조지아 오키프와 산타페

얼마전 출간된 미술책들 가운데 생각만 해두고 있다가 흘려보낸 책은 브리타 벵케의 <조지아 오키프>(마로니에북스, 2006)이다. 간단한 소개에 따르면 "화려한 색채 속에 관능을 숨겨놓은 꽃그림으로 유명한 미국을 대표하는 여성화가 조지아 오키프의 대표작들을 모아 정리해 보여"주는 책. '스포츠칸'의 연재기사 '미술 속의 에로티시즘'이란 제하의 연재기사 중 오키프를 다룬 기사를 몇몇 이미지들과 함께 옮겨놓는다. 산타페 이야기를 곁들여서.

  

스포츠칸(06. 04. 09) 꽃에서 풍기는 '은밀한 추상'   

-금세기 미국이 낳은 위대한 여류화가, 에로틱의 상징 조지아 오키프(1887∼1986). 사람들은 그녀를 디에고 리베라의 프리다 카를로와 비교한다. 그녀의 삶과 예술이 워낙 특별하기 때문이다. 위스콘신 인근의 한 농부의 딸로 태어난 그녀는 시카고와 뉴욕에서 공부하고 그래피스트와 강의로 활동했다. 평범했던 그녀의 30대는 사진작가이자 화상인 52살의 스티클리츠(*아래 사진)를 만나면서 역전됐다. 친구가 그녀의 작품을 뉴욕의 화랑 291에 소개한 것이다.

-이때 스티클리츠는 “사진은 예술을 모방할 게 아니라 당당히 예술을 파먹고 살아야 한다”고 주장하며 피카소, 마티스, 몬드리안 등을 소개하는 전위적인 화상이었다. 그는 오키프를 보자마자 한눈에 대단한 여자가 등장했다며 그녀의 광기를 알아보았고, 그의 덕택으로 세계적 거장과 비평가들의 찬사를 받으며 유명화가가 되었다.(*아래는 스티클리츠가 찍은 조지아 오키프의 누드, 1919)

-오키프는 뉴멕시코의 사막에서 수집한 물건들을 즐겨 그렸는데 특이하게 여성의 음부를 닮은 산과 바위, 짐승의 두개골과 뼈, 조개껍데기, 도시에 거대하게 솟아오른 빌딩들은 그녀가 특히 사랑한 풍경이었다. 이것들은 거대한 남근의 상징으로 불렸지만 그녀의 본격적인 작품은 거대한 꽃에서 화려하게 꽃피었다.

-“나는 마음에 드는 꽃이 있으면 꽃을 꺾었고 조개껍데기, 돌멩이…, 이런 것들을 가지고 광활한 이 세계의 경탄스러움을 표현하고 싶어했다.” 여기 ‘검은 붓꽃’처럼 그녀는 “꽃이 나에게 무엇을 의미하는지 내가 본 것을 그리겠다. 사람들이 놀라서 그것을 쳐다볼 시간을 갖도록 꽃을 아주 크게 그린다”라며 화폭 전체에 꽃을 그렸다. “사람들은 왜 풍경화에서 사물들을 실제보다 작게 그리느냐고 묻지는 않으면서, 나에게는 꽃을 실제보다 크게 그리는 것에 대해 질문을 하는가?”라고 그녀는 되물을 정도였다.

-스스로 “꽃 자체를 그렸을 뿐”이라고 주장했지만 그녀의 꽃에서는 어렵지 않게 ‘신비하며 아름다움과 함께 이상하고 음침하며, 나이를 짐작할 수 없는’ 여자의 이미지와 생식기의 에로틱한 모습이 연상된다. 빨간 칸나와 함께 이 검은 붓꽃도 꽃의 이미지에 충실하며 여성의 한 부분이 강렬하게 떠올려지는 작품이다.

-그녀는 종종 텍사스의 사막으로 갔지만 남편은 한번도 그곳을 가지 않았다. 그들이 나눈 사랑의 편지는 무려 1만1천 페이지에 이를 정도로 그들의 사랑은 끈끈했다. 스티클리츠가 죽고 오키프가 85세일 때 그녀는 50년 연하의 남자 해밀턴을 만나 13년을 함께 살았다.

-오키프는 젊은 애인에게 재산의 3분의 2를 주었고, 그 둘이 어떤 관계였는지는 아무도 모른다. 다만 그녀는 2,000여점의 작품과 65억달러의 유산을 남겼고, 그리하여 그녀는 산타페에 미술관을 가진 미국의 유일한 여류화가가 되었다는 것은 분명한 사실이다.

(*)그 산타페에 대해서 조금 더 보충하자면, "허름한 폐광촌이었던 이곳이 예술인 도시로 자리 잡게 된 것은 미국 현대미술의 거장인 여류화가 조지아 오키프 덕분. 20세기 미국 미술계의 독보적 존재로 추앙받는 오키프는 1917년 기차여행 때 이곳을 만난 뒤 매년 여름을 이곳에서 보내다 62세 때인 1949년부터는 아예 정착해 죽을 때까지 이곳에서 살았다... 지난주 기자가 찾은 오키프 미술관(www.okeeffemuseum.org)은 평일인데도 관람객들로 붐볐다. 1997년 한 독지가의 열정으로 만들어진 이 미술관은 불과 70여 점이 전시되어 있는 작은 공간이지만, 매년 여러 나라에서 온 17만여 명이 찾는다고 한다."(동아일보, 05. 09. 27)

내가 아는 산타페는 미야자와 리에의 누드사진집 <산타페>(1991)의 산타페와 복잡성과학 연구의 산실 '산타페연구소'의 산타페이다. 조지아 오키프는 그 대모(代母)격인 셈. 가장 관능적인 도시에서 복잡성을 연구한다? 제법 그럴 듯하군...

06. 07. 11.

진화생물학의 마키아벨리즘

어제는 태풍을 핑계로 하루종일 집에 죽치고 있다가 저녁 무렵 읽은 게 한겨레신문에 게재된 김용석 교수의 연재칼럼이다. '김용석의 고전으로 철학하기'이고 청소년들을 타겟으로 한 글이지만, '진화생물학의 마키아벨리즘'이란 제목도 눈에 띄고 도킨스의 책도 한번 더 홍보할 겸 여기에 옮겨놓는다.

한겨레(06. 07. 10) 리처드 도킨스의 <이기적 유전자>(1976년)가 출간된 이후 지난 한 세대 동안 이 책에 대한 논쟁은 끊이지 않았다. 도킨스 자신도 책의 2판(1989년) 서문에서 “논쟁적인 저서로서의 이 책의 명성은 해가 갈수록 커져 지금에 와서는 과격한 극단주의의 작품으로 널리 간주되고 있다”고 인정한다(*이전에 지적한 바이지만, 국내에는 이 1판과 2판이 모두 번역돼 있다). 그러면서도 그는 자신의 주장이 ‘보편적 이론’일 수 있음을 확신한다. 또한 이런 확신 때문에 동료 과학자들로부터도 환원주의라는 비판을 받기도 한다.

-도킨스의 입장이 이해보다는 오해와 곡해의 대상이 된 것은 일정 부분 그 자신의 수사법에도 기인한다. 그의 수사법이 모호해서가 아니라, 너무도 단도직입적이고 명확해서라는 것이 더 맞을 것이다. 예를 들면, “우리는 생존 기계다.” “우리는 로봇 운반자다.” “사람과 기타 모든 동물은 자기 복제하는 이기적 유전자에 의해 창조된 기계에 불과하다.” 같은 표현들이 그것이며, 바로 이 간단한 문장들이 그의 이론을 대변하는 것도 사실이다.

-그러나 도킨스의 이론을 깊이 있게 이해하기 위해서는 몇몇 문장에 현혹될 게 아니라 내용 전체를 꼼꼼히 읽을 필요가 있으며, 찰스 다윈의 <자연 선택에 의한 종의 기원>을 염두에 둘 필요가 있다. 도킨스의 이론은 “유전자의 눈으로 본 다윈주의”이기 때문이다.

-그의 말대로 “이기적 유전자 이론은 다윈의 이론이지만 다윈이 택하지 않은 방법으로 표현한” 것과 같다. 즉 “개개의 생물체에 초점을 맞추기보다는 유전자의 눈으로” 자연 선택을 설명한 것이다. 이런 관점의 전환이 진화생물학의 새로운 길을 연 것이다. 이는 책에서 도킨스가 지적하는 것도 종의 이해관계나 개체의 이해관계를 바탕으로 하는 진화론의 오류들이라는 것을 보아도 잘 알 수 있다. 그가 주목하는 것은 유전자의 이해관계이다.

-한편 과학사회학과 과학철학적 맥락에서 우리는 <이기적 유전자>의 흥미로운 요소들을 발견할 수 있다. 결론부터 말하면, 이것이 저 유명한 마키아벨리의 ‘저주받은’ 책 <군주론>과 유사한 점들이 많기 때문이다. 도킨스도 인정하듯 엉뚱하고 깜짝 놀랄 주장을 이해하기 위해서는 그에 걸맞은 비유와 해석이 필요할지 모른다.

-우선 도킨스는 자신이 사용하는 윤리적 성격의 단어, 즉 ‘이기적’이니 ‘이타적’이니 하는 말 때문에 생길 수 있는 오해에 제동을 건다. 이 말들로 “진화에 따른 도덕성을 주장하려는 것이 아니기” 때문이다. 그는 “인간이 도덕적으로 어떻게 행동해야 할 것인가”를 주장하지 않으며, “단지 사물이 어떻게 진화되어 왔는가”를 말할 따름이라는 것이다. 즉 그의 입장은 ‘어떠해야 한다는 주장’과 ‘어떠하다고 하는 진술’의 구별을 전제하고 있는 것이다. 이것은 전형적인 마키아벨리의 논법이다. 마키아벨리 역시 도덕적 논의에서 벗어난 입장을 견지하고자 한다. 그렇기 때문에, 그는 인간이 ‘어떻게 살아야 하는가’와 ‘어떻게 사는가’의 구별을 전제하고 자신의 주장을 펼친다.

-도킨스는 자신의 목적이 ‘이기주의와 이타주의의 생물학’을 탐구하는 것이라고 단언한다. 마키아벨리는 다름 아닌 ‘이기주의와 이타주의의 정치학’을 탐구한다. 그는 정치사의 사례들을 들면서 “이로부터 거의 항상 유효한 일반 원칙을 도출할 수 있다. 즉 타인을 강하게 하는 자는 자멸을 자초할 뿐이라는 것이다”라고 주장한다. 그는 이타주의를 가장할 줄 알라고까지 조언한다. 도킨스의 이기적 유전자는 결코 타자를 도와주지 않는다. 도와주는 것처럼 보일 경우라도 그것은 “겉보기의 이타주의일 뿐”, 결국은 자신의 이득을 위한 것이다.

-이 밖에도 둘 사이의 유사점은 많다(그들이 사용하는 수사법도 그렇고, 일부 주장들은 ‘양면적’으로 독해해야 그 핵심에 접근할 수 있다는 점도 그렇다). 그렇기 때문에 두 저서에 가해진 비판들도 비슷한 양상을 띈다. 그러나 그 어느 것보다 두 저서가 공유하는 것은 바로 이 점이다. 둘 모두 ‘현실을 직시하라’는 매우 평범하면서도 지극히 철학적인 메시지를 던지고 있다는 것이다. 물론 도킨스의 경우는 ‘유전자의 관점’에서, 마키아벨리는 ‘군주의 관점’에서 본 한정된 현실이지만, 이런 고전들이 현실을 직시할 수 있는 중요한 관점들을 제시한다는 것은 분명한 사실이다.

06. 07. 11.

우리의 선택 <가족의 탄생>

최근에 본 영화는 지난 5월말에 개봉했던 영화 <가족의 탄생>이다. <여고괴담 두번째 이야기>(1999) 이후에 찍은 김태용 감독의 두번째 장편영화인데, 영화는 기대만큼이었으며 왜 그의 이름을 우리가 기억해두어야 하는지를 '확신'시켜주었다(각본 또한 요즘 씌어지는 웬만한 한국문학을 능가하지 않는가?). '뒷북'이지만 아마도 상반기 최고작으로 꼽힐 수 있을 것이다(<사생결단> 정도를 나는 버금작으로 간주하고 있다. 계속 대여중이어서 아직 못 보고 있지만). 미루어두었던 리뷰 자료들을 몇 개 읽었는데, 일단은 개봉 당시 '필름2.0'에 게재됐던 특집 '우리의 선택 <가족의 탄생>'을 옮겨놓는다. 3명의 평론가가 동원됐으며(기사들에는 당연 스포일러가 포함돼 있다), 다소 비판적인 기사도 포함돼 있다.  

김영진(06. 05. 22), '흥겨운 콩가루 집안 탄생기'

-김태용의 두 번째 영화 <가족의 탄생>은 <여고괴담 두 번째 이야기>를 연출한 후 너무 오래 쉰 이 감독의 재능을 관객 입장에서 기대한 보람을 느끼게 한다. ‘가족의 탄생’이란 제목에서 짐작할 수 있듯이 이 영화는 ‘콩가루 집안’이라고 볼 수밖에 없는 이상한 사연을 지닌 두 가족의 얘기를 병렬한다. 처음엔 다소 정상이 아닌 사람들의 얘기로 비치겠지만 거기서 건강하고 튼튼하고 낙관적인 인간애를 끌어내는 섬세함을 보여준다. 너와 내가 가족인 것은 같은 핏줄을 타고 났기 때문이다, 피는 물보다 진하다는 가족주의의 전통적 명제를 이 영화는 부정한다. 지지고 볶으며 사는 일상에서 단련된 어떤 관계로부터 새로운 가족의 모습을 끌어낸다. 그걸 느끼하지 않게 설득하는 것만으로도 이 영화는 감동의 9부 능선을 넘는다.

-<가족의 탄생>은 호기심을 갖고 바라볼 수밖에 없는 사람들의 사연을 소개한다. 영화 초반에 학생들 상대로 분식집을 하며 살아가는 미라는 군에서 제대한 후 5년간 기별이 없던 남동생의 연락을 받는다. 설레며 음식을 차리고 그를 기다리는 미라는 곧 닥칠 가족상봉에 가슴 벅차지만 감격적인 재회를 기대하던 미라에게 나타난 동생 형철은 어머니뻘의 여자를 아내라고 소개하며 데리고 들어온다. 염치라고는 없는 동생도 그렇지만 그 곁에 붙어 있는 무신이라는 이름의 그 여자도 한심스럽다. 마냥 대책 없어 보이는 무신에게서 미라가 조금씩 그늘을 보게 되는 것이 그 두 여자의 우정의 시작이다.

-이는 두 번째 에피소드에서 비슷한 경로를 따라 전개되는 두 여자의 모습에서도 마찬가지다. 대담하고 분방한 듯이 보이는 관광 가이드 선경은 유부남과 연애에 빠져 아이까지 낳아 기르는 엄마가 한심스럽다. 엄마가 찾아와도 아예 상대도 하려 들지 않는다. 엄마의 애인이 찾아와 엄마가 불치병에 걸렸다는 사실을 알려줘도 그런 선경의 식은 애정은 점화되지 않는다. 아예 외국에서 일할 수 있는 직장을 구해 이 땅을 떠날 준비를 하는 선경은 무슨 심산인지 자꾸 엄마의 옷가게를 찾아가 괜히 이런 저런 트집을 부리며 거듭 싸움을 건다. 그 과정에서 선경도 엄마의 그늘을 전보다 더 많이 보게 된다.

-이 두 단락을 묶어주는 것은 영화 초반에 기차에서 만나 인연을 시작하는 젊은 남녀 경석과 채현의 연애담을 묘사하는 세 번째 단락에 이르러서다. 대충 예상할 수는 있었지만 그래도 두 단락을 묶어주는 완결성을 마침내 드러내는 대목에서는 가벼운 탄성까지 나온다. 구성의 절묘함 탓도 있지만 이게 관객의 시점을 절묘하게 대표하는 경석의 심리상태에서 끌어낸 감정의 서술결과였기 때문이다. 봉태규가 연기하는 경석은 자신보다 다른 사람에게 더 신경을 써주는 듯이 보이는 채현의 성격이 늘 눈에 거슬린다. 성격 덕분인지 채현에게는 징징대는 선배들이 많다. 그들에게 채현은 돈도 꿔주고 상갓집에서는 헌신적으로 허드렛일을 도맡아 하고 심지어 잃어버린 아이를 찾는 일까지 발 벗고 나선다. 그런 채현을 경석은 이해할 수 없다.

-경석은 어찌 보면 이 영화에 나오는 등장인물들 가운데 가장 평범한 인물이다. 그건 경석의 누나 선경(두 번째 에피소드에 나왔던 그 선경이다.)이 그만큼 경석을 곱게 키워줬기 때문인지도 모른다. 혼자 사는 누나와 달리 경석은 채현과 결혼까지 생각하고 있는 모양이다. 어느 날 느닷없이 선경에게 지금 연애 중이라고 고백한 경석은 엄마와 누나의 삶이 구질구질하다고 타박한다. 경석에겐 결혼도 하지 않고 유부남과 사랑에 빠져 자신을 낳은 엄마나 그런 엄마와 평생 대결했으면서도 결국 엄마처럼 혼자 살고 있는 누나가 구질구질해 보였는지도 모른다. 그런 경석을 굳이 탓하지 않으면서 누나 선경은 가볍게 응수한다. 구질구질한 게 아니라 정이 많기 때문이라고.

-경석이 정이 많은 채현과 갈등을 빚는 끝에 도달하는 지점도 그 비슷한 구석이 있다. 경석은 채현을 통해 그가 의식적으로 거부해왔던 ‘다른 삶’의 경계에 당도하게 된다. ‘넌 너무 헤퍼’라고 결별선언을 했던 경석은 채현이 고향에 가는 열차에 동승해 다시 화해를 시도한다. 생판 모르는 사람처럼 존댓말로 상대의 마음을 떠보던 경석은 자신을 미친년이라고 하지 않았느냐는 채현의 타박에 이렇게 응수한다. “미친년도 좋던데. 개성 있잖아요.”

-봉태규의 소년 같은 인상에서 터져 나오는 온갖 연애의 고뇌와 놀라는 감정을 미세하게 포착하는 카메라는 이 대목 이후로 몇 차례의 웃음을 끌어낸 끝에 ‘개성 있게’ 살아가는 사람들, 새로운 가족의 개념을 몸에 붙이고 살아가는 사람들의 사연에 공감하게 만든다. 특히 영화 후반에 콩가루 집안의 내력을 지닌 사람들이 불쑥 꺼내는 말들을 들으며 하나도 접수되지 않아 당황하면서도 조금씩 그들의 매력에 끌리는 봉태규의 모습은 관객인 우리 자신의 거울과도 같은 느낌을 준다.

-<가족의 탄생>은 기존 가족의 개념을 파괴하고 해체하거나 아예 무시했던 종래의 영화에 비해 소박한 대로 다른 가족의 개념을 제시하는 진취성 면에서도 크게 존중받아야 한다. 이 영화는 현재의 대지에 뿌리박고 뭔가 깊이 들여다보려는 창작자의 의식을 절묘한 구성의 대중영화 문법으로 풀어냈다. 대체로 들고 찍기로 일관한 이 영화의 스타일은 좌식 생활이 익숙한 예전의 한국식 주거공간에 효율적으로 카메라를 들이댔다는 점에서도 호감을 갖게 한다(*그러니까 영화는 주제나 스타일 양면에서 대범하며 탁월하다).

-이 영화에서의 등장인물의 움직임은 대체로 작다. 좁은 집안이나 가게에서 크게 움직이며 감정을 드러낼 상황이 흔치 않기 때문이다. 그런데도 감독은 용감하게 거기 머무르며 카메라를 움직인다. 변기에 담배꽁초를 버려 막힌다고 불평하는 상황 등에서 오가는 감정을 단순하게 화장실 입구에서 지키고 들여다보며 묘사하는 이런 자세는 언뜻 심상해 보이지만 영화적 스타일을 굉장한 수식으로 오해하는 요즘 세태에선 놀랍도록 침착한 접근일 것이다.

-우리의 삶에서 감정적으로 과장할 것은 그리 많지 않다. 이 영화에선 그런 지지고 볶는 자잘한 일상을 애초에 다른 범주로 설정해놓고 관객에게 미끼를 던져놓지만 실은 조금만 거리를 두고 보면 부모 자식 간에, 형제 남매간에, 연인들 간에 오갈 수 있는 숱한 갈등의 다른 버전이라는 걸 알게 된다. 버릴 수도 주울 수도 없는 이 가족이라는 끈을 어찌할 것인가를 두고 <가족의 탄생>은 착한 마음으로 접수되는 등장인물들의 이심전심을 담는다. 그게 너무 보편적이라고 불평할 수는 있겠지만 대중영화에서 이만큼 한 발자국 나가는 용기도 대단한 것이다.

-배우들의 연기도 모두 훌륭하다. 그중에서도 특히 선경의 엄마 매자를 연기한 김혜옥이나 경석 역의 봉태규, 채현 역의 정유미가 돋보인다. 중견의 관록을 보여준 김혜옥이나 아직 연기 영역이 어느 정도까지 넘나들 수 있는지 가늠되지 않았던 봉태규나 정유미의 존재감은 아직 개척되지 않은 한국영화의 스토리 범주가 무진장하다는 걸 거꾸로 보여준다.

-특히 매자 역의 김혜옥이 좁은 옷가게에서 딸 역의 공효진과 조용한 목소리로 언쟁을 주고받다가 어느 순간 팩 하면서 소리를 지르는 장면의 감정 처리 같은 것은 범상한 일상의 공기에 묻혀 있는 우리들의 단절의 기운과 그 단절이 누적돼 폭발하는 순간을 정확하게 표현하고 있다. 이런 것에 공감하지 않는다면 한국영화는 앞으로도 이 분야의 정서를 좀 더 정형화된 텔레비전 드라마에 아예 내주고 포기하게 될 것이다. <가족의 탄생>은 착한 영화지만 멍청하거나 위선을 감춘 영화는 아니다. 번거로워서 피해가는 우리의 가족 일상 공간을 제대로 파고 감정을 집어냈다는 점에서 진정한 테크니션의 영화다.

이상용(06. 05. 23) '가족이라는 형식'

-김태용 감독의 <가족의 탄생>은 제목 앞에 ‘새로운’이라는 형용사를 붙여야 할지도 모른다. 혈연이 아니라 애증의 관계로 얽힌 인물들의 행동과 사연들이 오늘날 한국사회의 가족이란 무엇인지를 질문하고 있기 때문이다. 전통적인 한국의 가족영화는 혈연 중심의 관계가 파괴되어가는 것을 안타까워하면서 ‘연민의 시선’을 보낸다. 작년 한 해만 돌아보더라도 <말아톤> <웰컴 투 동막골> <너는 내 운명>처럼 비평과 흥행에서 고루 상찬을 받은 작품들의 근간은 흔들리는 가족 공동체를 향한 그리움이었다. 이들 영화에서 가족은 자폐인 때문에, 전쟁 때문에, AIDS 때문에 위협받는다.

-그런데 ‘가족’이라는 이름을 제목에 버젓이 내건 <가족의 탄생>은 제목과는 달리 전통적으로 생각되는 가족의 형태로 돌아가야 한다고 주장하지 않는다. 가족을 묶어주는 것은 혈연이 아니라 ‘관계’이며, 새로운 관계의 설정이야말로 우리 시대의 가족을 등장시킬 수 있는 동력임을 보여준다. <가족의 탄생>이 가족영화로서 얼마나 차별되는지를 설명하기 위해서는 어쩔 수 없이 이 영화의 전체적인 흐름을 언급할 수밖에 없을 것 같다.(당연히 스포일러적인 글이 될 수밖에 없다.) 세 가지 덩어리로 나뉜 영화의 형식은 하나의 인물을 중심으로 주변의 관계들을 보여준다.

-첫 번째 에피소드는 누이로 등장하는 문소리를 중심으로 한 사연이다. 떡볶이를 팔며 홀로 살고 있는 미라(문소리)에게 어느 날 동생으로부터 전화가 온다. 한동안 사라졌던 동생 형철(엄태웅)이 돌아온 것이다. 그런데 돌아온 탕자 형철은 버젓이 아내까지 대동하고 등장한다. 그것도 스무 살 연상의 여자인 무신(고두심)을 아내라고 소개한 후 미라에게 빌붙어 살기로 작정한 듯 집안을 거덜내고, 두 사람의 정사 소리로 누이의 휴식을 방해한다. 설상가상으로 무신의 전남편의 딸까지 등장하면서 미라의 집은 북새통을 이룬다. 미라와 형철은 핏줄을 나눈 남매 사이지만 이들 사이에서 더부살이를 하게 된 무신과 여자 아이의 등장은 남매의 관계를 흔든다. 결국 화가 난 미라는 이들을 모두 쫓아낸다.

-이러한 갈등의 패턴은 영화의 두 번째 에피소드에서도 고스란히 반복된다. 관광 가이드 선경(공효진)은 엄마 매자(김혜옥)와 사이가 좋지 않다. 모녀 사이의 갈등을 일으키는 원인은 매자가 가정이 있는 남자와 줄곧 연애질을 해왔기 때문이다. 선경은 일본으로 도피할 것을 꿈꾸며 여러 곳에 면접을 본다. 일본에 갈 날을 얼마 남겨두지 않고 선경은 엄마의 애인 집을 방문한다. 버젓이 가정을 이루고 있는 남자를 향해 선경은 우리 엄마를 진짜 사랑하냐고 묻는다. 그런데 답변이 가관이다. 남자는 그렇다고 말한다. 이때부터 선경의 마음은 다소 누그러진다. 두 번째 에피소드에도 첫 번째와 마찬가지로 아이가 등장한다. 매자가 선경을 닮았다고 하는 사내아이는 선경의 이복동생이다.

-두 에피소드의 사연은 영화의 제목 그대로 가족이 탄생하는 전형적인 방식을 보여준다. 혈연으로 맺어진 원래 가족이 있고(그들은 애증 관계로 얽힌 가족이다), 여기에 새로운 인물이(혹은 아이가) 가세하면서 새로운 가족을 탄생시키기 위한 갈등이 본격화된다. 이처럼 황당한 일을 겪으면서도 그들은 새로운 가족을 탄생시켰을까. 이를 알기 위해서는 영화의 가장 중요한 마지막 에피소드를 지켜봐야 한다.

-김태용 감독은 세 번째 에피소드에서 짐짓 능청을 떤다. 망난이 동생 때문에 고생하던 미라의 고민이 어떻게 되었을지, 엄마의 장례식 이후 선경이 어떻게 변화했는지를 보여주지 않는다. 세 번째 에피소드는 마치 새로운 영화를 시작하는 것처럼 기차에서 만난 한 커플의 연애사를 다룬다. 기차에서 만난 20대 초반의 경석(봉태규)은 채현(정유미)의 성격 문제로 인해 빈번히 다툰다. 채현은 남자친구인 경석과의 약속보다는 주위 남자들의 청을 들어주기에 바쁘다. “넌 너무 헤퍼.” 참다못한 경석은 채현에게 이별을 선언하지만 그녀를 따라 기차에 오른다.

-평범하고 황당하게 끝날 것 같은 <가족의 탄생>이 이야기의 신비로움을 증명하는 것은 경석과 채현의 식구들이 만나는 순간이다. “우리 엄마들이야.”라고 소개할 때 경석 앞에 등장한 것은 나이가 든 미라와 무신의 모습이다. 그녀들은 오랜 만에 들른 딸과 남자 친구를 반갑게 맞이한다. 저녁식사를 하며 이들은 성가대에서 노래를 부르는 경석의 누이를 보게 된다. TV 속에서 노래를 부르는 성가대의 인물 중에 나이가 든 선경이 보인다.

-시간의 비약은 가족이 어떻게 탄생하게 되는지를 보여주는 진정한 신비로움이다. 시간이 모든 것을 해결해준다는 말처럼 그들은 이미 자신들만의 가족을 이루고, 벌써 다음 세대의 언약을 준비하고 있었다. 물론 시간이 모든 갈등을 풀어주지는 못했겠지만 최소한 그들은 새로운 가족의 모습을 이루며 살아가고 있었음을 보여주는 것이다. 그것은 일일이 설명되기보다는 경석과 채연의 연애담을 통해 짐작하게 되는 느낌들에 가깝다.

-경석은 두 번째 에피소드에서 선경의 이복동생으로 등장한 아이였고, 채현은 첫 번째 에피소드에서 무신을 찾아온 전남편의 딸아이였다. 세월이 흘러 그들 사이의 갈등이 누그러지고 주름이 깊어졌을 때 두 가족은 시간과 공간을 초월하여 아주 우연히 새로운 가족의 가능성을 타진한다. 그런 점에서 채현과 경석이 기차에서 만난다는 것은 의미심장한 설정이다. 새로운 가족의 탄생은 수많은 우연과 가능성 사이에 잠재되어 있는 것이며, 그것이야말로 이 세상에서 새로운 가족이 탄생하게 되는 비결인 셈이다.

-이는 전통적인 한국의 가족영화들과는 다른 태도다. 가족을 ‘필연적으로 존재’해야 하는 무엇으로 바라보는 것이 아니라 가족은 우연의 관계들 속에서 벌어지는 산물이라는 것이 세 가지 에피소드의 형식을 통해 작고 크게 반복되는 셈이다. 앞의 두 에피소드가 혈연으로 묶인 가족에 새로운 인물들(타자)이 등장하면서(새로운 아이가 가세하면서) 벌어지는 갈등을 다루고 있다면, 마지막 에피소드는 그 아이들이 성장하여 타자 대 타자의 관계로 연인이 되는 순간을 잡아내고 있다.

-<가족의 탄생>에 의하면 가족은 혈연으로 규정된 것이 아니라 새로운 타자들이 등장하면서 위협받고 흔들리면서 변화해가는 무엇이다. “당신들 정말 재수 없어.”라고 항변하는 선경의 말은 가족의 구성원이 느끼는 위기감을 토로하는 것이지만 이러한 위기를 통해 가족은 새롭게 재탄생을 하게 되는 계기를 맞이하는 셈이다.

-두 편의 에피소드가 다루는 가족들 사이의 갈등이나 마지막 에피소드가 보여주는 연인 사이의 갈등은 가족 혹은 가족을 이루고자 하는 연인들 사이에 언제나 존재하는 ‘위기’일 따름이다. 가족은 언제나 위기를 겪고 있으며, 위기를 통해 자라나고 변화하는 것임을 <가족의 탄생>은 영리한 형식을 통해 증명해보인다. 무관한 듯한 세 편의 에피소드가 하나의 관계를 기록하고 있음을 보여주는 순간 수많은 타자들로 이루어진 오늘날의 가족사를 돌아보게 만든다.

-<가족의 탄생>은 가족을 이루는 진정한 토대는 ‘혈연’이 아니라 ‘타인’이었다고 말하는 영화다. 수많은 타인들이 자신의 이기심과 오만을 버리고 어떻게 가족을 이루게 되었는지를 설득력 있게 보여주는 영화다. 물론 그들의 삶은 불행할 수도 있고, 행복할 수도 있다. <가족의 탄생>은 가족의 행복이 반드시 답변은 아니라고 말한다. “정말 재수 없어” 보이는 인물들이지만(진정한 타인이지만) 어느 순간 가족이라는 이름으로 서로를 이해하고 살아가는 존재들인 것이다. 그것만큼 신비로운 것이 또 어디 있겠는가. 이 영화의 세 가지 에피소드는 이러한 신비를 드러내기 위한 고민의 산물이다.

 

최은영(06. 05. 24) '낡은 것과 새로운 것'

-김태용 감독의 두 번째 장편 영화 <가족의 탄생>은 많은 화두를 담고 있는 영화다. 거기에는 아주 낡은 소재, 즉 우리가 익히 잘 알고 있는 이야기들이 존재한다. ‘가족’과 ‘연애’는 모든 픽션에서 결코 빠지지 않는 오래된 소재다. 이렇듯 낡은 소재로 어떻게 새로운 이야기를 풀어낼 수 있을까. 여기에는 딜레마가 존재한다. 가장 고전적인 소재일수록 그 소재 자체가 지닌 힘을 결코 간과할 수 없다는 사실과, 그럼에도 불구하고 거기에서 새로운 감각을 일깨워 소재의 함정에 빠지지 말아야 한다는 것이다. <가족의 탄생>에는 그러한 딜레마의 흔적이 곳곳에 묻어 있다. ‘가족’과 ‘탄생’이라는 낯익은 단어가 ‘가족의 탄생’이라는 기이한 조합으로 합쳐졌을 때 느껴지는 감각은 이 영화의 전체를 지배하는 정서이며, 영화의 성패의 지점을 알려주는 키워드다.

-영화의 첫 장면은 낡은 기차 칸에 앉은 두 남녀로부터 시작된다. 남자는 여자에게 사이다와 찐 계란의 환상적인 조화에 관해 침이 마르도록 칭찬하는 중이다. “사이다 없는 찐 계란, 아우, 상상만 해도 막 목이 메지 않아요?” 여기서 또 한 번 어울리지 않는 듯 어울리는 조합이 등장한다. 사이다와 찐 계란은 오로지 우리나라에서만 통용되는 영원한 짝패다. 따로 떨어뜨려놓고 생각해보면 전혀 어울릴 것 같지 않은 음식이, 함께 만나면서 기막힌 조화를 이루는 것이다. 전혀 어울릴 것 같지 않은 두 남녀, 경석(봉태규)과 채현(정유미)은 그렇게 연애를 시작한다.

-오무신과 이형철, 이름부터가 낯선 조합이다. 하물며 그들의 외양의 조합은 더더욱 낯설다. 분식집을 경영하는 노처녀 미라(문소리)의 가슴을 설레게 했던 말썽쟁이 동생 형철(엄태웅)과의 5년 만의 재회의 기쁨은, 형철이 20년 연상의 아내 무신(고두심)을 데리고 등장하면서 산산조각난다. 누나의 집 방 한 칸을 떡 하니 차지하고 밤마다 심란한 소음을 내는 것은 물론, 걸쭉한 입담으로 누나의 일상을 흔들어놓는 기이한 커플을 어찌 대해야 할지 몰라 당황하던 미라는 조금씩 마음의 문을 연다. 엄마와 아들뻘 되는 남녀가 커플 티를 입고 그 옆에 딸뻘인 여성이 어색하게 서 있는 모양새처럼, 지독히도 어울리지 않는 조합은 제법 살갑게 보이기 시작한다.

-한편 고궁 투어의 외국인 안내원으로 일하는 당돌하기 짝이 없는 소녀 선경(공효진)은 짐을 싸들고 찾아온 엄마 매자(김혜옥)를 단칼에 내친다. 마치 가출한 딸을 박대하듯 매몰찬 선경과 쭈뼛거리며 딸의 눈치를 살피는 매자의 모양새 또한 이상하기 짝이 없다. 알고보니 매자는 지나치게 로맨틱한 성정으로 남자를 전전하며 딸을 방치해두었던 모양이다. 매자는 유부남인 동거남과의 사이에 어린 아들을 두고 있으며, 병으로 죽어가고 있다. 가족도 연애도 모두 엉망인 선경은 외국으로 떠날 날을 받아놓고서도 왠지 자꾸만 엄마의 집을 찾는다.

-<가족의 탄생>은 처음에는 서로 다른 세 개의 에피소드를 보여주는 것처럼 보이지만, 첫 번째 에피소드, 즉 경석과 채현의 에피소드는 두 개의 다른 에피소드들(미라와 무신과 형철, 그리고 선경과 매자)을 연결시키는 가교 역할을 하고 있다. 그래서 유독 경석과 채현의 에피소드는 늘 어딘가로 향하는 길거리에서 진행된다. 반면 미라와 형철, 무신의 에피소드와 선경, 매자의 에피소드는 일정한 공간을 중심으로 진행되지만, 전혀 다른 공간에서 전혀 다른 뉘앙스로 전개된다. 미라가 사는 구옥의 마당, 시골 장터, 햇빛이 가득 들어오는 창이 넓은 분식집은 때로 코믹하기까지 한 관계의 아이러니를 따뜻하게 감싸 안는다. 서먹하기만 했던 미라와 형철 부부는 마당에서 어린애처럼 서로의 몸을 부딪치며 암묵적인 화해에 도달한다. 그리고 그들은 함께 장터에서 물건을 사고 사진을 찍으면서 돈독해진다.

-그러나 햇빛이 거의 들지 않는 선경의 좁은 방, 어두컴컴한 매자의 털실 가게는 선경이 생활하는 또 다른 장소인 고궁이나, 후반부에 등장하는 배다른 동생의 유치원 운동회 장면에도 불구하고 에피소드 전체의 분위기를 장악한다. 선경은 우울한 얼굴로 집 안에 틀어박혀 있거나 을씨년스러운 엄마의 털실 가게를 찾아가 신경질을 부린다. 병원비로 인해 경제적 어려움에 시달리는 매자와 어린 아들, 동거남은 무표정한 얼굴로 침묵을 지키기 일쑤다. 이러한 분위기의 대조는 두 에피소드 간의 관계가 종국에 서로 만나기 전 완전히 떨어져 있는 것처럼 보이게 하기 위한 의도적인 장치의 일부이기도 하다.

-그러나 이 두 에피소드는 진행될수록 점점 서로를 닮아간다. 두 에피소드 모두 클라이맥스를 지나 비슷한 방식으로 일단락되는 것이다. 이는 떠나는 사람과 남겨진 아이, 아이를 중심으로 새롭게 재편되는 가족, 그리고 남겨진 삶 위로 흐르는 시간의 묘사다. 마치 마실 나가듯 훌쩍 떠나버리는 형철과 결국 죽음을 맞이하는 매자의 장례식은 에피소드들의 급격한 전환점을 이루고 있다.

-침묵 속에 밥을 먹는 미라와 무신의 모습을 전경으로 후경에서 보이는 천진난만하게 뛰노는 여자아이의 슬로모션은 매자가 죽은 후 그녀가 남긴 가방을 열어보고 목 놓아 우는 선경의 주변으로 가볍게 떠오르는 선경의 어린 시절을 증거 하는 기념품의 슬로모션과 대구를 이룬다. 무신과 무신의 전남편의 딸이 형철을 기다리다 결국 미라의 집을 떠나는 장면에서 미라의 간절한 눈빛은 결국 남겨진 이들이 서로 합칠 것을 강하게 암시하고 있으며, 출국을 포기하는 전화를 하는 선경의 모습은 더욱 직접적으로 새로운 가족의 탄생을 암시하고 있다.

-이제 남은 것은 두 세계를 하나로 이어주는 마지막 에피소드의 결말뿐이다. 지나치게 남의 일을 챙기는 채현과 이를 못마땅해 하면서도 속 시원히 털어놓지 못하는 심약한 경석의 러브스토리는 처음에는 독립된 것처럼 존재하지만 앞선 두 에피소드들이 일단락되면서 두 에피소드의 후일담이라는 또 다른 정체를 드러내기 시작한다. 그리고 이 판타지에 가까운 후일담은 앞선 두 에피소드들이 맞이하는 파국의 순간을 넘어서면서 일종의 보상의 쾌락을 안겨준다. 그리고 현실이 착한 판타지로 변모하는 순간은 마지막 장면에서 극대화된다. 천사처럼 하늘에서 웃고 있는 선경의 이미지, 그리고 다시 찾아온 형철과 그의 두 번째 여자, 에필로그 크레딧 시퀀스는 모두 같은 기능을 하고 있다. 그들의 기이한 인연을 전 지구적인 삶의 형태로 분산시키는 동시에, 낭만적인 휴머니즘으로 포획하는 것이다.

-<가족의 탄생>은 서로 동떨어진 것처럼 보이는 두 에피소드들이 극적인 만남에 이르는 여행으로 구성되어 있다고 해도 과언이 아니다. 캐릭터들의 어울리지 않는 조합뿐만 아니라 다른 공간에서 다른 뉘앙스로 전개되는 두 개의 에피소드를 한데 모으는 것이 이 영화의 구조적 목적인 셈이다. 영화 전체에 걸쳐 있는 이러한 유비적인 관계의 점진적 조합 과정은 눈에 보이지 않는 방식으로 매끄럽게 진행되지만, 결국 판타지로 현실을 봉합한다는 또 하나의 딜레마로 귀결된다.

-가족이라는 이름으로 사랑의 여러 형태를 보여준다는 점에서 이 영화를 하나의 거대한 러브스토리로 바라보는 관점이 가능하다면, 이 영화의 전범은 이미 존재한다. <러브 액추얼리>는 때로는 판타스틱하고 때로는 현실적인 러브스토리의 집합체로 ‘사랑은 어디에나 있다’라는 고전적인 팝송 가락을 흥얼거리며 사랑의 순간들을 포착한다. <가족의 탄생>이 종국에 귀결되는 지점 또한 이와 크게 다르지 않다.

-비현실적인 듯 현실적인 에피소드 속에서 관계의 아픔을 드러내는 영화의 섬세한 이미지의 결이 다소 무뎌지는 것은, ‘어딘가 다른 사랑’이 마치 오래된 옛날 얘기의 마법처럼 ‘어디에나 있는 사랑’으로 되돌아오기 때문이다(*얼마간의 판타지를 다 지워내지 못하고 있지만, <가족의 탄생>이 갖는 미덕은 <러브 액추얼리>를 직접 모작한 <내 생애의 가장 아름다운 일주일>의 허접함과 비교될 수 없다).

06. 07. 11.

Slavoj Zizek: Live Theory

렉스 버틀러가 쓴 'Slavoj Zizek: Live Theory'(Continuum, 2005)는 165쪽의 컴팩트한 지젝 입문서이다. 국역본이 나올 법도 한 책인데, 라캉닷컴에서 책의 요약을 제공하고 있기에 자료 정리차원에서 옮겨온다. 정리하다 보면 읽고 싶은 생각이 들 수도 있지 않을까...  

The subject of philosophy

The authors of books like this are often reluctant to speak of the private lives of their subjects. After all, what has this to do with their work? How is this to help us understand what they write? Our doubts, however, are soon overcome when we consider the Slovenian cultural analyst Slavoj Zizek. For what can we say about him that he does not already say himself? What secret can we reveal that he has not already turned into the punchline to one of his many well-rehearsed jokes? Which other theorist, for example, would allow himself the following one-liner to illustrate the psychoanalytic concept of the phallus: 'What is the lightest object in the world? The penis, because it is the only one that can be raised by a mere thought' (TS, 382-3)? Who else, in a parody of the anthropologist Claude L?i-Strauss, would observe:

In the traditional German lavatory, the hole down which the shit disappears is up front, so that it is first laid out for us to inspect; in the traditional French lavatory, it is in the back, so that the shit is meant to disappear as soon as possible; while the Anglo-Saxon (English and American) lavatory presents a kind of synthesis, with the basin full of water, so that the shit floats in it, visible but not to be inspected? (PF, 4)

Or, most famously, would confess that, eating in a Chinese restaurant, his greatest fear is not that he will somehow fall into an orgy with his fellow diners but actually end up sharing a meal with them: 'How many people have entered the way of perdition with some innocent gangbang, which at the time was of no great importance to them, and ended up sharing the main dishes at a Chinese restaurant' (E!, ix)? Or would cheerfully admit to a whole range of bad habits: not just the usual 'private repulsive rituals' of smelling one's sweat or picking one's nose (AF, 80), but the slightly more social ones of watching pornography (PF, 177-80), engaging in cybersex (IR, 191-3) and even reading Colleen McCullough (LA, 160)?1

Now, Lacanian psychoanalysis will recommend as part of its cure a process of radical externalization. It is the idea that we must accept that we are entirely responsible for the situation we find ourselves in; that it is our actions, not the motivations behind them, that define us; that there is no inner core of our being, inaccessible to others. It is what Lacan came to call towards the end of his teaching the identification with the symptom, and it meant that we are not to hide the idiosyncrasies and sometimes embarrassing tics and quirks that make us up but acknowledge that they are part of who we are. And this is undoubtedly what Zizek is doing here. But, if we can say this, there is one thing that Zizek does not admit to in that list above - and that is the very symptom of theory itself. For it really is the most extraordinary spectacle, seeing Zizek lecture. There he stands, this wildly gesticulating, bear-like man, tugging his beard and shirt, dark circles of sweat growing beneath his armpits, his neatly-combed hair growing lank and dishevelled, his eyes staring blindly around the room. He speaks rapidly through a strong Central European accent and a lisp, constantly circling back upon himself to try to make himself clearer, threatening never to stop. We feel he is making the same point over and over, but we cannot quite grasp it, and in order to do so he must take in the entirety of Western philosophy and culture, both high and low: from Schoenberg to sci-fi, from quantum mechanics to the latest Hollywood blockbuster, from now-forgotten figures of 18th and 19th century German philosophy to the notoriously obscure writings of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan... Indeed, Lacan once cruelly quipped of James Joyce that, although what he wrote was almost psychotic in its refusal to fix meaning, this writing was also the only thing that saved him from actual psychosis - and we think the same is true of Zizek as well. Zizek's fellow theorist Judith Butler writes on the back cover of one of his books: 'Slavoj lives to theorize', but we suspect the opposite is true and Zizek theorizes to live. Although, as his public performances and writings attest, his work is endlessly shifting, open-ended, refuses to close itself down or draw conclusions - in a word, is psychotic - it is also only the activity of theorizing that saves him, saves him from the very thing this theorizing brings about.

But, for all of our mockery, seeing Zizek speak takes us back to a possibility only rarely glimpsed since the origins of Western civilization. For he reminds us as much as anyone of the ancient Greek heroine Antigone, who insists beyond all reason and ends up sacrificing herself for a tragic cause. That is, we seem to have here a man who is, in the words of Lacan, 'between two deaths' (S7, 270), his outer being reduced to a mere shell or remainder. And yet he is also a man who, like Antigone, appears infused by some unstoppable power, possessed by some extraordinary cause in a world that lacks causes.2 We might say that Zizek is filled with a kind of death drive, a desire for self-extermination, except that what he reveals is that life itself, life in its profoundest sense, is not possible before this going-towards-death; that what we think we sacrifice when we live life like him only has value when seen from the other side. As Lacan says in his Seminar The Ethics of Psychoanalysis, in which he discusses Antigone's case, from this other side we can see and live life 'in the form of something already lost' (S7, 280). And perhaps even beyond Antigone - who, after all, still did believe in something, still did have a cause - what are we to make of Zizek, who constantly changes his position and ultimately believes in nothing except the 'inherent correctness of theory itself' (CU, i)? What would it mean to sacrifice ourselves and everything we believed in (even our cause) for this 'nothing'? And why would we nevertheless go ahead and do it? Is this death the very life of theory, Theory itself as Cause?

The life of theory

Zizek first announced himself to the English-speaking world in 1989 with the publication of The Sublime Object of Ideology. It is an at-the-time unexpected fusion of Marx's notion of the commodity, Althusser's concept of interpellation and Lacan's idea of the split subject, in order to elaborate what we might call the social symptom. This symptom is for Zizek a way of bringing together - a long-running problem for progressive politics - the specifics of individual psychology with a wider analysis of the social. The fundamental insight of the book - adapted from Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe's ground-breaking Hegemony and Socialist Strategy (1985) - is that the social is essentially divided, antagonistic, unable to be given closure. This has the consequence that the various terms that are used to understand and construct it are themselves provisional, contingent, continually fought over. Thus a term like 'democracy', which is constantly invoked as a desirable goal of society, is not ideologically neutral or unquestionably positive, but the subject of various groups attempting to claim it (SO, 98). Each of these attempts necessarily fails, because no one signifier can speak for the entirety of the social; but each group looks for an explanation of this failure to some external and intrusive element, whose removal would restore an imagined wholeness. It is this element that Zizek calls the 'sublime object of ideology': that ambiguous symptom-element that is 'heterogeneous to any given ideological field and at the same time necessary for that field to achieve its closure' (SO, 21).

Zizek follows this up two years later with For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor. This densely theoretical text - as if to underscore its political relevance - was originally delivered as a series of two-part lectures over the winter of 1989-90 to a general audience in the months leading up to the first free Slovenian elections after the fall of Communism. These were elections in which Zizek himself stood as a pro-reform candidate for the Liberal Democratic Party. For They Know Not is, in part at least, a continuation of the enquiry into that fantasmatic 'sublime object', typically a Jew or foreigner, that allows the social to constitute itself as a whole. As Zizek writes in the Introduction, in his typical manner of making a serious point with a joke, if in Sublime Object he was able to count on the humour of the Jewish man who, wishing to emigrate from Russia and giving as one of his reasons his fear of anti-Semitic violence with the rise of the new nationalisms and being told that there is nothing to worry about because Communism will last forever, was able to reply: 'Well, that is my second reason!', this is no longer the case (TK, 1). Today, it is precisely the upsurge of racist violence with the collapse of Communism that is the reason for the Jewish man wanting to leave. And here Zizek speaks of the way that, along with the apparently non-ideological 'enjoyment' that allows ideology, there is also underlying this racism the fear of the theft of our enjoyment by others, the resentment of foreign invaders who threaten our way of life because of the strange new ways they have of enjoying themselves (TK, 37-8, 213-4).

The innovative aspect of both of these books is the way they are able to revive the traditional category of ideology-critique in these supposedly 'post-ideological' times. Indeed, they are able to demonstrate that it is our very distance from ideology - whether this is understood in terms of post-modern cynicism or pre-ideological 'enjoyment' - that allows ideology to do its work. The other striking thing about the two books is the way they are able to recast the psychoanalytical concept of fantasy and turn it into a tool for ideological analysis. The French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser was perhaps the first to show that fantasy is not to be understood as a merely subjective error or delusion, the simple refusal to recognize things as they are. Rather, for Althusser, fantasy is objective. It is not so much in what we believe as in our external social practices that fantasy is to be found. Thus, in terms of commodity-fetishism, it does not matter that we know money is not an immediate expression of wealth but only an abstracted version of social relations. All that matters is that in our actual behaviour we continue to act as though it is (SO, 31). This is the radical meaning behind Marx's analysis of the commodity form: that 'things (commodities) believe in our place' (SO, 34). This is also the conclusion to be drawn from Zizek's introduction of Lacan's notion of the split subject to Althusser's concept of interpellation, for what we see is that ideology works in an unconscious way, which is not to be understood as saying that its subjects know nothing of it - they do - but that the form of their behaviour escapes them (SO, 15). They are 'decentred' not because there is some aspect of their behaviour that they misrecognize or misperceive, but because from the beginning they are able to act or believe only through the agency of another (not only the Other as embodied in the fetish but also as embodied in social customs (SO, 36)).

These two books, although strikingly original in the context of the English-speaking reception of Continental philosophy, were in fact the outcome of a larger body of work done by Zizek and a group of like-minded Yugoslavian theorists, principally centred around the University of Ljubljana, throughout the 1970s and 1980s. (These theorists, with whom Zizek continues to maintain his ties, often either collaborating with them or writing the forewords to their books, include the philosopher Miran Bozovic, author of An Utterly Dark Spot and editor of Jeremy Bentham's The Panopticon Writings; philosopher Mladen Dolar, author of The Bone in the Spirit: A Lacanian Reading of Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit' and co-author with Zizek of Opera's Second Death; legal theorist Renata Salecl, author of The Spoils of Freedom and (Per)versions of Love and Hate; and philosopher Alenka Zupancic, author of Ethics of the Real: Kant, Lacan. Zizek in interviews speaks of the various orientations of philosophy in the former Yugoslavia against which he and his colleagues pitched themselves:

In the Republic of Slovenia, there were two predominant philosophical approaches: Frankfurt School Marxism and Heideggerianism. Both were unacceptable to us Lacanians, not only generally, but in Slovenia the Communist Party was intelligent enough to adopt Frankfurt School Marxism as its official ideology. Heideggerianism was from the beginning linked to right-wing populism, and in other parts of Yugoslavia to the darkest Stalinist forces. For us, Althusser was crucial.3

Why Althusser? Because the old Yugoslavia was the proverbial 'socialism with a human face', in which the problem was not the direct imposition of ideology, but the fact that the old regime did not appear to take its own ideology seriously, and incorporated its own criticism in advance (IR, 3). It is exactly the same problem of private cynicism and public obedience that we find in contemporary capitalism (with same question of why this cynicism, far from undermining the regime's hold on power, actually strengthens it).

Indeed, after studying at the University of Ljubljana, Zizek was at first unable to find a job teaching because he was deemed by the authorities to be 'too unreliable'. He spent a number of years in the 1970s unemployed, before finally, his intellectual brilliance unable to be denied but prevented from having any actual contact with students, he was given a research position at the Institute of Sociology attached to the University. Zizek now ironically describes this period - during which he was supported by the State but not forced into normal academic duties - 'in Michael J. Fox terms as the secret of my success'.4 It is a situation he has been able to maintain, thanks to his frenetic publishing schedule and his burgeoning world-wide reputation:

Every three years I write a research proposal. I then divide it into three one-sentence paragraphs, which I call my yearly projects. At the end of each year I change my research project's future tense verbs into the past tense and then call it my yearly report. With total freedom, I am a total workaholic.5

After obtaining a Doctorate in Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana in 1981, Zizek then went to Paris to study at the famous Seminar of Lacan's designated heir Jacques-Alain Miller, by whom he was analysed and with whom he would take out a Doctorate in Psychoanalysis in 1985. The book Le plus sublime des hyst?iques - Hegel passe (1988) is a product of Zizek's French period, in which he first puts forward his unique blend of Lacan and popular culture, as well as his unorthodox reading of Hegel. (It also includes much of what was to become Sublime Object and For They Know Not.) It sees Hegel not, as a generation of French post-structuralists have, as a thinker of the dialectical reconciliation of opposites, but as the most profound theorist of difference - a difference that is not to be grasped directly but only through the very failure of identity (HP, 89-90).

Immediately following For They Know Not, three new books appear. They are the first we would say that specifically come about as a result of Zizek's new English-speaking audience, that are not simply the outcome of his previous study or direct circumstances. They are perhaps less charged politically, less filled with the urgency of their task. As their titles indicate, they are essentially popularizations - virtuosic, pop-encyclopaedic, sublime-bathetic couplings of the highest and the lowest cultural themes. Looking Awry: An Introduction to Lacan through Popular Culture (1991) takes the reader through a number of Lacanian concepts ('Real', 'Gaze', 'Sinthome') by illustrating them with examples taken from popular culture. Thus we have Steven Spielberg's Empire of the Sun used to speak of the 'answer of the Real' (LA, 29-30), Michael Mann's Manhunter to speak of the perverse 'gaze' (LA, 107-8) and Patricia Highsmith's short story "The Pond" to speak of the pathological 'sinthome' (LA, 133-6). This is followed by Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out (1992), which consists of a series of two-part lectures, the first elaborating some Lacanian concept through an example taken from Hollywood cinema - what Zizek calls 'for the other' - and the second treating the same concept in terms of its inherent content - 'in itself' (E!, xi). Thus we have a discussion of Lacan's notion of the suicidal 'act' through a consideration of the films of Roberto Rossellini (E!, 31-66), the post-modern loss of the 'phallus' in terms of David Lynch's Elephant Man (E!, 113-46) and woman as a 'symptom' of man with regard to the femmes fatales of 1950s film noir (E!, 149-93). The third book that appears in English during this period, although it was originally published in French in 1988, is the edited anthology Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Lacan (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) (1992). It includes essays by the French film critic Pascal Bonitzer on Hitchcockian suspense, Zupancic on the way in which 'theatre' reveals the truth in Hitchcock and a long essay by Zizek on how the spectator's gaze is already included in Hitchcock's films. All of these books, which are absolute academic best-sellers and begin to bring his name for the first time before a wider audience, establish Zizek's lasting popular public image as a devoted pop-culture aficionado. There appears to be in his work a deliberate inversion of aesthetic categories, an upending of cultural hierarchies. Thus we have the putting together of Stephen King and Sophocles (LA, 25-6), Wagner and Westerns (LA, 114-5) and Colleen McCullough and Kant (LA, 160-2). There is obviously a kind of provocation to all of this, very close to that distinctive postmodern sensibility of camp, but Zizek claims an exalted pedigree for his procedure: Diogenes, Walter Benjamin and even Kant himself (LA, vii).

1993 sees the publication of arguably Zizek's magnum opus, the extraordinary Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel and the Critique of Ideology. In it, we find his most extended treatment of Hegel so far, again arguing, against a whole generation of post-structuralists in general and Derrida in particular, that Hegel does not attempt to do away with all difference within a 'restricted' economy, but rather seeks to theorize a fundamental 'crack' in the world, which forever resists dialectical synthesis (TN, 21). In the chapter "Hegel's "Logic of Essence" as a Theory of Ideology", Zizek makes the case for the importance of Hegel's notion of 'positing the presuppositions' (TN, 126) for any serious work in ideology analysis. He also looks at the way Hegel reconceptualizes Kant's notion of the 'sublime' not as some transcendental 'beyond' out there but as a kind of fantasy image brought about by a split in here (TN, 35-9). This strange logic, which Zizek will go on to connect with a certain feminine 'not-all', as opposed to a masculine 'universality produced through exception' (TN, 53-8), will have the widest implications for the rest of Zizek's work. It will allow him to criticize, for example, the usual notion of human rights as a universality only possible on the basis of a series of exclusions (women, children, the mad, the primitive), a universality from which ultimately everybody is excluded (ME, 157-8), as opposed to a conception of human rights as non-universal but applying precisely to these exceptions (L, 267-8). Or it will allow him to think why, although any opposition to it is swallowed up or absorbed by it, the current capitalist order is necessarily incomplete, unable to be realized (TS, 358; L, 266-7).

This interest in a particular 'feminine' logic is continued in the subsequent Metastases of Enjoyment: Six Essays on Woman and Causality (1994), the first of three new books that have a partial, essay-like quality after the systematic exposition of Tarrying with the Negative. In Metastases, Zizek explores this logic in a number of fields, from the masculine construction of woman in mediaeval courtly poetry and film noir to the radical 'feminism' (in a typically perverse and counter-intuitive reading) of Otto Weininger's notorious turn-of-the-nineteenth-century anti-Semitic and misogynistic tract Sex and Character. In Metastases, following it must be said the pioneering Lacanian feminist Joan Copjec, Zizek takes a distance from the usual 'constructivist' accounts of contemporary feminism, which argue that woman is merely a performatively enacted or historically contingent fiction. For Zizek, this essentially 'symbolic' conception of woman - which condemns her either to mimic parodically the various clich? of femininity or to a silence outside of language - excludes the 'Real' of sexual difference. Rather, instead of this choice, what we see, to put it in Zizek's still too-condensed formulation, is that, whereas 'it is man who is wholly submitted to the phallus (since positing an exception is the way to maintain its universal domination), only woman through the inconsistency of her desire attains the domain "beyond the phallus"' (ME, 160-1).

Zizek's next book, The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters (1996), both signals a shift in his work and makes explicit what was previously only implicit in it. It is an extended analysis of a now slightly marginal figure from the history of German philosophy, F.W.J. Schelling (1775-1854). Zizek's polemical point is that Schelling in fact played a pivotal role between the idealism of Kant and Hegel and the materialism of Marx (IR, 4). But in what exactly does this materialism consist? Zizek insists that tracking it down is a tricky business. It is not to be found where we might expect. It is to be seen in that moment in Schelling when he admits that God is not eternally given but has as it were to posit Himself, contract Himself out of some obscure impenetrable 'Ground' (IR, 61-2). That is, Schelling is concerned not with the problem of how to pass from the perfect to the imperfect, how God enters the world, but on the contrary with the problem of how to pass from the imperfect to the perfect, how God arises in the first place (IR, 16, 112-3). Schelling's crucial realization is that God is imperfect, that there is always something missing from Him: a gap that might be understood as the human itself (IR, 67). It is a realization that Schelling himself came to shrink from. By means of an analysis of the successive drafts of the great Weltalter fragment (whose unfinished character for Zizek is the very sign of its materialist status), Zizek shows how Schelling moves from a position in which God comes about through a primordial contraction of 'Ground', which is materialist, to one in which God is a kind of pre-existing essence, which is idealist. And in 1997 Zizek reissues as The Abyss of Freedom, accompanied by a long introduction written by him, Schelling's second draft of the Weltalter fragment, in which his thinking of this 'free' positing by God of His own existence goes furthest, and draws a perhaps surprising conclusion: that materialism is not to be understood as a form of determinism, in which everything can be exhaustively explained, but as what keeps causality open, what allows the possibility of freedom.

Also in 1997 The Plague of Fantasies is published, which is very much a collection of disparate pieces, including a version of the introduction first written for the collection Mapping Ideology (1994) and essays on such diverse topics as virtual reality, the sexual act in cinema and the possibility of an ethics beyond the Good. (Indivisible Remainder, for its part, already included an essay entitled 'Quantum Physics with Lacan'!) It is interesting to observe here how Zizek has moved on from his earlier attempts to analyse ideology in terms of the fetish in Sublime Object and For They Know Not. Even bearing in mind the vastly expanded, intrapsychic conception of ideology at stake there, in Plague it is even more intrusive and extreme. We have the sense of something that penetrates even the deepest recesses of our bodies, that colonizes even our most private fantasies. We have an 'interpassivity', as in computer games and simulations, in which the Other not only knows and believes for us but even enjoys for us (PF, 113-7). It is a world in which we risk psychosis because that gap between the world and our various constructions of it becomes increasingly filled in (PF, 157-9). Ideology becomes a total and seamless screen, as we realize that what we understand as 'reality' was always already virtual. And yet, says Zizek - in a formulation that might remind us of Jean Baudrillard - this is only because of a certain 'Real' that is excluded (PF, 163). It is at this point that another 'ethics', an 'ethics' beyond the Good, might be thought.

The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology, published in 1999, is another attempted summa of Zizek's philosophy. This massive, 400 page tome, reputedly written in a mere six months, is divided up into three parts: the first, which treats Heidegger and his reading of the Kantian Transcendental Imagination in Kant and the Problem of Metaphysics (this a continuation of the enquiry into that 'gap' which allows freedom in Schelling); the second, which takes up the fate of three post-Althusserian French political thinkers (Alain Badiou, ?ienne Balibar and Jacques Ranci?e); and the third, which consists of an extended engagement with the feminist deconstructionist Judith Butler. Or, as Zizek says in his "Introduction," the book addresses three distinctive philosophical traditions: German philosophical Idealism, French political philosophy and Anglo-American cultural studies (TS, 5). Ticklish Subject marks an advance on Zizek's previous work in several respects. First, the opening section sees a detailed explication of the thought of Heidegger, who is to become a more and more common reference in Zizek's writings to come. Second, following the path-breaking book by Badiou, St Paul, or, The Birth of Universalism, Zizek is more and more willing to define his political project - against Laclau and Mouffe - in terms of a certain universality. Third, the book constitutes Zizek's closest encounter yet with feminist-queer 'constructivism' and a defence against the emerging criticism that his use of the Lacanian 'Real' is 'ahistorical'. We see him in his debate with Butler seeking to negotiate a way simultaneously against historicism and any simple anti-historicism. And all of this he does, finally, by means of a spirited and unexpected defence of Cartesian subjectivity, the object of critique of virtually every contemporary philosophical orientation (deconstructionism, feminism, New Age spiritualism, scientific cognitivism).

This is followed soon after - with no sign of fatigue or let-down - by the short polemical pamphlet The Fragile Absolute, or, Why is the Christian Legacy Worth Fighting For? (2000). It can be seen as a continuation of Ticklish Subject's defence of Pauline Christianity and its insight (as opposed to multi-culturalism, ethical relativism and even orthodox Christianity) that a universal truth is worth fighting for. It is a truth, however, that is only to be obtained from a position of engaged particularity. In this we might see a shift from the earlier defence of the 'absolute particular' (LA, 156) of the other's enjoyment, akin perhaps to traditional liberal tolerance, to an assertion of the 'particular absolute' of our own partisan position, akin to St Paul's famous militancy. This argument for a newly committed 'universality' is seen also in Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?, which appears the following year. This book is a withering attack upon the contemporary tendency to level the charge of 'totalitarianism' against any attempt to propose a political 'Grand Narrative', an accusation that functions precisely as a way of discouraging any real social change (for example, the argument that any attempt to propose a unified political position against capitalism can only lead to a new form of dictatorship). At this point a more and more explicit Marxism enters Zizek's work, indeed, an argument for a form of Communism involving an organized party structure and the socialization of economic resources. Zizek's politics here have moved well beyond any notion of an always unrealizable 'democracy', in which the locus of power must always remain empty (TK, 267-70), to an admiration for such figures as Lenin, who were willing to seize power and impose their political will. But it is a Lenin, surprisingly - as Zizek argues in the long Afterword he writes for his 2002 collection of Lenin texts, Revolution at the Gates - who is not at all inconsistent with a certain notion of Christianity.

Throughout this period, Zizek continues to publish a whole series of other texts and interventions: an essay on David Lynch, a long-time favourite, The Art of the Ridiculous Sublime (2000); a lecture series on the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski for the British Film Institute, The Fright of Real Tears (2001); a short text updating his thoughts on ideology, On Belief (2001); a response to the attacks on the World Trade Center, Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002); essays in books he has either edited himself or been included in, On the Gaze and Voice as Love Objects (1996), Cogito and the Unconscious (1998) and Sexuation (2002); a joint volume with Butler and Laclau, in which each debates the others' position, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality (2000). It is simply an extraordinary outpouring of material, which shows no signs of slowing down and, indeed, even seems to be speeding up. In 2000, Zizek publishes three books; in 2001, four; in 2002, four again. One of the paradoxes of this is that it seems that, as his work becomes more and more explicitly anti-capitalist, it is also becoming more commodified. That is, we might not only speak of Zizek himself in terms of a certain excremental identification, but also of his work. In its very excessiveness, unmasterability, relentless accumulation and the difficulty of knowing what to do with it all, does it not resemble excrement, or even the hoarding of capital itself? It is a paradox he explores in his recent work: that not only is capitalism its own critique, but this critique always ends up returning to capital itself (L, 277). But Zizek could only get the effects he does by going as close as possible to his own personal dissolution, his fusion with the Other. As he writes in Ticklish Subject:

This is the domain 'beyond the Good', in which a human being encounters the death drive as the utmost limit of human experience, and pays the price by undergoing a radical 'subjective destitution', by being reduced to an excremental remainder. Lacan's point is that this limit-experience is the irreducible/constitutive condition of the (im)possibility of the creative act of embracing a Truth-Event; it opens up and sustains the space for the Truth-Event, yet its excess always threatens to undermine it. (TS, 161)

How to read Zizek?

Of course, it is absurd to suggest that a thinker as prolific and popular as Zizek needs an introduction. After all, what can any commentary say about him that he does not already say? How to explain Zizek any more clearly than he does himself? (Or, to put this another way, what is to guarantee that we can make any clearer what Zizek fails to? How can we be sure that we get to the bottom of what drives him on through all those endless repetitions and re-elaborations that run throughout his texts?) In that process of radical externalization that characterizes Zizek's work, this striving to make himself absolutely clear, Zizek compares what he is doing to the Lacanian procedure of the passe, in which the analyst-in-training has to pass on their findings to two uninitiated members of the general public, who in turn have to transmit them to the examining committee. 'The idiot', he says generously, 'for whom I attempt to formulate a theoretical point as clearly as possible is ultimately myself' (ME, 175). But it is undoubtedly also us. Perhaps all we can offer in this book, paradoxically, is to make Zizek less accessible, less popular, less easily understood. We do not try to find other examples to explain his work - always a worthless academic exercise. We do not try to write in the same exuberant style. We do not try to be funny. (Think of all those endless, dreadful attempts to imitate Derridean ?riture.) In a sense, we try to be faithful to Zizek's own self-assessment from his Preface to the collection The Zizek Reader:

In contrast to the clich?of the academic writer beneath whose impassive style the reader can catch an occasional glimpse of a so-called lively personality, I always perceived myself as the author of books whose excessively 'witty' texture serves as the envelope of a fundamental coldness, of a 'machinic' deployment of a line of thought which follows its path with utter indifference towards the pathology of so-called human considerations. (ZR, viii)

But what is this 'machine'? What is the internal, non-human, non-pathological logic of Zizek's work? Here we meet perhaps the second difficulty that arises in any consideration of Zizek. Introductory texts like these inevitably excuse themselves before the author they discuss. In a mock-heroic version of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, they wish only to disappear before the greatness they present. In a performative contradiction, they are nothing, they insist. It is much better to read the 'real' author; their only hope is that the person buying their book goes on to read the 'real' author; and so on. But is this really the case with Zizek? In another side to that radical externalization we spoke of before, is it not possible that Zizek's own books are merely, as he himself puts it, an 'introduction to Lacan through popular culture' or 'everything you always wanted to know about Lacan (but were afraid to ask Hitchcock)'? That is to say, is there any point in actually reading Zizek? Might there ultimately be no difference in status between our introduction to Zizek and Zizek himself? And might this not even be to suggest that there is no need to read Zizek if we have already read those authors he writes about? Perhaps this book should be entitled "Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Zizek (But Were Too Lazy to Read Zizek)" or "Everything You Already Knew about Zizek (Because You Have Already Read Lacan and Hegel)".

At stake here is the status of Zizek's thought. Is there anything beneath the glittering brilliance of its writerly surface, its extraordinary and eclectic range of references, its argumentative brio? Is it merely an extended explication of Lacan, a fusion of Lacan and Hegel, a politicization of Lacan through Marx? Does it possess that 'oneness' or unifying trait that we take to characterize all authentic philosophy? Or must all this be thought another way? Is significant thought characterized by any identifiable oneness, or is it rather always split, introducing a kind of split into the world? And is this what Zizek's thought forces us to consider? Is it something like this 'doubling' or 'antagonism' that is at stake in it? In order to answer these questions, let us listen in fact to the words of one of Zizek's critics, the 'post-theory' film writer Ed O'Neill. Here he is reviewing the Zizek-edited anthology Cogito and the Unconscious:

Example after example is supplied, but the principle that makes them examples is not itself given. Appeals are implicitly made to Lacan's authority, but the source of that authority is never mentioned. The truth of Lacan's theories is urged by showing how other people's theories support that truth but without explaining why these theories have the same object. One concept is defined in terms of another, which is then described the same way, ad infinitum. What's being explained is mixed with what's doing the explaining in a circular fashion so striking that it may well count as both a novelty and a technical innovation in the history of interpretation.6

What exactly is going on here? O'Neill in his na?et?perhaps comes close to putting his finger on the two striking though contradictory impressions we have when reading Zizek. The first is that, as in the confusion of theory and examples he observes, it is not some literal fidelity to Lacan's psychoanalysis that is at stake there. It is not some pre-existing orthodoxy or body of precepts that is being 'applied' to various examples. Rather, Lacanian psychoanalysis is caught up from the beginning in other fields of knowledge, establishing a potentially endless series of analogies between them: 'One concept is defined in terms of another, which is then described the same way, ad infinitum'. And this undoubtedly has the strange effect that, even when Zizek is not directly speaking about Lacan, he is speaking about Lacan. Lacan is not so much being translated as he is the very medium of translation itself. The second impression we have is that the total presence of Lacan in Zizek's work means that his actual authority disappears. Just as with that confusion between theory and examples O'Neill observes, there is a confusion between Lacan and those who cite him: 'The truth of Lacan's theories is urged by showing how other people's theories support that truth'. That is to say, it is precisely through Zizek's dogmatic fidelity to Lacan, through his absolute identification with him, that he is able to become original himself. Unlike so many other commentators who through their criticisms of Lacan reveal themselves to be attached to him, it is only Zizek who through his literal adherence to him is finally able to break with him.7 As Zizek says, it is our very desire to look for mistakes and inconsistencies in the Other that testifies to the fact that we still transfer on to them, while it is only something like this identification with the symptom that might allow us to avoid the fantasy (SO, 66). Or, to put this in the slightly blasphemous form of the Jesuits' relationship to God, Zizek 'believes that the success of his undertaking depends entirely on him and in no way on [Lacan]; but, nonetheless, sets to work as if [Lacan] alone will do everything and he himself nothing' (B, 125)

What is radically posed by Zizek's work - both as a theme within it and by the very existence of the work itself - is the relationship of thought to the Other, to the subject who knows. How to become original when one's great influence is Lacan, who has already thought of everything (not so much because he actually has as because, within the structure of transference that characterizes thought, he will be seen as having already done so)? Let us take here the example of those two thinkers who are constantly invoked in this regard, Marx and Freud. It is they who are seen to constitute an unsurpassable horizon to thought, impossible to go beyond. It is they whom we can only ever be seen to repeat. But what is it that characterizes the particular quality of their thought? And how is it that we might somehow think 'after' it? The specific concepts that Marx and Freud introduce, class and the unconscious, are not simply empirical, demonstrably either true or not, but rather challenge the very limits of scientificity. In a way, they 'double' what is by an undemonstrable yet irrefutable hypothesis that not only lies within the existing discursive field but also resituates it, giving all the elements within it a different meaning. As a result, these concepts are present when they appear to be absent (the field as it is is only possible because of them) and absent when they most appear present (any naming of them from within the current set-up is only to stand in for them). So what could it mean, therefore, to relate to Marx and Freud, to continue their work, as perhaps Althusser and Lacan did? It must mean that what they do has a similar quality, that it does not so much either follow or refute them as 'double' them, at once completing them and showing that they must be understood for a entirely different reason than the one they give themselves. And it is this that we would say characterizes all significant 'postmodern' thought: the problem of what to say about closed systems, systems of which there is no external standard of judgement, in which the Other already knows everything. (The whole question of the 'end to metaphysics' is misunderstood - even by Badiou and Deleuze - if it is not grasped in this sense.) It is this that distinguishes all philosophical thought worthy of the name: the fact that it does not merely lie within the empirical field but is also the 'transcendental' condition of it. And it is this that constitutes the unity and originality of this thought - not that it is 'one' but that it endlessly doubles and splits the world (and itself): Derrida's diff?ance, Deleuze's deterritorialization, Irigaray's woman, Baudrillard's seduction and perhaps something in Zizek...

In fact, Hegel was the first philosopher to speak of this 'end' of philosophy. This 'doubling', as Zizek so brilliantly brings out, is what is at stake in Hegel's notion of dialectics and not any reconciliation with the world. And, indeed, it is something like this 'end of philosophy' in the sense of having nothing to say that we see in undoubtedly one of the most interesting attempts to account for what is 'original' about Zizek: Denise Gigante's "Toward a Notion of Critical Self-Creation: Slavoj Zizek and the "Vortex of Madness". She writes:

But where Zizek is unique, and where he makes his radical break with other literary theorists who take up a position, any position at all that pretends to some notional content or critical truth, is in the fact that he fundamentally has no position.8

This, we would say, is a fascinating insight; but we disagree with Gigante when she suggests that this condition is somehow unique to Zizek himself. On the contrary, we would argue that all post-Hegelian philosophy, or indeed all philosophy in the light of Hegel, begins with this 'nothing to say'. It is what we will come to speak of as the 'contraction' of the primordial void in Schelling (IR, 22-7). It is that 'empty' speech that for Lacan precedes and makes possible 'full' or authentic speech (S1, 51). It is even that vouloir-dire or undeconstructible 'Yes!' that motivates deconstruction in Derrida. It is at once an attempt to follow or be faithful to what is, adding nothing, and it is the saying or re-marking of this nothing as something, thus opening up the possibility of something to say. (It is perhaps no coincidence that Lacan speaks of the special status of the great philosophers' knowledge, the way it advances not singly but always 'two by two, in a supposed Other' (S20, 97), mentioning in this regard Marx, Freud and even himself, in the Seminar Encore, devoted to the question of woman. For, as we will see, this structure in which the symbolic order is total, allowing no exception, and yet we are entirely outside of it, unindebted to any Other, is precisely the 'feminine' logic Lacan is trying to elaborate there.)

Zizek gives another hint as to what he considers philosophical originality - the difference between authentic philosophy and mere academic commentary - in his book on Kieslowski, The Fright of Real Tears. He writes:

In philosophy, it is one thing to talk about, report on, say, the history of the notion of the subject (accompanied by all the proper bibliographical footnotes), even to supplement it with comparative critical remarks; it is quite another to work in theory, to elaborate the notion of the 'subject' itself. (K, 9)

Zizek speaks here of the elaboration of the philosophical notion of the subject as an example of the distinction he is proposing between first- and second-order philosophical systems; but we suggest that it is more than an example: it is the very distinction itself. To elaborate the subject is what philosophy does. But what exactly does this mean, to elaborate the subject? And in what ways, if any, does Zizek do it? It would involve not only elaborating a particular subject as the name of a philosophical system or a philosophy that will come to be known by a particular name, but - although this is not strictly speaking opposed - the subject as a split subject, what Lacan indicates by the symbol $, the subject as gap or void. All significant philosophical systems, that is, introduce a certain gap or void into what is - a gap or void that we would call the subject. Repeating the essential Hegelian gesture of translating 'substance as subject', what is is understood as standing in for a void (SO, 201-30; TN, 21-7). And it is around this 'subject' that the essential connection between philosophy and psychoanalysis might be made. It is around this 'subject' - the subject as split and the subject as introducing a kind of split - that the originality of Zizek's philosophy is to be found.

'Why is every act a repetition?'

But in order to see what all of this might mean in more detail, let us turn to a text of Zizek's originally entitled "Philosophy Traversed by Psychoanalysis", and now reprinted in Enjoy Your Symptom! as "Why is Every Act a Repetition?" In this text, Zizek addresses the relationship of psychoanalysis to philosophy, which is precisely not a matter of psychoanalysing philosophy or particular philosophers but of psychoanalysis constituting philosophy's frame. As he writes: 'It [psychoanalysis] circumscribes the discourse's frame, i.e., the intersubjective constellation, the relationship toward the teacher, toward authority, which renders possible the philosophical discourse' (E!, 92). That is, if psychoanalysis is external to philosophy, it is an externality philosophy cannot do without and which philosophy from the beginning takes as its subject - Zizek in his text cites Plato's Symposium as the first attempt by philosophy to speak of its intersubjective (psychoanalytic) origins. In "Why is Every Act?", however, it is a short text by Kierkegaard, "Philosophical Fragments," that Zizek considers at greatest length in order to speak of this transferential aspect to philosophy. In "Philosophical Fragments," Kierkegaard makes a distinction between theology (not psychoanalysis) and philosophy (even Plato) over the question of this transferential, intersubjective relationship to truth. Whereas in traditional philosophy, according to Kierkegaard, a philosopher like Socrates is only the 'midwife' for a timeless and eternal truth, in Christian doxa the truth of a statement lies not in what is said but in the authority of the one who speaks. The truth of Christ's message lies not in any actual content but in the very fact that Christ said it. This is the meaning behind Kierkegaard's insistence, undoubtedly a little strange to our ears, that anyone who believes what Christ is saying because of what He says reveals themselves not to be a Christian: a Christian, on the contrary, believes what Christ says because it is said by Christ (E!, 93).

However, it is not quite as simple as this, for at the same time as this absolute emphasis on Christ's personal authority, He is also only an empty vessel for the word of another. In other words, Christ only possesses the authority He does because He carries the higher, transcendental Word of God. It would be in what He transmits and not in Christ Himself that His power lies. Or, to use Kierkegaard's distinction, Christ is not so much a 'genius' as an 'apostle' (E!, 93). (We might think again here of what Lacan says in Encore about those special agents of knowledge, Marx, Freud and implicitly himself: that, if they are great and singular figures, whose ideas cannot be separated from them as founders, it is also 'clearly on the basis of the Other that they have constituted the letter at their own expense' (S20, 97-8).) We thus appear to have a kind of dilemma, for the authority of Christ lies not in what He says but only in His personal authority, and yet He only retains this authority insofar as He transmits directly and without mediation the Word of God. What then lies at the impossible intersection of these two sets - Christ's life and His teachings? How to think together these two elements that at once exclude and are necessary to each other? Zizek seeks to represent what is at stake by means of the following diagram (E!, 96):

What is important about this diagram? In the first part of his essay, Zizek takes up the question of what Lacan calls the 'forced choice' (E!, 69): the idea that underlying the symbolic order in which we live there is a choice whether to enter it or not. As a result of this choice - which in a sense is forced because the only alternative to it is psychosis - a situation that arises after it is able to be presented as though it already existed before it. A situation that relies upon the assent of the subject is able to be presented as though the subject is unnecessary, as though the decision has already been made for them. For example, we recognize the king because he is the king, even though he is the king only because we recognize him. Or we acknowledge the interpellation or hailing of authority - 'Hey you!', as shouted by a policeman - even though it is specifically meant for us only after we acknowledge it.9 And this 'conversion' of the arbitrary and conventional into the regular and natural is made possible by what Zizek calls the master-signifier: that by which an implicit order or prescription is made to seem as though it is only the description of a previously existing state of affairs. As he writes in "Why is Every Act?":

The Lacanian S1, the 'master-signifier' which represents the subject for other signifiers, is therefore the point of intersection between the performative and the constative, i.e., the point at which the 'pure' performative coincides with (assumes the form of) its opposite. (E!, 99)

Zizek's point, however, is that in a way we can repeat this forced choice and thus expose this process. We can go back to that moment of our original entry into the symbolic and relive it as though it has not already taken place and thus think what is lost by it.10

It is this possibility, Zizek argues, that is to be seen in Kierkegaard's conception of our relationship to Christ. What we glimpse there in the laying bare of the transferential relationship to knowledge, in the way the Word of Christ relies upon a certain blind authority, is a moment 'before' we enter the symbolic order, as though we could somehow choose whether to recognize the king or accept that interpellation by which we become a subject. (Of course, the paradox of this is that there is in fact no 'choice' involved here at all, because we only become subjects possessed of free will as a result of this decision to enter the symbolic order. And it is precisely in this split not so much between various choices within the symbolic as between the symbolic and what comes 'before' it that the subject in the proper philosophical sense emerges. As Zizek writes: 'In this split, in this impossibility of a "pure" performative, the subject of the signifier emerges' (E!, 99).) In other words, according to Zizek, what we witness in Kierkegaard's model of Christian authority, with its absolute emphasis on the physical presence of Christ, is a momentary 'separation' of prescription and description, something that is not simply reducible to the symbolic order. And this is why, in that diagram above, Zizek represents the intersection between 'personal description' (prescription) and 'teaching' (description), which would normally be occupied by S1 or the master-signifier, by what Lacan calls object a or a 'little piece of the real' (E!, 101). Again, as opposed to traditional philosophy, in which the teacher or the means of expression is finally dispensable as the mere medium of an eternal truth, in Kierkegaard it is the unsurpassable condition for access to Christian revelation, which is not to be grasped outside of the actual present in which it occurs.

For Zizek, it is just this emphasis on the material presence of the analyst that also characterizes psychoanalysis, and why that 'trauma' it discovers is not merely to be understood as some repressed and timeless memory the analyst helps us to recover but as something that is played out for real within the psychoanalytic session, something that does not exist before analysis and actual contact with the analyst (E!, 102). And, again, it is this 'repetition' of the forced choice that might allow psychoanalysis, like Christianity, to break the transferential relationship, to bring out the separation between the analyst and the position they occupy, to see the prescription (transference, personal authority) 'before' it becomes description (the way things naturally appear to be, teaching). It is not perhaps here simply a matter of getting rid of the master-signifier, for the symbolic field is unable to be constituted without it - again, the question of the paradoxical split 'subject' - but of somehow rendering present that empty prescription that 'precedes' and 'allows' it. As Zizek observes of Lacan's clinical practice and the way he attempted to theorize the position of the analyst as holding the position of object a in that diagram above:

The unmasking of the master's imposture does not abolish the place he occupies, it just renders it visible in its original emptiness, i.e., as preceding the element which fills it out. Therefore the Lacanian notion of the analyst qua envers (reverse) of the master: of somebody who holds the place of the master, yet who, by means of his (non)activity, undermines the master's charisma, suspends the effect of 'quilting', and thus renders visible the distance that separates the master from the place he occupies, i.e., the radical contingency of the subject who occupies this place. (E!, 103)

And the same would go for all great thinkers in the relationship of their personal authority to their teaching: they too ultimately seek to 'render visible the distance that separates the master from the place he occupies'.11 It is this that constitutes the anti-authoritarian thrust of our contemporary 'masters of suspicion'.

Yet, as Zizek is undoubtedly aware, Marx, Freud and Lacan are not straightforwardly anti-authoritarian or anti-transferential. In fact, what their work - which is arguably the final outcome of that critique of authority that characterizes the Enlightenment - reveals is that the Enlightenment is not, as is usually thought, opposed to authority but inseparable from it. The truth is arrived at not through the careful weighing up of the reasons for and against a certain proposition, but by the unappealable fiat of authority. Indeed, as we have already seen, insofar as the statements of these thinkers are not just empirical but also assert the 'transcendental' conditions of their respective fields, they cannot be tested or questioned but only followed. As Zizek writes:

Since Marx and Freud opened up a new theoretical field which sets the very criteria of veracity, their work cannot be put to the test in the same way one is allowed to question the statements of their followers... For that reason, every 'further development' of Marxism or psychoanalysis necessarily assumes the form of a 'return' to Marx and Freud: the form of a (re)discovery of some hitherto overlooked layer of their work, i.e, of bringing to light what the founders 'produced without knowing what they produced'. (E!, 100)

But it is at this point that we must ask: why this coincidence of transference and anti-transference? Why are these master-thinkers not simply anti-transferential but also transferential, indeed, more transferential than ordinary thinkers? Is it not merely that the authority of transference is to be overcome by another transference but that the very attempt to uncover transference leads to transference? And how, to come back to our original question of Zizek's relationship to his sources, are we to imagine Zizek 'going beyond' them, when every 'further development' of them can only assume the form of a 'return' to them, a '(re)discovery of some hitherto overlooked layer' of their work? Can any such 'breaking with' or 'overturning of' them only take the form of a certain 'return' to them? And what, finally, is the role of object a in all of this? Is it to be thought of as exposing the 'original emptiness preceding the element that fills it out' in that diagram above, or must all this be thought another way?

In order to begin answering these questions, let us turn to the passage in "Why is Every Act?" immediately after Zizek discusses the attempted psychoanalytic breaking of the transference. He speaks there of the Lacanian procedure of the passe, in which, as we have seen, the analyst-in-training does not immediately pass on their findings to the examining committee but only through two uninvolved middle-persons or passeurs. In this way, Lacan sought to break any initiatic contact between the analyst and the committee; but there is also something else produced. For, of course, these passeurs get things wrong, distort the message. The message does not arrive intact at its destination. And yet, if we can say this, this just is the knowledge of the unconscious that the analyst-in-training possesses. It is just this that they are able to pass on intact to the examining committee. In other words, the knowledge of the unconscious that the analyst possesses lies not so much in anything they actually say as in their saying of it. It is nothing that can be lost or distorted because it is this very loss and distortion. And it is this, finally, that the analyst-in-training must realize - just as earlier we spoke about the way that 'trauma' does not exist as something recollected, but as what is produced in the relationship with the analyst - that the meaning of their words is nothing that can be grasped by them but comes about only in the relationship between two. This is the experience of 'decentrement' that Lacan called 'subjective destitution', which is the realization that our meaning does not originate with ourselves but only with our mistakes and distortions, as what we have produced without knowing it or what is in us more than ourselves. That is to say, what the analyst must in the end realize is that they are themselves a passeur: that they transmit knowledge from the Other to the Other without knowing what it is; that all they add is a certain distortion, a particular way of speaking, a characteristic enunciation.

Do we not see the same thing with our great philosophers? For perhaps unexpectedly - to go back to that original distinction Kierkegaard makes vis-?vis Christ - Zizek calls them at a certain point not 'geniuses' but 'apostles' (E!, 101). But of whom are they the apostles? In what way is it not merely a matter of their personal qualities but also of them being the carriers of the word of another? And how is this a clue to what we have just seen about them: that they are unable to be surpassed, or surpassed only in their own name? Again, what is it that defines the particular contribution of our major thinkers? What is it that separates their thought - authentic philosophy - from that of others - academic commentary? If we can repeat ourselves, it is because they do not simply offer concepts from within an already existing field but also redefine this field, or as Zizek puts it they 'circumscribe the discourse's frame'. It is this Zizek calls, with regard to Plato and Kierkegaard - as an example of this - the 'subjective constellation, the relationship toward the teacher, toward authority, which renders possible the philosophical discourse'. But, once more, we would say that this is not so much an example of as the very thing that authentic philosophy does: it speaks of, takes into account, the intersubjective dimension of philosophy. It grasps, understands, that from the beginning it is caught up in a transferential - dialogical - relationship with its interpreters. Its word lives on - and it recognizes this - not because of some concrete doctrine set out in advance but because it is seen in retrospect to be what its interpreters say it is. To put this another way, what exactly does Marx mean by class, the specific concept that he introduces? Class is not something that is either present or not, but what is present in its absence and absent in its presence. The meaning and even the existence of class is always being disputed, but class just is this struggle (ME, 181-3; T?, 228). And, similarly, Freud's unconscious, as Lacan demonstrates, is not so much something that is either present or not as what comes about in the relationship between it and its interpreters, whatever it is that they speak of. It is as though Marx and Freud (and Hegel too, as Zizek shows in his Le plus sublime des hyst?iques) have undergone the passe and now realize that they are merely the empty transmitters or apostles of the word of another. But of whose word are they the apostles (and this undoubtedly applies to Christ too, as St Paul shows)? Precisely of us, their interpreters or analysts.

But, to get back to our main point, the paradox here is that it is in remarking upon transference that our speakers produce transference. It is in speaking of the way that their message is always distorted that their message is never distorted. The intersubjective element of philosophy, the fact that its authority comes from us, is not simply irreconcilable with the authority of philosophy but is its real basis. And this is the ambiguity of object a as at once what is in the subject 'more than themselves' and the stand-in for that 'act' that would repeat and thus reveal the 'forced choice'. For let us go back to that 'act' by means of which we are able to relive this forced choice as though it has not yet happened, and which opens us up to something 'before' or 'outside' of the symbolic order. The example Zizek gives of it in "Why is Every Act?" is Antigone's famous 'No!' to King Creon's refusal to allow her brother Polynices a proper burial. It is a gesture that places her outside of the social, that proposes a radically different set of values, and which therefore can only be judged in its own terms. As Zizek writes:

This 'law' in the name of which Antigone insists on Polynices' right to burial is the law of the 'pure' signifier prior to every positive law that judges our deeds: it is the law of the Name which fixes our identity beyond the eternal flow of generation and corruption. (E!, 92)

And yet, ironically, to all intents and purposes, this 'No!' is exactly like the word of the master-signifier itself, which can also only be judged tautologically and requilts the social field, forcing us to read everything in a new way. And this, again, is the difficulty we have with our master-thinkers and why it is so hard to think 'after' them, for in a sense the concepts they propose are nothing positive but only the 'inscription of a pure difference' (E!, 91), already naming their own difference from themselves. That is, as we have seen with the concepts of class and the unconscious, we could no sooner name their absence, our difference from them or even the fact that they arise only in their relationship to us, than these would return to them as what they are already about. It is they that would remark before us their own absence and difference from themselves.12

As Zizek admits, this standing outside of the forced choice can only end up repeating it. This act comes down finally to a choice not whether to enter the symbolic or not but between two alternatives already within the symbolic. As Zizek makes clear in that other diagram he reproduces in the chapter (E!, 76), object a still lies within the set defined by S1 and S2, two different master-signifiers. Or, as he puts it there: 'The subject cannot "have it all" and choose himself as nonbarred; all he can choose is a partial mark, one of two signifiers, the symbolic mandate that will represent him, designate his place in the intersubjective network' (E!, 76). Or, as he will elsewhere say, paraphrasing Lacan, the choice comes down to that between 'bad' and 'worse' (E!, 75), which perhaps is not simply that between a master-signifier within the symbolic order and a psychotic act outside of it, but is always echoed - insofar as we are a 'split' subject - in the choice between two signifiers within the symbolic order. But it is in this context that we must read Zizek carefully - and perhaps even against himself - when he states that in Lacan's 'suspension' of the master-signifier we might somehow see '[the master's-place] visible in its original emptiness, i.e., as preceding the original element which fills it out'. For, as Zizek himself argues, this object a only 'comes into being through being lost, i.e., it is not given prior to its loss' (E!, 75). In other words, this empty place is never given as such but is only ever a retrospective effect of it being filled in. The repetition of the forced choice never really comes up with a different decision, never actually chooses otherwise; but this repetition itself testifies to something always not chosen. Again, as Zizek says with regard to the notion of the working through of 'trauma' in psychoanalysis, it is not so much some prior existing alternative that is either recollected or not as a fleeting possibility that arises in the present, at the very moment it is not chosen. As in Kierkegaard's notion of the religious, we do not so much repeat some particular thing or even decision as the very failure to make a decision: 'Insofar as repetition is not possible, it is possible to repeat the very experience of impossibility' (E!, 79). And in repeating it as impossible, we do not merely render it possible, change the course of events, but think what is excluded to ensure that things are as they are, what is allowed by this always unchosen alternative. This is the very 'transcendental' philosophical gesture as such, understanding how what is stands in for a certain fundamental impossibility.

It is for this reason too that this act of which we are speaking is not some 'exception reconciled in the universal' (E!, 84), or at least not in any obvious sense. For this repetition of the forced choice is not in the end a breaking or transgression of the symbolic order. It is not directly opposed to or outside of it. As we have already seen, we can only overturn one prescription by another prescription, one transference by another transference. Rather, what this 'possibility' opened up by the act suggests is that, even though there is no actual outside to the symbolic order, even though any attempt to think something prior to it can only choose an alternative already within it, all this is only possible because of a certain 'outside', a certain 'alternative' forever excluded. It is precisely what Zizek means by the Real as a kind of 'transhistorical kernel' (E!, 81), for which object a stands in. Again, it would not be so much anything prior to the symbolic as what is excluded at the very moment it is included, what each of these master-signifiers tries to speak of, what each of these 'doublings' or 'requiltings' seeks to respond to. And what this forces us to think is both that there is nothing outside of the symbolic order (this object a will always turn into another master-signifier) and this symbolic is empty, contains nothing (in a way does not exist until the 'free' decision to enter it). At the very moment the symbolic order 'doubles', names its own difference from itself, there is also something that 'doubles' it, which cannot be named. As opposed to any 'exception reconciled in the universal', there is at once no exception and all is exception. And this is the ambiguity of object a as that 'law of the name', let us say of the master-signifier: it is both only a new master-signifier, which cannot be lost, and what allows this loss to be recorded, that without which this loss would not exist. It is this equivalence that Zizek speaks of throughout his work in terms of the Hegelian formulae 'the Spirit is a Bone' (E!, 88) and the monarch as the identity of the 'State qua rational totality and the "irrational", biological positivity of the king's body' (E!, 86). It is also the particular rhythm that characterizes Zizek's work: a kind of 'Schellingian' simultaneous contraction and expansion, in which proper names and concepts at once channel the disseminatory drift of the writing and argument and open it up to the loss of coherence and sense.

To return finally to that diagram with which we began, we might say that it is the very image of philosophy - or at least philosophy as seen from a Hegelian perspective. For what we see in the impossible intersection of personal description and teaching there is the attempt to make enunciation and enunciated equal in order to speak of that void or emptiness that makes the symbolic order possible. In other words, its 'doubling' of the system before (whether it be social reality or a philosophical construct) takes the place of an always excluded enunciation: it speaks of that position from which the equivalences of the system before are possible. And yet it could no sooner speak of this enunciation than lose it, turn it into an enunciated, allowing another to 'double' it in turn. Object a, that mysterious object of desire of philosophy, is just this equivalence of personal description and teaching, enunciation and enunciated, no sooner spoken of than lost, like that famous paradox, so important to Lacan, of 'I am lying' (S11, 138-41). And the great philosophers, those who join in this conversation, realize this, and in so doing lose it again. Philosophy is always the same story told differently, but this story is nothing but these differences. We come back to our original insight that perhaps all Zizek adds is a certain argumentative brio, a new range of references, a brilliant writerly style - in short, a new way of speaking - but all this only to stand for that nothing (object a) that at once completes those systems (Hegel, Lacan, contemporary capitalism) he analyses and ensures that they can never be completed. In this, he perhaps touches on the proper definition of the act as outlined in "Why is Every Act?": he at once only repeats what is already there before him and reveals that what is does not exist before this repetition (we can only choose to enter the symbolic order and this order would not exist without us). He therefore demonstrates both that nothing is outside of the symbolic order and that we are completely undetermined by it. This is what we might call the real 'suspension' of transference at stake in philosophy: not the simple end or breaking of transference, the revealing of some original 'emptiness', but a 'suspension' that exists only in retrospect, no sooner spoken of than lost, and thus always to be taken up again. To express it formulaically: just as transference itself is only possible because of a certain breaking of transference, so this breaking of transference only exists within transference.

The reader's forced choice

How is all this to relate to what we say about Zizek here? What does all this leave us to say? Zizek on many occasions speaks about what he feels to be the overall objective of his work. It is, as we have seen in 'Why is Every Act?', to contest the naturalness and authority of every ideological construction of reality. As he says in The Fright of Real Tears, the aim of philosophy is not so much to argue for the reality of fictions as to make us 'experience reality itself as a fiction' (K, 77). Or, as he argues in the Introduction to Tarrying with the Negative, the philosopher should attempt to 'step back' (TN, 2) from actuality to possibility, to show how things might be otherwise. In this, as he puts it there, they must seek to 'occupy all the time the place of the hole, i.e., to maintain a distance toward every reigning master-signifier' (TN, 2). And yet - to go back to the lesson of that diagram - this hole is always turning into a master-signifier; this hole can only be seen through a certain master-signifier. As Zizek states elsewhere, object a is the master-signifier seen 'anamorphically' (SO, 99; T?, 149). How then to maintain this distinction between object a and the master-signifier? How to keep 'looking awry' upon reality? It is not, as Zizek seems to be suggesting at times, a matter of an act or void before the master-signifier. So is object a merely a master-signifier in waiting? Is it a matter of keeping object a from turning into a master-signifier? Or must the relationship between the two be thought otherwise? s the only way of keeping them apart to argue that they arise at the same time? That object a is a kind of 'possibility' born at the same time as the master-signifier? That object a, to use a language that Zizek will increasingly have resort to, is not so much opposed to or outside of the master-signifier as what makes the master-signifier both possible and impossible (IR, 144-5; L, 274-5)?

It is these questions that lie at the heart of this book, for as we have already seen one of the crucial questions at stake in any evaluation of Zizek is to what extent does he simply oppose the master-signifier and object a and their equivalents and to what extent does he think their relationship otherwise? It is this alternative that opens up that 'void' or 'emptiness' around which Zizek's work is organized and that might allow us to say something 'new' about it ourselves. In Chapter 2, we take up the ideological master-signifier or quilting point as it appears in Zizek's work and see that it is neither some transcendental signified nor despotic authority that forces us to obey it, but - this is the particular problem Zizek addresses - something that as it were 'doubles' reality, that we follow whether we want to or not, that incorporates our own distance on to it. It is a distance that is to be seen not only within the master-signifier itself but in the way we relate to it - and, in both cases, it involves the object a. That is, if object a can be seen as undermining the master-signifier, imposing a certain distance on to it, it can also be understood as extending or strengthening it. The master-signifier's distance on to itself and ours on to the master-signifier paradoxically extends its reach even more, denying us any critical perspective on to it. And yet - this is the ambiguity we trace throughout here - this necessarily means that the master-signifier comes close to its own unveiling or dissolution. The very element that allows the ideological field to be sutured, that means there is no outside (that the outside is already inside), also desutures it, opens it up, ensures that there is always a certain 'distance' on to it that is necessary for it to be constituted and that can never be finally incorporated.

Accordingly, in Chapter 3, we begin the complex task of thinking object a as the 'opposite' or 'inverse' of the master-signifier with regard to Zizek's notion of the 'act' as that which breaks with or resituates the ideological field. But already here we might think how this act does not so much break with or resituate this field - for in that case it would be merely another master-signifier - as represent a kind of 'virtuality' or 'possibility' forever excluded from it. The act is not something that is deferred or impossible; but neither is it, as Zizek sometimes implies, something that can definitively be accomplished. Rather, it is something that is always as it were coming into being or taking place; something that, in Lacan's words, 'doesn't stop (not) being written' (S20, 59), without being thought of in terms of some potential becoming actual. The act, as we have seen before, is what we might call object a or stand-in for the Real. And, in Chapter 4, we go on to explore this notion of the act as a kind of 'virtuality' that 'doubles' every actuality, as what not only actually occurs but what allows all else to take place. That is, again, the act as object a is neither opposed to the master-signifier nor an interregnum between master-signifiers but arises at the same time as the master-signifier as its 'transcendental' condition of possibility. To put all this in Hegelian terms, if the master-signifier is seen as the subject of this book, in Chapter 2 we look at the master-signifier, in Chapter 3 at the 'negation' of the signifier and in Chapter4 at the 'negation' of this 'negation' of the master-signifier (which does not simply return us to the master-signifier). Or, if object a is seen as the subject of this book, in Chapter 2 we look at it 'for-the-other', in Chapter 3 at it 'in-itself' and in Chapter 4 at it 'in-and-for-itself'. Finally, in Chapter 5, in an attempt to summarize these issues, we look at the various critics of Zizek (principally the 'radical democrat' Ernesto Laclau and the feminist-queer theorist Judith Butler, but also briefly the Frankfurt School Marxist Peter Dews). We see raised in the arguments between them the question - the underlying subject of this book - of how to think the relationship between the master-signifier and the act: whether the act is outside of the symbolic and how then to name it; whether the act is within the symbolic and how then it could fundamentally change anything. What we see there is a problem we have touched on before: the difficulty of Zizek thinking the Real (or its stand-in, object a) as a kind of 'empty space', preceding that element which fills it in.

Our reading here - though this is not to imply any simple development in Zizek's thinking - is broadly chronological. In Chapter 2, we look extensively at Sublime Object and For They Know Not; in Chapter 3, at Indivisible Remainder and Ticklish Subject; in Chapter 4, at Fragile Absolute and On Belief; and, in Chapter 5, at Contingency, Hegemony, Universality. Or, to put it another way, this time placing the emphasis not so much on what is said as its saying, we might suggest that this book divides into two contrasting approaches or tonalities. The first is what we might call, following Lacan's schema of the 'four discourses' (CU, 74-81), the discourse of the 'master' or the 'university', in which, transferring on to Zizek, we seek to systematize his work, making it the source of a stable and consistent authority, explicating it as though everything had already been said by him, as though the answers to all our objections will eventually be found there. The second is what we might call the discourse of the 'hysteric' or 'analyst', in which we seek to bring out our moments of doubt, confusion and frustration before the work, which we then attribute to Zizek himself, or in which we seek to catch him out in his shortcomings or inconsistencies. But, as we have tried to show before, these two attitudes are not strictly separable: one is always turning into the other; both are true at once. It is at that very moment when we think we see flaws in Zizek's argument that we most transfer on to him (for it is at just these moments that we feel we might one day be like him, that we are 'more in Zizek than Zizek himself'); and it is only by transferring on to Zizek that we might somehow go beyond him (it is only by completely internalizing him that we might end up saying something different from him, that we might end up becoming ourselves). Again, we come close to the secret of all significant systems of thought: at once they allow us to think - as though we could for a moment step outside of the symbolic order - that something is lost by transference, that they are not entirely saying what we think they are saying, and it is this that not only strengthens our transference on to them but leads to transference in the first place. It is not only the creators of the great philosophical systems who are split subjects in this sense, who repeat a kind of forced choice, but those who read them as well.

Footnotes

1. There is perhaps only one thing that Zizek will not admit to: looking up his own sales figures on Amazon.com. In a classic example of what he calls 'interpassivity' - enjoyment through the other - he will attribute this to his friends, who then tell him. See on this Christopher Hanlon, 'Psychoanalysis and the Post-Political: An Interview with Slavoj Zizek', New Literary History 32, 2001, p. 7.
2. Or, because anyone who believes anything today runs the risk of being seen as kitsch, we might compare Zizek to another of his literary heroes, the architect Howard Roark from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead:
"Roark stood before them as each man stands in the innocence of his own mind - and they knew suddenly that no hatred was possible to him. For the flash of an instant, they grasped the manner of his consciousness. Each asked himself: do I need anyone's approval? - does it matter? - am I tied? And for that instant, each man was free - free enough to feel benevolence for every other man in the room." (AF, 86)
3. Cited in Peter Canning, "The Sublime Theorist of Slovenia", Artforum, March 1993, p. 85.
4. Cited in Guy Mannes Abbott, "Zizek within the Limits of Mere Reason", The Independent, May 3, 1999, p. 42.
5. Cited in Robert S. Boynton, "Enjoy Your Zizek!", Lingua Franca 8(7), October 1998, p. 48.
6. Edward R. O'Neill, "The Last Analysis of Slavoj Zizek", Film-Philosophy 5(17), June 2001, p. 7.
7. As Zizek puts it: "The only way to produce something real in theory is to pursue the transferential fiction to the end" (H, 10). This might be compared to the acquisition of a language: it is only when we have completely internalized it that we can begin to think for ourselves (ME, 43-6).
8. Denise Gigante, "Toward a Notion of Critical Self-Creation: Slavoj Zizek and the "Vortex of Madness", New Literary History 29, 1998, p. 453.
9. Some of Zizek's examples of the false 'free' choice that arises after the fundamental 'forced' choice include: that between Nutra-Sweet and High & Low for artificial sweetners, between Jay Leno and David Letterman for late night TV, between Coke and Pepsi for beverages (T?, 240-1) - and we even might say between the two political parties in most modern democratic duopolies. This is the meaning behind the famous Marx Brothers' joke quoted by Zizek: 'Tea or coffee? Yes, please!' (CHU, 240), which operates as a refusal of this false choice.
10. As a perfect instance of this, we might think of Cavell's notion of the 'comedy of remarriage', which signifies not so much any actual break-up of the couple as a free repetition of the original 'forced' decision to marry. That is, each of the parties behaves as though they were not married and can choose again whether or not to enter into a relationship with the other. See Stanley Cavell, Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of Remarriage, Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1981.
11. Zizek is perhaps the opposite to Lacan in this regard. He attempts to bring out the 'disparity' between the empty place and what fills it not through his absence but through a kind of over-presence: the split between the mathemic purity of his thought and his physical and emotional 'grossness', his sexist and non-'pc' jokes. His strategy is perhaps not dissimilar to that of contemporary artists, who seek to maintain the sacred 'void' by putting a piece of excrement in its place (FA, 30-1).
12. This is also the conclusion Foucault reaches in his essay "What is an Author?", in which he considers a special class of authors he calls the 'initiators of discursive practices', principally Marx and Freud. In their work, we have not only a 'certain number of analogies that could be adopted by future texts, but they also make possible a number of differences', Michel Foucault, Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews, Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, p. 132.

Slavoj Zizek's Third Way

지난주에 아마존에서 배송된 책들 가운데는 지젝의 신간으로 주문한 지 몇 달만에 도착한 <보편적 예외(The Universal Exception)>(Continuum, 2005)도 포함돼 있었다(바디우의 <존재와 사건(Being and Event)>과 지젝이 편집한 <라캉: 조용한 친구들(The Silent Partners)> 등이 같이 도착한 책들이다). 물론 읽어야 할 책들이 산더미인지라 언제 들춰보게 될는지는 기약할 수 없지만 원래 책이란 그냥 곁에 두는 것만으로도 즐거운 법이다. 지젝의 책이라곤 하지만, 신간은 지젝 연구서를 쓰기도 한 렉스 버틀러(Rex Butler)와 스콧 스티븐스(Scott Stephens)가 편집한 '선집'이며 편자들의 서문을 앞에 싣고 있다. 라캉닷컴에서 원문이 서비스되고 있기에 여기에 옮겨놓는다. 서문 정도를 읽는 건 이 달 안으로 할 수 있지 않을까, 생각하면서...

This essay, "Slavoj Zizek's Third Way", is the Editors' Introduction to the second volume of his Selected Writings, The Universal Exception (Continuum, 2005). This volume includes the essays "Welcome the Desert of the Real", "The Prospect of Radical Politics Today", "Against the Double Blackmail" and "Iraq - Where is the True Danger?", referred to here.

*

Let us begin here by noting an odd coincidence. After the terrorist strikes of 11 September 2001, both Slavoj Zizek and Jean Baudrillard leapt immediately into print. The two authors were, of course, already well-known for their interventions in world political events, often writing responses in newspapers or on the internet mere days after momentous events or at the height of major public debates (the role of NATO in Yugoslavia, the attempted genocide in Rwanda, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the issues surrounding genetic cloning and manipulation). But, paradoxically, for all of their usual haste in making their views known and amid calls from both sides of politics for swift retaliation, they both urged a kind of caution or delay. Baudrillard, for his part, wrote in The Spirit of Terrorism:

The whole play of history and power is disrupted by this event, but so, too, are the conditions of analysis. You have to take your time. While events were stagnating, you had to anticipate and move more quickly than they did. But when they speed up this much, you have to move more slowly-though without allowing yourself to be buried beneath a welter of words, or the gathering clouds of war, and preserving intact the unforgettable incandescence of the images. 1

While Zizek, for his part, in the essay "Welcome to the Desert of the Real", stated that any immediate reaction would be little more than an impotent passage à l'acte, whose sole purpose would be "to avoid confronting the true dimension of what occurred on 11 September".

To draw out what is going on here more precisely, it is crucial to realize that it is not simply a matter of these two highly "engaged" thinkers suddenly losing their nerve in the face of this almost overwhelming disaster, as so many others on the Left did. Rather, it is astonishing how quickly they formulated their responses to what had happened and distributed them via the internet around the world. And yet at the same time what they advise is a form of inaction, a pause, a time for reflection. This would, however, not be to do nothing, but to take the opportunity to think. It is through the minimal delay introduced by this thinking that we might somehow avoid those hysterical calls for action that would merely reproduce the existing ideological co-ordinates (of which even the claim that everything is different following 11 September is only a variant, a "hollow attempt to say something 'deep' without really knowing what to say"). As Zizek writes in his essay "The Prospect of Radical Politics Today", in a surprising inversion of Marx's famous thesis 11 ("Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world; the point is to change it"):

The first task today is precisely not to succumb to the temptation to act, to intervene directly and change things (which then inevitably ends in a cul-de-sac of debilitating impossibility: 'What can one do against global Capital?'), but to question the hegemonic ideological coordinates.

Indeed, once identified, this stress on thinking—on thinking as such—can be seen to form the basis of all of Zizek's specific political commitments. We might just speak of three such instances that occur in this book. In his response to NATO's endorsement of some minimal standard of "human rights" in Kosovo, Zizek insists that the transparent evocation of non-political "humanitarianism" is little more than a ruse to prevent us from thinking "the shady world of international Capital and its strategic interests". In the aftermath of the collapse of the WTC Towers, Zizek unexpectedly endorses the plea of Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan, that Americans should exercise their own judgement when responding to 11 September: "Don't you have your own thinking?" And, finally, in the months following the United States' invasion of Iraq, Zizek, while rejecting the combined French and German opposition as a kind of appeasement "reminiscent of the impotence of the League of Nations against Germany in the 1930s", nevertheless asserts that the very awareness of their failure to provide a substantive alternative itself constitutes a positive sign. But is there a logical form, a consistent structural principle, behind Zizek's various positions with regard to these events? Might they not be seen, like that France and Germany he condemns, as merely the hysterical rejection of the existing alternatives without being able to put forward anything of their own? In a split between form and content, might we not say that on the level of form Zizek wants to see himself as an "engaged" intellectual, but on the level of content he is struck by a kind of paralysis, unable to suggest any meaningful action? In fact, this exact criticism, often coming from the perspective of a pseudo-ethical, pragmatic Realpolitik, is often made against Zizek. It has been put forward by the English deconstructionist Simon Critchley, 2 by Zizek himself (which shows that he is not entirely unaware of its pertinence); 3 but undoubtedly the exemplary instance is that of early Zizek ally and critic of postmodern "identity" politics Ernesto Laclau. As Laclau writes in the exchange between him, Zizek and Judith Butler, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality:

In his previous essay—"Class Struggle or Postmodernism? Yes, please!"—Zizek had told us that he wanted to overthrow capitalism; now we are served notice that he also wants to do away with liberal democratic regimes—to be replaced, it is true, by a thoroughly different regime about which he does not have the courtesy of letting us know anything... Zizek does actually know a third type of sociopolitical arrangement: the Communist bureaucratic regimes of Eastern Europe under which he lived. Is that what he has in mind?... And if what he has in mind is something entirely different, he has the elementary intellectual and political duty to let us know what it is... Only if that explanation is made available will we be able to start talking politics, and abandon the theological terrain. Before that, I cannot even know what Zizek is talking about—and the more this exchange progresses, the more suspicious I become that Zizek himself does not know either. 4

Ironically here, with surprising clarity, Laclau identifies actually what is at stake in Zizek's work, the fundamental wager on which his various interventions depend: the possibility of some "third type" of socio-political organization not covered by either the existing liberal democratic regimes or their socialist alternatives. Again, let us pursue this idea through those three representative examples discussed above. With regard to the NATO intervention in Kosovo, Zizek seeks to avoid what he calls the "double blackmail" of having to choose between sides, the argument that, "if you are against the NATO bombings, you are for Milosevic's proto-Fascist regime of ethnic cleansing; if you are against Milosevic, you support the global capitalist New World Order". Instead, his point is that "phenomena like Milosevic's regime are not the opposite of the New World Order, but rather its symptom, the place from where the hidden truth of the New World Order emerges". With regard to the terrorist attacks on the WTC, Zizek rejects the argument that would have it that, "if one simply, only and unconditionally condemns the attacks, one cannot but appear to endorse the blatantly ideological position of American innocence under attack from Third World Evil; if one draws attention to the deeper socio-political causes of Arab extremism, one cannot but appear to blame the victims who ultimately got what they deserved". Instead, the "only solution is to reject this very opposition and to adopt both positions simultaneously, which can be done only if one resorts to the dialectical category of totality". And, finally, with regard to the American invasion of Iraq, Zizek refuses both proposed alternatives, arguing both for and against military intervention: "Abstract pacifism is intellectually stupid and morally wrong—one must oppose a threat. Of course the fall of Saddam's regime would have been a relief to a large majority of the Iraqi people. Of course militant Islam is a horrifying ideology". Instead, "although this (all these reasons for war) is true, the war is wrong".

Now, in a conventional political discourse, the elaboration of the wrong alternatives would be merely a preliminary to the eventual laying out of the correct one. Or, in a pseudo-Hegelian manner, it would be a matter of somehow finding a compromise between them, picking out the best elements of both. But this is not what Zizek means by any "third type of socio-political arrangement": it is not any balance or negotiation that he is interested in. Rather, if Zizek seeks to make a choice at all between these two alternatives, it is precisely to maintain the choice. If there is a solution to the problem he sets out, it is not to be found by deciding between alternatives or proposing some middle-path between them, but by thinking both together. Or if, within the current political situation, Zizek is forced to choose between them, he nevertheless wants to think what precedes that choice, what both choices exclude and stand in for. In a manner consistent with his analysis of how a subject is formed within the symbolic order by means of a certain "forced choice" as to whether to enter society or not—which, although it appears free, is in fact forced because the only alternative to it is psychosis—so in his political pronouncements Zizek wants to think a situation before what we might call our political "forced choice", as though we did not have to make it. 5

However, Zizek does not stop there, which would again indicate a certain paralysis of thinking before the event. Instead, what he seeks to render through the identification of those two false choices we are confronted with is their speculative identity. Upon what is this identity founded? Why are all choices within our given ideological co-ordinates fundamentally the same choice? Hegel would have it that it is because of the "dark, shapeless abyss" of abstract universality, which like the Lacanian Real is "always in the same place". And Zizek will translate this in his work as the undifferentiated domain of global Capital. That is to say, for Zizek, as for Hegel, thinking is the withholding of the forced choice in thinking the totality that precedes and conditions it. But, in thinking this totality, in immersing it in the medium of representational thinking—Vorstellung—Zizek, following Hegel, also introduces a kind of delay into it, makes it pass from Substance to Subject. 6 In so doing—this is Marx's point that the only alternative to Capital is Capital itself—Zizek shows that Capital is "re-marked" from somewhere else, is only possible because from the beginning it stands in for its own opposite. To the very extent that it can be thought—this is Hegel's point about immersing abstract universality in the medium of representational thinking—it is not a true universality, it is not abstract enough. It is only its own exception. Or, to put it another way, it is revealed as exception by a still greater universality, which is Zizek's point concerning universality: it is nothing else but what makes every particular particular.

But to go back to that passage from Substance to Subject, which is the power of dialectical thinking, we might say that—in a literal way—all Zizek does here is "humanize" Capital (but then, from this perspective, what is the "human"?). And this cannot but remind us of that "Third Way" alternative Zizek so vehemently rejects throughout his work. However, are the reasons for this rejection—and let us even suggest, as he does with regard to Blair and Haider, a certain clinching of Zizek and Blair—not to be explained as arising out of Zizek's own uncomfortable proximity to Blair, as indeed is hinted at by Laclau's suggestion that what is implicit in Zizek is some kind of impossible "third way"? 7 But let us be more exact here. At stake in Zizek's Third Way is a necessary distinction between form and content. With regard to content, he is absolutely in agreement with the Third Way and its desire to institute progressive social programs in the face of conservative opposition. There is simply no alternative to capitalism (at this moment). But with regard to form, Zizek absolutely rejects the Third Way's concession to this fact in advance. For Zizek, the conclusion that there is no alternative to capitalism can only be reached via the thinking of the alternative that, precisely through its exclusion (this again is Hegel's point concerning the distinction between concrete and abstract universalities), ensures there is only capitalism. In other words, as opposed to the Third Way in which we always begin with capitalism, for Zizek capitalism is only the result of a more abstract universality (capitalism and its other).

And this allows us to account for Zizek's much-criticized political practice in the former Yugoslavia in terms consistent with his current political theory. His actions then, from the perspective of what is now assumed to be his radical Leftism, are usually represented as a liberal compromise, something he would wish to leave behind. (Zizek ran as a pro-reform candidate for the Presidency in the first free elections in Slovenia.) However, our point would be that, far from having to be disavowed in the light of his later political theory, these early actions only make sense in light of it. For what Zizek can be seen to be doing at that time is, while acknowledging the necessity of having to make a choice within the newly "liberated" (i.e., capitalist) Yugoslavia, attempting to maintain the fundamental choice, to avoid foreclosing the possibility of some utopian social transformation. (And it is crucial to note that at no point in his work has Zizek ever repudiated the implicit utopian dimension of democracy or a shared civic space, just that platform on which he ran in the election: this may even have analogies to his support for the "inner greatness" of Stalinist bureaucracy.) It is for this reason—and the comparison is intended—that Zizek will call those transitional social movements in the newly ex-Communist countries, such as East Germany's Neues Forum, a "third way". Once more, with regard to their content, these movements were probably nothing different from those Third Way movements that subsequently broke out in the West. (Were they in fact their inspiration?) But, with regard to their form, they were absolutely different. While on the surface appearing to adapt to the new capitalist exigencies, they did, for a brief moment, embody a true alternative to both capitalism and Communism (exactly what Laclau demands of Zizek).

But perhaps this last statement—that is was only for "a brief moment" that those new movements of ex-Communism opened up an alternative—is a little too "pathetic". By this we mean that absolutely—and we insist on this point—Zizek approves of someone like Blair's instrumentalization of the "progressive" policies of the Third Way, his willingness to "get his hands dirty", as Zizek says approvingly of all "conservatives". 8 What he in fact admires about the third way alternative at the breaking down of Communism was not so much its momentary utopianism as its readiness to embody a new liberal bureaucratic state, in short, its desire not to fail, as with much typical Leftism, including even Neues Forum itself, whose tragic character was that it came to embrace its own inevitable failure. (This is also the tragedy of a figure like Havel: that he wasn't always a pathetic, liberal "fool", who knew very well his own impotence, but for a moment was a conservative "knave", who was prepared to do what it took to seize and maintain power.) We might say here that, in the exact sense that Zizek gives to an authentic conservatism, the Third Way is conservative: a way of "maintaining the Old" (that is, maintaining the excluded alternative to capitalism) within the new conditions of multinational capitalism. This is for Zizek the most radical gesture of all—and it might apply even to Zizek himself. His new, seemingly extreme radical Leftism might ultimately only be a way of maintaining his original liberal "conservatism" within the new conditions of the Left's theoretical perversion and decline.

At this point, we return for the last time to those three examples of Zizek's specific political commitments with which we began. With regard to their content, we would say that Zizek's actual position does not much differ from our contemporary 'Really Existing Third Way'. But as to their form, there is an absolute difference. And what we mean by this is that the Third Way alternative—this is the very "speculative identity" with its opposite that makes it possible—can only be arrived at by considering its opposite, or more exactly by comparing its own rule to itself. To put this more simply, Zizek by and large agrees with the actions of democratic liberalism in each of those situations, but each time—and this is the very time of thinking—suggests not merely that they have to apply their own standards to themselves, but that they are only possible because they have already applied their own standard to themselves, are already in a speculative relationship with their opposite. We can only arrive at these decisions in the first place because they stand in for, take the place of, that "dark, shapeless abyss" they imply from the beginning. It is this abstract universality—which in effect makes these decisions always exceptions—that pushes these decisions into realization, precipitates them, makes them pass over from Substance to Subject, a subject that is nothing else but that decision or action within a determined situation. (And, not coincidentally, it just this kind of Hegelian speculative identity of opposites, of actions not only leading to but only being possible because of their opposites, that Baudrillard means by the "symbolic exchange" between the West and its other in his analysis of 11 September.)

In each of these examples, therefore, there is a certain "infinite justice" implied, which we might define here simply as the Third Way being taken more seriously than it does itself, the Third Way applying its own ruthless pragmatism and lack of excuses first of all to itself. Again, it would not at all be an apology for inaction or indicate any moral equivocation, but on the contrary point to the necessity of always doing more, of always acting on time. Thus, with regard to Yugoslavia, Zizek (in a statement significantly left out of the "official" version of the text published in New Left Review) suggests as a "solution" to the problem of NATO intervention: "Precisely as a Leftist, my answer to the dilemma, 'Bomb or not?', is: 'Not yet enough bombs and they are already too late'". With regard to 11 September, Zizek speaks of the way that, to the extent that the "coalition" forces seek their enemy outside of themselves, they would always miss their target; that they would obtain "infinite justice" only insofar as they also struck at themselves: "The justice exerted must be truly infinite in the strict Hegelian sense, i.e., in relating to others, it has to relate to itself—in short, it has to ask the question of how we ourselves, who embrace justice, are involved in what we are fighting against". Finally, with regard to the American invasion of Iraq, Zizek is not opposed to it—those reasons he put forward earlier against its pacifist condemnation still hold—but he objects to who does it, for what reasons it is done: "It is who does it that makes it wrong. The reproach should be: who are you to do this?" And this is why, in essays published after this collection was put together, Zizek argues for the "justice" of Bush's re-election: not for the typical Leftist reason that his excesses will somehow hasten the collapse of capitalism, but in order to ensure that he will be held accountable for his actions. As he writes: "If Kerry had won, it would have forced the liberals to face the consequences of the Iraq War, allowing Bush to blame the Democrats for the results of his own catastrophic actions". 9

In fact, it is possible to imagine the organization of this book as a series of these exceptions or "infinite judgements". In the first section, "The Fascinated Gaze", we include a number of essays dealing with Zizek's "original" Yugoslavian context; in the second, "Really Existing Socialism", a number taking up that Communism under which he lived the first part of his life; in the third, "Really Existing Capitalism", a number treating that capitalism under which he currently lives; and, in the fourth, "What is (Not) to be Done?", a number dealing with those world political events we have discussed. In each, the section in question constitutes a kind of exception to the one following it, represents what it has to deny in order for it to constitute itself: Yugoslavia as an exception to Communism; Communism as an exception to capitalism; and capitalism itself as an exception, as shown by the racism of the former Yugoslavia, the terrorist strikes of 11 September and the difficulties of the military occupation of Iraq. The point in each case is not so much that the universal requires some exception to it in order for it to be founded as that the universal itself is an exception, only possible because of some third for which both it and its opposite stand in. There is, however, no final reconciliation implied here because this third is never to be thought outside of its own opposite. There is no gradual synthesis or coming together of opposites that this book witnesses, but only a kind of constant turning back upon itself in a process of infinite judgement, a constant 'raising to a higher power'iii that always remains the same. Each section generalizes, universalizes the section before, but there always remains the 'same' antagonism, the 'same' exception.

To be more specific, for all of the abstraction of which Zizek might be accused, the essays here are full of the details of specific leaders' names, particular events, concrete and nuanced political opinions. Again, we would simply say two things about this. First, we are not to think of these details and the abstract form of Zizek's argument as opposed. As we have tried to make clear, Zizek's invariable method is to think the excluded 'third' option in any political situation, which can never be grasped as such but only as its own exception. However, the details of Zizek's writing—contra Laclau—only come to light because of this abstraction, are only this exception. Second, these details—considered political opinions, the smallest accuracies of fact (Zizek is fond of quoting Lenin's aphorism that the "fate of the entire working class movement for long years can be decided by a word or two in the Party program")—are precisely themselves a way of maintaining the fundamental choice. 10 The patient, meticulous elaboration of the facts is the very time of thinking itself, the refusal to act in such a way that merely reconfirms the existing ideological co-ordinates. And yet, of course, these facts are never neutral: they can only be seen from a particular symbolic perspective. The details in Zizek, that is, are always only an exception, one of two sides, miss what they are aiming at. Indeed, Zizek's entire work—even his so-called theoretical arguments—is merely a series of details understood in this way. It both attempts to think the forced choice (and thus seeks to overcome it) and only repeats it, misses it yet again. It at once is the thinking of the exception and merely itself another exception. And it is in this complicated sense that we might conceive of that split in appearance that is the exception: a split not simply between the world and some transcendental realm for which it stands in, but between the world and what allows it to be remarked as detail, the world itself as exception. True thinking is based not on something outside the world, producing a split between the ought and the is, but only on the world itself, producing a split between the is and the is. It is a split that is the very time and place of thought itself.

And this perhaps is the point at which to rehabilitate Hegel's critique of Spinoza, now infamously characterized by Zizek as "the ideologue of late capitalism" 11 who was unable to contemplate this "Capital-Substance":

On the side of content, the defect of Spinoza's philosophy consists precisely in the fact that the form is not known to be immanent to that content, and for that reason it supervenes upon it only as an external, subjective form. Substance, as it is apprehended immediately by Spinoza without preceding dialectical mediation—being the universal might of negation—is only the dark, shapeless abyss, so to speak, in which all determinate content is swallowed up as radically null and void, and which produces nothing out of itself that has a positive subsistence of it own. 12

NOTES:

1. Jean Baudrillard, The Spirit of Terrorism, trans. Chris Turner, London and New York, Verso, 2002, p. 4.

2. Simon Critchley, "The Problem of Hegemony", 2004 Albert Schweitzer Series on Ethics and Politics, New York University, p. 5 (www.politcaltheory.info/essays/critchley.html).

3. See, for example, Zizek commenting that his recent book on Iraq represents little more than "a bric-à-brac of the author's immediate impressions and reactions to the unfolding story of the US attack on Iraq" (Iraq: The Borrowed Kettle, London and New York, Verso, 2004, p. 7).

4. Ernesto Laclau, "Constructing Universality", in Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left, London and New York, Verso, 2000, p. 289.

5. For Zizek's analysis of the "forced choice", see the chapter "Why is Every Act a Repetition?", in Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Hollywood and Out, London and New York, Routledge, 1992.

6. We might also compare this to the "choice" Lacan proposes between 'Being (the subject)' and 'Meaning (for the Other)' in The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-Analysis, trans. Alan Sheridan, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1979, pp. 210-3.

7. In fact, we would argue that, in the same way that the conciliatory tone of Hegel's claim that his critique of Schelling in The Phenomenology of Spirit was directed not at Schelling himself, but rather at the "shallowness" of those Schellingians who "make so much mischief with your forms in particular and degrade your science into a bare formalism" ("Letter to Schelling, 1 May 1807", in Hegel: The Letters, trans. Clark Butler and Christiane Seiler, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1984), p. 80), revealed how grave the philosophical rift between the two of them was, so Zizek's admission that he is "not actually arguing against (Laclau's and Butler's) position but against a watered-down popular version they would also oppose" (Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, p. 91) functions as an internal reflection on the irreducible difference between Zizek and Butler and Laclau. By contrast, we would say that Zizek's most publicly declared antipathies often mask an undeclared affinity. This, we would suggest, is the case with Blair and the Third Way. Indeed, could we not even propose that Zizek sees in Blair something of that great "critique" of bureaucracy he also finds in Stalin, the idea that a revolution without its corresponding form of bureaucracy is ultimately a revolution without a revolution? Or, more exactly, do not recent events regarding the agreed hand-over of power after the recent election in Britain lead us to think that Blair is like Lenin, who understood he was to be thrown away after his usefulness was over, while his deputy, Gordon Brown, the Chancellor the Exchequer, is more like Stalin? That Blair's true greatness—for all of the accusations of the lack of ideals of the Third Way—will ultimately lie in his sacrificing himself for the Cause? To this extent, we would contrast the profound, 'inhuman' self-instrumentalization of Blair with the "objective beauty" of someone like Havel, who remains "human, all too human".

8. Hence the long list of "conservatives" that Zizek has gone on the record as admiring: not just the well-known Pascal, Chesterton, C.S. Lewis and W.B. Yeats, but Pope John Paul II, Christopher Hitchens (with regard to Iraq), Stalin, Hegel, even Lacan himself...

9. Slavoj Zizek, "Hooray for Bush!", London Review of Books 26, 2 December 2004.

10. Slavoj Zizek, The Abyss of Freedom/Ages of the World, Ann Arbor, MI, University of Michigan Press, 1997, p. 85.

11. Slavoj Zizek, Tarrying with the Negative: Kant, Hegel, and the Critique of Ideology, Durham, Duke University Press, 1993, pp. 216-9.

12. G.W.F. Hegel, The Encyclopedia Logic: Part 1 of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (with the Zusätze), trans. T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting and H.S. Harris, Indianapolis, Hackett, 1991, p. 227.

06. 07. 11.