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Politics

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=Anti-Liberalism=
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>
==Criticism==
[[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>
==''Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?''==
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>
"Totalitarian" is less a political description than a slogan, a rallying call inviting us to condemn whatever it qualifies.
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>
==Liberal Freedom==
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>
==Leninist Freedom==
[[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>
==Leninist Act==
Lenin did not believe in fitting the act to the circumstances, but in using it to change them.<ref>DId SOmebody Say 114</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>
==Perversion and Literalism==
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.
 
===Literalism===
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 and Freedom==
[[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.
In contrast to this, ZIzek exhorts us to a freedom that ''does'' consist in inner disttance from ideology.
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.
Cynicism is only a false or pseudo freedom from ideological constraint, whereas genuine political freedom can only be attained through [[subjective destitution]].
 
 
==Universality==
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>
 
The universal is not abstracted from existing particulars,.
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.
 
== The Act==
==References==
<references/>
 
[[Category:Politics]]
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