What is the sinthome? (and where is it?)

In my last piece of work, I was a little unsure of the distinction between the sinthome, singular, symptom and concrete universality. In this essay, I seek to further my definitions of these concepts, and the distinctions between them. I would also like to expand on the political connotations of dialectical materialism, from which the aforementioned concepts stem. In particular I believe the sinthome- as the furthest stage of dialectical materialism- is of political interest. While the sinthome is undoubtedly of political interest, I am still not sure whether the concept leads itself to progressive politics, in particular anti-capitalist change.

The singular and symptom are very similar, if not abstractly the same. There is a greater conceptual difference between the symptom and sinthome, but they are part of the same notion. Despite the similarity between the singular and symptom, the singular is not a term often used by Zizek. The singular is most often used in The Ticklish Subject (Zizek, 1999), and is examined in Sarah Kay’s introduction to Zizek’s work (Kay, 2003). Indeed in The Ticklish Subject, Zizek sometimes substitutes the term ‘individual’ for singular, to describe the remainder of the universalising process;

‘We should therefore consider three, not just two, levels: the empty UNIVERSAL, the PARTICULAR content which hegemonizes the empty Universal, and the INDIVIDUAL, the symptomatic excess which undermines this hegemonic content… One can see immediately in what sense the individual is the dialectical unity of Universal and Particular: the individual bears witness to the gap between the Universal and Particular’ (Zizek, 1999:181, emphasis in original).

This definition of the singular/individual is very similar to that of the symptom;

‘ The symptom is, strictly speaking, a particular element which subverts its own universal, a species subverting its own genus’ (Zizek, 1989:21).

Therefore the singular/symptom arises as the excess which is a necessary condition of the universal. Because the universal is always false, it is always a hegemonic abstraction from a particular, there will necessarily be an element left out. The singular/symptom is this element and thus it reveals the gap between the universal and the particular.

The difference between the singular and symptom is abstract. When discussing the symptom, compared to the singular/individual, Zizek considers a greater attachment to jouissance; the role of enjoyment in the constitutive exception of universality. Therefore the symptom appears to be a more complete term than the singular.

The symptom is also more enigmatic. The symptom appears as a coded object (Lacan originally thought symptoms were produced with an eye to interpretation), not necessarily the straight opposite of the abstract universal, as with the singular (Milovanovic, 2004:373). As an illustration, with the universal capitalist market, the singular may be market failure, but the symptom is more likely to be harder to decipher. It is for this reason that the first stage of the psychoanalytic cure is the interpretation of symptoms. A recent example of a symptom of the capitalist market is the failure of the North Shore City Council to protect the Long-Bay Okura Great Park, despite overwhelming support for the concept. Here, the market is seen to fail to meet the needs of the people, but this failure is not interpreted by most as a market failure; the cause is attributed to another factor, in this circumstance, the council.

Thus we see the intimate relationship between the symptom and ideology. As the symptom is the coded failure of the universal and ideological fantasy is that which protect the subject from that failure. Ideology operates by presenting the social as a positive entity, devoid of symptoms. In order to do this, any symptom that reveals itself is externalised; the symptom is presented as an impediment caused by an uncontrollable external factor, or a fixable internal impediment. The key to ideology is to avoid presenting the symptom for what it is; the return of the real, of what has to be repressed for the (false) universal to constitute itself as a universal (Zizek, 2002:160-1).

Concrete universality is brought about by the gap that the symptom opens up. Where the symptom is the gap between the universal and the particular, concrete universality is the gap between the universal and its symptom (Zizek, 2006:30). As such it reveals the truth of the universal; the universal is failure. Concrete universality can be seen as equivalent to the negation of the negation in dialectical materialism. Concrete universality thus shows that the failure of the universal is not an obstacle to its construction, but more accurately the very condition of its formation; it is the outside which allows the inside to form.

If we apply this theorem to capitalism, the false (abstract) universal would be the idea of capitalism as ‘natural’ and ‘objective’, the particular would be capitalism as an economic system, the symptom would be the extreme poverty it creates, and the concrete universal is the point at which capitalism encounters itself as its opposite and discovers that this poverty is not an impediment to its formation, but rather the truth of capitalism itself. As such the concrete universal allows remains as a stain on the abstract universal; like the symptom, it always threatens to break through and reveal itself.

The distinction here between the symptom and concrete universality is a subtle one. Where the symptom reveals the failure of the abstract universal, concrete universality takes on this failure as the true universal, providing a kind of negative suture. The ideas of a fourth element providing a suture or tying a knot is usually associated with the sinthome.

The sinthome is intimately related to the symptom and concrete universality, but for me it is a much more difficult concept to define. At times the sinthome is presented as an extension of the symptom and at others a much bigger concept, almost a mega-symptom that lies outside of language. The common definition is that of the sinthome as a knot that ties together Lacan’s topology of the three registers; imaginary, symbolic and real. However, these definitions tend to focus on the sinthome as an element unique to the subject. I would like to see if the concept of the sinthome, like the social symptom, can be socially extended to become a political concept, in as kind of a dialectical materialist equivalent of a social imaginary; that which structures most before it.

The sinthome was developed during Lacan’s move into topological theory. The sinthome comes from the same species as the symptom, the definition of which became increasingly divergent with Lacan’s development. Indeed, Ragland and Milovanovic, in their introduction to Lacan: Topologically Speaking (2004:xiv) suggest the symptom was respelled sinthome to recapture its French medieval particularity. Thus rather than the symptom and sinthome being different concepts, the sinthome is simply an extension of the symptom. The difference is their relationship to language. Lacan’s topological theory was an attempt to move beyond the symbolic, in a linguistic conception of the symptom, to an unconscious one; the symptom as sinthome. Thus Thurston defines the sinthome as;

‘ The sinthome thus designates a signifying formulation beyond analysis, a kernel of enjoyment immune to the efficacy of the symbolic’ (Thurston, 2005).

Likewise, Zizek considers;

‘ Symptom as sinthome is a certain signifying formation penetrated with enjoyment; it is a signifier as a bearer of jouissance…The symptom as sinthome is literally our only substance, the only positive support for our being, the only point that gives consistency to the subject’ (Zizek, 1989:75).

As such the sinthome provides the fourth ring to the Lacanian triadic formation; the symbolic, the real, the imaginary. It is the ring of the sinthome that ties a knot through these three rings and holds them together. Without the suture of the sinthome the subject is lack; it is nakedly exposed to the lack in the Other (Milovanovic, 2004:373). Therefore, if one is to break the sinthome, as the organisation of the subject’s jouissance, the subject itself is likely to fall apart.

However, at this point there are important distinctions between symptom and the sinthome. The symptom has much the same role in holding the subject together, in that the subject loves his symptom move than himself, but the symptom is still a symbolic phenomenon. The symptom organises the subjects’ enjoyment, and as such gets caught up in fantasy, a symbolic concept. However, the sinthome lies beyond the symbolic. Thus even when the subject has gone through the fantasy, the sinthome remains (Zizek, 1989:74). Thus we see that the sinthome is a stage removed from the symptom. In this sense, the symptom is the symbolic eruption of the sinthome, which lies outside of language. When one speaks of the symptom of the return of the repressed, this repressed is the sinthome.

Thus the passage from symptom to sinthome resembles the psychoanalytic process. First the symptom has to be interpreted, then the subject has to traverse the fantasy. However, the symptom still remains. Thus the final stage in the process is the identification with the sinthome. This is of course very similar to the identification with symptom described earlier, where the subject comes to realise that the symptom is not a barrier to the universal, but is the universal itself, in its concrete form. However, the question to be asked now is whether the symptom, in the form of the sinthome, can still be of political value, considering that it exists outside of the order of signification.

Because the sinthome is outside of language, it exists only in the unconscious, in jouissance, in the body, it creates a large issue with the transfer from the subject to the object. This movement, from meta-psychology to politics, is one must often taken on by critics of psychoanalysis (Johnston, 2004). Zizek of course rejects this dualism, discarding the notion of individual psychology (which is created in the universal order of language), and the collective (which exists only in as much as the subject treats it as it exists). For Zizek there is no interior without an exterior element and thus no exterior without interior. Therefore the libidinal economy and the social-political economy are intimately linked; one cannot be understood without the other (ibid).

However, the sinthome strains this dualism. The sinthome exists outside of language; it is not a metaphor ( like language), but rather structure itself (Ragland & Milovanovic, 2004). Language, the symbolic universal, is the link between the subject and the object and thus the sinthome, as the not which ties together the subject’s organisation of jouissance, appears to break with the subject/object dualism.

However, if we re-examine the psychoanalytic relationship between the materialism of jouissance/ sinthome and the idealism of the symbolic, we find that both terms are intertwined in each other; the form an identity. Thus, for our purposes it is the lack in the symbolic which creates the fault which the sinthome sutures, and the materialist jouissance which structures the symbolic and brings about this suturing.

Therefore the sinthome cannot be simply unique to the subject and independent of meaning. The jouissance of the sinthome runs through the symbolic system, even if it is largely unknown. The sinthome is thus the ultimate factor in dialectical materialism; it is what remains after all else has been worked through. Therefore the effects of the sinthome permeate throughout the symbolic system. These results are shown in the various symptoms. Thus we can start to think the political consequences of the sinthome.

This has major theoretical consequences. Instead of thinking of the universal signifying order excluding and repressing something that returns in the form of the symptom, it is the sinthome that is pressuring the symbolic and producing symptoms. So where does the sinthome come from? As noted, it is the knot which is holding together the three registers (Imaginary, symbolic and real). Here I have gone too far in suggesting that it is the registers of the real in which the sinthome resides. It is not. Instead the sinthome sutures the fault in any or all of the registers. As such it results from the interplay of all three. Again then, we have a dualism. The sinthome is impacting in on the universe of signification, but the particular interaction of the symbolic and imaginary in creating this universe (and the real exclusions that are necessary for any sense of signification and universality) creates the need for and form of the sinthome.

The sinthome, as the fundamental organiser of jouissance, is the essential political factor. Although it may not be a signifying system itself (the sinthome is outside of language, again, it is not a metaphor, it is structure), but it is what ultimately supports the system. The sinthome enables us to understand why it is so difficult to achieve change, even when the subject is aware of the need for it. This is the difficulty for the anti-capitalist movement. It appears to be impossible to even think outside of capitalism, or think the possibility of change; such is the power of the organisation of jouissance in the capitalist system. Indeed even Zizek believes that at the moment anti-capitalist change is impossible (Zizek, 1999:352).

What then would make change possible? I believe that Zizek would suggest that that grip of jouissance is too strong in capitalism to promote change through modes of signification. What of the psychoanalytic process? This suggests that it is not enough to interpret symptoms, or to get affective distance by traversing the fantasy, but rather the final step is to identify with the symptom/sinthome.

What would this entail politically? To identify with the symptom is not to suggest that it is the best way of life e.g. there is something particularly special about living in poverty, but rather that the very instance of this symptom reveals the truth of the failed universal. As such the subject should identify with this failure as that which gives consistency to the subject/system. Without the symptom/sinthome, the system would collapse. Without poverty, capitalism would collapse.

I however have doubt about the benefits of such identification. An optimistic view would suggest that humanity would be horrified by their collective responsibility in the capitalist symptom. But equally, is it not likely that the response would be, Oh, well, their loss our gain? However, this would require a radical reshuffling of the capitalist fantasy. Identification with the symptom would certainly produce change, but of what nature I am not sure.


References

Johnston, A. (2004). The cynic's fetish: Slavoj Zizek and the dynamics of belief. Journal for the Psychoanalysis of Culture and Society, 9(3), 259.
Kay, S. (2003). Zizek: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Polity.
Milovanovic, D. (2004). Borromean Knots, Le Sinthome, and Sense Production in Law. In E. Ragland & D. Milovanovic (Eds.), Lacan: Topologically Speaking. New York: Other Press.
Ragland, E., & Milovanovic, D. (2004). Introduction: Topolologically Speaking. In E. Ragland & D. Milovanovic (Eds.), Lacan: Topolologically Speaking. New York: Other Press.
Thurston, L. (2005). Sinthome. In D. Evans (Ed.), Dictionary of Lacanian Psychoanalysis.
Zizek, S. (1989). The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (1999). The Ticklish Subject. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2002). For they know not what they do: Enjoyment as a political factor (2nd ed.). London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2006). The Parallex View. London: Verso.