Enjoyment as a Category of Political Theory
Introduction
"All politics relies upon, and even manipulates, a certain economy of enjoyment."[1]
Throughout his work, Žižek draws out the workings of enjoyment (what Jacques Lacan calls jouissance) in racist and ethnic ideological fantasies, in socialism's bureaucratic excesses, and in the cynicism of the narcissistic subjects of late capitalism.
Žižek frequently invokves the seemingly nonsensical ceremonies and redundancies that accompany political institutions.
"Our politics is more and more directly the politics of jouissance, concerned with ways of soliciting, or controlling and regulating, jouissance."[2]
In this chapter Dean introduces the category of enjoyment as the key to understanding Žižek's political thought.
- ↑ Slavoj Žižek and Glyn Daly. Conversations with Žižek. Cambridge, U.K.: Polity, 2004. p. 114
- ↑ Žižek, Slavoj. The Parallax View. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2006. p. 309
