Public Lecture by Slavoj Žižek
First as Tragedy, then as Farce: Economic Crisis and Ideology Critique Today
Date: Wednesday 3rd March 2010
Time: 19:00
Location: Julian Hodge Lecture Theatre, Column Drive, Cardiff, CF10 3EU
Organised by the Centre for Ideology Critique and Žižek Studies
In his recent analyses of the current global crisis, Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalyst Slavoj Žižek argues that the liberal idea of the end of history, declared by Francis Fukuyama in the 1990s, has had to die twice. After the collapse of the liberal-democratic political utopia, on the morning of 9/11, came the collapse of the economic utopia of global market capitalism at the end of 2008. Marx argued that history repeats itself occurring first as tragedy, the second time as farce. Žižek argues that the repetition as farce can be even more terrifying than the original tragedy. The financial meltdown signals that the fantasy of globalization is over and, as millions are put out of work, it has become impossible to ignore the irrationality of global capitalism. Just a few months before the crash, the world's priorities seemed to be global warming, access to medicine, food and water, tasks labelled as urgent but repeatedly postponed. Now, after the financial implosion, the urgent need to act seems to have become unconditional, with the result that undreamt of quantities of cash were immediately found and then poured into the financial sector without any regard for the old priorities. Do we need further proof, Žižek asks, that Capital is the Real of our lives: the Real whose demands are more absolute than even the most pressing problems of our natural and social world?
Further details: CentreforIdeologyCritique@cf.ac.uk
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