Moving Beyond the Symptom: Postcritical Turn in Critical Legal Studies

Abstract

The “crisis of critique” reveals tensions between ideological critique and postcritical methods in the humanities. This article argues that postcritique is not a distinct movement but a political reorientation within critique itself. By examining this shift through the lens of Slavoj Žižek’s ideological analysis, it demonstrates how critique and postcritique can coexist to renew Critical Legal Studies (CLS). This approach addresses CLS’s concerns about law’s complicity in power and inequality, offering a reimagined framework that bridges theoretical divides and emphasizes critique’s relevance in contemporary legal and humanities scholarship.

I. Introduction

The humanities are often said to be in crisis, a sentiment that has come to define contemporary critical academia, frequently equated with the humanities themselves. Over the past six decades, paradigmatic shifts—the linguistic, aesthetic, and spatial turns—have reoriented the study of socio-political phenomena in fields like literary theory, aesthetics, and legal scholarship. ¹ These shifts remain deeply rooted in structuralist and post-structuralist thought, with methodologies such as deconstruction, psychoanalysis, and semiotics shaping the core of humanities research.

To say that the humanities are in crisis—squeezed by the rise of STEM fields and neoliberal reforms like the Bologna Process, which aims to turn universities into factories of market-ready knowledge—is to point to a deeper problem: the crisis of critique itself. ² Once the humanities’ most potent instrument, critique has, as Bruno Latour famously put it in 2004, “run out of steam.” What was once radical now feels stale and unconvincing. Latour’s own “critique of critique” highlights a striking paradox: he accuses critique of claiming a monopoly on truth, even as it originally set out to dismantle foundational metaphysical certainties, following thinkers like Jacques Derrida, Jacques Lacan, and Michel Foucault. In challenging dogma, critique now risks becoming dogmatic itself—merely replacing one orthodoxy with another, and sustaining the belief that “the critic is always right.” ³

A similarly apocalyptic tone runs through Critical Legal Studies (CLS), which often leans into its own rhetoric of crisis. Consider Duncan Kennedy’s dramatic pronouncement that “CLS is dead as a doornail.” ⁴ Like all critical movements, CLS has experienced cycles of emergence, transformation, and perceived decline. Much of this discourse reflects the movement’s ongoing struggle to articulate a viable alternative to the liberal legal frameworks it critiques. But this so-called failure is not unique to CLS—it points to a broader dilemma facing critique itself: the enduring difficulty of moving from deconstruction to the construction of concrete alternatives.

The crisis of CLS, then, mirrors what we might call an uneasiness in critique—to borrow a Freudian pun. Yet, as Kyle McGee argues, declaring CLS “dead” often serves as a convenient way to dismiss its practical and utopian ambitions. ⁵ Far from being obsolete, CLS remains an active intellectual force, and amid the crumbling of neoliberal governmentality, it is arguably more necessary than ever. Whether viewed as an activist movement or a loosely connected constellation of eclectic intellectual fields, CLS continues to engage with the shifting terrain of legal, political, and cultural critique.

At stake in this debate is not merely the future of critique but the Kampfplatz in which critique operates. Competing methodologies struggle over the nature of reading and interpretation, with the clash unfolding between two dominant metaphors of reading: depth and surface. These metaphors are not simply methodological preferences but reflect competing ontologies of critique. On one side, dialectical critique (Freudo-Marxism, Hegelian-Lacanian analysis) operates through a symptomatic logic, assuming that meaning is structured around contradictions, disavowed truths, and unconscious determinations that require excavation. This tradition prioritizes lack, negativity, and paradox, seeing the symptom as a site where ideology reveals its own structural inconsistencies. On the other side, immanentist approaches (Deleuze, Latour, New Materialism, Object-Oriented Ontology) reject this depth model, advocating for a flat ontology where meaning emerges through networks, assemblages, and surface relations rather than hidden depths. ⁶ Instead of contradiction and absence, these approaches emphasize excess, affect, and immanence, shifting critique away from negation and toward relationality and affirmation.

The debate between critique and postcritique concerns not just whether critique remains viable, but what form it should take in light of challenges to dialectical models by immanentist thought. This is not a technical dispute over method but a fundamentally political conflict over how meaning, power, and transformation are conceptualized. Dialectical critique emphasizes contradiction and negation as tools for emancipation—conceived as a sweeping event of universal liberation through the refusal of present conditions. In contrast, postcritique displaces this vision, favoring affirmation, entanglement, and immanent engagement. Rather than seeking rupture, it emphasizes the remaking of existing conditions through sustainable alliances and micro-tactics of negotiation, resisting the subsumption of plural actors into a singular emancipatory event. By presenting critique as a contested terrain between these traditions, this paper reconsiders its methodological foundations within CLS and beyond. ⁷

Postcritique, then, is not a distinct movement replacing critique but an event within critique—a political reorientation that reshapes its style and relevance. It urges critique to evolve beyond entrenched methods, responding to contemporary challenges such as right-wing populism and the climate crisis. ⁸ By embracing this shift, critique can retain its transformative potential while navigating the complex entanglements of power, culture, and law.

This study explores the methodological tensions between critique and postcritique, particularly in literary studies (Elizabeth S. Anker, Rita Felski, Toril Moi). It contrasts symptomatic reading, which uncovers hidden contradictions, with surface reading, which emphasizes appearances. Integrating these approaches can reinvigorate critique in CLS.

Additionally, the paper builds on a theoretical analysis of critique, examining its relationship to (i) postcritique, (ii) critical theory, (iii) CLS, and (iv) the shift from symptom to sinthome in Žižek’s ideology critique. The latter point demonstrates that affirmation and surface-oriented approaches are already present in critique itself. Postcritique thus deepens critique’s self-awareness, questioning its traditions, goals, and political commitments, and reorients it toward new critical targets and strategies.

Žižek’s methodological shift from symptom to sinthome, based on Jacques Lacan’s later reconceptualization of the symptom in Seminar XXIII, further develops this tension between depth and surface. In exploring Žižek’s reading of Lacan, this article not only examines the general role of the symptom in critique but also proposes a concept of sinthomatic analysis—a framework that bridges the gap between symptomatic and surface reading. Rather than treating postcritique as a break, Žižek’s engagement with Lacan suggests a continuity between these modes of interpretation, demonstrating how critique can integrate affirmation, surface engagement, and depth analysis without losing its political charge.

Postcritique, emphasizing productivity over negation, has faced backlash from critical theorists who see it as aligned with neoliberal ideology. However, I argue that postcritique is not a rejection of critique but an internal recalibration—an ethical call for greater self-reflection and methodological refinement. This view moves beyond the rhetoric of decline in critical theory and CLS.

This article begins by outlining the perceived crisis of critique in CLS, linking it to broader shifts in the humanities and the postcritical turn. It introduces the distinction between trivial and non-trivial critique, framing critical theory as a political rather than purely intellectual project. The second section addresses the methodological tension between symptomatic and surface reading, situating it within the critique-postcritique divide. While this clash may appear fundamental, it ultimately obscures more pressing questions about critique’s political orientation and method. The final section turns to Žižek’s theory of ideology, read alongside Elizabeth Anker’s On Paradox, to explore his move from symptom to sinthome. Drawing on Lacan’s Seminar XXIII, it argues that Žižek offers a dialectical alternative to the depth/surface binary, showing how both modes of critique reveal distinct but interrelated dimensions of ideological investment.

II. Critique in Crisis

It has become a commonplace to highlight the etymological link between crisis and critique, both derived from the Greek word kritḗs, meaning “to separate” and “to judge.” ⁹ As Costas Douzinas famously observed, critique embodies a trinitarian identity: the critic as judge, legislator, and clerk. ¹⁰

As a judge, the critic establishes limits, distinctions, and boundaries. ¹¹ In the act of judgment, the critic also takes on the role of legislator, crafting divisions between past and present, truth and falsehood, law and morality. ¹² Meanwhile, as a clerk, the critic provides descriptions that, by the authority of their position, blur the line between fact and norm. Every description implicitly becomes a prescription, a directive on how the described phenomenon should be understood. ¹³ Moreover, critique often functions as a gatekeeper, policing established boundaries and admonishing those who dare to challenge them.

If critique is to remain relevant in a time of crisis, we must rethink its role. Moving away from a critique that constructs limits and enforces boundaries, we must embrace a form of critique born out of struggle—one that is emancipatory and anti-governmental, aligned with the ethos of “not being ruled so much, or in this way.” ¹⁴ Critique is thus inseparable from law, as to criticize is to judge, and to judge is to criticize.

Critique and crisis are deeply intertwined, as the necessity of critique often becomes most evident in times of turmoil. However, this connection typically focuses on the societal function of critique and the external conditions—the cultural-political mise-en-scène—in which it operates. While this perspective is valuable, addressing the crisis of critique requires a deeper exploration of this relationship, particularly its implications for the internal dynamics of critique itself. Two key insights emerge from this approach: the self-reflexive nature of critique and the role of this self-reflexivity as a driving force for its evolution.

First, critique inherently carries a juridical principle within it, acting not only as a judge but also as a plaintiff. This dual role reflects a process that, as Immanuel Kant articulated in his Critique of Pure Reason, confronts the object of critique with its own foundational assumptions. Critiques seek to determine whether the object accords with the conditions it presupposes. ¹⁵ In this sense, critique is methodical and rational, making its primary object the very faculty of reason itself. As Kant stated:

One can regard the critique of pure reason as the true court of justice for all controversies of pure reason; for the critique is not involved in these disputes, which pertain immediately to objects, but is rather set the task of determining and judging what is lawful in reason in general in accordance with the principles of its primary institution. ¹⁶

This juridical process is inherently reciprocal. While critique examines and tests the competencies of its object, it simultaneously questions and reshapes itself. In the encounter with the object’s resistance, critique confronts its own limits, forcing a constant reassessment of its methods and assumptions. In this way, critique is both self-starting and self-referential—it begins and ends with itself, evolving through an ongoing dialogue with the objects it seeks to understand.

Beyond its interpretative function of scrutinizing both its own conditions and those of its object, critique also possesses a legislative dimension. However, this aspect is more nuanced than the role described earlier alongside Douzinas. The legislative role of critique is fraught with questions about its normative aspirations: Is critique obliged to propose concrete alternatives to the object it criticizes, or is its sole purpose to critique, leaving the construction of alternatives to others?

Michel Foucault, explicitly drawing on Kant’s critical philosophy in his critique of Enlightenment, provided clarity on this matter:

A critique does not consist in saying that things aren’t good the way they are. It consists of seeing on what type of assumptions, of familiar notions, of established, unexamined ways of thinking, the accepted practices are based. ¹⁷

For Foucault, critique’s primary role is to uncover the genealogy of the conditions underpinning the status of criticized object. ¹⁸ He was adamant in rejecting the notion that critique must propose alternatives, dismissing such demands as mere “ministerial cabinet talk.” Instead, he positioned critique as a tool “for those who fight, those who resist and refuse what is.” ¹⁹ Critique, he argued, does not legislate in the traditional sense but challenges what exists, operating within processes of conflict and resistance:

Critique doesn’t have to lay down the law for the law. It isn’t a stage in programming. It is a challenge directed to what is.

Foucault seems to deny critique any normative or legislative responsibility. ²⁰ However, this interpretation misses a crucial nuance. While Foucault’s critique does not require constructing alternatives outright, it does not eschew its legislative dimension entirely. As Gilles Deleuze observed in Nietzsche and Philosophy, critique, particularly in its Kantian and Nietzschean forms, inherently involves a process of “philosophizing with a hammer.” ²¹ In this model, the critic becomes a philosopher-legislator, dismantling idols and clearing the conceptual ground for new possibilities. By breaking down entrenched structures, critique creates the conditions for alternative futures to emerge.

Thus, the task of critique is not to present ready-made alternatives but to open a space for change to take root. The critic, as a legislator, identifies, describes, and conceptualizes the blind spots in the social fabric, thereby enabling transformation. “Criticism is utterly indispensable for any transformation,” as Foucault concluded. ²²

Based on this exploration, we can further distinguish critique as a skeptical mindset and rhetorical strategy from critical theory as a methodologically driven inquiry by outlining a trivial scheme of critique, which unfolds through three interdependent stages: (i) identifying the existence of social formation X, (ii) demonstrating that X is problematic, and (iii) asserting that the world would be better off with X changed, replaced, or eliminated. This scheme operates across ontological, epistemological, and normative registers, where each stage is dependent on the others. The ontological claim that X exists relies on an epistemic framework capable of recognizing and conceptually describing X as such, while every description of X carries normative weight, as to describe is also to exclude alternative descriptions. ²³

Yet, this trivial scheme does not necessarily imply emancipation or transformation. It remains ideologically neutral, capable of being deployed by liberal, conservative, or anti-democratic forces, each seeking to modify elements of an existing system without necessarily challenging its foundations. A liberal critique of the free market may argue that it is “not free enough,” while a conservative critique of law may seek to “restore traditional values.” Neither, however, fundamentally questions the conditions of possibility that enabled X to emerge in the first place.

Where critical theory diverges from the trivial scheme is, first and foremost, in its political commitment: rather than simply identifying and rejecting X, it interrogates the structural and historical conditions that produced X, revealing it not as an inevitable necessity but as a historical contingency—something that could have been otherwise. ²⁴ This shift from seeing X as an isolated problem to understanding it as structurally embedded marks the difference between critique as mere negation and critique as a transformative force. By linking past conditions, present critique, and future possibilities, critical theory avoids both romantic historicism and utopian projection, instead operating immanently—seeking within the contradictions of the present the very resources for transformation.

A second key divergence between critique and critical theory is the shift from a trivial to a non-trivial scheme of critique. While the trivial scheme follows a linear structure—identifying X, exposing its flaws, and stopping at its rejection—the non-trivial scheme is recursive, immanent, and generative, engaging with the systemic contradictions that sustain X and the conditions that make its transformation possible.

• i. Positing X as neither self-evident nor purely contingent → Instead of simply identifying X, a non-trivial critique questions how X emerges as an intelligible, structured entity within a given discursive and material framework. It does not just ask what X is but how and why X is possible in the first place.

• ii. Recognizing that X is not merely problematic but constitutive → Rather than simply demonstrating that X is flawed, critique examines how X is embedded in and sustains a broader system, acknowledging that X cannot be removed without transforming the very field in which it operates.

• iii. Engaging with the antagonistic structure of X → Instead of treating X as an external object to be negated, critique investigates the internal tensions and contradictions within X itself, understanding these contradictions as the very spaces where transformation becomes possible.

• iv. Avoiding the illusion of an external standpoint → A non-trivial critique does not assume a neutral or detached position but recognizes its own implication within X, making critique itself an object of interrogation.

• v. Reframing critique as an act of political invention → Rather than simply diagnosing what is wrong and calling for an alternative, a non-trivial critique actively participates in reconfiguring the conditions of intelligibility and agency, making it a site of political experimentation rather than mere denunciation.

Clearly, critique’s transformative potential lies not in offering definitive answers but in reframing inquiry, opening space for political imagination. It does not legislate like an authoritative lawgiver but functions as a legislator-revolutionary, exposing historicity and contingency while clearing the ground for new possibilities. This gives critique its juridical dimension: not as a final judgment on X, but as a reflexive process that interrogates both X and itself. The critic must continually confront their methodological limits, ideological assumptions, and the risk of critique becoming mere negation rather than a force for transformation. The non-trivial scheme of critique moves beyond Kantian transcendental critique, which analyzes the conditions of possibility, by extending toward the speculative horizon of emancipation. It does not simply trace limits but seeks within historical contradictions the latent forces for transformation. ²⁵ Critique can thus be seen as emerging from the Enlightenment’s faith in emancipation. In a genuinely robust critical framework (non-trivial scheme), the path to political emancipation must involve reconfiguring the existing conditions of political imagination so as to transcend them. ²⁶

Thus, critique is inherently unstable—not a settled position but a state of crisis. Far from aiming at stability, harmony, or closure, critique thrives on anxiety and contradiction. It is profoundly neurotic, oscillating between its object and the shifting contours of its own methodological uncertainties. Every act of critique forces the critic to reconsider their own biases, epistemic commitments, and theoretical blind spots. ²⁷ Without this self-reflexivity, critique risks becoming an unthinking, reactionary exercise, a predictable posture rather than an intervention capable of reconfiguring the present.

Yet, not all crises within critique are equally productive. Productive crises drive critique to reassess its foundations, adapt to new challenges, and push beyond its limits. They sustain a tension between “what is” and “what could have been,” allowing critique to expose historical contingencies and generate alternative futures.

By contrast, paralyzing crises render critique rigid and self-defeating. Instead of fostering new possibilities, critique collapses into self-doubt, inertia, or cynical fatalism—merely reiterating its own impossibility. This is evident in postmodern deconstruction and radical ideology critique, where exposing instability or ideological entrapment becomes an end in itself, leading to endless diagnosis without disruption. If all resistance is co-opted, and every claim to justice is another mechanism of power, critique risks becoming a loop of perpetual negation.

This distinction recalls Hegel’s “good” and “bad” infinite. A productive crisis mirrors the good infinite, where critique evolves, experiments, and re-engages with failure, transforming loss into a site of renewal. ²⁸ A paralyzing crisis, however, resembles the bad infinite, where critique is trapped in endless exposure without reconstruction, foreclosing meaningful engagement with the present.

This crisis is extimate to critique—both internal and external at once. Lacan’s concept of extimacy collapses the boundary between inside and outside, revealing that what seems most intimate is shaped by something radically foreign. ²⁹ Crisis is internal because it sustains critique’s self-revising character—without it, critique ossifies into dogma. Yet, crisis is also external, as critique itself unsettles dominant structures and ideological assumptions, introducing unease into the world. The extimacy of crisis ensures that critique never stabilizes but remains an ongoing process, reshaping both itself and its object.

Thus, internal crisis is not a failure of critique but its necessary condition. Because critique always encounters what exceeds its grasp—the remainder, the irreducible aspect of its object that resists totalization—it must continually reorient itself in response to shifting socio-political landscapes. Yet, this excess is not a barrier but the very force that compels critique to continue. ³⁰ The iterative process of re-engagement prevents critique from collapsing into repetition, ensuring it does not simply negate the present but reconfigures it, keeping open the radical potential for transformation in ever-changing political struggles.

Derrida captures this dynamic with precision, describing the crisis of critique as “the urgency of impossible decision.” The act of critique is defined by its inability to fully “arrest” or pacify its object, to encapsulate it entirely within critical judgment. ³¹ Yet paradoxically, this internal crisis sustains critique, preserving its vitality and preventing it from degenerating into dogmatism.

In what follows, I examine the postcritical turn as a response to critique’s crisis, not as its rejection but as a recalibration. Postcritique challenges critical theory’s political engagement, questioning its presumed opposition to power, epistemic privilege, and reliance on exposure as emancipation. I explore how postcritique critiques symptomatic and dialectical methods, assessing whether it offers a constructive reorientation of critique or signals a retreat from its political stakes.

III. From Depth to the Surface

Postcritique traces its origins to Eve Sedgwick’s 1995 essay Shame in the Cybernetic Fold, co-authored with Adam Frank. This work characterizes critique as outdated, overly complex, and excessively interpretative. Postcritique challenged what Paul Ricoeur called the “hermeneutics of suspicion,” a mode of interpretation championed by figures like Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud, who sought to uncover hidden structures of power, ideology, and repression beneath the surface of social phenomena. According to postcritical thinkers, critique shaped by this tradition has become overly paranoid, treating every cultural, political, social, or legal phenomenon as a potential trap set by dominant ideology. ³² This approach presumes the need for meticulous preparation, careful methods, and a predefined critical vocabulary to expose these concealed structures.

Ellen Rooney, drawing on Sedgwick, argues that this “paranoid” mode of critique undermines one of the most vital aspects of critical reading: the capacity for surprise. Surprise, she suggests, entails an openness to unexpected insights from the material under scrutiny—a form of affirmative engagement. However, paranoid critique, guided by the maxim “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” is driven by the certainty that power, ideology, or dominance is present and must be exposed at all costs. ³³ Sedgwick describes this anticipatory quality of paranoia as central to its operation. ³⁴

This paranoid stance underpins what postcritical authors call the “metaphor of depth,” a conceptual framework rooted in two influential methods connected to Marxist critique: deconstruction and psychoanalysis. Three core postulates define this approach:

• i. Textual Primacy: Deconstruction treats all objects as texts, making textuality the primary domain of critique.

• ii. Multiplicity of Meaning: Texts are seen as inherently polysemic, even though dominant ideologies suppress this multiplicity to impose a singular, “necessary” meaning that legitimizes their power. ³⁵

• iii. Ethical Task of Critique: The critic’s role is to expose these suppressed meanings, thereby revealing the arbitrary and contingent nature of power’s claims to legitimacy. ³⁶

This framework gives rise to a method of “semantic archaeology,” where critics excavate the hidden layers of meaning within a text to uncover repressed truths. Louis Althusser, in particular, provides a foundational articulation of this critical reading.

In 1960, in his monumental reinterpretation of Marx, Althusser coined the term “lecture symptomale” to describe a critical approach that identifies what is not immediately perceptible in social phenomena—the invisible conditions of production and the immanent potential for systemic change. Symptomatic reading involves a concentrated and penetrating analysis that reveals the contradictions embedded within a given system. Althusser emphasized the need for a “new gaze,” one produced through a shift in the critic’s conceptual terrain, enabling a deeper understanding of the conditions shaping social and political life. ³⁷ This method laid the groundwork for a Marxist critique attuned to the unspoken or unseen dynamics of power, offering a systematic way to trace the contradictions within systems of production and their potential to generate transformation.

In 1981, Fredric Jameson, for example, emphasizes in The Political Unconscious that no text means only what it says. For him, ideology thrives on opacity—if everything were transparent, domination would be impossible. ³⁸ This method of symptomatic reading, therefore, seeks to reveal the signs of oppression and trauma hidden in texts, laws, and social structures, challenging their claims to neutrality and equality. ³⁹

Legal critique exemplifies this approach. As Costas Douzinas explains, critics read legal texts not just for coherence but for what they omit, distort, or repress—symptoms of deeper institutional traumas and power structures. Law is both a necessary framework and a constructed fiction, its texts shaped by and reflective of ideology. Critics thus treat legal discourse as a site of contradiction, exposing traces of racism, patriarchy, and economic domination in its rhetoric, imagery, and silences. ⁴⁰ In short, the critic doesn’t buy into the system’s legitimizing sweet talk.

Postcritical thinkers, however, find this suspicious approach problematic for several reasons. First, they argue that it fosters an unshakable conviction in the critic that their chosen method grants privileged access to hidden truths. Second, the continued failure to uncover these truths exhausts the metaphor of depth, prompting the proliferation of increasingly complex and often jargonistic critical vocabularies to explain the object’s resistance. Third, this approach projects excessive meaning onto the object, treating it as infinitely malleable and, in the process, engaging with it in a violent and reductive manner. ⁴¹

As Toril Moi observes, critique often positions itself as a tool for exposing ideology and power, fostering resistance, and contributing to social change. This requires critics to adopt a fundamentally suspicious stance toward anything that appears ordinary, common-sensical, or factual. For radical critics, the task is to “read against the grain,” challenging surface appearances to uncover underlying power dynamics. However, postcritical thinkers contend that this suspicion can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, stifling openness and creativity while perpetuating the very dogmatism critique originally sought to dismantle. ⁴²

In contrast to this suspicious, deep reading, postcritique advocates for a radically different approach: surface reading. Drawing inspiration from the X-Files slogan, “the truth is out there,” surface reading shifts focus to the web of causality and social networks that shape the criticized object and sustain its reproduction. Postcritique’s alignment with Bruno Latour’s essay “Why Has Critique Run Out of Steam?” also explains its embrace of Actor-Network Theory (ANT), developed by Latour and John Law. ⁴³

ANT introduces an expansive view of social relations by including not only human actors—along with their behaviors, actions, and interests—but also non-human actors such as inanimate objects, ideas, and processes. These nonhuman elements, although created and maintained by humans (e.g., the global market), acquire an independent agency, shaping reality in tangible ways. Latour’s model dismantles the anthropocentric dominance of human subjects over nonhuman objects, replacing it with a flat ontology in which all actors—human and nonhuman—engage in strategic partnerships as equals in terms of their ontological status. ⁴⁴ This is why some argue that ANT is less a methodology and more a conceptual framework for understanding social relations. If adopted, it allows for new methodological inquiries, blending conceptual and practical dimensions into what might be called a “method-ontology.” ⁴⁵

Postcritique’s rejection of ideology as a central focus follows from this shift. While critique views ideology as a form of false consciousness—a mechanism that brackets inconvenient meanings and packages them into palatable forms to sustain ideological dominance—postcritique dismisses this obsession with hidden truths. Postcritical thinkers argue they are weary of uncovering supposed deep meanings, exposing hidden mechanisms of power, or endlessly analyzing symptoms and unconscious motives. In their view, nothing is hidden; everything is open to view. The task, then, is simply to look around and observe.

The cliché of ideology critique, they contend, lies in its fixation on what is hidden, overlooking the surface-level realities of readers’ experiences. For traditional critique, experience is irrelevant because it is always presumed to be ideologically compromised. ⁴⁶ What matters instead is the rigorous methodology wielded by the critic, who claims privileged insight into truths obscured from ordinary readers. ⁴⁷

This perspective reduces the text to an object of cross-examination rather than dialogue. It diminishes the aesthetic value of the text and personal experience of the reader, subordinating it entirely to impersonal structures of ideological and political struggle. In contrast, postcritique calls for acknowledging the text’s minimal autonomy, treating it as a unique kind of actor within a broader network. This autonomy does not suggest an entirely self-contained or “authentic” textual core but rather recognizes that a text’s social and political implications depend on its ability to form complex webs of attachments and connections. As Rita Felski argues:

The number and length of these networks prove far more salient to a text’s survival than matters of ideological agreement. If you are an unrepentant avant-gardist making installations out of soiled diapers and statues of the Virgin Mary, your allies are not just the respectful review in the pages of Artforum but also the conservative pundit who invokes your example to lambast the state of contemporary art, amping up its visibility and generating a flurry of commentary. ⁴⁸

To engage in surface reading, then, is to treat a text as an ontologically singular surface embedded within an expansive and asymmetrical network of relations—relations that extend beyond ideology.

The challenge postcritique poses to critical theory is also philosophical, as it can be described in the coordinates of the battle over the role of critique in shaping transformation, unfolding between transcendentalist dialectics and immanentist thought. At stake is whether critique should continue exposing hidden structures through negation and contradiction or abandon depth metaphors in favor of mapping surface-level networks and relations. This divide reflects competing political commitments regarding how power operates and how change occurs.

Dialectical critique, rooted in Hegelian and Marxist traditions, sees contradiction as central. It assumes social structures contain internal tensions that must be exposed and sublated to advance freedom and universality. This transcendental orientation ties critique to an emancipatory horizon—whether the Marxist proletariat or the excluded non-subjects of law in CLS—conceived not as a fixed category but as a political subject produced through struggle and negation. ⁴⁹

Immanentist thinkers, by contrast, reject this transcendental ideal of emancipation, arguing that it imposes a singular teleology onto history and flattens the heterogeneity of struggles. Rather than searching for hidden ideological structures, immanent critique emphasizes the concrete, affective, and relational dynamics of the present. Thinkers like Deleuze, Latour, and proponents of ANT argue that critique should not seek depth but instead trace the networks of forces that sustain power. ⁵⁰

This political divergence is clear: dialectical critique relies on negation to expose contradictions and enable radical transformation based on supposedly transcendental ideals, while immanentist approaches favor affirmative engagement with existing networks. From the immanentist perspective, traditional critique risks reifying the structures it opposes by defining itself purely in opposition. Instead of treating power as something to negate, postcritique insists that change must emerge from within existing conditions rather than through a transcendental rupture. ⁵¹

To conclude this section, postcritique advances three philosophically interesting claims: (i) dialectical critique is trapped in a paranoid mindset, assuming that ideology must always be unmasked; (ii) it promotes a cycle of endless suspicion, revealing contradictions without offering alternatives; and (iii) critique is not inherently emancipatory—it can also operate as a disciplinary force, closing off other ways of engaging with social and political life.

However, these claims do not negate critique but radicalize its self-critical dimension. The framing of critique and postcritique as stark opposites is misleading. The depth versus surface dichotomy obscures their shared concerns. Deleuze himself frames immanence as a revolutionary utopia, not passive affirmation but a critical intervention into the present. His philosophy complicates the supposed break between dialectical and immanentist approaches—while postcritique often rejects transcendental ideals like universal emancipation, Deleuze’s concept of immanence suggests critique need not abandon transformation but must reconfigure it.

In What Is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari describe immanence as a revolutionary utopia from which critique pushes its time to the limit, deterritorializing dominant structures and summoning new possibilities. ⁵² Thus, the opposition between depth (dialectical negation) and surface (immanent affirmative) is misleading. Deleuze does not reject critique but reorients it: rather than exposing contradictions, his immanentist approach generates alternative modes of existence within the structures it analyzes. Immanence does not accept the given world but actively intervenes, opening new lines of flight beyond oppressive forces.

In the following sections, I examine critique and postcritique in CLS and, through Žižek’s symptomatic reading, demonstrate that their opposition is far less absolute than often assumed.

IV. Postcritical Turn in CLS

Although postcritique represents a highly inconsistent mix of approaches—making it difficult to describe comprehensively as a cohesive movement—it can still be understood as a paradigmatic shift, an event marking the “postcritical turn.” This turn serves as a significant landmark in reflecting on the trajectory of critique, including its influence on the CLS. In his essay exploring the intersection of postcritique and CLS, Kyle McGee dismisses the term “postcritical” as lacking any meaningful or coherent definition, arguing that its descriptive potential is undermined by its inherent vagueness. ⁵³ Consequently, speaking of “postcritical legal studies” may seem premature.

Nevertheless, the postcritical turn has undeniably left its mark on CLS, just as it has on the humanities more broadly. Despite its internal inconsistencies, this turn is unified by its central aim: a “critique of critique” and a pressing call to re-evaluate the methodological arsenal of critique. ⁵⁴ If we acknowledge that critique is in crisis—marked by the exhaustion of its methods and a lack of self-reflection—postcritique offers a radical and ethically compelling challenge that deserves more attention within CLS. ⁵⁵

At this stage, theorizing a “new” CLS grounded in postcritique would be of limited use for two reasons. First, this hypothetical postcritical CLS would rest on the erroneous assumption that it is replacing a unified “old” CLS, when, in reality, no such coherent movement ever existed. Second, even if we sought to define postcritique as a distinct branch of CLS rather than a movement supplanting traditional legal critique, this effort would be fraught with difficulty. Postcritique’s methodological diversity defies easy categorization under a single theoretical framework. While its various methodologies can be mapped, they resist being united under a common banner.

What is worth exploring, however, is how the postcritical turn—far from being exclusive to literary studies—might reconceptualize CLS’s relationship to its two central objects of critique: law and ideology. Ideology, a foundational concern for critique, is often framed as a mechanism of power that conceals contradictions or disguises biased meanings as objective truths, that is to say, truths independent of historical, cultural, and political conditions. ⁵⁶ Law, in turn, is the site where ideology operates. The relationship between these two is undeniably complex, raising important questions about how we methodologically frame their connection. The postcritical turn, already underway, challenges CLS to reconsider these foundational critiques. This prompts a key question: what lessons can CLS take from postcritique? In other words, it is instructive to reexamine the position of critique within CLS—to revisit the longstanding question: what, ultimately, makes CLS critical?

CLS is best defined not by what it asserts, but by what it challenges. Its critical force lies in opposing liberal legal theories, especially the notion of law as a neutral system grounded in the autonomous legal subject. This stance might suggest that CLS aims to cast law in the worst possible light. Yet, as Alan Hunt notes, CLS is motivated less by wholesale rejection than by a deep sense of perplexity about the nature of law. ⁵⁷ It doesn’t dismiss law outright, but interrogates its claims to neutrality, coherence, and justice—seeing law as both a vehicle of power and a potential site of transformation.

What makes CLS critical is not a simple denunciation of law but its insistence on exposing how law constructs, legitimizes, and obscures power relations. It argues that law does not merely reflect social hierarchies but actively produces and reinforces them. Legal reasoning, CLS contends, transforms historically contingent decisions into objective necessities, masking its ideological character. Legal doctrine further entrenches this illusion by constructing abstract categories—such as property or rights—that appear apolitical and timeless but historically serve to uphold capitalist, racial, and patriarchal hierarchies. ⁵⁸

Legal education plays a key role in naturalizing these structures. By presenting law as coherent and self-contained rather than as a contested field of power, legal training conditions practitioners to internalize law’s ideological assumptions rather than critically interrogate them. This self-reinforcing cycle ensures that law’s complicity in structural inequality remains obscured.

Yet critique is not external to law—it is central to its evolution. Law is a site of intensified value disagreement, constantly refined in response to internal and external critiques. CLS mobilizes this critical function against law itself, exposing its ideological underpinnings rather than accepting its self-presentation as neutral. By problematizing the assumptions of legal actors, CLS reveals law not as a fixed system of justice but as a contested site where power is negotiated and legitimized.

Thus, CLS is critical not because it seeks to delegitimize law entirely but because it exposes its contingency and political stakes. By uncovering the ideological functions of legal reasoning, CLS challenges law’s claims to neutrality and inevitability, opening space to rethink law—not as an immutable structure but as a historically situated practice capable of transformation.

This focus on law’s ideological dimension is not incidental but central to the CLS project. If law operates as more than a system of rules and instead actively constructs and legitimizes social hierarchies, then understanding its ideological function becomes crucial. Justin Desautels-Stein positions ideology at the heart of critical legal scholarship, identifying four distinct critiques of legal ideology ⁵⁹ :

• i. The critique of legal formalism, which seeks to expose judicial bias concealed beneath the seemingly objective formulas of legal interpretation, often designed to obscure the subjective positions of judges. ⁶⁰

• ii. Empirical legal studies and the critique of judicial decision-making, which maintains a distinction between law and ideology. This approach uncovers ideological influences on law through empirical methods but ultimately aims to make the law free from ideology. ⁶¹

• iii. Postmodern critiques of law, society, and legal practice, inspired by Marxist and post-Marxist theories. Here, the line between law and ideology blurs, as both are viewed as interconnected mechanisms of power. Within this framework, the claim to move beyond ideology is seen as inherently ideological. ⁶²

• iv. Legal structuralism and the critique of legal thought, which combines structural linguistics with Marxist ideology critique to demonstrate the indeterminacy of legal language and the misleading nature of dominant legal reasoning. ⁶³

To these, we can add a fifth critique influenced by the postcritical turn. Postcritique offers a different perspective on the relationship between law and ideology. Traditional critiques have treated ideology as producing hidden meanings, giving critics the illusion that they can “master” law by uncovering its ideological underpinnings. Ideology, as the usual suspect in critiques of law, even became a defining feature of CLS. As Alan Hunt asserted, the concept of ideology distinguishes CLS from liberal legal theory by enabling questions about the formation of legal consciousness and the beliefs of legal actors. ⁶⁴

However, postcritique challenges this centrality of ideology. According to postcritics, CLS has become so preoccupied with the omnipotence of ideological structures that it risks trivializing their consequences.

Elizabeth S. Anker highlights this problem, arguing that exposing power structures and their exclusions—a hallmark of critique—is no longer the exclusive domain of radical, left-leaning politics. Instead, it has become a standard feature of institutionalized and benign politics of centrism, where platitudes about law’s ideological foundations often begin by noting that law is constructed by its “outliers, exceptions, and extreme cases.” ⁶⁵ What is more, this very same style has been readily co-opted by reactionary forces, including conspiracy theorists and far-right radicals who invoke “deep state” plots or elite cabals as evidence of buried power dynamics. In both the centrist and right-wing domains, then, we find an appropriation of a once-radical idiom of unmasking structures of power, illustrating how the language of critique itself can be repurposed to serve agendas with widely divergent political ends. ⁶⁶ The result is that declaring law ideological no longer feels radical. If this is the case, postcritics ask, what is left to critique?

Anker attacks the faith critics place in psychoanalytic, deconstructive and Marxist methods, which aim to “trap” ideology in their interpretative net. Ironically, postcritics argue, the ultimate concern of critique should be the impossibility of mastering either law or ideology, no matter the methods employed. Traditional critiques, focused on exposing ideological symptoms that obscure systemic contradictions, have failed to account for a significant shift: today, power is often blatantly transparent about its contradictions (as seen in phenomena like “alternative facts”) and operates through complex networks of interconnected processes. These networks create new structures of power that demand fresh analytical approaches. This includes moving beyond outdated historicization and instead broadening the context to incorporate a plurality of places, times, and actants. The reductive concept of ideology, however, restricts this kind of analysis. From a postcritical perspective, ideology becomes more of a hindrance than a useful tool for understanding law, seducing critics into pursuing imagined depths while offering little insight into the actual workings of contemporary power. ⁶⁷ That is why ideology has to be, according to postcritics, sidelined. Never-ending project of diving into discrete ideological discourses and contexts must be replaced.

Bruno Latour captures this sentiment with his provocative claim, “Context stinks!” ⁶⁸ For Latour, contextualization is an easy—too easy, almost lazy—way to describe a thing. ⁶⁹ When critics struggle to describe an object in its own specificity, they often default to contextualizing it within external circumstances, reducing the object to a mere reflection of those conditions instead of connecting it to the vast web of dynamic interactions and recognizing it as an autonomous nonhuman actor. This is why, according to postcritics, ideology critique has outlived its usefulness. Reducing law to ideology (i.e., context of power) diminishes its unique properties, framing it solely as a manipulative and repressive system. ⁷⁰

Postcritique proposes an alternative—flattening the depth metaphor of ideology to recognize law as a surface phenomenon. As Latour puts it:

Nothing but surface, nothing but filaments, nothing but laces; just the links that move fast and move straight and tangle us up, hold us and protect us—provided that they remain at the surface, that they engage us lightly, that we ourselves remain at the surface, hardly engaged, so as to be able to monitor and interpret them. ⁷¹

In this view, understanding law requires a new attentiveness to its surface-level networks, embracing its dynamic, entangled relationships rather than diving into depths that offer diminishing returns.

Note that surface reading is potentially subject to similar anxiety as symptomatic reading and thus brings with it its own set of challenges. While symptomatic reading risks an over-immersion in the depths of hidden meanings, surface reading faces the opposite anxiety: the danger of becoming overwhelmed by the vastness of the surface itself, unable to decide which direction to pursue. Both depth and surface, in their respective infinities, present unique problems for critical inquiry.

To address these challenges, Mariana Valverde, drawing on Deleuze, Foucault, and Latour, introduces the “dermatological approach” to law, urging us to “look around” rather than “look into.” This shift moves away from probing hidden depths to examining the intricate surface of legal phenomena. Valverde argues that the depth/surface dichotomy limits critique, tying it to outdated debates and hindering methodological innovation.

Her approach reconceptualizes law as a dynamic “legal complex” rather than a singular entity. Law, she argues, lacks intrinsic agency and should instead be understood as a network of interactions spanning textual, institutional, political, economic, and spatial dimensions. This perspective challenges the notion of law as a unified structure and highlights its fragmented, context-dependent nature. ⁷²

Drawing on Deleuze’s distinction between critique and clinique, Valverde contrasts two modes of legal analysis. Critique operates at a higher level of abstraction, formulating overarching norms that prescribe what the law ought to be. Clinique, by contrast, is grounded in the practical, empirical, and particular, examining how law operates as it “has been and now happens to be.” ⁷³ Jurisprudence, in Deleuze’s terms, belongs to the abstract critical mode, while a clinical approach embraces the practical—that is, empirical—workings of legal systems. ⁷⁴ Valverde aligns with this clinical mode, emphasizing the pragmatic and teleological nature of law as a process aimed at generating decisions. Law, in her view, consists of a multitude of local epistemologies, each shaped by the specific requirements of particular legal contexts. ⁷⁵ For example, what qualifies as admissible evidence in a civil suit may not be permissible in a criminal trial—an illustration of law’s inherently plural and situational character.

Postcritique, with its horizontal orientation, remains indifferent to the vertical abstractions that often preoccupy traditional critique. Rejecting reductive concepts such as ideology, society, or economy as explanatory tools, postcritique focuses instead on the web of interactions among diverse actors, constructing the so-called “flat ontology” of law. ⁷⁶ The postcritical task is not to uncover hidden meanings or invent alternative realities for the criticized object but to achieve a more robust and critically distanced understanding of what the object does and how it behaves. This involves refraining from imposing predetermined concepts and instead observing and interpreting law’s practical functions as they manifest. ⁷⁷

Rita Felski captures this approach, writing that postcritique:

. . .emphasizes the act of defamiliarizing rather than discovery. The text is no longer composed of strata; the critic does not burrow down but stands back. Instead of brushing past surface meanings in pursuit of hidden truth, she stares intently at these surfaces, seeking to render them improbable through the imperturbability of her gaze. ⁷⁸

In the postcritical setting, law is no longer viewed as a Kafkaesque realm of oppression or exploitation. Instead, postcritique appreciates law’s autonomous, dynamic, and even captivating role in constructing, entangling, and rebranding arguments and propositions. It invites us to see law not as a depthless ideology but as a living, evolving network of interactions that shape and reflect the complexities of social life.

The postcritical account of law is notably captivated by its machine-like qualities, which, while capable of causing suffering, can also serve reparative purposes. This reparative dimension of postcritique draws on Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s essay, “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Essay Is About You,” in which she advocates for a form of reading that seeks comfort and hope rather than ideological unmasking. ⁷⁹

For instance, Wai Chee Dimock employs this reparative lens in her analysis of the Alternatives to Incarceration (ATI) program in the United States. The program fosters a network of support within and beyond the courtroom, offering incarcerated individuals a second chance and a renewed sense of belonging. Such examples illustrate that law, despite its flaws, can function as a source of humanity and hope. ⁸⁰

The postcritical turn is not merely an optimistic reassessment of law’s potential; it is also marked by a hostility toward ideology critique and its traditional methods. While postcritique brings valuable self-reflexivity and methodological reevaluation to critical legal thought, its rejection of ideology as a critical concept is questionable.

I argue that there is a way to move beyond the surface versus symptom dichotomy without abandoning decades of critical methodologies that have proven invaluable. While postcritique rightly points out that traditional critique has stagnated, its eagerness to discard symptomatic reading and the concept of contradiction is premature—if not outright dangerous.

A reparative approach to law’s achievements may seem refreshing, but blind optimism risks masking deeper systemic injustices—as Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life satirically reminds us. Law’s complicity in exploitation cannot be ignored. ⁸¹ The gap between law’s promises and its realities remains central to ideology critique, and abandoning it would be a fatal mistake.

Instead, I argue that we can use the self-reflexive impulse of postcritique to revitalize critical methodologies without abandoning ideology critique. McGee supports this view, noting that critique still possesses powerful analytical tools—transcendental, dialectical, interpretative, genealogical, and deconstructive—that should not be discarded but reoriented to engage multiple forms of agency rather than being applied uncritically. ⁸²

This suggests that postcritique is not a rejection of critique but its reconfiguration. Slavoj Žižek’s approach to ideology critique challenges the claim that critique is inherently trapped in the allure of depth, showing instead how it can be adaptable and self-aware. In the next section, I demonstrate how Žižek’s framework preserves critique’s political and theoretical force while remaining attuned to the tensions within its own practice.

V. Žižek’s Middle Ground

Žižek, one of the most prominent proponents of ideology as a robust descriptive tool and critical method, constructs his critique through an alliance of Hegel, Lacan, and Marx. In The Sublime Object of Ideology (SOI; 1989), Žižek enters the fray of critical theory by challenging the dominant intellectual currents of the time. On one side was the Foucauldian critique of the Enlightenment as an exclusionary, Eurocentric project; on the other, Habermas’s theory of communicative action, which sought to push Enlightenment rationality to its ultimate conclusion. Žižek, however, argued that a more crucial axis had been neglected: the intersection of Lacanian psychoanalysis and Althusserian ideology critique. ⁸³ His intervention was a direct response to the prevailing claim that the world had entered a “post-ideological” age, where ideological mystifications had supposedly been unmasked, leaving behind a transparent socio-political order.

Against this complacent assumption, Žižek revived Althusser’s concept of symptomatic reading—a method that combines Marxist political economy with psychoanalysis to reveal how ideology continues to structure reality at the most fundamental level. For Žižek, ideology is not simply a set of false beliefs or illusions that can be dispelled with reason; it is embedded in the subject’s very psychic structure, shaping how we desire, interpret, and experience the world.

It is no surprise, then, that Žižek stands as a prime target of postcritique. There are clear reasons for this: (i) his use of critique as a form of negative judgment inspired by Kant, which postcritique associates with paranoid reading; (ii) his rhetoric of depth and excavation, which runs counter to surface reading’s emphasis on immediacy and openness; and (iii) his political commitment to universal emancipation, which immanentist thinkers reject as an outdated or even oppressive framework. In unpacking these critiques, we can simultaneously clarify the stakes of Žižek’s philosophical project.

Critique, in Žižek’s framework, operates as negative judgment, based on two key presuppositions. First, social reality is not a self-contained whole but structured around an irreducible antagonism—what appears as unity is sustained through exclusion. Drawing from Laclau and Mouffe, Žižek emphasizes that social cohesion is imposed, not inherent, and maintained by marginalizing those who disrupt its stability, whether the poor, the disenfranchised, or immigrants.

Second, critique follows the logic of negation—social formations are never what they claim to be. For a system to function, it must appear legitimate, yet legitimacy depends on concealing the exclusions that sustain it. Critique exposes this contradiction, revealing how power operates by masking its foundations—for instance, liberal law presents itself as guaranteeing freedom but ultimately enforces class domination. ⁸⁴

Žižek’s early engagement with Kantian transcendental idealism—particularly the gap between phenomena (what we perceive) and noumena (what remains inaccessible)—initially shaped his view of ideology as structuring perception while concealing its conditions. However, through Hegel and Lacan, he radicalizes this gap: the unknowable is not an external limit but an effect of internal contradictions. Where Kant sees an inaccessible noumenal realm, Žižek sees a constitutive lack—an inconsistency that generates movement and change. ⁸⁵ This shift grounds Žižek’s theory of symptomatic reading. In psychoanalysis, a symptom is a distorted return of the repressed—a disruption that both conceals and reveals an underlying contradiction. Lacan expands this concept beyond individual pathology, treating symptoms as structural to subjectivity itself—that which does not fit yet sustains the symbolic order.

Žižek extends this logic to social and political analysis, treating right-wing populism, distrust in institutions, and crises of authority as symptoms—not irrational deviations but expressions of fundamental contradictions. ⁸⁶ Crucially, the symptom is not an external obstacle to a properly functioning system; it is both excluded and essential to the system’s functioning—what Lacan terms extimacy. This paradox—of being simultaneously inside and outside—lies at the core of Žižek’s critique of ideology.

In other words, for a social or ideological system to maintain itself, it must exclude certain disruptive elements that threaten its coherence. Yet these very exclusions do not disappear; they persist as a remainder that haunts the system, returning in symptomatic forms that destabilize its seeming unity. The symptom thus represents an excess—something the system must reject in order to appear whole, yet something that constantly resurfaces as an internal rupture, exposing the impossibility of closure. Just as the psychoanalytic symptom both conceals and reveals the subject’s unconscious conflicts, social symptoms obscure yet expose the ideological inconsistencies that sustain power structures. ⁸⁷ For Žižek, ideology critique does not merely unmask hidden truths but interprets symptoms to reveal how reality is structured around a constitutive lack, an impossibility that ideological formations attempt to obscure but can never fully eliminate.

This paradox is crucial to understanding capitalism from a Marxist perspective. Just as the psychoanalytic symptom allows analysts to grasp how normal psychic functioning depends on a constitutive imbalance, the social symptom reveals how capitalism, in its apparent stability, relies on persistent contradictions. The symptom is not an external aberration disrupting an otherwise balanced system; rather, it is the key to understanding how the system operates in the first place. ⁸⁸ The exploitation of labor, the persistence of inequality, or recurring financial crises are not accidental flaws of capitalism but necessary conditions for its operation. In this sense, Marxist critique does not seek to correct capitalism’s inefficiencies but to show how its normal functioning is predicated on the very antagonisms it seeks to repress.

Žižek’s ideology critique doesn’t simply aim to unmask hidden truths; it interprets symptoms to show how reality is structured around a constitutive lack—an absence that ideology seeks to cover over but can never fully erase. The symptom, rather than being a deviation, becomes the key epistemic entry point through which the contradictions of ideology and the material structures it upholds are revealed.

The second reason of rhetoric of depth and excavations follow and after previous exposé of symptom, it is clear that Žižek is indeed situated in the coordinates of deep symptomatic reading, uncovering hidden constitutive paradoxes. Elizabeth S. Anker views Žižek as “an ardent evangelist for paradox,” illustrating how Marxist thought often culminates in paradoxical insights. ⁸⁹ Yet Anker also highlights a larger concern: when paradox is treated as the ultimate payoff—when uncovering contradictions becomes the reflexive end-point of analysis—it can shut down other routes of inquiry or solutions. Rather than simply revealing contradictions, Anker suggests, scholars might ask how these contradictions arise, explore their historical or institutional contexts, and consider constructive ways to address them beyond declaring them paradoxical.

Anker’s critique of Žižek, in my view, rests on a misunderstanding of Žižek and other Lacanian theorists. Yet in an ironic twist, Anker effectively performs a “symptomatic reading” of her own: her critique inadvertently elucidates certain workings of Žižek’s philosophical project, leading to a more precise understanding of how it operates. That is to say, her broader “postcritical” argument for what she terms “integrative criticism” remains compelling. By “integrative criticism,” Anker refers to a mode of reading and theorizing that focuses on how things hold together rather than fixating on paradoxes or contradictions. She does not advocate discarding paradox altogether; instead, she proposes supplementing it with frameworks that acknowledge forms of fullness, resilience, and synthesis. ⁹⁰

This approach urges us to pay attention to phenomena such as harmony, noncontradiction, wholeness, and collective agency—dynamics often overshadowed by a habitual focus on exclusions and fractures. ⁹¹ Practicing integrative criticism means seeking moments where things genuinely “work,” using that coherence as a springboard for further analysis. Rather than labeling everything an insoluble paradox, this reading strategy recognizes both paradoxical and integrative dimensions, thus broadening the horizons of critical inquiry.

Although terms like “harmony” or “wholeness” are largely absent from Žižek’s lexicon, his thought still intertwines depth and surface, negativity and generativity—particularly through his engagement with the Lacanian concept of the symptom. Žižek’s earlier works (notably in SOI) draw on Lacan’s Seminar XXII, On the Sinthome, where the symptom is reconceived not simply as a negative phenomenon but as a creative, productive force that becomes—at least partially—perceptible at the surface level. In his later writings, Žižek extends this reimagining of the symptom—or “sinthome”—to more explicitly political terrain. In my view, this development showcases how Žižek’s paradox-based critique can be compatible with a “surface-level” or generative reading, a method I will refer to as sinthomatic analysis.

Before further examining the sinthome, I turn to the third key aspect of Žižek’s philosophical project: his commitment to the idea of universal emancipation.

For Žižek, universality and emancipation do not simply mean enlarging an existing liberal-democratic consensus or granting more rights within the status quo. Instead, his approach emphasizes a radical social transformation from the vantage point of those who have, paradoxically, been both essential to the system’s operation and excluded from its rewards. In this sense, Žižek highlights the “proletariat” as the archetypal example, describing it as the “part of no part.” Because workers’ labor is indispensable for capitalist reproduction, they are undeniably “inside” the system; yet their structural oppression bars them from fully benefiting under it. Precisely this contradictory position—at once included and excluded—gives them a privileged standpoint for revealing the core injustices and contradictions of the entire social order.

Rather than endorsing incremental reforms or more inclusive procedures, Žižek envisions emancipation as a disruptive intervention that unmasks the “constitutive antagonisms” built into capitalist society and other oppressive arrangements. These antagonisms take shape in what he calls the “impossible standpoint,” a location that the system struggles to fully integrate. Because this “impossible” group exposes the inherent gaps or failures in the social fabric, their demands inevitably go beyond merely securing recognition or accommodation. Instead, the contradictions they embody—capitalist exploitation, racialized exclusion, or other hierarchical power structures—become a catalyst for rethinking what is politically feasible. In Žižek’s reading, any genuine transformation must reorganize society around a new collective logic, one that neither manages nor glosses over antagonisms, but instead tackles them head-on.

This “part of no part” thus functions as the stand-in for universality because its claims—arising from the structural fault lines—resonate for everyone, not just a single identity group. From Žižek’s perspective, universality becomes tangible precisely when those without a proper place demand a reshaping of the social field to benefit all, rather than patching holes in the existing framework. ⁹² Ultimately, Žižek’s commitment to universal emancipation lies in this sense of rupture: by focusing on the system’s inherent contradictions, those most left out galvanize a new collective solidarity and force a radical reorganization of social life. This process challenges everyday political possibilities and, at its height, expands the horizon of what a truly inclusive society might look like, transforming “impossible” demands into a genuine universal cause.

It is instructive to revisit the postcritical challenge to universal emancipation as a political goal. According to Elizabeth Anker, paradox—embodied in Žižek’s thought by the global proletariat—does not by itself guarantee emancipation precisely because its emphasis on negativity can undermine the generative force of organized resistance. Simply pointing out that a social formation is paradoxical and thus cannot fully materialize amounts to a trivial scheme of critique that fails to be emancipatory. As Jodi Dean explains vis-a-vis the meaning of politics in Žižek:

For Žižek, politicization is universalization. Politics proper, he explains, is “the moment in which a particular demand is not simply part of the negotiation of interests but aims at something more, and starts to function as the metaphoric condensation of the global restructuring of the entire space.” Thus, nothing is naturally or automatically political. Transgressions and resistances may be politicized, but there is nothing about them that makes them inevitably political. ⁹³

For critique to enable emancipation, it must be guided by genuine political commitment, going beyond negation to a non-trivial mode of inquiry. Žižek’s concept of universal emancipation both meets this requirement and introduces a specific notion of solidarity—a sense of belonging that paradoxically arises out of non-belonging. The proletariat, as the “emancipatory subject,” unites around a universally shared experience of not fitting perfectly anywhere, making its incompleteness the basis for true collective identification. ⁹⁴

In Žižek’s view, this paradoxical solidarity is deeper than what identity politics can offer, since shared cultural, political, or aesthetic beliefs remain a set of discrete particulars rather than a universal. Ultimately, the wholeness of the emancipatory subject rests on a collectively acknowledged “negative” status—an embrace of non-belonging that binds everyone together. ⁹⁵

These three reasons, summed up here, explain why Žižek often becomes a target for postcritique. While symptomatic reading is crucial to his critical theory—without it, his framework would falter—Žižek has never simply presumed that uncovering an ideology’s hidden illusions will automatically foster emancipatory consciousness. Right from the SOI onward, he questions why pointing out capitalism’s contradictions so rarely sparks real political change and asks what symptomatic critique can still achieve. These concerns, visible even in his early work, reflect a distinctly postcritical outlook.

Responding to these issues, Žižek engages Peter Sloterdijk’s concept of cynical reason, which inverts the classic Marxist notion of ideology as “forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” In Sloterdijk’s account, the formula becomes “forgive them, for they know exactly what they are doing but do it anyway.” ⁹⁶ Unmasking ideology no longer suffices because ideology today is sustained by a fully conscious awareness of its contradictions. Rather than dissolving once exposed, it thrives even more vigorously once its paradoxes are openly admitted. ⁹⁷

This unprecedented predicament drives Žižek toward Lacan’s later teaching on the sinthome—an updated notion of the symptom—and his concept of fantasy, both presented with recourse to the central Lacanian notion of jouissance (enjoyment). These concepts allow him to examine how individuals persist in ideological commitments even when they recognize inherent contradictions, and why that recognition seldom triggers reevaluation or dissent.

In what follows, I unpack the conceptual meanings and interrelations among enjoyment, the sinthome, and fantasy, including their implications for critique in the humanities.

For Lacan, jouissance refers to a paradoxical satisfaction often entangled with discomfort or outright pain. It can appear as overwhelming pleasure verging on “too much” (for instance, at the moment of sexual climax) or as the hidden gratification in self-punishing or self-defeating behavior. Far from a neat sense of pleasure, jouissance interweaves gratification and suffering in ways that can destabilize the subject.

Over the course of his work, Lacan describes human experience in terms of three registers: the Imaginary, the Symbolic, and the Real. Early on (1936–1952), he focuses on the Imaginary, exemplified by the “mirror stage,” in which images and identifications structure our sense of self. In his Symbolic period (1953–1962), he emphasizes language and structure—showing that the unconscious is formed like a language and that we are “spoken” by signifiers. Finally, in his Real period (1963–1981), he delves into the dimension that frustrates or exceeds symbolic representation, introducing topological models like the Borromean knot (Imaginary, Symbolic, Real), which remain linked only if none of the rings is broken. ⁹⁸

It is in Seminar XXIII, Le sinthome (1975–1976), that Lacan definitively adds a fourth ring to his Borromean knot, calling it the sinthome. Borrowing an archaic spelling of “symptom” and drawing inspiration from James Joyce, he designates the sinthome as a direct inscription of jouissance—one far less amenable to interpretation than earlier notions of the symptom. Whereas a symptom can be (partly) read as a coded formation aimed at the big Other (the Symbolic network of language, norms, and social ties), the sinthome is, strictly speaking, uninterpretable. ⁹⁹ In Lacan’s view, fantasy—an imaginary scenario concealing the traumatic Real—helps stabilize the subject’s desire by covering over an underlying void. ¹⁰⁰ But the sinthome stands outside such Symbolic deciphering, acting instead as a “creative anchor” knitting together the Real, Symbolic, and Imaginary registers.

Crucially, Lacan suggests that the sinthome is recognized only after interpretive work has been tried: it is posited retroactively as if it had always preceded the analysis, revealing a nucleus of enjoyment that defies Symbolic translation. Hence, while the analytical strategy for a symptom hinges on deciphering repressed conflict (and thus relies on the interpretive approach), the sinthome must ultimately be acknowledged rather than “read.” By shifting focus to the sinthome, Lacan thus signals a move away from purely interpretive techniques, foregrounding the dimension of jouissance that both undergirds and unsettles the subject’s identity.

For Žižek, this same concept of jouissance becomes pivotal in explaining why people hold onto their ideologies so tightly. In his view, enjoyment is never merely private or apolitical; it saturates collective fantasies, identities, and social narratives. This can be distilled into four key themes:

• i. Ideology Beyond Belief: Classical Marxists often treat ideology as false consciousness. Žižek argues that ideology also involves unconscious desire and affect, not just conscious belief. People enjoy ideologies through hidden pleasures, resentments, and fantasies, which helps explain their stubborn attachment to them.

• ii. The Politics of Fantasy: Žižek claims that fantasies about how others steal or misuse our enjoyment shape affiliation. For instance, xenophobic or nationalist rhetoric contends that “outsiders” are depriving us of some valuable resource or purity, fueling resentment and providing a grim satisfaction in labeling oneself a virtuous victim.

• iii. The “Theft of Enjoyment”: A recurring theme in Žižek’s work is how ideological rhetoric frames the Other’s enjoyment as illegitimate or excessive, provoking envy or outrage. By forming narratives of “us versus them,” societies often justify policing or punishing the Other’s perceived surplus of enjoyment.

• iv. Ideology’s Tenacity: Finally, because ideology offers jouissance—a hidden payoff—it is resistant to mere factual correction. Whether through racist scapegoating or consumerist promises of wholeness, ideologies supply a deep-seated gratification. That emotional payoff makes them durable, surviving even when beliefs are undermined by rational critique.

This understanding of jouissance and the sinthome as ideological operators provides the foundation for Žižek’s critical theory. While classical critiques of ideology often focus on false consciousness—the idea that people hold ideological beliefs because they misunderstand reality—Žižek insists that ideology is not just about belief but about affective investment. People do not simply believe in ideological narratives; they enjoy them. This is why ideological attachments persist even when confronted with contradictions or factual refutations. Simply put, critique of ideology cannot rely solely on discursive critique—interpreting or comparing ideological programs—because our attachment to ideology is not just intellectual but deeply affective. ¹⁰¹

In SOI, Žižek argues that to fully dislodge ideological illusions, one must undertake a double move: traversing the fantasy and identifying with one’s sinthome. First, traversing the fantasy means recognizing how ideology is sustained not only by rational arguments but by deeper unconscious fantasies that structure our enjoyment. These fantasies provide coherence to political and social life, offering imagined resolutions to structural contradictions. ¹⁰² For instance, nationalist ideology often relies on the fantasy that an external Other is “stealing our enjoyment,” channeling resentment and desire into a scapegoated enemy figure. ¹⁰³ By traversing the fantasy, the subject ceases to simply believe in ideological myths and instead directly confronts the Real of their own jouissance—the surplus enjoyment that sustains ideological commitment beyond rational persuasion.

However, traversing the fantasy alone is not enough. Even after ideology is exposed, a remainder of jouissance persists—something that cannot be fully symbolized or resolved. This is where identification with the sinthome becomes crucial. Unlike the symptom, which can still be analyzed as a coded message within the Symbolic order, the sinthome is unreadable and cannot be dissolved by interpretive work. Instead, Žižek argues that one must identify with one’s sinthome—not as a flaw to be corrected, but as a fundamental feature of subjectivity. ¹⁰⁴ This means accepting that no ideological system, no fantasy, and no political program can ever provide total wholeness, because every social order is based on an inherent contradiction. And since this contradiction cannot be fully overcome, the only critical gesture that remains is to assume it—to acknowledge it rather than disavow it.

This double move—traversing the fantasy and identifying with the sinthome—forms the basis for Žižek’s method of ideological critique. It reveals why ideologies are so emotionally compelling, uncovering the libidinal glue that binds subjects to ideology and makes ideological commitment resistant to mere rational critique. With this conceptual foundation in place, we can now turn to the method of sinthomatic analysis—a form of critical inquiry that moves beyond traditional ideology critique by engaging directly with the affective and libidinal dimensions of ideological commitment. This approach aligns with a non-trivial critique that does not merely expose illusions but critically examines the constitutive contradictions and unconscious attachments that sustain ideological formations.

Now that the conceptual groundwork is in place, I can develop sinthomatic analysis as a method of critical inquiry, with particular attention to its political stakes, as seen in Žižek’s later work, especially in his contemporary political commentaries.

Sinthomatic analysis emerges as a non-trivial method of critique that moves beyond traditional ideology critique and postcritical approaches by foregrounding the uninterpretable yet constructible nature of ideological investments. It does not seek to decode hidden meanings or expose contradictions as preexisting flaws in a social structure; rather, it retroactively constructs the conditions of possibility for ideological attachment, recognizing that the ontological support of social formations—their every being—is structured like a sinthome.

At the core of this approach is the recognition that ideology is not sustained merely by rational beliefs or discursive structures, but by unconscious affective attachments rooted in jouissance. The sinthome, in this context, functions as an ontological support for ideological formations—something that cannot be fully interpreted yet is nevertheless traceable through its effects. This marks a shift in the approach to critique: rather than assuming that ideological structures rest on contradictions waiting to be uncovered, sinthomatic analysis suggests that contradiction itself is what gives ideological structures their coherence and binds subjects to them affectively.

A key political consequence of this perspective is Žižek’s radical reversal in critical social theory: whereas his early work saw law as a perverse mechanism—both prohibiting and demanding excessive enjoyment—his later work reframes law as a sinthomatic structure, the last ontological and political support we have. ¹⁰⁵ Law, in this sense, is not simply to be negated or transgressed (as right-wing populists often argue), but rather defended as the terrain through which critique must operate. Even when legal structures are violent and oppressive—such as Trump’s executive order against “gender ideology”—critique should function immanently, engaging with law through its own logic rather than rejecting it outright. ¹⁰⁶

This development parallels Žižek’s later reading of religion’s social function and offers a deeper account of law’s place in society. While Freud saw religion as a symptom to be analyzed and ultimately cured, Lacan’s concept of the sinthome rejects the possibility of such a cure, presenting it instead as the very structure that sustains the social order. In this view, law is not simply a set of rules open to reinterpretation, but an ontological anchor—something that, like religion for Žižek, holds society together at a fundamental level. ¹⁰⁷

This doesn’t mean that law, in practice, resists interpretation—legal codes, precedents, and rulings are, of course, continually reinterpreted. But at a more abstract level, law operates as a structural necessity, a mechanism of jouissance that shapes the conditions for social cohesion. Importantly, this form of enjoyment is not inherently unethical; it can serve as a site of resistance, a space where the contradictions within legal structures are not only exposed but institutionalized and mobilized in the name of emancipation. Rather than treating law as purely repressive or something to be discarded, Žižek’s later work points to its internal paradoxes as tools for challenging domination from within, making law a vital terrain for political struggle and transformative possibility. ¹⁰⁸

Žižek’s recent affirmative yet dialectical stance toward law highlights its transformative role, extending beyond immediate political struggle into the speculative realm of successful political emancipation. Unlike purely instrumental or cynical views that treat law as a mere weapon against political adversaries, Žižek insists that law itself must impose limits—even on emancipatory movements. He self-critically maintains that law should not be romanticized as neutral—such a claim would be an ideological fantasy—yet neither should it be dismissed as a tool of oppression alone. Instead, law must be taken seriously, as a binding force to which even emancipatory subjects must submit. ¹⁰⁹ This is why Žižek calls for a new universality—one that privileges the exploited and dominated but does so within a neutral framework that prevents the concentration of power. As he puts it:

We should formulate a new universality which, while privileging those who are exploited and dominated, does this in the form of neutral universality, thereby guaranteeing that the new law will pose a limit also to the emancipatory movement itself. In the ongoing struggle between “us” and “them,” the law should also prevent the winning emancipatory agent from exerting limitless power—the law should limit also “our side.” Or, in more political terms, that’s why the state law should prevail over “our” party: “we” should fight for universality, for our hegemony in its space, without directly identifying ourselves as an organ of this universality. ¹¹⁰

This breaks with purely agonistic models of politics, which see law either as an instrument of ruling-class domination or as something to be dismantled through revolutionary struggle. ¹¹¹ Instead, Žižek’s dialectical approach argues that true emancipation is not about overcoming law, but about transforming it into a universal structure that places limits on all sides—including those who seek emancipation. Law, in this sense, becomes the site where universality is both contested and secured, ensuring that political victory does not collapse into unchecked power.

This immanent approach reflects the broader method of sinthomatic analysis, which does not attempt to excavate hidden contradictions but instead operates on the surface of social practice, mapping the visible and invisible, the virtual and actual, without presupposing a final interpretive key. This is crucial for understanding why subjects remain attached to practices that produce suffering. Traditional ideology critique assumes that people endure suffering because they are misled; sinthomatic analysis, by contrast, recognizes that subjects derive unconscious jouissance from their suffering itself. ¹¹² Crucially, this jouissance is not hidden deep within the subject but is perceivable in social practice.

Unlike conventional ideology critique, which often takes an external negating position toward its object, sinthomatic analysis is immanent—it engages with ideological structures from within rather than assuming their simple negation is politically viable. Again, this is what Žižek means when he argues that law should not simply be discarded as inherently oppressive but rather strategically mobilized. Sinthomatic analysis thus “beats X in its own game” by working within ideological structures while exposing their inner contradictions in a way that does not dissolve the subject’s libidinal investment but forces a confrontation with it.

Finally, sinthomatic analysis moves beyond the surface versus depth metaphor by rejecting the notion that ideology conceals a hidden truth beneath discourse. ¹¹³ Instead of treating contradictions as distortions to be unearthed, it recognizes them as constitutive mechanisms that sustain ideological formations. The sinthome, in this framework, is not a buried meaning waiting to be deciphered but an ontological support—a point of jouissance that binds subjects to ideology while resisting full Symbolic integration.

This approach neither reduces ideology to a flat surface phenomenon nor insists on deep excavation; rather, it traces how contradictions function as sites of enjoyment within social practice itself. In doing so, sinthomatic critique not only refines ideology critique beyond traditional symptomatic reading but also aligns with the postcritical call for a more generative and self-reflexive engagement with critique.

VI. Conclusion

This paper has argued that postcritique is not a rejection of critique but a call for its self-reflection—a demand to reconsider its political orientation and method in the face of contemporary crises, including the co-optation of critical vocabulary by reactionary forces and conspiracy movements. Yet this reassessment has been hindered by a false antagonism between depth and surface reading, which has led to a hasty dismissal of symptom and ideology—concepts that remain indispensable for any rigorous critique.

This tension is particularly evident in CLS, where critique oscillates between exposing law’s failures and acknowledging its constructive role in social cohesion. By engaging Žižek’s theoretical trajectory in response to postcritical challenges, I have demonstrated how he successfully moves beyond symptomatic reading toward what I term sinthomatic analysis—a method that retains the diagnostic power of critique while accounting for the libidinal investments that sustain ideological structures.

Sinthomatic analysis unifies Žižek’s evolving stance on ideology, law, and political struggle under a single conceptual framework. It neither discards critique nor traps itself in endless negation but reconfigures it to confront ideology’s contradictions from within. Finally, by linking this method to legal critique, I have shown that law, far from being a mere tool of domination or an instrument to be dismantled, can function as a strategic site of resistance—a terrain where emancipatory struggle must engage with, rather than abandon, the structures that shape social reality.