Žižek at the Gates of Revolution - the Quandaries of the Political Subject of the Radical Left
Žižek at the Gates of Revolution - the Quandaries of the Political Subject of the Radical Left

Summary/Abstract: In this article I discuss three assumptions that are at the basis of Slavoj Žižek's concept of the political subject. The first is the assumption that the traumatic dimension of the concept of the political implies intractable social antagonism that has its roots in the inherently contradictory logic of the process of production in the capitalist economy (second assumption). These two factors are intertwined and the result of this is antisemitism, which underlies the unconscious phantasm of the Jew-bloodsucker (third assumption). This phantasm functions in capitalist bourgeois societies as a sort of justification for the fact that they do not represent a desirable harmonious unity but are ridden through with deep class antagonisms and conflicts. I try to verify critically the reliability of these assumptions while pointing to the fact that the same phantasm was also very vivid in societies under communist rule where there was no place for the market economy, and where party propaganda propagated an idyllic image of the 'real' unity of socialist society.

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