Slavoj Žižek on the impossible popularity of philosophy

One often hears that my bad-taste jokes are one of the reasons of my popularity, and C&C touch this aspect with their question: should philosophy be popular? My answer is: it cannot be, but it is. Why? Popularity can be the sign that a philosophy caught its epoch in its conceptual essence; however, such a popularity is unfortunately also always a sign that a philosophy was in its core misunderstood. The most blatant case is here that of Hegel: the predominant image of Hegel as the absolute idealist reducing reality to the self-movement of the Idea that inexorably leads to a global happy ending is a ridiculous falsification of Hegel, THE philosopher of radical contingency and historical openness. One should not be afraid to draw all the consequences of this claim: against the predominant version of Marxism, we should assert that when a philosophy seizes the masses and becomes an actual historical force, it is a sure indication that it was misunderstood and that a catastrophe will ensue. Authentic philosophy enters (or, rather, may enter) after the failure of its direct actualization, to analyze (bring out) the necessity of what may appear a contingent failure.

SOURCE: Žižek, Slavoj. “A Love-And-Hate Letter to Crisis and Critique,” Crisis and Critique, Volume 12 / Issue 1, 25 August 2025 [Special issue on Žižek]. Boldface added by RD.

This intervention by Žižek himself is the final contribution to this special issue. I found all but two other articles repelled me from reading them through, but this was quite readable and entertaining, and, characteristic of Žižek, insightful at times, and full of you-know-what elsewhere. The quote above follows upon his reaction to others’ reactions to his dark humor. His comment about Hegel is extraneous to what I found of special interest to me, highlighted in boldface.

Yanking this passage out of context, I think Žižek is correct, though further explication would be useful. Žižek’s abstracted comments could be compared to Theodor Adorno's negative dialectic. From my perspective, this basically addresses the inability to fully inject rationality into an irrational world. This applies to the inability to successfully disseminate a body of thought in the critical depth that it demands, which is not merely a conceptual failure, because it is also symptomatic of the failure to materialize rationality as a social force.

In context, the question is, how does Žižek evaluate his own popularity? He seems smart enough to take it with a grain of salt, even though he indulges himself to the fullest. [RD]

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