Žižek and Granularity

Abstract

The core idea explored in this chapter is whether we can live without psychological conflict, discontent, and anxiety. In other words, is it possible to eliminate psychological trauma, the state of self being divided against itself, completely? Positively put, is it possible to live immersed in a state of consciousness of wholeness, unification, and undividedness? To address this question, Žižek’s interpretation of the second draft of Schelling’s Die Weltalter (Ages of the World) in his The Abyss of Freedom is engaged vis-à-vis Sean McGrath’s work on Schelling. Employing the notion of interpervasiveness of forms, that is, granularity, the reader is invited to enter an intricate labyrinthine matrix of Schelling-Žižek-Hegel-Lacan-McGrath interminably interpreting and reinterpreting each other. Whosoever we start with—Žižek’s Schelling, McGrath’s Schelling, Hegel’s Schelling, Lacan’s Hegel, Schelling’s Hegel, Žižek’s Hegel, Žižek’s Lacan, Žižek’s Lacan’s Hegel, McGrath’s Lacan, Žižek’s Lacanian reading of Schelling against Schelling (!) and so forth—the others are immediately within reach: any one starting point leads to all and more since any one starting point is granular containing all and more. Here, only a few threads of this interminable labyrinth are rehearsed.