Living Beyond the End Times: Living in the End Times

In Living in the End Times, Slavoj Žižek takes up themes many of which he has explored elsewhere in his numerous works embodied in varied media. This Slovenian origin cosmopolitan philosopher and cultural critic uses many types of outlets and modes of expression (books and scholarly journal articles, but also journalistic publications, TV interviews, appearances in documentary films, etc.) to explore variegated subject matter. He responds to politics in an age of increasing globalization by taking up a global range of issues, and responds to the multimedia environment which conveys ideology as false consciousness with his own multimedia works, possibly counter-ideological. He addresses, here and elsewhere, our complex (likely unsustainable and arguably largely illegitimate) global political economy, our cultural, (in his view too often objectionably multi-cultural) visions and fights, our often twisted and conflicted personal psychology. He does so here and elsewhere in ways worth far more (for their sparkling, sometimes witty, often disturbing insights) than any sober typically conformist academic treatise might do. This is so despite occasional unintelligible passages and some more serious philosophical lapses

The Pandemic, Environmentalism, and Re-Thinking Social and Political Philosophy: Pandemic 2: Chronicles of a Time Lost

In Pandemic!2-Chronicles of a Time Lost, Slavoj Žižek continues his discussions, written and performed in multiple media, of the pandemic that has severely afflicted the world for what seems so very long. And there are more trials coming, into the indefinite future, possibly, at worst, he imagines, terminated by a grand climate/ecological crisis and its consequences, which may, admittedly, end humanly experienced time altogether

Trouble in Paradise: Political Economy and Cultural Criticism: Trouble in Paradise: From the End of History to the End of Capitalism

Slavoj Žižek’s title Trouble in Paradise is also the name of a 1932 movie directed by Ernst Lubitsch, a movie which Žižek begins discussing as his first topic in his introduction. But the title obviously also reflects the notion that there is a difference between the superficial appearances of social life (often publically attractively depicted, with supporting justifications, sustaining collective illusions) and a time of deep societal troubles. Žižek says about his own title: “The ‘paradise’ in the title of this book refers to the End of History (as elaborated by Francis Fukuyama: liberal democratic capitalism as the finally found best possible social order), and the ‘trouble’ is, of course, the ongoing crisis that compelled even Fukuyama himself to drop his idea of the End of History” (7). This is a switching of perspectives between what we might call “cultural” interpretation and criticism and critical examination and advocacy about the more overt power systems of political economy. Such switching of perspectives, which we do not object to, but which we wish to emphasize, recurs throughout the book

Ethics of Mobility, Globalization, Political Economy, and Culture: Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbors: Against the Double Blackmail

Slavoj Žižek’s Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbors-Against the Double Blackmail is yet another book demonstrating Žižek’s ability to seize on major contemporary social phenomena and to bring to bear on a topic, with provocative results, his unusual combination of traits. He is very much a European educated by study and travel into an especially vivid awareness of the connections of Western Europe (and the UK), with Central and Eastern Europe (including his native Slovenia), and much of North America. He has an expansive sense of being European that includes a sense of special kinship with historical and contemporary cultural extensions of Western Europe. He has as well more distant but genuine sympathies with the oppressed in non-European-centered cultures

One Interpretation of the Current Pandemic Emphasizing Political Economy and Culture: PANDEMIC! COVID-19 Shakes the World

Slavoj Žižek’s “little book” (85) on the current global pandemic and its ramifications has been written and published very rapidly. Nonetheless, this is not a rush job by a notably prolific author. The book is an achievement well worth respect and detailed attention. It is part of the vast and increasingly manifold set of commentaries on the pandemic and its political economic and cultural implications. Žižek has produced a book linked in its origins with an early time in the pandemic. We can anticipate a much lengthier and as yet unpredictable unfolding of historical changes arising from the pandemic. Žižek nonetheless successfully expresses a perspective which will continue to matter as part of a bigger picture, even if it needs later correction and supplementation, or indeed possibly rejection. Reacting quickly to the pandemic has limitations but also benefits

Technology, Science, and “Post-Humanity”: Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism

In this book, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism, Slavoj Žižek mulls over issues about technology and science in the contemporary world. This is a world which he thinks, plausibly, is dominated by global capitalism, a condition which he wishes to go beyond, to something better. The nature and distribution of power must be changed. Changes in the status of “humanity” and the notion of “post-humanity” concern him. One aspect of his difficult text is that he explores how post-humanity might symbolize, not solely our degraded condition. Rather, humanity and post-humanity (and fears and hopes about post-humanity), examined and understood together, might also help generate some constructive ideas about how to arrive at a better future. We argue in this essay that despite his lapses into pessimism, and his acknowledgment that an alternative normative vision has not been framed by the global left (including by himself), Žižek does offer some hints about alternatives, and emphasizes the importance of hope. The worst contemporary ideology, in his view, seeks to crush hope, but this can be opposed (211). Technology and science, he suggests, may to an extent be turned against the established order, partly by revolutionaries occupying the digital commons, partly by providing access to information, movies, and other cultural work that can stimulate revolutionary insights, etc. By these and other means, emancipatory democratization may find ways beyond our current horrors and absurdities. So Žižek apparently thinks

Is There a Crisis of Sustainable Development?

This article argues that there is a crisis of sustainable development. Sustainable development may mean a value system, but also may mean a set of societal development processes, manifested in political economy and culture. One crisis of sustainable development in either meaning arises from a combination of elements under neoliberalism. We stress three. (1) Sustainable development includes complex demands about justice. These involve conflicts among neoliberal justice and rival more philosophically plausible concepts of justice. (2) Care for the environment (basic to sustainable development) is complex, and generates multiple sometimes, conflicting demands on decision-making. (3

Disorder in Heaven and on Earth: Heaven in Disorder Slavoj Žižek. OR Books, New York and London, 2021. pp. 240.

This essay examines three main aspects of Slavoj Žižek’s book. Beyond interpretation, we also aim for a constructive account of what novel insights might emerge from critically examining Žižek’s efforts in this book. (1) One aspect of his text is his continuing insistence on the goal of a newly re-conceived Communism, so named, e.g., in remarks about ecological threats (65) and in the concluding section, “Why I Am Still A Communist” (212; 218). Žižek’s goal is Communism, but supposedly not the authoritarian variety of communism that emerged in the twentieth century (213). In Žižek’s view, Communism must be invented to deal with contemporary problems attributable to global capitalism (2)

Review Essay: Enjoyment and Ideology Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide for the Non-Perplexed Slavoj Žižek. London: Bloomsbury Academic. 2022. pp. 400.

Slavoj Žižek’s Surplus-Enjoyment-A Guide for the Non-Perplexed is a difficult book. Reading it requires a different approach from what is usual with what seems to us more standardized philosophical or social scientific prose. Our approach initially at least no doubt assumes as our starting point a deploying of our shared norms, shaped by our backgrounds as U.S. based scholars aiming to advance dialogue with Žižek and some of the wide variety of authors with whom Žižek himself engages

Discrimination Reversal Learning in Capuchin Monkeys (Cebus apella)

Learning styles in capuchin monkeys were assessed with a computerized reversal- learning task called the mediationaJ paradigm. First, monkeys were trained to respond with 90% accuracy on a two-choice discrimination (A+B-). Then the authors examined differences in performance on three different types of reversal trials (A-B+, A-C+, B+C-), each of which offered differing predictions for performance, depending on whether the monkeys were using associative cues or rule-based strategies. Performance indicated that the monkeys mainly learned to avoid the B stimulus during training, as the A-C+ condition produced the best performance levels. Therefore, negative stimuli showed greater control over responding after reversal and reflected a more associative rather than rule-based form of learning