The Parallax View
Reading Slavoj Zizek’s “magnum opus” The Parallax View
At first I was annoyed – it seemed wrong word choice. Parallax is just two different viewpoints on something, not a split in the thing itself. But I began to think of it more along the lines of W.J.T. Mitchell’s multistable images – like the duck/rabbit or the wife/mother-in-law. The point is, there is no “between” or neutral perspective on such an image (although Wittgenstein might disagree). It is either/or.
Plus, is it not the “split in oneself” (metaphorically, the fact that we see from two separate eyes, not one cyclopean eye mid-forehead) that gives rise to the “split in the world”?
That vertical line, that slash in either/or, is the impossible discontinuity in the world that Zizek has decided once and for all to erect his philosophical edifice on. It’s a good move. I just wish he’d go back to addressing a wider audience.
To be honest, I only got about 50 pages in and haven’t picked it up again.
