Slavoj Žižek on the Feel-Good Ideology of Starbucks

Back in 2010, we pre­sent­ed an ani­mat­ed video where Slavoj Žižek, our favorite Sloven­ian the­o­rist, iden­ti­fied a new trend in mod­ern cap­i­tal­ism. Nowa­days, mar­keters have found a crafty way to rework Max Weber’s Protes­tant Eth­ic. They tell us we can achieve per­son­al redemp­tion not through hard work and amass­ing sav­ings, but by con­sum­ing the right prod­ucts. When you buy eco-friend­ly prod­ucts, fair trade goods, or prod­ucts that yield some kind of char­i­ta­ble div­i­dend, you don’t have to think twice about the cost of your con­sumerism. Not when you’ve done some good and earned your­self some good cap­i­tal­ist kar­ma.

This line of think­ing returns in Žižek’s new film The Per­vert’s Guide to Ide­ol­o­gy, where, once again, he focus­es on one of the world’s most effec­tive mar­ket­ing oper­a­tions, Star­bucks. This, after hav­ing seem­ing­ly imbibed a “Ven­ti” or “Trenta” por­tion of the prod­uct.

To drill deep­er into Zizek’s thoughts on this sub­ject, see his 30-minute lec­ture “First as Tragedy, Then as Farce.” For more clips from his new film, see our recent posts:

Slavoj Žižek Exam­ines the Per­verse Ide­ol­o­gy of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy

Slavoj Žižek’s Pervert’s Guide to Ide­ol­o­gy Decodes The Dark Knight and They Live

via Bib­liok­lept