Totalitarianism, as an ideological notion, has always had a precise strategic function: to guarantee the liberal-democratic hegemony by dismissing the Leftist critique of liberal democracy as the obverse, the twin, of the Rightist Fascist dictatorships. Instead of providing yet another systematic exposition of the history of this notion, Zizek 's book addresses totalitarianism in a Wittgensteinian way, as a cobweb of family resemblances. He concludes that the devil lies not so much in the detail of what constitutes totalitarianism but in what enables the very designation totalitarian, the liberal-democratic consensus itself.
- ISBN10 1859844251
- ISBN13 9781859844250
- Publish Date 27 August 2002
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 10 January 2014
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Verso Books
- Format Paperback
- Pages 286
- Language English