For They Know Not what They Do: Enjoyment as a Political FactorWith the disintegration of state socialism, we are witnessing this eruption of enjoymnet in the re-emergence of aggressive nationalism and racism. With the lid of repression lifted, the desires that have emerged are from from democratic. To explain this apparent paradox, says Slavoj Zizek, socialist critical thought must turn to psychoanalysis. For They Know Not What They Do seeks to understand the status of enjoyment within ideological discourse, from Hegel through Lacan to these political and ideological deadlocks. The author's own enjoyment of "popular culture" makes this an engaging and lucid exposition, in which Hegel joins hands with Rossellini, Marx with Hitchcock, Lacan with Frankenstein, high theory with Hollywood melodrama. |
Contents
Destiny of a Joke | 1 |
On the One | 7 |
The Wanton Identity | 61 |
Copyright | |
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absolute abstract actually already always-already appearance apropos articulated bodhisattva Claude Lefort conceived consciousness constitutive contingent contrary course crime crucial Derrida Derridean desire determination dialectical process difference Don Giovanni element embodiment empty enjoyment entity enunciation example existence external fact function G.W.F. Hegel Goldstein's book grasp Hegel Hegelian historical identity identity-with-itself ideology illusion impossible inherent inversion Jacobins Jacques Lacan judgement Kant king Lacan Lacanian logic Ludwig Wittgenstein Master-Signifier means metaphor monarch movement necessity negation negative notion objet petit ontological opposite paradox particular passage phallus Phenomenology of Spirit philosophical political position possible precisely predicate presupposes presuppositions proposition Protestantism psychoanalysis pure radical rational totality re-mark reality Reason reflection relationship represents the subject retroactively reverse sense signifier simply Slavoj Žižek social speak structure sublated sublime Substance superego tautology Therein consists thing Thing-in-itself tion totalitarian traumatic truth ultimate universal vanishing mediator void whereas Wittgenstein words