Zero Point

The essays in Zero Point ask how we distinguish defeat from disaster, and how we confront despair without collapsing into it - questions never more pertinent than the current moment in the wake of electoral victories for authoritarian populists and unceasing news of violent atrocities.

The & apos; zero-point& apos; of the title is ground level, rock bottom, the place to which one retreats and where one regroups. Taken from Vladimir Lenin& apos; s 1922 piece & apos; On Ascending a High Mountain, in which Lenin considers the complexities of how one & apos; retreats& apos; while keeping faith in the cause, the central simile of the climber offers a blueprint for resilience, flexibility, and the persistence of hope. This is the revolutionary as living out the Beckettian motto: & apos; Try again. Fail again. Fail better. & apos; In Žižek& apos; s hands, this becomes the formula for confronting the antagonisms of existing world order. With a particular focus on the Middle East -the point at which all our tensions threaten to explode Žižek argues nothing can be addressed meaningfully without such a confrontation.


The consequences of eschewing apolitical acts of solidarity and choosing to attempt to speak truth to power are reckoned with in the second half of Zero Point. In a unique piece assembled chronologically from unpublished writings, Žižek wrestles with the fallout from his controversial speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2023 - a speech which saw him interrupted, condemned and accused of anti-Semitism. The reader bears witness as Zizek processes the criticism, evolves his thinking and explores the full ethical, political and personal ramifications of the question: When is the right time to speak?