Zizek's "life Politics" Thinking Research

In the discourse narration of the contemporary political philosophy, the term of "biopolitics"was reused by Foucault in the 1970s,and was further developed by Agamben,Nigel and Esposito,etc. Foucault focuses his biopolitics on the discussion of how life is governed; Agamben centers his biopolitics on the study of the death of life; Nigel concentrates his biopolitics on the discussion of resistance to life power; and Esperanto's biopolitics attaches importance to the analysis of life immunization management. Their biopolitics has always regarded "life" as "object". Therefore, it is termed as "governanceism biopolitics". However,when biopolitics descends to a skill or a tool of life governance, the "governanceism biopolitics" is to face a blame of justice identity,which promotes reverse reflection on biopolitics and constructs a positive interpretation for "life".Zizek,a new Marxist pioneer, adheres to Marxist position of "human" subjectivity, and gives a positive interpretation about biopolitics on the basis of the critical reflection on the"governanceism biopolitics". Starting from the reality of life objectification, Zizek tries not to make the "life" suffer from governance but free the life, and not to descend to a tool, but ascend to a purpose. Oriented by the question of life appeal of "Post-9·11 Time",Zizek's biopolitics firmly grasps the people's concern about the life safety, life welfare and life freedom, etc.Regarding the life liberation as a problem awareness,Zizek's biopolitics endows biopolitics with new connotation: biopolitics refers to the management of security, welfare and freedom of human life, and regards this management as its essence.The life liberation is the core problem that Zizek's biopolitics is to solve. The so-called "life liberation" refers to the concept of freeing the "reality people" from the constraint of the"self-enslavement","violence","exclusion" and "control",etc.,so as to promote their free development. "Life liberation" has two major tasks: "internal liberation" and "external liberation".The life freed from the "self-enslavement" belongs to "internal liberation", and it depends on the return of the "subject" of biopolitics. The life freed from "violence", "exclusion" and "control",etc. belongs to "external liberation", and it means the realization of life safety, life welfare and life freedom.Centering on "life liberation" and starting from the two dimensions of the "internal liberation" and "external liberation",This dissertation goes deeply into the relevant texts of Zizek's "biopolitics" and systematically sorts out and deeply discusses the basic thought of the"life liberation".The whole dissertation includes five chapters, besides introduction and conclusion.The introduction briefly introduces the research background of this dissertation, and gives a brief analysis of the connotation of "biopolitics" as well as its evolution of problem awareness,thus clarifying that Zizek's biopolitics is essentially a biopolitics about life liberation. This chapter lays the foundation for the whole research.Chapter one examines the "internal liberation".The main task of this part is to analyze the causes and methods of the "internal liberation" promoted by Zizek. From the perspective of Lacan's psychoanalysis theory,Zizek completes the discussion of the "internal liberation",mainly centering around the inquiry of why and how the "subject" of biopolitics returns.The"de-subjectivization" of biopolitics leads to the "de-materialization" of the subject.The destruction of traditional identity as well as the illusion of the subject results in the subject's "emptiness" and"objectification". Reflection on the "de-subjectivization" of biopolitics requires the return of the"subject". The "re-subjectivity" of biopolitics is the method of "subject" return, which promotes the reproduction of the "subject",and ultimately promotes the realization of "internal liberation"by means of the "re-identification" of the subject,beyond illusion and the construction of life"excess".Chapters two, three and four explore the "external liberation" in detail. These three chapters mainly discuss the reasons why and how Zizek frees life from the external constraint of "violence","exclusion" and "control",etc. And the second chapter mainly solves the problem of life safety.Starting from the perspective of "violence" and by making a critical analysis of "the violence from terrorism" as well as "the violence from anti-terrorism war",Zizek uses the action of "changing coordinates" to eliminate the "violence" and tries to rescue the life from the "violence" so as to promote the realization of life safety. The third chapter mainly solves the problem of life welfare.Starting from the perspective of "exclusion" and by criticizing "the exclusion of material well-being" as well as "the exclusion of system well-being",Zizek uses "the presupposition of communism" to overcome the "exclusion" and hopes to rescue life from the "exclusion" so as to promote the management of life welfare. The fourth chapter mainly solves the problem of life freedom. Starting from the perspective of "control" and by criticizing "the digital control","the ideological control" and "the system control", Zizek advocates to use the methods of digital"socialization","violent intervention" of ideological and "reform of society" to remove the above"control" and hopes to free life from "control" in order to promote the realization of life freedom.The fifth chapter mainly discusses the problem of the living practice of biopolitics. This part mainly addresses how Zizek puts the great career of life liberation into living practice. Centering around the analysis from three aspects of the essence of living practice of biopolitics, current"action" and its realistic significance,Zizek completes the discussion of life liberation and living practice. He expounds that the essence of living practice in biopolitics is to promote "incremental"realization of the liberation of life, and what the people currently need to put into practice is the"order" production, beyond "tolerance",reinforcement of "life awareness" whose realistic significance is to promote the "awakening" of life.The conclusion focuses on the appearance significance and limitation of the Zizek's biopolitics from the perspective of Marxist appearance theory, and makes a prospect for the theoretical development of "Post-Zizek's biopolitics". Zizek's biopolitics completes the critique of three contemporary biopolitics theories, promotes the active transformation of biopolitics, and drives the evolution of biopolitics paradigm. However, its appearance still has many limitations,such as the lack of physiological perspective, challenges of life science and technology, and violence of discourse construction. Therefore, "Post-Zizek's biopolitics" should start from the power of life, health of life, equality of life and freedom of life, etc. and center around the answer to the contemporary life appeal to promote the exploration and practice of life liberation.