File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1994/marxism_15-28Aug.94, message 73


Date: Fri, 19 Aug 1994 16:38:11 +0000
From: Dave Wilson <Dave-AT-zizek.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Lacan, Wes & Dave


Apologies for the delay, I've been away/busy for a few days.
First, thanks for the Goux details, Gene. Of course, almost immediately
after reading them I read a reference to him in Luce Irigaray's 'je tu,
nous' when rereading an essay which had first read a few days earlier.
Jean-Joseph Goux was then merely a citation which I overlooked, now his
name has significance for me.

This is a (trivial) example of the kind of process to which I thought Wes
was alluding when discussing historical materialism and linguistically
constructed subjectivity. One something has become recognised
(mis-recognised) then it is as if it has always been the case, hence it
appears to be trans-historical. Now the only way in which I can find Lacan
(and hence psychoanalysis) plausible is to read it historically in this
way. The particular symbolic code within which I am embedded necessarily
seems to be the symbolic code. But this awareness might enable me to do
something about it.
It seems to me that this is what D&G, and others such as Irigaray are
doing.Incidentally, I found your comments on D&G's Anti-Oedipus helpful.

I am of course misreading Lacan. This is where I find Lacan irritating - he
seems so slippery! It is as if there is an answer available, within Lacan's
work, to every objection by a well-chosen (mis)reading. But perhaps that is
the point.
It is interesting that in your response you have(?) to add parenthetical
references such as 'until lacan perhaps' and 'lacan's later de-centered
symbolic order ..) which run counter to your main psychoanalytic critique,
as if this same process is going on for you!

Anything of any value in the above has come from my musings on my reading
of Zizek, and a little of Lacan himself.

Now, I don't have enough expertise to enter a detailed discussion about
historical materialism; so  a question instead. You wrote,

>Back to Wes' comments: not historical materialism, I would think, 
>but rather *capitalism* not might but *has* "brought about a 
>massive shift in subjectivity" but we experience this shift as 
>*subjects* only in representation (inevitably distorted), whereas 
>the real formative processes are market-driven rather than 
>"symbolic" (in Lacan's linguistic sense).
>

OK, capitalism has brought about a massive shift in subjectivity, but I'm
afraid that I don't understand the distinction in the second part, and in
particular 'real formative processes are market-driven rather than
symbolic'. Could you elaborate?

Zizek's "Sublime Object .." is a lengthy musing on subjectivity, and brings
us back to Althusser of course. His use of Lacan leads him to say that we
can produce a critique of an ideology such as capitalism, but that we also
need to go further and identify what its 'kernel of enjoyment', how it
captures our desire. Why is it that, despite the majority in the UK showing
concern for social and health issues and professing to be happy to pay for
them in taxes, that we keep voting into power a party radically opposed to
this? 

regards,

Dave

Dave Wilson                     | A letter always arrives at its destination
(Dave-AT-zizek.demon.co.uk)        | Jacques Lacan 
(http://s13a.math.aca.mmu.ac.uk)




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