Has anyone mentioned authoritarianism?

Author: (Slovenia) Slavoj ?i?ek
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-04-01
Features: Slavoj ?i?ek is one of the most dazzling international academic stars since the 1990s and has been called a Hegelian thinker by some scholars. In this book, Slavoj ?i?ek reinforces the more pronounced political trajectory evident in his recent works. ?i?ek challenges the general consensus on authoritarianism, which includes the so-called truth of high-level demonic genocide; labor camps and social engineering programs; and racism and fundamentalism that have always resisted multiculturalism. He ultimately demonstrates several forms in which the ghost of authoritarianism persists. In this book, Slavoj ?i?ek, once depicted by publishers as the "Giant of Ljubljana," reinforces the more pronounced political trajectory evident in his recent works. ?i?ek challenges the general consensus on authoritarianism, which includes the so-called truth of high-level demonic genocide; labor camps and social engineering programs; and racism and fundamentalism that have always resisted multiculturalism. He ultimately demonstrates several forms in which the ghost of authoritarianism persists.
The concept of authoritarianism as ideology has always had a clear strategic function: by eliminating criticism of liberal democracy—the counterpart and twin of right-wing fascist authoritarian rule—it legitimizes the hegemony of liberal-democracy. This strategy attempts to equate authoritarianism with the Stalinist regime, thereby defending the power of capital. Although the Stalinist regime brought terror and suffering, this failed revolutionary plan cannot negate the human value of the socialist ideal itself. The ultimate root of authoritarianism lies in the ontological closure of thought. In exploring the similarities of the above issues, ?i?ek concludes that the demon exists less in the parts of the authoritarian system and more in what makes authoritarianism a reality. This book is not intended to systematically elaborate the history of authoritarianism but to trace the dialectical movement from one specific content to another within this universal concept, a movement constituted by what Hegel called "concrete universality."
As an ideologized concept, authoritarianism has a precise strategic function. ?i?ek demonstrates the historical contexts in which the term has been used and presents the network characteristics of this key term "family resemblance" in a Wittgensteinian way. He argues that the popular consensus on authoritarianism is always defined by one of the following four things: the ultimate genocide, demonic evil, the Gulag, or the recent ethical-religious movement advocating multiculturalism tolerance. Deconstructionists believe that authoritarianism is the ontological end of thought or a refusal to accept the unbridgeable gap in human existence that cannot return. ?i?ek tends to think that true evil exists not only in the parts of authoritarianism but also in the power of liberal democracy to designate authoritarianism itself. ?i?ek points out that authoritarianism has always been a makeshift measure from its inception to the present.