Dreaming the impossible of impossibility ?

At the moment I am at a crossroads in terms of the political possibilities of psychoanalysis. I believe that the psychoanalytic field itself is split between these positions, and again within the optimistic and pessimistic viewpoints. As I see it there are those like Judith Butler and Sean Homer who believe that the negative ontology of psychoanalysis commits the political to either a celebration of failure (Butler), or pure deconstruction (Homer). It is the latter which appeals to me most. However, I shall return to this latter.

However, generally psychoanalytic political theory seems to be rather optimistic about the consequences of the negative ontology of psychoanalysis, although it too is split between differing conceptions. From the basic Lacanian point of view, psychoanalysis is politically optimistic once one accepts the impossibility of a positive essence to the social. Such an essence would produce natural laws and stable social relations. In contrast psychoanalysis considers that change is always possible, and indeed immanent.

The optimism about this negative ontology is presented in two contrasting manners;
- Radical democracy, represented (with slight variation) by Ernesto Laclau, Yannis Stavrakakis and Chantal Mouffe. Mouffe and Stavrakakis seek to use democracy as an empty signifier representing lack itself. Rather than an ethics of harmony (which is currently hegemonic in liberal democracy) what is required is an acceptance of conflict, and the lack inherent in any universal conception.
- The contrasting viewpoint is characterised by Slavoj Zizek. Zizek started out in defence of liberal democracy against totalitarianism, taking a similar position to the radical democrats, although with a more Lacanian take than Laclau’s discourse theory. Of particular importance is the emphasis on the register of the imaginary (and fantasy) and the real/jouissance. Thus to reveal the contingency of fantasy is all important, hence ‘traversing the fantasy’. However, Zizek has since rejected liberal democracy because of its implicit links with capital. As such he asserts that liberal democracy itself provides a fantasy, and it can only be overthrown by a radical and often chance ‘ethical act’.


For me, Zizek objection to the formalism of democracy (as an empty place of power that is controlled by capital) are valid, although on his conclusions of the consequences of this move, I am not so convinced. The ethical act, at least in my vulgar conception of it, appears to be only a destructive/deconstructive method, one over which we have little control, and thus we could wind up with an ethically worse position then when we started. However, such an assertion takes a different definition of ethical. As I understand it, an ethical move in psychoanalysis takes the form of an act that reveals the contingency of meaning in any given circumstance. For my mind this is not a wholly satisfactory political position. It may be the ethic of psychoanalysis to constantly show the contingency of any social construction, but in doing so it seems that psychoanalytic thought is confined to a political deconstructive role. What does psychoanalysis say for any other conception of non- deconstructive ethics? Are they anti-ethical (e.g. the construction of a fantasy which is the anti-thesis of deconstructive), aethical/nonethical or is this method of ethics acceptable, but simply not the territory of psychoanalysis?

However at the same time, theorists within psychoanalysis do seem to take ethical (moral?) positions. Zizek is certainly anti-capitalist (even if he is not pro-socialist) and Laclau seeks to develop the enlightenment values of freedom and equality, without any explicit reason. To me it seems that there is some inherent ethical/moral reasoning going on, and as such it is one of my next tasks to see what this relationship is, particularly between psychoanalytic theorists and anti-capitalism/Marx.

I guess I am seeking a reason, or a base on which to plant my own political thought. No one defends pure relativism, and while I am not seeking a positive essence of the social- psychoanalytic thought clearly reveals this impossibility- I wonder whether a political ethic can be developed taking on the psychoanalytic insights into the human condition (and its implications for the social), without falling into a purely deconstructive mode. Is there a way that we can suggest a path forwards that could rid the world of at least some of the suffering inflicted by and on the world’s inhabitants?

Such a task may be impossible, and certainly does not appear popular in psychoanalytic theory. In any case it is way too big for a Master’s thesis, but at the moment it seems to be what is gripping me. It maybe that there is nothing there, but I want there to be and I can’t face the horror of the possibility that there isn’t, but that is just the human condition isn’t it?