First As Tragedy, Then As Farce
Billions of dollars have been hastily poured into the global banking system in a frantic attempt at financial stabilization. So why has it not been possible to bring the same forces to bear in addressing world poverty and environmental crisis?
In this take-no-prisoners analysis, Slavoj Zizek frames the moral failures of the modern world in terms of the epoch-making events of the first decade of this century. What he finds is the old one-two punch of history: the jab of tragedy, the right hook of farce. In the attacks of 9/11 and the global credit crunch, liberalism dies twice: as a political doctrine and as an economic theory.
First as Tragedy, Then as Farce is a call for the Left to reinvent itself in the light of our desperate historical situation. The time for liberal, moralistic blackmail is over.
Paperback, 158 pages
ISBN: 9781844674282
October 2009
$14.95 / £7.99
Other Editions
Ebook
ISBN: 9781844674893
October 2009
$9.99
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Part of the Pocket Communism series
Reviews
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“Zizek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation.”
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“The Elvis of cultural theory.”
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“One of the most innovative and exciting contemporary thinkers of the left.”
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“Zizek is an influential thinker, and this short book offers an excellent entry into his thought.”
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“[A] great provocateur and an immensely suggestive and even dashing writer... Zizek writes with passion and an aphoristic energy that is spellbinding.”
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“The most dangerous philosopher in the West.”
Blog
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Smashing the Spinning Plates – Slavoj Žižek and Syriza
In a recent piece for In These Times Slavoj Žižek reflects on the outcome of the Greek elections on the 17th of June, analysing how Syriza, the radical left coalition, came close to smashing the entire set of the European Union’s crockery. Dismissing the EU’s austerity measures as nonsense, Žižek says:
So why does Brussels impose these plans? What matters in contemporary capitalism is that agents act upon their putative beliefs about future prospects, regardless of whether they really believe in those prospects. And, as we also all know, the true aim of these rescue measures is not to save Greece, but to save the European banks.
To illustrate the mistake of enacting austerity measures as the main strategy to combat the crisis, Paul Krugman often compares them to the medieval cure of blood-letting. That’s a nice metaphor that should be radicalized even further. The European financial doctors, who are themselves not sure about how the medicine works, are using the Greeks as test rabbits and letting their blood, not the blood of their own countries. There is no blood-letting for the great German and French banks—on the contrary, they are getting continuous and enormous transfusions.
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Communism, A New Beginning? conference now online
We're pleased to finally post video from our Communism, A New Beginning? conference from back in October in the debut of our incredibly novel YouTube page. It's an interesting look back to a weekend of what was the first month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street; around when Étienne Balibar spoke on "Communism as Commitment, Imagination, and Politics," peaceful protesters just uptown at Times Square were arrested and en route to Central Booking.
Here is a guide to the talks given at this conference:
DAY 1
Alain Badiou: Politics and State, Mass Movement and Terror (presented by Bruno Bosteels)
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Full Communism
There are Reds under the bed. Or in the academies. Or worse: about to spill into the streets. So warns Alan Johnson in World Affairs, the esteemed Washington-based international affairs journal. Tracing the rising profile of a group of authors such as Alain Badiou, Bruno Bosteels and Slavoj Žižek and the popularity of their books, the columnist outlines what he sees as a nascent threat lurking in the incendiary words of Terry Eagleton and Toni Negri.
Discussions
Begin a discussionOther books by Slavoj Žižek
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Contingency, Hegemony, Universality
by Judith Butler, Ernesto Laclau, et al. -
Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?
by Slavoj Žižek -
Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock)
Edited by Slavoj Žižek
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For They Know Not What They Do
by Slavoj Žižek -
The Fragile Absolute
by Slavoj Žižek -
The Idea of Communism
Edited by Costas Douzinas and Slavoj Žižek
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The Idea of Communism 2
Edited by Slavoj Žižek -
In Defense of Lost Causes
by Slavoj Žižek -
The Indivisible Remainder
by Slavoj Žižek
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Iraq
by Slavoj Žižek -
Lacan
Edited by Slavoj Žižek -
Less Than Nothing
by Slavoj Žižek
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Living in the End Times
by Slavoj Žižek -
Mapping Ideology
Edited by Slavoj Žižek -
The Metastases of Enjoyment
by Slavoj Žižek
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The Plague of Fantasies
by Slavoj Žižek -
Revolution at the Gates
by V. I. Lenin -
The Sublime Object of Ideology
by Slavoj Žižek
