Subject: Re: Jouissance
Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 19:53:49 -0400 (Eastern Daylight Time)



On Sun, 22 Oct 2000 20:20:34 +0300 (EET DST) Fredrik Hertzberg LIT 
<fhertzbe-AT-ra.abo.fi> wrote:

> But as soon as I read the book or watch the film I'm "stealing back" the 
> enjoyment? (I'm not asking this provocatively but because I'm trying to 
> understand it.) 

Sorry, I must have expressed that awkwardly. We're not "stealing back" 
enjoyment by watching the taped video - rather - we organize *our* enjoyment 
through our projections onto the Other. In other words, I'm enjoying not having 
to laugh at the sit-com because the sit-com is enjoying the program for me 
(hence, the inter-passive dimension). Our enjoyment then is contained to 
letting the Other enjoy something for me. The irony, of course, is that the 
Other does not exist! The idea here is akin to not voting in an election 
because "the democratic process will take care of itself." This should be 
contrasted to the idea of inter-activity - whereby we actively try to 'excite' 
the Other's enjoyment ("This is going to hurt me a lot more than it is going to 
hurt you, but I'm doing it for your own Good" [even though you don't know what 
that Good is]). In short, through our interactions, we derive enjoyment by 
brining it out in the Other - by serving as the vehicle for the will of the 
Other ("my Nation is more important than I am!") whereas in interpassive 
relations we "do nothing" so that the Other can enjoy. Both simultaneously try 
to bring about enjoyment in the Other while *denying* [repressing] that ones 
own enjoyment of bringing about enjoyment in the Other.

> But isn't one central stage of Lacanian analysis that of traversing the 
> fantasy - i.e., abandoning it (or is traversing not the same as 
> abandoning?) Or is it enough to realize that it is a fantasy - to keep 
> it, but to control it rather than be controlled by it?

Traversing fantasy, as far as I can tell, isn't about controlling ones fantasy, 
rather, taking responsibility for the enjoyment that one derives from the 
fantasy. Remember, the "fundamental fantasy" in Lacan is unconscious... should 
we become aware of it consciously it ceases to be unconscious, and thereby no 
longer our fundamental fantasy. The traversal of fantasy, I think, entails 
precisely that - a kind of travelling through the fantasy such that it no 
longer servers as the means of enjoyment (ie. after the traversal, the 
fundamental fantasy changes, fundamentally) - like a subjectivization of 
fantasy... not a control of it...

ken