The following two chapters seek to further develop the dialectical materialist methodological position created in Chapter 5 through its application to two areas of capitalist discourse. These discursive formations, Green ideology and global poverty, represent two of the most pressing issues facing humanity. By applying the methodology created in thesis, a method which acts as a political approach in itself, it is hoped that further insight can be gathered into the viability of this political method, in particular the attempt to practice concrete universality. The initial focus of the discursive analysis is an examination of the defence mechanisms used towards symptoms within the universal horizon. Secondly, the chapters examine the possibilities for dislocating these defence mechanisms and moving beyond the abstract universal imaginary and its unconscious supplement by exposing the exclusion upon which it is based; the concrete universal.
In this chapter we shall first set the theoretical context for this methodological application to Green ideology, both in terms of the development of Green ideology and the specific application of dialectical materialism to Green ideology, specifically the modalities of parallaxes and the Real that are in operation. Following this task, we will move onto the particular defence mechanisms orientated towards symptoms within discourses in Green ideology. Finally, the potential for disrupting capitalism via the symptom is considered. It is found that although the environment is an element that constantly threatens to dislocate capitalism, it is difficult to harness this power in a pro-active manner; that is, without waiting for an ecological collapse. In terms of the method created in the previous chapter and its political implications, Green Ideology exemplifies the efficiency of discursive defence mechanisms in domesticating the dislocating effect of the symptom. Conversely, the importance of the concrete universal - as the impossible element which always returns - is highlighted; hence the political potency of practicing the concrete universal.
6.1 Development of Green Ideology
Since the latter half of the 20th century, various terms have been used to refer to Green ideology. Environmentalism and ecologism are two terms that are often used interchangeably within Green discourse; however, for the purposes of this thesis, a subtle distinction lies between them. Environmentalism is thought to relate more to reformist, particular Green discourses, whereas ecologism takes a stronger, often ecocentric stand (Heywood, 1998,p.264; Smith, 1998,p.66). In this chapter when referring the total field of thought relating to the environment, the term ‘Green’ will be used, whereas ‘environmentalism’ and ‘ecologism’ will be reserved for their respective particular discourses.
A further differentiation, more specific to this thesis, is required between the terms ‘nature’ and ‘the natural’. This distinction owes a lot to the work of Yannis Stavrakakis, particularly his contrast between politics and the political (Stavrakakis, 1999,p.71). Nature is a construction of reality, through the symbolic and its fantasmatic support. Nature, however, cannot exhaust the natural. As such it resembles the relationship between reality and the Real. In terms of Green ideology, the basic parallax of ontological difference lies in the incommensurability between nature and the natural. In this definition, nature is the abstract universal. It refers to the hegemonic conception of the ‘natural’ within any given discourse. In contrast, the natural is the really existing hard material/biological core to nature. It is the trees, seas and genes; the total material entity outside of language. In terms of ontological difference, the natural is the concrete universal. The concrete universal of the natural exceeds that of the universal horizon of nature, yet encompasses its concrete singular exception in that it is only when the abstract universal fails, as revealed in the symptom, that the natural is revealed.
As in any parallax, there is an incommensurable split in operation. What is specific about this parallax for Green ideology is the relationship between the abstract and concrete universal. Rather than the concrete universal operating only as the disavowed foundation of the abstract universal, its minimal difference within itself, the concrete universal in this circumstance is what the abstract universal seeks to represent. The twist, however, is that in seeking to represent the concrete universal, the abstract represses the essential impossibility of this representation; that nature is not the natural - this repression is similar to the fundamental fantasy which represses the act of castration. Therefore, a minimal difference still operates between nature and the natural. This minimal difference is a modality of the Real because of the incommensurable gap introduced within the moment of universality. Further to this, not only does the Real operate as the parallax Real via the incommensurable gap between the abstract and concrete modalities of the universal, but also through the concrete universal as a force in itself; the natural.
As well as the parallax of ontological difference, a second parallax is in operation within Green ideology; the political parallax. Political parallaxes occur, similar to the parallax of ontological difference, when there is no common ground between two perspectives. However, rather than this incommensurability occurring as an internal difference, the parallax occurs between two competing positions. These positions are separated by a fundamental social antagonism, which introduces a parallax gap; the parallax Real. In Green ideology the parallax Real occurs because of the social antagonism caused by global capital. This social antagonism separates perspectives which are dominated by the hegemony of global capital and those which are structured only according to environmental concern. Once again, a symptom of the parallax occurs where the gap (social antagonism) reveals itself. In the case of the political parallax, symptoms can occur on both sides of the parallax.
This political parallax has occurred because capital is also the symbolic Real (Žižek, 2002, p.xii), it has hegemonised the ground upon which discourses of nature are constructed. This does not mean that capital is the Real in the sense that it is an impossiblity or absence, rather it is that which always returns to its place; it forms the background against which all other discourses relate back to; capital has hegemonised hegemony (Žižek, 2000a, p.223; 2000b ,p.319). The symbolic Real has much in common with Fink’s conception of R2, the Real after the letter (as I have developed in Chapter 2). Capital, as the symbolic Real produces a limit within the discursive realm. Any discourse that clashes with a discourse of capital creates a social antagonism, a split within the discourse. Social antagonisms reveal themselves through symptoms which reveal the incommensurability of discourses split by a social antagonism. As we shall latter develop, this occurs most prominently in discourses from the Green Party of New Zealand. This chapter reviews several different Green discourses which form part of the Green ideology, considering the operation of both the parallaxes of ontological difference and the political parallax, as well as the resulting modalities of the Real and their symptoms through the methodology described in Chapter Five and the unique application of these categories are depicted in the introduction to this chapter. Examples of these discourses are taken from New Zealand politics which, while not exhaustive of Green ideology, give an adequate guide.
It is theorised that each discourse is dealing with a primary dislocation, that of the Green critique of industrialism and also the universal hegemonic power of the capitalist economy. Capital provides a fundamental limit to each of the discourses, a Real limit that produces a deadlock around which a plurality of discourses rotates, as well as the displacement of the effect of the Real to various external antagonisms. There are possibilities of radical economic change through the constant dislocation of industrialism and capital through the natural. On the other hand, these dislocations and the symptoms they produce are well domesticated by discourses that cannot move beyond the limit imposed by capital. Therefore only a radical, natural dislocation provides a possibility of change. This work relies predominately on the theory of Laclau and Žižek, however, the analysis of Green discourses by Yannis Stavrakakis, John Dryzek and Toby Smith are also heavily drawn on.
The first prominent dislocations in our construction of the natural began in the later 20th century. A concern with the environment began to develop into a discourse of its own in the 1960’s, along with a host of other changes in social politics at the time, including anti-racism, feminism and the peace movement. Indeed, Dryzek suggests that a concept of the ‘environment’ did not exist until the 1960’s (Dryzek, 2005, p.5). Environmentalism/ecologism did not, however, become a strong force until the 1970’s, when a radical environmental movement developed, part of which was a damming critique of capitalism (Hansen, 1991, p.444). Around this time Green political parties were also established, such as the Values Party in New Zealand, which first formed in 1972 (Dryzek, 2005, p.203).
In New Zealand the environmental movement only captured the attention of the masses when it began to threaten the national identity, or ‘Thing’ in a Lacanian sense. The first risings in the 1970’s were based around protests against the Manapouri dam and then nuclear issues in the pacific. The environmental movement was institutionalised by the state with the anti-nuclear ban of 1985 following various other moves in the 1970’s, particularly by Kirk’s 3rd Labour government. The environmental movement gained a lot of traction from a nationalistic jouissance because New Zealanders believed that their ‘Thing’ was being threatened, either by development, as in the Manapouri dam, or foreigners in the French nuclear tests. Environmentalism has become a part of the New Zealand identity and an increasingly central element in New Zealand politics. For example, National has formed a group within its party called the ‘Blue Greens’ and United Future call themselves the ‘common sense Greens’(United Future, 2005). The ACT party is also getting in on the ‘Green’ message. This spread of environmental politics is mirrored in western nations around the world, with the current notable exception of the United States.
The rapid progression of environment discourse has been a response to symptoms (of the ontological parallax between nature and the natural) emerging of the universal conception of the environment. These symptoms were unable to be pacified within the discursive/fantasmatic resources available and thus produced a plurality of discourses which sought to tame and understand them. The domestication of symptoms is not an arbitrary process, rather, as Stavrakakis states; “the direction of the response (to dislocation) depends on the course of action which seems to be more capable of neutralising the terrorising presence of the impossible Real” (Stavrakakis, 2000, p.109). There are numerous different discursive positions which have battled to provide a domesticating hegemony to Green Ideology by coming to grips with the Real which has provoked a partial dislocation in industrial discourse. This partial dislocation has meant that Green ideology has become more common place, attempting to deal with the threat to the capitalist imaginary produced by climate change. As such, Stavrakakis states;
Increasing numbers of people look for a solution to problems such as unemployment and economic deterioration in Green ideology…If today people are increasing looking to Green ideology in order to solve these problems this means that previously hegemonic identifications have been dislocated (p.111).
6.2 The Symptom; Survivalism
Symptoms within Green ideology come in several different forms. They can be symptoms of the ontological parallax, such as climate change or in the instance of political parallax, the failure of carbon taxes. The initial dislocating symptom of Green ideology was the discourse of Survivalism (Dryzek, 2005). Survivalism was a discursive representation of the growing realisation that humanity’s conception of nature was radically out of balance with the natural. The discursive representation of this symptom did not fully domesticate its Real effect. Although the symptom is symbolised, it is not within the terms of the abstract universal, or in terms that could be reconstructed within the universal horizon. Therefore Survivalism still maintained its dislocatory threat.
Survivalism, first constituted through a report by the Club of Rome in 1972, is based on the belief that industrial production and economic growth is pushing the earth towards or, perhaps past, its carry capacity; the maximum supportable resource use in an ecosystem before its collapse (Dryzek, 2005, p.27). Survivalism is the discourse which first established Green ideology as a political force, although it never fully instituted itself as a positive movement, rather as a threat to the universal imaginary. This was a role that it played particularly successfully, based on a fundamental belief in the finite resource limits of the planet. As such Survivalism became the symptom of industrialism and looked likely to threaten the universal status of industrialism, in both its capitalist and communist forms.
Survivalism rejected the capacity of new technologies to expand resource limits, suggesting that technological advancement simply slowed resource depletion; inadequate when exponential system growth is occurring, such as in human population. The danger of exponential growth is signified by the ‘29th day’ metaphor, a common survivalist image. This metaphor makes a comparison between lilies in a pond and the carrying capacity of the Earth. It asks which day a pond would be half full if the number of Lilies doubles each day and the pond is full on the 30th. The answer is of course the 29th day, on which it would appear that there is plenty of room for expansion. This kind of imagery proved an enormous threat to the hegemonic system of production. However, the advent of Green ideology has not meant a full dislocation of capitalism or of the industrial ethos. Instead, a number of different discursive strategies have been used to domesticate this symptom. It is to these discursive strategies that we now turn.
6.3 Discursive strategies; Repression
The parallax between nature and the natural means that a degree of dislocation of any discourse of nature is inevitable. When that discourse is a capitalist conception of nature, the dislocation is likely to be even stronger because of the drive towards greater exploitation of natural resources. Because of this dislocation, the symptoms of nature are difficult to repress. The closest discourse of Green ideology to the discursive strategy of Repression is Promethean discourse (Dryzek, 2005). Promethean discourse was the initial response to Survivalism; it repressed the symptomatic discourse of Survivalism. The repression, a restoration of original identity provided a form of jouissance because it offered the prospect of quilting the void opened up by Survivalism. The basic premise of Promethean discourse is that humankind has ultimate control of the environment and it is thus able to push the limit of global carrying capacity indefinitely. This is based on free-market economic arguments that suggest that price is the ultimate measure of scarcity; as resources become scarcer, prices will increase producing conservation efforts and a search for substitutes. In order to develop and have access to this technology, societies need to be wealthy. Therefore the key to environmental health is economic wealth.
Promethean discourse is illustrated in the following excerpt from a speech by the leader of the New Zealand ACT Party, Rodney Hide;
(R)esources aren't defined physically but by science and technology combined with our ability to organise and to make use of them. That’s why the human race continues to flourish and prosper 30 years after the environmental doomsday books so terrifyingly predicted our imminent demise. We didn't run out of resources for a very simple reason: we can expand our knowledge and thereby expand our resource base. We now have more resources than ever before. We will have even more tomorrow
I did travel to countries that had run out of everything. These were the eastern bloc countries. Their problem wasn't the physical limits of their resource base but their failed economic system. That's the other problem with the doomsday books. They said a lot about ecology, systems and feedback loops, but ignored, first, the economic system within which natural resources are defined and used and, second, the feedback loop that prices provide. The failure was fatal to the models' predictive power. If something gets scarce, its price goes up, spurring conservation, the search for more supplies and discovery of alternatives (Hide, 2005).
A fine line exists between Hide’s position and the acknowledgement of the symptom. As the discrepancy between nature and the natural starts to reveal itself, it gets more difficult to repress symptoms. Here lies the correlation between acknowledgement and repression. Promethean discourse remains within a repressive operation in that it refuses to acknowledge the symptom, but at the same time acknowledges the symptom sufficiently enough to state the technology will solve the problem; that it is just a temporary blip in the market - if it was really a issue, prices would go up to fix the problem. Indeed, as has been previously noted, these failures are necessary for the continued functioning of the abstract universal. Promethean discourse required the occurrence or even production of failure to be posited in fantasy as contingent or external failures. The minimal acknowledgement of the symptom, within the confines of fantasy, provides this failure.
Conversely, the threat of environment collapse has not simply dissipated with Promethean discourse. It constantly impacts on the social order, such is the impact of the symptom as an excess to the system. Now, although humanity is still threatened by environmental dislocation, which as Žižek shows is one of the modalities in which we regularly meet the Real (Žižek, 1999,p.4), this threat is increasingly particularised and dealt with within a plurality of other discourses around this fundamental blockage; the parallax relationship between economic growth and environmental limits. The symptom continues to impact and thus the Promethean discourse ultimately failed because although it fits in well with the ideological fantasy of economic growth, it failed to adequately domesticate its symptom, the continued failure of nature to represent the natural.
6.4 Acknowledgement of the symptom
The failure of Promethean discourse produced a range of new discursive perspectives that acknowledged the presence of the symptom - environmental limits/climate change- yet domesticated its effects. In terms of the political parallax of Green ideology, these hegemonic discourses operate firmly on the side of global capital. They function through the ideology/fantasy of science and the market, as well as super-ego demand through Green consumerism and ‘clean, green living’. As well as these mechanisms, there is a large degree of fetishism - environmental limits are disavowed at the expense of the consumption of commodities. Disavowal/fetishism is the most powerful force and currently the strongest defence mechanism against symptoms within Green ideology.
6.4.i Ideology
One of the strongest defence mechanisms used against the symptom in Green ideology are the discourses of ‘problem-solving’. These discourses represent the ultimate ideological position in claiming that they are outside of ideology and are taking a neutral perspective. Problem solving discourses, such as Democratic Pragmatism, Administrative and Economic Rationalism take the status quo as given and do not debate the issue of environmental limits which was at the centre of the Survivalist/Promethean division. Instead, problem-solving discourses reject any call to ‘ideology’ and rather focus on pure ‘scientific’ evidence. New Zealand environmental politics rotate between these three types of problem-solving discourses. The Green Party does enter further into the more radical sustainability discourses, but increasingly is looking to democratic participation and economic instruments. By taking the capitalist status quo as a given, problem solving discourses are able to supplement the universal appeal of capital whilst somewhat dealing with the symptom of environmental change, either through domestication through particularism e.g. no real change or sacrifice is required, just good management, or through the positing of an external antagonism (often Green Radicalism); “we are not captured by the extremist fringe of the environmental movement or it’s ideology” (NZ First, 2005a).
Some parties, such as New Zealand First, take a purely economic line; one of New Zealand First’s 15 fundamental principles is; “Wise governments view the preservation and enhancement of the environment as sound economics. All environmental policies will be proactive with a view to creating employment and sustainable wealth whilst improving one of our few competitive advantages” (NZ First, 2005b). Likewise, David Benson-Pope, the former Government Minister for the Environment states; “While there are challenges ahead to maintain economic growth without damaging the environment or quality of life, I’m determined to face up to these challenges - there is no alternative” (Benson-Pope, 2006).
6.4.ii Fetishism and Disavowal
Perhaps the most powerful discourse in terms of protecting a universal horizon against the symptom is disavowal, often combined with fetishism. The Economic Rationalist discourse is a powerful one because it is able to particularise the environmental threat by maintaining the stance that a radical change is not required. Although this discourse does not deny the existence of the symptom, it offers an easy solution, obtainable without sacrifice; indeed through the jouissance of consumption. Within Green ideology, Economic Rationalist discourse takes this position. Economic Rationalism is very similar to the Promethean discourse; it includes much the same actors and assumptions, but makes more of an effort to account for environmental threat. Economic Rationalism is almost a sequel to Promethean discourse. Instead of simply letting the market take care of the environment, Economic Rationalist discourse seeks to establish markets where they did not exist previously, such as for water or pollution. Carbon trading and the Kyoto agreement are examples of the new establishment of markets. At its most radical Economic Rationalism enters into a certain restructuring of the capitalist economy, similar to the discourse of Ecological Modernism. The former discourse is most readily associated with the political and economic Right, but increasingly even social democratic political parties and discourses are seeking to ‘harness the power of the market’. The Green party utilises these kind of movements, seeking to ‘Naturalise’ capitalism (GreenParty, 2005a, 2005d, 2005e), such is the impotence of the ecological side of the political parallax.
Economic Rationalism operates as a disavowal in that it acknowledges the presence of climate change and environmental limits as symptoms, yet continues to operate as if they did not exist by progressing on with, indeed strengthening, the very measures that created these conditions. Like most disavowals, the mechanism that allows this paradoxical operation is a fetish. In this case the fetish comes from consumption, as we shall also later develop in relation to the super-ego. In the case of fetishism and disavowals, the subject acknowledges, often only unconsciously, that consumption and the free-market are destroying the environment, yet refuses to give up the jouissance they obtain through consumption. This jouissance makes this fetish very difficult to break down. Indeed it is the jouissance received from consumption and ‘our (western) way of life’ that creates the social antagonism between global capital and environmental limits seen in the political parallax.
6.4.iii Super-ego demand, ideological fantasy and the Empty Signifier
Green discourses which have operated through ideological fantasy, such as the problem-solving discourses, or through fetishism, however, have not been able to fully integrate the symptom within their universal horizon. Instead, as is the inherent condition of the nature/natural ontological parallax, the symptom continues to operate as an excessive element within the discourse. Therefore, a new breed of discourse has been generated. These discourses take on a super-ego demand, in that the discourse suggests that the subject ‘ought’ to conserve the environment. ‘Sustainability’, predominately the discourses of Ecological Modernism and Sustainable Development, as well as Green consumerism, are the stable discourses of this method. As well as this, empty signifiers are frequently used to give name to the subversion of the staging of absence via the Kantian transcendental illusion (Žižek, 2006a, p.18). This naming allows the illusion that there is something which exists in the gap between the two elements of the political parallax.
Sustainability discourses do not seek to bring down capitalism, but rather to strengthen its hegemony; they attempt to suture the political parallax by privileging capital over the environment. They implicitly and explicitly accept that capitalism is the ‘only game in town’ and therefore ecological movements have no option but to seek to make it profitable for capital to be ‘Green’. To do so would be to dissolve the social antagonism that constructs the parallax; there is no antagonism because ecologicalism fully accepts the legitimate hegemony of capital. This involves some restructuring of capital, but mostly in the name of capital, not the environment. However, although these discourses seek to 'Green' capitalism, all they end up achieving is a pacification of the ecological symptom and a market advantage, playing to the super-ego demand of the consumer, which is what we see in the Green consumerist movement. These include ‘Green’ shopping that plays at super-ego demand, such as re-usable shopping bags (Hickman, 2006). An interesting alternative to the super-ego approach is provided by the Conservation Fund and their Carbon Zero Calculator. Here the consumer is able to approximate their carbon footprint and then ‘Go Zero’ by making a donation towards the planting of native trees to balance out your production of carbon. I could remove my guilt, pollute all I want and ‘Go Zero’ for US$35.50! (The Conservation Fund, 2006).
Green consumerism is one of the strongest Green discourses because its erases our doubts about the feasibility of consumption (over-consumption being suggested as a symptom of capital), suggesting that we can continue consuming at the same rate, as long as we do it in a more efficient and ecologically sensitive manner (Smith, 1998, p.88). Green consumerism also hooks into the very seductive ideological jouissance of the act of consumption itself. However, the duel operation of super-ego and consumption can produce a paradox of increased consumption. With Green consumption, the more one conforms, the guiltier one feels. Added to Green consumption as a modality of the super-ego, we have the paradoxical situation that Green consumption can lead to more consumption; that Green consumption could mean limiting consumption does not fit the co-ordinates of the capitalist matrix, nor the demands of the super-ego. Therefore, although Green consumerism cannot be dismissed outright - undoubtedly it is better for the environment to buy recycled toilet paper than regular - the obscene underside of this action is that it domesticates the environmental symptom. It reduces the environmental problem to an individual one, rather than a constitutive structural fault and suggests that through small actions the problem can be solved. Ultimately then, Green Consumerism cannot be viewed in a positive manner.
6.4.iv The Political Parallax; Empty signifiers
In taking on all these demands, the term ‘Sustainable Development’ becomes an empty signifier in the Laclauian sense; it is filled with meaning by discourses that achieve hegemony. More than this, it allows for the temporary production of a transcendental illusion. The transcendental illusion suggests that something exists in the place of nothing; in the gap between the two mutually exclusive perspectives of the political parallax. The empty signifier, by giving a name to this parallax gap, suggests the possibility its filling. The possibility of such a suture produces jouissance. The use of the empty signifier ‘Sustainable Development’ is vital to the smooth operation of any political formation functioning within Green ideology. Sustainable development seeks to avoid the pitfalls of the political parallax between development and environmental degradation. However, the use of Sustainable Development as a suturing tool does not in any way suggest that it is a middle or neutral point between the discourses. Rather, empty signifiers are hegemonised by the dominant side of the parallax - in this case, capital. Thus, while Green parties and movements may insist on the value of being ‘Sustainable’, the term is being appropriated by capital to mean sustainable growth, which may or may nor have an environmental edge. Thus its very emptiness gives ‘Sustainable Development’ it’s value; it can be taken on by many discourses without compromise, most notably capital.
Capital, however, provides the limit for sustainable development discourses; this limit is the parallax gap. The parallax gap is revealed in the symptoms of sustainability, such as the rejection of Green taxes in New Zealand, such as the now infamous ‘Fart Tax’, as well as the ‘Carbon Tax’. The symptoms of the parallax reveal themselves where the subordinate discourse attempts to push beyond the limits set for it by the hegemonic horizon. This has been the case in Green ideology when moves by ecological discourses begin to threaten capital. These moves are rejected through the threat of ‘disinvestment’ from capital. The disinvestment threat is not direct, but it is real. Governments in liberal-capitalist democracies stand or fall on their abilities to increase and maintain economic growth. Any discursive move and policy that may directly threaten the interests of capital is immediately written off as a threat to economic growth and rejected. Efforts to move environmental protection along market lines have been rejected because of their costs to capital; in stark contrast to the ease at which market measures had been taken on in Health and Education.
Although the Green Party Charter states what appears to be an anti-capitalist manifesto; “Unlimited material growth is impossible. Therefore the key to social responsibility is the just distribution of social and natural resources, both locally and globally” (GreenParty, 2005c)The Green Party are forced to re-interpret ‘Sustainable’ in a capitalistic manner, in the naïve hope that they can manipulate its meaning beyond the currently hegemony of the business world. For example, in the initial issue of the Green’s business publication ‘The Real Bottom Line’, co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons suggests that sustainable business is about “Future-proofing the New Zealand Economy”(Fitzsimons, 2006c). Similarly, in an article entitled ‘More Power to Consumers’ Fitzsimons advocates for more information for consumers to make better choices about their choice of energy supplier (Fitzsimons, 2006b). The Green Party are thus politically limited because they know it is electoral suicide to take on a position that may evoke ‘disinvestment’ threats. Other political parties in New Zealand are also aware of the power of this threat, accusing the Green Party of being ‘Watermelons’; green on the outside, red in the middle (Baldock, 2005; Hide, 2005).
6.5 External discourses- The flip-side of the political parallax
On the other side of the political parallax that operates within Green ideology lay those discourses which are excluded from the dominant terms of the debate; those that do not fit with the limits set by global capital. Green radicalism is by far the most common of these possibilities. Of all the Green discourses that have been analysed in this chapter, it is only Green Radicalism that is not totally anthropocentric. There are anthropocentric elements in Green Radicalism, but a large element of this discourse focuses on the principally excluded ecocentric component of Green ideology. The predominance of ecocentricism within Green radicalism reveals the incommensurability between it and capital; there simply is no common ground.
Discourses such as Green radicalism appear to be a threat to capital because they operate outside its hegemonic domain, however, it is precisely this latter fact that prevents Green Radicalism from becoming a threat. In the parallax of ontological difference the concrete universal is strictly internal to the abstract. In contrast, in the political parallax the excluded Other appears more like Laclau’s constitutive outside; it has no common link with the dominant paradigm, the only link is through exclusion via a core social antagonism. While this exclusion does give stability to the dominant position by allowing the establishment of limits, at the same time it does not act as a threat in the same manner as the concrete universal. The only threat comes in the possibility of revealing the limits of the hegemonic discourse and thus the contingency of its construction.
Green Radicalism is also a fatally flawed discourse in itself, although in a different manner from other Green discourses. Green Radicalism is very essentialist and totalitarian; it is just another, more radical attempt to deal with the symptoms of the parallax between nature and the natural. Radical Green discourse seeks to find a fundamental and essential unity between its elements, based on a ‘natural’ bio-centric harmony between man and nature. Paradoxically, ecocentricism can only be expressed anthropocentrically through language. Like any essentialist discourse, when the inherent impossibility of its construction is exposed, this dislocation is dangerously displaced onto an external antagonism; in the case of radical Green thought, capitalism is one of those antagonisms posited as responsible for the failure of the natural. While the positioning of capital as an antagonism may at first glance appear subversive, in the case of Green Radicalism, it is another example of a fantasmatic operation. As such, radical Green thought is unlikely to present a major threat to capital; its more likely role is to set the very boundaries of capitalism.
It is possible, as Smith (1998, p.163) suggests, that Green Radicalism could make more of an impact if it focused more on the role of culture, fighting for the meanings of terms and the hegemonic re-occupation of terms that originated from the Green movement, such as sustainability, rather than leaving it to capital and those who are prepared to compromise with capital. This is a Laclauian approach. Laclau argues that the role of the excluded terms of the parallax (although Laclau himself does not use the notion of a parallax), such as Green Radicalism, is to form a unity of sorts and attempt to fill the empty signifier which covers the parallax gap with meaning. What this approach ignores, however, is the limits set by capital; capital as the Real in the symbolic sense and in terms of a social antagonism, but also capital as the jouissance that maintains the fantasy which supports capital.
Therefore, the battle over an empty signifier, even from the position of excluded terms, can only operate up to a certain limit. That limit is set by the Real. The alternative strategy is to reveal the social antagonism upon which it is excluded and play on the parallax Real between nature and the natural. In this sense, Green radicalism would move to be a discourse of the symptom, rather than the impotent element of a political parallax. To do so, Green Radicalism would have to lose its essentialist edge and instead take a position that attempts to stage the concrete universal. We shall now consider the possibilities of such a position.
6.6 Discourses of the symptom
Concrete universality does operate within a political parallax. This operation differs from the form of concrete universality present within an ontological parallax, but still contains vital similarities. The key link is that in both cases the concrete universal takes in the singular exception, yet exceeds the universal as a whole, bypassing the particular. In a political parallax, concrete universality occurs where the symptom is not constructed via ideological fantasy, but rather as a sign of the incommensurability between two positions in the parallax. For example, rather than constructing the Green party’s inability to establish an economic position congruent with their ecological stance as a failure inherent to party policy, the symptom is instead seen as staging the parallax gap between these positions. Thus the concrete universal acknowledges the position of failure, the parallax gap as the singular exception and passes directly to the level of the universal; there is no common ground between capitalist economics and Green Party ecologism.
As has been previously noted, it is the concrete universal which holds the most hope for generating social change. The issue, however, is accessing the power of the concrete universal through the parallax gap. In the terms of the abstract universal, the concrete universal appears only as an effect through the Real. The basic thesis of the parallax view is that both positions can only be seen if viewed awry; outside of the hegemonic terms of the universal horizon. By identifying the concrete universal - the constitutively excluded element - the unbearable example, the analyst is able to practice concrete universality. What such a performance achieves is a viewpoint which allows for a reinterpretation of the symptom. In doing so, a strategic political position is able to place pressure on the abstract universal, by deconstructing the unconscious supplement which supports the abstract universal. This deconstruction occurs via the Real through the gap opened up by the symptom as a representative of the concrete universal. Such a strategy does not require a positive imaginary, rather only a negative positioning of the symptom is necessary.
Environmental/ecological movements are particularly strong at playing on symptoms of the abstract universal. However, the affect of capital appears to be too strong. As symptoms are developed and strengthened by this discursive method, they are pulled back in by a variety of defence mechanisms developed by capitalism; those methods have been detailed in this chapter. It seems the more that symptoms dislocate the universal horizon of capital, nature, the stronger the reaction. Although these reactions may on the surface appear beneficial, such as recycling, greater energy efficiency etc, they mask a fundamental limit; capital as the Real, both as a social antagonism and the symbolic Real. It is here that we return to the parallax between nature and the natural. Although symptoms are constantly being pulled back into the unconscious supplement which supports the dominant discourse, there is a limit to that process. That limit is the concrete universal, which comes in its Real effect in the form of the natural. It is to the concrete universal that we shall finally turn.
6.7 The Concrete Universal
The Real, through the concrete universal (the natural) is constantly impacting on the discursive construction of nature. Here, however, the concrete universal is not a discourse. The natural can be abstracted and measured, as through ‘natural science’ but this process, as the naming of the natural, simply adds to the discursive construction of nature. Conversely there is a dislocatory effect when knowledge is generated through the natural sciences that cannot be easily integrated into our conception of nature. Alternatively, the act of producing such knowledge is domesticating in itself. It is a discursive production in the realm of science and as such enters into the fantasy of the scientific paradigm; that man has control of the natural. Therefore, when evidence of the failure of nature is produced through the natural sciences e.g. Arctic sea ice has declined 14% over the past year (Fitzsimons, 2006a), a fetishistic disavowal operates, this time with science as the fetishised object. Yes, we know that the environment is failing, yet we act as if it is not because we have faith in science to provide an alternative solution.
Because of this operation, it is proposed that only when humanity is truly forced to experience environmental degradation, not through science, but rather without any symbolic resources available to pacify the event, that true change is possible. Žižek contends that liberal-capitalism cannot go on forever; ecological collapse is one of the possible explosions that can destroy it; all we can do is be prepared when this explosion does occur (Osborne, 1996,p.44). A less dramatic possibility also lies with the prospect of Peak Oil; the idea that global oil production has peaked and is now beginning to decline. Peak Oil is an interesting natural example of concrete universality. Capitalism is dependent on oil for its efficient operation; no other source has been found with anything like its efficiency. The abundance of natural resources for exploitation, Oil foremost amongst them, is a predominant element of the capitalist conception of nature. Whilst Peak Oil is not a concrete universal in itself, Peak Oil does reveal the concrete universal (and thus the parallax Real) within an ontological parallax by invoking the gap between nature and the natural. However, for radical change to occur, global capital would have to go beyond the prospect of Peak Oil (which we are facing now) and Survivalist discourse and into the event of Peak Oil; that is the process of the end of cheap oil. This event would radically destabilise global capital, forcing its limits into reality.
Conversely, relying on the occurrence of such an event is a politically passive strategy, although not to the same degree as complete ecological collapse. However, it appears that the alternative is equally passive; to resist the terms of the debate, to resist the need to act, because such an action will be within the co-ordinates of global capital; it is better to question the very ideological background against which all action can occur; capitalism (Žižek, 2006b,p.238). The alternative would be not to enter into Green ideology, knowing that it is inevitably played out against the background of capital, but rather to question the very lack of alternative, why, in Žižek words; “ Today we can easily imagine the extinction of the human race, but it is impossible to imagine a radical change of the social system - even if life on earth disappears, capitalism will somehow remain intact”(Žižek, 2006b,p.149).
Sunday, December 03, 2006
5. Symptomatic Readings
The symptom is element that links the two areas of interest to psychopolitical analysis: the abstract universal imaginary and the concrete universal. The abstract universal stablises, via jouissance, what are otherwise contingent and inconsistent discourses. In contradistinction, the concrete universal is that which must be excluded in order for the various elements that make up a universal imaginary to be condensed into a whole. As such, the concrete universal represents the material Truth of the universal totality; in terms of the hegemonic horizon, the concrete universal is the unbearable example which the universal cannot face about itself. It is, to rephrase the point, the Real. Within the abstract universal, the symptom embodies the universal exception and, thus, the Real. As such, the domestication of this potentially dislocating element is vital for the smooth functioning of the abstract universal. Such domestication involves a range of different strategies. These strategies can appear to be evidence of social change, but instead they are a ‘revolution’ around a fundamental impossibility, that impossibility being the concrete universal. Yet, despite the disturbing presence of the symptom, its existence is still necessary for the universal horizon to function. The symptom sustains a distance between, on the one hand, the universal imaginary and, on the other, the contradiction that exists between the fantasies that make the social domain appear coherent and full and the dislocation of those fantasies by the Real. The symptom thus creates an irresolvable gap between within the universal, a gap that itself reveals the presence of the Real. Thus whilst symptoms are enjoyed, their staging of the Real also causes anxiety and dislocation.
For political positions that seek to achieve radical structural shifts, different strategies can be utilised in relation to the symptom and, in particular, the concrete universal. Two strategies are particularly effective. The first involves the identification of the gaps within universal horizons, like national identity, globalisation, and so on, that get opened up by the symptom. The second engages the concrete universal in the terms that are given by various hegemonic universal imaginaries, but within a conception of the universal that goes beyond those imaginaries, that instead embraces the notion of totality.
This chapter develops a methodology for investigating the different discursive strategies that variously get used in the management of symptoms. The most conservative of these are sets of strategies that include the symptom within the terms of existing abstract universals. Beyond this though, the methodology identifies sets of strategy that use the ideas of the symptom to point-point the form which the concrete universal is taking within a discursive structure and, thus, in Žižek’s terms, to practice concrete universality. This approach to methodology does not aim to develop a reified procedure for examining political formations but, rather, suggests a formatic method that can be performed.
By formatic, I mean an analysis that does not simply stay at the level of interpretation. The core aim of this methodology is to produce an approach which both identifies the symptomatic point within a discourse and the underlying fantasmatic strategy used to domesticate these symptoms. It also goes further than this in examining the potential strategies that could potentially be used to deconstruct the abstract universal.
In constructing this methodology, the chapter concentrates on two separate areas. The first focuses on the manner in which symptoms are contained by the abstract universal such that they do not produce a shift to the concrete universal. This can happen in one of two ways. The first involves a repression of the symptom. The second, more effective strategy, involves an acknowledgement, but domestication of the Real within the symptom. Understanding the manner in which a universal horizon protects itself from the symptom is vital for comprehending the manner in which the symptom can be used as a political tool for contesting the hegemonic status of a universal horizon such as global capitalism. The latter part of the chapter focuses on this latter task, reviewing the manner in which symptoms can be utilised to reveal the presence of the concrete universal and to produce radical social change. Again, this can be approached in two ways: by acknowledging the presence of the concrete universal using the terms given by the abstract universal; and by registering the social effects of discourses that emerge from within the concrete universal itself. It is to these tasks that we shall now turn.
Repression of the SymptomThe first discursive strategy to be discussed relates to the repression of the symptom. All discourses within the abstract universal operate with a degree of repression, in that each represses the fact that social fullness is impossible (Stavrakakis, 1999, p.39). As such, a certain repression of the symptom is the condition of possibility for the construction of the abstract universal. When we talk of discursive strategies as a response to the symptom, all of these strategies operate as modalities of repression. However, in this methodology we shall distinguish between this form of repression and a more direct form of repression where the very existence of the symptom is repressed. This type of repression is known as secondary repression, where a signifier is excluded from the symbolic, as opposed to primary repression which relates to castration and the original constitution of the unconscious (Evans, 1996, p.165). Additionally, within Lacanian psychoanalytic thought there is a vital distinction between repression and a term often used in conjunction with repression, disavowal. Repression and disavowal are different defence mechanisms for dealing with trauma, such as the trauma of the Real that gets experienced in encounters with symptoms. Lacan uses disavowal in terms of the structure of perversion, where the subject simultaneously disavows and acknowledges the symptom. This is a process of fetishism, to which we shall soon return (Evans, 1996, p.43-4).
In contrast to the condition of disavowal, repression is the process where a signifier or discourse is expelled from the conscious into the unconscious. This expulsion is never complete, in that the symptomatic signifier does not disappear, but rather continues to operate within the unconscious realm. Because it functions within the unconscious, the repressed symptom continues to effect the subject by taking symbolic form and, as such, perpetual efforts are made to contain the symptom given its traumatic effects. Repression often occurs when the threat of dislocation is high because the symptom cannot be included within the universal imaginary through which the subject, or social formation, is organising itself. This has most often occurred in totalitarian societies, where society is considered to be complete. In contrast to free-market societies, where the abstract universal imaginary may emphasise wealth and freedom, the most prominent aspect of the abstract universal of totalitarian societies is unity and solidarity. Therefore elements of non-unity in totalitarian societies are treated in a different manner from societies in which unity is not such a strong ideal. Because of the strong libidinal investment in this unity, the stability of society is entirely dependent on the repression or extermination of the symptom. Thus repression and antagonism often operate together because of the need to exterminate the fantasied external cause of the symptom. Indeed, these antagonism are themselves generated by the abstract universal through the positing, and then repression, of an element deemed alien in order to maintain the abstract universal. This often occurs in a violent manner such as, for example, the Tiananmen square massacre of 1989. The treatment of Jews by Nazi Germany is another seminal example of this strategy for managing the social symptom.
This is not to suggest that non-totalitarian societies do not use repression as a discursive strategy against the symptom. Many discourses within capitalism actively repress symptoms of global capital, such as climate change and absolute poverty. Conversely numerous capitalist discourses acknowledge these symptoms, not as a concrete universal that exceeds the abstract universal, but rather acknowledges their presence by constructing them in fantasy. Recent examples of such fantasy structures are the block-buster movies on climate change. These discursive strategies are used when the symptom can no longer be repressed because of the pressure the symptom is placing on the symbolic order through the unconscious. Paradoxically though, an acknowledgment of the symptom is also functional for an abstract universal in order for distance to be maintained from the impossibility of ‘society’. It is to these strategies that we now turn.
Acknowledgement of the Symptom in fantasyThe symptom is unavoidable; it is a constitutive element of the social. Nonetheless, the gap opened up by the symptom can be avoided and, with it, the Real effect of the symptom. The gap that is opened by the symptom is sutured by the reconstruction of the symptom in some fantasy form. By constructing the symptom in fantasy the symptom itself does not disappear, rather its effect is tamed. Instead of it being a source of anxiety, of trauma, and of dislocation, the symptom as it appears within fantasy becomes a source of jouissance for the subject. The symptom is a site of enjoyment because it allows the subject to express the negativity, the lack, which is inherent to the social. In this sense the symptom corresponds with the role played by objet a, the cause of an impossible desire for fullness. The symptom, as an element of the Real, opens up a gap within the social – much like objet a does as the cause of desire.
The process of attempting to fill that gap generates jouissance. If the gap were to be completed filled, the symptom totally sutured by ‘the Truth about the situation’, then the subject would be faced with the full, naked, negativity of the social. Thus the symptom is maintained, albeit at a distance, within fantasy.
Several different devices exist within fantasy to accomplish the paradoxical task of acknowledging, yet domesticating, the symptom, so as to avoid the potential dislocation that comes with the active presence of the concrete universal. Each gives rise to a peculiar form of discourse. These include ideological fantasy, external antagonism, super-ego demand, disavowal, and fetishism. We shall discuss each in turn.
Ideological Fantasy
Ideology and fantasy are the main drivers through which the symptom is, firstly, acknowledged and, then, domesticated. Together they build the subject’s sense of social and psychic coherence, belonging to the Lacanian register of the imaginary. Fantasy, a modality of the imaginary, provides an unconscious supplement of jouissance which acts as the base for the operation of ideology. This operation is known as ideological fantasy, the discursive strategy by which jouissance (J2) is obtained through the fantasmatic postulating about the possibility of J1. This possibility relies on ideological fantasy externalising the symptomatic elements which threaten the abstract universal, but also the maintenance of these symptoms.
The reconstruction of the concept 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, as such, the full genealogy of the concept does not need to be covered here. Ideology is a critical concept for the rehabilitation of universality within Žižekian psychoanalysis. Ideology had been predominately presented in modernist thought as distinct from ‘reality’ in the sense that it was an illusionary appearance as opposed to essence, at which modernism was driving. 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, p.118-122). Through an operation of determinate reflection, in which the very negation of ideology has become the positive condition for its rehabilitation, Lacanian theory has transcended these definitions of ideology and has rekindled the term. Ideology stills operates as misrecognition, but of a different nature as the domain of ideology is transferred from the epistemological (the truth value of a representation of the social) to the ontological (Glynos, 2001, p.192). Rather than it signaling the existence of a distinction between reality and ideology, ideology is now seen through psychoanalytic eyes as the guarantor of consistency in the social realm; there is no reality without ideology. Because all discourses are ultimately dislocated and lacking, ideology plays the role of covering this lack, and hence occluding the politically contingent nature of any such ideological construction (p.191). Thus, through ideology the subject misrecognises the ontologically negative basis of the social as being a positive, coherent foundation (Stavrakakis, 1997, p.123).The key role of ideology in the construction of normality, it can thus be surmised, is to include and pacify the symptom through its staging of the symptom within fantasy formations to which the subject holds. It is the symptom that disrupts the consistency of the social and, thus, the presence of the symptom must be negated (Stavrakakis, 1997, p.128). Paradoxically, in order to achieve this, the symptom must be included in the ideological fantasies through which subjects experience their abstract universals, as points of enjoyment. As Glyn Daly states (T)he central paradox of ideology is that it can only attempt closure through simultaneously producing the "threat” to that closure’ (1999a, p.220). The fantasmatic construction of the symptom is of vital political importance. A political approach that seeks to reveal the concrete universal must not focus on the fantasmatic postulations that get generated about and around the symptom but, rather, upon the existence of the symptom from which the concrete universal stems.
As an example, the current debate around climate change recognises it as being the symptom (of something) and attempts to domesticate its effect so as to maintain the primary universal horizon of the social, that is, global capitalism and the production of wealth. Although it is often argued that change must occur to prevent environmental collapse, change is only considered within the parameters allowed by capitalist imaginary. This is an ideological construction; it includes the symptom, but gives it external cause, such as the failure of markets or governments to take pollution into account. It is contended that once these contingent factors are remedied, the capitalist imaginary will be restored to its fantasised state of fullness. What this brand of fantasmatic construction denies is the concrete universal; that the logic of capital (the ever-increasing demand for profit) is fundamentally unsustainable. A properly Lacanian psychoanalytic political approach would be to identify the concrete universal and expose it as the unbearable example within the universal horizon, that is, that the generation of wealth has natural limits. This is opposed to regular critical analysis which operates within the hegemonic fantasy, dealing only with the symptom as it is presented in fantasy or by perhaps trying to generate an alternative fantasmatic position which equally ignores the concrete universal e.g. various Green Party attempts to ‘Green’ capitalism.
An important ideological operation that can be seen in the domesticating of the symptom occurs through the production of ‘straw’ enemies, through the construction of external antagonisms. Again, this is another paradoxical operation of ideological fantasy; it operates by acknowledging and representing its impossibility in the form of an external obstacle (Daly, 1999a, p.224). Just as with the symptom, in which the subject experiences jouissance when ideologies fail, the subject experiences antagonism as a site of enjoyment. In order to avoid the anxiety that comes from the radical negativity of social life, antagonism, like the symptom, produces compensatory jouissance. Daly suggests that the production of an ‘Other’ that blocks the full constitution of identity and universality is the foremost fantasy because it gives cause for the fundamental lack in the subject (1999a, p.234). Hence it is always difficult to displace symptoms or reveal the contingency of antagonisms.Ideological fantasy enables the Real, which inheres within the symptom, to be encountered in a much more manageable fashion than happens through the strategy of repression, as reviewed above (Daly, 1999a, p.224). It does not simply repress the symptom, but rather domesticates it as either a temporal failure to be resolved, or the fault of an external impediment. Symptoms still exist, but society is no longer so reliant on the extermination these symptoms. 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’ in all its consensual plentitude is possible. This effect can be seen at work in the universal horizon of a market-led capitalist system. The market is presented as an abstract universal; it is a natural, objective device that brings maximum wealth and well-being to all. When the market fails to achieve the impossible vision of its abstract universal, such failures are fantasied as being simple impediments to the market; failures which can be overcome through various compensatory measures, particularly in relation to the removal of antagonisms. The negation of the universal horizon by the symptom, which represents the exception of the universal, is therefore not considered a condition of the market, but rather something external to be fixed; a solution-in-coming.
This kind of analysis fits with a formalist understanding of identity, that A (the market) cannot be non-A (the constitutive failure of the market). Rather, any failure of the market is conceived to be caused by B, an external factor. However, as I have argued in relation to dialectical thought, the market can be both the market as an efficient wealth-producing device and its constitutive failure, such as the radical injustice of market mechanisms, as evident in global poverty. In the terms of Žižek’s parallax view, market failure is the symptom/negation of the abstract universal – the market-economy system – with the concrete universal being the determinate reflection of this negation in its constitutive role: that markets can only operate through their own failure. This constant failure, and thus the constant need for minor alterations in the name of universality, provides jouissance to the subjects involved, in the same manner as ideology achieves.
Super-ego demand
As well as fantasy and ideology, the other major factor in the domestication of the symptom is the super-ego. The super-ego is an imperative, an imperative to fill the gaps in the symbolic order (Evans, 2004, p.200-1). The super-ego is vitally related to castration, it is a constant reminder within the symbolic order of the ‘name-of-the-father’. The name-of-the-father is a Lacanian term that refers to the force of castration. It insists that the subject follow the symbolic law rather than live within the mythical, primal condition of Jouissance (Žižek, 1999, p.268-9). The more the subject follows the law, the guiltier they feel for having given up on the Jouissance available to them before castration, so the more they seek compensatory surplus enjoyment by following the law (Kay, 2003, p.170-1). The ultimate imperative of the super-ego is to enjoy; not only must the subject follow the symbolic law, but they must also enjoy it.
Thus the super-ego is not a subversive force within a discursive structure. Despite this inherent conformity, the super-ego is often the major discursive strategy used by those seeking to make political changes within an abstract universal. The most salient example of the use of the super-ego imperative as a discursive strategy for change is in charity appeals, such as World Vision. Indeed, the super-ego is actually a strong discursive strategy for the maintenance of the abstract universal. It appeals to the subject to maintain the symbolic order, in which they have invested, to fix the faults – the symptoms – within this order. Therefore the super-ego appeal can have a short-term progressive affect, appealing for the subject to recycle more, or to sponsor a Third World child, but ultimately these effects are only made in the name of maintaining the order which is producing these faults. More than this, the super-ego domesticates the disruptive effect of the symptom because these efforts to repair the symbolic fabric indefinitely postpone a confrontation with the Real.
The link between the super-ego and the symptom is best considered through the influence that ideological fantasy has in maintaining the consistency of the social. As with ideology and antagonism, the operation of the super-ego is such that the demand of the symptom is be enjoyed; the super-ego suggests the prospect of suture, but also keeps a distance from this (impossible) fullness. As an illustration, rather than critiquing the capitalist edifice as a totality that can end global poverty, we make a gesture towards such a goal. This act will never accomplish the fantasised end goal, but it does enough to delay the demand of the symptom. This is not, however a wholly productive strategy either for the efficient maintenance of the universal or its dislocation via the symptom/concrete universal. Super-ego jouissance cannot be avoided simply by attending to its demands; the more that the subject submits to its demands, the more that those insatiable demands are taken on. Herein lays the crucial link between the operation of ideological fantasy and the super-ego. Rather than taking on the demands of the super-ego so as to repair the social (say, to join the ‘Eradicate Poverty’ social movement so as to correct the capitalism’s inability to end poverty), the subject can turn to ideology and in particular, ideological fantasy, because ideological fantasy is able to externalise and appear to treat 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.
Although the super-ego demand is more ‘beneficial’ for a cause in the short-term (at least, here, attention is paid to symptoms such as poverty, ecological damage, etc), ultimately both the super-ego and ideology fail to invoke radical structural change. Rather, they produce what appears to be change, but is ultimately a rotation around a central axis, the Real. The super-ego prevents the subject from acting against the symptom and instead provides them with surplus-enjoyment, driven by the imperative to repair the symbolic fabric. What is required in order for thorough-going social change to occur is for the fantasmatic system which constructs the symptom as a temporal impediment to fullness, to be broken and the symptom revealed as the very condition of that system.
Fetishism and Disavowal
The major factor preventing this movement is the jouissance that is inherent to fantasy. Jouissance creates a bond between the subject and the universal imaginary such that any disconfirming evidence is impotent in its effects, even if the symptom is openly acknowledged. Accordingly, Žižek contends that the analyst or critic also has to go past the point of interpreting discursive formations because of the cynicism through which belief functions (Johnston, 2004; Žižek, 2002, p.241-2). Cynical belief operates through disavowal, where the presence of something is acknowledged yet paradoxically at the same time ignored. The subject may acknowledge the presence of the symptom which negates the abstract universal, but continue to strongly believe and invest in the abstract universal. This paradoxical form of belief is allowed to operate because of the presence of a fetishised object in which the subject invests. The object of the fetish mediates between the Real of the symptom and the abstract universal. Thus the concept of ‘cynical distance’ or disavowal is another modality through which ideologies operate and through which the Real obtains palpable form within the symptom.
Here, Žižek makes a distinction between repression and fetishism as two different modalities of defence against the effect of the Real. In repression, 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). Such has the potential to devastate the psychical state of the subject because it is through the fetish that they relate to reality.
Fetishtic belief is the last modality of defence through which discourses that acknowledge the presence of the symptom are able to pacify the dislocating effects of the symptom. Fetishism occurs where a discourse not only acknowledges the symptom, but also, in a purely interpretive manner, accepts this symptom as being wholly necessary. Thus the subject may see the faults in a universal such as global capitalism, can recognise its symptoms like poverty and rapid climate change, but still believe that society is possible because those symptoms are represented in fantasmatic ways, such as films, news reports, documentaries, etc. As a further example, a subject in the capitalist system may suggest that they know that markets must fail, but nonetheless they have a large libidinal investment in capitalism and thus act as if markets are not constituted by their failure. Daly (1999b,p.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 if their circumstances are their own responsibility. This belief also operates in Jeffery Sachs’ work on poverty (see Sachs, 2005), which will be more fully developed in chapter seven. Essentially, while Sachs constantly refers to the global economy, on his major topic, that of poverty, he suggests that poverty within Third World countries is purely the effect of their domestic policies and practices.Žižek believes that this is the unfortunate stalemate presented by global capital. As we see in reports from the United Nations and the Bretton Woods organisations, the state of the world – particularly climate change and environmentalism, and its effects – is largely well known and documented. This evidence, which should dislocate the imaginary coherence of capitalism because it stands in stark opposition to these elements, is instead displaced by commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism, a Marxist concept redeveloped by Žižek, occurs where the capitalist subject places a large libidinal investment in an object of consumption. This object becomes the object of desire, of the objet a that allows rips in the symbolic order to be temporarily healed. This suturing that is provided through the fetishism of commodities, mediates the dislocatory effects of capitalism’s symptoms. Such is the grip of this economy of pleasure that there has been a closure in the political imaginary, one which has led Žižek to suggest that only a huge global event could possibility displace the organising effects of capital (Johnston, 2004).
Adrian Johnston contends that perhaps the biggest issue with fetishism is that those who fetishise 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’.
The efficiency in which the symptom is domesticated and included in the realm of the abstract universal means that any political method that seeks to promote radical change cannot do so from within the boundaries set by the universal horizon. In order to avoid this politically conservative outcome, political formations that seek to evoke a structural shift must try to perform the concrete universal, to stage the material Truth of the hegemonic discursive formation such that the hegemonic formation can not survive in its present state. There are two salient approaches relevant to this task. These focus on identifying two forms of discourse: discourses which identify the constituting role that symptoms are playing in the existence of universal horizon; and discourses of concrete universality. It is to these strategies that we now turn.
Discourses of the symptom
Discourses of the symptom, of which this thesis is an example, connect symptoms with the concrete universal. However, these discourses cannot be articulated from outside of the terms that are set by the hegemonic horizon. This issue stems from the incommensurability of the parallax view. While those who view the symptom awry can sense the presence of the parallax Real, and hence the concrete universal, a translation of terms between the two is impossible. This impossibility, however, does not limit the dialectical process. While the parallax view may appear to have commonalities with formalist logic because of the lack of symbolic translatability between levels of the parallax, the dialectical movement continues through the effect that the Real exerts upon the subject via their encounters with the symptom(s) of the abstract universal(s) by which they organise their lives. The dislocating effect that the Real has upon the subject enables them to shift their gaze from the abstract universal to the concrete universal.
The conditions of possibility for such a shift rely on the dislocating pressure that the Real exerts upon the abstract universal, rather than through special knowledge that the subject might claim to have, that is, rather than through any effect of the symbolic. As has been described previously, the pressure of the symptom is regularly subverted through the symbolic and the imaginary, either through the acknowledgement of symptoms in fantasy, or their repression. However, when these devices are not wholly successful, the symptom can become unruly and have the potential to incite the subject to shift their attention from the universal imaginary, because of the unruly effects of the Real as it inhabits the concrete universal. Discourses of the symptom can simulate the concrete universal by revealing the gap that is opened up within a given universal horizon by its symptom(s). Conversely, the very act of symbolising the symptom domesticates and particularises its potential effects; without the force of the Real the symptom is not a dislocatory force in itself and neither are discourses of the symptom. Instead, the biggest role that this kind of discourse has is to open up a space within the abstract universal, to force an internal dislocation. Thus Žižek suggests that; ‘(T)oday … 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’ (Žižek, 2000b, p.325. Original emphasis).
Examples of discourses of the symptom include Green Radicalism and Marxist political economy. The example of Marxism is instructive here. Marxism, at a time when the ‘working-class’ of capital still existed as a strong force in developed/capitalist societies, could have been considered to belong to the category of discourse that I will soon develop below, that is, discourses of concrete universality. Contemporary Marxist thought, however, tends not to identify strongly with today’s working class in the Third World or in ‘developing countries’. Marxist theory still operates within the terms dominated by the western experience of capitalism. It may usefully identify the role that the symptom plays in constituting the universal (say, Third World poverty and western capitalist life-styles), but it still lies outside of the terms of the concrete universal; it does not inhabit this space.
It is also of limited use to simply present an alternative imaginary that is external to the current universal. This kind of discursive strategy fits into the formalist mode of thought. The excluded element – in Laclau’s and Torfing’s terminology, the ‘anti-A’ to the dominant A, or the formalist external ‘B’ discourse – is most likely to simply entrench differences regarding the identity of opposing universals rather than pose a serious challenge to the existing order. This is because discourses which are simply external to the abstract universal are not bearers of the Real, of the underlying absence that can dislocate the abstract universal. Rather they war they wage with one another happens fully within the symbolic order. Whilst, as Laclau contends, this ‘war of position’ over the content of an empty signifier – around which an abstract universal is structured – can bring change within this form of universality, empty signifiers do not interact with the underlying foundations of the order, that is, with the concrete universal. We see such an operation in the global conflict between Islam and the West. Rather than seriously threaten the hegemonic power of the Western world, Islamic militants are posited as external antagonisms which can be removed through conflict and force. Having detailed the manner in which such ‘unbearable examples’, in the form of symptoms, are so efficiently re-constructed and domesticated, one might doubt whether such a task can be achieved. As I have noted, while symptoms like poverty and global climate change are sometimes disavowed or repressed completely, they are generally acknowledged. Yet in the process of being acknowledged, symptoms are domesticated by the devices of fantasy and ideology. An alternative approach relies on shifting position within the parallax; from a focus upon the abstract to a focus upon the concrete universal. These discourses are external to the abstract universal in that they cannot be understood within its terms. As such, discourses of the concrete universal are Real from within the perspective of the abstract universal. It is to the analysis of these discourses that we shall now turn.
Discourses of the concrete universal
When observed through the lens of the ontological parallax, the concrete universal exists as the flip side of the abstract universal. That is, the content of the discourse(s) within the concrete universal cannot be perceived from within the abstract universal. Instead, it can only be seen from its effects upon what Žižek calls the parallax Real (Žižek, 2006a), that is, in what gets staged between two incommensurable perspectives. This effect comes through within the abstract universal’s symptom, which remains unsymbolisable until it is domesticated through fantasy (as I have laid out in the preceding sections). Therefore, so long as the effects that come from within the concrete universal remain in an unsymbolised state they have the potential to disrupt the abstract universal. This effect does not come through a symbolic/imaginary translation or interaction, but rather through the pressure that the concrete universal places on the abstract universal. .
An example may help here. If we were to suggest that the abstract universal of capitalism is the production of wealth, the concrete universal is the exploited foundation of this wealth, the Third World poor. This element of capitalism, that the conditions of possibility for the abstract universal lie in the concrete universal, is experienced by the subject as an unwanted symptom. The symptom here is the construction of poverty within the wealthy capitalist world. The reconstruction of the symptom in capitalist terms, through fantasy, has it coming out indissociable from the need for charity, of a humanitarian situation devoid of political consequences, which domesticates the unruly effects of the Real. Indeed, the very act of symbolising the symptom within capitalist discourse tames the effect of the symptom.
Using this example, discourses that are ‘of the concrete universal’ are discourses that would be occurring within the Third World about the poverty of the Third World, discourses which may not be intelligible within the terms of western perceptions of global capitalism. Their existence might be acknowledged, but could not fully taken on board without that western universal imaginary collapsing. Such an act would dislocate the abstract universal because of the unbearable contradiction between the two universals, between the western and the Third World views. Only through a radical structural shift in positions can two discourses within a parallax, and the incommensurability of the gap between them, be perceived.
The key to this form of discursive strategy is not to present the concrete universal as simply being external to the abstract universal, such that Third World discourses, for example, (usefully) provide an alternative, indigenous, non-western source of understanding about global poverty. Instead, the goal is to present the concrete universal as an internal element to the moment of universality (of global capitalism). If a discourse of concrete universality is positioned outside of the abstract universal from which global poverty is being interpreted, it subverts the dislocating (Real) element that is inherent to it, undermining the dislocating force (the parallax gap) that would otherwise emerge when that concrete universal is positioned as the incommensurable other to the abstract universal. Again, political motivation comes from the force exerted by that incommensurability, not from the ostensible coherence or logic of discourses that form in and around concrete universal. When positioned as an external other to the abstract universal, the symptom gets reconstructed in the image of that universal, as an external antagonism against which the abstract universal is thrown in conflict.
In order to avoid this outcome, the excluded element must present itself as the internal, constitutive exception of the abstract universal. The recent pro-immigrant 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, being accused of criminal activity, of taking jobs away from real Americans, etc. Alternatively, 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 an elemental condition rather than an impediment to the system. Hence the appeal ‘We are America’.
The key here is not to simply put pressure on the abstract universal (in this case, Americanness) to include the marginalised group within its terms, using a particularised approach common to identity-based politics. This might result, in such a case, in the lodging of human rights claims with the law courts, seeking special application of legal protections to the otherwise illegally-positioned immigrants. Neither would it proceed through the proposing of an alternative universal that could surpass the failure of the former universal to represent the marginalised interests, perhaps leading to a new universal condition such as ‘North Americanness’ . These approaches will result in the domestication of the marginalised’s claims, and to open conflict, respectively. Instead, the discourse, like that of the American immigrant protestors, has to occupy the position of the concrete universal, sustaining its position as the constitutive exception.The method for identifying discourses in and around the symptom that has been outlined in this chapter will now be applied to two symptomatic discourses of global capital: poverty and Green ideology. The initial aim of this analysis is to examine the manner in which these discourses are constructed so as to manage the symptoms of global capitalism with which each is respectively concerned. These discursive structures will be investigated in terms of the various possible responses outlined above for managing symptoms. Special attention will be given to those forms of the discourses that have the potential to move outside of realm of ideological fantasy and into the status of concrete universality, and which thus have the potential to produce a radical structural shift in and around global capitalism. This task bears upon the viability of psychoanalysis for engaging with politics and, more particularly, the viability of ‘a practice of concrete universality’.
For political positions that seek to achieve radical structural shifts, different strategies can be utilised in relation to the symptom and, in particular, the concrete universal. Two strategies are particularly effective. The first involves the identification of the gaps within universal horizons, like national identity, globalisation, and so on, that get opened up by the symptom. The second engages the concrete universal in the terms that are given by various hegemonic universal imaginaries, but within a conception of the universal that goes beyond those imaginaries, that instead embraces the notion of totality.
This chapter develops a methodology for investigating the different discursive strategies that variously get used in the management of symptoms. The most conservative of these are sets of strategies that include the symptom within the terms of existing abstract universals. Beyond this though, the methodology identifies sets of strategy that use the ideas of the symptom to point-point the form which the concrete universal is taking within a discursive structure and, thus, in Žižek’s terms, to practice concrete universality. This approach to methodology does not aim to develop a reified procedure for examining political formations but, rather, suggests a formatic method that can be performed.
By formatic, I mean an analysis that does not simply stay at the level of interpretation. The core aim of this methodology is to produce an approach which both identifies the symptomatic point within a discourse and the underlying fantasmatic strategy used to domesticate these symptoms. It also goes further than this in examining the potential strategies that could potentially be used to deconstruct the abstract universal.
In constructing this methodology, the chapter concentrates on two separate areas. The first focuses on the manner in which symptoms are contained by the abstract universal such that they do not produce a shift to the concrete universal. This can happen in one of two ways. The first involves a repression of the symptom. The second, more effective strategy, involves an acknowledgement, but domestication of the Real within the symptom. Understanding the manner in which a universal horizon protects itself from the symptom is vital for comprehending the manner in which the symptom can be used as a political tool for contesting the hegemonic status of a universal horizon such as global capitalism. The latter part of the chapter focuses on this latter task, reviewing the manner in which symptoms can be utilised to reveal the presence of the concrete universal and to produce radical social change. Again, this can be approached in two ways: by acknowledging the presence of the concrete universal using the terms given by the abstract universal; and by registering the social effects of discourses that emerge from within the concrete universal itself. It is to these tasks that we shall now turn.
Repression of the SymptomThe first discursive strategy to be discussed relates to the repression of the symptom. All discourses within the abstract universal operate with a degree of repression, in that each represses the fact that social fullness is impossible (Stavrakakis, 1999, p.39). As such, a certain repression of the symptom is the condition of possibility for the construction of the abstract universal. When we talk of discursive strategies as a response to the symptom, all of these strategies operate as modalities of repression. However, in this methodology we shall distinguish between this form of repression and a more direct form of repression where the very existence of the symptom is repressed. This type of repression is known as secondary repression, where a signifier is excluded from the symbolic, as opposed to primary repression which relates to castration and the original constitution of the unconscious (Evans, 1996, p.165). Additionally, within Lacanian psychoanalytic thought there is a vital distinction between repression and a term often used in conjunction with repression, disavowal. Repression and disavowal are different defence mechanisms for dealing with trauma, such as the trauma of the Real that gets experienced in encounters with symptoms. Lacan uses disavowal in terms of the structure of perversion, where the subject simultaneously disavows and acknowledges the symptom. This is a process of fetishism, to which we shall soon return (Evans, 1996, p.43-4).
In contrast to the condition of disavowal, repression is the process where a signifier or discourse is expelled from the conscious into the unconscious. This expulsion is never complete, in that the symptomatic signifier does not disappear, but rather continues to operate within the unconscious realm. Because it functions within the unconscious, the repressed symptom continues to effect the subject by taking symbolic form and, as such, perpetual efforts are made to contain the symptom given its traumatic effects. Repression often occurs when the threat of dislocation is high because the symptom cannot be included within the universal imaginary through which the subject, or social formation, is organising itself. This has most often occurred in totalitarian societies, where society is considered to be complete. In contrast to free-market societies, where the abstract universal imaginary may emphasise wealth and freedom, the most prominent aspect of the abstract universal of totalitarian societies is unity and solidarity. Therefore elements of non-unity in totalitarian societies are treated in a different manner from societies in which unity is not such a strong ideal. Because of the strong libidinal investment in this unity, the stability of society is entirely dependent on the repression or extermination of the symptom. Thus repression and antagonism often operate together because of the need to exterminate the fantasied external cause of the symptom. Indeed, these antagonism are themselves generated by the abstract universal through the positing, and then repression, of an element deemed alien in order to maintain the abstract universal. This often occurs in a violent manner such as, for example, the Tiananmen square massacre of 1989. The treatment of Jews by Nazi Germany is another seminal example of this strategy for managing the social symptom.
This is not to suggest that non-totalitarian societies do not use repression as a discursive strategy against the symptom. Many discourses within capitalism actively repress symptoms of global capital, such as climate change and absolute poverty. Conversely numerous capitalist discourses acknowledge these symptoms, not as a concrete universal that exceeds the abstract universal, but rather acknowledges their presence by constructing them in fantasy. Recent examples of such fantasy structures are the block-buster movies on climate change. These discursive strategies are used when the symptom can no longer be repressed because of the pressure the symptom is placing on the symbolic order through the unconscious. Paradoxically though, an acknowledgment of the symptom is also functional for an abstract universal in order for distance to be maintained from the impossibility of ‘society’. It is to these strategies that we now turn.
Acknowledgement of the Symptom in fantasyThe symptom is unavoidable; it is a constitutive element of the social. Nonetheless, the gap opened up by the symptom can be avoided and, with it, the Real effect of the symptom. The gap that is opened by the symptom is sutured by the reconstruction of the symptom in some fantasy form. By constructing the symptom in fantasy the symptom itself does not disappear, rather its effect is tamed. Instead of it being a source of anxiety, of trauma, and of dislocation, the symptom as it appears within fantasy becomes a source of jouissance for the subject. The symptom is a site of enjoyment because it allows the subject to express the negativity, the lack, which is inherent to the social. In this sense the symptom corresponds with the role played by objet a, the cause of an impossible desire for fullness. The symptom, as an element of the Real, opens up a gap within the social – much like objet a does as the cause of desire.
The process of attempting to fill that gap generates jouissance. If the gap were to be completed filled, the symptom totally sutured by ‘the Truth about the situation’, then the subject would be faced with the full, naked, negativity of the social. Thus the symptom is maintained, albeit at a distance, within fantasy.
Several different devices exist within fantasy to accomplish the paradoxical task of acknowledging, yet domesticating, the symptom, so as to avoid the potential dislocation that comes with the active presence of the concrete universal. Each gives rise to a peculiar form of discourse. These include ideological fantasy, external antagonism, super-ego demand, disavowal, and fetishism. We shall discuss each in turn.
Ideological Fantasy
Ideology and fantasy are the main drivers through which the symptom is, firstly, acknowledged and, then, domesticated. Together they build the subject’s sense of social and psychic coherence, belonging to the Lacanian register of the imaginary. Fantasy, a modality of the imaginary, provides an unconscious supplement of jouissance which acts as the base for the operation of ideology. This operation is known as ideological fantasy, the discursive strategy by which jouissance (J2) is obtained through the fantasmatic postulating about the possibility of J1. This possibility relies on ideological fantasy externalising the symptomatic elements which threaten the abstract universal, but also the maintenance of these symptoms.
The reconstruction of the concept 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, as such, the full genealogy of the concept does not need to be covered here. Ideology is a critical concept for the rehabilitation of universality within Žižekian psychoanalysis. Ideology had been predominately presented in modernist thought as distinct from ‘reality’ in the sense that it was an illusionary appearance as opposed to essence, at which modernism was driving. 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, p.118-122). Through an operation of determinate reflection, in which the very negation of ideology has become the positive condition for its rehabilitation, Lacanian theory has transcended these definitions of ideology and has rekindled the term. Ideology stills operates as misrecognition, but of a different nature as the domain of ideology is transferred from the epistemological (the truth value of a representation of the social) to the ontological (Glynos, 2001, p.192). Rather than it signaling the existence of a distinction between reality and ideology, ideology is now seen through psychoanalytic eyes as the guarantor of consistency in the social realm; there is no reality without ideology. Because all discourses are ultimately dislocated and lacking, ideology plays the role of covering this lack, and hence occluding the politically contingent nature of any such ideological construction (p.191). Thus, through ideology the subject misrecognises the ontologically negative basis of the social as being a positive, coherent foundation (Stavrakakis, 1997, p.123).The key role of ideology in the construction of normality, it can thus be surmised, is to include and pacify the symptom through its staging of the symptom within fantasy formations to which the subject holds. It is the symptom that disrupts the consistency of the social and, thus, the presence of the symptom must be negated (Stavrakakis, 1997, p.128). Paradoxically, in order to achieve this, the symptom must be included in the ideological fantasies through which subjects experience their abstract universals, as points of enjoyment. As Glyn Daly states (T)he central paradox of ideology is that it can only attempt closure through simultaneously producing the "threat” to that closure’ (1999a, p.220). The fantasmatic construction of the symptom is of vital political importance. A political approach that seeks to reveal the concrete universal must not focus on the fantasmatic postulations that get generated about and around the symptom but, rather, upon the existence of the symptom from which the concrete universal stems.
As an example, the current debate around climate change recognises it as being the symptom (of something) and attempts to domesticate its effect so as to maintain the primary universal horizon of the social, that is, global capitalism and the production of wealth. Although it is often argued that change must occur to prevent environmental collapse, change is only considered within the parameters allowed by capitalist imaginary. This is an ideological construction; it includes the symptom, but gives it external cause, such as the failure of markets or governments to take pollution into account. It is contended that once these contingent factors are remedied, the capitalist imaginary will be restored to its fantasised state of fullness. What this brand of fantasmatic construction denies is the concrete universal; that the logic of capital (the ever-increasing demand for profit) is fundamentally unsustainable. A properly Lacanian psychoanalytic political approach would be to identify the concrete universal and expose it as the unbearable example within the universal horizon, that is, that the generation of wealth has natural limits. This is opposed to regular critical analysis which operates within the hegemonic fantasy, dealing only with the symptom as it is presented in fantasy or by perhaps trying to generate an alternative fantasmatic position which equally ignores the concrete universal e.g. various Green Party attempts to ‘Green’ capitalism.
An important ideological operation that can be seen in the domesticating of the symptom occurs through the production of ‘straw’ enemies, through the construction of external antagonisms. Again, this is another paradoxical operation of ideological fantasy; it operates by acknowledging and representing its impossibility in the form of an external obstacle (Daly, 1999a, p.224). Just as with the symptom, in which the subject experiences jouissance when ideologies fail, the subject experiences antagonism as a site of enjoyment. In order to avoid the anxiety that comes from the radical negativity of social life, antagonism, like the symptom, produces compensatory jouissance. Daly suggests that the production of an ‘Other’ that blocks the full constitution of identity and universality is the foremost fantasy because it gives cause for the fundamental lack in the subject (1999a, p.234). Hence it is always difficult to displace symptoms or reveal the contingency of antagonisms.Ideological fantasy enables the Real, which inheres within the symptom, to be encountered in a much more manageable fashion than happens through the strategy of repression, as reviewed above (Daly, 1999a, p.224). It does not simply repress the symptom, but rather domesticates it as either a temporal failure to be resolved, or the fault of an external impediment. Symptoms still exist, but society is no longer so reliant on the extermination these symptoms. 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’ in all its consensual plentitude is possible. This effect can be seen at work in the universal horizon of a market-led capitalist system. The market is presented as an abstract universal; it is a natural, objective device that brings maximum wealth and well-being to all. When the market fails to achieve the impossible vision of its abstract universal, such failures are fantasied as being simple impediments to the market; failures which can be overcome through various compensatory measures, particularly in relation to the removal of antagonisms. The negation of the universal horizon by the symptom, which represents the exception of the universal, is therefore not considered a condition of the market, but rather something external to be fixed; a solution-in-coming.
This kind of analysis fits with a formalist understanding of identity, that A (the market) cannot be non-A (the constitutive failure of the market). Rather, any failure of the market is conceived to be caused by B, an external factor. However, as I have argued in relation to dialectical thought, the market can be both the market as an efficient wealth-producing device and its constitutive failure, such as the radical injustice of market mechanisms, as evident in global poverty. In the terms of Žižek’s parallax view, market failure is the symptom/negation of the abstract universal – the market-economy system – with the concrete universal being the determinate reflection of this negation in its constitutive role: that markets can only operate through their own failure. This constant failure, and thus the constant need for minor alterations in the name of universality, provides jouissance to the subjects involved, in the same manner as ideology achieves.
Super-ego demand
As well as fantasy and ideology, the other major factor in the domestication of the symptom is the super-ego. The super-ego is an imperative, an imperative to fill the gaps in the symbolic order (Evans, 2004, p.200-1). The super-ego is vitally related to castration, it is a constant reminder within the symbolic order of the ‘name-of-the-father’. The name-of-the-father is a Lacanian term that refers to the force of castration. It insists that the subject follow the symbolic law rather than live within the mythical, primal condition of Jouissance (Žižek, 1999, p.268-9). The more the subject follows the law, the guiltier they feel for having given up on the Jouissance available to them before castration, so the more they seek compensatory surplus enjoyment by following the law (Kay, 2003, p.170-1). The ultimate imperative of the super-ego is to enjoy; not only must the subject follow the symbolic law, but they must also enjoy it.
Thus the super-ego is not a subversive force within a discursive structure. Despite this inherent conformity, the super-ego is often the major discursive strategy used by those seeking to make political changes within an abstract universal. The most salient example of the use of the super-ego imperative as a discursive strategy for change is in charity appeals, such as World Vision. Indeed, the super-ego is actually a strong discursive strategy for the maintenance of the abstract universal. It appeals to the subject to maintain the symbolic order, in which they have invested, to fix the faults – the symptoms – within this order. Therefore the super-ego appeal can have a short-term progressive affect, appealing for the subject to recycle more, or to sponsor a Third World child, but ultimately these effects are only made in the name of maintaining the order which is producing these faults. More than this, the super-ego domesticates the disruptive effect of the symptom because these efforts to repair the symbolic fabric indefinitely postpone a confrontation with the Real.
The link between the super-ego and the symptom is best considered through the influence that ideological fantasy has in maintaining the consistency of the social. As with ideology and antagonism, the operation of the super-ego is such that the demand of the symptom is be enjoyed; the super-ego suggests the prospect of suture, but also keeps a distance from this (impossible) fullness. As an illustration, rather than critiquing the capitalist edifice as a totality that can end global poverty, we make a gesture towards such a goal. This act will never accomplish the fantasised end goal, but it does enough to delay the demand of the symptom. This is not, however a wholly productive strategy either for the efficient maintenance of the universal or its dislocation via the symptom/concrete universal. Super-ego jouissance cannot be avoided simply by attending to its demands; the more that the subject submits to its demands, the more that those insatiable demands are taken on. Herein lays the crucial link between the operation of ideological fantasy and the super-ego. Rather than taking on the demands of the super-ego so as to repair the social (say, to join the ‘Eradicate Poverty’ social movement so as to correct the capitalism’s inability to end poverty), the subject can turn to ideology and in particular, ideological fantasy, because ideological fantasy is able to externalise and appear to treat 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.
Although the super-ego demand is more ‘beneficial’ for a cause in the short-term (at least, here, attention is paid to symptoms such as poverty, ecological damage, etc), ultimately both the super-ego and ideology fail to invoke radical structural change. Rather, they produce what appears to be change, but is ultimately a rotation around a central axis, the Real. The super-ego prevents the subject from acting against the symptom and instead provides them with surplus-enjoyment, driven by the imperative to repair the symbolic fabric. What is required in order for thorough-going social change to occur is for the fantasmatic system which constructs the symptom as a temporal impediment to fullness, to be broken and the symptom revealed as the very condition of that system.
Fetishism and Disavowal
The major factor preventing this movement is the jouissance that is inherent to fantasy. Jouissance creates a bond between the subject and the universal imaginary such that any disconfirming evidence is impotent in its effects, even if the symptom is openly acknowledged. Accordingly, Žižek contends that the analyst or critic also has to go past the point of interpreting discursive formations because of the cynicism through which belief functions (Johnston, 2004; Žižek, 2002, p.241-2). Cynical belief operates through disavowal, where the presence of something is acknowledged yet paradoxically at the same time ignored. The subject may acknowledge the presence of the symptom which negates the abstract universal, but continue to strongly believe and invest in the abstract universal. This paradoxical form of belief is allowed to operate because of the presence of a fetishised object in which the subject invests. The object of the fetish mediates between the Real of the symptom and the abstract universal. Thus the concept of ‘cynical distance’ or disavowal is another modality through which ideologies operate and through which the Real obtains palpable form within the symptom.
Here, Žižek makes a distinction between repression and fetishism as two different modalities of defence against the effect of the Real. In repression, 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). Such has the potential to devastate the psychical state of the subject because it is through the fetish that they relate to reality.
Fetishtic belief is the last modality of defence through which discourses that acknowledge the presence of the symptom are able to pacify the dislocating effects of the symptom. Fetishism occurs where a discourse not only acknowledges the symptom, but also, in a purely interpretive manner, accepts this symptom as being wholly necessary. Thus the subject may see the faults in a universal such as global capitalism, can recognise its symptoms like poverty and rapid climate change, but still believe that society is possible because those symptoms are represented in fantasmatic ways, such as films, news reports, documentaries, etc. As a further example, a subject in the capitalist system may suggest that they know that markets must fail, but nonetheless they have a large libidinal investment in capitalism and thus act as if markets are not constituted by their failure. Daly (1999b,p.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 if their circumstances are their own responsibility. This belief also operates in Jeffery Sachs’ work on poverty (see Sachs, 2005), which will be more fully developed in chapter seven. Essentially, while Sachs constantly refers to the global economy, on his major topic, that of poverty, he suggests that poverty within Third World countries is purely the effect of their domestic policies and practices.Žižek believes that this is the unfortunate stalemate presented by global capital. As we see in reports from the United Nations and the Bretton Woods organisations, the state of the world – particularly climate change and environmentalism, and its effects – is largely well known and documented. This evidence, which should dislocate the imaginary coherence of capitalism because it stands in stark opposition to these elements, is instead displaced by commodity fetishism. Commodity fetishism, a Marxist concept redeveloped by Žižek, occurs where the capitalist subject places a large libidinal investment in an object of consumption. This object becomes the object of desire, of the objet a that allows rips in the symbolic order to be temporarily healed. This suturing that is provided through the fetishism of commodities, mediates the dislocatory effects of capitalism’s symptoms. Such is the grip of this economy of pleasure that there has been a closure in the political imaginary, one which has led Žižek to suggest that only a huge global event could possibility displace the organising effects of capital (Johnston, 2004).
Adrian Johnston contends that perhaps the biggest issue with fetishism is that those who fetishise 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’.
The efficiency in which the symptom is domesticated and included in the realm of the abstract universal means that any political method that seeks to promote radical change cannot do so from within the boundaries set by the universal horizon. In order to avoid this politically conservative outcome, political formations that seek to evoke a structural shift must try to perform the concrete universal, to stage the material Truth of the hegemonic discursive formation such that the hegemonic formation can not survive in its present state. There are two salient approaches relevant to this task. These focus on identifying two forms of discourse: discourses which identify the constituting role that symptoms are playing in the existence of universal horizon; and discourses of concrete universality. It is to these strategies that we now turn.
Discourses of the symptom
Discourses of the symptom, of which this thesis is an example, connect symptoms with the concrete universal. However, these discourses cannot be articulated from outside of the terms that are set by the hegemonic horizon. This issue stems from the incommensurability of the parallax view. While those who view the symptom awry can sense the presence of the parallax Real, and hence the concrete universal, a translation of terms between the two is impossible. This impossibility, however, does not limit the dialectical process. While the parallax view may appear to have commonalities with formalist logic because of the lack of symbolic translatability between levels of the parallax, the dialectical movement continues through the effect that the Real exerts upon the subject via their encounters with the symptom(s) of the abstract universal(s) by which they organise their lives. The dislocating effect that the Real has upon the subject enables them to shift their gaze from the abstract universal to the concrete universal.
The conditions of possibility for such a shift rely on the dislocating pressure that the Real exerts upon the abstract universal, rather than through special knowledge that the subject might claim to have, that is, rather than through any effect of the symbolic. As has been described previously, the pressure of the symptom is regularly subverted through the symbolic and the imaginary, either through the acknowledgement of symptoms in fantasy, or their repression. However, when these devices are not wholly successful, the symptom can become unruly and have the potential to incite the subject to shift their attention from the universal imaginary, because of the unruly effects of the Real as it inhabits the concrete universal. Discourses of the symptom can simulate the concrete universal by revealing the gap that is opened up within a given universal horizon by its symptom(s). Conversely, the very act of symbolising the symptom domesticates and particularises its potential effects; without the force of the Real the symptom is not a dislocatory force in itself and neither are discourses of the symptom. Instead, the biggest role that this kind of discourse has is to open up a space within the abstract universal, to force an internal dislocation. Thus Žižek suggests that; ‘(T)oday … 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’ (Žižek, 2000b, p.325. Original emphasis).
Examples of discourses of the symptom include Green Radicalism and Marxist political economy. The example of Marxism is instructive here. Marxism, at a time when the ‘working-class’ of capital still existed as a strong force in developed/capitalist societies, could have been considered to belong to the category of discourse that I will soon develop below, that is, discourses of concrete universality. Contemporary Marxist thought, however, tends not to identify strongly with today’s working class in the Third World or in ‘developing countries’. Marxist theory still operates within the terms dominated by the western experience of capitalism. It may usefully identify the role that the symptom plays in constituting the universal (say, Third World poverty and western capitalist life-styles), but it still lies outside of the terms of the concrete universal; it does not inhabit this space.
It is also of limited use to simply present an alternative imaginary that is external to the current universal. This kind of discursive strategy fits into the formalist mode of thought. The excluded element – in Laclau’s and Torfing’s terminology, the ‘anti-A’ to the dominant A, or the formalist external ‘B’ discourse – is most likely to simply entrench differences regarding the identity of opposing universals rather than pose a serious challenge to the existing order. This is because discourses which are simply external to the abstract universal are not bearers of the Real, of the underlying absence that can dislocate the abstract universal. Rather they war they wage with one another happens fully within the symbolic order. Whilst, as Laclau contends, this ‘war of position’ over the content of an empty signifier – around which an abstract universal is structured – can bring change within this form of universality, empty signifiers do not interact with the underlying foundations of the order, that is, with the concrete universal. We see such an operation in the global conflict between Islam and the West. Rather than seriously threaten the hegemonic power of the Western world, Islamic militants are posited as external antagonisms which can be removed through conflict and force. Having detailed the manner in which such ‘unbearable examples’, in the form of symptoms, are so efficiently re-constructed and domesticated, one might doubt whether such a task can be achieved. As I have noted, while symptoms like poverty and global climate change are sometimes disavowed or repressed completely, they are generally acknowledged. Yet in the process of being acknowledged, symptoms are domesticated by the devices of fantasy and ideology. An alternative approach relies on shifting position within the parallax; from a focus upon the abstract to a focus upon the concrete universal. These discourses are external to the abstract universal in that they cannot be understood within its terms. As such, discourses of the concrete universal are Real from within the perspective of the abstract universal. It is to the analysis of these discourses that we shall now turn.
Discourses of the concrete universal
When observed through the lens of the ontological parallax, the concrete universal exists as the flip side of the abstract universal. That is, the content of the discourse(s) within the concrete universal cannot be perceived from within the abstract universal. Instead, it can only be seen from its effects upon what Žižek calls the parallax Real (Žižek, 2006a), that is, in what gets staged between two incommensurable perspectives. This effect comes through within the abstract universal’s symptom, which remains unsymbolisable until it is domesticated through fantasy (as I have laid out in the preceding sections). Therefore, so long as the effects that come from within the concrete universal remain in an unsymbolised state they have the potential to disrupt the abstract universal. This effect does not come through a symbolic/imaginary translation or interaction, but rather through the pressure that the concrete universal places on the abstract universal. .
An example may help here. If we were to suggest that the abstract universal of capitalism is the production of wealth, the concrete universal is the exploited foundation of this wealth, the Third World poor. This element of capitalism, that the conditions of possibility for the abstract universal lie in the concrete universal, is experienced by the subject as an unwanted symptom. The symptom here is the construction of poverty within the wealthy capitalist world. The reconstruction of the symptom in capitalist terms, through fantasy, has it coming out indissociable from the need for charity, of a humanitarian situation devoid of political consequences, which domesticates the unruly effects of the Real. Indeed, the very act of symbolising the symptom within capitalist discourse tames the effect of the symptom.
Using this example, discourses that are ‘of the concrete universal’ are discourses that would be occurring within the Third World about the poverty of the Third World, discourses which may not be intelligible within the terms of western perceptions of global capitalism. Their existence might be acknowledged, but could not fully taken on board without that western universal imaginary collapsing. Such an act would dislocate the abstract universal because of the unbearable contradiction between the two universals, between the western and the Third World views. Only through a radical structural shift in positions can two discourses within a parallax, and the incommensurability of the gap between them, be perceived.
The key to this form of discursive strategy is not to present the concrete universal as simply being external to the abstract universal, such that Third World discourses, for example, (usefully) provide an alternative, indigenous, non-western source of understanding about global poverty. Instead, the goal is to present the concrete universal as an internal element to the moment of universality (of global capitalism). If a discourse of concrete universality is positioned outside of the abstract universal from which global poverty is being interpreted, it subverts the dislocating (Real) element that is inherent to it, undermining the dislocating force (the parallax gap) that would otherwise emerge when that concrete universal is positioned as the incommensurable other to the abstract universal. Again, political motivation comes from the force exerted by that incommensurability, not from the ostensible coherence or logic of discourses that form in and around concrete universal. When positioned as an external other to the abstract universal, the symptom gets reconstructed in the image of that universal, as an external antagonism against which the abstract universal is thrown in conflict.
In order to avoid this outcome, the excluded element must present itself as the internal, constitutive exception of the abstract universal. The recent pro-immigrant 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, being accused of criminal activity, of taking jobs away from real Americans, etc. Alternatively, 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 an elemental condition rather than an impediment to the system. Hence the appeal ‘We are America’.
The key here is not to simply put pressure on the abstract universal (in this case, Americanness) to include the marginalised group within its terms, using a particularised approach common to identity-based politics. This might result, in such a case, in the lodging of human rights claims with the law courts, seeking special application of legal protections to the otherwise illegally-positioned immigrants. Neither would it proceed through the proposing of an alternative universal that could surpass the failure of the former universal to represent the marginalised interests, perhaps leading to a new universal condition such as ‘North Americanness’ . These approaches will result in the domestication of the marginalised’s claims, and to open conflict, respectively. Instead, the discourse, like that of the American immigrant protestors, has to occupy the position of the concrete universal, sustaining its position as the constitutive exception.The method for identifying discourses in and around the symptom that has been outlined in this chapter will now be applied to two symptomatic discourses of global capital: poverty and Green ideology. The initial aim of this analysis is to examine the manner in which these discourses are constructed so as to manage the symptoms of global capitalism with which each is respectively concerned. These discursive structures will be investigated in terms of the various possible responses outlined above for managing symptoms. Special attention will be given to those forms of the discourses that have the potential to move outside of realm of ideological fantasy and into the status of concrete universality, and which thus have the potential to produce a radical structural shift in and around global capitalism. This task bears upon the viability of psychoanalysis for engaging with politics and, more particularly, the viability of ‘a practice of concrete universality’.
4. Dialectical Materialism and Universality
Universality, in both its abstract and concrete forms, is the fundamental notion for understanding political formations via Žižek’s psychoanalysis. Universality, a structural concept, is animated through Žižek’s rehabilitated concept of dialectical materialism. Here, materialism has been given a psychoanalytic spin, referring now to the obdurate negativity of objet a in the constitution of political positionality and of the jouissance that sustains such positioning. Rather than being understood only in an interpretative manner, dialectical materialism emphasises the role of the Real and jouissance in the dialectical process that constructs the universal totality. This chapter will lay out the basic parameters for dialectical thought in relation to universality, in particular Žižek’s conception of dialectical materialism, based around his notion of the ‘parallax view’. It is theorised that the concept of dialectical materiality provides a productive explanation of the political fixity encountered within the social world, both in relation to the contingent fixation of the universal imaginary as well as the hard materiality (the concrete universal) of the universal exception upon which hegemonic horizons are generated. Therefore the link between dialectical materialism and universality becomes a productive one for generating understandings of socio-political change. The perspective laid out in this chapter indicates the core theoretical orientation of this thesis. As such, it provides the foundation for the methodological position described in the following chapter and, ultimately, the psychoanalytic political approach endorsed by the thesis.
In his latest work, The Parallax View, Žižek has redeveloped a psychoanalytic concept of dialectical materialism through the notion of a ‘parallax view’. The parallax view designates a gap – the parallax gap – between two discourses, a gap that can only be perceived through a shift in positions. Žižek considers there to be several different modalities of the parallax, the most salient for this thesis being the ‘parallax of ontological difference’ and the ‘political parallax’ (Žižek, 2006a, p.11). Political parallaxes occur when there is no common ground between positions that have been structured around a social antagonism. For example, a political parallax operates between the political ‘Left’ perspectives of ecologism and global development, structured around the antagonism inherent to global capitalism. This chapter, however, will primarily focus on the parallax of ontological difference, particularly as such difference relates to the issue of universality.
The key notion here is that the parallax gap is not a gap between two discourses that are external to each other but, rather, a gap which persists within the totality of the universal. This difference which is purely internal differs from the condition of ‘external difference’ that has animated traditional dialectical thought. The internal nature of the difference, as we shall see, is vital for the materialist focus in Žižek’s of dialectical thought. However, before the parallax view and its implications for universality and social change are developed further, my argument requires that I briefly review the fundamentals of traditional dialectical thought.
An introduction to Dialectics
The basic principle of a dialectical investigation is that the key to analysis lies with discovery of the exception to the series of objects that has caught the analyst’s gaze (Žižek, 2000a, p.241). The identification of ‘the exception’ forms the major difference between the practice of formal logic, which was the primary form of philosophical logic from the Greeks to Hegel, and dialectic logic. In formalism, an identity is considered to be equal to itself; A is equal to A. This is the Law of Identity. Additionally, the formalist Law of Contradiction reasons that if A=A, A cannot be equal to non-A. Rather, contradiction is purely external; A v B. However, the formalist position assumes that identities are full in themselves, that A is solely and fully A. The dialectic response to identity is that A is both A and non-A; the exclusions that are necessary for the formation of a coherent identity mean that every conception of identity includes an element of non-identity (Kay, 2003, p.26). By taking A as solely A, we miss this necessary exception to A: non-A (Novack, 1971, p.71).
The emphasis on non-A is elemental for the dialectical materialist perspective on universality and socio-political change in particular. More specifically, the exception to the series, which always appears within the series itself, is essential for understanding the manner in which discourses come to shift. These shifts are best understood through Hegel’s approach to dialectics. According to Hegelian dialectics, that which is real is rational. Although this appears overly rationalist for psychoanalytic thought, by taking the basic idea and interpreting it through a Lacanian lens, the value of dialectics for psychoanalysis is evident. The core insight of this position for psychoanalytic dialectics, which Žižek terms dialectical materialism, is that when an identity becomes unreal (irrational), what is excluded from the identity will overthrow the identity (Novack, 1971, p.87). To re-write this in Žižek’s terms, the weight of the abstract universal’s symptom becomes unbearable when it cannot be domesticated within the symbolic and fantasmatic resources available, causing that universal imaginary to become dislocated from within.
It was Hegelian dialectical thought which lead Marx to contend that capitalism had become so irrational that the working class had historical reason and right on its side (Novack,1971, p.88). What Marx did not consider, however, was capitalism’s ability to revolutionise its own symptoms by bringing them back into the universal horizon. Conversely, capitalism’s ability to internalise its limits has not stopped symptoms from occurring. Symptoms, as with a universal identity, are a relentless threat to capitalism. The constant presence of such symptoms in capitalism has lead Adorno (cited in Žižek, 2006a, p.51) to describe capitalism as a system that lives on credit that will never be paid off, in the sense that global capital is constantly able to revolutionize its own negative conditions.
Capital domesticates its symptoms in two ways. The most common and efficient manner, as has been noted, is to internalise symptoms. The internalisation of symptoms regularly occurs by acknowledging the symptom, but domesticating its effect through fantasy constructions. This method is an example of a rotational-style revolution. Although there may appear to be regular change, this change moves around a fixed central axis. This axis is the Real. This is the case with capitalism and its symptoms. However, some symptoms are unable to be domesticated through the act of simply being acknowledged. These symptoms lie at the core of a discursive structure; they are the Real around which the discourse rotates. As such, these kinds of symptoms, like the unsustainability of capitalism or global poverty, have to be disavowed from the universal horizon, such as global capitalism,in order for it to continue operating. It is only by getting at the heart of the system, so to speak, to the core, disavowed elements, that thorough-going radical change can occur.
Threats to capital such as these, however, are strongly disavowed, such is the anxiety that comes with acknowledging them and the jouissance available from within the capitalist edifice. Instead, capital operates by bringing the symptoms which can be acknowledged back into the system, albeit in a different form. A contemporary illustration of this dialectical process within capitalism, wherein threats to the system are constantly integrated back into the system, 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. Contemporary capitalist discourse, however, has long battled against these symptoms but instead now seeks to include them within its horizons. Although some forms of capitalist discourse try to repress these symptoms – in the case of Napster, for example (a digital file sharing internet site) being taken 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 free (and profit from advertising) or for a minimal cost. What was once a threat to the very heart of capitalism – the pursuit of private profit – is now an opportunity to generate profit.
From reflection to concrete universality
According to Hegel, there are three stages to the dialectic: reflection, external reflection and determinate reflection (Kay, 2003, p.19). Within the condition of reflection, an identity is posited in itself, because it is assumed to be fully identical with itself. In terms of the individual, reflection can be conceived of as the human substance before it entered the symbolic realm. Upon entry into the symbolic order, however, substance is negated by the symbolic Other and becomes ‘subject’, thereby losing access to Jouissance. The condition of reflection, like Jouissance, is always only a fantasy, a retroactive construction of what has been lost through external reflection; the fantasy being that there was something present to lose (Jouissance).
Reflection is an important stage because it allows one to think of the process of external reflection as a negation of reflection, rather than as a starting point for analysis. External reflection is considered to occur when an identity is negated by an object outside of itself. External reflection introduces lack into the symbolic system. This lack, R2, occurs because of the lack of J1, which the subject is believed to hold before the external negation by the symbolic order. This belief is sustained by fantasy.
That same fantasy prevents the subject from entering the third stage of the dialectical movement, determinate reflection; the negation of the negation. This negation is known as determinate reflection. Determinate reflection does not produce a change in content, but rather a reconception of the negation that occurs through external reflection (Kay, 2003, p.37). Rather than being perceived as a negative limit, this negation is reconstituted as a positive condition (Žižek, 2002, p.36).
The philosophical concept of Truth illustrates what is at stake in the dialectical process. In modernism, it was held that, through reason, humankind could have unmediated access to the Truth. Truth itself was never found in modernism, this simply reflects the fantasy of reflection that is at work. The modernist perspective was negated by forms of late-modernist or post-modernist thought, which reasoned that Truth was impossible for the subject because its access to reality is always mediated by language. The relativistic dismissal of Truth which such positions imply has, in turn, been negated by perspectives such as Lacanian psychoanalysis. Thus, the ‘failure’ that occurred to the idea of Truth, upon discovery of the mediation of reality by discourse, becomes a positive condition of Truth; Truth is possible, but only in this mediated form – there is no Truth outside of the historical contingency of thought.
Žižek’s Dialectical Materialism
The negation of the universal by the particular is fundamental for Žižek’s dialectical materialism (Žižek, 2002, p.43). This negation informs the ontological impossibility of a universal identity that is without lack. However, because of the prospect for jouissance, in both the forms of J1 and J2, the negation in external reflection produces the après-coup construction of the abstract universal which negates this lack. Likewise the negation of reflection creates the conditions of possibility for a radical shift in positions relative to concrete universality. To understand the possibilities for such a shift, our argument must do more to understand the negation of the negation, that is, the process of determinate reflection.
External reflection is the stage within which reflection is itself negated, overcome. However, psychoanalytic thought shows that reflection is always-already negated. This state of negation-that-has-already-happened lies in the subject’s ‘castration’ (separation from Jouissance), which is associated with its entrance into the symbolic realm. Thus we need to distinguish between two separate, but very related meanings of the negation of the negation. This division relates to the distinction that Žižek makes between negativity (the Real) within the symbolic order (R2) and the negativity upon which the symbolic order is based (R1). For Žižek, it is the materiality of R1 that is primary (this makes his position a materialist one) rather than the idealism of a position founded on the primacy of R2 (R. Butler, 2005, p.95). The distinction between the materialist position on the Real and the idealist perspective also separates Laclau and Žižek. Where Laclau considers the Real to be the limit to every symbolic formation and thus as a lack within the symbolic order, Žižek argues that the Real is also an excess to the social, saturating it with jouissance. The first negation of the negation is thus structurally based, relating to the condition of determinate reflection. In determinate reflection, the negation that occurs to the universal by the particular in the process of external reflection is, itself, negated: that is, negation is viewed as a positive condition of the universal.
The second type of ‘negation of the negation’ relates back to castration. Castration is the initial negation, but this negation is itself negated through its repression in fantasy (Kay, 2003, p.33). The two negations of negations are vitally related. In dialectical materialism, we see that, in reflection, whatever it is that we perceive is the product of a prior condition of negation: ‘the thing’ has already been negated by the operation upon it by the symbolic order. The subject’s entry into the symbolic is never completed, however, and their disjointedness with that order provides the means through which the process of negation moves beyond the state of external negation to that of determinate negation: the subject’s inhabitation of the symbolic order is always dislocated by an excess of jouissance and by the Real. That said, the subject is also driven to get back to the original, but mythical, state of Jouissance. As we have previously noted, J1 is only an imaginary concept, it is the creation of J2.This drive to return to J1 constitutes the negation of the negation in its fullest, psychoanalytic meaning, the repression of the fact that we never had ‘it’ in the first place. As a consequence of this turn, psychoanalysis suggests that a third stage – a further negation – can be added to ‘the negation of the negation’.
The ‘negation of the negation of the negation’, is concrete universality. This third term is necessary to designate the possibility of going beyond the fantasmatic supplement that prevents the subject from perceiving the concrete universal upon which the abstract universal is founded. This synthesis of the two concepts of ‘the negation of negation’ allows analysis to go past the purely interpretive arena. To summarise this synthesis, we see that any identity is negated in itself, but the very fact of this primordial lack is negated in fantasy. Fantasy instead presents lack as having been caused by an external obstacle, such as occurs through processes of external reflection. The construction of such fantasies support the production of an abstract universal imaginary from which subjects gain access to jouissance.
We see this external concept of antagonism in operation in Laclau’s early work (see the previous chapter) but also in everyday political ideology, where the identity of one faction is thought to be prevented by that of another. What this perspective fails to acknowledge is that it is not the Other which is preventing the full expression of identity but, rather, that this failure is internal to the identity. This is why Žižek is so condescending towards identity politics; they are a false politics which ignore more pressing concerns, notably the contemporary manifestation of the Real at the heart of the symbolic order; global capital and its affect on humanity. In the process of negating ‘the negation of the negation’, the fantasy which portrays the secondary negation (the symptom) as being an external, alien cause of social discord is deconstructed: the cause of discord does not simply lie with a foreign force. This deconstruction the possibility to emerge of a political reconfiguration, as the unconscious supplement which has held together the abstract universal looses its grip upon subjects.
Determinate Reflection and Concrete Universality
Determinate reflection is the most influential phase for inducing change within a universal. 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 as we attempt to incorporate notions of collective –- economic, cultural and social –rights within liberal human rights frameworks), is rather the condition of the universal’s ability to generate social consensus. In that process, the subject comes to recognise the element of non-identity that structures the appearance of reality, the ‘exclusion’ within universality of that which does not correspond with itself, and identifies with that split. The act of identifying with both the universal and its exception generally provokes strong anxiety (although various defence methods, discussed in chapter five) emerge to allow this paradoxical identification to proceed. Because of the anxiety that is experienced through the process of determinate reflection, the universal loses its grip upon the subject. That subject is then able to reconsider their own (contingent, political) configuration.
In the process of external reflection, the negation of reflection that occurs (that is, of the symptom) is domesticated by being constructed in fantasy. This allows the abstract universal to function in a normal manner. In the move to determinate reflection, however, a radical shift in emphasis occurs from the abstract universal to the concrete universal. This shift in emphasis sees the symptom emerging as a necessary, constitutive element of the totality that is universality, the symptom becoming both the ‘concrete singular exception’ of the abstract universal and ‘a universality’ in itself which exceeds the conceptual grid of the existing framework (Kay, 2003, p.42). As a consequence, this impediment to the realisation of universal fullness, the symptom/concrete universal, holds the Truth of the universal in its totality (Žižek, 1999, p.180-181). A principle of analysis that follows from this is to refrain from comparing the universal with what it seeks to represent (e.g. by asking Are these really universal human rights?), but rather with that which the abstract universal excludes in order to constitute itself; the concrete universal (Žižek, 2002, p.160).
Posited in this manner, 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 in order for the universal to be constituted. Both Laclau and Žižek use the notion of the constitutive outside, and it is worth considering these alternative conceptions in order to better illustrate the internal, as opposed to external, nature of the concrete universal, which, through the dialectical movement, opens up further possibilities for political change.
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, p.151)
Laclau’s conception of the constitutive outside, however, varies significantly from Žižek’s. For Laclau, the only thing that the excluded elements have in common is that they are excluded from the universal; thus they are external. In contrast, Žižek’s notion of concrete universality refers to a condition where the excluded elements stand in the place of, and constitute a state of, ‘minimal difference’ between the universal and itself; the excluded elements are paradoxically within the species yet subversive of it. Thus, while Laclau would agree that the relation between the universal and its constitutive outside is not the formalist relation of A→ B, he postulates it as A→anti-A (Torfing, 1999, p.125). In contrast, Žižek claims that concrete universality is not anti-A, but rather non-A. The dialectical interactions of A and non-A within universality form the basis of Žižek’s parallax view.
The Parallax View
An ontological parallax (as opposed to a political parallax, as introduced at the beginning of this chapter) brings together the concepts of universality and the dialectic within a psychoanalytic conception of materialism. The key notion here is that universality is split internally between the abstract universal and the concrete universal, that split forming around a ‘parallax gap’. The parallax gap is the gap that persists between two closely associated perspectives, between which no common ground is possible, the gap only being viewable through the shift between positions. This gap, to add another gloss to it, is the parallax Real (Žižek, 2006a, p.4). The two sides that make up the moment of universality, the abstract universal and the concrete universal, constitute the basis of the ontological parallax, these two forms of universality being made up of incommensurable discourses that are held together by a condition of ‘minimal difference’ that persists between them. Žižek states that this incommensurability, rather than providing an obstacle to the dialectical movement (because of the lack of a common language), actually fuels the subversive political core of dialectics because it allows for not only small change but, rather, large structural shifts (p.4).
The division that occurs to the universal around the parallax Real – between its abstract and concrete expressions – is not symmetrical. Relatively symmetrical divisions can be found around social antagonisms, as identified within political parallaxes. Alternatively, in the ontological parallax the universal is divided into its abstract and concrete forms, the abstract universal being the hegemonic imaginary through which the apparently coherence of social life gets constructed. The abstract universal is built upon the effects of the imaginary and upon ideological fantasy to negate the negation that is inherent to the symbolic order. It offers the prospect of fullness and of Jouissance. The universal horizon pacifies the disruptive effects of the Real by targeting the various manifestations of the Real that occur in discourse, particularly the symptom.
The Role of the Symptom
The symptom is a modality in which we experience the Real insofar as it is the point at which abstract universals – like national identity, human rights, and so on – fail. This point of failure reveals the existence of an irresolvable (parallax) gap within a universal discourse and, thus, ultimately, the presence of a concrete universal that is disrupting the coherence of that universalising horizon. It is not so much the symptom itself that is Real, but rather the gap that the symptom opens up between itself and the abstract universal. This gap reveals the existence of an element which subverts the universal horizon and, as such, is a form in which the Real is staged, creating the potential for dislocation. Yet, where the symptom comes to be symbolised and constructed in the fantasy-language of the abstract universal that is framing subjects’ perceptions of the situation, it loses this Real element and with it the threat of dislocation. This domestication occurs because the symptom, once symbolised through the various mechanisms of fantasy (see Chapter 5), becomes part of the abstract universal itself and, as such, a potential source of enjoyment (jouissance). Where this occurs, the gap that exists between the symptom and the abstract universal appears to dissipate. The symptom does not, however, disappear. Fantasy constructions never fully succeed. Rather the symptom continues to exist as an excessive element (as an irrepressible remnant of the Real) within the universalising discourse. The presence of the symptom, and the repressed Real that is inherent to it, continually threaten to return so as to dislocate the cogency of the universalising discourse.
If the symptom persists as a ‘stain’ on the universal imaginary, then concrete universality can be said to be the original source of this stain (Žižek, 1999, p.113; 2006a, p.31). In this sense, the concrete universal is the Real element around which the universal rotates and it is the symptom that represents the concrete universal within the abstract universal. The symptom plays this role by operating within the universal as the one element that does not fit, but upon whose presence the universal depends for its coherence. Here Žižek gives the example of ‘freedom’ as it appears within the universal aspirational horizon of capital. Within the logic of capital there exists one definition of freedom that subverts the reasonableness of all the others; the freedom to sell one’s labour on the market. The various social freedoms that citizens of a liberal state enjoy depend upon the loss of economic freedom. To this end, the freedom to sell one’s labour constitutes all the other elemental ‘freedoms’ normally associated with democracy. Without this conception of freedom, the others would not be able to exist (Žižek, 1989, p.21-3).
Thus it is around the symptom that the stability/instability of a discourse depends. To the extent that the symptom is able to be successfully integrated into the fantasy of the abstract universal then that universal horizon is able to maintain its regular functions. If however, the symptom refuses to be pacified by the terms of the dominant universal and domesticated into a norm or rule of a particular political community it offers the prospect, through determinate reflection, of a shift occurring whereby concrete universality becomes visible. However, the unconscious supplement which maintains the status of the abstract universal is a particularly powerful force, because of the prospect of Jouissance that it offers. Conversely, because J1 is impossible, the fantasmatic element of the abstract universal offers subjects J2, to enjoy, accessed through the symptom in much the same manner as they might enjoy hating the presence of an external antagonism, of an alien intruder (as discussed in chapter three). Thus, rather than impeding the fullness of the social/abstract universality, the symptom is a necessary condition for its existence: it is highly disruptive, yes, but nevertheless necessary because through it the abstract occludes its inability to obtain fullness.
Because of the necessary, yet disruptive effect, of the symptom in and upon the abstract universal, a multitude of different perspectives are generated in order to domesticate the dislocating effect of the Real that is inherent to the symptom. These symbolic perspectives depend upon the manner in which a discourse establishes itself in relation to the symptom. The most basic defensive techniques that ensure that the symptom (and thus the discursive position) can function while being disavowed are those of repression, a domesticating acknowledgement (through mechanisms of antagonism, of ideology and of super-ego demand), and of fetishism. We will consider each of these modes of responding to the symptom in the following chapter. In doing so, a methodology will be generated for understanding the manner in which the symptom operates within the domain of abstract universality. This methodology will be constructed with a view to considering the possibilities for radical structural change, change that moves outside of the fantasmatic relationship that, under ‘normal’ social conditions, persists between the symptom and the abstract universal, and which thereby exposes the concrete universal. As such, the methodology informs the core political orientation of the thesis, that of practicing concrete universality by revealing the constitutive materialist Truth embodied by the concrete universal.
In his latest work, The Parallax View, Žižek has redeveloped a psychoanalytic concept of dialectical materialism through the notion of a ‘parallax view’. The parallax view designates a gap – the parallax gap – between two discourses, a gap that can only be perceived through a shift in positions. Žižek considers there to be several different modalities of the parallax, the most salient for this thesis being the ‘parallax of ontological difference’ and the ‘political parallax’ (Žižek, 2006a, p.11). Political parallaxes occur when there is no common ground between positions that have been structured around a social antagonism. For example, a political parallax operates between the political ‘Left’ perspectives of ecologism and global development, structured around the antagonism inherent to global capitalism. This chapter, however, will primarily focus on the parallax of ontological difference, particularly as such difference relates to the issue of universality.
The key notion here is that the parallax gap is not a gap between two discourses that are external to each other but, rather, a gap which persists within the totality of the universal. This difference which is purely internal differs from the condition of ‘external difference’ that has animated traditional dialectical thought. The internal nature of the difference, as we shall see, is vital for the materialist focus in Žižek’s of dialectical thought. However, before the parallax view and its implications for universality and social change are developed further, my argument requires that I briefly review the fundamentals of traditional dialectical thought.
An introduction to Dialectics
The basic principle of a dialectical investigation is that the key to analysis lies with discovery of the exception to the series of objects that has caught the analyst’s gaze (Žižek, 2000a, p.241). The identification of ‘the exception’ forms the major difference between the practice of formal logic, which was the primary form of philosophical logic from the Greeks to Hegel, and dialectic logic. In formalism, an identity is considered to be equal to itself; A is equal to A. This is the Law of Identity. Additionally, the formalist Law of Contradiction reasons that if A=A, A cannot be equal to non-A. Rather, contradiction is purely external; A v B. However, the formalist position assumes that identities are full in themselves, that A is solely and fully A. The dialectic response to identity is that A is both A and non-A; the exclusions that are necessary for the formation of a coherent identity mean that every conception of identity includes an element of non-identity (Kay, 2003, p.26). By taking A as solely A, we miss this necessary exception to A: non-A (Novack, 1971, p.71).
The emphasis on non-A is elemental for the dialectical materialist perspective on universality and socio-political change in particular. More specifically, the exception to the series, which always appears within the series itself, is essential for understanding the manner in which discourses come to shift. These shifts are best understood through Hegel’s approach to dialectics. According to Hegelian dialectics, that which is real is rational. Although this appears overly rationalist for psychoanalytic thought, by taking the basic idea and interpreting it through a Lacanian lens, the value of dialectics for psychoanalysis is evident. The core insight of this position for psychoanalytic dialectics, which Žižek terms dialectical materialism, is that when an identity becomes unreal (irrational), what is excluded from the identity will overthrow the identity (Novack, 1971, p.87). To re-write this in Žižek’s terms, the weight of the abstract universal’s symptom becomes unbearable when it cannot be domesticated within the symbolic and fantasmatic resources available, causing that universal imaginary to become dislocated from within.
It was Hegelian dialectical thought which lead Marx to contend that capitalism had become so irrational that the working class had historical reason and right on its side (Novack,1971, p.88). What Marx did not consider, however, was capitalism’s ability to revolutionise its own symptoms by bringing them back into the universal horizon. Conversely, capitalism’s ability to internalise its limits has not stopped symptoms from occurring. Symptoms, as with a universal identity, are a relentless threat to capitalism. The constant presence of such symptoms in capitalism has lead Adorno (cited in Žižek, 2006a, p.51) to describe capitalism as a system that lives on credit that will never be paid off, in the sense that global capital is constantly able to revolutionize its own negative conditions.
Capital domesticates its symptoms in two ways. The most common and efficient manner, as has been noted, is to internalise symptoms. The internalisation of symptoms regularly occurs by acknowledging the symptom, but domesticating its effect through fantasy constructions. This method is an example of a rotational-style revolution. Although there may appear to be regular change, this change moves around a fixed central axis. This axis is the Real. This is the case with capitalism and its symptoms. However, some symptoms are unable to be domesticated through the act of simply being acknowledged. These symptoms lie at the core of a discursive structure; they are the Real around which the discourse rotates. As such, these kinds of symptoms, like the unsustainability of capitalism or global poverty, have to be disavowed from the universal horizon, such as global capitalism,in order for it to continue operating. It is only by getting at the heart of the system, so to speak, to the core, disavowed elements, that thorough-going radical change can occur.
Threats to capital such as these, however, are strongly disavowed, such is the anxiety that comes with acknowledging them and the jouissance available from within the capitalist edifice. Instead, capital operates by bringing the symptoms which can be acknowledged back into the system, albeit in a different form. A contemporary illustration of this dialectical process within capitalism, wherein threats to the system are constantly integrated back into the system, 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. Contemporary capitalist discourse, however, has long battled against these symptoms but instead now seeks to include them within its horizons. Although some forms of capitalist discourse try to repress these symptoms – in the case of Napster, for example (a digital file sharing internet site) being taken 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 free (and profit from advertising) or for a minimal cost. What was once a threat to the very heart of capitalism – the pursuit of private profit – is now an opportunity to generate profit.
From reflection to concrete universality
According to Hegel, there are three stages to the dialectic: reflection, external reflection and determinate reflection (Kay, 2003, p.19). Within the condition of reflection, an identity is posited in itself, because it is assumed to be fully identical with itself. In terms of the individual, reflection can be conceived of as the human substance before it entered the symbolic realm. Upon entry into the symbolic order, however, substance is negated by the symbolic Other and becomes ‘subject’, thereby losing access to Jouissance. The condition of reflection, like Jouissance, is always only a fantasy, a retroactive construction of what has been lost through external reflection; the fantasy being that there was something present to lose (Jouissance).
Reflection is an important stage because it allows one to think of the process of external reflection as a negation of reflection, rather than as a starting point for analysis. External reflection is considered to occur when an identity is negated by an object outside of itself. External reflection introduces lack into the symbolic system. This lack, R2, occurs because of the lack of J1, which the subject is believed to hold before the external negation by the symbolic order. This belief is sustained by fantasy.
That same fantasy prevents the subject from entering the third stage of the dialectical movement, determinate reflection; the negation of the negation. This negation is known as determinate reflection. Determinate reflection does not produce a change in content, but rather a reconception of the negation that occurs through external reflection (Kay, 2003, p.37). Rather than being perceived as a negative limit, this negation is reconstituted as a positive condition (Žižek, 2002, p.36).
The philosophical concept of Truth illustrates what is at stake in the dialectical process. In modernism, it was held that, through reason, humankind could have unmediated access to the Truth. Truth itself was never found in modernism, this simply reflects the fantasy of reflection that is at work. The modernist perspective was negated by forms of late-modernist or post-modernist thought, which reasoned that Truth was impossible for the subject because its access to reality is always mediated by language. The relativistic dismissal of Truth which such positions imply has, in turn, been negated by perspectives such as Lacanian psychoanalysis. Thus, the ‘failure’ that occurred to the idea of Truth, upon discovery of the mediation of reality by discourse, becomes a positive condition of Truth; Truth is possible, but only in this mediated form – there is no Truth outside of the historical contingency of thought.
Žižek’s Dialectical Materialism
The negation of the universal by the particular is fundamental for Žižek’s dialectical materialism (Žižek, 2002, p.43). This negation informs the ontological impossibility of a universal identity that is without lack. However, because of the prospect for jouissance, in both the forms of J1 and J2, the negation in external reflection produces the après-coup construction of the abstract universal which negates this lack. Likewise the negation of reflection creates the conditions of possibility for a radical shift in positions relative to concrete universality. To understand the possibilities for such a shift, our argument must do more to understand the negation of the negation, that is, the process of determinate reflection.
External reflection is the stage within which reflection is itself negated, overcome. However, psychoanalytic thought shows that reflection is always-already negated. This state of negation-that-has-already-happened lies in the subject’s ‘castration’ (separation from Jouissance), which is associated with its entrance into the symbolic realm. Thus we need to distinguish between two separate, but very related meanings of the negation of the negation. This division relates to the distinction that Žižek makes between negativity (the Real) within the symbolic order (R2) and the negativity upon which the symbolic order is based (R1). For Žižek, it is the materiality of R1 that is primary (this makes his position a materialist one) rather than the idealism of a position founded on the primacy of R2 (R. Butler, 2005, p.95). The distinction between the materialist position on the Real and the idealist perspective also separates Laclau and Žižek. Where Laclau considers the Real to be the limit to every symbolic formation and thus as a lack within the symbolic order, Žižek argues that the Real is also an excess to the social, saturating it with jouissance. The first negation of the negation is thus structurally based, relating to the condition of determinate reflection. In determinate reflection, the negation that occurs to the universal by the particular in the process of external reflection is, itself, negated: that is, negation is viewed as a positive condition of the universal.
The second type of ‘negation of the negation’ relates back to castration. Castration is the initial negation, but this negation is itself negated through its repression in fantasy (Kay, 2003, p.33). The two negations of negations are vitally related. In dialectical materialism, we see that, in reflection, whatever it is that we perceive is the product of a prior condition of negation: ‘the thing’ has already been negated by the operation upon it by the symbolic order. The subject’s entry into the symbolic is never completed, however, and their disjointedness with that order provides the means through which the process of negation moves beyond the state of external negation to that of determinate negation: the subject’s inhabitation of the symbolic order is always dislocated by an excess of jouissance and by the Real. That said, the subject is also driven to get back to the original, but mythical, state of Jouissance. As we have previously noted, J1 is only an imaginary concept, it is the creation of J2.This drive to return to J1 constitutes the negation of the negation in its fullest, psychoanalytic meaning, the repression of the fact that we never had ‘it’ in the first place. As a consequence of this turn, psychoanalysis suggests that a third stage – a further negation – can be added to ‘the negation of the negation’.
The ‘negation of the negation of the negation’, is concrete universality. This third term is necessary to designate the possibility of going beyond the fantasmatic supplement that prevents the subject from perceiving the concrete universal upon which the abstract universal is founded. This synthesis of the two concepts of ‘the negation of negation’ allows analysis to go past the purely interpretive arena. To summarise this synthesis, we see that any identity is negated in itself, but the very fact of this primordial lack is negated in fantasy. Fantasy instead presents lack as having been caused by an external obstacle, such as occurs through processes of external reflection. The construction of such fantasies support the production of an abstract universal imaginary from which subjects gain access to jouissance.
We see this external concept of antagonism in operation in Laclau’s early work (see the previous chapter) but also in everyday political ideology, where the identity of one faction is thought to be prevented by that of another. What this perspective fails to acknowledge is that it is not the Other which is preventing the full expression of identity but, rather, that this failure is internal to the identity. This is why Žižek is so condescending towards identity politics; they are a false politics which ignore more pressing concerns, notably the contemporary manifestation of the Real at the heart of the symbolic order; global capital and its affect on humanity. In the process of negating ‘the negation of the negation’, the fantasy which portrays the secondary negation (the symptom) as being an external, alien cause of social discord is deconstructed: the cause of discord does not simply lie with a foreign force. This deconstruction the possibility to emerge of a political reconfiguration, as the unconscious supplement which has held together the abstract universal looses its grip upon subjects.
Determinate Reflection and Concrete Universality
Determinate reflection is the most influential phase for inducing change within a universal. 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 as we attempt to incorporate notions of collective –- economic, cultural and social –rights within liberal human rights frameworks), is rather the condition of the universal’s ability to generate social consensus. In that process, the subject comes to recognise the element of non-identity that structures the appearance of reality, the ‘exclusion’ within universality of that which does not correspond with itself, and identifies with that split. The act of identifying with both the universal and its exception generally provokes strong anxiety (although various defence methods, discussed in chapter five) emerge to allow this paradoxical identification to proceed. Because of the anxiety that is experienced through the process of determinate reflection, the universal loses its grip upon the subject. That subject is then able to reconsider their own (contingent, political) configuration.
In the process of external reflection, the negation of reflection that occurs (that is, of the symptom) is domesticated by being constructed in fantasy. This allows the abstract universal to function in a normal manner. In the move to determinate reflection, however, a radical shift in emphasis occurs from the abstract universal to the concrete universal. This shift in emphasis sees the symptom emerging as a necessary, constitutive element of the totality that is universality, the symptom becoming both the ‘concrete singular exception’ of the abstract universal and ‘a universality’ in itself which exceeds the conceptual grid of the existing framework (Kay, 2003, p.42). As a consequence, this impediment to the realisation of universal fullness, the symptom/concrete universal, holds the Truth of the universal in its totality (Žižek, 1999, p.180-181). A principle of analysis that follows from this is to refrain from comparing the universal with what it seeks to represent (e.g. by asking Are these really universal human rights?), but rather with that which the abstract universal excludes in order to constitute itself; the concrete universal (Žižek, 2002, p.160).
Posited in this manner, 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 in order for the universal to be constituted. Both Laclau and Žižek use the notion of the constitutive outside, and it is worth considering these alternative conceptions in order to better illustrate the internal, as opposed to external, nature of the concrete universal, which, through the dialectical movement, opens up further possibilities for political change.
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, p.151)
Laclau’s conception of the constitutive outside, however, varies significantly from Žižek’s. For Laclau, the only thing that the excluded elements have in common is that they are excluded from the universal; thus they are external. In contrast, Žižek’s notion of concrete universality refers to a condition where the excluded elements stand in the place of, and constitute a state of, ‘minimal difference’ between the universal and itself; the excluded elements are paradoxically within the species yet subversive of it. Thus, while Laclau would agree that the relation between the universal and its constitutive outside is not the formalist relation of A→ B, he postulates it as A→anti-A (Torfing, 1999, p.125). In contrast, Žižek claims that concrete universality is not anti-A, but rather non-A. The dialectical interactions of A and non-A within universality form the basis of Žižek’s parallax view.
The Parallax View
An ontological parallax (as opposed to a political parallax, as introduced at the beginning of this chapter) brings together the concepts of universality and the dialectic within a psychoanalytic conception of materialism. The key notion here is that universality is split internally between the abstract universal and the concrete universal, that split forming around a ‘parallax gap’. The parallax gap is the gap that persists between two closely associated perspectives, between which no common ground is possible, the gap only being viewable through the shift between positions. This gap, to add another gloss to it, is the parallax Real (Žižek, 2006a, p.4). The two sides that make up the moment of universality, the abstract universal and the concrete universal, constitute the basis of the ontological parallax, these two forms of universality being made up of incommensurable discourses that are held together by a condition of ‘minimal difference’ that persists between them. Žižek states that this incommensurability, rather than providing an obstacle to the dialectical movement (because of the lack of a common language), actually fuels the subversive political core of dialectics because it allows for not only small change but, rather, large structural shifts (p.4).
The division that occurs to the universal around the parallax Real – between its abstract and concrete expressions – is not symmetrical. Relatively symmetrical divisions can be found around social antagonisms, as identified within political parallaxes. Alternatively, in the ontological parallax the universal is divided into its abstract and concrete forms, the abstract universal being the hegemonic imaginary through which the apparently coherence of social life gets constructed. The abstract universal is built upon the effects of the imaginary and upon ideological fantasy to negate the negation that is inherent to the symbolic order. It offers the prospect of fullness and of Jouissance. The universal horizon pacifies the disruptive effects of the Real by targeting the various manifestations of the Real that occur in discourse, particularly the symptom.
The Role of the Symptom
The symptom is a modality in which we experience the Real insofar as it is the point at which abstract universals – like national identity, human rights, and so on – fail. This point of failure reveals the existence of an irresolvable (parallax) gap within a universal discourse and, thus, ultimately, the presence of a concrete universal that is disrupting the coherence of that universalising horizon. It is not so much the symptom itself that is Real, but rather the gap that the symptom opens up between itself and the abstract universal. This gap reveals the existence of an element which subverts the universal horizon and, as such, is a form in which the Real is staged, creating the potential for dislocation. Yet, where the symptom comes to be symbolised and constructed in the fantasy-language of the abstract universal that is framing subjects’ perceptions of the situation, it loses this Real element and with it the threat of dislocation. This domestication occurs because the symptom, once symbolised through the various mechanisms of fantasy (see Chapter 5), becomes part of the abstract universal itself and, as such, a potential source of enjoyment (jouissance). Where this occurs, the gap that exists between the symptom and the abstract universal appears to dissipate. The symptom does not, however, disappear. Fantasy constructions never fully succeed. Rather the symptom continues to exist as an excessive element (as an irrepressible remnant of the Real) within the universalising discourse. The presence of the symptom, and the repressed Real that is inherent to it, continually threaten to return so as to dislocate the cogency of the universalising discourse.
If the symptom persists as a ‘stain’ on the universal imaginary, then concrete universality can be said to be the original source of this stain (Žižek, 1999, p.113; 2006a, p.31). In this sense, the concrete universal is the Real element around which the universal rotates and it is the symptom that represents the concrete universal within the abstract universal. The symptom plays this role by operating within the universal as the one element that does not fit, but upon whose presence the universal depends for its coherence. Here Žižek gives the example of ‘freedom’ as it appears within the universal aspirational horizon of capital. Within the logic of capital there exists one definition of freedom that subverts the reasonableness of all the others; the freedom to sell one’s labour on the market. The various social freedoms that citizens of a liberal state enjoy depend upon the loss of economic freedom. To this end, the freedom to sell one’s labour constitutes all the other elemental ‘freedoms’ normally associated with democracy. Without this conception of freedom, the others would not be able to exist (Žižek, 1989, p.21-3).
Thus it is around the symptom that the stability/instability of a discourse depends. To the extent that the symptom is able to be successfully integrated into the fantasy of the abstract universal then that universal horizon is able to maintain its regular functions. If however, the symptom refuses to be pacified by the terms of the dominant universal and domesticated into a norm or rule of a particular political community it offers the prospect, through determinate reflection, of a shift occurring whereby concrete universality becomes visible. However, the unconscious supplement which maintains the status of the abstract universal is a particularly powerful force, because of the prospect of Jouissance that it offers. Conversely, because J1 is impossible, the fantasmatic element of the abstract universal offers subjects J2, to enjoy, accessed through the symptom in much the same manner as they might enjoy hating the presence of an external antagonism, of an alien intruder (as discussed in chapter three). Thus, rather than impeding the fullness of the social/abstract universality, the symptom is a necessary condition for its existence: it is highly disruptive, yes, but nevertheless necessary because through it the abstract occludes its inability to obtain fullness.
Because of the necessary, yet disruptive effect, of the symptom in and upon the abstract universal, a multitude of different perspectives are generated in order to domesticate the dislocating effect of the Real that is inherent to the symptom. These symbolic perspectives depend upon the manner in which a discourse establishes itself in relation to the symptom. The most basic defensive techniques that ensure that the symptom (and thus the discursive position) can function while being disavowed are those of repression, a domesticating acknowledgement (through mechanisms of antagonism, of ideology and of super-ego demand), and of fetishism. We will consider each of these modes of responding to the symptom in the following chapter. In doing so, a methodology will be generated for understanding the manner in which the symptom operates within the domain of abstract universality. This methodology will be constructed with a view to considering the possibilities for radical structural change, change that moves outside of the fantasmatic relationship that, under ‘normal’ social conditions, persists between the symptom and the abstract universal, and which thereby exposes the concrete universal. As such, the methodology informs the core political orientation of the thesis, that of practicing concrete universality by revealing the constitutive materialist Truth embodied by the concrete universal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
