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Like A Thief In Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism
In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world - changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new book, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realisation of Marx's prediction that 'all that is solid melts into air.' With the automation of work, the virtualisation of money, the dissipation of class communities and the rise of immaterial, intellectual labour, the global capitalist edifice is beginning to crumble, more quickly than ever before-and it is now on the verge of vanishing entirely.
But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Zizek argues, there can be no great social triumph - because lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our very eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it.
Urgent as ever, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight illuminates the new dangers as well as the radical possibilities thrown up by today's technological and scientific advances, and their electrifying implications for us all.
But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Zizek argues, there can be no great social triumph - because lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our very eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it.
Urgent as ever, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight illuminates the new dangers as well as the radical possibilities thrown up by today's technological and scientific advances, and their electrifying implications for us all.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published October 30, 2018
267 people are currently reading
2,384 people want to read
About the author
Slavoj Žižek
604 books7,194 followersSlavoj Žižek is a Slovene sociologist, philosopher, and cultural critic.
He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).
Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."
He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).
Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.
Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.
In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 178 reviews
October 10, 2018
Where else can you get a Hegelian analysis of Blade runner...?
May 17, 2019
I am not sure how to review this...
This book is a collection of essays, not strongly connected, with some ideas repeated, others given more space than they deserve.
Žižek is certainly one of our time's best thinkers, I think the most beneficial thing I acquired from this book is not his ideas, but getting to see his thought process. Not to say that ideas were not valuable, I managed to learn much from what he offers. I can say that my awareness of the world I live in has broadened. However, the information goes away, while concepts stay.
In a way, the central point of this book is that the world is moving in a dark corridor and is in desperate need for a revolution, else the worst is bound to occur. While the revolution concept is elaborated upon every now and then, Žižek focuses more on analyzing the present situation through mainly Hegelian and Leninist criticism, but also a collection of other criticisms, together forming his own. Which makes sense, as the present should always have more light than the possible future. He sometimes elaborates on his points through analyzing films(Blade Runner, Black Panther, La La Land), which certainly summoned my full attention.
This is not an easy book, it requires close reading as well as a rich background to fully grasp it. I think I missed on a lot reading this, but this is my first read of Žižek's work, I'll get better, and maybe come back and reread this.
As a further criticism, sometimes the ideas were vague, some arguments were really lacking in substance. There was also the occasional incoherence, jumping from one place to the next. If I were to be bold enough, I'd say that this book could've been into a short simple essay or a much bigger book that touches on everything better, yet it somehow combined the worst of each, instead of the opposite. But of course, don't take my word for it...
This book is a collection of essays, not strongly connected, with some ideas repeated, others given more space than they deserve.
Žižek is certainly one of our time's best thinkers, I think the most beneficial thing I acquired from this book is not his ideas, but getting to see his thought process. Not to say that ideas were not valuable, I managed to learn much from what he offers. I can say that my awareness of the world I live in has broadened. However, the information goes away, while concepts stay.
In a way, the central point of this book is that the world is moving in a dark corridor and is in desperate need for a revolution, else the worst is bound to occur. While the revolution concept is elaborated upon every now and then, Žižek focuses more on analyzing the present situation through mainly Hegelian and Leninist criticism, but also a collection of other criticisms, together forming his own. Which makes sense, as the present should always have more light than the possible future. He sometimes elaborates on his points through analyzing films(Blade Runner, Black Panther, La La Land), which certainly summoned my full attention.
This is not an easy book, it requires close reading as well as a rich background to fully grasp it. I think I missed on a lot reading this, but this is my first read of Žižek's work, I'll get better, and maybe come back and reread this.
As a further criticism, sometimes the ideas were vague, some arguments were really lacking in substance. There was also the occasional incoherence, jumping from one place to the next. If I were to be bold enough, I'd say that this book could've been into a short simple essay or a much bigger book that touches on everything better, yet it somehow combined the worst of each, instead of the opposite. But of course, don't take my word for it...
August 27, 2020
In seinen Essays beweist Pop-Philosoph Slavoj Žižek einmal mehr seine unkonventionelle Art und Weise, sich mit den Problemen unserer Zeit auseinanderzusetzen. Ausgehend von der Prämisse einer Krise des Kapitalismus, stellt er die Frage wie grundlegende Veränderungen unter den aktuellen ökonomischen Verhältnissen überhaupt erreicht werden können. Das Veränderungen notwendig sind, um globale Herausforderungen wie den Klimawandel zu bewältigen, ist aus seiner Sicht unbestritten. Er macht auch keinen Hehl daraus, dass am Ende ein Teil der Lösung in einer Spielart des Kommunismus besteht. Nicht als marxistische Utopie, sondern im Sinne einer stärkeren solidarischen Gemeinwohlorientierung. Konkrete Vorschläge bleibt er allerdings schuldig, was ein kleines Manko des Buchs ist. Žižek sieht die Aufgabe des Philosophen wohl eher darin, die richtigen Fragen zu stellen. Um die Umsetzung müssen sich dann andere kümmern.
Adressat seiner Kritik ist aber nicht nur das kapitalistische Establishment, sondern explizit auch eine impotente Linke, die sich in eine Sackgasse manövriert hat. Statt sich den ökonomischen Fragen zu stellen, bewegt diese sich in Richtung Sektierertum (Stichwort: Identitätspolitik) ohne noch breitere Massen anzusprechen. Das hat man so schon mal gehört und ist nicht unbedingt neu. Interessant ist aber, was Žižek zur Erneuerung der Linken empfiehlt. Gemäß dem Motto "Von Lenin lernen, heißt siegen lernen" holt er tatsächlich Lenin als Vorbild aus dem Mausoleum. Lenin als Techniker der Machteroberung, ein leuchtendes Beispiel für die Gegenwart? Das klingt verrückt, aber scheint nicht so abwegig, wenn selbst Ex-Trump-Chefstratege Steve Bannon offen bekennt, er sei im Herzen Leninist. Denn "Lenin wollte den Staat zerstören" und "Auch ich möchte alles zum Einsturz bringen und das gesamte Establishment vernichten." Bei Žižek klingt es nicht ganz so radikal. Seine Antwort auf Lenins Frage "Was tun?" würde vermutlich lauten: "Egal, was. Hauptsache irgendetwas tun." Handlungsmacht zurückgewinnen und Freiräume außerhalb der kapitalistischen Marktlogik schaffen, sind das Ziel seiner Kritik. Statt auf eine Haltung der political correctness, die sich in moralischem Rigorismus erschöpft, setzt er auf subversiven Humor à la Ernst Lubitsch (Ninotschka). Sehr sympathisch.
Es ist oft nicht ganz leicht den sprunghaften Gedankengängen zu folgen. Etwas mehr Struktur hätte dem Buch ganz gut getan. Aber so ist halt der typische Žižek-Style. Trotzdem handelt es sich um eine sehr originelle und kurzweilige Gesellschafts- und Kulturkritik. Allein für die Filmanalysen von Blade Runner 2049 oder La La Land hat sich das Lesen gelohnt.
Adressat seiner Kritik ist aber nicht nur das kapitalistische Establishment, sondern explizit auch eine impotente Linke, die sich in eine Sackgasse manövriert hat. Statt sich den ökonomischen Fragen zu stellen, bewegt diese sich in Richtung Sektierertum (Stichwort: Identitätspolitik) ohne noch breitere Massen anzusprechen. Das hat man so schon mal gehört und ist nicht unbedingt neu. Interessant ist aber, was Žižek zur Erneuerung der Linken empfiehlt. Gemäß dem Motto "Von Lenin lernen, heißt siegen lernen" holt er tatsächlich Lenin als Vorbild aus dem Mausoleum. Lenin als Techniker der Machteroberung, ein leuchtendes Beispiel für die Gegenwart? Das klingt verrückt, aber scheint nicht so abwegig, wenn selbst Ex-Trump-Chefstratege Steve Bannon offen bekennt, er sei im Herzen Leninist. Denn "Lenin wollte den Staat zerstören" und "Auch ich möchte alles zum Einsturz bringen und das gesamte Establishment vernichten." Bei Žižek klingt es nicht ganz so radikal. Seine Antwort auf Lenins Frage "Was tun?" würde vermutlich lauten: "Egal, was. Hauptsache irgendetwas tun." Handlungsmacht zurückgewinnen und Freiräume außerhalb der kapitalistischen Marktlogik schaffen, sind das Ziel seiner Kritik. Statt auf eine Haltung der political correctness, die sich in moralischem Rigorismus erschöpft, setzt er auf subversiven Humor à la Ernst Lubitsch (Ninotschka). Sehr sympathisch.
Es ist oft nicht ganz leicht den sprunghaften Gedankengängen zu folgen. Etwas mehr Struktur hätte dem Buch ganz gut getan. Aber so ist halt der typische Žižek-Style. Trotzdem handelt es sich um eine sehr originelle und kurzweilige Gesellschafts- und Kulturkritik. Allein für die Filmanalysen von Blade Runner 2049 oder La La Land hat sich das Lesen gelohnt.
January 13, 2019
Let me first say I hate reviews. I was torn between giving this a 3 or a 4-star review. But I’m going ahead with 4, because I knew what I was getting into. This book is Žižek at his most Žižekian: great diagnoses of global economic and cultural issues — generally lackluster solutions proposed.
I’ll pick the book up again because of two sections: the one which discusses culture, colonialism, and capitalism, and the tensions between local cultures, the liberal multi-culturalism (when it suits them) and so on. And all for his discussion on MeToo and where we can go from here (it’s not clear, and I don’t think Žižek has an answer. But he does point out everything worth questioning about where we ARE going.)
You’ll see a lot of reviews saying this is just more rubbish from Žižek. But frankly, these people probably just don’t want to listen. They’d rather it be unintelligible so they don’t have to actually critique the content. These reviewers almost put me off reading the book, but I went ahead anyway. And that is why I hate reviews.
I’ll pick the book up again because of two sections: the one which discusses culture, colonialism, and capitalism, and the tensions between local cultures, the liberal multi-culturalism (when it suits them) and so on. And all for his discussion on MeToo and where we can go from here (it’s not clear, and I don’t think Žižek has an answer. But he does point out everything worth questioning about where we ARE going.)
You’ll see a lot of reviews saying this is just more rubbish from Žižek. But frankly, these people probably just don’t want to listen. They’d rather it be unintelligible so they don’t have to actually critique the content. These reviewers almost put me off reading the book, but I went ahead anyway. And that is why I hate reviews.
May 20, 2019
I always look forward to the next Slavoj Zizek production. He is not only entertaining, but he combines the unique loves of philosophy, the Left, and western pop culture into books and films that have messages galore for all. That is why I am disappointed in Like A Thief In Broad Daylight. It is the same Slavoj Zizek, but without the new and deep insight. Even the film allusions are uninspiring. It was actually tiresome trying to find the inspiration that wasn’t there.
The book is a collection chapters that are disconnected. The Conclusion, which describes itself as Hegel’s take on Trump, is not only nothing of the kind, but it could just as easily have been the first chapter, as it does not draw conclusions from the chapters previous.
Even the film sections are little more than synposes. If you saw the film, you have no use for the synopsis. The synopsis of Black Panther, for example, runs to four pages, and has little or nothing to do with Marx, Lenin, the Left, Trump, workers or elections that populate the rest of the book to varying degrees and breadth.
There are still the occasional insights, if you can find them. Zizek quite accurately points out that elections are not between left and right any more, but between horror and acceptable Right. The Left has vaporized and left a vacuum. Young voters have never experienced the benefits of citizenship; they consider benefits to be privileges no one deserves. And so benefits get picked off, one by one, until there is no benefit to being a member at all. He criticizes the Left for forgiving poor workers who voted Trump, instead of forcefully elaborating on the alternatives, which is its whole reason for being.
Or this: “An ideology does not consist of just its explicit norms, it always comprises an obscene underside which violates those explicit norms – this inconsistency is what makes it an ideology.” That’s more like the Zizek I dote on.
But he also says a lot of things you’d want to argue with. Just one example: he spends several pages excusing Islamic fundamentalist terrorists as victims. They can’t take the pressure of adapting to other nations, other cultures, or the 21st century itself. So they become terrorists, apparently. It’s not their religion, it’s their circumstances. But anyone who has studied Islam knows it is precisely their religion to convert anyone who is not a Muslim. And if not, then enslave or kill them. There is no coexisting with infidels in Islam. Apostates don’t even get that option; they merit only death. The same philosophy was the face of Christianity until just very recently. They are not victims; they are soldiers if they are religious. So everything Zizek says about terrorism has this potential invalidating aspect.
There is a great deal on Lenin, in the form of anecdotes pertaining to the hijacking of the revolution, and opinions of Stalin. There is an entire chapter on Ernst Lubitsch and how artfully subtle he was in his films, compared to say, contractual agreements to have sex at American universities today.
I’d hate to think Zizek has run his course and has nothing new to say. Maybe all his books are like this and I was just thrilled to see his thoughtful takes on everything. And that I have run my course where Zizek is concerned. But it is at least the case the Like A Thief In Broad Daylight has little new to say, and finding new insights is the reader’s biggest challenge.
David Wineberg
The book is a collection chapters that are disconnected. The Conclusion, which describes itself as Hegel’s take on Trump, is not only nothing of the kind, but it could just as easily have been the first chapter, as it does not draw conclusions from the chapters previous.
Even the film sections are little more than synposes. If you saw the film, you have no use for the synopsis. The synopsis of Black Panther, for example, runs to four pages, and has little or nothing to do with Marx, Lenin, the Left, Trump, workers or elections that populate the rest of the book to varying degrees and breadth.
There are still the occasional insights, if you can find them. Zizek quite accurately points out that elections are not between left and right any more, but between horror and acceptable Right. The Left has vaporized and left a vacuum. Young voters have never experienced the benefits of citizenship; they consider benefits to be privileges no one deserves. And so benefits get picked off, one by one, until there is no benefit to being a member at all. He criticizes the Left for forgiving poor workers who voted Trump, instead of forcefully elaborating on the alternatives, which is its whole reason for being.
Or this: “An ideology does not consist of just its explicit norms, it always comprises an obscene underside which violates those explicit norms – this inconsistency is what makes it an ideology.” That’s more like the Zizek I dote on.
But he also says a lot of things you’d want to argue with. Just one example: he spends several pages excusing Islamic fundamentalist terrorists as victims. They can’t take the pressure of adapting to other nations, other cultures, or the 21st century itself. So they become terrorists, apparently. It’s not their religion, it’s their circumstances. But anyone who has studied Islam knows it is precisely their religion to convert anyone who is not a Muslim. And if not, then enslave or kill them. There is no coexisting with infidels in Islam. Apostates don’t even get that option; they merit only death. The same philosophy was the face of Christianity until just very recently. They are not victims; they are soldiers if they are religious. So everything Zizek says about terrorism has this potential invalidating aspect.
There is a great deal on Lenin, in the form of anecdotes pertaining to the hijacking of the revolution, and opinions of Stalin. There is an entire chapter on Ernst Lubitsch and how artfully subtle he was in his films, compared to say, contractual agreements to have sex at American universities today.
I’d hate to think Zizek has run his course and has nothing new to say. Maybe all his books are like this and I was just thrilled to see his thoughtful takes on everything. And that I have run my course where Zizek is concerned. But it is at least the case the Like A Thief In Broad Daylight has little new to say, and finding new insights is the reader’s biggest challenge.
David Wineberg
February 4, 2019
Some of these essays were brilliant and others were old man yelling about identity politics. In a few (the last few where he reviews black panther and others), he claims that he's alone in his views on killmonger as hero in black panther. My impression is the opposite--he seems to hold the view of every other reviewer of this movie I have read. But that's being nitpicky. He's an excellent writer and a thinker and I liked his perspective on the false choices between Clinton and Trump and the mainstream versus the right in Europe as well, but I don't fully agree with him.
August 17, 2021
Zizek gives a wholly new, contemporary, and millennial meaning to the notion of ‘armchair philosopher’, where the TV sofa replaces the armchair. Don’t get me wrong, his logical reasoning skill and theoretical proficiency are outstanding, but solely drawing on pop culture movies and anecdotes from the Soviet Union does not provide a sufficient empirical basis for his chaotically structured arguments.
I’m left wondering what I could actually extract from this book, and while there are worthy points to consider, many clearly went over my head whilst trying to keep up with his Hegelian analysis of Bladerunner (these types of excursions only intensified as the book went on, and when arriving at the conclusion, hoping for some clarity and perhaps reiteration of the points made in earlier chapters, Zizek ones again takes us into old romance movies with Lacanian psychoanalysis).
In any case, in trying to extract some take-aways from the book, there were points I found interesting. The first being his Hegelian framework which, through his apt usage of proves its relevancy. I remember when seeing Zizek live in Malmö (which was quite the spectacle, I even saw some playing ‘Zizek bingo’) when we finally arrived at the Q&A and only having time for one question one guy rising up shouting ‘how do we achieve communism in our lifetime??!’, to which Zizek simply replies ‘oh communism is not the way forward’. In the book, Zizek argues that communism is not an ideal or normative order, but something which arises as a reaction to ongoing historical process and its deadlocks (a basic Marxist insight). We should therefore think dialectically, and not stick to idealist rejectionism, something which he echoes later in the book when he emphasises the transformative potential in negative thinking.
In the third chapter, Zizek provides a quite insightful analysis of the hegemonic status of capitalism (even referring to it as a universal in an earlier chapter). He does this by observing the phenomenon of populism and the reactionary popular mobilisation aiming to restore the commonsensical normal. What this conceals, however, is the internal structural conditions and drivers causing the populist upsurge. The French election is a good example of this on which he draws wherein Marie Le Pen represents the concerns and failures of capitalism while Emmanuel Macron represents the normal decency of liberalism and globalisation. Electing Macron over Le Pen represents an attempt to oppress the issue through its very cause (i.e., by electing another free-trade market fundamentalist). It’s a false choice, and it is here that more viable options must be offered by the left, but which is instead busy arguing over issues of identity politics.
As citizens, however, our ability to influence is limited under capitalism. Every citizen is like a king within a constitutional democracy, Zizek argues. It works via consent, i.e., we decide formally, but we are in no ways the real rulers. Paradoxically, in once again drawing on Hegel, Zizek argues that in capitalism, you are a slave subject when you feel free and free when you feel like a slave and ‘only in a specific situation – a change in ideological sensitivity – does the realisation that our ideological edifice is dissonant lead to its disintegration’. But what to make of this remains, as abstract philosophy often leaves us, unclear.
I’m left wondering what I could actually extract from this book, and while there are worthy points to consider, many clearly went over my head whilst trying to keep up with his Hegelian analysis of Bladerunner (these types of excursions only intensified as the book went on, and when arriving at the conclusion, hoping for some clarity and perhaps reiteration of the points made in earlier chapters, Zizek ones again takes us into old romance movies with Lacanian psychoanalysis).
In any case, in trying to extract some take-aways from the book, there were points I found interesting. The first being his Hegelian framework which, through his apt usage of proves its relevancy. I remember when seeing Zizek live in Malmö (which was quite the spectacle, I even saw some playing ‘Zizek bingo’) when we finally arrived at the Q&A and only having time for one question one guy rising up shouting ‘how do we achieve communism in our lifetime??!’, to which Zizek simply replies ‘oh communism is not the way forward’. In the book, Zizek argues that communism is not an ideal or normative order, but something which arises as a reaction to ongoing historical process and its deadlocks (a basic Marxist insight). We should therefore think dialectically, and not stick to idealist rejectionism, something which he echoes later in the book when he emphasises the transformative potential in negative thinking.
In the third chapter, Zizek provides a quite insightful analysis of the hegemonic status of capitalism (even referring to it as a universal in an earlier chapter). He does this by observing the phenomenon of populism and the reactionary popular mobilisation aiming to restore the commonsensical normal. What this conceals, however, is the internal structural conditions and drivers causing the populist upsurge. The French election is a good example of this on which he draws wherein Marie Le Pen represents the concerns and failures of capitalism while Emmanuel Macron represents the normal decency of liberalism and globalisation. Electing Macron over Le Pen represents an attempt to oppress the issue through its very cause (i.e., by electing another free-trade market fundamentalist). It’s a false choice, and it is here that more viable options must be offered by the left, but which is instead busy arguing over issues of identity politics.
As citizens, however, our ability to influence is limited under capitalism. Every citizen is like a king within a constitutional democracy, Zizek argues. It works via consent, i.e., we decide formally, but we are in no ways the real rulers. Paradoxically, in once again drawing on Hegel, Zizek argues that in capitalism, you are a slave subject when you feel free and free when you feel like a slave and ‘only in a specific situation – a change in ideological sensitivity – does the realisation that our ideological edifice is dissonant lead to its disintegration’. But what to make of this remains, as abstract philosophy often leaves us, unclear.
December 20, 2018
So, this is my first direct engagement of Zizek beyond the occasional article or video I've watched. So I was truly interested to do a deeper dive into what he really thinks. What grounds him.
Gahhhhh!!!! And what I found is there's simply very little "there" there. Academic philosophy continues to embarrass me. And specifically, academic marxist/leninist/stalinist/communist/socialist academic philosophy. There's simply so little foundation to the ideology that it melts away at any real attempt to apply it concretely.
Having been raised in a fundamentalist christian sect, I later marveled at the volumes & volumes of tomes that can be written and discussed ad nauseam about nothing. The trick of academia is that it can navel gaze and delight itself with repeated trivia, naming names, dates and ideas as though they have some significance beyond trivial pursuit. It becomes a game as to who can reference Hegel or Lenin et al in the most interesting ways. Never mind that it never grounds itself in something tangible.
But since there are a steady stream of lazy political theorists who think that love can unite large populations (it can't) these pseudo political scientists gain naive followers: naive in the sense that they have no idea what they're talking about, even if they have multiple PhD's and years of "critical analysis." Zizek indeed fits this category. He's not stupid. He's just caught in a self-referential bubble that if ever were needed to be tried would pop. He's pop socialist philosophy.
His trick is arguing from the pretense of having a more solid foundation than the ideas he criticizes. But best I can tell, he never really articulates any such foundation. And then he criticizes all sides just enough to create the illusion that he's willing to take on all sides. Still, without a foundation to refer to (where is it?) his ideas can never really be criticized because he hasn't articulated them in any real way.
What should anyone reading this book take away from it? Where's the "action" that the book inspires? It's all mush. He criticizes and praises Trump, for example.
He does however rest several ideas on fully laughable hypotheses. For example, he casually says that "Clinton brutally defeated Sanders" in the 2016 Presidential Primaries, implying that there was some tangible awful wrongdoing that she committed. This is an idea so well repeated by the idiot alt-left that they've all forgotten that nobody has ever really explained, in rigorous detail, what, exactly, Clinton did to Sanders that was so beyond the pale. Feel free to try and connect the dots for me. But be aware, I'm extremely well versed in the history and politics of it. But still, Zizek just states these things as though they're facts. They're not. Not by a long shot. I'll partially resist a rant about his quoting of Susan Sarandon as though she's got anything of substance to add. She doesn't. If you want to see a representation of which side was "brutal" in the primaries, go watch and review the Nevada caucuses wherein the Sanders supporters shouted down Dolores Huerta for simply offering to translate the proceedings into Spanish. That behavior mirrored the same that I witnessed from Sanders supporters in the Washington State caucuses. Bernie and his followers were victims of "brutal" politics? Ha! Naive.
Zizek also tries to have it both ways when he says that the Alt-Left is wrongly accused of tacitly supporting Fascists like Trump when they argue against the likes of Clinton and Macron....but then suggests the very trope he's trying to say is not true: that he and other Alt-Leftists believe that their hoped-for revolution will come much more quickly if the Fascists gain power! He proves the point, not once, but several times. Fascists are dopes who can do no damage, according to Zizek. It's the diabolical neo-liberals who are the worst! He also says, nearing the end of the book, that "Trump at his worst is simply doing what Clinton and Obama were doing." At his worst, Trump is equivalent to Clinton and Obama. Ha! Yes, the Alt-Left is backing Fascist Right-wing with the fantasy that their policies are so ridiculous that it will herald the People's uprising!!!! Stupid. That any of you take this seriously is scary as hell...
Which brings us to "The People." There's simply no such thing. And if you think you know who "The People" are and what "The People" want, you've simply substituted your own ideas for "The People" in the very same way that the religious substitute their own ideas for "God." Get over yourself. You're not a prophet, and "The People" can never be reduced to such a simple idea. It's the core failure of communism/socialism.
Zizek confuses criticism of capitalism with having a concrete idea. That's a fallacy. One can criticize capitalism, of course, because it is an imperfect and most often brutal implementation of imperfect human systems. The idea that a criticism of capitalism, which is at core really just an obvious criticism of the ever-present manifestation of power, equals some sort of positive argument for some as-yet-to-be-discovered solution is ridiculous.
Power is the problem. It always has been and always will be. Markets are not a modern creation that has given power a platform. Power has always existed in all relationships, both human and non-human, subjective and objective. Markets are the natural interplay of power. The hope of capitalism is that it leverages the already existing entity (a market) and by engaging power within that entity, gives us some leverage to mediate power.
Socialism is the dream that all power can be defeated. The dream that there's a Universal ideal called The People that will eschew power for love.
Love-based governance is indeed a viable solution. Socialism/Communism are indeed viable solutions: but only to the scale of human potential to love in a very real way other people. For example...the Dunbar number states that beyond 150 people, human ability to make meaningful relationships (love) fade rapidly. Socialism is therefore viable at small scale. Only on the scale that you can love your actual neighbors. But rapidly disintegrates beyond that.
...but frauds like Zizek will continue to exploit this idea, that community should be based in love, because he's clever enough to spin trivia into a book without concrete substance but which sounds educated. Thus, he's using the power of markets to enrich himself while selling us junk food.
Gahhhhh!!!! And what I found is there's simply very little "there" there. Academic philosophy continues to embarrass me. And specifically, academic marxist/leninist/stalinist/communist/socialist academic philosophy. There's simply so little foundation to the ideology that it melts away at any real attempt to apply it concretely.
Having been raised in a fundamentalist christian sect, I later marveled at the volumes & volumes of tomes that can be written and discussed ad nauseam about nothing. The trick of academia is that it can navel gaze and delight itself with repeated trivia, naming names, dates and ideas as though they have some significance beyond trivial pursuit. It becomes a game as to who can reference Hegel or Lenin et al in the most interesting ways. Never mind that it never grounds itself in something tangible.
But since there are a steady stream of lazy political theorists who think that love can unite large populations (it can't) these pseudo political scientists gain naive followers: naive in the sense that they have no idea what they're talking about, even if they have multiple PhD's and years of "critical analysis." Zizek indeed fits this category. He's not stupid. He's just caught in a self-referential bubble that if ever were needed to be tried would pop. He's pop socialist philosophy.
His trick is arguing from the pretense of having a more solid foundation than the ideas he criticizes. But best I can tell, he never really articulates any such foundation. And then he criticizes all sides just enough to create the illusion that he's willing to take on all sides. Still, without a foundation to refer to (where is it?) his ideas can never really be criticized because he hasn't articulated them in any real way.
What should anyone reading this book take away from it? Where's the "action" that the book inspires? It's all mush. He criticizes and praises Trump, for example.
He does however rest several ideas on fully laughable hypotheses. For example, he casually says that "Clinton brutally defeated Sanders" in the 2016 Presidential Primaries, implying that there was some tangible awful wrongdoing that she committed. This is an idea so well repeated by the idiot alt-left that they've all forgotten that nobody has ever really explained, in rigorous detail, what, exactly, Clinton did to Sanders that was so beyond the pale. Feel free to try and connect the dots for me. But be aware, I'm extremely well versed in the history and politics of it. But still, Zizek just states these things as though they're facts. They're not. Not by a long shot. I'll partially resist a rant about his quoting of Susan Sarandon as though she's got anything of substance to add. She doesn't. If you want to see a representation of which side was "brutal" in the primaries, go watch and review the Nevada caucuses wherein the Sanders supporters shouted down Dolores Huerta for simply offering to translate the proceedings into Spanish. That behavior mirrored the same that I witnessed from Sanders supporters in the Washington State caucuses. Bernie and his followers were victims of "brutal" politics? Ha! Naive.
Zizek also tries to have it both ways when he says that the Alt-Left is wrongly accused of tacitly supporting Fascists like Trump when they argue against the likes of Clinton and Macron....but then suggests the very trope he's trying to say is not true: that he and other Alt-Leftists believe that their hoped-for revolution will come much more quickly if the Fascists gain power! He proves the point, not once, but several times. Fascists are dopes who can do no damage, according to Zizek. It's the diabolical neo-liberals who are the worst! He also says, nearing the end of the book, that "Trump at his worst is simply doing what Clinton and Obama were doing." At his worst, Trump is equivalent to Clinton and Obama. Ha! Yes, the Alt-Left is backing Fascist Right-wing with the fantasy that their policies are so ridiculous that it will herald the People's uprising!!!! Stupid. That any of you take this seriously is scary as hell...
Which brings us to "The People." There's simply no such thing. And if you think you know who "The People" are and what "The People" want, you've simply substituted your own ideas for "The People" in the very same way that the religious substitute their own ideas for "God." Get over yourself. You're not a prophet, and "The People" can never be reduced to such a simple idea. It's the core failure of communism/socialism.
Zizek confuses criticism of capitalism with having a concrete idea. That's a fallacy. One can criticize capitalism, of course, because it is an imperfect and most often brutal implementation of imperfect human systems. The idea that a criticism of capitalism, which is at core really just an obvious criticism of the ever-present manifestation of power, equals some sort of positive argument for some as-yet-to-be-discovered solution is ridiculous.
Power is the problem. It always has been and always will be. Markets are not a modern creation that has given power a platform. Power has always existed in all relationships, both human and non-human, subjective and objective. Markets are the natural interplay of power. The hope of capitalism is that it leverages the already existing entity (a market) and by engaging power within that entity, gives us some leverage to mediate power.
Socialism is the dream that all power can be defeated. The dream that there's a Universal ideal called The People that will eschew power for love.
Love-based governance is indeed a viable solution. Socialism/Communism are indeed viable solutions: but only to the scale of human potential to love in a very real way other people. For example...the Dunbar number states that beyond 150 people, human ability to make meaningful relationships (love) fade rapidly. Socialism is therefore viable at small scale. Only on the scale that you can love your actual neighbors. But rapidly disintegrates beyond that.
...but frauds like Zizek will continue to exploit this idea, that community should be based in love, because he's clever enough to spin trivia into a book without concrete substance but which sounds educated. Thus, he's using the power of markets to enrich himself while selling us junk food.
January 5, 2019
If there’s ever been a time for Zizek, it’s now. The Trump era begs for his rambling, comic, and insightful when not impenetrable analysis. Jumping from Lubitsch to La La Land, Blade Runner 2049 to Brexit, Zizek homes in on how we got here and, more importantly, how we have no chance of rectifying anything until the entire paradigm is radically transformed.
March 18, 2024
"The lesson of the last decades is that neither massive grassroots protests as we've seen in Spain and Greece, nor well organised political movements parties with elaborated political visions are enough. We also need a narrow striking force of dedicated engineers, hackers, whistleblowers organised as a disciplined, conspiratorial group. Its task will be to take over the digital grid to rip it out of the hands of corporations and state agencies that now de facto control it. Wiki Leaks was here just the beginning, and our motto should be here a Maoist one: Let a hundred Wikileaks blossom."
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
May 19, 2020
The essays here aren't consistent in quality by any measure, but the stuff that's worth keeping is good enough to warrant the fluff. Zizek moves from subject to subject, not like a ballerina flowing in graceful movements, instead, it is more akin to watching a very fat man who often slurs his words attempting to jump from one stone to the other only to slip and fall miserably-only then preceding to get up and say something that's actually a rather profound interpretation of a culturally relevant product. Of course, for all of that I've called good, there is much that fails to intrigue me in the same way. None of this work is awful, some of it is clearly a bit mismanaged, and there is more work to be done (as ever) in how Zizek creates and arranges his work, but I wouldn't say I hate it. It only edges out to be 4 stars because I find the man rather charming, if I didn't then I'd likely empathize more with his detractors, but for better or for worse, I see what holds him back as not invalidating the quality of his best output.
June 28, 2020
Zizek is a creative and wired thinker. His work is shrewd and lacerating at times, entertaining and esthetically pleasing at others, and frustrating and sort of useless at other times.
This book is a collection of essays, ostensibly on the topic of the failures of late capitalism, neoliberal democracy and victim identity politics.
All REALLY IMPORTANT issues right NOW!
And I was enthralled by the more lucid moments when Zizek hits the target 🎯
Unfortunately, Zizek doesn’t miss an opportunity to tangent. Sometimes it’s effective and thought provoking. Other times is disorienting and self indulgent.
I’m not sure how much of this book I will retain.
But I liked it.
I think 🤔
This book is a collection of essays, ostensibly on the topic of the failures of late capitalism, neoliberal democracy and victim identity politics.
All REALLY IMPORTANT issues right NOW!
And I was enthralled by the more lucid moments when Zizek hits the target 🎯
Unfortunately, Zizek doesn’t miss an opportunity to tangent. Sometimes it’s effective and thought provoking. Other times is disorienting and self indulgent.
I’m not sure how much of this book I will retain.
But I liked it.
I think 🤔
February 7, 2024
Žižek delivers seemingly unbounded wisdom with sharp wit and poise in this loose collection of essays. Coming from 2018 it elicited some strange kind of nostalgia. A nostalgia perceptively recognized by Zizek as one that is dangerously misguided.
The choice at the time between for example le Pen and Macron was alarming but its likely outcome harmless; Macron would rally the center and yes a progressive Europe was to bite the bullet of more neo-liberal reforms, but it seemed the danger of outright Fascism had been kept at bay (and perhaps we would triumphantly get a standing European Army while were at it). We now know that this was never the case, as Zizek points out, it was always a false choice; once present the far-right will come back to every defeat with vengeance. It is therefore always a choice for an established order or its false antagonism, every choice for the former will only exacerbate the conditions that led to the rise of this false antagonism in the first place. Sat in the European Parliament whilst writing this there is a silent panic of the walls of the fortress of technocratic liberalism being under-attack from a far-right that is looking to sweep 25% of the vote in the next election and thereby gain genuine power in cooperation with the spineless center-right.
We are all as Kings under a constitutional democracy, our wills though supreme and absolute in their political conviction are collectively moderated and function through consent. In this way we feel ourselves attached to some social body but just as with Kings this relation has a purely symbolic form. Instead of this being a direct criticism of democracy, Zizek teaches his readers in a fun and therefore sometimes informal (or as many (wrongly) say: 'pop-cultural) way how to think dialectically. That means how to critique the immanent conditions of possibility of an idea like democracy, to hold it to its own standards. Is it true that There Is No Alternative? Or are we simply refused one (this question is mostly directed towards Keir Starmer)
The choice at the time between for example le Pen and Macron was alarming but its likely outcome harmless; Macron would rally the center and yes a progressive Europe was to bite the bullet of more neo-liberal reforms, but it seemed the danger of outright Fascism had been kept at bay (and perhaps we would triumphantly get a standing European Army while were at it). We now know that this was never the case, as Zizek points out, it was always a false choice; once present the far-right will come back to every defeat with vengeance. It is therefore always a choice for an established order or its false antagonism, every choice for the former will only exacerbate the conditions that led to the rise of this false antagonism in the first place. Sat in the European Parliament whilst writing this there is a silent panic of the walls of the fortress of technocratic liberalism being under-attack from a far-right that is looking to sweep 25% of the vote in the next election and thereby gain genuine power in cooperation with the spineless center-right.
We are all as Kings under a constitutional democracy, our wills though supreme and absolute in their political conviction are collectively moderated and function through consent. In this way we feel ourselves attached to some social body but just as with Kings this relation has a purely symbolic form. Instead of this being a direct criticism of democracy, Zizek teaches his readers in a fun and therefore sometimes informal (or as many (wrongly) say: 'pop-cultural) way how to think dialectically. That means how to critique the immanent conditions of possibility of an idea like democracy, to hold it to its own standards. Is it true that There Is No Alternative? Or are we simply refused one (this question is mostly directed towards Keir Starmer)
December 27, 2022
Maybe it's because I haven't read any Zizek in a while but this hit hard. Shockingly this book is so on pulse with sections about Elon Musk and Julian Assange. Long sections about Blade Runner 2 and Black Panther for some reason which amused me. Recommend! Weirdly long though for such a skinny-coded book.
November 17, 2024
ข้อเสนอของซิเซ็กในเล่มนี้ไม่ได้แตกต่างจากหลายๆเล่มก่อนหน้า คือการชี้ให้เห็นว่ากลไกการทำงานของอุดมการณ์ในระบบทุนนิยมร่วมสมัยนั้นไม่ได้ทำงานในลักษณะของการสร้างนิมิตรถึงสังคมหรือโลกอนาคตของมนุษยชาติ แต่จะทำงานในลักษณะของการยั่วล้อตนเอง (self-irony) ในรูปแบบของการปลดปล่อยปลอมๆ ให้ผู้คนรู้สึกถึงเสรีภาพที่สามารถวิจารณ์สิ่งต่างๆได้อย่างอิสระก่อนที่จะกลับไปใช้ขีวิตเป็นส่วนหนึ่งของโลกทุนนิยมที่ตนวิจารณ์เหมือนเดิม การทำงานของอุดมการณ์ในระบบทุนนิยมร่วมสมัยในปัจจุบันจึงเป็นการทำงานด้วยการซ่อนตัวเองผ่านการชี้ว่าข้อเสนอถึงสังคมแบบอื่นๆที่ไม่ใช้ทุนนิยมเป็นเรื่องเพ้อฝันและเป็นเรื่อง "อุดมการณ์" อันมีนัยยะว่าไม่ต้��งตรงกับระเบียบของความเป็นจริง แตกต่างจากทุนนิยมที่อยู่บนฐานของความเป็นจริง และดังนั้นอุดมการณ์ของทุนนิยมจึงเป็นสัจพจน์อันเที่ยงแท้และไม่ใช่อุดมการณ์
ในแง่นี้ ซิเซ็กจึงสรุปว่าอุดมการณ์ของระบบทุนนิยมร่วมสมัยหาได้ทำหน้าที่ด้วยการบิดเบือนการรับรู้ความเป็นจริงของมนุษย์เหมือนที่นักวิชาการในอดีตเข้าใจ เพราะอุดมการณ์ดังกล่าวได้สร้างความเป็นจริงในระดับจิตไร้สำนึกถึงขั้นที่ทำให้ระบบทุนนิยมสามารถเปิดเผยด้านมืดต่างๆออกมาพร้อมๆกับอนุญาตให้ทุกคนสามารถวิพากษ์วิจารณ์ตัวมัน ทว่าสุดท้ายแล้วทุนนิยมก็จะกลายเป็นความจริงของโลกใบนี้ที่ไม่ว่าจะจงเกลียดจงชังแค่ไหนแต่ทุกคนก็ต้องยอมรับและใช้ชีวิตกับมันต่อไป พูดอีกแบบก็คืออุดมการณ์ทุนนิยมร่วมสมัยไม่ได้ทำงานด้วยการปกปิดบิดเบือนให้มนุษย์มองไม่เห็นด้านมืดของทุนนิยม แต่คือการทำให้มนุษย์สามารถอยู่ร่วมกับทุนนิยมได้ทั้งๆที่มองเห็นด้านมืดและความเลวร้ายของตัวมันต่างหาก ไม่ต่างไปจากการที่เรามองเห็นคนร้ายกระทำความชั่วต่างๆอย่างโจ่งแจ้ง (in broad daylight) แต่ก็ไม่ได้ทำอะไรนอกจากด่าคนร้ายว่าเป็นคนเลว เพื่อสร้างความรู้สึกเหนือกว่าทางศีลธรรม ก่อนที่จะกลับมาอยู่ร่วมกับคนร้ายผู้นั้นต่อไป ผลก็คือ แม้ข้อมูลทางสถิติและวิทยาศาสตร์จำนวนมากจะชี้ให้เห็นเรากำลังอยู่ในยุคที่โลกกำลังเปลี่ยนผ่านทั้งจากความเสื่อมถอยในตัวเองของระบบทุนและการเปลี่ยนแปลงสภาพแวดล้อมซึ่งล้วนแต่เป็นเงื่อนไขนำไปสู่การปฏิวัติเปลี่ยนแปลงสังคมได้ แต่เราก็จะไม่ทำอะไรนอกจากรับรู้ข้อมูลการเปลี่ยนแปลงเหล่านี้ราวกับนั่งดูละครซีรี่ย์ที่ไม่ได้เกี่ยวกับชีวิตของเราจริงๆ ทุนนิยมจึงไม่มีทางที่จะถูกโค่นล้มไม่ใช่เพราะมันคือความเป็นจริงตามกฏของธรรมชาติ แต่เพราะเรายอมรับอย่างไร้สำนึกว่ามันคือความเป็นจริงและคือกฏของธรรมชาติต่างหาก เราสามารถด่าว่า "ทุนนิยมนี่มันเหี้ยจริงๆ" ได้ แต่นอกจากการด่าดังกล่าวแล้ว เราทุกคนก็จะไม่ได้ทำอะไรนอกจากกลับไปใช้ชีวิตกับทุนนิยมที่เหี้ยๆต่อไป
อย่างที่บอกไปในตอนต้น สำหรับคนที่อ่านซิเซ็กมาเยอะ ข้อเสนอนี้ไม่ใช่เรื่องใหม่ คุณูปการจริงๆของหนังสือเล่มนี้จึงไม่ได้อยู่ที่ตัวข้อเสนอมากเท่ากับการเชื่อมประเด็นนี้เข้ากับตัวอย่างสถานการณ์ต่างๆของโลกซึ่งก็ illuminating ดี แม้หลายๆครั้งจะหงุดหงิดกับการที่ซิเซ็กเปลี่ยนประเด็นจากเรื่องหนึ่งไปสู่อีกเรื่องหนึ่งอย่างรวดเร็วเกินไปก็ตาม
ในแง่นี้ ซิเซ็กจึงสรุปว่าอุดมการณ์ของระบบทุนนิยมร่วมสมัยหาได้ทำหน้าที่ด้วยการบิดเบือนการรับรู้ความเป็นจริงของมนุษย์เหมือนที่นักวิชาการในอดีตเข้าใจ เพราะอุดมการณ์ดังกล่าวได้สร้างความเป็นจริงในระดับจิตไร้สำนึกถึงขั้นที่ทำให้ระบบทุนนิยมสามารถเปิดเผยด้านมืดต่างๆออกมาพร้อมๆกับอนุญาตให้ทุกคนสามารถวิพากษ์วิจารณ์ตัวมัน ทว่าสุดท้ายแล้วทุนนิยมก็จะกลายเป็นความจริงของโลกใบนี้ที่ไม่ว่าจะจงเกลียดจงชังแค่ไหนแต่ทุกคนก็ต้องยอมรับและใช้ชีวิตกับมันต่อไป พูดอีกแบบก็คืออุดมการณ์ทุนนิยมร่วมสมัยไม่ได้ทำงานด้วยการปกปิดบิดเบือนให้มนุษย์มองไม่เห็นด้านมืดของทุนนิยม แต่คือการทำให้มนุษย์สามารถอยู่ร่วมกับทุนนิยมได้ทั้งๆที่มองเห็นด้านมืดและความเลวร้ายของตัวมันต่างหาก ไม่ต่างไปจากการที่เรามองเห็นคนร้ายกระทำความชั่วต่างๆอย่างโจ่งแจ้ง (in broad daylight) แต่ก็ไม่ได้ทำอะไรนอกจากด่าคนร้ายว่าเป็นคนเลว เพื่อสร้างความรู้สึกเหนือกว่าทางศีลธรรม ก่อนที่จะกลับมาอยู่ร่วมกับคนร้ายผู้นั้นต่อไป ผลก็คือ แม้ข้อมูลทางสถิติและวิทยาศาสตร์จำนวนมากจะชี้ให้เห็นเรากำลังอยู่ในยุคที่โลกกำลังเปลี่ยนผ่านทั้งจากความเสื่อมถอยในตัวเองของระบบทุนและการเปลี่ยนแปลงสภาพแวดล้อมซึ่งล้วนแต่เป็นเงื่อนไขนำไปสู่การปฏิวัติเปลี่ยนแปลงสังคมได้ แต่เราก็จะไม่ทำอะไรนอกจากรับรู้ข้อมูลการเปลี่ยนแปลงเหล่านี้ราวกับนั่งดูละครซีรี่ย์ที่ไม่ได้เกี่ยวกับชีวิตของเราจริงๆ ทุนนิยมจึงไม่มีทางที่จะถูกโค่นล้มไม่ใช่เพราะมันคือความเป็นจริงตามกฏของธรรมชาติ แต่เพราะเรายอมรับอย่างไร้สำนึกว่ามันคือความเป็นจริงและคือกฏของธรรมชาติต่างหาก เราสามารถด่าว่า "ทุนนิยมนี่มันเหี้ยจริงๆ" ได้ แต่นอกจากการด่าดังกล่าวแล้ว เราทุกคนก็จะไม่ได้ทำอะไรนอกจากกลับไปใช้ชีวิตกับทุนนิยมที่เหี้ยๆต่อไป
อย่างที่บอกไปในตอนต้น สำหรับคนที่อ่านซิเซ็กมาเยอะ ข้อเสนอนี้ไม่ใช่เรื่องใหม่ คุณูปการจริงๆของหนังสือเล่มนี้จึงไม่ได้อยู่ที่ตัวข้อเสนอมากเท่ากับการเชื่อมประเด็นนี้เข้ากับตัวอย่างสถานการณ์ต่างๆของโลกซึ่งก็ illuminating ดี แม้หลายๆครั้งจะหงุดหงิดกับการที่ซิเซ็กเปลี่ยนประเด็นจากเรื่องหนึ่งไปสู่อีกเรื่องหนึ่งอย่างรวดเร็วเกินไปก็ตาม
June 16, 2019
Where else do you go for a Hegelian analysis of Blade Runner 2049 or a Marxist critique on Black Panther?
All jokes aside (wait, that's not possible, it's Zizek), there are two Zizek's. One is the academic one. In those books, he explores philosophy on a deep and almost systematic level, and you gain a greater understanding of concepts ('Less than Nothing' is a brilliant example). And then there is the culture critic-Zizek. To fully appreciate the latter, one has to understand the first. This book falls into the second category.
'Like A Thief In Broad Daylight' is a brilliant analysis of our current political, social and economic climate. It is very loosely structured, just like many of Zizek's talks. Yet, when you fully immerse yourself into it, you do find yourself at the end with a far greater understanding of the underlying ideology of our current society. The book will offend both my liberal and my conservative friends, as he argues the left doesn't go far enough and due to this is appreciated by neither. Even if you disagree, Zizek is worth the read, because his analysis is painfully on point and could be helpful critiques when incorporated into the left.
Two points that stood out to me/ offended me were the following:
1. Macron and Le Pen function through the same mechanism. Both function on creating a scapegoat, some group to be feared. For one, it is Muslims and globalisation; for the other, it is the far-right. Although one could argue that it is better to fear the far-right, Zizek goes on to say that the liberalism Macron represents, gives only more rise to the extreme side of things - and a genuine radical leftist solution is nowhere to be found. Zizek hopes that through the rise of the extreme right, a new left solution can arise (like the good Marxist he is).
2. The left encourages all different cultures to express themselves and be unique expressions of their 'otherness', yet this can only be done in reference to a white universalism. White (& straight) people can keep the power by allowing themselves to be the only ones worthy of knowing how bad they are and treat other people. This 'humbling' is what sustains their power-structures, this being the most scathing critique by Zizek on the left.
Zizek insists that marginalised groups should not struggle for particularities, as is done within the current political climate, but they need to define their own universality. This way black, queer etc-universalism can compete with white universality that is currently the one in which all PC culture is still playing.
I probably haven't done full justice to the beauty that is this book. It's an incredible read. Go for it, friends and be enlightened and offended!
All jokes aside (wait, that's not possible, it's Zizek), there are two Zizek's. One is the academic one. In those books, he explores philosophy on a deep and almost systematic level, and you gain a greater understanding of concepts ('Less than Nothing' is a brilliant example). And then there is the culture critic-Zizek. To fully appreciate the latter, one has to understand the first. This book falls into the second category.
'Like A Thief In Broad Daylight' is a brilliant analysis of our current political, social and economic climate. It is very loosely structured, just like many of Zizek's talks. Yet, when you fully immerse yourself into it, you do find yourself at the end with a far greater understanding of the underlying ideology of our current society. The book will offend both my liberal and my conservative friends, as he argues the left doesn't go far enough and due to this is appreciated by neither. Even if you disagree, Zizek is worth the read, because his analysis is painfully on point and could be helpful critiques when incorporated into the left.
Two points that stood out to me/ offended me were the following:
1. Macron and Le Pen function through the same mechanism. Both function on creating a scapegoat, some group to be feared. For one, it is Muslims and globalisation; for the other, it is the far-right. Although one could argue that it is better to fear the far-right, Zizek goes on to say that the liberalism Macron represents, gives only more rise to the extreme side of things - and a genuine radical leftist solution is nowhere to be found. Zizek hopes that through the rise of the extreme right, a new left solution can arise (like the good Marxist he is).
2. The left encourages all different cultures to express themselves and be unique expressions of their 'otherness', yet this can only be done in reference to a white universalism. White (& straight) people can keep the power by allowing themselves to be the only ones worthy of knowing how bad they are and treat other people. This 'humbling' is what sustains their power-structures, this being the most scathing critique by Zizek on the left.
Zizek insists that marginalised groups should not struggle for particularities, as is done within the current political climate, but they need to define their own universality. This way black, queer etc-universalism can compete with white universality that is currently the one in which all PC culture is still playing.
I probably haven't done full justice to the beauty that is this book. It's an incredible read. Go for it, friends and be enlightened and offended!
April 23, 2024
My 5th Zizek. 1st on audiobook. Started this Sunday night while watching some NHL playoff hockey and finished it today during my drive to Boston and back. Some fascinating insights in here couched between babble, jokes and synopses.
May 14, 2019
promising in the front, nice last lines in the back, wild ride
November 7, 2020
https://hbookreviews.blogspot.com/202...
Capitalism with a Humanist Interface: A leftist critique of UBI
-Zizek, UBI, and the American election
With the upcoming American presidential election, it is increasingly evident how change, as a concept, is interwoven in the political landscape. On one hand, to return to the political environment of the pre-Trump era, voters can choose to elect Vice President Joe Biden, but wasn’t this the exact climate that gave us Trump in the first place? On the other hand, voters have the option to re-elect Donald Trump, who needs no introduction to his list of defects. This can take us back to Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s quip about Stalin: “back in the late 1920s, Stalin was asked by a journalist which deviation is worse, the Rightist one (Bukharin & company) or the Leftist one (Trotsky & company), and he snapped back: ‘They are both worse!’” Isn’t that the case with the options of Trump or Biden? “They are both worse!”
But if both are worse, is there a “better” option? Just like the main character in the movie The Matrix, we are given two choices: a blue pill, which can represent the usual Democratic Party candidate and/or their liberal policies, and a red pill, which does the same for a Republican Party candidate and/or their conservative ideas. But, just like Zizek in his documentary A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, “I want a third pill.” The question then becomes who or what is that third pill, especially for those who consider the red and blue pill as being essentially the same option in different colors.
When Senator Bernie Sanders became the frontrunner in the Democratic Party primaries, he had been proposing a series of policies that could potentially create a change by working within the system: Medicare for All, Housing for All, College for All, etc. However, the establishment on both parties did, and continues to do, everything possible to preserve the status quo, which included deterring him from securing the presidential nomination. In other words, the establishment must change the system in order to maintain it. For example, when Biden was asked, after the pandemic had started, what he would do if the House passed a version of Medicare for All, he responded by saying that he would veto it. Not surprisingly, when Biden won Super Tuesday, which led to him securing the nomination of the democratic party, healthcare stocks went up. Or recall when the Democratic presidential candidates were asked whether the candidate with most votes, but not plurality, should become the nominee and all candidates except Bernie said “no.” Again, changing the system to preserve the status quo. On the other side of the same coin is Trump, who is trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act while the U. S. keeps breaking record numbers of daily COVID-19 cases. In other words, one candidate would actively stop progress while the other one has been actively trying to revert it. All of this is happening while most Americans support progressive policies (Medicare for All, College for All, boosting minimum wage, paid maternity leave, government funded childcare, etc.).
Here we encounter the paradox of change. It becomes evident that there’s two options that can impact our system due to its unstable politico-economical structure. Agents can either actively engage with the system to maintain it or not change it in order to transform it. For another example, recall how Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi didn’t want people in Congress to endorse primary challengers against incumbent House Democrats. In fact, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee stated that the political strategists and vendors that supported said candidates would be cut off from the party. However, when Rep. Joe Kennedy ran against Sen. Ed Markey, Pelosi broke her own rule and endorsed Kennedy, who represents the democratic establishment over his more progressive opponent, while citing that her family and herself had worked with different generations of the Kennedys as the reason for doing so. Again, actively engaging the system to retain it. Otherwise, there would be a gradual erosion induced by its structural imbalance if left alone. Specifically, one of the pillars of this unsustainability is our current economic system, which facilitates these changes or the lack thereof. Currently, as a reaction of the establishment in a panic, policies keep being proposed and enacted that extend its lifetime. But before delving into the policies that prolongs its collapse, we should explore what makes it unable to stand the test of time.
There are multiple characteristics that define this unsustainability. One of them is that capitalism always pushes towards unskilled labor. Since employers want to increase their profits, they can either increase the price of a product or decrease the cost of manufacturing said product. The former is not always a viable option since consumers may not be willing to pay more for a product when there’s an option to purchase a similar and cheaper one. Instead, employers have attempted different ways to attach additional charges to the main product such as offering the option of accessories that are to be used in combination with it. For example, in the videogame industry, new physical copies are typically available for $60, but to increase revenue, publishers offer the option of additional content that gets charged as paid DLC, microtransactions, collector’s editions, season passes, etc. This at first might seem fair, but a common practice between publishers is to remove some of the original content of the game and sell it separately after its release date. Or recall similar avaricious practices conducted by EA, a videogame publishing company, when they introduced advertisements into the videogame UFC 4 after the game was released, which were removed following an outcry from its player base. Similarly, the game NBA 2K21 introduced unskippable ads one month later after its release (when reviews have been published). After an outcry of its community, the publishing company reported that it was a mistake and that they will place them on different sections of the game in future installations. As it becomes evident, this might not be the most cost-effective strategy. Employers then have, as mentioned before, the option to cut the cost of production, which is usually done by underpaying workers. The first time this culture was made public in the videogame industry was in 2004. An anonymous author, known as EA Spouse, wrote a post detailing how workers at EA, who became the first company to consecutively be awarded Consumerist’s poll Worst Company in America, were not being paid for their overtime work. This letter eventually led to a $14.9 million settlement to programmers for overdue overtime. Another letter published in 2010 by a different spouse, detailed the same type of work culture at the publishing company Rockstar. This letter also led to a class-action suit where the publisher settled for $2.75 million with over 100 ex-employees due to unpaid overtime too.
Evidently, this second option of crunch culture also leads to companies bleeding money due to illegally cutting costs. This drives employers to look for appropriate ways, in the eyes of the law, to reduce productions costs. One way to do this is to replace skilled labor with unskilled labor and unskilled labor with automation. Let’s look at the food industry as an example. In the food documentary Ugly Delicious, Chef David Chang visited the pizza chain Domino’s to observe how they operate after he discussed with other chefs the differences between traditional cooking methods and the incorporation of technology into cooking. After seeing Domino’s cooking process (e.g. a tracking app takes into account the information of an order, it calculates the time left depending on the oven setting, and once it is dispatched, it can calculate how long it took to leave), he comments that it’s obvious how it’s “years and years of a lot of people’s efforts to make it as streamlined as possible.” Chang comments at the end of the scene that Domino’s is no longer a food chain, but rather a technology company.
Technology has always been creeping into the workplace. There was a time when most cooks had to know how long to cook ingredients for them to be ready, and cashiers needed to be able to perform mental calculation. Now, cooks wait for a cue in the form of a light or a sound to know when the food is ready to be flipped, and cashiers have a machine that does basic arithmetic for them. An example of this is how McDonald’s now includes screens next to its cashiers as an option for people to order by themselves. This sort of automation saves companies money for three main reasons. The first reason is that they can produce the same product for less money due to three causes. The first one is that machines replace workers since the purchasing and maintain of machinery costs less than the employment of them. The second cause is that the work becomes unskilled labor, which is cheaper than unskilled labor. The last cause is that employers need less employees as before to create the same product. Returning to the reasons why automation increases profits for companies, the second reason is that employees become part of an unskilled labor force. This means that they are easily replaced due employers having access to a larger pool of possible employees and lacking the need to train new hires. Thus, if a group of cashiers go on a strike because they wish the minimum wage was raised, their employer can fire them and replace them through a fast and inexpensive process since it is unskilled labor. The third reason is that whoever has the means of production has the power. For example, in California a group of graduate students from the University of California went on strike for higher wages. The students, who did not hold the means of production, were fired from their teaching assistant positions even though they’re from part of the skilled workforce. With automation, employers hold securely the means of production because the employee is no longer manufacturing the product, but rather machinery owned by the employer. All of this makes it evident how we are moving to a point where the employers are systematically replacing skilled workers for unskilled one and those for automation.
This has increased dramatically the rate of unemployment, which creates a problem for the capitalists. True, the capitalists can increase profit margins by paying less for labor while getting the same product, but an increase in unemployment means that there’s less consumers able to buy their product. What capitalists need are consumers and with rate of unemployment increasing, they lack this fundamental group to continue “earning” money. This is where we reintroduce the paradox of change (changing things so they remain the same). On the conservative side, you have people like Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who advocated for restrictions on A. I. with the ability to drive cars, in a conversation with conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro for two reasons. The first one is that wages for truck drivers are going down. The second reason is that with self-driving cars, those jobs would disappear, which would be devastating to the working class since truck driving is the most common job held by men with only a high school diploma in the United States. Here it is exemplified two of the reasons described before why automation increases profit margins for employers. And with this discourse, we return to the idea of stopping progress to maintain the system by actively changing it (e. g. restricting developing technology in the form of A. I. to leave unaffected the working class represented by truck drivers through action shown as new policies).
On the other side of the same coin is the idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI), which at first appears to be a light at the end of a tunnel in this series of economic problems. However, the underlying reality is that the light is from an incoming train. UBI is similar to other policies that delay the collapse of capitalism while simultaneously driving us deeper into the system that created the problems in the first place. UBI, who entrepreneur Andrew Yang calls the Freedom dividend, consists of providing a monthly payment to citizens. In Yang’s plan, Americans would receive monthly checks of $1,000. As mentioned before, this appears to give power to the working class. One reason why UBI is advocated for is that individuals have more freedom and flexibility to pursue more non-lucrative jobs that they were interested in by receiving economic help. However, this is nothing more than ideology and for Zizek, explaining this starts with a cup of Starbucks coffee.
There’s guilt attached in transactions under capitalism since workers have to be exploited. This is what the phrase there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism refers to. For example, customers could ask themselves why they engage in purchasing a product, or in this case a coffee, when the money could be spent in a more moral/ethical way. Capitalism, however, found a solution to alleviate this guilt. Ingeniously, capitalists have attached an idea to the product. In terms of the previous example, this would be an ethical conduct. Could the coffee at Starbucks be cheaper? Yes, but now every time someone purchases it, a donation is made in order to remove the guilt. An example of this is their One Tree for One Bag initiative, which ensures that a tree is planted for every coffee bag that is sold. Of course, Starbucks is not very vocal about the fact that the trees that are planted are a coffee trees, which expands their business and reduces costs. But even if the company did, the purpose of the act is to benefit the company. Ideology masquerades from people how the world functions while simultaneously shapes how people interact with it. Recall one of the episodes in The Simpsons when Bart falls in a well and, instead of truly helping him, celebrities engage in symbolic behavior by singing a song for him. Isn’t this similar with what happened during the pandemic when model and actress Gal Gadot gathered an array of celebrities to singalong to Imagine? The emptiness of the gesture is noticeable with the joke made by stand-up comedian Tom Segura in a podcast with Joe Rogan when he said, “I lost my job at the meat packing plant but Gal Gadot sang Imagine.” Or recall when celebrities uploaded a video of themselves urging citizens to vote while being naked. This is what ideology is.
Another similar act is philanthropy. It appears like it benefits people, specifically the working class, when in reality it only helps the donor due to them receiving tax breaks. It is true that Jeff Bezos has donated to charity, but the need of these charities is caused by the....
Capitalism with a Humanist Interface: A leftist critique of UBI
-Zizek, UBI, and the American election
With the upcoming American presidential election, it is increasingly evident how change, as a concept, is interwoven in the political landscape. On one hand, to return to the political environment of the pre-Trump era, voters can choose to elect Vice President Joe Biden, but wasn’t this the exact climate that gave us Trump in the first place? On the other hand, voters have the option to re-elect Donald Trump, who needs no introduction to his list of defects. This can take us back to Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s quip about Stalin: “back in the late 1920s, Stalin was asked by a journalist which deviation is worse, the Rightist one (Bukharin & company) or the Leftist one (Trotsky & company), and he snapped back: ‘They are both worse!’” Isn’t that the case with the options of Trump or Biden? “They are both worse!”
But if both are worse, is there a “better” option? Just like the main character in the movie The Matrix, we are given two choices: a blue pill, which can represent the usual Democratic Party candidate and/or their liberal policies, and a red pill, which does the same for a Republican Party candidate and/or their conservative ideas. But, just like Zizek in his documentary A Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, “I want a third pill.” The question then becomes who or what is that third pill, especially for those who consider the red and blue pill as being essentially the same option in different colors.
When Senator Bernie Sanders became the frontrunner in the Democratic Party primaries, he had been proposing a series of policies that could potentially create a change by working within the system: Medicare for All, Housing for All, College for All, etc. However, the establishment on both parties did, and continues to do, everything possible to preserve the status quo, which included deterring him from securing the presidential nomination. In other words, the establishment must change the system in order to maintain it. For example, when Biden was asked, after the pandemic had started, what he would do if the House passed a version of Medicare for All, he responded by saying that he would veto it. Not surprisingly, when Biden won Super Tuesday, which led to him securing the nomination of the democratic party, healthcare stocks went up. Or recall when the Democratic presidential candidates were asked whether the candidate with most votes, but not plurality, should become the nominee and all candidates except Bernie said “no.” Again, changing the system to preserve the status quo. On the other side of the same coin is Trump, who is trying to get rid of the Affordable Care Act while the U. S. keeps breaking record numbers of daily COVID-19 cases. In other words, one candidate would actively stop progress while the other one has been actively trying to revert it. All of this is happening while most Americans support progressive policies (Medicare for All, College for All, boosting minimum wage, paid maternity leave, government funded childcare, etc.).
Here we encounter the paradox of change. It becomes evident that there’s two options that can impact our system due to its unstable politico-economical structure. Agents can either actively engage with the system to maintain it or not change it in order to transform it. For another example, recall how Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi didn’t want people in Congress to endorse primary challengers against incumbent House Democrats. In fact, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee stated that the political strategists and vendors that supported said candidates would be cut off from the party. However, when Rep. Joe Kennedy ran against Sen. Ed Markey, Pelosi broke her own rule and endorsed Kennedy, who represents the democratic establishment over his more progressive opponent, while citing that her family and herself had worked with different generations of the Kennedys as the reason for doing so. Again, actively engaging the system to retain it. Otherwise, there would be a gradual erosion induced by its structural imbalance if left alone. Specifically, one of the pillars of this unsustainability is our current economic system, which facilitates these changes or the lack thereof. Currently, as a reaction of the establishment in a panic, policies keep being proposed and enacted that extend its lifetime. But before delving into the policies that prolongs its collapse, we should explore what makes it unable to stand the test of time.
There are multiple characteristics that define this unsustainability. One of them is that capitalism always pushes towards unskilled labor. Since employers want to increase their profits, they can either increase the price of a product or decrease the cost of manufacturing said product. The former is not always a viable option since consumers may not be willing to pay more for a product when there’s an option to purchase a similar and cheaper one. Instead, employers have attempted different ways to attach additional charges to the main product such as offering the option of accessories that are to be used in combination with it. For example, in the videogame industry, new physical copies are typically available for $60, but to increase revenue, publishers offer the option of additional content that gets charged as paid DLC, microtransactions, collector’s editions, season passes, etc. This at first might seem fair, but a common practice between publishers is to remove some of the original content of the game and sell it separately after its release date. Or recall similar avaricious practices conducted by EA, a videogame publishing company, when they introduced advertisements into the videogame UFC 4 after the game was released, which were removed following an outcry from its player base. Similarly, the game NBA 2K21 introduced unskippable ads one month later after its release (when reviews have been published). After an outcry of its community, the publishing company reported that it was a mistake and that they will place them on different sections of the game in future installations. As it becomes evident, this might not be the most cost-effective strategy. Employers then have, as mentioned before, the option to cut the cost of production, which is usually done by underpaying workers. The first time this culture was made public in the videogame industry was in 2004. An anonymous author, known as EA Spouse, wrote a post detailing how workers at EA, who became the first company to consecutively be awarded Consumerist’s poll Worst Company in America, were not being paid for their overtime work. This letter eventually led to a $14.9 million settlement to programmers for overdue overtime. Another letter published in 2010 by a different spouse, detailed the same type of work culture at the publishing company Rockstar. This letter also led to a class-action suit where the publisher settled for $2.75 million with over 100 ex-employees due to unpaid overtime too.
Evidently, this second option of crunch culture also leads to companies bleeding money due to illegally cutting costs. This drives employers to look for appropriate ways, in the eyes of the law, to reduce productions costs. One way to do this is to replace skilled labor with unskilled labor and unskilled labor with automation. Let’s look at the food industry as an example. In the food documentary Ugly Delicious, Chef David Chang visited the pizza chain Domino’s to observe how they operate after he discussed with other chefs the differences between traditional cooking methods and the incorporation of technology into cooking. After seeing Domino’s cooking process (e.g. a tracking app takes into account the information of an order, it calculates the time left depending on the oven setting, and once it is dispatched, it can calculate how long it took to leave), he comments that it’s obvious how it’s “years and years of a lot of people’s efforts to make it as streamlined as possible.” Chang comments at the end of the scene that Domino’s is no longer a food chain, but rather a technology company.
Technology has always been creeping into the workplace. There was a time when most cooks had to know how long to cook ingredients for them to be ready, and cashiers needed to be able to perform mental calculation. Now, cooks wait for a cue in the form of a light or a sound to know when the food is ready to be flipped, and cashiers have a machine that does basic arithmetic for them. An example of this is how McDonald’s now includes screens next to its cashiers as an option for people to order by themselves. This sort of automation saves companies money for three main reasons. The first reason is that they can produce the same product for less money due to three causes. The first one is that machines replace workers since the purchasing and maintain of machinery costs less than the employment of them. The second cause is that the work becomes unskilled labor, which is cheaper than unskilled labor. The last cause is that employers need less employees as before to create the same product. Returning to the reasons why automation increases profits for companies, the second reason is that employees become part of an unskilled labor force. This means that they are easily replaced due employers having access to a larger pool of possible employees and lacking the need to train new hires. Thus, if a group of cashiers go on a strike because they wish the minimum wage was raised, their employer can fire them and replace them through a fast and inexpensive process since it is unskilled labor. The third reason is that whoever has the means of production has the power. For example, in California a group of graduate students from the University of California went on strike for higher wages. The students, who did not hold the means of production, were fired from their teaching assistant positions even though they’re from part of the skilled workforce. With automation, employers hold securely the means of production because the employee is no longer manufacturing the product, but rather machinery owned by the employer. All of this makes it evident how we are moving to a point where the employers are systematically replacing skilled workers for unskilled one and those for automation.
This has increased dramatically the rate of unemployment, which creates a problem for the capitalists. True, the capitalists can increase profit margins by paying less for labor while getting the same product, but an increase in unemployment means that there’s less consumers able to buy their product. What capitalists need are consumers and with rate of unemployment increasing, they lack this fundamental group to continue “earning” money. This is where we reintroduce the paradox of change (changing things so they remain the same). On the conservative side, you have people like Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who advocated for restrictions on A. I. with the ability to drive cars, in a conversation with conservative political commentator Ben Shapiro for two reasons. The first one is that wages for truck drivers are going down. The second reason is that with self-driving cars, those jobs would disappear, which would be devastating to the working class since truck driving is the most common job held by men with only a high school diploma in the United States. Here it is exemplified two of the reasons described before why automation increases profit margins for employers. And with this discourse, we return to the idea of stopping progress to maintain the system by actively changing it (e. g. restricting developing technology in the form of A. I. to leave unaffected the working class represented by truck drivers through action shown as new policies).
On the other side of the same coin is the idea of Universal Basic Income (UBI), which at first appears to be a light at the end of a tunnel in this series of economic problems. However, the underlying reality is that the light is from an incoming train. UBI is similar to other policies that delay the collapse of capitalism while simultaneously driving us deeper into the system that created the problems in the first place. UBI, who entrepreneur Andrew Yang calls the Freedom dividend, consists of providing a monthly payment to citizens. In Yang’s plan, Americans would receive monthly checks of $1,000. As mentioned before, this appears to give power to the working class. One reason why UBI is advocated for is that individuals have more freedom and flexibility to pursue more non-lucrative jobs that they were interested in by receiving economic help. However, this is nothing more than ideology and for Zizek, explaining this starts with a cup of Starbucks coffee.
There’s guilt attached in transactions under capitalism since workers have to be exploited. This is what the phrase there’s no ethical consumption under capitalism refers to. For example, customers could ask themselves why they engage in purchasing a product, or in this case a coffee, when the money could be spent in a more moral/ethical way. Capitalism, however, found a solution to alleviate this guilt. Ingeniously, capitalists have attached an idea to the product. In terms of the previous example, this would be an ethical conduct. Could the coffee at Starbucks be cheaper? Yes, but now every time someone purchases it, a donation is made in order to remove the guilt. An example of this is their One Tree for One Bag initiative, which ensures that a tree is planted for every coffee bag that is sold. Of course, Starbucks is not very vocal about the fact that the trees that are planted are a coffee trees, which expands their business and reduces costs. But even if the company did, the purpose of the act is to benefit the company. Ideology masquerades from people how the world functions while simultaneously shapes how people interact with it. Recall one of the episodes in The Simpsons when Bart falls in a well and, instead of truly helping him, celebrities engage in symbolic behavior by singing a song for him. Isn’t this similar with what happened during the pandemic when model and actress Gal Gadot gathered an array of celebrities to singalong to Imagine? The emptiness of the gesture is noticeable with the joke made by stand-up comedian Tom Segura in a podcast with Joe Rogan when he said, “I lost my job at the meat packing plant but Gal Gadot sang Imagine.” Or recall when celebrities uploaded a video of themselves urging citizens to vote while being naked. This is what ideology is.
Another similar act is philanthropy. It appears like it benefits people, specifically the working class, when in reality it only helps the donor due to them receiving tax breaks. It is true that Jeff Bezos has donated to charity, but the need of these charities is caused by the....
Read
April 10, 2024Zizek anders overrated, alles was er macht, ist rumnörgeln über Sachen, die nicht jucken. Hat die gleiche Energie wie dass Bayern Gendern verbietet, hör halt auf nervig zu sein
Read
August 31, 2020Good food for thought. Pretty pertinent to a lot of things I've been thinking about lately.
December 1, 2018
In what was an interesting and engaging read, Zizek brings forward his philosophical and political approach on today's core issues encircling the capitalist reality, such as the post-modernist, technologically-fueled capitalism, sexual relations in the post-modern era, the importance of the European project and identity in the current global power relations, as well as some circumstantial analysis, prima facie appearing to be simple collections and improvements of his recent lectures and articles. Any individual who enjoys to read about current political issues on a global approach would certainly find this book joyous (lacanian term purposefully used), however this book would be a disappointment to anyone searching for ideological or dialectical solution-oriented approaches in this book. In other words, Zizek manages to perform incredibly interesting "translations" of Hegelian (and co.) concepts into today's world, and analyze current issues based on previously introduced philosophical concepts, but what is missing in the book, which in an entirely non-coincidental manner coincides with today's leftist impotence is exactly the basis of Zizek's biggest critic towards the left: lack of tangible solutions guiding the philosophical and political (and, of course, proletarian) world to the wishful neverland of radical change.
September 4, 2019
as usual, Dr. Zizek furnishes brilliant ramblings to think about, take apart and argue with.. some observations:
1. Zizek seems to have a blind spot where Assange is concerned. He still thinks Assange is the crusader for information that the general public seems to have written off as a persona Assange left behind several seasons ago. There is no discussion of Assange's bias for Russia and Putin...
2. Zizek brilliantly points out the false duality of choices between Le Pen and Macron, and how voters are effectively reduced to being constitutional monarchs rubber-stamping a choice (Macron) that neo-liberals have made for them by cornering them against an actual fascist (Le Pen).
3. Zizek also points out what he perceives as the impotence of the vision of the Liberal Left, which now only seeks a protectionist scheme of the welfare state against the threats of global capitalism and rapid technological flux. He says that this scheme is unlikely to succeed, and especially pits two partitions of the working-class against each other- the unionized versus the precarious. However, he doesn't seem to propose an alternative to this discontenting vision.
4. Zizek wonders if the Liberal Left privileges the plight of refugees over the interests of the local working-class, and thus creates a false dilemma of pitting the two factions against each other over a perceived competition and crowding out of local jobs. He says this competition is false because what refugees truly want is to restore their homeland to peaceful conditions, a humanitarian solution that the Liberals are not addressing or pushing for
There's a lot more food for thought in this same vein available in every sentence of this book.
1. Zizek seems to have a blind spot where Assange is concerned. He still thinks Assange is the crusader for information that the general public seems to have written off as a persona Assange left behind several seasons ago. There is no discussion of Assange's bias for Russia and Putin...
2. Zizek brilliantly points out the false duality of choices between Le Pen and Macron, and how voters are effectively reduced to being constitutional monarchs rubber-stamping a choice (Macron) that neo-liberals have made for them by cornering them against an actual fascist (Le Pen).
3. Zizek also points out what he perceives as the impotence of the vision of the Liberal Left, which now only seeks a protectionist scheme of the welfare state against the threats of global capitalism and rapid technological flux. He says that this scheme is unlikely to succeed, and especially pits two partitions of the working-class against each other- the unionized versus the precarious. However, he doesn't seem to propose an alternative to this discontenting vision.
4. Zizek wonders if the Liberal Left privileges the plight of refugees over the interests of the local working-class, and thus creates a false dilemma of pitting the two factions against each other over a perceived competition and crowding out of local jobs. He says this competition is false because what refugees truly want is to restore their homeland to peaceful conditions, a humanitarian solution that the Liberals are not addressing or pushing for
There's a lot more food for thought in this same vein available in every sentence of this book.
November 26, 2019
Boring book. Lots of digressions. Barely connected topics. The author repeats analyses and stories from his other books, so he almost says nothing new. A few logically weak arguments in this book. I find it to contain incoherent points. The author loves to change the subject constantly only to get to the point eventually, which I found frustrating and pointless. The author is all over the place. This book is not for me. It was a waste of money and time.
January 23, 2022
I did not finish this book: I spent some 5 hours on it but the prose went in parts over my head (lots of references to other modern philosophy, people, and parts of pop culture I don't know much about) and in parts it just didn't entice me (seemingly incoherent critical opinions of all kinds of aspects of modern society, without much in terms of useful advice or solutions). It may be interesting to active students of modern philosophy, but made me glad I'm not one of them.
October 9, 2021
Zizek is often a deeply frustrating read. Really. This time however he hits the nail perfectly.
All in all the best articulation of a credible, radically transformative political position. And such a position we need. Urgently.
Contains perceptive critiques of MeToo, of Jon Stewart, and of critics of the Trumpster among many other things.
All in all the best articulation of a credible, radically transformative political position. And such a position we need. Urgently.
Contains perceptive critiques of MeToo, of Jon Stewart, and of critics of the Trumpster among many other things.
January 25, 2019
Classic žižek. If you've been following some of his recent lectures, you probably already heard most of the things that are in this book (including the joke about Hegel). However it's nice to have it all in one book.
May 29, 2021
Some brilliant ideas in here but after the first 2 chapters it feels as though one is at dinner with a distant uncle(a highly intelligent one nonetheless), whose never-ending and largely niche political anectodes renders eveyone else rather bored.
October 19, 2018
I dont even care anymore.
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