Slavoj Žižek, Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle

Kelsey Wood (University of Arkansas at Little Rock)

Ed. by Gerhard P. Knapp, University of Utah
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.07: French Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (University of Western Australia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Domains

Political Science

Dates

First circulation or publication 2004

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Commentary / criticism

Resources

Save to Bookshelf

One of Žižek’s sharpest and most pertinent interventions is

Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle

(2004). In this book (abbreviated

Iraq

below) the author further develops arguments from

Welcome to the Desert of the Real

(2002) concerning the so-called “war on terror”. Žižek begins the book by quoting Herman Goering, speaking at the Nuremberg trials in 1946: “Of course the people don’t want war [...] But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along” (

Iraq

, p. 1).

The text goes on to show that the truth of the justifications for the war in Iraq is revealed in the very inconsistency between them. For Žižek (as for both Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan), such inconsistency indicates unconscious efforts to

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Citation: Wood, Kelsey. "Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 February 2013 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=23495, accessed 23 November 2024.]