Zizek explains that, unlike in desire, where the object emerges at the moment of its loss, in drive loss itself is an object.6 September 11 names such a loss. The very term designates not just a day but a trauma. September u has become a meme for loss, repeated endlessly in oficial accounts and reiterated in unoficial ones. In al these accounts, moreover, 9 In marks the loss resulting from excessive, impersonal, obscene power, power with litde regard for life, power permeated with the jouissance of its conviction. Explanations for what happened on September u, oficial and unoficial alike, circle around this knot of obscenity and loss, albeit in diferent circuits. Zizek further links drive to constituent anxiety, to pure confrontation with the void (objet petit a). 7 Theories of the events of 9 I n rely on and reinforce this constituent anxiety as they confront the specifc horror . of the disintegration of the social link, the destruction of the symbolic pact promising security and holding society together.
In much of the production of the 9 I 11 truth mpvement, this confrontation with a hole in the symbolic order is accompanied by jouissancerepetition, intensity, afect. The jouissance connecting each fact to another produces certainty as an efect-it feels true (we can feel it in our gut). Indeed, jouissance arises through connectivity, through the specificity and· systematicity of the facts circling the hole of loss. Connections are excessive, nearly impossibly interlinked. Every specific fact-exact times and temperat�res, flight schedules and passenger manifests, miltary exercises and oficial communiques-is linked. Everything is meaningful by virtue of pointing to something else. Enjoyment is produced by the very drive to link, connect, and document, by the intensity of detail and specificity. Because the most central component of the explanation remains unknown -who did it?-the evidence accumulates in extreme and specific detail, establishing connections without ever reaching its goal.
The 9 I 11 truth movement combines its intense certainty with an overwhelming skepticism. Explanations are doubted: why does the administration's story change over several years? Why are there diferences in the oficial times of the planes crashing and the towers folowing? Why is a close associate of Condoleezza Rice, Philip Zelikow, appointed to head the commission investigating 9 I 11? A volatile mix of certainty and skepticism occupies the place of the lack of belief in the oficial story.
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