Surrealpolitik

Surrealpolitik: How To Read Lacan

Author: Slavoj Zizek

London: Granta (2006)

Quick Summary

Good stuff about the Big Other

Quotes

There are 2 quotes currently associated with this book.

This symbolic space acts like a yardstick against which I can measure myself. This is why the big Other can be personified or reified in a single agent: the ‘God’ who watches over me from beyond, and over all real individuals, or the Cause that involves me (Freedom, Communism, Nation) and for which I am ready to give my life. While talking, I am never merely a ‘small other’ (individual) interacting with other ‘small others’: the big Other must always be there. (page 174-177 KL)
Tags: [The Other]
In spite of all its grounding power, the big Other is fragile, insubstantial, properly virtual, in the sense that its status is that of a subjective presupposition. It exists only in so far as subjects act as if it exists. (page 183-186 KL)
Tags: [The Other]