Perversion the Social Relation

i8Dennis Fostersity, it is because the world he represents also stages sublime enjoymentwithin the contradictions and inverted metaphors of social normalcy.Burroughs fascinates, despite his failures of rational criticism andhis at times repellent aesthetics, because he so clearly delights in theviolence, sexuality, and bodily luxuriances of disease, beauty, intoxication,and excess that attend the ugly spirit. His subscriptions to GunWorld, American Survival Guide, and Soldier of Fortune (Miles 2-3), forexample, flaunt an enjoyment of violent technologies that finds its expressionin the various gun-toting figures of his fiction and in his ownlove of weapons. His misogyny includes an appreciation of homosexualeroticism so boisterous that it leaves no room for women. We might askwith Dolan whether Burroughs's ultimate love of narrative inevitably entangleshim in the longings and delusions of the Aristotelian construct,but the political question is whether such conformity with the ugly spiritof the West implies his unwitting accord with that spirit.When Slavoj Èizek adopts the term "cynical reasoning" to describemuch contemporary thought, both popular and professional, he movesa step beyond the stoical position of "suspicion," the resistance of thosewho would not be duped by delusions of authority. 4 The cynic, by contrast,while not duped, lives as if he were: "I know very well, but allthe same. . . ." He stops doubting and resigns himself to living underdemands he can never hope to fulfill. 5 He sees the cultural superego'sinjunctions to be honest, generous, and dutiful as a fool's game, but onehe continues to play without being tormented by an awareness of itsfalsity. As discouraging as it is to deal with such cynics in daily life—it is futile to argue with someone holding this view—an avowed cynicismhas the advantage of clarifying the subject's motives: just followthe stupid rules as if they were real, and you get real rewards. Women'smagazines have long given a version of such advice to women, tellingthem that men care only for the appearance of virtue. Marabel Morgangoes so far as to suggest to women that if they merely tell their men thatthey admire them (even though they do not deserve admiration), theycan make their husbands love them (64). Cynical reasoning has beeneasily adopted by popular culture for men as well: "My father alwayssaid, 'buy the best and you'll never be disappointed,' " says the son ofwealth in an advertisement for high end commodities, repeating a claimthat is effective despite its obvious fraudulence: "I know very well that