Fascism and Stalinism

One of the key claims of Žižek’s political theory is that every ideology relies on an unassimilable kernel of enjoyment. ¹ As we saw in the previous chapter, this means subjects are attached to an ideological formation not simply because of a set of identifiable reasons or causes, but because of something extra. Ideological formations rely on an extra, nonrational nugget that goes beyond what we know to produce our sense of who we are and what the world is for us. This nugget of enjoyment can be what we desire but can never achieve, as in, say, national unity. It can also be what we want to eliminate, but never can, as in, for example, political corruption. Again, the idea of enjoyment as a political factor is that some contingent element of reality takes on a special, excessive role and so attaches us to a socio-political formation. In Žižek’s words, this element “becomes elevated to the dignity of a Thing.” ² It becomes a fantastic stand-in for enjoyment.