Thesis update, May 2009

My thesis asks the question, ‘What is the political value of post-Lacanian psychoanalysis for the materially excluded populations of the world economy?’ I find that the value of Lacanian theory for the hungry is not in terms of the development of a political ideology, or alternative mode of being, but rather the identification of the hungry – in conjunction with a Marxian analysis of class struggle – as necessarily excluded from the global economy. Such an identification of this population as the group which must suffer for the continued functioning of capitalism, should intrude into our contemporary ideological sense coherence, producing what Zizek labels a ‘traversal of the fantasy’, whereby the subject is not beyond fantasy, but rather is allowed no respite from its symptom – in this case the hungry. In these circumstances the subject has no option but to alter its form of being; existing co-ordinates of understanding can no longer hold. The potential still exists, however, for a conservative narrative to develop whereby the horror of the hungry is allowed to remain commensurable economic ideology because of a cynical or fetishistic disavow of their circumstances, in particular by externalising this failure to another cause. Alternatively the ideological status of capitalism could simply be altered – there is no progress – but this would constitute a fundamental alteration of the modernist enlightenment doctrine. For Zizek, what subverts this conservative potential is the instantiation of a utopian impossibility, one that claims that the acceptance of a lacking cause is unacceptable. Zizek labels this utopian impossibility the communist hypothesis.

The starting (Marxist) wager is that capitalism is fundamentally unsustainable because of the emergence of a fundamental material contradiction. The capitalist mode of production revolves around constantly increasing levels of production, which can only occur whilst a level of inequality is maintained. As a result of this inequality, any increase in the standard of living of those at the bottom of the global ‘development ladder’ requires increases in the overall size of the economy. The rungs of the ladder very rarely change place, but wealth does dangle down. Although the reduction of poverty is not part of either the symbolic functioning of capitalism, or its ideological political supplements, increases in global economic production, combined with the predicted substantial increases in population growth, will mean that gross global economic production will soar in the foreseeable future. Yet it is economic growth itself which is causing the ecological degradation which currently plagues the planet. Thus neither a contraction of the global economy – which would only serve to further drive the hungry into poverty – nor or further expansion will serve to either slow down climate change or help the poorest subjects of the world.

This material contradiction – between the hungry and the climate – is a necessary symptom of the capitalist economy. Capitalism, despite the apparent ideological narrative, cannot resolve these symptoms within itself; moreover, the capitalist economic system creates this very antagonism. For this reason, attempts to resolve these symptoms within the logic of capitalism are doomed to fail. Consequently, in the first chapter (‘The material contradictions of capitalism’) I seek to describe – whilst maintaining a critical approach to the representation of empirical occurrences – both the material contradictions of capitalism and the failure of positiving approaches. In this category I include both the liberal-apologist discourse of Jeffery Sachs (who attempts to articulate a solution within capitalism) and the utopian positivism of Hardt and Negri who have sought to postulate an anti-capitalist utopian manifesto.

I will go on to contend that the initial struggle against capitalism emerges within the methodological terrain amongst which it is understood, a fight against the hegemonic logic of the positivist/scientific/empirical discourse which currently dominates politics. The first stage of analysis is to suggest that the material contradictions of the global economy are not solvable within its own terms. Instead we must turn to theory which avoids the reification or commodification of the symptoms of global economy. The discourse which appears the most productive for this task is post-Lacanian psychoanalysis, which has become an increasingly popular form of analysis in Leftist political discourse, despite the failure to constitute an accepted form of political ideology.

In my second chapter, I will consider the fundamental concept of post-Lacanian psychoanalysis, with primary emphasis upon the dialectic between lack and excess, the Real and jouissance through ideology, fantasy and objet a. The central difficulty in this chapter is the difficulty in defining ‘impossible’ Lacanian concepts. Nonetheless, there remains something ahistorical and structural about working with Lacanian theory, as Lacan himself expressed in his reversion to mathme’s and topological figures. Ultimately I can only argue that this is the reading that I will be using in this particular thesis. It will also be noted that these are largely Zizekian readings of Lacan. This is a crucial chapter because it sets up the key assumptions and limitations of the political approaches that follow.
Consequently, my third chapter explores the use of post-Lacanian psychoanalysis as a political device. Whilst the use of Lacanian theory has become more widespread, no stable fusion for its use has developed. This is not unexpected as psychoanalysis can be considered an impossible discourse; no ‘correct’ reading of Lacan is possible, nor it’s applicable to the political. As Stavrakakis suggests, the Lacanian Left ‘does not exist’. Thus in this brief chapter I will explore the history of the use of psychoanalysis in the political, including its Freudian beginning, and interactions with Marxism, as well as introducing the central contemporary debates over the use of psychoanalysis in politics. I will conclude by introducing the three central positions which have emerged, signified by the work of Laclau, Stavrakakis and Zizek.

The fourth chapter explores the work of Ernesto Laclau and follows his work through his move from radical democracy to populism, both in terms of the changes that have occurred in his theoretical work and how Laclau perceives politics in relation to the hungry. Laclau’s work (along with Chantal Mouffe) holds a seminal position with political psychoanalysis and I will take time to consider the critique of Laclau’s theory of hegemony and radical democracy in terms of his inadequate theory of enjoyment as well as the limitations of his political approach. Laclau’s work is both an ontological theory of what exists in the political work, but also a prescription of the type of politics that should be implemented in these conditions. The most salient limitation is Laclau’s rejection of class ‘essentialism’ and his associated refusal to consider the overarching framework of capitalism. This limitation can be linked not only to Laclau’s representation of the hungry in the political field, but also his interpretation of the Lacanian dialectic, firstly in terms of enjoyment, but most notably the Real. Thus, Laclau’s approach to the hungry is to include them within an overall ‘chain of equivalences’ of demands. Overall, I have sympathy for a version of Laclau’s interpretation of the political field, if not his political approach. I do not, however, believe it to be a plausible approach for the emancipation of the hungry in this environment.

The fifth chapter of the thesis moves onto Yannis Stavrakakis. Stavrakakis largely builds upon Laclau’s work, attempting to supplement the latter’s conception of radical democracy with a Lacanian theory of enjoyment. For Stavrakakis, Lacanian ethics can inherently inform a theory of (radical) democracy. Ultimately, Stavrakakis attempts to formulate an alternative/ideal form of jouissance compatible with the democratic ethos. I will identify two main issues with Stavrakakis’ work. Firstly, like Laclau he places little emphasis upon the economic, in particular class. It is difficult to consider an immanent political intervention into the world of the excluded within Stavrakakis’ work. Secondly, Zizek strongly critiques Stavrakakis’ utopian construction of an alternative mode of jouissance, claiming that it is a total misrepresentation of Lacanian theory. Ultimately, for Zizek and in this thesis, there is no alternative mode of enjoyment, at least within the foreseeable future. Whilst I have much of this debate written up, more time needs to be spent on the issue of feminine enjoyment, particularly Zizek’s reading, along with his construction of the Lacanian ‘end of analysis’.

In terms of the application of feminine enjoyment to the economic, a group centred around the Rethinking Marxism journal has developed an approach very similar to Stavrakakis. As such this shall be included within the chapter. This group seek to suggest that whilst the class relationship is an impossible one – in the same manner as the sexual relationship – they do occur. Moreover, these class relationships can be broken down into the manner in which they respond to the problem of surplus labour. This group, in particular Yahya Madra and Ceren Oszelcuk argue that what is required is a class relationship that operates without exception (that of the hungry), a class relationship that would be deemed feminine. Thus, central to this chapter is a critique of the notion of a feminine/non-all class relationship will be developed, centring on both the impossibility of naming the elements of the class relationship and the impossibility of the feminine position. This critique naturally leads into Zizek’s politics, which is the subject of the sixth chapter.

Zizek’s politics is well treaded territory, but before mapping out the debates around his positions, I will develop a reading of his key concepts, most notably the Lacanian ‘traversal of the fantasy/end of analysis’, universality and class struggle. I will then suggest that although Zizek’s political approach has changed emphasis (and signifier’s) over the course of his work, his political stances are all iterations in response to the same impossibilities of both political action and turning Lacanian theory into a political vision. This corresponds to Zizek’s analytic method, which focuses on the absent cause of ideological positions, rather than the ideological positions themselves. Vital to my reading of Zizek’s work is his construction of the hungry as the place of concrete universality within capitalism, the part with no official part which determines the functioning of the hegemonic horizon.

My reading, taken through a debate with various theorists, including Laclau and Stavrakakis, is that in a certain sense Zizek’s work is politically impotent. However, this is not due to Zizek’s reading of the political, more the status of capitalism in our time (critiques of Zizek’s politics tend to focus on the end political position, rather than the preceding Lacanian theory), which lays bare the foundations of capitalism.

It is here that my seventh and final chapter, the impossibility of utopia , is developed. At first glance Utopia is a counter-intitutive position for any form of Lacanian- inspired psychoanalysis. No position appears more opposed to the Lacanian project than the development of a Utopian discourse, read in the conventional sense of an ‘ideal’ or imaginary place. Conversely , Zizek in silent conjunction with Fredric Jameson, suggests a separate modality of utopia, a utopia of the impossible, rather than the ideal. It is this position – utopia as the very suggestion that another mode of being is possible, without the imaginary coherence of the development of that mode – that makes Zizek’s politics radical, rather than the conservative, right-wing position, that many of his critics have suggested