Less Than Nothing [Hardcover]

This is a warning: once you open this book and start to read, it is almost impossible to close it. There are great balls of fire jumping out every time you turn a page. Since the book contains 1038 pages, some of them must be read carefully, it may disrupt your plans, not just for the evening, but for the following days. What is especially provoking and enlightening is the way Zizek is positioning not just Hegel, but also Marx, in a Christian tradition. By turning Christianity upside down, and defining it as an atheist religion, he is able to make sense of the myths in a new and surprising way. And at the same time it suddenly is possible to see the links between Christianity, Marxism, and the Communism of Eastern Europe in a new way. His interpretation of Hegel is to me as a sociologist new and refreshing. Zizek not just defends Hegel in an admirable way, he clarifies the deep contemporary relevance of Hegel and his version of dialectical materialism in a way which demands attention, not just among philosophers, but also among sociologists trying to make sense of our contemporary political economy. In a work with this scope, it goes without saying, there are also ideas and sections which demands further work and discussion. My critical comment (after 500 pages) is the way Marx political economy is treated. Seen from the point of departure of Hegel, it is justified with a main emphasis on Capital Volume 2, on circulation, and the relation to modern financial capitalism, which are our time-travelers, borrowing money from the future, and destroying it. According to my opinion, Marx analysis of technology, which is crucial to the ways in which humans relate to nature, deserves more attention. What appears to be a financial crisis is also, perhaps primarily, related to the ways in which technological paradigms destabilize the global economy and creates technological unemployment. A related issue is the missing debate on neo-classical economic theory, the phenomenological economy of Shutz and Löwe, and the classical debate between the old guard in the Frankfurter School and the Stalinist Marxists on the dialectics of nature.

Yes, I'm writing this the day that I received it. However, like no other book Zizek since Enjoy Your Symptom!: Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (Routledge Classics) Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture (October Books) have I felt such a sense of "worth it". While I pride myself on a solid background in German Idealism, and consider myself strongly aligned with Lacan, this book pushes beyond my expectations for insightfulness while retaining Zizek's typical style that includes passing references to cinema, jokes, and acknowledgement of the brilliance of other philosophers (no one does this better than Zizek... giving credit where credit is due). I'm sure admirers of Zizek have already purchased and received this, the same as I have, so I would be preaching to the choir in recommending this book, but to those who have circled around his ideas, are interested in Hegel, Lacan, Kant, Schelling, and Fichte (Fichte! who writes about my beloved Fichte these days?!?), this is worth the purchase. Updates to this review will follow.

Zizek undoubtedly is one the great philosophers of our time, but misses greatly on his misconception, or lack off, eastern philosophy fabulous depths of understanding on dialectic. It must be some provincialism, well stated by Sloterdijk, that Zizek brushes of so lightly buddhism for example calling it eastern mysticism, and confounds it with esoteric, new age, or as if it didn't have anything to give western, or philosophy in general. Because of this lack of understanding the book even though profound and complete misses many points that could be clarified by the many Indian, Tibetan and Chinese dialecticians. Just by looking only at R. Thurman's translation of the Central Philosophy of Tibet, for example, to see the richness, rigor and depth of eastern thought. Aside from this lack the book puts dialectics, polarity, back to the front of thought, and must agree with Zizek when he says that Hegel will be the philosopher of the 21st century.