Dean, Jodi. Žižek’s Politics. New York: Routledge. 2006. Print.
Discourse of the University
S2 —> a S1 $
S2 (knowledge, the string of signifiers) is in the first position, that of the agent or speaker. This tells us that under capitalism, the facts speak. They are not grounded in the Master (S1), although they rely on a hidden or underlying supposition of power, of the authority that they command (S1 is in the position of truth). Because this authority is hidden, the facts claim that they speak for themselves. What do they mean? Well, that is a matter of opinion — and each is entitled to his own opinion. The facts, or the knowledge that speaks in the discourse of the university, are not integrated into a comprehensive symbolic arrangement; instead, they are the ever conflicting guidelines and opinions of myriad experts. Thus they can advise people to eat certain foods, use certain teeth-whiteners, wear certain clothes, and drive certain cars. The experts may evaluate and judge all these commodities, finding some safer or more reliable and others better values for the money. Experts may make economic and financial suggestions, using data to back up their predictions.
S2 addresses a and, hidden underneath a is the subject $. This tells us that knowledge, or the experts, address the subject as an object, an excess, or a kernal of enjoyment. The object addressed by the experts, then, might be the person as a body or set of needs, the person as a collection of quantifiable attributes, or the person as a member of a particular demographic,
but the person is not addressed as what we might typically understand as the reasonable subject of liberal democratic politics.The person is addressed as an object and thus is less a rational chooser than an impulse buyer, a bundle of needs and insecurities, desires and drives, an object that can be propelled and compelled by multiple forces. As a version of university discourse, capitalism does not provide the subject with a symbolic identity. (98)
The formula shows that $ does not identify with S1. The subject is merely the remainder of a process in which knowledge addresses enjoyment.
Recall that Žižek argues that late capitalist societies are marked by (1) an injunction to enjoy and (2) the decline of symbolic efficiency.
Late capitalist subjects are encouraged to find, develop, and express themselves. They are enjoined to have fulfilling sex lives and rewarding careers, to look their very best — no matter what the cost — and to cultivate their spirituality. That these injunctions conflict, that one cannot do them all at once, and that they are accompanied by ever present warnings against potential side effects, reminds us that we are dealing with the SUPEREGO. (99)
The decline of symbolic efficiency (or the collapse of the big Other) refers to the ultimate uncertainty in which late capitalist subjects find themselves.