The Sublime Object of Ideology

Introduction

Žižek’s first book in English, published by Verso in 1989 in a series edited by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, with a preface by Laclau. It combines Lacan’s psychoanalysis with Hegel’s dialectic to rethink the theory of ideology, beginning with a comparison between Marx’s analysis of the commodity and Freud’s analysis of dreams. Taking up Sloterdijk’s formula of modern cynicism – people know very well what they are doing, yet they do it anyway – Žižek argues that ideology operates not in what people believe but in what they do, in the fantasy that structures their practice. Jokes, films and examples from Eastern Europe on the eve of 1989 alternate with close readings of Hegel. The book made Žižek known internationally.

Connections

Builds on

• Science of Logic1812 · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• Écrits1966 · Jacques Lacan

Responds to

• Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses1970 · Louis Althusser

Taken up in

• The Parallax View2006 · Slavoj Žižek

Criticized in

• Bodies That Matter1993 · Judith Butler

More works by Slavoj Žižek

• 2006The Parallax View
• 2012Less Than Nothing