In Defense of Lost Causes

Resumen del libro

Acclaimed, adrenalin-fuelled manifesto for universal values by the most dangerous philosopher in the West

Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of an earlier age? In this combative major new work, philosophical sharpshooter Slavoj Zizek takes on the reigning ideology with a plea that we should re-appropriate several lost causes, and looks for the kernel of truth in the totalitarian politics of the past. Examining Heidegger's seduction by fascism and Foucault's flirtation with the Iranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the right steps in the wrong direction.

Highlighting the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the Bolsheviks, Zizek argues that while these struggles ended in historic failure and monstrosity, this is not the entire story. There was, in fact, a redemptive moment that gets lost in the outright liberal-democratic rejection of revolutionary authoritarianism and the valorization of soft, consensual, decentralized politics. Zizek claims that, particularly in light of the forthcoming ecological crisis, we should reinvent revolutionary terror and the dictatorship of the proletariat in the struggle for universal emancipation. We need to courageously accept the return to this cause even if we court the risk of a catastrophic disaster. In the words of Samuel Beckett, Try again. Fail again. Fail better.

Biografía del autor

Slavoj x{0026} x0017D;ix{0026} x0017E;ek (Liubliana, 1949), filósofo, sociólogo, psicoanalista y crítico cultural, es uno de los pensadores más innovadores y carismáticos de nuestro tiempo. Es investigador en el Instituto de Sociología de la Universidad de Liubliana (Eslovenia) y profesor en diversas universidades de Estados Unidos y Europa. Ha publicado decenas de libros, traducidos a varias lenguas, en los que integra el pensamiento de Jacques Lacan con el marxismo y vincula sus reflexiones teóricas con ejemplos de la cultura popular.