? The man is driven be pure jouissance and passion for his work. It is indelible.
July 9, 2023
bude bilo 5 zvjezdicc kad budem znala sve o psihoanalizi
June 22, 2021
Este señor tan prolífico ahora nos trae una serie de ensayos donde comenta diferentes aspectos de la realidad social y política relativamente reciente: el ascenso de Trump al poder, la ola de inmigración y la respuesta antiinmigración en Europa, los conflictos de Oriente Medio, entre facciones musulmanas, entre árabes y judíos, etc. Como siempre, es genial su uso de los conceptos psicoanalíticos y filosóficos, pero tengo que reconocer que en varios de los ensayos me sentí bastante descontextualizado. Por eso, me quedo especialmente con el ensayo "Lo sexual (no) es político", ya que desenreda de una forma muy original el tema de las identidades sexuales y de género, ofrece un punto de vista nuevo pero no el de la "corrección política" y da para seguir pensando... De los demás tengo bastante menos que decir.
June 2, 2019
In "Der Mut der Hoffnungslosigkeit" schreibt Slavoj Žižek auf gewohnt unterhaltsame und provokante Art über zeitgenössische politische Strukturen und politisches Geschehen. Sein Fokus liegt dabei auf dem globalen Kapitalismus und seinen Antagonismen, sowie gegenwärtigen ideologischen Zusammenhängen damit.
Wobei man von "Fokus" fast gar nicht sprechen kann, denn Žižek liebt es, spontan ausführliche Anekdoten und Referenzen anzubringen, die zwischen vulgärem Alltagshumor und Ausflügen in Lancansche Psychoanalyse (Psychoanalyse nach Jacques Lacan) variieren.
Wirklich anschaulich arbeitet er heraus, dass Populismus und der Rechtsruck der Gesellschaft nicht (allein) das große Übel sind, sondern Symptome der liberalen, kapitalistischen Strukturen, die weltweit herrschen. Mit anderen Worten: Erst eine Politik, wie die, für die Hillary Clinton steht, hat Donald Trump ermöglicht. (Dieses Bild findet sich im Buch wieder.) Angesichts des Horrors des Rechtspopulismus sich den "normalen", kapitalistisch-liberalen Zustand zurückzuwünschen, bedeutet, den Horror dieses normalen Zustands zu ignorieren.
Wenn es zu seinen Bewertungen konkreter aktuellpolitischer Ereignisse kommt, werden Žižeks Positionen jedoch deutlich fragwürdiger. Denn selbst, wenn er die meisten Umstände plausibel beschreibt, entsteht hin und wieder der Eindruck, er würde bei einigen Themen entscheidende Aspekte und Facetten weglassen oder in anderem Licht betrachten, um sie als Veranschaulichung für sein Weltbild zu nutzen. Es wird außerdem nicht jede/r Leser/in (mich eingeschlossen) in der Lage sein, ausführliche Recherchen zu den im Buch angeführten Ereignissen und Umständen zu machen.
So ist es mir beispielsweise schwer gefallen, wenn er die oben erwähnte Lacansche Psychoanalyse für seine Argumentation gebraucht hat, da ich mich im Gebiet der Psychoanalyse so gut wie gar nicht auskenne. Ich weiß nur, dass auch dieses Gebiet ein sehr kontrovers diskutiertes ist, weswegen mir ein wichtiger Baustein gefehlt hat, einige Argumente Žižeks zu bewerten.
Man sollte "Der Mut der Hoffnungslosigkeit" nicht lesen, wenn man eine optimistische "How To"-Anleitung zur Schaffung sozialer Gerechtigkeit und Rettung der Welt möchte. Andersherum ist dieses Buch jedoch auch nicht einfach ein pessimistischer Kommentar eines derben Zynikers, als der Slavoj Žižek hin und wieder gelabelt wird. — Genau die Herangehens- und Denkweisen jenseits solcher Gegensätze interessieren ihn: Es gab und gibt noch etwas anderes, jenseits von Clinton und Trump, jenseits vom Kapitalismus.
Wer vor Widersprüchen, Konfrontation und (hin und wieder) edgy Vulgaritäten nicht zurückschreckt, und an linker Kritik herrschender Zustände interessiert ist, kann sich getrost auf dieses Buch einlassen und wird es schätzen können.
Wobei man von "Fokus" fast gar nicht sprechen kann, denn Žižek liebt es, spontan ausführliche Anekdoten und Referenzen anzubringen, die zwischen vulgärem Alltagshumor und Ausflügen in Lancansche Psychoanalyse (Psychoanalyse nach Jacques Lacan) variieren.
Wirklich anschaulich arbeitet er heraus, dass Populismus und der Rechtsruck der Gesellschaft nicht (allein) das große Übel sind, sondern Symptome der liberalen, kapitalistischen Strukturen, die weltweit herrschen. Mit anderen Worten: Erst eine Politik, wie die, für die Hillary Clinton steht, hat Donald Trump ermöglicht. (Dieses Bild findet sich im Buch wieder.) Angesichts des Horrors des Rechtspopulismus sich den "normalen", kapitalistisch-liberalen Zustand zurückzuwünschen, bedeutet, den Horror dieses normalen Zustands zu ignorieren.
Wenn es zu seinen Bewertungen konkreter aktuellpolitischer Ereignisse kommt, werden Žižeks Positionen jedoch deutlich fragwürdiger. Denn selbst, wenn er die meisten Umstände plausibel beschreibt, entsteht hin und wieder der Eindruck, er würde bei einigen Themen entscheidende Aspekte und Facetten weglassen oder in anderem Licht betrachten, um sie als Veranschaulichung für sein Weltbild zu nutzen. Es wird außerdem nicht jede/r Leser/in (mich eingeschlossen) in der Lage sein, ausführliche Recherchen zu den im Buch angeführten Ereignissen und Umständen zu machen.
So ist es mir beispielsweise schwer gefallen, wenn er die oben erwähnte Lacansche Psychoanalyse für seine Argumentation gebraucht hat, da ich mich im Gebiet der Psychoanalyse so gut wie gar nicht auskenne. Ich weiß nur, dass auch dieses Gebiet ein sehr kontrovers diskutiertes ist, weswegen mir ein wichtiger Baustein gefehlt hat, einige Argumente Žižeks zu bewerten.
Man sollte "Der Mut der Hoffnungslosigkeit" nicht lesen, wenn man eine optimistische "How To"-Anleitung zur Schaffung sozialer Gerechtigkeit und Rettung der Welt möchte. Andersherum ist dieses Buch jedoch auch nicht einfach ein pessimistischer Kommentar eines derben Zynikers, als der Slavoj Žižek hin und wieder gelabelt wird. — Genau die Herangehens- und Denkweisen jenseits solcher Gegensätze interessieren ihn: Es gab und gibt noch etwas anderes, jenseits von Clinton und Trump, jenseits vom Kapitalismus.
Wer vor Widersprüchen, Konfrontation und (hin und wieder) edgy Vulgaritäten nicht zurückschreckt, und an linker Kritik herrschender Zustände interessiert ist, kann sich getrost auf dieses Buch einlassen und wird es schätzen können.
January 21, 2018
The future used to look brighter. This newfangled retrotopia is the core of numerous new books. The Courage of Hopelessness is Slavoj Zizek’s jaundiced look at the mess we’ve put ourselves in politically, economically, socially and environmentally. We seem to have made no progress. Zizek thinks we’ve come full circle to the hairtrigger era of pre WWI. It’s an intense, highly thought through analysis from a left perspective. One expects no less from Zizek.
He has collected a bouquet of contradictions and paradoxes:
-In China, where the Communist Party is the guardian of capitalism, it is not only illegal to claim workers have the right to self organize, it is illegal to claim it is illegal for workers to self organize.
-In Israel, 60% say they don’t believe in God, but everyone agrees God gave them the land.
-One good thing about religious fundamentalists: they cannot tolerate each other.
-Ayatollah Khomeini was clear: “Islam is politics or it is nothing.”
- All over the western world the Right talks about “taking back” the country (from international trade agreements, the EU, the UN) in order to simply submit it to the tyranny of world markets.
There are chapters on globalization, religion, politics, and inevitably, Donald Trump. The net effect of it all is to put us in a state of near hopelessness. We create paradoxes, ramp up hypocrisy, escalate corruption and double down on grave errors. And it’s not going to change.
Zizek employs the artifice of turning things back on their perpetrators, so that Nazis become Israel’s biggest fans, Muslims and Jews operate the same beliefs, Democrats are the biggest defenders of free trade while Republicans favor protectionism by the government, and the European Left is actually the strongest defender of Muslim rights. It’s easy enough to do, but after a while it becomes just another exercise anyone can perform.
There’s a lot to argue with, too. Zizek thinks communism, which has never been tried successfully anywhere precisely because of the foibles he sees everywhere, is the best of all worlds. And he thinks Americans should have voted blank in 2016, which is not how things work. Low turnout and blank ballots give you results like Brexit, Maduro and Kenyatta Jr.
The world is not getting easier to live in. Every economic system is a threat to somebody. The struggles expand.
David Wineberg
He has collected a bouquet of contradictions and paradoxes:
-In China, where the Communist Party is the guardian of capitalism, it is not only illegal to claim workers have the right to self organize, it is illegal to claim it is illegal for workers to self organize.
-In Israel, 60% say they don’t believe in God, but everyone agrees God gave them the land.
-One good thing about religious fundamentalists: they cannot tolerate each other.
-Ayatollah Khomeini was clear: “Islam is politics or it is nothing.”
- All over the western world the Right talks about “taking back” the country (from international trade agreements, the EU, the UN) in order to simply submit it to the tyranny of world markets.
There are chapters on globalization, religion, politics, and inevitably, Donald Trump. The net effect of it all is to put us in a state of near hopelessness. We create paradoxes, ramp up hypocrisy, escalate corruption and double down on grave errors. And it’s not going to change.
Zizek employs the artifice of turning things back on their perpetrators, so that Nazis become Israel’s biggest fans, Muslims and Jews operate the same beliefs, Democrats are the biggest defenders of free trade while Republicans favor protectionism by the government, and the European Left is actually the strongest defender of Muslim rights. It’s easy enough to do, but after a while it becomes just another exercise anyone can perform.
There’s a lot to argue with, too. Zizek thinks communism, which has never been tried successfully anywhere precisely because of the foibles he sees everywhere, is the best of all worlds. And he thinks Americans should have voted blank in 2016, which is not how things work. Low turnout and blank ballots give you results like Brexit, Maduro and Kenyatta Jr.
The world is not getting easier to live in. Every economic system is a threat to somebody. The struggles expand.
David Wineberg
February 19, 2019
Torrentes de verborrea (que al leerlos me imaginaba al autor pasarse la mano por su cara constantemente, sonarse la nariz con dos dedos, y repetir su “and so on..”), unidos como una placenta velamentosa por apenas algunos cuantos hilos. Parecen ideas que de pronto le llegaban como inspiración.
¿Lo mejor? No deja títere con cabeza.
¿Lo mejor? No deja títere con cabeza.
April 29, 2021
philosophy
April 5, 2021
3.5 Stars!
“My problem with Liberalism is that it’s more concerned with policing people’s language and thoughts without requiring them to do anything to fix the problem. White liberal college students speak of ‘safe space’, ‘trigger words’, ‘micro aggressions’ and ‘white privilege’ while not having to do anything or, more importantly, give up anything. They can’t even have a conversation with someone who sees the world differently without resorting to calling someone a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, bigot and trying to have them banned from campus, or ruin them and their reputation.”
And this quote is actually from Nikki Johnson-Huston but Zizek uses it and that really spoke to me.
One of the things I enjoy about Zizek is how one moment he is waxing lyrical about Lacan and then next thing he is quoting at large from a Sly Stallone movie. It’s that seamless move between the two that can make him fresh and appealing and is why he is no immediate risk from getting too stuffy or pretentious. Elsewhere he quotes from a wide and interesting selection of sources though I imagine that one very much alive Australian journalist maybe somewhat troubled and paranoid as being referred to as “the late John Pilger”.
“The true goal of lending money is not to get the debt reimbursed with a profit, but the indefinite continuation of the debt so that the debtor is in permanent dependency and subordination.”
He rightly raises awareness about the likes of TISA (Trade In Services Agreement) and how terrifying schemes like these are effectively undermining democracy throughout much of the world and yet the vast majority of mainstream media made a point of ignoring this. He also gets into IoT, Syriza and Yanis Varoufakis, Alain Badiou, Brexit with some interesting points and conclusions made.
“Like God, bureaucracy is simultaneously all-powerful and impenetrable, capricious, omnipresent and invisible.”
He gets stuck into all sorts of people in all sorts of ways, which I found hugely enjoyable, the likes of Tim Cook the CEO of Apple,
“Tim Cook can easily forget about hundreds of thousands of Foxconn workers in China assembling Apple products in slave conditions-he makes his big gesture of solidarity with the underprivileged by demanding the abolition of gender segregation…As is often the case, big business stands here proudly united with politically correct theory.”
Zizek also has a go at the shockingly poor quality of presidential candidates of the US’s 2016 election in Trump and Clinton “she makes changing nothing look desirable.” And later adds the delightful line “Can a country in which a person like Trump is president be really considered great?”
There are times when he certainly waffles on a bit and he can get a bit tedious, but overall Zizek is on really good form here and I was heartily cheering along with him in many parts of this book.
“My problem with Liberalism is that it’s more concerned with policing people’s language and thoughts without requiring them to do anything to fix the problem. White liberal college students speak of ‘safe space’, ‘trigger words’, ‘micro aggressions’ and ‘white privilege’ while not having to do anything or, more importantly, give up anything. They can’t even have a conversation with someone who sees the world differently without resorting to calling someone a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, bigot and trying to have them banned from campus, or ruin them and their reputation.”
And this quote is actually from Nikki Johnson-Huston but Zizek uses it and that really spoke to me.
One of the things I enjoy about Zizek is how one moment he is waxing lyrical about Lacan and then next thing he is quoting at large from a Sly Stallone movie. It’s that seamless move between the two that can make him fresh and appealing and is why he is no immediate risk from getting too stuffy or pretentious. Elsewhere he quotes from a wide and interesting selection of sources though I imagine that one very much alive Australian journalist maybe somewhat troubled and paranoid as being referred to as “the late John Pilger”.
“The true goal of lending money is not to get the debt reimbursed with a profit, but the indefinite continuation of the debt so that the debtor is in permanent dependency and subordination.”
He rightly raises awareness about the likes of TISA (Trade In Services Agreement) and how terrifying schemes like these are effectively undermining democracy throughout much of the world and yet the vast majority of mainstream media made a point of ignoring this. He also gets into IoT, Syriza and Yanis Varoufakis, Alain Badiou, Brexit with some interesting points and conclusions made.
“Like God, bureaucracy is simultaneously all-powerful and impenetrable, capricious, omnipresent and invisible.”
He gets stuck into all sorts of people in all sorts of ways, which I found hugely enjoyable, the likes of Tim Cook the CEO of Apple,
“Tim Cook can easily forget about hundreds of thousands of Foxconn workers in China assembling Apple products in slave conditions-he makes his big gesture of solidarity with the underprivileged by demanding the abolition of gender segregation…As is often the case, big business stands here proudly united with politically correct theory.”
Zizek also has a go at the shockingly poor quality of presidential candidates of the US’s 2016 election in Trump and Clinton “she makes changing nothing look desirable.” And later adds the delightful line “Can a country in which a person like Trump is president be really considered great?”
There are times when he certainly waffles on a bit and he can get a bit tedious, but overall Zizek is on really good form here and I was heartily cheering along with him in many parts of this book.
November 6, 2018
Zizek is a true genius. His guided sarcasm and sense of humor is more than amazing.
This is the second book I read for him, after his book with Alain Badou, and I enjoyed them both so much. I’m looking for more.
Zizek is a true genius. His guided sarcasm and sense of humor is more than amazing.
This is the second book I read for him, after his book with Alain Badou, and I enjoyed them both so much. I’m looking for more.
October 23, 2019
You know, Lacan, and so on...
it's a guilty pleasure for the reader and a demonstration of Zizek's self-indulgence in flipping back and forth between news items, anecdotes and the big Other.
it's a guilty pleasure for the reader and a demonstration of Zizek's self-indulgence in flipping back and forth between news items, anecdotes and the big Other.
September 10, 2020
Bin hiernach immer noch nicht sicher, ob es sich bei Žižeks Psychoanalyse um die Weltformel oder um Schabernack handelt. Viele der Analysen in dem Buch erschienen mir sinnvoll und geistreich, andere wiederum vollkommen willkürlich. Habe auf jeden Fall einiges mitgenommen, werde mich jetzt aber erst einmal nicht auf weitere Žižek Bücher stürzen.
June 3, 2021
A compilation of interesting citations, obscure Lacanian language, and provocative political analysis all characteristic of Zizek. His theory that Trump winning would further energize a left has not played out electorally (Biden not Bernie getting the nomination) but at the same time I doubt BLM would have become so mainstream especially among young people without the revulsion inspired by Trump. Looking forward to reading Zizek's more philosophically based works.
June 6, 2023
Hace poco, por unos cuantos vídeos de YouTube, tuve la fortuna de empezar a escuchar a Zizek. Me causó tanta curiosidad, que me metí de lleno a leer una de sus obras y quedé sorprendido de su forma de ver el mundo.
Esa habilidad de criticar tanto al pensamiento neoliberal, como a las nuevas tendencias que esconden pensamientos complejos, me puso a trasnochar leyendo .
Esa habilidad de criticar tanto al pensamiento neoliberal, como a las nuevas tendencias que esconden pensamientos complejos, me puso a trasnochar leyendo .
April 29, 2020
Sugestão de drinking game para futuros leitores: de cada vez que o autor citar Hegel ou um filósofo da Escola de Frankfurt, um shot de vodka.
April 6, 2021
I'm not so interested in becoming one of the Žižek absolutists we see here and there, but all the same this was an impressive, broad text. Žižek takes an Adam Curtis-esque survey of world economic powers, sprinkles in the expected digressions concerning Hegel and Lacan, and tackles some cultural issues too.
I think the broad prescriptive conclusions he draws are correct, if a little nonspecific. But perhaps that is a strength. Overall the book wasn't exactly a cure to pessimism - but that's not what Žižek is aiming for. I'm not certain how to approach that really. It lives up to the hopelessness of the title, only I'm undecided on where exactly that leaves me: I think what I'm trying to say is that it was a depressing read, but this is no fault of the author - if anything it attests to his effectiveness.
I think the broad prescriptive conclusions he draws are correct, if a little nonspecific. But perhaps that is a strength. Overall the book wasn't exactly a cure to pessimism - but that's not what Žižek is aiming for. I'm not certain how to approach that really. It lives up to the hopelessness of the title, only I'm undecided on where exactly that leaves me: I think what I'm trying to say is that it was a depressing read, but this is no fault of the author - if anything it attests to his effectiveness.
February 10, 2020
"¿Qué queda vivo del Manifiesto comunista cuando la clase trabajadora, sujeto de la revolución, tiende a la derecha más reaccionaria? ¿Hay espacio para las alternativas y la esperanza en un mundo cada vez más inundado de fundamentalismos y nuevos conflictos? Zizek no tiene ninguna duda: no hay razones para la esperanza. No existe alternativa e imaginarla sólo beneficia al estado actual de las cosas.
Con su estilo arrollador nos defiende, en estos dos libros publicados en Anagrama, una visión pesimista hasta vaticinar una tercera guerra mundial. Ataca la izquierda de la esperanza, cuyo optimismo les inmoviliza. Apoya a Trump como mal menor frente a Clinton. Carga contra ese marxismo reducido a un discurso universitario cualquiera. Denuncia el común interés entre el capitalismo global y el tradicionalismo étnico. Goza, en definitiva, de extirpar de sus lectores todo resquicio de esperanza católica.
Marx intentó pensar una solución al problema del capital. Si comunismo significa algo hoy en día, ya no es el nombre de una solución, sino el del problema de la gestión de lo común. Problema sin solución al que Zizek sólo ofrece el dictum “cuanto peor, mejor”. Quizás por eso habla en términos de coraje." Miquel Àngel Riera
Con su estilo arrollador nos defiende, en estos dos libros publicados en Anagrama, una visión pesimista hasta vaticinar una tercera guerra mundial. Ataca la izquierda de la esperanza, cuyo optimismo les inmoviliza. Apoya a Trump como mal menor frente a Clinton. Carga contra ese marxismo reducido a un discurso universitario cualquiera. Denuncia el común interés entre el capitalismo global y el tradicionalismo étnico. Goza, en definitiva, de extirpar de sus lectores todo resquicio de esperanza católica.
Marx intentó pensar una solución al problema del capital. Si comunismo significa algo hoy en día, ya no es el nombre de una solución, sino el del problema de la gestión de lo común. Problema sin solución al que Zizek sólo ofrece el dictum “cuanto peor, mejor”. Quizás por eso habla en términos de coraje." Miquel Àngel Riera
July 9, 2023
Changing the World is Like Quitting Smoking
8 July 2023
Honestly, I can’t remember how I stumbled across Zizek, but he certainly seems to have become quite well known. I’m not sure whether you could consider him popular, but he is popular enough that people know about him. Actually, while I hate to say this, I suspect I discovered him after seeing one of his books on Goodreads (there is a reason why Amazon bought this site, though personally I do prefer it as a simple bookclub – well, it is the world’s largest bookclub).
Anyway, he opens the book by talking about quitting smoking. Basically that is what changing the world is like – we want to do it, we talk about wanting to do it, but when it comes down to the crunch it is just a little bit too hard so we all give up. Sure, we have made lots of progress over the years – things are definitely different to what it was like when I was growing up – women’s and LGBTQ+ rights are certainly one thing that has changed – yet on the other hand global capital simply does not seem to be going anywhere.
Well, there are some hints as to it changing, but the reality is that it is just as much in control as it has always been. Zizek spends an entire chapter looking at the example of Syriza in Greece – a radical left wing party that basically wanted to stick it to Brussels. Like, there was certainly a lot of anger in Greece over their treatment by Brussels – for instance the banks that caused the crises were bailed out, and then their debts were forgiven, while Greece was forced to restructure it’s finances and cough up the cash. Like, even the US seems to get away with having an extraordinary amount of debt (though it does have a lot to do with the debt to GDP ratio, and Greece’s was off the charts). Anyway, the example of Syriza in Greece was that in the end global capital wins. They came in with promises to transform the state, only to discover that they were shackled by the rules of the EU.
This of course leads to a long discourse on the 2016 Presidential election between Trump and Hillary, and in some ways Saunders. Zizek sees that Trump was channelling the rage on the right, and Saunders was channelling the rage on the left. The thing is that the way the Democratic Party primaries are structured, it is much easier to exclude certain candidates than it is for the Republics. The thing is that Trump actually alienated a lot of Republicans, but he represented that trash talking, un-PC character that a lot of people look up to.
Sure, one could criticise Hillary for her statement about the deplorables (and Obama made a similar statement) but as it has turned out, these deplorables, clutching their bibles and their guns, are actually a pretty potent force, a force that Trump has harnessed. No wonder he shied away from actually condemning them because they are his base. Mind you, this book was written in 2017, so the full disaster that the Trump presidency was not yet evident. In fact, I wonder if he actually did anything constructive – all he seemed to do was tear down everything that had been built up over the years. However, one of the main reasons he won was because he was not Hillary. Hillary basically represents the globalist capitalist elite – an element that many hated – sure, she wasn’t Trump, and she certainly got more votes than Trump, but ultimately she lost.
The thing with Trump is that when he was elected people expected him to become more presidential, and I suspect people thought they could control and manipulate him as they have done many others. Sure, he played to his base – such as signing laws that banned abortions, and appointed conservative judges that have pretty much tossed the rule of law and the doctrine of precedence out of the window (they are pretty much making stuff up on the fly, and it is going to take a very long time to undo all of it). Yet, in the end, all he seemed to end up doing was travelling around the country holding rallies as opposed to actually doing what a president is supposed to do, and that is run a country.
I wish to end on a different note though – Zizek looks at the idea of political correctness, and public toilets. Like in my mind there is being politically correct, and there is being politically correct. I agree, that some things have gone way overboard, and if we were to truly be politically correct, 90% of the world’s literature would be banned. The other thing with political correctness is that the people who complain the most about political correctness gone mad (or cancel culture) are the first to ban books they don’t like, and get upset when you say something that offends them (and there is no point in arguing with them either). As for toilets, well, I have discussed that in my previous review, however one thing that he mentions is comparing desgregation of public toilets with apartheid South Africa. Mind you, desegregation of toilets would save a lot of embarrassment when I accidentally walk into the wrong ones, though I have to admit that standing up as opposed to sitting down, is much more convenient. However, this actually leads in to another thing that Zizek spoke about, and that is the idea of maturity expectations of women and men. I say this because, since men can technically go anywhere, they do, and the mess I saw at a music festival I was at really did highlight some people’s maturity levels.
Anyway, one of the things that seemed to be touched up in the comparison between Clinton and Trump was that there was almost an expectation that she had to behave, where as Trump got away with what he did and said because, well, boys will be boys. Even in comparison to her husband, who seemed to get away with playing around while he was in office (though of course nobody batted an eyelid at Trump’s statements, but then again that really goes to show the hypocrisy, and partisanship, that has come out with modern politics).
Yeah, and finally, and I know I’ve said this before (‘and finally’ that is, but I seem to keep on getting new ideas as I think about this book) there is the whole concept of American raging against potential challengers to the position of world superpower. Mind you, after the fall of communism, there was this idea floating about, by Fukiyama, about being at the end of history, at a point where global capital has won, and that all will be well in the world. Well, no, it didn’t quite work like that, and it is Zizek’s argument that Fukiyama’s end of history came to an end with the election of Trump.
The thing also is that there has been a paradigm shift as well, almost as if the US is crumbling from within, and new players are rising up to take the stage – China, India, the European Union. At the time Zizek suggested Russia, but the idea of Russia being a superpower blew away with the invasion of Ukraine. However, I have heard American preachers bash the European Union, calling it the spawn of Satan and the seat of the anti-Christ (when they are giving that label to Obama). Why? Because they see it as a threat to their position as world superpower. It is simply a part of the Americo-centric view of the world. The US is the greatest nation on Earth because people are free, but we must always be vigilant because there are enemies that want to take away that freedom. I could write a lot more about that, but this is probably long enough as is, so I’ll leave it there.
8 July 2023
Honestly, I can’t remember how I stumbled across Zizek, but he certainly seems to have become quite well known. I’m not sure whether you could consider him popular, but he is popular enough that people know about him. Actually, while I hate to say this, I suspect I discovered him after seeing one of his books on Goodreads (there is a reason why Amazon bought this site, though personally I do prefer it as a simple bookclub – well, it is the world’s largest bookclub).
Anyway, he opens the book by talking about quitting smoking. Basically that is what changing the world is like – we want to do it, we talk about wanting to do it, but when it comes down to the crunch it is just a little bit too hard so we all give up. Sure, we have made lots of progress over the years – things are definitely different to what it was like when I was growing up – women’s and LGBTQ+ rights are certainly one thing that has changed – yet on the other hand global capital simply does not seem to be going anywhere.
Well, there are some hints as to it changing, but the reality is that it is just as much in control as it has always been. Zizek spends an entire chapter looking at the example of Syriza in Greece – a radical left wing party that basically wanted to stick it to Brussels. Like, there was certainly a lot of anger in Greece over their treatment by Brussels – for instance the banks that caused the crises were bailed out, and then their debts were forgiven, while Greece was forced to restructure it’s finances and cough up the cash. Like, even the US seems to get away with having an extraordinary amount of debt (though it does have a lot to do with the debt to GDP ratio, and Greece’s was off the charts). Anyway, the example of Syriza in Greece was that in the end global capital wins. They came in with promises to transform the state, only to discover that they were shackled by the rules of the EU.
This of course leads to a long discourse on the 2016 Presidential election between Trump and Hillary, and in some ways Saunders. Zizek sees that Trump was channelling the rage on the right, and Saunders was channelling the rage on the left. The thing is that the way the Democratic Party primaries are structured, it is much easier to exclude certain candidates than it is for the Republics. The thing is that Trump actually alienated a lot of Republicans, but he represented that trash talking, un-PC character that a lot of people look up to.
Sure, one could criticise Hillary for her statement about the deplorables (and Obama made a similar statement) but as it has turned out, these deplorables, clutching their bibles and their guns, are actually a pretty potent force, a force that Trump has harnessed. No wonder he shied away from actually condemning them because they are his base. Mind you, this book was written in 2017, so the full disaster that the Trump presidency was not yet evident. In fact, I wonder if he actually did anything constructive – all he seemed to do was tear down everything that had been built up over the years. However, one of the main reasons he won was because he was not Hillary. Hillary basically represents the globalist capitalist elite – an element that many hated – sure, she wasn’t Trump, and she certainly got more votes than Trump, but ultimately she lost.
The thing with Trump is that when he was elected people expected him to become more presidential, and I suspect people thought they could control and manipulate him as they have done many others. Sure, he played to his base – such as signing laws that banned abortions, and appointed conservative judges that have pretty much tossed the rule of law and the doctrine of precedence out of the window (they are pretty much making stuff up on the fly, and it is going to take a very long time to undo all of it). Yet, in the end, all he seemed to end up doing was travelling around the country holding rallies as opposed to actually doing what a president is supposed to do, and that is run a country.
I wish to end on a different note though – Zizek looks at the idea of political correctness, and public toilets. Like in my mind there is being politically correct, and there is being politically correct. I agree, that some things have gone way overboard, and if we were to truly be politically correct, 90% of the world’s literature would be banned. The other thing with political correctness is that the people who complain the most about political correctness gone mad (or cancel culture) are the first to ban books they don’t like, and get upset when you say something that offends them (and there is no point in arguing with them either). As for toilets, well, I have discussed that in my previous review, however one thing that he mentions is comparing desgregation of public toilets with apartheid South Africa. Mind you, desegregation of toilets would save a lot of embarrassment when I accidentally walk into the wrong ones, though I have to admit that standing up as opposed to sitting down, is much more convenient. However, this actually leads in to another thing that Zizek spoke about, and that is the idea of maturity expectations of women and men. I say this because, since men can technically go anywhere, they do, and the mess I saw at a music festival I was at really did highlight some people’s maturity levels.
Anyway, one of the things that seemed to be touched up in the comparison between Clinton and Trump was that there was almost an expectation that she had to behave, where as Trump got away with what he did and said because, well, boys will be boys. Even in comparison to her husband, who seemed to get away with playing around while he was in office (though of course nobody batted an eyelid at Trump’s statements, but then again that really goes to show the hypocrisy, and partisanship, that has come out with modern politics).
Yeah, and finally, and I know I’ve said this before (‘and finally’ that is, but I seem to keep on getting new ideas as I think about this book) there is the whole concept of American raging against potential challengers to the position of world superpower. Mind you, after the fall of communism, there was this idea floating about, by Fukiyama, about being at the end of history, at a point where global capital has won, and that all will be well in the world. Well, no, it didn’t quite work like that, and it is Zizek’s argument that Fukiyama’s end of history came to an end with the election of Trump.
The thing also is that there has been a paradigm shift as well, almost as if the US is crumbling from within, and new players are rising up to take the stage – China, India, the European Union. At the time Zizek suggested Russia, but the idea of Russia being a superpower blew away with the invasion of Ukraine. However, I have heard American preachers bash the European Union, calling it the spawn of Satan and the seat of the anti-Christ (when they are giving that label to Obama). Why? Because they see it as a threat to their position as world superpower. It is simply a part of the Americo-centric view of the world. The US is the greatest nation on Earth because people are free, but we must always be vigilant because there are enemies that want to take away that freedom. I could write a lot more about that, but this is probably long enough as is, so I’ll leave it there.
February 17, 2019
I read this book for some of my dissertation research. I liked the premise, which was essentially that hope maintains the status quo. The same systems that led to the situation will be sustained for as long as there is hope they might change, and that real transformation is only possible when you let go of the hope that things can change, let the current system fail/disintegrate/whatever, and then build something new.
Most of the examples Žižek uses to illustrate this point are political, social, and economic examples from European current events, like the Greek debt crisis, Brexit, and refugee acceptance. There are some chapters about the 2016 U.S. presidential election and #MeToo as well. I don't have a depth of familiarity with the European examples to be able to really engage with anything he wrote. By that I mean, the examples are kind of an abstraction to me, and I don't have the fluency to critique much of what he writes.
The examples I had more familiarity with elicited more disagreements from me, so it throws the other examples into question. I still think the points he brings up are important, but it's difficult for me to maintain this philosophical eye in the face of what I know will have literal human effect. I think that probably is an important dynamic to wrestle with, and probably proves a lot of his points about upholding a system. All that said, this is my first Žižek book and I'm excited to read more.
Most of the examples Žižek uses to illustrate this point are political, social, and economic examples from European current events, like the Greek debt crisis, Brexit, and refugee acceptance. There are some chapters about the 2016 U.S. presidential election and #MeToo as well. I don't have a depth of familiarity with the European examples to be able to really engage with anything he wrote. By that I mean, the examples are kind of an abstraction to me, and I don't have the fluency to critique much of what he writes.
The examples I had more familiarity with elicited more disagreements from me, so it throws the other examples into question. I still think the points he brings up are important, but it's difficult for me to maintain this philosophical eye in the face of what I know will have literal human effect. I think that probably is an important dynamic to wrestle with, and probably proves a lot of his points about upholding a system. All that said, this is my first Žižek book and I'm excited to read more.
January 4, 2020
En El coraje de la desesperanza encontramos las respuestas que Zizek le da a los críticos de sus trabajos anteriores, revisando cómo la ideología trabaja detrás de las grandes problemáticas sociales de nuestro tiempo, desde las problemáticas LGBTQ+ (que es, en mi opinión, su punto más bajo), hasta el significado que guarda el personaje de Trump en relación a la figura de Bernie Sanders).
Con un tono crítico sobre distintas obras por parte de decenas de autores, Zizek escribe una crónica que echa muchas luces sobre la realidad europea y norteamericana (tomando, de vez en cuando, situaciones ocurridas en otras partes del planeta).
Pese a todas las diferencias que uno puede guardar con el pensamiento político del esloveno, siempre es bueno encontrarse en diálogo con estas temáticas a través de distintos puntos de vista.
Rescato los capítulos sobre China y Grecia, que son un gran análisis de las perspectivas de la izquierda actual y las soluciones posibles a los enfrentamientos contra un capitalismo global y los problemas derivados de las culturas locales.
Con un tono crítico sobre distintas obras por parte de decenas de autores, Zizek escribe una crónica que echa muchas luces sobre la realidad europea y norteamericana (tomando, de vez en cuando, situaciones ocurridas en otras partes del planeta).
Pese a todas las diferencias que uno puede guardar con el pensamiento político del esloveno, siempre es bueno encontrarse en diálogo con estas temáticas a través de distintos puntos de vista.
Rescato los capítulos sobre China y Grecia, que son un gran análisis de las perspectivas de la izquierda actual y las soluciones posibles a los enfrentamientos contra un capitalismo global y los problemas derivados de las culturas locales.
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January 28, 2018keenly brilliant and densely insightful and discerning set of essays from the fiery, passionate Slavoj Zizek on a variety of urgent political and economic phenomena- including Greek debt and austerity, the refugee situation in Europe, cultural variations of capitalism especially the Chinese model- that collectively show some of the contemporary pitfalls of capitalism. Slavoj is not a Marxist extremist and is willing to criticise the Left for its excesses in the name of ideology, but he is uncompromising in pointing out the class struggle and injustice whenever he sees those relationships exist. Whenever we disagree with the conclusions he arrives at in his book, we nevertheless have to seriously engage with him.
May 20, 2019
Este libro de Žižek es una defensa de muchas de las críticas que le han realizado en los distintos años. Para quién ha leído a lo largo de los años su obra, encontrará en gran parte de sus argumentos y textos similares. Sin embargo, encontrará también parte de sus posiciones políticas respecto a temas actuales como Trump, la crisis griega, la transexualidad, ISIS y su crítica a la izquierda contemporánea. Es un libro que muchas visiones de la izquierda liberal o radical seguramente no les gustara, pero la critica es fundamental para la comprensión del mundo. Algo que hace bastante bien Žižek.
August 2, 2017
Açıkcası ilk defa Zizek kitabı okuduğum için başlarda dili zor geldi. Lakin alıştıktan sonra okuması gayet zevkli. Hem Hegelci hem Lacanci(bu şahıs Freud'dan ayrılan bir psikanalizci) eğlenceli bir komünist bir filozof Zizek. Sol siyasetin benim de canımı sıkan liberal sol kısmına ciddi eleştirilerde bulunuyor. Bu konuda yalnız olmadığımı görmek bile güzel. Psikanalizi geçerli bir bilim dalı olarak görmediğimden 4 yıldız verdim, yoksa her zaman nihai çözüm komünizm :).
September 19, 2019
Typical Zizek critiques still apply here- he's totally willing to jump to ideological/social conclusions based on entirely aesthetic or artistic examples- but genuinely engaging defense of implicit consent and sexual ambiguity (in addition to contributing to a contract-obsessed society, it's literally the whole fun of sex, he suggests, and he's right lol). Lots of boring shit in here that I couldn't bring myself to care about though.
November 5, 2018
2.5 Stars. Ineffectual masturbation really. About the left's tendency to eat itself and get bogged down in moral and cultural conflicts that distract from more pressing issues.
Part of it's right and part of its insufferable posturing. Apathy isn't attractive right now, so books like this are not helpful when the world is in flames.
Part of it's right and part of its insufferable posturing. Apathy isn't attractive right now, so books like this are not helpful when the world is in flames.
December 7, 2018
Bei 400 Seite Zizek zur Zeitgeschichte weiß man, was man bekommt: Ein schöner Rundumschlag gegen Linksliberale, modernen Kapitalismus, politische Korrektheit, Religion oder populistische Strategien. Fast immer unterhaltsam, hatte ich auch oft Gelegenheit, meine eigenen Standpunkte zu aktuellen Debatten zu prüfen. Ob es sooo lang hätte sein brauchen? Nein.
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