Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of IdeologyIn the space of barely more than five years, with the publication of four pathbreaking books, Slavoj Žižek has earned the reputation of being one of the most arresting, insightful, and scandalous thinkers in recent memory. Perhaps more than any other single author, his writings have constituted the most compelling evidence available for recognizing Jacques Lacan as the preemient philosopher of our time. In Tarrying with the Negative, Žižek challenges the contemporary critique of ideology, and in doing so opens the way for a new understanding of social conflict, particularly the recent outbursts of nationalism and ethnic struggle. Are we, Žižek asks, confined to a postmodern universe in which truth is reduced to the contingent effect of various discursive practices and where our subjectivity is dispersed through a multitude of ideological positions? No is his answer, and the way out is a return to philosophy. This revisit to German Idealism allows Žižek to recast the critique of ideology as a tool for disclosing the dynamic of our society, a crucial aspect of which is the debate over nationalism, particularly as it has developed in the Balkans—Žižek's home. He brings the debate over nationalism into the sphere of contemporary cultural politics, breaking the impasse centered on nationalisms simultaneously fascistic and anticolonial aspirations. Provocatively, Žižek argues that what drives nationalistic and ethnic antagonism is a collectively driven refusal of our own enjoyment. Using examples from popular culture and high theory to illuminate each other—opera, film noir, capitalist universalism, religious and ethnic fundamentalism—this work testifies to the fact that, far more radically than the postmodern sophists, Kant and Hegel are our contemporaries. |
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Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology Slavoj Zizek Limited preview - 1993 |
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absolute actual alien Amfortas antinomies appears apperception apropos attitude Blade Runner capitalism causal cogito conceived constitutive contingency critique crucial death Descartes desire dialectical diegetic difference domain Don Giovanni emerges empty encounter endeavor enjoyment entity ethical existence experience external fact fantasy feature fictions Fidelio film Fredric Jameson function fundamental gaze gesture Grail ground Hegel Hegelian identity ideology imaginary inherent insofar intersubjective intuition Jacques Lacan Jacques-Alain Miller jouissance Kant Kant's Kantian Lacanian logic Magic Flute Marx means mediation moral nature negation negative notion noumenal noumenon objet petit ontological opposite Other's paradox Parsifal pathological perceive phenomena philosophy positive possible precise sense pure radical Evil reality reason relationship retroactively reversal self-consciousness sexual signifier simply Slavoj Žižek social split status structure Sublime substance superego symbolic order symptom teleology thesis Thing Thing-in-itself tion traditional transcendental transcendental object true truth ultimate universe void Wagner whereas woman