Žižek’s reception: Fifty shades of gray ideology

Abstract

A self-confessed dogmatic Lacanian-Hegelian, Slavoj Žižek holds the unusual, almost oxymoronic, status of being classed as a celebrity academic. He is routinely hyped by journalists as "the Elvis of Cultural Theory" or "the most dangerous philosopher in the West." Despite, or, perhaps more accurately, because of his widespread popularity in nonacademic circles, his work has also received damning condemnation from some critics and fellow scholars. Occasionally vitriolic in his tone, Žižek appears to get under the skin of reviewers like few other thinkers, and indeed this has led to whole books designed to debunk him, such as the ambiguously titled The Truth of Žižek.1 This chapter explores Žižek’s negative reception in terms of both the divided response among intellectuals with a media voice and the still-divided, but much more positive, reception of his thoughts by audiences that are unusually large and enthusiastic considering the relatively esoteric theoretical nature of the material Žižek presents.