Trade paperback publisher Picador chose a big personality to anchor “Violence,” the first entry in its “Big Ideas, Small Books” series. Slavoj Žižek is referred to as the “Elvis of Cultural Theory,” and like any good rock star, has a model for a wife. A self-described Marxist Communist, Žižek has run for president in his native Slovenia, written several books that marry sociological theory with pop culture, and continues to teach and lecture all over the world. 

Žižek has been the topic of an eponymous documentary film, and is one of several theorists to appear in “Examined Life,” which recently played at The Music Hall in Portsmouth. One of his most entertaining efforts has been the production of a BBC series, “The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema,” in which Žižek discusses and inserts himself into scenes spanning from Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” through David Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive.” Viewers can see him rowing a boat in “The Birds,” reacting to the demon in “The Exorcist,” and refusing to choose the red or blue pill in “The Matrix.”

Žižek’s biggest strength is using easily understood cultural references to illustrate his ideas, and “Violence” begins with a simple parable. A laborer is suspected of stealing from the factory where he works and is put under watch by company security. Night after night, the guards watch him push a wheelbarrow outside, but are never able to catch the worker stealing anything. Come to find out, what the man was stealing was the wheelbarrows themselves.

This parable illustrates Žižek’s central idea that it can be difficult to recognize what we see if it does not meet our expectations of what it should look like. The guards’ preconceived notions of stolen goods enabled the thief to repeatedly pass by undetected.    Žižek applies this idea of misperception to the conditions of violence, breaking his exploration into three different types—subjective, symbolic and systemic.

What Žižek terms as subjective violence includes things we easily identify and recognize as violent acts—like theft, murder, assault. It’s what the guards were looking for and is “violence performed by a clearly identifiable agent.” Although this is the type most commonly associated with the term “violence,” Žižek spends the majority of his book on two other related forms that are not as easily perceived—symbolic and systemic.

Symbolic violence is captured within the world of words. Žižek looks at how what is spoken, who is able to speak, and the “certain universe of meaning” shared by speakers of a common language (or commonly understood language) binds people together. He illustrates this thought with the idea that, “An enemy is someone whose story you have not heard,” citing Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” as an example.

He defines systemic violence as the “often catastrophic impact of the smooth functioning of our economic and political systems.” Žižek’s definition is grounded in Marxist theory, and in the works of authors like Naomi Klein, Eric Schlosser and Michael Pollan who have written about the impact of capitalism and industrialization. It’s also an idea fundamental within current movements to understand and redirect the global and local impacts of our culture’s consumption.

It’s hard to boil down these big ideas into a small book and an even smaller review. “Violence” is but a stepping stone to further exploration and echoes much of the thought, playfulness and insight found in Žižek’s earlier writings. His strength is in exploring difficult concepts drawing from current events like Hurricane Katrina, Abu Ghraib, 9/11, and conflict in the Middle East and weaving in references to film, television and literature. 

Žižek uses Alfonso Cuaron’s “Children of Men”  as a metaphor for cultural sterility caused by the spread of democracy. M. Night Shyamalan’s “The Village” is an example of how irrational fear of someone (or something) else inherently sustains our social structures. John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany” illustrates the bind of symbolic social gestures that are meant to be rejected.
Žižek offers no solutions in “Violence.” Instead, the book, like his other works, is an exploration into perspective. If nothing else, his writing underscores how our positions—cultural, economic, and political—impact what we see and how we see it. It’s heavy stuff packed into a slim little volume. But portability is key as you’ll probably want, like a thief in a wheelbarrow factory, to keep coming back for more.