Conclusion

Disrupting Capitalism

There is no symbolic space outside of global capital; an alternative to capital is impossible. Paradoxically, herein lays the precise possibility for moving beyond capital. From within the current hegemonic boundaries of capitalism, there is simply no prospect of an end to capitalism - those who practice ‘Third-Way’ politics are correct, there is no alternative. Capitalism has an all-pervasive grip upon the power centres of the world. The jouissance produced through the abstract universal imaginaries of capital and the various modalities of ideological fantasy that provide its unconscious supplement are too compelling. Although most of the capitalist world is aware of the potential threats to capital, particularly climate change and global poverty, these symptoms are easily disavowed; such is the effectiveness of capital in domesticating the threat posed by its symptoms. Nonetheless, through dialectical logic, specifically the dialectical materialist methodology suggested in this thesis, the potential strategies for disturbing the impossible grip of capitalism become apparent. The greatest potential lies in the very impossibility of moving beyond capitalism.

This impossibility is best understood through Žižek’s notion of the parallax view. It highlights the disruptive potential(s) of the concrete universal and of the Real within the totality that is capitalism. Again, no ‘beyond’ exits to capitalism, only the possibility of rupture within.

The potential for, and apparent impossibility of, moving beyond global capital is illustrated in the relationship that exists between the two areas of discourse that have been analysed in the previous two chapters, Green ideology and discourses on global poverty (developmentalism). These two areas represent the major areas of discursive investment for the political Left. They are, however, incommensurable forms of engagement with global capitalism; they form a political parallax centred around a social antagonism that is caused by global capital. It appears that the Left can either speak of environmentalism, of reducing pollution and carbon production, or global development– increasing the collective wealth of humanity – but not both positions at the same time. Those who focus on the goal of reducing poverty argue for increased levels of consumption and greater production. On the other side of the parallax, environmentalists and ecologists demand that limits be placed upon development. Such a limit radically interferes with the goal of eliminating poverty. The gap between these elements is sutured under the empty signifier ‘Left’, which supports the Kantian transcendental illusion that something exists between the two perspectives. However, as Kant’s notion of the illusion makes clear, no such position exists, only the presence of absence. This gap – the parallax Real – occurs because of a fundamental antagonism that exists between the two, caused by global capital in its manifestation as the symbolic Real. Only with the dissipation of capitalism can this parallax be dissolved, not with the suturing of the gap between the two (which is the current strategy for much of the political Left). In contrast, rather than attempting to provide a suturing-point for this impossibility, this thesis argues that the more productive political approach is instead to focus on the impossibility that is inherent to this parallax and also on the parallax of ontological difference that sits between the abstract and concrete universals of global capitalism. This position can be achieved by attempting to think both perspectives – and the gap – at once, through the dialectical concept of totality. In doing so, a psychoanalytic approach is not only able to reveal the contingency of capitalist social constructions of the abstract universal (of the social Good), but more importantly the capitalism’s disavowed materialist core , its concrete universal.


The methodology created in this thesis grounds Žižek’s abstract philosophical position. As its application to the two areas of discourse demonstrates, possibilities exist for disrupting the existing hegemonic matrix of global capital by evoking capitalism’s concrete universal, by ‘practicing’ the concrete universal as Žižek puts it.


Practicing Concrete Universality

A first possible means for practicing concrete universality comes by focusing on what I term ‘discourses of the concrete universal’. These discourses perhaps provide the greatest potential for producing a radical structural shift within/to capital. Discourses of the concrete universal are those discourses which lie outside of the abstract universal horizon that the idea of ‘global capitalism’ represents. In this sense, they are discourses of the Real, possessing no means for translating between the twin poles of the ontological parallax. Any movement of the concrete universal into the realm of the hegemonic imaginary will produce some degree of dislocation because of the ultimate incommensurability between the elements involved. The concrete universal, as both the excess which is generated by the abstract universal and the material substance upon which that universal horizon is constituted, cannot be translated into the terms of that horizon without a dislocation occurring to that same horizon, that is, to the idea of global capitalism.

We see this at work in the area of climate change. Although climate change is not simply a discursive construction, it still appears within the broad horizon of global capitalism as a discursive element, as the concrete universal of capitalism; it appears as ‘an effect of nature’, as ‘the natural’. This dislocates the universal capitalist imaginary. This process is currently occurring in relation to climate change. Reports continue to surface regarding the incommensurability between the capitalist economic system and the limits of the environment (PCE, 2005; Stern, 2006). Although symbolic resources currently exist to domesticate this symptom, such as through increased or targeted taxes, a dislocation of some degree is likely to occur if the concrete universal were to continue to assert pressure. Similarly, this might be possible if a unity could be formed between the peoples of the Third World, perhaps under a signifier such as ‘Majority World’. This unity could allow a position of concrete universality to emerge, evoking a degree of dislocation, providing that the fantasmatic resources which support the hegemony are unable to domesticate the symptoms. This proviso, however, perhaps underpins the prospects for both social change and stability.

Discourses of the concrete universal also identify the manner in which fantasy and jouissance sustain universal horizons over and above the words through which those horizons are symbolised. That is to say, subjects are enabled to identify with particular images of the universal because they enjoy the experience of doing so, such experiences grip them. The loosening of this grip does not occur simply though the production of rational arguments that reveal the irrationality of the universal horizon (such that the global production of wealth relies upon the exploitation of localised groups), but rather the provocation of experiences of abjection, such as anxiety and trauma. These occur to the subject through their exposure to the Real.

Anxiety and trauma occur when the concrete universal impacts upon the universal horizon, such as when one comes into face-to-face contact with extreme poverty, perhaps by bumping into a homeless person on a city street. This is what offers the prospect for change, as the subject seeks to find an alternative, more bearable discourse that can domesticate the unsettling effects of the Real.

An alternative field of discourse to that of ‘the concrete universal’ which can be mobilised to interrupt a structural formation, I have termed ‘discourses of the symptom’. This very thesis is itself such a discourse. These discourses use the terms that have been set by an abstract universal, such as capitalism or multiculturalism. Notwithstanding their location within abstract universals, discourses of the symptom are able to view in a dialectical manner both the abstract universal which frames them and their constitutive exception.

When viewed from the perspective of this form of discourse, the constitutive exception emerges as ’the symptom’ to the abstract universal. More specifically, the symptom refers to the disruptive impact which the concrete universal has upon the universal imaginary by virtue of its own location within that imaginary. To rephrase the point, discourses of the symptom reveal the limit point of the universal, the point of its failure.

Such a point is the Truth of the universal. This is not a meta-physical Truth which remains the same in all possible symbolisations. Rather it is the embodiment of Truth in a particular content. The core to a Žižekian-inspired political analysis is not to expose the contingency of a hegemonic social construction (although this is a useful political strategy) but rather to reveal the Truth as the central element of the universal totality. The Truth of any construction, its concrete universal, is not purely contingent, but rather the hard material core to that construction; this is the point which paradoxically holds together the abstract universal yet remains its constitutive exception.

That is, a Zizekian-styled political approach does not seek to deconstruct a contingent political position so that it can be reformulated in a more progressive manner, but rather to reveal the point against which all political constructions are combating, the concrete universal. Here, we are not talking about an ahistorical lack or Real against which all symbolisations battle, but rather a historical lack, R2, or the symbolic Real; in our times, that symbolic Real is, global capital.

Thus, in a mutually constituting manner, the form that Truth takes is always particular to its content and the particular content that is involved in this takes on a form that enables it to play a universalising role. Thereby, a symptom can embody the Truth of a particular edifice because it represents a universal form (that being the point of failure of the hegemonic imaginary) and the universal form only takes shape through the particular content in which it occurs (Brockelman, 2003, p.196). Discourses of the symptom reveal this point of Truth not by embodying the concrete universal, but rather, as Žižek states, by confronting a universal horizon with its ‘unbearable example’ (Zizek, 2006a, p.13), that is, by practicing concrete universality.

Discourses of the concrete universal, reviewed above, provide the more powerful force of the two kinds of discourse in terms of inducing radical political change. That said, discourses of the symptom supply a more viable kind of political strategy given that they operate from a position that is fully within the universal edifice. For those seeking to produce social change, the concrete universal – like the brute fact of climate change – forever remains outside of their control. Thus, as political strategies, neither the increasing degradation of the environment nor the unity of the disavowed ‘Majority World’ population can be relied upon for dislocating capitalism. Neither is under political influence. This is not to suggest that in another context discourses of the concrete universal should be ignored. Indeed, perhaps the most efficient strategy is a combination of the two.

The act of identifying with the symptom, of practicing concrete universality, opens up a space for the concrete universal itself to operate, for it to emerge as the unbearable example of the abstract universalising horizon. The method which has been created in this thesis is a grounded reflection of this abstracted strategy. By revealing the deadlock that is inherent to capital, its incommensurability within itself as a totality, one can practice concrete universality through a ‘short-circuit analysis’. It is this strategy which reveals the political potential of psychoanalysis. This thesis, as a short-circuit analysis – a discourse of the symptom – has the role of thinking both sides of the parallax at once. By doing so through the dialectical notion of totality, we see that the methodology suggested in this thesis offers an alternative strategy for anti-capitalist engagement. Specifically, rather than having to choose between alternative conceptions of capitalism, its abstract and concrete forms, dialectical logic allows an analyst the ability to think both options at once (for example, that global capital brings both great wealth and extreme poverty, that capitalist societies can become increasingly energy efficient yet be destroying the climate at the same time). This Žižekian style of analysis allows the symptoms of capital to be seen not as contingent failures but, rather, as disavowed elements of capital that constitute its very possibility. This thesis thereby suggests that the most constructive form of anti-capitalist engagement is to reveal the disavowed hard kernel upon which capital is based, but not as an element in itself, but rather as the concrete universal of capitalist totality. It is the ability to think both elements of the parallax at once, to contrast the concrete universal with the hegemonic imaginary, which brings the possibility of dislocation. Contemplation of, and intervention with, the concrete universal alone (of climate change or of poverty) is insufficient.

This conclusion reflects what has increasingly become Žižek’s core position. In an elaboration of this position, Žižek has come to interpret capitalism as a modality of the Real. By this he means that there is nothing outside of capital, it is the point to which all socio-political discourses ultimately return. Therefore, for Žižek, to act is to act only against the background of capital. There is no empty place from which to speak. Here Žižek argues that rather than involve oneself in local politics – to develop bold courses of action that do not threaten the universal edifice despite their apparent radicality – it is better not to act at all (Zizek, 2006b, p.212). These apparently radical transgressions ultimately allow capital to run smoothly, they allow for the construction of a constitutive outside to capitalism, against which the profit motive can pit itself and perhaps subsume. Therefore Žižek reverses Marx’s famous thesis 11, where Marx contends that while philosophers have interpreted the world in various ways, the point is to change it. Instead, Žižek suggests:


The first task today is precisely not to succumb to the temptation to act, to intervene directly and change things (which then inevitably ends in a cul-de-sac of debilitating impossibility: ‘What can one do against global capital?’), but to question the hegemonic ideological coordinates. (Žižek, 2006b, p. 238)


In its place, Žižek contends that critical analysis must rehabilitate the concept of the universal through a notion of totality in which totality is riven from within, that is, through dialectical analysis. This totality takes in both the abstract and concrete universal of capitalism, vitally allowing access to the gap that is inherent in every symbolic performance, that is, the Real. The key is not to focus exclusively on one side, such as suggesting that capitalism is nothing but poverty nor that capitalism is the best method for producing economic wealth. Neither is it particularly productive to try to find a mediating point, such as an empty signifier, to suture the gap inherent in capitalism, as Laclau suggests. Rather, Žižek asserts, the best position to take in attempting to disrupt capitalism is to think both alternatives at the same time. By taking on both perspectives, the disavowed foundations of capital, as well as the inherent gap within capital, are thus revealed.

Summary

The parallax view, as presented by Žižek, underpins the methodology being suggested by this thesis. This thesis draws upon just two of the modalities of the parallax that Žižek presents: the political and the ontological. An ontological parallax occurs between the abstract and concrete universal within a totality. Here the abstract universal is the hegemonic horizon, it provides the fundamental background against which all other discourses operate. In contrast the concrete universal is the singular exception to this universal horizon.

Conversely, the concrete universal is an exception that is necessary for the constitution of the universal imaginary; absolute poverty, as a concrete universal that sits against the wealth of capitalism, is a salient contemporary example. Therefore, while the concrete universal is an exception to the abstract universal, its singularity bypasses the particular and exceeds the abstract universal horizon. To reiterate this point, the concrete universal, as an exception to the universal imaginary is not simply one element amongst the many that make up that horizon, but rather – despite its status as an exception– it is the very element that constitutes the universal horizon. As such, the concrete universal is necessarily repressed by the hegemonic horizon. This repression returns through the symptom, which reveals the Truth of the abstract universal and the presence of the parallax gap.

The second modality of parallax upon which this thesis draws is the political parallax. Political parallaxes occur between two relatively symmetrical political formations, separated by a social antagonism. This social antagonism creates a condition of incommensurability between the discourses; there is no common language between them. The social antagonism thus reveals the limit point of the discursive formation. This gap is often filled by empty signifiers which offer the prospect of a suture. The impossibility of such a suture, however, is revealed by the emergence of symptoms within the political parallax. Such symptoms occur when the two positions attempt to translate into each other. An example is illustrative here.

As has been noted at the start of this chapter, a strong political parallax is in operation with contemporary capitalism between developmentalism and environmentalism. This occurs in New Zealand politics, particularly within Green discourse. The Green Party is unable to articulate an economic position because its ecological goals are incommensurable with the interests of capital, capital being the social antagonism that gets actualised here. Therefore any attempt at economic policy is fragmented at best, often contradicting its ecological claims; the symptom of this parallax occurs at this point in the discourse (Donald, 2005a, 2005b; Fitzsimons, 2006).

Empty signifiers such as ‘Sustainable Development’, which offer the prospect of a suture of a parallax, are associated with the production of jouissance. Jouissance, as an excess to the Real, is a vital element of Žižek’s rehabilitation of universality; it offers a materialist element to dialectical logic. The abstract universal itself provides subjects the experience of jouissance, of enjoyment, as it offers a possibility of staging a return to an absent state of fullness. These universal horizons are centred around an empty signifier, or the objet a, which have a suturing effect by offering an object for libidinal investment as a substitute for lack. At the same time, because of the impossibility of this suture, the universal horizon requires a certain degree of failure. That failure can not bring about total meltdown – a constitutive failure – as might occur when the concrete universal dislocates a horizon, but rather a displacement of the negativity that is inherent to the symbolic order.

There are two primary modalities of this displacement, external antagonisms and the symptom. External antagonisms are ‘straw enemies’ which are created to stand in for the impossibility of social fullness, of society. Every universal horizon sends out the message that the removal of these antagonisms will restore the lost fullness of society. Of course, this postulated fullness is always only an imaginary creation. Nonetheless, antagonisms are required by the abstract universal and as such they are enjoyed, they are a site of jouissance.

The operation of the symptom, in contrast, is split between its role as an antagonism and the links that exist between symptoms and the concrete universal. Ideological fantasies give the message that symptoms, too, are antagonisms that can be eliminated. Nonetheless, there is a difference between the external antagonisms noted above and symptoms. The former is a fantasmatic creation, whereas symptoms are the Real, material limit-points of universal, hegemonic imaginaries. The symptom carries with it an element of the Real, because it reveals the presence of the concrete universal, which embodies the failure of the universal imaginary. Through ideological fantasy, symptoms are generally represented in a more palpable form than the concrete universal, appearing as external antagonisms that can be removed. However, symptomatic antagonisms always suggest the possibility of a dislocation via their association with the Real.

Despite the necessary existence of symptoms, ideological fantasy manages to domesticate the effect of the Real that is inherent in symptoms. This domestication occurs through a number of techniques. Along with repression, ideological fantasy and external antagonism, super-ego demand is also common. We see the super-ego in operation within charity discourse, or Green/ethical consumerism. Perhaps the most effective device, however, is the operation of disavowal and fetishism. Disavowal occurs when the subject acknowledges the presence of the symptom, yet continues to act as if it does not exist. Disavowal is allowed to continue because of the existence of a fetished object. This object mediates the effect of the Real, via the subject, by acting as a point of jouissant investment for the subject. Thus the subject may know very well about the existence of poverty, poverty which is in stark contrast to the universal imaginary of capitalism in which they have affectively invested. Nevertheless, because of the existence of commodified objects, the subject is able to maintain this paradoxical state because the commodity substitutes for the gap that is opened up by the contradictory nature of these parallel beliefs.

Another common fetish which supports the disavowal of symptoms within capitalism is the idea that there is no alternative to capital. This allows the subject to unquestionably accept capital as a universal horizon: any failure is displaced as unavoidable or apolitical. Disavowal and fetishism are powerful forces because of the enjoyment inherent in them. The power of jouissance is such that the condition is not seen as a problem. The operation of disavowal and fetishism, along with that of the parallax view and the devices that are used to domesticate symptoms, reveal the necessity of a materialist analysis.

The issue of materialism, which jouissance raises, divides Žižek’s work from that of Ernesto Laclau. Laclau operates within much the same theoretical and political territory as Žižek, indeed his approach features a more grounded methodology for political analysis, an element that has been replicated in the methodology created in this thesis. As such, Laclau and Žižek’s works align. They both work roughly within the field of Lacanian political analysis, although each has a different take on what form this should take. In particular, Laclau has been influential in his development of the concepts of antagonism and empty signifiers. However, Laclau’s work is lacking because of the manner in which he interprets the Real.

In Laclau’s work, the Real is nothing more than a limit-point to the discursive. In contrast, Žižek takes the Real to be both a limit and an excess. By acknowledging the Real as a source of excess, the notions of jouissance and fantasy develop as vital tools for political analysis. These factors explain why social constructions that appear conditional and contingent, maintain such fixity. Nonetheless, Laclau is very critical of Žižek’s approach to the political. In their three way debate in Contingency, Hegemony and Universality (Judith Butler the other contributor), Laclau argues that Žižek is not a political commentator, but rather merely produces “a psychoanalytic discourse which draws its examples from the politico-ideological field” (Laclau, 2000a, p.289, Original emphasis). By this Laclau suggests that Žižek has nothing constructive to offer to politics, rather that Žižek’s is a purely deconstructive discourse. Indeed, in the paragraph previous to the one just cited, Laclau states (in relation to Žižek’s desire to overthrow capitalism without a ready-made alternative):

Only if that explanation is made available will we be able to start talking politics and abandon the theological terrain. Before that I cannot even know what Žižek is talking about and the more this exchange progresses, the more suspicious I become that Žižek himself does not know either (p.289).

Is the Realm of Politics beyond Psychoanalysis?

This disagreement revolves around what each of the theorist designates as a political approach. The Žižekian approach has already been laid out at the start of this chapter; it is the position taken in the thesis. To reiterate, it is theorised that psychoanalysis is inherently political because of the negative ontological status of the social. This negative ontology means that social constructions are contingent. Therefore any fixation is a political fixation. Žižek’s work is political because it operates by revealing both the contingency of a political formation, involving its symptoms and the unconscious supplement which supports the hegemonic discourse, as well the concrete universal, the hard material Truth of the discursive formation. This form of political analysis, which this thesis attempts to vehecularise in terms of a grounded methodology, is the political approach for a Žižekian perspective. For Laclau though, this is not far enough. Instead Laclau seeks to develop a positive form of politics. Here we rely on the distinction made by Stavrakakis between politics, as the day-to-day operation of the political, and the political itself (Stavrakakis, 1999, p.71). Laclau attempts to form a political model to be institutionalised: radical democracy. Radical democracy seeks to institutionalise the gap formed by the negative ontology, as revealed in Lacanian theory. This is very much a formal operation: radical democracy cannot prescribe its own content. Rather, Laclau suggests that a free society is one which is aware of the contingency of its own construction (Laclau, 1990, p.211). In this way the contingency of social constructions is to be constantly revealed and battled over; this is the ‘radical’ in radical democracy.

Stavrakakis goes further in suggesting that radical democracy must go beyond the ‘ethics of harmony’ that seeks to constitute an ideal society, a utopia (Stavrakakis, 1997, p.127). Instead Stavrakakis argues that psychoanalytic politics needs to develop an ‘ethics of the Real’ (in the limited Laclauian sense) that revolves around the constant contestation of meaning. The concept of psychoanalytic politics –in the sense of the application of a political approach in government policy and related areas – is a controversial one, indeed it signals one of the boundaries of this piece of work.

Many theorists within the Lacanian field believe that psychoanalysis and politics do not mix well, or at all. The argument revolves around what to do with the gap that is created by the negative ontological constitution of the symbolic. There are three significantly differing perspectives. The first, characterised by Elizabeth Bellamy (1993), Sean Homer (1996), Simon Tormey and Andrew Robinson (Robinson, 2004; Robinson & Tormey, 2003, 2005) seeks to construct a positive imaginary to fill this gap. In doing so, they query the possibility, and the desirability, of creating a psychoanalytic form of politics. It is argued, particularly by Homer, that because ideological fantasy, which sutures the gap, is so enjoyable, any political position that refuses to posit an ideological position is impotent. Because attempts at psychoanalytic politics, such as Laclau’s radical democracy, attempt to move away from any form of ideological suture, they are ineffective (Homer, 1996, p.106-8). Homer recognises the limitations of psychoanalysis in this regard and thus states that the task of creating a positive imaginary is beyond the limits of psychoanalysis.

There is some warrant to this approach, particularly as a strategy for thinking about politics within their existing form. There are, however, compelling reasons to surpass it. Firstly, as has been documented throughout this thesis, any political formation that operates through an imaginary position – as Homer suggests a political position must – needs to find a way of displacing the negativity that is inherent to the symbolic realm; as history shows, the positing of external antagonisms in order to explain the lack of fullness in a society can be disastrous e.g. Hitler’s marginalisation of the Jews. Psychoanalytic political analysis has the value of avoiding the kind of positive imaginary positions (or, more importantly the resulting displacement of lack) inherent to this kind of approach.

Secondly, politics of this form cannot move outside of the constraints that exist upon the symbolic realm. It can operate within the terms of the unconscious supplement which supports the symbolic, but it cannot bring any kind of radical shift. Only an intervention with the supplement can produce shifts of a radical magnitude.

This critique also applies to Laclau’s approach. In addition to the radical democratic project, Laclau generates a more general political strategy for the Left, involving the creation of a coalition of new social movements under the unity of an empty signifier. The success of that signifier turns upon its ability to fill the gap between the diverging perspectives and projects of those social movements. Indeed, Laclau suggests that this new, combined movement such be under the guise of the radical democracy movement (Laclau & Mouffe, 1985, p.176). Žižek is particularly critical of this approach because it cannot move outside of the conditions set by global capital.

In order to progress beyond this apparent impasse between the radical democratic project and political psychoanalysis, we should refer back to the distinction Stavrakakis makes between politics and the political. Žižek’s approach, with which this thesis associates, operates solely within the more general domain of the political. Thus, it offers a strategy for achieving radical political shifts and a method for critiquing everyday politics, but does not present a way forward for the operation of ‘regular’ politics. This is perhaps one of the weaknesses of the Žižek’s approach. Conceivably, here, Homer is correct; psychoanalytic politics are not relevant. Alternatively, it could be that Homer and Bellamy are looking for the wrong kind of outcome from psychoanalytic analyses. Neither Lacan nor Žižek argue that psychoanalytic ideas can be constituted for a utopian ethical/political order; this is simply outside of the bounds of psychoanalysis. I do not believe that many would (or should) be willing to support the ‘Lacanian Party’ in the 2008 New Zealand elections. But the impossibility of utopia does not rule out more ‘progressive’ political constructions.

The difference between utopian politics and simple societal improvement relies on a distinction between that lack which is ahistorical, as in the effect of the Real upon the symbolic order, and the lack which is historically conditioned, that is, capital. In a time when global capital has produced a condition in which humanity is paradoxically living both far beyond and beneath its material needs and the capacity of the planet to support those needs, it is this historical lack that deserves the political interest of psychoanalysis. Nonetheless, an unanswered question remains: What can psychoanalysis offer politics beyond ideological critique and dislocation? Is it that Lacanian theory can only offer a mode of understanding of the social, one that can be applied to political critique, but cannot offer a solution beyond dislocation? Here we again return to the vital distinction between politics and the political. Just as the Real sets the limits for the construction of reality, the political serves as the precondition for the operation of politics. Therefore, we may conclude by stating that, yes, psychoanalysis has no role in politics: its influence goes well beyond it, into the political.