Zizek on Why We Love Sociopaths

Via @MrTeacup, I learned that Zizek recently concluded one of his public lectures with a summary and endorsement of my book Why We Love Sociopaths. You can watch it here (embedding is disabled, but the link skips straight to the revelant part).

This is obviously one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to me. And what better way to celebrate than to buy the book (Amazon: US, UK; Book Depository)?

Why We Love Sociopaths reviewed at The Quietus

Siobhan McKeown of The Quietus has posted a review of Why We Love Sociopaths (along with an excerpt). Also included is a review of Greg Sharzer’s No Local: Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won’t Change the World, which is likely to be of interest to AUFS readers given our periodic debates about localism.

The Last Psychiatrist on Why We Love Sociopaths

The Last Psychiatrist has a post up responding to the excerpt from Why We Love Sociopaths. You can read it and see what you think, but I wanted to make sure that you all made note of this particular part:

This article is important for a specific reason. If you follow the thesis that The Atlantic and The New Yorker set the default ways which we understand social issues, e.g. sex, money and politics– and they do this even if you don’t read those magazines– then Kotsko and others like him set the default understanding for academic types. This doesn’t mean everyone agrees with him, no no no– it means that he sets the frame. The trick is you will argue his conclusions but it will be impossible for it to occur to you to argue the form of the question. So “why do we love sociopaths?” is literally understood: “since it is a fact that we love sociopaths, why?”

Tremble before me and my irresistible framing powers!!!

Why We Love Sociopaths: One ebook version

While Amazon continues to drag its feet on the Kindle version, Barnes and Noble has Why We Love Sociopaths available for the Nook. (There are free Nook apps available for Android and Apple devices, as well as PCs and Macs.)

There is no way for outsiders to know when Amazon will release the Kindle edition — it’s an unknowable mystery. One day, it will simply be there. I’m checking every morning and will let you know.

So as not to waste a valuable comment thread, I’ll share with you a thought that’s occurred to me: I’ve been reading more PDFs of late, and perhaps it wouldn’t be too extravagant to get a Kindle. The ability to stockpile Guttenberg Project texts for easy reference during class also appeals to me.

Sociopathic subjects

I really enjoyed Why We Love Sociopaths, in part because of the additional perspective it gives on Awkwardness. The “fantasy sociopath” the book studies is introduced as the opposite of  awkwardness: where awkwardness is an anxiety in relation to social norms, sociopaths, at least in TV fantasy, never experience social norms as something that makes them anxious, only as tools they can use to manipulate others. But what unites awkwardness and sociopathy is that these anti-social experiences reveal something fundamental which underlies the possibility of sociality. That is to say, Adam’s project is a kind of dialectical redemption of the anti-social, in which anti-sociality, by revealing the conditions of our sociality denaturalize it and provide ways of thinking about an alternative sociality which we might choose. Awkwardness and Why We Love Sociopaths thus I think have something in common with what Judith Halberstam calls “anti-social” queer theory; the connection is perhaps clearest in the anti-familial theme that surfaces periodically through Why We Love Sociopaths.

One thing that is suggested in the book but I think it would be interesting to think about more is the possibility that the liberal subject as such is sociopathic.

A sociopathic excerpt

The New Inquiry has generously posted a substantial excerpt from the introduction to Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television. Tell your friends!

Also, Awkwardness is currently available for the low low price of $5!

What better way to celebrate the upcoming Mad Men premiere…

than to preorder Why We Love Sociopaths: A Guide to Late Capitalist Television (forthcoming) (Amazon: US, UK, Book Depository)?

(I talk about Mad Men a lot in the book — that’s the connection.)

UPDATE: The Book Depository appears to have it in stock, with free shipping worldwide.

UPDATE: Apparently it’s in stock on the Amazon UK site as well. We Americans must wait stoically.

UPDATE: And finally, the US Amazon site has a specific date when it will be in stock: March 25.

Now available for pre-order!

Why We Love Sociopaths is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Here is the description:

Sociopaths are pervasive in contemporary television, from high-brow drama all the way down to cartoons — and of course the news as well. From the scheming Eric Cartman of South Park to the seductive imposter Don Draper of Mad Men, cold and ruthless characters captivate us, making us wish that we could be so effective and successful. Yet why should we admire characters who get ahead by being amoral and uncaring? In his follow-up to Awkwardness, Adam Kotsko argues that the popularity of the ruthless sociopath reflects our dissatisfaction with a failed social contract, showing that we believe that the world rewards the evil and uncaring rather than the good. By analyzing characters like the serial killer star of Dexter and the cynical Dr. House, Kotsko shows that the fantasy of the sociopath distracts us from our real problems — but that we still might benefit from being a little more sociopathic.

This is just my small contribution to our ongoing efforts to be the most-published group of bloggers on earth.

A sociopathic book cover

Advance praise for Why We Love Sociopaths

Lars Iyer, a giant among bloggers and the author of the novel Spurious, has provided a blurb for my forthcoming Why We Love Sociopaths:

What is it about our society which makes sociopaths, i.e., the kind of ruthless individuals who make their own rules, so appealing? With his usual acuity, Adam Kotsko gives an analysis of contemporary TV shows (South Park, Mad Men, The Wire, etc.) to make the case that depictions of social disconnection are especially seductive at a time when our own society has become ever more destructive and amoral. Kotsko provokes us in suggesting how we might combine and reshape several features of the television sociopath, so that we might break the hold of the societal norms prevalent in late capitalism.