parallax view

is the attempt to keep two contradictory alternatives in mind at once. The truth however lies not in any resolution or mediation of the split, but in this split itself. The relationship between politics and economics involves just such a split which is not unlike the famous two-faces-in-the-vase optical illusion.

In a world of dialectical negativity, in which we cannot grasp anything without also grasping its opposite, the correct mode of perception is the 'parallax view'. This term, originally taken from the Japanese philosopher Kojin Karatani, but having precedents in Adorno, indicates an attempt to keep both alternatives in mind at once. The truth is not to be found in either one of them, but only in their impossible simultaneity. Zizek can evoke this 'parallax view' in amusing ways: in his essay on Bill Gates, for example, he speaks of the way that, just as with those postcards that when tilted a certain way reveal a naked woman beneath her clothes, by looking at the Microsoft boss awry we can see a 'sinister and threatening dimension' (233). More substantially, Zizek characterizes the relationship between politics and economics, not only in Communism but also in capitalism, as being like that famous optical trick of 'two faces or a vase': 'one sees either two faces or a vase, never both of them in other words, one has to make a choice . . . if, for Lacan, there is no sexual relationship, then, for Marxism proper, there is no relationship between economy and politics, no 'metalanguage' enabling us to grasp both two levels from the same neutral standpoint, although or, rather, because these two levels are inextricably intertwined' (247). Or, with regard to the alternative between 'terrorism' and the 'war on terrorism' proposed after 11 September: 'The WTC attacks confront us again with the necessity of resisting the temptation of a double blackmail . . . the only solution is to reject this very opposition and to adopt both positions simultaneously, which can only be done if one resorts to the dialectical category of totality' (282). The difficult aspect of this parallax view and the true Hegelian lesson implicit in it is that it is ultimately not a question of looking for some deeper commonality beneath these alternatives, or of somehow mediating between them. The truth lies not in any resolution of the split, but in this split itself: 'If, then, there is appearance (as distinct from reality) because there is a (logically) prior split inherent to reality itself, is it also that 'reality' itself is ultimately nothing but a (self-)split of appearance (the 'parallax' thesis)'' (345)

parallax view, n.Definitions

parallax view