Žižek is less interested in demonstrating the theoretical rightness of Hegel or Lacan than in showing how they might be used to throw light on contemporary cultural curiosities like Kung Fu Panda or Lady Gaga. He revitalizes Hegelianism or psychoanalysis or dialectical materialism by showing that these intellectual traditions might help us come to grips with the world we live in. It’s rather in his capacity to wield their thinking on matters of contemporary culture and politics. But his genius is not to be found in his theoretical wrestles with his forebears. Žižek is, at times, as serious as canonical figures like Louis Althusser or Judith Butler, with whom he shares some pedigree. From psychoanalysis - and particularly the work of Jacques Lacan - he extends the ideology critique, showing how ideology displaces and smooths over the disturbing, even traumatic, tensions in social reality. From Marx he takes the idea that, under capitalism, we are beholden to certain invisible frameworks - “ideology” - which are rendered invisible and so need to be exposed and critiqued. From Hegel he takes the lesson of “dialectics” - that contradictions and tensions are present in any historical situation, and that making these contradictions visible is a key part of intellectual labor. His lucidity is even more remarkable when one considers his intellectual genealogy: Hegelian Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis.

And he is also something rarer still: a continental philosopher who can be understood. He is a political theorist without solutions, a Marxist who rejects teleology, a skeptic about revolution, an atheist who praises Paul, and a pessimist who admits to being filled with hope by catastrophe. Žižek is the Platonic ideal of the “mad professor” - distracted, manic, mannered. Were a feature film to be made about him, the lead actor would undoubtedly be accused of overcooking it. And before long, given the scandalous pace of capital, there may well be Žižek soft drinks, action figures, and Žižekrypto.Ī perfect symbol of our overdetermined age, the Slovenian philosopher is all sound and fury, signifying everything.

There is a journal devoted to Žižek, a Žižek dictionary, Žižek conferences, even a Žižek nightclub and a Žižek fashion collection. It’s not quite right to think of Slavoj Žižek as a mere theorist he is closer, in line with Parisian haute langue, to an “event.” As well as the numerous books he’s written, there are dozens about him.

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