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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 303
EAN num: 9780312427184
ISBN number: 0312427182
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 272
Printing Date: July 22, 2008
Publishing house: Picador
Release Date: July 22, 2008
Sale Popularity Level: 20876
Studio: Picador
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Philosopher, cultural critic, and agent provocateur Slavoj Žižek constructs a fascinating new framework to look at the forces of violence in our world.
Using history, philosophy, books, movies, Lacanian psychiatry, and jokes, Slavoj Žižek examines the ways we perceive and misperceive violence. Drawing from his unique cultural vision, Žižek brings new light to the Paris riots of 2005; he questions the permissiveness of violence in philanthropy; in daring terms, he reflects on the powerful image and determination of contemporary terrorists.
Violence, Žižek states, takes three forms--subjective (crime, terror), objective (racism, hate-speech, discrimination), and systemic (the catastrophic effects of economic and political systems)--and often one form of violence blunts our ability to see the others, raising complicated questions.
Does the advent of capitalism and, indeed, civilization cause more violence than it prevents? Is there violence in the simple idea of 'the neighbour'? And could the appropriate form of action against violence yesterday simply be to contemplate, to think?
Beginning with these and other equally contemplative questions, Žižek discusses the inherent violence of globalization, capitalism, fundamentalism, and language, in a work that will confirm his standing as one of our most erudite and incendiary modern thinkers.
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Rated by buyers 
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This "Big Ideas/Small Books" offering may repeat much of this Slovene philosopher's earlier critiques. As it's the very first work I've read by him, I depend on others to verify this. My review seeks to explain what earlier reviewers have not paid as much attention to: the contents rather than the mood. Zizek certainly tackles big ideas in this brief paperback, so its portability and relative concision may recommend it to those who, like me, had heard of this provocateur but hesitated to enter his dense, diffuse, albeit often entertaining debates.
Zizek's relevant: "The same philanthropists who give millions for AIDS or education in tolerance have ruined the lives of thousands through financial speculation and thus created the conditions for the rise of the very intolerance that is being fought." (37) He compares their guise as "liberal communists" (think Bill Gates or George Soros) to a dirty postcard that shows, if moved slightly, "the obscene figure" who's "at work beneath" the news of debt cancellation or the eradication of an epidemic. Global capitalists need to generate enormous wealth before they can distribute it to others. King Leopold and Andrew Carnegie-- and I might add the Bonos and Brangelinas, perhaps (oddly, Zizek does not name such celebrity counterparts, whom free trade's promoter Thomas Friedman labelled "super-empowered individuals" outside the nation-state or the "electronic herd" of corporate dominance)-- have more in common with today's Davos jetsetters and Hollywood trendsetters than we might have suspected.
On the surface, the "liberal communist" ten-point plan on pg. 18 sounds great; the "RED" campaign for Africa or wearing pink ribbons for breast cancer research or the Google slogan "do no evil" match these goals. So, what's Zizek's gripe with doing good while making a profit? Capitalism must thrive. This creates injustice.
The balance of wealth redistribution by dot.commers and rock stars may be cloaked in humanitarian liberties, but "it allows the capitalism system to postpone its crisis." No Marxist, but schooled as a former Yugoslav subject and ex-Party member/dissident, Zizek notes that while such liberal largess avoids "the destructive logic of resentment and enforced statist distribution of wealth which can only end in generalised misery," it also sidesteps the evils of concentrated affluence and power that keep the rich doling out handouts to the dependent poor.
As a Lacanian, what irritates Zizek? The gap between reality and the Real, the "inexorable 'abstract,' spectral logic of capital that determines what goes on in social reality." (13) An economist may report how an impoverished Third World nation keeps "financially sound" even as the poverty's apparent to any observer.
How do such criticisms of "liberal communism" fit into the book's larger subject of violence? It's a loose tailoring. Thematic stitches may not always be visible. He begins with defining three types of violence. First, there's subjective violence: the kind we can identify "performed by a clearly identifiable agent." (1) Behind this lurks a "symbolic" violence within language. It repeats the role that social domination plays in our habitual speech. For instance, "gold" when named as such means "we violently extract a metal from its natural texture, investing it with our dreams of wealth, power, spiritual purity, and so on, which have nothing to do with the immediate reality of gold." (61)
Third comes "systemic" violence, the "often catastrophic consequences of the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems." (2) The book in "six sideways glances" sidles around its impacts, allowing us to more dispassionately dissect the forms of violence, under critical control even as we peer towards its fearful emanations. The very first section investigates the "trap" of "liberal communism" that I have already opened. The second looks into alienation as a solution rather than a problem to the Western need to assert "the right not to be harassed," to keep one's distance from others who may threaten us by their demands to be recognized and respected. (41) This chapter's more difficult, but the gist of it-- which I verified when I studied this very passage yesterday on a crowded subway with my iPod plugged in-- asserts the advantage of European civilization: "the alienation of social life." (59) Rather than a failure, this opening up of a private zone in public allows us to obey rules mechanically, while insuring a proxemic space around us that preserves our inner world. This encourages peaceful coexistence in a multicultural realm.
Part Three confronts the eruption of violence, with the protests over the Danish caricatures of Muhammed and 2005's French banlieu riots. The urge to tear down not the enemy's camp, but to burn one's own Parisian neighborhood (even a mosque), Zizek explains as a need for those demeaned to be noticed ... Read More
Rated by buyers 
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Jacques Lacan points out an interesting split between the "subject of the enunciated" and the "subject of enunciation," that is to say, between the "I" of the stated and the "I" who is speaking. Because of this distance between statement and speaker, one can plainly make a objectively true statement but do so from the position of a liar thus tainting the true statement. Such is the case with all the criticisms of Zizek's new book, "Violence." True, he does conflate all sorts of violence; true, he repeats material; and true, you can find him delivering these essays in lecture form on the web. But such observations are false since those who speak them nonetheless occupy positions of envy and resentment. In other words, don't be fooled by the pretense of objectivity; the criticisms are subjective.
This new Zizek is a breath of fresh air. It contains six tightly wound up essays that reflect on the nature of violence. Zizek's underlying thesis is that violence takes on three forms: subjective, linguistic, and structural. Only the very first is readily visible. But the latter two are more devastating and damaging in their effects. One of the highlights of the book is his short (only a couple of paragraphs) commentary on Heidegger's notion that Being is founded in violence. I remember reading that and thinking to myself "Why violence?". Well, Zizek tells you why. Even the most devoted Zizek follower will find this book compelling. In it, he does a great job of following his theses to their conclusions, stating clearly where he stands, and building an argument throughout the six chapters. It seems to me that anyone moving from Parallax View to Lost Causes will want to take a stop with Violence. Truly for the most weathered Lacanian/Zizekian reader, "Violence" will feel like a very first encounter of the Slovenian kind.
Rated by buyers -
this punchy little book deserves to be taken or viewed progressively, as an enactment and reconcilation of his thought to time. one cannot easily systemitize his thought but and only- to use his comentary on lacan against him- take him against himself, zizek versus zizek. i think this can account for the other reviewers, duplicity... agreed this zizekian collection isnt his per usual uncompromising text-though he claims to the contrary- it would be tasteless without a foundational knowledge of zizek or the plenitude of referrents. this is accessable, i guess that's positive. to comment on the last review the equivalence made between clitoridectomy and western body-mod misses the point while simultaneously offering no alternative. the operative forced choice is precisely the point, liberalism can not possibly articulate its own unthought unfreedom. we have ran out of blue ink or is it...blue. i fail to make the joke. either way this title is recomended... to the reviewers or future reviewers i defy you to come up with a zizek book that is an island, which is to say does not contain implicit reference to his previous work. end.
Rated by buyers 
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Zizek is brilliant and reading the various arguments one can't help but be dazzled by their inventiveness and erudition. Then take a step back and you see he is equating the violence done to women who undergo ritual genital mutilation due to cultural pressures with the situation of affluent women in the West who feel cultural pressure to be beautiful and undergo Botox injections. That doesn't pass the laugh test. The author is too smart by half.
Rated by buyers 
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Substance: If you type in the chapter titles from the book into youtube, you'll find many lectures which more or less constitute the content of this book.
Material: the cover is its own dustjacket, it folds unto itself to provide pseudo cover flaps, the pages are unevenly cut in the "custom-bound" look that makes the page ends opposite the spine resemble a Richter Scale reading.
Content and Dimensions: At 128 pgs, the small book dimensions and the already available digital video resources available on the internet, Zizek's Violence does not have a great deal more to offer to either the neophyte or the acquainted student. Right for the price, but then again, not enough new to justify the monies of most whom are interested in Zizek's thought.
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