ideological cynicism

is the idea that ideology no longer takes the form 'they do not know it what they are doing' as it was for marx. It is instead a kind of cynical voluntary consent captured in the phrase: 'They know it, but they are doing it anyway'.

Drawing on the German political theorist Sloterdijk, Zizek contends that the formula describing the operation of ideology today is not 'they do not know it, but they are doing it', as it was for Marx. It is 'they know it, but they are doing it anyway'. If this looks like nonsense from the classical Marxist perspective, Zizek's position is that nevertheless this cynicism indicates the deeper efficacy of political ideology per se. Ideologies, as political discourses, are there to secure the voluntary consent or what La Boetie called servitude voluntaire of people about contestable political policies or arrangements. Yet, Zizek argues, subjects will only voluntarily agree to follow one or other such arrangement if they believe that, in doing so, they are expressing their free subjectivity, and might have done otherwise.

ideological cynicism, n.All

ideological cynicism