Reviewed by Melissa Marie Silva

In his recently published text Violence, Slovenian Marxist philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Zizek undertakes a critical analysis of what he terms “a triumvirate” of violence, comprised of the more visible “ ‘subjective’ violence performed by a clearly identifiable agent”, and two objective types of violence, “ ‘symbolic’” and “ ‘systemic’” (1,2). Symbolic violence Zizek writes, is “embodied in language, and its forms”, whereas “‘systemic’ violence in understood as “the often catastrophic consequences of the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems” as well as the direct “counterpart to an all-too-visible subjective violence” (1, 2). Zizek asserts that subjective and objective violence are not to be perceived from the same angle, as “subjective violence is experienced as such against the background of a non-violent zero-level” and is viewed by many as a “perturbation of the ‘normal’, peaceful state of things,” whereas objective violence is “invisible”, as it “sustains the very zero-level standard against which we perceive something as subjectively violent” and must be taken into consideration “to make sense of what otherwise seem to be ‘irrational’ explosions of subjective violence” (2).

Through a series of anecdotes and references – political, cultural, and literary, – Zizek presents and illustrates his ideas in a manner suitable for those who are theoretically, philosophically, and politically savvy, while still maintaining an accessible rhetoric for those not as familiar with his theoretical, philosophical, and political stances. In discussing a recent “left-liberal humanitarian” move against violence, Zizek presents a relatively unique take on the subject by divulging the exploited “pseudo –urgency” evoked by popular capitalist consumerism giant Starbucks (5-6). Zizek explains how a few years prior, the coffee powerhouse put into motion an advertising campaign which included displaying posters at store entrances to inform customers that “almost half of the chain’s profits went into health-care for the children of Guatemala […] the inference being that with every cup you drink, you save a child’s life” (5-6). Zizek, with intelligible precision and clarity, explains such “humanitarianism” exemplified by Starbucks as a “fake sense of urgency” through which the “post-industrial rich, living in their secluded virtual world, not only do not deny or ignore the harsh reality outside their area – they actively refer to it all the time” (5-6). It is this precise “fake sense of urgency” that Zizek believes underlies the predominant preoccupation of the “tolerant liberal attitude” which chiefly opposes all forms of violence, “from direct, physical violence (mass murder, terror) to ideological violence (racism, incitement, sexual discrimination),” leading Zizek to pose this question to his readers: “Is there not something suspicious, indeed symptomatic, about this focus on subjective violence […] enacted by social agents, evil individuals, disciplined repressive apparatuses, fanatical crowds?” continuing, “Doesn’t it desperately try to distract our attention from the true locus of trouble, by obliterating from view other forms of violence and thus actively participating in them?” and essentially, “mask the nothingness of what goes on [?]” (9, 183).

Here, Zizek puts forth an integral question, one which arguably – as his text continues to demonstrate – is largely ignored, evident by its absence in societies at large, and rightly so, as the very violence which provokes Zizek’s questioning, is in his understanding, “no longer attributable to concrete individuals and their ‘evil’ intentions, but is purely ‘objective’, systemic, anonymous” (11). It is the “liberal communists”, Zizek later asserts, who “While fighting subjective violence […] are the very agents of the structural violence which creates the conditions for the explosions of subjective violence,” and furthers, “The same philanthropists who give millions for AIDS or education in tolerance have ruined the lives of thousands through financial speculation and thus created the conditions for the rise of the intolerance that is being fought” (31).

It is with this line of questioning and analysis that Zizek integrates a discussion of ideology, which serves as a fundamental and integral aid in understanding his overarching critique on violence. Zizek evokes Hegel’s “speculative identity of opposites” explaining how “Certain features, attitudes and norms of life are no longer perceived as ideologically marked. They appear to be neutral, non-ideological, natural, commonsensical”, elaborating, “We designate as ideology that which stands out from this background […] The Hegelian point here would be that it is precisely the neutralisation of some features into a spontaneously accepted background that marks out ideology at its purest and at its most effective” (31). Zizek further explains that this arrangement of neutralisation in conjunction with an “accepted background”, becomes “the dialectical ‘coincidence of opposites’” to signify how “the actualisation of a notion or an ideology at its purest coincides with, or more precisely, appears as its opposite, as non-ideology” and that violence essentially functions in the same manner: “Social-symbolic violence at its purest appears as its opposite, as the spontaneity of the milieu in which we dwell, of the air we breathe” (31).

This “dialectical ‘coincidence of opposites” which explain the manner in which violence functions, is made quite poignant near the end of the text where Zizek asserts,

To chastise violence outright, to condemn it as ‘bad,’ is an ideological operation par excellence, a mystification which collaborates in rendering invisible the fundamental focus of social violence. It is deeply symptomatic that our Western societies which display such sensitivity to different forms of harassment are at the same time able to mobilize a multitude of mechanisms destined to render us insensitive to the most brutal forms of violence – often, paradoxically, in the very form of humanitarian sympathy with the victims” (174).

Zizek divulges that language serves as an integral component or perhaps “agent” to the functioning of such ideological operations, or as Zizek in his epilogue writes, “the ultimate cause of violence […] is founded in the violence that inheres to language itself, the very medium of overcoming direct violence” (174). Zizek’s analysis of how we “perceive something as an act of violence,” involves measuring “it by a presupposed standard of what the ‘normal’ non-violent situation is – and the highest form of violence is the imposition of this standard with reference to which some events appear as ‘violent’” (55). Zizek confirms that this perception “is why language itself, the very medium of non-violence, of mutual recognition, involves unconditional violence” and why “verbal violence is not a secondary distortion, but the ultimate resort of every specifically human violence” (55, 57). Zizek, in drawing upon the relevant example of political protest to elaborate the function of language writes, “[W]hen workers protest their exploitation, they do not protest a simple reality, but an experience of their real predicament made meaningful through language. Reality in itself, in its stupid existence, is never intolerable: it is language, its symbolization, which makes it such” (57). Zizek then cautiously advises his reader, “When we are dealing with the scene of a furious crowd, attacking and burning buildings and cars, lynching people, etc., never forget the placards they are carrying and the words which sustain and justify their acts” (57).

Upon reaching the end of Violence, the concept itself appears to be refashioned, the task accomplished in an ironic yet clever, non-violent manner. Such refashioning was arguably a purposeful intention of the author, as the ideological implications of the rewritten meaning of ‘violence’ only further demonstrate the larger message of the text. With Violence, Slavoj Zizek prepares a well established, researched, and cultivated foundation for a thorough discussion of what he understands ‘violence’ to mean in its entirety, and as opposed to putting forth any sort of “solution”, provides his reader with the groundwork for continuous critical thinking on the subject as is arguably the same for many of his other works. Although there were less pronounced and thorough moments in the text such as his discussions on reality and the ‘Real’, reminiscent of his essay “Welcome to the Desert of the Real”, his discussion of “post-political biopolitics”, the process of individuals becoming “subjectivised”, Walter Benjamin’s “divine violence” versus “mythical violence”, and a somewhat passionate argument for Atheism, his principal message regarding subjective and systemic violence – which appears to be the text’s core, from which the other discussions stem – is articulated effectively throughout the text as well as at its close, where Zizek leaves a theoretical stain, of the essence of violence, in the minds of his readers by concluding, “[T]he lesson of the intricate relationship between subjective and systemic violence is that violence is not a direct property of some acts, but it distributed between acts and their contexts, between activity and inactivity” and adds, “The same act can count as violent or non-violent, depending on its context; sometimes, a polite smile can be more violent than a brutal outburst” (180).

Bio: Melissa Marie Silva graduated from York University with a Specialized honours BA in English and is currently midway through completing a MA degree in Literatures of Modernity at Ryerson University. Her areas of interest include contemporary, literary, and cultural theory, as well as modern fiction, specifically applying the former to the latter in a critical manner. She has a particular interest in the theoretical works of Michel Foucault as well as the literary works of Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein, and have more recently become interested in exploring what is understood as ‘life writing’; that is, the modern refashioning of the autobiography and biography genres.