No seu livro Interrogating de Real, no subcapítulo intitulado “The Struggle for Intellectual Hegemony” Žižek, tomando como ponto de partida o livro de John Brockman, The Third Culture Beyond the Scientific Revolution, acusa a ‘terceira cultura’ de estar “infested with ideology”, imputando-lhe a falha de se apropriar das ciências ‘duras’ para legitimar a sua posição (a mesma crítica feita por Sokal e Bricmont em Imposturas Intelectuais ao "pós-modernismo") e culpando-a (ainda da mesma forma que Sokal e Bricmont) de passar ao lado das questões em debate no palco político-ideológico:

“We are witnessing today the struggle for intellectual hegemony – for who will occupy the universal place of the ‘public intellectual’ – between postmodern-deconstructionist cultural studies and the cognitivist popularizers of ‘hard’ sciences, that is, the proponents of the so-called ‘third culture’ […]” Slavoj ŽIŽEK (2005: 83)

“this retreat of the ‘public intellectual’ [“the academic versed in ‘soft’ human (or social) sciences who addressed issues of common interest” (p. 83)] was counteracted by the surge of the third culture author, who, in the eyes of the general public, more and more stands for the one ‘supposed to know’, trusted to reveal the keys to the great secrets that concern us all. The problem is here again the gap between effective ‘hard’ sciences and their third culture ideological proponents who elevate scientists into subjects supposed to know, not only for ordinary people who buy these volumes in masses, but also for postmodern theorists themselves who are intrigued by it, ‘in love with it’, and suppose that these scientists ‘really know something about the ultimate mystery of being’. The encounter here is failed.” Slavoj ŽIŽEK (2005: 84)Afinal, reduz-se tudo, como cria Nietzsche, a vontade de poder?