The fetishist’s attitude towards his fetish and the attitude of political subjects towards political authority

The fetishist’s attitude towards his fetish has the peculiar form of a disavowal: “I know well that (for example) the shoe is only a shoe, but nevertheless, I still need my partner to wear the shoe in order to enjoy.”

 According to Žižek, the attitude of political subjects towards political authority evinces the same logical form: “I know well that (for example) Bob Hawke / Bill Clinton / the Party / the market does not always act justly, but I still act as though I did not know that this is the case.” 

In Althusser’s famous “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” Althusser staged a kind of primal scene of ideology, the moment when a policeman (as bearer of authority) says “hey you!” to an individual, and the individual recognizes himself as the addressee of this call. In the “180 degree turn” of the individual towards this Other who has addressed him, the individual becomes a political subject,