The Parallax View

The Parallax View is Zizek’s latest work. This entry outlines some of the ideas I have picked up, from the introduction and first chapter at least. All page number references come from this work.

I closely identify with Zizek’s approach to discourse analysis, and philosophy in general. Zizek label’s this style a ‘short-circuit’. In a short circuit, one seeks to make a critical reading so as to reveal the hidden underside of a discourse (ix).


‘The reader should not simply have learned something new; the point is rather to make them aware of another-disturbing- side of something they knew all the time’

Zizek believes, and I concur, that Lacanian psychoanalysis is the privileged instrument of the short-circuit approach, although it is necessary to note that a short-circuit relies heavily on dialectics and thus Hegel. As Zizek contends dialectical materialism is the struggle of opposite in the form of tension within the universal (7).

Materialism comes into dialectics through the relationship between the objective and subjective. For Zizek, the subject is that which submits itself; to subject oneself to the social. Therefore the object is the obstacle to which the individual subjects themselves. Zizek’s materialist turn lies not in the full inclusion of the subject in ‘objective’ reality, but rather the twist by which the subject is included in the constitution of the object (17). Thus we can never fully see objective reality, because it is always stained by our subjective positioning. It is also this materialist stain that is the cause of the parallax gap.

This stain/blind spot is the constitutive element of the psychoanalytic approach; it is that which leads to desire, drive, objet a and the empty signifier amongst other things. An empty signifier occurs at the limit of the discourse where it is confronted by others. Because it attempts to suture a discourse it takes on the demands of many others and becomes an empty signifier. The empty signifier, like Objet-a, becomes a subliminated object; the sublime object of ideology, because it takes the position of something more than itself.

Objet a is the flip-side of the empty signifier, in that at the same time it both represents the limits of signification and attempts to bridge this gap. Given this, my analysis needs to also focus on finding empty signifiers (rather than just symptoms) and for this Laclau’s work is most useful. The empty signifier is intimately related to the symptom; the empty signifier attempts to cover up the gap represented by the symptom. The empty signifier also represents this gap, but in a constructive manner. Laclau does note the role of objet a in ideology, but restricts it within his term ‘hegemony’, which limits the degree to which Laclau develops the role of jouissance and fantasy in ideology (40). There is a large debate around Laclau use of these Lacanian categories, one I hope to develop further in the near future (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2003; Laclau, 2003; Stavrakakis, 1997, 1999).

In something of a side-bar, Zizek notes that the empty signifier does not attempt to fill the gap in the universal, but rather he suggests that the empty signifier is a fill in for the failure of the particular to fulfil with itself.

The parallax gap is that which forever eludes the grasp of a symbolic perspective, even if it is another symbolic perspective. It is this very inability which causes ‘a multiplicity of symbolic perspectives’. It is the modes of these different perspectives which I seek to develop further in this thesis in order to show the way ahead for any discourse seeking to promote change.

The parallax gap, which gives the book its title, is the gap between two closely linked perspectives, between which no common ground is possible (4). It is this contradiction, the inability of a dominant discourse to subvert and domesticate its underside that is the key to the dialectic process. This is not to suggest that the two are simply opposite with no translation possible. One discourse can easily be converted into the others’ terms, such as environmentalism and capitalism, which produce the empty signifier Sustainable Development.

In his ‘Short-circuit’ approach, Zizek suggests that he practices concrete universality by confronting a universal with its ‘unbearable example’ (13). This really is the heart of my thesis; searching for the internal fault points of the discourse (symptoms) that could be revealed as constitutive of the universal and thus a potential concrete universal.

Zizek locates the paradox of the parallax gap at the point where difference occurs. This difference is not that between two positively existing objects, like in formalism logic, or between an excluded discourse and a dominant discourse, but rather a ‘minimal difference’ which divides one and the same object from itself- this difference immediately produces an impossible object; objet a or the empty signifier (18).

Zizek also develops a different modality of the real, the parallax real. This real is not the hard kernel that also returns to its place and remains the same in every possible symbolisation. Rather the real is the ‘disavowed X’ to which we have no direct access and that distorts our vision of reality. Therefore the real is also not the ‘objective reality’ against which we can play appearances, but rather the gap, the obstacle that distorts symbolisation in the first place.

The parallax real is thus the irreconcilable gap between two points within a universal identity. This gap is not perceivable from a position within the discursive perspectives, but only from a shift between the positions (26). A good example of this is the gap between the ‘Left’ political economy perspectives on environmentalism and poverty. The latter calls for more growth and the former for less. Although they are within the same banner, under the empty signifier ‘Left’, they are clearly opposed. This minimal difference, which is attempted to be sutured by the ‘Left’ e.g. The Left needs a new universal under which to fight its problems within a unity, reveals the true real which is distorting the symbolic; global capital.

I find the idea of a parallax real as the gap between two diametrically opposed perspectives within an identity particularly productive. It certainly helps me better understand the role of the empty signifier and also the symptom. The symptom has the role of evoking the real by playing on the tension this gap provides and the discourses it generates. For example, this parallax real exists between western capitalism and absolute poverty. The two cannot be reconciled, although attempts are constantly been made. These attempts are not based upon a ‘full’ understanding of poverty in capitalism, but rather a filtered, particularised and domesticated view e.g. The charitable view of poverty. Thus the existance of poverty is itself a symptom of western capitalism, whose universal decree is directly opposed to the idea of poverty. Therefore the symptom is the evidence of the distortion in perspective, it evokes the tension of the gap between the discourses.

Therefore the symptom is evidence of the distorted effect of the real, but also a discourse in itself. The parallax real is the gap between the abstract universal and its symptom, within the terms of the abstract universal ; it is the gap between which no communication can occur because the terms have no commonalty, even though they come from the same species.

What is important for me in the Parallax real is that the symptom has a discourse, and this discourse is real; it cannot be symbolised from the perspective of the universal. Zizek takes this a step further and says yes, the symptom does exist as a discourse and can only be understood by a shift in perspective. However, the real does not lie in either of the discourses, but rather the gap between them which creates a tension that the universal discourse constantly tries to eradicate. This gap anamorphically distorts the universal, it produces a curvature in symbolic space which produces a multitude of attempts to symbolise what is ultimately the same underlying real.

This minimal difference between the two genus of discourses within the same species of discourse produces the core attribute of concrete universality; the noncoincindence of a thing with itself; A = non-A (30). Concrete universality, the truth of the universal, exists as a constant tension upon the relationship between the abstract universal, which names the site of the deadlock through the empty signifier and the particular, which seeks to fill it. There truth, as concrete universality, is only available from a distorted perspective, that of the symptom (31-5). This is of vital importance for my work, as it suggests that we cannot know the truth from the perspective of the abstract universal. We cannot go too far however and say that the truth can only be known from the symptom. The truth can be seen from analysis within the abstract universal, this analysis just has to be a short-circuited forensic analysis; analysis from awry. Therefore any attempt to understand the symptom purely within the terms of the abstract universal will only produce a domesticating particularisation of the symptom. Only discourses from the symptom or those who reveal the symptom and open up the space around it through identification with it, have access to concrete universality.

Zizek also notes that truth always lies in the side of universality, not fantasy. In this we have to be careful not to identify underlying fantasmatic support with hidden truths/symptoms (41).

‘It is not enough to convince the patient of the unconscious truth of his symptom; the unconscious itself must be induced to accept this truth’ (351)

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.
Laclau, E. (2003). Discourse and Jouissance: A reply to Glynos and Stavrakakis. Journal for Lacanian Studies, 1(2), 278-285.
Stavrakakis, Y. (1997). Ambigious Ideology and the Lacanian Twist. Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 8-9, 117-130.
Stavrakakis, Y. (1999). Lacan & the Political. London: Routledge.