The Limits of the American Religion

The American dream, according to Slavoj Žižek, amounts to “dematerialization” of real life as it becomes a “spectral show.” In this regard, claims Žižek, the “fake purity” of the fundamentalist preachers who “turned out to be secret sexual perverts,” is less a sign of their hypocrisy than of their consistency—their sticking to the artificiality of American life.