Who Needs Yalom When We Have Žižek?
WILLIAM J. URBAN
Conclusion
Many commentators and reviewers of Žižek’s work have noted that the exemplification of Žižek’s theoretical framework seems wanting, lacking in some way.19 However, a defense against this view can be given utilizing Žižek’s conceptual edifice itself. In Hegelian terms, the very ‘failure’ of application is, in a way, a ‘success’ in demonstrating the self-relating negativity of the notion. As Žižek notes,
‘...in a Hegelian context, the way to overcome an idea is to exemplify it, but an example never simply exemplifies a notion; it usually tells you what is wrong with this notion. This is what Hegel does again and again in Phenomenology of Spirit. He takes a certain existential stance like aestheticism or stoicism. Then how does he criticize it? By simply stating it as a certain life practice, by showing how the very staging actualization of this attitude produces something more which undermines it. In this way, the example always minimally undermines what it is an example of.’ (Conversations, 44)
This is precisely why Žižek’s writing is self-described as ‘an obsessional ritual.’ The ultimate secret to his phenomenal publication pace since The Sublime Object of Ideology is that he ‘simply can’t stop’ and that he feels at the completion of a book: ‘I didn’t really succeed in telling what I wanted to tell, that I need a new project – it’s an absolute nightmare.’ (Conversations, 42)
This paper hopefully conveys this rationale as a legitimate response to Žižek’s critics. It is obvious that much of the recent criticism perhaps focuses more on the results of the application of his theoretical framework rather than on the logic that underlines it.20 So the first response to these critics would be that without a solid grounding in Žižek’s basic theoretical matrix, Žižekian-type results such as ‘The psychotherapeutic group is the therapist’ would surely sound nonsensical and would invite attack. But a more Žižekian response would be to state that a ‘theory’ is in some sense only graspable with its ‘application.’ Thus, our psychotherapeutic group example should be treated as an instantiation of Žižek’s formal, structural logic; it is not just an illustration of this logic, but rather the logic itself, its proper articulation.
The effort at working through a difficult philosopher is not always seen worth it to some. Even Levi-Strauss and Merleau-Ponty both initially concluded they ‘didn’t have the time’ to understand Lacan’s writings. (Roudinesco, 211) Be that as it may, it is hoped that this paper has shown that Žižek has developed a remarkably rich, powerful and logically consistent theoretical system which, once understood, proves itself to be wonderfully flexible, insightful and ultimately rewarding when put to work in the interpretation of social, political and historical phenomena.
Lacanian-themed puzzles
