Decisionism—as exemplified by Carl Schmitt—departs from a monological concept of subjectivity and postulates a prediscursive kernel that acts as the nucleus of decisions, without reference to ethical norms. On the basis of the theory of the “abyss of freedom,” it is impossible for Žižek to avoid an ethical decisionism that intensifies the problems of Heidegger’s theory of the “resolute decision” upon an existential project, elaborated in Being and Time (1927). Heidegger’s conception of “anticipatory resoluteness” through the recognition of the “mineness of death” is overshadowed in contemporary debates by Heidegger’s notorious Nazi entanglement. The major philosophical problem with Being and Time is not decisionism, however, but the transposition of the individual “resolute decision” onto the “historical destiny” of social collectives. As Žižek explains, the resulting neglect of the element of sociality means that the individual decision is ethically indifferent, while nations are treated as persons with a “destiny”. Ethical decisionism might therefore not be Heidegger’s problem—but it certainly is Žižek’s, for Žižek supplements a theory of the “insane” decision, which results from the breaking of social bonds, with the postulate of a pre-symbolic kernel, in the form of a unitary will, that precedes the decision. This not only neglects the medium of sociality—an “inadequate deployment of the Mitsein”—it actively negates social existence and advocates the destruction of social norms and political legitimacy. On the basis of this theory, Žižek—the defender of Cartesian philosophical science against the onslaughts of the postmodern relativists—finds it difficult to discriminate between democracy and totalitarianism without resorting to a determination of social content that contradicts the asocial character of the Truth-Event.

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