Changes

Žižek reverses the traditional view of the universal, a view commonly associ- ated with the notion of an empty neutral container that either encompasses or serves as a collection of particulars. For Žižek the universal is not situated to the particular as container is to content. Instead he makes clear that the rela- tionship between universality and particularity is a dynamic one. In the properly dialectical relationship between the universal and the particular, “the difference is not on the side of particular content (as the traditional differentia specifica), but on the side of the Universal” (PV: 34). Difference as universal cuts across all particularity. Difference then disrupts any attempt of the universal simply to harbour various particulars within itself, as in the standard charting of genus to species.