ABSTRACT
This chapter diagnoses contemporary manifestations of democracy as decaffeinated, that is, as Žižek would say, democracy deprived of its disturbing substance. It analyses decaffeinated democracy’s symptoms and excavates desires that are not as laudable as the patient (who often behaves like Hegel’s beautiful soul) assumes they are: in particular it finds a perverse core at its heart that can slide to the pathological, or, as I call it, democratic fundamentalism. The chapter suggests the challenge is to confront this perverse core, traverse the fantasy that the Big Other can save us, and assume the task of self-legislation in the real.
