Slavoj Zizek, The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of
At the outset of the book, Zizek claims that in our historical moment
"the theological dimension is given a new lease on life in the guise of
the postsecular 'Messianic' turn of deconstruction" (3). Deconstruction
assumes the position of Benjamin's chess-playing puppet, while historical
materialism retreats to the dwarf's position. Never sparing of deconstruction,
Zizek's formulation here and throughout unapologetically links deconstruction to the pasty
liberalism he is so fond of deriding. However, lurking behind Zizek's usual critique of liberal
political positions (multiculturalism, identity politics, human rights), there lies a more
intriguing relation to deconstruction. Zizek devotes a great number of pages in this book to
Saint Paul, one of his heroes, and Jesus, a man whom he values not as the son of God but as he
who kills himself in order to save himself from becoming doxa. Jesus seems to figure here as
none other than Jacques Derrida, the messianic voice of deconstruction, around whom disciples
gather, and Paul as none other than Zizek himself, the outsider who rigorously theorizes and
institutionalizes the excess out of the dominant tradition. Christianity serves as the allegory
through which Zizek critiques and proposes a solution to the apolitical "messianism" of
deconstruction.
