{"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":86,"pdf_page":96,"physical_index":96,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"6be0d86433cc7af69b895abb61778ef26e7f94b260824618290fdc3ef2defcc9"},"chapter":"Comunicative Capitalism & Left Politics","content":"There is a way, however, that this reading of the protestors and Bush in terms of the discourses of the hysteric and the pervert is too rigid. Their positions are too fixed and thus unable to acc0unt for an overlap in their claims regarding democracy's absence. Upon closer analysis, the fact that the two positions share a lack means that they each pass into the other.22 With respeCt to the examples of the protestors and Bush, what we have is the passing of questioning into decision, of inclusivity into division, and back again.\n\nZizek's discussion of Hegel helps clarify this sharing of a lack. Zizek emphasizes that \"antithesis\" is \"what the 'thesis' lacks in order to 'concrea tize' itsel£:'23 He writes, \"The 'thesis' is itself abstract: it presupposes its 'mediation' by the 'antithesis'; it can attain its ontological consistency only by means of its opposition to the 'antithesis; '!.24 The protestors lack the power to execute their demands. Their discourse only achieves consistency, then, as a demand for power, for what they lack. They slide into their opposite as they position themselves as vehi\\_des for the realization of a democracy to come, as they make their activities the practices constitutive of democracy, decisively excluding torturers, warmongers, and rightwing Christians from the democratic imaginary they thereby produce. These exclusions need to be emphasized, brought to the fore as exclusions, as the very limits establishing the ·protestors' political ideal. To avow such exclusion, however, would shoot the fantasy of an inclusive, undivided democracy in the foot. And as its own kind of political violence, such a decisive exclusion would force the protestors to abandon their stance as beautiful souls. Nonetheless, as hysterics, they refuse to acknowledge this element of their discourse, preferring instead to continue questioning the master.\n\nWhat about Bush? If he is simply the perverse instrument or executor of a larger law beyond himsel£ or of a greater wil, how does his discourse achieve consistency? Via the insertion of questioning, via a hystericization -but not toward the protestors. Its relation to the protestors is not complementary as in two sides of a synthetic whole. This lack of complementarity is clear when we recall that in neither the discourse of the hysteric nor that of the pervert are claims made to some sort of equal. These discourses are not structured in terms of the exchange of reasons. Rather the Bush discourse is hystericized in relation to a diferent position, .from its point of symbolic identification, the point from which it sees itself.25 And this point is clearly that of its opponent, \"Islamic fundamentalism\" or terrorism, which the discourse itself elides. In effect, underlying Bush's position is a challenge to his opponent that both neurotically asks 'he we who you say we are?\" and perversely proclaims \"We are not soulless, weak, materialist, consumerist, decadent, capitalist, imperialists:' There is more to us than reality television, McDonald's, and net porn. The U.S., too, is resolute, stron� willing to fight to death, able to stay the course in a lon� struggle with no end in sight. We are righteous. And 1, as President, am the unwavering instrument of the higher law.\n\n86\n\nTHREE","previous_page":null,"next_page":87}