Politics of the Virtual

This article examines the possibility of political change through the examination of ontological concepts pertaining to the social as drawn from the thought of Lacan and Deleuze. Distinguishing between the virtual and the actual, I argue that a politics of the actual, which is premised on conflicts between social groups, fails to produce real social change by leaving the virtual social structure organizing relationships between these groups intact. By contrast, a politics of the virtual makes these structures the direct object of its struggle, and seeks to determine the void underlying social relations as the place where real change is possible.