Social Distortions | Ideology and the Real in America

Peter Rollins - The Archive

The Anthropologist Lévi-Strauss famously analyzed a situation in which two groups within the same tribal community drew a map of their village in radically different ways. Their understanding of the objective village layout being directly connected to their social standing. Instead of taking a relativistic stance - with the village layout being seen as purely subjective - or taking the position that an objective mapping was possible - viewing one of the maps as more accurate, or reconciling them in a more exhaustive drawing - Lévi-Strauss argued that this phenomenon hinted at an unsymbolized antagonism in the community. One that prevented the social organization from achieving some kind of some simple, symmetrical, non-antagonistic equilibrium. However, for Lévi-Strauss, it was precisely this antagonism that simultaneously produced and maintained the very system that it distorted and threatened. In this pop-up seminar I use Lévi-Strauss’ reflections - employed by Lacan and, more recently, Žižek - as a jumping off point for examining the current unrest in America. In the seminar I look specifically at the political significance of taking seriously the radically different ways in which social antagonism is mapped out by members of society. Along the way, I draw out the meaning of the Real as a political category, describe how ideology functions and outline a way in which the present social antagonism might be mobilized. Recommended Reading - 'Do Dual Organizations Exist' By Lévi-Strauss (Vol 1, Structural Anthropology) - 'The Matrix, or, the Two Sides of Perversion' By Slavoj Žižek (online)