Pandemic!: Covid-19 Shakes the World by Slavoj Žižek

Apr 26, 2020 Trevor rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, philosophy, social-theory, economics, biography, race, medicine

It would be hard to find a more topical book admittedly it is short you can read it in an hour or so and while I dont think this will necessarily be the theoretical book of the virus, it does raise a number of issues it is timely to think about.

Not least is the idea that, unlike Trump telling us that the enemy we are facing in this war is both invisible and smart viruses are more like zombies than enemy soldiers, neither alive nor dead, but in need of us to continue living. They are mindless ...more

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Apr 13, 2020 Owlseyes rated it did not like it

Shelves: jokes-in-time-of-coronavirus, zizekick-jokes, we-re-all-on-the-same-boat, but-some-have-a-yacht

Notes, quotes, jokes and my takes

Touch me not, according to John 20:17, is what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection. How do I, an avowed Christian atheist, understand these words?".
Me: really?? "An avowed Christian atheist"? Can a Christian be an atheist at the same time? No.

"Such class divisions have acquired a new dimension in the coronavirus panic. We are bombarded by calls to work from home, in safe isolation. But which groups can do this? ...more

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Apr 12, 2020 Virginia rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020

This was a very quick read, and not one that merits much dwelling upon in rereading. It is definitely written in a journalistic, opinion-piece style, rather than a theoretical style, and references to theory are minimal and presented simply. Hence the speediness of it. However, it's about what one would expect of a book written in such haste. Typos and editing misses abound. Some of what he says is quite cliche at this point, especially at the very end. He repeats almost the exact same statement This was a very quick read, and not one that merits much dwelling upon in rereading. It is definitely written in a journalistic, opinion-piece style, rather than a theoretical style, and references to theory are minimal and presented simply. Hence the speediness of it. However, it's about what one would expect of a book written in such haste. Typos and editing misses abound. Some of what he says is quite cliche at this point, especially at the very end. He repeats almost the exact same statement several times, about the response to what he'd said about the pandemic previously. He cites Wikipedia twice - once for some background on an H.G. Wells novel, once for a summary of a book - in the former case, I suppose it's just undignified; in the latter case, it just seems lazy, self-aware remark or not. The summary is of a short text and I see no reason why Zizek himself should not have summarized it.

Now, those gripes are about what anyone would expect. This book went up for preorder right when the pandemic hit hard, and was released within the last few days, meaning it was put together in a matter of a few months or weeks. Nothing I said is news, then, only specifics of what everyone expected. What was unknown - at least to me, who had not read his previously-published articles on the pandemic - was what exactly his arguments would be.

The ideas in the book are not all bad. For instance, the reflections on different types of tiredness are interesting, if not very fleshed-out, and the same goes for a few other sections, like the introduction. But some points just seem wholly unconvincing. Chapter 5, "The Five Stages of Epidemics," seems like a poor attempt at forcing an ongoing situation into a model that it doesn't quite fit yet - and a model I suspect you could eventually fit any situation into, depending on what sources you select. As an earlier published review noted, his strange desire to visit Wuhan, and his idea that "the abandoned streets in a megalopolis ... provide a glimpse of what a non-consumerist world might look like" (56), seem quite counter to any point I can think of. Is the point of ending consumerism to.... end community and vibrant public spaces? The idea that a non-consumerist city is a ghost town is a strange endorsement of consumerism!

Anyway - I acquired this as an ebook for free, as I preordered it, and I'm glad OR Books set it up that way. I'm also pleased that Zizek is donating the money he would make from its sales to charity. But, all things considered, why did this book need to exist, and so quickly? Apparently he'd been writing pieces about the pandemic already, and this book drew on them heavily. Why not simply continue doing that, and wait until the dust has settled before publishing an entire book? I won't speculate, but the question is on my mind.

Overall - if you want to read a brief book by Zizek with some characteristic anecdotes on an ongoing situation, I suppose I would recommend this. It's probably the first book by a well-known academic on the pandemic, and it's quick and relatively light. But if you aren't interested in Zizek, and don't care about reading the first text on the pandemic, I wouldn't bother. Better books will be published on it soon, and I'd imagine that this one will be largely forgotten, as with so many other current-events types of books by theorists. ...more

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Apr 15, 2020 Todd rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy, healthcare, essays

Topical Žižek without the fireworks. It's highly topical. It's Žižek at his most sobre, least provocative, and least sensational timbre. And this probably should be expected given the quick turnaround: the essays are addressing news and headlines form a couple of weeks ago. However, this serves as a reminder of the use of theory as normally deployed by Žižek and others. As we knew all along, one of the uses was entertainment: an opiate for the intellectuals, with apologies to Raymond Aron. Topical Žižek without the fireworks. It's highly topical. It's Žižek at his most sobre, least provocative, and least sensational timbre. And this probably should be expected given the quick turnaround: the essays are addressing news and headlines form a couple of weeks ago. However, this serves as a reminder of the use of theory as normally deployed by Žižek and others. As we knew all along, one of the uses was entertainment: an opiate for the intellectuals, with apologies to Raymond Aron. Nevertheless, the ideas seem more commonplace stripped of the the excitement of his provocateur and enfant terrible shtick.

With that said, to his credit, Žižek is hitting mostly the right notes. My company has been operating among the front lines at the epicenter, delivering long-term care to people with disabilities in NYC and Long Island. The pandemic, as it has hit us-- at the epicenter or anywhere else -- is not the result of a conspiracy. As Donald Berwick the former Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services once said, every system is perfectly designed to deliver the results it gets. The impact and results of the pandemic at the epicenter has gotten exactly the results that the market based delivery and poor planning by the federal government was designed to get.

The New York Times reported that the strain of the virus hitting NYC came via route of Europe and entered into city in early to mid February. The problem was the government was not listening to the experts. In February, I actually had an employee fly into JFK airport from China along with a plane of fellow passengers and was not screened or stopped. The people on his flight and thousands of other flights into JFK were streaming right back into the city. They sat next to each other at the airport, they rode planes together breathing and respirating into the recycled air, and then they got on the subway and the Long Island railroad and sat next to other people. At my company, we reached out to the CDC and together we quarantined him at home for a couple of weeks upon his reentry. But that was one person. The problem is that the government did not listen to the experts and did not put into place protective policies early enough. In early March, schools were still open, all businesses were still open, and social distancing was not being enforced. All of the changes did not start until the middle of March when Gov Cuomo issued Executive Orders to get the response in action. It was already too late to stop NYC from becoming the epicenter.

One of the biggest problems was that there were not enough tests and there were not enough PPEs. In order to allow life to remain on play, we (NYC and NY) needed to test early and often. There just weren't enough tests. The market mechanisms were not pulled early enough to get the tests produced and sent along the supply chain to NY. Especially without a federal government putting pressure on them. Then, once the pandemic hit, there were not enough PPEs. There were workers on the front line in hospitals wearing garbage bags as gowns. There where shortages of N95 respirator masks. There were shortages of gowns, gloves, face masks, you name it. The problem was that the experts were not listened to, the government did not force compliance, and the market did not plan for a pandemic. Once it hit, the market and the suppliers could not mobilize in time.

In the end, and we are not at the end yet, maybe we are just at the end of the beginning, the lack of federal planning/action and the market mechanisms got the results they were designed to get. ...more

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Apr 13, 2020 Vartika Rastogi rated it really liked it

We are living in (and hopefully through) extraordinary times. The Trump government in the United States is taking over the private sector. Boris Johnson wants to nationalise the British railways. A universal form of basic income is being contemplated across much of Europe. Entire countries around the world are under lockdown and market logic is being openly defied; people have been asked to stay home and not work because they are, or could get, sick.

Žižek, like many others, thinks that this We are living in (and hopefully through) extraordinary times. The Trump government in the United States is taking over the private sector. Boris Johnson wants to nationalise the British railways. A universal form of basic income is being contemplated across much of Europe. Entire countries around the world are under lockdown and market logic is being openly defied; people have been asked to stay home and not work because they are, or could get, sick.

Žižek, like many others, thinks that this means we are beyond the point of no return; past denial, anger, bargaining, and depression, and nearing the fifth stage of grief as a terminally-ill society where we accept our need to radically change our ways of life.

In Pandemic: COVID-19 Shakes The World, the Slovenian philosopher brings together some of his corona-commentary to postulate that we need now, more than ever, to turn to a reinvented form of Communism focused on global cooperation and healthcare — and indeed, that we're already there. He critiques; with the occasional help of H.G Wells, Quentin Tarantino, Fredric Jameson, Tolstoy, and Lacan; the efficacy of our current systems and technology in face of nature, and points to our need for a "different and more nuanced vocabulary of intervention" instead of falling back on barbaric measures like the survival of the fittest even if it is with a human face. His is a more holistic appeal, emphasising a need to ensure real change (and not the kind of "socialism of the rich" that bailed out banks in 2008 at the cost of ordinary people's savings), and to take into account the well-being of the entire natural world. In his view, it isn't humankind itself but our current institutions and ways of life that constitute the real virus.

Žižek here is as witty and cogent as ever, although it is to be seen whether the suggested radical changes, or usual conservative Right-wing bailouts, are what will ensue. In Pandemic: COVID-19 Shakes The World the author is at his most accessible, too, making it the perfect book to dig into and keep up with the times. ...more

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Apr 18, 2020 Steffi rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020

Gee, its only been a month or so and Zizek already published a book Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World (OR Books, 2020). This is the beauty of the Zizekian cut-up art of writing: reassembling pieces of previous works mixed with new thoughts or looked at from a different perspective, plus jokes and anecdotes from the good old days of Soviet communism. In this sense, at any point in life, hes got a book that is already three-quarters done. (The book was free e-book though, hes not making a quick ...more

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Apr 13, 2020 muthuvel rated it liked it

Shelves: politics

I remember vaguely from someone's work that it is far easier to act than to think in the times of crisis.

Well these are tough times. We have choice to conform and comfort ourselves yet the times demand for more critical thinking to question the ways our system functions, well, in a holistic way.

I am not intending this book provides a holistic one. Yet it could contribute for the process. With his typical political philosophy showered by Žižek in this pamphlet addresses the lockdown with a 'told ...more

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May 08, 2020 Mike Robbins rated it really liked it

Shelves: politics, pandemic

Right now I am sitting in the middle of Manhattan, which is kind of a stupid place to be during this epidemic. Five weeks in, daily deaths have dropped to only 500+ (from a peak near 800 a week or so ago). But the city is oddly silent. In normal times, there is a hum of traffic from nearby Seventh Avenue; now theres nothing, save for the odd siren. Ten minutes ago an ambulance drew up outside my brownstone just north of Central Park, and the crew wheeled a gurney into the block opposite. Theyve ...more

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Apr 11, 2020 João rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy, politics, criticism, economics, slovenian-literature

First thoughts of Žižek on Covid-19 have been now organized in a very short book, together with some excerpts of letters/discussions with friends. Žižek as usual diverges a lot into interesting anecdotes (not always that relevant), crazy paradoxes of the state of affairs and how they relate with major philosophical trends, and the never-missing recommendations of movies and books to better understand the cultural context of particular topics. The main argument, however, is about the need of a ...more

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Apr 23, 2020 Anthony Zamora rated it it was amazing

I read this in a single day and was fortunate enough to get it for free (as one of the first 10,000 orders). It serves as a nice reminder that great minds such as Zizek are living and writing through this quarantine along with us. With far less provocations and obscure references than that of most earlier works, this reads incredibly easy.

If the reader is not a Zizekian neophyte, then they will be very familiar with most of the concepts Zizek addresses in this understandably brief work with the ...more

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Apr 20, 2020 Faris Abdala rated it really liked it

I am not an expert in economy or political theory so I won't pretend that I understand everything in this book. I also probably am not the best person to review this.

Having said that, I think this book raises some good points about our current situation. The 'normal' after this pandemic ends will not be the same normal as we experienced before.

He mentioned about reduced consumerism, I agree with that. In this situation, I feel that living only with the bare necessities is not bad at all. Of ...more

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May 08, 2020 Gertjan rated it really liked it

The main takeaway of this little pamflet-like book is summed up on page 39: maybe another and much more beneficient ideological virus will spread and hopefully infect us: the virus of thinking of an alternate society, a society beyond the nation-state, a society that actualizes itself in the forms of global solidarity and cooperation, also known as communism. Zizek lays bare the contradictions of capitalism that are getting more and more acutely obvious and demand a fight for a socially just ...more

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Apr 15, 2020 نوفل عبدالله rated it really liked it

Reacting to the threat posed by the coronavirus outbreak, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately offered help and coordination to the Palestinian authoritynot out of goodness and human consideration, but for the simple fact that it is impossible to separate Jews and Palestinians thereif one group is affected, the other will inevitably also suffer. This is the reality which we should translate into politicsnow is the time to drop the America (or whoever else) First motto. As Martin ...more

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Apr 12, 2020 Benjamin Britton rated it it was amazing

Touch me not, according to John 20:17, is what Jesus said to Mary Magdalene when she recognized him after his resurrection. How do I, an avowed Christian atheist, understand these words?

Today, however, in the midst of the coronavirus epidemic, we are all bombarded precisely by calls not to touch others but to isolate ourselves, to maintain a proper corporeal distance

it is only from within that we can approach one anotherand the window onto within is our eyes

Is not the miracle of love that you ...more

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Apr 13, 2020 michal k-c rated it it was ok

like a bot was force fed every Žižek book and then programmed to write. Youre better off reading Living in the End Times, where he employs the same five stage analogy but much more thoroughly. ...more

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Apr 14, 2020 Fattah Fathun Karim rated it really liked it

From among the world's most prominent contemporary intellectuals, slavoj zizek came out to be the first one to publish a book on the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic. The 128 page lightread is essentially a collection of the author's personal observations regarding the whole situation along with some discussions on how the world would organize it's post-pandemic social structures influenced by the lessons the the pandemic will leave behind.

To summarize the whole book, zizek's core proposition is that From among the world's most prominent contemporary intellectuals, slavoj zizek came out to be the first one to publish a book on the ongoing Covid-19 Pandemic. The 128 page lightread is essentially a collection of the author's personal observations regarding the whole situation along with some discussions on how the world would organize it's post-pandemic social structures influenced by the lessons the the pandemic will leave behind.

To summarize the whole book, zizek's core proposition is that the world might move towards a modified communist society in near future, not like the Chines one or North korean one if the leaders seriously take notes and learns from the loopholes of standard radical free market economic system that is the current societal standard of today. This proposition of his has been ridiculed by many of his peers but he provides a thorough, descriptive analysis for his position throughout this book of his. Firstly, he told, we are all in the same boat, the virus is diplomatic, attacking people from all social class. Thus, all classes are at stake here. Without a sense of mutual cooperation eliminating the threat of the virus, or curbing out the death toll, the economical damage is anything but possible. This virus showed us everything is possible, even those which previously were unthinkable. That Boris Johnson would temporarily nationalise british railways, could be only imagined in dreams. That the US government would grant a 1200 Dollar paycheck for millions of americans were unthinkable for an administration which hates socialist policies to its core. Not just him, other countries are rationing its people who are locked down in quarantine, spain also considered a basic paycheck for all of its inhabitants. It also eased off medical access and showed the world that a universal health care system is possible which americans long denied to be practical. Countries are collaborating each without the agenda of business of any sort but with a common goal to solve a problem. Countries like Britain, UK, France are bypassing Sanctions on Iran to send in Medical Aids for fighting the pandemic. People are coming together to help fellow people without the aim of any personal profit but sheer volunteering, companies loosening their paywalls like many different online course providers etc. only prove that a large scale collaborative system is possible, no matter how much opposition libertarian politicians or think tanks put forth.

Zizek shows that a lack of trust is what accelerates a pandemic even further. A lack of trust in government or in authoritative agencies. In an authoritarian state this wouldn't be possible for they are controlled with an iron sword, but in a liberal world that is a very much difficult task to do. Which is why numbers of infected patients skyrocketed in countries like US, UK, Italy, Spain etc. In an environment of a pandemic, people should learn to trust higher authorities and other governing bodies in order to come under a common standpoint. Since the virus spreads through community transmissions, it's eradication depends on community solidarity too. Rebellion may be useful in other times, but in times of pandemic suppressing them would the utmost form of social contribution.

Zizek has also pointed out some other things like the refugee crisis, xenophobia and the politics surrounding them. He took the European Refugee Crisis for example. He coins a phrase Putogan to explain the whole scenario. Putogan is a satiric word-fusion of Putin and Erdogan, both of whom Zizek despises like rats (not sure about hating rats though). Putogan effect is actually a proxy effect. Russia and Turkey both want to contain power over the oil pipelines on their close proximities with syria. For which they funded many fraction groups and aided them with arms and militaries. He desires them to be hanged under international courts, since the putogan dynamic is what caused other European Countries share the burden of refugee influx, a problem which Putogan created and kept sustained. Adding to that, the pandemic's effect, the physical effect and the economic effect, would make the situation thrice devastating than what the pandemic alone could cause. Racism would become rampant, since refugees live in clustered communities, unhealthy environments which would help the virus to mass contaminate. This will drive the far right activists to pressurize the govt. to throw them out of their borders, to release the burden of their countries. Such catastrophical future awaits Europe, zizek says.

Zizek is also cynic about the future, he tells that when governments or authorities attach fake hopes, bleak possibilities, with an announcement of a emergency crisis, it only confuses people, deviates them from the right path and makes them devalue the state of crisis. Everybody should be properly and rightfully informed of the whole situation because the actions of the people would be the consequences of the govt. and media reports. This is why zizek asked to stop lingering around fake hopes and to acknowledge the fact nothing will ever become normal again. Adding to that, we need to be prepared and think how to tackle and overcome that state of abnormality that is to be followed.

Overall put, zizek calls for a global solidarity. Between governments, officials, and the people of the states. Cooperative measures, volunteering to minimize the crisis effects, and keeping a watch on unauthorized disinformation that may trigger communities to take wrong decisions or allow internal dividation to occur. He seems to have consciously or subconsciously propounded he ideas of mutual aid, sth anarchist philosophers hold dear to, but he never counted out the necessity of a governing body instead proposed to trust them better at times of pandemics.

Stand in solidarity everyone, stay aware of fake news, false hopes, disinformation, adopt mutual aid philosophy and accept the fact that things won't ever turn normal again. But stil, life goes on ...more

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Apr 19, 2020 Dario rated it really liked it

Shelves: loved-it, non-fiction, e-book, philosophy, covid-19, free

In my opinion, Zizek has not just written the first great piece of literature about the coronavirus pandemic, but also the first one worth coming back to in the future; regardless of how long the pandemic will last for, and how much more is going to change within our daily lives.

His writing style is of course not like the one you would find on an airport paperback thriller, but there are a lot of theories, examples and situations on here, that any reader should be able to recognise and apply to ...more

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Apr 13, 2020 Supriyo Chaudhuri rated it really liked it

A great, short and somewhat optimistic reflection about the Pandemic. Like Zizek's other books, this is an entertaining and yet closely argued, erudite but engaging. It is full of surprising claims backed by insightful arguments. I am not sure what to make of the central claim, that COVID19 will usher in Communism, and that Communism is already here. It's well known that the right-wingers have expropriated and deployed leftist ideas over and over again at the times of social crisis, and yet, ...more

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Apr 21, 2020 Bishal Baruah rated it really liked it

This book came out in the midst of the pandemic, and so it was interesting to read. Very short, but even in less words, it manages to transpose some observations of the present situation with the new system of world that may come out to be. The vision is mostly about 'solidarity' as many are talking about and that everything is now possible. Accepting reality as it is is always a good attitute with a slight drop of adventurism and madness.

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Apr 11, 2020 Andy rated it it was amazing

That last chapter is brilliance!
To focus on what is truly rendered unreal by the pandemic.

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Apr 10, 2020 Ietrio rated it did not like it

Shelves: junk

The preacher from the East is back to tell you that Marx is god and Lenin is his messenger.

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Apr 15, 2020 Yvonne added it

'Many dystopias already imagine a similar future: we stay at home, work on our computers, communicate through videoconferences, exercise on a machine in the corner of our home office, occasionally masturbate in front of a screen displaying hardcore sex, and get food by delivery, never seeing other human beings in person.'

While the Real is trying to sink in with my daily reality I read this book. It is written in great haste, and it feels more like reading the notes for an article than reading a ...more

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May 04, 2020 Ahmad Noureddine rated it liked it

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I find a hard time figuring out how our lives after Covid-19 will look like. What will happen to the global economy/market or to our health care system (the funny thing is that we don't have a domestic health care system that covers full population in Lebanon so why worry about it😂)?
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The first point that Zizek brings up in his book is the importance of free speech. It is really relevant in the case of China because as we all know the Chinese authorities detained doctor Li Wenliang for warning .
I find a hard time figuring out how our lives after Covid-19 will look like. What will happen to the global economy/market or to our health care system (the funny thing is that we don't have a domestic health care system that covers full population in Lebanon so why worry about it😂)?
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The first point that Zizek brings up in his book is the importance of free speech. It is really relevant in the case of China because as we all know the Chinese authorities detained doctor Li Wenliang for warning his fellow doctors about the epidemic that hit China and turned into a global pandemic. Restraints on free speech will maybe lead to further global pandemics if totalitarian states remain in this policy, silencing any criticising voice and only approving what make officials in high ranks satisfied and happy, will only result in more crises that we could avoid with reason.
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Zizek also warns from the decline of nations into barbarism, proposing a new world order to safe humanity, mainly a new version of communism, this version stress on the importance of running and orienting the private sector by the state to combat new crisis in the future, this is reasonable especially in shifting the production to make more masks or ventilators instead of luxury cars, but one problem with this theory is the principle of comprehensive cooperation between states, governments, and organizations. This is impossible in my opinion, we can't ignore right-wing rhetoric of closing borders or xenophobia in the Arab World. In times of fear and economical recessions, people will only turn to what will provide them with means to drain their anger on, like pseudo-scientific information that put the blame on refugees in Lebanon, or on religious minorities in India.
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We are heading into a dark tunnel with no possible way out or any light in our reach to guide us. Zizek answered himself in the introduction when quoted Hegel who said, "The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history." Any optimistic view or theory is needed but I doubt that we will make a progress in the coming years.
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يشتمل هذا الكتاب على آراء ورؤية سلاڤوي جيجيك حول الإتجاه الذي سيذهب نحوه العالم، فهو أوّلًا يلوم السلطات الصينية على قمعها للحريات التي يراها ضرورية والتي كانت ستحول دون انتشار ڤيروس كورونا لولا تعاملها الغير منطقي مع الطبيب لي وينليانغ الذي حذّر من انشار ڤيروس جديد في الصين. السلطات الصينية تجاهلت تحذيراته وقامت باعتقاله ليموت لاحقًا باحدى المستشفيات بسبب الڤيروس، والنتيجة كما نراها جميعًا ملايين الإصابات ومئات آلاف الضحايا.
يرسم جيجيك النظام العالمي الجديد الذي يجب اتباعه، وهو نوعٌ من الشيوعية التي تتحكم بالإنتاج والسوق، وأعطى أمثلة منها إصدار ترمب لقرار يُلزم بوضع القطاع الخاص تحت إدارة القطاع العام، وتأميم سكك الحديد في بريطانيا... لكن مكمن الخلل في طرحه هو تفاؤله بحصول نوع من التعاون بين الدول والحكومات والمنظمات الدولية، كلّنا رأينا كيف فرض ترمب عقوبات جديدة على إيران لمنعها من الحصول على المعدات الطبية اللازمة، لا يمكن وصف هكذا قرار إلّا بالهمجي والإجرامي، أو وضعه لرئيس ڤانزويلا على قائمة الإرهاب، وأخيرًا إستياءه من إستعانة بعض الدول كقطر لأطباء كوبيين للمساعدة في إنهاء هذا الوباء ولا يدل هذا إلّا على أنّنا مستمرّون في العيش تحت أنظمة برغماتية تسعى للإستفادة من مصائب غيرها لتحقيق مكاسب سياسية. بالنتيجة لا أمل في التعاون خصوصا في ظل هكذا نظام عالمي. ...more

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May 01, 2020 Oakley Merideth rated it it was ok

Shelves: φιλοσοφία

When it comes to Žižek's slim "popular" volumes the high-water mark is either First As Tragedy, Then As Farce (a brilliant dual analysis of 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis that elucidates some profound links between both catastrophes) or Event (a shockingly user-friendly text on an incredibly abstract and amorphous topic that I think could also double as a great personal "intro to philosophy" text for anyone). And then there is quite a bit which is far more middling and frankly expected like When it comes to Žižek's slim "popular" volumes the high-water mark is either First As Tragedy, Then As Farce (a brilliant dual analysis of 9/11 and the 2008 financial crisis that elucidates some profound links between both catastrophes) or Event (a shockingly user-friendly text on an incredibly abstract and amorphous topic that I think could also double as a great personal "intro to philosophy" text for anyone). And then there is quite a bit which is far more middling and frankly expected like Trouble in Paradise or The Year of Living Dangerously. Pandemic! definitely fits this latter category. Now, I think it is to Žižek's credit that he is committed to producing these short volumes in response to real-world occurrences but Pandemic! grievously and repeatedly commits the Slovenian thinker's original sin: self-plagiarism. Years ago Žižek was racked over the coals by an especially paradoxical coalition of soft chicken shit Slate-esque liberals and hardcore white-nationalist jag-offs because he (*gasp*) improperly cited a "learned" screed from a "race-realist" while making a point about ideological positioning. Suddenly the worst of PC Left and Nazi Right had a point of attack! Of course the charge was absurd and it's nearly forgotten now...but...Žižek really does engage in intense plagiarism of his own works. Anyone like me who muddled through (and more than likely mis-read) his larger and more complex volumes such The Sublime Object of Ideology, Tarrying with the Negative, The Parallax View, and Absolute Recoil is familiar with Žižek modus operandi of essentially lifting not merely ideas but anecdotes, examples, and even phrases from one work to another. In some way this is a very GOOD thing as many of Žižek's weightier tomes are responding to one another and it supremely aids the reader when he intentionally steals from himself and re-presents (and represents) the pilfered goods in the packaging of a new (and therefore, challenging) thesis. In fact one of Žižek's greatest books (slim but very weighty) is nothing BUT self-plagiarism, his literal Joke book (curated by the good people at MIT). However, with Pandemic! if you are an avid Žižek fanatic (like myself) and have read any of his popular articles/columns of the last three months you have already read this entire books. Compound this with his heavy Youtube presence and you have already HEARD this book. There is pretty much no major detail, example, anecdote, insight, or position displayed within the pages of this work which were not already available to anyone who hounds and haunts the output of the Giant of Ljubljana. Additionally, the excessive amount of "design" (numerous black pages demarcating sections between incredibly short chapters are endemic in the EPUB version I just finished) poorly masks this shortcoming. In sum-if you are totally unfamiliar with Žižek and his style this would be an ok first book, but by no means the best point of entry whereas if you are familiar with him than there is, as Solomon's teacher intoned, "nothing new under the sun." ...more

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Apr 12, 2020 Duarte rated it liked it

Shelves: good, philosophy, politics, slovene-literature

A very short little book about the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the world in 2020 by everyone's favorite contemporary Marxist sociologist/psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek.

It's a great piece of criticism: We go through what is actually necessary, a "communism" which is not what Marx (or even Zizek a decade or so ago, more on that on a while ) said, based on global cooperation, solidarity and deflection of market mechanisms when need be. This is actually closer to the definition of "communism" A very short little book about the COVID-19 pandemic that has ravaged the world in 2020 by everyone's favorite contemporary Marxist sociologist/psychoanalyst Slavoj Zizek.

It's a great piece of criticism: We go through what is actually necessary, a "communism" which is not what Marx (or even Zizek a decade or so ago, more on that on a while ) said, based on global cooperation, solidarity and deflection of market mechanisms when need be. This is actually closer to the definition of "communism" than what is normally meant by "socialism" (a word that means nothing), as it involves production for use as well as expropriation of business property should it be needed to provide for basic needs.

Critique of ideology is again present, as in how "ideological viruses" spread and how it led to idiotic responses to COVID-19, the one I despise the most being the "apolitical technocrat" approach - "let us put politics aside and just engage in global solidarity with each other" - No, we are facing radical decisions right now, now is the time for politics more than ever and to deny this is not just cowardly, it is outright idiotic.

My biggest problem with the book is that Zizek's "communism" is not communism at all, meaning, a self-organized working class abolishing classes and commodity production, instead producing for direct use (rather than profit). What Zizek suggests, while I wouldn't oppose it as a measure, would ultimately just be a different capitalism, a more efficient capitalism, even, no matter what the bourgeois idiots would think about having their business property occasionally temporarily expropriated by the State to meed basic human needs.

The book, largely due to its short length, also misses on a lot of possible insights - while a lot of people may appreciate Zizek's lack of hard Lacanian-Hegelian-Marxist analysis, that sort of analysis is precisely why I fell in love with the man's work. While this is great cultural critique, it could come from a lot of other people - the usual strengths of Zizek are not really on display here.

His charm, however, still gets through. A particular passage gets me:

We should not be afraid to note some potentially beneficial side effect of the epidemic. One of the lasting symbols of the epidemic is passengers trapped in quarantine on large cruise ships. Good riddance to the obscenity of such ships say I, though we have to be careful that travel to lone islands or other resorts will not once again become the exclusive privilege of the rich few, as it was decades ago with flying. Amusement parks are turning into ghost towns—perfect, I cannot imagine a more boring and stupid place than Disneyland. Car production is seriously affected—good, this may compel us to think about alternatives to our obsession with individual vehicles. The list can go on.

Overall, it's a good book and it can be read so quickly that there's no real reason to, but it's not super insightful, specially for Zizek. ...more

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Apr 27, 2020 Mihail rated it liked it

Shelves: philosophy-and-behaviour

As Martin Luther King put it more than half a century ago: We may have all come on different ships, but were in the same boat now.

A well-written book/essay on behalf of the actual lockdown, criticizing the capitalist market, the transcience of the rich as an ever exploiting "burnout society", presented with "a short resume of Byung-Chul Hans masterpiece of the same name, shamelessly but gratefully lifted from Wikipedia: Driven by the demand to persevere and not to fail, as well as by the As Martin Luther King put it more than half a century ago: “We may have all come on different ships, but we’re in the same boat now.”

A well-written book/essay on behalf of the actual lockdown, criticizing the capitalist market, the transcience of the rich as an ever exploiting "burnout society", presented with "a short resume of Byung-Chul Han’s masterpiece of the same name, shamelessly but gratefully lifted from Wikipedia: Driven by the demand to persevere and not to fail, as well as by the ambition of efficiency, we become committers and sacrificers at the same time and enter a swirl of demarcation, self-exploitation and collapse. When production is immaterial, 1. Byung-Chul Han, The Burnout Society, Redwood City: Stanford UP 2015. PANDEMIC! 20 everyone already owns the means of produc-tion him- or herself. The neoliberal system is no longer a class system in the proper sense. It does not consist of classes that display mutual antago-nism. This is what accounts for the system’s sta-bility.” Han argues that subjects become self-ex-ploiters: “Today, everyone is an auto-exploiting labourer in his or her own enterprise. People are now master and slave in one. Even class strug-gle has transformed into an inner struggle against oneself.” The individual has become what Han calls “the achievement-subject”; the individual does not believe they are subjugated “subjects” but rather “projects: Always refashioning and reinventing ourselves” which “amounts to a form of compulsion and constraint—indeed, to a more efficient kind of subjectivation and subjugation. As a project deeming itself free of external and alien limitations, the I is now subjugating itself to internal limitations and self-constraints, which are taking the form of compulsive achievement and optimization.2 "

The main point of the Zizek's analysis consists of the fact that we are dealing with a crisis, an imediate option to be made between some kind of reinvented Communism (to which we see: universal form of basic income, several moves as Uk's mobilization of 400 000 young volunteers, overtime working and implication in the medical and policital status quo, local comunities for taking care of the weak and old) and the ever extending barbarism (to which we have the Donald Trump's actual politics, ''three wise men" Italy medical criteria, and not least, the China's doctoring data so it shows senior officials what they want to see, to be viewed in Zhejiang province).

A worth reading book, at these times, for those who have interest in the Zizek's opinions and generally on the created outbreak with its potential outcome. ...more

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Apr 13, 2020 Rick Harrington rated it it was amazing

Shelves: china, america

This is more of a pamphlet, really, than a book. But if you want to get a handle on what this pandemic means, this is the best that there is. Žižek is brilliant, as usual, but much more readable than he sometimes is.

I don't guess he's terribly widely read. I wonder how it is that he has developed such a fine voice in English. He is not shy about exposing his awkward spoken voice. In writing, I am quite sure that I have no voice. I wonder if that is in relation to my native laziness. Native This is more of a pamphlet, really, than a book. But if you want to get a handle on what this pandemic means, this is the best that there is. Žižek is brilliant, as usual, but much more readable than he sometimes is.

I don't guess he's terribly widely read. I wonder how it is that he has developed such a fine voice in English. He is not shy about exposing his awkward spoken voice. In writing, I am quite sure that I have no voice. I wonder if that is in relation to my native laziness. Native laziness is deadly now.

Well, if I can't be so brilliant as Žižek is, at least I can quibble. I think he's wrong that the Chinese don't trust their government. The bulk of the Chinese population surely does, even while they too might quibble with the published numbers.

If the intellectual and cosmopolitan Chinese don't trust their government - and plenty of them have good reason not to - and if they aren't entirely self-serving, which plenty of them certainly are - even they must find the arc of Chinese history turning inevitably toward democracy. There is plenty of recent history to show this.

Chinese leadership is just glad that we fulfil all their propagandistic fantasies about the U.S. - us. Even the propagators of Chinese propaganda never quite believed what they were wanting their people to believe. But the propaganda is working now inside of China, even while no one expected it to become so true.

Second quibble, I can't tell what he means when he says:

. . . we should resist the temptation to treat the ongoing epidemic as something that has a deeper meaning: the cruel but just punishment of humanity for the ruthless exploitation of other forms of life on earth. If we search for such a hidden message, we remain premodern: we treat our universe as a partner in communication.

I take Bruno Latour's word for it, that 'we have never been modern.' That makes postmodern a sham as well, though I feel less certain on that score. But I can't tell if Žižek is being ironic, or if he's just focused on the word "punishment."

His call for a new communism is surely meant more as salvation than retribution. But it's still "premodern" of us to think that we deserve to survive at all. Who but the universe would be our partner in that communication? The proof of the communication being in its conclusion.

Anyhow (whatever?) there is more sense here than in a zillion other words. You go Žižek! ...more

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Apr 21, 2020 Zack rated it did not like it

This was, without a doubt, one of the most vapid things I've ever read, written in a tone of remarkable arrogance and an intensely upsetting lack of respect for reality. Basically, this book should never have been written; a book of its sort could maybe be appropriate in a year or two, but the timeline of production for books puts the writing of this one at the beginning of 2020 at best, such that Zizek writes with an understanding of the COVID situation that is embarrassingly out of date right This was, without a doubt, one of the most vapid things I've ever read, written in a tone of remarkable arrogance and an intensely upsetting lack of respect for reality. Basically, this book should never have been written; a book of its sort could maybe be appropriate in a year or two, but the timeline of production for books puts the writing of this one at the beginning of 2020 at best, such that Zizek writes with an understanding of the COVID situation that is embarrassingly out of date right from the start, and makes him sound like a platitude-spewing oaf who just drastically undercuts the political, economic, social, cultural, and spiritual reality of the virus-ridden world. What he offers in these pages is some basic diagnosis of the conspiracies, politics, and shortcomings of how people will react to the developing COVID situation, but all of his theories end up coming across as limp and reticent in both their scope and utility. He can perhaps be forgiven not anticipating the incredibly rapid development of the multiplicity of dumb conspiracy theories around the situation, but at the same time, Zizek positions himself as almost a pop prophet of cultural studies and so his lack of foresight here is fairly blatant; additionally, it all just begs the question of why the book was written in the first place. The argument that is made for Communism of a certain sort is fine, I suppose, but as it is developed in conjunction with a total lack of respect for the eventual size of the crisis it just comes across as a self-serving political rant that ends up making Zizek looking dumber than any of the leaders he critiques. This book also features some of the most insipid pop culture references I've ever experienced, adding absolutely zero value to the discussion other than to show how the author is "hip" or something, which may also be the reason that he feels comfortable citing random personal blogs and Wikipedia pages rather than engaging anything substantive to argue with. All around a dumb, useless book. Thank goodness it's short. ...more

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Apr 14, 2020 Noah rated it it was ok

Zizek has so many shameless hot takes on the crisis that I ultimately connect with, like the idea that some good things can come out of a crisis like this including the hault of consumerism. I ultimately agree with his argument that the COVID-19 crisis demands the need for a new form of communism, one characterized by international cooperation and exchange of necessary resources. However, I was disappointed by his strong anti-China stance. He argues that China's government does not trust its ...more

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Apr 17, 2020 Andrija rated it it was ok

More than an effort to provide the momentary reaction to the Covid-19 pandemic in the form of a book this is not. It is unlikely that someone who has read at least one book written by Žižek in the last ten years will have something to take from this one. However, the news is that even Žižek who has been alongside Alain Badiou one of the last proponents of "the communist hypothesis" has significantly modified his claims, although he still appeals to the mantra that radical change is needed. What ...more

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