This book is an original investigation into Slavoj Zizek's return to German Idealism in the wake of Lacanian psychoanalysis. As is well known, Zizek creates productive friction between these traditions by isolating their mutually compatible notions of the death drive, paving the way for Zizek's highly original model of the subject. Joseph Carew systematizes the stark metaphysical consequences of Zizek's account. If the emergence of the Symbolic out of the Real marks the advent of a completely self-enclosed structural system, then we must posit the absolute as a fragile not-all wrought by negativity and antagonism.