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53 reviews for:
Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbors: Against the Double Blackmail
Slavoj Žižek
3.63 AVERAGE
53 reviews for:
Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbors: Against the Double Blackmail
Slavoj Žižek
3.63 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
Someone here says that it doesn’t read like a philosophical text but like a rant from a tipsy philosopher in a bar. Yeah, that might be true but I would love to have a tipsy discussion with a philosopher at a bar. Also this book doesn’t claim that it is scientifically. It‘s more of an essay but that doesn‘t make it less important.
Overall I liked the book. It gave me lot‘s to think about and a lot of impulses for my own opinions. I don‘t agree with everything. Zizek simplifies a lot, I don‘t understand the mention of Israel on a lot of pages and overall the examples he gave weren‘t fitting for a lot of things and seemed quite random.
My main criticism is that he writes about the lack of women‘s and queer rights as if it would be only a problem in islamic cultures. While I see differences in different countries and cultures, women and queers aren‘t free anywhere. The opression and the violence is just different there. Also there is a lot of othering going on: „we“ and „them“.
But all in all it‘s an important book. We need more leftist texts about this issue. I don‘t believe one book or one person can give universal answers, so this is just one piece to the whole picture.
Overall I liked the book. It gave me lot‘s to think about and a lot of impulses for my own opinions. I don‘t agree with everything. Zizek simplifies a lot, I don‘t understand the mention of Israel on a lot of pages and overall the examples he gave weren‘t fitting for a lot of things and seemed quite random.
My main criticism is that he writes about the lack of women‘s and queer rights as if it would be only a problem in islamic cultures. While I see differences in different countries and cultures, women and queers aren‘t free anywhere. The opression and the violence is just different there. Also there is a lot of othering going on: „we“ and „them“.
But all in all it‘s an important book. We need more leftist texts about this issue. I don‘t believe one book or one person can give universal answers, so this is just one piece to the whole picture.
Applied philosophy: What can be done about the seemingly insurmountable inflow of refugees to Europe? The refugees are only a symptom of global capitalism, which is proving unsustainable. I found many interesting ideas here, not least of which was that the idea of trying to better understand those who are different from us — whether they be the Other or the Neighbor or both — is not going to help us. Written before the horrible U.S. election of 2016, this short book/long essay does not consider the United States or its deep troubles, but as an American I could not help thinking of them all the while I was reading it. Those who are excluded from the fruits of global capitalism are never going to be included — not most of them, anyway. Žižek calls for a new approach, a new view. Not Marx's Communism but a sober acknowledgment that we are not all alike — we are not all the same — and we have to work with that, together.
Ensayo tajante, directo y preciso.
Mi copia en papel tiene mas marcadores que papel jajajja.
Hasta ese entonces no había relacionado la ensayista y el análisis social con temas tan actuales.
Mi copia en papel tiene mas marcadores que papel jajajja.
Hasta ese entonces no había relacionado la ensayista y el análisis social con temas tan actuales.
What?
Zizek is a great writer. He brings together a mishmash of anecdotes jokes, facts and stories interleaved with a perceptive psychoanalysis of the political state of mind. But in the fury and his fireworks the reader ought to stand back a moment and ask "what?" The crux of his thesis is that the response to the refugee crisis has been either racist fear of a leftist come one come all. His proposal is to organize it better. So essentially Zizek constructs a straw man. I've heard no one suggest that ALL refugees should be admitted unconditionally. And his radical solution sound like every single proposal from every political party that isn't antiimmigrant . So far, so Labour party. Or Merkel for that matter. Obviously none too pleased with his own lack of edge he rounds of his pamphlet with another call to communist arms which is not only dated by decades but also by minutes. When he claims Pussy Riot and Wikileaks are all part of the same struggle I can't help but think he must have been reading the news with one eye closed. If someone else wrote this tripe Zizek would have a field day tearing strips off it.
Zizek is a great writer. He brings together a mishmash of anecdotes jokes, facts and stories interleaved with a perceptive psychoanalysis of the political state of mind. But in the fury and his fireworks the reader ought to stand back a moment and ask "what?" The crux of his thesis is that the response to the refugee crisis has been either racist fear of a leftist come one come all. His proposal is to organize it better. So essentially Zizek constructs a straw man. I've heard no one suggest that ALL refugees should be admitted unconditionally. And his radical solution sound like every single proposal from every political party that isn't antiimmigrant . So far, so Labour party. Or Merkel for that matter. Obviously none too pleased with his own lack of edge he rounds of his pamphlet with another call to communist arms which is not only dated by decades but also by minutes. When he claims Pussy Riot and Wikileaks are all part of the same struggle I can't help but think he must have been reading the news with one eye closed. If someone else wrote this tripe Zizek would have a field day tearing strips off it.
He is a genius in seeing the reality as it is, not as we have been educated or culturally-conditioned to see it. It is refreshing to read a book that is unequivocally truthful and does not shy away from calling things aout. He connects different ideas, philosophical, political, strategic, sociological, economic into a coherent texture of life in the European Union. The ideas are presented without indulging, in a bit of a shorthand.
This book is essentially a Marxist/class-oriented look at refugee crises and the developed world's complicity in them. At the core of his thesis is the (well-founded) idea that Western Imperialism and economic globalization have led to these failed states. He describes some nations which were once independent and self-sufficient that became reliant on narrow exports, leading them to become dependent on a fickle global network and plunging many more into poverty (or worse).
Žižek describes what he calls "The Double Blackmail": either we let everybody in or we build up the walls and keep everybody out. He suggests that both sides are the wrong ones, and that the real (and just) solution is to create a world in which there are no refugee crises. He argues that, due to climate change and other factors, we are destined for a world in which mass migration is common, and we need to reorient our struggles around what we share: global solidarity of those exploited and lacking in freedoms. He states that the true dangers to European way of life are not Muslim refugees, but nationalistic populists; and states that both the populists and refugees should be educated to see their struggles as part of the same class struggle.
I didn't dislike this book, but it reads less like a philosophy text and more like a conversation with a tipsy philosopher in a bar. A lot of interesting insights and views, but it provides neither a very coherent argument (he suggests that liberals should stop pretending like we can get along with "neighbors" who are different and that we don't like, and yet his important solution is solidarity through class struggle), and it's a case-study in gratuitous name-dropping (which is one reason it's very short.) I also didn't feel that, as a Marxist critique, it had much to say that was particularly novel.
Žižek describes what he calls "The Double Blackmail": either we let everybody in or we build up the walls and keep everybody out. He suggests that both sides are the wrong ones, and that the real (and just) solution is to create a world in which there are no refugee crises. He argues that, due to climate change and other factors, we are destined for a world in which mass migration is common, and we need to reorient our struggles around what we share: global solidarity of those exploited and lacking in freedoms. He states that the true dangers to European way of life are not Muslim refugees, but nationalistic populists; and states that both the populists and refugees should be educated to see their struggles as part of the same class struggle.
I didn't dislike this book, but it reads less like a philosophy text and more like a conversation with a tipsy philosopher in a bar. A lot of interesting insights and views, but it provides neither a very coherent argument (he suggests that liberals should stop pretending like we can get along with "neighbors" who are different and that we don't like, and yet his important solution is solidarity through class struggle), and it's a case-study in gratuitous name-dropping (which is one reason it's very short.) I also didn't feel that, as a Marxist critique, it had much to say that was particularly novel.
an incredible oversimplification of culture wars and one-sided perspective on the refugee crisis which diminishes the effect of economic suppression on the global south. also no solutions just basic statements!!
informative
fast-paced
Very insightful read. Felt a bit short on solutions but as someone trying to learn more about what is currently happening in the world, it gave me a lot to think about. Do recommend.