The Parallax View is Slavoj Zizek´s most substantial theoretical work to appear in many years; Zizek himself describes it as his magnum opus. Parallax can be defined as the apparent displacement of an object, caused by a change in observational position. Zizek is interested in the "parallax gap" separating two points between which no synthesis or mediation is possible, linked by an "impossible short circuit" of levels that can never meet. From this consideration of parallax, Zizek begins a rehabilitation of dialectical materialism. Modes of parallax can be seen in different domains of today´s theory, from the wave-particle duality in quantum physics to the parallax of the unconscious in Freudian psychoanalysis between interpretations of the formation of the unconscious and theories of drives. In The Parallax View, Zizek, with his usual astonishing erudition, focuses on three main modes of parallax: the ontological difference, the ultimate parallax that conditions our very access to reality; the scientific parallax, the irreducible gap between the phenomenal experience of reality and its scientific explanation, which reaches its apogee in today´s brain sciences (according to which "nobody is home" in the skull, just stacks of brain meat--a condition Zizek calls "the unbearable lightness of being no one"); and the political parallax, the social antagonism that allows for no common ground. Between his discussions of these three modes, Zizek offers interludes that deal with more specific topics--including an ethical act in a novel by Henry James and anti-anti-Semitism.
The Parallax View not only expands Zizek´s Lacanian-Hegelian approach to new domains (notably cognitive brain sciences) but also provides the systematic exposition of the conceptual framework that underlies his entire work. Philosophical and theological analysis, detailed readings of literature, cinema, and music coexist with lively anecdotes and obscene jokes.
Introduction: Dialectical Materialism at the Gates I The Stellar Parallax: The Traps of Ontological Difference 1 The Subject, This "Inwardly Circumcised Jew" The Tickling Object. The Kantian Parallax. The Birth of (Hegelian) Concrete Universality out of the Spirit of (Kantian) Antinomies. The Master-Signifier and Its Vicissitudes. Soave sia il vento... The Parallax of the Critique of Political Economy. 2 Building Blocks for a Materialist Theology A Boy Meets the Lady. Kierkegaard as a Hegelian. Die Versagung. The Traps of Pure Sacrifice. The Difficulty of Being a Kantian. The Comedy of Incarnation. Odradek as a Political Category. Too Much Life! Interlude I: Kate´s Choice, or, The Materialism of Henry James II The Solar Parallax: The Unbearable Lightness of Being No One 3 The Unbearable Heaviness of Being Divine Shit Burned by the Sun. Pick Up Your Cave! Copernicus, Darwin, Freud and Many Others. Toward a New Science of Appearances. Resistances to Disenchantment. When the God Comes Around. The Desublimated Object of Post-Ideology. Danger? What Danger? 4 The Loop of Freedom "Positing the Presuppositions". A Cognitivist Hegel? The False Opacity. Emotions Lie, or, Where Damasio is Wrong. Hegel, Marx, Denett. From Physics to Design? The Unconscious Act of Freedom. The Language of Seduction, the Seduction of Language. Interlude 2: Objet Petit A in Social Links, or, The Impasses of Anti-Anti-Semitism III The Lunar Parallax: Toward a Politics of Subtraction 5 From Surplus-Value to Surplus-Power Ontic Errance, Ontological Truth. Gelassenheit? No Thanks! Toward the Theory of the Stalinist Musical. The Biopolitical Parallax. The Historicity of the Four Discourses. Jouissance as a Political Category. Do We Still Live in a World? 6 The Obscene Knot of Ideology, and How to Untie It The Academic Rumspringa, or, the Parallax of Power and Resistance. Human Rights versus the Rights of the Inhuman. Violence Enframed. The Ignorance of the Chicken. Who´s Afraid of the Big Bad Fundamentalism? Over the Rainbow Coalition!...