PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 1

Ideology at the End of Times

Kirk Boyle

UNC-Asheville

Anyone familiar with Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj iek has no doubt

experienced dj vu when reading his work, moments where you think This sounds familiar.

Wait, Ive read this before! Indeed, there is a degree of repetition in ieks arguments and

examples, with some passages copied verbatim from previous publications. In his 2010 book

Living in the End Times (heretofore referred to as End Times), we find the same point about

charity as the logical end-point of capitalist circulation that we do in Violence: Six Sideways

Reflections (240); the same claim that the new spirit of capitalism triumphantly recuperated

the egalitarian and anti-hierarchical rhetoric of 1968 in First as Tragedy, Then as Farce (356);

and similar notes on why the key to the ecological crisis does not reside in ecology as such in

In Defense of Lost Causes (334).

Criticisms could be lobbed at iek for his repetitiveness. A consumer, for example,

could complain about false advertising, about receiving the same old product repackaged as new.

An academic might protest that iek has run out of ideas, or resent him for becoming so famous

that he can get away with plagiarizing himself. Even iek himself has hinted at his displeasure

in becoming an echo chamber. At the start of a talk given at the London School of Economics in

July 2010, he admitted to getting a little bit tired of his recent spate of books, which he

jokingly referred to as his communist propaganda series.1

What these criticisms miss is the necessity of repetition for the practice of philosophy

(not to mention psychoanalysis and pedagogy). Robert Pfallers excellent discussion of ieks

use of examples, Interpassivity and Misdemeanors: The Analysis of Ideology and the iekian
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 2

Toolbox, highlights the retroactive force of ieks examples, how the philosopher

recontextualizes examples in order to make visible a theoretical structure in the original idea

which, before, was not easy to discern or which was even hidden by another structure that

appeared evident (38). The iek example, Pfaller writes, makes another thing say what,

until then, it did not know (29). Articulated in a different manner, Rex Butler explains that

iek follows his own line of thought in an almost theological way to its limit, where:

his examples [become] replaceable by any number of others. Hence these examples, far

from being essential to ieks thought, are contingent; and for all of their apparent

surface variety and connection to the world, he is ultimately saying the same thing, totally

unconcerned with the realities of everyday life, which it is always the task of philosophy

to break with. (12)

Butlers description of ieks method recalls ieks own perception of how the excessively

and compulsively witty texture [of his books] serves as the envelope of a fundamental

coldness, of a machinic deployment of the line of thought which follows its path with utter

indifference towards the pathology of so-called human considerations (iek Reader viii).

Ideology is one such theoretical structure ieks continually machinic thought renders

visible via a litany of examples. These recurrent examples attempt to make ideology speak of its

previously unknown or obscured significance, especially within these so-called post-ideological

times. It is no wonder, then, that ieks texts are laced with references to the proper baseof

ideology (3), the ideological experience at its purest, at its zero-level (3), the elementary

scene of ideology (11), the properly ideological function (58), the most elementary formula

for how ideology functions today (70), and so on (these examples coming from the first seventy
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 3

pages in End Times alone). The text proper of End Times begins with the question What is

ideology? followed by a lengthy example of Frances political botch job on burqas.2 In reading

End Times, these references to ideology jump off the page. Surely, ideology remains a, if not the,

core concept in ieks work, one he pursues relentlessly. Like assembly lines, his texts affix the

replaceable parts of examples to an immutable theoretical edifice of ideology-critique. (Phillip

Wegners description of Frederic Jamesons work comes to mind: the entire expanded cultural

and textual realm become grist for Jamesons voracious analytical mill (264)).

ieks peripatetic prose calls out for systematization, for acolytes to come along and

unearth his immutable theoretical edifice from the mounds of examples it is buried underneath

(an excavation process well underway).3 His books have an air of performativity about them,

with organizational schemes seemingly more poetic than philosophical. The structure of End

Times, for example, riffs off Kubler-Rosss five stages of grief, and feels very much like a post

hoc device insisted on by his publishers to tie together his loosely related ruminations about our

contemporary apocalyptic times. This characteristic lack of traditional philosophical scaffolding

explains, in part, the pleasant surprise of reading ieks well-wrought The Spectre of

Ideology, the introductory essay to his 1994 edited collection Mapping Ideology.

The Spectre of Ideology maps the selections included in the collection according to the

three movements in the Hegelian triad of religion: the In-Itself of doctrine, the For-Itself of

belief, and the In-and-For-Itself of ritual. One istempted to dispose the multitude of notions

associated with the term ideology around these three axes, iek writes, ideology as a

complex of ideas (theories, convictions, beliefs, argumentative procedures); ideology in its

externality, that is, the materiality of ideology, Ideological State Apparatuses; and finally, the

most elusive domain, the spontaneous ideology at work at the heart of social reality itself
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 4

(The Spectre of Ideology 63). The progressive movement of these three notions dialectically

overcomes the representationalist problematic, or what Jameson calls the epistemological

model of ideology, which is based on an opposing notion of truth or science from which one

can denounce ideology as such (The Spectre of Ideology 60, Jameson 323). The

representationalist problematic/epistemological model is first sublated by a

materialist/institutional theory of ideology which, in turn, is itself overtaken by a more pervasive

notion of ideology, one we might refer to as existentialist/ontological.

As to this shift from conceiving ideology as a complex of ideas to understanding it as

coursing through the lifeblood of social reality itself, Pfaller proves (yet again) to be an

experienced guide on all things iek. In Where is Your Hamster? The Concept of Ideology in

ieks Theory, Pfaller submits that ideology is not the opposite of truth. It should not be taken

as an error, nor as a deception or as a lie for the profit of the dominant classesideology fulfills

a function completely different than that of knowledgewhat counts here, are the conditions of

production of the idea, not its apparent truth-value with regard to empirical data (106). When

Althusser claimed that ideology is a representation of the imaginary relationship of individuals

to their real conditions of existence, he did not intend for us to denounce these representations

as false based on our knowledge of reality. Not the real conditions of existence are represented

in ideology, not even in a distorted way Pfaller explains, but rather the imaginary of

individualstheir wishes, hopes and fears about their position in society (107). Or, as iek

himself puts it in The Sublime Object of Ideology, The fundamental level of ideologyis not of

an illusion masking the real state of things but that of an (unconscious) fantasy structuring our

social reality itself (33). In nuce, iek relocates the terrain of ideology from error and

empirical reality to fantasy and social reality.

PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 5

The spectral fantasies that structure social reality emerge, not from misrecognition of the

true nature of reality, but from the gap in reality itself, what iek names, following Lacan, the

Real. What ideology conceals is not reality but its primordially repressed, the irrepresentable

X on whose repression reality itself is founded (iek, The Spectre of Ideology 74). The

sociological name for this X that marks the spot that renders reality non-whole is the Real

antagonism of class struggle. There is no class struggle in reality, iek admits, class

struggle designates the very antagonism that prevents the objective (social) reality from

constituting itself as a self-enclosed whole (The Spectre of Ideology 74). Although its

awkward to claim a legacy for a living person, iek will be remembered, in part, for helping to

put an end to the end of ideology; by reintroducing the antagonism of class struggle via Lacans

concept of the Real, iek placed ideology back on the map after its abandonment by

postmodernist philosophy.4

In End Times, ieks conception of ideology does not so much evolve as it does expand

(as a work of cartography it fills in blanks instead of redrawing the map). The experience of

reading about ideology in this book once more recalls reading Jameson, whose theoretical prose

published last year is difficult to distinguish from that penned in the seventies due to the

profound formal unity of his books (Wegner 243). End Times affirms that ideology at its

purest, most elementary zero-levelwhether it appears as an idea or is materialized in an object,

institution, or the practice of everyday lifemystifies, not reality itself, but the very

antagonism of class struggle. The ideological obfuscation of the Real (as opposed to reality) can

take many forms, but three stand out from this latest edition of ieks communist propaganda

series.
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 6

First, End Times focuses on the appearance of ideology in the guise of its very opposite:

non-ideology. This guise itself can take many guises:

a. Humanization: the recourse to the intimate reality of personal trauma to obliterate the

ethico-political background and socio-historical conditions of a situation. iek cites two

recent Israeli films on the 1982 Lebanon War, Waltz with Bashir and Lebanon, as examples

of how humanization depoliticizes social reality, but one could argue that just about any war

film psychologizes or moralizes an objective social predicament, there being no such thing

as an anti-war war film as Francois Truffaut supposedly said (End Times 57-58).

b. Traditionalism: asserting the (nameless) authority of some substantial Tradition as the

guarantee of a harmonious social order (11-12). In End Times, iek calls Confucius a

proto-ideologist because his teachings appeal to a premodern, organic social Whole, a

world before the fall, if you will. This method of erasing the class divide remains a

conservative standby. Just look at the rationale behind the 2011 attacks against Wisconsin

public workers: in these cash-strapped times all of us must sacrifice. From united we stand,

to united we sacrifice. (9-25)

c. Value-free science: the name for neutral knowledge which opposes itself to common

ideology, the spontaneous experience of everyday life (42). Although our immersion in

reality is ideological, approaching society the same way as a natural scientist approaches

natureamounts to ideology proper (42). There is no neutral in class struggle. Those who

speak of and for the Economy most often speak on behalf of the wealthy, for example.

d. Panaestheticism: the postmodern belief that all ideologies are equal, equally ridiculous,

they are useful only to provide spicy aesthetic excitement, so the more problematic they are,
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 7

the more excitement they generate (252). iek cites the example of the ideological

indifference of the new Russian capitalist elite who awarded the Kandinsky Prize to ultra-

right nationalist artist Alexey Belyaev-Guintovt. Their indifference towards ideology,

iek writes, is the very form of their complicity with the ruling ideology (253).

Each of these instances of ideology-appearing-as-non-ideology papers over the social

antagonism of class struggle. Each represents a disavowal of ideology from a different direction:

humanization retreats inward, scientism outward; traditionalism flees to the past, pan-

aestheticism to the future (to the end of History) (see Figure 1).

Scientism

"Class Struggle" Pan-

Traditionalism
as Real aestheticism

Humanization

Figure 1: Four Directions of Ideological Disavowal

In addition to the particular disavowal of ideology as non-ideology, End Times returns to

a second form of ideological disavowal diagnosed by iek, the most elementary formula for
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 8

how ideology functions today: cynicism. Capitalism works, in part, because our cynical

denunciations of it are counteracted by the irrational beliefs inherent to our everyday actions, i.e.,

I know very well, but I nonetheless believe and act accordingly. iek argues, in contrast to

the period when religious-ideological sentimentality covered up the brutal economic reality,

today, it is ideological cynicism which obscures the religious core of capitalist beliefs (130). In

End Times, iek demonstrates the operation of ideological cynicism in a nifty reading of the

popular animated film Kung Fu Panda.

Finally, ieks most recent effort rehearses the claim that ideology can be found in cases

where the Real social antagonism of class struggle is displaced onto an external intruder. In the

books second interlude, iek repeats his claim that anti-Semitism is not just one among

ideologies; it is the ideology as such, katexochen. It embodies the zero-level (or the pure form)

of ideology, providing its elementary coordinates: social antagonism (class struggle) is

mystified/displaced so that its cause is projected onto the external intruder (136). The

displacement model of ideology is the modus operandi of the news outlet preferred by

Republicans across the United States. Whether its Islamo-fascists, illegal immigrants, the United

Nations, or unionized public employees, Fox News paints the enemy as a threat to the structural

integrity of the United States and its viewers in the real America (Stephen Colbert addresses

his viewing audience as Nation to satirize this conservative strategy of externalizing the

enemy, the very same strategy used by Bush during the Iraq War: Either you are with us, or you

are with the terrorists).

In End Times iek remains loyal to his previous theorizations of how ideology functions

to both displace and disavow the Real social antagonism of class struggle, but the ground he

covers is not particularly new or surprising. Yet, a glance back to 2009s First as Tragedy, Then
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 9

as Farce uncovers a different story, what may prove to be ieks most innovative intervention

into the question of ideology to date. In part one of the book, Its Ideology, Stupid!, we find a

iek closer to the structuralism of The Spectre of Ideology than the dialectical riffing of End

Times. Perhaps it is befitting to conclude this current exercise in bringing order to ieks

haphazard thoughts on ideology with his latest endeavor to do so himself.

Of particular interest is the brief but provocative section subtitled Between the Two

Fetishisms. Here iek tests the thesis that in these so-called post-ideological times, we are

moving from a symptomal to a fetishistic mode of ideology. Whereas the symptom, according to

iek, operates as the exception which disturbs the surface of the false appearance, the point at

which the repressed Other Scene eruptsthe fetish is the embodiment of the Lie which enables

us to sustain the unbearable truth (First as Tragedy 65). The issue of human rights presents a

good example of the symptomal mode of ideology. The statement We hold these truths to be

self-evident, that all men are created equal contains within it hidden exceptions (women,

people of color, immigrants, etc.) that undermine the supposed universality of this rule, and thus

function as its symptom. Money presents a good example of the fetishistic mode of ideology.

When people exchange money for goods or services, this transaction renders their individual

convictions about the capitalist system moot. In essence, the money we spend believes in

capitalism for us.

To the distinction between the symptomal and fetishistic modes of ideology, iek adds

the opposition between identification and distance, positing that a Greimasian semiotic square

can be formed from the conjunction of these two sets of binaries. The square (which I have

constructed in Figure 2) produces a matrix consisting of four positions (or attitudes towards
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 10

ideology): (1) liberal, (2) cynical fetishist, (3) fundamentalist fetishist, (4) ideologico-critical

(First as Tragedy 69).

Cynical

Fetish Distance

Fundamentalist Ideologico-critical

Identity Symptom

Liberal

Figure 2: The Contemporary Hegemonic Ideological Scene

iek explains the relationship between these four positions as follows:

Both the liberal and the critic-of-ideology move at the symptomal level: the first is caught

up in it, the second undermines it by way of interpretive analysis. Both the populist

fetishist and the cynic cling to their fetish: the first directly, the second in a disavowed

manner. Both the populist fetishist and the liberal directly identify with their position

(clinging to their fetish; taking seriously the arguments for their universal ideological

claims), while both the cynic and the critic-of-ideology distance themselves from their

position (fetishistic disavowal or critical interpretation) (First as Tragedy 69).

This semiotic square proves useful in charting our current ideological constellation (not to

mention that it would make compelling political theatreimagine a No Exit-esque production

with perdition-bound players representing these four positions. Then again, do we not witness
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 11

this drama enacted tiresomely on the world stage?). ieks diagram enlightens us on why, for

example, he rebukes liberals so often. Since liberal ideology operates on the symptomal level,

critiques against it can be effective. In other words, liberals can be convinced of the errors of

their ways by rational argumentation. Upon recognizing the symptom underpinning their

ideology, they can be distanced from it.

On the other hand, rational argumentation falls on deaf ears when directed at those whose

ideology operates on the fetishistic level. If ideology critique has no efficiency with fetishists,

then how exactly can they be reached? Should or can the cynical fetishist be dealt with

differently than the fundamentalist version? Can the cynics and/or fundamentalists behavior be

nudged in non- or counter-ideological directions? If the fundamentalists religion is not

capitalist, can it be harnessed in the struggle against global capital, or is it sufficient to combat

ideology on the symptomal level alone? If capitalism is a fundamentalist religion and capital a

fetish, how can we distance ourselves from it without becoming cynics? What about identifying

with the symptomal point of the official ideology; where does that strategy, so often prescribed

by iek, fit? What would it entail of the critic distanced from ideology to identify with its

symptom? Like most Greimasian squares, ieks raises more questions than it answers. So, too,

unfortunately, does the current analysis.

Works Cited

Butler, Rex. Thought is Grievance: On ieks Parallax. The International Journal of iek

Studies. 4.1 (2010): 1-27. Web. 5 May 2011.

Jameson, Fredric. Valences of the Dialectic. New York: Verso, 2009. Print.
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 12

Pfaller, Robert. Interpassivity and Misdemeanors: The Analysis of Ideology and the iekian

Toolbox. The International Journal of iek Studies. 1.1 (2001): 33-50. Web. 5 May

2011.

---. Where is Your Hamster? The Concept of Ideology in ieks Theory. Traversing the

Fantasy: Critical Responses to Slavoj iek. eds. Geoff Boucher, Jason Glynos, and

Matthew Sharpe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005. Print.

Wegner, Phillip E. Periodizing Jameson, or, Notes toward a Cultural Logic of Globalization. On

Jameson: From Postmodernism to Globalization. eds. Caren Irr and Ian Buchanan.

Albany: SUNY, 2006. 241-79. Print.

iek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times. New York: Verso, 2010. Print.

---. First as Tragedy, Then as Farce. New York: Verso, 2009. Print.

---. In Defense of Lost Causes. New York: Verso, 2008. Print.

---. Slavoj iek: Interview. OHagan, Sean. guardian.co.uk. The Observer. 27 June, 2010.

Web. 5 May 2011.

---. The Spectre of Ideology. The iek Reader. Eds. Elizabeth Wright and Edmond Wright.

Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Print

---. The Sublime Object of Ideology. New York: Verso, 1989. Print.

---. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. New York: Picador, 2008. Print

1
In an interview for The Observer, Sean OHagan relates a more extreme case of ieks self-deprecation:
PAC Postscript Boyle: Ideology at the End of Times 13

[iek] opens a copy of Living in the End Times, and finds the contents page. I will tell you the truth
now, he says, pointing to the first chapter, then the second. Bullshit. Some more bullshit. Blah, blah,
blah. He flicks furiously through the pages. Chapter 3, where I try to read Marx anew, is maybe OK. I
like this part where I analyse Kafka's last story and here where I use the community of outcasts in the TV
series Heroes as a model for the communist collective. But, this section, the Architectural Parallax, this is
pure bluff. Also the part where I analyse Avatar, the movie, that is also pure bluff. When I wrote it, I had
not even seen the film, but I am a good Hegelian. If you have a good theory, forget about the reality.
2
In End Times, iek reads the French ban against covering ones face in public (which began on April 11, 2011) as
a defense of the particular French way of life masquerading as legislation upholding the universal rights of women
(1). Ultimately, the law is symptomatic of anxieties about the over proximity of the Muslim Neighbor, French or
foreigner.
3
A sampling of introductory texts that attempt to codify ieks dialectic include: Sarah Kays iek: A Critical
Introduction (2003); Tony Meyers Slavoj iek (2003); Ian Parkers Slavoj iek: A Critical Introduction (2004);
and Marcus Pounds iek: A (Very) Critical Introduction (2008). Mention should also be made of The International
Journal of iek Studies edited by Paul A. Taylor and David J. Gunkel (especially issue 4.1 on iek and
Ideology, which was guest edited by the Centre for Ideology Critique and iek Studies at Cardiff University). My
own meager attempt to bring some structure to ieks ideas can also be found in the IJSs archives. See issue 2.1,
The Four Fundamental Concepts of Slavoj ieks Psychoanalytic Marxism (2008).
4
When reality is reduced to a social construction, as it is in the standard (straw man) postmodern position, all
discourses become ideological. When there is no outside of ideology, the concept loses its efficacy and is promptly
abandoned. On the contrary, iek argues that although ideology is already at work in everything we experience as
reality, we must none the less maintain the tension that keeps the critique of ideology alive (The Spectre of
Ideology 70).