Failure as the Real: A Review of Slavoj Zizek's Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism

Theoria and Praxis Vol. 1, No. 2

4 Pages Posted: 10 Jan 2014 Last revised: 3 Jan 2015

See all articles by Robert Oprisko

Robert Oprisko

Indiana University, Center for the Study of Global Change

Date Written: December 2013

Abstract

Zizek’s synthetic ontology is nothing less than an attempt to understand the real as the failed attempt. Failure penetrates the entirety of the text and is reminiscent of Doc Hammer’s take on The Venture Brothers, “It’s about the beauty of failure. It’s about the failure that happens to all of us.” For Zizek, the real is inseparable both from the radicalized material reality that forms everyone and everything from stardust as the heavenly bodies explode and collapse in the creative destruction of our ever expanding universe and the social meanings of our unique presentation as Nancy would say, as being(s) singular plural.

Keywords: Zizek, Failure, Ontology, Praxis, Bohr

Suggested Citation

Oprisko, Robert, Failure as the Real: A Review of Slavoj Zizek's Less than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism (December 2013). Theoria and Praxis Vol. 1, No. 2, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2376623

Robert Oprisko (Contact Author)

Indiana University, Center for the Study of Global Change ( email )

201 North Indiana Avenue
Bloomington, IN 47408
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.indiana.edu/~global/staff/facultyProfile.php?id=76

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