Editing Slavoj Žižek (section)

====Ideology====
Žižek's Lacanian-informed theory of [[ideology]] is one of his major contributions to political theory; his first book in English, ''[[The Sublime Object of Ideology]]'', and the documentary ''[[The Pervert's Guide to Ideology]]'', in which he stars, are among the well-known places in which it is discussed. Žižek believes that ideology has been frequently misinterpreted as dualistic and, according to him, this misinterpreted dualism posits that there is a real world of material relations and objects outside of oneself, which is accessible to reason.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=McManus |first=Matt |date=2019-04-30 |title=The Politics of Slavoj Zizek |url=https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/30/the-politics-of-slavoj-zizek/ |access-date=2022-08-23 |website=Areo Magazine |language=en-US |archive-date=23 August 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220823173430/https://areomagazine.com/2019/04/30/the-politics-of-slavoj-zizek/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

For Žižek, as for Marx, ideology is made up of fictions that structure political life; in Lacan's terms, ideology belongs to the [[symbolic order]]. Žižek argues that these fictions are primarily maintained at an unconscious level, rather than a conscious one. Since, according to [[psychoanalytic theory]], the unconscious can determine one's actions directly, bypassing one's conscious awareness (as in [[Freudian slip|parapraxes]]), ideology can be expressed in one's behaviour, regardless of one's conscious beliefs. Hence, Žižek breaks with orthodox Marxist accounts that view ideology purely as a system of mistaken beliefs (see [[False consciousness]]). Drawing on [[Peter Sloterdijk]]'s ''[[Critique of Cynical Reason]]'', Žižek argues that adopting a cynical perspective is not enough to escape ideology, since, according to Žižek, even though postmodern [[Subject (philosophy)|subjects]] are consciously cynical about the political situation, they continue to reinforce it through their behaviour.<ref>{{cite book |last=Žižek |first=Slavoj |year=1989 |title=The Sublime Object of Ideology |place=London & New York |publisher=Verso |chapter=Chapter 1}}</ref>