GOD IS DEAD BUT HE DOESN’T KNOW IT: LACAB PLAYS WITH BOBOK

This Chapter revolves around the statement ‘If God does not exist then everything is permitted.’ At first this statement suggests that without God the at most Big Other than there will be no rules or morals, therefore one can act in any way of their choosing.

‘today we have, on the contrary, a subject who presents himself as tolerant hedonist dedicated to the pursuit of happiness, and whose unconscious is the site of the prohibitions: what is repressed is not illicit desires or pleasures, but prohibitions themselves’ (p.92)

The Id (as Freud termed) the “law of desires” or prohibitions will take control of a persons act. The superego- the fight of morals will be inactive?

A predicament is made on p.92: ‘If God exists, then everything is permitted’, we are to believe that our acts are predetermined, that God has a plan for all of us, so surely we should act upon our impulese, as these impulses are also part of God’s “plan”.

Even with “everything permitted” we always act with a “hidden” superego. Zizek elborates on how statements are presented with us with an expectation to act upon on Morals. The freedom of live is restrained from us as we act upon morals and the symbolic order through the superego. ‘You know how much your grandmother loves you! But, nonetheless, I do not want to force you to visit her-go there only is you really want to’ (p.92)

Zizek also explores what Lacan termed the ‘Others knowledge’. ‘Commodity fetishism (our belief that commodities are magical objects, endowed with an inherent metaphysical power) is not located in our mind, in the way we (mis)percieve reality, but in our social reality itself’ (p.94). The morals, social constructions and symbolic order are unconscious knowings which we construct our life through God-The Big Other.

Later on in the Chapter experiencing/noticing an Others desire is explored. Zizek suggests that recognising ones desires in a Real real.

‘With regard to woman as an object of disturbance, the more she is covered, the more our (male) attention focuses on her and on what lies beneath the veil’. The less exposed a female is the more of a desire they become. (Voyeurism, Male gaze). The enjoyment happens in the fantasy/desire not the act itself.

Enjoyment surround the “law of desires”?

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iQ-lNZZ6-8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er5LEmDtP_0

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