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Peter Dews' basic criticism of my [[reading ]] of [[Schelling ]] is that, by way of asserting the [[irreconcilable ]] gap in all its guises-the distance that forever separates the radically inert, ahistorical [[Real ]] from its ultimately delusive historicizations, the non-coincidence between the [[subject ]] and the [[signifier]], etc. - I remain blind to Schelling's basic thrust towards the deeper affinity between spirit and [[nature]], and thus towards the possibility of

Real of the ground and the subject's [[freedom]], while, already in his early [[philosophy ]] of [[identity]], Schelling's ultimate [[goal ]] is to bring the two together, demonstrating how nature is the spirit [[unconscious ]] of itself and spirit nature [[conscious ]] of itself. The ultimate motif of this criticism is [[political]]: since my final horizon is that of an irreducible gap and tension, I am, despite my 'ostensibly [[left]]-wing stance', condemned to a [[vision ]] of [[social ]] [[life ]] which is 'ultimately indistinguishable from the familiar forms of [[conservative ]] <i>Kulturkritik</i>'. <a [[name]]="1"></a><a href="#1x">1</a> Say, when I formulate today's tension between [[capitalist ]] globalism and the fundamentalist/particularist reactions to it in the [[terms ]] of the Schellingian opposition

caught in a repetitious deadlock, without any prospect for the [[resolution ]] of this tension. (Incidentally, this political sting, repeatedly made by Dews and propagated by [[others ]] close to <i>Radical Philosophy</i>, this [[double ]] suspicion or, rather, to put it bluntly, unproven insinuation that 1) in contrast to my '[[official]]' [[leftist ]] stance that I display in the Anglo- American West, parading there as a marxisant globetrotter, I show my [[true ]] political colours in [[Slovenia]], where I am advocating some dark irrationalist [[nationalism]], and that 2) this irrationalist nationalism is philosophically grounded in (my version of) [[Lacanian ]] [[theory]], is the blind spot of Dews' [[philosophical ]] argumentation, the point at which a disavowed, non-thematized, political [[passion ]] erupts in the midst of philosophical

criticism. The [[whole ]] point of the chapter of <i>The Indivisible [[Remainder]]</i> <a name="2"></a><a href="#2x">2</a> in which I deploy this example is that the tension/oscillation between expansion and contraction is not Schelling's last [[word]]: Schelling's [[notion ]] of <i>Ent-Scheidung</i>, of the primordial decision/differentiation, designates precisely the act which breaks this [[vicious cycle ]] of expansion/contraction. And my [[interpretation ]] focuses on why Schelling repeatedly failed at this key point. Therein, perhaps, resides the central misunderstanding: the '[[synthesis]]' between [[being ]] and its ground is a pseudo-problem (in exactly the same way in which, from a strict [[Freudian ]] view, it is meaningless to [[supplement ]] [[psychoanalysis ]] with

struggling with, the point of failure of the [[three ]] consecutive drafts of <i>Weltalter</i>, was the very emergence of [[logos ]] out of the vortex of the pre-[[ontological ]] Real of [[drives]], not the

his [[claim ]] that man's [[consciousness ]] arises from the primordial act which separates the [[present]]/actual consciousness from the [[spectral]], shadowy realm of the unconscious, one

'Unconscious' is not primarily the rotary motion of drives ejected into the eternal [[past]];

man is not the immediate opposite of consciousness, the obscure and confused '[[irrational]]'

means of which I 'choose myself', i.e., combine this [[multitude ]] of drives into the [[unity ]] of my [[self]]. 'Unconscious' is not the [[passive ]] stuff of inert drives to be used by the creative 'synthetic' [[activity ]] of the conscious ego; 'unconscious' in its most radical [[dimension ]] is

[[choice ]] of my fundamental '[[project]]' which, in [[order ]] to remain operative, must be '[[repressed]]', kept out of the light of day-or, to quote from the admirable last pages of the

taken back. If, in making a decision, somebody retains the [[right ]] to reexamine his

<font size="3">What we [[encounter ]] here is, of course, the [[logic ]] of the 'vanishing mediator': of the founding gesture of differentiation which must sink into invisibility once the [[difference ]] between the 'irrational' vortex of drives and the [[universe ]] of logos is in [[place]]. The [[category ]] of 'vanishing mediator' was introduced by Fredric [[Jameson ]] apropos of Max Weber. <a name="4"></a><a href="#4x">4</a> In political theory, the exemplary [[case ]] of a 'vanishing mediator' is provided by the [[Hegelian ]] notion of the historical hero who resolves the deadlock of the passage from the [[natural ]] [[state ]] of [[violence ]] to the civil state of peace guaranteed by legitimate [[power]].

what is therefore needed is a paradoxical [[agent ]] who, by means of violence itself, overcomes violence, i.e., the [[paradox ]] of an act which [[retroactively ]] establishes the [[conditions ]] of its own legitimacy and thereby obliterates its violent [[character]],

assertion of the unconditional iconoclastic [[monotheism]]: God is One, totally [[Other]], with no [[human ]] [[form]]. The commonplace [[position ]] is here that pagan (pre-[[Jewish]]) gods were

human passions), while the Jewish [[religion]], with its iconoclasm, was the first to

opposite? What if the very [[need ]] to [[prohibit ]] man making [[images ]] of God bears [[witness ]] to the personification of God discernible in 'Let us make humankind in our [[image]],

[[prohibition ]] is not previous pagan [[religions]], but rather its own anthropomorphization/ personification of God? What if Jewish religion itself generates the [[excess ]] it has to

am who I am'. In other [[words]], iconoclasm and other Jewish prohibitions do not relate to the pagan [[Otherness]], but to the violence of [[Judaism]]'s own [[imaginary ]] excess-in pagan

be prohibited not because of the pagans; its true [[reason ]] is the premonition that, if the [[Jews ]] were to do the same as the pagans, something horrible would have emerged (a hint of this [[horror ]] is given in [[Freud]]'s hypothesis [[about ]] the [[murder ]] of [[Moses]], this [[traumatic ]] [[event ]] on the [[denial ]] of which the Jewish identity is raised). The prohibition to make images is therefore equivalent to the Jewish [[disavowal ]] of the primordial crime: the primordial [[parricide ]] is the ultimate fascinating image. <a name="5"></a><a href="#5x">5</a> (What, then, does the [[Christian ]] assertion of the unique image of the crucified [[Christ ]] stand for?) <a name="6"></a><a href="#6x">6</a> <br><br>

encounter with Him is the encounter with [[another ]] person in the fullest [[sense ]] of the term-the Jewish God experiences [[full ]] wrath, revengefulness, [[jealousy]], etc., as every

faithfully, as the ultimate neighbour-[[Thing]]. <a name="7"></a><a href="#7x">7</a> [[Christianity ]] only goes to the end in this

the [[figure ]] of Christ: no wonder man looks like God, since a man - Christ - is God. With

of synthesis, a [[partial ]] [[regression ]] to [[paganism]], by introducing the ultimate [[icon]]-to-erase- all-other-icons, that of the [[suffering ]] Christ. Against this commonplace, one should assert that it is the Jewish religion that remains an 'abstract/immediate' [[negation ]] of

indiscernible from other [[humans ]] with [[regard ]] to his intrinsic properties? If one is permitted to indulge in a sacrilegious parallel, [[science]]-[[fiction ]] horror movies practise two modes to render the [[alien ]] Thing: either the Thing is wholly Other, a monster whose [[sight ]] one cannot endure, usually a mixture of reptile, octopus and [[machine ]] (like, precisely, the alien from Ridley Scott's [[film ]] of the same name), or it is exactly the same as we, ordinary humans - with, of course, some 'barely [[nothing]]' which allows us to [[identify ]] [[Them ]] (the

account of which a man, precisely, is never fully a man: his [[formula ]] is not man = God,

prevents the full identity of man to himself. In this sense, Christ's [[appearance ]] itself effectively stands for God's [[death]]: with it, it becomes clear that God is nothing but the

divinity ([[recall ]] the old Hindu statues of gods with dozens of hands, etc. - a clear example

too much, rendering [[visible ]] some horrifying [[secret ]] better left in shadow, which is why

this [[fear ]] that the image would reveal something shattering, that, in an unbearable way, it

[[Augustine ]] opposed Christianity, the religion of [[love]], to Judaism, the religion of [[anxiety]],

in love is its own [[constitutive excess]], the unbearable anxiety opened up by the [[experience ]] of the impotent God who failed in His [[work ]] of creation, i.e., to refer yet again to [[Hegel]],

subject of [[thought ]] and the Freudian [[subject of the unconscious]], which is perceived as anti-[[Cartesian]], as undermining the Cartesian '[[illusion]]' of [[rational ]] identity. One should bear in [[mind ]] that the opposite by reference to which a certain position asserts itself is this position's own presupposition, its own inherent excess (as is the case with [[Kant]]: the notion of diabolical [[evil ]] which he rejects is only possible within the horizon of his own [[transcendental ]] [[revolution]]). The point here is not so much that the Cartesian <i>[[cogito]]</i> is the

worth pursuing), but that [[the subject of the unconscious ]] is already operative in the

[[transparent ]] '[[thinking ]] substance', one has to [[pass ]] through the excessive point of [[madness ]]

same lines, the Jewish/Christian [[openness ]] to the Other ('Love thy neighbour!') is

on the clear opposition between the self-enclosed [[domain ]] of my [[community ]] and the [[external ]] Other, what reverberates in the Jewish/Christian openness is a reaction against the traumatic [[recognition ]] of the neighbour as the unfathomable abyssal Thing-the alien

Kant and Freud both claim to [[repeat ]] the Copernican turn in their respective domains. With regard to Freud, the [[meaning ]] of this reference seems clear and simple: in the same way [[Copernicus ]] demonstrated that our earth is not the centre of the universe, but a planet revolving around the sun, and in this sense '[[decentred]]', [[turning around ]] another centre, Freud also demonstrated that the (conscious) ego is not the centre of the human [[psyche]],

of the [[objects ]] are at the same [[time ]] the conditions of possibility of these objects

to some external, 'decentred', measure of [[truth]], the objects have to follow the subject,

[[knowledge]]? However, if one reads Kant's reference to Copernicus closely, one cannot

celestial movements. When he found that he could make no [[progress ]] by assuming that all the heavenly bodies revolved round the [[spectator]], he reversed the [[process]],

<font size="3">The precise [[German ]] terms (<i>die Zuschauer sich drehen</i> - not so much 'turn around another centre' as 'turn/rotate around themselves' <a name="9"></a><a href="#9x">9</a>) make it clear what interests Kant: the subject loses its substantial [[stability]]/identity and is reduced to the pure substanceless [[void ]]

this background that one can locate [[Lacan]]'s '[[return ]] to Freud': to put it as succinctly as

original Kantian sense, as asserting not the simple [[displacement ]] of the centre from the

[[psychological ]] subject full of emotions, [[instincts]], dispositions, etc., to what Lacan called the '[[barred ]] subject ($)', the vortex of the [[self-relating ]] negativity of [[desire]]. In this precise

[[terror ]] (absolute freedom) to the Kantian [[moral ]] subject in Hegel's <i>[[Phenomenology]]</i>

(582ff.): the [[revolutionary subject ]] experiences itself as mercilessly exposed to the whim of the terrorist [[regime]]-anyone can at any [[moment ]] be arrested and put to death as 'traitor'. Of course, the passage to moral [[subjectivity ]] occurs when this external terror is internalized by the subject as the terror of the moral law, of the [[voice ]] of [[conscience]]. However, what is often overlooked is that, for this [[internalization ]] to take place, the subject has to profoundly transform its identity: the subject has to [[renounce ]] the very kernel of its [[contingent ]] individuality, and to accept that the centre of its identity resides in its [[universal ]] moral consciousness. In other words, it is only in so far as I cling to my

[[agency ]] of external politcal terror to the pressure of the inner voice of conscience; this [[change ]] merely reflects the change in my identity. Perhaps, something similar occurs in the passage from Judaism to Christianity: what changes in this passage is not the [[content ]]

contract? In order to be effective, the limitation of individuals' [[sovereignty ]] - when they

are not enough-there must be a [[master ]] to enforce them. Therein resides the properly [[dialectical ]] paradox of [[Hobbes]]: he starts with the [[individual]]'s unlimited right to self-

own will, as the personification of my [[ethical ]] substance, but as an [[arbitrary ]] foreign force.

[[subjective ]] stance-the way to overcome it is to change my own identity...<br><br>

but the spectral domain of the not-yet-fully-constituted [[reality]]. Schelling's opposition of [[the Real ]] of drives (the ground of being) and being itself thus radically displaces the standard philosophical couples of nature and spirit, the real and the [[idea]], [[existence ]] and [[essence]], etc. This notion is crucial not only with regard to the [[history ]] of [[ideas]], but even

'are' the yellow sky in late Van Gogh or the water or grass in [[Munch]]: this [[uncanny ]]

Krzysztof [[Kieslowski]]'s [[films ]] is thoroughly ambiguous. On the one hand, its lesson seems to be that we live in a [[world ]] of alternate realities in which, as in a [[cyberspace ]] [[game]], when

another, better, choice - what was the [[first time ]] a suicidal mistake, can be the second

prospect of Karol and his [[French ]] bride getting a second [[chance ]] and remarrying. The very title of Annette Insdorf's [[recent ]] book on Kieslowski (<i>Double Lives, Second Chances</i>) points in this direction: the other life is here to give us a second chance, i.e., '[[repetition ]] becomes accumulation, with a prior mistake as a base for successful [[action]]'. <a name="10"></a><a href="#10x">10</a> However, while this universe sustains the prospect of [[repeating ]] past choices and thus retrieving missed opportunities, it can also be [[interpreted ]] in the opposite, much darker, way. There is a [[material ]] feature of Kies_lowski's films which has long attracted the attention of

darkening parts of the image which Kies_lowski and Idziak did not [[wish ]] to show'. <a name="12"></a><a href="#12x">12</a> This procedure of having 'large chunks smogged out' <a name="13"></a><a href="#13x">13 - </a> not as part of the formulaic depiction of a [[dream ]] or a vision, but in shots rendering the grey everyday reality-directly evokes the Gnostic notion of the universe which was created imperfect and is as such not yet

of [[Latin ]] America: patches of grass and wild hedges are interspersed by barren raw earth

by a [[perverse ]] and confused, idiotic God who screwed up the work of creation, producing

attempts-we are all '[[children ]] of a lesser God'. In mainstream Hollywood itself, this

effective [[scene ]] in <i>Alien 4: Resurrection</i>: the cloned Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) enters the

in an [[outburst ]] of violent rage, Ripley effectively destroys the entire horror show... This

himself as [[author]], we also have the repeated attempts to tell the same story in a slightly

theatres in [[Paris ]] - a different version for each theatre). In this eternally repeated rewriting, the '[[quilting point]]' is forever [[missing]]: there never is a final version, the work is never done and actually put in [[circulation]], delivered from the author to the [[big Other ]] of the [[public]]. (Is the recent fashion of the later release of the allegedly more authentic 'director's cut' not also part of the same [[economy]]?) What does this [[absence ]] of the final

primordial, pre-[[symbolic]], inchoate 'stuff' is the very neutral medium in which the

spectral [[plurality ]] of [[virtual ]] realities, beneath which lurks the pre-ontological proto-reality,

<i>Angelaki: Journal of the [[Theoretical ]] Humanities</i> 4 (1999), 13-23.<br><br>

[[Notes]]: <br><br>

<a name="2x"></a><a href="#2">2</a> Slavoj [[Zizek]], <i>[[The Indivisible Remainder]]: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters</i> ([[London ]] and New York: Verso, 1996), 13-91.<br>

<a name="3x"></a><a href="#3">3</a> F.W.J. von Schelling, <i>Die Weltalter</i> (second draft 1813), trans. [[Judith ]] Norman, in [[Slavoj Zizek ]] and F.W.J. von Schelling, <i>[[The Abyss of Freedom ]] / Ages of the World</i> (Ann Arbor: [[University ]] of Michigan Press, 1997), 182.<br>

<a name="4x"></a><a href="#4">4</a> [[Fredric Jameson]], 'The [[Vanishing Mediator]]; or, [[Max Weber ]] as Storyteller', in <i>The [[Ideologies ]] of Theory: Essays 1971-1986. Volume 2: Syntax of History</i>

<a name="5x"></a><a href="#5">5</a> See [[Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe]], <i>Musica Ficta: [[Figures ]] of [[Wagner]]</i>, trans. Felicia

the growing acceptance of [[Nazi ]] [[ideology ]] in the [[Germany ]] of the 1920s is that the [[Nazis ]] were deftly manipulating ordinary middle-[[class ]] [[people]]'s fears and [[anxieties ]] generated by the [[economic ]] crisis and fast social changes. The problem

however, far from being simple pre-[[ideological ]] facts, these fears and anxieties

of prohibiting what is already in itself [[impossible]]: if one cannot render God

we do not show a proper respect for Him, is all too simple, since, as we [[know ]]

him/her, avoiding [[acts ]] which, if accomplished, would unmask his/her stance as an imposture. Say, when a [[father ]] boasts to his son that he could run fast, the

[[impotence]]. In other words, the idea that iconoclasm expresses respect for the

<a name="8x"></a><a href="#8">8</a> [[Immanuel Kant]], <i>[[Critique of Pure Reason]]</i>, trans. J.M.D. Meiklejohn (London:

<a name="9x"></a><a href="#9">9</a> For a [[good ]] account of the incorrect translations of this key passage, see Gerard

The Films of [[Krzysztof Kieslowski]]</i>, ed. [[Paul ]] Coates (Trowbridge: Flick, 1999), 85.<br>

* [[From Proto-Reality to the Act]]. ''Centre for [[Theology ]] and [[Politics]]''. <http://www.lacan.com/zizproto.htm>