This perhaps, is also the most important ethics lesson of the twentieth century; we should abandon all ethical arrogance and humbly acknowledge how lucky we are to be able to act ethically.

The Puppet and the Dwarf is dear Žižek at his best. I do favor his political and cultural projects. Those other sorties into ontology and associated Hegelian/Lacanian practices tend to baffle me. The point of departure here is a stand against the "vulgar" and "boring" atheism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. I can see that. Atheism remains self-evident; telling the believer that such is horseshit isn't very productive and not that interesting, not any more anyway.

What proceeds is a series of approaches to the Epistles of St. Paul and how the framing nature of Genesis and the Passion are necessary to further the narrative. It is this anxiety between the Law (especially of Christianity's Jewish predecessors) and Love results in a sort of anxiety. This allows its excesses, its forays, its forbidden indulgence in the Pagan. Žižek ties this in nicely with Tolkien's middle earth chronicles.

Somewhere down the road, through the fables of Job and the atheistic recriminations of Jesus on the cross, we arrive at the effective foible of Mutually Assured Doctrine: it succeeded precisely because we are such irrational agents. Here's to the holidays and merry matters left unsaid.
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