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We hear all the time that we're moments from doomsday. Around us,
crises interlock and escalate, threatening our collective survival:
Russia's invasion of Ukraine, with its rising risk of nuclear
warfare, is taking place against a backdrop of global warming,
ecological breakdown, and widespread social and economic unrest.
Protestors and politicians repeatedly call for action, but still we
continue to drift towards disaster. We need to do something. But
what if the only way for us to prevent catastrophe is to assume
that it has already happened-to accept that we're already five
minutes past zero hour? Too Late to Awaken sees Slavoj Žižek
forge a vital new space for a radical emancipatory politics that
could avert our course to self-destruction. He illuminates why the
liberal Left has so far failed to offer this alternative, and
exposes the insidious propagandism of the fascist Right, which has
appropriated and manipulated once-progressive ideas. Pithy, urgent,
gutting and witty, Žižek's diagnosis reveals our current
geopolitical nightmare in a startling new light, and shows how, in
order to change our future, we must first focus on changing the
past.
In a characteristically explosive barrage, Ljubljana’s most
famous philosopher takes a passionate stance on the war in Ukraine,
surveys the latest Hollywood blockbusters, and delivers detonations
into a range of contemporary issues, from sexual politics in India
to the prospects for a new Cold War. Ever attentive to
moments where the bizarre and the epic join forces, among the
questions Žižek considers here are: Is the giant orgy, planned to
take place in Ukraine in the event of a Russian nuclear attack,
really all that morbid? And what should society do, whether on the
big screen or the battlefield, in preparation for the end of the
world? Agree with him or not, Žižek rarely fails to provoke in a
productive fashion. By examining matters through a lens that is
bold and original, and often joyfully outlandish, Žižek helps us
to better grasp a world in which, increasingly, the dominant motif
is one of madness.
We are all afraid that new dangers pose a threat to our hard-won
freedoms, so what deserves attention is precisely the notion of
freedom. The concept of freedom is deceptively simple. We think we
understand it, but the moment we try and define it we encounter
contradictions. In this new philosophical exploration, Slavoj
Žižek argues that the experience of true, radical freedom is
transient and fragile. Countering the idea of libertarian
individualism, Žižek draws on philosophers Hegel, Kierkegaard and
Heidegger, as well as the work of Kandinsky and Agatha Christie to
examine the many facets of freedom and what we can learn from each
of them. Today, with the latest advances in digital control, our
social activity can be controlled and regulated to such a degree
that the liberal notion of a free individual becomes obsolete and
even meaningless. How will we be obliged to reinvent (or limit) the
contours of our freedom? Tracing its connection to everything from
capitalism and war to the state and environmental breakdown,
Žižek takes us on an illuminating and entertaining journey that
shows how a deeper understanding of freedom can offer hope in dark
times.
This is a varied collection of thought-provoking essays, bringing
together a number of viewpoints from around the globe and from
internationally reknowned academics.
Contemporary life is defined by excess. There must always be more,
there is never enough. We need a surplus to what we need to be able
to truly enjoy what we have. Slavoj Žižek’s guide to surplus
(and why it’s enjoyable) begins by arguing that what is surplus
to our needs is by its very nature unsubstantial and unnecessary.
But, perversely, without this surplus, we wouldn’t be able to
enjoy, what is substantial and necessary. Indeed, without the
surplus we wouldn’t be able to identify what was the perfect
amount. Is there any escape from the vicious cycle of surplus
enjoyment or are we forever doomed to simply want more? Engaging
with everything from The Joker film to pop songs and Thomas Aquinas
to the history of pandemics, Žižek argues that recognising the
society of enjoyment we live in for what it is can provide an
explanation for the political impasses in which we find ourselves
today. And if we begin, even a little bit, to recognise that the
nuggets of ‘enjoyment’ we find in excess are as flimsy and
futile, might we find a way out?
In Zizek's long-awaited magnum opus, he theorizes the "parallax
gap" in the ontological, the scientific, and the political-and
rehabilitates dialectical materialism. The Parallax View is Slavoj
Zizek's most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years;
Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be
defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a
change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the
"parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or
mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of
levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax,
Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism. Modes of
parallax can be seen in different domains of today's theory, from
the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the
unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of
the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The
Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses
on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the
ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the
scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal
experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches
its apogee in today's brain sciences (according to which "nobody is
home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat-a condition Zizek
calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the
political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common
ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers
interludes that deal with more specific topics-including an ethical
act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism. The Parallax
View not only expands Zizek's Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new
domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the
systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies
his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed
readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively
anecdotes and obscene jokes.
Recent philosophical reexaminations of sacred texts have focused
almost exclusively on the Christian New Testament, and Paul in
particular. "The Book of Job and the Immanent Genesis of
Transcendence "revives the enduring philosophical relevance and
political urgency of the book of Job and thus contributes to the
recent "turn toward religion" among philosophers such as Slavoj Zžk
and Alain Badiou. Job is often understood to be a trite folktale
about human limitation in the face of confounding and absolute
transcendence; on the contrary, Hankins demonstrates that Job is a
drama about the struggle to create a just and viable life in a
material world that is ontologically incomplete and consequently
open to radical, unpredictable transformation. Job's abiding legacy
for any future materialist theology becomes clear as Hankins
analyzes Job's dramatizations of a transcendence that is not
externally opposed to but that emerges from an ontologically
incomplete material world.
A militant Marxist atheist and a "Radical Orthodox" Christian
theologian square off on everything from the meaning of theology
and Christ to the war machine of corporate mafia. "What matters is
not so much that Zizek is endorsing a demythologized, disenchanted
Christianity without transcendence, as that he is offering in the
end (despite what he sometimes claims) a heterodox version of
Christian belief."-John Milbank "To put it even more bluntly, my
claim is that it is Milbank who is effectively guilty of
heterodoxy, ultimately of a regression to paganism: in my atheism,
I am more Christian than Milbank."-Slavoj Zizek In this corner,
philosopher Slavoj Zizek, a militant atheist who represents the
critical-materialist stance against religion's illusions; in the
other corner, "Radical Orthodox" theologian John Milbank, an
influential and provocative thinker who argues that theology is the
only foundation upon which knowledge, politics, and ethics can
stand. In The Monstrosity of Christ, Zizek and Milbank go head to
head for three rounds, employing an impressive arsenal of moves to
advance their positions and press their respective advantages. By
the closing bell, they have not only proven themselves worthy
adversaries, they have shown that faith and reason are not simply
and intractably opposed. Zizek has long been interested in the
emancipatory potential offered by Christian theology. And Milbank,
seeing global capitalism as the new century's greatest ethical
challenge, has pushed his own ontology in more political and
materialist directions. Their debate in The Monstrosity of Christ
concerns the future of religion, secularity, and political hope in
light of a monsterful event-God becoming human. For the first time
since Zizek's turn toward theology, we have a true debate between
an atheist and a theologian about the very meaning of theology,
Christ, the Church, the Holy Ghost, Universality, and the
foundations of logic. The result goes far beyond the popularized
atheist/theist point/counterpoint of recent books by Christopher
Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and others. Zizek begins, and Milbank
answers, countering dialectics with "paradox." The debate centers
on the nature of and relation between paradox and parallax, between
analogy and dialectics, between transcendent glory and liberation.
Slavoj Zizek is a philosopher and cultural critic. He has published
over thirty books, including Looking Awry, The Puppet and the
Dwarf, and The Parallax View (these three published by the MIT
Press). John Milbank is an influential Christian theologian and the
author of Theology and Social Theory: Beyond Secular Reason and
other books. Creston Davis, who conceived of this encounter,
studied under both Zizek and Milbank.
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