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There is a principle difference between the structures of, say, an ant colony, however elaborate and finely structured it may be, and that of a modern, capitalist society. On the face of it, this is of course a trivial point. Of course, ants and humans are different. We have much more complicated and varied behaviour, invent technologies and find surprising ways of destroying ourselves. Ants have one or very few purposes, while humans are full of ideas and constantly renew themselves. Nonetheless; elaborating more precisely, wherein the principle difference consists, contains, I would claim, some implications for Alenka Zupančič' precise ontological, as well as political, position, which are not that trivial after all. Something else appears in human society, which exceeds or deviates from nature as it otherwise appears, or which, as Zupančič formulates it, represents nature's own inherent deviation (from itself). The difference between the two communities of ants and humans is therefore not only one of degree. Humans are not (just) more "intelligent", efficient, malicious etc.; they are constructing societies that are based on a radical deviation from (anything else in) nature or is this very deviation. The precise nature of this deviation is in many ways the theme of What IS Sex?, (because sex itself is the name of this deviation), and what I would like to do here is to draw some consequences from it, which relate to the political and ontological commitments in the book that are maybe not entirely clear from the text itself.

There is a principle difference between the structures of, say, an ant colony, however elaborate and finely structured it may be, and that of a modern, capitalist society. On the face of it, this is of course a trivial point. Of course, ants and humans are different. We have much more complicated and varied behaviour, invent technologies and find surprising ways of destroying ourselves. Ants have one or very few purposes, while humans are full of ideas and constantly renew themselves. Nonetheless; elaborating more precisely, wherein the principle difference consists, contains, I would claim, some implications for Alenka Zupančič' precise ontological, as well as political, position, which are not that trivial after all. Something else appears in human society, which exceeds or deviates from nature as it otherwise appears, or which, as Zupančič formulates it, represents nature's own inherent deviation (from itself). The difference between the two communities of ants and humans is therefore not only one of degree. Humans are not (just) more "intelligent", efficient, malicious etc.; they are constructing societies that are based on a radical deviation from (anything else in) nature or is this very deviation. The precise nature of this deviation is in many ways the theme of What IS Sex?, (because sex itself is the name of this deviation), and what I would like to do here is to draw some consequences from it, which relate to the political and ontological commitments in the book that are maybe not entirely clear from the text itself.

The importance of free speech is beyond dispute in liberal democracy, and is today hardly challenged by anyone, but fundamentalist, religious groups. But which purpose should free speech serve, and how should it be (re)defined and administered in order to fulfill this purpose? I claim that these questions are more important than they may seem, and that they are easily overlooked, if free speech is treated as an end in itself or as something that one should not question at all. In the liberal tradition, freedom of expression was clearly valued for its excellent utility for the progress of society, but not for being an end in itself. In this article, I want, first, to make this point clear (through a reading of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant) and, second, to offer a couple of suggestions for relevant discussions on the restrictions, regulations and reinventions of free speech that might be required today in order to sustain and revive the liberal tradition itself. ; The importance of free speech is beyond dispute in liberal democracy, and is today hardly challenged by anyone, but fundamentalist, religious groups. But which purpose should free speech serve, and how should it be (re)defined and administered in order to fulfill this purpose? I claim that these questions are more important than they may seem, and that they are easily overlooked, if free speech is treated as an end in itself or as something that one should not question at all. In the liberal tradition, freedom of expression was clearly valued for its excellent utility for the progress of society, but not for being an end in itself. In this article, I want, first, to make this point clear (through a reading of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant) and, second, to offer a couple of suggestions for relevant discussions on the restrictions, regulations and reinventions of free speech that might be required today in order to sustain and revive the liberal tradition itself.

This paper diagnoses a certain culture of complaint, which is a curious formation in the history of mankind that emerges exactly at the moment where the claim, that the "grand narratives" have lost their meaning, goes from being merely an academic postulate to becoming a commonly accepted cultural dogma. Rather than joyfully accepting the liberation from the ostensibly repressive grand narratives, the reaction typical of the members of the culture of complaint has been to blame the big Other for his non-existence. Having discussed this point we proceed to discuss the possibility of genuine political action, given such a bleak prognosis of our own current post-modern predicament. Via the literary work of Franz Kafka, a discussion is opened about the possibilities and constraints on political action in an era where transcendent legitimization is no longer available. The discussion partners are (first) Jacques Derrida, and Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Jacques Lacan.

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: The Trouble with Žižek -- PART I. PHILOSOPHY -- 1 "Freedom or System? Yes, Please!": How to Read Slavoj Žižek's Less Than Nothing- Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism -- 2 How to Repeat Plato? For a Platonism of the Non-All -- 3 Materialism between Critique and Speculation -- 4 Žižek's Reading Machine -- 5 The Shift of the Gaze in Žižek's Philosophical Writing -- 6 The Two Cats: Žižek, Derrida, and Other Animals -- PART II: PSYCHOANALYSIS -- 7 "Father, Don't You See I'm Burning?" Žižek, Psychoanalysis, and the Apocalypse -- Enjoy Your Truth: Lacan as Vanishing Mediator between Badiou and Žižek -- 9 The Discourse of the Wild Analyst -- 10 "Vers un Signifiant Nouveau": Our Task after Lacan -- 11 Mourning or Melancholia? Collapse of Capitalism and Delusional Attachments -- PART III. POLITICS -- 12 Žižek with Marx: Outside in the Critique of Political Economy -- 13 Žižek as a Reader of Marx, Marx as a Reader of Žižek -- 14 A Plea for Žižekian Politics -- PART IV. RELIGION -- 15 The Problem of Christianity and Žižek's "Middle Period" -- 16 Islam: How Could It Have Emerged after Christianity? -- Afterword. The Minimal Event: From Hystericization to Subjective Destitution -- Contributors -- Index