Identity Formation as an Ideology of Form (original) (raw)

The grip of ideology: a Lacanian approach to the theory of ideology

Journal of Political Ideologies, 2001

Is it possible to say something about how an ideology grips subjects that goes beyond today's sophisticated accounts of how particular socio-political traditions have been contingently constituted? This paper explores how a Lacanian conceptual framework provides the resources with which to offer an affirmative response to this question. In outlining such a response, I rely on Slavoj Žižek's political re-articulations of psychoanalytic categories and on Ernesto Laclau's hegemonic approach to ideology. I begin by situating the hegemonic approach to ideology in the context of other contemporary approaches. I then offer a reading which suggests that Ẑiẑek's Lacanian approach can be seen as a particular version of the hegemonic approach to ideology. Crucial to the former are the concepts of desire, fantasy, and enjoyment. I suggest that a Lacanian theory of ideology offers us a set of concepts drawn from the clinic that provoke interesting insights for the analysis and critique of ideology.

The Sublime Gesture of Ideology. An Adornian Response to Žižek

One of the central charges that Žižek levels down against Adorno is that his critique of ideology comes dangerously close to a post-ideological position in which all ideological contents, political actions or rituals are reduced to a cynical consciousness which automatically obeys certain social imperatives though being aware of their falsity. Against this, Žižek comes up with an alternative understanding of cynicism as operating not at the level of consciousness, but everyday practices. What the present article tries to show is that Žižek's critique is misplaced, for Adorno has a much more subtle approach in which the problem of ideology lies neither simply in theory, nor in practice, but somewhere in-between, in the compulsion of gestures. Moreover, from an Adornian perspective, Žižek's commitment to a Hegelian self-referential approach (based on double negation/compulsion of subjective gestures) obliterates the double-edge character of determinate negation, that of addressing both the present social-historical context and the possibility of an alternative social reality. 2

Techne and Impossibility: Re-Reading Žižek’s Ideology-Critique as Geisteskritik

Social Science Research Network, 2010

I. The Many Faces of Non-Identity Žižek relies on three articulations of impossibility to generate the dynamic that animates his dialectical materialism: repetition, reduction, and remainder. 1 (Žižek 2001: 78-83) Across his catalogue of works Žižek develops the critique of ideology through the methodological structure of this 'dialectical materialist' approach. As a methodology dialectical materialism is composed of four moments that constitute the procedure as a method: firstly the positing of some thesis, secondly the reversal of the thesis, thirdly the inversion of the reversed thesis, and finally the inverse reversal of the thesis which constitutes a new positing. 2 (Buck-Morss 1979: 77-81) An example of this is as follows: '"all history is natural" and therefore transitory,' '"all nature is historical" and therefore socially produced,' '"actual history is not historical" but merely the representation of the victor,' and finally 'representation is unnatural because it denies the transitoriness of history.' (Buck-Morss 1979: 131) Žižek follows the method of dialectical materialism to intervene in and critique ideology through moments of 'non-identity,' the limit of political, social, and cultural identification and belief. This materialist and dialectical unfolding of ideology-critique with Žižek's characteristic blending of philosophy, psychoanalysis, and popular culture is particular to Žižek's 'Slovenian' brand of ideology-critique. While such ideology-critique is bound to French political philosophy and social critique after Althusser, it is important to note that the kind of ideology-critique Žižek is engaged in is also highly reminiscent of the early Frankfurt School scholarship. This germane relation is flagged by the two particular ways that Žižek uses non-identity: the critique of aesthetics and the demystified structure of existence a propos ideology-critique. The first of these is characterised by attentiveness to the socioeconomic conditions of the aesthetic field. Žižek is not in search of a theory of art to justify his dialectical materialism, but rather he treats the aesthetic dimension of any object as the grounds for ideology-critique to take place. (Žižek 2006b: 3-13) Such a move is highly reminiscent of the way Adorno produced his various critiques during his association with the early Frankfurt School. Like Žižek, Adorno maintained an intellectual procedure where the critical philosophical gaze intervenes in the object to reveal its non-identity with itself. (Buck-Morss 1979: 47) An example of this comes from Adorno's early critique of Kierkegaard, which holds to the formal structure of his later analyses with the Frankfurt School. (Buck-Morss 1979: 23) In this critique Adorno turns the socioeconomic forces sustaining and producing the bourgeois intérieur against Kierkegaard's mystical departure into existentialism, charging that Kierkegaard's philosophy dissolves the worldliness it sets out to salvage from Hegel. (Buck-Morss 1979: 115) This inversion of Kierkegaard allows Adorno to bring the Danish existentialist's philosophical project into the dialectical fold of materialism and further Adorno's end of renewing the validity and value of aesthetics as a domain for unearthing and "knowing objective truth." (Buck-Morss 1979: 114) This valuation of aesthetics goes well beyond the importance (or lack of) either Kierkegaard or Hegel imagined for the aesthetic field. The privileging of aesthetics by Adorno gives his ideologycritique a particular slant where we find aesthetics deployed to read the formal conditions of various political scenarios. This aesthetic over-determination is similarly characteristic of Žižek's ideology-critique. An example of this is Žižek's careful reading of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ode To Joy, the unofficial anthem of the European Union (E.U.), to articulate the economic movements and social inconsistencies within the political constitution of the E.U. (Žižek 2006: 569-572) In this reading Žižek clearly shows his critique's indebtedness to Adorno: Of course, these lines are not meant as a criticism of Beethoven; quite the contrary, in an Adornian mode, one should discern in this failure of the fourth movement Beethoven's artistic integrity: the truthful indexing of the failure of the very Enlightenment project of

Ambiguous Ideology and the Lacanian Twist

Journal of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, 1997

After the so-called "End of Ideology" in the '50's the last few years have signaled a growing interest for the theory and conceptualisation of ideology. 1 This renewed interest has even led to the launching of a new Journal of Political Ideologies and to the proliferation of the relevant debates in journals such as Politics and others. What is important here is that this new wave in the Ideology literature does not signal the coming of absolute analysis -if absolute analyses are ever possible -to the definitional and other problems long associated with the concept. On the contrary, what seems to be happening is the emergence of a delineated research area in which all problems are acknowledged and discussed. For it is the case that the interest in ideology is rather stimulated by all these problems. It is the fact that ideology resembles "a proud vessel that some do not recognise, others ram, and others again attach to their crafts as would a salvage ship tow a wreck" 2 that is associated with the new journal, while the discussion in Politics is centred around the limits and the ambiguity of the concept. 3 This generalised and institutionalised aporia surrounding the theory of ideology is coupled, in these last years, with the dynamic emergence, mainly in the prolific work of Slavoj Zizek, of a distinct Lacanian theory of ideology. 4 This confluence between Lacanian theory and the critique of ideology is not only beneficial for political theory but also for the psychoanalytic field since it enhances its social significance, something which always constituted a point de capiton in the discourse of both Freud and Lacan. This explains the enormous number of Zizek's texts included in journals operating in the Freudian field (Analysis, JCFAR and others).

Putting Žižek in The Crucible: Social Antagonism and the Sublime Object of Ideology

In 1952, Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible – a fictionalised staging of the 1692 Salem witch trials. As an allegory of McCarthyite anti-communist hysteria in 1950s America, the play could itself be considered a form of sublimation: firstly, of course, in the way that all creative works can be understood, in the Freudian context, as a diversion of the drives (1916-17). But secondly, and as allegory specifically, we could consider it a sort of sublimated political gesture: Miller’s protest against a modern-day witch hunt finding its expression in an alternative form. However, for the purposes of this paper what I want to identify is the socio-political mechanism of sublimation at work both in the context of the production of The Crucible and within its narrative and staging. Specifically, I intend to explore The Crucible in relation to Slavoj Žižek’s theory of the “sublime object of ideology” (1989). To this end, I will address Miller’s own adaptation of his stage play in Nicholas Hytner’s 1996 film, for the ways in which its formal strategies emphasise the key features of social conflict that drive persecution. And while it might, at first face, seem almost an error of category to examine the “sublime” in the context of a symposium on sublimation, it is worth noting that both Freud (1930) and Lacan (1992) emphasised the social function of sublimation. Moreover, Žižek’s theory relies specifically on Lacan’s most succinct definition of sublimation, as the elevation of the object “to the dignity of the Thing” (1992: 134), which we can understand here as the raising of something quotidian to a privileged position within the social fabric. Reflecting the terrible fascination of the Thing, such an object may be venerated or, indeed, denigrated, like the totemic animal that is both worshipped and sacrificed in order to ensure the cohesion of the tribe or clan (Freud 1913). In this paper, I will focus on what Žižek calls the sublime object as “negative magnitude” (1997: 81) to explore the logic of scapegoating – where the internal contradictions or antagonisms of a particular society are ideologically displaced onto an external figure of the Other – that we can chart from (at least) the Salem witch trials to the present day refugee crisis.

The Cynic's Fetish: Slavoj Žižek and the Dynamics of Belief

Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, 2004

Slavoj Žizˇek's critical examination of today's liberal-democratic capitalist ideology highlights the phenomenon of ''cynical distance,'' namely, a position where the individual consciously professes disbelief in relation to the status quo system while nonetheless behaving ''as if'' he/ she really accepts the authority of this system. Unconsciously, such cynical subjects, Žizˇek maintains, are fervent believers in the ideologies that they overtly claim to disregard. Drawing on Marx, Freud, and Lacan, Žizˇek scrutinizes the structural relations between cynicism, disavowal, and belief in order to show how commodity fetishism and the attribution of one's unconscious beliefs to others enable one to ultimately accept acquiescence to the reigning state of the situation. However, in both decoupling Marx's descriptive-diagnostic discourse on capitalism from his positive prescriptive program as well as basing his own political thought on the Lacanian notion of the Act, Žizˇek's thought is itself in danger of falling into the trap of cynical distance.

A Ticklish Subject? Zizek and the Future of Left Radicalism

Thesis Eleven, 2005

The work of Slavoj Žižek has become an essential reference point for debates concerning the future of left radical thought and practice. His attacks on identity politics, multiculturalism and 'radical democracy' have established him as a leading figure amongst those looking to renew the link between socialist discourse and a transformative politics. However, we contend that despite the undeniable radicality of Žižek's theoretical approach, his politics offers little in the way of inspiration for the progressive left. On the contrary, his commitment to Lacanian categories reasserts the primordial character of alienation, hierarchy and domination, and his proposed schema for confronting the status quo, the model of the Act, serves to reaffirm rather than contest the given. We suggest that a genuinely transformative politics should (contra Žižek) stress the necessity for the prefiguration of alternatives, of linking and radicalizing 'petty' resistances, of encouraging critical and utopian forms of thought and activity.

Cultural Studies and Slavoj Žižek

This work explores the fraught relationship between Slavoj Žižek and cultural studies. It argues that although there is a growing and increasingly distinct disavowal of cultural studies in Žižek’s work, an examination of the reasons for, and the form and content of this disavowal actually amounts to something of a ‘royal road’ for understanding Žižek’s intellectual and political project. In short, it argues that in Žižek’s critique of cultural studies is the key to understanding his entire oeuvre. This is because Žižek construes cultural studies as an exemplary site of intellectual, political and ideological struggle: on the one hand, he argues, the insights of its ‘postmodernist deconstructionism’ challenge the ‘naïve cognitivism’ that is the dominant form of knowledge today; but, on the other hand, its trite multiculturalism and easy relativism amount to intellectual and political derelictions of responsibility. Against this, Žižek argues for a ‘politics of truth’ that remains focused on the power and effects of the capitalist economy. However, this paper argues, despite the importance of Žižek’s critique, his polemical zeal leads both his political and his intellectual project into a series of cul-de-sacs. It argues that in order to move his projects forward, Žižek must now reorient his stance vis-à-vis cultural studies, by more adequately acknowledging the importance of the Gramscian post-Marxist premise of cultural studies – that of the political propensities of the (university) institution – rather than living in the repetition of merely denouncing cultural studies as ‘ideological’. The paper argues that Žižek’s critique of cultural studies is indeed potentially greater than the sum of its parts, in that it casts important light on issues of culture, politics and ideology, and showing that cultural studies is in fact ambivalently central to his entire project; but it concludes that cultural studies’ institutional focus reciprocally problematizes – and points to the way forward for – Žižek’s intellectual and political paradigm.

Žižek’s New Universe of Discourse: Politics and the Discourse of the Capitalist

International Journal of Žižek Studies, 2016

If the originality of Žižek’s contribution to psychoanalytic theory is to be distinguished from the thought of Jacques Lacan, this should be done at the level of form rather than content. Although Žižek makes significant contributions to psychoanalytic thought at the level of content through the deployment of new concepts such as interpassivity, the conjunction of Lacan with the analysis of popular culture, political theory, Marx, German Idealism, and Enlightment rationality, the singularity of Žižek’s thought with respect to Lacanian theory can be most visibly discerned at the level of the formal structure of discourse with which his theoretical and political praxis strives to engage and respond. In Žižek’s own self-understanding of his project, his thought occupies the position of the discourse of the analyst, striving to affect a separation of

Conservatism, Liberalism, and Identity

Throughout recent discussions of race, gender, and identity, both sides of the political spectrum avoid addressing the central concept of what "otherness" is. Using the psychoanalytic and philosophical insights of Slavoj Zizek combined with philosophers such as Jean Baudrillard and Albert Camus, this paper will argue for the rejection of left liberalism, political correctness, and conservative cultural theory due to their inability to allow the subject more freedoms in relation to the other. The paper calls for the adoption of Zizek's elimination of the big Other in which one enters into communication with the other as a subject of ideological equals. This will be the only way in which one can ever speak, congregate, or interact in a wholly free and unrestrictive manner while also creating genuine political change.

“Interview with Slavoj Zizek,”

Slavoj Zizek is a fifty year old Slovenian philosopher and psychoanalist working in both Lubiana and the United States. He has been renowned and widely read abroad for years. His first Italian translation appeared in 1999 (Il grande altro, Milan, Feltrinelli). At the end of the same year L'isterico sublime. Psicoanalisi e idealismo tedesco (Milan, SA/TUROS Edizioni) was published: this is a sort of psychoanalitic reading of the notion of subject, as it is investigated in Hegel's works. Zizek has also published some essays in «aut aut» (nn.293-294 e 296-297). An attentive observer of mass social phenomena, of the political dimension and the mechanisms of power (from the Balcan conflicts to Hitchcock movies), Zizek investigates his subjects using both the traditional philosophical methods and the psychoanalitic approach, notably Lacan's. In this interview, conducted by Fabio Polidori, we asked him to speak of his researches in the context of the present situation.

International Journal of Žižek Studies, Vol 2, No 1 (2008)

zizekstudies.org

Lacanian psychoanalysis, embodied in contemporary thought by Slavoj Žižek's dialectical materialist rehabilitation of universality, enables a form of political analysis based on the possibility of structural change. Many political theorists argue that because psychoanalysis stresses the negative ontological base of the social (the Real) it is fundamentally conservative and nihilistic. Conversely, the very political value of psychoanalysis lies in its accent on the Real. The main political insight of Lacanian ...