Fascism and Stalinism

Introduction

Ideology relies on an unassimilable kernel of enjoyment.

This means subjects are attached to an ideological formation not simply because of a set of identifiable reasons or causes but because of something extra.

Ideological formations rely on an extra, nonrational nugget that goes beyond what we know to produce our sense of who we are and what the world is for us.

This nugget of enjoyment can be what we desire but can never achieve, as in, say, national unity.

It can also be what we want to eliminate, but never can, as in, for example, politi­cal corruption. Again, the idea of enjoyment as a political fac­tor is that some contingent element of reality takes on a special, excessive role and so attaches us to a socio-political formation.

In Zizek's words, this element "becomes elevated to the dignity of a Thing."

It becomes a fantastic stand-in for enjoyment.