For They Know Not what They Do: Enjoyment as a Political FactorWith the disintegration of state socialism, we are witnessing this eruption of enjoymnet in the re-emergence of aggressive nationalism and racism. With the lid of repression lifted, the desires that have emerged are from from democratic. To explain this apparent paradox, says Slavoj Zizek, socialist critical thought must turn to psychoanalysis. For They Know Not What They Do seeks to understand the status of enjoyment within ideological discourse, from Hegel through Lacan to these political and ideological deadlocks. The author's own enjoyment of "popular culture" makes this an engaging and lucid exposition, in which Hegel joins hands with Rossellini, Marx with Hitchcock, Lacan with Frankenstein, high theory with Hollywood melodrama. |
Contents
Enjoyment within | xi |
The Hard Road to Dialectical Materialism From | lxxxix |
Destiny of a Joke | 1 |
On the One | 7 |
The Wanton Identity | 61 |
Hegelian Llanguage | 99 |
On the Other | 141 |
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Common terms and phrases
absolute actually Alain Badiou already always-already appearance apropos Badiou bodhisattva Claude Lefort conceived constitutive contingent contrary course crime crucial Derrida desire determination dialectical process difference dimension Don Giovanni element embodiment emerges empty encounter enjoyment entity enunciation example existence external fact fantasy father function G.W.F. Hegel gaze grasp Hegel Hegelian historical identity identity-with-itself ideology illusion impossible inherent inversion Jacobins Jacques Lacan judgement Kant Kantian Lacan Lacanian logic means movement necessity negation negative never notion objet petit obscene ontological opposite paradox particular passage perceived phallus Phenomenology of Spirit political position possible precisely predicate present Protestantism psychoanalysis pure radical re-mark reading Real reality reason reflection relationship retroactively reverse sense signifier simply Slavoj Žižek social split structure sublated Substance superego sweet hereafter symbolic order Therein consists thing tion totalitarian totality traumatic truth ultimate universal vanishing mediator void Wittgenstein words Zen at War