Tools for subversion

Illich and Žižek on changing the world

Babette Babich

pp. 95-111

in: Silvia Mazzini, Owen Glyn-Williams (eds), Making communism hermeneutical, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

Reviewing the work of Ivan Illich, Robert Kurz and Stanley Aronowitz together with Heidegger's technically economic articulation of standing reserve correspondent to challenging forth (the world, ourselves, animals, plants, whatever), this essay takes up "the thought of the weak in search of alternatives" as Gianni Vattimo and Santiago Zabala argue for the possibility of interpretive transformation. In addition to Slavoj Žižek's analysis of the resistance to revolution that functions as corollary to the existential stress of the dislocated mind, this reflection includes a discussion of media and illusion in the digital realm of Baudrillard's "integral reality.

Cited authors

Heidegger Martin

Vattimo Gianni

Zabala Santiago

Žižek Slavoj