{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8","title":"Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8","id":"e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8","uuid":"e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8","title":"Democracy and Other Neoliberal Fantasies Communicative Capitalism and Left Politics","normalized_title":"democracyandotherneoliberalfantasiescommunicativecapitalismandleftpolitics","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":229,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Democracy%20and%20Other%20Neoliberal%20Fantasies%20Communicative%20Capitalism%20and%20Left%20Politics","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/e38ef66b-e3ac-494b-b5ea-9cc05b2975d8/search"},"page":{"printed_page":64,"pdf_page":74,"physical_index":74,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"5cb72f34f7d4838c24d39f97830c45ba761cb4bd9aeb7994b83265d8c6bad9ce"},"chapter":"Comunicative Capitalism & Left Politics","content":"Zizek' s notion of a decline in symbolic eficiency continues the theorization of this idea of a symbolic space permeated by enjoyment. He highlights our perpetual uncertainty, our sense that we never really know whether what we say registers with the other as what we mean as well as our sense that we are never quite sure what \"everybody knows:' There is no ultimate guarantor of meaning, no recognized authority that stops our questioning or assuages our doubts. For example, if we receive distressing medical news, we can-and are encouraged to-seek a second, third, and fourth opinion. Many of us wil search for information on the Internet and explore alternative remedies. But we rarely find firm, reassuring answers, answers in which we are completely confident. There are myriad experts al ofering their own specific advice-how can we choose among them? To take another example, how can we know the truth about global warming? Some scientists, politicians, and journalists have caled it a hoax and a conspiracy to undermine capitalism.41 Other scientists, politicians, and journalists tell us that the first group constitutes . !1 minorityj there is clear evidence for global warming and a scientifc consensus that humans are causing it. Then we might worry aren't minorities sometimes· right? Hasn't mainstream scientifc opinion been dead wrong in the past? In the face of fundamental disagreement, how can one determine whom to believe-· especially if we are already skeptical about the media, which some remind us is o ed by corporations even as others emphasize its pervasive left bias? I return to these problems of credibilty and certainty in chapter 6. For now, I simply want to tag this fundamental uncertainty, this fact that we cannot count on something like reality; as the decline of symbolic eficiency.\n\nThe change in the status of reality, of the symbolic order of language and meaning, has been noted by others besides Zizek -most directl}Jj by the adminstration of George W Bush. In an oft-cited article from the New York Times Magazine, Ron Suskind relates a discussion he had with a 'White House aide. The aide dismissed journalists as being part of the \"reality-based community:' He continued, \"That's not the way the world really works anymore . . . . We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you are studying that reality-judiciously, as you wil--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study, too:'42\n\n64\n\nTWO","previous_page":63,"next_page":null}