Living in the End Times

Oct 30, 2011 Zawn Villines rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy

Dear Slavoj,

I like you. In fact, ever since I saw a photo of you under a giant vagina, my boyfriend has theorized that I have an unhealthy obsession with you. You're starting to wear on me, though. Take a break from writing. Stop fantasizing about Lacan. Develop a slightly more linear thought process. Note: You can't do this in three weeks, so please don't write another book in three weeks. You write too much for it to be good, unique, or offer something new. You are hereby limited to one book e...more

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Dec 12, 2012 David Sarkies rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Socialists

Recommended to David by: Goodreads

Shelves: politics

Once again I am beginning a commentary on a book that I haven't finished (though I have now), but the main reason here is because I wanted to read a couple of more books so that I could then wrap them, pack them, and post them before Christmas, and anyway, I still have five and a half weeks to finish this book, so when I have read the other two, I do intend to go back and finish this book. The second reason is that there is so much in this book to discuss that I don't really want to let the ide...more Once again I am beginning a commentary on a book that I haven't finished (though I have now), but the main reason here is because I wanted to read a couple of more books so that I could then wrap them, pack them, and post them before Christmas, and anyway, I still have five and a half weeks to finish this book, so when I have read the other two, I do intend to go back and finish this book. The second reason is that there is so much in this book to discuss that I don't really want to let the ideas that I have picked up from reading this book drift too far back.
Zizek is a Slovanian left wing philosopher and is a self professed communist and athiest. Now, remember he is Slovanian so he would have experienced first hand the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, and this is something that is addressed at the beginning of his book. He refers to the dramatic paradigm shift in Poland, in that it went from a totalitarian state to a free market society, however his indication was that it was not the free market economy that they necessarily wanted, but rather a society where they could have free speech. His suggestion is that they did not necessarily want to swing so far to the right that the state pretty much takes a back seat in the economic process of the state. I do not necessarily suspect that that is entirely correct, because the pure communist state did collapse under economic pressures, namely because there was no incentive for people to do anything, and as such, nothing ever got produced, which resulted in empty shelves in the shops. He does indicate that in reference to Cuba, where Raoul Castro blames the west for their current food crisis when in reality it is because nobody is actually farming the fertile land.
In some of the commentaries I have read there is an indication that Zizek seems to come to no real conclusion, and that he seems to jump quite a lot. In regards to conclusions, I feel that his intention is to try to have us think about the things that we are saying, and those of us who can think and act, can then act on them. Yes, he does seem to jump about, and at times I wonder what his discussions in the chapters actually have to do with the chapters, but despite that, there are a lot of thought provoking things that he does write, and the trick is to pick up the ideas that do sit quite well and actually make sense. As for purpose, well, those of us who know Zizek knows that he writes about a concept of the Big Other. This concept is basically the social conscience, which is summed up in an Ancient Greek word oklos.
Oklos is defined as a crowd, however the actual definition refers to a crowd as a single thinking entity. Take for instance the scene where Jesus is presented before the crowd by Pilate and the entire crowd cries out 'crucify him'. That is the oklos. Anyway, many left wing philosophers write about how it is the capitalist elite who are the problem in the world, but Zizek takes a different approach by saying that it is actually the oklos. The reason is that in a capitalist society the direction of the corporations and the political will is determined by the will of the people. Two examples from Australia will outline this. First we have the issue of pokie machines which are a social blight on our landscape. Many people hate these machines and the damage that they cause, so much that a senator and a representative was elected on an anti-pokie machine ticket. However, recently, a group tried to force through an amendment to the constitution of a major corporation to restrict their use of pokie machines. Basically the amendment only garnered 2.5% of the vote, which goes to show that while there is a minority who despise poker machine, the majority either don't care, or even prefer the profits that the poker machines bring. Despite 60% of the vote being in the hands of superfunds, these funds represent millions of investors who all want a return on their investment, so when the question of listening to an ethical minority over listening to a majority who simply want returns, the majority always wins out.
The second example deals with refugees. Once again in Australia, there is a small minority who think the government's treatment of refugees is appalling and demands a more compassionate approach. While Labour was out of power they were incredibly vocal against the Liberal (read Conservative) Party's policies regarding refugees. However, once Labour came into power, they suddenly realised that if they wished to continue to win elections, they needed to change their stance on refugees because, despite the cries of the minority, it was the majority that demanded tougher sanctions. In fact, we have even seen the Greens drift further to the right in this regard, realising that if they also wished to keep on getting votes, they could not take a compassionate stance either.
Now, this book follows the idea of the grief cycle by applying it to a terminally ill society, and Zizek splits it into chapters indicating each of the stages of the cycle, being denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance, with some other chapters thrown in. As mentioned, it can be difficult to see how what he writes actually relates to society experiencing the grief cycle simply because he seems to explore numerous ideas under each of the headings.
Denial seems to be more aimed at the left and how they believe that something can actually be done about it, and the issue of multiculturalism and tolerance comes up a lot, but as he recognises, the compassionate left first of all is a minority and secondly dwells in the city. In many cases, they believe, wrongly, that we can learn to tolerate these other cultures, but in reality what is happening is that these other cultures are slowly being absorbed into one mono-culture, if that is what is happening, because in many cases the cultures are simply forming into multiple ghettos. We see this in Paris and we even see this in Sydney (with a huge Lebanese population in Lakemba and a large Asian population in Cabramatta). In a sense, the idea of a multicultural society, in Zizek's mind (and I agree with him) is impossible, particularly where it comes to religion. For instance, we may seek to tolerate other religions, but when our religion tells us that all other religions are wrong, we either transform our religion to accept it, or we put up barriers against those of who think differently from us.
While I am on the subject of religion, I want to explore what I find really surprising about Zizek, and that is for an Athiest, he is very accepting of the teachings of Christ and Christianity. However, I note that he has mentioned a flaw in modern Christianity that has stained this religion for over 1500 years, and that is the question of wealth. Ideally the original faith was one of sharing resources, however once it became a state religion, the problem of uneven distribution of wealth came to play, so instead of addressing it, Christianity shifted its teachings to accept it. Now, in many cases, the issue of Greed is something that pastors will say 'bad, bad' from the pulpit, but not actually address it. In fact, with myself, I am almost loathe to give to the church, since if I were to impoverish myself by giving to the church, I would not actually receive anything from the church. To me, it almost seems as if the violent attacks against abortion and gay marriage is almost like the church trying to make up for 1500 years of acceptance of greed. It is like the Christian leader that does extra well as a leader because he is trying to make up for his porn addiction. In fact, it is the moral core of Christianity, in particular the idea of self-sacrifice, that Zizek seems to admire so much about the faith.
Another aspect of the issue of multiculturalism is the idea of the burka (and I can relate this this). In Western countries, there is almost a repulsion against the burka, namely because it conceals the part of the body that defines us so much, and that is our face. When we speak to people we like to see their face because it enables us to relate to them. In a way what the burka does is that it places a barrier between the people communicating. The idea that the French have in banning the burka is that it is a symbol of the oppression of woman, but in doing so does not necessarily make the lives of the women better. In fact it could make them worse, with husbands refusing to allow them to leave the house. In a way the banning of the burka is not so much freeing women (just like banning abortion is not about saving the lives of the unborn), but rather about creating an acceptable mono-culture for everybody (and remember that we have had mono-cultures before, such as Rome, these cultures tend to borrow from other cultures and create what could be considered a superculture).
Another example is the idea of the Roma, and Zizek tells a story of some Roma who were camped out near a village in Solvenia. When the villagers demanded that they be moved, the left wing elements in the city cried foul and called for tolerance, however what is not revealed is that these city dwellers do not know or understand the Roma. Moreso, while the liberals to cry about tolerance, many do not actually realise that the Roma themselves are a very closed society. Though it is true that attitudes towards them have been quite bad, there is also a distrust within the Roma of those who are not Roma. At least the Amish in the United States give their children the opportunity to chose either their lifestyle, or that of the outside.
One of the cool things about the second chapter was not so much his analysis of movies, but the movies that he analysed, namely The Dark Knight and Kung Fu Panda. Seriously, anybody who anaylises Kung Fu Panda has got to be cool, but in anycase, not only does he indicate that the cartoon is a means of creating a story that is absurd and would be offensive as a live action film, it also shows the idea of the collapses of the meta-narrative. The meta-narrative is the basic social foundation of our western society, but as the idea of multiculturalism imposes itself upon the oklos the original story begins to break down, and that is what we see in the eastern philosophies of Kung Fu Panda. In a way, the fact is that both China and India, large social groupings of people of many differing beliefs, have created what is considered a relativistic mindset. This was similar with the Roman World, until the narrative of the Christian worldview took over and gave us the modern meta-narrative, namely the idea that history moves from beginning to end, with struggles against evil in which good ultimately triumphs. However, this triumph does not come easily as it nonetheless involves sacrifice, with the supreme sacrifice of Christ upon the Cross.
However, the Dark Knight also indicates that there is a change in the narrative, a sort of lie that forms a part of the sacrifice so that the idea of the good may reign supreme. The character of Harvey Dent is always seen as being the element of good, however, for those of use who have seen the film, know that in the end this character is twisted, by selfish means, namely that he lives while she whom he loves dies, becomes the element of evil. His death, in the end is covered up so that the idea of good reigning is held out to the oklos. Interestingly enough, and this is the case in the sequal Dark Knight Rises, that the actual villians of the piece are actually the honest ones, honest in the goals and aspirations, and also out to expose the truth. It is almost as if the narrative has changed from that of the hero being honest and exposing the lie (though that does form the basis of many a thriller still) to the villain being the honest one and the crime that he is committing is exposing the lie. It is as if the oklos itself must continue to be deceived for stability to be maintained, and thus the idea of denial.
I also wish to mention his discussion of the remake, as is evident with the Will Smith film, I am Legend. Now, the original story, and film, was about the last man alive living in a world of vampires. In the end the man is killed, and as such humanity becomes the stuff of legends. Thus again we see the idea of multiculturalism, or the move to the super culture, being played out. Where in our world the vampires are the stuff of legend, the world changes so that the vampires become the norm, and humans are now legend, as is the title I am Legend. However, in the modern remake we see a shift, and the idea that humanity is holding on by its fingernails, and one man survives so as to allow humanity to be saved, the Christ figure. Thus, the idea of the legend shifts from that which is lost to the mists of history, to the idea of the sacrificial figure that saves humanity from destruction.
Now we come to the chapter on Anger, and there is a lot of discussion about violence and the idea of violence, so first I will go over the idea I mentioned earlier about revolution. Remember, that it was not so much that Poland wanted a free economic system, but a system where people could speak and think how they wished. It was a desire for a socialist state where there political freedom. However interestingly enough, to maintain a revolution, one must resort to violence, as is seen with both Russia and with France. Consider that in 1917 Lenin was in the minority, and when he did win, he had to move to silence the opponents so that he might create is idea of a utopian socialist state, one that, within a few years, came close to collapse.
Zizek looks at the animal world, a world where it appears that the inhabitants live in a purely socialist world. There appears to be no competition, nor is there any need or want, however we must remember that this is also idealised. In the animal world might means right, and only the strongest survives. When two lions are confronted with one deer, the lions will fight to get the deer. I do not think he is right when he talks about the animal world as being a socialist utopia, but rather the we admire the animal world because we, as humans, recognise that we are above them, and we look down on them in the same way that we believed that the gods, beings superior to ourselves, would look down on us. It is a form of tourism, which in a way makes me balk about so called short term missions to third world countries, because in a way we travel there as gods walking among mortals.
Now I will turn to the idea of the biblical concept of turn the other cheek. To our mind we believe that it is the idea of not responding to violence with violence, however it is suggested that being struck on the cheek in ancient times was a form of shaming, thus to turn the other cheek, was a rebuke to that by simply saying, 'now make me your equal'. However, Zizek does go on to suggest that sometimes to respond to a fight by fighting is to actually concede to the bully, and that the best way to respond to violence is to turn away because, in a sense, that is a violent act in and off itself. Returning a blow is a compromising yourself rather than defending yourself, and makes me think of the person who gets even more angrier when you do not respond with anger, but with love 'why don't you fight me!'.
Now, Zizek really does turn a lot of concepts that we take forgranted on their head and actually points out how we, living in so called advanced democracies, are actually fooling ourselves. We believe that the progress, and wealth, can only come through democracy, however he points out that this is actually not the case. We we think of totalitarian states we either think of Africa, which is a basketcase, or we believe the lies that are peddled to us by the media. In reality, many of the democracies (South America for instance, and also Africa) are actually the basket cases, and it is the totalitarian regimes that are the societies that are advancing. Take Iraq for instance. The reason Iraq was originally invaded was not because it was a basket case totalitarian state (like Zimbabwe) but it was a totalitarian state that was actually progressing. In fact, when Sadam took power, he increased the wealth of the average Iraqi a hundred fold. The problem was that he was a threat, which is why the Americans bombed them back into the stone age. In fact, if we look at history (even recent history) we discover that the states that have progressed the most in the shortest amount of time have been totalitarian states. Germany pulled itself out of the great depression much faster than the liberal democracies (who were only able to do so by declaring war against Germany) and then look at the so called Chinese miracle. The difference is that a totalitarian state does not need to go to an election every four of so years, which means that they can have a much longer term view, rather than having to commit to only short term goals, and the myth of a budget surplus. In fact, when the latest advance is the iPhone 5, which is thinner than all of its rivals, one must wonder if this really is progress.
Okay, I think I should have a discussion about the problems with revolutions, and that is because it ends up that only a small minority really wants the system to actually change. It is only when things really get bad that the entire population will rise up in an attempt to overthrow the existing order, and even then it is usually only small changes that they want. Most of the revolutions of history have generally been wars among the wealthy classes. We see this with the English revolution in the 17th century, which was mainly a war between the wealthy aristocrats (supported by the Catholic Church) and the wealthy merchants (supported by the Protestants). Obviously there are exceptions to the rule, such as with France, Russia, and the revolutions of 1848 and the Arab Spring. I will not comment on the Arab Spring as we are not sufficiently past that to actually see the effects, but with the French and Russian revolutions there was really no actual change in the system of government. Both began as totalitarian states and both ended as totalitarian states. In fact with France, the revolution in a sense is still ongoing, with the last major event occuring in 1968 (and even then we see it in the streets of French cities today with the immigrant minorities running around buring cars – the insurance companies must be loving that).
The problem with these two revolutions was not just the timing, in fact the timing was perfect, a majority of the people had simply become fed up and the government was so weak that it could not effectively put down an uprising (unlike Libya which required outside intervention). Anyway, we see similar events within both Russia and France, namely that once the revolution had taken hold, the immediate thought that came to mind was protecting the gains in the revolution, which resulted in a prolonged terror. This was much more noticeable in France because the purges in Russia came much later when Stalin was attempting to protect his own position. However, even in Russia, once the Bolsheviks had taken power, their position was still weak, and they had to fight against the combined forces of the capitalist west to maintain their position. Even internally they have problems, since the Mensheviks, more popular than the Bolsheviks, threatened to derail the communist experiment, and this resulted in the suspension of elections, permanently. Even then, the problem of free speech arose, and when Gorbachev finally allowed freedom of speech, it was effectively the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union.(less)

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David Sarkies As I have mentioned previously Zizek says an awful lot of interesting things, and the reason I am going on with this is because I feel that I have to...more As I have mentioned previously Zizek says an awful lot of interesting things, and the reason I am going on with this is because I feel that I have to make a comment on it as well. For instance, Capitalism is the art of selling nothing. I am not simply mentioning the concept of the brand, which is the classic example of selling nothing. Say you have two pairs of sneakers, made in the same factory by the same people, for the same price, but on sold to different companies. One goes to K-mart and the other goes to Nike. The K-mart no-name brand sells for say $20.00, but the Nike brand goes for $160 (though I believe the price has come down substantially recently). The difference in price is basically the brand, or what some call the goodwill. In reality it is nothing, you are simply forking out money to be a part of a story, the Nike story.
The rise of the internet has brought a new dimension to the art of selling nothing. While the MMORPGs were the ones who initially created these virtual worlds, at least there was a point to them. You could escape into a fantasy realm and experience fantasy adventures. However evolution has brought about the realms of second-life, which is pretty much like an internet version of the sims. In this imaginary world you pretty much play a person, a normal person living a normal life, in a pretty normal world (I have never played this, and have no intention of doing so) however it has gone one step further in that you can use real money to purchase imaginary items. In fact people have made a fortune selling what is effectively electrons and computer programs to make people in this virtual world feel better than them selves. The art of selling nothing has finally come of age.
Now, I should return to the chapters, and this time I will speak of the one on depression. Here Zizek spends a lot of time talking about pain and trauma. One thing that he mentions and I can attest to is that when one is under anaesthesia one can still feel pain. It seems that all the anaesthesia does is prevent you from crying out. I guess this is why many of us turn to drugs (or flee into the virtual realm). We cannot get rid of the pain, but we can flee from it and hide in our own numbness and hope that it will go away. By hiding, or numbing ourselves, we can prevent ourselves from screaming out. We also see this is the movement of faith, for as the bible said, at just the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. When Paganism have proven to the world to provide nothing, and Jewish legalism did not unburned people's guilt, Christ burst into the world to tell the world that they could have a direct relationship with God, and in one act undermined the powers of the priesthoods. However, two thousand years have come and gone, and we discover that what Christ tore down, man has re-established, and in many ways, our desires to put people between us and God has made us forget the truth of Christianity, which in turn as led to disenchantment, and thus to Atheism. Therefore in a way, to get rid of the priesthood and its control over our lives, we have gotten rid of God.
Now I will turn to the idea of the normalising of catastrophes. There are many examples of how this has happened these days, and the one that Zizek mentions (which, being a Slovakian, is probably close to his heart) is the seige of Sarajevo. When it began it was a shock and horror, but after two to three weeks it becomes a normal part of life. The same thing happened with the civil war in Libya, and it is now true of the civil war in Syria. Sure, it is still reported on, and occasionally we tune in to find out if something new has happened, but with our society suffering for a severe case of ADD we find it almost impossible to watch history unfold. It simply happens too slowly. In our western mind we want history to work like a movie that lasts only an hour and a half, longer if it is really good, but not too long. Or we want it to work like a series, where every episode brings a new event and a new revelation.
When one says that Zizek leaves nothing untouched, that is so true. For instance he even touches on internet dating. Here we have the art of seduction and passion being transferred into the virtual realm. Now, I am not necessarily having a go at internet dating, not in the same way that you see all those sour pusses bitch and whine about how pretty much every dating sites suck (probably because they are doing it wrong), but the reason I am not too keen on them is because they take away that je ne sais quoi (and yes, it does mean the 'I do not know what') you know, that feeling you get when your eyes meet across the crowded room, or that woman you catch checking you out on the train. What these sites do is that they break you down into a series of statistics and based on computer algorithms, attempt to match you (this is Emily, she likes dancing, nights at home, and walks along the beach). I would prefer the eyes across the room anyday.
Now let me mention the Louisiana Oil Spill, and how that was handled (or not handled). We see it there, and in many other places (and working in litigation, I can speak from experience), that it all comes down to a blame game. People's livelihoods are ruined so they resort to fingerpointing and seeking compensation. This blame game goes right up to the President, and even comes to the point where they say 'we can't hurt BP too much because to many pensioners have their money invested in BP'. Zizek is right when he says that we need to break away from this cycle of blame and compensation, of litigation and billing hours, and look at how we can learn from these disasters so that they do not happen again, as opposed to rushing to your local solicitor and issuing proceedings.
Even then, it is not possible to learn from a disaster, but only to understand how fragile our society is. When a minor volcanic eruption occurred in Iceland, the entire aviation industry in Europe was shut down. Two hundred years ago, if a volcano errupted in Iceland (or Argentina), the only people who were effected were those who lived on the volcano. Now, the entire world stands to be effected. It is as if Neil Armstrong's one giant leap for mankind has been effectively neutralised. Even then, as many say, the entire Western capitalist system is one fat finger away from complete collapse.
Now, I am almost coming to the end if this (and I applaud you if you are still reading, because this commentary is almost as long as Zizek's book, well, no not quite, but you know what I mean. I'm not even sure if I can post it all in one posting on Goodreads). Anyway, there are a couple of sayings that have stood out, the first being: when it is no longer possible to tell a lie all that is left is the truth, but when it comes from an official mouth, the truth is little more than a lie supported by the facts. Take George Bush for instance, when it came clear that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the only thing they could fall back on was regime change, and the desire to bring democracy to Iraq. Well, even though that was the truth all along, it was still a lie. Regime change hand nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with making sure that Iraq was bombed back into the stone age. No wonder people where insulted when in response to their protests Bush replied by saying 'we are going into Iraq so that the Iraqis have the freedom to protest'. That was not the point, because it was clear that this is not what the protesters wanted (and I was just as insulted when Alexander Downer's response was 'there are things that you do not know about the situation'). I guess Oliver Stone was right in his movie that it seems that all Bush wanted to do was to prove to his father that he was not a failure, and even then he failed at that.
The second quote I will simply quote verbatim (from page 402) and will not comment on it: this is the kind of god needed by the radical left today: a god who has fully 'become' a man, a comrade amongst us, crucified between two social outcasts, who not only 'does not exist' but knows this himself, accepts his own erasure, passing over entirely into the love that binds all members of the 'holy ghost' that is, of the party or emancipatory collective.
The two final points that I want to make is this, that true fundamentalism is being so strong in your faith that you do not see the need to condemn or ridicule others. Condeming others actually demonstrates a weakness in your faith, which is what made me realise why the New Atheists fight so hard for their position, and why they actually spend money to try to convince people that there is no God. Honestly, if an athiest were comfortable with his faith, he would pity those of us who believe in God, as opposed to attempting to mock, ridicule, and debate us with find sounding arguments. In the end it will not work. Mind you, the same goes for the Christians who see a need to comdemn others for their sin, which is generally a way of not so much distracting others from their sin, but making them feel okay with the fact that they themselves are sinners, and in the end do not need to do anything about it.
The final point is the purpose of the modern democracy, and that is a means of institutionalising revolution, namely creating a peaceful and bloodless way of removing a disliked government and replacing it with a government that is not hated as much. In a way it satifies our desire for change, and we know that if we have made a wrong choice, we can always change in four years time. Mind you, the average time a government remains in power (at least in Australia) is around three terms, though sometimes you get some that last a lot longer.(less)
Dec 12, 2012 03:49am

Mar 27, 2013 Cassandra Silva rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, politics

I haven't read enough of Zizek yet to be as "tired" of him as some of the other commentators to this thread. Personally I find his style fresh. His eyes are keen. He can watch the most ridiculous movies. (Kung Fu Panda features in this one) and find some deeper connection to culture and what this says about our sociological interactions. He is very aware and in tune with culture which makes him interesting as a philosopher. I find him facinating. Not only can most people not make these connectio...more

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Jul 20, 2012 Jasonlylescampbell marked it as to-read

Zizek is amazing to me. I got this book from the library and really don't have time to read it so am taking it back, but this morning I spent time reading his commentary on the sayings of Christ about "hating mother and father" and "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." He basically argued that the scandel of all this talk was that it was a sword to the pagan wisdom of a divided world where your status was given at birth (lower vs. upper class, black vs. white) and that Christ's words offered...more

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Jun 16, 2012 C. Derick Varn rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. While sporadic in argument and full of the normal Lacan-Hegel/Hegel-Lacan dialectical twists, this is one of the more interesting of Zizek's less scholarly polemics. While more nuanced than his prior polemics such as "In Defense of Lost Causes" and not as rigorous (or as menacing) as his current tome on Hegel, his sections of the denial in the liberal utopian "present" seem particularly horrowing as Obama's first tenure comes to a disappointing end, and the European Dream seems to be coming to a...more While sporadic in argument and full of the normal Lacan-Hegel/Hegel-Lacan dialectical twists, this is one of the more interesting of Zizek's less scholarly polemics. While more nuanced than his prior polemics such as "In Defense of Lost Causes" and not as rigorous (or as menacing) as his current tome on Hegel, his sections of the denial in the liberal utopian "present" seem particularly horrowing as Obama's first tenure comes to a disappointing end, and the European Dream seems to be coming to a halt that stems from a mixture of German sado-monetarism, North European financialization, and lack of productive capacity in Southern Europe, his reading of the tendency to valorize the "other" seems like a necessary but more entertaining pulling from the themes of Badiou's "Metapolitics." Yet his pessimistic tone in "acceptance" seems to lead to some what his problems with Occupy may have been, but also indicate why he may not have been able to foresee either.

The looming caveat here is the lingering "non-style" and "non-argument" of Zizek, a kind of discursiveness and aphorism through joke that resembles Nietzsche or H.L. Mencken as much as a Hegelian Marxist or a Left Lacanian theorist. Furthermore, the structure of this polemic as an "opera" actually causes a fugue, where the arguments make sense in the context of Zizek's corpus, but if one started here, it would be very easy to draw the wrong conclusions. The overlay of "denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance" seems to create a unity that often seemed to be lacking in the actual arguments, many of which anyone familiar with Zizek's (quite humorous and often excellent) speeches would be recognize immediately.

Yet the reminder that many leftists who fear Zizek's conclusions don't want to here: Liberal modernity and the current degeneration of capitalism aren't likely to end in a bang, or a whimper, or in a crash, but a prolonged violent drowning. His call to return to a modified communism, one that has flipped Marx on its head and returned to (German) Idealism with sounder political economy, may be more precarious than it seems. This book doesn't crash into the iceberg, but it doesn't get you to shore either: That's part of Zizek's call, it's time to start rowing. What remains unclear if Zizek has more of an answer here than any of us deck chairs on this titanic.
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Feb 21, 2012 Ron Zwart rated it 4 of 5 stars

Mijn god wat een lastig werk. Hij combineert het duistere Duitse diepdenken met de Franse verduistertaal. Vaak heb ik op het punt gestaan het weg te leggen, Komrij citerend "wie niet helder kan schrijven, kan ook niet helder denken".

Resumerend maakt Zizek de titel van het boek helemaal niet waar. Zelfs zijn kernthesis dat het kapitalisme aan zijn eigen weeffouten ten onder gaat, komt niet goed uit de verf.

Maar hij trekt wel een mooi en bij tijden ontoegankelijk bouwwerk op. Denk aan een bouwwe...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

I've got to admit i didn't think this was Zizek's best when it came out; hearing the Niel's Bohr anecdote for the 500th time was starting to wear thin. However in the interim I've found myself returning to this to be pleasantly surprised by some of the insights here. Against the backdrop of the occupy movement, the then ominous 'something has to happen' style conclusion has taken on a new significance. Comments of Chavez, then a key figure of hope for the pink tide have been born out as his reli...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Oliver L. rated it 5 of 5 stars

Arranged in five sections that correspond to the Kübler-Ross model of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), Žižek's new book Living in the End Times tracks what he perceives to be the slow decay of postmodern capitalism. He's covered most of these big themes elsewhere (opposition to "tolerance" and liberal multiculturalism, disdain for "Zionist anti-semitism," practical applications of the "parallax view," distrust of European and US-style "democracy," and a need for som...more Arranged in five sections that correspond to the Kübler-Ross model of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), Žižek's new book Living in the End Times tracks what he perceives to be the slow decay of postmodern capitalism. He's covered most of these big themes elsewhere (opposition to "tolerance" and liberal multiculturalism, disdain for "Zionist anti-semitism," practical applications of the "parallax view," distrust of European and US-style "democracy," and a need for some sort of ill-defined radical Marxist "Christian" emancipatory movement (in the sense that one takes Jesus' message about love seriously, and also in the sense that one believes that "God" died on the cross on Calvary Hill)), and the parts of the book where responds to other scholars (Dipesh Chakrabarty, Alain Badiou, Bernard-Henri Lévy, Catherine Malabou, etc.) in an effort to clarify points about the the works of Marx, Lacan, Freud, et al. can get rather tedious. Moreover, despite the author's attempt to give the book structure by means of the five K-R-themed chapters, most of the material appears to have been cobbled together from notes, lectures, work that has appeared in magazines or on the internet, previous books, and so forth. Nevertheless, there are some amazing moments in here, such as Žižek's description of Christopher Nolan's Joker as an "antihero" of late capitalism as well as his wonderful comparison of the high kitsch of The Sound of Music with the high kitsch achieved by Josef Fritzl in the course of sexually abusing his imprisoned daughter so as to create a "second family" in his basement (this passage alone is worth the price of admission). Living in the End Times is best read in 5-10 page chunks, since it's simply too broad and discursive to be digested in a single sitting. Alas, the prescription for social change to be found in here--which essentially amounts to "take action (or don't take action, if that's the right thing to do) because everything is so rotten!"--might be "inspiring" in some vague way, but it isn't particularly helpful.(less)

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Oct 09, 2011 Христо Блажев rated it 3 of 5 stars

Славой Жижек живее в последните времена
http://www.knigolandia.info/2010/08/b...

Преди дни ви писах за малката книжка на Славой Жижек “First As Tragedy, Then As Farce”, в която той спекулира със замяна на провалилия се според него капитализъм с комунистически икономически и управленски методи. Жижек е счел за нужно да разшири апокалиптичната си визия за съвременния свят в дебел том, озаглавен “Living in the End Times”. Не може да се отрече, че корицата е изумителна.

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May 10, 2011 Paul 'Pezski' Perry rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, philosophy, read-in-2011

I confess I haven't finished this book. I was fully determined to, but was unable to renew it at the library as someone else had it on hold. I hope they have better luck with it than I did.

It started off well. Zizek has a nice turn of phrase and goes at his subjects head on (whilst bringing in support from the flanks). At first he seemed to be writing with a clarity and wit that would make the book, if not easy going, than enjoyable, enlightening and mind expanding. However, by the end of the fi...more

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Jun 06, 2010 and rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: theory

"Badiou has reflected on the fact that we live in a social space which is progressively experienced as "worldless." Within such a space, "meaningless" violence is the only form protest can take. Capitalism is the first socio-economic order which de-totalizes meaning: there is no global 'capitalist worldview,' no 'capitalist civilization' proper: the fundamental lesson of globalization is precisely that capitalism can accomodate itself to all civilizations, from Christian to Hindu or Buddhist, fr...more

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Feb 01, 2012 Jason Walker rated it 4 of 5 stars

You cannot fight terror with terror: doesn't work. You cannot fight global capitalist corruption with money: same as before. This is not a book to argue or disagree with. This is a book of choices, many of which are not arguable here. It is well written and the argument's well presented. We could spend hours and pages just dissecting the chapters but I will not do that. The cornerstone tenants of the argument are not necessarily what I would pick as the breaking points: the fact that Zizwk and h...more

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Jul 02, 2012 Mac rated it 4 of 5 stars

On the cover – front – of “Living in the End Times” is a quote from the “New Republic” calling Slavoj Zizek “the most dangerous philosopher in the West.” This was from an article by Adam Kirsch that was in no way complimentary – he basically suggested that Zizek is an anti-Semite and a supporter of terrorism* – and so it was fun to see either Zizek or the people at Verso having fun with this criticism.

I picked up “Living in the End Times” because of this article, actually. Anything so ardently...more On the cover – front – of “Living in the End Times” is a quote from the “New Republic” calling Slavoj Zizek “the most dangerous philosopher in the West.” This was from an article by Adam Kirsch that was in no way complimentary – he basically suggested that Zizek is an anti-Semite and a supporter of terrorism* – and so it was fun to see either Zizek or the people at Verso having fun with this criticism.

I picked up “Living in the End Times” because of this article, actually. Anything so ardently decried must be at the very least interesting, and good old Slavoj is one of those people whose names I see here and there, but have only encountered in brief pieces. This book seemed as good a place as any to start (I didn’t want to jump into the 1000-page new and expensive volume on Hegel), and since I was feeling fairly apocalyptic anyway, the title seemed appropriate.

One of the frequent criticisms and/or praises of Zizek is his scope, which may also be referred to as his lack of focus. It’s either wonderful or terrible that he can manage to talk about Batman, Deleuze, Rammstein, Lacan and Hegel (incessantly, really), Shia Labeouf movies, world politics, and ‘most other subjects’ in the same volume that is, ostensibly, about coming to grips with the end of the world, but he manages to do it. I’m not quite sure how one manages to turn what is, let’s admit, a significant flaw in one’s writing – i.e., the inability to remain on-topic – into a charming quirk that fans actually look forward to, but Zizek has succeeded here admirably. And it is, in a way, somewhat hypnotizing. Even if you’re swamped in a long stretch of extremely technical and (let’s face it) boring Hegelian dialectics, you never quite know what’s going to come around the next corner. There were stretches of jargon that were a chore to slog through, and then there were places where I couldn’t stop writing notes down, passages worth quoting verbatim for pages. Zizek’s wide net brings such a variety of sources into the same work that it’s fascinating to see them juxtaposed as they are, and even if the topic of “the end times” is forgotten in the first handful of pages (it comes back here and there), it’s certainly an interesting read.

The book is structured in terms of the “five stages of grief,” starting with Denial and ending with Acceptance, but just forget about that. There’s no discernible reason for why certain sections are where they are, and when the book ended I had the feeling that it could easily have kept going for another five hundred pages – I didn’t reach any larger conclusions or interact with the book as a whole, but I did find many of the parts engrossing and certainly worth reading. Zizek is a very dynamic, original, and rigorous thinker, and his conclusions on whatever topic he’s discussing – whether it’s architecture or revolution – is well worth hearing.

*An accusation that is not supported, I’d argue, by “Living in the End Times.” While Zizek discusses anti-Semitism, he makes sure to condemn it as he does so and does not engage in it, as Kirsch suggests. The question of why Jewishness is such an issue in the foreground of Zizek’s mind is perhaps a valid one, but his statements in this book do not support any accusation of prejudice. As for supporting terrorism, he does discuss violence as a political means, but here he plays the European-philosopher game of redefining every word he uses until what would seem to be a simple sentence actually has a tortuous and complicated meaning that’s fairly difficult to understand. This is perhaps an issue with the genre – Continental philosophy – more than it is an issue with the writer. To be sure, Zizek is no moderate and his redefinitions are certainly unfriendly to the status quo, but to suggest that he advocates or condones specific violence against specific people is unfair, at least as far as this book is concerned.
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Jun 27, 2012 Simsian rated it 3 of 5 stars

I must agree with some of the other reviewers here about Zizek's prolificacy undermining new original work. This book could very easily be an attempt to frame his well-known views along the lines of the Kübler-Ross model and the biblical horsemen of the apocalypse so as to make them very nearly accessible to first time readers of his work. As someone who is frequently impressed with Zizek's writing and ideas, I was not disappointed by Living in the End Times, but I found myself frequently skippi...more

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Nov 07, 2010 Liz Brennan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Slovenian philosopher exploring capitalism's demise. Very thought provoking. I am reading it in small doses.

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Jul 08, 2010 MadgeUK rated it 4 of 5 stars

Slavoj Zizek, possibly the world's greatest Marxist philiosopher and historian, analyses the times we live in from a Marxist standpoint and comes to some fascinating conclusions. Although a communist, Zizek is no apologist for either Stalinism or Maoism and his views are the more valuable because of his enlightened, modern approach to the politics of the left. Zizek (a Yugoslav) is quite a character. This Youtube video of a lecture on revolutionaries sets out his position very clearly and in an...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Jaybird Rex rated it 5 of 5 stars

I appreciated from the first that the book was divided into sections titled according to the Kubler-Ross Grief Cycle: How better to dissect this time on Earth? To those with the grit to follow the book to the end, though both its filthy moments and its esoteric philosopho-twisting and turning (that makes Nietzsche seem like the Amadeus portrayel of Saliere), there are many rich, counter-intuitive observations. What's striking is how many details from life have been arranged here, and how effortl...more

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Aug 23, 2012 Scott Gates rated it 3 of 5 stars

Ultimately, Zizek thinks there should be less democracy and more authoritarianism and censorship. As when he commends Venezuela’s Chavez for banning certain US programs from his nation’s airwaves because these shows were “morally problematic.” For Zizek thinks 99% of people are idiots, and thus they need help and guidance from government officials on what to watch and what to do. Yes, if you cornered Zizek on this he’d have all sorts of obfuscations and amendments to this, but basically he think...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Phil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: my-library, philosophy

I think this book is entirely worth the read for it dares to unabashedly go places that other cultural and philosophical books dare to go - criticism and application. There is so much scope that is covered though that I feel that Zizek got lost in his thesis. His general structure remained consistent as a whole, but only on the grounds that one paid careful attention to the hermeneutical explication of the books progression. I am always astounded, though not always in accordance with, the "sidew...more

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Jan 15, 2012 Jacob Aitken rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: economics, fighting-the-new-world-order, hermeneutics, nationalism, ontology, philosophy, postmodernism, socialism

Zizek organizes each chapter along the famous psychological responses to a crisis: denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance, and depression. In between each chapter is an interlude which applies the current insights to numerous cultural phenomena. This review won't analyze each chapter if only because it is hard to follow Zizek's argument at times: he has some excellent thoughts which he is incapable of extending for more than a few pages. Secondly, I don't understand what he is saying in a lot of...more

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Nov 13, 2011 El rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-centurylit, anarchism-revolutions, cuckoos, cultural-studies-and-other, pretentious-book-club, society-went-boom

The basic premise is that Žižek's book deals with "the four horsemen of the coming apocalypse" - the worldwide ecological crisis, imbalances within the economic system, the biogenetic revolution, and exploding social divisions and ruptures. That's exactly what it says on the back of the book. Sounds pretty interesting. I thought, if anything, the structure of the book would be primarily about the "four horsemen".

Instead what Žižek did was structure his book based on the Kübler-Ross model. In oth...more

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Oct 18, 2011 Nick rated it 3 of 5 stars

Caveat: I'm still early on.

Žižek is great fun, as always, but I end up with the feeling that I'm unsure whether he's lost his fastball or I've familiarized myself enough with his habits of mind (and, you know, psychoanalysis in general) that I'm no longer surprised and delighted by his analyses in the same way I was ten years ago.

I think it's the former, that he's worse than he used to be. I reread part of The Sublime Object of Ideology recently and it blew my mind all over again.

So, review-w...more

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Apr 23, 2011 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, central-europe-russia

There are several things to like and dislike about this book and, having only read First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, I don't know how the two stack up next to the rest of his books, but they are fairly similar stylistically and several sections of FasTTasF can be found in LiET. The structure of both is the same: present an organized and clean thesis in the preface, outline the structure in an organized and systematic way, and then proceed to totally drop the thesis and ramble off into whatever st...more

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Jun 30, 2010 Kyle rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book concreted the fact that I prefer Zizek's shorter books as compared to his longer works like In Defense of Lost Causes and to a lesser extent The Parallax View. Both this book and Lost Causes seem to be to much of a Zizek's conflict with other thinkers, delving into texts and theorists which I've never interacted with and which usually entirely lack relevance or are only tangential to the thesis.

As for the content of this book, Zizek elucidates an environmentalist stance which is true...more

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Jan 31, 2013 Augusto rated it 4 of 5 stars

Incredibly hard to read, Zizek habitual tangents are exacerbated to an extent which makes it almost impossible to finish a chapter in one sitting. My strategy was as follows: I've read a bunch of pages, say between 20 and 25, made coffee, made a sandwich, sat to read again. Ah, and annotations. A lot of them.

Still, I would recommend this book to anyone who has at least one millimeter of a toenail of interest in left wing politics. Funny, informative, not very affected (as contrary to Zizek's sty...more

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Oct 24, 2012 Donal rated it 1 of 5 stars

Mostly meandering without any real point. Its like reading an adolescent showing off. There is no real structure to his argument, flitting from Marx to Lacan without really making a point. The passages on Marx's Capital are tired re-hashings with little or no new insight. The fact that he is correct on many points in the book hardly makes up for the lack of any tangible point to all this verbiage. Lacan's useless pseudo-Freudian concepts show up inexplicably with little explanatory effect which...more

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Dec 15, 2012 Mikael Lind rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: philosophy, politics, ideology

Zizek is not even close to answering the questions you expect him to answer when you read the introduction. This book is a mixture of interesting facts and questions and a hit-and-miss theoretical gymnastics. Zizek often manages to grab your attention in just a few sentences, and sometimes he completes his line of thought with something very interesting, thought-provoking and witty. It does often happen that he completely loses the thread and puts the reader in a far too theoretical Lacanian/Heg...more

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Jun 07, 2011 Remi Watts rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Tartar-lovers

Starting out extremely strong, full with wit, sharp argument, and a demanding intelligence, the book easily hooks the reader. Through the center the book begins to be sogged-down by Zizek's focus on Hegel and Marx, which, even for a well-read reader, is extremely tiresome. The book comes close to full redemption in its closure and afterword with Zizek's attempt to break through mere negativity and criticism that he excels at, and attempts to provide a positive 'solution' of sorts. Whether or not...more

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Aug 07, 2012 Bcxbcx Bxcxcb rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: marxism

It has taken me over one week to make it through the first 30 pages of this massive 500 page book. I have re-read the first 30 pages over 4 times to try and break down and understand everything that Slavoj references while he's trying to convey and further his argument. I'm finally beginning to piece it all together and understand it. Slavoj Zizek is a very intelligent philosopher but many times his works (such as this one) are over referenced, which in turn makes it quite confusing for the read...more

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May 01, 2011 Steve Redhead rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the latest Zizek tome - the paperback edition of the book first published in hardback last year has had a massive Afterword added almost making it half a new book. Always fascinating and frustrating in equal measures, Zizek is frequently hailed as the most dangerous philosopher in the West but I am not sure where he is taking us in these 'catastrophic' times.

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