As global concern for the environment appears to be growing strongly, the environmental movement has become one of the strongest components of left-wing politics. However, in psychoanalytic terms this concern takes the form of ideological fantasy and super-ego demand. Therefore rather than achieving a radical transformation of the capitalist economy in the name of environmentalism, the more common outcome is ecological modernism and its associations with positivist science and the capitalist free-market. While these efforts may make minor changes within the dominant imaginary, they entrench the hegemonic (universal) fantasy of the environment as under mans’ control. Rather, greater potential lies in an alternative strategy. Compared to other areas of anti-capitalist critique, environmentalism has a much stronger relationship with the real. The real in this sense is not the constitutive exclusion but more importantly the biological real. In this essay I promote a distinction between the natural and nature, the discursive rendering of the natural; the biological real. The interactions of symptoms of nature and the natural is what provides the potential for a dislocation of the existing order, achieved by elevating these symptoms to the status of concrete universal. However, because of the potential for dislocation, the efforts of ideology and super-ego to maintain the status quo are strengthened. Thus, although there is greater potential for dislocation through the natural if the fantasmatic hold is able to be broken, these system bonds are particularly resilient.
Politically, change can occur through two different spheres of the environment. I shall refer to these spheres as nature and the natural. Nature is the discursive representation of the natural. In contrast, natural is the real in itself. However, this is not the real in the sense of an exclusion from the symbolic. Rather it is the biological real; the realm of matter and its interactions. Because we do not have access to this biological real, in itself, it is meaningfully represented in the symbolic and imaginary. This representation is nature. Therefore we never know whether our representations of the natural are accurate, but when nature is exposed to the natural, as the real, nature is left open to dislocation. Therefore nature, as a discourse, is much more open to dislocation than other, symbolic, discourses. This is not to suggest that nature is not symbolic; as we know matter can only be meaningful in terms of the symbolic, but rather its unique position in terms of its referent creates a greater opportunity for materialist influence. As such a firm distinction should not be made between nature and the natural (outside of an abstract distinction). Rather the two have a complex, extimate relationship, much like reality and the real; the natural cannot be simply thought to be outside of nature.
Nature, as a discursive formation, takes the form of any other discourse. It is formed by the dynamic contradiction between the abstract universal and the particular. The particular in this sense is the full range of symbolis discourse relating to the natural (and because of the nature of language, beyond) and the universal is the hegemonic representation of this particular and the associated chains of equivalence that fill the universal and its representative; the empty signifier. In contemporary New Zealand political discourse, this may be the image of the environment as robust and controllable.
However, because the universal is always abstract and false, something must necessarily be excluded for it to be constituted. This excluded element, the excess of the universal, is known as the symptom. The symptom is evidence of the failure of the universal; it is the effect of the real upon the symbolic and as such provides a potential for symbolic dislocation. If the universal is nature as robust, then the symptom would be the evidence against this, where it is evident that nature is not robust. As an example, a 2004 National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) study showed that 95% of New Zealand’s lowland rivers and streams were too polluted for people to swim in or drink from (Larned, Scarsbrook, Snelder, Norton, & Biggs, 2004). This is a symptom of the hegemonic universal; that the universal is false.
However, the presence of the symptom does not provide a dislocation. Rather the symptom is normally subverted by the effect of ideological fantasy and the super-ego in support of the abstract universal. Ideological fantasy works by presenting the social as a sutured and positive entity; therefore the presence of the symptom has to be externalised to another cause, or a solution to come. In terms of nature, the strongest hegemonic ideology is based around scientific knowledge, an approach known as ecological modernism. This ideology suggests that rather than radical change, what is required is increasing technology to deal with the symptoms. Ultimately the ideology contends that we should not worry about the natural; science and technology will prevent all problems in the future.
Super-ego demand works in a similar fashion to ideology in attempting to present the social as full by domesticating the effect of the symptom. In the Lacanian conception, the super-ego is the obscene supplement to the symbolic law; it is the guilt/surplus enjoyment which presses the subject to believe in the fullness of the social and thus the universal. The super-ego helps to maintain the possibility of symbolic fullness. It presses‘guilt’ upon the subject when gaps in the social appear if the subject does not follow the symbolic law. In this sense the super-ego forms an obscene underlying law which operates, and supports, the public law. This operation is seen most vividly at the point of failure of the law (Zizek, 1994:54). In terms of environmentalism the super-ego presses upon the subject the need to follow the notions of ecological modernism; to recycle and conserve energy. Although these actions are not a bad thing in themselves, they do help to maintain the fantasy that the universal is still full, that the environment is not a fundamental problem because the capitalist system is sustainable.
Therefore both ideology and super-ego work to avoid the horror of exposure to the real, or in this case, the natural. Rather than viewing the symptom for what it is, it is subverted in the name of the universal and the jouissance available in the possibility of fullness. If this were not to occur, if the symptom was to be revealed and presented as a constitutive element of the system, then it has reached the status of concrete universality. 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. In environmentalism, this would be the act of seeing that the universal conception of nature as robust and under the control of man as false and instead deeming the capitalist system unsustainable.
The natural, although of course intimately and extimately related to nature, operates according to a different logic from the symbolic and imaginary orders. This operation is similar to that of the real. As with the real, our understanding of the natural can only come through nature; the external limits of the system can only be revealed through the internal failings of the discourse; we can never map the real, only encircle it.
By the natural I am referring to the realm of matter, that which operates independently (although not isolated from the effects of) the symbolic. The natural can thus be termed the biological real. The natural interacts and changes often outside of the influence of the symbolic, but it is not mutually exclusive from nature. The effect of the symbolic, particularly its symptoms, interacts with the symptoms of the natural.
Symptoms of the natural take the form of medical symptoms; the manifestation of an underlying illness; the distinction here is between surface and depth, between phenomena and the hidden causes of those phenomena which cannot be experienced but must be inferred. The main dissimilarity between this conception and that of the psychoanalytic symptom is the variance between surface and depth, a distinction that does not exist in the symbolic. Also, in the biological notion of the symptom, the key is to battle to cause of which the symptom is a manifestation; in psychoanalysis the symptom is the cause and is thus to be dealt with in its own right.
The important factor in environmental discourse (in terms of potential dislocation) is the interaction of the two types of symptoms; biological and symbolic. This occurs at the border of the real and the symbolic. However, it is not just the influence of the real upon the symbolic, but also the other way round. As Fink states
‘True understanding… is actually a process which goes beyond the automatic functioning of the symbolic order and involves an incursion of the symbolic into the real: the signifier brings forth something new in the real or drains off more of the real into the symbolic’(Fink, 1995:71).
The relationship between the symbolic and the real described above by Fink is the same as the relationship between nature and the natural. The symptoms of nature have an affect on the natural and likewise the natural intrudes into nature. An example is illustrative. If we carry on from the example given earlier, the abstract universal view of nature is that of a robust system under the control of made, supported by the ideology of ecological modernism. The symptoms of this position are numerous and not all symptomatic. However, for the sake of simplicity one of the most prominent and dangerous symptoms can be selected; global pollution.
This symptom is a creation of the discursive, of course in interaction with the natural; we cannot forget that the natural is always at the same time symbolic, it just also interacts outside of the symbolic. Therefore, through a hegemonic conception of the environment guiding the actions of those who identify with the universal, a symptom is produced which affects the natural world; we believe that our production and consumption is unlimited, but because this does not correspond to the natural world, it is produced as a symptom. This symptom reveals the relationship between nature and the natural. If natural could take unlimited production, global pollution would not be a symptom, such pollution would not be created. It is quite conceivable that another universal could be produced that represented the natural better- such is the benefit of super-ego dominated science in ecological modernism- and this kind of symptom would not exist. This is not to suggest that a symptom would not exist, but just that it would not have the same effect on the natural world.
Thus a symptom of nature, when its interacts with the natural, becomes an active and powerful symptom. A symptom such as global pollution interacts with the natural, which is somewhat independent of symbolisation and produces global warming. In turn this symptom impresses on the symbolic order. This creates the possibility of the symptom coming to be viewed as a concrete universal. In the case of global warming, the universal of sustainable capitalism could produce the symptom of waste, which interaction at the intersection of the symbolic and real, producing a biological symptom of global warming and climate change. As such, global warming increases the pressure on the universal (showing it to be false) and creating the possibility that the symptom, global pollution, could become a concrete universal by being seen as constitutive of the universal of unlimited growth.
However, despite the promise evident in this example, such a case, although right before us, does not occur. Instead the efforts of the ideological and super-ego realms are redoubled. Although often the above case is treated with respect unlimited growth is impossible, it is not treated as a universal truth, but rather a contingent one; unlimited growth is not possible unless we begin to recycle or conserve energy. Worse still is the ideological idea that unlimited growth is possible, because the market will deal with the problem once it becomes starts to impact upon people with enough money to pay to do something about it e.g. once oil runs out, we will start selling electric cars.
The west also deals with the possibility of dislocation by rehearsing this trauma in fantasy, such as Hollywood cinema, such movies as The Day after Tomorrow, Dante’s Peak, and The Perfect Storm. This makes the prospect of such incursions of the real more palatable, as if they exist only in fantasy. Zizek makes a similar point about the impact of the 9/11 attacks on the United States public in Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002).
Thus, despite the potential for dislocation of the symbolic and the elevation of symbolic symptoms to the status of concrete universal, I am not convinced that any real change can be achieved in this manner; such is the strength of ideology and super-ego in maintaining, or slightly altering the universal. Instead, it appears that only a dislocation, purely from the natural, in the form of a global disaster could truly change the global capitalist system. However, this conception is particularly politically impotent (although in line with Zizek’s conception of revealing the fantasy by taking the universal to its nth degree) and as such I believe it is worth investigating what a possible political position would take, from a Laclauian position, given that my review of the Zizekian/Lacanian standpoint.
Laclau would advocate a position of contingency, but also the institutionalisation of this contingency. This instutionalisation would take the form of a universal. I believe that this universal would look to take on as much from the natural, or the real as possible. Rather than being stuck in ideology, it would take the opposite view of the currently hegemonic universal (that of ecological modernism) and endorse the view that the natural knows best. Such a view is promoted in A Radical Green Political Theory (Carter, 1999). Here Carter suggests that the third law of ecology is that ‘Nature knows best’;
‘Any major human-made change in a natural system is likely to be detrimental to that system. The reason for this is that ecosystems, like watches, are extremely intricate and are unlikely to be improved by random tinkering’ (Carter, 1999:21-22).
This position is a fantasy in itself (that there is nothing lacking somewhere) and is in its fullest sense impractical; man is an intricate part of the natural system and can in no way withdraw itself. However, I wonder whether a limited version of this impossible position is possible. This could be an example of elevating the symptom to the universal. For example, in various places around the world predators have been removed from various eco-systems in order for them to become more comfortable for man. However, these systems often collapse as the predator played a vital role in regulating the system. On the other hand, it is impossible to simply follow the rule of nature as an ethic; part of being in nature is manipulating it. The problem is that humans have the ability to manipulate nature past the point of benefit. Perhaps it is simply a contingent ethic, rather than a guarantee, to follow the way of the natural.
Carter, A. (1999). A Radical Green Political Theory. Routledge: London.
Fink, B. (1995). The Lacanian Subject: Between Language and Jouissance. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Zizek, S. (1994). The Metastases of Enjoyment. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2002). Welcome to the Desert of the Real. London: Verso.
Zizek, S. (2006). The Parallex View. London: Verso.
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