Slavoj Žižek, born on this day in 1949, is a Slovenian communist philosopher and public intellectual.

Žižek grew up in Ljubljana, PR Slovenia, Yugoslavia, born into a middle-class family. His father was an economist and civil servant, while his mother was an accountant in a state enterprise.

As a youth, Žižek was influenced by Western cultural, in particular film, English detective novels, German Idealism, French structuralism, and the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He achieved a master's degree and Doctorate in philosophy in 1975 and 1981, respectively.

Žižek was politically active in Slovenia, co-founding the Slovenian Liberal Demorcratic Party and running for one of four seats that comprised the collective Slovenian presidency in 1990. He came in fifth.

Žižek is a public intellectual of international renown, famous for his political and cultural commentary. Among his works are "The Sublime Object of Ideology" (1989), "The Pervert's Guide to Cinema" (2006), and "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology" (2012). Žižek's idiosyncratic presentation style and fame have led some to call him "the Elvis of cultural theory".

Žižek was also a participant in the Occupy Wall Street protests, addressing other protesters in a speech in Zuccotti Park given on November 2011.

"I already am eating from the trash can all the time. The name of this trash can is ideology. The material force of ideology makes me not see what I am effectively eating."

- Slavoj Žižek, in "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology" (2012)