Abstract

This paper follows Žižek’s ‘strategic politico-philosophical decision’ to explore, not resolve, the contours of the ‘inherent “tension”, gap, noncoincidence of the One with itself. The void in question is the parallax Real. Here, Žižek follows Lacan with “the lack” in Being. The three key areas of interest are the philosophical, the cognitivist brain sciences and the political. In each area he will as usual set cruel traps for progressivists, who gloss over the ‘hard kernel of the Real’ and the inhuman ‘Night of the world’, at the heart of subjectivity The question of being no one, of the horror of the “objectifying Real” and the aleatory revolutionary energy of modern capitalism are for Žižek a radical challenge: to clear a space for radical freedom, violently - if anyone comes to me and does not hate…even his own life - allowing for ‘the emergence of revolutionary-emancipatory subjectivity’. This call is more overtly political than the more clinical orientation of Lacanian analysis. The question remains, however, how can such a de-substantialised subject commit to anything in the ominous shadow of the Other’s absence? And what new horror might transpire when he tries?