內容簡介
被譽為”學術界的搖滾明星”以及”理論狂人”的哲學家齊澤克，透過本書，為21世紀的重要政治與經濟事件下註腳，也熱烈表達了為什麼他所抱持的共產主義將贏得最後的勝利。
法蘭西斯．福山在1990年代所寫的《歷史之終結與最後一人》，使他聲名大噪，該書的主要論點是，20世紀冷戰結束，意味著自由民主與資本主義的勝利。但是21世紀的第一個十年，發生了911恐怖攻擊事件(2001年)與全球金融危機(2008年)。本書作者齊澤克認為911標誌了自由主義在政治上的挫敗，而金融危機則確認了資本主義的瓦解。
本書標題語出馬克思，他認為「歷史重複發生，第一次是悲劇，再來就是鬧劇。」當911發生時，大家都認為這是一場極大的悲劇，但當金融危機爆發時，它卻像是一場極其荒謬的鬧劇。我們看見了無以計數的金錢投入了金融市場，以試圖解決自己惹出的麻煩。但就在金融危機前幾個月，全球關注的議題還是暖化、愛滋病、醫藥、食物與飲水。金融危機一出現，這些最急需被解決的項目卻被往後挪了。齊澤克認為，這場鬧劇即應驗了法蘭克福學派社會學家馬庫色所言，鬧劇往往比第一次發生的悲劇還要可怕。
齊澤克用這本書，給了自由主義與資本主義重重的兩拳！並且對共產主義將贏得最後勝利抱持滿滿的希望。
In this bravura analysis of the current global crisis following on from his bestselling Welcome to the Desert of the Real, Slavoj Zizek argues that the liberal idea of the end of history, declared by Francis Fukuyama during the 1990s, has had to die twice. After the collapse of the liberal-democratic political utopia, on the morning of 9/11, came the collapse of the economic utopia of global market capitalism at the end of 2008. Marx argued that history repeats itselfoccurring first as tragedy, the second time as farceand iek, following Herbert Marcuse, notes here that the repetition as farce can be even more terrifying than the original tragedy. The financial meltdown signals that the fantasy of globalization is over and as millions are put out of work it has become impossible to ignore the irrationality of global capitalism. Just a few months before the crash, the worlds priorities seemed to be global warming, AIDS, and access to medicine, food and water tasks labelled as urgent, but with any real action repeatedly postponed. Now, after the financial implosion, the urgent need to act seems to have become unconditionalwith the result that undreamt of quantities of cash were immediately found and then poured into the financial sector without any regard for the old priorities. Do we need further proof, iek asks, that Capital is the Real of our lives: the Real whose demands are more absolute than even the most pressing problems of our natural and social world?
