For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor

by Slavoj Žižek

Psychoanalysis is less merciful than Christianity. Where God the Father forgives our ignorance, psychoanalysis holds out no such hope. Ignorance is not a sufficient ground for forgiveness since it masks enjoyment; an enjoyment which erupts in those black holes in our symbolic universe that escape the Father's prohibition.
Today, with the disintegration of state socialism, we are witnessing this eruption of enjoymnet in the re-emergence of aggressive nationalism and racism. With the lid of repression lifted, the desires that have emerged are far from democratic. To explain this apparent paradox, says Slavoj Zizek, socialist critical thought must turn to psychoanalysis.
For They Know Not What They Do seeks to understand the status of enjoyment within ideological discourse, from Hegel through Lacan to these political and ideological deadlocks. The author's own enjoyment of "popular culture" makes this an engaging and lucid exposition, in which Hegel joins hands with Rossellini, Marx with Hitchcock, Lacan with Frankenstein, high theory with Hollywood melodrama.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Psychoanalysis, Nonfiction, Psychology, Literary Criticism, Theory

524 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Slavoj Žižek is a Slovene sociologist, philosopher, and cultural critic.

He was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia (then part of SFR Yugoslavia). He received a Doctor of Arts in Philosophy from the University of Ljubljana and studied psychoanalysis at the University of Paris VIII with Jacques-Alain Miller and François Regnault. In 1990 he was a candidate with the party Liberal Democracy of Slovenia for Presidency of the Republic of Slovenia (an auxiliary institution, abolished in 1992).

Since 2005, Žižek has been a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts.

Žižek is well known for his use of the works of 20th century French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan in a new reading of popular culture. He writes on many topics including the Iraq War, fundamentalism, capitalism, tolerance, political correctness, globalization, subjectivity, human rights, Lenin, myth, cyberspace, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-marxism, David Lynch, and Alfred Hitchcock.

In an interview with the Spanish newspaper El País he jokingly described himself as an "orthodox Lacanian Stalinist". In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! he described himself as a "Marxist" and a "Communist."

Reviews

[Martin Hare Michno · Rating 5 out of 5]

edit: lol how does formatting work on this app

"Even today, my attitude is: those who do not want to talk about For they know not what they do should remain silent about The Sublime Object." - Žižek

This is the theoretical sequel to the stellar Sublime Object, yet it is hardly read or discussed. Reading other reviews on here, a lot of people seem to be frustrated by this book. The obvious reason for this is the apparent difficulty. Žižek himself describes it as a "book theoretical work, in contrast to the succession of anecdotes and cinema references in The Sublime Object. It is undoubtedly more difficult and theory-reliant than some of his other popular work, and relies on the reader being familiar with some of the philosophy of the signifier. I myself dived into this book with little familiarity of Hegel, yet it it didn't pose any problems, as Žižek reads Hegel through Lacan.

From my perspective, the two books form a duet: Sublime Object is the Lacanian part, whereas For they know not what they do dives deeper into Žižek's Hegelianism. Although both parts inevitably intertwine in both books. In this sense, the former seems incomplete without the latter, and I can only agree with Žižek's quote above: his theory of ideology is simply lacking without For they know not what they do.

This is not only a much more methodical, analytical, and in-depth dissection of Žižek's philosophy, but it also paves the way to a New German Idealism, and marks the a strong beginning to Žižek's project towards a dialectical materialist theory of subjectivity, based on Hegel and Lacan.

I don't know why this book is not talked about more in Žižekian circles, but in my opinion it should become essential reading, or a rite of passage for beginners, for anyone who wants to take Žižek seriously.

[Whittyfh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Is it possible to not understand most of a book but still really enjoy it? I find that is most of my experience with Zizek

[Kobe Bemelmans · Rating 3 out of 5]

Een fijne oscillatie tussen Žižeks filosofie en persoonlijke leven, in interviewvorm. Niet baanbrekend, maar wel een aangenaam kennismakingsboek met de 'gevaarlijkste filosoof van het westen'.

[Bimbo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Following several attempts to get through this book which I have been abandoning after only a couple or a full dozen pages I finally decided to give up for some time. Nomen est omen: I didn't know exactly what I was doing (reading) and didn't enjoy it either.
Although it is not very comforting to accept your own intellectual (or even mental) mediocrity I felt more comfortable with that than with reading any further. Obviously I do not reach the heights necessary to read Žižek and/or to do that in a foreign language (English). I guess I shall stick to some of his pop-appearances on YouTube for some time until I gather the mental power for something more. :-)

[Eric Phetteplace · Rating 2 out of 5]

probably should've stopped short instead of wasting so much time on this (reading Zizek half-awake on the subway is not a good place to be), but at least the last 3 pages are radically divergent from the rest in that there's some irrational rhetoric and political analysis. he also disses Deleuze implicitly, which intrigued me.
but really, I liked Zizek for his random references and because the Lacanian lexicon is very appealing, but all the Hegel and Kant comes across as near-gibberish, and I can't for the life of me figure out why reconciling them with Lacan is at all important except to philosophy students. The fact that these are lectures reformatted into a book (much as everything he writes is essays recombined) makes it more pedantic than usual as well. Sublime Object of Ideology is a much, much better work, as is Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism, both of which have interesting things to say about politics, while this only has pseudo-math and paradoxes.

[Geoff]

So, according to the man himself, if I am to believe his forward to the second edition, "those who do not want to talk about For they know not what they do should remain silent about The Sublime Object." Also, "For they know not what they do... establishes a critical distance towards some of the key positions of The Sublime Object. Although I still stand by the basic insights of The Sublime Object, it is clear to me, with hindsight, that it contains a series of intertwined weaknesses." He then goes on to elaborate these weaknesses and how he hopes to correct them in this book. I suppose then this will be my next Žižek...

[Joseph Sverker]

This was an incredibly enlightening read. It is certainlyl a slow read and very very complex at times so much that I found myself browsing past some pages. But other times I was caught by his new perspectives. I really was convinced by his argument of the "vanishing mediator" and I must think further about that. All in all a book well worth reading, but give it time, it both needs it and deserves it.

[Katrinka · Rating 5 out of 5]

I never know how to rate anything by Zizek, so I tend to fall back on how enjoyable it was to read any particular project. The problem with that system of rating is that most of his things end up as fives. As ever, though, I'm sometimes unsure about how/why he organizes his books the way he does-- but for sheer intellectual challenge and insight provided into Lacanian thought, I'll give this one high marks.

[Христо · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ако трябва да препоръчам Жижек на незапознат, първо бих посочил "The Pervert's Guide to Ideology", понеже всеки (следва да) обича филми за филми.

Книгата нексус на Жижековия корпус, по мое мнение, е тази. Ще се намери предостатъчно Лакан и немалко Хегел в нея, а също и ясен социален коментар. Филмографията, разглеждана тук, е достатъчно ненатрапчива/позната, щото да вземе превес над "Паралакс", макар че и последната е важно четиво, но със сигурност не и първично.

"Less than nothing", разбира се, е действителният (през година 2023) магнум опус на Жижек и нищо по-малко от енциклопедия по възкресен немски идеализъм. Но е абсолютно недопустима като първо Жижеково четиво. То трябва да бъде "For they know not".

Съществува български превод, с който не съм успял да се сдобия, но английската версия е съвсем приятна и сравнително лека. Не мисля, че има Жижекова книга освен "Less than nothing", която ще получи 5 звезди, а последната дори не ги заслужава, ако питаме самия Славой - понеже никоя, казва той, не представя крайъгълния камък на мисълта му. Аз твърдя, че тази поне го скицира достатъчно красиво.

[isaac smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know this is one of Zizek's hidden gems. Even though "How to Read Lacan" really got me into his work with it's listicke structure, colorful examples, and more lay-oriwnted theory, the "Sublime Object of Ideology" gave me hope that I could appreciate his philosophical project. I really want to read the Sublime Object again. I'm sure I will want to read this again too. But for now, I am glad to have finished.

I think this is the worst case scenario. I have no thoughts on this piece of work. It is like other books I've read where I come away from it realizing I hardly understood much. The other problem is that I read the first part of this before starting school again in the winter, and I chipped away at the second part in little bits and pieces for the past several months. Maybe if I reread it again I'll see ideas and say to myself, "Oh yeah, I remember seeing that." But otherwise, I don't know.

The other problem is that in the past few months I have watched a couple as Zizek talks. I mixed these up with my reading of the book. For a brief period I was also in the habit of watching movies in the background while reading this, but then I would have to reread the same passages later after remembering nothing.

I love Zizek, and there is more philosophical coherency in this one. There is some popular culture, and quite a bit of politics, but it is mostly Lacan and Hegel. He will bring in interpretations from Marxists and other cultural theorists every now and then. But, his writing will always be like a long meandering conversation to me, and that is what I enjoy about it. It just doesn't lend itself to conveying a giant idea or framework.

I have already started reading "enjoy your symptom", and I already enjoy it much more than this one. I remember his "looking awry" reading very incoherently almost like a fever dream, but that could have been more a reflection of me at the time. But, I just like books, movies, and music. So, sorry to any of my more philosophical friends. It is funny because my persona lately has been more mathematical, which even though mathematicians are usually pretty crazy, they are also pretty theoretical. I think acting more mathematical has brought me into circles of more mathematical people. This has a cyclic effect on how I see myself and how I present myself. But, at the end of the day I think I enjoy film and literary criticism more than a lot of other areas of study. Zizek has helped me realize this. Since I do not work in any of these fields as a job, this has little bearing on anything other than my identity and how I spend my discretionary time. If I was pursuing an academic job, I would probably feel more pressure to study math instead of cultural theory.

At this point I am rambling. Bottom line is, I enjoyed this book, and you might too.

[Vik · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's always fun to read Zizek; how much useful, one cannot really tell except who is a Lacanian.

[Mariam Rawwas · Rating 3 out of 5]

If Lacan can be said to have Saussureanized Freud, then one could claim that Žižek's move here is to Saussureanize Hegel: every "explanation" of some Hegelian concept is ultimately referred back to "the logic of the signifier," regardless of what "figure" is used to these ends (Lacan, Wittgenstein, Derrida, etc.) I think the main problem is that Žižek only has two or three "moves" to recourse to that are simply repeated over and over again (inversion, retroaction, etc.). And while he claims that Sublime Object is a less serious work chock-full of pop culture references, whereas this current one is properly "philosophical," he then proceeds to do the exact same thing that he did in his first work, even if toned down a bit. I will say, I was surprised to see the references to Jacqueline Rose, especially around her work on Sylvia Plath, here.

[Jacob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zizek's prose manages to make Lacan make more sense and Marx make less. Still the observations about The Other in political authority from the book's final chapter have only gotten more vital now three decades on from the collapse of the USSR.

["Nico" · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really valuable read for those interested in furthering their understanding of Hegel, Lacan, and ideology. If you aren't already studying these topics seriously, this isn't the book for you, and that's okay.

[Allison Perzinski · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's great for reference and a comfort during troubling times but came across as little scattered (particularly the forward). Funny contextual examples!

[нєνєℓ ¢ανα · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting at some point...

[Abraham Lewik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent mental gymnasium. Follow his expressions of theory through demonstration and ponder the profound possibilities of such a method.

[Pablo Bilbao · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you buy it, get the second edition. The preface to the second edition is the best part of the book

[TofurkyVectrex64 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn't like it. I feel like I could write a python script that can produce Zizek essays. He goes on wordy tangents that over complicate sentences that do not need that level of complexity. He'll name drop somebody mid tangent as to anchor some sort of social proof to what he is saying. It's a shame because I really like his youtube talks but his writing style is so hard to follow you cringe because you know it is merely to appear academic. He reads like a polisci student fan zine. Better on video than on paper.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Browsing through it, more useful as references to external topics even though (more often than not) self-referential.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

lotsa hegel and political theory... denser

[ryan bears · Rating 4 out of 5]

a decent critique ideology and liberal pomo's... if you can handle all the damn hegel. he claims the sublime object is more popular but im having trouble getting into it.

[Cheyanne]

still reading, but he's awesome

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just re-read this. Definitely the best book on dialectical materialism I’ve read yet.

[joshua caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

it's a head-scratcher of a page-turner. not for the faint of heart!