A review by colin_cox
The Sublime Object of Ideology by Slavoj Žižek
5.0
In The Sublime Object of Ideology Žižek offers a fresh critique of ideology. Ideology is not whole, full, or complete, it simply appears so. It has noticeable gaps and fissures, and those gaps and fissures are moments when the Real (as a symptom) returns. Žižek also thinks form matters more than content. As I read it, this is how he links Freud (psychoanalysis) to Marx (Marxism), which leads him to argue that ideology "serves only its own purpose" and that it "does not serve anything" (92).
The sublime object of ideology is that place where ideology both completes itself (or at least attempts to) but also fails to complete itself. The sublime object is this excessive, unattainable enjoyment that operates in a constitutive way for ideology, much like Lacan's objet petit a for the subject.
Money is one example Žižek uses to describe the sublime object. According to Žižek, what Marx fails to reckon is the "sublime material" that money houses, that "'indestructible and immutable' body which persists beyond the corruption of the body physical" (12). Therefore, money is a sublime object in part because it possesses specific psychoanalytic characteristics. As Žižek argues, it is pre-phallic; however, we must remember the importance of the symbolic order when considering the sublime object. Žižek wants us to remember "how this postulated existence of the sublime body depends on the symbolic order: the indestructible 'body-within-the-body' exempted from the effects of wear and tear is always sustained by the guarantee of some symbolic authority" (13).
The Titanic is another example of a sublime object. Regarding the Titanic, Žižek writes, "The Titanic is a Thing in the Lacanian sense: the material leftover, the materialization of the terrifying, impossible jouissance. By looking at the wreck we gain an insight into the forbidden domain, into a space that should be left unseen: visible fragments are a kind of coagulated remnant of the liquid flux of jouissance, a kind of petrified forest of enjoyment" (76). Žižek continues, "The wreck of the Titanic therefore functions as a sublime object: a positive, material object elevated to the status of the impossible Thing. And perhaps all the effort to articulate the metaphorical meaning of the Titanic is nothing but an attempt to escape this terrifying impact of the Thing, an attempt to domesticate the Thing by reducing it to its symbolic status, by providing it with a meaning" (76-77). The Titanic is overdetermined, but this overdetermination only happens retroactively, and as I read, sublime objects only become sublime objects retroactively.
Žižek also attempts to highlight the goal of ideology: to conceal the multitude of fissures and contradictions that constitute society. Ideology, however, fails, and it takes "its own failure into account in advance" (142). Žižek continues, "the stake of social-ideological fantasy is to construct a vision of society which does exist, a society which is not split by an antagonistic division, a society in which the relation between its parts is organic, complementary...The function of ideological fantasy is to mask this inconsistency, the fact that 'Society doesn't exist' and thus to compensate us for the failed identification" (142). Žižek, for example, uses Jewish stereotypes as a way of demonstrating this point. He writes, "The 'Jew' is the means, for Fascism, of taking into account, of representing its own impossibility: in its positive presence, it is only the embodiment of the ultimate impossibility of the totalitarian project--of its immanent limit...the 'Jew' is nothing but a fetishistic embodiment of a certain fundamental blockage" (142-143). Žižek drives home his point by identifying how these Jewish stereotypes embody something symptomatic within the ideological edifice: "Society is not prevented from achieving its full identity because of Jews: it is prevented by its own antagonistic nature, by its own immanent blockage, and it 'projects' this internal negativity into the figure of the 'Jew.' In other words, what is excluded from the Symbolic (from the frame of the corporatist socio-symbolic order) returns in the Real as a paranoid construction of the 'Jew.'" (143). Žižek seems to suggest it is not enough to have these sorts of moments of realization. We must also see ourselves in the symptom, or "identify with the symptom" and to do so "means to recognize in the 'excesses,' in the disruptions of the 'normal' way of things, the key offering us access to its [society, ideology, and so on] true functioning" (144).
After reading The Sublime Object of Ideology, I wonder, does the recognition of the sublime object offer the only meaningful critique of ideology? It seems to. We often talk about ideology as a way of justifying certain ends (racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on), but Žižek argues that form (or means) matter more than ends. This is the more significant connection Žižek makes between Freud and Marx, dreams and commodities. We should preoccupy ourselves with the form (means), not necessarily the content (ends). Žižek writes, "Why must this inversion of the relation of aims and means remain hidden...Because it would reveal the enjoyment which is at work in ideology...it would reveal that ideology serves only its own purpose, that it does not serve anything--which is precisely the Lacanian definition of jouissance" (92). It precisely this hidden, disavowed enjoyment that Žižek's argument attempts to expose.
The sublime object of ideology is that place where ideology both completes itself (or at least attempts to) but also fails to complete itself. The sublime object is this excessive, unattainable enjoyment that operates in a constitutive way for ideology, much like Lacan's objet petit a for the subject.
Money is one example Žižek uses to describe the sublime object. According to Žižek, what Marx fails to reckon is the "sublime material" that money houses, that "'indestructible and immutable' body which persists beyond the corruption of the body physical" (12). Therefore, money is a sublime object in part because it possesses specific psychoanalytic characteristics. As Žižek argues, it is pre-phallic; however, we must remember the importance of the symbolic order when considering the sublime object. Žižek wants us to remember "how this postulated existence of the sublime body depends on the symbolic order: the indestructible 'body-within-the-body' exempted from the effects of wear and tear is always sustained by the guarantee of some symbolic authority" (13).
The Titanic is another example of a sublime object. Regarding the Titanic, Žižek writes, "The Titanic is a Thing in the Lacanian sense: the material leftover, the materialization of the terrifying, impossible jouissance. By looking at the wreck we gain an insight into the forbidden domain, into a space that should be left unseen: visible fragments are a kind of coagulated remnant of the liquid flux of jouissance, a kind of petrified forest of enjoyment" (76). Žižek continues, "The wreck of the Titanic therefore functions as a sublime object: a positive, material object elevated to the status of the impossible Thing. And perhaps all the effort to articulate the metaphorical meaning of the Titanic is nothing but an attempt to escape this terrifying impact of the Thing, an attempt to domesticate the Thing by reducing it to its symbolic status, by providing it with a meaning" (76-77). The Titanic is overdetermined, but this overdetermination only happens retroactively, and as I read, sublime objects only become sublime objects retroactively.
Žižek also attempts to highlight the goal of ideology: to conceal the multitude of fissures and contradictions that constitute society. Ideology, however, fails, and it takes "its own failure into account in advance" (142). Žižek continues, "the stake of social-ideological fantasy is to construct a vision of society which does exist, a society which is not split by an antagonistic division, a society in which the relation between its parts is organic, complementary...The function of ideological fantasy is to mask this inconsistency, the fact that 'Society doesn't exist' and thus to compensate us for the failed identification" (142). Žižek, for example, uses Jewish stereotypes as a way of demonstrating this point. He writes, "The 'Jew' is the means, for Fascism, of taking into account, of representing its own impossibility: in its positive presence, it is only the embodiment of the ultimate impossibility of the totalitarian project--of its immanent limit...the 'Jew' is nothing but a fetishistic embodiment of a certain fundamental blockage" (142-143). Žižek drives home his point by identifying how these Jewish stereotypes embody something symptomatic within the ideological edifice: "Society is not prevented from achieving its full identity because of Jews: it is prevented by its own antagonistic nature, by its own immanent blockage, and it 'projects' this internal negativity into the figure of the 'Jew.' In other words, what is excluded from the Symbolic (from the frame of the corporatist socio-symbolic order) returns in the Real as a paranoid construction of the 'Jew.'" (143). Žižek seems to suggest it is not enough to have these sorts of moments of realization. We must also see ourselves in the symptom, or "identify with the symptom" and to do so "means to recognize in the 'excesses,' in the disruptions of the 'normal' way of things, the key offering us access to its [society, ideology, and so on] true functioning" (144).
After reading The Sublime Object of Ideology, I wonder, does the recognition of the sublime object offer the only meaningful critique of ideology? It seems to. We often talk about ideology as a way of justifying certain ends (racism, sexism, homophobia, and so on), but Žižek argues that form (or means) matter more than ends. This is the more significant connection Žižek makes between Freud and Marx, dreams and commodities. We should preoccupy ourselves with the form (means), not necessarily the content (ends). Žižek writes, "Why must this inversion of the relation of aims and means remain hidden...Because it would reveal the enjoyment which is at work in ideology...it would reveal that ideology serves only its own purpose, that it does not serve anything--which is precisely the Lacanian definition of jouissance" (92). It precisely this hidden, disavowed enjoyment that Žižek's argument attempts to expose.