Light at the end of the tunnel is another train

As told 8

“Of course there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's another train moving towards us.”
1:01:39 The Fate of the Commons: A Trotzkyite View2018-12-22 · 1:45:43

“Leftists like to say, 'There is a light at the end of the tunnel.' You know what's my answer? Yes, it's another train coming tomorrow.”
1:08:57 Sex and the Failed Absolute2019-09-25 · 1:18:46

“of course there is a light at the end of the tunnel, it's another train coming towards us, you know?”
47:26 Slavoj Žižek - 08/07/20132013-08-07 · 1:19:34

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

contents · one story, 3 jobsuses

ideology as killing hope ×1 critique of ideology ×1 emergency brake ×1

Its cast and sources

populated by

Wolfgang Streeck2 John Rawls3 Dmitri Shostakovich2 Werner Heisenberg3 Pierre Bayard2 Wolfgang Schirmacher1 Paul Volcker1 Eric Ambler1

alongside works

Theory of Communicative Action2 Incontinence of the Void: Economico-Philosophical Spandrels2 Symphony No. 142 Theses on Feuerbach2 Making It Explicit2 Spheres2 Was geschah im 20. Jahrhundert?2 How to Talk About Books That You Haven't Read2

Told together with

30% Asking Occupy Wall Street 'what do you want?' 3 shared talks 25% Hegel's owl of Minerva 2 shared talks 22% Pierre Bayard, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read 2 shared talks 9% Stephen Hawking's brain-wired wheelchair 2 shared talks 9% Bill Gates as rent-extractor from general intellect 2 shared talks 8% Fukushima and Tokyo evacuation 2 shared talks 7% Malcolm X and the loss of roots as emancipatory starting point 2 shared talks 5% Starbucks ethical consumerism 2 shared talks 4% Niels Bohr's horseshoe 2 shared talks

Every retelling 8

1:01:39 The Fate of the Commons: A Trotzkyite View2018-12-22 · 1:45:43

Žižek subverts the reassuring proverb 'there is a light at the end of the tunnel' by adding: of course there is, it's another train coming towards us. Used to reject cheap optimism while not endorsing total pessimism., illustrating ideology that kills hope,false optimism,catastrophism

1:08:57 Sex and the Failed Absolute2019-09-25 · 1:18:46

Against the communist optimist who says 'there is a light at the end of the tunnel,' Žižek retorts 'yes, it's another train coming', expressing his pessimism about political progress., illustrating communist pessimism,ideology critique

47:26 Slavoj Žižek - 08/07/20132013-08-07 · 1:19:34

Against the communist consolation that crisis is the darkness before dawn, Žižek quips that there is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel, it is another train coming toward us, i.e., the spontaneous trajectory is catastrophic., illustrating emergency brake,critique of Hölderlin paradigm,pessimism about the train of history

37:23 Communist Absconditus2012 · 1:09:16

Eastern European saying: when someone says 'there is light at the end of the tunnel,' the response is 'of course, it's another train coming toward us.' Žižek uses this against teleological optimism about the crisis resolving into progress., illustrating eschatological attitude,anti-teleology,Eastern European political consciousness

11:05 Interview with Slavoj Zizek2017-07 · 1:01:36

Against Marxist teleology: when leftists see light at the end of the tunnel, Žižek says it is the light of an oncoming train, history is open and dangerous., illustrating the light of another train,hegel-dialectics

2:29 Slavoj Žižek on the Velvet Revolution and Vaclav Havel on Czech televisionpub. 2024-08-23 · 28:42

When someone says 'don't worry, there is a light at the end of the tunnel,' it usually means another train is coming towards us, a joke against progressive optimism., illustrating rejection of liberal progressivism