Into the deep...

I have just spent the last week or so attempting to orientate myself to Slavoj Zizek work, with mixed results. I find Zizek's work fascinating, yet at times frustrating 'unreasonable'. His insights are always enlightening, particularly if one subscribes to the Lacanian foundation of his thought, however, his political solutions ( for want of a better word) leave me feeling somewhat flummoxed. Perhaps this is because his work is so counter-intuitive to virtually everything that I have been exposed to previously, even within sociology and social theory. To effectively suggest radical violence as a political solution goes against the grain of everything I have been taught politically, socially and academically.

Perhaps I should not feel so opposed to the radical ethical 'act' that evokes the disavowed foundations upon which this blog/thesis is based, given what is at stake for so many. However, without another programme, or at least a reasonable guarantee that things will get better, it appears unfeasible to me. Perhaps it is as I suspect Zizek would suggest; I get so much enjoyment from my peaceful, (relatively) rich lifestyle, that the thought of doing something radical to destroy it does not grip me. Instead, to deal with that little bit of the forgotten/disavowed real that gets through to me, I extend my fantasy that I am somehow a little better than that that I critique, because I don’t buy consumer products (often), and I sponsor a Nigerian child, without ever really doing anything radical.

However, I really do question whether such a radical act is the answer. I am supported in this by Laclau, and I suspect the earlier Zizek, who focused more on traversing fantasy and reconstructing reality than radical ‘ethical’ acts. The early Zizek, as I understand him, was interested in the rearticulation of desire and reinventing realities, as well as the hard kernel of the real. I look forward to fully encountering these works.

In this position, we can say that Zizek’s political approach is similar to Laclau, although they come at it from different angles. Politically, both are interested in the empty signifier, otherwise known (particularly to Zizek) as S1, or the master signifier. The empty signifier is the point around which the socio-symbolic field is founded. For Laclau empty signifiers are a response to the negative limit of the symbolic, the effect of the real. The negative limit is not another difference in the signifying system, but rather the very possibility of difference itself. Because the symbolic realm of signification is always off kilter, because we can never be sure whether signifiers match up to, or have matching signified, there will always be a left over signifier which is empty in content. This signifier is filled with content from other particulars, and takes on a universal function.

For Laclau the empty signifier is filled with meanings through the logic of equivalence, and this is the manner in which power is constructed in liberal democracies. Thus Laclau does not forget about the role of the real, but for him it is always sheathed beneath the symbolic realm. Laclau’s earlier position was largely without Lacanian influence. In Hegemony and Socialist Strategy Laclau took more of a post-structuralist line, suggesting that it was partial meanings and the infinite play of language that created a limit point in language and social change. However, with Zizek’s influence, Laclau took on a more Lacanian line, thinking of the limit point to language as ‘the Lacanian real’; although it is a term that I do not think he is comfortable with. On the other hand, in front of me now lie two articles on Lacan’s influence on Laclau, one by Laclau himself. I hope that these will help to extend my knowledge on this debate. I have to admit, I am feeling a little sketchy on my knowledge of Laclau, particularly his psychoanalytic influence, and look forward to re-reading him soon.

Now then, back to Zizek. Zizek too recognises the importance of the limit point of language; however his approach appears much more complex and developed than Laclau’s. Zizek’s base is the Lacanian conception of the human condition. I feel it is important for to give a brief sketch of this conception.

The human baby is born with a number of biological needs that only their nurturer can provide. In order to keep having these needs satisfied the baby attempts to find out what the nurturer needs; to be a fully satisfying (sex) object to them. To do this, the child develops language at a rapid rate. However, this is a poisoned chalice, as once the child develops language, they are castrated from direct satisfaction of this needs. From now on any satisfaction will be filtered through the big Other (symbolic law), and now becomes drive and desire.

However, the primary repression is itself repressed. This double negation is created and supported by a fundamental fantasy. In order to compensate for castration, the human gains enjoyment from not satisfying their needs, and instead following the symbolic order through the demands of the super-ego.

Therefore, the empty signifier, the core of the fundamental fantasy has what Zizek calls an ‘obscene underside’ of enjoyment through a glimpse of the real. This helps to explain why certain concepts grip us; it is the enjoyment we get from them.

I do agree with most of this, it certainly has an internal coherence to it. Having not been around infants, I don’t really have any grounds to query it. It does seem very essentialist, and I wonder what other factors can be at play here. If we take on an equally essentialist evolutionary paradigm, or at least some elements of it, does the Lacanian take still stand. Whilst maintaining a cynicism about science, I wonder what evidence can be provided to support the psychoanalytic conclusion.

However, given that this approach is accurate, and it is something that I am increasingly attracted to, the political consequences of this are fascinating. Does Laclau’s position hold up if with this Lacanian concept of subjectivity is added? It sometimes seems that theorists and critics feel that concepts can be taken and added to theory without regard for the factors driving the contrasting positions. I personally feel, although it is something that I have not put complex thought into, that Laclau does stand up in an altered state, something that is well worth investigating, and will probably form the basis of my study for the next few months.

However, the most difficult part is the political consequences. If Laclau’s critical method of Discourse theory can be supplemented successfully by the psychoanalytic approach, does this alteration in diagnosis bring a radical change in suggested cure?

The later Zizek suggests a much more radical position than his earlier work. In particular he returns to the Lacanian conception of ethics. The Lacanian conception of ethics lies in a return to drives, the closest expression of biological need available after the entry into the symbolic. However, to me this seems problematic, although within reason. The first point to make is that the Lacanian cure was created in response to individual subjects in a clinical; Lacan was generally apolitical and suggested no political strategy; that has been the work of Zizek. One must question whether at is feasible to create a political framework, or in my case a theory of political economy based on pure psychoanalytic thought. I would like to suggest at this stage that such a pure approach is not possible. Rather we must seek to use the insights of psychoanalysis, but not adapt it, après-coup to the political situation of the day.

However, my core concern with the ethical act is the return to drives itself. It is possible that I may be misinterpreting this, but for me the suggestion that it is ethical to return to the primordial, animal self is incorrect. Originally, I read this return to the drive as repression. But as has been suggested to me, we cannot live in the real of the drive, so this is not an option. Instead it is the destructive/productive effect of the drive that is ethical, that would remove the subject from ideology, even if for only the briefest moment, to reconfigure reality.

Still, this notion of the effect of drive troubles me. Sure, humans being are not wholly separate from animals, but there does still remain a core difference, that difference being the capacity for language and culture. Following Terry Eagleton’s line, I would like to suggest that it is language that is the natural, material state of the human condition. This is not to suggest that we are somehow born with language, but with are certainly born with the capacity for it. This position does not deny the Lacanian conception of the process of subjectivity. There are major implications to combining the approaches. If language is our core, yet it is forever split and infested with the intrusion of the real, what are the political consequences? I don’t think we can deny that it is these intrusions of real the evoke change, and help political position grip the symbolic realm. With these thoughts it seems that I have come a loop, and logically should suggest that we evoke the real to create change. However, I would like to suggest that this is a chicken and egg scenario. Is it the materialist real which punches holes in the symbolic realm and is thus the most important factor, or is it the idealist symbolic that covers the real, and provides our only possible access to it? The most viable solution is surely one that includes both, but I would like to maintain that the best political approach, the one that we maintain the most control over, is the latter.

However, the hole in my argument forms when I find no natural ethical position resulting from this. How would one develop a form of political economy from this? Is it to ignore psychoanalysis and revert back to rationalist political theory? Or is the solution found more in Laclau’s approach? I would like to tentatively suggest that Discourse theory, supplemented by psychoanalysis provides the most feasible option. How so? I look forward to thinking it out.