Changes

For Žižek, [[liberals ]] are more or less [[satisfied ]] with the ''status quo'' and against the radical [[act]].<ref>[[Contingency ]] 127-8</ref>

Like [[Hegel]]'s "[[Beautiful Soul]]", liberals wring their hands over the current [[state ]] of affairs while in fact benefiting under it and passively promoting it.

In [[practice]], liberals are not different from conservatives.Žižek has stated that he has more respect for conservatives, who at least radically contest [[capitalism ]] and call for new universals, even if they are the wrong ones.<ref>Did Somebody Say [[Totalitarianism]]? 242-4</ref>

[[Judith ]] [[Butler ]] has noted that the positions Žižek espouses would, in the USA, be associated with the [[Right]].<ref>Contingency 278</ref>[[Laclau ]] condemns Žižek as [[totalitarianism|totalitarian]], or else as confused.<ref>Contingency 289</ref>

Žižek, as a [[self]]-[[identified ]] "old-fashioned [[dialectical ]] [[materialist]]", condemns the [[political ]] apathy and [[moral ]] self-righteousnes of modern Western academics.<ref>Did Somebody Say 216</ref>

Žižek argues that 'totalitarianism' is an [[ideological ]] [[notion ]] 'firmly located within the [[liberal]]-democratic horizon' which "actively ''prevents'' us from [[thinking]]."<ref>Tot 3</ref>

For Žižek, [[liberalism ]] is itself totalitarian in its enthusaism for deconstructing binaries such as [[sexual ]] [[difference]], and its [[refusal ]] to recognize the crucial importance of [[class ]] [[antagonism]].<ref>TOt 237-43</ref>

What is the '[[freedom]]' of which liberalism baosts when distancing itself from 'totalitarianism'?<ref>On [[Belief ]] 112-22</ref>Doesn't liberalism deprive us of rights in the [[name ]] of 'freedom of [[choice]]'?When we lose security of employment, it admonishes us to [[enjoy ]] a 'portfolio career' in whcih we can 'choose' a succession of different jobs; whenthe [[public ]] health service is inadequate, it entitles the poor to 'choose' acorss a [[whole ]] range of expensive private options which they could never afford.By pretending that such choices lie within our own discretion, liberal regimes disguise the constraints to which we are effectively [[subject]].

Moreover, liberalism as such denies the represive force of our subjection to the [[symbolic ]] in the first [[place]]: "So the [[paradox ]] is that 'liberal' [[subjects ]] are in a way those least free: they [[change ]] the very opinion/pereption of themsleves, accepting what was ''imposed'' on [[them ]] as originating in their '[[nature]]' - they are no longer even aware of their subordination."<ref>[[On Belief ]] 120</ref>

[[Lenin ]] had the merit of underlining how any freedom is freedom for a particualr group to do a [[particular ]] [[thing]]; that is, that freedom is always located within the context of political [[struggle]].[[Real ]] freedom of choice comes when we don't select froma pre-given menu of options, but determine the options themselves.TO do so, we [[need ]] to find a way out of the [[forced choice]] with which the political ''status quo'' presents us.Žižek argues that Lenin is a better [[guide ]] than liberalism to how this can be achieved, since all his efforts were geared to holding open the revolutioanry choice.<ref>On Belief 122</ref>

Such an act cannot be effected without "the [[terrorism ]] that characterizes every authentic [[ethical ]] stance."<ref>Did 91</ref>A [[return ]] to authoritarian rule may actually be desirable, since at [[times]], Žižek asserts, "one ''does'' need a [[Leader ]] in [[order ]] to be able to 'do the [[impossible]]. THe authentic Leader is literally the One who enables me actually to ''loose myself'' - subordination to him is the highest act of freedom."<ref>Did 247</ref>

Žižek repeatedly advocates adhering to the [[letter ]] of the law as a means of exposing it as "[[non-all]]".The law as such is [[lacking]]; what makes it effective is the hidden support of [[fantasy ]] and the [[traumatic ]] [[violence ]] which that fantasy transmits/disguises.

Žižek denounces [[perversion ]] as a "[[model ]] of [[false ]] subversive radicalization that fits the existing [[power ]] constellation perfectly.<ref>Ticklish USbject 251</ref>Contrary to popualar belief, perversion is not a means of acces to the radical fredom of the [[unconscious]], but a [[form ]] of [[fixation ]] on fantasy.The unconscious is not a set of [[contents]], but an [[absence]], filled out by the substane of fantasy, the ''[[objet ]] a'' as [[surplus ]] [[enjoyment]].Thus by his resolve to act our certain [[fantasies]], the [[pervert ]] maintains, and confers fixity upon the [[obscene ]] support of law.Even though he may appear [[transgressive]], he confirsms the way the law is currently constitued.

An exaggerated legalism, by contrast, in its literalism, forces a gap between law and fantasy, and thereby reveals the insubstantiality of the law onc eit is deprived of its [[fantasmatic ]] support.

[[Cynicism ]] is one of Žižek's most consistent targets throughout his [[writing]].The [[reason ]] why he opposes it is that (like perversion) cynicism poses as subversive, whereas in fact it reinforces [[ideology]], since its imagianry distance from it is something ideology has already taken into account.Indeed, irony and detachment, the belief in an independent, authentic [[position ]] [[outside ]] ideology, are examples of ideology at its most insidious.

The discovery that [[the symbolic ]] order is 'non all', the possibility of 'trasversing the fantasy', and committing the 'act' are all expressions of this freedom which [[demand ]] that the subject distance him or her self from the law.

The cynic "[[know ]] very well what he is doing, but he is doing it."<ref>Did 14</ref> This [[formula ]] reflects a willingness to go along with the way the [[world ]] is, despite inner ironic distance from it; or the radical political [[agent]], however, it expresses a resolve to change hte way the world is, no matter at what personal [[code]].

The cynical [[split ]] is performed within the symbolic, whereas freedom involves "[[traversing ]] the fantasy." Thus cynicism belongs "within the [[pleasure ]] [[principle]]," freedom beyond it.Indeed, it is the psace occupied by fantasy, the [[sense ]] of it as an inner core, whcih creates the idstance "traversed" by the free subject in its momentary plunge into the real.

The [[space ]] of political [[universality ]] is one of ideological struggle.For a hegemoonic group to establish itself at the expense of [[others]], it [[needs ]] to colonize this speace in its own interests.The political [[universal ]] sis thus usually the exact opposite of what one might tkae it to be: not an abstraction from a set of particualrs, but the manifestation of the express interests of a particualr group.Even something apparently excluded from the symbolic [[register ]] can be the support of a universal."The [[dimension ]] of universality is always sustained by fixation on some particular point."<ref>Plague 104</ref>

Žižek dismisses universals adduced in the interests of [[identity ]] politics, but approves those brought forward in the name of those he recognizes as genuinely economically exploited and politically excluded.