Zizek and his Panic: A Critical Schellingian Review

Abstract

True to his early Schellingian roots, Slavoj Zizek (2020, 78), in his recent book, Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World describes a virus as “a kind of zero-level life,” invoking Schelling’s Naturphilosophie. Perhaps the closest reference, though Zizek did not mention it, is his second major work on the subject, namely, First Outline of A System of the Philosophy of Nature (written in 1799) where Schelling originally propounded the theory of nature’s ‘duplicity’ (Schelling 2004). In the following discussions, we will situate Zizek’s timely intervention within the context of his naturalism that politically mediates the differential flows of the present world (capitalism, not to mention) and the subject itself, against the background of a space of difference between the two, whereby the virus acts as a kind of deferral mechanism in which something like the future is suspended, finally rendering the relation motionless. The discussions will also briefly situate Zizek’s political naturalism within contemporary political discourse involving some of his direct and indirect engagements with Agamben, Latour, Badiou, Berardi, Deleuze (especially concerning the latter’s vitalism), and others. This critical review stakes out a view of Zizek’s recent intervention as a timely polemics, consistent with his global image as one of the most dependable public intellectuals of our troubled time.