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simpulacra's review against another edition
4.0
Big fan of Zizek, and this is a great contribution to the broader themes of his work.
thomasgoddard's review against another edition
5.0
This work was so thought-provoking and refreshing that I just encourage you to pick it up.
Here Žižek explores the idea of the event. An occurrence that shatters everyday life. Something that cannot be predicted because it miraculously develops into more than the sum of its parts. It is the name we give to the moment where a recognisable alteration to reality occurs.
He spins ideas from various pop culture examples. Examining the topic from multiple angles, but it was politically that he sounded a bell within me.
'Perhaps we should begin by effectively renouncing the myth of a Great Awakening - the moment when, if not the old working class, then a new alliance of the dispossessed, multitude or whatever, will gather its forces and master a decisive intervention. We should return to Hegel here: a dialectical process begins with some affirmative idea towards which it strives. However, in the course of this striving, the idea itself undergoes a profound transformation (not just a tactical accommodation, but an essential redefinition), because the idea itself is caught up in the process, (over) determined by its actualization. Say we have a revolt motivated by a request for justice: once people get really engaged in it, they become aware that much more is needed to bring true justice than just the limited requests with which they started (to repeal some laws, etc.). What happens in such moments is a reframing of the universal dimension itself, the imposing of a new universality.'
What can we say, except... Shit. Maybe this explains why we've had multiple abortive attempts at change with various movements in recent history... Occupy, #MeToo, Anonymous, BLM...
I could write forever on this but I would only be howling at the air, again.
Read this. I'll be moving on to Heaven in Disorder.
whogivesabook's review against another edition
5.0
This work was so thought-provoking and refreshing that I just encourage you to pick it up.
Here Žižek explores the idea of the event. An occurrence that shatters everyday life. Something that cannot be predicted because it miraculously develops into more than the sum of its parts. It is the name we give to the moment where a recognisable alteration to reality occurs.
He spins ideas from various pop culture examples. Examining the topic from multiple angles, but it was politically that he sounded a bell within me.
'Perhaps we should begin by effectively renouncing the myth of a Great Awakening - the moment when, if not the old working class, then a new alliance of the dispossessed, multitude or whatever, will gather its forces and master a decisive intervention. We should return to Hegel here: a dialectical process begins with some affirmative idea towards which it strives. However, in the course of this striving, the idea itself undergoes a profound transformation (not just a tactical accommodation, but an essential redefinition), because the idea itself is caught up in the process, (over) determined by its actualization. Say we have a revolt motivated by a request for justice: once people get really engaged in it, they become aware that much more is needed to bring true justice than just the limited requests with which they started (to repeal some laws, etc.). What happens in such moments is a reframing of the universal dimension itself, the imposing of a new universality.'
What can we say, except... Shit. Maybe this explains why we've had multiple abortive attempts at change with various movements in recent history... Occupy, #MeToo, Anonymous, BLM...
I could write forever on this but I would only be howling at the air, again.
Read this. I'll be moving on to Heaven in Disorder.
the_zach_who_reads's review against another edition
3.0
a fun trounce about a concept. zizek writes always with hilarity and fluidity.
ninjalawyer's review against another edition
3.0
I received this book as a Christmas gift, and had never encountered Zizek before. Reading up on him made me really interested in digging into this.
Unfortunately, the book ended up reminding me of driving behind a particularly scatterbrained friend.
At first he starts out driving in a straightforward way, carefully following the rules of the road and being considerate of the fact that you're trying to follow. Then, without warning, he veers off and accelerates randomly, forcing you to really pay attention to keep up. You start to get annoyed as he does this again and again, and you become more and more sure that the route he's following, while sometimes pretty, has almost nothing to do with the destination. A few more seemingly random turns later, he pulls over in a scenic neighborhood, gets out of his car and heads into a French cinema. You follow, hoping for some explanation, but all he does is tell you about the show and quote some woo woo from his favourite philosopher, Hegel.
The drive continues like this, with frequent stops at random movies or operas or for rants against Buddhism or capitalism, and generally seems to go on forever. Sometimes it feels like Zizek is trying his best to lose you, and at other times he's creeping along or driving in lazy circles and you're begging him to get on with it. Eventually though, mercifully, the trip ends when you arrive about a block from where you started.
The above probably makes it sound like I hated the book, but the weird thing is that I often enjoyed. While Zizek's writing was often an annoying stream of consciousness, it did sometimes present very interesting ideas. The problem was that there are so many ideas that momentarily catch Zizek's attention, the interesting ones are lost in the crush and his treatment of them comes off as shallow. This is made worse by the fact that Zizek sometimes writes in a way that pointlessly obscures the idea he's trying to communicate. I don't know if I've ever expereinced a book before that had me loving it one moment and then rolling my eyes the next.
Ultimately, I really can't recommend this book. I left with the feeling that, had Zizek edited out the pointless asides and quotes from Hegel and Lacan, and maybe rewrote some sections for basic clarity, this book would have ended up as a short and moderately interesting article. Maybe someone with more familiarity with Zizek's other works, or the works of Hegel, Lacan or Marx, would get more out of this.
Unfortunately, the book ended up reminding me of driving behind a particularly scatterbrained friend.
At first he starts out driving in a straightforward way, carefully following the rules of the road and being considerate of the fact that you're trying to follow. Then, without warning, he veers off and accelerates randomly, forcing you to really pay attention to keep up. You start to get annoyed as he does this again and again, and you become more and more sure that the route he's following, while sometimes pretty, has almost nothing to do with the destination. A few more seemingly random turns later, he pulls over in a scenic neighborhood, gets out of his car and heads into a French cinema. You follow, hoping for some explanation, but all he does is tell you about the show and quote some woo woo from his favourite philosopher, Hegel.
The drive continues like this, with frequent stops at random movies or operas or for rants against Buddhism or capitalism, and generally seems to go on forever. Sometimes it feels like Zizek is trying his best to lose you, and at other times he's creeping along or driving in lazy circles and you're begging him to get on with it. Eventually though, mercifully, the trip ends when you arrive about a block from where you started.
The above probably makes it sound like I hated the book, but the weird thing is that I often enjoyed. While Zizek's writing was often an annoying stream of consciousness, it did sometimes present very interesting ideas. The problem was that there are so many ideas that momentarily catch Zizek's attention, the interesting ones are lost in the crush and his treatment of them comes off as shallow. This is made worse by the fact that Zizek sometimes writes in a way that pointlessly obscures the idea he's trying to communicate. I don't know if I've ever expereinced a book before that had me loving it one moment and then rolling my eyes the next.
Ultimately, I really can't recommend this book. I left with the feeling that, had Zizek edited out the pointless asides and quotes from Hegel and Lacan, and maybe rewrote some sections for basic clarity, this book would have ended up as a short and moderately interesting article. Maybe someone with more familiarity with Zizek's other works, or the works of Hegel, Lacan or Marx, would get more out of this.