# Quote — Slavoj Žižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology

> Darcy wants to present himself to Elizabeth as a proud gentleman, and he gets from her the message 'your pride is nothing but contemptible arrogance.' After the break in their relationship each discovers, through a series of accidents, the true nature of the other - she the sensitive and tender nature of Darcy, he her real dignity and wit - and the novel ends as it should, with their marriage. The theoretical interest of this story lies in the fact that the failure of their first encounter, the double misrecognition concerning the real nature of the other, functions as a positive condition of the final outcome: we cannot say 'if, from the very beginning, she had recognized his real nature and he hers, their story could have ended at once with their marriage.' Let us take a comical hypothesis that the first encounter of the future lovers was a success - that Elizabeth had accepted Darcy's first proposal. What would happen? Instead of being bound together in true love they would become a vulgar everyday couple, a liaison of an arrogant, rich man and a pretentious, every-minded young girl... If we want to spare ourselves the painful roundabout route through the misrecognition, we miss the truth itself: only the working-through of the misrecognition allows us to accede to the true nature of the other and at the same time to overcome our own deficiency - for Darcy, to free himself of his false pride; for Elizabeth, to get rid of her prejudices.

- Author: [Slavoj Žižek](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek.md)
- Book: [The Sublime Object of Ideology](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Slavoj_%C5%BDi%C5%BEek#The_Sublime_Object_of_Ideology_(1989)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/darcy-wants-to-present

## More from this book

> 'Father, why is the sky blue?' - the child is not really interested in the sky as such; the real stake of the question is to expose father's impotence, his helplessness in the face of the hard fact, to present the whole chain of reasons leading to it. The blue of the sky thus becomes not only the father's problem, but in a way even his fault. The sky is blue, and you're just staring at it like an idiot incapable of doing anything about it!

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/father-why-is-the.md)

> Memento mori should be read: don't forget to die.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/memento-mori-should.md)

> Subject - (1) a person subject to political rule; (2) a free agent, instigator of its activity - subjects can realize themselves as free agents only by means of redoubling themselves as, only in so far as they project, transpose the pure form of their freedom into the very heart of the substance opposed to them; into the person of the subject-monarch as head of state.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/slavoj-zizek/the-sublime-object-of-ideology/subject-1-a-person.md)