Zupančič, A. (2003) The Shortest Shadow: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of the Two. MIT Press
If this man were to act as Kant suggests (and thus to renounce spending the night with the Lady), he would embrace the pleasure principle as the ultimate principle of his action.
On the other hand, his decision to spend the night with his Lady, regardless of the consequences, testifies to the opposite… “to spend the night with the desired Lady,” even if we are to hang for it, is a perfect example of sublimation
“To raise an object to the dignity of the Thing,” as a fundamental gesture of sublimation, thus enables us to accept as possible something the possibility of which is excluded from the realm of the reality principle.
The [reality principle] normally functions as the criterion of possible transgressions of the pleasure principle. That is to say: the reality principle sets limits to transgressions of the pleasure principle; it tolerates, or even imposes, certain transgressions, and excludes
others.
For instance, it [reality principle] demands that we accept some displeasure as the condition of our survival, and of our social well being in general, whereas it excludes some other transgressions of the pleasure principle that serve no such purpose (or no purpose at all).
Its [reality principle] function of criterion hence consists in setting limits within the field governed by the binary system pleasure/pain. Sublimation is what enables us to challenge this criterion, and eventually to formulate a different one.
The important thing to point out here is that the reality principle is not simply some kind of natural way associated with how things are, to which sublimation would oppose itself
in the name of some Idea.
The reality principle itself is ideologically mediated; one could even claim that it constitutes the highest form of ideology, the ideology that presents itself as empirical fact or (biological, economic . . .) necessity (and that we tend to perceive as nonideological).
Thus, the Lacanian theory of sublimation does not suggest that sublimation turns away from the Real in the name of some Idea; rather, it suggest that sublimation gets closer
to the Real than the reality principle does.
It [sublimation] aims at the Real precisely at the point where the Real cannot be reduced to reality.
One could say that sublimation opposes itself to reality, or turns away from it, precisely in the name of the Real.
To raise an object to the dignity of the Thing is not to idealize it, but, rather, to “realize” it, that is, to make it function as a stand-in for the Real.
Sublimation is thus related to ethics insofar as it is not entirely subordinated to the reality principle, but liberates or creates a space from which it is possible to attribute certain values to something other than the recognized and established “common good.”
The creative act of sublimation is not only a creation of some new good, but also (and principally) the creation and maintenance of a certain space for objects that have no place in the given, extant reality, objects that are considered “impossible.” Sublimation gives
value to what the reality principle does not value.
If Antigone raises her brother’s funeral to the dignity of the Thing, Sophocles raises to the dignity of the Thing the very passion or desire that supports Antigone in her act.
In the play Antigone, we have Antigone’s act, but we also have Sophocles’ act, which consists in giving an uncontestable value to the “irrational passion” of Antigone’s act.
We are thus dealing with a rather unusual meaning of the term sublimation: it concerns the creation of a certain space, scene, or “stage” that enables us to value something that is situated beyond the reality principle, as well as beyond the principle of the common good. It is at this point that sublimation is related to ethics.
However, another remark is necessary here. The attribution of value to the beyond of the reality principle is never a direct, immediate one. In other words, what sublimation allows us to value or to appreciate is never the Thing (das Ding) itself, but always some more or less banal, everyday object, a quotidian object elevated to the dignity of the Thing (and an object that also somehow always masks the Thing as the central void): the night spent with the Lady; a brother’s burial. . . .
In Lacanian terms, sublimation stages a parade, displaying a series of objets petit a that have it in their power not only to evoke the Thing, but also to mask or veil it. They obfuscate the difference between themselves and the void to which they give body, the void to which they owe what appears to be their most intrinsic feature of value.
From there emerges the other significant theme that Lacan develops in relation to sublimation: the theme of delusion or lure. It is no coincidence that the chapter introducing the discussion of sublimation bears the title “Drives and Lures.”