Jacques Lacan infamously cites two different meanings of the term ‘revolution’. The first is the overthrow of a government or social order, redirecting evolution so to speak. It was the second meaning of revolution, however, in which Lacan was more interested. Here, revolution is taken to mean a rotation around a single central axis. This example is instructive for understanding the psychoanalytic conception of socio-political change. The latter definition of revolution suggests that while there may be an appearance of movement and some plurality of positions, these are simply responses to the same fundamental impossible real. Thus to break out of the conservation, rotational, conception of revolution and into true political revolution and radical social change, one has to enter into the terms of this fundamental blockage, the real.
The real is the core psychoanalytic concept for any analysis of both political change or stability. The real, however, cannot be considered outside of the other registers of Lacanian psychoanalysis, the symbolic and imaginary. Indeed, the real cannot be considered as an entity in itself, but rather a fundamental lack, a cause without an effect that can only be observed through the presence of absence in the symbolic and the imaginary. Nonetheless, despite the paradoxical nature of the real, it remains the core psychoanalytic concept to be considered in its effect on other entities.
Most important consideration in political change, however, is the relationship between the real and Zizek’s rehabilitated conception of universality. The key theoretical consideration of this thesis is that socio-political change occurs through the dynamic dialectic interactions of the universal (a construction of both the symbolic and the imaginary) and the effect of the real, embodied by excluded elements. 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 within the universal that drives the dialectic process and out of which any possibility for political change lies
Zizek has redeveloped the concept of universality which had become unpopular with the increasingly focus on postmodern particularism . This rehabilitation occurred through a re-reading of the work of Jacques Lacan, Karl Marx and Georg Hegel, as well as a dialogue with post-Marxism discourse theorist, Ernesto Laclau. Zizek’s relationship with Laclau is of vital importance. Both Laclau and Zizek have been central in rehabilitating or perhaps even generating, a conception of a political approach exposed to Lacanian psychoanalysis. Having started from a very similar theoretical and political position ( Laclau contributed the preface to Zizek’s breakthrough book The Sublime Object of Ideology and Zizek produced a complementary piece in Laclau’s follow up to his influential post-Marxism text, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy) Laclau and Zizek now inhabit quite different positions. As such, a detailed analysis of the divergences between Laclau and Zizek is more than warranted to examine the political theoretical possibilities available from psychoanalytic thought.
Laclau and Zizek as well as Lacan and Hegel share a belief in the negativity of the social which produces the paradoxical construction of a necessary, yet impossible universal. This is a different kind of universality to that traditionally constructed in both modern and post-modern philosophy, based on a radically different articulation of the relationship between the universal, the particular and the universal exception. Here plurality and particularity are considered related rotations around a central axis of a fundamental, universal lack; the impossible Real that produces an exception which is constitutive of the universal itself (Daly, 1999b:75; Zizek, 1989:4). It is this exception which offers a potential exit from this cycle.
Although one cannot doubt that Lacan is the main influence on Zizek’s thought, Zizek has also re-read Hegel, après-coup to give a political edge to Lacan’s mostly apolitical thought. Likewise, Zizek has re-read Hegel through Lacan to make the former a philosopher of the real (Kay, 2003:17). This political edge is achieved through the Hegelian dialectic, which Zizek has renewed in the name of dialectical materialism.The common bond between Hegel and Lacan is their belief in the radical negativity which reins at the heart of the social (Kay, 2003:17). Consequently the negative ontology of the social is the key focus for Zizek’s thought on universality. For Lacan it means that a universal can never be fully constituted in itself. Instead any form of identity has to be abstracted from a particular and as such must exclude to achieve this abstraction (Zizek, 1999:180). This exclusion thus becomes the conditions of possibility of the universal, and vitally evidence of the failure of the universal; the very impossibility of the universal. As this thesis will develop latter in more detail the relationship between the universal and its constitutive exclusion is the fundamental factor for both stability and change in any discourse.
The contemporary theorist who has had perhaps the most influence on Zizek’s work is Ernesto Laclau. Laclau and Zizek come from a very similar theoretical positions, combining the insights of Psychoanalysis, Marxism and Post-structuralism, although both disavow the continued influence of the latter (Zizek & Daly, 2004:46). Laclau and Zizek each agree on the fundamental importance of the radically negative essence of society, exemplified in Laclau’s core insight in his (with Chantal Mouffe) seminal text, Hegemony and Socialist Strategy; ‘society does not exist’ (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985). This formulation, which correlates with the Lacanian idea that ‘the big other doesn’t exist’ has led both Laclau and Zizek to rejecting the prospect of positive utopian politics. However the shape of these advances differs, as well as their theoretical positions around Lacanian theory lead to political and theoretical positions which are in many ways different, although they share many of the same characteristics. Ultimately, I believe that while Laclau’s Discourse theory can be used as a complementary supplement for Zizek work, his limitations around jouissance and fantasy leave his work lacking. Therefore this thesis will use several Laclauian insights, such as the empty signifier, hegemony and the constitutive outside, but will predominately be centred on a Zizekian style analysis
One should not forget, however, the influence of Marx on Zizek’s work. Despite an initial affinity with post-Marxist theorists like Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, there should be no doubt that Zizek has sought to become an orthodox Marxist as well as an orthodox Lacanian. There are those, such as Sean Homer (see Homer, 2001), who believe that orthodox Lacanian and Marxist thought are ‘theoretically incommensurable intellectual systems’ (ibid:7). Specifically, although Zizek is an orthodox Lacanian, for Homer this prevents Zizek from being an orthodox Marxian.
This position, however, is a misinterpretation of the manner in which Zizek uses a theorist. It appears that Homer is trying to find the true and final meaning of both Zizek and Marx’s thought;
‘The question with Zizek is not whether or not to take him seriously, but which one we should take seriously’ (Homer, 2001).
This is not, however, the manner in which Zizek uses the work of a theorist, nor the manner in which I will be using Zizek’s work. The idea is not find the ‘true’ Zizek found in a hidden kernel of his work, but rather to use those aspects that are relevant to the task at hand. Thus, for Zizek, to be an orthodox Marxist is not to simply repeat Marx, but rather re-read him après-coup and unleash the significance of his thought for contemporary analysis. Zizek uses Hegel in much the same manner. Therefore, Zizek is not trying to follow Marx to the letter, but rather rehabilitate Marxist thought for the times. In this sense Zizek is post-Marxist; his adherence to Lacanian semiotics prevents him from taking on many Marxist concepts, such as ‘species being’ or ‘false consciousness’. Rather Zizek uses Marx to again bring the economy and class antagonism to the core of political analysis.
Zizek brings together his conceptions of Marx, Lacan, Hegel and his own thoughts on universality into a critique of global capitalism, which has increasingly become his main political target. Zizek has become frustrated with the emphasis on postmodern particularism, such as the ‘new social movements’, which for him represent an implicit acceptance of the horizons of global capital and a good example of a ‘rotational revolution’. Zizek suggests that the only way to fight global capitalism is to rehabilitate a utopian imaginary through the reassertion of universality (Zizek, 1999:142). This universality would be a rejection of what he terms the ‘blackmail’ of the forced choice position of global capital or nationalist closure (Zizek, 2006b).
The key to Zizek’s notion of universality is the existence of an exception to the universal, that which Laclau terms the constitutive outside. This exception is conceptualised in two forms. The first is the concrete universal, a key site of political investment for the production of dislocation. The concrete universal reveals the excluded element of the abstract universal imaginary. This excluded element constitutes the truth of the universal in that the exclusion is a necessary one. It is this side of the universal which can be identified with to achieve political change.
The second form- the singular or symptom- reveals the truth of the abstract universal within its own terms. The symptom is not diametrically opposed to the abstract universal. Rather it is the concrete universal which is incommensurable with the abstract universal, as they are separated by what Zizek terms the ‘parallax real’(Zizek, 2006a). The parallax real, which can only be detected in the shift between two incommensurable positions, produces a tension which is revealed in the symptom. The symptom thus appears as the ‘odd one out’; the element within the universal that just doesn’t fit.
For the system to functionally operate, the symptom is domesticated by being included in the ideological fantasy of the abstract universal. If one is seeking to disrupt such an imaginary, as this thesis investigates, the symptom needs to be revealed as evidence of the constitutive failure of the universal; the concrete universal. The symptom and concrete universality are thus vitally related; the symptom expresses concrete universality within the abstract universal.
Interpretation, however, is only part of the process. Rather a traversal of the fantasy is required. Part of this process is the displacement of the symptom from fantasy. Because of the fetishistic nature of belief, this may still not be enough to produce radical change though.Therefore Zizek suggests that only a radical catastrophic event could disrupt global capital. This thesis, however, takes a less dramatic position. It is theorised that through a dual process of an internal dislocation within the abstract universal; holding up a place for alternative imaginary, and an active concrete universal, radical change of the capitalism universal imaginary can occur.
This challenge identifies the basic emphasis for the theoretical orientation of this thesis. Here I closely identify with Zizek’s approach to discourse analysis and philosophy in general as stated in the Parallax View. Zizek labels this style a ‘short-circuit’. In a short circuit approach, one seeks to make a critical reading so as to reveal the hidden underside of a discourse (Zizek, 2006a:ix). Hence;‘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’ (Ibid)Zizek believes, and it is the position taken in this thesis, 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 dialectical and thus Hegelian thought; dialectical materialism being the struggle of opposites in the form of tension within the universal (ibid:7).
In his ‘Short-circuit’ approach, Zizek suggests that he practices concrete universality by confronting a universal with its ‘unbearable example’ (ibid: 13). This is core orientation at the heart of this 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. In order to achieve this task, one cannot simply interpret the discursive field, rather, as Stavrakakis (1997:129) suggests, the role of critical discourse is to see through the fantasmatic background that sutures the social and find the symptomatic elements that signal the failure of the abstract imaginary. Similarly, Zizek suggests that;
‘The aim of the critique of ideology is the analysis of an ideological edifice, is to extract this symptomatic kernel which the official, public, ideological text simultaneously disavows and needs for its undisturbed functioning’ (Zizek, 1996:3).
Such an investigation needs to take into account the various modalities in which the symptom can operate. As noted previous, for the functional maintenance of any discourse, the symptom has to be simultaneously both included and displaced. There are four basic discourses around the symptom that will be examined in more detail;
- Repression through the disavowal of the symptom
- Acknowledging but particularising the symptom via;
o Ideological fantasy
o Super-ego demand
o Fetishism
- Revealing the symptom as constitutive
- Inhabiting the position of the origin of the symptom; discourses of concrete universality.
First, however, the fundamental concepts used in this thesis must be examined in more detail.
The fundamental negativity of the social
The most fundamental concept of Lacanian psychoanalysis is the negative ontology of the social. This is the common bond between Laclau, Lacan and Hegel that Zizek develops (Kay, 2003:17). This negative ontology occurs because of the nature of the symbolic universe. 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. The play of signifiers creates meanings, however through ideological closure these meaning are made to retroactively appear natural, as if they have developed naturally from the signifier.
It is the negative ontology, produced by the effect of the real that stems the basic concepts of Lacanian psychoanalysis; fantasy, desire and jouissance. Jouissance, according to Braunstein, citing Lacan, is the only substance of psychoanalysis (Braunstein, 2003). Jouissance is a concept that does not translate well from French to English because the English term ‘enjoyment’ lacks the sexual connotation inherent in jouissance. Therefore the term often goes without translation (Evans, 1996:91), although it is notable that Zizek often substitutes enjoyment for jouissance.
Jouissance has was only developed in Lacan’s later work, Braunstein citing 1958 as its first introduction in Lacan’s Seminar V, although, like most Lacanian concepts its development is dynamic and it is difficult if not impossible, and undesirable, to try to find an ultimate definition. However, a minimum definition is necessary. According to Evans (1996:92), jouissance is a paradoxical suffering/enjoyment that lies ‘beyond the pleasure principle’. It is clear that jouissance is operative in numerous modalities, each altering the manner in which it is expressed. Indeed, Braunstein cites twenty different modalities for the operation of jouissance, from the initial satisfaction of necessities in the pre-symbolic child (pure Jouissance) to the jouissance of the symptom, the failure of the symbolic to provide access to pure Jouissance. Such a paradoxical outcome stems from the incommensurable situation of the subject searching for Jouissance in the impossible fullness of a unity between the subject and the object. Because of the impossibility of such a quest, the subject receives compensatory jouissance in the performance of paradoxically both attempting to a create universal unity, but also in positing a distance from this (necessarily) false unity.
It is through fantasy that we learn to control jouissance and structure our desire. Here desire comes from the side of the Other, because after the subject enters the field of the symbolic, any attempt at Jouissance must be articulated through the language of the Other which produces a fundamental impossibility. Fantasy masks this fundamental impossibility and is never in itself complete; it always takes its own failure into account through the metonymic effect of desire. Fantasy is a vital element of the universalising apparatus, in that it emerges from the lack in the symbolic (Daly, 1999a:223). This same process is translated into the notion of universality. Because an abstracted universal imaginary cannot objectively and fully develop, any universal is necessarily false. A universal is not, however, posited in this manner. Instead a false, or abstract universal, is produced as both natural and universal. It is for this reason that focusing on the contingency and the necessary exclusion of, and within, the process of universality is politically advantageous.Consequently the negative ontology of the social is the key focus for Zizek’s 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 to achieve this abstraction (Zizek, 1999:180). In contrast a positive ontology would create a natural universal, producing natural laws, such as the neo-liberal view of the market. Therefore, what is presented as a universal is an illusion; its truth lies in its exception. This exception is known in its different modalities as either the concrete universal or the symptom(Kay, 2003:38-44; Zizek, 1999:188).
This lack occurs because of the negative ontology that operates in the social, where, because of the subject’s entry into the symbolic, there is a fundamental loss of jouissance which becomes embodied, through a metonymic movement, in a lost ‘Thing’ (ibid: 228). Upon entry into the social, the subject loses access to the level of biological need (e.g. Hunger) because every need has to be articulated through the Other. Thus need becomes demand, desire being that which is in demand more than need, the never-ending quest for the mythical lost Jouissance (Stavrakakis, 2000:87).
This lack produces desire and the objet a and it is fantasy that teaches the subject how to desire. Not the impossible task of satisfying desire, but rather learning how to construct and support desire. That desire can never be satisfied and the object of desire (objet a) is constantly, and constitutively, metonymically displaced is of vital importance for the play of symptoms within discourse. This is a point that will be developed in further detail in relation to the role of fantasy in domesticating symptoms. Before then, however, it is important to explore the manner in which this negative ontology performs in discourse. The best manner to do this is first through an examination of the limitations and benefits of Laclau’s embrace of the real, before investigating in detail Zizek dialectical conception of universality.
Limits of the Laclauian approach
There is a large debate around Laclau use of these Lacanian categories (see Daly, 1999a, 1999b; Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2003; Laclau, 2003; Stavrakakis, 1997, 1999). Glynos and Stavrakakis both acknowledge the theoretical affinities between Laclau’s work and Lacan psychoanalysis, which is normally thought to be represented by Zizek. Indeed it is suggest both by these authors and Laclau himself that Lacan’s influence on Laclau’s work has increased (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2003:111). The most notable commonalities are the fundamentals of the negative ontology of the social/symbolic and (especially compare with Zizek’s work), the focus on universality. There are also, however, some notable absences, particularly fantasy and jouissance, which cannot be easily ignored, particularly because of their centrality to Lacan’s thought. Indeed, Glynos and Stavrakakis argue;
‘The problem is that, without taking into account enjoyment, the whole Lacanian framework loses most of its explanatory force. For example, what can possibly account for the constitutively of desire if jouissance is not accepted as the absent cause of human desire? Furthermore, such enjoyment helps us answer, in a more concrete way, what is at stake in socio-political identification and identity formation, suggesting that support of social fantasies is partially rooted in the jouissance of the body. What is at stake in these fields, according to Lacanian theory, is not only symbolic coherence and discursive closure, but also enjoyment, the jouissance animating human desire’ (ibid:120)
Laclau does use the concept of the real, but only in a limited, negative, manner, hence the non-existence of fantasy and jouissance. Rather Laclau uses the real, often implicitly, as a limit to the discursive, an internal limit which prevents his work from falling in pure idealism (ibid: 113). Laclau did not always posit the real as in internal limit to the social. Rather, although the fundamental thesis of his seminal text Hegemony and Socialist Strategy was the post-Marxism caveat ‘society does not exist’, this was considered to be caused by an external antagonism. It has only been through dialogue with Zizek that Laclau has differentiated between internal (dislocation) and external (antagonism) limits to the social.
Perhaps Laclau’s best contribution to psychoanalytic theory has been the empty signifier. The empty signifier allows Laclau to signify the relationship between the discursive and the non-discursive. The empty signifier occurs where the limit of a discourse appears, at the point where it comes into the contact with other discourses and attempts to suture the lack. As such it is the signifier of absence; various groups compete to ‘hegemonise’ the empty signifier, which as the place holder of the presence of absence appears as a universal. Indeed the empty signifier becomes a nodal point, if not the nodal point, in an abstract universal imaginary.
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, critical ideological analysis, such as this theses, 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 (Zizek, 2006a:40).
In Lacan, however, these positivisations have both Laclau’s symbolic element, and an imaginary focus through objet petit a, which functions as the flip side of the empty signifier. Glynos and Stavrakakis suggest that Laclau’s conflation of the imaginary and symbolic levels occurs because of Laclau’s avoidance of jouissance. They contend that Laclau ignores jouissance because his work is framed in purely formal and structural terms rather than a substantial focus which includes the body, the site of jouissance (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2003:119).
Thus, for Glynos and Stavrakakis, Laclau and Lacan have very simply position in relation to the manner in which the real disrupts symbolisation; Laclau’s term dislocation, as the negative effect of the real, is a good indication of this embrace (ibid:116). Contrastingly, Laclau does not so convincingly take on the positive elements of the effect of the real. These positive elements are the result of the positivisation of the lack caused by the real. The real is positivised through the presentation of lack in fantasy as an object of desire; objet a, although antagonisms and symptoms operate under a similar logic.
It is because of this that Zizek is dismissive of deconstructive and post-structuralist theory because it overlooks the jouissantic excess which operates in discourse (Daly, 1999b:80). In doing so, Zizek contends that the post-structuralist approach places too much emphasis on the semiotic contingency of the discursive realm rather than universal appeal of the real, particularly the factors of trauma and enjoyment (ibid: 76).
Trauma and enjoyment are part of the non-discursive ‘beyond’ the social that Laclau rejects. It is difficult consider, however, what would be animating the play of the social were it not jouissance, the paradoxical energy that both drives the subject and seeks to destroy it (Daly, 1999a:227). This is the fundamental question for all theories of ideology, universality or indeed any play of the social; What accounts for the grip with which an ideology holds a subject ?(Glynos, 2001:199) Therefore Glynos and Stavrakakis, in their discussion paper on Laclau’s embrace of Lacan contend;
‘ The importance psychoanalysis attaches to the notion of the Real qua fantasmatically-structured jouissance suggests that symptomal analyses of the discursive or interpretative kind, though perhaps a necessary prerequisite, are often not sufficient to effect a displacement in the social subject’s psychic economy’ (Glynos & Stavrakakis, 2003:122)
This is the perspective that this thesis takes; one needs jouissance to adequately explain discourse, and Laclau does not adequately embrace jouissance. Ironically for this argument, Laclau has produced a reply paper to Glynos and Stavrakakis. In this paper Laclau states that he agrees with almost all that was said about him, except that he believes that all the concepts that Glynos and Stavrakakis believe are missing from his work are present in the term discourse. However, they have produce a duality of discourse and jouissance, whereas Laclau believes that it is more productive to construct the two as a dualism in the ‘relational complex’ of discourse (Laclau, 2003). However, I think it is much theoretically much more productive to conceptually divide them.
Therefore it is Zizek’s work which provides most productive political method for change, which is the most valuable strategy for socio-political change. This is not the vulgar conception of Zizek found in the works of (Homer, 1996) or Robinson and Tormey (Robinson, 2004; Robinson & Tormey, 2003, 2005), but as we shall see, a more considered Zizek than that normally cited by critics.
However, Zizek lacks subtly that Laclau provides when discussing the plurality of discourses which operate around a fundamental lack. It is in this role that I believe Laclau’s work will be most useful. There are two concepts in particular that Laclau has developed, partially in dialogue with Zizek, that are productive for this analysis; antagonism and dislocation.Antagonism is the experience of the limit of all objectivity within discursive formations (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:122). As such antagonisms institute a radical negativity into discourse It is at the point of antagonism that hegemonic battles for meaning are contested (Howarth & Stavrakakis, 2000:9). Thus antagonisms are vital for politics as they are the point at which meanings can be changed by forces outside of the discourse. However, although Laclau and Zizek notionally agree with the concept of antagonism, Laclau’s political position does not extend beyond the role of antagonism in altering meanings.
A conflation of antagonism and dislocation is not an uncommon error. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy Laclau and Mouffe assumed an identity between antagonism and dislocation, considering antagonism to be responsible for the impossibility of society (Torfing, 1999:128). This position rides a fine line with the post-structuralist definition. Here it is the presence of the ‘Other’ which prevents the full identity of the subject or system; the existence of the capitalist is antagonistic for the worker (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985:125). This, however, assumes that the impossibility of society is external, rather than internal to society. As Zizek points out, what is negated in social antagonism is already negated by a force prior to it- the Real (Zizek, 1990).
However, Laclau has since move beyond the Post-structuralism position, taking on Zizek’s critique of his work (Zizek, 1990, 2005). Here Zizek suggests that it is important to distinguish between antagonism as the limit of the social, the very impossibility around which the social is based, and antagonism as conflict between subject positions (Zizek, 2005:276). This ‘double’ of antagonism means that while the latter antagonism may very well be an actual antagonism for the subject, at the same time it is just a foil for the true, constitutive antagonism. The ideological illusion in operation here is that if the antagonism is removed, then lack would also be thought to disappear, although it cannot, thus; ‘It is precisely in the moment when we achieve victory over the enemy in the antagonistic struggle that we experience antagonism in its most radical dimension’ (ibid, 274).
It is the Real that is responsible for the impossibility of society, rather than antagonism and hence Laclau developed the concept of ‘dislocation’. Dislocation as an ‘unrepresentable’ moment is much closer to the real than antagonism, which is more the attempts to negate the initial negation caused by the real (Stavrakakis, 1997:126). Thus dislocation reveals the lack around which the social is based;
‘ Dislocation by being in itself unrepresentable is exactly what shows the limits of every discursive form, its inability to represent once and for all the essence of the social, to symbolise the Real of the social in a definite way’ (ibid:124).
Additionally, the limits revealed in dislocation have a dislocatory effect;
‘A dislocation of a discourse results from the emergence of events which cannot be domesticated, symbolised or integrated within the discourse in question’ (Torfing, 1999:301).
In contrast antagonism involves the external and competing efforts to suture this internal lack. This is a distinction between internal and external responses to the real; dislocation is an internal response as it is between symbolisation and the real, whereas antagonism, as an external response to the effect of the real lies in the limit between different competing antagonisms. Antagonism operates only within the limits of the social and thus poses no real effect on the structure of the social (Homer, 2001:9-10).
At the same time, antagonisms are not only purely external; because of their vital role in accounting for the blockage in the subject they crucially have an internal dimension as well. There is therefore a vital link between antagonism, jouissance, fantasy, desire and the object petit a. This link will be detailed further in the discussion of the manner in which discourses both construct and domesticate symptoms.
Therefore while dislocation produces antagonism, antagonism can also produce dislocation, as can the symptom. Dislocations also occur to certain depths and thus requires/produces different responses; a discourse can be deeply dislocated, which will either produce radical change or a major antagonistic enemy, or subtly dislocated, in which the same would occur on a much smaller scale.
Therefore, because of the effect of the real, every identity is dislocated. This dislocation produces both the symptom, the internal effect of dislocation and social antagonism. Thus social antagonism is a displacement of the effect of the real. Social antagonisms occur because of any attempt at universalism requires both the negation of alternative meanings and of the initial lack, for which alternative meanings compete to cover up. As an illustration, in the economic rationalist approach to market environmentalism, the failure of the market in the production of global climate change is a symptom, but this symptom, as effect of the basic dislocation of the discourse (it cannot be fully universal) is inscribed in a social antagonism, normally against ‘control economies’ which are making the problem worse. The main aim of social antagonism is to domesticate and externalise the threat of dislocation and the symptom; this is the effect of ideology.
Although as we shall see, Zizek notions of concrete universality and the symptom extend beyond antagonism and dislocation, nonetheless, Zizek has described social antagonism as ‘perhaps the most radical breakthrough in modern social theory’ (Zizek, 2005:271).. Zizek contends that in developing the concept of antagonism, Laclau and Mouffe have been able to incorporate the Lacanian real as a tool for social and ideological analysis (Zizek, 1989:163).
Zizek incorporates antagonism and dislocation into his work, but he goes beyond this. As noted previously, Zizek has a much more orthodox and hence stronger embrace of Lacanian concepts, particularly jouissance, fantasy and desire which go undeveloped in Laclau’s work. These Lacanian concepts are developed against a background of Hegelian dialectics and a rebirthed notion of universality. It is to universality that we shall now turn.
Universality and Dialectics
Universality is the process of making the social appear full; hence the intimate relationship between universality, ideology, fantasy and jouissance. The universal operates as part of a triadic structure, the other two elements being the particular and the consitutive exception, constructed as either the symptom or concrete universality. These conceptions can be respectively translated into the Lacanian registers of the symbolic, imaginary and the real. The particular operates in the same fashion as the symbolic. Similar to the relationship between the signifier and the signified in the symbolic, the particular is always split between its universal functioning and itself. This split occurs because the particular is unable to account for its own internal failure. In the symbolic, no identity is constituted in-itself. Therefore particular identities take on a universal function by reference to something outside of them; an identity can never be complete in isolation.
This lack in the symbolic Other creates a need for the imaginary and the suturing effect of a universal imaginary. Zizek terms this element of the universal dialectic an abstract universal imaginary. Universality exists at both the level of meaning and the level of enjoyment. The fantasmatic background of the level of enjoyment holds together the universal. While it is the empty/master signifier structures the symbolic, the flip side of the symbolic is its structuring of jouissance and desire. Therefore the obscene underside of the empty signifier is objet a, which operates as both the cause and logic of desire. 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. The empty signifier is intimately related to the symptom; the empty signifier attempts to cover up the gap constructed through the real element constitutive in the symptom. Both the empty signifier and objet a attempt to represent this gap, although Laclau’s empty signifier does so in a more constrictive manner because it does not take jouissance into account. 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 (Zizek, 2006a:40).
Objet a is the cause of desire since it acts to fill the lack in the symbolic, and the logic of desire because objet a becomes the objet of desire. As a result, it is vital to search beyond the symbolic role of the universal, and understand the hidden fantasmatic process which ensures that certain notion’s of universality grip the subject and are thus difficult to dislodge.
It is the role of psychoanalytic politics to reveal these hidden process that maintain the universal and political orders (Zizek, 1999:191). Political battles cannot be fought purely at the level of discourse, over the ‘facts’, but must deal with the fantasies that provide the conditions of possibility for these facts (Torfing, 1999:114). 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 (Zizek, 2006a: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’ (Zizek, 2006a:351).
There are, therefore two important moves in ideological critique. The first is to reveal the contingency of any construction; that ideology is not natural or positive. This is not enough however. Rather, we need to transfer the terms of the debate onto the fantasmatic construction that holds together these contingent meanings (ibid: 209). Therefore, one cannot stop at identifying the ‘true’ meaning of symptoms, but rather seek out the modalities of enjoyment that are in operation in construction of the universal and its symptoms and the real which is operating as the limit to this process.The abstract universal providing a suturing effect, and thus jouissance, through the production of both empty signifiers and objet a as objects of desire. 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.It is the real, however, that has the greatest effect on the universal dialectic. 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- lies in the constitutive exception to the abstract universal. This exception is embodied by both the concrete universal and the symptom. The difference between these concepts is only a change in perspective. Indeed, Zizek’s 1989 definition of the symptom in The Sublime Object of Ideology;
‘ The symptom is, strictly speaking, a particular element which subverts its own universal, a species subverting its own genus’ (Zizek, 1989:21).
Is very similar to his 2006 conception of the concrete universal in The Parallax View;
‘It is this logic of the “minimal difference”, of the constitutive noncoincidence of a thing with itself, which provides the key to the central Hegelian category of “concrete universality” (Zizek, 2006a:30) .
The difference here is one of scale and location. The symptom is the evidence of the concrete universal (and hence the real), located within the abstract universal imaginary. Thus the symptom operates as the one element within the universal that does not fit, but it’s necessary for its operation. Here Zizek gives the example with the universal imaginary of ‘freedom’ within capital. There is one definition of freedom that subverts the others; the freedom to sell one’s labour on the market, yet is constitutive of all the other elemental ‘freedoms’. Without this conception of freedom, the others would not be able to exist (Zizek, 1989).
Therefore the symptom arises as the excess which is a necessary condition of the relationship between the symbolic and the real. Because the symbolic is always incomplete, there will necessarily be an element left out from any hegemonic or universal abstraction. The symptom is this element and thus it is evidence of the gap between the universal and the particular caused by the real and ultimately located in concrete universality
The symptom interrupts, and potentially dislocates, the social as an embodiment of the Real. As such, the symptom, like the return of the repressed real, always returns and imposes itself (Stavrakakis, 1997:127); it is a constant reminder of the presence of the concrete universality and hence the Real. Here the symptom refuses to be pacified by the terms of the dominant universal and domesticated into a particular; the innocent victims of war refuse to be ‘collateral damage’ or the victims of absolute poverty do not take on the position of ‘developing nation’, but rather refuse to get caught up in the capitalist economy itself. In this the symptom is able to become a concrete universal.
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, the symptom can now be considered in its true location; concrete universality.
It is important to note that Zizek’s concrete universality is not the same as is usually cited from Hegel; that of unity with itself. Rather it is the exclusion within universality to which concrete universality refers, instead of the result of an absolute synthesis (Zizek, 2005:217). The exclusion that occurs within universality is thus the gap between abstract universality and concrete universality (Zizek, 2006a:30).Hence the concrete universal is not the symptom in itself, or its gap, but rather the gap revealed by the symptom, an inexplicable and uncanny gap between unity and excess; if the symptom is a constant stain on the abstract universal, then concrete universality, because of the effect of the real, is the original source of this stain (Zizek, 1999:113; 2006a:31). Concrete universality is the constitutive outside of the universal dialectic. It holds the inherent truth of the abstract universal imaginary; what has to be excluded for the Universal to be constituted. Both Laclau and Zizek use the notion of the constitutive outside and it is worth considering these alternative conceptions, before talking further about concrete universality in relation to Zizek’s ‘Parallax View’ and dialectics.
Laclau considers;
‘ We must assert that a discourse, or a discursive formation, establishes its limits by means of excluding a radical otherness that has no common measure with the differential system from which it is excluded and that therefore poses a constant threat to the system’ (Laclau, 1995:151).
Laclau’s conception of the constitutive outside, however, varies vitally from Zizek. For Laclau, the only thing that the excluded elements have in common is that they are excluded from the universal. In contrast, Zizek notion of concrete universality occurs when the excluded elements are the ‘minimal difference’ within the universal; the elements that are paradoxically part of the species yet subvert it. Thus, while Laclau would agree that the relation between the universal and its constitutive outside is not A→ B, he postulates it as A→anti-A (Torfing, 1999:125). Instead Zizek claims that concrete universality is not anti-A, but rather non-A. To understand this further, we must first quickly review the nature of dialectical thought.
The basic law of dialectics is to search for the exception to the series (Zizek, 2000:241).
Thus the major difference between formal logic, which was the base form of logic from the Greeks to Hegel, and Dialectic logic lies around the laws of identity and contradiction.In Formalism; - A=A &;- A is not non-AThe Law of Contradiction (A is not non-A) is the basic difference between dialectics and formalism. In formal logic contradiction is purely external; A v B. The dialectic responses to identity is that A is both A and non-A. By taking A as solely A, we miss the flip side of A; non-A (Novack, 1971:37).
The emphasis on non-A is vital for universality and socio-political change. Hegel maintained that what is real is rational. Although this appear overly rationalist for psychoanalytic thought, by taking the basic idea, the value of dialectics for psychoanalysis can be seen. The fundamental concept is that when something becomes unreal (irrational), what is excluded by it takes over (ibid: 87). To re-write this in a psychoanalytic manner, when the concrete universal, through the symptom, which is strictly internal to the universal identity, becomes unbearable, it dislocates the universal.It is this kind of dialectical theory that lead Marx to believe that because capitalism had become so irrational, the working class had historical reason and right on its side (ibid:88). What Marx did not consider, however, was that capitalism was able to revolutionise, and has been successfully doing so since, its own symptoms. This is not to suggest that the symptom has become the universal, that it has flipped into its opposite. The effect is more subtle than that. Some symptoms, like the core of Marx’s working class have simply been exported and disavowed. Others, like environmental crisis are being particularised. Adorno, as Zizek notes in the Parallax View (Zizek, 2006a:51), describes capitalism as a system that lives on credit that with never be paid off, in the sense that it is constantly able to revolutionize its own negative conditions.
A contemporary illustration of this dialectical process in capitalism is the digital revolution. Digital technology poses a major threat to two of the main pillars of capitalism; private property and the scarcity of resources. Capitalism, however, does not battle with these symptoms, it includes them with its horizons. Although some capitalist discourse try to repress these symptoms, such as taking Napster, a digital file sharing internet site, to court others embrace the change and seek to profit from it. Thus several mainstream music or digital technology companies, such as Sony and Apple, now operate web-sites that distribute music either for free (and profit from advertising) or for a minimal cost. What was once a threat to the very heart of capitalism is now an opportunity to profit from.
While both Hegel and Marx theorised some kind of absolute synthesis from the dialectical process; Marx in stateless communism, Hegel in the absolute synthesis in the society in which he lived. In a dialectical fashion, I believe that dialectics has moved on from both Hegel and Marx whilst taking own some of their key insights. This has occurred most productively in Zizek’s work and others working within Post-Lacanian theory. Zizek labels his approach ‘dialectical materialism’, the materialism having taken a psychoanalytic spin.
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. 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 (Zizek, 2006a:17). Thus we can never fully see objective reality, because it is always stained by our subjective positioning.
This stain/blind spot is a 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.
The dialectic has three stages to it ; - Reflection- External reflection- Determine reflection(Kay, 2003).
In terms of universality, in the first stage (reflection), an identity is posited in itself. We can describe this stage as abstract universality. Of course it is important to note that this universality is already negated in itself. It is this contradiction ( that the universal is never fully universal) which provides the main stimulus for the dialectical process (Zizek, 2002:42).External reflection provides a negation of the first negation, in revealing that the universal is not universal, but rather a split particular. As an illustration, human rights maybe presented as a universal concept. However, this universal can never be fully universal; human rights always have to exclude something (Zizek, 1999:103). Therefore, through a negation of the negation, it can be revealed that human rights are not universal, but simply particular. In our current circumstance we could reveal that human rights are not universal, but rather particular to the propertied power elite.However, it is determinate reflection which is the significant stage for universality. In determinate reflection it is revealed that the second negation, rather than being an impediment to the universal (e.g. we have not quite achieved a notion of universal human rights- but we are getting there), is rather the condition of the universal. Consequently this constitutive impediment, the symptom/concrete universal is the truth of the universal, of the gap between the universal and the particular caused by the presence of the real (Zizek, 1999:180-1). As a result, it is important not to compare the universal with what it seeks to represent (e.g. Are these really universal human rights?), but rather with that which the abstract universal excludes to constitute itself; concrete universality (Zizek, 2002:160).
In determinate reflection, the subject comes to recognise that the element of non-identity, the exclusion within universality which does not correspond with itself and identify with it; take responsibility for it. Therefore determinate reflection gives positive value to external reflection and it is in this sense that political change can be achieved (ibid: 37).Zizek develops dialectical materialism to its fullest extend, and hence concrete universality in his notion of the parallax gap. The parallax gap is that which forever eludes the grasp of a symbolic perspective, even if it is another symbolic perspective. The parallax gap is the gap between two closely linked perspectives, between which no common ground is possible, the gap only being able to be viewed through the shift between positions (Zizek, 2006a:4) . It is this contradiction, the inability of a dominant discourse to subvert and domesticate its underside, that is the key to the materialist psychoanalytic dialectic process.
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 (ibid:18). 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’.
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 (ibid: 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.
It is this very inability which causes ‘a multiplicity of symbolic perspectives’. These symbolic perspectives revolve around the manner in which a discourse considers the symptom. The positioning of the symptom is vital for the functionality of the discourse. The most basic defence techniques are repression, domesticating acknowledgement (through antagonism, ideology and super-ego demand) and fetishism. We will consider each of these modalities of response to the symptom in turn, before considering the possibilities for the implosion of discourses, particularly that of global capital. Two possibilities will be considered. The first comes from discourses which reveal the constitutive role of the symptom. The second is the most important, and comes from the position of concrete universality. It is, however, the relationship between these two possibilities that lays the greatest potential for the dislocation of a discourse or universal position. Before considering this potential, we must review the convention manner in which the symptom/concrete universality is domesticated.
Reponses to the Symptom;
Disavowal
The disavowal of symptoms is a function of repression. Here the symptom is considered to not exist; its terms are not included in the discourse. Examples of this kind of approach are abundant and often appear very strange to those who view the abstract universal in terms of the concrete universal. Free-market and in particular anarcho-capitalist approaches to climate change and global poverty are good examples. Repression of this type often occurs when the threat of dislocation is high and the symptom cannot be included in any domesticating manner. Therefore the elements of non-society are displaced to antagonisms; Hitler’s Jews in the seminal example.
This kind of response is only efficient if the symptom does not repeat on the discourse. Indeed, the discourse may have to actively seek to repress symptomatic features, such as in communist societies and their violent repression of dissenters. Once the symptom becomes visible in its effects, however, a different strategy is required.
Acknowledgement of the Symptom
An acknowledgement of the symptom is the primary response to the symptom, particularly in open societies. Commonly, the symptom is presented in fantasy as a contingent failure to be worked on. Other factors are also in operation though, particularly ideology and antagonism, super-ego demand and fetishism. The effect is the same though, domesticating the real element of the symptom and denying its concrete universality.
The main drivers of the acknowledgement and domestication of the symptom are ideology and fantasy, as part of the Lacanian register of the imaginary. Indeed, fantasy and ideology are often constructed together as ideological fantasy. Fantasy, the symbolic form of the imaginary, provides a backdrop for ideology. The reconstruction of ideology has been a vital move in psychoanalytic thought. Ideology is one of the most debated concepts in the history of social science (c.f Thompson, 1990) and the full genealogy of the concept does not need to be covered here. It is, however, a critical concept for psychoanalysis and the refocus on universality. Ideology had been predominately taken in modernist thought to be distinct from ‘reality’ in the sense that it was an illusionary appearance as opposed to essence, at which thought was driving towards. For this reason, with the advent of post-structuralist thought and the related post-modern journey into relativism, ideology as a concept was rejected (Stavrakakis, 1997:118-122).
Lacanian theory, however, transcends these definitions of ideology and has rehabilitated the term. Ideology stills operates as misrecognition, but of a different nature. Thus we see a transfer of ideology from the epistemological ( the truth value of a representation of the social) to the ontological (Glynos, 2001:192). Rather than a distinction between reality and ideology, ideology is seen as the guarantor of the consistency of the social; there is no reality without ideology. Because all discourses are ultimately dislocated and lacking, ideology provides the role of covering this lack, and hence the contingency, the political nature of any such ideological construction (Glynos, 2001:191). Thus through ideology the subject suffers from a misrecognition of the negative ontology of the social (Stavrakakis, 1997:123).
Although ideology helps to maintain a sense of ontological consistency, critically it also provides a certain distance from the horror of the ultimately impossible prospect of fullness. In other words, the central role of ideology is to protect the subject and the social from the effect of the real (Daly, 1999a:220). In this sense we get jouissance from ideological fantasy, both in the manner in which it offers the subject the prospect of fullness and prevents the subject from ever achieving that fullness.
Therefore the key role of ideology is the inclusion of the symptom in fantasy. It is the symptom that disrupts the consistency of the social and thus the presence of the symptom must be negated (Stavrakakis, 1997:128). Paradoxically, in order to achieve this, the symptom must be included in the ideological fantasy of the abstract universal as a point of enjoyment;
‘ The central paradox of ideology is that it can only attempt closure through simultaneously producing the ‘threat’ to that closure’ (Daly, 1999a:220)
By including the symptom in the universal, normally as a contingent failure that needs to be altered, ideology allows a distance from the prospect of the positivity of the social, yet is able to domesticate any potential threat from the presence of the evidence of the limits of the social (the real) and the concrete universal, embodied in the symptom.
An important ideological operation in domesticating the symptom occurs through the production of ‘straw’ enemies in social antagonisms. Again, this is another paradox in the operation of ideological fantasy; it functionally operates by acknowledging and representing its impossibility in the form of an external obstacle (Daly, 1999a:224). Because the subject receives jouissance from the failure of ideology, the subject actually enjoys the presence of antagonism. It is when antagonism is removed that the full negativity of the social is felt. This factor makes ideology a dangerous political force, because the more one identifies with the ideology, the more impotent the ideology becomes the more pressed it is to produce stronger and stronger antagonisms (ibid: 83). As Glynos suggests, if the subject gets too close to fulfilling its fantasy, there is an experience not of lack, but of the lack of a lack, of the full negativity of the social which is horrifying (Glynos, 2001:201).
Therefore, in order to avoid the horror of the radical negativity of the Other, antagonism, like the symptom, is something that is necessarily enjoyed. Thus it is the role of fantasy to support, but not satisfy desire. The subject thus suffers from their desire because it cannot be satisfied, but at the same time this troubling pleasure is an enjoyable one (ibid). Daly suggests that the production of an ‘Other’ that blocks the full constitution of identity and universality in the foremost fantasy because it gives cause for the fundamental lack in the subject (1999a:234). Hence the difficulty in displacing symptoms or revealing the contingency of antagonisms.
The paradoxical relationship between ideology and social antagonisms is illustrative of the concept of drive. Rather than directly trying to achieve a goal, jouissance is gained from the process of ‘driving’ at the goal, rather than the goal itself. In other words, the process becomes the goal, rather than the goal; one receives jouissance by circulating around this goal, much like Lacan’s 2nd definition of revolution.
Thus fantasy reproduces the encounter with the real in the symptom in a much more manageable fashion that through repression (Daly, 1999a:224). It does not simply disavow it, but rather domesticates the symptom as either a temporal failure to be resolved, or the fault of an external impediment. Thus antagonism stills operates, but society is no longer so reliant on the extermination of such an antagonism. Because of this, the social or the subject is rarely exposed to the real in its naked, raw form, but rather as a domesticated encounter that maintains the belief that society is possible.
This effect is in operation in the universality of the market in the capitalist system. The market is presented as a universal; it is a natural, objective device that brings maximum wealth and well-being to all. When the market fails to achieve this task, this failure is fantasised as an impediment to the market. The failure, which represents the singular of the universal and shows its contingency, is not considered a condition of the market, but rather something to be fixed; a solution-in-coming. It is fantasy which hides the true, universal (concrete) nature of the market, and prevents the disavowed violence which founds the creation of any universal (Zizek, 2002:33-4).This constant failure, and thus the constant need for minor alteration in the name of universality provide jouissance in the same manner as ideology. The goal of universality is both necessarily and impossible. But this does not mean that it cannot be suspended, that we have to continue to operate within the rules of hegemony (Zizek, 1999:187). Indeed, the very suspension of hegemony, and the progression from the possible to the impossible (by altering the grounds upon which politics is fought) can be counted as the very foundation of authentic politics.
As well as fantasy and ideology, the other major factor is the domestication of the symptom is the super-ego. It is important to note that Lacan’s definition of the super-ego 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 through the domestication of the real elements of the symptom qua concrete universality. The super-ego pushes the subject towards the prospect of wholeness, a reminder of Jouissance in the form of jouissance. Ideological fantasy 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. Because 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 the Other 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. As an illustration, instead of viewing absolute poverty as the constitutive symptom of global capital, we give to charity to delay our guilt. This is not, however a wholly productive strategy either for the efficent maintenance of the universal or its dislocation via the symptom/concrete universal. Super-ego jouissance cannot be avoided through attention to its demands; the more is submitted, 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, as ideological fantasy operates by externalising the cause of the symptom. The more the super-ego demands, the greater the need for ideological fantasy; the demands of the super-ego can be avoided by transferring them into the realm of ideology.Ideology only really has a grip when we see no distance between it and reality; ideology is reality. Therefore when evidence comes up which is counter-intuitive that is when ideology is at its strongest. Thus 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. Even if evidence strongly suggested that the symptom is constitutive of the universal, through the super-ego, ideological fantasy the production of antagonism, dislocation is avoided.
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.Zizek contends that the analyst or critic also has to go past interpretation because of the cynical nature of belief (Johnston, 2004). This concept of ‘cynical distance’ is another modality of the operation of ideologies and the particularisation of the real in the symptom. Fetishtic belief is the last modality of defence in discourses which acknowledge the presence of the symptom. Fetishism occurs where the discourse not only acknowledges the symptom, but also, in a purely interpretive manner at least, accept this symptom as necessary.
Thus the subject may see the faults in the universal, its symptoms, but still believe that society is possible because of their fantasmatic construction. Here we have Zizek often cited modality of belief; ‘I know very well that… but nonetheless’. As an example, a subject in the capitalist system may suggest that they know that markets fail, but nonetheless they have a large libidinal investment in capitalism, and thus act as if they do not. Daly (Daly, 1999b:86) gives an interesting example here in relation to the welfare state. The modern welfare state apparatus acknowledges that poverty is not the fault of its victims; they are the product of capitalist development. Nonetheless the welfare state requires its clients to act as it is their fault. This believe also operates in Jeffery Sachs work on poverty, as we shall see more fully in Chapter 4, where Sachs posits a global economy, yet acknowledges on national reasons for poverty.
Here Zizek makes a distinction between repression and fetishism as two different modalities of defence against the effect of the Real. In repression, both of the constitutive ontology of the symptom and its very existence, the subject refuses to acknowledge the symptom, to the degree that they are unaware of its distorting influence. In contrast, in fetishism, the subject is aware of the symptom, and experiences it as a site of enjoyment. Thus the subject can appear to be a pragmatic realist who fully accepts reality. This acceptance, however, is only founded on the existence of a fetish. When this fetish is removed, the subject has no defence against the lack in the Other (Johnston, 2004).
Zizek believes that this is the unfortunate position of global capital. As we see in reports from the United Nations and the Bretton Woods organisations, the state of the world, particularly in terms of climate change and environmentalism and its effects is largely well known and documented. Because of a fetishism of commodities - Marx’s commodity fetish - there has been a closure in the political imaginary that has led Zizek to suggest that only a huge global event could possibility displace capital (Johnston, 2004).
As Adrian Johnston contends, perhaps the biggest issue with fetishism is that those who fetish do not feel they have a problem; they gather too much enjoyment from the symptom. Johnston cites the example of George W. Bush who refuses to take on any environmental policy that may endanger the American libidinal object ‘the American Way of Life’
Therefore, because of the efficiency in which the symptom is domesticated and included in the realm of the abstract universal, alternative strategies for achieving socio-political change must be found. The two salient approaches are discourses which constitutively reveal the symptom and discourses of concrete universality. It is to these that we now turn.
Revealing the symptom in its constitutive truth
These discourses, of which this thesis is an example, reveal symptoms, but still struggle to be articulated from outside of the terms of the abstract universal. They have potential to break open a space for the symptom and create change, but it is not optimal strategy for change. They have a greater potential to be excluded as irrational or to simply domesticate and particularise the symptom by describing them within the universal terms. The biggest role that this kind of discourse has is in order to facilitate to open up, force an internal dislocation, within the universal. Thus Zizek suggests that;
‘Today … it is more important than ever to HOLD THIS UTOPIAN PLACE OF THE GLOBAL ALTERNATIVE OPEN, even if it remains empty, living on borrowed time, awaiting the content to fill it in’ (Zizek, 2000b:325, emphasis in original).
Examples of this kind of discourse are common place, although as Zizek illustrates, not as common as one might hope. Such examples as Green Radicalism or Marxist political economy. Marxism is a unique and important category of discourse to be considered. Marxism, at a time when the ‘working-class’ of capital still existed as a strong force in developed, western societies, could have been considered in the category of discourse that I will soon develop; discourses of the symptom- the discourse of concrete universality. Contemporary Marxist thought, however, tends not to identify strongly with today’s working class, the concrete universal of capital in the 3rd world or ‘developing countries’. Marxist theory still operates within the western terms. It may be a critical voice which identifies the symptom in its constitutive element, but it still lies outside of the terms of the concrete universal; it does not inhabit this space.
It still provides more hope greater potential for change, however, than discourses which only interact with the abstract universal at a particular level. Without the universal element, these discourses do not pose a threat. Conversely, only a particular type of universal demand can produce change, the concrete universal. It is no good to simply present an alternative imaginary that is external to the current universal. This kind of excluded element, Laclau and Torfing’s ‘anti-A’ is most likely to simply entrench differences on the identity of both opposing universals. We see such an operation in the global conflict between Islam and the West.
In such circumstances radical change is unlikely to occur. Although, as I have previously cited, Glyn Daly and Laclau claim that Zizekian theory underplays the subversive political element in the battle for the empty signifier and the universal, these elements are highly unlikely to produce radical change. Only a complete dislocation can achieve the impossible and completely alter the terms of the universal. This is not to suggest that change cannot occur through the ‘war of position’ that Laclau advocates in the filling of the empty signifier. However, this change is much more likely to take the form of the ‘rotational revolution’ that I have noted earlier.
I argue this for two reasons. Firstly, as I have covered in detail earlier, such an approach does not adequately take into account the role of jouissance and fantasy. However, it would not be impossible, as Daly (1999b) argues, to includes these terms in Laclau’s work as a combined Laclauian/Zizekian approach. Nevertheless this approach would fall short. It is only the flip-side of the abstract universal, the concrete universal that can pose a radical threat. All other approaches simply fall within the unconscious supplement of the universal. It is only when the universal is confronted with its unbearable universal exception that a dislocation can occur.
However, having detailed the manner in which such ‘unbearable examples’ in the form of symptoms are so efficiently domesticated, one must doubt whether such a task can be achieved. As I have noted, although the symptom is sometimes repressed and disavowed completely, generally it is acknowledged but domesticated by the various devices of fantasy and ideology. The most effective of these being fetishism. With fetishism, even if the symptom is accepted as part of concrete universal, the subject can obtain jouissance because such a status as implicit evidence of the failure of the universal. By hanging onto such a fetish, like commodity fetishism, the subject, even though the taken on the true role of the symptom, is prevented, and even enjoys the negativity of the social.
Therefore, Zizek considers that while it is important to maintain open a space for an alternative imaginary, he believes that only in the face of a global event, like an ecological catastrophe or complete economic collapse could dislocate capitalism. In contrast, while I endorse the first element of Zizek conception, I believe that through pressure of the concrete universal, a strategy that leaves less to chance is available. Perhaps it is true that some of this potential lies in the kind of event of which Zizek speaks; ecological collapse would certainly fit the category of an active concrete universal. I will detail the specific potentials of both ecological and poverty discourse in the following chapters. For now, however, it is important to turn to the final discursive response to the symptom.
Discourses of the symptom; the active concrete universal
Too often the concrete universal is implicitly regarded as the passive effect of the abstract universal. However, as Zizek develops in his notion of a parallax real, a discourse can inhabit this position, which is simply incommensurable with the abstract universal.
If this discourse becomes active and begins to pressure the abstract universal, particularly through an opening created by a discourse revealing the symptom, there is a great potential for radical dislocation to occur.
This is where I believe that the greatest potential for change lies. Discourses of this category are literally discourses of the real that have been symbolised in their own terms, and as such come in the same category as effects of the real. This symbolic aspect was lacking in environmentalism. The effect of the real exists in the actions of nature. This was not a point I took on with much subtly, and will expand on further below.
Essentially, these discourses are of the Real, from the viewpoint of the universal. This is poverty in its own terms. In the western capitalist potential, we see this poverty, but it is discursively constructed in order to domesticate its real elements; we cannot truly face it. These discourses however, come from those elements that have been excluded. I believe that it is when these discourses become active in themselves, not in the terms of the Other, that really start to put pressure on the universal, in much the same way that climate change effects environmental discourse.
The recent pro-immigrations protests in America are instructive of such an appeal to concrete universality. 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’.The key here is not to simply put pressure on the abstract universal to be included within its terms, using a particularised approach, or by proposing an alternative universal. These approaches will result in domestication and open conflict, respectively. Instead, the discourse, like that of the American immigrant protestors, has to occupy the position of the concrete universal; the constitutive exception.
Therefore, while the real of the symptom produces a mulitplicity of symbolic perspectives, for those interested in producing socio-political change of a radical nature, it is the relationship between discourses within the abstract universal, which therefore have the ability to open up a gap within the universal and discourse of concrete universality which are of importance. What is vital is that the discourse of the concrete universal takes on an appeal constitutive of the position of concrete universality. This has the effect of confronting the abstract universal with its ‘unbearable example’. Such a move will dislocate the universal by breaking up its unconscious supplement and the modalities of enjoyment which supported it.
In doing so, however, those with radical intension must be careful not to either produce themselves as another abstract universal, or as a particular which can be subverted into the terms of the existing hegemonic universal. Such a universal is extremely effective at maintaining it’s own stability through ideological fantasy, super-ego demand and fetishism.
Nonetheless, rather than simply wait for a catastophic event, there are political options for those who believe that a radical change is needed from influence of global capital. The priviledged instrument of such an approach is Zizekian theory. In particular, Zizek’s psychoanalytic insights based on Hegelian dialectics and orthodox Lacanianism. This has produced a rehabiltation of universality combined with an Marxist investment in political economy. One can also not dismiss the emphasis of Laclau’s Discourse theory, in particular his work on universality and the empty signifier. Zizek’s work goes beyond this however, with a more nuanced analysis of the real, both in producing the negative ontology of the social and in its positive elements, particularly jouissance and fantasy.
The method produced in this chapter will now be extended via a ‘short-circuit’ analysis of both poverty and environmental discourse. The aim of this analysis is both to analysis the manner in which these discourses are constructed, particularly around the symptoms which are evident in the discourses. These constructions around discourses will be investigated in terms of the responses to symptoms outlined in this chapter. Having completed this task, an analysis will be compiled in relation to which symptoms appear to be unruly and have to potential to move outside of ideological fantasy and into the status of concrete univerisality, and thus possibility change.
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