Zizek: Symptom, Desire, and Ideology

For this session, we’ll be reading Slavoj Žižek’s The Sublime Object of Ideology, chapters “How Marx Invented the Symptom” and “Che Vuoi?”. These texts outline Žižek’s Lacanian rereading of ideology.

• In “How Marx Invented the Symptom,” Žižek argues that Marx’s notion of ideology parallels the Freudian symptom. A symptom is not just a distortion hiding truth; it is the very site where truth is inscribed in distorted form. Likewise, ideology is not simply an illusion covering reality but a structure through which social reality itself is organized. This reframes ideology as constitutive, not merely deceptive.
• In “Che Vuoi?” (“What do you want?”), Žižek examines the role of the Big Other and the opacity of the Other’s desire in sustaining ideological structures. The subject confronts the enigma of what the Other wants, and this uncertainty anchors fantasy and power. Ideology operates through this enigmatic address, structuring desire and identification.

Together, these chapters show how ideology functions less as a set of false beliefs than as a network of fantasies and symptoms that structure social reality itself.

The text can be found here