Some really interesting and intriguing thoughts from David Fitch
For Zizek, cultural symbolic orders exist to advocate certain purposes and legitimizations for being. They are in one sense ideologies. These meaning systems "mask the Real of" an absence which no one wants to face up to (Sublime Object p. 45). For instance, the U.S. "shock and awe" bombing and invasion of Iraq in order to "bring democracy and freedom to Iraq," might mask the fear of the U.S.: that if it really does allow every one to be free, it will not have enough oil. The irruption of the bombing "in order to bring freedom" reveals how little we do believe in freedom. And so every cultural system (the Symbolic Order) is prone to "irruptions of the Real" which reflect back to its participants the Real that is hidden within the ongoing system of meaning. These irruptions are cultural events that will not fit within the current explanation of things. These irruptions are cultural symptoms of something much deeper being exposed.
I have often wondered about the seeming exaggeration of "devotion" afforded George "W" Bush amongst a flock of evangelical Christians. This "masking of the lacking" and the "irruption" occasioned by the rise of "W" for me goes a long way toward offering a convincing socio-psychological analysis of this.
