Social systems require a fictional authority believed to be ignorant

Evidence

It is this constitutive ignorance of the big Other that allows public relations to function. Indeed, the big Other could be defined as the consumer of PR and propaganda, the virtual figure which is required to believe even when no individual can. To use one of Žižek’s examples: who was it, for instance, who didn’t know that Really Existing Socialism (RES) was shabby and corrupt? Not any of the people, who were all too aware of its shortcomings; nor any of the government administrators, who couldn’t but know. No, it was the big Other who was the one deemed not to know – who wasn’t allowed to know – the quotidian reality of RES. — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 95

Categorization

• DEFINE: The big Other defined as ‘the consumer of PR,’ the virtual believer that sustains both Really Existing Socialism and Really Existing Capitalism.
• XREF: connects to: Kafka’s bureaucracy describes market capitalism more than totalitarianism — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 133; The pretense the big Other remains ignorant sustains ordinary social reality — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism: Is There No…, 95; No genuine knowledge can be derived from a state of ignorance — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1077 (+1 more)

Related

• Official pretense and private knowledge must diverge for social reality to function (similarity 0.88)
• The pretense the big Other remains ignorant sustains ordinary social reality (similarity 0.86)
• PR and propaganda succeed because the collective fiction is allowed to stay ignorant (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• The pretense the big Other remains ignorant sustains ordinary social reality #corroborates (0.95) — Mark Fisher, Capitalist Realism, 95
• No genuine knowledge can be derived from a state of ignorance #contradicts (0.75) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1077
• Power cannot self-realize but depends on societal-structural conditions for legitimacy #qualifies (0.75)