| Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: 5 Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion Contributor(s): Zizek, Slavoj (Author) |
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ISBN: 1844677133 ISBN-13: 9781844677139 Publisher: Verso OUR PRICE: $28.45 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: August 2011 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Philosophy | Political - Political Science | Political Ideologies - Fascism & Totalitarianism - Political Science | Essays |
| Dewey: 320.53 |
| LCCN: 2013388175 |
| Series: Essential Zizek |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 5.1" W x 7.7" (0.80 lbs) 288 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: In some circles, a nod towards totalitarianism is enough to dismiss any critique of the status quo. Such is the insidiousness of the neo-liberal ideology, argues Slavoj Žižek. Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism? turns a specious rhetorical strategy on its head to identify a network of family resemblances between totalitarianism and modern liberal democracy. Žižek argues that totalitarianism is invariably defined in terms of four things: the Holocaust as the ultimate, diabolical evil; the Stalinist gulag as the alleged truth of the socialist revolutionary project; ethnic and religious fundamentalisms, which are to be fought through multiculturalist tolerance; and the deconstructionist idea that the ultimate root of totalitarianism is the ontological closure of thought. Žižek concludes that the devil lies not so much in the detail but in what enables the very designation totalitarian: the liberal-democratic consensus itself. |