Heaven in Disorder
“One of the most innovative and exciting contemporary thinkers of the left.”
— Times Literary Supplement“The thinker of choice for Europe's young intellectual vanguard.”
— Observer“Never ceases to dazzle.”
— Daily Telegraph“Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj Žižek.”
— New York Review of Books“A tour de force, a book that informs everyday lives in whole new ways.”
— Going Undergroundabout the book
As we emerge (though perhaps only temporarily) from the pandemic, other crises move center stage: outrageous inequality, climate disaster, desperate refugees, mounting tensions of a new cold war. The abiding motif of our time is relentless chaos.
Acknowledging the possibilities for new beginnings at such moments, Mao Zedong famously proclaimed “There is great disorder under heaven; the situation is excellent.” The contemporary relevance of Mao’s observation depends on whether today’s catastrophes can be a catalyst for progress or have passed over into something terrible and irretrievable. Perhaps the disorder is no longer under, but in heaven itself.
Characteristically rich in paradoxes and reversals that entertain as well as illuminate, Slavoj Žižek’s new book treats with equal analytical depth the lessons of Rammstein and Corbyn, Morales and Orwell, Lenin and Christ. It excavates universal truths from local political sites across Palestine and Chile, France and Kurdistan, and beyond.
Heaven In Disorder looks with fervid dispassion at the fracturing of the Left, the empty promises of liberal democracy, and the tepid compromises offered by the powerful. From the ashes of these failures, Žižek asserts the need for international solidarity, economic transformation, and—above all—an urgent, “wartime” communism.
“Surveying the world in a series of 36 lucid missives in an incisive book of just over 200 pages, Žižek finds hope and disappointment in equal measure.”
—Sean Sheehan
About The Author / Editor
Read An Excerpt
LIMITS OF DEMOCRACY
In the weeks before the 2020 US presidential elections, different forms of populist resistance were forming a unified field, as reported in the Guardian: “Armed militia groups are forging alliances in the final stages of the US presidential election with conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers who claim the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax, intensifying concerns that trouble could be brewing ahead of the election day. Leading advocates of anti-government and anti-science propaganda came together at the weekend, joined by the founder of one of the largest militia groups.”
Three dimensions are at work here: conspiracy theorists (like QAnon), Covid deniers, and violent militias. These dimensions are often inconsistent and relatively independent: there are conspiracy theorists who don’t deny the reality of the pandemic but see in it a (Chinese) plot to destroy the United States; and there are Covid deniers who don’t see a conspiracy behind the pandemic but just deny the seriousness of the threat (i.e. Agamben). But the three dimensions are now moving together: violent militias legitimize themselves as defenders of freedom which they see as threatened by a deep-state conspiracy against the re-election of Trump, and they see the pandemic as a key element of this conspiracy. In this view, for Trump to lose re-election would be the result of this conspiracy, which means that violent resistance to Trump’s loss is legitimate. On October 29, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former Vatican ambassador to the United States and outspoken adversary of Pope Francis, “made waves within the online world of QAnon after his open letter to President Trump was quoted in a post from the anonymous leader of the cult-like conspiracy movement. The letter hit many of the favorite themes of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, attacking their familiar villains from the ominous ‘global elite,’ to Bill Gates and the ‘mainstream media.’ ‘The fate of the whole world is being threatened by a global conspiracy against God and humanity,’ Viganò wrote, emphasizing the ‘epochal importance of the imminent election,’ casting Trump as ‘the final garrison against the world dictatorship.’”
The jump to violence is easy from such a standpoint. In October 2020, the FBI revealed that a right-wing militia group planned to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan from her house, taking her to a secure location in Wisconsin where she would undergo a kind of people’s “trial” for her “treason.” As a governor, she imposed tough restrictions to curb Covid-19 infections and, according to the militia group, thereby violated the freedoms guaranteed by the US constitution. Is this plan not reminiscent of the most famous political kidnapping in Europe? In 1978, a key figure of the Italian political establishment who evoked the possibility of the big coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Communist Party was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, put to a trial by a people’s court, and shot dead . . .
Angela Nagle was right in arguing that the new populist Right is taking over procedures that were decades ago clearly identified as belonging to extreme Left “terrorist” groups. This, of course, in no way implies that the two “extremes” somehow coincide—we don’t have a stable Center symmetrically flanked by the two extremes. The basic antagonism is the one between the establishment and the Left, and the rightist violent “extremism” is a panicky reaction triggered when the Center is threatened. This became clear in the last presidential debate when Trump accused Biden of backing “Medicare for All,” saying “Biden agreed with Sanders,” to which Biden replied: “I beat Bernie Sanders.” The message of this reply was clear: Biden is Trump with a human face—in spite of their opposition they share the same enemy. This is liberal opportunism at its worst: renounce the Left “extremists” out of fear of scaring the center.
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Related Interest
Related Interest
Heaven in Disorder
“One of the most innovative and exciting contemporary thinkers of the left.”
— Times Literary Supplement“The thinker of choice for Europe's young intellectual vanguard.”
— Observer“Never ceases to dazzle.”
— Daily Telegraph“Few thinkers illustrate the contradictions of contemporary capitalism better than Slavoj Žižek.”
— New York Review of Books“A tour de force, a book that informs everyday lives in whole new ways.”
— Going Undergroundabout the book
As we emerge (though perhaps only temporarily) from the pandemic, other crises move center stage: outrageous inequality, climate disaster, desperate refugees, mounting tensions of a new cold war. The abiding motif of our time is relentless chaos.
Acknowledging the possibilities for new beginnings at such moments, Mao Zedong famously proclaimed “There is great disorder under heaven; the situation is excellent.” The contemporary relevance of Mao’s observation depends on whether today’s catastrophes can be a catalyst for progress or have passed over into something terrible and irretrievable. Perhaps the disorder is no longer under, but in heaven itself.
Characteristically rich in paradoxes and reversals that entertain as well as illuminate, Slavoj Žižek’s new book treats with equal analytical depth the lessons of Rammstein and Corbyn, Morales and Orwell, Lenin and Christ. It excavates universal truths from local political sites across Palestine and Chile, France and Kurdistan, and beyond.
Heaven In Disorder looks with fervid dispassion at the fracturing of the Left, the empty promises of liberal democracy, and the tepid compromises offered by the powerful. From the ashes of these failures, Žižek asserts the need for international solidarity, economic transformation, and—above all—an urgent, “wartime” communism.
“Surveying the world in a series of 36 lucid missives in an incisive book of just over 200 pages, Žižek finds hope and disappointment in equal measure.”
—Sean Sheehan
About The Author / Editor
Read An Excerpt
LIMITS OF DEMOCRACY
In the weeks before the 2020 US presidential elections, different forms of populist resistance were forming a unified field, as reported in the Guardian: “Armed militia groups are forging alliances in the final stages of the US presidential election with conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers who claim the coronavirus pandemic is a hoax, intensifying concerns that trouble could be brewing ahead of the election day. Leading advocates of anti-government and anti-science propaganda came together at the weekend, joined by the founder of one of the largest militia groups.”
Three dimensions are at work here: conspiracy theorists (like QAnon), Covid deniers, and violent militias. These dimensions are often inconsistent and relatively independent: there are conspiracy theorists who don’t deny the reality of the pandemic but see in it a (Chinese) plot to destroy the United States; and there are Covid deniers who don’t see a conspiracy behind the pandemic but just deny the seriousness of the threat (i.e. Agamben). But the three dimensions are now moving together: violent militias legitimize themselves as defenders of freedom which they see as threatened by a deep-state conspiracy against the re-election of Trump, and they see the pandemic as a key element of this conspiracy. In this view, for Trump to lose re-election would be the result of this conspiracy, which means that violent resistance to Trump’s loss is legitimate. On October 29, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, a former Vatican ambassador to the United States and outspoken adversary of Pope Francis, “made waves within the online world of QAnon after his open letter to President Trump was quoted in a post from the anonymous leader of the cult-like conspiracy movement. The letter hit many of the favorite themes of the pro-Trump conspiracy theory, attacking their familiar villains from the ominous ‘global elite,’ to Bill Gates and the ‘mainstream media.’ ‘The fate of the whole world is being threatened by a global conspiracy against God and humanity,’ Viganò wrote, emphasizing the ‘epochal importance of the imminent election,’ casting Trump as ‘the final garrison against the world dictatorship.’”
The jump to violence is easy from such a standpoint. In October 2020, the FBI revealed that a right-wing militia group planned to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan from her house, taking her to a secure location in Wisconsin where she would undergo a kind of people’s “trial” for her “treason.” As a governor, she imposed tough restrictions to curb Covid-19 infections and, according to the militia group, thereby violated the freedoms guaranteed by the US constitution. Is this plan not reminiscent of the most famous political kidnapping in Europe? In 1978, a key figure of the Italian political establishment who evoked the possibility of the big coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Communist Party was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, put to a trial by a people’s court, and shot dead . . .
Angela Nagle was right in arguing that the new populist Right is taking over procedures that were decades ago clearly identified as belonging to extreme Left “terrorist” groups. This, of course, in no way implies that the two “extremes” somehow coincide—we don’t have a stable Center symmetrically flanked by the two extremes. The basic antagonism is the one between the establishment and the Left, and the rightist violent “extremism” is a panicky reaction triggered when the Center is threatened. This became clear in the last presidential debate when Trump accused Biden of backing “Medicare for All,” saying “Biden agreed with Sanders,” to which Biden replied: “I beat Bernie Sanders.” The message of this reply was clear: Biden is Trump with a human face—in spite of their opposition they share the same enemy. This is liberal opportunism at its worst: renounce the Left “extremists” out of fear of scaring the center.