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Maverick philosopher Slavoj Zizek returns to explore today's ideological, political and economic battles—and asks whether radical change is possible In these troubled times, even the most pessimistic diagnosis of our future ends with an uplifting hint that things might not be as bad as all that, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Yet, argues Slavoj Zizek, it is only when we have admitted to ourselves that our situation is completely hopeless—that the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact the headlight of a train—that fundamental change can be brought about. Surveying the various challenges in the world today, from mass migration and geopolitical tensions to terrorism, the explosion of rightist populism and the emergence of new radical politics—all of which, in their own way, express the impasses of global capitalism—Zizek explores whether there still remains the possibility for genuine change. Today, he proposes, the only true question is,or should be, this: do we endorse the predominant acceptance of capitalism as fact of human nature, or does today's capitalism contain strong enough antagonisms to prevent its infinite reproduction? Can we, he asks, move beyond the failure of socialism, and beyond the current wave of populist rage, and initiate radical change before the train hits? “Zizek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation” —The New Yorker
Whom do you tell? Who would have believed it? Sometimes you see a priest, pastor, or imam being led off in handcuffs because he molested children, having been found fornicating and committing adultery, while his superiors are concerned with the church’s image or the mosque’s reputation and have a nonchalant attitude towards the victims crying out for help. It wouldn’t be funny to see the chief executive officer of one of the world’s biggest corporations being sentenced to life imprisonment for embezzlement, leaving millions of employees without their jobs, their homes, or their life savings. What about politicians who sell their votes for personal gain, betraying the trust of the masses and callously disregarding the needs of those they promised to care for? They are stealing in the name of a party platform. I wouldn’t be surprised to see nurses, doctors, managers, and supervisors from hospitals, nursing homes, care agencies, and residential homes being sentenced to life imprisonment, turning mad, and becoming killers of mental health patients because of injustices, bad treatment, and mischievousness. How much do managers give to those in positions below them, maltreating them for no reason? The managers refuse to train the junior employees because the former don’t want the latter to attain a managerial level. How interesting it will be to hear that every story we read in the newspapers today is as a result of phone hacking. We think we are reading nice stories, but some people’s personal information has been leaked in a way that hurts them and their precious families. This happens all over the world. Then it is reported in the world news as if it were good news. What about police? They are harbouring criminals and collecting bribes to pervert the course of justice, refusing to do certain investigations. Doctors are not left out. Millions of patients trust doctors to heal them, but then the doctors turn into assassins. What about civil servants working in the government? They promised to do the job, but they are not doing it. Hey, my friend, what about the teachers who are to teach and instil knowledge in young people so they can become good leaders in future? They eventually turn into businessmen and businesswomen, refusing to let their students pass their examinations, following young women around and harassing them, deceiving them with the little money they get to feed their families at home because they want to see their knickers! One of the most lucrative fields in the world to work in today is the travel industry, but it has been polluted beyond a doubt. To secure a booking or get a ticket to travel abroad to the country of your choice for holiday, you might end up paying extra fares or paying through the back door. Oh, dear God, have mercy; I know you are watching our movements! People are killing in the name of religion, which is another escalating news story. Around the world today, we can see a lots of groups with different names springing up, such as ISIS, Boko Haram, and al-Qaeda. These and many others think they are seeking the face of the almighty God, but this is a lie. They are committing crimes—killing, stealing, kidnapping—in the name of God. God hasn’t sent you to kill but to love one another and bring the lost soul to his marvellous life!
The world's leading scientific thinkers explore bold, remarkable, perilous ideas that could change our lives—for better . . . or for worse . . . From Copernicus to Darwin, to current-day thinkers, scientists have always promoted theories and unveiled discoveries that challenge everything society holds dear; ideas with both positive and dire consequences. Many thoughts that resonate today are dangerous not because they are assumed to be false, but because they might turn out to be true. What do the world's leading scientists and thinkers consider to be their most dangerous idea? Through the leading online forum Edge (www.edge.org), the call went out, and this compelling and easily digestible volume collects the answers. From using medication to permanently alter our personalities to contemplating a universe in which we are utterly alone, to the idea that the universe might be fundamentally inexplicable, What Is Your Dangerous Idea? takes an unflinching look at the daring, breathtaking, sometimes terrifying thoughts that could forever alter our world and the way we live in it. Contributors include Daniel C. Dennett • Jared Diamond • Brian Greene • Matt Ridley • Howard Gardner and Freeman Dyson, among others
Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and demise of the Soviet Union, prominent Western thinkers began to suggest that liberal democracy had triumphed decisively on the world stage. Having banished fascism in World War II, liberalism had now buried communism, and the result would be an end of major ideological conflicts, as liberal norms and institutions spread to every corner of the globe. With the Brexit vote in Great Britain, the resurgence of right-wing populist parties across the European continent, and the surprising ascent of Donald Trump to the American presidency, such hopes have begun to seem hopelessly naïve. The far right is back, and serious rethinking is in order. In Dangerous Minds, Ronald Beiner traces the deepest philosophical roots of such right-wing ideologues as Richard Spencer, Aleksandr Dugin, and Steve Bannon to the writings of Nietzsche and Heidegger—and specifically to the aspects of their thought that express revulsion for the liberal-democratic view of life. Beiner contends that Nietzsche's hatred and critique of bourgeois, egalitarian societies has engendered new disciples on the populist right who threaten to overturn the modern liberal consensus. Heidegger, no less than Nietzsche, thoroughly rejected the moral and political values that arose during the Enlightenment and came to power in the wake of the French Revolution. Understanding Heideggerian dissatisfaction with modernity, and how it functions as a philosophical magnet for those most profoundly alienated from the reigning liberal-democratic order, Beiner argues, will give us insight into the recent and unexpected return of the far right. Beiner does not deny that Nietzsche and Heidegger are important thinkers; nor does he seek to expel them from the history of philosophy. But he does advocate that we rigorously engage with their influential thought in light of current events—and he suggests that we place their severe critique of modern liberal ideals at the center of this engagement.
There should no longer be any doubt: global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis. But if the end of capitalism seems to many like the end of the world, how is it possible for Western society to face up to the end times? In a major new analysis of our global situation, Zizek argues that our collective responses to economic Armageddon correspond to the stages of grief: ideological denial, explosions of anger and attempts at bargaining, followed by depression and withdrawal. For this edition, Zizek has written a long afterword that leaves almost no subject untouched, from WikiLeaks to the nature of the Chinese Communist Party.
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From the tragedy of 9/11 to the farce of the financial meltdown.
One of the most famous living philosophers provides a philosophical analysis of the meaning of events in this “deeply interesting and provocative” book (The Guardian) An event can be an occurrence that shatters ordinary life, a radical political rupture, a transformation of reality, a religious belief, the rise of a new art form, or an intense experience such as falling in love. Taking us on a trip that stops at different definitions of event, Žižek addresses fundamental questions such as: are all things connected? How much are we agents of our own fates? Which conditions must be met for us to perceive something as really existing? In a world that’s constantly changing, is anything new really happening? Drawing on references from Plato to arthouse cinema, the Big Bang to Buddhism, Event is a journey into philosophy at its most exciting and elementary.
What do Socrates, Hypatia, Giordano Bruno, Thomas More, and Jan Patocka have in common? First, they were all faced one day with the most difficult of choices: stay faithful to your ideas and die or renounce them and stay alive. Second, they all chose to die. Their spectacular deaths have become not only an integral part of their biographies, but are also inseparable from their work. A "death for ideas" is a piece of philosophical work in its own right; Socrates may have never written a line, but his death is one of the greatest philosophical best-sellers of all time. Dying for Ideas explores the limit-situation in which philosophers find themselves when the only means of persuasion they can use is their own dying bodies and the public spectacle of their death. The book tells the story of the philosopher's encounter with death as seen from several angles: the tradition of philosophy as an art of living; the body as the site of self-transcending; death as a classical philosophical topic; taming death and self-fashioning; finally, the philosophers' scapegoating and their live performance of a martyr's death, followed by apotheosis and disappearance into myth. While rooted in the history of philosophy, Dying for Ideas is an exercise in breaking disciplinary boundaries. This is a book about Socrates and Heidegger, but also about Gandhi's "fasting unto death" and self-immolation; about Girard and Passolini, and self-fashioning and the art of the essay.
Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Zizek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in the world.