Inconsistent rape testimony as proof of trauma
example · Lacan ·
retold in 3 talks
Male chauvinists use a rape survivor's inconsistent testimony as evidence against her; Žižek inverts this: inconsistency is precisely a marker that the trauma was real, while a perfectly coherent, cold account would be the suspicious one (suggesting a psychotic dissociation).
≤2000talks it is told in, per year2026
As told 3
“if anything such inconsistencies are a subjective proof that she really underwent a trauma”
“if you can peacefully just report on it, it wasn't a trauma.”1:30:21 Digital Consortium Lecture - Reality as Materialized Ideology Inaugural lecture by Slavoj Zizekpub. 2021-06-12 · 1:52:09
“The very failures in her report, the very inconsistencies, confusions, can signal authenticity.”
What it carries
one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)
Its cast and sources
populated by
Matthew the Apostle1Philip Yuan1Li Shanying1Erin Manning1Sanford Kwinter1Colin Ripley1Siegfried Kracauer: An Introduction1Paul Virilio1
alongside works
Every retelling 3
Male chauvinists use a rape survivor's inconsistent testimony as evidence against her; Žižek inverts this: inconsistency is precisely a marker that the trauma was real, while a perfectly coherent, cold account would be the suspicious one (suggesting a psychotic dissociation)., illustrating trauma and testimony,the impossibility of full narration,dialectical reversal of common sense
1:30:21 Digital Consortium Lecture - Reality as Materialized Ideology Inaugural lecture by Slavoj Zizekpub. 2021-06-12 · 1:52:09
A victim of rape is told by a policeman that her inconsistent report proves the trauma was real, because a non-traumatic event would be reported consistently. This illustrates the ambiguity of trauma and the role of comedy/jokes in dealing with it., illustrating trauma,ideological trauma
Against the police trick of discrediting a rape report by pointing to contradictions, Žižek argues he would distrust a perfectly objective, consistent account: the very failures, inconsistencies and confusions in the testimony can signal authenticity, since traumatic subjective expression is constitutively a failed act (a Lacanian point)., illustrating the subject supposed to know,failure elevated into triumph,negativity