From: <kenneth.mackendrick-AT-utoronto.ca>
Subject: Re: jouissance
Date: 	Fri, 17 Mar 2000 09:08:31 -0500


On Tue, 14 Mar 2000 13:16:28 -0500 Fredrik Hertzberg LIT <fhertzbe-AT-ra.abo.fi> 
wrote:

> Thanks for the notes on jouissance. For aan amateur like me some of them 
> were pretty difficult to chew. Is J1 early Lacan, and J2 late?

I couldn't actually say... I think it is late, more 60s than 50s, but I'd have 
to check with Fink's book to find out.

> > otherwise structure the symbolic universe... this failure leaves one unanchored 
in language, without a compass reading on the basis of which to adopt an 
orientation.  This is where Zizek positions postmodernisn.  Postmodernism, for 
Zizek is psychotic.  It is the assimilation of the real into "reality."

> What is 'unanchored in language'? I understand the idea of assimilation  of a 
primordial signifier, but how does the unanchoredness appear?

Unanchored in language is like Kristeva's Black Sun.  You can't "attach" 
yourself to anything because its all so meaningless.  The equivalent would be 
abyssmal depression (I think).

> > Traversing of fantasy involves the subject's assumption of a new position with 
> > respect to the Other as language and the Other as desire.  A move is made to 
> > invest or inhabit that which brough him or her into existence as split 
> > subject, to become that which cause her or him.... it is the process by which 
> > the subject subjectifies trauma, takes the traumatic event upon her or himself 
> > and assumes responsibility for jouisssance.

> But how is this crossing over (into a split state) configured, according to 
Lacan? It is a single event, a plural event, does it take place at  once or 
over a long period of time? Is it always traumatic, and what does trauma mean 
here?

Basically, let's say you based your entire existence on your Nation (big big 
N).  So you define yourself as a National Citizen (the nation as Das Ding, the 
Thing) ("there is something in our nation that is more than our nation").  
Traversing the fantasy would be coming into the realization that Das Ding does 
not exist - it is an impossible object cause of desire.  I would imagine 
this can come slowly or quickly, in one event or a series of events.  But, 
essentially, you realize that "the nation" is nothing more than a piece of 
shit.  When this happens, the entire social field appears differently.  No 
longer are you, the Citizen, the instrument of the Nations' jouissance, but you 
take up a different position - the nation appears differently once you 
recognize that it doesn't exist.  The traumatic point here is the painful 
recogniztion that the object cause of your desire is crap.  Like when, out of 
the blue, something kicks your ass - destroying the fantasy world that you'd 
been living in.

> > When jouissance is sacrificed, it shifts to the Other... it as transferred to 
> > the Other's "account" - it is "squeezed" out of the body and refound in speech. 
> > The Other as language enjoys this is our stead.  In other words: insofar as we 
> > alienate ourselves in the Other and enlist ourselves in support of the Other's 
> > discourse that we can share some of the jouissance circulating in the Other.

> This is interesting. So it is specifically language which is the site of  
jouissance. But what is this 'sharing' of jouissance? Does it presuppose 
some kind of masochist renunciation, or is it potentially subversive, or 
no more (or less) subversive than shopping, or is it self-destructive and 
malicious?

It involves a kind of masochistic renunciation.  Zizek captures this in the 
idea of interpassivity.  Take canned laugher for instance.  I don't have to 
laugh, because the TV is laughing for me.  Or taping a program, I don't have to 
watch that movie, because my VCR is enjoying it for me - and also with book 
collections, I don't have to read them, because they are quite comfortable on 
my shelf.  As with language, my words speak for themselves, they enjoy their 
own existence, I don't need to pay attention to them.  The sharing of 
jouissance is when we watch the movie, read the book, or laugh with the TV.

Is this subversive?  In a sense, because jouissance is stupid, and pays no 
attention to desire or demand.  So it is subversive in the sense that it 
resists colonization...  I think.

Let me know if this doesn't make any sense.  I'll stress that they responses 
here are half-educated guesses.  I might be missing the point entirely.

ken