“After the Takeover”: Shakespeare, Lacan, Žižek and the Interpassive Subject

Abstract

The starting point for this essay is the sense that we live in a world that is, perhaps more than ever before, intensely mediated. In many ways, the rise of electronic information technology in the so-called “developed world” has reinforced the principle of mediation that shapes our experience of reality. The ubiquity of information technology in our everyday lives also provides us with invaluable tools to contextualise our position as mediated subjects. In recent theoretical debates, the mediation of subjectivity has been addressed through the concept of “interpassivity”. Drawing on Lacanian psychoanalysis, Slavoj Žižek uses interpassivity to conceptualise the intrinsic displacement that defines the experience of enjoyment. Interpassivity describes how enjoyment is always, by essence, displaced onto another instance (the “big Other”). The essay explores the manifestations and implications of interpassivity in technologically advanced twenty-first-century societies. Shakespearean drama provides a key entry point into the topic: Hamlet, Macbeth and Henry V throw a new light on the big Other qua symbolic instance that regulates social interactions. The Chorus of Henry V, in particular, illustrates the kernel of mediation underlying mass entertainment and opens up a reflection on the role of the media in the distribution and control of information.