The Sublime Object of Ideology

In this provocative and original work Slavoj iek takes a look at the question of human agency in a postmodern world. From the sinking of the Titanic to Hitchcocks Rear Window from the operas of Wagner to science fiction from Alien to the Jewish Joke the authors acute analyses explore the ideological fantasies of wholeness and exclusion which make up human society. iek takes issue with analysts of the postmodern condition from Habermas to Sloterdijk showing that the idea of a post-ideological world ignores the fact that even if we do not take things seriously we are still doing them. Rejecting postmodernisms unified world of surfaces he traces a line of thought from Hegel to Althusser and Lacan in which the human subject is split divided by a deep antagonism which determines social reality and through which ideology operates. Linking key psychoanalytical and philosophical concepts to social phenomena such as totalitarianism and racism the book explores the political significance of these fantasies of control. In so doing The Sublime Object of Ideology represents a powerful contribution to a psychoanalytical theory of ideology as well as offering persuasive interpretations of a number of contemporary cultural formations.