Good bye Lenin! Of dreamworlds, catastrophes and empires, now and then

Abstract

This paper deals with a symptom: that of an ideological change, a historical break in the fantasmatic production of social organization – the transition from East to West. Following Žižek’s recommendation to ‘enjoy your symptom’, I explore my own historical experience of the Eastern European ‘Wende’ from ‘realexisting socialism’ to ‘real-existing capitalism’. This exploration is done through a variety of different images, the most recognizable being perhaps the well-known film Good Bye Lenin, which deals with the complexities of the transitions of not only political and economic regimes but their implications for the make up of subjectivities. The paper ends with an affi rmative outlook, as it claims that history has not ended, and that breaks in the ideological and fantasmatic production of society are still possible today.