認同被摒棄者：透過斯拉沃熱．紀傑克與哈瑞伊．坤祖魯閱讀全球資本主義

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(1)國立臺灣師範大學英語學系博. 士. 論. 文. Doctoral Dissertation Department of English National Taiwan Normal University. 認同被摒棄者：透過斯拉沃熱．紀傑克與哈瑞伊．坤祖魯閱讀全球資本主義. Identifying with the Outcast: Reading Global Capitalism with Slovaj Žižek and Hari Kunzru. 指導教授：黃. 涵. 榆. Advisor: Dr. Huang, Han-yu 研究生：黃. 耀. 弘. Graduate: Huang, Yao-hung. 中華民國一零五年七月 July 04, 2016.

(2) 認同被摒棄者：透過斯拉沃熱．紀傑克與哈瑞伊．坤祖魯閱讀全球資本主義. 摘要在冷戰過後的今天，進入全球化經濟、民主的時代，使得大部分國家在冷戰過後迅速成為全球資本主義國家。但隨之而來的卻是全球金融危機與問題的反覆出現。因此，為了反思檢討這些不斷糾纏的危機，筆者透過紀傑克 (Slavoj Žižek) 的心理分析理論來分析哈瑞伊．坤祖魯 (Hari Kunzru) 所寫的小說：分別是《模仿者》、《失控》及《我的革命》。在坤祖魯這三本小說中，主角均游移在資本主義的文化與機制中掙扎，就如同紀傑克認為在全球資本主義下，大眾因循著意識形態想像 (ideological fantasies)，追求自己生命的夢想。除了透過小說呈現資本主義對一般人潛移默化地控制外，筆者更進一步企圖討論在資本主義剝削與壓迫下被排除在外的「被摒棄者」(the outcast)。在這些小說中，坤祖魯描繪了個人對全球資本主義意識形態幻想的依賴、頓悟與抵抗。他的小說讓我們有機會反省並思考取代全球資本主義的可能性。透過紀傑克對全球資本主義的見解，筆者期盼能提供閱讀坤祖魯小說的新見解。除此之外，筆者會在最後章節中討論美國華爾街佔領運動與台灣的太陽花運動，筆者認為透過這些運動讓大眾有機會去重新審視全球資本主義，反省全球資本主義結構性的弊病，並提出取代、改變、抵抗全球資本主義的可能性思維。筆者認為，當主體認同並關心被全球資本主義排除在外的「被摒棄者」時，才有可能跳脫全球資本主義意識形態想像的箝制，也較能進一步抵抗並改變全球資本主義剝削並壓迫的基本架構，進而防止全球毀滅性的經濟危機再次發生，避免跨國企業進行全球性的經濟掠奪，減少「被摒棄者」的出現。關鍵字: 斯拉沃熱．紀傑克、哈瑞伊．坤祖魯、全球資本主義、被摒棄者 2.

(3) Identifying with the Outcast: Reading Global Capitalism with Slovaj Žižek and Hari Kunzru. Abstract. In recent decades we have witnessed the absolute victory of the democratic, capitalist Western Bloc. This victory has led to the hegemony and worldwide implementation of the system of global capitalism. When crises have occurred, such as the global financial crisis in 2008, the answer has only been more capitalism. To uncover the root of the problems with global capitalism, this dissertation sets out to apply Žižekian theories on global capitalism to a critical reading of the novels of the British writer Hari Kunzru. It focuses on Kunzru’s accounts of characters who struggle to find their desired positions and identities in the ideological fantasies of capitalist cultures and institutions – accounts which resonate with Žižek’s ideas about how the public has been influenced and controlled and how the outcasts are expelled from the interpellation of global capitalism. In each of these novels, Kunzru describes individuals’ dawning awareness of, and struggles against the snares of, the ideological fantasies of global capitalism that entrap them. His novels open fictional spaces where alternatives to global capitalism are revealed to be possible. By exploring and applying Žižekian approaches to psychoanalysis, this dissertation aims to provide a new perspective on Kunzru’s novels and outline new points of view on how the individual can possibly break down the allure of global capitalism’s ideological fantasies. It reveals that it is possible to escape the prison of fantasy constructed by the symbolic order of capitalism, and that the key to this lies in taking sides with the excluded outcast. Keywords: Slovaj Žižek, Hari Kunzru, Global Capitalism, the Outcast 3.

(4) Acknowledgement I want to express my deepest gratitude to my adviser and mentor Dr. Han-yu Huang, who helped me concentrate on issues crucial to the main concerns of my dissertation. I am grateful for his careful reading and correction of my writing. He has been the source of inspiration for me. I also want to show immense gratitude to my friends, Joseph Schier, Corey Bell and Pablo Lin, who have offered me help and encouragement throughout the difficult process of writing my dissertation. I want to thank my parents, brother, and sisters for giving me so much encouragement throughout these years. Finally, I want to thank my wife, Gem, for her unfailing love and support.. 4.

(5) Table of Contents Introduction ………………………………………………………………………….6 I. From Capitalism to Global Capitalism…………….…….……………………....….9 II. Hari Kunzru’s Novels and Global Capitalism Today…….……………….....……16 III. Critics of Žižek…….....…...………..………………………….…………….......21 IV. Negativity in Philosophical Contexts…………………………………………….29 Chapter One: The Plague of Global Capitalism…………………………..............49 I. The Decline of the Symbolic Order, the Society of Risk and Enjoyment................55 II. The New Authority: Father of Enjoyment………………...…………...…………59 III. The Plague of Ideological Fantasies……...………..…………………………….62 IV. Confronting Global Capitalism…………………..…………………...………….86 Chapter Two: The Declining Big Other and the Ideological Fantasies of the Superego in The Impressionist and Transmission……...……..………………….106 I.. The Impressionist………………………………………………………….…...113. II. Transmission…………………………………………………………………...132 Chapter Three: Resisting the Power of Global Capitalism in My Revolutions...164 I.. The Lack in the Knowledge of Capitalism………………………………………………………………….......170. II. Global Capitalism qua the Pervert’s Discourse and Chris/Michael’s Final Revolution…….…………………………………………………………….….186 III. From Fiction to Reality…………………………………………………….…..205 Conclusion…………..……………………………………………………………...231 Works Cited…..………………………………………………………………… ...236. 5.

(6) Introduction When we watch news reports, stories of global economic crises and political conflict constantly bombard us. Yet regardless of what these reports investigate, few of them ever question the system in which these crises and conflicts arise – the order of global capitalism. The central premise of this ruling ideology is rarely challenged because many believe that, after the Cold War, we are living in a world practically free of a serious competing political ideology. As the ideological confrontations of the Cold War disappeared when the Berlin Wall fell and the Soviet Union dissolved, global capitalism became hegemonic and seemingly irreproachable. When serious crises occur, those who are responsible for running global capitalism — bankers, business owners and politicians — may apologize, step down, or go bankrupt. However, global capitalism survives these crises unscathed and uninterrupted. The great difficulty of challenging global capitalism stems not from its societal acceptance, but from its advertised and surreptitious allure. Global capitalism triggers, solicits, and satisfies desires of the individual. It promises freedom, equality, and prosperity. A wide range of methods in economics, political science and social science have been meticulously devised to measure whether global capitalism provides freedom, equality, and prosperity. Yet, global capitalism, which puts the subject into a fantasy of wish fulfillment, binds rather than frees the subject. Behind this fantasy lies the very different reality in which desire, as a perpetual sense of lack, gains control. The subject is restricted by desire. Instead of feeling prosperous in the fantasy, the subject embraces a perpetual sense of emptiness, prompting it to pursue endless desire. Rather than living in equality, the subject must constantly strive to be worthy of its own value. Otherwise, it will be excluded and marginalized by the society as. 6.

(7) what I term as “the useless and unproductive outcast”.. 1. Throughout the world, the. system of global capitalism drives the individual to move from one place to another and one dream to another, which generates issues of alienation and oppression clandestinely. Yet, like a recurring pleasant dream that turns into a nightmare, the system of global capitalism keeps returning to haunt the public with its alluring fantasy. To explore a possible way out of the capitalist deadlock, my research relies mainly on Slavoj Žižek’s and Hari Kunzru’s works. Slavoj Žižek is an eminent contemporary thinker who has brought to our attention both the critical need of, and the intense difficulty of, exposing and subverting the system of global capitalism. Žižek argues that capitalism itself establishes the essential backdrop to reality. To resist and challenge global capitalism, we need ethical imagination. For Lacan, the real stands both for lack and excess in the symbolic order. In Lacan’s earlier work, the real appears as a material plenitude that exceeds the symbolic order (Seminar II 98). In Lacan’s other work, the real is seen as the obstacle which is impossible to be represented in the symbolic order (Seminar XVII 143). For Žižek, the real is defined “as not only the symbolic failure but as a positive point of excess, enabled within the symbolic and imaginary realms . . . ” (McMillian, 79). In Lacanian Ethics and the Assumption of Subjectivity, Neil stresses that the ethics of the real “implies moving beyond signification” and “the ethics which resists comprehension” (Neil 237). Therefore, the ethics of the real can be regarded as an ethical goal that appears through norm-breaking and in finding new directions that involve traumatic. My use of the “excluded outcast” refers to the “excluded abject” used by Žižek in Conversation with Žižek. When he talks about the oppression of Jews under the Nazis, he stresses that the “only way to formulate the truth of that society is from a certain extreme partial position” (65). In order to know the most essential atrocity of Nazi Germany, we should “identify with the excluded abject” (65). Following Žižek, Kelsey Wood regards the abject as the excluded outcast. The excluded outcast is “disenfranchised by the hegemonic ideology” (Wood 43). 7 1.

(8) restructuring in the symbolic order. The ethics of the real fully accepts contingency and risks the impossible to break out of standardized positions. The ethics of the real means that we cannot rely on any form of symbolic other that would endorse our inaction and indecision. Žižek designates that today’s global capitalism is characterized by the exclusion of the marginalized other and prevents us from making any drastic changes to the system. His analysis of global capitalism helps us to understand the reason for our indecision and inaction today, and it exposes the causes of global poverty and inequality. However, another very significant but understudied contribution to this task can be found in the stories of the critically acclaimed novelist, Hari Kunzru. As a British citizen of Indian descent, he experienced the Cold War, the 2008 financial crisis, and the Occupy Wall Street movement. He has been writing about the discriminated and exploited immigrants working under global capitalism throughout this time. His novels expose the difficulties of abandoning global capitalism, while providing hope for new ethics of the real, which refer to acting responsibly by forsaking the ideological fantasies of global capitalism. As the outcasts are excluded as a useless and irremovable surplus of global capitalism, I stress that identifying with the outcasts offers us a chance to encounter the real. Kunzru has devoted several well-received works2 to addressing the alienation and invisible oppression in the era of global capitalism. Prominent works of this type include The Impressionist (2002), Transmission (2004), My Revolutions (2007), and Gods without Men (2012). His characters are often the lost (Gods without Men), exploited (Transmission), discriminated (The Impressionist), and marginalized (My Kunzru’s first novel, The Impressionist, won the Betty Trask prize, the Somerset Maugham Award, and the Pendleton May First Novel Award. His second novel, Transmission, was translated into eighteen languages. His third and fourth novels, My Revolutions and Gods without Men, received highly favorable reviews in the Guardian, Paris Review and New York Times. 8 2.

(9) Revolutions). His critical reflections offer us new resources with which we can examine the impact of capitalism in an ostensive post-ideological era. They also show us how global capitalism influences the individual and creates the “excluded outcasts.” However, in many places these reflections also tend to resonate with the unyielding critiques on capitalism. In this regard, Kunzru’s novels and Žižekian psychoanalytical approaches can be seen as instruments for exploring new possibilities and solutions to deal with the problem created by global capitalism. Their ideas are aimed at unveiling and wearing down the power of global capitalism’s grasp over consciousness.. I.. From Capitalism to Global Capitalism: Before proceeding any further, I want to focus on the origin of global capitalism.. Also, I want to discuss why it is widely accepted by the great majority of world leaders and political parties. I assert that today’s global capitalism has been widely accepted through state policy, making it exceedingly difficult to be changed or abolished. However, global capitalism often brings about exploitation, social injustice, and instability rather than freedom, equality, and prosperity. In his observation, Karl Marx writes, “The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital. The production of commodities and their circulation in its developed form, namely trade, form the historic presuppositions under which capital arises. World trade and the world market date from the sixteenth century, and from then the modern history of capital starts to unfold” (Marx, Capital, 247). Therefore, from the commercial activity in the sixteenth century, the modern history of capital begins from the process of commodity circulation, and later develops to include the production and circulation of commodities. As the commercial activity expands, the production and circulation of 9.

(10) goods become a global activity. Marx also reveals the profit-accumulating trend of capitalism. It first works through the basic circulation, in which a merchant exchanges a commodity for money, which he then exchanges for other commodities. He then sells other commodities to purchase something attractive to other consumers. It forms the activity of the social-economic system, which Karl Marx depicts as CommodityMoney-Commodity transference. Money here serves as the privileged link that can be exchanged for any commodity at any time. With this C-M-C circulation, the merchant can buy in order to sell commodities at a profitable price, which leads to the eventual accumulation of money. The exchange process can be regarded as Money-Commodity-Money (“accumulation”) (Karatani 95). This M-C-M’ becomes the formula for capital. Marx writes, “The circulation of money as capital is an end in itself, for the valorization of value takes place only within this constantly renewed movement” (Marx, Capital 253). So to possess money is to own a “social pledge” which can be openly exchanged at any time and place in any community (228). The power “held by a commodity serving as money is due to its being positioned as the universal equivalent” (Karatani 93). In the above modes, a commodity has no guarantee that it can enter into the exchange system while money takes up a superior position and has the power to be exchanged at any time for any community (93). With money, the owner can undoubtedly possess overwhelming influence in the exchange system. From Marx’s description, we can notice that the wealth begins not in the storing up of commodities but in the accumulation of money (Karatani 5). Capital accumulation therefore equates to power and influence accumulation. A wealthy person who possesses a large sum of money has the ability to influence and coerce others to work for him, which explains the desire to accumulate money. Because capital gives its owner a superior position in the 10.

(11) economic exchange system, the capitalists who desire dominant positions in the market will concentrate on profit and capital accumulation. Throughout history, capitalism never shifts its focus from the task of capital accumulation. Instead, it integrates perfectly well with different forms of governments. About the development of capitalism, Kojin Karatoni gives us a clear picture (273). From 1750-1990, capitalism has four different forms: mercantilism (1750-1810), liberalism (1810-1870), imperialism (1870-1930), and late capitalism (1930-1990). Since 1990 to present day, we have neoliberalism. At the same time, states have gone through transformations as well: absolute monarchy, nation-state, imperialism, welfare state, and regionalism (272-73) All the while, the practice of capital accumulation remains unchanged. In these five stages, state leaders come to sense that the power of capital can strengthen their control over their states. A capitalistic economy brings about the “bureaucracies and standing army” (166) of the state, which enable state leaders to solidify their ruling power. The concentration on capital accumulation also ends in the exploitation of workers. The capitalist hires employees to produce goods that have value exceeding the sum of what a single employee can do on his own. When the capitalist takes possession of the surplus value, this process of production becomes exploitation. For Karatani, these different stages of global capitalism appear “as a linear development driven by increasing productivity and as an ongoing cyclical alternation between liberalism and imperialistic stages” (Karatani 273). In other words, despite different names in different times, the state oscillates between liberal and imperialistic economic policies (Karatani 273). Liberal policies regulate development of state intervention and focus on the liberty, equality, and welfare of the individual. Imperialistic policies aim to employ military force to exploit and “monopolize 11.

(12) markets, raw materials, and labor” of another nation-state by one dominant nation (201). When a state becomes a world hegemony, such as the United States from 19301990, it will apply liberal policy, which is “domestically characterized by robust social welfare systems” (Karatani 277). Yet, when the state loses its position as the world hegemony, it will abandon liberalism and engage in “imperialistic” battle and compete against other states to be the next hegemony (273). The imperialistic policy refers to the state intervention that assists the domestic capital expansion outside the country’s geographical boundaries. A state intervenes to ensure its superiority in production and circulation of capital. For example, when England replaced Holland to become the world hegemony as a financial and world trade center in 1750, it enforced the policy of liberalism, which focused on robust social welfare systems and workerprotection policies (277). From 1870 to 1930, although most states were imperialistic, the influence of capitalism never receded. During this period of time, Britain’s role as world hegemony declined, and other states including Britain started to embrace imperialism. Different from liberal capitalism, imperialism is not predicated upon free competition over price. While liberalism improves the situation of exploitation and oppression, both liberal and imperialistic policies still involve these two problems of capitalism. In imperialistic policy, the state resorts to vehement exploitation in the hope for the highest possible capital accumulation. Even when the state becomes the world hegemony politically and economically, it may not necessarily improve the poor working situation of the workers. Throughout history, capitalism has been adjusting itself between liberal and imperialistic modes. It becomes the indispensable part of the policy for the state to become competitive and hegemonic. Karatani’s analysis shows us the difficulty of structurally changing or abolishing capitalism. 12.

(13) From the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, the strength of capitalism was still limited by the technologies of the time and geographical restrictions. By the close of the twentieth century, capitalism became substantially more globalized than it was even fifteen years prior (Kotz, “Globalization and Neoliberalism” 70). With the goal of capital accumulation, capitalism itself has had the strong tendency toward global expansion. After World War II, when local markets had reached their limits of capital accumulation, large businesses started shifting to the world market, hoping to locate new opportunities for capital accumulation. In 1990, one major historical event helped to bring about the domination of capitalism in the world. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of Eastern state socialism proved not only a decisive victory for the Western bloc, but also brought about the acceleration of global capitalism. Before 1990, the existence of a powerful Eastern bloc during the Cold War tended to suppress the development of capitalism with the alternative of state socialism. It increased fear among capitalists that their own working class could renounce capitalism and choose socialism. Due to this fear in capitalist states, the Eastern bloc also had an impact on the creation and operation of state-regulated capitalism and social welfare. After 1990, Eastern bloc socialism was viewed as outdated and inappropriate for most states around the world. Almost every country in the world accepted capitalism as the solution to eradicating human poverty while promoting freedom and equality. As the Soviet Union and its allies crumbled in the late1980s and the early 1990s, capitalism emerged victorious and began to expand globally. Globalization is interpreted as an increase of cross-border economic interactions and resource flows, producing a qualitative change in the relations between national economies and between nation-states (Baker, Globalization 5). Globalization 13.

(14) promises not only merchandise trade flow and direct foreign investment, but also cross-border financial investment. All of these suggest greater global accumulation of capital, while enduring the strong pressure of global competition. In the era of global capitalism, local large corporations and banks become comparatively smaller when they enter the world market. To compete with big businesses of other states both domestically and internationally, large banks and companies face “a daily battle for survival, which prevents attention to long-run considerations and which places a premium on avoiding the short-run costs of taxation and state regulation” (Kotz 69). Therefore, large corporations began shifting to neoliberal theories and policies. Neoliberalism is a concept that involves economic theory and policy. Neoliberalists hold that the unregulated capitalist system (free market economy) not just represents the personal freedom of choice, but also reaches the greatest economic goal (high capital accumulation) regarding “efficiency, economic growth, technical progress, and distributional justice” (Kotz 64). In the theory of neoliberalism, the state has a limited role in the economy by defining rights and enforcing contracts, and neoliberal policy mainly refers to decreasing regulations of the welfare state. From an international standpoint, neoliberalists ask for free trade of “goods, services, capital, and money” globally (64). For Karatani, neoliberalism has the same economic policy of imperialistic capitalism, which chooses the large corporation over the individual (Karatani 278). Although it may seem like classical liberal policy that demands less state intervention and a much freer market, neoliberalism is in effect imperialistic capitalism in which states intervene to ensure the superiority of their industry in the production and circulation of capital globally. The problem of neoliberalism lies in these deregulations of the capitalist system, in the promotion of the free market economy, and in the decrease of state intervention 14.

(15) and budgeting for social welfare. In neoliberalism, free individual choice puts the individual under the coercion of the contract of the large corporation, in which various working conditions of the individual are often exploited. As capitalism is deregulated, the individual is further exposed to risks of exploitation. With such intense competition and weak state intervention, local large corporations become multinational corporations, which are companies that have “a substantial proportion of [their] sales, assets, and employees outside [their] home [countries]” (Kotz 67). Because of these basic components, multinational corporations have limited ties to domestic markets of their own home countries for goods and labor. The multinationals will find the most advantageous locations for capital accumulation, which have the lowest minimum wages, reduced taxes, and available land. Due to the free market and global competition, these corporations have negligible social duties and responsibilities to the workers and society. The labor of the individual can be minimized and sacrificed for the private profit of the corporation. When the large corporation finds another place beneficial to capital accumulation, it will move freely from one state to another, focusing only on the place with highest capital accumulation possible. Without sufficient regulation and social welfare policies, the workers first face problems of exploitation in the company; then they have to deal with unemployment, which can trigger social instability. The free flow of capital without restrictions can often cause social injustice since the accumulation of capital flows solely in one direction. The high capital accumulation contributed by employees flows to the already wealthy corporation in the name of boosting the corporation’s global competitiveness. The large multinational corporations take away most of the surplus value generated by the workers without paying much tax or salary, and the wealthiest one percent control the financial flow in the market. However, those in 15.

(16) control bear neither attachment nor responsibility to anything since their sole purpose is capital accumulation. The irresponsible free flow of capital can result in social injustice and financial crisis as well. As I have argued above, the neoliberal policy helps the rich get richer. In free trade and free market policy, the wealthy entrepreneurs can accelerate their accumulation of capital by paying little or no tax back to the state. And due to the tension of global competition, nations and large companies throughout the world start to embrace neoliberalism as an effective way to become leading countries and companies in the global market. As a result, neoliberal procedures bring about social injustice and world-scale cutthroat competition, thus exacerbating exploitation and oppression. By decreasing state intervention and increasing private control, the individual faces a future of constant crisis.. II.. Hari Kunzru’s Novels and Global Capitalism Today. Kunzru’s novels offer a vivid overview of the problems and inconsistencies in global capitalism today. He does this by revealing the difficulties in fighting against global capitalism. In My Revolution, he depicts a personal revolution of a radical activist rebelling against the government and capitalism from the 1960s to 1990s, which is a crucial period for global capitalism today. Kunzru employs history to interrogate the present, showing how capitalism never aims to build a state with equal sharing and justice. In reality, starting from the 1980s, the public witnessed the consequence of neoliberalism in both “Britain (under Thatcher) and the U.S. (under Reagan)” (Harvey, A Brief History 5). The first was the Asian financial crisis. It triggered widespread fear of a global economic meltdown caused by financial problems. The efforts to stop the global economic crisis turned out to be unsuccessful 16.

(17) in stabilizing the Asian nations until 1999. President Suharto of Indonesia was forced to step down in the wake of rioting that followed the collapse of Indonesia’s financial system. In 2006, the collapse of the American housing market brought about a negative impact on its own economy as well as on the global banking system. In 2008, the bursting of the housing bubble indirectly led to the bankruptcy of major Wall Street firms, including Lehman Brothers. Because of the free market policy of neoliberalism, those multinational financial firms took almost no responsibility for their investors’ money. Nor did they have many legal issues regarding the bankruptcies. This situation forced the U.S. government to intervene so as to prevent the total collapse of the banking system. By protecting the banking system, the government preserved the problematic structure of global capitalism. Eventually, the U.S. financial crisis expanded to affect the rest of the world, and this led to fears about the European sovereign debt crisis that spread throughout European nations from 2010 onward. In Ireland, Portugal, Finland, Spain, Italy, Greece, France, and so on, ruling parties were forced to step down as they failed to deal with the high deficits in their governments’ budgets. Riots and protests broke out throughout Europe. Since neoliberalism is designed to favor those who are already wealthy, the state has diminished legal power and influence with which to bring about more equal sharing. Wall Street bankers and stockbrokers, who caused global unrest through this financial crisis, did not have to pay for the debt they created, and they could walk away with investors’ money without taking much responsibility after the financial crisis. The winner often takes all, plunging the losers into desperation and indignation. Yet, few care about the origin of these crises because global capitalism conceals the inconsistency of the sociopolitical field. Whereas capitalism makes us feel that we are living in a wealthy, equal, and transparent society, Kunzru, in his novel My 17.

(18) Revolutions, underscores the inconsistency, exploitation, and incompetence of capitalism. The significance of Kunzru lies in his constant exploration of the implicit workings of capitalism. Still, under its calculation, the ideology of capitalism continues to unconsciously infiltrate the lives of the public while the individual, who lives under its control, thinks it is free. In My Revolutions, most characters, such as Miranda and her daughter, think that they are free, and that life is simple and transparent. Behind the transparency hides the intolerable truth that she and her husband are not only monitored by countless cameras day and night, but they are also manipulated to make seemingly free choices. In the era of global capitalism, people are only free to pick up a choice deprived of radical resistance. That is, they can have different options and demand change in the government, but they have been deprived of any choice outside of global capitalism. People are told that they can change only to a certain acceptable extent since any abrupt change might result in a series of destructive chain reactions. In his novel Transmission, Kunzru shows that any tiny and abrupt change leads inevitably to devastating global chain reactions. The spread of one computer virus in one place can easily erupt into a global panic and cause a massive loss of capital. Therefore, living in a society full of risks, the public then must make choices with professional guidance. The risks refer to the “low-probability / high-consequence” risks (Eccleston 237). Eccleston stresses that the unpredictable and uncontrollable risks caused by natural events can lead to catastrophe. For instance, a massive earthquake or flood may damage a nuclear reactor and lead to a devastating consequence. Likewise, other examples of risks may be: the collapse of one superpower nation that might result in global unrest and recession; human deformities from genetically modified plant and animal genes; or the pollution of food sources by oestrogens which could bring about 18.

(19) cancer. In Kunzru’s Transmission, the financial losses of several superpower nations cause devastating loss and chaos for the whole world. The probability of these disasters may be small, but most of consequences are frequently apocalyptic for humankind. Kunzru depicts a scenario resembling the situation above, in which the risk is produced by an insignificant computer programmer, Arjun. The catastrophic computer virus he creates causes nearly irrevocable damage to the virtual and physical world, in which important data and large sums of money disappear. Legal citizens become illegal, and they are arrested and deported. A small disturbance of global capitalism leads to major loss and even tragedy in Kunzru’s novel. Kunzru shows not only how a computer virus can spread easily throughout the global computer network, but also how global capitalism itself is the cause of the problem. Only by taking a step away from global capitalism can the subject reflect on the problems inherent in the system. Therefore, facing the terrifying risks, the public become apprehensive about the unpredictable danger in life (Tabbi 11). In the end, the public must rely on the authorities concerned – the experts, the media and the security forces – and this causes more unforeseen risks. There is no absolute power or knowledge which can stave off the risky outcomes. The public develop different technologies and social institutions, such as computer programs and research centers. The public have gadgets such as televisions, cellphones, and computers which connect them to all kinds of information about the weather, the stock market, global news and natural disasters. Therefore, we are “daily bombarded by gadgets and social forms” (Žižek, Belief 20), which appear to assist us to tackle the risk in our lives. These messages are normally loaded with expert advice, or supported by research data. The public rely on this information even though no scientists are able to guarantee safety against the risks. 19.

(20) The scientists often cannot even calculate the extent of the peril caused by these manufactured risks. The public are so concerned with the risks that they are hardly even conscious of the ideology of global capitalism, in which the circulation of capital is neither just nor “economically sustainable” (Rabie 111). Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the public have believed that the end of the Cold War designates not merely the end of the ideological struggle between capitalism and communism, but also the victory of free market capitalism, which will ultimately bring about universal freedom. While global/free market capitalism promises a freer and wealthier future, the truth is that global capitalism places 99 percent of the population in unequal competition with the elite one percent of global entrepreneurs. In Transmission, two leading characters, Guy Swift and Arjun Mehta, represent two of the different worlds found in the global class system. At the top, the wealthy one percent with considerable capital, such as Guy Swift, the CEO of his own company, enjoys a privileged kind of global movement. At the bottom end, illegal immigrants find it either difficult or nearly impossible to not just travel freely, but to cross borders easily. In the middle, people like Arjun Mehta have immensely unstable work due to outsourcing contracts. As multinational corporations move their factories overseas seeking lower costs and higher profits, the small group of entrepreneurs cooperating with local authorities garner the majority of profits while leaving sweatshop workers to toil in poor working conditions for minimum wages in China, Swaziland, Indonesia, Vietnam and other developing or underdeveloped countries. As global capitalism promises freedom and prosperity, Kunzru reveals the inconsistency of global capitalism in his novel, in which freedom and prosperity belong to the owner of large capital, Guy, rather than the outsourced engineer, Arjun. 20.

(21) Through the influence of the capitalist ideology, the cynical public become fundamentally “solipsistic and narcissistic” about demanding any change in capitalism (Vighi 100). The cynical subjects recognize that the reality of global capitalism is flawed and manipulated, but they still stick to this problematic ideology. Many are aware of global capitalism's many problems, yet they still follow the fashion of consumer society and thus lose their ability to demand a radical change (McLaren 146). People, especially the youth, spend much time working on making their pretty pictures (selfies) so that they can be attractive on Web sites. Computer gamers know well that computer games are fictional, and narcissistic youth know that hits on the photos of social networks are insignificant, but they act as if these illusions are real. Likewise, netizens spend money on plastic surgery so as to have a better picture on social networking Web sites. (Watson 35) They know that their photos on Facebook or Instagram can be edited and distorted, but they still treat them seriously. The public may or may not know that they are living in a system of global capitalism, but most still continue participating in and supporting it. To satisfy desires, the narcissistic masses gradually build their own ideological wall against any authentic change. They want freedom and transgression to satisfy their own desires, but they don’t want to subvert the institutions of global capitalism, which support their enjoyment. The public need the system of global capitalism to construct a commodity society and to satisfy their desires. Therefore, to have enjoyment, the public have to work with the system of global capitalism and help it survive every financial crisis.. III.. Critics of Žižek. Confronted with today’s ongoing unrest and inequality that results from global capitalism, Simon Critchley argues that we need to look for an ethics of subversive 21.

(22) radicality and negativity, which recognize “a moment of rebellious heteronomy” and disrupt the dominant ethics (Ethics 37). To cease supporting the working of global capitalism, the subject needs to stop governments from compromising the public welfare. The subject should reexamine the “core structure of moral selfhood” so as to unlock a motivational force and stop supporting global capitalism (7-9). A true ethical and responsible stance requires “absolute decisions (undecidability) made outside of knowledge and given norms” (Eagleton 248). To reach decisions outside of given norms, the subject will need to take a temporary leap of faith out of its symbolic world by identifying with the outcast. My employment of negativity derives from Hegel’s discussion about the threatening power it holds. This negativity corrodes every firm identity and boundary, and in so doing, generates an abyssal freedom (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit 19). For Hegel, repressed negativity exists secretly within the subject’s identity. Due to its corrosive power, the subject must deny, repress, and exclude negativity, which exists only outside our knowledge and given norms. To explain the development of negativity, I am reading it from a Lacanian point of view. According to Lancanian psychoanalysis, the subject descends into the world and is first exposed to the chaotic and threatening power called the real. The real indicates an abyssal void, called the traumatic freedom, which is Hegelian negativity (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit 19). In the real, the subject is completely thrown out of order and regulation. Only when the subject enters the world of symbols and language can it find the bearing, meaning, and significance of its life. The subject employs language qua the symbolic order to interpret the world. For the symbolic order to function properly, disruptive and meaningless negativity of the real must be excluded and repressed. Nonetheless, repressed negativity never disappears 22.

(23) completely. Instead, it exists clandestinely within the symbolic order, waiting to resurface at its weakest point. Once the real surfaces, it disrupts and dissolves the stability of the symbolic order by forcing it into chaos and exposing how the symbolic order has been built upon repressing the real, which is the void. As the real exposes the void of the symbolic order, it also reveals the inconsistency of the symbolic order. To cope with the void and inconsistency in the symbolic order, the subject creates an ideological fantasy to cover them. By being able to come to terms with negativity, the subject will understand that it builds the fantasy to cover an anxiety of negativity. That is, when we identify with repressed and excluded negativity, the subject is able to take a dangerous leap out of the given law, order, and regulation of the symbolic order, which indirectly allows it to question its presence and take a true ethical responsibility for itself. In global capitalism, people who represent the excluded negativity are harmful to the working of the symbolic order, such as international refugees or illegal immigrants. They create difficulties and obstacles for the definition of legal citizens, and they threaten the efficient working of global capitalism. So, they must be excluded and marginalized. However, if we can identify with these excluded people, we can take a dangerous leap out of the working of global capitalism and witness the brutal and violent repression that is inherent in global capitalism. Concerning this subversive act of identifying with excluded negativity, I claim that Žižek’s ethical reflection and critique enable the subject to momentarily suspend the symbolic and recognize excluded negativity. For years, Žižek aimed to uncover the excluded abyss (lack/hole) as radical negativity within both the subject and the symbolic as a way to subvert hegemonic establishments. Žižek asserts that the subject in the post-ideological era of global capitalism is never free from ideology. On the contrary, global capitalism implicitly functions to control the public through 23.

(24) ideological fantasies. As all kinds of political groups – be they cynics, fetishists, fundamentalists, or multiculturalists – are represented in the name of “capital itself,” most political subversions and episodes of resistance are complicit with global capitalism and thus “fake” (Žižek, Ticklish 210). To make a real change, the subject needs to think critically before it commits itself to any action. It must not presume any big Other telling it what to do. It needs to traverse its own ideological fantasies by recognizing its own repressed internal negativity. Basically, the Žižekian critical method demands that the subject clears the burden of the symbolic order and starts all over on its own again. Žižek advocates a guerrilla-like revolt: the “Rewriting of the Lacanian real” (Eagleton 260). The real is the element the subject must repress, exclude, and abandon when the subject enters into the symbolic order. Therefore, the ethics of the real refers to the ethical movement in which the subject relocates the repressed and excluded negativity qua the real within the symbolic order. If placed under today’s circumstances, the real stands for the invisible, grotesque, and revolting outcasts, such as the homeless, the unemployed, and international refugees. Those excluded or marginalized outcasts are unwanted and undesired by global capitalism qua the symbolic order since they do not generate any profits. In the ethics of the real, the subject not only looks for a stance to resist its desire in global capitalism, but also to identify with those unwanted and useless outcasts qua the real. Žižek’s proponents hold that his critical writing is constructive and subversive when approaching norms, theology and capitalism. Part of Žižek’s focus is to merge German idealism’s perspective of absolute internal negativity with the psychoanalytical idea of the Freudian and Lacanian death drive. With his focus on negativity in the subject, Žižek reveals that the subject is limited and “non-totalizable” (Kotsko 119). In other words, the subject is not a completely passive receiver of the 24.

(25) symbolic order. It possesses the unyielding disruption of abyssal negativity that constantly disrupts and challenges the norms of the symbolic order. Žižekian notions show his readers that this negativity is the ground zero level for transcending multicultural tolerance of global capitalism. Žižek takes the idea of the death drive from Freud and Lacan to explain the movement of negativity. The reflection on the death drive enables Žižek to question not only the theology but also the norm of human lives. The death drive is the uncontrollable unknown in the human mind that explains why people take dangerous and irrational actions. It is not just the unknown gap in the order of being that gives rise to autonomy of the subject, but also the space for the subject to challenge the theology (Gunder 178). Unlike animal instinct, it is a strange drive that persists beyond death. Animals do not take risks for purposeless goals while humans, driven by the death drive, will jump off a cliff into the water merely for fun. The death drive is the “excess of life” that is unpredictable and uncontrollable compared to animals (Žižek, Belief 104). The death drive points not to death, but to a basic and uncontrollable compulsion. It functions as a “disruptive negativity” that helps the subject question the conformity of the everyday world because the subject itself has “anti-adaptive” negativity (Johnston 185). In other words, the subject has an adverse tendency of disrupting the rules of quotidian life, which marks its free will. Critics hold that Žižek’s ethics of the real disrupts and distances the logic of global capitalism. For instance, Mari Ruti states that Žižek’s act of subjective destitution is the outcome of the irrational subject of drive/jouissance3 (Ruti 60).. 3. Ruti distinguishes the difference between the subject of desire and that of drive as two different actions. The subject of desire is “the one who stuffs one object (objet petit a) after another into the lack within its being, only to discover that no object can fully make up for the loss of the Thing” while the subject of drive is a that of “uncontrollable jouissance, which is why its emergence results in the undoing of the culturally viable individual” (60). Ruti quotes Lacan’s statement of the subject of drive as the subject that is placed at the level of “a headless subjectification, a subjectification without 25.

(26) Drive pushes the subject to attain morbid satisfaction that leads to its self-destruction. In the suicidal act, the subject is unplugged from its own symbolic order and is plunged into the abyssal jouissance4 of the real as an ethical act. Wu Chien-Heng sees Žižek’s critical thinking as a way of exploring “immanent negativity” in the reality. Žižek terminates the symbolic order and looks for a “new political sequence” (96). Žižek’s inclusion of immanent negativity forces the subject to confront social antagonism and assume ethical responsibility for its own action. The subject has to look into itself to find the answer to its own mistakes and problems. Žižek’s ethics directs the subject to place its life, grounded in the symbolic matrices of pleasure and utility, back to ground zero level (Wood 58). It detaches the life of the subject from the call of the supereogic jouissance, clearing the ideological fantasies from our imagination. It takes the subject away from the control of the big Other. Yet, the life without the support of the big Other is unbearable and difficult since the subject must make responsible decisions cautiously. This unbearable zero level is always awaiting its “justice to come” (Fabio 164), transcending the multicultural tolerance of global capitalism (McSweeney 21). The Žižekian ethics of the real are something unthinkable and terrifying, contributing to the dissolution of the political coordinates. Žižek’s abstract style of the real poses a challenge to intellectuals to “think of the coordinates within which our activities are situated and work to break through and politicalize those coordinates” (Dean 197). Therefore, Žižek’s thinking is crucial to any effort to shatter the present political predicament. It offers its readers a leap out of the present situation by the momentary suspension of the symbolic order. In Glyn. subject” (60). He relates this headless subjectification of the death drive to the ethical act of erasing the subject’s own identity. 4 Jouissance is the paradoxical satisfaction that pushes the subject to enjoy beyond its limit. It becomes an uncontrollable “painful pleasure” (Lacan, Seminar VII 184). For Žižek, jouissance has a close relationship with the Lacanian real since jouissance is the “nonsymbolic”, and thus abyssal (Žižek, Parallax 188). 26.

(27) Daly’s terms, Žižek’s ethics of the real shows the subject the approach to “subverting the logic of subversion” (15) in capitalism via his own dialectical triangulation of Hegel, Marx, and Lacan. Opponents of Žižek stress the problematic aspect of his efforts to question global capitalism. They consider it untenable and impalpable. Ernsto Laclau argues that Žižek’s analysis of global capitalism lacks other political viewpoints as Žižek restricts himself within Lacanian psychoanalysis (Laclau 289). His analytic studies of capitalism work with insufficient consideration and research. Žižek’s political argument fails to expand beyond philosophical and psychoanalytical spectra to cover a more meticulous and detailed strategy of fighting against capitalism. Though he thinks that we need to change the capitalist ideological order that constrains our thinking today, Saul Newman emphasizes that Žižek’s insistence on radical change through the ethical act, and his willingness to “get one’s hand dirty,” will only result in a catastrophic end (Newman, Unstable Universalities 190-91). Newman posits that Žižek’s willingness to follow the “old Lenin style of politics” cannot trigger radical politics today (190). Matthew Sharpe and Geoff Boucher claim that Žižek’s ethical effort to subvert capitalism only risks “reversing the value of judgment on the opposed terms, ‘liberalism versus terrorism’” without “generating a new politics capable of animating or guiding progressive political movements . . .” (Sharpe, Žižek and Politics 166). For them, Žižek’s much-orchestrated yet problematic theoretical illustration simply directs us to another hegemony. Adrian Johnston designates Žižek’s combination of Marx and Lacan as a critique on capitalism. It can create a “theoretical fetish object” (Johnston, Badiou, Žižek 109-10) and make Žižek himself a cynic. Johnston writes that Žižek maintains a cynical distance away from the ideology of capitalism. Žižek’s contradiction lies in his cynical emphasis. He knows that 27.

(28) displacing capitalism is impossible, but he still continues to claim the possibility of the act as an intervention to change capitalism. For Sharpe, the insalubrious difficulty of Žižek comes from his Kantian interpretation of Hegel presented via Lacan, which he applies to the social issues (Sharpe, Slavoj Žižek 210). Because of his problematic application of Kant, Hegel, and Lacan, Žižek always circles around “haughty indifference to ‘empirical’ matters” (210). Although these critics have revealed different aspects of Žižek’s theoretical problems and contributions, few scholars address the situation of global capitalism and offer a credible alternative reflection on the problems of global capitalism after the fall of Eastern bloc-style socialism. Today, the society that functions under the capitalist system shows how commodity infiltrates and colonizes our lives. Almost everything in our lives is commodified and incorporated into capitalism, from birth to death and from a local to a global scale. Nothing escapes the reach of global capitalism. Žižek’s principal dedication to critical theory is “his detailed elaboration of the subject” (Myers 11) and his critique on the official culture, especially the interpellation of the ideological fantasies of liberal capitalism. The problems of today’s society are not only the demand of enjoyment from the obscene father but also, most of all, a certain fetishistic split of the subject: I know the situation very well, but I don’t care about changing the society since nothing can be changed. That is, the subject knows that global capitalism today involves fake democracy and corruption. It knows very well that democracy today allows governments to profit multinational companies by sacrificing the welfare of the public, but still it can do nothing to change the situation. The subject has no choice but to stick to this fake democracy because it believes that there is no better way to replace capitalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall. 28.

(29) In what follows, I will employ Žižek’s critical thinking methods to elucidate the radical aspect of negativity. Premising his critical insights upon Kant, Hegel and Lacan, Žižek merges negativity in German idealism with the psychoanalytical death drive and concentrates on the repressed void of the subject and the symbolic order. By drawing on Kant and Hegel, Žižek develops a significant insight into abyssal negativity. With Freud and Lacan, Žižek combines the negativity of German idealism with the concept of the undead in psychoanalysis, which eventually contributes to the possible autonomy of the subject. On the one hand, by recognizing its own negativity as undead, the subject comes to realize that this abyssal negativity can enable it to have an autonomous status away from the influence of the big Other and superego. On the other, as it senses its unknown negativity and incompleteness, the subject starts to sympathize and accept the external excluded outcast. Only then can the subject take the side with the uncomfortable and revolting outcast in its society. Therefore, to offer a detailed development of negativity, I need to examine Kant, Hegel, and Lacan separately to expound how the existence of negativity is important to the formation of the subject and how negativity offers the subject a space for critical freedom and autonomy.. IV.. Negativity in Philosophical Contexts Throughout his corpus, Žižek applies the thinking of Kant, Hegel, and Lacan to. question the meaning of the symbolic order we take for granted in everyday life, from the laws passed by the parliament to trade agreements signed by countries. Following these philosophers, Žižek delves into abyssal and meaningless negativity within the subject: the inhuman, undead part in human subjectivity. This abyssal negativity of the real is both hypnotically constructive and fatally destructive. On the one hand, its 29.

(30) existence galvanizes the symbolic order to explore the unknown. On the other, it disrupts the stability of the symbolic order. Kant initiates a philosophical revolution by designating a transcendental turn, indicating there is something else beyond our reason and experience: incomprehensible and insensible negativity in phenomenon. Kant discovers and endows this devouring, abyssal, and destructive negativity with moral meaning. Hegel merges this negativity into his dialectical mechanism and transforms its destructive disposition into the positive good. Lacan continues to look into the negativity of the subject and sees it as the disruptive death drive. Incorporating these philosophical analyses of negativity, Žižek seeks to explore radical negativity resisting the ideological fantasies of global capitalism. But it is sometimes confusing rather than inspiring when he discusses these philosophers briefly. In most of his books, Žižek often stops the philosophical enumeration abruptly after a brief discussion, which confuses many of his readers. Therefore, to give a clear picture of the philosophical backgrounds formulating Žižek’s complicated relationship between the negativity and the ethics of the real, I will proceed by underscoring his perspective on Kant, Hegel, and Lacan. By rereading Kant, Hegel, and Lacan, I want to present not only a clear picture of Žižek’s own thinking but also my own interpretations of these philosophers on the significance of undead negativity. Having confronted the rising tension between traditional values and science, Kant separates the world into two ontologically discrete realms — phenomenon and noumenon5. He employs these two notions to reconcile tensions between the tradition of the feudal society and natural science. From the phenomenal and the noumenal. Kant employs “phenomenal” and “noumenal” to designate two “different ways of regarding objects” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason liii). From the phenomenal perspective, “our knowledge is a reflection of both sensory evidence and our own ways of knowing objects and hence is only of phenomenal objects” (liii). With our restricted knowledge, we can never know the noumenal objects, which are “in themselves apart from our ways of knowing” (liii). Our metaphysical knowledge is limited to the phenomenal object (liii). 30 5.

(31) notions, Kant positions the “transcendental idea” beyond the reach of the subject’s experience (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 533). It refers to objects that are thinkable but unknowable. Kant’s “Transcendental Analytic” leads to the conclusion that our understanding can never transcend the limits of sensibility (304). All our knowledge starts from experience which mainly relies on our limited senses and “the exposition of appearances” (304). The transcendental idea is an independent noumenal being that serves to direct our action. It is an ideal that is constantly approached but never attained. From transcendental ideas, Kant develops his thinking on moral law, which cannot be known by experience. He claims that transcendental ideas have an “excellent, and indeed indispensably necessary regulative employment, namely that of directing the understanding towards a certain goal up” “outside the bounds of possible experience” (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason 533). And, this unknowable notion of transcendental ideas is also the basis for universal morality. Because of its thinkable but unknowable quality, the transcendental idea becomes an impossible but imperative concept the subject must engage in on its way to universal morality. This unknowable notion is in fact characterized with negativity. What Kant discovers in his philosophy of the unknowable transcendental idea is the traumatic thing6 in the real. Yet he is unwilling to acknowledge the transcendental idea as the negative real since Kant intends to orchestrate a path to the absolute good. In Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, he writes that there is an innate object. The traumatic thing that Kant discovers is the Lacanian thing in the real which is “the beyond-of-thesignified” (Lacan, Seminar VII 54). For Lacan, “the thing is characterized by the fact that it is impossible for us to imagine it” (125). Therefore, the Lacanian thing is an “unknowable X, beyond symbolization” that has a close relationship with the Kantian “thing-in-itself” (Evans 205). The thing is related to the impulse to find something that has been lost upon the subject’s entry into the symbolic order. For Žižek, “the thing is retrospectively produced by the very process of symbolization, i.e., that it emerges in the very gesture of its loss” (Žižek, Tarrying 37). The thing appears in the Lacanian real, as a threat of the symbolic order. The thing also indicates an intermediary state between animal and human, a void that the subject fails to represent in imaginary and symbolic order. Therefore, the thing can only be presented as a traumatic loss, an intolerable deficit that the subject must fill with the objet petit a. 31 6.

(32) propensity in human beings “in view of the multitude of woeful examples that the experience of human deeds parades before us” (Kant, Religion 80-81). Kant unfolds an immanent unknown crack that is within us but is beyond our control and experience. It represents not only the abyssal and disturbing characteristics of the real, but the emancipating potential that might enable us to resist the restrictions of the symbolic order. Fearing the catastrophic effect of the “evil in every human being” (Kant, Religion 80), Kant sees this chaotic willing as the “diabolical vice”7 which we must avoid at all costs. Instead of exploring the unknown power of evil/real, he shifts his focus to the enigmatic nature of the moral law and claims that we can never grasp the “unconditional practical necessity of the moral imperative” (Kant, Groundwork 155). Stopped in his exploration before the threshold of the unknowable evil/real, he stresses that we can only know its “incomprehensibility . . . which in its principles strives to reach the boundary of human reason” (155). With the content of the repressed incomprehensibility qua the real, Kant presents us with an empty form of the law as an ethical contribution. With the Kantian neutral universal form of the law, the subject must review its own behavior constantly to check if it meets the criteria of ethical adequacy. Despite his discovery and contribution, Kant’s exploration of the real grinds to a halt when he reaches the limits of experience and morality. This Kantian “immanent unknown” later influences Žižek’s view. While Kant puts the unknown part in our mind as a guideline of morality, Žižek sees the unknown X as the Lancanian thing which founds the subject. After its entry into the symbolic order, the subject constantly seeks the “objet petit a”8 to cover the Lacanian “thing”9. 7. In Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason, Kant defines diabolical evil as the evil that is done for its own sake. The individual violates the law simply for the sake of violating it. As diabolical evil, it is characterized with “extreme degree that surpasses humanity” (27). 8 The objet petit a is a “privileged object, which has emerged from some primal separation, from selfmutilation induced by the very approach of the real, whose name in our algebra, is the objet [petit] a” (Lacan Seminar XI 83). The objet petit a is “something from which the subject, in order to constitute 32.

(33) (Lacan, Seminar VII 54). The unknown thing in the real is the main driving force of the subject’s exploration. Kant asserts that the human mind is not a passive receiver that takes any stimulus. Instead, there is a gray area that allows the human to freely choose and actively construct the experience he senses. Kant regards this incomprehensible area as a positive force helping humans to categorize the experienced world into orderly and manageable information. Humans follow reason to accumulate and make raw experience into perception and conception. This gray area is the free ability of the human mind to make the sensible world into a rational world of morality (Critique 836). Different from animals, humans have the active power of reason to choose moral order. Žižek focuses on the undeveloped part of Kant’s incomprehensibility, especially the chaotic willing of the diabolical evil. He shifts the attention from Kantian reason to the immanent contradiction that derails the subject. With the immanent and uncontrollable willing of the diabolical evil, the subject sometimes does things that are immoral and irrational. For instance, driven by the diabolical will, a man drives so fast only to enjoy an immoral and irrational symptom known as thrill. Žižek stresses that Kant senses the “topological discord between the form ‘I think’ and the substance itself, has separated itself as organ” (112). It must be an object that is “firstly, separable and, secondly, that has some relation to the lack” (112). In Parallax View, Žižek describes the ambiguous characteristics of the objet petit a. Objet petit a has two contradictory faces and can be regarded as both the excess and lack. Objet petit a can be the object “which overlaps its loss, which emerges at the very moment of its loss (so that all its fantasmatic incarnations, from breasts to voice and gaze, are metonymic figurations of the Void, of nothing) . . . within the horizon of desire” (61). In desire, the subject seeks the “fantasmatic incarnation” qua the objet petit a to fill the void (61). The subject will spend its life constantly looking for its objet petit a. So the objet petit a is regarded as the excess. While in drive, the subject confronts the loss qua the objet petit a itself as its own object. The subject stops looking for desired objects qua the objet petit a to fill the void. It shifts from desire to drive and see the void as its desired object qua the objet petit a. Here the objet petit a is seen as the lack. In drive, the subject “pushes for to enact ‘loss’- the gap, cut, distance- itself directly” (62). The objet petit a is the “residue of the real after the onset of the symbolic order . . . and the elusive object that occurs as a consequence of the symbolic order” (Butler, The Žižek Dictionary 215). 9 Compared to the objet petit a that “has its place within the lack of the symbolic order”, the real of das Ding (the thing) has “its place in the primordial real as that which is not at all lacking (there is nothing lacking in the primordial real)” (Butler 215). Das Ding (the thing) is the thing that lacks a signifier (215). 33.

(34) which thinks” (Žižek, Tarrying 13). A great gap exists between the process of thinking and the insensible mortal subject where the thinking process occurs. That is, an unknown gap persists between the man who does the thinking and the living being that breathes. Žižek underscores and looks into the abyssal gap of the subject where the thinking process occurs. Kant maintains that it is impossible to fill out the unknown part of the subject with our intuited experience (Tarrying 14). Human beings can never completely understand themselves. Because of this limitation, the subject cannot fully comprehend the reason in its decisions or realize which decisions are better for the subject. Sometimes people make choices so harmful and irrational that they can’t fathom why they made them. In ancient times, humans sought instruction from oracles and signs in nature to make decisions. Nowadays, people rely on experts and information to guarantee a promising future. But even with so much help from technology, the public can hardly know themselves and the reasons for their decisions. Kant’s original purpose is to direct the impossibility of our reason to realize the universal moral duty. Our noumenal reason serves as a regulative tool that guides us towards morality. For Kant, the guiding principle of the moral law is impossible for us to experience. So it becomes an a priori idea, which is a fundamental concept of reason. Kant’s subject is constructed on “a transcendental subject of the thoughts=X” (Kant, Critique 346). It founds the thinking of the subject, making universal moral law possible. In other words, the fundamental concept of reason as the unknown X not only founds our thinking but directs us to choose the moral law. For Žižek, Kant’s contribution lies in discovering the unknown part X. Žižek concentrates on Kant’s discovery of the unknown abyss that makes humans unique beings. Kant highlights “the impossibility of locating the subject in the ‘great chain of being’, into the Whole of the universe . . .” (Žižek, Tarring 12). Kant specifically points out for Žižek the 34.

(35) mysterious center of gravity in the decentered subject. With the shift of gravity from Kantian morality, Žižek stresses the unique side of the abyssal Thing rather than the side of reason in man. The human becomes a partial object/subject between the substance that does the thinking and the thinking itself. Žižek transfers the human from “real person” to the monstrous “living dead” (Tarrying 113). He sees the monstrous living dead as a bridge connecting man and animal. This monstrous living dead escapes the control and dissolves the regulation of the subject. Therefore, the threatening mediator needs to be repressed beyond the senses and reason of the subject. It is the monstrous “vanishing mediator”10 of partial objects between “direct animality and human freedom subordinated to Law” (Ticklish 52). The significance of this monstrous partial object/subject is something we neither feel nor control. It infiltrates our life secretly. However, as a contradiction, this threatening uncanny object/subject offers us an absolute freedom. If we project this uncanny outcast of ourselves on people around us, we can understand why Žižek asks us to love one’s neighbor as ourselves and repeatedly demands that we ask ourselves what we really desire as a responsible subject. Yet, from Žižek’s perspective, Kant goes “halfway in his destruction” (Žižek, Parallax View 27). Kant is the first one who distinguishes phenomenon from noumenon. He scrutinizes the limits and boundaries, but does not elucidate the close relationship between the finite phenomenal and infinite noumenal. He posits that human finite ability can never experience the infinite noumenal field. In effect, it is unknown negativity, and this initiates the thinking Žižek borrows this notion from Fredric Jameson’s discussion of capitalism. Jameson reveals how capitalism appeared out of Protestantism in a dialectical process. Jameson argues that Protestantism is the “vanishing mediator” between feudalism and capitalism (Jameson, 31). Protestantism created the suitable condition for capitalism to emerge. But the advent of capitalism brought results in the obsolescence of Protestantism (31). Here, the “vanishing meditator” means the missing link between two terms. The “vanishing mediator” is the idea which “mediates the transition between two opposed concepts and thereafter disappears” (Myers 38). Although Protestantism serves as an important catalyst, it has to disappear so that capitalism can emerge. Žižek sees the monstrous part in the subject as the vanishing mediator. We need to get rid of the monstrous part “before we can construct a substitute for it in the form of the symbolic order” (37). 35 10.

(36) process. The unknowable negativity of the human mind is the abyssal gap that propels the infinite thinking and generates creative, alternative, and even subversive ideas in the mind of the subject. After Kant, Hegel continues to probe the enormous power of the Kantian discovery. Hegel employs a complicated reflective thinking on the thinking process to understand and confront inhuman negativity. That is, by infinite reflective thinking, the finite phenomenal human can employ its finite reason to achieve an absolute understanding of the noumenal. Hegel criticizes the Kantian “transcendental idea” as a “bad infinity” (Hegel, Science of Logic 130-33). Kant builds the transcendental idea as the infinite noumenal separated from the finite phenomenal, and the opposition between the finite and infinite restricts the development of the transcendental idea. The Kantian unknowable/infinite transcendental idea, which institutes the universal moral law, is a violent “abyss of nothingness” (Hegel, Faith and Knowledge 190), since it lies in the noumenal field beyond our understanding and experience. If Kant’s transcendental idea itself remains unknown, the universal moral law will be built on a rather fragile foundation. The institution of the moral law will become a weak and violent process. To strengthen Kant’s idea, Hegel claims that the progress of Kant’s moral task is a self-contradictory abyss of nothingness that requires further discussion (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit 368). Without content, the Kantian moral progression will be “projected onto a future infinitely remote” (368). If the goal is actually reached, moral consciousness will disappear. This Kantian morality is a moral consciousness with an unreachable essence. In the end, Kant’s perpetual moral progress can never be genuinely fulfilled. Once the idea of morality is found, morality will disappear. Hence, Kant’s abstract concept becomes the “abyss of nothingness in which all being [is] engulfed” (Hegel, Faith and Knowledge 190). 36.