Fascism and Stalinism

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Introduction

Enjoyment

Ideology relies on an unassimilable kernel of enjoyment.[1]

This means subjects are attached to an ideological formation not simply because of a set of identifiable reasons or causes but because of something extra.

Ideological formations rely on an extra, nonrational nugget that goes beyond what we know to produce our sense of who we are and what the world is for us.

Again, the idea of enjoyment as a political fac­tor is that some contingent element of reality takes on a special, excessive role and so attaches us to a socio-political formation.

In Zizek's words, this element "becomes elevated to the dignity of a Thing."

Ideological Formations

Enjoyment is a category that can help political theorists account for differences among ideological formations

Zizek differentiates among ideological formations in terms of enjoyment.

A primary task for the political theorist, then, is to grasp how a given forma­tion organizes enjoyment.


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