Abstract

During the second half of the 20th century, two theories of the Other have been developed that seek to overcome the nationalist conception that identifies it with an element outside the community, and whose existence it threatens: tolerant liberal multiculturalism and Lévinas’ and Derrida’s ethics of difference. According to Slavoj Žižek, the first notion operates as the other side of a nationalist libidinal logic and the second implies an understanding of the other incapable of subverting the symbolic authority that defines it. To address both, Žižek resorts to a Lacanian interpretation of the Other as the basis for developing a political subversion of symbolic authority that allows for an encounter with the monstrosity that [...] characterizes the authentic other’s otherness.