{"product_id":"did-somebody-say-totalitarianism-5-interventions-in-the-misuse-of-a-notion-9781844677139","title":"Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: 5 Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion","description":"In some circles, a nod towards totalitarianism is enough to dismiss any critique of the status quo. Such is the insidiousness of the neo-liberal ideology, argues Slavoj Žižek. \u003ci\u003eDid Somebody Say Totalitarianism?\u003c\/i\u003e turns a specious rhetorical strategy on its head to identify a network of family resemblances between totalitarianism and modern liberal democracy. Žižek argues that totalitarianism is invariably defined in terms of four things: the Holocaust as the ultimate, diabolical evil; the Stalinist gulag as the alleged truth of the socialist revolutionary project; ethnic and religious fundamentalisms, which are to be fought through multiculturalist tolerance; and the deconstructionist idea that the ultimate root of totalitarianism is the ontological closure of thought. Žižek concludes that the devil lies not so much in the detail but in what enables the very designation totalitarian: the liberal-democratic consensus itself.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSlavoj Žižek\u003c\/b\u003e is a Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic. He is a professor at the European Graduate School, International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, Birkbeck College, University of London, and a senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. His books include \u003ci\u003eLiving in the End Times\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eFirst as Tragedy, Then as Farce\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eIn Defense of Lost Causes\u003c\/i\u003e, four volumes of the Essential Žižek, and many more.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Verso","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50506493493522,"sku":"9781844677139","price":22.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_38e25a7f-47d3-44f2-91ed-697d415d1705.jpg?v=1730850622","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/did-somebody-say-totalitarianism-5-interventions-in-the-misuse-of-a-notion-9781844677139","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}