The symptom, the super-ego and ideological fantasy

Last week I had an interesting discussion with my fellow psychoanalytic scholar Wendy, which has prompted me to believe that I have missed an important piece of the theoretical puzzle in my writings thus far. That piece is the super-ego. In this short essay I seek to discuss the relationship between the super-ego and the symptom. Of particular interest is the manner in which ideological fantasy works in conjunction with the super-ego to conceal the true nature of the symptom.

Firstly, what is the super-ego? It is important to note that Lacan’s definition of the term differs from Freud’s original conception. Freud maintained that the super-ego helped to keep the id in check and maintain a balanced ego. In contrast Lacan considered that the super-ego is not only the subject’s ‘moral’ or normative conscience, but more productively an unconscious site of enjoyment/perversion. Thus where Freud fundamentally conceived the unconscious to be an area of resistance to law, Lacan regards the unconscious, through the super-ego, to be the very place of compliance; one does not battle to follow the law, instead the subject enjoys the submission to the normative through the surplus enjoyment of the super-ego.

In the Lacanian conception, the super-ego is the obscene supplement to the symbolic law; it is the guilt/surplus enjoyment which allows the subject to believe. In the process of subjectification, the subject has made the (forced) choice away from Jouissance and into language. Although pure Jouissance is not attainable after subjectification, this impossibility is forgotten. The subject represses the initial negation, the impossibility of achieving fullness; that we never had the thing in the first place. However, the super-ego helps to maintain the possibility of symbolic fullness. It presses a ‘guilt’ upon the subject when gaps in the social appear if the subject does not follow the symbolic law.

Because we have given up pure Jouissance, the subject receives compensatory surplus enjoyment (jouissance) from the super-ego. However, every time we give in to the demands of the super-ego and social (naturally) is not sutured, we feel even guiltier. The more we submit, the more we need to submit. This is of course very similar to the Marxist notion of surplus-value; the more you have the more you need.

The link between the super-ego and the symptom is best considered through the complementary influence of ideological fantasy in maintaining the consistency of the social. Both the super-ego and ideological fantasy act to attempt to construct the positivity of the social. The super-ego pushes the subject towards the prospect of wholeness, a reminder of Jouissance in the form of jouissance. Ideological fantasy (fantasy, the symbolic form of the imaginary, provides a backdrop for ideology) does not conceal the true, positive nature of the social, but rather presents the social as positive, a constitutive illusion that maintains the consistency of the symbolic order.

Thus both ideology and the super-ego work to domesticate the threat of the symptom. The symptom is evidence of the false relationship between the universal and the particular, the inescapable bar between the signifier and the signified. The super-ego demands that the symptom be tended to and repaired. This demand prevents the subject from uncovering the constitutive nature of the symptom. The super-ego makes the subject want to domesticate the symptom, to convince ourselves and others that it is fixable, a temporary aberration, rather than a concrete universal.

The operation of the super-ego is such that the demand of the symptom is be enjoyed; it suggests the prospect of suture, but also keeps a distance from this (impossible) fullness and hence the prospect of revealing concrete universality. Thus instead of viewing absolute poverty as the constitutive symptom of capitalist economics, we give to charity to delay our guilt. However, this is not a productive strategy for the subject or the symptom. The subject can not escape from the super-ego; the more they submit the more demands are taken on.

Herein lays the crucial link between ideological fantasy and the super-ego. Rather than taking on the demands of the super-ego to suture the social, the subject can turn to ideology and in particular, ideological fantasy. Ideological fantasy operates by externalising the cause of the symptom. The more the super-ego demands, the greater the need for ideological fantasy; however the demands of the super-ego can be avoided by transferring them into the realm of ideology.

Like the super-ego, ideology also keeps a distance from suture. A common ideological response to absolute global poverty is to externalise the cause; a frequent site for such transference is ‘corrupt’ foreign governments. Another familiar approach is to give in to the power of the system; ‘How will anything I do make a difference?’ The influence of ideology does not mean that the super-ego demand is avoided; often it is just softened; hence the compatible super-ego driven response ‘I just do what I can within the given constraints’.

Thus the super-ego and ideological fantasy work together to domesticate the destructive consequences of the symptom. Both show that the nature of belief is not rational, but rather belief is constructed through meanings which resonate with a particular economy of pleasure, be it from the super-ego or ideology. Thus how does one reveal the concrete universal and the true nature of the symptom? Is it possible to produce evidence that reveals the constitutive nature of the symptom? E.g. economic evidence that absolute poverty is required for western wealth. No. Rather it is at this time, as Zizek suggests in the Sublime Object of Ideology (p.49), that we will see that an ideology really has its hold.

Ideology only really has a grip when we see no distance between it and reality; ideology is reality. Thus when evidence comes up which is counter-intuitive that is when we see ideology at play. Thus, even if evidence strongly suggested that poverty was constitutive of capitalism, the classic ideological response would be to suggest, ‘Yes, but that is okay because we have worked hard for our success’, or ‘That is only because we didn’t start equally, if only we could go back…’. The latter approach is often combined with super-ego guilt; giving to charity, buying fair-trade coffee. However, this cycle rarely leads to true action being taken. The super-ego sacrifice symbolises the fetishist nature of belief; I know this will not fix it, but all the same I believe it will.

Although the super-ego demand is more beneficial for a cause in the short-term (at least here attention is paid to the symptom), ultimately both the super-ego and ideology fail to invoke change. The super-ego prevents the subject from acting against the symptom. What is required for social change is for the fantasmatic system to be broken that presents the symptom as an impediment (using the systematic properties super-ego/ideology) and reveals it as a condition of the system.

The identification with concrete universality is similar to the political act, in that it suspends the symbolic law and reopens the abyss of the social. This suspension can only come from the real. However, the effect of the real is felt only through the symbolic e.g. the symptom, or other forms of dislocation. In this case I suggest that we should not view the symptom as a passive effect of hegemonic attempts at universalism, but rather a productive/destructive social force in its own right. I am thinking here of those who experience or have fought out of absolute poverty fighting back against the universal (e.g. Islam), or the power of nature in the form of climate change. Should these symptoms not be seen as active returns of the repressed real, of that which have been excluded for the universal to be constituted?

I suggest this rather that the randomness of Zizek’s political act. I believe that while such an act may be successful in a clinical sense, in the political world, a distinction need to be made. This is not to suggest that the basic formula of the act is different (to re-reveal the gap in the social; the negation of the negation of the negation), but that it need not be necessarily violent and directionless as Zizek suggests. Yes, it must traverse the fantasy, but I believe that it can have a coherent vision. This vision very well may not be able to come from within the current hegemonic universal, but instead lies with the constitutive exception of the social. It is only if the symptom comes to life and traverses the fantasy of its construction that a productive political act can be achieved.