On Žižek’s Tarrying with the Negative

In Tarrying with the Negative Žižek argues--against deconstructionists like Jacques Derrida and Judith Butler--that Hegel makes thematic a fundamental negativity that prevents dialectical synthesis. He convincingly develops his reading of Hegel through Lacan and, in the process, shows that nationalistic identity is based on a gap or negativity that allows the illusion of consistency and harmonious synthesis. The mythic point of origin around which nationalisms revolve is actually nothing but a hole or rupture that is positivised through the actions of believers in a way that camouflages the real and present antagonisms within any regime. Put simply, nationalist mobilizations are based on a sublime illusion.

Žižek shows in what sense philosophy involves a stepping back from relativistic orientations, a radical distancing from the artificial and contingent character of all master signifiers. He shows how Lacan (like Plato, Kant, Hegel, and Marx) accomplishes this abstraction from starting points: philosophy reinvents theory by revealing current presuppositions about the conditions of possibility for truth. Žižek elaborates the Hegelian theme of “tarrying with the negative” in order to show how ruptures and paradigm shifts in theoretical systems are homologous to the analysand’s efforts to come to grips with trauma through psychoanalysis.