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Žižek, S. (2000) The Fragile Absolute, or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth
Fighting For, London and New York: Verso.
As Žižek himself confesses, it might seem strange for a Marxist to
defend the legacy of Christianity in an age which has seen the re-emer-
gence of obscurantist religious thought. However, part of the broad
remit of this compact book is an attempt to resuscitate the subversive
core of Christianity, the act of 'shooting at oneself' (or of radical nega-
tivity) which forms the centrepiece of Žižek's analysis of Schelling in
The Abyss of Freedom and of Descartes in Cogito and the Unconscious.
Proposing that the only way to liberate oneself from the grip of existing
social reality is to renounce the fantasmatic supplement that attaches
us to it, he cites any number of examples from Sethe's act of infanti-
cide in Toni Morrison's Beloved, through Keyser Soeze's massacre
of his own family in The Usual Suspects, up to the supreme instance of
such a gesture in the Crucifixion. This is an accessible work which
underscores the utopian aspect of his discussion of the 'night of the
world' in previous books.
[[Category:Works]]
[[Category:Books]]
[[Category:Žižek]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
Fighting For, London and New York: Verso.
As Žižek himself confesses, it might seem strange for a Marxist to
defend the legacy of Christianity in an age which has seen the re-emer-
gence of obscurantist religious thought. However, part of the broad
remit of this compact book is an attempt to resuscitate the subversive
core of Christianity, the act of 'shooting at oneself' (or of radical nega-
tivity) which forms the centrepiece of Žižek's analysis of Schelling in
The Abyss of Freedom and of Descartes in Cogito and the Unconscious.
Proposing that the only way to liberate oneself from the grip of existing
social reality is to renounce the fantasmatic supplement that attaches
us to it, he cites any number of examples from Sethe's act of infanti-
cide in Toni Morrison's Beloved, through Keyser Soeze's massacre
of his own family in The Usual Suspects, up to the supreme instance of
such a gesture in the Crucifixion. This is an accessible work which
underscores the utopian aspect of his discussion of the 'night of the
world' in previous books.
[[Category:Works]]
[[Category:Books]]
[[Category:Žižek]]
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
