Out of pure self-loathing I picked up a free copy of Žižek’s new book on COVID-19. I read it so you don’t have to. In short, it represents a good case for waiting to write about a contemporary phenomenon until we have more data. It is already out of date and woefully shallow.

To write like Žižek is to locate conventional wisdom on a topic and then argue the opposite. That trait is present here when he links to Hegel and argues that actually social distancing will actually make us closer to loved ones.

He does this again by drawing on Wells’ The War of the Worlds and arguing that coronavirus is just that story inverted.

I will give Žižek some credit. This depiction of American libertarians is hilarious (and maybe not wrong).

Oh and also his views on cruise ships and Disney are actually right and good.

I cannot stop laughing at this line where he basically says... screw it, I copied this from Wikipedia.

Here is a dangerous false equivalency. Žižek basically says the “Alt-Right and fake Left” are the same. Not only does this confuse various political movements in the U.S. it pretends there is a symmetrical power relationship when it is obviously asymmetrical.

Žižek’s uses the book to argue Communism will save us from coronavirus. Regardless of if that is true, he dances around the idea that evidence for that claim can be found in Trump’s invocation of the Defense Production Act. He should have waited to see how this worked out.

Further, he cites the payments to every US American as further support for this claim. I’m not convinced. Given how much money is being diverted to corporate business interests, the CARES act is less a step toward communism and more a reinforcement of the neoliberal order.

Žižek revels in his privilege, loving his time at home. Sadly, that time did not afford him time to write a better book.

@threadreaderapp unroll