What Does Europe Want?: The Union and Its Discontents

Slavoj Žižek; Srećko Horvat

Published by Columbia University Press 2014

What Does Europe Want?

The Union and Its Discontents

Slavoj Žižek and Srećko Horvat

In the series Insurrections: Critical Studies in Religion, Politics, and Culture

https://doi.org/10.7312/ieka17106

Overview
Contents

About this book

In this book, Slavoj iek and Srecko Horvat emphasize the dangers of ignoring Europe's growing wealth gap and the parallel rise in right-wing nationalism, which is directly tied to the fallout from the ongoing financial crisis and its prescription of imposed austerity. The best hope, they argue, is for Europe to revive its legacy of universal egalitarianism, preserving the promise of equal representation.

Two critical heavyweights call on Europe to radically resist global injustice and become a more conscientious player in world politics.

Author / Editor information

Slavoj iek is a professor at the Institute for Sociology, University of Ljubljana, and at the European Graduate School. Among his most recent books are Demanding the Impossible, The Year of Dreaming Dangerously, and The Sublime Object of Ideology. He is a coeditor of Hegel and the Infinite: Religion, Politics, and Dialectic and a contributor to Democracy in What State?, What Does a Jew Want? On Binationalism and Other Specters, and Reimagining the Sacred: Debating God with Richard Kearney.

Srecko Horvat is a Croatian philosopher and the author of nine books. He is also a highly respected political theorist and activist, and a columnist for The Guardian. His latest book is After the End of History: From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Movement.

Reviews

Full of relevance and merit...iek and Horvat provide a deeply engaging and insightful polemic on how Europe went wrong – and how it can recover.

Alexis Tsipras, Greek politican, president of SYRIZA:
How can we break, once and for all, the foundation of social apathy on which the construction of Europe since 1989 is built on? The active participation of the masses in politics is the only thing that can truly frighten the ruling elite in Europe and worldwide. And that's exactly why we should make it happen.

Yanis Varoufakis, author of The Global Minotaur: A Theory of the Global Crisis and Game Theory:
The pages of this book resonate with the authors' powerful demolition of the EU's Orwellian propaganda. Readers who care about Europe have a duty to share in Slavoj iek and Srecko Horvat's energy, irrespectively of whether they agree with them or not.

Oliver Stone, American film director, screenwriter, producer:
A Slovenian madman and a charismatic Croatian philosopher, joined by Greece's most dangerous politician, offer an analysis of the European deadlock in a way that is bitingly charming and bitterly intelligent. Any real European, faithful to the real idea of Europe, must read this.

Kelsey Wood, author of iek: A Reader's Guide:
An outstanding book—radical in the best sense of the word. What Does Europe Want? gets to the root of the matter and gives political theory material force. Horvat is a rising star in philosophy, while iek is a theoretical tsunami. By reading the signs from the future, this book cuts through propaganda and ideological mystification to expose the increasing danger threatening the EU.

Peter Thompson, Sheffield:
What Does Europe Want? deals with the crisis in a highly polemical and exciting way. One feels that one is involved in the discussions as they are taking place. This means that the text is highly readable but at the same time provides us with some important political, economic, and psychological background to many of the aspects of the crisis which tend to go unexamined or unreported.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Foreword. The Destruction of Greece as a Model for All of Europe: Is this the Future that Europe Deserves? Alexis Tsipras Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	vii
Preface. What Does the U.S. Want, or What to Do After Occupy? S. Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	xv
1. Breaking Our Eggs without the Omelette, from Cyprus to Greece. Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Danke Deutschland! Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	12
3. When the Blind Are Leading the Blind, Democracy Is the Victim Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	21
4. Why the EU Needs Croatia More than Croatia Needs the EU Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	26
5. What Does Europe Want? Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
6. Are the Nazis Living on the Moon? Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
7. The Return of the Christian-conservative Revolution Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
8. In the Land of Blood and Money: Angelina Jolie and the Balkans Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	61
9. The Turkish March Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
10. War and Peace in Europe: ‘Bei den Sorglosen’ Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	76
11. Save Us from the Saviours: Europe and the Greeks Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
12. ‘I’m Not Racist, but … The Blacks are Coming!’ Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	93
13. Shoplifters of the World Unite Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	104
14. Do Markets Have Feelings? Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
15. The Courage to Cancel the Debt Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	121
16. The Easiest Way to the Gulag Is to Joke About the Gulag Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
17. We Need a Margaret Thatcher of the Left Slavoj Žižek Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
18. Europe Will Be Either Democratic and Social or It Will No Longer Exist (interview) Alexis Tsipras Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	150
19. ‘The Role of the European Left’ (debate) Slavoj Žižek and Alexis Tsipras Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	160
Afterword. Europe Is Dead, Long Live Europe! Srećko Horvat Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	177
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193

Language: English
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 240

eBook

Published: December 23, 2014
ISBN: 9780231538411