I like to call Zizek the Socrates of modern time, because he finds contradictions in everything, including the Hegelian dialectic from which he formulates many of his ideas. To Zizek, the Paradox, the abstract, the real, the fantasies, and the ideology have a dual nature. Such duality may in fact occur coincidentally. “This paradox also enables us to define Paradise as Libidinal economy in which the paradox of the ‘States which are essentially by-products’ is not yet at work: in paradise, the impossible coincidence of knowledge and Jouissance persists” (19).

In my reading of Zizek, I found almost everything ambiguous, or perhaps made ambiguous for us to think beyond the ordinary and the obvious. Part of the emphasis on duality (paradox) is his idea of going beyond the ordinary. Everything, including art, has a paradoxical nature with the aim to further the critical thinking and critical analysis. Zizek states that, “In order to be operative, fantasy has to remain ‘implicit’. It has to maintain a distance towards the explicit symbolic texture sustained by it, and function as its inherent transgression. This constitutive gap between the explicit symbolic texture and its phantasmic background is obvious in any work of art” (24). Zizek explicitly declares that, “Art is thus fragmentary, even when it is an organic whole, since it always relies on the distance towards fantasy” (25).

In the first part (Seven Veils of Fantasy), it seems like Zizek is exploring the relation between fantasy and ideology. Using Michael Jackson as a vivid example, he writes, “Such a focusing on material externality proves very fateful in the analysis of how fantasy relates to the inherent antagonisms of an ideological edifice” (1). And so he begins his book by analyzing the symbolism of ideology and the illusion of fascism as the apparent example of it. So the plague of fantasies in reference to the politics of fascism is really unrealistic images that borrow reasoning to present themselves as realistic which Zizek terms as “ideological mask”. Zizek applies this idea to every aspect of our social life such as military, art, cinema, etc.

On pages 6 and 7, I finally realized the function of fantasy in Zizek’s ideology. Zizek states that, “Fantasy does not mean that when I desire a strawberry cake and cannot get it in reality, I fantasize about eating it; the problem is, rather: how do I know that I desire a strawberry cake in the first place. This is what fantasy tells me” (7). In this statement, I see the Hegelian thesis and anti-thesis at work. Any phenomenon will antagonize itself or “split from within”, and is destroyed to give way to reproduce itself. This constant antagonism is the core of Marxist philosophy.

In his example of Ridley Scott’s, “The Duelist”, such antagonism is portrayed in the characters of “two high-ranking soldiers” (30). Zizek provides many examples relating to his theory of paradox. On page 54, the last page of part 1, he talks about “intersection of law and its transgression” and its relation to desire. Here, Zizek is very explicit about dialectic and Marxism-Leninism.

Here, the concept of paradox is continued. Zizek writes of Lacan that, “In his seminar on the ethics of psychoanalysis, Lacan elaborates the distinction between two types of contemporary intellectual, the fool and the knave” (55). Zizek is very critical of right-wing intellectuals and their culture. The relation between the “fool” and the “knave” is marked by the status of paradoxical Jouissance between the two. One is the master, the other is the servant. And there is only one way to break this relation and that is to recognize and psychoanalyze the nature of this relation. “This Jouissance, of course, always emerges within a certain phantasmic field; the crucial precondition for breaking the chains of servitude is thus to ‘traverse the fantasy’ which structures our Jouissance in a way which keeps us attached to the master-makes us accept the framework of the social relationship of domination” (59).

I like Zizek’s application of Lacanian psychoanalysis to politics. Zizek is at his best when he talks about corrupted politics. As a Marxist, he analyzes everything in the context of Hegelian dialectics. This is truer when he talks about popular culture and politics. From local, individual politicians to monstrous forces of Nazis and fascism or the aliens from outer space, Zizek is on the side of neglected people.

The same idea is carried into the second chapter. Zizek says that “the saintly figure who sacrifices himself for the benefit of others, to deliver them from misery, secretly wants the others to suffer misery so that he will be able to help them” (100). This follows the same pattern I mentioned above; the saint cannot be saintly unless there is someone to help. His (false) desire to help stems from the unrealized desire for people to suffer.

One passage that did bring up some questions for me was his discussion on pages 41-42. In regard to the idea of the “eternal drive,” he says that “drive as such is death drive: it stands for an unconditional impetus which disregards the proper needs of the living body…it is as if some part of the body…is elevated to the dignity of the Thing and thus caught in an infinitely repetitive cycle, endlessly circulating around the void of its structuring impossibility” (41-42). I am taking this in context not only of Zizek’s beating heart of the poet example, but also in the context of the fetishist – feet, legs, breasts, whatever. Even though we have discussed that a specific body part functions as “good enough” for the fetishist, does his apparent need to fetishize a body part indicate his death drive? By my understanding, it does, but in view of the “good enough” idea, I wasn’t positive, since the chosen body part is not necessarily a compulsive choice, but is rather one on which the fetishist has settled. And as far as the “point at which sublime poetry overlaps with repulsive horror,” I wonder whether the beauty that the fetishist sees in a particular body part juxtaposed against the horror that a so-called “normal” person feels in regard to the fetish fits into Zizek’s model, or whether the model demands that a single person recognize both aspects, the beauty and the revulsion.

1)”Fantasy constitutes our desire, provides its coordinates” (7). The point here, I think, is that I do not desire anything until I have fantasized about it. Take the degree I am working on, for instance. I did not consider graduate school until someone suggested it to me, at which point I began to imagine all the possibilities (imagine being the operative word) it might open for me; the fantasy of being learned, being a wizened professor holding court on my favorite things, having someone write “I love you” on their eyelids and blink at me from the front row, set my desire in motion – it would not have existed without the fantasy.

2) Fantasy is “radically intersubjective.” I think this means that it never operates in a vacuum, even as it is only realized in my mind. To keep with the degree theme, having a graduate degree will mean nothing to me other than the change in the perception of me that I hope others will experience. If a graduate degree is my objet petit a, it is only as “proof” of my intelligence, “that something in me more than myself on account of which I perceive myself as worthy of the Other’s desire” (9).

3) “Fantasy is the primordial form of narrative, which serves to occult some original deadlock” (11). I’m not sure what to make of this one in relation to my graduate school fantasy, unless it is that in some way my being here, what I want from here, is to recoup my initial failure at higher education twenty years ago that I have always considered the biggest mistake of my life. So, in the narrative of my life, if I perceive that moment when I abandoned the University of Arizona as “the moment of loss of some quality” (14), namely my status as an intellectual being, two things from Zizek are clear. One, I was never an intellectual being, and I can only perceive the loss of what I didn’t have to begin with, and two, there is no way to tell the story of my life in any meaningful historical way.

4) “The problematic of the Fall” (17). I am at a complete loss here.

5) “On account of its temporal loop, the phantasmic narrative always involves an impossible gaze” (21). It seems to me that both 2 and 3 come together here, the intersubjectivity of fantasy involved in the gaze of the other and my own perception of that gaze and the temporal loop wrapped up in historicity or the impossibility of such.

6) “Fantasy has to remain ‘implicit’” (24). The moment that fantasy is made explicit, it ceases to be functional and becomes perverse. The example that came to mind as I was reading here was the problem the NFL has right now with the alleged bounty programs some teams ran. Defensive players were apparently paid bonuses for certain plays or hits in which an opposing team member was knocked out of the game, and the public outrage over this revelation has been nothing short of astounding. Fans of the NFL watch football in large part to see those monumental collisions; Tom Jackson even has a segment on ESPN dedicated to those hits in which he can exclaim “Oh – he got Jacked Up!” It is the fantasy of many viewers to see a player decimated on the field, yet when that fantasy is embodied, quantified by the bounty system, the whole country is seemingly in shock.

7) I can’t identify the seventh veil, probably because I am taking the chapter title too literally?

The subject’s desire and relation to the object-cause-of-desire is complicated by the fact that “objet petit a, as the object of fantasy, is that ‘something in me more than myself on account of which I perceive myself’ as ‘worthy of the Other’s desire’” (Zizek 9). The Other’s desire as the subject’s desire is unfathomable when the objet petit a is located in the subject, rather than the other perhaps because the subject can never grasp what is in him that is the object-cause-of-desire for the Other. Zizek states that “fantasy provides an answer to this enigma: at its most fundamental, fantasy tells me what I am to my others” (9). That “the fundamental paradox of the Lacanian objet petit a” is that it “emerges as being-lost,” suggests that the sexual relationship not only does not exist but cannot (15).

In discussing the Fall, Zizek claims that “the phantasmic narrative…[stages] the intervention of the cut of symbolic castration—what the fantasy endeavors to stage is ultimately the ‘impossible’ scene of castration” (17). The subject, in fantasy, attempts to locate the moment of his alienation in the Symbolic, or, perhaps, to experience the moment the subject is constituted as lack? Of course, to my mind, this is impossible and, therefore, like the sexual relationship, can only exist in fantasy. This fantasy of staging castration seems to be related to the subject’s question of his inherent objet petit a, since this is the moment of the emergence/loss of the subject as lack and of the objet petit a as lack.

The discussion of the “two types of contemporary intellectual, the fool and the knave,” appears to emphasize the impossibility of choice (55). Choice, like many, if not most, of the Lacanian concepts, appears manifold and complex. The choice to choose, to choose to choose, appears paradoxical in the ideological construct. Can one choose to make a choice that is not offered? Can one choose to not choose or is the location of the subject always-already a choice?

After discussing the manner in which fantasy functions within ideology, Zizek then expresses the ways in which fantasy conceals itself. What we first realize is that fantasy is in more control than us: it instructs us on what to feel, or really, what to desire. “A fantasy constitutes our desire, provides its coordinates,; that is, it lilterally ‘teaches us how to desire’” (7). I understand this to mean that fantasy dictates what we crave: it is not my conscious that deciphers that; it’s the Other within that tells me what my conscious should desire. While most of Zizek’s examples illuminate his point I thought the one regarding sun lotion harder to grasp than the initial concept it was explaining. While I got the obvious innuendo regarding the poster’s statement on feminine sexuality, I didn’t take “each has her own factor” in the same way he did. I thought it meant each woman has her own appeal (as in how/why she’s appealing to a man” not each woman has her own way to be aroused and therefore captured by a man. His later correlation of the appeal with the Wolf Man and Ruskin seemed to corroborate my view. I feel crazy arguing with Zizek, but I’m curious to know if anyone else saw this. Also, perhaps he and I are approaching the same point but from different angles? No doubt the conclusion is that the women will be had: I think because each appeals in her own way to a man; he states because each is turned on in her own way by a man. Anyone care to settle this dispute?

Fantasy then works within its veil of intersubjectivity, which I took to mean there is no longer an internal Other but now several external others. “The original question of desire is not directly ‘What do I want?’, but ‘What do others want from me?’” (9). So, does this mean that the internal big O is replaced by several smaller, yet equally important, little os? I think so because in the example Zizek provides, he considers a child laid across the battlefield of the desires belonging to those around him, such as mother, father, brother, sisters, etc. He later states that fantasy is about what we are to others. So instead of fulfilling ourselves, we see to fulfill the expectations or desires of others. I really enjoyed his strawberry cake example. The daughter who enjoys the cake is not just enjoying the cake; far more importantly she’s enjoying the reaction of those who enjoy her enjoying the cake. This sounds extremely voyeuristic: it’s not the act in which I’m engaging that turns me on or fulfills me; it’s the fact that I know someone is watching and enjoying watching me that truly fulfills me. The innocent way to reconcile this to everyday life is via the dinner table. I love my husband’s cooking, yes, but I love even more how much he loves that I love it. Sitting and eating alone I would enjoy the food but sitting eating with him I’m going to go further in expressing my appreciation and enjoyment because I know how good it makes him feel to see the food he’s prepared devoured and enjoyed by me.

Zizek introduces the core of the book by explaining his title, the Plague of Fantasies. The plague of having fantasies is these images can become so strong, they “blur one’s clear reasoning” (p. xxiii). Your wife has cheated on you. What did he do to her and what did she do to him? Your child was killed. How did the killer act and how did my child respond? These examples are extreme but they are the type of images Zizek enjoys drawing from as he defines the “Seven Veils of Fantasy” in the first chapter. He references Pascal when he says, “If you do not believe, kneel down, act as if you believe, and belief will come by itself” (p. 5). This idea would be supported by the skeptical young Catholic who goes to mass and confession regularly. There is so much power in the external ideological ritual that it can be confused by the worshiper for intimate inner conviction. Now let’s look at marriage. To enter into a marriage, two agree to a union. That union cannot rely on romantic feelings. (The spark often darkens, and so half of American marriages are destined for destruction.) Instead, selfless actions toward your spouse can generate those elusive romantic feelings in both the giver and receiver. The fantasy of sexual rapport in a marriage can result in jouisannce, but this fantasy dies once divorce claims its victims.

Fantasy can be the attempt to become the object of someone’s desire (p. 9-10). I guess that could be why many men fantasize about seeing their woman having sex with another man (or herself). Man desires to see a woman as a sexual being. (Stay with me here.) If a woman is aware that, during the sex act, she has assumed the role of the desired object for someone, she will experience a uniquely profound pleasure. And in her gaze, the lover, removed from the act himself, can objectively see that his beloved is identifying as the desired object, even if just for a few minutes. She is feeling what the little girl eating her birthday cake in front of her proud parents is feeling. I am the object of desire.

In his section “After the Fall,” Zizek tells us “the Fall has never occurred in the present” (p. 18), but in the present we can correctly label events after the fact. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, Adam does not decide but realizes he has already decided. He discovers what he has already done. This is akin to the class discussion in which we explained you never have your last cigarette. You can only discover later on that, in fact, ten years ago you had your last cigarette. Unless, of course, you have another. That is why suicide is the only successful act. Once it’s done, it can never happen again.

There are many other great sections of Chapter One, but I’ll just briefly touch on a couple before I end my response with a section from Chapter 2. The secret irony of the homosexual tendencies among homophobic soldiers is hilarious (p. 31-32). In “The Impossible Gaze” unit, a fairy-tale is discussed that features an island of aborted babies depicted as having been born so that they can effectively “direct at their parents a reproachful gaze which makes them guilty” (p. 21). This is very similar to a scene in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors. Allen forces the character of Judah to go back to confirm that his mistress is really murdered, so that her vacant, dead gaze can convict him and us. If the aborted babies are not born and if Judah never goes to her apartment, the gaze would not hold the same powerful effect over the audience.

To conclude, I want to briefly raise a questions I had about the non-historical kernel of jouissance found in Chapter 2. Zizek depicts an amusing family gathering scene in which his family always wants to find out how much he is making for his psychoanalytical ramblings. He explains they do this because “they possess a vague intuition of how I find jouissance in what I do”(p. 67). Zizek says that when a man is said to make too much or too little or an illegal Mexican immigrant is both lazy and hard working, “we are dealing with jouissance” (p. 68). Who is experiencing the jouissance in these examples? The accused or the accuser?

From this explication we can draw comparisons between Zizek and the way Todd McGowan discusses the “cinema of fantasy,” namely in regards to the films of Spike Lee, in The Real Gaze. In the text McGowan claims that fantasies, such as racist and sexist fantasies, “determine how subjects relate to each other on the social terrain, yet they exist in an unspoken and hidden form” due to the fact that in order for there to be a level of stability in the Symbolic Order there must be an assumption of neutrality (50). What is interesting here is that the focus, according to Zizek, would not only be to unmask the inner-workings of ideology, but to avoid the rationalization of the way it functions. As he illustrates, ideology is not only just blind submission to ideological interpellation, but “the ‘rationalization’, the enumeration of a network of reasons, masking the unbearable fact that the Law is grounded only in its own act of enunciation” (100). Therefore, there seems to be a universal aspect to the function of all ideological apparatuses, which is the perpetuation of the conditions in which it exists. In this way, the most troubling aspect in regards to revolutionary actions is the realization that ideology functions similar, if not identical, to Foucault’s notion of decentralized power. As Zizek claims, we are truly confined by ideology precisely when we try to “humanize” it and give material form to something wholly metaphysical and non-historical (27).

With this in mind the attempt to “uncover” the very kernel of the inner-workings of ideology, is not disparate to the functioning of desire. The kernel of ideology then becomes something not unlike the objet petite a that is supplemented with a material object. What we desire is to uncover the seedy underbelly of ideology, like pulling the curtain away to reveal the wizened old man that is the all and powerful Oz “pulling the strings,” when in fact what is precisely most traumatic is the momentary and brief realization that the secret of the Other is in fact phantasmatic. This is precisely why Zizek contends it is “not that there is no ideology without a trans-ideological ‘authentic’ kernel but rather, that it is only the reference to such a trans-ideological kernel which makes an ideology ‘workable’” (28).

I suppose that in terms of the anti-homosexuality that goes on in the military, Zizek’s point is that the Army relies on the fantasy of being outside of homosexuality that allows homosexual speech and acts to take place. It is the idea of being on the outside of something that makes it exceedingly true that one is actually on the inside – so the idea of being on the outside of all homosexuality makes it exceedingly true that one never escapes its presence in the military. As Zizek points out, “…the discourse of the military community can operate only by censoring its own libidinal foundation” (33).

I do not, however, understand page 35 where Zizek states, “…the power edifice itself is split from within: in order to reproduce itself and contain its Other, it has to rely on an inherent excess which grounds it… Power is always-already its own transgression…” I am not sure what this means.

I understood page 67 and 68, however I did not understand the three pages prior to them. That is, I understand that racism and perhaps classism is based on the jealousy of minorities who experience jouissance. Thus, similarly, like Zizek said, he will always make too much money, or too little money, according to those who see his philosophy as useless, and this is because they know he experiences jouissance in terms of those philosophies.

In addition, I understand page 60 and 61 – which describe the universe as “a defect in the non-Being” much in the same way that the presence of a symptom in psychoanalysis poses the question, “Why is there something in the place of nothing?”

It is after pages 60 and 61 that my understanding begins to disappear until 67 and 68. For instance, when Zizek states, “…jouissance designates the non-historical kernel of the process of historicization” it confuses me. I think I understand that what he says in that paragraph on 62 is that the problems with all analysands is the linking of enjoyment with certain items – that they do not understand that jouissance has no anchor, cannot be understood or conquered or rounded up and achieved. Thus, the analysand has to “traverse the fantasy” and realize that jouissance is free-floating. However, I am uncertain about this.

I thought that Zizek was particularly interesting and insightful when he stated on page 98, “One falls into the ideological trap precisely by succumbing to the illusion that anti-Semitism really is about Jews.” That is, I believe he is saying, that we are conscious of the fact that Good can never really win, and so there is a placeholder there for the reason why (much like there is a placeholder in fantasy for why the object a cannot be achieved), and in the case of anti-Semitism, it is the Jew that fills that placeholder. But the fact is, it’s never really about the Jew. It’s always about the placeholder.