Reading Thoughts on Zizek's The Sublime Object of Ideology

This is a document of an interesting mental activity I had while reading Zizek’s Sublime Object of Ideology. In the first chapter, “How Did Marx Invent the Symptom,” one of Zizek’s central theses is that ideology is objective: pervasive, unavoidable, and often hidden. For a well-read Marxist, this might seem obvious; to them, ideology obviously exists as something external, as demonstrated by commodity fetishism with money: before we come to recognize anything else metaphysical or abstract, like virtues and norms, we unconsciously already recognize money in capitalist society as something “all-powerful.” So, we are already indoctrinated in a set of beliefs before we even know it—and we all do it (even Marxists and anarchists have to pay their bills).

This belief could be extended: do we not already believe in an unconscious law before we examine jurisprudence? Do we not already understand subordination before we know power relationships? Do we not defend freedom before we truly know what being free means?

Such beliefs must be enforced on us not by nature, but through discipline and the Other (TV, role models, propaganda, etc.). This also implies that we can escape it through the recognition of its existence and the rejection of its influence. By seeing how commodity fetishism veils social relationships, we can escape ideology. By understanding how the state machines function, we can defeat ideology. By boldly envisioning a new world, we can defeat ideology. In sum, through cynicism coupled with a belief in a new faith, we can arrive at true objectivity—the new world.

This view is what Zizek is arguing against: he sees (and I agree with him) ideology as something we envision it to simply be—it is a pervasive establishment, something within our nature, a social reality. Here is where we would talk about Lacan, but let’s skip Lacan and get to the point. First, we must recognize that the world is a traumatic place: it is filled with antagonisms that haunt us. One example I often relate to is the dread of skepticism: How can I be certain that my thoughts or claims are grounded? How can I trust that reality aligns with my perception? Are my discussions of ideology truly reflective of reality, or are they merely intellectual games? These questions reflect a deeper, underlying trauma—contradictions between my desires, the desires of the Other, and the antagonisms of the Real. It is this irreconcilable tension that generates the "trauma" that ideology seeks to mediate.

However, I am not a crazed madman doubting everything, nor am I that annoying skeptical nerd in class who questions every answer with “Are you sure you’re right?” What is it that keeps me away from this?

The answer is fantasy: a fantasy that reconciles the antagonisms. Think of how a nerd, who believes himself to be lacking what he thinks of as manhood, constantly invests himself in the “manosphere” and Andrew Tate. Ideology is precisely like Andrew Tate is to that nerd: it is the fantasy in which we believe to reconcile the traumatic. For this very reason, ideology is a social reality: everyone needs it, so everyone participates in it, knowingly or unknowingly. Isn’t Elon Musk’s ideological transformation a perfect example of this? He doesn’t want to face his failures as a father, so he invents this fantasy of a “woke mind-virus” and a bunch of “woke dictators” to be brought down. Only he is quite frank with his ideology, and the rest of us are not (perhaps replace Elon Musk with a repressed Chinese father who secretly does not approve of his son’s sexuality while claiming to be neutral in front of his son). Of course, the content of ideology is “provided” by this capitalist society.

Now let’s finally return to my question: why the psychological—why this essence, why does the reason for ideology’s objectivity exist within us? Why can’t ideology’s objectivity be simply a result of the fact that everyone does it, so I have to do it too, whether I like it or not?

The reason we look for the bare-bones essence (the psychological explanation) and not the establishment (a system that everyone is established to follow, a set of rules that govern it) is because, in doing so, we assume that there is this thing that establishes and perpetuates this establishment, and this is a bad thing.

Let’s first examine the latter premise: someone who perpetuates this establishment. Obviously, the naive answer would be that someone is actively perpetuating it for no reason other than self-interest. But this creates a paradox: how could someone in the absolute establishment stay outside the establishment at the same time? How could someone whose reality is based on this establishment stay out of it? It’s akin to being able to see “out” of the borders of the universe (if there is such a border).

Then it must mean there is something more passive at hand, perhaps more Hegelian. Maybe people decided to do what is in accordance with the establishment and, unconsciously, perpetuate it. Just like how if one person introduces a norm to a group, eventually, everyone in the group perpetuates that norm just for the sake of perpetuating it (the classical saying “It’s a tradition” while offering no explanation for why).

This leads to interesting questions: (1) Does this absolve guilt from the capitalists? and (2) How did the establishment choose who is in power and who is not?

Now let’s move to the second premise: what brought this establishment into place? There are two possible answers: pluralism (many people making decisions somewhat related or unrelated that contribute to an end) and a single designer (one subject who consciously designed it). The idea of a single designer is straight-up nonsense: it assumes a subject who is not affected by the establishment, the traumatic real, or the fantasy itself, which removes its objectivity completely (it also cannot have the Symbolic as a source of subjectivity because the Symbolic comes from this subject’s creation of the establishment), meaning this subject is not a subject at all. It shouldn’t exist.

So, it must be the first. Then the question to ask about the first is: What caused people to make the decisions they did? The answer: the psychological. This is why the explanation has to be psychological, and the connection must be to Lacan.