The Political without Politics: Slavoj Zizek and the Psychoanalysis of Automodernity

Abstract

While Slavoj Zizek has been considered to be one of the leading “radical” contemporary academic thinkers, this chapter will show how his work is structured by a fundamental backlash against postmodernity and progressive social movements. In fact, Zizek’s writings replicate the central defining aspects of our new automodern culture: (1) a reaction against the public realm and progressive politics; (2) a paradoxical return to premodern traditionalism; (3) a globalization of modern nihilism; and (4) a use of automation in acts of self-centering. These four central elements repeat throughout Zizek’s work, and they reveal both the seductive power and self-consuming aspects of his texts. Ultimately, we shall see that while Zizek seems to offer a new mode of radical politics and critical thinking, the overall effect of his thought is to reinforce the status quo and undermine the desire of academic thinkers to get involved in concrete social change.