Date: Sat, 2 May 1998 16:01:10 -0400
From: Daniel McGrady <dMcGrady-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Re: Lacan's castrating theory .../ The Phallus and the misuse of Lacan


Hello Ken et al., 

Ken quotes and then wrote:  

>'There are three terms present: the mother, the child and the object of
>the mother's desire - what I call "the phallus".'

>'Lacan argues that this imaginary object of the child's games must be
>transported to the symbolic level.'

>'The imaginary object must take on the value of a gift, and hence the
>crucial time of the Oedipus complex will involve establishing this new
>signification.  The phallus will be the object promised to the child for
>use in the future, it will become the object of a pact.'

A brief attempt to paraphrase of those quotes:   The meaning of a word
lacks the object which fulfils it.   The meaning of the word 'tree' does
not contain trees.   It has meaning though when there are things which
answer to it or at least promises as such.   I.e. it gives you direction in
which to look for an answer.   I.e. if you know what 'tree' means but have
never come across one, then you are clued up to know when you have come
across something that answers to the meaning of the term.   Applied
psychoanalytically, this applies to figures. As in father figures.    At a
basic level, a woman with a father figure as a love figure, becomes
infatuated with father figures.   The father figure lacks father figures.  
It only points in the direction of them.   And as a form of desire it can
only be answered by those who fulfil the criteria that it sets up.   But it
also means that there is an endless supply of those men or even women who
may answer to the lack.   Just as no amount of actual trees can saturate
the meaning of the term 'tree' so no amount of actual father figures can
satisfy the women with a desire based upon a father figure.   Her desire is
infinite because it has become symbolic in structure, i.e. it has the
structure of meaning.

>Apologies if I seemed obtuse (which may be the case, I don't deny) when
>I quoted, a couple of postings back, the boy Jung's dream of an
>enthroned 'ritual phallus', and mentioned how this had helped me get
>over my initial resistance, many years ago, to all of Lacan's talk of
>phalluses (not so much actual penises, though those too) concerning a
>child of that particular age, viz, the Oedipal age, 3-4 years.  (I use
>'concerning' in several senses, including both its active and passive
>meanings.)  I do grasp that Lacan used the term 'phallus' in an entirely
>metaphorical sense, but I also believe that he had a reason for doing so
>(otherwise, why didn't he employ a different term like, say, 'a bunch of
>daffodils', which might have been nicer?!).  And if Lacan might use such
>a metaphor, why not a dream?

Lacan himself was highly sexualized.   His thinking synthesized the work of
Freud and the linguistics of Saussure to challenge the pre-eminence of the
existential philosophy of his day.    The linguistics provided a means of
reading Freud again.   So it serves him as a kind of hermeneutical
principle.  I.e. he reads Freud in terms of the structuralist analysis of
the symbol.   But the inverse also happens, in which he can re-read the
structure of the symbol a la Freud.   And thus childhood sexuality becomes
a hermeneutical principle for understanding the nature of language.   And
so Lacan in practising what he preached, used Freud linguistically, in his
psychiatric cases, and used language sexually in that he used the
presentation of his ideas as a kind of orgy, and as a means of fucking his
audiences.    

The reactions were also sexual.   He was known as a 'ladies man' in that
when he talked to 'ladies' his conversation was a form of intercourse and
they  knew how to take his seed.   Many males rejected Lacan, because they
were adverse to being screwed by another male and left the auditorium
clutching their mental pants.   And other males accepted it, because they
saw his success with females and thought that they could do likewise.

>'At all events, the phallus of this dream seems to be a subterranean God
>"not to be named," and such it remained throughout my youth, reappearing
>whenever anyone spoke too emphatically about Lord Jesus.' ('Memories,
>Dreams, Reflections', Chapter 1)

Lacan's re-reading of Freud shows the superiority of Freud over Jung.  The
reason why the Oedipus Complex continues down through culture is because of
the structure of the family.   I.e. it is a cultural matrix which is
responsible for churning out human beings with identical psychological
structures.  But for Jung it is biologically passed on.   As Freud realized
the unconscious is in our minds not our brains.  It has a logical format
not a biological format.   So what does Jung mean by 'subterranean'?  
Something in our biology?   Perhaps Jung was not the man or the analyst to
interpret his own dreams.   Or if he was his methods were not what he
thought they were.
 
Best wishes,

Daniel



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