Fascism!

[vimothy]

 

[nomadthethird]

Fwiw, Vimothy, I was not trying to offend you or Josef or Mr. Tea in this thread. If my reaction to your posts seemed harsh, it's more because I read them as part of a larger trend--one that (unsurprisingly) began within journalism, not academia--that has rendered Zizek uncool.

It is now safe not to pretend you care about what Zizek has to say, because he's a fascist anyway. What a doofus! He must be joking.

Zizek is not the first academic target that journalists have aimed at. There is a long, well-documented and discussed history of anti-intellectualism among journalists, which is hardly surprising given they are paid by corporations rather than institutions run on charitable donations and grants.

Personal anecdote illustrating my own experiences with this sort of thing:
My boyfriend M.'s father was the managing editor of a prominent Conde Nast men's magazine for a couple of decades (now he's in book publishing), and had been a political journo in Washington early in his career. M. and I went to the same college, so his parents would often ask us about what we were studying. M majored in Art History, I minored in it. So we brought up Rem Koolhaas, knowing he'd been slated to do a project for Conde Nast, figuring this would pique his dad's interest. He was intrigued and asked us to print him out one of our readings called Junkspace.

So we did. The next time we had dinner with him, he was not just disappointed in Koolhaas, he seemed offended. So we humored him while he called Koolhaas every name in the anti-intellectual's handbook: elitist, snob, effete, out of touch, irrelevant, fascistic or maybe even a Nazi.

I've learned the hard way not to bother when it comes to anti-intellectualism.

 

[nomadthethird]

Since I've been so mean in not responding to every last post here, I'll go back and get specific for some of them.

I have a question for the more expert: how is Zizek's "lack of seriousness" related to Lacanian psychoanalysis? Can you say more about what Lacanian psychoanalysis entails? Ta

First, you're assuming Zizek "lacks seriousness." Why? Even if he were unserious, why would this necessarily have anything to do with Lacan?

Zizek is interested in Lacanian analysis, not in being a Lacanian analyst. There is a difference between theory and its practice.

You've read Deleuze, right? Zizek :: Lacan as Deleuze :: Freud, that is, criticall engaged with his work and interested in using psychoanalytical principles to advance a certain political viewpoint.

In order to fully understand this viewpoint, I suggest you read his actual work, as much of it as possible, rather than easy-to-digest soundbites that make journalists money because they're nuance-free buying guides.

 

[nomadthethird]

So Lacanian psychoanalysis is purely discursive technique meant to 'enlighten', through contradiction, the analysand as to their 'true nature'?

No, the point of analysis is to treat mental illness or bridge the "gap" (jargon equivalent: breach) left by childhood trauma.

In Lacanian analysis, as with most forms of depth psychology or psychoanalysis, the goal is to cultivate a trusting relationship between analyst and analysand, and through these interactions a safe space where the analysand can confront their past, any traumas, any phobias, any anxieties, unresolved interpersonal issues, or intense feelings/emotions they've repressed without great risk to their psychological stability. In this safe space, the analyst chips away at the resistance of the analysand to any deep "truths" about themselves, to everything they've pushed down into the Id, and recover whatever they can.

There is no "judgment" of the analysand's actions, only inquiry into the unconscious motivations that influence their behaviors/emotions/actions. The analyst most often becomes everything the analysand never had as a child, and in a process called "transference", the psychological intensity of this process of discovery and the shedding of the layers and layers of resistance and denial built up, walls built around the shameful secrets of the Id, the analysand mistakes their own feelings of gratitude and relief for a sort of romantic attachment.

This stage is necessary, especially for Freud. It means progress is being made.

The ultimate goal of Lacanian analysis/depth psychology is to help the analysand develop better strategies for mediating interpersonal relationships, to form more lasting bonds, to draw clear boundaries around themselves for their own health, or whatever it is that a particular analysand may need in order to live a stable, productive life while forming lasting, meaningful bonds with others.

Some would call this "maturity", Freud would. Through a guided regression, the analysand corrects all of the problems encountered or lived in their formative years or their early developmental stages.

This is a very general account.

 

[nomadthethird]

If you want to know what someone thinks, it's always best to read their work, as much of it as you can, instead of relying on media spoonfeeds or people on message boards to summarize for you.

There are some ideas that resist summarization. I've always thought that in theory, as in poetry or music, there are no unimportant words/notes. It is especially easy to misconstrue a complex idea if you're reading a second-hand summary of it (even wikipedia is somewhat suspect, in this way).

The best possible way to read something is definitely to read it in the original language. Without a doubt.

I'd never claim, however, and I've never claimed, that anyone here could not understand Zizek or anybody else if they actually tried. In any language. I don't see anyone who seems willing to check Parallax View or Ecrits out of the library, though-- I see a tendency toward shrinking everything into a soundbite, and that troubles me.

 

[nomadthethird]

Zizek: my favorites are The Sublime Object of Ideology, How to Read Lacan, The Plague of Fantasies, and The Ticklish Subject.

Lacan: the essays or lectures on the sinthome would be really pertinent, since it is here that Lacan switches things up and claims that the aims of analysis are a greater identification of a subject with its symptoms.

 

[poetix]

The particular way in which "ideas" in this domain "resist summarization" has less to do with their internal complexity, or the complexity of the objects they describe, than it has to do with what an "idea" is in this kind of discourse. "Libido" for example is one of those interesting phlogiston-like theoretical entities that gets to do a lot of explaining without ever really being pinned down conceptually itself. To learn its meaning you have to master the grammar of its use, the way it functions within a metaphorics.

In Freud you have a hydraulic model of the psyche where the love-juice flows from place to place, gets cathected away and pooled in hidden silos, builds up pressure here which is released there and so on. Symptoms - a cough, a headache, a muscular spasm - are the physical manifestations of love-juice having been displaced from the psyche into the body. The hydraulic metaphor then gets mixed up with an economic metaphor: libido is the "general equivalent" in psychic economy; attachments to objects, persons or ideas are "investments" of love-juice in those objects. In Lacan, the "subject" itself is metaphorised in financial terms: it takes a "position" which corresponds to a set of libidinal investments. The economic and hydraulic metaphors mingle fairly freely, as they do in general discourse (capital "flows", is more or less "liquid", and so on).

Here's the rub: there isn't anything non-metaphorical that these metaphors are metaphors for. They supplement a lack in knowledge, enabling us to talk about things about which we would otherwise have to remain silent. One could characterise Freud's innovation as having introduced this supplement into our speech. Lacan is properly scornful of those "Freudians" who employ a Freudian metaphorics "literally": setting themselves up as financial advisors of the soul, helping people manage their libidinal investments. For him the "return to Freud" is not the re-assertion of a Freudian analytic vocabulary, but an enquiry into how "analytic discourse" functions and what it enables us to do that we couldn't do before.

 

[josef k.]

The whole premise that you have to have read someone a certain number of times (whatever that unspecified number might be) before you critique them, which is to say, before you try to understand them (what else is critique?) is wrong and really only a vehicle for you to shut off a debate that you yourself are not properly engaging with.

Yawn.

Vimothy, it's clear you have not read much psychoanalysis in this and many other threads.

This, I think, is instructive. Vimothy objects to the rhetoric of mandatory reading lists and the appeal to authority they contain, Nomad responds by repeating, once again, the same rhetoric.

You do not appear very interested in thinking very seriously about the points that people are making, Nomad. You seem more interested in being dismissive. I think your habit of posting a series of simultaneous, off-the-cuff, point-scoring responses rather then a more thoughtful, single consideration, demonstrates this.

I agree with this:

"What's interesting is that here is a language, a community that tells stories, and a set of power relations -- how does Zizek interact with it and what else is it plugged into? I mean, who are we and where do we find ourselves -- isn't that what's interesting, and not this infantile I'm-right-no-I'm-right pointlessness?"

 

[Mr. Tea]

Jouissance isn't act specific, it's not a simple one-to-one experiential correspondence, no formula or algorithm that will get you there. The things that bar our access to jouissance are systemic and on the individual level psychological.

The problem is not that eating cheese doesn't taste as good, or that no one has orgasms anymore.

..........................................................

Make sense at all?

OK, sure, this makes a good deal of sense. But it seems more like a criticism of a particular aspect of consumer culture, rather than of capitalism per se; after all, there are (and have been) capitalist societies where porn is not ubiquitous. Victorian Britain, for example - porn certainly existed but it was illicit, black market (and, as a function of the sexual repression of that society, appropriately depraved...); most people would have gone their whole lives without ever seeing any. I mean, we're talking about a culture that considered a woman's naked ankle obscene. Yet that society was the very model of aristos-and-bourgeoisie-exploiting-the-proles that inspired Marx and Engels in the first place. Naomi Wolf makes the point that it was a lot different even in the '70s, when Playboy was the gold standard of jerking material, before you could access terabytes of smut at a finger-tap.

Edit: and I cannot, for the life of me, see why anyone would want to drink caffeine-free diet Coke. That there must be some people who drink it is perhaps evidence that there are indeed nefarious machinations afoot that I've previously underestimated...?

 

[nomadthethird]

Symptoms - a cough, a headache, a muscular spasm - are the physical manifestations of love-juice having been displaced from the psyche into the body.

Only hysterical symptoms.

Agree totally with the rest.

 

[nomadthethird]

The whole premise that you have to have read someone a certain number of times (whatever that unspecified number might be) before you critique them, which is to say, before you try to understand them (what else is critique?) is wrong and really only a vehicle for you to shut off a debate that you yourself are not properly engaging with.




This, I think, is instructive. Vimothy objects to the rhetoric of mandatory reading lists and the appeal to authority they contain, Nomad responds by repeating, once again, the same rhetoric.

You do not appear very interested in thinking very seriously about the points that people are making, Nomad. You seem more interested in being dismissive. I think your habit of posting a series of simultaneous, off-the-cuff, point-scoring responses rather then a more thoughtful, single consideration, demonstrates this.

I agree with this:

"What's interesting is that here is a language, a community that tells stories, and a set of power relations -- how does Zizek interact with it and what else is it plugged into? I mean, who are we and where do we find ourselves -- isn't that what's interesting, and not this infantile I'm-right-no-I'm-right pointlessness?"

When did I say anyone has to read something a certain amount of times? Some people can be doctors because they have learned enough to become doctors. These people will probably have more interesting things to say about medicine than someone who has not studied medicine. If a layperson wants to be able to engage properly in a discussion of medicine with a doctor, they're probably going to have to do some studying.

Some of us here have spent as many years as doctors have in medical school (or some of us more), except we've learned about psychoanalysis and theory/philosophy.

I've asked you several times to cite the passages in which Zizek summons us to violence, or claims to believe that incidental violence is to be condoned as collateral damage in the coming revolution. You still have not been able to do so, because Zizek has never said this.

And as for the charge that I'm "only interested in being dismissive", nice try, but I've wasted more time than anyone else in this thread explaining in great detail things that others could just as easily read themselves. I've posted most of the longest posts in this thread, in fact.

 

[nomadthethird]

OK, sure, this makes a good deal of sense. But it seems more like a criticism of a particular aspect of consumer culture, rather than of capitalism per se; after all, there are (and have been) capitalist societies where porn is not ubiquitous. Victorian Britain, for example - porn certainly existed but it was illicit, black market (and, as a function of the sexual repression of that society, appropriately depraved...); most people would have gone their whole lives without ever seeing any. I mean, we're talking about a culture that considered a woman's naked ankle obscene. Yet that society was the very model of aristos-and-bourgeoisie-exploiting-the-proles that inspired Marx and Engels in the first place. Naomi Wolf makes the point that it was a lot different even in the '70s, when Playboy was the gold standard of jerking material, before you could access terabytes of smut at a finger-tap.

Edit: and I cannot, for the life of me, see why anyone would want to drink caffeine-free diet Coke. That there must be some people who drink it is perhaps evidence that there are indeed nefarious machinations afoot that I've previously underestimated...?

Right, we're talking about what's usually referred to as "late capitalism" here.

And don't be so sure Victorians were such prudes: it was very common for males, even married males, to frequent brothels and bring home syphilis to their wives and via childbirth, their children. The peculiar kink of the Victorians was their insanely tight restrictions on female sexual expression, not sexual expression in and of itself.

Edit: Diabetics are huge consumers of sugar-free drinks, and some people with certain disorders or who are on certain medications are not allowed to drink caffeine.

 

[nomadthethird]

For him the "return to Freud" is not the re-assertion of a Freudian analytic vocabulary, but an enquiry into how "analytic discourse" functions and what it enables us to do that we couldn't do before.

I'm not sure I follow this part...

I do think Lacan opens psychanalysis outward, takes the subject out of the center of psychic relations, and maybe revises Freud's "libido" idea so that it exerts less a centrifugal force and more a centripetal one on the subject .

As far as analysis qua praxis goes, though, Lacan was still highly reliant on an ever so slightly rewritten version of Freud's "developmental stages" of the psyche. The goalposts were moved but the goals of Lacanian analysis were similar to Freud's, up until very late in Lacan's writings.

Of course I may be missing something huge, I haven't read Lacan nearly as closely as I've read Freud.

 

[nomadthethird]

"What's interesting is that here is a language, a community that tells stories, and a set of power relations -- how does Zizek interact with it and what else is it plugged into? I mean, who are we and where do we find ourselves -- isn't that what's interesting, and not this infantile I'm-right-no-I'm-right pointlessness?"

Presumably this project would only be well-served by first settling upon a reasonable, closely read, back-to-the-text analysis of thinker x's work.

It's not about being "right", it's about drawing out subtle distinctions within the language of others where those subtle distinctions obviously exist. This sort of close reading is important when it comes to deciphering a work.

 

[nomadthethird]

Here's the rub: there isn't anything non-metaphorical that these metaphors are metaphors for. They supplement a lack in knowledge, enabling us to talk about things about which we would otherwise have to remain silent. One could characterise Freud's innovation as having introduced this supplement into our speech. Lacan is properly scornful of those "Freudians" who employ a Freudian metaphorics "literally": setting themselves up as financial advisors of the soul, helping people manage their libidinal investments. For him the "return to Freud" is not the re-assertion of a Freudian analytic vocabulary, but an enquiry into how "analytic discourse" functions and what it enables us to do that we couldn't do before.

Also, I'm thinking about this, and yes, in the same sense in which the Id is unknowable, psychoanalysis does the Wittgenstein, and, in terms of how Zizek uses Lacanian analysis as an interpretative filter, rather than Lacan as a psychic stockbroker whom the reader is to consult in sorting out their libidinal investments, I think you are right.

But in terms of analysis in the clinic, or the practice of Lacanian analysis, there is still a very clear commitment to reigning in (?) the out-of-control subject, or rewiring the cathexes of the sexually violent subject, allaying the fears of the phobic subject. etc.

Where Freud saw psychoanalysis as a project entirely focused on naming l'innommable, Lacan (I think) saw it as a sort of play, a language game within a language game that anyone could play for any reason.

I've been in therapy for years (I'm not treated by "Lacanians" of course), I was in therapy or "under analysis" for a total of 4 hours today alone, and I think it's safe to say that only critics/theorists use psychoanalysis exclusively as conceptual schematics.

 

[nomadthethird]

Although I suppose there's always the argument that the same corrosive forces that have worn jouissance away (i.e. capitalism) have also had a marked effect on the practice of psychoanalysis.

 

[Mr. Tea]

And don't be so sure Victorians were such prudes: it was very common for males, even married males, to frequent brothels and bring home syphilis to their wives and via childbirth, their children. The peculiar kink of the Victorians was their insanely tight restrictions on female sexual expression, not sexual expression in and of itself.

Sure, but what I mean is, all that was quietly swept under the carpet, it was clandestine, illicit. If extra-marital affairs (at least for men) had been more openly acknowledged, even accepted (as they supposedly are in France, though I dunno how true this stereotype is) then presumably married men wouldn't have had to take recourse to prostitutes. Which might, at any rate, have led to lower rates of syphilis in the general population, for one thing.

But my original point was that, however louche or pervy (some adult male) Victorians may have been, it was a totally different situation from what you have today with kids with computers in their bedrooms and unsupervised internet access. Let along high-street shops selling thongs for nine-year-olds.

 

[nomadthethird]

Sure, but what I mean is, all that was quietly swept under the carpet, it was clandestine, illicit. If extra-marital affairs (at least for men) had been more openly acknowledged, even accepted (as they supposedly are in France, though I dunno how true this stereotype is) then presumably married men wouldn't have had to take recourse to prostitutes. Which might, at any rate, have led to lower rates of syphilis in the general population, for one thing.

But my original point was that, however louche or pervy (some adult male) Victorians may have been, it was a totally different situation from what you have today with kids with computers in their bedrooms and unsupervised internet access. Let along high-street shops selling thongs for nine-year-olds.

Or, maybe instead of focusing on even further freeing men up for sex outside of marriage, reinforcing the practices that forced females into sex slavery via the marriage arrangement, while ignoring female sexuality and sexual female freedoms, you could try to promote greater parity/equity in cultural sex norms.

But you're right, we have much more sexual imagery around, and pornography-inspired sexual images have become common currency for the mainstream media.

See, my problem with porn is not that it's morally wrong (maybe there are ethical problems, for example, the industry tends to exploit the sexually abused and sex workers have no health benefits, can't unionize, etc.), it's that it's not sexy. At all.

 

[nomadthethird]

Symptoms - a cough, a headache, a muscular spasm - are the physical manifestations of love-juice having been displaced from the psyche into the body.

This got me thinking about the limitations of Freud. I'm not the first to notice, but he was fixated on neurotics, who are, all things considered, pretty boring and predictable.

I've always understood the psyche and the body as more or less co-extensive, and the libido as the mysterious (and yes as convenient as any alchemical element) entity that acted as a sort of glue that binds the psyche and the body. As has been pointed out by many others, Freud is inconsistent when it comes to explaining or describing how this works.

At first I thought, "well, a cough is only a displaced psychic symptom in a hysteric/neurotic, one who is exceptionally repressed." But if you subtract the word displaced, this description fits into a co-extensive picture of the psyche/body relation. A muscular spasm, depending on which kind we're talking about, can be the physical manifestation of a libidinal circuit break (the most pleasant sensation imaginable being one where the brain begins to shut down). All of those warm lactic fluids that come out of bodies as prolactin or oxytocin is released are love-juice that's made it all the way from the immaterial realm to the corporeal one.

 

[nomadthethird]

Article I found on a taoist website that promotes tantric sex using science:

http://www.reuniting.info/science/prolactin_sex_libido

We're suggesting that orgasm leads to consistent surges of prolactin over a two-week period (of course most lovers do not wait two weeks, which means these neurochemical swings are always affecting their relationships). Symptoms of elevated prolactin are similar in both sexes. Men with high prolactin levels sometimes report erectile dysfunction, low libido, headaches, and mood changes (anxiety). These experiments were tracking consistent high levels of prolactin, while we're suggesting that mating-related surges are perhaps producing similar feelings that come and go during the weeks following orgasm.2 In short, if a woman becomes a shrew during the weeks after a passionate encounter, she may have good reason...neurochemically at least. Women with high prolactin levels can suffer from depression, anxiety, and hostility. Many of the symptoms of PMS are similar to the effects of high prolactin, and women have noticed improvements in those symptoms using the approach to sex that we recommend (avoiding conventional orgasm while making love frequently).