Thought[edit]

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i ek's work and thought aims to provoke and critique common views of the self and t
he world. The philosopher, for i ek, is more someone engaged in critique than someo
ne who tries to answer questions by creating a theory.[38]
Ontology, ideology, and the Real[edit]
In developing a thesis of ideology and its function,
uments:[39]

i ek makes two intertwined arg

He begins with a critique of Marx's concept of ideology (as described in The Ger
man Ideology) in which people are beholden to false consciousness that prevents
them from seeing how things really are. i ek argues that people's deepest motives a
re unconscious and that ideology functions as a justification for the existing s
ocial order. That is, reality is constructed through ideology.
However, the Real is not equivalent to the reality experienced by subjects as a
meaningfully ordered totality. For i ek, the Real names points within the ontologic
al fabric, knitted by the hegemonic systems of representation and reproduction,
that nevertheless resist full inscription into its terms and that may as such at
tempt to generate sites of active political resistance.
Drawing on Lacan's notion of the barred subject, for i ek the subject is a purely n
egative entity, or void of being.[40] His ontology gives primacy to the creative
subject who can manipulate discourse even while he or she is shaped by it.[41] i e
k suggests that consciousness is opaque. He says that one cannot ever know if an
apparently conscious being is truly conscious or a mime and furthermore, that thi
s confusion is fundamental to consciousness itself.[42]
i ek speaking in 2011
i ek argues that although there are multiple Symbolic interpretations of the Real,
they are not all relatively "true". i ek identifies two instances of the Real: the
abject Real, which cannot be symbolized, and the symbolic Real, a set of signifi
ers that can never be properly integrated into the horizon of sense of a subject
. The truth is revealed in the process of transiting the contradictions; or the
real is a "minimal difference", the gap between the infinite judgement of a redu
ctionist materialism and experience as lived.[43]
Political thought and the postmodern subject[edit]
i ek argues that the state is a system of regulatory institutions that shape our be
havior. Its power is purely symbolic and has no normative force outside of colle
ctive behavior. In this way, the term the law signifies society's basic principl
es, which enable interaction by prohibiting certain acts.[44]
Political decisions for i ek have become depoliticized and accepted as natural conc
lusions. For example, controversial policy decisions (such as reductions in soci
al welfare spending) are presented as apparently "objective" necessities. Althou
gh governments make claims about increased citizen participation and democracy,
the important decisions are still made in the interests of capital. The two-part
y system dominant in the United States and elsewhere produces a similar illusion
.[45] i ek says that it is still necessary to engage in particular conflicts such as
labor disputes but the trick is to relate these individual events to the larger st

ruggle. Particular demands, if executed well, might serve as metaphorical conden

sation for the system and its injustices. The real political conflict for i ek is b
etween an ordered structure of society and those without a place in it.[46]
In stark contrast to the intellectual tenets of the European "universalist Left"
in general, and those Jrgen Habermas defined as postnational, in particular, i ek s
pares no efforts in his clear and unequivocal defense of the pro-sovereignty and
pro-independence processes opened in Europe.[47]
i ek argues that the postmodern subject is cynical toward official institutions, ye
t at the same time believes in conspiracies. When we lost our shared belief in a
single power, we constructed another of the Other in order to escape the unbear
able freedom that we faced.[48] For i ek, it is not enough to merely know that you
are being lied to, particularly when continuing to live a normal life under capi
talism. Although one may possess a self-awareness, i ek argues, just because one un
derstands what one is doing does not mean that one is doing the right thing.[49]
i ek has said that he considers religion not an enemy but rather one of the fields
of struggle. In a 2006 New York Times op-ed he made the argument for atheism, ar
guing that religious fundamentalists are, in a way, no different from "godless S
talinist Communists." He argued that both value divine will and salvation over m
oral or ethical action.[50][51]
Criticism[edit]
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on. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living pe
rsons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especiall
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Many hundreds of academics have addressed aspects of i ek's work in professional pa
pers,[52] and in 2007, the International Journal of i ek Studies was established fo
r the discussion of his work. There are two main themes of critique of i ek's ideas
: his failure to articulate an alternative or program in the face of his denunci
ation of contemporary social, political, and economic arrangements, and his lack
of rigor in argumentation.[53]
Ambiguity and lack of alternatives[edit]
i ek's philosophical and political positions are not
ve called him out on his failure to take a consistent
to stand by a revolutionary Marxist project, but his
ance of revolution makes it unclear what that project
some, his theoretical argument often lacks historical
to provocation rather than insight.[55][56][57]

always clear, and critiques ha

stance.[54] He has claimed
lack of vision or circumst
consists of. According to
fact, which lends him more

i ek's refusal to present an alternative vision has led critics to accuse him of us
ing unsustainable Marxist categories of analysis and having a 19th-century under
standing of class. For example, Ernesto Laclau argued that " i ek uses class as a so
rt of deus ex machina to play the role of the good guy against the multicultural
devils."[58] The use of such analysis, however, is not systematic and draws on
critical accounts of Stalinism and Maoism, as well as post-structuralism and Lac
anian psychoanalysis.[59]
For some, i ek represents one of two trajectories in contemporary thought of a prog
ressive alternative.[60][61] On the one side are those thinkers like i ek and Alain
Badiou who embrace communism as the only radical alternative to the current soc
ial, political, and economic arrangements. They draw their inspiration from the

social theory of Marxism, and extend it to form a radical critique of capitalism

, contemporary politics, and neoliberalism in general. They advocate a withdrawa
l from, in i ek's words, "everyday material social life," and decry anyone who aban
dons the "hypothesis of communism" (Badiou) as resigning themselves to the marke
t economy.[60]
For Roberto Mangabeira Unger, an alternative path not trodden by thinkers like i ek
and Badiou is that of rethinking structural transformation and the construction
of an alternative vision of social arrangements.[60] Although i ek and Unger have
been compared for their mutual encounter with Hegel and Marx, as well as by thei
r experience of engagement in the political life of their respective countries,
for Unger, the lack of a clear vision of alternatives in contemporary thinkers l
ike i ek represents a betrayal of our most important attribute: our power to resist
and to reshape the social and conceptual worlds in which we find ourselves.[60]
i ek does not agree with his critics who attribute to him a belief in necessitation
ism and has stated:
"There is no such thing as the Communist big Other, there's no historical necess
ity or teleology directing and guiding our actions." (In Slovene: "Ni komunistic
nega velikega Drugega, nobene zgodovinske nujnosti ali teleologije, ki bi usmerj
ala in vodila na a dejanja".)[31]
In his book "Living in the End Times" i ek acknowledges part of his critics of bein
g ambiguous and multilateral in his positions.: "[...] I am attacked for being a
nti-Semitic and for spreading Zionist lies, for being a covert Slovene nationali
st and unpatriotic traitor to my nation, for being a crypto-Stallinist defending
terror and for spreading Burgeois lies about Communism... so maybe, just maybe
I am on right path, the path of fidelity to freedom."[62]
Unorthodox style and scholarship[edit]
i ek's presentation and argumentative style is forceful, entertaining, and exoteric
ally appealing. Yet his convoluted delivery and departure from logical conceptua
l frameworks (in some instances), results in the absence of a clear line of argu
ment. Critics complain of a theoretical chaos in which questions and answers are
confused and in which i ek constantly recycles old ideas which were scientifically
refuted long ago or which in reality have quite a different meaning than i ek give
s to them.[63] Harpham calls i ek's style "a stream of nonconsecutive units arrange
d in arbitrary sequences that solicit a sporadic and discontinuous attention."[6
4] O'Neill concurs: "a dizzying array of wildly entertaining and often quite mad
dening rhetorical strategies are deployed in order to beguile, browbeat, dumbfou
nd, dazzle, confuse, mislead, overwhelm, and generally subdue the reader into ac
ceptance."[65]
Such presentation has laid him open to accusations of misreading other philosoph
ers, particularly Jacques Lacan and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. i ek carries ove
r many concepts from Lacan's teachings into the sphere of political and social t
heory, but has a tendency to do so in an extreme deviation from its psychoanalyt
ic context.[66] Similarly, according to some critics, i ek's conflation of Lacan's
unconscious with Hegel's unconscious is mistaken. Noah Horwitz, in an effort to
dissociate Lacan from the more problematic Hegel, interprets the Lacanian uncons
cious and the Hegelian unconscious as two totally different mechanisms. Horwitz
points out, in Lacan and Hegel's differing approaches to the topic of speech, th
at Lacan's unconscious reveals itself to us in parapraxis, or "slips-of-the-tong
ue." We are therefore, according to Lacan, alienated from language through the r
evelation of our desire (even if that desire originated with the Other, as he cl
aims, it remains peculiar to us). In Hegel's unconscious, however, we are aliena
ted from language whenever we attempt to articulate a particular and end up arti
culating a universal. For example, if I say 'the dog is with me', although I am
trying to say something about this particular dog at this particular time, I act
ually produce the universal category 'dog,' and therefore express a generality,

not the particularity I desire. Hegel's argument implies that, at the level of s
ense-certainty, we can never express the true nature of reality. Lacan's argumen
t implies, to the contrary, that speech reveals the true structure of a particul
ar unconscious mind.[67]
Accusations of plagiarism in 2014[edit]
i ek's tendency to recycle portions of his own texts in subsequent works resulted i
n the accusation of self-plagiarism by The New York Times in 2014, after i ek publi
shed an op-ed in the magazine which contained portions of his writing from an ea
rlier book.[68] In response, i ek expressed perplexity at the harsh tone of the den
unciation, emphasizing that the recycled passages in question only acted as refe
rences from his theoretical books to supplement otherwise original writing.[69]
On 11 July 2014, leading American weekly newsmagazine Newsweek reported that in
an article published in 2006 i ek plagiarized substantial passages from an earlier
review that first appeared in the White Nationalist journal American Renaissance
, a publication condemned by the Southern Poverty Law Center as the organ of a "
white nationalist hate group."[70] However, in response to the allegations, i ek st
ated:
When I was writing the text on Derrida which contains the problematic passages,
a friend told me about Kevin Macdonald's [sic] theories, and I asked him to send
me a brief resume. The friend send [sic] it to me, assuring me that I can use i
t freely since it merely resumes another's line of thought. Consequently, I did
just that and I sincerely apologize for not knowing that my friend's resume was
largely borrowed from Stanley Hornbeck's review of Macdonald's book. [...] As an
y reader can quickly establish, the problematic passages are purely informative,
a report on another's theory for which I have no affinity whatsoever; all I do
after this brief resume is quickly dismissing Macdonald's theory as a new chapte
r in the long process of the destruction of Reason. In no way can I thus be accu
sed of plagiarizing another's line of thought, of "stealing ideas." I nonetheles
s deeply regret the incident.[71]
Filmography[edit]
Year
Title Role
2004
The Reality of the Virtual
Script author, lecturer (as himself)
2005
Zizek! Lecturer (as himself)
2006
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema Screenwriter, presenter (as himself)
2012
The Pervert's Guide to Ideology Screenwriter, presenter (as himself)
Critical introductions to i ek[edit]
Kelsey Wood, Zizek: A Reader's Guide (Wiley-Blackwell: 2012).
Warren Breckman, Adventures of the Symbolic: Postmarxism and Radical Democracy (
New York: Columbia University Press, 2013)
Sean Sheehan, i ek: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: Continuum, 2012).
Christopher Hanlon, "Psychoanalysis and the Post-Political: An Interview with Sl
avoj i ek." New Literary History 32 (Winter, 2001).
Tony Myers, Slavoj i ek (London: Routledge, 2003).
Sarah Kay, i ek: A Critical Introduction (Cambridge: Polity, 2003).
Ian Parker, Slavoj i ek: A Critical Introduction (London: Pluto Press, 2004).
Matthew Sharpe, Slavoj i ek, a little piece of the Real (London: Ashgate, 2004).
Rex Butler, "Slavoj i ek: Live Theory" (London: Continuum, 2005).
Jodi Dean, i ek's Politics (London: Routledge, 2006).
Walter A. Davis, "Slavoj Zizek, or the Jouissance of the Abstract Hegelian" in D
eath's Dream Kingdom (London: Pluto Press, 2006).
Peter Klepec: Ad... In: Slavoj i ek, Poskusiti znova
spodleteti bolje (Ljubljana: C
ankarjeva zalo ba 2011), p. 442 485 (Extensive in-depth dictionary of 70 major conce
pts with references to all i ek's Slovenian and English works, to works of other me
mbers of Slovene Lacanian School, Lacan, Miller etc.)
Adam Kotsko, i ek and Theology (New York: T & T Clark, 2008).
Marcus Pound, i ek: A (Very) Critical Introduction (Interventions) (Grand Rapids: E

erdmans, 2008).
Adrian Johnston, i ek's Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivi
ty (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2008).
Adrian Johnston, Badiou, i ek, and Political Transformations: The Cadence of Change
(Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2009).
Dominik Finkelde, Slavoj i ek zwischen Lacan und Hegel. Politische Philosophie, Met
apsychologie, Ethik (Wien: Turia + Kant, 2009).
Paul A. Taylor, i ek And The Media (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2010).
Raoul Moati (ed.), Autour de S., i ek, Psychanalyse, Marxisme, Idalisme Allemand, Pa
ris, PUF, "Actuel Marx", 2010
Fabio Vighi, On i ek's Dialectics: Surplus, Subtraction, Sublimation, (Continuum, 2
010).
Matthew Sharpe and Geoff Boucher "Zizek's and Politics: A Critical Introduction"
(Edinburgh University Press, 2010)
Chris McMillan, " i ek and Communist Strategy: On the Disavowed Foundations of Globa
l Capitalism" (Edinburgh University Press, 2012)
Matthew Flisfeder, The Symbolic, The Sublime, and Slavoj i ek's Theory of Film (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).
Matthew Flisfeder and Louis-Paul Willis (eds.), i ek and Media Studies: A Reader (N
ew York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
Igor Pelgreffi, Slavoj i ek (Napoli-Salerno: Orthotes, 2014).
Agon Hamza (ed), "Repeating i ek" (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015)
See also the International Journal of i ek Studies.