The Fetishist Split: The Material Force of Ideology

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In psychoanalysis, this attitude is called a fetishist split. The old traditional functioning of ideology was more symptomatic. You know, symptom, like return of the repressed. And I think such a split is a clear indication of the material force of ideology which makes us refuse what we see and know. We all know about the impending catastrophe, ecological, social, and so on. But we somehow cannot take it seriously.

Radical philosopher, polymath, film star, cult icon, and author of over 30 books, Slavoj Žižek is one of the most controversial and leading contemporary public intellectuals, simultaneously acclaimed as the ‘Elvis of cultural theory’ and denounced as ‘the most dangerous philosopher in the West’. In this special lecture for Intelligence Squared from July 2011, Žižek argues that global capitalism is fast approaching its terminal crisis and that our collective responses to economic Armageddon correspond to the five stages of grief – ideological denial, explosions of anger, attempts at bargaining, followed by depression and finally acceptance of change. Referencing everything from Kafka, the "Hollywood Marxism" of Avatar, the Arab Spring and WikiLeaks, he presents a roadmap for finding a way beyond the madness.

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