“In his preface to Animal Farm, George Orwell wrote that if liberty means anything it is ‘the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.’ This is what the decaffeinated protester never does; he gives his audience what it wants to hear.”

This book was about how we know there’s at least one crisis that would require a global collective response on the horizon—global warming, a rogue country acquiring nuclear weapons, or the way capitalism ravages certain countries like in the Congo. And yet, we live as if none of these big crises are going to actually happen. But why?

This collection of essays was typically Žižek: it combined movie analysis, commentary about political events in tons of countries, personal anecdotes, and philosophy—mostly Hegel. I'm more of a Hegel scholar myself, so I'm always impressed at how Žižek interprets Hegel without falling into the usual analytical or marxist interpretation traps.

No contemporary philosopher gets at the heart of the problem the way Žižek does. If only he would also explain what the solution is, that’d be even better.