In Reference to Žižek’s For They Know Not What They Do

Žižek’s critique of global liberal capitalism—and its ideological supplement, so-called pluralist “democracy”—hinges on the fact that the possibility of true democracy has long since been foreclosed by global capital. Thus, whereas today’s far Right blatantly violates constitutional law in order to further the interests of an elite few, today’s liberal pseudo-leftists continue to promote identity politics, thereby equating class struggle with any other political struggle. In short, the Left today tacitly assumes that global capitalism is here to stay, in spite of the fact that the upheavals and crises of late capitalism are in the process of making religious fundamentalism and populist nationalism global phenomena.

But against such accommodation with capitalism, Žižek’s For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor opens up the space for an ethical-political act which breaks free from vulgar, egotistic bourgeois life. And in light of the looming ecological catastrophe, the dismantling of the welfare state, and the fact that late capitalism has excluded, disempowered, and disenfranchised more and more workers around the world, Žižek’s message is shifting the very terrain of contemporary political discourse. And his message, in a nutshell, is this: certain kinds of interventions in the symbolic dimension (e.g., in the realm of shared, public practices) can produce changes in the Real. Put simply, this means that in the decisive political act of a revolutionary collective—if we act as if the choice is not forced and choose the impossible—a community of believers in a cause, by acting together, may change the very coordinates of the situation and redefine the parameters of meaning.