Slavoj iek and Srecko Horvat combine their critical clout to emphasize the dangers of ignoring Europe’s growing wealth gap and the parallel rise in right-wing nationalism, which is directly tied to the fallout from the ongoing financial crisis and its prescription of imposed austerity. To general observers, the European Union’s economic woes appear to be its greatest problem, but the real peril is an ongoing ideological–political crisis that threatens an era of instability and reactionary brutality.
The fall of communism in 1989 seemed to end the leftist program of universal emancipation. However, nearly a quarter of a century later, the European Union has failed to produce any coherent vision that can mobilize people to action. Until recently, the only ideology receptive to European workers has been the nationalist call to ‘defend’ against immigrant integration. Today, Europe is focused on regulating the development of capitalism and promoting a reactionary conception of its cultural heritage. Yet staying these courses, iek and Horvat show, only strips Europe of its power and stifles its political ingenuity. The best hope is for Europe to revive and defend its legacy of universal egalitarianism, which benefits all parties by preserving the promise of equal representation.
Tabella dei contenuti
Foreword: The Destruction of Greece as a Model for All of Europe: Is this the Future that Europe Deserves?, by Alexis Tsipras
Preface: What Does the U.S. Want, or What to Do After Occupy?, by Srećko Horvat
1. Breaking Our Eggs without the Omelette, from Cyprus to Greece, by Slavoj Žižek
2. Danke Deutschland!, by Srećko Horvat
3. When the Blind Are Leading the Blind, Democracy Is the Victim, by Slavoj Žižek
4. Why the EU Needs Croatia More than Croatia Needs the EU, by Srećko Horvat
5. What Does Europe Want?, by Slavoj Žižek
6. Are the Nazis Living on the Moon?, by Srećko Horvat
7. The Return of the Christian-conservative Revolution, by Slavoj Žižek
8. In the Land of Blood and Money: Angelina Jolie and the Balkans, by Srećko Horvat
9. The Turkish March, by Slavoj Žižek
10. War and Peace in Europe: ‘Bei den Sorglosen’, by Srećko Horvat
11. Save Us from the Saviours: Europe and the Greeks, by Slavoj Žižek
12. ‘I’m Not Racist, but . . . the Blacks are Coming!’, by Srećko Horvat
13. Shoplifters of the World Unite, by Slavoj Žižek
14. Do Markets Have Feelings?, by Srećko Horvat
15. The Courage to Cancel the Debt, by Slavoj Žižek
16. The Easiest Way to the Gulag Is to Joke About the Gulag, by Srećko Horvat
17. We Need a Margaret Thatcher of the Left, by Slavoj Žižek
18. Europe Will Be Either Democratic and Social or It Will No Longer Exist (interview by Srećko Horvat), by Alexis Tsipras
19. The Role of the European Left (debate), by Slavoj Žižek and Alexis Tsipras
Afterword: Europe Is Dead, Long Live Europe!, by Srećko Horvat
Notes
Circa l’autore
Slavoj Žižek (Ph D, Philosophy, Ljubljana) is Senior Researcher at the Institute for Sociology and Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London. An internationally renowned psychoanalytic philosopher, cultural critic, and Hegelian Marxist, he is the author of numerous books, including Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (Verso, 2012) and Absolute Recoil: Towards a New Foundation of Dialectical Materialism (Verso, 2014).