Billions of dollars were hastily poured into the global banking system in a frantic attempt at financial stabilization. So why has it not been possible to bring the same forces to bear in addressing world poverty and environmental crisis?
In this take-no-prisoners analysis, Slavoj Zizek frames the moral failures of the modern world in terms of the epoch-making events of the first decade of this century. What he finds is the old one-two punch of history: the jab of tragedy, the right hook of farce. In the attacks of 9/11 and the global credit crunch, liberalism dies twice: as a political doctrine and as an economic theory. The election of Donald Trump only confirms the bankruptcy of a liberal order on its last legs.
First as Tragedy, Then as Farce is a call for the Left to reinvent itself in the light of our desperate historical situation. The time for liberal, moralistic blackmail is over.
Bullish on women in tech + finance 📈. Past life: SWE 👩💻 @krakenfx & @xmtp_. Now: building better financial products for women 👩🎤💰. The future is bright!
Speaking of Zizek, having a real 'First as Tragedy, then as Farce' moment re:web3 following the Instagram news!
"Zizek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation."
--The New Yorker
"Zizek is an influential thinker, and this short book offers an excellent entry into his thought."
--David Gordon, Library Journal
"[A] great provocateur and an immensely suggestive and even dashing writer ... Zizek writes with passion and an aphoristic energy that is spellbinding."
--Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times
"One of the most innovative and exciting contemporary thinkers of the left."
--Times Literary Supplement
"Zizek is to today what Jacques Derrida was to the '80s: the thinker of choice for Europe's young intellectual vanguard."
--Observer
"The Elvis of cultural theory."
--The Chronicle of Higher Education