The Courage of Hopelessness

A Year of Acting Dangerously

Slavoj Žižek

Maverick philosopher Slavoj Žižek returns to explore today’s ideological, political, and economic battles, and asks whether radical change is possible.

In these troubled times, even the most pessimistic diagnosis of our future ends with an uplifting hint that things might not be as bad as all that, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. Yet, argues Slavoj Žižek, it is only when we have admitted to ourselves that our situation is completely hopeless—that the light at the end of the tunnel is in fact the headlight of an oncoming train—that fundamental change can be brought about.

SLAVOJ ŽIŽEK is a Hegelian philosopher, Lacanian psychoanalyst, and political activist. He is international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities and Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University. He is the author of numerous books on dialectical materialism, critique of ideology, and art, including Event, Trouble In Paradise, and Refugees, Terror and Other Troubles with the Neighbors, all published by Melville House.

“Žižek continues to offer provocative thoughts on how people should deal with a myriad of daunting challenges.” —Publishers Weekly