acephalous: without a head, lacking a governing head or chief
Žižek proposes as the properly political subject an “acephalous subject” who assumes the position of the object” [Organs Bodies 176 cited in Rothenberg 175]
In this move from desire to drive, he fundamentally alters the picture of a political subject as one who calculates an intervention to bring about the future it desires. 175
The “acephalous subject” does not function in this intentionalized mode of traditional political discourse: “the subject who acts is no longer a person but, precisely, an object.” That is, in his view, we must give up, once and for all, our sense of the political — the political act, the political domain, and the political collectivity — as based on promise or calculation. 175