As Trump, Bannon, Assange & Oprah make headlines: The Empire Strikes Back

As Trump, Bannon, Assange & Oprah make headlines- The Empire Strikes Back

The global elite will use any means necessary to prevent the economic radicalization of the left. So “MeToo” and smears distract while tax evasion has become legitimate. Three widely reported recent events sum up our current sad predicament: the open conflict between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon, Oprah Winfrey’s speech at the Golden Globe awards,… Continue reading As Trump, Bannon, Assange & Oprah make headlines: The Empire Strikes Back

Reply to My Critics, Part Two (re: The Sexual is Political)

Reply to My Critics, Part Two (re: The Sexual is Political)

Two general observations about my numerous critics seem pertinent to me. First, the large majority of attacks on my text follow the rules of the tweet culture with short snaps, retorts, sarcastic or outraged remarks, and with no space for the multiple steps of a line of argumentation. One passage (a sentence, or even a… Continue reading Reply to My Critics, Part Two (re: The Sexual is Political)

A Reply to My Critics (re: The Sexual is Political)

A Reply to My Critics (re: The Sexual is Political)

Lately I am getting used to attacks that not only render my position in a totally wrong way but also practice slander pure and simple, so that, at this level, any minimally rational debate becomes meaningless. Among many examples, suffice it to mention Hamid Dabashi, who begins his book Can Non-Europeans Think? with: “‘Fuck you,… Continue reading A Reply to My Critics (re: The Sexual is Political)

Slavoj Zizek: Am I a Philosopher?

International Zizek Studies Conference

[Delivered at International Žižek Studies Conference on May 27th 2016. Download .pdf] In his perspicuous review of the volume [amazon asin=0822358913&text=Repeating Žižek], dedicated to my work, Jamil Khader notes how some contributors interrogate “Žižek’s credentials as a philosopher, especially in relation to Badiou’s critique of Lacan’s anti-philosophical position. Hamza points out, in fact, that philosophers who… Continue reading Slavoj Zizek: Am I a Philosopher?

The Sublime Object of Ideology (Preface)

The Sublime Object of Ideology

The Idea’s Constipation? When a discipline is in crisis, attempts are made to change or supplement its theses within the terms of its basic framework – a procedure one might call ‘Ptolemization’ (since when data poured in which clashed with Ptolemy’s earth-centred astronomy, his partisans introduced additional complications to account for the anomalies). But the… Continue reading The Sublime Object of Ideology (Preface)

The Need to Traverse the Fantasy

The Need to Traverse the Fantasy

Adam Kotsko, a professor of humanities at Shimer College in Chicago, in an email to me, provided the best characterization of the reactions to my latest text on the refugees and Paris attacks: I notice that the responses always seem to be a referendum on you, almost a Rorschach test for what people think of… Continue reading The Need to Traverse the Fantasy

Slavoj Žižek Responds to His Critics

If I am repelled by John Gray’s review of my two last books (“The Violent Visions of Slavoj Žižek,” New York Review of Books, 12 July 2012), it is not because the review is highly critical of my work, but because its arguments are based on such a crude misreading of my position that, if I were… Continue reading Slavoj Žižek Responds to His Critics

Not Less Than Nothing, But Simply Nothing

If I am repelled by John Gray’s review of my two last books (‘The Violent Visions of Slavoj Žižek’, New York Review of Books, July 12 2012), it is not because the review is highly critical of my work, but because its arguments are based on such a crude misreading of my position that, if I were… Continue reading Not Less Than Nothing, But Simply Nothing

Hegel versus Heidegger

Hegel versus Heidegger

One of the standard critiques of Hegel, first formulated already by the “young Hegelians,” concerns the apparent contradiction between Hegel’s dialectical method and his system. While Hegel’s method approaches reality in its dynamic development, discerning in every determinate form the seeds of its own destruction and self-overcoming, his system endeavors to render the totality of… Continue reading Hegel versus Heidegger