Welcome to the Desert of the Real: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates - Couverture souple

Zizek, Slavoj

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1859844219 ISBN 13 : 9781859844212

Editeur : Verso, 2002

Synopsis

On September 11, the USA was given the opportunity to realize what kind of a world it was a part of. It might have taken this opportunity - but it did not; instead it opted to reassert its traditional ideological commitments: out with feelings of responsibility and guilt towards the impoverished Third World, we are the victims now! In the months following September 11, mainstream commentators bombarded us with histrionic claims that the event marked 'The End of the Age of Irony' or the conclusion to America's 'holiday from history'. Now, according to these pompous pundits, the time for playing games was over and the hour had struck to take sides in 'The War on Terrorism'. This temptation to choose one's camp is, Zizek argues, exactly the temptation to be resisted. For it is precisely when we are confronted with such apparently clear choices that the real alternatives to the situation are most obscured: in being asked to choose between 'democracy' and 'fundamentalism', is not the real problem one of democracy itself - as if the only alternative to 'fundamentalism' is the political system of liberal democracy? Welcome to the Desert of the Real takes a step back from the hype, hysteria and rhetoric, in order to problematise the options we are being offered. It proposes that global capitalism is fundamentalist and that America was complicit in the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. It points to our dreaming about the catastrophe in numerous disaster movies before it happened, and explores the irony that the tragedy has been used to legitimate torture. Last, but not least, Zizek analyses the fiasco of the predominant leftist response to the events.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

Liberals and conservatives proclaim the end of the American holiday from history. Now the easy games are over; one should take sides. Žižek argues this is precisely the temptation to be resisted. In such moments of apparently clear choices, the real alternatives are most hidden. Welcome to the Desert of the Real steps back, complicating the choices imposed on us. It proposes that global capitalism is fundamentalist and that America was complicit in the rise of Muslim fundamentalism. It points to our dreaming about the catastrophe in numerous disaster movies before it happened, and explores the irony that the tragedy has been used to legitimize torture. Last but not least it analyzes the fiasco of the predominant leftist response to the events.

Biographie de l'auteur :

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include Living in the End Times, First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, In Defense of Lost Causes, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and many more.

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Verso
• Date d'édition: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1859844219
• ISBN 13: 9781859844212
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 160