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Like A Thief In Broad Daylight

Power in the Era of Post-Humanity

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Like A Thief In Broad Daylight

By: Slavoj Žižek
Narrated by: Jamie East
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About this listen

Penguin presents the audiobook of Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Žižek read by Jamie East.

In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world - changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new book, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realisation of Marx's prediction that 'all that is solid melts into air.' With the automation of work, the virtualisation of money, the dissipation of class communities and the rise of immaterial, intellectual labour, the global capitalist edifice is beginning to crumble, more quickly than ever before-and it is now on the verge of vanishing entirely.

But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Zizek argues, there can be no great social triumph - because lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our very eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it.

Urgent as ever, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight illuminates the new dangers as well as the radical possibilities thrown up by today's technological and scientific advances, and their electrifying implications for us all.

Žižek is a thinker who regards nothing as outside his field: the result is deeply interesting and provocative - Guardian

Žižek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation - New Yorker

Engineering History & Culture History & Philosophy Philosophy Political Science Politics & Government Science Technology & Society Capitalism Socialism Inspiring Technology Thief Military Social justice War

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Zizek’s work can be confusing and difficult to swallow at times, and he frequently elaborates. However, the true strength of the work is that it is highly thought provoking.
The post-human concept of the title may need reading or listening to more than once to fully absorb, but Zizek contends that humanity has reached a post human phase that is being foisted upon the population by the media and big tech. Meanwhile, politics is rotten and broken and most are stuck with a choice between the stale establishment and the Alt-Right.
Zizek’s stance is that the Left should not tolerate the Establishment as an alternative to the Alt-Right or Far Right, and in this instance he contends that in the case of the French Presidential Election of 2017, it would have been preferable to have 5 years of Le Pen while the Left find a new way to regroup and attract the disaffected voters away from being pulled into the sway of the Alt Right. Zizek believes Sanders was the only person who could have achieved this in 2016, as he seems to be the true alternative to the pro-War, pro-Identitiy politics establishment.
Much of the latter part of the book digresses into modern entertainment and the role of identity politics within it, particularly LaLa Land. Some of this seems to have escaped this reader, but nonetheless is food for thought.
For those of a Left or Socialist persuasion, the early chapters give some understanding as to the lamentable state of modern left politics and why the left is so hopelessly divided, along with the state of modern capitalism.
By no means an easy read or listen, and may require a few attempts to fully digest, but it is a truly thought provoking work and worthy of attention.

Thought provoking, though confusing at times

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excellent last chapter illuminates impotence of political correctness and offeree great insights into how the right will seize popular dissafection with the combination of globalist capitalism combined with a fickle liberal humanism. I'm not too interested, though, in Leninist histories, 1930's cinema etc and Leninist solutions so this takes away from the great philosophical insight that Zizek is capable of offering. I'm still inclined to the Heideggerian take on technology and the question of Being

zizek is stimulating read

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Incredible book with great ideas and critical written with zizeks usual flair for humour irony and film.
I can't recommend this book enough the performance is great the narrator brings in engaging flow and dynamic to the text that captures and maintains your interests through rather heavily philosophical concepts.

stellar!

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my first Žižek experience. Definitely memorable but it's kinda weird? interesting, but not for everyone.

strangely fascinating

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An excellent, complex, thought-provoking, universalising book which I'd recommend to anyone willing to concentrate to what's being said. - This performance of it was not good, though: The reader, although having a pleasant enough voice, struggled with pronunciation of all the non-English words & names, & mis-spoke a number of the English words too. In addition, he spoke very quickly, often even stumbling towards the end of a sentence, & with no change in tone between quoted passages & the author's own writings, unnecessarily confusing the interpretation of it.

Excellent text, sub-par performance

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