Is global emancipation a lost cause? Are universal values outdated relics of anearlier age? In fear of the horrors of totalitarianism should we submit ourselves to a miserable third way of economic liberalism and government-as-administration?

In this major new work, philosophicalsharpshooter Slavoj Zizek takes on the reigning ideology with a pleathat we should re-appropriate several 'lost causes, ' and look for thekernel of truth in the 'totalitarian' politics of the past.

Examining Heidegger's seduction by fascism and Foucault's flirtation with theIranian Revolution, he suggests that these were the 'right steps in thewrong direction.' He argues that while the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, Mao and the Bolsheviks ended in historic failure and monstrosity, this is not the whole story. There is, in fact, a redemptive moment that gets lost in the outright liberal-democratic rejection of revolutionary authoritarianism and the valorization of soft, consensual, decentralized politics.

Zizek claims that, particularly in light of theforthcoming ecological crisis, we should reinvent revolutionary terrorand the dictatorship of the proletariat in the struggle for universalemancipation. We need to courageously accept the return to this Cause-- even if we court the risk of a catastrophic disaster. In the words ofSamuel Beckett: 'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.'

This book is on these lists:

• January 2012 Indie Next List
• December 2011 Indie Next List
• November 2011 Indie Next List