In Excitable Speech, Butler argues that conflict over an utterance enables subversive resignification. Law, though, neither provides an opportunity for such resignification nor can itself be subversively resignified. N\_onetheless, Butler looks optimistically to new meanings that ofer '�an unanticipated political future for deconstructive thinking" (ES, 161). She juxtaposes the willingness to remain open to the futures opened up by the "insurrectionary efects" of the reappropriation of terms like freedom and justice to a dogmatism that opposes the destabilization of reality (ES, 162) .
In contrast, Zizek notes the sufocating closure efected by the decline of symbolic norms. The undecideability of basic questions, the ready availability of multiple, conflicting interpretations, turns decisions into risky gambles. The decline of symbolic eficiency thus results in a combination of impotent interpretations and raw violence. For example, Zizek points to the rise of "ethical committees" that issue instructions and recommendations, noting that these suggestions are unable to orient the subject in a world. Instead, the subject clings to imaginary spectacles and simulacra, while both striving for and being impacted by experiences in the Real.7 Unprotected by symbolic norms, the subject feels threatened by al sorts of imaginary figures, at the mercy of the superego injunction to enjoy even as these figures threaten its enjoyment-Why does everyone else seem to be having more fun, wilder sex, cooler vacations, fitter bodies, and better jobs than I? In sum, the decline of symbolic eficiency introduces new opportunities for guilt and anxiety as well as new attachments to domination as subjects seek relief from the endless injunctions to enjoyand do so properly.
ETHICS
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