In this formulation, the European central government is reduced, perhaps not unfairly, to little more than an instrument of global capital; in touch only with the managerial class and unable to provide a unified response to any of the manifold problems assailing Europe in 2016. The deadening effect on public and political life of a Brussels beholden to its banks thus finds its perverse echo in the considerable number of voters now throwing their weight behind Europe’s new far-right. The task of the left, according to Žižek, is nothing less than to save Europe from itself.

“There are basically at this moment two strong Europes: anti-immigrant, racist Europe and this anonymous Brussels Europe. They are both horrific. If this remains the only choice, Europe is over.”

So what is to be done? It is at this point that things get interesting. While always happy to provoke the liberal left with his support for the death penalty or a call for the “militarisation” of Europe’s response to the refugee crisis – by which, to be clear, he means deploying the military in something like its capacity for disaster relief, as opposed to armed intervention – Žižek never fails to return to what, in the end, amounts to a fairly modest set of proposals.