{"id":102,"date":"2018-07-18T05:25:32","date_gmt":"2018-07-18T05:25:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/socp2.epgpbooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/?post_type=chapter&p=102"},"modified":"2019-05-03T11:27:01","modified_gmt":"2019-05-03T11:27:01","slug":"class-culture-and-power-slavoj-zizek","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/chapter\/class-culture-and-power-slavoj-zizek\/","title":{"rendered":"Class, Culture and Power: Slavoj Zizek"},"content":{"raw":"
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1.\u00a0Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

Slavoj Zizek is one of most well known philosopher and psychoanalyst from Slovenia who has a unique way of combining Lacan and Marx in the process of dealing with various aspects of contemporary society. The specificity of the work of Zizek also lies in the various examples that he uses from popular culture and cinema as well as jokes and political anecdotes to support his theoretical argument. He remarks, \u201ethe theoretical line of argumentation is sustained by numerous examples from cinema and popular culture, by jokes and political anecdotes often dangerously approaching the limits of good taste\u201f (Zizek 1999: viii). The subject matter of the work of Zizek is the hole in the discourse of philosophy which is kept out of theory when proper topic of theory is constituted (Myers 2009).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The writing style of Zizek is unique in the sense that it revolves around a subject by thematic discussion of a common problem rather than creating an argument. In this context, Ernesto Laclau while discussing Zizek\u201fs \u201eThe Sublime Object of Ideology\u201f suggests that, \u201eIt is certainly not a book in the classical sense; that is to say, a systematic structure in which an argument is developed according to a pre-determined plan. Nor is it a collection of essays, each of which constitutes a finished product and whose \u201eunity\u201f with the rest is merely the result of its thematic discussion of a common problem. It is rather a series of theoretical interventions which shed mutual light on each other, not in terms of the progression of <\/em>an argument, but in terms of what we could call the reiteration <\/em>of the latter in different discursive contexts\u201f (Zizek cited in Myers 2009: 6).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

This module tries to give an introduction to the major works of Zizek with an emphasis on the influences of Hegel, Lacan and Marx on the works of former.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

2. Hegelian influence on Zizek\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

The work of Hegel provides reference point to Zizek on three main components: universality, reflexivity and negativity (Parker 2004: 36). In his work, \u201eTarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology\u201f (1993) Zizek provides a sustained critique of ideology through a critique of philosophy. In the last part of the book, he criticises \u201ethe tale of ethnic roots\u201f as a \u201emyth of origin\u201f. In reference to Hegel, it argues that the \u201enational heritage\u201f is \u201ea kind of ideological fossil created retroactively by the ruling ideology in order to blur its present antagonism\u201f (Zizek 1993: 232). In this context, the role of the \u201ecritical intellectual\u201f is worthy to look at. Zizek\u201fs reflexivity lies in open position occupied by the \u201ecritical intellectual\u201f in order to keep open something as \u201enot yet hegemonised by any positive ideological project\u201f (ibid. 1) and this can be seen as negative Hegel. On the other hand, there is also an attempt of Zizek for affirmation of Hegel\u201fs work.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

For Zizek, Hegel is much more radical much like his dialectic. While giving the objective of the book The Sublime Object of Ideology\u201f, Zizek writes that the objective of the book is \u201eto accomplish a kind of \u201ereturn to Hegel\u201f- to reactualize Hegelian dialectics by giving it a new reading on the basis of Lacanian psychoanalysis. The current image of Hegel as an \u201eidealist-monist\u201f is totally misleading: what we find in Hegel is the strongest affirmation yet of difference and contingency-\u201eabsolute knowledge\u201f itself is nothing but a name for the acknowledgment of a certain radical loss\u201f (Zizek 1989:xxx).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek was inspired by the Hegelian conception of the totality of power which is always disturbed by an excess which can never quite control. For Zizek, it is emblematic of the power structure where, on the one side there is public written law which signifies the rule of the symbolic and on the other side,\u00a0there is obscene law of the superego which is the unwritten law that is characterised by its transgressive character; and in this case, the meaning of the law is equated with enjoyment. Zizek opines, \u201eSuch a code must remain under cover of night, unacknowledged, unutterable- in public, everybody pretends to know nothing about it, or even actively denies its existence. It represents the \u201cspirit of community\u201d at its purest, exerting the strongest pressure on the individual to comply with its mandate of group identification. Yet, simultaneously, it violates the explicit rules of community life\u201f (Zizek 1994: 54).<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n3. Influence of Lacan on Zizek\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

The psychoanalysis of Zizek is influenced by work of Lacan. Zizek argues that Lacan tries to repeat the attempt of the western philosophers from Plato to Kant about the nature of truth in order to improve and supersede the earlier idea of truth rather than rejecting the idea of truth (Zizek 1993).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In his work \u201eLooking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture\u201f (1991), Zizek tries to deal with Lacanian concept of \u201ereal\u201f and jouisance. <\/em>He tries to see the trajectory of Lacan\u201fs work in his distinction between \u201ereality\u201f and the \u201ereal\u201f. While \u201ereality\u201f here is dependent of the distinct psychic agency in the sense that forbidden things are said in such a way that they are untrue but satisfying enough, but \u201ereal\u201f is the limit of our presentation of the world.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

In his work \u201eThe Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality\u201f (1994), Zizek tries to move from the discussion of culture to that of the place of individual subject in the culture. He elaborately discusses enjoyment, sublimation and femininity. Zizek argues that work of Lacan should be read with an emphasis on how the practice of psychoanalysis will correspond with cultural critique. His work is a critical reading of Frankfurt school with a focus on psychoanalysis, sexuality and \u201esexuation\u201f (term coined by Lacan\u201fs) as key site of the real in terms of production\u00a0 of sexual difference.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

The Lacanian notion of real can be seen as the limit of our representation; limits of our symbolisation or imagination. For Zizek, \u201esexual difference is a real that resist symbolisation\u201f (Zizek 1994: 108). Zizek sees how women is represented in various ways such \u201eas traumatic Thing for the man in the olden times of European \u201ecourtly love\u201f (ibid.\u00a0 90), as access to jouissance beyond the forms of satisfaction attainable by man in sadism and religious imagery (ibid. 75), or as the \u201eshadowy double\u201f of the man that appears to him to hold power but is cast into that place only by his position as the master (Ibid. 56)\u201f (Zizek cited in Parker 2004: 65).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek\u201fs interest also lies in the stereotypical images of \u201ewomen\u201f in culture. He emphasises on Otto Weininger\u201fs discussion on misogynist and anti-semitic tirade against femininity when Weininger says discovers that women \u201edoes not exist\u201f (Zizek 1994: 141). Zizek writes, \u201eFor women cease to exist, it is enough for man to overcome the sexual urge in himself\u201f (ibid). Zizek argues that women is not more than a lure for men and is \u201einfinite craving of Nothing for Something\u201f (ibid. 144), and Zizek argues that in this context Weininger conceives women as an object <\/em>. This non-existence of women is seen by Weininger as a horror of the case of a human subject without substance and this horror is identifies by Zizek as \u201efantasy formations that emerges where the word fails\u201f (ibid.145).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

While \u00a0discussing \u00a0the \u00a0\u201edeadlock \u00a0in \u00a0contemporary \u00a0feminism\u201f, \u00a0Zizek \u00a0argues \u00a0that \u00a0\u201eby \u00a0opposing \u201epatriarchal \u00a0domination\u201f, \u00a0women \u00a0simultaneously \u00a0undermine \u00a0the \u00a0fantasy-support \u00a0of \u00a0their \u00a0own \u201cfeminine\u201d \u00a0identity\u201f \u00a0(1994:108). \u00a0He \u00a0further \u00a0argues \u00a0that \u00a0deadlock \u00a0between \u00a0sexes \u00a0into \u00a0Kantian \u201eantimonies\u201f in terms of irreversible oppositional terms that can never be transcended (ibid. 153). Zizek also argues that the position of the women is \u201etraumatic\u201f cause for the man and psychoanalysis can be an option for analysis of things that have been turned into trauma. He says \u201ethe trauma has no existence\u201f of its own prior to symbolization; it remains an anamorphic entity that gains its consistency only in retrospect, viewed from within a symbolic horizon\u201f (ibid. 31).<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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While analysing the real of the sexual difference, Zizek have to deal with work of Lacan and Butler. Zizek argues that when Butler rejects the sexual difference, she actually silently accepts the symbolic norms of the heterosexual of what is to be a \u201eman\u201f or a \u201ewomen\u201f and on the other hand, sexual difference as understood by Lacan is real in the sense that it can never be expressed in symbolic form (Zizek 1999: 273). He writes: \u201eWhen Lacan claims that sexual difference is \u201ereal\u201f, he is therefore far from elevating a historical contingent form of sexuation into a transhistorical form......: the claim that sexual difference is \u201ereal\u201f equals the claim that is \u201eimpossible\u201f-impossible to symbolize, to formulate a symbolic norm. In other words, it is not what we have homosexuals, fetishists, and other perverts in spite <\/em>of the normative fact of sexual difference-that is, as proofs of the failure of sexual difference to impose its norm; it is not that sexual difference is the ultimate point of reference which anchors the contingent drifting of sexuality; it is, on the contrary, on account of the gap which forever persists between the real of sexual difference and the determinate forms of heterosexual symbolic norms that we have the multitude of \u201eperverse\u201f forms of sexuality\u201f (ibid. 273). Zizek uses films to illustrate psychoanalytic and philosophical concepts and his work \u201eLooking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture\u201f (1991) is a good example of use of popular culture to raise some important questions.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek also attempts to see the relation between analyst and analysand in discourse. Analysand is one who is analysing and the role of interpretation is dependent on the possibilities of analysand. The position of the analyst, on the other hand, is dependent on the role of discourse. Because of the discourse of master and the discourse of university, analyst knows that the truth is one which is spoken by analysand. It is interesting to note that, in \u201erepressed\u201f truth which is seen as neutral\u201e knowledge\u201f, we can always see the gesture of the master (Zizek 1991: 131). \u00a0In this context, we can see the Zizek\u201fs dealing with the problem of \u201emetalanguage\u201f which is like an illusion according to Zizek because it presumes that there exists a superior vantage point from which a neutral judgement is possible. This is not achievable according to Zizek.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

4. Influence of Marx\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\r\n \r\n

The influence of Marx on Zizek is for altogether a different reason of specific political project. Zizek\u201fs work \u201eThe Sublime Object of Ideology\u201f is part of his project of taking forward the project of the Left as he analyses the subjectivity as an ideological process. The importance of the book lies in Zizek\u201fs reading of Marx and Freud on commodities and dream with rich description from films and cultural theory and trying to approach ideological fantasy.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek\u201fs interesting contribution can be found in the reinvention of Lenin in the context of \u201epolitics of truth\u201f. He says \u201eLenin\u201fs legacy, to be reinvented today, is the politics of truth\u201f (Zizek 2002:176). Drawing inspiration from Lacan and Hegel, Zizek refuses to abandon either universal truth or a partisan position. Zizek opposes Lenin\u201fs claim that there are objects in the world outside consciousness thinking that they are \u201esecretly idealist\u201f (ibid. 183). The position of Zizek in fact can be better describe with the following words: \u201ethe universal truth of a concrete situation can be articulated only from a thoroughly partisan position; truth is, by definition, one-sided\u201f (ibid.177).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek shares with Marxism his ambivalence towards democracy because of the multiple meaning that the term conveys and the type of politics that the term can have associated with democracy. He opposes the idea of democracy because of the distorted image that it presents itself in the imagination of the common people. Zizek not only has suspicion about the term democracy, he in fact refuses the way in which the term democracy is used in contemporary times. He refuses the term democracy because of \u201eits minimal definition is the unconditional adherence to a certain set of formal rules which guarantee that antagonisms are fully absorbed into the agonistic game\u201f (Zizek cited in Parker 2004). Zizek very precisely criticises the fake participation image provided by the democracy and he equated such participation with the metaphor of closing the door of an elevator which does not have any effect. He writes: \u201eWe are all the time asked by politicians to press such buttons. But some things are\u00a0excluded. What is excluded from this participatory, multi-culturalist, tolerant democracy? (Zizek 1999 cited in Parker 2004).<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Zizek argues that there is\u00a0 different phase of politics\u00a0 of post \u00a0modern politics\u00a0 which he terms as \u201epostpolitics\u201f which means the refusal of the proper politics where \u201ethe conflict of global ideological visions embodied in different parties who compete for power is replaced by the collaboration of enlightened technocrats (economists and public opinion specialists, for example) and liberal multiculturalists\u201f (Zizek 1998: 997). He even acknowledges the depoliticised nature of post modern identity politics. He says \u201eThe postmodern identity politics of particular (ethnic, sexual and so forth) lifestyles fits perfectly the depoliticised notion of society\u201f, one \u201ein which every particular group is accounted for and has its specific status (of victimhood) acknowledged through affirmative action or other measures\u201f (Zizek 1998: 1006). For Zizek such use of affirmative action in the postmodern era is another phase of dangerous use of identity. On the other hand, Zizek says that the \u201eArche-Politics\u201f is the attempt to bring about closure of \u201etraditional, close, organically structured, homogenous social space that allows for no void in which the political moment or event can emerge\u201f as is seen in case of non-political, corporate functioning of Japanese society (Zizek 1998: 991).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Another important point of engagement of Zizek is \u201eultrapolitics\u201f although he did not directly endorse it. Ultrapolitics is \u201ethe attempt to depoliticize the conflict by way of bringing it to extremes, via the direct militarisation of politics\u201f (Zizek 1998:992) and the work of German conservative political theorist Carl Schmitt has influenced Zizek. Zizek argues that although Schmitt was \u201eradical\u201f, yet he did not see the antagonisms that run through the social body and in this context Zizek argue that the\u201e true universalist are not those who preach the global tolerance of differences and all-encompassing unity, but those who engage in a passionate struggle for the assertion of the Truth which compels them\u201f (Zizek 1997a: 35).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek sees the Marxist \u201emetapolitics\u201f as a need to disclose the economic processes that work behind the political realm. Zizek argues that it is \u201ereal\u201f impossible to see the opposition between the political and economic. In this context, he makes reference to the \u201eEmpire\u201f which is the work of Hardt and Negri where they analyse globalisation as \u201ean ambiguous \u201cdeterritorialisation\u201d\u201f, where \u201etriumphant global capitalism has penetrated all pores of social life, down to the most intimate spheres, introducing an unheard-off (sic) dynamics which no longer relies on patriarchal or other fixed hierarchical forms of domination, but generates fluid hybrid identities\u201f ( Zizek et al. 2000: 3029).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

So one may observe that in fact, Zizek borrows from Marx not an analysis of political economy, but some abstract notion of historical development of individual and social.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n5. The Study of \u2018Subject\u2019 and the Work of Zizek\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

The understanding of \u201esubject\u201f, which is of important concern for Descartes and various post structuralists, could find its significance in the work of Zizek. For Zizek, the \u201ecogito\u201f of Descartes is the basis of subject and is an empty space, which is left when the rest of the world is expelled from itself. Zizek argues that \u201esymbolic order\u201f substitutes the loss of the immediacy of the world. Here, it is in the process of subjectivization, where the subject is given an identity, filled the void of the subject. For Zizek, the \u201esubject\u201f in post structuralism is not an autonomous being with power but is product structure of discourse and hence subject is not located inside but outside the subject in the competing discourses. Zizek describes the decentered subject of post structuralism in the following words: \u201eIn \u201cpost-structuralism\u201d, the subject is usually reduced to so-called subjectivation, he is conceived as an effect of a fundamentally non-subjective process: the subject is always caught in, traversed by the pre- subjective process (of \u201ewriting\u201f, of \u201edesire\u201f and so on), and the emphasis is on the individuals\u201f different modes of \u201cexperiencing\u201d, \u201cliving\u201d their positions as \u201csubjects\u201d, \u201cactors\u201d, \u201cagents\u201d of the historical process\u201d (Zizek 1989: 174).<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n

Zizek provides the reference to the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling in the context of his theory of genealogy of the subject. Zizek argues that \u201eevery attempt to discard the part or aspect considered \u201cnot truce\u201d inevitably entails the loss of the truth itself\u201f (Zizek 1996:7). With the reading of the Schelling; Zizek argues that the origin of the God is the \u201eBeginning\u201f with the upper case \u201eB\u201f and before the Beginning \u201eis a chaotic \u2013psychotic universe of the blind drives, their rotary motion, their undifferentiated pulsating\u201f (Zizek 1996: 13). Zizek argues that this stage marks by unmitigated freedom which is \u201ea pure impersonal willing (woollen) that wills nothing\u201f and even God is a part of this freedom and one is not individual being (Zizek 1997:15). Zizek says that this freedom is based on an unassertive will-which wants \u201enothing\u201f. He writes: \u201eThe pure potentiality of the primordial Freedom- this blissful traquility, this pure enjoyment, of an unassertive, neutral <\/span>Will which wants nothing- <\/em>actualises itself in the guise of a <\/span>Will which actively, effectively, wants this \u2018nothing\u2019- <\/em>that is, the annihilation of every positive, determinate content\u201f (Zizek 1996: 23).<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n

\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n6. Zizek Analysis of Postmodern Society\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

The analysis of postmodern society forms an integral part of the work of Zizek\u201fs theoretical enterprise. His work is a critical of understanding of postmodern society as risk society. Zizek argues that postmodern society is characterised by uncertainty due to opaqueness and is characterised by totally subjective world. He says that the postmodern society is totally \u201ereflexive\u201f one where there is no reliable nature or tradition. He writes, \u201eThe new opaqueness and impenetrability (the radical uncertainty as to the ultimate consequences of our actions) is not due to the fact that we are puppets in the hands of some transcendent global power (Fate, Historical Necessity, the Market); on the contrary, it is due to the fact that \u201enobody is in charge\u201f, that <\/span>there is no such power<\/em>, no \u201eother of the Other\u201f pulling the \u00a0strings- \u00a0opaqueness \u00a0is \u00a0grounded \u00a0in the\u00a0 very \u00a0fact \u00a0that \u00a0today\u201fs \u00a0society \u00a0is \u00a0thoroughly<\/span>Zizek Analysis of Postmodern Society\u201e reflexive\u201f, that there is no Nature or Tradition providing a firm foundation on which one can rely\u201f (Zizek 1999: 336).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek argues that the disintegration of the big Other, which can be compared with the Lacan idea of God, is one of the important aspect of the universalisation of the \u201ereflexivity\u201f. Importance of big Other for the Zizek is that it helps us to create our identity and determine our socio-economic position. Big Other here refers to the collective lie that all of us subscribe to and hence make symbolic efficiency of big Other. Zizek writes: \u201ethat of \u201ereality\u201f as opposed to the play of my imagination- Lacan\u201fs point is not that, behind the multiplicity of phantasmic identities, there is a hard core of some \u201ereal Self\u201f; we are dealing with a symbolic fiction, but a fiction which, for contingent reasons that have nothing to do with its inherent structure, possesses performative power- is socially operative, structures the socio- symbolic reality in which I participate. The status of the same person inclusive of his\/her \u201ereal\u201f features, can appear in an entirely different light the moment the modality of his\/her relationship to the big Other changes\u201f (Zizek 1999: 330). He continues \u201e...the fact that \u201ethe big Other no longer exists\u201f implies , rather, that the symbolic fiction which confers a performative status on one level of my identity, determining which of my acts will display \u201esymbolic efficiency\u201f, is no longer fully operative. Perhaps the supreme example of this shift is provided by the recent trends in Christianity. Christianity proper \u2013 the belief in Christ\u201fs Resurrection- is the highest religious expression of the the power of symbolic fiction as the medium of universality\u201f (ibid. 330-331).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek following the Lacan argues that the Superego in the postmodern era works in a completely different manner than that of the law. According to Zizek, while law forbids enjoyment by telling what one cannot do, Superego what one can enjoy by telling what one can do. Zizek writes \u201eLaw is the agency of prohibition which regulates the distribution of enjoyment on the basis of a common, shared renunciation (the \u201csymbolic castration\u201d), whereas superego marks a point at which permitted enjoyment, freedom-to-enjoy, is reversed into obligation to enjoy\u201f (Zizek 1991a: 237). On the other hand, law is based on some collective prohibitions and has concealed some of the inherent unruliness and violence on which law establishes itself. Zizek argues that the law is based on the tautology that\u201ethe law is the law\u201f or on the hand if the law is to function properly it needs to be just. Zizek writes,\u00a0\u201eAt the beginning of the law, there is a certain \u201eoutlaw\u201f, a certain Real of violence which coincides\u00a0with the act itself of the establishment of the reign of law: the ultimate truth about the reign of law is that of an usurpation, an all classical politico-philosophical thought rest on the disavowal of this violent act of foundation. The illegitimate violence by which law sustains itself must be concealed at any price, because this concealment is the positive condition of the functioning of the law: it functions in so far as its subjects are deceived, in so far as they experience the authority of law as \u201cauthentic and eternal\u201d and overlook \u201cthe truth about the usurpation\u201d\u201f (Zizek 1991a: 204). On the other hand, Zizek argues that the enjoyment is not an immediate spontaneous thing but is the result of the imperative of the Superego. He writes: \u201eenjoyment is not an immediate spontaneous state, but is sustained by a superego imperative\u201f (Zizek 1997: 173).<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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Zizek also talk about the paradox of intellectual creativity in the post modern era. He opines that \u201eour intellectual creativity can be \u201eset free\u201f only within the confines of some imposed notional framework in which, precisely, we are able to \u201emove freely\u201f-the lack of this imposed framework is necessarily experienced as an unbearable burden, since it compels us to focus constantly on how to respond to every particular empirical situation in which we finds ourselves\u201f (Zizek, 1996, 25). A good example of this is that we can think freely only within the framework of language.<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek argues that an \u201eact\u201f is a total rejection of the existing symbolic Order and hence the role of the subject literally disappears. Zizek writes: \u201eThe act differs from an active intervention (action) in that it radically transforms its bearer (agent): the act is not simple something I \u201eaccomplish\u201f- after an act, I\u201fm literally \u201enot the same as before\u201f. In this sense, we could say that the subject \u201eundergoes\u201f the act (\u201epasses through\u201f it) rather than \u201eaccomplishes\u201f it: in it, the subject is annihilated and subsequently reborn (or not), i.e., the act involves a kind of temporary eclipse, aphanisis, <\/em>of the subject. Which is why every act worthy of this name is \u201cmad\u201d is the sense of radical unaccountability<\/em>: by means if it, I put at stake everything, including myself; my symbolic identity; the act is therefore always a \u201ccrime,\u201d a \u201ctransgression,\u201d namely of the symbolic community to which I belong. The act is defined by this irreducible risk: <\/em>in its most fundamental dimension, it is always negative<\/em>, i.e. an act of annihilation, of wiping out-we not only don\u201ft know what will come out of; its final outcome is ultimately even insignificant, strictly secondary in relation to the NO! of the pure act\u201f(Zizek1992: 44).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Zizek argues that negation as political engagement is lacking in the postmodern era. Zizek looks for a political act or revolution by rejecting the possibility of post modernity. In the process, Zizek rejects capitalism- which can open up a space where subjects are not paranoid narcissists (Myers 2009: 60- 61).<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n7. Reality and Ideology\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

For Zizek, the most basic definition of ideology is provided by Marx is that \u201ethey do not know it, but they are doing it\u201f (Zizek 1989: 28). Zizek argues that due to the importance attached to the work of ideology, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine change of the capitalist mode of production. Zizek writes: \u201eit seems easier to imagine \u201ethe end of the world\u201f than a far more modest change in the mode of production, as if liberal capitalism is the \u201ereal\u201f that will somehow survive even under condition of a global ecological catastrophe\u201f (Wright and Wright 1999: 55).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

For Zizek, ideology is the distortion of our understanding and hence because of ideology people do not know what they are doing. \u00a0Zizek argues that \u201ewhere is the place of ideological illusion, in the\u201e\u00a0knowing\u2019 <\/em>or in the \u201edoing\u2019 <\/em>in the reality itself? At first sight, the answer seems obvious: ideological illusion lies in the \u201eknowing\u201f. It is a matter of a discordance between what people are effectively doing and what they think they are doing- ideology consists in the very fact that the people \u201edo not know what they are doing\u201f, they have a false representation of the social reality to which they belong (the distortion produced, of course, by the same reality) (Zizek 1989: 27). Zizek gave the example of commodity fetishism to prove this. He writes, \u201emoney is in reality just an embodiment, a condensation, a materialisation of a network of social relations-the fact that it functions as a universal equivalent of all commodities is conditioned by its position in the texture of social relations. but to the\u00a0individuals themselves, this function of money- to be the embodiment of wealth- appears as an immediate, natural property of a thing called \u201emoney\u201f, as if money is already in itself, in its immediate material reality, the embodiment of wealth\u201f (Zizek 1989: 27-28). He further writes: \u201eBut such a reading of the Marxian formula leaves out an illusion, an error, a distortion which is already at work in the social reality itself, at the level of what the individuals are <\/span>doing <\/em>, and not only what they <\/span>think <\/em>or <\/span>know <\/em>they are doing. When individuals use money, they know very well that there is nothing magical about it- that money, in its materiality, is simply an expression of social relations. The everyday spontaneous ideology reduces money to a simple sign giving individual possessing it a right to a certain part of the social product. So, on an everyday level, the individuals know very well that there are relations between people behind the relations between things. The problem is that in their social activity itself, in what they are <\/span>doing, <\/em>they are <\/span>acting <\/em>as if money, in its material reality, is the immediate embodiment of wealth as such...What they \u201edo not know\u201f, what they misrecognise, is the fact that in their social reality itself, in their social activity- in the act of commodity exchange-they are guided by the fetishistic illusion\u201f (ibid. 28).<\/span><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n

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While looking at the relation between reality and ideology, Zizek writes: \u201ea new way to read the Marxian formula \u201cthey do not know it, but they are doing it\u201d: the illusion is not on the side of knowledge, it is already on the side of reality itself, of what the people are doing. What they do not know is that their social reality itself, their activity, is guided by an illusion, by a fetishistic inversion. What they overlook, what they misrecognise, is not the reality but the illusion which is structuring their reality, their real social activity. They know very well how things really are, but still they are doing it as if they did not know. The illusion is therefore double: it consists in overlooking the illusion which is structuring our real, effective relationship to reality. And this overlooked, unconscious illusion is what may be called the ideological fantasy\u2019 <\/em>(ibid. 29-30).<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n8. Conclusion\u00a0<\/strong>\r\n\r\n \r\n

As the substantial intellectual works of Zizek have many followers, his work also faces criticisms. Most of the criticisms of the work of Zizek come from the political Left. Dews (1995) argues that Zizek\u201fs analysis of modern subjectivity and his own life has created a confusion of his work. Dews writes: \u201eHe views the modern individual as caught in the dichotomy between his or her universal status as a member of civil society, and the particular attachment of ethnicity, nation and tradition, and this duality is reflected in his own ambiguous political profile- marxisant <\/em>cultural on the international stage, member of a neo-liberal and nationalistically inclined governing party back home\u201f (Dews 1995: 252).<\/p>\r\n \r\n

Another criticsm raised against the work of Zizek is that although he provides substantial critic of the existing world but he fails to offer any alternatives. In such a context, theorist Sean Homer argues: \u201eZizek\u201fs work... remains largely within the paradigm of ideology critique, which he himself criticises, as he unmasks ideologies such as racism, nationalism and anti-Semitism. His work never really moves to that second moment, whereby a consideration of what ideology returns to us may facilitate the formulation of oppositional ideologies and the space of politics proper. It always remain unclear, for example, what Zizek is actually arguing for\u201f (Homer 1995).<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\nInspite of many criticisms, the prolific writings of Zizek encompassing many terrains will continue to inspire a generation of scholars.\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n
you can view video on Class, Culture and Power: Slavoj Zizek<\/strong><\/td>\r\n\"\"<\/a><\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n\r\n

9. References<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n

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  1. Dews, Peter. The Limits of Disenchantment: Essays on Contemporary European Philosophy. London and New York: Verso, 1995.<\/li>\r\n \t
  2. Homer, Sean. Psychoanalysis, Representation, Politics: On the (im)possibility of a psychoanalytic theory of Ideology?. University of Sheffield: Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, 1995.<\/li>\r\n \t
  3. Myers, Tony. Slavoj Zizek. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.<\/li>\r\n \t
  4. Parker, Ian. Slavoj Zizek: A Critical Introduction. London: Pluto Press, 2004.<\/li>\r\n \t
  5. Wright, E. and Wright, E. (eds). The Zizek Reader. Oxford and Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1999. Zizek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London and New York: Verso, 1989.<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n

    - Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, 19<\/p>\r\n

    - For They Know not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor. London and New York: Verso, 1991a.<\/p>\r\n

    - Enjoy Your \u00a0Symptom! \u00a0Jacques \u00a0Lacan In Hollywood and Out. \u00a0London and New \u00a0York: Routledge,<\/p>\r\n

    - Tarrying with \u00a0the \u00a0Negative: \u00a0Kant, \u00a0Hegel \u00a0and \u00a0the \u00a0Critique \u00a0of \u00a0Ideology. \u00a0Durham: \u00a0Duke University Press,<\/p>\r\n

    - The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality. London: Verso,<\/p>\r\n

    - The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matter. London and New York: Verso,<\/p>\r\n

    - The Plague of Fantasie London and New York: Verso, 1997. \u201e<\/p>\r\n

    - \u201cCarl Schmitt in the age of Post Politics\u201d. In The Challenge of Carl Schmitt edited by C. Mouffe. London: Verso, 1997a.<\/p>\r\n

    - \u201cA Leftist Plea for \u201eEurocentrism\u201f\u201d. Critical Inquiry 24, no.2(1998):988-<\/p>\r\n

    - The Ticklish Subject: An Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London and New York: Verso. 1999.<\/p>\r\n

    - Revolution at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from February to Ocober, 1917: V. I. Lenin. London: Verso. 2002.<\/p>\r\n \r\n\r\n6. Zizek, \u00a0Slavoj, \u00a0Butler, \u00a0J. \u00a0and \u00a0E. \u00a0Laclau. \u00a0Contingency, \u00a0Hegemony, \u00a0Universality: \u00a0Contemporary\r\n\r\nDialogues on the Left. London and New York: Verso. 2000.\r\n\r\n7. Long, A.and McGunn, T. \u201cSlavoj Zizek interview.\u201d Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society 2,\r\n\r\nno.2(1997):133-137.","rendered":"

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    1.\u00a0Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    Slavoj Zizek is one of most well known philosopher and psychoanalyst from Slovenia who has a unique way of combining Lacan and Marx in the process of dealing with various aspects of contemporary society. The specificity of the work of Zizek also lies in the various examples that he uses from popular culture and cinema as well as jokes and political anecdotes to support his theoretical argument. He remarks, \u201ethe theoretical line of argumentation is sustained by numerous examples from cinema and popular culture, by jokes and political anecdotes often dangerously approaching the limits of good taste\u201f (Zizek 1999: viii). The subject matter of the work of Zizek is the hole in the discourse of philosophy which is kept out of theory when proper topic of theory is constituted (Myers 2009).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The writing style of Zizek is unique in the sense that it revolves around a subject by thematic discussion of a common problem rather than creating an argument. In this context, Ernesto Laclau while discussing Zizek\u201fs \u201eThe Sublime Object of Ideology\u201f suggests that, \u201eIt is certainly not a book in the classical sense; that is to say, a systematic structure in which an argument is developed according to a pre-determined plan. Nor is it a collection of essays, each of which constitutes a finished product and whose \u201eunity\u201f with the rest is merely the result of its thematic discussion of a common problem. It is rather a series of theoretical interventions which shed mutual light on each other, not in terms of the progression of <\/em>an argument, but in terms of what we could call the reiteration <\/em>of the latter in different discursive contexts\u201f (Zizek cited in Myers 2009: 6).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    This module tries to give an introduction to the major works of Zizek with an emphasis on the influences of Hegel, Lacan and Marx on the works of former.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    2. Hegelian influence on Zizek\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    The work of Hegel provides reference point to Zizek on three main components: universality, reflexivity and negativity (Parker 2004: 36). In his work, \u201eTarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology\u201f (1993) Zizek provides a sustained critique of ideology through a critique of philosophy. In the last part of the book, he criticises \u201ethe tale of ethnic roots\u201f as a \u201emyth of origin\u201f. In reference to Hegel, it argues that the \u201enational heritage\u201f is \u201ea kind of ideological fossil created retroactively by the ruling ideology in order to blur its present antagonism\u201f (Zizek 1993: 232). In this context, the role of the \u201ecritical intellectual\u201f is worthy to look at. Zizek\u201fs reflexivity lies in open position occupied by the \u201ecritical intellectual\u201f in order to keep open something as \u201enot yet hegemonised by any positive ideological project\u201f (ibid. 1) and this can be seen as negative Hegel. On the other hand, there is also an attempt of Zizek for affirmation of Hegel\u201fs work.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    For Zizek, Hegel is much more radical much like his dialectic. While giving the objective of the book The Sublime Object of Ideology\u201f, Zizek writes that the objective of the book is \u201eto accomplish a kind of \u201ereturn to Hegel\u201f- to reactualize Hegelian dialectics by giving it a new reading on the basis of Lacanian psychoanalysis. The current image of Hegel as an \u201eidealist-monist\u201f is totally misleading: what we find in Hegel is the strongest affirmation yet of difference and contingency-\u201eabsolute knowledge\u201f itself is nothing but a name for the acknowledgment of a certain radical loss\u201f (Zizek 1989:xxx).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek was inspired by the Hegelian conception of the totality of power which is always disturbed by an excess which can never quite control. For Zizek, it is emblematic of the power structure where, on the one side there is public written law which signifies the rule of the symbolic and on the other side,\u00a0there is obscene law of the superego which is the unwritten law that is characterised by its transgressive character; and in this case, the meaning of the law is equated with enjoyment. Zizek opines, \u201eSuch a code must remain under cover of night, unacknowledged, unutterable- in public, everybody pretends to know nothing about it, or even actively denies its existence. It represents the \u201cspirit of community\u201d at its purest, exerting the strongest pressure on the individual to comply with its mandate of group identification. Yet, simultaneously, it violates the explicit rules of community life\u201f (Zizek 1994: 54).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    3. Influence of Lacan on Zizek\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    The psychoanalysis of Zizek is influenced by work of Lacan. Zizek argues that Lacan tries to repeat the attempt of the western philosophers from Plato to Kant about the nature of truth in order to improve and supersede the earlier idea of truth rather than rejecting the idea of truth (Zizek 1993).<\/p>\n

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    In his work \u201eLooking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture\u201f (1991), Zizek tries to deal with Lacanian concept of \u201ereal\u201f and jouisance. <\/em>He tries to see the trajectory of Lacan\u201fs work in his distinction between \u201ereality\u201f and the \u201ereal\u201f. While \u201ereality\u201f here is dependent of the distinct psychic agency in the sense that forbidden things are said in such a way that they are untrue but satisfying enough, but \u201ereal\u201f is the limit of our presentation of the world.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    In his work \u201eThe Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality\u201f (1994), Zizek tries to move from the discussion of culture to that of the place of individual subject in the culture. He elaborately discusses enjoyment, sublimation and femininity. Zizek argues that work of Lacan should be read with an emphasis on how the practice of psychoanalysis will correspond with cultural critique. His work is a critical reading of Frankfurt school with a focus on psychoanalysis, sexuality and \u201esexuation\u201f (term coined by Lacan\u201fs) as key site of the real in terms of production\u00a0 of sexual difference.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The Lacanian notion of real can be seen as the limit of our representation; limits of our symbolisation or imagination. For Zizek, \u201esexual difference is a real that resist symbolisation\u201f (Zizek 1994: 108). Zizek sees how women is represented in various ways such \u201eas traumatic Thing for the man in the olden times of European \u201ecourtly love\u201f (ibid.\u00a0 90), as access to jouissance beyond the forms of satisfaction attainable by man in sadism and religious imagery (ibid. 75), or as the \u201eshadowy double\u201f of the man that appears to him to hold power but is cast into that place only by his position as the master (Ibid. 56)\u201f (Zizek cited in Parker 2004: 65).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek\u201fs interest also lies in the stereotypical images of \u201ewomen\u201f in culture. He emphasises on Otto Weininger\u201fs discussion on misogynist and anti-semitic tirade against femininity when Weininger says discovers that women \u201edoes not exist\u201f (Zizek 1994: 141). Zizek writes, \u201eFor women cease to exist, it is enough for man to overcome the sexual urge in himself\u201f (ibid). Zizek argues that women is not more than a lure for men and is \u201einfinite craving of Nothing for Something\u201f (ibid. 144), and Zizek argues that in this context Weininger conceives women as an object <\/em>. This non-existence of women is seen by Weininger as a horror of the case of a human subject without substance and this horror is identifies by Zizek as \u201efantasy formations that emerges where the word fails\u201f (ibid.145).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    While \u00a0discussing \u00a0the \u00a0\u201edeadlock \u00a0in \u00a0contemporary \u00a0feminism\u201f, \u00a0Zizek \u00a0argues \u00a0that \u00a0\u201eby \u00a0opposing \u201epatriarchal \u00a0domination\u201f, \u00a0women \u00a0simultaneously \u00a0undermine \u00a0the \u00a0fantasy-support \u00a0of \u00a0their \u00a0own \u201cfeminine\u201d \u00a0identity\u201f \u00a0(1994:108). \u00a0He \u00a0further \u00a0argues \u00a0that \u00a0deadlock \u00a0between \u00a0sexes \u00a0into \u00a0Kantian \u201eantimonies\u201f in terms of irreversible oppositional terms that can never be transcended (ibid. 153). Zizek also argues that the position of the women is \u201etraumatic\u201f cause for the man and psychoanalysis can be an option for analysis of things that have been turned into trauma. He says \u201ethe trauma has no existence\u201f of its own prior to symbolization; it remains an anamorphic entity that gains its consistency only in retrospect, viewed from within a symbolic horizon\u201f (ibid. 31).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    While analysing the real of the sexual difference, Zizek have to deal with work of Lacan and Butler. Zizek argues that when Butler rejects the sexual difference, she actually silently accepts the symbolic norms of the heterosexual of what is to be a \u201eman\u201f or a \u201ewomen\u201f and on the other hand, sexual difference as understood by Lacan is real in the sense that it can never be expressed in symbolic form (Zizek 1999: 273). He writes: \u201eWhen Lacan claims that sexual difference is \u201ereal\u201f, he is therefore far from elevating a historical contingent form of sexuation into a transhistorical form……: the claim that sexual difference is \u201ereal\u201f equals the claim that is \u201eimpossible\u201f-impossible to symbolize, to formulate a symbolic norm. In other words, it is not what we have homosexuals, fetishists, and other perverts in spite <\/em>of the normative fact of sexual difference-that is, as proofs of the failure of sexual difference to impose its norm; it is not that sexual difference is the ultimate point of reference which anchors the contingent drifting of sexuality; it is, on the contrary, on account of the gap which forever persists between the real of sexual difference and the determinate forms of heterosexual symbolic norms that we have the multitude of \u201eperverse\u201f forms of sexuality\u201f (ibid. 273). Zizek uses films to illustrate psychoanalytic and philosophical concepts and his work \u201eLooking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture\u201f (1991) is a good example of use of popular culture to raise some important questions.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek also attempts to see the relation between analyst and analysand in discourse. Analysand is one who is analysing and the role of interpretation is dependent on the possibilities of analysand. The position of the analyst, on the other hand, is dependent on the role of discourse. Because of the discourse of master and the discourse of university, analyst knows that the truth is one which is spoken by analysand. It is interesting to note that, in \u201erepressed\u201f truth which is seen as neutral\u201e knowledge\u201f, we can always see the gesture of the master (Zizek 1991: 131). \u00a0In this context, we can see the Zizek\u201fs dealing with the problem of \u201emetalanguage\u201f which is like an illusion according to Zizek because it presumes that there exists a superior vantage point from which a neutral judgement is possible. This is not achievable according to Zizek.<\/p>\n

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    4. Influence of Marx\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    The influence of Marx on Zizek is for altogether a different reason of specific political project. Zizek\u201fs work \u201eThe Sublime Object of Ideology\u201f is part of his project of taking forward the project of the Left as he analyses the subjectivity as an ideological process. The importance of the book lies in Zizek\u201fs reading of Marx and Freud on commodities and dream with rich description from films and cultural theory and trying to approach ideological fantasy.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek\u201fs interesting contribution can be found in the reinvention of Lenin in the context of \u201epolitics of truth\u201f. He says \u201eLenin\u201fs legacy, to be reinvented today, is the politics of truth\u201f (Zizek 2002:176). Drawing inspiration from Lacan and Hegel, Zizek refuses to abandon either universal truth or a partisan position. Zizek opposes Lenin\u201fs claim that there are objects in the world outside consciousness thinking that they are \u201esecretly idealist\u201f (ibid. 183). The position of Zizek in fact can be better describe with the following words: \u201ethe universal truth of a concrete situation can be articulated only from a thoroughly partisan position; truth is, by definition, one-sided\u201f (ibid.177).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek shares with Marxism his ambivalence towards democracy because of the multiple meaning that the term conveys and the type of politics that the term can have associated with democracy. He opposes the idea of democracy because of the distorted image that it presents itself in the imagination of the common people. Zizek not only has suspicion about the term democracy, he in fact refuses the way in which the term democracy is used in contemporary times. He refuses the term democracy because of \u201eits minimal definition is the unconditional adherence to a certain set of formal rules which guarantee that antagonisms are fully absorbed into the agonistic game\u201f (Zizek cited in Parker 2004). Zizek very precisely criticises the fake participation image provided by the democracy and he equated such participation with the metaphor of closing the door of an elevator which does not have any effect. He writes: \u201eWe are all the time asked by politicians to press such buttons. But some things are\u00a0excluded. What is excluded from this participatory, multi-culturalist, tolerant democracy? (Zizek 1999 cited in Parker 2004).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Zizek argues that there is\u00a0 different phase of politics\u00a0 of post \u00a0modern politics\u00a0 which he terms as \u201epostpolitics\u201f which means the refusal of the proper politics where \u201ethe conflict of global ideological visions embodied in different parties who compete for power is replaced by the collaboration of enlightened technocrats (economists and public opinion specialists, for example) and liberal multiculturalists\u201f (Zizek 1998: 997). He even acknowledges the depoliticised nature of post modern identity politics. He says \u201eThe postmodern identity politics of particular (ethnic, sexual and so forth) lifestyles fits perfectly the depoliticised notion of society\u201f, one \u201ein which every particular group is accounted for and has its specific status (of victimhood) acknowledged through affirmative action or other measures\u201f (Zizek 1998: 1006). For Zizek such use of affirmative action in the postmodern era is another phase of dangerous use of identity. On the other hand, Zizek says that the \u201eArche-Politics\u201f is the attempt to bring about closure of \u201etraditional, close, organically structured, homogenous social space that allows for no void in which the political moment or event can emerge\u201f as is seen in case of non-political, corporate functioning of Japanese society (Zizek 1998: 991).<\/p>\n

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    Another important point of engagement of Zizek is \u201eultrapolitics\u201f although he did not directly endorse it. Ultrapolitics is \u201ethe attempt to depoliticize the conflict by way of bringing it to extremes, via the direct militarisation of politics\u201f (Zizek 1998:992) and the work of German conservative political theorist Carl Schmitt has influenced Zizek. Zizek argues that although Schmitt was \u201eradical\u201f, yet he did not see the antagonisms that run through the social body and in this context Zizek argue that the\u201e true universalist are not those who preach the global tolerance of differences and all-encompassing unity, but those who engage in a passionate struggle for the assertion of the Truth which compels them\u201f (Zizek 1997a: 35).<\/p>\n

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    Zizek sees the Marxist \u201emetapolitics\u201f as a need to disclose the economic processes that work behind the political realm. Zizek argues that it is \u201ereal\u201f impossible to see the opposition between the political and economic. In this context, he makes reference to the \u201eEmpire\u201f which is the work of Hardt and Negri where they analyse globalisation as \u201ean ambiguous \u201cdeterritorialisation\u201d\u201f, where \u201etriumphant global capitalism has penetrated all pores of social life, down to the most intimate spheres, introducing an unheard-off (sic) dynamics which no longer relies on patriarchal or other fixed hierarchical forms of domination, but generates fluid hybrid identities\u201f ( Zizek et al. 2000: 3029).<\/p>\n

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    So one may observe that in fact, Zizek borrows from Marx not an analysis of political economy, but some abstract notion of historical development of individual and social.<\/p>\n

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    5. The Study of \u2018Subject\u2019 and the Work of Zizek\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    The understanding of \u201esubject\u201f, which is of important concern for Descartes and various post structuralists, could find its significance in the work of Zizek. For Zizek, the \u201ecogito\u201f of Descartes is the basis of subject and is an empty space, which is left when the rest of the world is expelled from itself. Zizek argues that \u201esymbolic order\u201f substitutes the loss of the immediacy of the world. Here, it is in the process of subjectivization, where the subject is given an identity, filled the void of the subject. For Zizek, the \u201esubject\u201f in post structuralism is not an autonomous being with power but is product structure of discourse and hence subject is not located inside but outside the subject in the competing discourses. Zizek describes the decentered subject of post structuralism in the following words: \u201eIn \u201cpost-structuralism\u201d, the subject is usually reduced to so-called subjectivation, he is conceived as an effect of a fundamentally non-subjective process: the subject is always caught in, traversed by the pre- subjective process (of \u201ewriting\u201f, of \u201edesire\u201f and so on), and the emphasis is on the individuals\u201f different modes of \u201cexperiencing\u201d, \u201cliving\u201d their positions as \u201csubjects\u201d, \u201cactors\u201d, \u201cagents\u201d of the historical process\u201d (Zizek 1989: 174).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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    Zizek provides the reference to the German philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling in the context of his theory of genealogy of the subject. Zizek argues that \u201eevery attempt to discard the part or aspect considered \u201cnot truce\u201d inevitably entails the loss of the truth itself\u201f (Zizek 1996:7). With the reading of the Schelling; Zizek argues that the origin of the God is the \u201eBeginning\u201f with the upper case \u201eB\u201f and before the Beginning \u201eis a chaotic \u2013psychotic universe of the blind drives, their rotary motion, their undifferentiated pulsating\u201f (Zizek 1996: 13). Zizek argues that this stage marks by unmitigated freedom which is \u201ea pure impersonal willing (woollen) that wills nothing\u201f and even God is a part of this freedom and one is not individual being (Zizek 1997:15). Zizek says that this freedom is based on an unassertive will-which wants \u201enothing\u201f. He writes: \u201eThe pure potentiality of the primordial Freedom- this blissful traquility, this pure enjoyment, of an unassertive, neutral <\/span>Will which wants nothing- <\/em>actualises itself in the guise of a <\/span>Will which actively, effectively, wants this \u2018nothing\u2019- <\/em>that is, the annihilation of every positive, determinate content\u201f (Zizek 1996: 23).<\/span><\/p>\n

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    6. Zizek Analysis of Postmodern Society\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    The analysis of postmodern society forms an integral part of the work of Zizek\u201fs theoretical enterprise. His work is a critical of understanding of postmodern society as risk society. Zizek argues that postmodern society is characterised by uncertainty due to opaqueness and is characterised by totally subjective world. He says that the postmodern society is totally \u201ereflexive\u201f one where there is no reliable nature or tradition. He writes, \u201eThe new opaqueness and impenetrability (the radical uncertainty as to the ultimate consequences of our actions) is not due to the fact that we are puppets in the hands of some transcendent global power (Fate, Historical Necessity, the Market); on the contrary, it is due to the fact that \u201enobody is in charge\u201f, that <\/span>there is no such power<\/em>, no \u201eother of the Other\u201f pulling the \u00a0strings- \u00a0opaqueness \u00a0is \u00a0grounded \u00a0in the\u00a0 very \u00a0fact \u00a0that \u00a0today\u201fs \u00a0society \u00a0is \u00a0thoroughly<\/span>Zizek Analysis of Postmodern Society\u201e reflexive\u201f, that there is no Nature or Tradition providing a firm foundation on which one can rely\u201f (Zizek 1999: 336).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek argues that the disintegration of the big Other, which can be compared with the Lacan idea of God, is one of the important aspect of the universalisation of the \u201ereflexivity\u201f. Importance of big Other for the Zizek is that it helps us to create our identity and determine our socio-economic position. Big Other here refers to the collective lie that all of us subscribe to and hence make symbolic efficiency of big Other. Zizek writes: \u201ethat of \u201ereality\u201f as opposed to the play of my imagination- Lacan\u201fs point is not that, behind the multiplicity of phantasmic identities, there is a hard core of some \u201ereal Self\u201f; we are dealing with a symbolic fiction, but a fiction which, for contingent reasons that have nothing to do with its inherent structure, possesses performative power- is socially operative, structures the socio- symbolic reality in which I participate. The status of the same person inclusive of his\/her \u201ereal\u201f features, can appear in an entirely different light the moment the modality of his\/her relationship to the big Other changes\u201f (Zizek 1999: 330). He continues \u201e…the fact that \u201ethe big Other no longer exists\u201f implies , rather, that the symbolic fiction which confers a performative status on one level of my identity, determining which of my acts will display \u201esymbolic efficiency\u201f, is no longer fully operative. Perhaps the supreme example of this shift is provided by the recent trends in Christianity. Christianity proper \u2013 the belief in Christ\u201fs Resurrection- is the highest religious expression of the the power of symbolic fiction as the medium of universality\u201f (ibid. 330-331).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek following the Lacan argues that the Superego in the postmodern era works in a completely different manner than that of the law. According to Zizek, while law forbids enjoyment by telling what one cannot do, Superego what one can enjoy by telling what one can do. Zizek writes \u201eLaw is the agency of prohibition which regulates the distribution of enjoyment on the basis of a common, shared renunciation (the \u201csymbolic castration\u201d), whereas superego marks a point at which permitted enjoyment, freedom-to-enjoy, is reversed into obligation to enjoy\u201f (Zizek 1991a: 237). On the other hand, law is based on some collective prohibitions and has concealed some of the inherent unruliness and violence on which law establishes itself. Zizek argues that the law is based on the tautology that\u201ethe law is the law\u201f or on the hand if the law is to function properly it needs to be just. Zizek writes,\u00a0\u201eAt the beginning of the law, there is a certain \u201eoutlaw\u201f, a certain Real of violence which coincides\u00a0with the act itself of the establishment of the reign of law: the ultimate truth about the reign of law is that of an usurpation, an all classical politico-philosophical thought rest on the disavowal of this violent act of foundation. The illegitimate violence by which law sustains itself must be concealed at any price, because this concealment is the positive condition of the functioning of the law: it functions in so far as its subjects are deceived, in so far as they experience the authority of law as \u201cauthentic and eternal\u201d and overlook \u201cthe truth about the usurpation\u201d\u201f (Zizek 1991a: 204). On the other hand, Zizek argues that the enjoyment is not an immediate spontaneous thing but is the result of the imperative of the Superego. He writes: \u201eenjoyment is not an immediate spontaneous state, but is sustained by a superego imperative\u201f (Zizek 1997: 173).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek also talk about the paradox of intellectual creativity in the post modern era. He opines that \u201eour intellectual creativity can be \u201eset free\u201f only within the confines of some imposed notional framework in which, precisely, we are able to \u201emove freely\u201f-the lack of this imposed framework is necessarily experienced as an unbearable burden, since it compels us to focus constantly on how to respond to every particular empirical situation in which we finds ourselves\u201f (Zizek, 1996, 25). A good example of this is that we can think freely only within the framework of language.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek argues that an \u201eact\u201f is a total rejection of the existing symbolic Order and hence the role of the subject literally disappears. Zizek writes: \u201eThe act differs from an active intervention (action) in that it radically transforms its bearer (agent): the act is not simple something I \u201eaccomplish\u201f- after an act, I\u201fm literally \u201enot the same as before\u201f. In this sense, we could say that the subject \u201eundergoes\u201f the act (\u201epasses through\u201f it) rather than \u201eaccomplishes\u201f it: in it, the subject is annihilated and subsequently reborn (or not), i.e., the act involves a kind of temporary eclipse, aphanisis, <\/em>of the subject. Which is why every act worthy of this name is \u201cmad\u201d is the sense of radical unaccountability<\/em>: by means if it, I put at stake everything, including myself; my symbolic identity; the act is therefore always a \u201ccrime,\u201d a \u201ctransgression,\u201d namely of the symbolic community to which I belong. The act is defined by this irreducible risk: <\/em>in its most fundamental dimension, it is always negative<\/em>, i.e. an act of annihilation, of wiping out-we not only don\u201ft know what will come out of; its final outcome is ultimately even insignificant, strictly secondary in relation to the NO! of the pure act\u201f(Zizek1992: 44).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Zizek argues that negation as political engagement is lacking in the postmodern era. Zizek looks for a political act or revolution by rejecting the possibility of post modernity. In the process, Zizek rejects capitalism- which can open up a space where subjects are not paranoid narcissists (Myers 2009: 60- 61).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    7. Reality and Ideology\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    For Zizek, the most basic definition of ideology is provided by Marx is that \u201ethey do not know it, but they are doing it\u201f (Zizek 1989: 28). Zizek argues that due to the importance attached to the work of ideology, it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine change of the capitalist mode of production. Zizek writes: \u201eit seems easier to imagine \u201ethe end of the world\u201f than a far more modest change in the mode of production, as if liberal capitalism is the \u201ereal\u201f that will somehow survive even under condition of a global ecological catastrophe\u201f (Wright and Wright 1999: 55).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    For Zizek, ideology is the distortion of our understanding and hence because of ideology people do not know what they are doing. \u00a0Zizek argues that \u201ewhere is the place of ideological illusion, in the\u201e\u00a0knowing\u2019 <\/em>or in the \u201edoing\u2019 <\/em>in the reality itself? At first sight, the answer seems obvious: ideological illusion lies in the \u201eknowing\u201f. It is a matter of a discordance between what people are effectively doing and what they think they are doing- ideology consists in the very fact that the people \u201edo not know what they are doing\u201f, they have a false representation of the social reality to which they belong (the distortion produced, of course, by the same reality) (Zizek 1989: 27). Zizek gave the example of commodity fetishism to prove this. He writes, \u201emoney is in reality just an embodiment, a condensation, a materialisation of a network of social relations-the fact that it functions as a universal equivalent of all commodities is conditioned by its position in the texture of social relations. but to the\u00a0individuals themselves, this function of money- to be the embodiment of wealth- appears as an immediate, natural property of a thing called \u201emoney\u201f, as if money is already in itself, in its immediate material reality, the embodiment of wealth\u201f (Zizek 1989: 27-28). He further writes: \u201eBut such a reading of the Marxian formula leaves out an illusion, an error, a distortion which is already at work in the social reality itself, at the level of what the individuals are <\/span>doing <\/em>, and not only what they <\/span>think <\/em>or <\/span>know <\/em>they are doing. When individuals use money, they know very well that there is nothing magical about it- that money, in its materiality, is simply an expression of social relations. The everyday spontaneous ideology reduces money to a simple sign giving individual possessing it a right to a certain part of the social product. So, on an everyday level, the individuals know very well that there are relations between people behind the relations between things. The problem is that in their social activity itself, in what they are <\/span>doing, <\/em>they are <\/span>acting <\/em>as if money, in its material reality, is the immediate embodiment of wealth as such…What they \u201edo not know\u201f, what they misrecognise, is the fact that in their social reality itself, in their social activity- in the act of commodity exchange-they are guided by the fetishistic illusion\u201f (ibid. 28).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

    \n

     <\/p>\n

    While looking at the relation between reality and ideology, Zizek writes: \u201ea new way to read the Marxian formula \u201cthey do not know it, but they are doing it\u201d: the illusion is not on the side of knowledge, it is already on the side of reality itself, of what the people are doing. What they do not know is that their social reality itself, their activity, is guided by an illusion, by a fetishistic inversion. What they overlook, what they misrecognise, is not the reality but the illusion which is structuring their reality, their real social activity. They know very well how things really are, but still they are doing it as if they did not know. The illusion is therefore double: it consists in overlooking the illusion which is structuring our real, effective relationship to reality. And this overlooked, unconscious illusion is what may be called the ideological fantasy\u2019 <\/em>(ibid. 29-30).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    8. Conclusion\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    As the substantial intellectual works of Zizek have many followers, his work also faces criticisms. Most of the criticisms of the work of Zizek come from the political Left. Dews (1995) argues that Zizek\u201fs analysis of modern subjectivity and his own life has created a confusion of his work. Dews writes: \u201eHe views the modern individual as caught in the dichotomy between his or her universal status as a member of civil society, and the particular attachment of ethnicity, nation and tradition, and this duality is reflected in his own ambiguous political profile- marxisant <\/em>cultural on the international stage, member of a neo-liberal and nationalistically inclined governing party back home\u201f (Dews 1995: 252).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Another criticsm raised against the work of Zizek is that although he provides substantial critic of the existing world but he fails to offer any alternatives. In such a context, theorist Sean Homer argues: \u201eZizek\u201fs work… remains largely within the paradigm of ideology critique, which he himself criticises, as he unmasks ideologies such as racism, nationalism and anti-Semitism. His work never really moves to that second moment, whereby a consideration of what ideology returns to us may facilitate the formulation of oppositional ideologies and the space of politics proper. It always remain unclear, for example, what Zizek is actually arguing for\u201f (Homer 1995).<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    Inspite of many criticisms, the prolific writings of Zizek encompassing many terrains will continue to inspire a generation of scholars.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
    you can view video on Class, Culture and Power: Slavoj Zizek<\/strong><\/td>\n\"\"<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

    9. References<\/strong><\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Dews, Peter. The Limits of Disenchantment: Essays on Contemporary European Philosophy. London and New York: Verso, 1995.<\/li>\n
    2. Homer, Sean. Psychoanalysis, Representation, Politics: On the (im)possibility of a psychoanalytic theory of Ideology?. University of Sheffield: Centre for Psychotherapeutic Studies, 1995.<\/li>\n
    3. Myers, Tony. Slavoj Zizek. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.<\/li>\n
    4. Parker, Ian. Slavoj Zizek: A Critical Introduction. London: Pluto Press, 2004.<\/li>\n
    5. Wright, E. and Wright, E. (eds). The Zizek Reader. Oxford and Massachusetts: Blackwell, 1999. Zizek, Slavoj. The Sublime Object of Ideology. London and New York: Verso, 1989.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      – Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: MIT Press, 19<\/p>\n

      – For They Know not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor. London and New York: Verso, 1991a.<\/p>\n

      – Enjoy Your \u00a0Symptom! \u00a0Jacques \u00a0Lacan In Hollywood and Out. \u00a0London and New \u00a0York: Routledge,<\/p>\n

      – Tarrying with \u00a0the \u00a0Negative: \u00a0Kant, \u00a0Hegel \u00a0and \u00a0the \u00a0Critique \u00a0of \u00a0Ideology. \u00a0Durham: \u00a0Duke University Press,<\/p>\n

      – The Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Women and Causality. London: Verso,<\/p>\n

      – The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matter. London and New York: Verso,<\/p>\n

      – The Plague of Fantasie London and New York: Verso, 1997. \u201e<\/p>\n

      – \u201cCarl Schmitt in the age of Post Politics\u201d. In The Challenge of Carl Schmitt edited by C. Mouffe. London: Verso, 1997a.<\/p>\n

      – \u201cA Leftist Plea for \u201eEurocentrism\u201f\u201d. Critical Inquiry 24, no.2(1998):988-<\/p>\n

      – The Ticklish Subject: An Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London and New York: Verso. 1999.<\/p>\n

      – Revolution at the Gates: A Selection of Writings from February to Ocober, 1917: V. I. Lenin. London: Verso. 2002.<\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n

      6. Zizek, \u00a0Slavoj, \u00a0Butler, \u00a0J. \u00a0and \u00a0E. \u00a0Laclau. \u00a0Contingency, \u00a0Hegemony, \u00a0Universality: \u00a0Contemporary<\/p>\n

      Dialogues on the Left. London and New York: Verso. 2000.<\/p>\n

      7. Long, A.and McGunn, T. \u201cSlavoj Zizek interview.\u201d Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society 2,<\/p>\n

      no.2(1997):133-137.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"menu_order":17,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["partha-pratim-borah"],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[62],"license":[],"class_list":["post-102","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-partha-pratim-borah"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/102\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":283,"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/102\/revisions\/283"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/102\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=102"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in\/socp2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}