Ethics

Hegel is a ubiquitous presence in Zizek's oeuvre and his philosophical importance is hard to overstate. Zizek offers a helpful image: Hegelian dialectics comprises one apex of the triadic structure that defines his theoretical project, the other two being Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, and the contemporary criticism of ideology. There are three key Hegelian concepts that Zizek uses throughout his work: speculative dialectics as a way of doing critical theory; the Hegelian concept of the subject as "self-relating negativity"; and a neo-Hegelian approach to ideology critique as a critical-diagnostic tool. For Fukuyama, the collapse of communism ushered in Hegel's end of history, equated with the global spread of liberal democracy, which makes other kinds of radical political transformation far less likely. The point, for Zizek, is that conservative, liberal and postmodernist positions all share Fukuyama's thesis that liberal-democratic capitalism is accepted as the formula of the best society, all one can do is render it more just, tolerant, and so forth.