This is what I think ?

Socio-political change occurs through the dynamic dialectic interactions of the universal and the excluded real. The universal, in its abstract form, is both impossible, in that it can never be fully constituted and necessary due to the need to avoid the naked anxiety of the real. It is this dynamic contradiction that drives the dialectic process and hence political change. This essay investigates two different approaches to political change and the paradoxical relationship between universalism and the real in order to develop a basic political/theoretical apparatus for this thesis. As well as this, the prospect of a psychoanalytic political position is discussed, particularly in relation to democracy.

The first approach, characterised by Ernesto Laclau, as well as Yannis Stavrakakis, investigates the relationship between universalism, particular demands and democracy. For Laclau, the universal is a mediation of the split particular and is revealed in the production of empty signifiers. This universalism is filled by ‘chains of equivalence’ that infuse the empty universal with meaning. However, because of the impossible nature of the universal, these attempts at universalism are doomed to fail. However, the inevitability of failure should not stop such attempts. Therefore the role of the political Left is to develop a universal imaginary upon which to place the now divergent particular demands of Leftist politics. For Laclau such a position is radical democracy. Radical democracy seeks to institutionalise the lack of the real and reign in the power of ideology.

Although Slavoj Zizek also endorses the radical democratic ethos, he has considerable more reservations than Laclau, particularly in regard to the power of the economy (Bulter, Laclau, & Zizek, 2000:4). However, democracy is not the main cite of Zizek’s theoretical and political focus. Instead Zizek maintains that the repoliticization of the economy should be the primary focus of the political ambitions for the Left. Zizek’s treatment of the universal and the real is also vitally different. Using Lacanian psychoanalysis and Hegelian dialectics, Zizek rejects Laclau’s use of the abstract universal and instead focuses on the concrete universal. The concrete universal develops through the presentation of the symptom, the effect of the real on the imaginary universal, as structurally constitutive.

This essay goes on to argue that it is the concrete universal that holds the most hope of political change through the Lacanian act. The act breaks up the underlying fantasy of the order and reveals the disavowed foundations of the universal. As such it redefines the conditions of possibility and produces change. An Act occurs from the inherent impossibility of the social. Thus the symptom has to become active to push from the possible of this impossibility to become a concrete universal. It is concrete universality, breaking through fantasy and becoming an act, which is most likely to produce change. However, although the act produces change, the aim of a political intervention is to produce progressive political change. Therefore I posit that the act needs to be quickly followed, or paired with, an alternative ideology from which the subject can gain stability.

A true and natural universal is impossible because of the negative ontology of the social. One cannot have access to things-in-themselves, all knowledge is mediated through the symbolic and therefore a gap, or lack, is introduced into the system. Therefore the signified only has a retroactive influence on the signifier. Rather it is the play of signifiers that creates meanings. However, through ideological closure, these meaning are made to retroactively appear organic, as if they have developed naturally from the signified. This same process is seen with the universal. Because a universal cannot objectively and fully develop, any universal is necessarily false. However, the universal is not presented in this manner. Instead a false, or abstract universal, is created and made to appear to be both natural and universal.

Consequently the negative ontology of the social is the key focus for Lacanian psychoanalytic thought on universality. For Lacan it means that universality can never be fully constituted in itself. Instead any form of identity has to be abstracted from a particular, and as such must exclude some element to successfully achieve this abstraction (Zizek, 1999:180). Therefore because the social is partial, the generation and presentation of the universal is highly political as the universal creates an ‘objective’ formation out of previously particular elements(Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000:14). This universal, or in Laclauian terms, hegemonic, formation hides the very limit of discourse which threatens the identity which it has constructed, to the extent that Laclau states;

‘every relation of representation is founded on a fiction: that of the presence at a certain level of something which, strictly speaking, is absent from it’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:119).

In contrast to this false universality, a positive ontology would create a natural universal, producing logical laws, such as the neo-liberal view of the market. If such an objective universal did exist, the play of the social would cease. As Laclau suggests, it is the impossibility of society which creates the possibility of hegemony and politics(Laclau & Mouffe, 1985).

Therefore our political battles are ultimately efforts to deal with the anxiety of the real (Stavrakakis, 1999:72). This occurs because ultimately reality can only be posited as natural if the real outside of reality is ascribed to the other who took it from us (ibid:80). The positive externalisation of lack is called ideology, or more accurately ideological fantasy. Ideological fantasy, the symbolic component of the imaginary, has the role of presenting the symbolic as full. This occurs through a hegemonic abstraction, both in presenting a particular as full and externalising the symptom.

Given the role of the real, and the impossibility of universality, two options are left for politics and political change. One can battle against the effects of the real and operate in fantasy. Alternatively, lack can be institutionalised and taken on as a constitutive element of the social.

The first such approach is characterised by the work of Sean Homer. Homer suggests that the power of ideological discourse is too strong and as such because psychoanalytic political theory does not engage in ideology, it is impotent. The power of fascist movements in creating change is witness to such a position. However, this would be a politics without the influence of psychoanalysis. Homer suggests that the role of psychoanalysis, playing the cynic, would be to direct the universal, knowing its flexibility, to the most politically ‘ethical’ position (cited in Stavrakakis, 1999:112).

However, Homer’s position contradicts the basic focus of (political) Lacanian psychoanalysis. Lacan’s psychoanalytic process attempts to reveal the lack in the other. By doing the opposite and entering the realm of phantasmatic politics, psychoanalysis is impotent. We must not overlook that any attempt at utopia produces its opposite and then focuses its politics on its removable (Stavrakakis, 1999:100). The consequences of such actions should not be easily forgotten.

Because of this, the role of psychoanalysis is to emphasise the inherent gap in the social. Yannis Stavrakakis takes this a step further and suggests that the structural lack in the social needs to be institutionalised in a program of radical democracy (ibid). The main proponents of this form of democracy are (as well as Stavrakakis) Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Radical democracy differs from traditional phantasmatic democracy in that the ethics of harmony/consensus in democracy is replaced by an ethics of the real, of accepting conflict and antagonism rather than seeking remove it from the political process.

However, the role of the real is somewhat muted in Laclau’s theoretical work, Discourse theory. The core of Discourse theory entails the investigation of the manner in which contingent and historical meanings are articulated to appear to be objective. Laclau’s main political concern is the construction of a contingent universalism in order to provide a new social imaginary for the Left. In this sense, Laclau’s political concern is twofold. Laclau recognises that there is no natural or objective universal, indeed he states that;

‘the only democratic society is one that continually shows the contingency of its own origins’(Laclau, 2000b:87).

However, because democracy becomes the battle for ‘empty signifiers (terms filled with meaning by chains of equivalence), Laclau advocates that the Left also produce empty signifiers, which structure the abstract universal. Although the empty signifier is empty by itself, it takes on a universal function. This universal function is filled with meaning by what is referred to as the ‘logic of equivalence’. This logic is a chain of signs which seek to fill the universal emptiness of the empty signifier. This logic is crucial for liberal democracy, as political representatives compete to fill the chain of equivalence.

Because the empty signifier is by definition empty, no ontic content necessarily stems from the system limit that produces empty signifiers. Instead the type of signifiers that fill an empty signifier are entirely reliant on the context in which they are created, and thus the unevenness of the social (Laclau, 2000c:192). Therefore Laclau suggests that there is nothing preventing empty signifiers representing the impossibility of the social itself, as in the universalism of contingency which is an the core of radical democracy (ibid:199)

In this sense Laclau’s position is has some similarity to Homer, accept Laclau suggests that the Left should enter the ideological game, but with an ideology of contingency. Thus where the two theorists differ is that Laclau believes that it is only radical democracy that can reign in the power of phantasmatic (or in his terms, hegemonic) political positions by recognising that no one position can hold the place of power (Laclau, 2000b:54). The ultimate place of power stays necessarily empty.

However, in doing this Laclau focuses only on the relationship between the universal and the particular; in Lacanian terms, the imaginary and the symbolic. Laclau hints at the real, but allows it no specific political significance. As well as this, Laclau ignores the role of jouissance and fantasy in the imaginary (see Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2003), although Laclau argues, unconvincingly, that he does include these factors in his work (Laclau, 2003). Thus Laclau’s twofold theory of the social lacks the depth provided by the work of Slavoj Zizek.

I believe it is Zizek who is best placed to understand the dialectics and dynamics of change. Zizek, taking a more Hegelian/Lacanian perspective, contrasts with Laclau’s position whilst endorsing many of the key features of his argument. Where Laclau examines the interplay between the abstract universal and the particular, Zizek adds a third and fourth to this formula. These elements are the singular/symptom and concrete universality. This Hegelian turn reveals a much greater potential for dislocation of the social.

The singular and symptom are very similar, if not abstractly the same. Despite the similarity between the singular and symptom, the singular is not a term often used by Zizek. The singular is most often used in The Ticklish Subject (Zizek, 1999), and is examined in Sarah Kay’s introduction to Zizek’s work (Kay, 2003). Indeed in The Ticklish Subject, Zizek sometimes substitutes the term ‘individual’ for singular, to describe the remainder of the universalising process;

‘We should therefore consider three, not just two, levels: the empty UNIVERSAL, the PARTICULAR content which hegemonizes the empty Universal, and the INDIVIDUAL, the symptomatic excess which undermines this hegemonic content… One can see immediately in what sense the individual is the dialectical unity of Universal and Particular: the individual bears witness to the gap between the Universal and Particular’ (Zizek, 1999:181, emphasis in orginal).

This definition of the singular/individual is very similar to that of the symptom;

‘ The symptom is, strictly speaking, a particular element which subverts its own universal, a species subverting its own genus’ (Zizek, 1989:21).

Therefore the singular/symptom arises as the excess which is a necessary condition of the universal; the symptom reveals the presence of the real (Zerilli, 1998). Because the universal is always false, it is always a hegemonic abstraction from a particular, there will necessarily be an element left out. The singular/symptom is this element and thus it reveals the gap between the universal and the particular. The symptom is that while reveals the presence of the real. Of course the real is outside of the symbolic and can only be seen in its effects. As such it is an effect without (known) cause. This effect- of showing the limits of the discursive- is the symptom/singular of universality. Where Laclau is simply aware of this effect he places no political significance on. The closest Laclau comes to the symptom is social antagonism. Laclau places social antagonism at the point where discourses collide, thus, similar to the symptom, antagonism reveals the system limit of the social. It is through antagonism that meanings are considered to be destabilised in Discourse theory, through those elements in the discursive that have been excluded (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000:9-14). Yet, despite the deconstructive presence of the excluded being noted by Laclau, his focus is on the empty signifier and universalism. In contrast for Zizek it is the symptom should be the focus of politics.

The difference between the singular and symptom is abstract. When discussing the symptom, compared to the singular/individual, Zizek considers a greater attachment to jouissance; the role of enjoyment in the constitutive exception of universality. Therefore the symptom appears to be a more complete term than the singular.

The symptom is also more enigmatic. The symptom appears as a coded object (Lacan originally thought symptoms were produced with an eye to interpretation), not necessarily the straight opposite of the abstract universal, as with the singular (Milovanovic, 2004:373). As an illustration, with the universal capitalist market, the singular may be market failure, but the symptom is more likely to be harder to decipher. It is for this reason that the first stage of the psychoanalytic cure is the interpretation of symptoms. A recent example of a symptom of the capitalist market is the failure of the North Shore City Council to protect the Long-Bay Okura Great Park, despite overwhelming support for the concept. Here, the market is seen to fail to meet the needs of the people, but this failure is not interpreted by most as a market failure; the cause is attributed to another factor, in this circumstance, the council.

Thus we see the intimate relationship between the symptom and ideology. As the symptom is the coded failure of the universal and ideological fantasy is that which protect the subject from that failure. Ideology operates by presenting the social as a positive entity, devoid of symptoms. In order to do this, any symptom that reveals itself is externalised; the symptom is presented as an impediment caused by an uncontrollable external factor, or a fixable internal impediment. The key to ideology is to avoid presenting the symptom for what it is; the return of the real, of what has to be repressed for the (false) universal to constitute itself as a universal (Zizek, 2002:160-1).

However, concrete universality should not be seen as the natural process for the symptom. Generally this symptom is swept up in fantasy and ideology; it is attributed as a fault of the other who has stolen fullness and thus Jouissance from the subject. Zizek suggests that for change to occur, we need to break with the fantasy which holds the symptom at bay and come to view the symptom as the true universal; concrete universality.

However, there is another factor at work in muting in the effect of the symptom. That factor is the super-ego. The super-ego, in Lacanian terms differs from Freud’s original conception. Freud maintained that the super-ego helped to keep the id in check and maintain a balanced ego. In contrast Lacan considered that the super-ego is not only the subject’s ‘moral’ or normative conscience, but more productively an unconscious site of enjoyment/perversion. Thus where Freud fundamentally conceived the unconscious to be an area of resistance to law, Lacan regards the unconscious, through the super-ego, to be the very place of compliance; one does not battle to follow the law, instead the subject enjoys the submission to the normative through the surplus enjoyment of the super-ego.

In the Lacanian conception, the super-ego is the obscene supplement to the symbolic law; it is the guilt/surplus enjoyment which presses the subject to believe. In the process of subjectification, the subject has made the (forced) choice away from Jouissance and into language. Although pure Jouissance is not attainable after subjectification, this impossibility is forgotten. The subject represses the initial negation, the impossibility of achieving fullness; that we never had the thing in the first place. However, the super-ego helps to maintain the possibility of symbolic fullness. It presses a ‘guilt’ upon the subject when gaps in the social appear if the subject does not follow the symbolic law. In this sense the super-ego forms an obsence underlying law which operates, and supports, the public law. This operation is seen most vividly at the point of failure of the law (Zizek, 1994:54).

Because we have given up pure Jouissance, the subject receives compensatory surplus enjoyment (jouissance) from the super-ego. However, every time we give in to the demands of the super-ego and social (naturally) is not sutured, we feel even guiltier. The more we submit, the more we need to submit. This is of course very similar to the Marxist notion of surplus-value; the more you have the more you need.

The link between the super-ego and the symptom is best considered through the complementary influence of ideological fantasy in maintaining the consistency of the social. Both the super-ego and ideological fantasy act to attempt to construct the positivity of the social. The super-ego pushes the subject towards the prospect of wholeness, a reminder of Jouissance in the form of jouissance. Ideological fantasy (fantasy, the symbolic form of the imaginary, provides a backdrop for ideology) does not conceal the true, positive nature of the social, but rather presents the social as positive, a constitutive illusion that maintains the consistency of the symbolic order.

Thus both ideology and the super-ego work to domesticate the threat of the symptom. The symptom is evidence of the false relationship between the universal and the particular, the inescapable bar between the signifier and the signified. The super-ego demands that the symptom be tended to and repaired. This demand prevents the subject from uncovering the constitutive nature of the symptom. The super-ego makes the subject want to domesticate the symptom, to convince ourselves and others that it is fixable, a temporary aberration, rather than a concrete universal.

The operation of the super-ego is such that the demand of the symptom is be enjoyed; it suggests the prospect of suture, but also keeps a distance from this (impossible) fullness and hence the prospect of revealing concrete universality. Thus instead of viewing absolute poverty as the constitutive symptom of capitalist economics, we give to charity to delay our guilt. However, this is not a productive strategy for the subject or the symptom. The subject can not escape from the super-ego; the more they submit the more demands are taken on.

Herein lays the crucial link between ideological fantasy and the super-ego. Rather than taking on the demands of the super-ego to suture the social, the subject can turn to ideology and in particular, ideological fantasy. Ideological fantasy operates by externalising the cause of the symptom. The more the super-ego demands, the greater the need for ideological fantasy; however the demands of the super-ego can be avoided by transferring them into the realm of ideology.

Thus the super-ego and ideological fantasy work together to domesticate the destructive consequences of the symptom. Both show that the nature of belief is not rational, but rather belief is constructed through meanings which resonate with a particular economy of pleasure, be it from the super-ego or ideology. Thus how does one reveal the concrete universal and the true nature of the symptom? Is it possible to produce evidence that reveals the constitutive nature of the symptom? E.g. economic evidence that absolute poverty is required for western wealth. No. Rather it is at this time, as Zizek suggests in the Sublime Object of Ideology (p.49), that we will see that an ideology really has its hold.

Ideology only really has a grip when we see no distance between it and reality; ideology is reality. Thus when evidence comes up which is counter-intuitive that is when we see ideology at play. This cycle rarely leads to true action being taken. The super-ego sacrifice symbolises the fetishist nature of belief; I know this will not fix it, but all the same I believe it will.

Although the super-ego demand is more beneficial for a cause in the short-term (at least here attention is paid to the symptom), ultimately both the super-ego and ideology fail to invoke change. The super-ego prevents the subject from acting against the symptom. What is required for social change is for the phantasmatic system to be broken that presents the symptom as an impediment (using the systematic properties super-ego/ideology) and reveals it as a condition of the system.

Thus, given the forces lining up against the presented of the symptom as the concrete universal, it is difficult to conceive of the concrete universal occurs at all. However, were the symptom to be presented for what it is, the constitutive exception to the social, we would have entered the realm of concrete universality. Concrete universality is brought about by the gap that the symptom opens up. Where the symptom is the gap between the universal and the particular, concrete universality is the gap between the universal and its symptom (Zizek, 2006:30). As such it reveals the truth of the universal; the universal is failure.

The distinction here between the symptom and concrete universality is a subtle one. Where the symptom reveals the failure of the abstract universal, concrete universality takes on this failure as the true universal, providing a kind of negative suture. The ideas of a fourth element providing a suture or tying a knot is usually associated with the sinthome. Concrete universality thus shows that the failure of the universal is not an obstacle to its construction, but more accurately the very condition of its formation; it is the outside which allows the inside to form.

If we apply this theorem to capitalism, the false (abstract) universal would be the idea of capitalism as ‘natural’ and ‘objective’, the particular would be capitalism as an economic system, the symptom would be the extreme poverty it creates, and the concrete universal is the point at which capitalism encounters itself as its opposite and discovers that this poverty is not an impediment to its formation, but rather the truth of capitalism itself. As such the concrete universal allows remains as a stain on the abstract universal; it always threatens to break through and reveal itself.

Therefore, if one accepts-as is suggested in the psychoanalytic process- that this symptom is not an impediment to the fullness of the social/abstract universality, but rather a condition of its existence, then we have entered the realm of concrete universality. Thus concrete universality provides a fourth which, in a dialectically negative manner, provides a suture to the social (Zizek, 2000b:235). Thus politically, it is the element that should be identified with. Witness the recent pro-immigrations protests in America. The main banner held by the immigrant protesters was ‘We are America’. Here the protesters appeal has taken the form of concrete universality. The immigration (alien) workers have been under attack in the United States as an impediment to the fullness of the social- as a source of crime, taking jobs etc. However, what the workers are trying to suggest is that they are a necessary condition of U.S society, and should be treated as such. The workers perform a major role in taking the underclass jobs that maintain the American economy; without them the economy would fall. Therefore the immigrants are a condition, not impediment to the system. Hence the appeal ‘We are America’.

Democracy, and the democratic revolution, is a good example of concrete universality. Here the symptom of feudal societies, the problem with dealing with a multitude of demands under a single banner, was elevated from an obstacle to the fundamental principle of society (Zizek, 2000a:93-4). However, democracy has since turned into an empty signifier in itself; an abstract universal filled with meaning which are not necessarily concurrent with the democratic theme. Ultimately it is the economy which produces this distortion. Therefore it should be the economic while is the primary arena for democratic intervention. However, I do not believe that this can occur in the manner in which Laclau suggests, through chains of equivalence, even if Laclau desired anti-capitalist change, which he does not (Laclau, 2000c:206); the power of the economy is simply too strong.

Given the power of the economy, as well as ideological fantasy and the super-ego, efforts to present the symptom as such require a much radical approach; the act. Identification with concrete universality is similar to the political act, in that it suspends the symbolic law and reopens the abyss of the social. This suspension can only come from the place of the impossibility of the social; the real.

In this case I suggest that we should not view the symptom as a passive effect of hegemonic attempts at universalism, but rather a productive/destructive social force in its own right. It is only when the symptom becomes active, universal in its own right, that it is likely to become a concrete universal and pass to the act, provided that it can break up the fantasy which holds the universal to its place.

I suggest this rather that the randomness of Zizek’s political act. I believe that while such an act may be successful in a clinical sense, in the political world modifications are required. This is not to suggest that the basic formula of the act is different (to re-reveal the gap in the social; the negation of the negation of the negation), but that it need not be necessarily violent and directionless as Zizek suggests.

Yes, for political change to occur the underlying fantasy of the universal must be broken up through the act, but I believe that a post-act ideology is also required. The effectiveness of the act lies with its ability to break fantasy. Without this, the naked effect of the symptom through the trauma of the real is more likely to entrench fantasy; this entrenchment occurred in the 9/11 attacks; here the anxiety of the real did not produce a dislocatory change, but rather a repression deeper into fantasy. I believe the crucial point, is whether an alternative ideology is available onto which to transfer the anxiety of the real. The subject cannot exist in a state of trauma or dislocation; a supporting ideology, or ideologies while always be sort. This is where I believe Laclau’s work can be most productively combined with Zizek’s.

One of Laclau’s strongest, and most pertinent, criticisms of Zizek is that he holds no specific new imaginary for the Left; he simply states that he is anti-capitalist. In contrast Laclau contends that he is a pragmatist; he is not anti-capitalist, he would be happy to see the advent of a new Leftist universalism to counter the currently hegemonic right-wing ideology. This universalism would be orientated around the absorption of various Left-orientated particular demands and an ideology of contingency based around the premises of radical democracy.

Instead, Laclau emphasises the need to present a positive social imaginary for the reconstruction of society, rather than just negative demands which contrast to the existing order (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:189). Laclau terms this the difference between a ‘strategy of opposition’ and a ‘strategy of construction of a new order’ (ibid: 189). In his opinion any strategy which takes the former route is ‘condemned to marginality’ (ibid: 189). It is this approach that Laclau attributes to Zizek, claiming that Zizek’s political critique without imaginary is simply empty talk. Laclau goes on to say that because of this emptiness, Zizek’s;

‘ thought is not organised around a truly political reflection but is, rather, a psychoanalytic discourse which draws its examples from the politico-ideological field’ (Laclau, 2000a:289)

Zizek of course rejects Laclau’s presentation of his work as politically impotent and reverses the allegation to Laclau’s resignation to partial changes within the predominant system. Zizek wants to risk the impossible, to go the act without guarantee. While this might be the most productive strategy for achieving the act (rather than being held back by fantasy), I believe that the act itself is politically ineffective if there is no alternative imaginary following it. This imaginary is not a new utopian universal, but it is a better alternative that before the act. In this case I suggest that before attempting to break up capitalism, an alternative needs to be found, an alternative that is not utopian, but rather better fits in with the democratic ethos of Laclau’s attempted universalism.

Therefore, while it is only the work of Zizek, through the identification with the symptom, concrete universality and ultimately the act that can bring the radical change required to restore the democratic ethos to the economy, the value of Laclau’s radical democratic ideology cannot be ignored. As a result, the act cannot be seen as a stand alone solution to political change. Although it is the most powerful tool in producing political change, the act is rather lacking when it comes to producing progressive change. Consequently, as well as the act, the Left does need to develop a new universal; one that fully takes integrates the economy. Although I believe that Laclau is headed in the right direction in seeking to develop this new Leftist universal, he fails to fully integrate the economy and is thus limited to accepting capitalism and making compensatory changes within the order. As well as this political limitation, theoretically, Laclau’s failure to integrate the full Lacanian apparatus, leaves his work limited, compared to Zizek’s, in understanding the fixity of the social order and the process required to dislocate it. Thus, through an integration of Laclau and Zizek, I believe a viable overall political strategy can be found. This strategy requires the Left to break up and move on from capitalism not only through the presentation of various symptoms of capitalism as concrete universals in order to produce an act, but also the Left needs to position itself as a viable ideological alternative on which society can steady itself after the trauma of the real. Without such an alternative I fear that the Left risks becoming politically impotent.

References

Bulter, J., Laclau, E., & Zizek, S. (2000). Contingency, Hegemony, Universality. London: Verso.
Glynos, J., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2003). Encounters of the Real Kind: Sussing Out the Limits of Laclau's Embrace of Lacan. Journal for Lacanian Studies, 1(1), 110-128.
Howarth, D., & Stavrakakis, Y. (2000). Introducing discourse theory and political analysis. In D. Howarth, A. J. Norval & Y. Stavrakakis (Eds.), Discourse theory and Political analysis: Identities, Hegemonies and Social Change. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Kay, S. (2003). Zizek: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
Laclau, E. (2000a). Constructing Universality. In J. Bulter, E. Laclau & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality; Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. London: Verso.
Laclau, E. (2000b). Identity and Hegemony: The Role of Universality in the Consitution of Political Logics. In J. Bulter, E. Laclau & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, Hegemony, University. London: Verso.
Laclau, E. (2000c). Structure, History and the Political. In J. Bulter, E. Laclau & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality; Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. London: Verso.
Laclau, E. (2003). Discourse and Jouissance: A reply to Glynos and Stavrakakis. Journal for Lacanian Studies, 1(2), 278-285.
Laclau, E., & Mouffe, C. (1985). Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a radical democratic politics. London: Verso.
Milovanovic, D. (2004). Borromean Knots, Le Sinthome, and Sense Production in Law. In E. Ragland & D. Milovanovic (Eds.), Lacan: Topologically Speaking. New York: Other Press.
Stavrakakis, Y. (1999). Lacan & the Political. London: Routledge.
Zerilli, L. M. G. (1998). This Universalism Which Is Not One. Diacritics, 28(2), 3-20.
Zizek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (1994). The Metastases of Enjoyment. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (1999). The Ticklish Subject. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2000a). Class Struggle or Postmodernism Yes, Please! In J. Bulter, E. Laclau & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2000b). Da Capo senza Fine. In J. Bulter, E. Laclau & S. Zizek (Eds.), Contingency, Hegemony and Universality. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2002). For they know not what they do: Enjoyment as a political factor (2nd ed.). London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2006). The Parallex View. London: Verso.

Environmentalism and The symptom

The environment, or better put, nature performs a dual role in a discursive formation. Nature is, naturally enough, represented discursively. The representation of nature, from a wild, untamed romantic force in pre-modernism to the modernist scientific approach, is of vital political importance. It is in this sense that we can talk of nature as universal. But nature also acts a real force; the hegemonic presentation of nature, the representation of the natural, is one of the modalities in which we encounter the real. This is because of the gap between nature and the natural, much like reality and the real, every attempted representation of nature will never be able to fully represent the natural.

Symptoms of nature occur as the necessary exception caused by the gap between nature and the natural; if- in our modernist era- nature is under man’s control than natural disasters are symptomatic. However, this is a different kind of symptom from that which I have previously discussed. The twist is that nature operates, as the real- or more accurately the real real- as a whole system independent of signification. Therefore the symptom does not necessarily develop as a result of the exclusion necessary to constitute the universality of the system. This is not to suggest that such a symptomatic process does not exist; natural disasters would not necessarily be a symptom under an alternative conception of nature. Likewise, the current conception of nature as a passive part of human society produces the symptom of production related climate change. However, a natural symptom can develop, taking the role of an exception to the universal, without being constitutive. In this sense a natural symptom is performed rather than symbolised; this performance is a dislocation of the real.

Of course, this dislocation can only exist in discourse, but more than this nature has the potential to change the very parameters of the discursive environment. Not only can there be changes in nature, but also in the natural. For example, while global production pollution did not reach levels that changed the natural, climate change was not a symptom of capitalism; nature was not affected. However, as climate change occurred (and so did the natural), then a symptom was produced, both of capitalism and nature.

Thus while capitalism’s greatest strength is it’s ability to internalise its symptoms, to commodify the constitutive exception, in this case concrete universality is real and active; the truth is out there and it cannot be avoided. However, it can be put off. Again this takes familiar form; repression, ideological externalisation, or super-ego enjoyment. Even if acid rain is all that falls and the polar ice-caps melt, this is no guarantee that the discursive conditions will change. Most likely though is that these conditions will produce a dislocation as the real breaks through fantasy. Thus, perhaps more than any other driver nature has the potential to break up capitalism.

The symptom and Poverty

My despair (or super-ego enjoyment, at least originally) at global poverty has been the driving force ethical force behind my study. Poverty, absolute poverty that is, is a symptom of capitalism. Its main benefit in terms of provoking anti-capitalist change is that it cannot be commodified, particularly if one takes into account environmentalist critique. Although it is in the best interests of capital on one level to have more wealthy consumers, on the other it is necessary that the workers, and the reserve army of unemployed, stay poor; too poor to live. This is not to say that some will not get richer; just that inequality is a natural and necessary part of this system. The commodification of poverty is also an environmental impossibility- the earth is very unlikely to be able to support an affluent global population.

Yes, this is true, but it is not impossible to commodify the image of poverty, and that is what is happening; charity bracelets, the hole RED and Make Poverty History campaigns and fair-trade; these are capitalism’s responses to poverty. Poverty, thanks to the celebrity appeal is beginning to infiltrate the realm of the super-ego. But, as I noted in The Symptom and the Super-ego, the enjoyment of super-ego is not a productive force in producing change.

Capitalism is by far the dominant global system. As such, it is a multi-faceted system operating in infinite modalities. Thus it is difficult to identify a single dominant universal of capital, or a single symptom, or even to categorize what is symptomatic in capitalism and what is simply arbitrary failure. Perhaps the most hegemonic universal image of capitalism is the market. The market- the invisible hand which directs the self-interested activities of individuals to the benefit of the collective- is presented as the ultimate natural, neutral and objective force. Even those who do not submit to the economics of the pure market do not debate the naturality of the market, the simply question the ethics of its effect; ‘Should we tame the market?’

The market as the capitalist universal is not to suggest that it is the abstract universal of capitalism. Likewise, to suggest a single symptom to capitalism is not to make it the only symptom. However, I believe that the most ethically demanding symptom of capitalism is poverty. Poverty is a symptom of the market; it is presented as the failure of the market, but its true function is as a constitutive condition of the markets’ success. But it is also a symptom of the general ethos of capitalism; death and hunger contrast with wealth and opulence.

However, it is wrong to classify poverty as a passive symptom. As a have suggested in The Symptom and the Superego, the symptom is not simply a passive effect, but rather a force of the repressed Real. Thus a symptom has the potential to form its own Universal. This takes our argumentation to in a new direction. Although Zizek suggests that there is nothing particular in the content of the symptom that is of political importance (it is the gap that the symptom opens up-concrete universality- that is of political importance), the symptom becomes more powerful and active once if it is unified. This is not to suggest that the symptom should take the place of the previous universal, that it would be any better, that its fantasy would be benign.

Rather, my argument is that the symptom is much more likely to dislocate the universal if it is active, instead of simply a passive effect. In this way the symptom is much more likely to break up ideology than forces within the ideology itself.

The symptom, the super-ego and ideological fantasy

Last week I had an interesting discussion with my fellow psychoanalytic scholar Wendy, which has prompted me to believe that I have missed an important piece of the theoretical puzzle in my writings thus far. That piece is the super-ego. In this short essay I seek to discuss the relationship between the super-ego and the symptom. Of particular interest is the manner in which ideological fantasy works in conjunction with the super-ego to conceal the true nature of the symptom.

Firstly, what is the super-ego? It is important to note that Lacan’s definition of the term differs from Freud’s original conception. Freud maintained that the super-ego helped to keep the id in check and maintain a balanced ego. In contrast Lacan considered that the super-ego is not only the subject’s ‘moral’ or normative conscience, but more productively an unconscious site of enjoyment/perversion. Thus where Freud fundamentally conceived the unconscious to be an area of resistance to law, Lacan regards the unconscious, through the super-ego, to be the very place of compliance; one does not battle to follow the law, instead the subject enjoys the submission to the normative through the surplus enjoyment of the super-ego.

In the Lacanian conception, the super-ego is the obscene supplement to the symbolic law; it is the guilt/surplus enjoyment which allows the subject to believe. In the process of subjectification, the subject has made the (forced) choice away from Jouissance and into language. Although pure Jouissance is not attainable after subjectification, this impossibility is forgotten. The subject represses the initial negation, the impossibility of achieving fullness; that we never had the thing in the first place. However, the super-ego helps to maintain the possibility of symbolic fullness. It presses a ‘guilt’ upon the subject when gaps in the social appear if the subject does not follow the symbolic law.

Because we have given up pure Jouissance, the subject receives compensatory surplus enjoyment (jouissance) from the super-ego. However, every time we give in to the demands of the super-ego and social (naturally) is not sutured, we feel even guiltier. The more we submit, the more we need to submit. This is of course very similar to the Marxist notion of surplus-value; the more you have the more you need.

The link between the super-ego and the symptom is best considered through the complementary influence of ideological fantasy in maintaining the consistency of the social. Both the super-ego and ideological fantasy act to attempt to construct the positivity of the social. The super-ego pushes the subject towards the prospect of wholeness, a reminder of Jouissance in the form of jouissance. Ideological fantasy (fantasy, the symbolic form of the imaginary, provides a backdrop for ideology) does not conceal the true, positive nature of the social, but rather presents the social as positive, a constitutive illusion that maintains the consistency of the symbolic order.

Thus both ideology and the super-ego work to domesticate the threat of the symptom. The symptom is evidence of the false relationship between the universal and the particular, the inescapable bar between the signifier and the signified. The super-ego demands that the symptom be tended to and repaired. This demand prevents the subject from uncovering the constitutive nature of the symptom. The super-ego makes the subject want to domesticate the symptom, to convince ourselves and others that it is fixable, a temporary aberration, rather than a concrete universal.

The operation of the super-ego is such that the demand of the symptom is be enjoyed; it suggests the prospect of suture, but also keeps a distance from this (impossible) fullness and hence the prospect of revealing concrete universality. Thus instead of viewing absolute poverty as the constitutive symptom of capitalist economics, we give to charity to delay our guilt. However, this is not a productive strategy for the subject or the symptom. The subject can not escape from the super-ego; the more they submit the more demands are taken on.

Herein lays the crucial link between ideological fantasy and the super-ego. Rather than taking on the demands of the super-ego to suture the social, the subject can turn to ideology and in particular, ideological fantasy. Ideological fantasy operates by externalising the cause of the symptom. The more the super-ego demands, the greater the need for ideological fantasy; however the demands of the super-ego can be avoided by transferring them into the realm of ideology.

Like the super-ego, ideology also keeps a distance from suture. A common ideological response to absolute global poverty is to externalise the cause; a frequent site for such transference is ‘corrupt’ foreign governments. Another familiar approach is to give in to the power of the system; ‘How will anything I do make a difference?’ The influence of ideology does not mean that the super-ego demand is avoided; often it is just softened; hence the compatible super-ego driven response ‘I just do what I can within the given constraints’.

Thus the super-ego and ideological fantasy work together to domesticate the destructive consequences of the symptom. Both show that the nature of belief is not rational, but rather belief is constructed through meanings which resonate with a particular economy of pleasure, be it from the super-ego or ideology. Thus how does one reveal the concrete universal and the true nature of the symptom? Is it possible to produce evidence that reveals the constitutive nature of the symptom? E.g. economic evidence that absolute poverty is required for western wealth. No. Rather it is at this time, as Zizek suggests in the Sublime Object of Ideology (p.49), that we will see that an ideology really has its hold.

Ideology only really has a grip when we see no distance between it and reality; ideology is reality. Thus when evidence comes up which is counter-intuitive that is when we see ideology at play. Thus, even if evidence strongly suggested that poverty was constitutive of capitalism, the classic ideological response would be to suggest, ‘Yes, but that is okay because we have worked hard for our success’, or ‘That is only because we didn’t start equally, if only we could go back…’. The latter approach is often combined with super-ego guilt; giving to charity, buying fair-trade coffee. However, this cycle rarely leads to true action being taken. The super-ego sacrifice symbolises the fetishist nature of belief; I know this will not fix it, but all the same I believe it will.

Although the super-ego demand is more beneficial for a cause in the short-term (at least here attention is paid to the symptom), ultimately both the super-ego and ideology fail to invoke change. The super-ego prevents the subject from acting against the symptom. What is required for social change is for the fantasmatic system to be broken that presents the symptom as an impediment (using the systematic properties super-ego/ideology) and reveals it as a condition of the system.

The identification with concrete universality is similar to the political act, in that it suspends the symbolic law and reopens the abyss of the social. This suspension can only come from the real. However, the effect of the real is felt only through the symbolic e.g. the symptom, or other forms of dislocation. In this case I suggest that we should not view the symptom as a passive effect of hegemonic attempts at universalism, but rather a productive/destructive social force in its own right. I am thinking here of those who experience or have fought out of absolute poverty fighting back against the universal (e.g. Islam), or the power of nature in the form of climate change. Should these symptoms not be seen as active returns of the repressed real, of that which have been excluded for the universal to be constituted?

I suggest this rather that the randomness of Zizek’s political act. I believe that while such an act may be successful in a clinical sense, in the political world, a distinction need to be made. This is not to suggest that the basic formula of the act is different (to re-reveal the gap in the social; the negation of the negation of the negation), but that it need not be necessarily violent and directionless as Zizek suggests. Yes, it must traverse the fantasy, but I believe that it can have a coherent vision. This vision very well may not be able to come from within the current hegemonic universal, but instead lies with the constitutive exception of the social. It is only if the symptom comes to life and traverses the fantasy of its construction that a productive political act can be achieved.

A reply?

The sinthome is not a positive identity that can be located, but is rather a performance of itself. Therefore although the sinthome has an undoubted influence on symbolisation, it cannot be symbolised itself. Rather, it ‘appears’ every time an identity performs. The big question here for me revolves around the relationship between the three registers; imaginary, symbolic and real (with the sinthome as a fourth), and universality (abstract universal, particular, singular and concrete universality as a fourth). With my recent work on universality, I tend to forget that it is R, S, I that constitutes the basic Lacanian form of the social. In a basic sense, in this formation it is the imaginary that makes the symbolic appear full, even though it can necessarily never be so, as the presence of the real reveals.

I believe that this concept can be translated onto universality. Universality is the process of making the social appear full; hence the intimate relationship between universality, fantasy and jouissance. Therefore, the symbolic is the particular. In the symbolic, no identity is constituted in-itself. Rather identities are formed by reference to something outside of them; they can never be full. This negativity is the driving force of the social. Ideological fantasy, the symbolic component of the imaginary, has the role of presenting the symbolic as full. This occurs through a hegemonic abstraction, both in presenting a particular as full and externalising the symptom to an external cause.

The symptom is that while reveals the presence of the real. Of course the real is outside of the symbolic and can only be seen in its effects. As such it is an effect without (known) cause. This effect- of showing the limits of the discursive- is the symptom/singular of universality. If one accepts-as is suggested in the psychoanalytic process- that this symptom is not an impediment to the fullness of the social/abstract universality, but rather a condition of its existence, we enter the realm of concrete universality. Thus concrete universality provides a fourth which, in a dialectically negative manner, provides a suture to the social. Thus politically, it is thus element that should be identified with. Witness the recent pro-immigrations protests in America. The main banner held by the immigrant protesters was ‘We are America’. Here the protesters appeal has taken the form of concrete universality. The immigration (alien) workers have been under attack in the United States as an impediment to the fullness of the social- as a source of crime, taking jobs etc. However, what the workers are trying to suggest is that they are a necessary condition of U.S society, and should be treated as such. The workers perform a major role in taking the underclass jobs that maintain the American economy; without them the economy would fall. Therefore the immigrants are a condition, not impediment to the system. Hence the appeal ‘We are America’.

Having developed this link between universality and the registers, I have rather lost my way on the final link; between concrete universality and the sinthome. My basic point is that both provides a suturing role, but in a radically different way. I am still trying to get my head around the idea of the topological approach. I do have some readings stacked up which I can hopefully get through by tomorrow (Thursday).


Again I am left with the thought, What are the political implications of the sinthome? This mainly relates back to the problem of the limits to discourse. As Laclau notes, dislocations ( the external limit) can only show themselves through internal failings. Does this suggest that it is the discursive itself which is responsible for the failure of a discourse. Therefore from this we could suggest that it is the failure of the universal, in the symptom that reveals the presence of the sinthome, or at least the performance of the sinthome, much like the real. But unlike the real, which is fully implicit in the failure of the discursive, the sinthome reveals the structure itself. Thus we come very close to concrete universality; it is through the failure of the universal that the truth of the universal is revealed. However, the concrete universal is well imbedded in the symbolic. The sinthome, instead is a structure, or at least a structuring effect that is only performed. Yet, importantly from a discursive point of view, it is the sinthome that also reveals the limits of our discourse. Again though, we must distinguish between the real and the sinthome. While the real reveals the limits of signification (in that every universality must necessarily excludes element to constitute itself; the symptom), the sinthome is implicit in the very structuring of this exclusion.

So, from the alternative perspective could we say that it is the sinthome that it structuring the discursive and introducing limits? I am not sure how this would work, given that the sinthome is outside of signification. The question I am driven to ask is ‘Where would the sinthome come from then?’ But, as you note, this kind of question suggests an impossible positive positioning to the sinthome, and I believe I am roughly back where I started!

What is the sinthome? (and where is it?)

In my last piece of work, I was a little unsure of the distinction between the sinthome, singular, symptom and concrete universality. In this essay, I seek to further my definitions of these concepts, and the distinctions between them. I would also like to expand on the political connotations of dialectical materialism, from which the aforementioned concepts stem. In particular I believe the sinthome- as the furthest stage of dialectical materialism- is of political interest. While the sinthome is undoubtedly of political interest, I am still not sure whether the concept leads itself to progressive politics, in particular anti-capitalist change.

The singular and symptom are very similar, if not abstractly the same. There is a greater conceptual difference between the symptom and sinthome, but they are part of the same notion. Despite the similarity between the singular and symptom, the singular is not a term often used by Zizek. The singular is most often used in The Ticklish Subject (Zizek, 1999), and is examined in Sarah Kay’s introduction to Zizek’s work (Kay, 2003). Indeed in The Ticklish Subject, Zizek sometimes substitutes the term ‘individual’ for singular, to describe the remainder of the universalising process;

‘We should therefore consider three, not just two, levels: the empty UNIVERSAL, the PARTICULAR content which hegemonizes the empty Universal, and the INDIVIDUAL, the symptomatic excess which undermines this hegemonic content… One can see immediately in what sense the individual is the dialectical unity of Universal and Particular: the individual bears witness to the gap between the Universal and Particular’ (Zizek, 1999:181, emphasis in original).

This definition of the singular/individual is very similar to that of the symptom;

‘ The symptom is, strictly speaking, a particular element which subverts its own universal, a species subverting its own genus’ (Zizek, 1989:21).

Therefore the singular/symptom arises as the excess which is a necessary condition of the universal. Because the universal is always false, it is always a hegemonic abstraction from a particular, there will necessarily be an element left out. The singular/symptom is this element and thus it reveals the gap between the universal and the particular.

The difference between the singular and symptom is abstract. When discussing the symptom, compared to the singular/individual, Zizek considers a greater attachment to jouissance; the role of enjoyment in the constitutive exception of universality. Therefore the symptom appears to be a more complete term than the singular.

The symptom is also more enigmatic. The symptom appears as a coded object (Lacan originally thought symptoms were produced with an eye to interpretation), not necessarily the straight opposite of the abstract universal, as with the singular (Milovanovic, 2004:373). As an illustration, with the universal capitalist market, the singular may be market failure, but the symptom is more likely to be harder to decipher. It is for this reason that the first stage of the psychoanalytic cure is the interpretation of symptoms. A recent example of a symptom of the capitalist market is the failure of the North Shore City Council to protect the Long-Bay Okura Great Park, despite overwhelming support for the concept. Here, the market is seen to fail to meet the needs of the people, but this failure is not interpreted by most as a market failure; the cause is attributed to another factor, in this circumstance, the council.

Thus we see the intimate relationship between the symptom and ideology. As the symptom is the coded failure of the universal and ideological fantasy is that which protect the subject from that failure. Ideology operates by presenting the social as a positive entity, devoid of symptoms. In order to do this, any symptom that reveals itself is externalised; the symptom is presented as an impediment caused by an uncontrollable external factor, or a fixable internal impediment. The key to ideology is to avoid presenting the symptom for what it is; the return of the real, of what has to be repressed for the (false) universal to constitute itself as a universal (Zizek, 2002:160-1).

Concrete universality is brought about by the gap that the symptom opens up. Where the symptom is the gap between the universal and the particular, concrete universality is the gap between the universal and its symptom (Zizek, 2006:30). As such it reveals the truth of the universal; the universal is failure. Concrete universality can be seen as equivalent to the negation of the negation in dialectical materialism. Concrete universality thus shows that the failure of the universal is not an obstacle to its construction, but more accurately the very condition of its formation; it is the outside which allows the inside to form.

If we apply this theorem to capitalism, the false (abstract) universal would be the idea of capitalism as ‘natural’ and ‘objective’, the particular would be capitalism as an economic system, the symptom would be the extreme poverty it creates, and the concrete universal is the point at which capitalism encounters itself as its opposite and discovers that this poverty is not an impediment to its formation, but rather the truth of capitalism itself. As such the concrete universal allows remains as a stain on the abstract universal; like the symptom, it always threatens to break through and reveal itself.

The distinction here between the symptom and concrete universality is a subtle one. Where the symptom reveals the failure of the abstract universal, concrete universality takes on this failure as the true universal, providing a kind of negative suture. The ideas of a fourth element providing a suture or tying a knot is usually associated with the sinthome.

The sinthome is intimately related to the symptom and concrete universality, but for me it is a much more difficult concept to define. At times the sinthome is presented as an extension of the symptom and at others a much bigger concept, almost a mega-symptom that lies outside of language. The common definition is that of the sinthome as a knot that ties together Lacan’s topology of the three registers; imaginary, symbolic and real. However, these definitions tend to focus on the sinthome as an element unique to the subject. I would like to see if the concept of the sinthome, like the social symptom, can be socially extended to become a political concept, in as kind of a dialectical materialist equivalent of a social imaginary; that which structures most before it.

The sinthome was developed during Lacan’s move into topological theory. The sinthome comes from the same species as the symptom, the definition of which became increasingly divergent with Lacan’s development. Indeed, Ragland and Milovanovic, in their introduction to Lacan: Topologically Speaking (2004:xiv) suggest the symptom was respelled sinthome to recapture its French medieval particularity. Thus rather than the symptom and sinthome being different concepts, the sinthome is simply an extension of the symptom. The difference is their relationship to language. Lacan’s topological theory was an attempt to move beyond the symbolic, in a linguistic conception of the symptom, to an unconscious one; the symptom as sinthome. Thus Thurston defines the sinthome as;

‘ The sinthome thus designates a signifying formulation beyond analysis, a kernel of enjoyment immune to the efficacy of the symbolic’ (Thurston, 2005).

Likewise, Zizek considers;

‘ Symptom as sinthome is a certain signifying formation penetrated with enjoyment; it is a signifier as a bearer of jouissance…The symptom as sinthome is literally our only substance, the only positive support for our being, the only point that gives consistency to the subject’ (Zizek, 1989:75).

As such the sinthome provides the fourth ring to the Lacanian triadic formation; the symbolic, the real, the imaginary. It is the ring of the sinthome that ties a knot through these three rings and holds them together. Without the suture of the sinthome the subject is lack; it is nakedly exposed to the lack in the Other (Milovanovic, 2004:373). Therefore, if one is to break the sinthome, as the organisation of the subject’s jouissance, the subject itself is likely to fall apart.

However, at this point there are important distinctions between symptom and the sinthome. The symptom has much the same role in holding the subject together, in that the subject loves his symptom move than himself, but the symptom is still a symbolic phenomenon. The symptom organises the subjects’ enjoyment, and as such gets caught up in fantasy, a symbolic concept. However, the sinthome lies beyond the symbolic. Thus even when the subject has gone through the fantasy, the sinthome remains (Zizek, 1989:74). Thus we see that the sinthome is a stage removed from the symptom. In this sense, the symptom is the symbolic eruption of the sinthome, which lies outside of language. When one speaks of the symptom of the return of the repressed, this repressed is the sinthome.

Thus the passage from symptom to sinthome resembles the psychoanalytic process. First the symptom has to be interpreted, then the subject has to traverse the fantasy. However, the symptom still remains. Thus the final stage in the process is the identification with the sinthome. This is of course very similar to the identification with symptom described earlier, where the subject comes to realise that the symptom is not a barrier to the universal, but is the universal itself, in its concrete form. However, the question to be asked now is whether the symptom, in the form of the sinthome, can still be of political value, considering that it exists outside of the order of signification.

Because the sinthome is outside of language, it exists only in the unconscious, in jouissance, in the body, it creates a large issue with the transfer from the subject to the object. This movement, from meta-psychology to politics, is one must often taken on by critics of psychoanalysis (Johnston, 2004). Zizek of course rejects this dualism, discarding the notion of individual psychology (which is created in the universal order of language), and the collective (which exists only in as much as the subject treats it as it exists). For Zizek there is no interior without an exterior element and thus no exterior without interior. Therefore the libidinal economy and the social-political economy are intimately linked; one cannot be understood without the other (ibid).

However, the sinthome strains this dualism. The sinthome exists outside of language; it is not a metaphor ( like language), but rather structure itself (Ragland & Milovanovic, 2004). Language, the symbolic universal, is the link between the subject and the object and thus the sinthome, as the not which ties together the subject’s organisation of jouissance, appears to break with the subject/object dualism.

However, if we re-examine the psychoanalytic relationship between the materialism of jouissance/ sinthome and the idealism of the symbolic, we find that both terms are intertwined in each other; the form an identity. Thus, for our purposes it is the lack in the symbolic which creates the fault which the sinthome sutures, and the materialist jouissance which structures the symbolic and brings about this suturing.

Therefore the sinthome cannot be simply unique to the subject and independent of meaning. The jouissance of the sinthome runs through the symbolic system, even if it is largely unknown. The sinthome is thus the ultimate factor in dialectical materialism; it is what remains after all else has been worked through. Therefore the effects of the sinthome permeate throughout the symbolic system. These results are shown in the various symptoms. Thus we can start to think the political consequences of the sinthome.

This has major theoretical consequences. Instead of thinking of the universal signifying order excluding and repressing something that returns in the form of the symptom, it is the sinthome that is pressuring the symbolic and producing symptoms. So where does the sinthome come from? As noted, it is the knot which is holding together the three registers (Imaginary, symbolic and real). Here I have gone too far in suggesting that it is the registers of the real in which the sinthome resides. It is not. Instead the sinthome sutures the fault in any or all of the registers. As such it results from the interplay of all three. Again then, we have a dualism. The sinthome is impacting in on the universe of signification, but the particular interaction of the symbolic and imaginary in creating this universe (and the real exclusions that are necessary for any sense of signification and universality) creates the need for and form of the sinthome.

The sinthome, as the fundamental organiser of jouissance, is the essential political factor. Although it may not be a signifying system itself (the sinthome is outside of language, again, it is not a metaphor, it is structure), but it is what ultimately supports the system. The sinthome enables us to understand why it is so difficult to achieve change, even when the subject is aware of the need for it. This is the difficulty for the anti-capitalist movement. It appears to be impossible to even think outside of capitalism, or think the possibility of change; such is the power of the organisation of jouissance in the capitalist system. Indeed even Zizek believes that at the moment anti-capitalist change is impossible (Zizek, 1999:352).

What then would make change possible? I believe that Zizek would suggest that that grip of jouissance is too strong in capitalism to promote change through modes of signification. What of the psychoanalytic process? This suggests that it is not enough to interpret symptoms, or to get affective distance by traversing the fantasy, but rather the final step is to identify with the symptom/sinthome.

What would this entail politically? To identify with the symptom is not to suggest that it is the best way of life e.g. there is something particularly special about living in poverty, but rather that the very instance of this symptom reveals the truth of the failed universal. As such the subject should identify with this failure as that which gives consistency to the subject/system. Without the symptom/sinthome, the system would collapse. Without poverty, capitalism would collapse.

I however have doubt about the benefits of such identification. An optimistic view would suggest that humanity would be horrified by their collective responsibility in the capitalist symptom. But equally, is it not likely that the response would be, Oh, well, their loss our gain? However, this would require a radical reshuffling of the capitalist fantasy. Identification with the symptom would certainly produce change, but of what nature I am not sure.


References

Johnston, A. (2004). The cynic's fetish: Slavoj Zizek and the dynamics of belief. Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, 9(3), 259.
Kay, S. (2003). Zizek: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
Milovanovic, D. (2004). Borromean Knots, Le Sinthome, and Sense Production in Law. In E. Ragland & D. Milovanovic (Eds.), Lacan: Topologically Speaking. New York: Other Press.
Ragland, E., & Milovanovic, D. (2004). Introduction: Topolologically Speaking. In E. Ragland & D. Milovanovic (Eds.), Lacan: Topolologically Speaking. New York: Other Press.
Thurston, L. (2005). Sinthome. In D. Evans (Ed.), Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.
Zizek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (1999). The Ticklish Subject. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2002). For they know not what they do: Enjoyment as a political factor (2nd ed.). London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2006). The Parallex View. London: Verso.