Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide For The Non-PerplexedContemporary life is defined by excess. There must always be more, there is never enough. We need a surplus to what we need to be able to truly enjoy what we have. Slavoj Žižek's guide to surplus (and why it's enjoyable) begins by arguing that what is surplus to our needs is by its very nature unsubstantial and unnecessary. But, perversely, without this surplus, we wouldn't be able to enjoy what is substantial and necessary. Indeed, without the surplus we wouldn't be able to identify what was the perfect amount. Is there any escape from the vicious cycle of surplus enjoyment or are we forever doomed to simply want more? Engaging with everything from The Joker film to pop songs and Thomas Aquinas to the history of pandemics, Žižek argues that recognising the society of enjoyment we live in for what it is can provide an explanation for the political impasses in which we find ourselves today. And if we begin, even a little bit, to recognise that the nuggets of 'enjoyment' we find in excess are as flimsy and futile, might we find a way out? |
Contents
WHERE IS THE RIFT? MARX CAPITALISM AND ECOLOGY | |
A NONBINARY DIFFERENCE? PSYCHOANALYSIS POLITICS AND PHILOSOPHY | |
SURPLUSENJOYMENT OR WHY DO WE ENJOY OUR OPPRESSION | |
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Alenka Zupančič alienation analysand analyst antagonism Antigone appears basic brutal capitalism capitalist catastrophe changeling claim commodity conspiracy theories critique culture death desire dialectical dimension discourse domination Ecbert ecological economy enjoyment ethical exemplum existence exploitation external fact fantasy feminine fiction fictitious capital film formula freedom Freud global global warming Hegel Hegelian Heidegger historical human identity ideology immanent impossibility Joker Katla labor Lacan Lacanian lives logic Martin Heidegger Marx Marx's Marxism means nature notion object obscene Oedipus Oedipus at Colonus ontological opposite pandemic paradox philosophy pleasure political position precisely production prohibition psychic psychoanalysis Quoted radical Rammstein reading reality repression Saito sense sexual simply Slavoj Žižek social society Solaris space stance structure struggle subjective destitution superego surplus-enjoyment surplus-value symbolic Taliban things threat today's transcendental true truth Tupinamba ultimate universal vaccination Western Marxism woman women