Slavoj Zizek
The 7 Veils of
Fantasy
The Plague of Fantasies is a popular book by Zizek that begins with a part called the 7 Veils of Fantasy. He
states in this part basically that the veils disguise things from the way they really are causing some degree
of problems for us. Each sub part of the 7 Veils is difficult for me to understand so I am deciding to make
this a longer post documenting what each part says and what Zizek aims to state. Like Deleuze, Zizek is
difficult for me to understand and hopefully through writing about it I can come to understand him. If I
am lead to think wrongly about his philosophy, please @reply me on Twitter (About CosmosZ page) or
comment below, or email me at [email protected] I am going to make this a longer post,
because I want to write through this and hope to understand it as best as possible. Hopefully this will turn
into a guide for the first part of the Plague of Fantasies.
The Truth is Out There
Zizek uses this slogan 'the truth is out there' used by the X Files, an old 90's show, but by using it he really
means something philosophically, and just in common observation of things. This part is a prelude to the
7 veils, and is not a veil itself but is helpful to the succeeding 7 veils. By saying that the truth is out there
he means that in every scenario, issue, or situation has its problems and dilemmas, but in all possible
ways, the truth can possibly be found. Zizek uses numerous examples to show this, including the answer
to Michael Jackson's molestation cases, worldwide excretion, and the way females around the world shave
the vagina. He uses Jackson as an example by explaining how people are so perplexed about whether or
not Jackson molested a little boy, when Zizek says that the truth can easily be found from what is
presented. Jackson has a ranch equal to an amusement park any boy would want. He has no evidence of
ever having a true woman lover. He was found with a boy in his bed, et cetera. From these obvious things,
Zizek says that the truth is out there because from these facts, it can be inferred that Jackson most likely
molests young boys. The examples he uses about the human excrement removal, and the female shaving
of the vagina are examples I wish not to talk about here, but from reading it, you get the idea of what Zizek
tries to say. From any situation, the truth can be found. I totally agree with this, even when in all
situations, the truth cannot be 100% inferred, but more like 99% because some observations can be made
to convey the wrong image.
1st Veil: Fantasy's Transcendental Schematism
This veil is seen in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, but Zizek applies it to how fantasy teaches us what to
desire. The transcendental schematism is in fantasy and is what causes fantasy to create images that are
directly parallel to what we want. The transcendental schematism (going to call it TS so I don't have to
type the whole thing) recognizes what we as people individually want, and fantasy uses it to create images
of our wants. Regardless of whether or not the image constitutes the actual thing we get, fantasy creates
the image to create the desire. This part of fantasy is a veil because the image created from the TS is way
too far fetched from what we can actually get, and it distorts our desire away from desiring what we can
actually get. This makes the TS a huge veil that fantasy uses. Zizek states that fantasy constitutes our
desire. He exemplifies this by a Slovenian suntan lotion ad showing women in a certain way making
women want to look a certain way along with other desires. By showing us things we are designed to want,
we automatically want those things. I like that this is a veil because the images that make us want what we
are designed to want are unreachable and often impossible, making us 'screwed' so to speak because we
cannot get what we are told to want. If I understand this in the wrong way, again please say so.
2nd Veil: Intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity is where something is experienced by more than one thing. In this case, the phenomena
is desire. Transcendental schematism is a fantasy veil where we are tricked into wanting things for
ourselves, but intersubjectivity is a veil where we are tricked into wanting things for other than ourselves.
Zizek exemplifies this by a girl eating a strawberry cake, where she does not eat it mostly because she
wants to, but because she gets the impression that her parents want to see her enjoying it. Therefore, she
eats it and intentionally looks as happy as possible for their purposes. The catch for her dilemma is that it
is not definite on whether or not her parents specifically have the desire to see her enjoying the cake. If it
is the case that her parents do not care if she enjoys the cake, her purposes are null, and the fantasy veil
has taken advantage of her. Its probably bad that I watch old sitcom show Three's Company, but I
watched it one time, and the episode was where Jack was crabby for some reason, and Janet and Terry got
the impression he was tired and deserved some extra attention from the girls. The girls getting this
impression, gave him some extra attention, leading him to think they wanted to have sex with him. Jack
thinking this, he took both of them to his friend's lake house, so he could give the girls what they wanted
(also for his benefit, therefore Jack got bit by fantasy's TS and the intersubjectivity). When he made the
move, he figured out that sex was not what they wanted. Jack was made to look foolish because of the
intersubjective fantasy veil. I may have mixed two Threes Company episodes together, but the scenario
worked out. This fantasy makes us think that others want certain things, causing us to take foolish action,
ending with dismal results.
3rd Veil: The Narrative Occlusion of Antagonism
This veil is difficult for me to understand why, and how, but I got down to the what. I understand now that
occlusion means the blocking of something, so the narrative occludes antagonism. Zizek exemplifies the
paradoxical narrative by using the person who works hard, and who also is lazy and free spending. I have
a hard time understanding this, but I get from this that there is a paradox with the narrative that conveys
the image that little antagonism exists in a situation where there is an issue of it. If the narrative shows
the protagonistic, it also shows antagonistic both together causing confused image. This confused image is
because of the protagonistic being the only thing visible to the one tricked by fantasy. If both protagonism
and antagonism pardoxically coincide, narrative fantasy causes the protagonistic to be all that is visible,
occluding the antagonistic creating a fantasy image where there is little issue with antagonism. If no
antagonistic issue is visible, one is lead to think there is no issue, causing one again to be 'screwed' so to
speak because there is really an antagonistic aspect existing paradoxically with the protagonistic. This
proves to be an issue with fantasy because of the narrative. Zizek putting this in perspective by saying
"emergence coincides with loss" makes me think of Deleuze's paradox of pure becoming in that, becoming
one thing coincides not simultaneously with not becoming. With the narrative it is an issue because of
how fantasy causes it and that one of them is the only one seen. This was hard for me to even grasp, so if I
understand this wrong, please say so, and be gentle given that I am a clear novice in Zizekian philosophy.
4th Veil: Problematic of the Fall
This is another one I had a hard time understanding. The first two were easy, but proceeding further is
difficult. Basically what the fantasy does is makes the subject, subject to the fall. Zizek allows the reader to
understand his point by talking about Adam and Eve (In Mill's Paradise Lost) and how Adam was subject
to the fall by doing something that he thought would give him what he wanted. This is best understood
when one knows what 'jouissance' is being used as here: pleasure, happiness, often sexual. In this case,
Zizek means jouissance as sexual pleasure being had and attempted to be maintained by Adam.
Jouissance is here understood as sex between Adam and Eve as being infinitely better than sex is for
everyone today, and Adam wanted to maintain that. In life, there are often things that lead to failure and
falls that we are advised to avoid, but fantasy disguises these falls to look like good areas for us to pursue.
Adam's main concern was to keep Eve happy, and if he kept Eve happy, he keeps jouissance. When Eve
was lead astray by the Serpent to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, she ate of it, and wanted
Adam to eat of it too because she ate of it. Adam wanting to keep jouissance by keeping Eve happy, also
eats of the tree, and loses jouissance because he broke God's only rule, and by breaking that rule God
removed Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. Being removed from the Garden of Eden removed
jouissance along with other things. So Adam seeing the necessary opportunity to keep jouissance, and
taking that opportunity because he was led to by fantasy, lost jouissance for doing just that. Fantasy again
leads man astray by disguising things that show us what we should do to maintain our good life situations.
Fantasy made it look like eating of the tree would keep Eve happy and therefore keep jouissance, when
really under the fantasy doing that thing makes things worse.
5th Veil: The Impossible Gaze
Zizek exemplifies this with an anti-abortion fairy tale, and Bosnia/Herzegovina war general efforts.
Fantasy employs an impossible gaze when it shows an action or event (or another phenomenon I guess) to
have a purpose or meaning as one thing, when it is really for another. The gaze is impossible because it
can be seen both ways, even the way that fantasy tries to disguise it, but when finally seen both ways it is
impossible to see it both ways. The gaze is impossible because the person/phenomena creating this gaze
could not have possibly employed both purposes at all. The anti-abortion fairy tale shows aborted babies
living in peace on an island together looking back on how their parents betrayed them, when at the same
time they were aborted yet were born into a parallel universe on this island and again at the same time,
they know about their parents and that they betrayed them. So the fairy tale is fantasy's impossible gaze
by employing two ideas: 1) the aborted babies are moved in a different universe to live in peace, and 2) the
aborted babies are born (contradiction, I know) to the universe on the island and look back on their
parents' betrayal. The fairy tale was told to go against abortion, when at the same time it shows that
aborted babies do not know what happened to them and cannot know of their parents' betrayal. Zizek's
other example where General Michael Rose had a course of action to make peace and end war in Bosnia,
and to convey a message that no one is to blame, and everyone can be at peace with each other in their
living space of Bosnia. When really, at the same time Rose's secret course of action was to place blame on
the Croat ethnicity for the war in Bosnia. This another example of fantasy's impossible gaze because one
cannot possibly convey an image that no one is to blame for war in Bosnia and at the same time blame the
Croats. In the impossible gaze, fantasy convey's one image and covers another to prevent
acknowledgement of paradox of the image. The image fantasy covers is yet able to be found creating the
impossibility of the gaze.
6th Veil: The Inherent Transgression
This fantasy veil is seen directly in art, culture, and media, and because of this fact, it is obvious in many
things. Again, the truth is out there. Zizek states that there exists an inherent transgression between
"explicit symbolic texture and its phantasmic background." By inherent transgression is meant that the
phantasmic background is something that becomes incredibly different and misrepresented in the
symbolic texture. Its like when a bunch of kids do the pass it on activity, where one kid says one thing and
by the time its at the final kid, its totally different from where it started. Fantasy creates the veil with
symbolic texture by making the symbolic texture totally different and misrepresentative from the truth.
Zizek exemplifies this transgression with Edith Wharton's story Beatrice Palmato where she describes
father daughter incest with in depth descriptions. It is difficult here to know what is the symbolic texture
and what is the phantasmic background. Either the symbolic texture is her voluntary participation in the
incest, inspired by the phantasmic background of frightening involuntary rape of her by her father, or vice
versa. It is thought that the symbolic texture is her voluntary participation in the incest, but inherent
transgression makes the distinction incredibly unclear, and difficult to pick out. This shows inherent
transgression because, if it were the case that the symbolic texture was her voluntary participation in the
incest, and the phantasmic background the frightening rape by her father, the phantasmic background is
entirely misrepresented and different from what is presented in the symbolic texture of her voluntary
incest. Regardless of what the symbolic texture and the phantasmic background are, the phantasmic
background is changed when it goes across the void into becoming symbolic texture. This symbolic
texture has the potential to be seen by many and the phantasmic background is seen by little. So this is the
veil of fantasy because the community sees the version that is the veil and the version that misrepresents
everything. So again, the person involved in this situation is 'screwed' so to speak when endorsing the
symbolic texture.
7th veil: The Empty Gesture
This directly relates to the debate between free will and otherwise. The empty gesture is the notion that we
all have the will to chose what we want with our lives, when most of the things we have to choose from are
of the impossible. This correlates directly with the 6th veil in that there is a symbolic texture and a
phantasmic background. The symbolic texture is that we have the freedom to choose what we do in this
world, when this texture is transformed and misrepresented (transgressed within the void) that its true
that the choices we have are of impossible things removing the purpose of free will. This is give to the title
of the empty gesture. This is fantasy in that it is a veil that makes it look like we have the freedom to
choose our life's actions, but the fantasy removed leaves the empty gesture.
After Zizek explains the 7 veils he explains that there is always a drive towards the same desires and
therefore the same fantasies. From these 7 veils it is easily understood that fantasy makes things look
distorted and to create and be tailored to our desires. I agree that all of these veils are active in today's
society. I do not want to go in the many examples that occur and parallel these veils today, but these
fantasy veils run rampant.
