ABSTRACT
This chapter looks the historical examples Žižek proffers of his theory of ideology and social reproduction. In Rubens' diagnosis: Paradoxically, it is Žižek's expansive understanding of ideology which renders his work attractive, and yet creates limitations which are revealed in the empirical application. The chapter exposes Žižek's account of what he calls the pre-modern, 'traditional' or 'authoritarian' form of ideological hegemony. The chapter elucidates in the context of analysis, further dimensions of Žižek's Lacanian understanding of subjectivity — and particularly its genesis in the operation of primordial repression — vital for his singular theorisation of the modern ideological forms. It looks Žižek's theorisation of the 'totalitarian' modality of ideological interpellation. The chapter examines Žižek's account of liberal-capitalist systems of social reproduction and contends Žižek thinks that in both the consumerist-capitalist political system and its totalitarian other, what is salient is that the 'normal' relation between the symbolic and the Real of jouissance has been importantly modified.
