It’s been a while since I’ve read any of Slavoj Žižek’s work一by my reckoning, 2020 when I reread Welcome to the Desert of the Real in the hopes that it would help with my Master’s thesis for some reason. I’m revisiting some of his work via this short book of essays, Zero Point, which has proved serendipitous to some of my more recent reading memories, which I’ll circle back to shortly.
Zero Point is divided essentially in two sections. The first set of essays deals primarily with the (re)rise of Donald Trump from a Marxist-psychoanalytical lens. Of the early essays, the most interesting claim I thought Žižek presented was how the purported left has fed into the rise of Trump particularly by capitalizing on his flaws. Consider, for example, how late night comedians have routinely pointed to Trump’s personal and moral flaws. They’re not wrong about their assessment, but Žižek suggests that their form of critique actually exacerbated his supporters’ feelings of identification. Essentially, the argument runs that people identify more with others’ failures than with their successes, so that by highlighting all of Trump’s flaws, people came to see him as more reflective of their interests (while that factually remains untrue).
Some of Žižek’s claims about Trump are frustrating and run counter to “common sense” understandings of political phenomena. In particular, Žižek objects to calling Trump a fascist and instead suggests that Trump is an extreme liberal on the grounds that he prioritizes letting big business do as they please. I’m not sure I agree, especially when considered in light of Trump’s tariffs. I also find some of Žižek’s claims about the Right and Left dubious. At one point he points to what appears to me a misinterpretation of the Left. I forget if he suggests a contradiction because the Left supports both Israel-Ukraine or Palestine-Russia; whichever the combination was, I think he’s wrong on that front. In other respects, Žižek is prescient. For instance, in one essay he predicts that the United States is setting up Iran to be their next enemy and tease war. And, well, here we are.
The second and more substantial section of the book is an exploration of the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Like the conflict, the inception of this Žižek collection requires some contextualizing. In 1949, a bedouin girl between the ages of 10-15 was gang raped and murdered by twenty men in the Israeli Defence Force. In 2017, Palestinian author Adania Shibli wrote the book Minor Detail based on the event, which I read by coincidence in 2024. In 2023, Shibli was awarded the 2023 LiBeraturpreis but the Frankfurt Book Fair ceremony at which she was to be honoured was “postponed” and then canceled with the excuse to not overshadow the then-recent Hamas attack against Israel.
Žižek’s collection of essays here is a response to these events, namely because he was delivering a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair when he was heckled and ushered offstage. That piqued my curiosity. The essay is replicated in full at the end of the book and, honestly, it’s a lot less controversial than I expected. Essentially, following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th, Žižek suggests that we ought to also consider the plight of the Palestinians. He was told that this was not the time to talk about it.
So, when is the right time to talk about it?
Arguably, Žižek essentially takes a middle-ground. He opposes antisemitism, of course. He also opposes the slaughter of Palestinians. There are some controversial claims, like how Netanyahu (whom Žižek refers to as a war criminal) wants and requires war, how he is happy to have Hamas as an enemy that justifies all his own horrors. At the core, he suggests that mutual recognition is required to move forward, but that there are factors that obscure that possibility. Paradox runs through the text: Germany reinscribes antisemitism in the unequivocal support it provides to Israel while the United Nations, precisely because they have no power and are not formally accountable, provide the hope of speaking the truth. Solutions are not forthcoming.
I appreciate that Žižek has a degree of focus in this collection, even if his usual topic-hops still crop up. What is a bit of an issue is that Žižek repeats himself across the essays, even going so far as to repeat some anecdotes word for word (e.g. the one about Biden embarrassing himself by claiming to have seen pictures of beheaded children following Hamas’ October 7th attack only for Israel to admit that no such pictures ever existed). Žižek has always had a bit of a repetitious streak; across books, including this one, he repeats the same jokes to illustrate points. The repetitiousness becomes more noticeable in a short collection. Yet, for all that repetition, there is very little by way of definitive, declarative, unambiguous conclusions. The essays do not feel actionable in the same way that more polemical texts sometimes do.
I suppose I’m also ambivalent. Žižek’s work often inspires reflection, and he’s not someone I can wholeheartedly endorse nor dismiss out of hand. His perspective is worth considering and, for a few hours’ worth of reading, Zero Point offers a reasonable, if repetitious focus. It’s contemporary and timely—a blessing and a curse for a work of philosophy.
Happy reading!
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