#paychoanalysis

[grandpasessions]

This certainly plays an important part; however, to explain this resurrection of a deceiving Genius by the ‘need for a big Other’ does not seem to exhaust the phenomenon and the meaning of the assumption shared by all conspiracy theories, namely, that there exists a Subject or Agent who is deliberately deceiving us.

The libidinal emphasis is not merely on the existence of the Other (better an evil Other than no Other at all) but also on the implications of this existence for our being.

If we look at it more closely, we can in fact see how a (declared) knowledge about a conspiracy intercepts the traumatic certainty-anxiety of our non-being.

It makes it possible to draw the conclusion that the Other guarantees my being precisely by trying to systematically deceive me at all times.

Unlike for Descartes, for whom the activity of deception is not itself an internal condition of the cogito (of the certainty of my being), it now becomes just that: the more the Other tries to deceive me, the more it is obsessed with me, the more evident it becomes that I exist.

In a way, this reiterates the cogito argument and carries it in a different direction – or, rather, remains with its first step, or first certitude, and replays it over and over again: therefore I am, therefore I am, therefore I am….

Descartes argues that, even if all the thoughts I have are false (induced in me by an evil genius), the fact remains that I have these (false) thoughts, therefore I am.

This could be directly transcribed into the ‘conspiracy cogito’ as follows: I’m being deceived all the time, but I’m the subject of this deception, therefore I am.

I’m being deceived, therefore I am.

The deception becomes necessary for (the question of) my very being.

The question of true or false knowledge (which for Descartes is at the forefront) disappears into the background.

The important thing is that, as long as there is an attempt to deceive me, as long as I’m an object of the Other’s machinations or of the Other’s enjoyment, I exist.

In this way a conspiracy theory becomes a proof of my existence.

Disavowal / A. Zupancic

[seedpicker]

Early Mornings & Latte & Freud

[baublefobbersleuth]

What Huge Imago

Detail from Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting.

On this Veterans’ Day I salute military persons past and present who have honored their country, including my son, a Navy man currently serving on a far shore.

I’ve undertaken my periodic re-memorization of W.H. Auden’s epoch-spanning poem “September 1, 1939.”In the diurnal crossing of the DMZ between sleep and reality, where horror and dread do…

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[itsthevibe]

It’s not because of the actions of some other that one experiences trauma it’s what one experiences in ones body that there is trauma...in a sense you traumatise yourself.

Shanna de la Torre - Sex for Structuralists: The non-Oedipal Logics of Femininity and Psychosis - New Books in Psychoanalysis. Palgrave Macmillan, 2018.

[yourdisappointedarms]

“The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy is.” #theodoreadorno #germanwriter #philosopher #paychoanalysis #aesthetics #epistemology #dialectics #sociologist #socialcritic #composer #socialtheorist #earlyselfie #inspirationalquotes #dayninetyfour (at Akron, Ohio)

[cicciobarbara]

#psicologia #psicoanalisi #jung #carlgustavjung #paychoanalysis #psychology #art #painting

[onetwofeb]

The following is taken from one session in a series of introductory seminars as part of the Lacan Circle of Melbourne’s activities. There is an interesting remark by Miller, in …

[...] Lacan turns to St Paul’s epistle to the Romans (7:7) to elucidate some connections here. I shall quote the verse in full:

What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.”

Lacan says that if we exchange the term ‘sin’ for ‘Thing’, then we will have arrived at his conception of desire, which ‘flares up’ in relation to the Law (p. 83-84). The real is not transcendental with regard to the symbolic order. What is knowable about the Thing is knowable only by access via the law, and law and desire are two sides of the same coin here. The prohibition necessitates a desire to breach it, just as a desire for certain goods necessitates a prohibitive law. At least two consequences can be deduced from these premises. First, unconscious desire is set in opposition to the law, even as one necessitates the other. For this reason, if for no other, one may have good reason not to want to know too much about one’s unconscious desires. Second, access to the real – in the form of jouissance, for example – is inherently transgressive. This is a thesis of Lacan’s which is quite specific to Seminar VII, and in fact, Lacan revises it on several occasions later in his teaching. Nonetheless, desire – which we should recall is coextensive with lack – comes across as a defence against jouissance and the deathly machinations of the drives. The drives are on the side of demand, and desire arises from what is lacking in demand. It should be added that the Law is not purely prohibitive, but also productive. It exhorts as well as forbids.

[taddelay]

Excess (My PhD paper on Žižek)

[link to full paper here: http://taddelay.com/blog/13695011/zizek-obscene-excess-supplement ]

The first semester of my PhD program has come to an end, and with it comes the final post on my Žižek coursework. If you would like to see what I’ve been working on for the past few weeks, here it is. My paper covered a curious term I kept seeing in Žižek’s work: the obscene excess-supplement. Since a big part of my academic interest is understanding how belief functions, I wanted to explore what the excess-supplement has to say. It took me a while to figure out exactly what he meant by it. The excess-supplement seems to exist wherever there is conscious recognition of an overt norm, paradigm or belief. The excess-supplement either A) sustains the conscious/overt law by disavowing the “underside” of that injunction or B) instructs the subject to ignore the conscious/overt rule by condoning deviant behavior. The former is extremely common in religious belief, and the latter meaning is more common in Žižek’s political work.

The excess-supplement is always at work in belief. There is never simply what is consciously known/experienced; there is always an underside that opposes conscious recognition. My paper begins with an explanation of Lacanian psychoanalytic categories- I’m pretty proud of this section and think it’s worth reading on its own. I proceed to explain why Žižek calls Christianity “perverse.” I then discuss political psychopathology and try to explain how analyzing the excess-supplement can illuminate the types of religious and political beliefs you encounter. I conclude with a critique centering on his debate with Milbank, but conclude the decision on theism/materialism is ultimately irrelevant to how useful understanding the excess-supplement is for the study of belief.

I’m considering expanding this into a brief ebook dealing with a couple of other ideas I’m working on, but if this materializes it will come in the spring. For now, I’m looking forward to a well-deserved break and a visit home for the holiday. It’s been a fantastic semester.

Click here to read:

Excess: The Obscene Supplement in Slavoj Žižek’s Religion and Politics - Tad DeLay

I. Introduction

II. Psychoanalytic Terminology and Method

- Psychosis

- Neurosis

- Perversion

- Objet Petit a and Jouissance

- The Object of Therapy and Categorization of Pathology

III. Christianity, Law and Love

- Transgression Solicited by Law

- Dialectics in Lacan and Hegel

- Christianity as Perverse

IV. Political Dynamics

- Staged Theater: Fascism and Anti-Semitism

- Complexities of Pathological Categorization in Politics

- Perversion in Stalinism

V. Critique

VI. Conclusion