Remarks on Žižek’s book Looking Awry

Fantasy fills out the void or “black hole” of the Real. However, although imaginary projections or constructions may serve as efforts to escape the Real or to avoid the Real of desire, such efforts are doomed from the outset. Žižek shows why by articulating several different modalities of the Lacanian Real. One such modality is the return of the Real. That the Real returns may be seen once we consider how there are certain facts that we really already know, even though we still do not believe them: "The current attitude toward the ecological crisis is a perfect illustration of this split: we are quite aware that it may already be too late, that we are already on the brink of catastrophe (of which the death throes of the European forests are just the harbinger), but nevertheless we do not believe it. We act as though it were only an exaggerated concern over a few trees, a few birds, and not literally a question of our survival."
Slavoj Žižek Looking Awry, pp. 27-8.