{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","title":"Crowds and Party","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781781686942","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","id":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","uuid":"e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","title":"Crowds and Party","normalized_title":"crowdsandparty","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781781686942","isbns":["9781781686942","9781781686720","9781781687666"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":183,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Crowds%20and%20Party","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/e781d2aa-cf12-457c-961d-b44b33fd41fc/search"},"page":{"printed_page":116,"pdf_page":115,"physical_index":115,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"42d53bf945359110e027d49b070f7bc27bb5d27d8cf6c4528936b5439f98c8be"},"chapter":"CROWDS AND PARTY","content":"One of the upsides of having a global elite is that at least they know what’s going on. We, the deluded masses, may have to wait for decades to find out who the paedophiles in high places are; and which banks are criminal, or bust. But the elite are supposed to know in real time—and on that basis to make accurate predictions.<sup>54</sup>\n\nMason literally presents the global elite as the subject supposed to know. Not only does the elite know the obscene truths of paedophilia and expropriation, but they know them as they happen, “in real time,” while the rest of us remain deluded. In fact, a persistent question following the economic crisis of 2007–08 was why didn’t the elite know. How come no one saw the crisis coming?\n\nLacan writes, “As soon as the subject who is supposed to know exists somewhere … there is transference.”<sup>55</sup> Analysis depends on transference: the analyst has to function for the analysand as the subject supposed to know. The analysand starts talking about her symptoms, doing the work of analysis, because she thinks that the analyst knows the truth, when in actuality it’s her work that produces the truth. Analysis can end as the subject recognizes that the analyst doesn’t know after all.\n\nŽižek introduces the subject supposed to believe as a more fundamental version of the subject supposed to know.<sup>56</sup> He explains:\n\nthere is no immediate, self-present living subjectivity to whom the belief embodied in “social things” can be attributed, and who is then dispossessed of it. There are some beliefs, the most fundamental ones, which are from the very outset “decentered” beliefs of the Other; the phenomenon of the “subject supposed to believe” is thus universal and structurally necessary.<sup>57</sup>\n\nThe subject supposed to believe refers to this unavoidable displacement of belief on to some other. Concrete versions include the maintenance of the fiction of Santa Claus for the sake of children or the positing of some ordinary person who believes in community values. Michels’s description of those detachments of the bourgeoisie who join the proletariat provides another example. Through them, the proletariat believes that their situation is not just unfortunate. It is profoundly unjust.\n\nŽižek emphasizes the asymmetry between the subject supposed to know and the subject supposed to believe. Belief is reflective, a belief that another believes. He writes: “‘I still believe in Communism’ is the equivalent of saying ‘I believe there are still people who believe in Communism.’”<sup>58</sup> Because belief is belief in the belief of the other, one can believe through another. Someone else can believe for us. Knowledge is different. That the other knows does not mean that I know. I can only know for myself. No wonder, then, that a frequent refrain in contemporary capitalist ideology is that each should find out for herself. Capitalism relies on our separation from one another so it does its best to separate and individuate us at every turn.\n\nInstitutions are symbolic arrangements that organize and concentrate the social space. They “fix” an Other, not in the sense of immobilizing it but in the sense of putting in relation the emergent effects of sociality. This “putting in relation” substantializes the link, giving it its force, enabling it to exert its pressure. A party is an organization and concentration of sociality in behalf of a certain politics. For communists this is a politics of and for the working class, the producers, the oppressed, the people as the rest of us. “Party” knots together effects of ideal ego, ego ideal, superego, subject supposed to know, and subject supposed to believe. The particular content of any of these component effects changes over time and place even as the operations they designate remain as features of the party form.\n\n116","previous_page":115,"next_page":117}