Abstract

The Ticklish Subject claims to unearth a subversive core in the spectre of the Cartesian subject; finding a philosophical point of reference in it for a genuine emancipatory politics. After reading the entire book closely, this synopsis by the publisher seems slightly incorrect and perhaps even misleading. There is very little emancipatory politics, if any at all. There is some sense of a partial liberation from the current global political climate; but this dimension is relegated in importance to re-reading Hegel via Lacanian psychoanalysis. Žižek concludes The Ticklish Subject with the following: 'Lacan's maxim “Do not compromise your desire!” fully endorses the pragmatic paradox of ordering you to be free: it exhorts you to dare.' This encapsulates a slight limitation of this book. Desire lead Žižek to write this book partially for some utopian political emancipation. In Lacanese, 'petits objets a' caused a disjuncture between the desire for transcendental materialistic subjectivity and the actuality of its development. The Ticklish Subject is the product of this disjuncture. Perhaps all Žižek succeeds in doing is leaving open a space for the faculty of desire. Despite this, The Ticklish Subject is one of the sharpest interrogations of Lacan's theory of drives ever written