In Žižek’s Lacanian terms, the emergence of pure subjectivity coincides with an ‘experience of radical self-degradation’ whereby I, the subject, am emptied ‘of all substantial content, of all symbolic support which could confer a modicum of dignity on me’. The reason why such a (humiliating and potentially perverse) position of self-degradation is to be assumed, Žižek argues, is that within a disciplinary relationship (between ‘master and servant’), self-beating is, in its deepest configuration, nothing but the staging of the other’s secret fantasy; as such, this staging allows for the suspension of the disciplinary efficacy of the relationship by bringing to light the obscene supplement which secretly cements it. Žižek’s central point is that the obscene supplement ultimately cements the position of the servant: what self-beating uncovers is ‘the servant’s masochistic libidinal attachment to his master’, so as ‘the true goal of this beating is to beat out that in me which attaches me to the master’ (Revolution at the Gates, 252)
Why is masochism the first necessary step towards liberation?
When a subject stages a masochistic scenario and says ‘I am a priori guilty, and therefore I want to be punished!’, it is the
law that, in effect, reveals its impotence and frustration, since its universalistic foundations are exposed as merely functional to the superego command (‘Enjoy!’).
If a subject does not need the law to punish him, for he can do it himself outside the remit of the law, the latter inevitably loses its coercive character and exhibits its fundamental lack of purpose, its being anchored in jouissance. The masochist, therefore, teases out and identifies with the libidinal (fundafundamentally irrational and self-destructive) kernel of the law itself. 119