upholstery buttons

I noticed when reading Zizek's "For they know not what they do"
that my "double theorization"
(http://gathatoulie.blogspot.com/2010/04/if-youve-seen-one-cute-girl-youve-seen.html)
has already been traced by Hegel, Marx, and Lacan.

The easiest way to understand it is in terms of a
so-called "topsy-turvy world" -- Zizek's most memorable
example is:

* Heaven is a place of peace, the
inversion of the suffering in our world;

* Nevertheless, God, King of Heaven, is
to be feared over and above any earthly
fear;

* Those who fear God ultimately needn't worry
about earthly concerns -- and suffering goes away!

In short, any time an "ideal" appears on
the horizon, we can expect to get some
sort of blowback through a similar "double
inversion", "double negation", "double narration",
or "double theorization".  Let's give it a try :)

Here's my example, reworked:

Step one: Theorizing people, we invent
"social systems of resource allocation and
social control".

Step two: Theorizing "social systems of
resource allocation and social control",
we invent "History".

Blowback: Human actions which would
otherwise be basically "meaningless" or
else "overdetermined" now become
"inherently meaningful" because they've
been mapped into the tableau of history.

In short, the thing we experienced initially
as a "lack" (humans need to be explained)
now becomes a "source" (humans generate
history).

Lacan's image is that of an upolstery
button holding things together.  I think
there could be a more dynamic image,
like a line extending to enclose a region:
only once it *goes out* and *comes
back to the beginning* does it enclose
anything.

Joe

PS. Ray saw an earlier version of this note
and in respect of that last image, recommended
http://www.hegel.net/en/v0methode-dreieck.htm