“The Courage of Hopelessness – A
Year of Acting Dangerously," By Slavoj Žižek, 2018
This book on the year 2016 is part of Žižek’s long search for
the ‘emancipatory project.’ Žižek always likes to take both sides of an
argument, in order to sound wise and strew quotes. After that tease, he comes down on one side
or the other. Here he takes
on capital and debates various theorists like Stiglitz, Chomsky and Piketty or
trade pacts like TISA & TTIP, while applauding Jeremy Rifkin’s ‘collaborative
commons’ and the subversive role of some new technology.
If Intellectuals Could |
Included is a long analysis of the
Greek situation and the politics of Syriza.
Žižek tries to answer the question of what radical left government’s do
when elected in a corrupt capitalist state while under immense international
financial pressure. He suggests a
position between Syriza and the Left Platform.
Žižek gets in some clever praise for
the concept of bureaucracy. He follows with a commentary on the re-adoption
of Confucianism by the Chinese Communist Party in their attempt to enforce social discipline.
This is part of a discourse on
destructive religion, Zionism, Islam and its dialectical successor,
atheism.
Žižek’s other targets are the
cultural relativism and political correctness pervasive on the
liberal-left. He specifically focuses on
transgender rights, using a class / Lacanian analysis. He also goes into the issues raised by right
and left populism in Europe and the U.S.,
such as Trump, Le Pen and Sanders He
calls for a radical Left vision of a universalist and united Europe.
In retrospect, Žižek is a man who
dined at the banquet table of Marxism, then claimed he didn’t swallow. So he calls himself a Lacanian Hegelian and
rejects dialectical materialism. He is
critical or bored with present or former workers’ states and considers himself
part of a liberatory communist project. He
argues against the platform of multi-culturalism and pure identity politics
promoted by neo-liberals, as well as the Alt-Right, which also upholds an opposite method of identity politics. Instead he favors a class
perspective. In the process, he’s an
idea factory, such as when he examines odd human events in the news. A good mind stretch for those in a political rut!
Other books by Zizek reviewed on the blog below: “Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?”, “First As Tragedy, Then as Farce,” “Living in the End Times” and "Violence." Also reviews of books by Piketty and Chomsky. Use blog search box, upper left.
Other books by Zizek reviewed on the blog below: “Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?”, “First As Tragedy, Then as Farce,” “Living in the End Times” and "Violence." Also reviews of books by Piketty and Chomsky. Use blog search box, upper left.
And I bought it at May Day
Books! You can too…
Red Frog
January 19, 2019
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