{"product_id":"zero-point","title":"Zero Point","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe essays in Zero Point ask how we distinguish defeat from disaster, and how we confront despair without collapsing into it - questions never more pertinent than the current moment in the wake of electoral victories for authoritarian populists and unceasing news of violent atrocities. The 'zero-point' of the title is ground level, rock bottom, the place to which one retreats and where one regroups. Taken from Vladimir Lenin's 1922 piece 'On Ascending a High Mountain, in which Lenin considers the complexities of how one 'retreats' while keeping faith in the cause, the central simile of the climber offers a blueprint for resilience, flexibility, and the persistence of hope. This is the revolutionary as living out the Beckettian motto: 'Try again. Fail again. Fail better.' In Žižek's hands, this becomes the formula for confronting the antagonisms of existing world order. With a particular focus on the Middle East -the point at which all our tensions threaten to explode – Žižek argues nothing can be addressed meaningfully without such a confrontation. The consequences of eschewing apolitical acts of solidarity and choosing to attempt to speak truth to power are reckoned with in the second half of Zero Point. In a unique piece assembled chronologically from unpublished writings, Žižek wrestles with the fallout from his controversial speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2023 - a speech which saw him interrupted, condemned and accused of anti-Semitism. The listener bears witness as Zizek processes the criticism, evolves his thinking and explores the full ethical, political and personal ramifications of the question: When is the right time to speak? Read more\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Slavoj Žižek (Author), Joe Jameson (Narrator), Bloomsbury Academic (Publisher)","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45444741791791,"sku":"041826-000-000","price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0730\/3498\/9615\/files\/61kpXR_Qn_L._AC_SL1500.jpg?v=1780967873","url":"https:\/\/www.coziecorners.com\/products\/zero-point","provider":"CozieCorners","version":"1.0","type":"link"}