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Title details for In Defense of Lost Causes by Slavoj Zizek - Available

In Defense of Lost Causes

by Slavoj Zizek
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The renowned philosophical sharpshooter looks for the kernel of truth in the fascist politics of the past—offering an adrenaline-fueled manifesto for universal values.
Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In fear of the horrors of totalitarianism, should we submit ourselves to a miserable third way of economic liberalism and government-as-administration?
In this combative major work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Žižek takes on the reigning ideology with a plea that we should re-appropriate several “lost causes”—and look for the kernel of truth in the “totalitarian” politics of the past.
Examining Heidegger’s seduction by fascism and Foucault’s flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the “right steps in the wrong direction.” He argues that while the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao, and the Bolsheviks ended in historic failure and monstrosity, this is not the whole story. There is, in fact, a redemptive moment that gets lost in the outright liberal-democratic rejection of revolutionary authoritarianism and the valorization of soft, consensual, decentralized politics.
Žižek claims that, particularly in light of the forthcoming ecological crisis, we should reinvent revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the struggle for universal emancipation. We need to courageously accept the return to this Cause—even if we court the risk of a catastrophic disaster. In the words of Samuel Beckett: “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    October 19, 2009

  • Formats

    • Kindle Book

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9781844674909

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9781844674909
      • File size: 772 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      June 15, 2008
      Zizek (international director, Birkbeck Inst. for the Humanities, Univ. of London; sociology, Univ. of Ljubljana, Slovenia; "The Fragile Absolute") writes with humor and incisiveness as he addresses the limits of liberal democratic approaches to politics and the possibility of benefit in totalitarian approaches to statehood. Examining by turns errors made by Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Maximilien Robespierre, and other thinkers when faced with totalitarian missions, Zizek provides analysis by way of Jacques Lacan, literary deconstruction, and history's famously particular moments, such as the denouement of the the Cuban Missile Crisis. Scholars of political theory and modern philosophy will find much here to consider and argue for or against. In parts, the essays can also be used with upper-division undergraduate students. And because Zizek's work straddles the most contemporary 20th-century literature and history and is written with panache rather than in jargon, public libraries serving highly educated communities will want to add this as well.Francisca Goldsmith, Halifax P.L.s, N.S.

      Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Formats

  • Kindle Book
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  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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