"During the shooting of David Lean's Doctor Zhivago in a Madrid suburb in 1964, a crowd of Spanish statists had to sing the 'Internationale' in a scene involving a mass demonstration. The movie team was astonished to discover that they all knew the song and were singing it with such a passion that the Francoist police intervened, thinking that they were dealing with a real political manifestation. Even more, when, late in the evening (the scene was to take place in darkness), people living in the nearby houses heard the echoes of the song, they opened up bottles and started to dance in the street, wrongly presuming that Franco had died and the Socialists had taken power.
This book is dedicated to those magic moments of illusory freedom (which, in a way, were precisely not simply illusory) and to the hopes thwarted by the return to 'normal' reality."
Žižek, Organs without Bodies: On Deleuze and Consequences (New York: Routledge, 2004), p. xii.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The Main Point about Systemic Hypocrisy
From Žižek 's The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003), p. 8:
"One commonplace about philosophers today is that their very analysis of the hypocrisy of the dominant system betrays their naivety: why are they still shocked to see people inconsistently violate their professed values when it suits their interests? Do they really expect people to be consistent and principled? Here one should defend authentic philosophers: what surprises them is the exact opposite--not that people do not 'really believe,' and act upon their professed principles, but that people who profess their cynical distance and radical pragmatic opportunism secretly believe much more than they are willing to admit, even if they transpose these beliefs onto (nonexistent) 'others.'"
"One commonplace about philosophers today is that their very analysis of the hypocrisy of the dominant system betrays their naivety: why are they still shocked to see people inconsistently violate their professed values when it suits their interests? Do they really expect people to be consistent and principled? Here one should defend authentic philosophers: what surprises them is the exact opposite--not that people do not 'really believe,' and act upon their professed principles, but that people who profess their cynical distance and radical pragmatic opportunism secretly believe much more than they are willing to admit, even if they transpose these beliefs onto (nonexistent) 'others.'"
Saturday, March 28, 2009
On Perversion
From An Introductory Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis, by Dylan Evans (London: Routledge, 1996), page 138:
"Perversion was defined by Freud as any form of sexual behaviour which deviates from the norm of heterosexual genital intercourse (Freud, 1905d). However, this definition is problematised by Freud's own notions of the polymorphous perversity of all human sexuality, which is characterised by the absence of any given natural order.
Lacan overcomes this impasse in Freudian theory by defining perversion not as a form of behaviour but as a clinical structure.
'What is perversion? It is not simply an aberration in relation to social criteria, an anomaly contrary to good morals, although this register is not absent, nor is it an atypicality according to natural criteria, namely that it more or less derogates from the reproductive finality of the sexual union. It is something else in its structure.' (S1, 221)
The distinction between perverse acts and the perverse structure implies that, while there are certain sexual acts which are closely associated with perverse structures, it is also possible that such acts may be engaged in by non-perverse subjects, and equally possible that a perverse subject may never engage in such acts. It also implies a universalist position; while social disapproval and the infraction of 'good morals' may be what determines whether a perticular act is perverse or not, this is not the essence of the perverse structure. A perverse structure remains perverse even when the acts associated with it are socially approved. Hence Lacan regards homosexuality as a perversion even when practised in Ancient Greece, where it was widely tolerated (S8, 43). (This is not because homosexuality or any other form of sexuality is naturally perverse; on the contrary, the perverse nature of homosexuality is entirely a question of its infringement of the normative requirements of the Oedipus complex (S4, 201). Thus Lacan criticises Freud for forgetting at times that the importance of heterosexuality in the Oedipal myth is a question of norms and not of nature (Ec, 223). The analyst's neutrality forbids him from taking sides with these norms; rather than defending such norms or attacking them, the analyst seeks merely to expose their incidence in the subject's history.)"
And from page 140:
"While neurosis is characterised by a question, perversion is characterised by the lack of a question; the pervert does not doubt that his acts serve the jouissance of the Other. Thus it is extremely rare for a perverse subject to demand analysis, and in the rare cases when he does, it is not because he seeks to change his mode of jouissance. This perhaps explains why many psychoanalysts have argued that psychoanalytic treatment is not appropriate for perverse subjects, a line which even some Lacanian analysts have taken, comparing the certainty of the pervert with that of the psychotic, and arguing that perverts cannot take the position of 'one who does not know' before a 'subject supposed to know' (Clavreul, 1967). However, most Lacanian analysts do not take this view, since it is a view completely at odds with Lacan's own position."
"Perversion was defined by Freud as any form of sexual behaviour which deviates from the norm of heterosexual genital intercourse (Freud, 1905d). However, this definition is problematised by Freud's own notions of the polymorphous perversity of all human sexuality, which is characterised by the absence of any given natural order.
Lacan overcomes this impasse in Freudian theory by defining perversion not as a form of behaviour but as a clinical structure.
'What is perversion? It is not simply an aberration in relation to social criteria, an anomaly contrary to good morals, although this register is not absent, nor is it an atypicality according to natural criteria, namely that it more or less derogates from the reproductive finality of the sexual union. It is something else in its structure.' (S1, 221)
The distinction between perverse acts and the perverse structure implies that, while there are certain sexual acts which are closely associated with perverse structures, it is also possible that such acts may be engaged in by non-perverse subjects, and equally possible that a perverse subject may never engage in such acts. It also implies a universalist position; while social disapproval and the infraction of 'good morals' may be what determines whether a perticular act is perverse or not, this is not the essence of the perverse structure. A perverse structure remains perverse even when the acts associated with it are socially approved. Hence Lacan regards homosexuality as a perversion even when practised in Ancient Greece, where it was widely tolerated (S8, 43). (This is not because homosexuality or any other form of sexuality is naturally perverse; on the contrary, the perverse nature of homosexuality is entirely a question of its infringement of the normative requirements of the Oedipus complex (S4, 201). Thus Lacan criticises Freud for forgetting at times that the importance of heterosexuality in the Oedipal myth is a question of norms and not of nature (Ec, 223). The analyst's neutrality forbids him from taking sides with these norms; rather than defending such norms or attacking them, the analyst seeks merely to expose their incidence in the subject's history.)"
And from page 140:
"While neurosis is characterised by a question, perversion is characterised by the lack of a question; the pervert does not doubt that his acts serve the jouissance of the Other. Thus it is extremely rare for a perverse subject to demand analysis, and in the rare cases when he does, it is not because he seeks to change his mode of jouissance. This perhaps explains why many psychoanalysts have argued that psychoanalytic treatment is not appropriate for perverse subjects, a line which even some Lacanian analysts have taken, comparing the certainty of the pervert with that of the psychotic, and arguing that perverts cannot take the position of 'one who does not know' before a 'subject supposed to know' (Clavreul, 1967). However, most Lacanian analysts do not take this view, since it is a view completely at odds with Lacan's own position."
Friday, March 27, 2009
On Pseudo-Leftist Academics
From Žižek 's Welcome to the Desert of the Real (London: Verso, 2002), pp. 60-61:
"When today's Left bombards the capitalist system with demands that it obviously cannot fulfil (Full employment! Retain the welfare state! Full rights for immigrants!), it is basically playing a game of hysterical provocation, of addressing the Master with a demand which will be impossible for him to meet, and will thus expose his impotence. The problem with this strategy, however, is not only that the system cannot meet these demands, but that, in addition, those who voice them do not really want them to be realized. For example, when 'radical' academics demand full rights for immigrants and opening of the borders, are they aware that the direct implementation of this demand would, for obvious reasons, inundate developed Western countries with millions of newcomers, thus provoking a violent working-class racist backlash which would then endanger the privileged position of these very academics? Of course they are, but they count on the fact that their demands will not be met--in this way, they can hypocritically retain their clear radical conscience while continuing to enjoy their privileged position." [...]
"If someone accuses a big corporation of particular financial crimes, he or she is exposed to risks which can go right up to murder attempts; if he or she asks the same corporation to finance a research project into the link between global capitalism and the emergence of hybrid postcolonial identities, he or she stands a good chance of getting hundreds of thousands of dollars."
"When today's Left bombards the capitalist system with demands that it obviously cannot fulfil (Full employment! Retain the welfare state! Full rights for immigrants!), it is basically playing a game of hysterical provocation, of addressing the Master with a demand which will be impossible for him to meet, and will thus expose his impotence. The problem with this strategy, however, is not only that the system cannot meet these demands, but that, in addition, those who voice them do not really want them to be realized. For example, when 'radical' academics demand full rights for immigrants and opening of the borders, are they aware that the direct implementation of this demand would, for obvious reasons, inundate developed Western countries with millions of newcomers, thus provoking a violent working-class racist backlash which would then endanger the privileged position of these very academics? Of course they are, but they count on the fact that their demands will not be met--in this way, they can hypocritically retain their clear radical conscience while continuing to enjoy their privileged position." [...]
"If someone accuses a big corporation of particular financial crimes, he or she is exposed to risks which can go right up to murder attempts; if he or she asks the same corporation to finance a research project into the link between global capitalism and the emergence of hybrid postcolonial identities, he or she stands a good chance of getting hundreds of thousands of dollars."
Thursday, March 26, 2009
How We Are Believers Today
From Žižek 's Welcome to the Desert of the Real (London: Verso, 2002), p. 71:
[...] "this is how we are believers today--we make fun of our beliefs, while continuing to practice them, that is, to rely on them as the underlying structure of our daily practices.
In the good old German Democratic Republic, it was impossible for the same person to combine three features: conviction (belief in the official ideology), intelligence, and honesty. If you believed and were intelligent, you were not honest; if you were intelligent and honest, you were not a believer; if you were a believer and honest, you were not intelligent. Does not the same also hold for the ideology of liberal democracy? If you (pretend to) take the hegemonic liberal ideology seriously, you cannot be both intelligent and honest: you are either stupid or a corrupted cynic. So, if I may indulge in a rather tasteless allusion to Agamben's Homo sacer, I can risk the claim that the predominant liberal mode of subjectivity today is Homo sucker: while he tries to exploit and manipulate others, he ends up being the ultimate sucker himself. When we think we are making fun of the ruling ideology, we are merely strengthening its hold over us."
[...] "this is how we are believers today--we make fun of our beliefs, while continuing to practice them, that is, to rely on them as the underlying structure of our daily practices.
In the good old German Democratic Republic, it was impossible for the same person to combine three features: conviction (belief in the official ideology), intelligence, and honesty. If you believed and were intelligent, you were not honest; if you were intelligent and honest, you were not a believer; if you were a believer and honest, you were not intelligent. Does not the same also hold for the ideology of liberal democracy? If you (pretend to) take the hegemonic liberal ideology seriously, you cannot be both intelligent and honest: you are either stupid or a corrupted cynic. So, if I may indulge in a rather tasteless allusion to Agamben's Homo sacer, I can risk the claim that the predominant liberal mode of subjectivity today is Homo sucker: while he tries to exploit and manipulate others, he ends up being the ultimate sucker himself. When we think we are making fun of the ruling ideology, we are merely strengthening its hold over us."
Monday, March 23, 2009
Adrian Johnston on Unfinished Reality
From Žižek 's Ontology: A Transcendental Materialist Theory of Subjectivity (Evanston: Northwestern U. Press, 2008), p. 65:
"Hence, what both German idealism and psychoanalysis point to is, as developed by Žižek, a more radical solution to the problems masterfully uncovered (but nonetheless left unresolved) by Kant: the material Real of "nature" (especially human nature) isn't smoothly integrated and free of internal conflicts, but rather is torn apart from within by internal antagonisms.
This absolutely axiomatic Freudian-Lacanian notion of (human) nature as, from the start, a heterogeneous, unintegrated field, instead of as an organically unified set of elements and functions (with this organic unity allegedly being broken up solely by virtue of external intrusions impinging on its inner workings), ought to be recognized as a register complementary to Lacan's "barred" big Other (i.e., the symbolic order as permanently containing, within its own organizational constellations, contradictions, deadlocks, incompleteness, lack, etc.). More specifically, the Lacanian Real, viewed in the context of the preceding analyses, is a barred Real--not only the symbolic order, but the very substance of being is inconsistent and divided against itself."
"Hence, what both German idealism and psychoanalysis point to is, as developed by Žižek, a more radical solution to the problems masterfully uncovered (but nonetheless left unresolved) by Kant: the material Real of "nature" (especially human nature) isn't smoothly integrated and free of internal conflicts, but rather is torn apart from within by internal antagonisms.
This absolutely axiomatic Freudian-Lacanian notion of (human) nature as, from the start, a heterogeneous, unintegrated field, instead of as an organically unified set of elements and functions (with this organic unity allegedly being broken up solely by virtue of external intrusions impinging on its inner workings), ought to be recognized as a register complementary to Lacan's "barred" big Other (i.e., the symbolic order as permanently containing, within its own organizational constellations, contradictions, deadlocks, incompleteness, lack, etc.). More specifically, the Lacanian Real, viewed in the context of the preceding analyses, is a barred Real--not only the symbolic order, but the very substance of being is inconsistent and divided against itself."
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Bruce Fink on Symbolic Castration
From Bruce Fink's The Lacanian Subject (Princeton: Princeton U. Press, 1995), p. 99:
"In Seminar XIV, Lacan asks,
'What is castration? It is certainly not like the formulations Little Hans puts forward, that someone unscrews the little faucet, for it nevertheless remains in place. What is at stake is that he cannot take his jouissance inside himself.' (April 12, 1967)
Castration has to do with the fact that, at a certain point, we are required to give up some jouissance. The immediate implication of this is that Lacan's notion of castration focuses essentially on the renunciation of jouissance and not on the penis, and therefore that it applies to both men and women insofar as they 'alienate' (in the Marxist sense of the term) a part of their jouissance."
"In Seminar XIV, Lacan asks,
'What is castration? It is certainly not like the formulations Little Hans puts forward, that someone unscrews the little faucet, for it nevertheless remains in place. What is at stake is that he cannot take his jouissance inside himself.' (April 12, 1967)
Castration has to do with the fact that, at a certain point, we are required to give up some jouissance. The immediate implication of this is that Lacan's notion of castration focuses essentially on the renunciation of jouissance and not on the penis, and therefore that it applies to both men and women insofar as they 'alienate' (in the Marxist sense of the term) a part of their jouissance."
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