
Like a Thief in Broad Daylight
Power in the Era of Post-Humanity
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Narrated by:
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Jamie East
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By:
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Slavoj Žižek
About this listen
Penguin presents the audiobook of Like A Thief In Broad Daylight by Slavoj Žižek read by Jamie East.
In recent years, techno-scientific progress has started to utterly transform our world - changing it almost beyond recognition. In this extraordinary new book, renowned philosopher Slavoj Zizek turns to look at the brave new world of Big Tech, revealing how, with each new wave of innovation, we find ourselves moving closer and closer to a bizarrely literal realisation of Marx's prediction that 'all that is solid melts into air.' With the automation of work, the virtualisation of money, the dissipation of class communities and the rise of immaterial, intellectual labour, the global capitalist edifice is beginning to crumble, more quickly than ever before-and it is now on the verge of vanishing entirely.
But what will come next? Against a backdrop of constant socio-technological upheaval, how could any kind of authentic change take place? In such a context, Zizek argues, there can be no great social triumph - because lasting revolution has already come into the scene, like a thief in broad daylight, stealing into sight right before our very eyes. What we must do now is wake up and see it.
Urgent as ever, Like a Thief in Broad Daylight illuminates the new dangers as well as the radical possibilities thrown up by today's technological and scientific advances, and their electrifying implications for us all.
Critic reviews
"Zižek is a thinker who regards nothing as outside his field: the result is deeply interesting and provocative." (Guardian)
"Žižek leaves no social or cultural phenomenon untheorized, and is master of the counterintuitive observation." (New Yorker)
strangely fascinating
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Lots of interesting ideas, but too hyperactive
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Annoying mispronunciation
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This just blew me away. Loved it, he’s amazing.
Well performed too
Just about to dive back in...
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zizek is stimulating read
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Rushed read?
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I can't recommend this book enough the performance is great the narrator brings in engaging flow and dynamic to the text that captures and maintains your interests through rather heavily philosophical concepts.
stellar!
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Excellent text, sub-par performance
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The post-human concept of the title may need reading or listening to more than once to fully absorb, but Zizek contends that humanity has reached a post human phase that is being foisted upon the population by the media and big tech. Meanwhile, politics is rotten and broken and most are stuck with a choice between the stale establishment and the Alt-Right.
Zizek’s stance is that the Left should not tolerate the Establishment as an alternative to the Alt-Right or Far Right, and in this instance he contends that in the case of the French Presidential Election of 2017, it would have been preferable to have 5 years of Le Pen while the Left find a new way to regroup and attract the disaffected voters away from being pulled into the sway of the Alt Right. Zizek believes Sanders was the only person who could have achieved this in 2016, as he seems to be the true alternative to the pro-War, pro-Identitiy politics establishment.
Much of the latter part of the book digresses into modern entertainment and the role of identity politics within it, particularly LaLa Land. Some of this seems to have escaped this reader, but nonetheless is food for thought.
For those of a Left or Socialist persuasion, the early chapters give some understanding as to the lamentable state of modern left politics and why the left is so hopelessly divided, along with the state of modern capitalism.
By no means an easy read or listen, and may require a few attempts to fully digest, but it is a truly thought provoking work and worthy of attention.
Thought provoking, though confusing at times
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