McGowan, Todd. Enjoying What We Don’t Have: The Political Project of Psychoanalysis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2013.
Chapter 6: The Appeal of Sacrifice
Neither subject nor social order exists independently but emerge out of the other’s incompleteness. The subject exists at the point of the social orders failure to become a closed structure, and subject enters into social arrangements as result of its own failure to achieve self-identity. The internal contradictions within every social order create the space for the subject, just as the internal contradictions of the subject produce an opening to externality that links the subject to the social order. Failure on each side provides the connective apparatus and constitutes the bond between the subject and the social order. 145
To put it another way, the subject’s entrance into a group or society depends on the originary loss that gives birth to its subjectivity. Without this loss and the desire that it produces in the subject, no one would agree to enter into a social bond, a bond that places a fundamental restriction on the subject’s ability to enjoy.
The psychoanalytic name for this foundational loss is the human animal’s “premature birth” a condition that creates an undue dependence not present in other animals. But whether or not one wants to defend the idea of humanity’s premature birth, the idea of a foundational loss is nonetheless essential for theorizing the emergence of subjectivity. Without loss, there could be no desire and no subjectivity. This loss leads the subject to society as the site where loss might be redeemed. 145
Once deceived by the lure of an imaginary complete enjoyment and disappointed with all the enjoyment it experiences, the subject is ready to agree to the entrance requirements of a society. The frustrated subject accedes to societal restrictions on enjoyment as she/he sees that others have also accepted these restrictions. a society circumnavigates the antagonisms between its member by promoting equality or justice among them all. … The subject’s individual frustration with the inadequacy of every actual enjoyment measured against he anticipated enjoyment finds an outlet in the societal demand for equality, a demand that proscribes [forbids] this enjoyment for all. The subject sacrifices a complete enjoyment that it never attains for the equality that derives from membership in society. 145-146