a theory of what constitutes the heart of the

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A Theory of What Constitutes the Heart of

the iekian

Posted onMay 21, 2013byDaniel Tutt1 Comment

Here is the introduction of my essay for a new book oniek and Education edited by AntonioGarcia, with contributions from many of my favorite iek scholars.

In this piece, entitled The Threshold of the iekian Iargue that the heart of the iekian, canbe located in the way that iek modifies the discourse of the Master by putting the disciple(reader) into a new relation towards what I call emancipatory knowledge.

The threshold of the iekian consists first of a demand put onto the reader (subject) bringingthem into a new relation to the Reala process that makes any identity or reality inherently

paradoxical, and thus the orientation towards the iekian is disorienting by its very nature.

After outlining the threshold, I develop a theory ofiekian pedagogy that can be arranged like amusical score, reaching its crescendo at the point of the act, where the subject (disciple) becomes

an agent in possession of emancipatory knowledge, possessing the ability to re-inscriberevolutionary potential into any socio-symbolic field: the pedagogical, the political and or the

social.

The threshold of the iekian is also enabled by the way in which iek modifies Lacans fourdiscourses, and introduces a new, fifth discourse (an argument made by Levi Bryant). Thefifth discourse has an important effect on what constitutes the core of the iekian. Overall, I

argue that if we can apply the precise way in which the iekian places the disciple towardsemancipatory knowledge, we can also facilitate a shift from iek studies the currentreference point for scholars of iek- to the iekian. This movement consists ofunderstanding and applying the subjective transformation of knowledge that underpins ieksphilosophical approach.

The Threshold of the iekian

Rarely do scholars of iek speak of themselves or their work as iekian. Most criticalinterventions into ieks philosophy tend to examine a particular facet of the iekian, and theiekian as a mark of ones own approach to philosophy is rarely cited in scholarly work on

philosophy or critical theory more generally. Despite this deficit of the application of theiekian, there are notable works by iek scholars that seek to transcend this limitation byhighlighting a particular aspect of the iekian that in turn illuminates his larger project.

In this category, several texts stand out, including Adrian Johnstons work on ieksontology[1], Fabio Vighis work on Zizeks use of the dialectic[2], Adam Kotskos invaluablework on Zizeks Christian materialist theology[3], and the numerous interventions into aspectsof the iekian critique of ideology, ethics, Hegel, and Lacan published by various thinkers in
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the journal dedicated to iek studies, the International Journal of iek Studies. The diversityand range of these studies certainly constitute and encompass major shades of the iekian, butthere still exists an unwillingness to embrace the iekian in the same way many embracephilosophers whom we might place as contemporaries of iek, such as Badiou, and other majorthinkers that iek sees as interlocutors to his own work such as Derrida, Deleuze or Heidegger.

At the level of ieks philosophical project, we can understand the essence of his project frommultiple angles. For example, iek himself has defined his work as revolving around thequestion of postmodernity and modernity, where his interventions ask, is it still possible topursue the Enlightenment goal of knowledge under conditions of late capitalism?[4] But thisapproach to ieks work falls short precisely in that his engagement with the modern out of aparticular Freudian Marxist lineage, with unique refinements of Hegel, Lacan and thus all of

continental philosophy, is only a shade of the iekian. This is what we might call theform ofthe iekian, but not the methodof the iekian. Beginning with ieks dissertation on Hegeland the end of analysis, we find the origins of his project, in terms ofform, up to his more recent

tomb,Less Than Nothing: Hegel and the Shadow of Dialectical Materialism: to re-actualize the

German idealist tradition through the application of Lacans meta-psychology and anti-philosophy. Perhaps then one of the reasons why the iekian has been difficult to locate is tiedin part to ieks own (sometimes dogmatic) affinities to this constellation of thought and historyof philosophy. Added to the complexity of locating a central iekian position is the fact thatieks work often lacks an intentionally rigorous explication of a distinct philosophicalposition.

The iekian is also difficult to locate for psychoanalytic reasons. Buried deep within the actof ieks interventions, (writings and performative lectures) there is transference and aresistance that takes place with his readers. This transference between iek and his readers istied to the way that ieks writing functions similar to an analytic session in the Lacanian sense,where the reader-as-analyst participates in the working through of ieks own symptom. InLeigh Claire La Berges account, the reader-as-analyst is constructed around the fundamentalfantasy of iek, which she sees as his confrontation with the postmodern in dialectical relationto the modern. This dialectic presents a knot that prevents the transition that iek truly desires,which is a more informed critique of political economy, to move us out of late capitalism

through theory[5]. But his interventions into postmodernism prevent such a movement, but thissymptom, of a constant barrage of critiques on the postmodern serve as the hidden desire

supplement that keeps the iekian forever stalled. What the reader-as-analyst is caught up in isieks transference with postmodern multiculturalism which for however much application ofLacan-Hegel and Marx, iek himself remains unable to break the knot.

While Zizek himself very well could be caught in this transference relation to late capitalism,

there is a qualitative issue that arises in regards to La Berges essay. It neglects the way in whichthe reader-as-analyst of iek is placed into a field of knowledge in a way that positions thereader towards what I would call emancipatory knowledge. As iek notes, the analystsdiscoursefor which the reader is placed into in the exchange with ieks work, portendsmajor consequences for developing a new relation to truth and to the role of emancipation:
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The analysts discourse stands for the emergence of revolutionary emancipatory subjectivity thatresolves the split of university and hysteria. In it, the revolutionary agentaaddresses thesubject from the position of knowledge that occupies the place of truth (i.e., which intervenes inat the symptomal torsion of the subjects constellation), and the goal is to isolate, get rid of, themaster signifier that structured the subjects (ideologico-political unconscious) (iek, 2006).

The threshold of the iekian

The threshold of the iekian is a positioning of the reader-as-analyst towards the real, facilitatedby dialectical materialism and the parallaxarguably ieks signature and most originalmethodology. Dialectical materialism is an approach that seeks through interpretation of

phenomena of late capitalism (democracy, tolerance, imperialism, etc.) an identification with therepressed Real, which always returns in the form of a traumatic intervention into the social

(symbolic). This return of the real is what reveals the inherent inconsistency of the Master-

Signifier, or the figure that stands in for the real. As Lacan articulated, and as iek points out inhis work, the empty Master-Signifier is the point whereby the signifier collapses into its

signified. ieks ontological position, because he sees all symbolic identity and all reality asinconsistent/incomplete (non-All), is premised on the notion that the subject has the potential tobe radically autonomous, or free.

The iekian parallax also engages phenomena: an idea, a pop cultural reference, or evenanother philosopher, into a dialectical analysis of that thing with a social field or other problemand brings the two phenomena to a point of aporia whereby the reader is brought into a parallax

with the Real which disrupts the entire basis of presuppositions that formerly sustained the field.

ieks unique brand of dialectical materialism is a careful revitalization of Marx, Hegel, andLacan and it involves, like the parallax approach, a similar radical commitment to exposing theReal within any symbolic order. Once the real is exposed as an inconsistent network of signifiers

defined by relations of difference with one another, the subject is able to face a certain heZizekian thus consists of this radical displacement of the field of the symbolic and a positioningof the subject (disciple/reader) towards emancipatory knowledge.

The threshold of the iekian consists first of a demand put onto the reader (subject) bringingthem into a new relation to the Reala process that makes any identity or reality inherentlyparadoxical, and thus the orientation towards the iekian is disorienting by its very nature.There is something unheimlich about the iekian a priori, because one faces their own radicallack of support in any symbolic[1]. The way that iek confronts the Masters discourse isseminal to the entire basis of the iekian as it consists of placing the subject in a new relation toknowledge, what I will refer to as emancipatory knowledge.

The way in which ieks thought confronts the disciple (reader) is a philosophical method ororientation to doing philosophy that also puts a demand on the subject. The onus iek placesonto the disciple is tied to a more general axiomatic position of philosophy in the precisemoment of late capitalism today. As iek is fond of repeating, we must reverse Marxs 11th

thesis in his, Theses on Feuerbach, that philosophers have only interpreted the world and havenot yet changed it indeed interpretation as such holds the power in the iekian to change theworld in so far as interpretation facilitates a shift in the perspectival field and a re-positioning of
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knowledge towards emancipation. This shift takes place at the threshold of the iekian, wherethe reader is faced with his or her own split subjectivity, and ultimately faced with his or her own

un-freedom. As iek claims, We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate ourunfreedom.[2] Confronting ones own relation to the Real and to reality is an a priori to theiekian, and it has pedagogical consequences, serving as a threshold or entry point to the heart

of the iekian. Before considering whether there is a pedagogical consequence of the iekian,we will examine ieks debate with Alain Badiou over the role of the Master and the Mastersdiscourse in relation to emancipatory political change today.

[1]Adrian Johnstons text,ieks Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory ofSubjectivity is notable in this regard as it draws out the unique constellation of Zizeksappropriation of German idealism (Schelling and Hegel) with Lacans metapsychology revealing a consistent thinking of materiality (nature, body, world) as internally inconsistent,

shot through with antagonisms, despite the wide array of Zizeks interrogations into popular

culture, politics, etc.

[2]Fabio Vighis On Zizeks Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation develops a theory ofiek application of the dialectic that places it into context with Marx, Foucault andpsychoanalysis.

[3]Adam KotskosZizeks Theology is an important companion to understanding how one cantruly apply the Zizekian to the theological, but it does not provide us with a more all

encompassing sense of the Zizekian.

[4]Quote from Truth of Zizek

[5]La Berge The Truth of Zizek

[1]iek interprets the symbolic as always alienated from itself, a position that was held byLacan in his late work. For iek, the symbolic order does not have an order that controls it, andthe problem lies around the existence of the big Other as such. By this stage of his work, thesymbolic is itself alienated and thus its Laws function anonymously. iek notes that it is thisanonymous order that is the big Other, particularly in the context of our postmodern and post

totalitarian societies.

[2]Introduction: The Missing Ink, in Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on

September 11 and Related Dates (2002), p. 2

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One thought on A Theory of What Constitutes the Heart ofthe iekian

1. noir-realismsays:May 21, 2013 at 11:07 am

Reblogged this onnoir realismand commented:

Daniel Tutt of spirit is a bone introduces a new book on iek, iek and Education.Nuanced and calibrated he lays out the parade of scholars succinctly and with his usual

aplomb! Looking forward to the reading the new work.
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