© Christian Egerer
The concept of parallax, as described by Slavoj Žižek, refers to "the confrontation of two closely linked perspectives between which no neutral common ground is possible." In his thesis, Christian Egerer examines the political as a parallax structure.
The starting point of the argument is Hannah Arendt’s concept of the political and its internal contradictions. These contradictions are brought into a dialogue with the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, particularly through the interpretation of the Ljubljana School.
Lacan’s psychoanalysis is grounded in a parallax between consciousness and unconscious structural dynamics: the two are interdependent, yet cannot be reduced to one another. This perspective allows for a critical revision of Arendt’s strict separation between the political and the social, while simultaneously establishing a connection to the political thought of Karl Marx. The latter, in this light, appears as a theory of political-economic parallax. A reading that evades both utopian vulgar interpretations and (neo)liberal foreclosures.
Through this theoretical connection, the thesis makes a contribution to the understanding of the scene of emancipatory political action beyond rigid dogmas.