"My instinct as a philosopher is that we are effectively approaching a multicentric world, which means we need to ask new, and for the traditional left, unpleasant questions"
About this Quote
Zizek’s intent isn’t to celebrate multipolarity as automatic progress; it’s to puncture the left’s habit of treating anti-Americanism as a sufficient politics. If power is dispersed, then “the enemy” isn’t singular, and resistance can’t be a one-note performance. The subtext: some non-Western centers of power are not emancipatory projects in disguise; they can be authoritarian, nationalist, patriarchal, or brutally capitalist in their own right. A multicentric world also complicates solidarity: whose struggles get prioritized when the old map of oppressor/oppressed stops lining up neatly with borders?
Contextually, Zizek is speaking from the post-Cold War hangover and the post-2008 crisis mood, where liberal triumphalism collapsed but no left alternative consolidated. His provocation is aimed inward. He’s asking whether a left built around critique alone can survive a world where critique must be paired with choices: defense, sovereignty, security, climate bargaining, migration - the unglamorous stuff. “Unpleasant” is the tell. It means trade-offs, not purity.
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APA Style (7th ed.)
Zizek, Slavoj. (2026, January 16). My instinct as a philosopher is that we are effectively approaching a multicentric world, which means we need to ask new, and for the traditional left, unpleasant questions. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-instinct-as-a-philosopher-is-that-we-are-88263/
Chicago Style
Zizek, Slavoj. "My instinct as a philosopher is that we are effectively approaching a multicentric world, which means we need to ask new, and for the traditional left, unpleasant questions." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-instinct-as-a-philosopher-is-that-we-are-88263/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"My instinct as a philosopher is that we are effectively approaching a multicentric world, which means we need to ask new, and for the traditional left, unpleasant questions." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/my-instinct-as-a-philosopher-is-that-we-are-88263/. Accessed 21 Feb. 2026.
