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International Dialogue

International Dialogue

Abstract

In this book, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight: Power in the Era of Post-Human Capitalism, Slavoj Žižek mulls over issues about technology and science in the contemporary world. This is a world which he thinks, plausibly, is dominated by global capitalism, a condition which he wishes to go beyond, to something better. The nature and distribution of power must be changed. Changes in the status of “humanity” and the notion of “post-humanity” concern him. One aspect of his difficult text is that he explores how post-humanity might symbolize, not solely our degraded condition. Rather, humanity and post-humanity (and fears and hopes about post-humanity), examined and understood together, might also help generate some constructive ideas about how to arrive at a better future. We argue in this essay that despite his lapses into pessimism, and his acknowledgment that an alternative normative vision has not been framed by the global left (including by himself), Žižek does offer some hints about alternatives, and emphasizes the importance of hope. The worst contemporary ideology, in his view, seeks to crush hope, but this can be opposed (211). Technology and science, he suggests, may to an extent be turned against the established order, partly by revolutionaries occupying the digital commons, partly by providing access to information, movies, and other cultural work that can stimulate revolutionary insights, etc. By these and other means, emancipatory democratization may find ways beyond our current horrors and absurdities. So Žižek apparently thinks.

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