Fantasy Plague: A Zizek Reader

Author: Slavoj ?i?ek (Slovenia), translated by Hu Yutan and Ye Xiao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-04-01
Features: In this book, ?i?ek proposes that the current era is suffering from an epidemic of fantasy. The increasing abstraction of our lives—from digitization to market relations—and the proliferation of pseudo-specific images around us are creating an ever-increasing conflict. Traditional criticism tends to establish a connection between abstract concepts and concrete social reality, whereas ?i?ek argues that today, the correct procedure is to derive abstract concepts from pseudo-specific images. He provides examples from all walks of life, ranging from the different designs of restrooms in various countries to online sex, from the Bosnian War to the music of Robert Schumann, exploring the relationship between fantasy and ideology, ideology's means of both producing pleasure and ensuring it does not become excessive, the connection between the concept of the commodity and the allure of fantasy, as well as the impact of digitization and cyberspace on the subject's position. In these discussions, ?i?ek fully demonstrates his mastery, erudition, humor, and incisive insights. From the perspective of Lacan, the book systematically analyzes the hypothesis of the "epidemic of fantasy."
Chapter 1 ("The Seven Veils of Fantasy") discusses the contours of the concept of fantasy in psychoanalysis and specifically considers the dependence of certain fantasies on ideology.
Chapter 2 ("Love Your Neighbor? No, Thanks!") explores the ambiguous relationship between fantasy and pleasure: fantasy drives and constructs pleasure while simultaneously acting as a shield to prevent it from becoming excessive.
Chapter 3 ("The Commodity and Its Decline") focuses on the impasse of the commodity concept as an example of the allure of fantasy (from its religious origins to its postmodern transformation).
The final chapter ("Cyberspace, or the Unbearable Imprisonment of Being") directly addresses the topic of cyberspace as a new version of the "epidemic of fantasy" and attempts to examine how continuous digitization will affect the position of the subject.
After the four chapters, three appendices are added, analyzing three examples of the unrepresentability of the reality underlying the "epidemic of fantasy": the failure to depict sexual acts in films (From the Sublime to the Absurd: Sexual Scenes in Cinema); the gradual disappearance of melodic lines as a manifestation of the subject (Robert Schumann: The Romantic Antihumanist); and the rejection of moral laws in modern (Kantian) ethics (The Law of the Unconscious: On a Beyond-Good Ethic).