fictions--money, religion

By "performative ideology" Zizek means a form of ideological consciousness in which we know that we are dealing with a fiction, but in which the fiction nonetheless regulates our actual real behavior. Although we know that we are dealing with a fiction, we regulate reality as though the fiction were real. Ironically, in doing this we make the fiction real. Money is one example. When people use it, they know that there is nothing magical about it. It is a simply a means of exchange that gives the one who has it the right to certain things. The problem is that people act as if money in itself is wealth.

Religion is another example. Faith makes a fiction--money, religion--real.