Information Processes

Slavoj Žižek, "The performative character of the information process" (Google from Turkish)

The basis of Hegelian criticism is very different from the Kantian critique, which emphasizes the constitutive role of transcendental subjectivity. According to Kant, the subject gives its universal form to the substantive content that comes from the transcendent source ("Self-Thing"). Kant remained within the framework of the opposition between the subject and the substance (the transcendent web of possible modes of life and the transcendent "Thing in Itself"), while for Hegel the substance itself must be treated as the subject. Knowledge is not to penetrate the substance-substance content—it is not to penetrate the content that is supposed to be unaffected by the process of knowing—the subjective act of knowledge is already contained in its own substance-like "object"; the path to truth is included in the truth itself.

The example I will give you to convey Hegel's point may come as surprising at first, but it testifies to the Hegelian legacy of historical materialism and confirms Lacan's thesis: Marxism is not a "worldview." According to the basic claim of historical materialism, the proletariat has a revolutionary role and a historical duty. But only by recognizing and acknowledging its historical role can the proletariat become an effective revolutionary subject. Historical materialism is not "objective knowledge that communicates the historical role of the proletariat" – that knowledge requires the subjective position of the proletariat; in this sense it is self-referential, contained in its object of knowledge.

Therefore, the first issue that needs to be solved is the "performative" character of the information process. When the subject, who pursues the hidden essence, goes behind the veil of images, he thinks that he will discover something that has been there for a long time; however, he does not realize that whatever he finds behind the curtain brings him there by going behind the curtain.

From the Supreme Hysterical

Turkish: Işık Barış Fidaner