1 | Page
Alenka Zupančič
Why Psychoanalysis? Three Three Interventions 2008 Alenka Zupančič
In “Why Psychoanalysis?” Alenka Zupančič outlines the relationship between the ontological, the ethical ethical and the aesthetical spheres of reudian and !acanian psychoanalysis" In three bold inter#entions she in#estigates the $uestions of %eing, reedo& and 'o&edy" (aking (aking her departure fro& fr o& issues of se), cause, and horror Zupančič reinterprets *ant+s philosophical philosophical categories and outlines a uni$ue theory of the subect" “Why Psychoanalysis?” continues her se&inal work -thics of the .eal/ *ant and !acan fro& 0111 and links it with &ore recent work about co&edy" “Why Psychoanalysis?” Is suitable for beginners as well as for &ore ad#anced readers"
2 | Page
INTRODUCTION 2inc 2incee the the ti&e ti&e when when reu reud d found founded ed psyc psycho hoan anal alysi ysis, s, it has beco& beco&ee well well established in its field 3 or so it would see&" 4et, if we look at it &ore closely, this soon beco&es less certain" It beco&es less certain for one funda&ental reason that is $uite interesting in itself/ the &ore we look at it, the less clear it beco&es what e)actly the field of psychoanalysis is" ro& its #ery beginnings, for e)a&ple, psychoanalysis was surrounded by debate about whether its scope lay &ore in the real& of natural sciences or in the real& of philosophy and cultural sciences" reud was fre$uently, and si&ultaneously, attacked fro& both sides/ so&e obected to his 5biologis&+ and 5scientis&,+ whereas others attacked his 5cultu 5cultural ral relati relati#is #is&+ &+ and specula speculatio tions ns that that went went far beyond beyond the clinic clinical al circ circu& u&st stan ances ces"" And this this deba debate te is by no &eans &eans o#er o#er,, or the the issue issue sett settle led" d" 6owe#er, regardless of what was 7or is8 the pertinence of these criticis&s in particular conceptual $uestions, one should ne#er lose sight of the fact that a &aor di&ension of reud+s disco#ery was precisely the o#erlapping o#erlapping of the two real&s, defined as the physical and the &ental" If there is any &eaningful general way of describing the obect of psychoanalysis, it &ight be precisely this/ the obect of psychoanalysis is the 9one where the two real&s o#erlap, i"e" where the biological or so&atic is already &ental or cultural and where, at the sa&e ti&e, culture springs fro& the #ery i&passes of the so&atic functions which it tries to resol#e 7yet, in doing so, it it creates new ones8" In other words 3 and this is perhaps the &ost i&portant point 3 the o#erlapping in $uestion is not si&ply an o#erlapping of two well:established entities 75body+ and 5&ind+8, but an intersection which is generati#e of both sides that o#erlap in it" reud saw #ery $uickly not only to what considerable e)tent culture and &ind were able to affect, e#en distort and physically change, hu&an bodies, but also, and perhaps &ore significantly, that there &ust be soðing in the hu&an body that &akes this possible" And that this soðing is not a kind of inborn propensity for culture and spirituality, a ger& of &ind or soul deposited in our bodies, but soðing &uch closer to a biological dysfunction, which turned out to be strangely producti#e" (he proble& proble& of what what e)actl e)actly y the psychoanal psychoanalyti yticc field field proper proper is also e)tends well beyond these funda&ental considerations, and concerns the way psychoanalysis often see&s to 5&o#e all o#er the place,+ encroaching on all kinds of different fields or 5disciplines+ 7philosophy, religion, art, as well as different branches of science8" Which is why one of the fre$uent obections to
2 | Page
INTRODUCTION 2inc 2incee the the ti&e ti&e when when reu reud d found founded ed psyc psycho hoan anal alysi ysis, s, it has beco& beco&ee well well established in its field 3 or so it would see&" 4et, if we look at it &ore closely, this soon beco&es less certain" It beco&es less certain for one funda&ental reason that is $uite interesting in itself/ the &ore we look at it, the less clear it beco&es what e)actly the field of psychoanalysis is" ro& its #ery beginnings, for e)a&ple, psychoanalysis was surrounded by debate about whether its scope lay &ore in the real& of natural sciences or in the real& of philosophy and cultural sciences" reud was fre$uently, and si&ultaneously, attacked fro& both sides/ so&e obected to his 5biologis&+ and 5scientis&,+ whereas others attacked his 5cultu 5cultural ral relati relati#is #is&+ &+ and specula speculatio tions ns that that went went far beyond beyond the clinic clinical al circ circu& u&st stan ances ces"" And this this deba debate te is by no &eans &eans o#er o#er,, or the the issue issue sett settle led" d" 6owe#er, regardless of what was 7or is8 the pertinence of these criticis&s in particular conceptual $uestions, one should ne#er lose sight of the fact that a &aor di&ension of reud+s disco#ery was precisely the o#erlapping o#erlapping of the two real&s, defined as the physical and the &ental" If there is any &eaningful general way of describing the obect of psychoanalysis, it &ight be precisely this/ the obect of psychoanalysis is the 9one where the two real&s o#erlap, i"e" where the biological or so&atic is already &ental or cultural and where, at the sa&e ti&e, culture springs fro& the #ery i&passes of the so&atic functions which it tries to resol#e 7yet, in doing so, it it creates new ones8" In other words 3 and this is perhaps the &ost i&portant point 3 the o#erlapping in $uestion is not si&ply an o#erlapping of two well:established entities 75body+ and 5&ind+8, but an intersection which is generati#e of both sides that o#erlap in it" reud saw #ery $uickly not only to what considerable e)tent culture and &ind were able to affect, e#en distort and physically change, hu&an bodies, but also, and perhaps &ore significantly, that there &ust be soðing in the hu&an body that &akes this possible" And that this soðing is not a kind of inborn propensity for culture and spirituality, a ger& of &ind or soul deposited in our bodies, but soðing &uch closer to a biological dysfunction, which turned out to be strangely producti#e" (he proble& proble& of what what e)actl e)actly y the psychoanal psychoanalyti yticc field field proper proper is also e)tends well beyond these funda&ental considerations, and concerns the way psychoanalysis often see&s to 5&o#e all o#er the place,+ encroaching on all kinds of different fields or 5disciplines+ 7philosophy, religion, art, as well as different branches of science8" Which is why one of the fre$uent obections to
3 | Page
psychoanalysis could be su&&ed up as follows/ If it only kept to its field; (his is to say/ If it only kept to its feud 3 to the part allocated to it in proportion to its soci social al reco recogn gnit itio ion; n; espite his persistent clai& that “psychoanalysis is not philosophy,” philosophy,” !acan was constantly de#eloping his theory through a dialogue
4 | Page
with philosophy" (he scope of the 5three inter#entions+ presented here lies &ostly in the real& of this dialogue" It ai&s at interrogating, analysing, and defending certain notions that psychoanalysis has introduced into the general conceptual space" I chose the ter& 5inter#entions+ because the three chapters touch upon three different fields that are rather i&&ense in the&sel#es/ ontology 7and its criticis&8, practical philosophy, and aesthetics, i#en the #ast landscape of each of these fields, the chapters that follow ha#e no a&bition to 5co#er+ the& 7fro& the perspecti#e of psychoanalysis8" (hey #enture instead to inter#ene into the& at precise and particular points" (he first inter#ention thus posits and turns around two $uestions/ @" What e)actly is the psychoanalytic theory of se)uality? -#erybody see&s to know the answer to this, and the &atter see&s to be clear enough, yet this is far fro& really being the case, and the $uestion is well worth asking and reconsidering" 0" What 7if any8 are the i&plications of the psychoanalytic theory of se)uality for ontology and its conte&porary theories? oreo#er, what are possible political i&plications of this psychoanalytic stance? (he second inter#ention focuses on the psychoanalytic 3 and especially !acanian 3 concept of the cause, and interrogates this concept in relationship to the notion of freedo&" Although the two ter&s are often posited as antino&ic, what follows fro& the !acanian conceptualisations of cause is ulti&ately a far &ore intriguing constellation in which the notion of cause is closely related to that of freedo&" (he third inter#ention deals with the peculiar relationship between two aesthetic 7and affecti#e8 pheno&ena which, in their #ery different, e#en opposition, display a strange and interesting pro)i&ity/ co&edy and the uncanny 75das Bnhei&liche”8" What they ha#e in co&&on, or so I argue, is a specific figure of Cothing 7or #oid8, which they configure in two different ways 3 through two different &odalities of e)cess or surplus" 2e), ontology, cause, freedo&, co&edy, horror 3 I a& sure that this choice will easily lend itself to &ore criticis& of the e)pansi#eness of the psychoanalytic field in all directions, but all these are actually ust different ways of tackling the sa&e basic proble&"
5 | Page
Intervention I
6 | Page
SEXUALITY AND ONTOLOGY
(he central place of se)uality in psychoanalysis has often been, and continues to be, a contro#ersial issue" -specially when, with =ac$ues !acan, psychoanalysis entered the stage of conte&porary philosophy and has since beco&e an i&portant point of reference on this stage, this issue is often raised in debates concerning the relationship between philosophy and psychoanalysis" It has been suggested, for e)a&ple, that the insistence on the se)ual 5particulari9es+ psychoanalysis, and hence depri#es it of a &ore uni#ersal scope, which philosophy has" Is this really so? (he $uestion of se)uality should indeed be brutally put on the table in any serious atte&pt at associating philosophy and psychoanalysis" Cot only because it usually constitutes the 5hard core+ of their dissociation, but also because not gi#ing up on the &atter of se)uality constitutes the sine qua non of any true psychoanalytic stance, which see&s to &ake this dissociation all the &ore absolute or insur&ountable" (he last point 7the e&phasis on se)uality as the sine qua non of any true psychoanalysis stance8 is &assi#ely supported by the history of psychoanalysis, which, of course, has had its own atte&pts at relati#ising and playing down the role of the se)ual, transposing it into an 5i&portant issue+ that has its place alongside other i&portant issues that represent the whole of the hu&an condition" While these atte&pts do so&eti&es see& to bring psychoanalysis closer to philosophy, they constitute, I belie#e, the worse kind of 5false friends"+ (hey produce a 5psychologised philosophy"+ A certain Weltanschaung, which could be perhaps best described as ‘human interest philosophy,’ philosophy that puts at its centre the in#estigation of the hu&an ani&al and its soul" (his is why it is by no &eans an accident that the two psychoanalysts who ha#e had by far the &ost producti#e and conse$uential influence on conte&porary philosophy, reud and !acan, were both absolutely unshakable when it ca&e to the key role of se)uality in psychoanalysis" (he e)a&ples of their influence in philosophy are abundant, but let &e take ust the pro&inent conte&porary e)a&ple of Alain %adiou, while utterly unyielding in his stance as regards refusing to associate subecti#ity, in its e&ergence, with anything like 5se)uation,+ %adiou+s work is profoundly engaged, and on &any le#els, with reud and !acan"
7 | Page
with the =ungian approach as an approach in which se)uality is fortunately put in its proper, 5secondary+ place" (he situation is indeed a #ery interesting one" It is al&ost as if psychoanalysis and philosophy had their &ost engaging, producti#e, and powerful encounters when this central issue of dispute re&ained unresol#ed" We could also say/ it is as if philosophy always got the &ost out of the psychoanalysis that re&ained unyielding as to the issue of se)uality, although it tended to lea#e this issue at the door"
Freud and Three Essays
!et us start out fro& a point that is so obvious that I a& al&ost asha&ed to &ake it, but which is also so crucial that one should perhaps ne#er tire of repeating" reud disco#ered hu&an se)uality as a proble& 7in need of e)planation8, and not as soðing with which one could e#entually e)plain e#ery 7other8 proble&" 6e 5disco#ered+ se)uality as intrinsically &eaningless, and not as the ulti&ate hori9on of all hu&anly produced &eaning" Three Essay on the Theory of Seuality 7@D1E8 re&ains a &aor te)t in this respect" If one needed to su& up its argu&ent in a single sentence, the following would co&e close enough to the &ark/ 7hu&an8 se)uality is a parado):ridden de#iation fro& a nor& that does not e)ist" 1
reud starts with the discussion of 5se)ual aberrations+ that were identified as such in the e)isting corpus of &edical knowledge/ ho&ose)uality, sodo&y, paedophilia, fetishis&, #oyeuris&, sadis&, &asochis&, and so on" In discussing these 5per#ersions+ and the &echanis&s in#ol#ed in the& 7basically
8 | Page
the de#iations in respect of the se)ual obect, which is supposed to be an adult person of the opposite se), and de#iations in respect of the se)ual ai& 3 supposedly reproduction8 reud+s argu&ent si&ultaneously &o#es in two directions" ri#es are frag&ented, partial, ai&less and independent of their obect to start with" (hey do not beco&e such due to so&e ulterior de#iation" (he de#iation of dri#es is a constituti#e de#iation" reud writes that “the se)ual dri#e is in the first instance independent of its obectF nor is its origin likely to be dues to its obect+s attractions"” 2 (his is why “fro& the point of #iew of psychoanalysis, the e)clusi#e se)ual interest felt by &en for wo&en is also a proble& that needs elucidating and is not a self:e#ident fact based upon an attraction that is ulti&ately of a che&ical nature"” 3 (he disco#ery of this constituti#e and original de#iation of dri#es 7which is precisely what distinguishes the& fro& instincts8 will gradually lead to one of the &aor conceptual in#entions of psychoanalysis, the concept of the obect s&all a !ob"et petit a#, as it was na&ed by !acan" (o put it si&ply, obect a will co&e to na&e the other 7the real8 obect of the dri#e as “independent of its obect"” %ut let us look at the origin of this concept in reud+s obser#ations"
9 | Page
itself be led into series of substitute obects" In other words, the concept of the dri#e 7and of its obect8 is not si&ply a concept of the de#iation fro& a natural need, but soðing that casts a new and surprising light on the nature of hu&an need as such/ in hu&an beings, all satisfaction of a need allows, in principle, for another satisfaction to occur, which tends to beco&e independent and self: perpetuating in pursuing and reproducing itself" (here is no natural need that would be absolutely pure, i"e" de#oid of this surplus ele&ent which splits it fro& within" (his split, this inter#al or #oid, this original non:con#ergence of two different #ersant of the satisfaction is, for reud, the #ery site of ground of hu&an se)uality" (his is a crucial point when it co&es to understanding another i&portant e&phasis of reud+s conceptualisation of se)uality/ 5se)ual+ is not to be confused with 5genital+" 4 (he 5genital se)ual organi9ation+ is far fro& being pri&ordial or 5natural+/ it is a result, a product of se#eral stages of de#elop&ent, in#ol#ing both the physiological &aturation of the reproducti#e organs and cultural:sy&bolic para&eters" It in#ol#es a unification of the originally heterogeneous, dispersed, always:already compound se)ual dri#e, co&posed of different partial dri#es, such as looking, touching, licking, and so on" 7“2ince the original disposition is necessarily a co&ple) one, the se)ual dri#e itself &ust be soðing put together fro& #arious factors"” 8" (he unification bears two &aor characteristics" irstly, it is always a so&ehow force and artificial unification 7it cannot be #iewed si&ply as a natural teleological result of reproducti#e &aturations8" And secondly, it is ne#er really fully achie#ed or acco&plished, which is to say that it ne#er transfor&s the se)ual dri#e into an organic Bnity, with all its co&ponents ulti&ately ser#ing one and the sa&e Purpose" (he 5nor&al,+ 5healthy+ hu&an se)uality is thus parado)ical artificial naturali9ation of the originally de:naturalised dri#es 7de:naturali9ed in the sense of their departing fro& the 5natural+ ai&s of self:preser#ation andGor the logic of a pure need as unaffected by another, supple&entary satisfaction8"
10 | P a g e
to pursue the pre#ious e)a&ple 3 thu&b:sucking, or consu&ing food beyond the biological needs of the body, for the sheer pleasure of e)citing the &ucous &e&brane" reud insists that this energyGe)citation is se)ual, although “this se)ual e)citation is deri#ed not fro& the so:called se)ual parts alone, but fro& all the bodily organs"” ! (his point is absolutely crucial, for it allows us to see in what sense reud actually discovered 7hu&an8 se)uality, and not si&ply e&phasi9e it or 5reduced+ e#erything to it" It is not that thu&b:sucking or gour&andising are se)ual against the background of their supposed relationship to the e)citation in#ol#ed in se)ual intercourse, on the contrary, if anything, they are se)ual per se, and it is se)ual intercourse which is properly se)ual on account of being co&posed of different partial dri#es such as these 7looking, touching, licking, and so on8" It is in relation to this reudian stance that one can &easure the significance of the stakes in#ol#ed in his break with 'arl usta# =ung, as well as the genuine philosophical i&plications of reud+s radical conceptual &o#e, =ung adopted the reudian notion of the libido and, with a see&ingly s&all &odification, ga#e it an entirely different &eaning, with =ung, libido beco&es a psychical e)pression of a 5#ital energy,+ the origin of which is not solely se)ual" In this perspecti#e, libido is a general na&e for psychic energy, which is se)ual only in certain seg&ents" reud i&&ediately saw how following this =ungian &o#e would entail sacrificing “all that we ha#e gained hitherto fro& psychoanalytic obser#ation"” " With the ter& 5libido+ reud designates an original and irreducible unbalance of hu&an nature" -#ery satisfaction of a need brings with it the possibility of a supple&entary satisfaction, de#iating fro& the obect and ai& of a gi#en de&and while pursuing its own goal, thus constituting a see&ingly dysfunctional detour" It is this detour, or the space which it opens up, that constitutes not only the field of the catalogued 5se)ual aberrations,+F but also the ground, as well as the energy source, for what is generally referred to as hu&an culture in its highest acco&plish&ents" (he generati#e source of culture is se)ual in this precise sense of belonging to the supple&entary satisfaction that ser#es no i&&ediate function and satisfies no i&&ediate need" (he i&age of hu&an nature that follows fro& these reudian conceptualisations is that of a split 7and conflictual8 nature, whereby 5se)ual+ refers to this #ery split" If reud uses the ter& 5libido+ to refer to a certain field of 5energy,+ it is to refer to it as a surplus energy, and not to any kind of general energetic le#el in#ol#ed in our li#es" It cannot designate the whole of energy 7as =ung suggested8, since it is precisely what &akes this whole 5not:whole"+
11 | P a g e
2e)ual 5energy+ is not an ele&ent that has its place within the whole of hu&an lifeF the central point of reud+s disco#ery was precisely that there is no 5natural+ or pre:established place of hu&an se)uality, that the latter is constituti#ely out:of:its:place, frag&ented and dispersed, that it only e)ists in de#iations fro& 5itself+ or its supposed natural obect, and that se)uality is nothing other than this 5out:of:placeness+ of its constituti#e satisfaction" In other words, reud+s funda&ental &o#e was to de:substantialise se)uality/ the se)ual is not a substance to be properly described and circu&scribedF it is the #ery i&possibility of its own circu&scription or deli&itation" It can neither be co&pletely separated fro& biological, organic needs and functions 7since it originates within their real&, it starts off by inhabiting the&8, nor can it be si&ple reduced to the&" 2e)ual is not a separate do&ain of hu&an acti#ity or life, and this why it can inhabit all the do&ains of hu&an life" What was, and still is, disturbing about the reudian disco#ery is not si&ple the e&phasis on se)uality 3 this kind of resistance, indignant at psychoanalytical 5obsession with dirty &atters,+ was ne#er the strongest one and was soon &arginali9ed by the progressi#e liberalis& of &orals" uch &ore disturbing was the thesis concerning the always proble&atic and uncertain character of se)uality itself" (hus, e#en &ore powerful resistance 7and the &ore dangerous for& of re#isionis&8 ca&e fro& liberalis& itself, pro&oting se)uality as a 5natural acti#ity,+ as soðing balanced, har&onic in itself, but thrown out of balance by an act of 5necessary+ or 5unnecessary+ repression 7depending on how liberal on pretends to be8" If anything, this i&age of se)uality as soðing ob#ious and non:proble&atic in itself is directly opposed to the reudian funda&ental lesson which, put in !acanian ter&s, could be for&ulated as follows/ the 2e)ual does not e)ist" (here is only the se)ual that insistGpersists as a constituti#e i&balance of the hu&an being" !et &e rest &y case with one last $uote fro& reud/ “It is &y belief that, howe#er strange it &ay sound, we &ust reckon with the possibility that soðing in the nature of the se)ual dri#e itself is unfa#ourable to the reali9ation of co&plete satisfaction"” #
12 | P a g e
La$an and t%e &'a(e''a)
(he argu&ents presented abo#e should be enough to support the following thesis, which I would now like to propose in relation to the initial $uestion/ What e)actly is the status of the se)ual in psychoanalysis and how does this relate to philosophy? Psychoanalysis does, of course, start out fro& the #icissitudes of hu&an beings, on which it focuses its in#estigations" What keeps it fro& beco&ing a kind of 5psychologised+ hu&an:interest philosophy, howe#er, is precisely its disco#ery of, and insistence on the se)ual as a factor of radical disorientation, a factor that keeps bringing into $uestion all our representations of the entity called 5hu&an being"+ In reudian theory, the se)ual 7in the sense of constituti#ely de#iational partial dri#e, also na&ed 5libido+8 is not the ulti&ate hori9on of the ani&al called 5hu&an,+ it is not the anchor:point of irreducible hu&anity in psychoanalytic theory, on the contrary, it is the operator of the inhuman, the operator of de:hu&anisation or 5de: anthropo&orphisation"+ (his is what sweeps the ground for a possible theory of the subect as soðing other than si&ply another na&e for an indi#idual or a 5person,+ which is to say, for a uni#ersal theory of the subect that is not a neutral abstraction fro& all the particularities of the hu&an but singular, concretely:uni#ersal point of their inherent contradiction" In other words, it is precisely the se)ual as the operator of the inhu&an that opens the path of the uni#ersal, which psychoanalysis is often accused of &issing because of its insistence on the se)ual"
What Freud calls the sexual is thus not that which makes us human in any received meaning of this term it is rather that which makes us su!"ects or #erha#s more #recisely it is coextensive with the emerging of the su!"ect$ %nd this inhuman as#ect is #recisely what &acan em#hasise most strongly with his own 'mythological( contri!ution to the issue of human sexuality) his invention of the 'lamella$( In his Seminar XI, when discussing the conce#t of the drive as one of the 'four fundamental conce#ts of #sychoanalysis( &acan famously introduces his myth of the lamella in order to illustrate what is at stake in the notion of the li!ido$ The conce#tion of the latter in terms of 'energy( is rather misleading and largely mystifying * one should rather think of it he suggests in terms on an
13 | P a g e
organ$ +ore #recisely in terms of an 'unreal organ( (organe irréel)$ &et me recall &acan(s famous descri#tion) The lamella is something extra,-at which moves like the amoe!a$ It is "ust a little more com#licated$ .ut it goes everywhere$ %nd as it is something /1 that is related to what the sexed !eing loses in sexuality it is like the amoe!a in relation to sexed !eings immortal !ecause it survives any division any scissi#arous intervention$ %nd it can get around$ /1 This lamella this organ whose characteristic is not to exist !ut which is nevertheless an organ I can give you more details as to its 3oological #lace is the li!ido$ 40 &acan #ro#oses this myth as his alternative to the %risto#hanian myth from Plato(s Symposium to which Freud referred occasionally) %t the !eginning human !eings were a rounded 5neness com#osed or fused together from two halves they were 'whole( self,satis6ed and self,su7cient !eings and this led them to arrogance and insolence of which the gods disa##roved$ o they decided to s#lit the human !eings in half$ ince that time each half longs for its other half$ &ove which emerges when we 6nd our other half is !ut this longing once again to !ecome 5ne with our other half$ The crucial di9erence that &acan wants to em#hasise in relation to this myth is this) what the human !eing loses !ecause of sexual re#roduction is not his sexed other half !ut a #art of his own !eing$ %nd if anything it is this #art not his sexual com#lement that he seeks /in 'love(1$ In &acan(s story at the !eginning there were not rounded entities of wholeness fused together from two halves at the !eginning there were some sort of amoe!a,like creatures creatures that maintain and multi#ly themselves without sexual re#roduction$ This is an image of life that #reserves itself and ex#ands !y means of division a life that is not individuated which is to say that there is no di9erence here !etween the individual and the s#ecies$ :very creature of this kind is directly
14 | P a g e
the life of its s#ecies$ %nd of course the gods could not #unish the eventual arrogance and insolence of these creatures !y cutting them in half this would not lead to two de6cient /sexual1 halves !ut to more self,su7cient !eings$ The real change occurs not with the division or s#litting !ut and here the image &acan evokes in his develo#ments is ;uite concrete with the occurrence of sexual re#roduction in which the continuation of life through the com!ination of two /di9erent1 sets of chromosomes involves a constitutive loss or reduction$ if we have two collections of 6ve elements and if two of the elements a##ear in !oth collections the result of the "oining of the two collections will not !e ten !ut eight$ +oreover sexual re#roduction im#lies individuation and links it to death) the s#ecies continues lives on through the individual s#ecimens '#assing on$( dying$ In &acanian myth the li!ido is thus this loss constitutive of sexuality that 6nds its way !ack /through the de6le of the signi6er@1 and haunts this su!"ect in the form of the drive$ It fragments the su!"ect from within$ Partial o!"ects of the drive are all !eings of this lossAlack$ It might !e interesting to #oint out that in the well,known #assage from .eyond the Pleasure Princi#le@ where Freud refers to %risto#hanes( myth he understands or 'translates( it in a way that is also not that of a sexed !eing des#erately seeking for its other half !ut rather one that suggest Freud(s own version of the lamella) hall we follow the hint given us !y the #oet,#hiloso#her and venture u#on the hy#othesis that living su!stance at the time of its coming to life was torn a#art into small #articles which have ever since endeavoured to reunite through the sexual drives? that these splintered
15 | P a g e
fragments of living substance in this way attained a multicellular condition ? .ut here I think the moment has come for !reaking o9$@ 44 +any cinematogra#hic images have already !een #ro#osed in relation to &acan(s lamella and in relation to Freud(s #hrasing here one can also not !ut think of Terminator 2 , the scene in which the Terminator has !een !lown to #ieces forming small #ools of ;uicksilver,like su!stance on the -oor which then slowly start reuniting running towards each other B#on a closer look at the issue of sexuality in /Freudian and &acanian1 #sychoanalysis we thus come to a rather strange situation$ 5n the one hand there is a certain level of /mis#laced1 'disa##ointment( that &acan ex#licitly stresses on several occasions nota!ly in The Four Fundamental oncepts and in Television , #sychoanalysis has taught us #ractically nothing a!out sex$ Cere is a good exam#le)
DPsychoanalysisE teaches us nothing new a!out the o#eration of sex$ ot even a tiny #iece of erotological techni;ue has emerged from it$ /1 Psychoanalysis touches on sexuality only in as much as in the form of the drive it manifests itself in the de6le of the signi6er in which is constituted the dialectic of the su!"ect in the dou!le stage of alienation and se#aration$ %nalysis has not ke#t on the 6eld of sexuality what one might mistakenly have ex#ected of it !y way of #romises it has not ke#t such #romises !ecause it does not have to kee# them$ This is not its terrain$ 42
5n the other hand the 'remnants of sexuality( in #sychoanalysis which are at the same time situated at its very
16 | P a g e
centre are !ut these !i3arre headless formations like the &acanian 'lamella( or the Freudian originally fragmental reality of #artial drives$ % conce#t of an ontological im#asse 5f course the issue that we are de!ating here that of #hiloso#hical criticism of the #sychoanalytical conce#t of sexuality could also !e said to only start here$ o what if sexuality is #osited /!y #sychoanalysis1 as inherently #ro!lematic non,su!stantial as an 'inconsistent multi#le( to use the .adiouian term for #ure !eing as a multi#le that is always a multi#le of multi#les /of multi#les of multi#les 1 so that the eventual 'sto##ing #oint( can in no way !e a 'one( !ut only a void! %s a matter of fact on the level of formal descri#tion one can 6nd ;uite striking #arallels !etween .adiou(s theory 4G of #ure !eing as #ure multi#le that is inconsistent to start with which 'consists( of the void and is a #ure excess !eyond itself@ and the Freudian account of !eing as sexual$ Het this is #recisely where #sychoanalysis seems most vulnera!le to the attack from #hiloso#hy) If we are down at the level of #ure !eing why on earth should we #aint this #ure !eing with sexual colours? I de6nitely agree with #hiloso#hy in maintaining that the em#irical argument /convoking the vast e"perience of human !eing as intrinsically sexual1 would !e out of #lace here$ We must not forget however that the a!ove ;uestionAo!"ection only makes sense if we have already acce#ted the scheme according to which the sexuality is one of the characteristics of !eing /as human1$ Het this is #recisely not the argument Freud is making$ What Freud is saying is that the sexual /in the #recise sense of an inconsistent circling of #artial drives1 is !eing$ +ore #recisely and without #ushing things too much we could say that Freud is develo#ing constructing a conce#t of 'the sexual( as the /#sychoanalytic1 name for the inconsistency of !eing$ %nd this is #recisely what &acan is more than willing to
17 | P a g e
em!race in his theory) the sexual as the conce#t of a radical ontological im#asse$ When for exam#le he em#hatically #uts forward in Seminar XI that the reality of the unconscious is sexual reality@ 4 this should !e strictly read together with another thesis that he kee#s re#eating in this seminar namely that the unconscious is essentially related to something that !elongs to the order of the non#reali$ed or unborn%4J This claim !y no means im#lies that through analysis this something will 6nally !e '!orn( and !ecome 'fully reali3ed$( It does not mean that the unconscious is a su!"ective distortions of o!"ective reality /a distortion that could !e 'straightened out( !y the work of analysis1 it refers instead to a fundamental '-aw( of the reality itself to something like an incom#lete ontological constitution of reality$ 4K It is well known how 6rm &acan was in his insistence that there is nothing '#urely su!"ective( /in the sense of some #sychological de#th1 a!out the unconscious which he de6ned as the discourse of the 5ther$@ This could !e said to !e #ro#erly materialistic stance of #sychoanalysis) the unconscious is not a su!"ective distortion of the o!"ective world it is 6rst and foremost an indication of a fundamental inconsistency of the o!"ective world itself which as such that is as inconsistent allows for and generates its own /su!"ective1 distortions$ The thesis here is indeed very strong) if 'o!"ective( reality were fully ontologically constituted there would !e no unconscious$ The unconscious !ears witness to a #ro!lematic character of the 'o!"ective reality( and not sim#ly to the fact that a su!"ect 'has a #ro!lem$( The su!"ect and 'his #ro!lem( are rather viewed !y &acan as the very mode in which some ontological im#asse of o!"ective reality exists &ithin this same reality /as one of its su!"ective 6gures1$ It should !e immediately clear how this> #ers#ective radically di9ers from the #o#ular contem#orary ideological manoeuvre that consists in massive recognition of our su!"ective #ro!lems$ Lecogni3ing the singularity su!"ective de#th and im#ortance
18 | P a g e
of our #ro!lems e7ciently ro!s them of all o!"ective validity$ The im#erative here is to recogni3e the rights of the su!"ective as su!"ective and not as a #ossi!le indicator of something o!"ective of some o!"ective malfunction of something in the o!"ective reality that is not $ Another well known !acanian a)io&, na&ely that the “unconscious is outside,” could also be understood in this stronger sense" (his is to say not only in the sense that the latter is not full constituted and only e)ists as an e)cess o#er itself" (his constituti#e gap in the
19 | P a g e
disco#ering and deciphering the se)ual &eaning 5behind+ the sy&pto&s and different for&ations of the unconscious, rather the contrary, he was led to it by stu&bling against the 5therapeutic failure+ of the ulti&ate re#elations of se)ual &eaning" 2e)ual &eanings were re#ealed, connections leading to it established and reconstructedF yet the proble&Gsy&pto& persisted" It is as if the se)ual &eaning, so generously produced by the unconscious 1#, were there to &ask the reality of the dri#es, to cut us fro& it by a screen that draws its efficiency fro& the fact that it is itself a &eans of satisfaction 3 satisfaction through &eaning, satisfaction in the production of se)ual &eaning, and 7as the other side of this8 in the production of the &eaning of the se)ual" As parado)ically as this &ay sound, one of the pri&ary tasks of psychoanalysis is to slowly but thoroughly deacti#ate the path of this satisfaction, to &ake it useless" In this construction, se)ual &eaning is the other side of the se)ualF they are irreducibly connected 7in their singular generic point8, but they are also radically heterogeneous, irreducible to one another" ri#e is thus the i&possible oint articulation of being and &eaning in their #ery heterogeneity
In one of his i&portant essay, “2ur ar) et reud,” !ouis Althusser suggested soðing that will help us for&ulate so&e sort of conclusion to these reflections" According Althusser, ar)ian and reudian theory ha#e 7at least8
20 | P a g e
two funda&ental things in co&&on" (hey are both conflictual sciences, and their worst ene&y is not a direct opposition, but re#isionis&" ro& the #ery beginning, reudian theory has &et not only with fierce attacks and criticis&, but also with atte&pts at anne)ation and re#ision" (his testifies, according to Althusser, to the fact that it has touched upon soðing true and dangerous( this soðing needs to be re#ised, in order to be neutrali9ed" 6ence the incessant inner scissions characteristic of the history of reudian theory/ the theory has to defend itself, fro& within, against these atte&pts at re#isionis&" %efore reudian theory, ar)ist theory had already gi#en us an e)a&ple of a necessary conflictual and schis&:pro#oking science" In both cases, this is intrinsically connected to the #ery obect of the sciences that ar) and reud founded" %oth ar)is& and psychoanalysis are situated within the conflict that they theori9e, they are the&sel#es part of the #ery reality that they recogni9e as conflictual and antagonistic" In such a case the criterion of scientific obecti#ely is not a supposed neutrality, which in nothing other than a dissi&ulation 7and hence the perpetuation8 of the gi#en antagonis&, or of the point of real e)ploitation" In any social conflict, a 5neutral+ position is always and necessarily theF position of the ruling class/ it see&s 5neutral+ because it has achie#ed the status of the 5do&inant ideology,+ which always strikes us as self:e#ident" (he criterion of obecti#ity in such a case is thus not neutrality, but the capacity of theory to occupy a singular, specificF point of #iew within the situation" In this sense, the obecti#ity is linked here to the #ery capacity of being 5partial+ or 5partisan"+ As Althusser puts it/ when dealing with a conflictual reality 7which is the case for both ar)is& and psychoanalysis8 one cannot see e#erything fro& e#erywhere 7on ne peut pas tout voir de par tout 8F so&e positions dissi&ulate this conflict, and so&e re#eal it"
21 | P a g e
not si&ply and directly its 7hidden8 truth" As said before/ the line that goes fro& a proble& to its 7&ore or less distorted8 representation is necessarily fractured or 5out of oint"+ And this is part of the proble&, not si&ply of its representation" 2tarting fro& the analysis of the unconscious, psychoanalysis always has to work its way through to the nodal point 7the 5na#al+8 of this conflict, and to induce the subect to &ake the sa&e shift in his position" Ca&ely 3 and to put it si&ply 3 the shift fro& a standpoint fro& which e#erything he sees has a potentially se)ual &eaning or cause, to the standpoint of the se)ual itself 7as inherently inco&plete8, which can then real a $uite different panora&a" (he lesson and the i&perati#e of psychoanalysis is thus not/ let us de#ote all our attention to the se)ual 7to 5se)ual &atters+8 as our ulti&ate hori9on, but it is instead a reduction of the se) and the se)ual 7which, in fact, has always been o#erloaded with &eanings and interpretations8 to the point of an ontological inconsistency, nor&ally screened off precisely by the proliferation of se)ual &eanings that tend to populate its gap" In one of his inter#entions, bearing the date of
22 | P a g e
Intervention II
23 | P a g e
Freedo( and $au,e
When speaking about the philosophical and, &ore generally, social i&plications of psychoanalysis and of psychoanalytical theory, we cannot a#oid the always rather tricky $uestion of how the latter stands in relation to the notion of freedo&" Is freedo& a rele#ant issue at all for !acanian psychoanalysis?
24 | P a g e
acceptable8, nor si&ple an understandingGawareness of the &echanis&s that deter&ine us, but one that in#ol#es a tectonic shift in the #ery functioning of these &echanis&s" &echanis&s" And And the possibility possibility of this shift is not at all unrelated unrelated to the di&ension of forced choice, it is not si&ply its other, but e&erges only against its background" -T%ere i, .ut t%e $au,e o/ t%at 0%i$% doe, not 0or
(here e)ists a #ery inti&ate connection between the notion of the subect and the notion of freedo&, a connection that achie#es its philosophical peak in er&an idealis&, idealis&, yet a connection connection that also e)ists 3 with different different e&phases 3 at the #ery centre of !acanian psychoanalysis" (he idea, howe#er, is not si&ply that of a 5free subect,+ it is not about the notion of the subect that has freedo& as one of its essential attributes, and can act 5freely,+ !acan ne#er gets tired of repeating that subect is the effect of the structure, and in this sense it is anyt anythi hing ng but but free" free" 4et the the stru struct cture ure itse itself lf is far far fro& fro& being being si&p si&ply ly non: non: proble&atic, clear, or s&ooth:running" And And perhaps the shortest definition of the subect in this theory would be that 5subect+ is the conceptual na&e for that point of regularity, of substance, or of structure, in which the latter breaks down, or disp displa lays ys an inne innerr diff diffic icul ulty ty,, cont contra radi dict ctio ion, n, nega negati ti#i #ity ty,, cont contin inge genc ncy y, inte interru rrupt ptio ion, n, or a lack lack of its its own own found foundat atio ion" n" 2ube 2ubect ct is the the plac placee where where discontinuity, a gap, a disturbance, a stain beco&es inscribed into a gi#en causal chain" 6ence 3 on the le#el of e#eryday life 3 things like slips of the tongue, drea&s, as well as okes 7surprisingly produced 5sense in nonsense+8 are the locus of the subect in the sy&bolic structure" (hey are also the locus where psychoanalysis introduces the notion of the cause" =ac$ues:Alain iller has argued at so&e length that in psychoanalysis the $uestion of the cause rises precisely when soðing interrupts the s&ooth continuity of e#ents 23/ again, the e)a&ples range fro& &ost 5innocent+ slips of the tongue to all kinds of ways in which different sy&pto&s betray points of significant discontinuity" (his puts the psychoanalytic use of the notion of cause outside its usual connection to lawfulness and regularity, and 3 perhaps 3 closer to the notion of freedo&" (he $uestion of the cause appears precisely when a 75causal+8 chain breaks up, which is to say that what is crucial for the concept of cause in psychoanalysis is the ele&ent of discontinuity" ro& this perspecti#e, it could be argues that for psychoanalysis the issue of freedo& is closely connected to that of the cause/ not with the absence of cause 7as this relationship is often posited8, but precisely with its presence or incidence" We could thus say that freedo& only really
25 | P a g e
appears when soðing has a cause 7perhaps in both &eanings that the word 5cause+ has in &any languages8" (his is indeed a #ery #aluable and i&portant lesson, yet a lesson that still needs to be properly argued" or the following obection &ight be raised i&&ediately/ Is it not &uch too hasty and too superficial to si&ply link the $uestion of the interruption and of discontinuity to the $uestion of freedo&? Is the $uestion of the cause in psychoanalysis not always the $uestion of another, hidden cause, which can well be part of so&e other regularity than the one that has been interrupted, say, by the slip of the tongue, yet which ne#ertheless follows its own unyielding necessity and regularity? And has not psychoanalysis always tended to recogni9e in these see&ingly accidental slips a fir& logic and regularity? (his is true, of course, and the discontinuity in itself is certainly no i&&ediate proof or e)pression of freedo&" What it pro#es or bears witness to is soðing else, na&ely the fact that between the two le#els that psychoanalysis deals with 7say the 5&anifest+ and the 5latent"+ (o use the reudian ter&s8 there is no s&ooth, i&&ediate passage, ust as there is no fi)ed key that could pro#ide the translation of one le#el into the other" As laden >olar has put this/ T%e re$on,tru$tion o/ t%e 'atent tet .e%ind t%e ,trata o/ di,tortion i, /ar /ro( re,entin5 u, 0it% t%e un$on,$iou, in persona. On t%e $ontrar67 0e are on t%e tra$ o/ t%e un$on,$iou, on'6 in t%e ,a$e .et0een t%e t0o7 in t%e irredu$i.'e interva' .et0een t%e (ani/e,t and t%e 'atent7 in t%e ,ur'u, o/ di,tortion over t%e &true) $ontent7 in t%e drea(80or t%at rodu$ed t%e di,tortion9 24
In other words/ in principle, the distortion 7as a for& of discontinuity can be e)plained, related to its causes, yet besides the unconscious causes of distortion, there is also soðing else at work here, soðing that we can call the unconscious as the cause of the distortion, as the surplus of the distortion o#er 5true+ content, as a cause &oti#ated by itself" 4et, as such, as causa sui, this cause only e)ists in the #ery relationship between the two le#els 7the &anifest and the latent8, and not independently of the&" In short, we are dealing with a cause that is linked to the e)istence of the two le#els and to the constituti#e gap between the&, yet which is not directly deter&ined by, irreducible to, either of the&" It only e)ists as the articulation of their non:relationship" It is in this sense that we should understand a crucial !acanian thesis concerning the issue of the cause/ *ll n’y a de cause que de ce qui cloche+ 0E
26 | P a g e
:this is &y atte&pt at translating this hardly translatable idio&/ there is but the cause of that which does not work, or which does not add up" (here are 7at least8 two i&portant ideas behind this proposition" ? t%at t%e 0ord cause i, $orre$t'6 u,ed %ere9 Or a5ain7 (ia,(a, are t%e $au,e o/ /ever ; t%at doe,n)t (ean an6t%in5 eit%er7 t%ere i, a %o'e7 and ,o(et%in5 t%at o,$i''ate, in t%e interva'9 2!
(he last sentence of this $uote brings us to the other i&portant idea in#ol#ed in !acan+s account of causality/ soðing appears in this hole, in this inter#al, in this gap, in this structural split of causality, and it is for this soðing that psychoanalysis reser#es the na&e of the cause in the strict sense of the ter& 7the cause of obect a, the obet as the distortional cause of itself8"
(he ele&ents e)posed abo#e could be related to yet another discussion of causes in psychoanalysis/ to the already &entioned two aspects of the $uestion
27 | P a g e
of the cause 7the $uestion of the unconscious causes, and the $uestion of the unconscious as cause8 we can add a third one, which see&s e#en &ore funda&ental and concerns the #ery cause of the constitution of the unconscious" (his is a debate de#eloped in a #ery intriguing way by =ean !aplanche in answer to the deadlocks of the reudian theory of se)ual seduction 7of children8" La'an$%e and t%e $au,e o/ t%e un$on,$iou,
!et &e briefly recall the principal stakes of the debate" reud first posited the se)ual seduction of children by adults as real, that is to say, as a factualGe&pirical e#ent in the child+s history, which is then repressed and can beco&e the ground or cause of different sy&pto&s and neurotic disturbances" !ater on, he abandoned this theory in fa#our of the theory of the fantasy of seduction/ generally speaking, seduction is not an e#ent that takes place in e&pirical reality, but a fantasy constructed later on, in the period of our se)ual awareness, and it only e)ists in the psychical reality of the subect" If approached with the tool of the distinction between &aterial reality and psychical reality 7fantasy8, the $uestion of se)ual seduction leads either to the clai& that e#erything is &aterial seduction 7for how e)actly are we to isolate and define the latter/ does the touching of the baby+s lips, for e)a&ple, or its botto&, $ualify as a seduction?8, or else it leads to the conclusion that seduction is entirely fantas&atic, &ediated by the psychical reality of the one who 5feels seduced"+ !aplanche+s answer to this conflict between raw &aterialis& and psychological idealis& is profoundly &aterialistic in the sense that he recogni9es a properly material cause, yet a cause that cannot be reduced to 7or deduced fro&8 what has e&pirically happened in the interaction between the child and the adult" In other words, according to !aplanches, the true trigger of the subse$uent constitution of the unconscious lies neither in the raw &aterial reality nor in the ideal reality of fantasy, but is the #ery &ateriality of a third reality, which is trans#ersal to the other two and which !aplanches calls the &aterial reality of the enig&atic &essage" 2i&ply put/ in their interaction with adults, children keep recei#ing &essages that are always partly enig&atic, ridden with the unconscious of the other 7which is also to say, by his or her se)uality8" (his &eans that these kinds of &essages are not enig&atic"
28 | P a g e
can be gestures, different ways of nursing the child, etc"8 ha#e their own &aterial reality, they are not fantasies or a posterior constructions, yet they are also not a direct se)ual seduction" (he child interprets these &essages, and organi9es synthesi9es the& in a &ore or less coherent, &eaningful story" 6owe#er the interpretation, e)planation, understanding of these &essages always has its other, back side/ places where this e)planation does not work, places that are left out of the interpretation, places where we are dealing with a lefto#er which is repress" (hat I to say, we are dealing here with the constitution of the unconscious as the refuse 7dJchet8 of this interpretations of enig&atic &essages" 2" It is worth stopping here for a &o&ent and asking the following $uestion/ Is !aplanche not &o#ing a little too fast in identifying two rather different things and thus reducing the tripartite structure, which he hi&self has put such e&phasis on, to a si&pler binary structure? or in the account presented abo#e, we end up with two ele&ents/ on the one side, we ha#e the conscious, &anifest content or interpretati#e narration and on the other side, the unconscious as the non:digestedGnon:digestible pieces of the other+s &essage, the piece that has not been integrated into the gi#en interpretation" What we lose by putting things this way 7and what otherwise clearly follows fro& so&e other aspects of !aplanche+s theory8 is that the unconscious itself is also always:already an interpretation" In other words/ we should not si&ply identify the refuse, the indi#isible re&ainder of the interpretation 7of the enig&atic &essage8 with the unconscious" .ather, we should say that the unconscious 7the work of the unconscious, as well as its 5for&ations+8 is precisely the interpretation which stri#es to incorporate this piece, this 3 to use !acan+s notion 3 obect into its narrati#e" (he unconscious interprets by taking this lefto#er into account, it interprets with respect to it" If the constitution of the unconscious does in fact coincide with a certain 75conscious+8 interpretation taking place, i"e" with a certain solution that is gi#en to the enig&atic &essage of the other, this does not &ean that the unconscious is si&ply what is left outside 7and is not included in our interpretation8F rather, the unconscious is that which continues to interpret 7after the conscious interpretation is done8" -#en &ore precisely/ it is that which only starts to interpret alter so&e understanding of the enig&atic &essage produce is" or what it interprets is, to put it bluntly, precisely the relationship between the gi#en interpretation and its lefto#er" And it interprets fro& the point of #iew of this lefto#er" Which is also the reason why the unconscious for&ations are by definition 5co&pro&ise for&ations"+ We should perhaps add
29 | P a g e
that that which co&pro&ises the& is precisely that which brings the& closer to the real" (he fact that the unconscious interprets fro& the point of #iew of the lefto#er is the #ery reason why this particular interpretation is not si&ply an interpretation of interpretation, with all the relati#is& i&plied in this for&ulation, but is inscribed instead in the di&ension of truth" And this is precisely what psychoanalysis puts its stakes on when taking the unconscious for&ations seriously" We are thus dealing with three ele&ents/ a specific subecti#e figure related to the for&ations of the unconscious, and two kinds of causes" o we not &iss, by putting things in theses ter&s, a crucial step in the constitution of the unconscious? (he e)pression 5enig&atic &essage+ see&s to suggest that originalGtrau&atic thrust is caused by so&e &ystery of &eaning" (he subect 7we could say the subect:in:beco&ing8 does not know what e)actly it is that the
30 | P a g e
coherent, or si&ply less oppressi#e, if its &eaning were properly established" !aplanche rightly insists that there is no pre:established &eaning behind this enig&a, waiting to be unco#ered and properly understood 7the enig&atic &essage of the
31 | P a g e
that is, the #ery non:relationship originally rendered in the structure of a forced choice" (he repression is only possible against the background of this force choice which is the !acanian rendering of what reud called 5pri&al repression+ 7rverdr-ngung 8, and which strictly speaking coincides with the constitution of the unconscious"
Cow what e)actly is the 5it+ that 5&eans,+ that triggers off the &achinery of &eaning? We &ust be #ery precise in answering this" It is not si&ply all the words, gestures, ga9es and thousand other things that take place in &y interaction with the other" It is, once again, ce qui cloche, that which does not work in this interaction" It is the free:floating radical, the obect that circulates in the relationship between the subect and the other, e&bodying the #ery $uandary of this relationship" And it is not that we interpret this obect, we interpret e#erything else 7words, gestures, gases, etc"8, yet this obect is, properly speaking, the &otor of the interpretation" 6owe#er, in order for it to function as such, soðing else &ust take place 3 precisely what I described before as the subect &aking the supposition that there is an 7enig&atic8
32 | P a g e
&eaning to be established here" What happens with the introduction of this supposition is 3 if we try to describe it in purely structural ter&s 3 that the subect places, situates the obect in the
33 | P a g e
con#ince hi& that he is not a grain, but a &an" Co sooner has he left the hospital than he co&es back, #ery scared, clai&ing that there is a chicken outside the door, and that he is afraid that it will eat hi&" “>ear fellow,” says his doctor, “you know #ery well that you are not a grain of seed, but a &an"” 3 “
34 | P a g e
also be said to protect certain repressions 7and the persistence of sy&pto&s beyond the deciphering of their unconscious &eaning would belong to this category8" (he dri#e, on the other hand, is precisely not linked to repression as a 5solution+ of the i&passe of the non:relationship between the subect and the
ro& here we can now return to !aplanche and to the point where we ha#e deco&posed the !aplanchian 5enig&atic &essage+ into two &o&ents 3 the &o&ent of the real in#ol#ed in the proble&atic character of the subect+s
35 | P a g e
relationship to the e&and in relation to which the subect is absolutely responsible" We ha#e seen abo#e how psychoanalysis brings to light the fact that the constitution of the enig&a of the e&and, is the precise counterpart of 7pri&al8 repression" (his does not pre#ent repression fro& necessarily belonging to the constitution of the subect, neither does it &ean that psychoanalysis &ust atte&pt to pre#ent it 7in ad#ance8 at any price 7rather, psychoanalysis always approaches it after the fact, by an operation of 5separation+ perfor&ed on an already acco&plished 5original+ synthesis8" 6owe#er, to recogni9e the necessity of repression in the constitution of the subect is not the sa&e as to pro&ote repression to the rank of the highest ethical &a)i&" Which is e)actly what the abo#e &entioned ethics does" (he ethics based on the
36 | P a g e
principle" In this sense, it is definitely foreign to the ethics of psychoanalysis" It is that ethics in which the infinite de&and of the e&and of the e&and of the
37 | P a g e
According to reud, the superego 7as 5internalised authority+8 has precisely this sa&e #icious way of beha#ing/ the &ore #irtuous the &an is, the &ore se#erely and distrustfully it beha#es, “so that ulti&ately it is precisely those people who ha#e carried saintliness furthest who reproach the&sel#es with the worst sinfulness"” 31 As we ha#e already stressed, the separation in#ol#ed in psychoanalysis is soðing other than this kind of infinite responsibility 7that increases by being acco&plished8" It rather induces soðing like a singular, and $uite precise, responsibility 3 responsibility in relation to this singular obect which is not the
Psychoanalysis starts as an interpretation of sy&pto&s" 4et, insofar as these sy&pto&s are the&sel#es already an interpretation, connection, synthesis of different ele&ents, the work of analysis is actually the work of de:interpretation" In this respect, one can only agree with !aplanches+s e&phasis on the radically analytical character of psychoanalysis 7as ðod8" 2ynthesis is always on the side of repression" reud+s capital disco#ery in relation to drea&s and their interpretation was the reection of their supposed sy&bolis& and of the e)istence of a key to their interpretation" ree associations are soðing #ery different/ they disintegrate a &ore or less coherent story, take its ele&ents in utterly di#ergent directions, introduce new ele&ents, etc" Whereas sy&bolis& &akes the free associations silent" We should add, howe#er, that this interpretation as de:interpretation and unbinding is not the whole story 3 there is also the crucial operation of separation, which consists in circu&scribing and isolating the #ery split that sustains this infinite production of &eaning 7 and its interpretation8, and which is not itself an ele&ent of &eaning" Isolating this split as such a&ounts to isolating the drive and its obect" (his does not &ean, howe#er, that the obect: dri#e is si&ply an 5ele&entary particle+ which re&ains when analytical unbinding 7interpretation as de:interpretation, the untying of the sy&pto&atic
38 | P a g e
ties8 is reali9ed to its 3 &ore or less 3 bitter end" It suffices to briefly recall reud+s theory of the constitution of the dri#e fro& the inner split of 7the satisfaction of8 need, or else the !acanian conceptualisation of the dri#e through the di#ergence between goal and aim 7encapsulated in the for&ula that the dri#e finds it satisfaction without attaining its ai&8 3 it suffices to recall this in order to grasp that the dri#e is an elementary form of the split 7and not an ele&entary particle8" It is the di#ergenceGsplit that is ele&entary, i"e" &ore ele&entary than its 5particles"+ (he obect of dri#e is the split, the gap itself as obect" As counterintuiti#e as it &ight sound, this topology 7the split so&ehow precedes that which is split in it8 is indeed crucial for an understating of the dri#e, especially if we bear in &ind that, at botto&, this split entails nothing less than the di#ision between the &ental and the physical and their possible articulation" 32 If we take this di#ision in its largest sense, as the di#ision between 5nature+ and 5culture,+ we could say that psychoanalysis disco#ered the dri#e as the point of the short circuit between the two ter&s" 4et what does this &ean? >oes it &ean that we can define hu&an beings as the 9one where the two real&s o#erlap? Although not altogether false, this for&ulation can be strongly &isleading and wide open to religious reading of hu&an beings as co&posed of two principles of the natural 7or &aterial8 and the spiritual" (he crucial point to &ake 33 is that what is at stake is not an o#erlapping of two already well: established entities, but an intersection which is generati#e of both sides that o#erlap in it" In other words, hu&an beings are not co&posed of the biological and the sy&bolic or of the physical and the &etaphysical 3 the i&age of co&position is &isleading" 6u&an beings are rather so &any points where the difference between these two ele&ents, as well as the two elements themselves as defined by this difference, are generated, and where the relationship between the two di&ensions thus generated is being constantly negotiated 7posited, re: posited, repeated, solidified, defined, and redefined8" ro& this perspecti#e, there is no 5pure life+ 7pure nature8 or 5pure sy&bolic+ prior to this curious intersection or split" (he generating point of the sy&bolic is this parado)ical oint, and the sy&bolic as a wholly independent, autono&ous real&, is soðing produced 3 it is produced at the periphery of the &o#e&ent generated by the intersection and retroacti#ely affects it own point of generation, its own 5birth,+ so to say" And the dri#e is intrinsically connected to this split as such, to the split as ele&entary 3 &ore ele&entary than the 5ele&ents+ that split in it"
39 | P a g e
(his has yet another i&portant conse$uence" If dri#e is the ele&entary for& of the split that is itself a tie, a copula" (he dri#e is the incidence of a funda&ental heterogeneity which, through the #ery operating of the dri#e, is &aintained as heterogeneity within the #ery field to which it is heterogeneous" (he dri#e is a tie with a radical otherness, a tie that functions beyond 3 or perhaps &ore precisely/ on this side 3 of the tie pro#ided by &eaning 7the transfor&ation of this heterogeneity into a essage, an enig&atic >e&and, etc"8" (he dri#e is the split, the heterogeneity as the form of a tie that is not the for& of &eaningG&essage" (he point I ha#e atte&pted to &ake is thus the following the dis&antling of the ties practised by analysis 7interpretation as de: interpretation8 stu&bles against another, different kind of tie, which is isolates and where it stops/ it stu&bles against the tie that irreducibly binds the subect and the oes this &ean that psychoanalysis has to obtain fro& passing any kind of social udg&ent and to uncritically accept, if not e#en acti#ely support, the conte&porary disintegration of social ties, the cru&bling of solidarity and of collecti#e proects, the spectacle of the social tissue breaking into tiny pieces, s&all indi#idual islands of enoy&ent? I belie#e that it has to do soðing else, na&ely to critically e)a&ine this diagnosis itself, the diagnosis that should raise suspicion already on account of its being so gladly e&braced by e#erybody, by those on the right and those on the left, by the rich and the poor, the religious
40 | P a g e
and the not religious, the e)ploited and the e)ploiters" >o we really li#e in the ti&e of an accelerated dissolution of the social ties and of the e&ergence of an untied &ultitude of indi#iduals as solipsistic islands of enoy&ent? What if this diagnosis itself is a for& of repression, a 5co&pro&ise for&ations+ fiercely critici9ing a certain content 7the criticis& of which is utterly acceptable8 in order to a#oid the real source of the proble&? What we could say, for e)a&ple, is this/ the e)istence of the &ultiplicity of indi#iduals as solipsistic islands of enoy&ent is precisely the for& of e)istence of the conte&porary social lin&% (he socio:econo&ic &obili9ation of indi#iduals &ay not take the sa&e for& as @11 or 011 years ago, yet this is not to say that it doesn+t take place and that we are not 3 as indi#iduals with our own way of enoy&ent 3 #ery &uch engaged in 5feeding+ the present social link, which bind us to itself, and to each another" 6ere we should stress again what we ha#e already indicated/ that perhaps the crucial &istake lies in the fact that we are too fast and too willing to understand enoy&ent as soðing essentially 5ata#istic,+ solipsistic, or si&ple a:social, cut off fro& the field of the
41 | P a g e
the sy&bolic
42 | P a g e
unconscious" It represents a closure in relation to which psychoanalysis itself will also ha#e to finds its response"
Intervention III
43 | P a g e
COEDY AND TBE UNCANNY
T%at un$ertain 'i(it
(he subect of this last 5inter#ention+ falls in the field of what carries the general na&e of aesthetics, and ai&s at de#eloping an e)a&ple of what psychoanalysis can help us discern in this field" It concerns the relationship between two pheno&ena that see& to stand on opposite ends of our e&otional, or affecti#e, responses/ the co&ic feeling and the feeling of the uncanny 7reudian das nheimliche8" In &any aspects, howe#er, these two pheno&ena are &uch closer and &ore inti&ately connected than one would e)pect" As aesthetic pheno&ena, they could be perhaps best defined as two &odes of deploying 3 the Nothing. (his, at least, is the perspecti#e fro& which we are going to launch our in#estigation" As regards co&edy, its close relationship to nothing see&s rather striking" 0uch ado about nothing, for e)a&ple, is not ust the title of a co&edy" !ike &ore than one 2hakespearean title, it is paradig&atic" It captures a crucial di&ension of co&edy"
A lot of things could be said about the &echanis& of this oke" !inguistically, it e)tends the parado) in#ol#ed already in the word without , which literally &eans 5with absence of"+ And one can easily see how, following the logic, coffee with absence:of:crea& could be soðing $uite different than coffee with absence:
44 | P a g e
of:&ilk" At stake here are not ust &ore or less interesting and a&using logico: linguistic peculiarities, but also, and as said before, a certain 3 rather ghostly 3 &ateriality of nothing" With the waiters reply, denying the possibility of non: ser#ing soðing that they do not ha#e, there e&erges a #ery palpable and concrete di&ension of this absence, a spectral obect" ? T%ere i, a ind o/ (err6 0a, .et0it Senior :enedi$ and %er :eatri$e t%e6 never (eet .ut t%ere), a ,ir(i,% o/ 0it .et0een t%e(9 Beatrice
45 | P a g e
A'a,7 %e 5et, not%in5 .6 t%at9 In our 'a,t $on/'i$t /our o/ %i, /ive 0it, 0ent %a'in5 o//7 and no0 i, t%e 0%o'e (an 5overn)d 0it% one =>? =A$t I7 S$ene I?
6ere we ha#e the idea of se#eral 5wits+ literally lea#ing a person and 5haling off+ on their own 7causing trouble elsewhere, one could i&agine8" 5Wit+ is produced as a detachable, autono&ous, self:standing obet" (he other e)a&ple is &ore conte&porary, and it co&es fro& the ar) brothers = Duck Soup? Trea,ur6 Se$retar6 -Sir7 6ou tr6 (6 atien$e Fire/'6 =Grou$%o? -Don)t (ind i/ I do9 You (u,t tr6 (ine ,o(eti(e9
In this co&ically sensible production of patience as soðing, for e)a&ple, to be eaten, we also witness an a&using &ateriali9ation of nothing" 4et we &ust be careful in atte&pting to understand this" What I a& ai&ing at is not si&ply that 5patience+ is the nothing 7the i&&aterial thing8 that gets &ateriali9ed" (he point is that the pun works, and &akes sense 7in nonsense8, by way of eli&inating the gap that nor&ally separates the two orders 7say &ental and physical obects8" And it is this eli&inated gap, which nor&ally functions as a negati#e condition of 5&aking sense,+ that now appears as soðing substantial, albeit spectral/ it beco&es the #ery substance of roucho+s patience that the treasury secretary is in#ited to try" !et us &ake a rather abrupt stop here, and take a look at the uncanny, for the 5&ateriality of the spectral,+ as well the production of the 5i&possible+ 7detachable and re:attachable8 obects are precisely what co&edy see&s to share with the uncanny A 5wit+ going around by itself, patience as an obect to be consu&ed 7or 5tired+ in so&e other way8, or, to return to the first e)a&ple, entities such as 5absence 3of:crea&+ going around all by the&sel#es 3 all these see& to be precisely the kind of obects that we could encounter both in co&edy and in the uncanny" It is also a&a9ing how well their respecti#e definitions see& to fit the other as well" %ergson+s fa&ous definition of the co&ical, “soðing &echanical encrusted on soðing li#ing” 34, with all its #ersions 7“a person gi#ing us the i&pression of being a thing”8 and sub#ersions 7“a thing beha#ing like a person” 3 8 could function perfectly as definitions of the uncanny"
46 | P a g e
other hand, 2chelling+s fa&ous definition of the uncanny, praised by reud in his essay on the topic, could easily be applied to the co&ical/ “e#erything is unheimlich that ought to ha#e re&ained secret and hidden but has co&e to light"” 3! (he pro)i&ity between the co&ical and the uncanny see&s itself both co&ical and uncanny" We are dealing with two pheno&ena that are at the same ti&e e)tre&ely close to one another and e)tre&ely far away" (hey appear to be two co&pletely different uni#erses, yet separated by an e)ceptionally thin line, #ery hard to pin down" (here is, of course, the whole pheno&enon of laughing out of uneasiness/ we can laugh because we are troubled by soðing, or scared by it" 4et this kind of laughter as a response to an)iety is not what interests us here" What interests us, instead, is the pro)i&ity between the uncanny and the purely co&ical, that is to say the co&ical that i&&ediately strikes us as co&ical, and cannot be described as a response to, or a defence against, an)iety" (his odd coincidence of the co&ical and the uncanny is not confined to the supposedly abstract le#el of their definitions" We started out by indicating a certain pro)i&ity in the nature of the obects they produce and play with" In a recent paper dedicated entirely to the relationship between the co&ical and the uncanny, .obert Pfaller put forward four essential ele&ents that they ha#e in co&&on/ the ad#ent of sy&bolic causality 7soðing that starts as a play or a pretence takes the upper hand and starts functioning in the real8, the success 7not only that e#erything succeeds, it e#en succeeds too &uch, 5&ore than intended+8, the repetition, and the figure of the double" 3" -laborating on
47 | P a g e
We &ust be careful not to confuse this with si&ple &ockery" (he point is not that we need this 7presupposition of an8 ignorant other in order to feel good about oursel#es 7to feel 5superior+ or s&arter8" (he point is rather that we need this other in order to be able to relate to the uncanny obect, instead of being o#erwhel&ed by it" In what follows, I will propose a so&ewhat different reading of the relationship between co&edy and the uncanny, focusing on the $uestion of the status of the nothing in one and the other, as well as on the $uestion of the real 7in the !acanian sense of the ter&8, a reading that ne#ertheless re&ains indebted to Pfaller+s analysis at &any points" -T%eatri$a' i''u,ion
(here are so&e grounds for challenging annoni+s reading of theatrical illusion as basically following the sche&e of 5fetishist disa#owal+ or delegated belief 7we know better than to belie#e this or that, but we keep on belie#ing it by delegating this belief to the
48 | P a g e
to belie#e that the person really dies? Is it not rather because 7artistic8 fiction is not the opposite of the real, but one of its best #ehicles? (here is real in theatre 7and other for&s of artistic fiction8, which is different fro& saying, both, that all that happens in theatre is unreal or that it is all real" If we reduce what is at stake to the distinction between reality and 75pure+8 illusion, we lose precisely that third reality that artistic fiction is #ery &uch in#ol#ed with, and which cannot be reduced either to the e&pirical &ateriality of what 5really happens,+ nor to the illusion sustained by the presupposed belief of the
49 | P a g e
de&arcation, it is indeed necessary to rely upon the instance of the
50 | P a g e
51 | P a g e
or e)a&ple, there is a difference between a 5ro&antic+ reading 7including the pheno&enon of 5ro&antic irony+8, according to which, in snee9ing, the supposed 5realF of the actor+s body is contesting the purity of sy&bolic representation refusing to be reduced to it, and a $uite different, co&ic, reading, according to which the #ery guaranty of the sy&bolic representation itself appears on the stage as this corporal, snee9y presence" 4+
We can now resu&e things by saying that what both co&edy and the uncanny ha#e in co&&on has to do with 3 nothing" In the nor&al, or ordinary run of things 7which includes a large diapason of pheno&ena that are 5funny+ andGor 5scary,+ without possessing the specific feature that would &ake the& either 5co&ical+ or 5uncanny+ 418 we are dealing with the following configuration" (here is a funda&ental negati#ity which e)ists and functions as the condition of differentiality within our 7sy&bolic and i&aginary8 world, i"e" of its readability" In !acanian ter&s/ the constitution of reality presupposes an ele&ent 5falling out+ 7of it8, supporting 3 through its #ery lack 3 the consistency of gi#en reality" (here is a constituti#e lack, which is of a different order than any lack that we encounter in our reality" >ifferently fro& that constituti#e lack, the lack that we encounter in reality is always:already reflecti#e, constituted, &ediated by the sy&bolic, &anageable by the sy&bolic" (hat is to say that it includes the possibility of referring to it 7that is, to 5nothing+8 as if it were soðing" A sy&bol can fill in the lack, it can designate its place, it can designate an absence, it can &ake what is not here present" It is thus i&portant to distinguish between two kinds of negati#ity/ the funda&ental
52 | P a g e
negati#ity of a constituti#e lack 7which is ne#er #isible as such, but through which e#erything else beco&es #isible8, and an asserted or 5posited+ negati#ity, lack absence, etc" As we saw at the beginning of this chapter, both co&edy and the uncanny can in#ol#e certain 5illogical+ appearances that point to the collapse of that funda&ental:constituti#e negati#ity itself, the constituti#e gap between different orders" (his is perhaps &ore ob#ious in the case of the uncanny, so let us first pursue its path" In his analysis of the uncanny 7as related to an)iety8, !acan chooses to capture what is at stake in this configuration with this strikingly incisi#e for&ula/ le manqu$ vient a manquer, “the lack co&es to lack"” N0 (he constituti#e lack which, precisely as a lack, supports our sy&bolic uni#erse and its differentiations 7which allow for the operation of 5&aking sense+8, co&es to be lacking" What e&erges in its place is an 5i&possible,+ surplus obect that has no place in gi#en reality and blatantly contradicts its laws" (o a certain e)tent, !acanOs for&ula also applies to the co&ical" It is i&plied, for e)a&ple, in the figure of 5surplus:success+ which according to Pfaller, is co&&on both to co&edy and to the uncanny 7things ha#e a funny way of not only succeeding but of succeeding too &uch, 5&ore than intended+8" !acan further clai&s that this 5lack of the lack+ is precisely what is in#ol#ed in his concept of the obect a 7as real8" Which is why an)iety “is not without obect,” 43 and is not about uncertainty, but rather i&plies a terrifying certainty bound to this obect" In order to pro#ide a &ore concrete rendering of these for&ulas on the side of the uncanny, let us look at an e)a&ple" (ake the i&age of so&eone+s eyes being plucked out 7and appearing autono&ously8, an i&age that see&s to haunt the hu&an i&aginary fro& a #ery early stage, and which is often associated with the uncanny" When analysing the uncanny aspect of this i&age, one usually points out two things/ 18 instead of the eyes, two e&pty holes yawn in the person+s face" 28 -yes the&sel#es, once detached fro& the body, appear as ghastly, i&possible obects" In relation to the first point, one has the tendency to assu&e that the holes are terrifying because of the lack they i&ply, i"e" because they are holes, e&pty corridors leading to uncertain depths" 4et is it not rather the opposite that is really ghastly? Ca&ely, that instead of the eyes, which 3 on the i&aginary le#el 3 always suggest an in!de#finite depth, an opening into a possibly inscrutable, botto&less di&ension of subecti#ity 7eyes being considered as 5opening into a person+s soul+8, the holes instead of the eyes
53 | P a g e
are all too shallow all too finite, their botto& all too #isible and close" 2o that, once again, what is horrifying is not si&ply the appearance 7or disclosure8 of a lack, but rather that the “lack co&es to lack"” (hat this lack itself is re&o#ed, that it loses its support"
54 | P a g e
losing the sy&bolic support pro#ided by the castration co&ple)" (his is what his for&ula of an)iety, “the lack co&es to lack,” finally ai&s at" (he pi#otal point of an)iety is not a 5fear of castration,+ but instead the fear of losing the support that the subect 7and her desire8 ha#e in castration as a sy&bolic structure" (his is why an)iety is usually not related to sy&bolic prohibitions but rather to the& being lifted" It is the loss of this support that results in the apparition of those ghastly obects through which the lack in the real is present in the sy&bolic as an absolute 5too:&uchness+, ghastly obects which dislodge the obect of desire and &ake appear, in its place, the cause of desire" T%e rea'i,( o/ de,ire ver,u, t%e rea'i,( o/ t%e drive
(he abo#e re&arks already pro#ide a first indication of the direction in which we will search for a possible definition of the difference between co&edy and the uncanny" (he uncanny relies entirely on the structure of desire 7and its collapse8, based on the antino&y of the obect of desire and its 7transcendent8 cause" (he cause of desire is the originally lost obect, the loss of which opens up the scene on which all possible obects of desire appear" (he obect:cause of desire is constituti#ely e)cluded fro& the field of desire 7and its obects8, that is to say, fro& the
55 | P a g e
ri#es are not bound by the 5reality principle,+ and they ha#e a way of stubbornly returning to their place, which is de:placed to begin with" 4# In this perspecti#e, we can see how what is usually referred to as the 5#italis&+ of co&edy 7the fact that it see&s to stretch life beyond all laws of probability8 is in fact nothing other than the #italis& of the death dri#e" (hat is to say, the
56 | P a g e
#italis& of the internal contradiction of 7hu&an8 life itself" ar fro& referring to soðing in us that 5wants to dies,+ or that ai&s at death and destruction, the !acanian notion of the death dri#e refers to an e)cess of life itself" 2ince this notion of death dri#e is often the issue in conte&porary philosophical debates, and has earned !acan the reputation of assigning to death the deter&inant role in hu&an subecti#ity 7along the lines of the 6eideggerian %eing:towards:death8, one cannot stress the abo#e point too &uch" 4* !acan+s 5death dri#e+ is precisely the reason that the subect can ne#er be reduced to the hori9on of her death" (his is not to say, on the other hand, that as an e)cess of life the death dri#e sa#es us fro& our finitude, or that this “i&&ortal, irrepressible life” 7!acan8 will indeed go on li#ing after we die, that soðing of us will sur#i#e in it" (he archetypical co&ical figure of, say, passionate habit or a tick that keeps persisting e#en after its subect is already dead 7or asleep or indisposed8 in any other way8, is the way co&edy renders palpable the inherent and always:already e)isting two:fold nature of hu&an life, its internal separationGcontradiction" (he 5real+ life is precisely not beyond our life in reality 7it does not lie with the (hing fore#er lost fro& reality8, it is attached to it in a constituti#ely dislocated way" or co&edy, the real life is the reality of our life being out:of:oint with itself" %y drawing on the structure of the dri#e, co&edy does not preach that soðing of our life will go on li#ing on its own when we dies, it rather draws our attention the fact that something of our life lives on its own as we spea&, that is to say at 7possibly8 any &o&ent of our life" (his is precisely what is at stake in the point we &ade earlier in relation to the snee9ing corpse e)a&ple/ the true obect of co&edy is not si&ply the snee9ing 7or any other tick, habit, obsession that co&edy chooses to bring forward8, but precisely that inter#al that si&ultaneously separates and links the snee9ing and its body, the habit and its bearer, the s&ile and its face, the pleasure and its cause" It is this logic of constitutive dislocation 7as i&&anent nothing8 that links the co&edy to the dyna&ics of the dri#es, and distinguishes it fro& the uncanny, which is bound to the dyna&ic of desire with its logics of constitutive lac& 7as transcendent nothing8"
57 | P a g e
Endnote,
58 | P a g e
@" In the following outline of Three Essay I use argu&entation that I first de#eloped in the article “Psychoanalysis” in The Edinburgh 4ompanion to Twentieth)century Philosophies, ed" %y 'onstantin R" %onndas 7-dinburgh Bni#ersity Press, 0118" 0" 2ig&und reud, “(hree -ssay on the (heory of 2e)uality” in /n Seuality, (he Pelican reud !ibrary, #ol" 76ar&ondsworth/ Penguin %ooks, @D8, ST (ranslation &odified at the point of the reudian ter& *Trieb+ 7‘instinct’ in 2trachey+s translation8/ 5dri#e+ has beco&e generally used as a &ore accurate translation" T" Ibide&, E" N" Ibide&, DH" E" Ibide&, @EH" H" Ibide&, @TD" " Ibide&, @N1" S" 2ig&und reud, “ebase&ent in the 2phere of !o#e” in /n seuality, 0ES" D" 2ee the following co&&ents that !acan &akes on this issue in Television “%ecause energy is not a substance, which, for e)a&ple, i&pro#es or goes sour with ageF it is a nu&erical constant that a physicist has to find in his calculations, so as to be able to work" 7U8 that+s not ust of &y own de#ising" -ach and e#ery physicist knows clearly, that is to say in a readily articulated &anner, that energy is nothing other than the nu&erical #alue chiffreQ of a constant" Cow what reud articulates as pri&ary process in the unconscious 7U8 isn+t soðing to be nu&erically e)pressed se 4hiffreQ, but to be deciphered se dechiffreQ, I &ean "ouissance itself" In which case it doesn’t result in energy, and can+t be registered as such"” =ac$ues !acan" (ele#ision 7Cew 4ork and !ondon" W"W" Corton V 'o&pany, @DD18, @S" @1" =ac$ues !acan The 5our 5undamental concepts of Psycho)6nalysis 6ar&ondsworth/ Penguin %ooks @DD8, @D:@DS" @@" 2ig&und reud, “%eyond the Pleasure Principle” in /n 0etapsychology% (he Pelican reud !ibrary, #ol" @@ 76ar&ondsworth Penguin @DSN8, p" TT0 7 our e&phasis8 @0" =ac$ues !acan the 5our fundamental 4oncepts of Psycho)analysis, 0HH" @T" 2ee Alain %adiou, 7’etre et l’evenement 7Paris/ 2euil, @DSS8" or a wonderful and #ery clear account of %adiou+s theory of being 7and e#ent8 see Peter 6allward, 8adiou% 6 sub"ect to Truth 7inneapolis V !ondon Bni#ersity of innesota Press, 011T8"
59 | P a g e
@N" =ac$ues !acan, The 5our 5undamental 4oncepts of Psycho)6nalysis, @E1" @E" Ibide&, 00,0T, T1" @H" I owe the notion of an “inco&plete ontological constitution of reality” to 2la#o Zi9ek who introduced it by way of his reading of what is known as the 5openF ontology of $uantu& &echanics, and its 5uncertainty principle"+ 2ee his paper “ * &aterialisticni teoligii” in 5ilo9ofs&i @G011" @"=ac$ues !acan, The 5our 5undamental 4oncepts of Psycho)6nalysis, 0T" @S" At the le#el of the unconscious, 7al&ost8 e#ery &eaning is se)ual or is related to a se)ual &eaning" What does this tell us? Instead of concei#ing this in ter&s of the unconscious as a kind of refuge, sanctuary, receptacle of inad&issible se)ual thoughts, we should concei#e it in ter&s of the unconscious as acti#e generator of se)ual &eaning" @D" !ouis Althusser, “2ur ar) et reud” in Ecrits sur la psychoanalyse 7Paris/ 2(<'*GI-', @DDT8, 00D" 01" 2ee =ac$ues !acan, “Allocution sur les psychoses de l+enfant” in 6utres ecrits 7Paris/ 2euil 011@8, THE" 0@" 2ee =ac$ues !acan" The 5our 5undamental 4oncepts of Psycho)6nalysis 76ar&ondsworth/ Penguin %ooks, @DD8, 0@1:0@T" 00" or a detailed study of &echanis&s of sub&ission that rely essentially on the i&perati#e of freedo&, see =ean:!eon %ea#ois (raite de la servitude liberale% 6nalyse de la soumission 7Paris >unod, @DDN8 %asing his findings on a series of socio:psychological e)peri&ents , the author shows &ost con#incing how the granting of freedo& can be the best way to &ake the other do precisely what we want" irst, we confront the other, fro& a position of a certain 7social8 authority, with a choice between two actions, one of which he is &ost reluctant to do while knowing, at the sa&e ti&e, that this is precisely the action we e)pect fro& hi&" 2econd, we keep repeating that the choice is entirely his, that he is entirely free in his choice" i#en these two circu&stances, the following will happen/ he will do e)actly what we e)pect hi& to do and what is contrary to his 7pre#iously tested8 con#ictions 3 further&ore by #irtue of the &echanis& of 5free choice,+ he will rationali9e his action by changing these #ery con#ictions" In other words, instead of #iewing the action that was so perfidiously i&posed upon hi& as soðing 5bad+ that he had to do 7since authority de&anded it8, he will con#ince hi&self that the 5bad
60 | P a g e
thing+ is actually good, since his is the only way for hi& to ustify the fact that he 5freely chose+ his course of action" 0T" 'f" =ac$ues:Alain iller, “to Interpret the 'ause/ ro& reud to !acan” in 1ewsletter of the 5reudian 5ield% Rol"T" Co @:0 7@DSD8" 0N" laden >olar, 2pre&na studia” in 2ig&und reud" 1elagod"e v &ulturi 7!ublana yrus, 011@8" @1N" 0E" =ac$ues !acan" 7es quatre concepts fondamentau de la psychoanalyse 7Paris/ 2euil" @DT8, 0E" 0H" !acan, The 5our 5undamental 4oncepts of Psycho)6nalysis, 00" 0" 'f" =ean !apanche, “!a psychoanalyse co&&e anti:her&eneuti$ue” in Entre seduction et inspiration l’homme 7Paris Press Bni#ersitaire de rance, @DDD8, 0ES" 0S" I ha#e discussed this notion in &ore detail in the first 5inter#ention+" 0D" -&&anuel !e#inas" Totality and infinity% 6n Essay on Eteriority 7Pittsburgh >u$uesne Bni#ersity Press" @DHD8, 0@S:0@D" T1" Ibide&, 0NN" T@" 2ee 2ig&und reud, “'i#ilisation and its >iscontents” in The Standard Edition of the 4omplete Psychological Wor& of Sigmund 5reud, #ol" LLI 7!ondon Rintage8, @0E:@0H" T0" As reud puts it, “the concept of dri#e is thus one of those lying on the frontier between the &ental and the physical"” 2ig&und reud, “(hree -ssays on the theory of 2e)uality” in /n Seuality, (he Pelican reud !ibrary, #ol" 76ar&ondsworth/ Penguin %ooks, @D8, ST" (ranslation &odified at the point of the reudian ter& 5 Trieb’ 75instinct+ in 2trachey+s translation8/ 5dri#e+ has beco&e generally used as &ore accurate translation" TT" I de#eloped this in &ore detail in the concluding chapter of The /dd /ne .n% /n 4omedy 7'a&bridge" assachusetts V !ondon/ the I( Press, 011S8" TN" 6enri %ergson, 7aughter 7%alti&ore/ (he =ohn 6opkins Bni#ersity Press" @DS18, D" TE" Wyndha& !ewis, The 4omplete Wild 8ody 72anta %arbara" %lack 2parrow Press, @DS08, @ES" TH" 2ig&und reud, “(he Bncanny” in 6ct and 7iterature, (he Pelican reud !ibrary, Rolu&e @N 76ar&ondsworth/ Penguin %ooks, @DS8, TNE" T" 2ee .obert Pfaller, “(he a&iliar Bnknown, the Bncanny, the 'o&ic” in !acan" The Silent Partners, ed" %y 2la#o Zi9ek 7!ondon/ Rerso, 011E8" TS" 2ee
61 | P a g e
TD" olar" “I 2hall be with 4ou on 4our Wedding:Cight”/ !acan and the Bncanny” in /ctober :; 7@DD@8, E:0T" N1" or &ore on this point, which I hold related to the fact the co&edy proper follows the para&eters of what 6egel called the 5concrete uni#ersal,+ see chapter @ in &y book The /dd /ne .n /n 4omedy 7'a&bridge, assachusetts V !ondon/ I( Press, 011S8" N@" In other work, and in the sa&e way that not all that is scary, or horrible, is uncanny 7or related to an)iety8, the co&ical should not be confused with the &uch larger field of what we can find 5funny"+ It is a specific category of funny which, indeed, has &ore in co&&on with the uncanny than with so&e other instances of 5funny"+ N0" =ac$ues !acan, 7e seminaire% 7ivre <% 7’angoisse 7Paris/ 2euil8, ET" NT" Ibide&, @1E" NN" =ac$ues Alain:iller defined the difference between lack and hole in the following ter&s/ lack is spatial, it designates a #oid within a space, while hole is &ore radical and designates the point at which this spatial order itself breaks down" 2ee his *7e non)du)pere, s’en passer, s’en servir,+ a#ailable on www"lacan"co&" NE" =ac$ues !acan, 7’angoisse, @H1:@H@" NH" laden dollar, “I 2hall be with 4ou on 4our Wedding:Cight+/ !acan and the Bncanny"” @T" N" Indeed, in order to see how 2chelling+s definition of the uncanny 7“e#erything is unheimlich that ought to ha#e re&ained secret and hidden but has co&e to light”8 is #ery close to !acan+s definition, it is enough to stress the following “what ought to ha#e re&ained secret” is to be understood in the strong sense, i"e" in the sense of a constitutive absence fro& the scene, and not in the &ore relati#e 7or e#en &oral8 sense of what is 5appropriate+ to be seen and what not" NS" (his is how 2la#o Zi9ek for&ulates the distinction between desire and dri#e “desire is grounded in its constituti#e lack, while dri#e circulates around a hole, a gap in the order of being” The Paralla =iew 7'a&bridge, assachusetts V !ondon/ (he I( Press, 011H8 H@" ND" eal% ?ant, 7acan 7!ondon/ Rerso8, 0ND:0E1"
