Pandemic! 2

What do sex doll sales, locust swarms and a wired-brain pig have to do with the coronavirus pandemic? Everything—according to that “Giant of Lubliana,” the inimitable Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek. In this exhilarating sequel to his acclaimed Pandemic!: COVID-19 Shakes the World, Žižek delves into some of the more surprising dimensions of lockdowns, quarantines, and social distancing—and the increasingly unruly opposition to them by “response fatigued” publics around the world. Žižek examines the ripple effects on the food supply of harvest failures caused by labor shortages and the hyper-exploitation of the global class of care workers, without whose labor daily life would be impossible. Through such examples he pinpoints the inability of contemporary capitalism to safeguard effectively the public in times of crisis. Writing with characteristic daring and zeal, Žižek ranges across critical theory, pop-culture, and psychoanalysis to reveal the troubling dynamics of knowledge and power emerging in these viral times.

Introduction: Why a Philosopher Should Write about Bringing In the Harvest 1. What We Don’t Know, What We Don’t Want to Know, and What We Can Do 2. The First of May in the Viral World 3. Covid-19, Global Warming, Exploitation— The Same Struggle 4. Why Destroying Monuments Is Not Radical Enough 5. Father or Worse 6. Sex in the Age of Social Distancing 7. The (Not So) Brave New World of Pigs and Men 8. A No-Touch Future? No, Thanks! 9. Where Are Greta and Bernie? 10. What Movie Is Now Playing Out in Real Life? 11. Deaths in Paradise 12. Now We Live in a Store of the Worlds 13. Yes, Red Pill but Which One? 14. Simple Things That Are Hard to Do (No Time) to Conclude: The Will Not to Know Appendix: Four Reflections on Power, Appearance, and Obscenity The New Obscene Master Oppression, Repression, Depression The New Populism Is Not Fascism The Crisis of New Populism About the Author