The Philosophy Book

326

See also: Immanuel Kant 164–71 ■ Georg Hegel 178–85 ■ Karl Marx 196–203 ■

Martin Heidegger 252–55

T

he idea that all the best

Marxist analyses have

traditionally been analyses

of failure appears in an interview

with Slovenian philosopher Slavoj

Žižek given in 2008. In this

interview, Žižek was asked about

the events in Czechoslovakia in

1968, when a period of reform,

aimed at decentralizing and

democratizing the country, was

brutally brought to an end by the

Soviet Union and its allies.

Žižek’s claim is that the

crushing of the reforms became

the very thing that later sustained

a myth held by the political left—

namely that, had the reforms gone

ahead, some kind of social and

political paradise would have

followed. According to Žižek, those

on the political left are prone to

dwelling on their failures, because

doing so allows myths to be

generated about what would have

happened if they had succeeded.

Žižek says that these failures allow

those on the left to maintain a “safe

moralistic position”, because their

failures mean that they are never in

power, or truly tested by action.

He describes this stance as the

“comfortable position of resistance”,

which allows an avoidance of the

real issues—such as re-evaluating

the nature of political revolution.

For Žižek, a dedicated Marxist,

serious questions about the nature

of political power are obscured

by endlessly trying to justify

utopia's elusiveness. ■

IN CONTEXT

BRANCH

Political philosophy

APPROACH

Marxism

BEFORE

1807 Georg Hegel publishes

The Phenomenology of the

Spirit, laying the groundwork

for Marxist thought.

1867 Karl Marx and Friedrich

Engels publish their

Communist Manifesto.

1867 Marx publishes the first

volume of Capital (Das Kapital),

a treatise on political economy.

1899 In The Interpretation

of Dreams, psychoanalyst

Sigmund Freud claims that

much of human behavior is

driven by unconscious forces.

1966 Psychoanalytical theorist

Jacques Lacan, one of Žižek’s

major influences, revisits

Freud's ideas in Écrits.

ALL THE BEST MARXIST

ANALYSES ARE ALWAYS

ANALYSES OF A FAILURE

SLAVOJ ZIZEK (1949– )

The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia

in 1968 led to the end of the short-lived

“Prague Spring” period of liberalization.

All moves toward democracy were

suppressed until 1989.