ABSTRACT
S. Žižek believes that the genius of G. Deleuze resides in his 'transcendental empiricism', where the impersonal machinic flow of pure becoming teems infinitely more richly than the dullness of perceived being. He points to a crack in the edifice of the simple opposition between molar and molecular, between being and becoming, the Symbolic and the Real. In the absence of landmarks, the Law, Oedipus, the Symbolic register and civilisation itself, there is nothing for it but to collapse backwards into imaginary rivalry and the escalating violence of the war machines. René Girard advocates 'apocalyptic reasoning', which takes account of the divine, by taking account of the radical absence of the divine, and the danger of a return to the mimetic war machines. As Girard says, 'the judicial system and the institution of sacrifice share the same function, but the judicial system has been infinitely more effective in creating civilisation'.
