Against Progress

(Paperback)

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'Sublime moments from history might be remembered but that story is over, everything should be re-thought, one should begin from the zero-point.' (Slavoj iek) How do we start from a zero-point We forget the notion of progress or things always getting better. Revolution isn't gradual progress but, rather, a repetitive movement where we start from the beginning again and again. In a whirlwind tour touching upon everything from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, gentrification, Mary Poppins, Einstein's theory of relativity and Taylor Swift, iek argues that the forward thrust of history is but an illusion. An uncharacteristically melancholic treatment of both the wars in Ukraine and in Gaza leads us to into a further dimension of progress being an illusion - the sense that some atrocities don't seem governable or terminable. iek asks us to stand still against the flow of time. Speak from the current moment and not some imagined future state. The future is not open, it is not progress. It is the zero-point of nuclear war, ecological breakdown, global economic and social chaos. It has already been spoken for and the end of the world us upon us.

Author Bio

Slavoj iek is a Hegelian philosopher, a Lacanian psychoanalyst, and a Communist. He is International Director at the Birkbeck Institute for Humanities, University of London, UK, Visiting Professor at the New York University, USA, and Senior Researcher at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.