The Sublime

Everyone seems to be talking about Žižek lately.

Do I take him seriously? I don't know.

From his Wikipedia article:

There are also three modalities of the real:

• The "symbolic real": the signifier reduced to a meaningless formula
• The "real real": a horrific thing, that which conveys the sense of horror in horror films
• The "imaginary real": an unfathomable something that permeates things as a trace of the sublime. This form of the real becomes perceptible in the film The Full Monty, for instance, in the fact that in disrobing the unemployed protagonists completely, in other words, through this extra gesture of "voluntary" degradation, something else, of the order of the sublime, becomes visible.

Does any of that actually mean anything? The original reference in his works can be found here, for example, and admittedly it sounds somewhat more persuasive in context. Still, judge for yourselves. But I will say (and you know who you are)..."you give me reason to live!"