4 discourses – objet (a)

Capitalist Discourse

Capitalist Discourse, Subjectivity and Lacanian Psychoanalysis

Stijn Vanheule Department of Psychoanalysis and Clinical Consulting, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

What is essential to the four discourses is that a desiring “agent” addresses an “other,” which is indicated by the horizontal upper arrow. In the move from “agent” to “other” we recognize the human tendency to create social bonds. However, here Lacan is not expressing some sort of romantic view on human interrelations, but is stressing that the relationship between “agent” and “other” is marked by a “disjunction of impossibility” (Verhaeghe, 2004, p. 59; Bruno, 2010): the message that the agent sends is never received as it was intended. Lacan (1969–1970, p. 174) explains this as follows: “The first line comprises a relation, indicated here by an arrow, which is always defined as impossible. In the master’s discourse, for instance, it is effectively impossible that there be a master who makes the entire world function. Getting people to work is even more tiring, if one really has to do it, than working oneself.” Indeed, the agent’s address never provokes a reciprocal reaction, which is why no returning arrow connects the “other” back to the “agent” (see Figure 1).

The lower part of the formula highlights the hidden side of discourse. The first position on the bottom left is “truth,” which is connected to the position of the “agent” by an arrow pointing upwards. This arrow indicates that all actions made by the agent in a given discourse rest on a hidden truth. Indeed, characteristic of all discourse is that a repressed element motivates the agent’s actions, and that this repression engenders the possibility of a social bond, represented at the upper level of the discourses. In a similar vein, “truth” also has an effect on the position of the “other,” which Lacan emphasizes by drawing an additional (diagonal) arrow.

The arrow pointing downwards (right side of Figure 1) indicates that the agent’s address to the other has effects: a “product” is created. This product fuels the agent, but occupies a disjunctive position in relation to the truth that set the discourse in motion.

In the discourse of the master, a master signifier (S1) is formulated by the agent, and imposed onto the other who is presumed to function by means of knowledge (S2). Characteristically, such a domineering move rests on the repression of subjective division ($), and as a product the other is reduced to the position of an object (a). For example a therapist may tell his phobic client to be brave (S1) and to face the crowds he is afraid of by adhering to specific instructions as to how one might behave in groups (S2). By adopting such a directive style the therapist puts his own uncertainty in social situations ($) aside, and by obeying the therapist, the client is reduced to a pawn in the game of social interactions, which will finally produce further discontent (a) that might engender the formulation of new directives (S1).

Central to the discourse of the hysteric is the active formulation of complaints ($) and the search for an other who is presumed to have an answer (S1) for what bothers the subject. This discourse represses the truth that all desire rests on a lack that cannot be alleviated (a), and typically results in the production of narratives (S2) that don’t solve the fundamental lack (a), but actually engender further irritation ($).

The discourse of the university builds on the proclamation of knowledge (S2). Such knowledge always rests on the acceptance of dogmas and assumptions (S1), but this is neglected in this discourse. Characteristically, the other is put in the place of the object (a). This produces discontent ($), which fuels further knowledge creation (S2).

Finally, in the discourse of the analyst, the analyst qua agent confronts the other with a so-called object a, logically notated a. The object a refers to a drive or jouissance-related remainder that cannot be named and that fuels desire⁵. For example, the analyst’s silence, which often baffles the analysand who expects reciprocity in the interaction, can function as an object a (see Lacan, 1971, p. 25). By occupying the place of the object (a) the analyst creates a place where, via free associative speech, subjective division can be articulated ($). In order to pay close attention to the singularity of the patient the analyst puts aside pre-established ideas about patients and pathologies (S2), such that key signifiers that mark the analysand’s subjectivity (S1) can be formulated, which fuels the analyst’s positioning qua object a.

Semblance and Jouissance in Discourse

In Seminar XVIII (e.g., Lacan, 1971, p. 25) and Seminar XIX, Lacan (e.g., Lacan, 1971–1972, p. 67) somewhat rearticulated the positions he first entitled as “agent,” “other,” and “product” (see Figure 3), indicating that engaging in discourse above all means that one makes use of semblance. During his teaching Lacan interpreted the concept of semblance in various ways (Grigg, 2007). In the nineteen fifties he uses the concept semblance (“le semblant”) to refer to the world of appearances that is installed by means of the Imaginary. At that moment semblance is an imaginary phenomenon that needs to be distinguished from the Symbolic. As Lacan developed his discourse theory this all changed profoundly. At this point he suggests that the fact of social relations as such implies semblance, which is expressed in the following statement: “discourse as such is always discourse of semblance” (Lacan, 1971–1972, p. 226, my translation). Henceforth, discourse unfolds when someone forges a position in relation to another; semblance is “the proper object based on which the economy of the discourse regulates itself” (Lacan, 1971, p. 18, my translation). For example, the discourse of the master takes shape if someone plays the role of the commanding agent.

In seminar XIX, the position of the other is described as the position of jouissance (Lacan, 1971–1972, p. 193). Here Lacan defines jouissance as a disturbing dimension in the experience of the body, which renders the subject unable to experience itself as a self-sufficient enjoying entity (Lacan, 1971–1972, p. 217). Jouissance is immensely disruptive. It is a dimension of otherness that we all have to deal with. Indeed, the very idea of “dealing with it” bears witness to discourse; that is, to the fact that we treat jouissance by making an appeal to an agent or semblance, which is expected to manage it: jouissance provokes the mobilization of semblance. The root of jouissance is in the structurally dysfunctional status that the body has for the human being (Lacan, 1971–1972, p. 217).

What is typical for discourse, is that it envelopes a semblance around jouissance, and as a result jouissance is no longer unlimited, but conditioned by the element occupying the position of semblance. In this maneuver, a social bond is created: “What is discourse? It is that which, in the arrangement of what might be produced because of the existence of language, makes up the function of the social bond” (Lacan, 1972, p. 51, my translation).

Surplus-Jouissance As the Product of Discourse

In the early nineteen seventies Lacan frequently points out that the product of discourse makes up a “surplus-jouissance” (e.g., Lacan, 1971–1972, p. 193). In forging his concept “surplus-jouissance” Lacan builds on Marx’s concept “surplus value.” In Marx’s Capital (1999), the notion of surplus value is defined as the difference between the exchange value of products of labor (commodities) and the value that coincides with the effort of producing these products, i.e., the means of production and labor power. In our market economy system, Marx says, money is the pre-eminent criterion to measure the amount of the value that is realized. Within the capitalist system gaining surplus value seems to be the sole aim. Profit-making and the expansion of capital are the motives that drive capitalism. However, gaining surplus value is only possible by selling fetishized commodities for a price that is higher than the value attributed to labor that produced them. If equivalent values are exchanged, no surplus value can be realized.

Marx indicates that the realization of this aim depends on a trick, and it is this cunning trick that interests Lacan (1968–1969, pp. 64–65; Vanheule and Verhaeghe, 2004). In the market the capitalist buys labor power in order to produce merchandise. Marx states that the trick put into practice in this process is that the capitalist pays the laborer as much as he has to, but less than the market value of what the laborer actually produced. In other words, in the process of exchanging value (labor power/money) the capitalist pockets a monetary surplus behind the back of the laborer, and behaves as if he too worked hard during the process of production. Here Marx states that the capitalist must hide his smile: “after a hearty laugh, he re-assumes his usual mien” (Marx, 1999, p. 126). This laughter results from the fact that the value that is created during a workday is actually much higher than what the capitalist pays the laborer.

Capitalist production implies that one no longer works solely in order to satisfy needs, and stops once they have been met. Production continues beyond satisfying needs, which results in a fetishist relation to surplus value (Tomšič, 2012, 2015). Lacan (1968–1969, pp. 64–65) concludes that the secret gain of surplus value is both the product and the motor of the capitalist production system. Yet, despite the appropriation of surplus value, Marx stresses that the capitalist does not personally enjoy what he gains. The capitalist is only the support that makes the system run. Therefore, what the capitalist system produces are suppositions and phantasies of gratification, while in fact nobody enjoys (McGowan, 2004). Indeed, this is what Lacan also stresses when addressing Marx’s socio-economic analyses: “There is only one social symptom: each individual actually is a proletarian” (Lacan, 1974, p. 187, my translation).

Furthermore, Lacan suggests that the general structure of discourse is “homologous” to the system of capitalism described by Marx, and this is why the above discussion of surplus value is relevant. Both systems produce an element of excess, in relation to which a fetishist relation is created. In capitalist production surplus value and/or commodities are fetishized, while in the use of discourse a fetishist relation with surplus-jouissance (plus-de-jouir) is created (Lacan, 1968–1969, p. 45; Tomšič, 2012).

Homology means that their structure is identical (Regnault, 2005): while coming in a different form, the use of discourse and capitalist production obey the same logic. As we use discourse language is produced, in the capitalist system commodities are produced. Yet, through the process of exchange something is lost. By using discourse one is robbed of something: in attempting to address jouissance by means of language, and find a solution for it through the social bond, the experience of an un-articulated “beyond” is produced. Using signifiers to name jouissance confronts the speaker with a dose of corporeal tension that is not inherent to language: a surplus-jouissance that can only be located in phantasy or delusion comes to the fore. It is precisely at this point that the function of laughter can be situated. In Marx’s system, laughter refers to the capitalist’s gain of surplus value, and to the process of alienation that this entails. In the use of discourse, laughter refers to the surplus-jouissance inherent in our alienation in the signifier.

In explaining surplus-jouissance, Lacan points to the joke. As we speak we invariably also utter nonsense, and because of this we laugh. Yet, why exactly does the joke provoke laughter? Lacan (1968–1969, p. 64, my translation) suggests the following: “it [the joke] provokes laughter, in the end, to the extent that it is actually hooked to the failure inherent to knowledge.” The pursuit of meaning through speech implies deadlocks. Speech is always a half-saying (mi-dire). It misses its point, and this failure coincides with a dose of jouissance, to which laughter bears witness. Consequently, surplus-jouissance has a status of lack and loss (Tomšič, 2015)—language use always misses the point; expressed by downward arrow in the formulae for discourse—and at the same time makes discourse function as an endless attempt to get hold of what one misses; expressed by the diagonal arrow from surplus-jouissance/product to semblance/agent. Furthermore, by connecting the manifestation of surplus-jouissance to laughter and misrepresentation, Lacan situates surplus-jouissance at the level of the unconscious (Lacan, 1971, p. 21). In Marx’s production system the capitalist laughs with the money the system generates; in Lacan’s model the user of discourse laughs to the extent that, at the level of the unconscious, a surplus of jouissance is produced which one fails to get hold of. The unconscious concerns the combined expression of half-saying and surplus-jouissance.

In the discourse of the master the object a is a component of libidinous corporeality that is delineated by the use of signifiers, but is not represented by means of the signifier. It is what remains leftover after imposing knowledge (S2) onto jouissance. Qua element of symbolic nothingness, the object a nonetheless makes itself felt as corporeal tension, gravitating around a gaze, a voice, or in the element of oral nothingness to be taken in, and anal nothingness to be given away. In the end, this surplus-jouissance is juxtaposed with the master signifier (S1), but, as mentioned previously, it doesn’t correspond to the truth that the discourse was initially fueled by. In the end the discourse of the master stresses the fact that there is no hope that subjective division can ever be transcended, or that discontent can be resolved if we address jouissance by means of language, which is what we typically do. Unbehagen is structurally unsolvable, which is expressed in the formula by the fact that none of the arrows arrive at $. It is precisely the failure that coincides with the discourse of the master that, in Lacan’s reasoning, makes analytical discourse possible. Through the exploration of subjective discord via free association, there is a return in the analysis to the signifiers that connote and mark the subject.

In most discussions of surplus-jouissance, Lacan starts from the master discourse. In the discourse of the master the object a is the surplus that the semblant is confronted with. Yet, in terms of Lacan’s later discussions of the structure of discourse (Figure 3), surplus-jouissance is not identical to the object a, but the end position of each discourse (Lacan, 1971–1972, p. 193). In the discourse of the university the divided subject occupies this place; in the discourse of the hysteric it is unconscious knowledge that emerges; and in the discourse of the analyst the master signifier makes up the surplus-jouissance.

Capitalist Discourse

On one occasion, during a 1972 lecture at the University of Milan, entitled du discours psychanalytique, Lacan articulated a model on the precise structure of capitalist discourse. This model coheres with Lacan’s initial four discourses, but cannot be seen as just another variant in the series of discourses. After all, Lacan’s four discourses have a strict structure: four positions are linked by means of five unidirectional arrows (Figures 1, 3); and 4 elements ($, S1, S2, and a) rotate in a fixed order across these positions (Figure 2). The discourse of the capitalist disrupts this structure, and is a “mutant” of the discourse of the master. Indeed, Lacan (1972, p. 48) understands capitalist discourse as the contemporary variant of the classic discourse of the master. Yet with regard to the discourse of the master, it contains 3 mutations⁷ (Lacan, 1972, p. 40):

(1) $ and S1 exchange places.

(2) The arrow pointing upward on the left that makes the position of the truth unattainable in the classic discourse changes now into an arrow pointing downwards.

(3) The upper horizontal arrow that made the connection between “agent” and “other,” or “semblance” and “jouissance,” disappears.

The effect of these three changes is that a number of obstructions that are inherent to the four discourses are not characteristic of the fifth discourse. We can circulate within the capitalist discourse like go-carts on a racetrack. Indeed, in the capitalist discourse, the non-rapport is circumvented. Tomšič describes this as follows: “The vectors show that the capitalist discourse is grounded on the foreclosure of the impossibility of totalization that marks other discourses, an impossibility that is structurally determined by the fact that the signifiers constitute an open system of differences.”

Specifically, in the four standard discourses the position of truth is not targeted by an arrow, and the positions of “agent”/“semblance” and “other”/“jouissance” are influenced by two (not mutually related) other positions, which makes its functioning structurally lapse. In the capitalist discourse, “a very small inversion between the S1 and the $, which is the subject, is enough for it to run as if it were on wheels, it can’t run better, but it actually runs too fast, it runs out, it runs out such that it burns itself out”⁸ (Lacan, 1972, p. 48, my translation). Indeed, what is structurally characteristic of the discourse of the capitalist is that while the four positions remain intact, the pathways made up by the arrows change: in all positions one arrow arrives, such that a closed circuit of arrows is created. The structural lapse that marks the four standard discourses cannot be found at the root of this fifth discourse, which, so to speak, makes it run on wheels. Yet Lacan suggests that in the end the one functioning along the lines of this smoothly running process burns himself out, and gets consumed. One idea that the above quote articulates, is that in the capitalist discourse subjectivity is corrupted. The main structural reason for this is that in this discourse, the distance between $ and a is lost: corporeal tension that is proper to surplus jouissance disturbs the subject.

Just like in the discourse of the hysteric $ is situated at the level of the agent/semblance. Indeed, the discourse of the capitalist essentially starts from the experience of subjective division. In line with his earlier work, Lacan suggests that the subject is, on the one hand, a connotative effect of language use—“the signifier is what represents a subject for another signifier” (Lacan, 1972, p. 51, my translation). On the other hand, the subject is determined by the object a, which is the structural cause of desire—“The object a is the true support of what we have seen function, and it functions so in a more and more pure way to specify each in his desire” (Lacan, 1972, p. 52, my translation). Yet, most characteristically, man is marked by sexuality, which is not instinctively organized, and makes up “that in which man never feels at ease at all” (Lacan, 1972, p. 38, my translation). In the discourse of the hysteric the Unbehagen thus obtained results in an address to the other. Capitalist discourse, by contrast, does not capitalize on the social relation: “capitalism, that was its starting point: getting rid of sex” (Lacan, 1974, p. 34). Indeed, the capitalist discourse directly aims at the root of the problem, which is what the downward arrow on the left indicates. This discourse does not encapsulate the discomfort of subjective division as structural, but aims to recuperate discontent in its very system. It is a discourse in which there are answers for this discomfort: there exists an S1 that answers the $ and functions as a truth for the divided subject. For example, in our contemporary Western consumption culture, discontent is often deemed the upshot of having not yet obtained the right object and suggests that a state of subjective satisfaction will be reached once this object is obtained. In other words, the semblance of being dissatisfied can be answered with the S1 of a brand name or a product that offers the promise of satisfaction. Capitalist discourse actively cultivates the semblance of dissatisfaction, as well as a fantasy of self-sufficiency, completeness and vitality (Tomšič, 2015). The market⁹ tells us what we need: the merchandise it provides. These are all S1’s: they are isolated signifiers that consumers take to be the truth of their discontent. Indeed, within the capitalist discourse, the products that make up the market constitute a despotic truth to which the subject is subjected.

The move from $ to S1 reflects a denial of the structural quality of subjective division. On the one hand the capitalist discourse starts from subjective division, yet, on the other hand the move toward S1 suggests that subjective division might be overcome through alienation in a master signifier.

This bears witness to a perversion-like movement: while in perversion “the subject takes care himself to compensate for the flaw of the Other” (Lacan, 1968–1969, p. 265, my translation), in capitalist discourse an S1 is carefully promoted to compensate for the flaw of the subject. In both cases, subjective flaw is believed to be corrigible [fixed or repairable RT], which is why the discourse of the capitalist is often described in terms of a generalized perversion (Mura, 2015). In line with this interpretation Lacan, postulates a rejection of symbolic castration at the basis of the discourse of capitalism: “What distinguishes the capitalistic discourse is this: Verwerfung, rejection, rejection outside all fields of the symbolic …of castration.” Within the capitalistic logic, the lack at the heart of subjectivity is not seen as a structural consequence of using signifiers, but an accidental frustration that can be remedied within the market of supply and demand. The assumption that an S1 exists for each discomfort is ingrained in this discourse.

As a result, capitalist discourse implies a particularization of desire, treated as if it is a demand. Whereas in classic discourse desire is singular in that it cannot be solved by means of the signifier, the capitalist discourse suggests that particular solutions for dealing with subjective division actually exist: the market is there to satisfy customers’ demands. Consequently, at the point of desire, the capitalistic logic leads to exploitation: “the exploitation of desire, this is the big invention of capitalist discourse” (Lacan, 1973a, p. 97, my translation). This discourse exploits desire by treating it as a specific question to be answered by means of practical solutions. The superego command characteristic of capitalist times concerns an obligation to satisfy desire via consumption (McGowan, 2004).

Interestingly, following Žižek, Bryant (2008, p. 13) suggests that under the regime of capitalism, the subject’s principal question is not “what do I desire” but “what should I desire,” which is “not a question about objects, but a question of those conditions under which the subject might be desired by the Other.” Indeed, it is a basic Lacanian tenet that the desire governing the subject is essentially mediated by the desire of the Other: “man’s desire is the Other’s desire” (Lacan, 1960, p. 690). Within capitalist discourse this implies that merchandise will not so much be preferred for its intrinsic qualities, but in terms of how it is evaluated by the other. Indeed, this is often how marketing proceeds, products are presented as highly desired by celebrities, which directs the consumer’s desire.

Obviously, such exploitation of desire only works because the S1 that the capitalist discourse formulates as an answer is not at all random: S1 refers to an entire knowledge apparatus, S2, which guarantees the adequacy of the answer. Indeed, according to Lacan (1969–1970), there is compatibility between contemporary science and the capitalist discourse. In his view, the capitalist’s discourse is engaged in a “curious copulation with science” (Lacan, 1969–1970, p. 110). Science ensures¹⁰ the development of S2, through which S1 grows ever more innovative and, as a result, old answers must be constantly replaced by new ones. Within the capitalist discourse, S1 is not a fixed anchorage, but a solution that is replaced by endlessly better solutions. The fact of the matter is that the innovation of S2 continuously recreates both S1 and the demand. The only thing that the system needs is the consumer: subjects that are prepared to translate their discord $ in terms of the gap in the market that is delineated by S2, and who believe in S1.

Moreover, the switch between S1 and $ reveals something about what is taken seriously. In the discourse of the master, it is a signifier that is taken seriously: an S1 is adopted, and around this signifier a world of semblance is created through which the other and jouissance are addressed, which is what the upper horizontal arrow indicates. In the discourse of the capitalist, by contrast, it is discontent that is taken seriously. In this respect, the capitalist discourse resembles the discourse of the hysteric.

mcgowan discourse of university

McGowan, Todd. Enjoying What We Don’t Have: The Political Project of Psychoanalysis. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2013.

According to Dolar, “The whole point of Lacan’s construction of university discourse is that this is another lure, that the seemingly autonomous and self-propelling knowledge has a secret clause, and that its truth is detained by the master under the bar.”

In university discourse, the master signifier occupies the position of truth, which means that expert authority works ultimately in the service of mastery. For her part, Zupancic adds, “What Lacan recognizes in the university discourse is a new and reformed discourse of the master.”

University discourse emerges in response to the failure of the discourse of the master, but it is not a radical social structure. It represents a retooling of the authority involved in mastery in order to allow that authority to cope with the exigencies of capitalist relations of production. As the truth of university discourse (and expert authority), mastery is hidden and all the more effective because of this obscurity within which it dwells. 182

inter-subjectivity trans-subjectivity

Hook, Derek. “Towards a Lacanian Group Psychology: The Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Trans-subjective.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 2012.

Lacan (Sem I and Sem II) is constantly wary of subjective meaning as a questionable ego-construction designed to substantiate effects of knowledge and stability. He will approach a discourse not as a set of thematic or narrative contents, but rather in view of the set of relations, in terms of the particular social links, the structural positions between people that it holds together (Lacan, 2007).

His attention is not drawn by the “descriptive materials” of a discourse, i.e. its narratives, meanings, stories, etc., butby the relations established between participants, hence his (2007) model of four fundamental social bonds (the discourses of the master, university, analyst and hysteric) in which the thematic contents may vary widely despite that the structural positions remain intact (master and subject; doctor and patient; teacher and pupil, etc).

Lacan is thus interested in structural positions that are not simply “secured” by meaning or by the contents of discursive practices, but which remain in question, uncertain, reliant on others” views which are themselves contingent on the pre sumption of given social norms and values. His attempt is precisely to circumvent the psychological (or in his jargon “imaginary”) concerns of subjective sense-making and meaning by looking to an underlying grid of inter-linked symbolic positions. These positions are both more precarious and opaque than those afforded by subjective attempts at making-meaning. They are, furthermore, always linked, as in the prisoner’s dilemma, to other positions (indeed, to a chain of interlinked positions). Furthermore, each of these related positions remains uncertainly related to a key signifier—in the prisoner’s dilemma, the white disk—which remains both conventional (it embodies a certain consensus) and yet uncer-tain (in the pragmatic sense of what it may mean here and now). Lacan’s focus on the trans-subjective, certainly inasmuch as it prioritizes structural positions and the contingency of symbolic values, exists always at a step’s remove from the (inter)subjectivity of discursive positioning that focuses on subjective forms of meaning, narrative and sense-making. 9

[ To be continued]

ethical maxim discourse of master

The ethical maxim behind the discourse of the master is perhaps best formulated in the famous verse from Juvenal: ‘Summum crede nefas animam praeferre pudori, et propter vitam vivendi perdere causas‘

Count it the greatest of all sins to prefer life to honour, and to lose, for the sake of living, all that makes life worth living.

Another version of this credo might be found in Paul Claude!: ‘Sadder than to lose one’s life is it to lose one’s reason for living.’

In ‘Kant with Sade’ Lacan proposes his own ‘translation’ of this ethical motto:’desire, what is called desire, suffices to make life have no sense in playing a coward.’ (EOR 5)

analyst discourse

Bryant, Levi R. “Žižek’s New Universe of Discourse: Politics and the Discourse of the Capitalist” International Journal of Žižek Studies (Vol 2, no. 4) 1-48.

Discourse of Critical Theory

a –> S1
S2 $

As Žižek writes in the introduction to The Sublime Object of Ideology,

In contrast to [the] Althusserian ethics of alienation in the symbolic ‘process without a subject’, we may denote the ethics implied by Lacanian psychoanalysis as that of separation. The famous Lacanian motto not to give way on one’s desire [ne pas céder sur son desir]– is aimed at the fact that we must not obliterate the distance separating the Real from its symbolization: it is this surplus of the Real over every symbolization that functions as the object-cause of desire. To come to terms with this surplus (or, more precisely, leftover) means to acknowledge the fundamental deadlock (‘antagonism’), a kernel resisting symbolic integration-dissolution (Žižek 1989: 3). 34

Are analysis and engaged political activity consistent with one another? As Lacan remarks at the end of The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psychoanalysis, “[t]he analyst’s desire is not a pure desire. It is a desire to obtain absolute difference, a desire which intervenes when, confronted with the primary signifier, the subject is, for the first time, in a position to subject himself to it” (Lacan 1998: 276).

The analysand begins analysis in the dimension of the imaginary, treating everything and everyone as the Same. Over the course of analysis what emerges is an absolutely singular constellation of signifiers, specific to this subject and this subject alone as determinants of his unconscious (hence Lacan’s reference to
the subject being in a position to subject himself to this primary signifier).

Lacan goes so far as to suggest that the primary signifiers uncovered in analysis are pure non-sense. “…[T]he effect of interpretation is to isolate in the subject a kernel, a kern, to use Freud’s own term, of non-sense…” (Ibid: 250). If this primary signifier has the status of non-sense, then this is precisely because it is not common but particular to the subject and no other.

It is thus difficult to see how it is possible to get a politics out of the discourse of the analyst, for the discourse of the analyst does not aim at collective engagement or the common– which is necessary for politics –but the precise opposite.

Nonetheless, there is a kernal of truth in Žižek’s characterization of his own position in terms of the discourse of the analyst. Unlike the politics of the discourse of the master premised on the fantasy of imaginary organic totality, any revolutionary politics must speak not from the position of totality, but from the standpoint of the Real, of antagonism, of the remainder, or of that which the other social ties function to veil or hide from view.

In other words, revolutionary political engagement differs from the politics of the State and master in that it approaches the social from the perspective of the Real, treating this as the truth of social formations.

As Žižek remarks, All ‘culture’ is in a way a reaction-formation, an attempt to limit, canalize — to cultivate this imbalance, this traumatic kernel, this radical antagonism through which man cuts his umbilical cord with nature, with animal homeostasis.

It is not only that the aim is no longer to abolish this drive antagonism, but the aspiration to abolish it is precisely the source of totalitarian temptation: the greatest mass murders and holocausts have always been perpetrated in the name of man as harmonious being, of a New Man without antagonistic tension (Žižek 1989: 5).

Where the politics of the master treats this imbalance or traumatic kernel of radical antagonism as an accident to be eradicated and overcome, the critical-revolutionary politics treats the tension as the truth that allows a whole set of social symptoms to be discerned and engaged.

For example, Marx does not treat discontent among the proletariat as an anomalous deviation disrupting the social to be summarily dismissed, but rather as the key to the systematic organization of capitalism and the perspective from which capitalist production is to be understood, and as the potential for revolutionary transformation.

The mark of any critical-revolutionary political theory will thus be that objet a, the remainder, the gap, the traumatic kernel, occupies the position of the agent in the social relation.

bryant discourse biopower immaterial labour negri hardt

Bryant, Levi R. “Žižek’s New Universe of Discourse: Politics and the Discourse of the Capitalist” International Journal of Žižek Studies (Vol 2, no. 4) 1-48.

Discourse of Bio-Power

S1 –> $
a S2

Since no signifier is ever adequate to the subject, any knowledge that strives to situate and fix the subject is doomed to fail. Every signifier that purports to name or fix the subject slides off of it like water on the back of a duck. 34

As a consequence, the knowledge and institutions produced in the discourse of bio-power always prove inadequate. Just as the hysteric always develops new tricks for challenging the master in the clinic, something about the subject perpetually escapes precisely because the subject is a failure of language. It is for this reason that the lower level of the discourse of bio-power is characterized by impotence. The knowledge and institutions produced in this discourse forever miss the remainder or surplus embodied in objet awhich drives the subject. Put otherwise, the discourse of bio-power fails because the subject is already dead; which is to say that the subject is governed by the death drive, in excess of any homeostatic mechanisms characteristic of life.

As described by Negri and Hardt, immaterial labor has come to replace industrial labor, now dominating the social field.

In the final decades of the twentieth century, industrial labor lost its hegemony and in its stead emerged “immaterial labor,” that is, labor that create immaterial products, such as knowledge, information, communication, a relationship, or an emotional response. Conventional terms such as service work, intellectual labor, and cognitive labor all refer to aspects of immaterial labor, but none of them captures its generality.

As an initial approach, one can conceive immaterial labor in two principle forms. The first form refers to labor that is primarily intellectual or linguistic, such as problem solving, symbolic and analytic tasks, and linguistic expressions. This kind of immaterial labor produces ideas, symbols, codes, texts, linguistic figures, images, and other such products.

We call the other principle form of immaterial labor “affective labor.” Unlike emotions, which are mental phenomena, affects refer equally to body and mind. In fact, affects, such as joy and sadness, reveal the present state of life in the entire organism, expressing a certain state of the body along with a certain mode of thinking. Affective labor, then, is labor that produces or manipulates affects such as a feeling of ease, well-being, satisfaction, excitement, or passion (Negri and Hardt 2004: 108). 30

Bartleby Politics

Parallax View

frog embracing bottle of beer

‘objectively subjective’ underlying fantasy which the two subjects are never able to assume

A certain excess which was, as it were, kept under check in previous history, perceived as a local perversion, a limited deviation, is in capitalism elevated into the very principle of social life, in the speculative movement of money begetting more money, of a system which can survive only by constantly revolutionizing its own conditions — that is to say, in whichthe thing can survive only as its own excess, constantly exceeding its own “normal” constraints. 297

The Analyst Discourse and the emergence of revolutionary-emancipatory subjectivity

revolutionary agent a addresses the subject from the position of knowledge which occupies the place of truth (that is, which intervenes at the “symptomal torsion” of the subject’s constellation), and the goal is to isolate, get rid of, the Master-Signifier which structured the subject’s (ideologico-political) unconscious.

Jacques-Alain Miller: Our civilization fits the discourse of the Analyst. the “agent” is a surplus enjoyment, the superego injunction to enjoy, addresses (the divided subject) who is put to work in order to live up to this injunction. If ever there was a superego injunction, it is the famous Oriental wisdom, “Don’t think, just do it.” The “truth” of this social link is S2, scientific-expert knowledge in its different guises, and the goal is to generate S1, the self-mastery of the subject — that is to enable the subject to “cope with” the stress of the call to enjoyment (through self-help manuals and so on)…

Žižek replies:

imbalance between Ego and jouissance, imbalance between pleasure and foreign body of jouissance, pose a threat to the possession of the objet

Paul Verhaeghe

Verhaeghe, Paul. Does the Woman Exist? from Freud’s Hysteric to Lacan’s Feminine Trans. by Marc du Ry (1997, 1999) pp. 114-115.

The Discourse of the Analyst

Within the structural framework of the four discourses, the discourse of the analyst is the exact opposite of that of the master and is the last in the series of permutations or revolutions. This does not necessarily imply that it brings a solution to the latter; the etymological meaning of revolution is after all a return to the point of departure. The product of analytic discourse is the master signifier S1, which means that it brings us back to the starting point, the discourse of the master. This is the danger inherent in the discourse of the analyst which is all too often realised. The general structure is as follows.

In the place of the agent we find objet a, the cause of desire. It is this lost object which grounds the listening position of the analyst; it obliges the other to take his own divided being into account. That is why we find the divided subject in the position of the other: a —> $.

This relationship between agent and other is impossible because it turns the analyst into the cause of desire of the other, eliminating him as a subject and reducing him to the mere residue, the waste of the signifying chain.

That is one of the reasons why Lacan stated that it is impossible to be an analyst. The only thing you can do is to function as such for somebody for a limited period of time. This impossible relationship from a to divided subject is the basis for the development of the transference, through which the subject will be able to circumscribe his object. This is one of the goals of an analysis. It is what Lacan has called “la traversee du fantasme,” the crossing of the fundamental fantasy. Normally — that is, following the discourse of the master who sets the norm — this relationship is unconscious and partakes of the disjunction of impotence: $ // a. The discourse of the analyst, as the inverse of that of the master, brings this relationship to the forefront in an inverted form: a —> $. From impotence it goes to impossibility, with the difference that it is an impossibility whose effects can be explored: qui ne cesse pas de ne pas s’écrire.” The product of this discourse is the master signifier or, in Freudian terms, the Oedipal determinant particular to that subject. It is the function of the analyst to bring the subject to that point, albeit in a paradoxical way: the analytical position functions by means of a non-functioning of the analyst as subject, which reduces him to the position of object. That is why the end result of analytic discourse is radical difference: in the world of make-believe, “le monde du semblant,” we are all narcissistically alike, but beyond this world we are all fundamentally different. Analytic discourse yields a singular subject, constructing and deconstructing itself throughout the process of analysis; the other party is nothing but a stepping stone. This reminds me of several folk tales and fairy tales in which the beloved, the object of desire, can no longer speak for one reason or another; in this situation the hero has to create a solution in which he is essentially confronted with his own being, a being which was unknown to him before.

The position of knowledge is remarkable in this discourse. One of the major twists in Freud’s theory and practice concerned precisely this; the way an analyst makes use of his knowledge. This way, indicated by the discourse of the analyst, is a paradoxical way; knowledge functions in the position of the truth, but — as the place of the agent is taken by object a this knowledge cannot be brought into the analysis.

The analyst knows, oh yes, he does know, but he cannot do much with it as long as he takes up the position of analyst. That is why this knowledge can be termed a Docta Ignorantia, a “learned ignorance,” as Nicholas of Cusa called it in the Fifteenth century. The analyst has wisely learned not to know, and in so doing he opens up a way for another to gain access to what determined his or her subjectivity.

The product of the discourse of the analyst is an S1 a master signifier. The revelation of this signifier, which determines the vicissitudes of the analysand, is meant to annihilate its effects. It is strange, says Lacan, that the discourse most opposed to that of the master yields a product which is precisely the basis of the master discourse itself. Obviously, this has to take place in a completely different style: “II doit se trouver a l’ oppose de toute volonte au moins avouee de maitrise,” the analyst has to function at the opposite pole from any conscious desire for mastery. This is a structural expression of what is peculiar to the analytic position, even though it is all too often precisely on this point that the analyst fails …

The particularity of the discourse of the analyst resides not only in the avoidance of the classical hysterical solution — the introduction and removal of a master figure — but also in a structural working through of its necessary failure. The effectiveness of the discourse of the analyst is twofold. On the one hand, it forces the patient in the direction of the discourse of the hysteric: the answer to a —> $ can only result in $ —>S1 which obliges the patient to subjectivise, to come to terms with the hidden truth of his symptom. Instead of offering his problems to someone else to solve, the patient is confronted with a permutation through which he has to see himself as the centre of the problem. In this way, it is possible for the analysand to come to the truth of his symptom, by exploring his fundamental fantasy. On the other hand, in the discourse of the analyst, the impossibility at the heart of hysterical structure shows up very explicitly as the impossibility of setting up and simultaneously refusing the master. Between S2 // S1 in the discourse of the analyst there is a barrier on jouissance: one has to choose, the two together are impossible.

This is where one can experience the dialectical value of this formalisation of discourse: based on the reactions of the analysand to an interpretation, the analyst knows quite quickly which position is ascribed to him. If he is situated on the axis S1 —> S2 then he will be taken up in the hysterical series: $ —> S1 —> S2

Only the analytical sequence is able to deliver the truth of the symptom:

a —> $ —> S1.

This is on condition that it does not topple over into the “envers,” its other side: the discourse of the master. Insofar as this toppling does happen, it always ends up as a diluted form of the master discourse, namely, the discourse of the university. (114-115)

Discourse of Hysteric

The questions put to the master are basically the same: “Tell me who I am, tell me what I want.” Although this master can be found in different places — it could be a priest, a doctor, a scientist, an analyst, even a husband — there is always one common factor: the master is supposed to know, he is supposed to know and to produce the answer. That is why we find knowledge, S2, in the position of product. Typically, this answer always misses the point. S2 as general knowledge is impotent in producing a particular answer to the particular driving force of objet a in the place of truth: a//S2. This inevitably results in a never ending battle between the hysterical subject and the particular master on duty. …

Structurally, the discourse of the hysteric results in alienation for the hysterical subject and in castration for the master. The answer given by the master will always miss the point, because the true answer concerns objet a, the object which is forever lost and cannot be put into words. The standard reaction to this failure is to produce even more signifiers but they only lead one further and further from the lost object in the position of truth. This impossibility causes the failure of the master, and entails his symbolic castration. Meanwhile, the master, in the position of the other as S1, has produced an ever increasing body of S2, of knowledge. It is this very knowledge that the hysterical subject experiences as profoundly alienating: as an answer to her particular question she receives a general theory, …. Whether or not she complies with it, whether or not she identifies herself with it, is besides the point. In every case, the answer will be felt as alienating. Knowledge as a product is unable to say anything important about objet a in the place of truth: a//S2 (Verhaeghe, Does the Woman 110).

[The master’s] truth is that he is also castrated, divided and subject to the Law. The paradox is that in striving to attain jouissance, the only thing he can produce is a knowledge which always falls short and which automatically makes him fail as a master. Indeed, if he wants to display his knowledge he has to speak, but the moment he does, he reveals his division. the only way for a master to say master is to keep away from the game of desire.
[…] Only he who does not desire is not submitted to castration, remains undivided and can occupy the position of master. … The idealised father of the hysteric is the dead father, the one who, freed from all desire, is no longer subjected to the fundamental lack and can produce in his own name, S1, a knowledge, S2, concerning jouissance. Verhaeghe 112

Discourse of University (Verhaeghe, Does the Woman 116-117)

In the discourse of the university, the master functions as a formal guarantee for knowledge, thereby denying the ever-problematic division of the one who knows. In the end, this denial will be a failure. It is this knowledge that takes up the position of agent in the discourse of the university. If we turn the terms in the discourse of the master back a quarter, we obtain the discourse of the university as a regression of the discourse of the master, and as the inverse of the discourse of the hysteric. The agent is a ready-made knowlege, whereas the other is reduced to mere object, cause of desire: S2 –>a

The history of psychoanalysis illustrates this aim of the discourse of the university: Freud is reduced to a merer guarantee of a closed and well-established knowledge. The problematic aspect of his work is put aside, only his name remains as the master signifier necessary for the guarantee: “Made in …” The unifying aspect of this S1 already shows itself in the fact that post-Freudianism reduced Freud to a massive whole, a monolith without any internal dynamic. Certainly, the ‘evolution’ in his work was recognised, but only in the sense of a cumulative progression, which began before Freud (‘dynamic’ psychiatry), and resulted after him in the pinnacle known as Ego psychology …

This knowledge is presented as an organised and transparent unity which can be applied straight from the textbook. the hidden truth is that it can only function if one can guarantee it with a master-signifier.

In the position of the other, we find the lost object, the cause of desire. The relationship between this object and the signifying chain is structurally impossible: the object is precisely that element, Das Ding, which is beyond the signifier. As a result, the product of this discourse is a growing division of the subjuct: the more knowledge one uses to reach the object, the more one becomes divided between signifiers, and the further one moves away from home, that is, from the true cause of desire: S2–>a.

The product of this discourse demonstrates its failure since the result is nothing but the divided subject $. This is a consequence of the impossible relationship between S2 –>a. Knowledge does not yield jouissance, only a subject divided by a knowledge expressed in signifiers. This subject, $, can never be identified with an S1 because it would require a state of non-division. Between truth and product, the disjunction of impotence insists: S1//$.

Moreover, there is no relationship between the subject and the master-signifier in this discourse; the master is supposed to secrete signifiers without there being any relationship with his own subjectivity: S1//$. This illusion is behind the ‘objectivity’ required in classical science.

lack in the other

Tutt, Daniel. The Object of Proximity: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis in Žižek and Santner via Lacan. American University Also available here danielp.tutt(at)gmail.com

For Lacan, symbolic identity inhabits an empty place, or the “point de capiton,” which occurs when the subject functions as a signifier embodying a function beyond its own concreteness. The subject is emptied of its particular signification in point de capiton, in order to represent fullness in general. Point de capiton operates in national, religious, political, or ethnic signifiers such as “the nation” or “communism” or even religious identity groupings such as “Christian” or “Muslim,” yet they function as pure negativity, and represent what has to be excluded or negated.

As Yannis Stavrakakis points out in the Lacanian Left, the Name of the Father functions as an insertion into point de capiton, as an operation tied to power relations in late capitalism. Lacan’s Seminar on the Four Discourses introduces the “university discourse” as arising in the wake of the chaotic revolutionary protests of May 1968 in France, and across Europe. The university discourse is a mode of discourse that incorporates scientific discourse to legitimize relations of power. The subject in university discourse becomes equivalent with the social totality, and is situated in the particular historical and late capitalist symbolic space, where the movement occurs, mainly apart from the Master’s discourse, and into university discourse.

An excellent example that reveals the procedure of Name of the Father filing in the point de capiton into empty symbolic identity are the popular “culture jamming” Yes Men. The Yes Men are a group of activists who inhabit false symbolic authority by assuming the identity of powerful businessmen, activists, and politicians. They deliver totally ludicrous presentations that are in actuality totally empty of legitimate content. What they have discovered through these presentations to power holders is that their audiences end up listening attentively to their presentations, and more importantly, they end up taking their statements for total fact without question and most often end up agreeing with their absurd findings.

What this indicates more than anything is that symbolic identity construction functions as an empty gesture of symbolic power supported by a fantasmatic supplement, and both unite to form reality. What the Yes Men and the case of Schreber both indicate is that the commands of identity, deployed from the level of fantasy will always be filled up as an empty vessel. The “crisis of investiture” for both Schreber and the Yes Men occur when “the kernel of invasiveness of too much reality” functions on the side of symbolic identity as an empty space that can be filled in with an inherent negativity. This crisis of identity problematizes attempts to adequately symbolize oneself in everyday reality. 🙂 His use of Yes Men here is confusing.

Lack and Desire in the real

In the Ethics of Psychoanalysis, the mediating force of the Other is desire. Desire is posited as universal, “all desire is desire of the Other,” since all desire is structured around a missing jouissance, around a lack; it is important to understand the way that lack of the Other structures symbolic identities.

Lack … is always introduced through an act of exclusion, an exclusion in part responsible for the fundamental disequilibrium between integrating the Other into the symbolic realm, yet we find that there is something that does fill in the symbolic: fantasy

The imposition of fantasy arises precisely when the desire for filling in, or covering over lack arises. On a structural level, fantasy stimulates and promises to cover over the lack in the Other created by the loss of jouissance.

Since fantasy is also an effect of symbolic castration, it is also a defense mechanism against the fear of symbolic castration. Symbolic castration is defined by Lacan as, “a symbolic lack of an imaginary object,” and symbolic castration is the subject’s first perception of the Other, as not complete, but lacking.

Lacan argues that the subject can only maintain psychic normality by accepting this inherent lack of the other; hence symbolic castration plays a normalizing effect on the subject.

Fantasy then becomes crucial to understanding the role of the “I-Other” relationship and to determining how the Other serves as a support that fills in the void for the lack in the Other, in the realm of the symbolic. The illusory nature of fantasyserves as the central support for the desire to identify, which is inherently impossible in the real, as discussed above.

The Other of fantasy takes on the role of an object, or das Ding to sustains desire itself, and since the Other appears as a remainder, the Other is in an almost mythological status to the subject. The Other promises to provide what the subject lacks and thus unify both as subjects.

The other takes on the role of the object that can potentially unify both the split psyche (of the subject) and of unifying the split social field itself.

analyst’s discourse

Schroeder, Jeanne L. The Four Lacanian Discourses or Turning Law Inside-Out. New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2008.

Discourse of the Analyst

The analyst, … takes on the role of the objet petite a itself. “[T]he agent (analyst) reduces himself to the void that provokes the subject into confronting the truth of his desire.” [Žižek Lacan’s Four Discourses]

This is significantly different from the two discourses of power. Both the master and university address the other with the voice of positivity. The master speaks from the position of authority telling you what to do. The university speaks from the position of expertise lecturing you why you should do it.

The analyst and the hysteric, in contrast, speak from radical negativity. In the analyst’s discourse “the analyst plays the part of pure desirousness.” The analyst asks, “What do you want to do?” … Similarly the attorney in her role as counsellor must empty herself of her positive content to identify with her client’s needs. 108

By addressing the analysand from the position of the cause of the analysand’s own desire, she stands in for that which is missing. … Consequently, the analyst’s address consists largely of silence – through an absence of speech. The analysand speaks to fill in the gap represented by the analyst. 🙂 This is the most straight forward of explanations of the Analyst Discourse

When the analyst does speak, it is not in her own voice as master or teacher. She tries to articulate the analysand’s voice, helping him to articulate his desire – to dissolve the traumatic symptom lost in the real by integrating it into the symbolic. The other addressed by the object of desire is the barred subject himself. The analyst “”interrogates the subject in his or her division, precisely at those points where the split between consciousness and unconscious shows through.”

The truth hidden beneath the analyst is knowledge. Lacan calls the analyst “the subject supposed to know.” The analysand goes to the analyst because the analysand is a barred subject – he is traumatized, unhappy, and alienated. The analyst is the expert who is supposed to know what is wrong. The knowledge that is the truth underlying the objet petite a is neither savoir faire nor expertise. Rather, this hidden knowledge is the analysand’s own unconscious knowledge. The truth of the analysand’s desire is within himself. This is not to deny that the person who is a psychoanalyst also has savoir faire – she knows how to treat patients – and expertise—she is a highly educated professional. Nevertheless, these forms of knowledge are not the truth of analysis.

The result of analysis is the master signifier. But this time, it is not the master signifier imposed upon her by the Big Other (as in the master’s discourse) but his own “new master signifiers (S1), ultimate values, formulations of their identity or being.”

Four Discourses

Schroeder, Jeanne L. The Four Lacanian Discourses or Turning Law Inside-Out. New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2008.

The master’s and university’s discourses are masculine while the analyst’s and hysteric’s discourses are feminine. The masculine is the subject who is totally identified with the symbolic order of law, and the feminine is the subject who is not wholly so subject – who is to some extent excluded or alienated from the symbolic order.

“[T]here are no sexual relations.” Sexuality is an impossibility, a fundamental impasse that cannot be bridged in the symbolic order. The two sexes are not complements, like yin and yang, that can fit together to form a perfect whole. When combined, the sexes result not in a single whole, but a melange of fulsome overlaps and obscene gaps. This sounds depressing, but it has its positive side. If two people could really satisfy each other and join as one, they would lose their individuality and subjectivity. The individuation that remains despite our desire to merge allows us occasionally to achieve something much more valuable than any object of desire – love.

The critic, speaking the hysteric’s discourse, does not address the legal economist in his public persona as expert (S2). Rather she addresses the truth hidden below this pretense – power (S1). The legal economist, speaking the university discourse, does not address the subject subjected to law, but rather what he sees as the collective goals of society and the law. The hysteric cries, “Look what your law is doing to me!” The university replies, “The law has a purpose.” The university might be “correct” in his justification of the law in that societies do necessarily have collective purposes, positive laws are adopted instrumentally to achieve these purposes by affecting the behaviour – thereby restricting the freedom – of those subjected to the law, and this might conflict with the subjective desires of any specific subject. Nevertheless, the university’s reply is not an answer to the hysteric’s question arising out of the truth of her pain. It is equivalent to Ring Lardner’s immortal conversation ender, “Shut up,” he explained. It does not help her integrate within the symbolic order of law but further alienates her. 177

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Discourse of the Analyst

The goal of psychoanalysis, like speculative philosophy, is to help the subject actualize her freedom by writing her own ethical law. The analyst’s discourse addresses the barred subject and hystericizes her. It helps the analysand change from a masculine subject who believes he is completely bound by the symbolic order, to a feminine one who understands she partially escapes it. Analysis must then set the analysand free and allow her to speak. This creates the hysteric’s discourse. 106

If the master commands and university lectures, the analyst interrogates. Consequently, the analyst’s address consists largely of silence – through an absence of speech. The analysand speaks to fill in the gap represented by the analyst. When the analyst does speak, it is not in her own voice as master or teacher. She tries to articulate the analysand’s voice, helping him to articulate his desire – to dissolve the traumatic symptom lost in the real by integrating it into the symbolic.

The other addressed by the object of desire is the barred subject himself. The analyst “interrogates the subject in his or her division, precisely at those points where the split between consciousness and unconscious shows through.”

The knowledge that is the truth underlying the little a is neither savoir faire nor expertise. Rather, this hidden knowledge is the analysand’s own unconscious knowledge. The truth of the analysand’s desire is within himself. This is not to deny that the person who is a psychoanalyst also has savoir faire – she knows how to treat patients – and expertise – she is a highly educated professional. Nevertheless, these forms of knowledge are not the truth of analysis.

To hear the call of the hysteric, one must step out of the university discourse and back into the master’s discourse to which the hysteric discourse leads. To communicate with the hysteric, one must step out of the university’s discourse and forward into the analyst’s discourse. These two discourses [hysteric and university] are opposed to each other, in the way the two sexes are. … Communication between them must be mediated through the other two discourses. The idea that there can be a direct relationship between the two discourses is a fantasy in the technical sense of the term.

The master declares law, telling you what to do. The university justifies law, explaining why you should obey. The analyst interprets law, asking you what you want from it. The hysteric questions the law. “The hysterical subject is the subject whose very existence involves radical doubt and questioning, her entire being is sustained by the uncertainty as to what she is for the Other.” The hysteric’s question for the big Other is “What do you want from me?”

The other addressed in the hysteric’s discourse is the Big Other, what takes on the place of the master signifier. 149

Discourse of the Hysteric

The hysteric can learn several things through her discourse. First, mundanely, she can learn what the Other wants from her – what she needs to do or say to fit better into the symbolic. It is, however, a fundamental Lacanian point that a perfect fit is never possible – every normal subject remains split and castrated. Consequently, and more critically, the hysteric can learn what is lacking in the symbolic – to identify its flaws and decide whether to cope or seek to change them.

This can lead to the final stage of knowledge – the knowledge that the Big Other does not exist. The reason the Big Other can never truly answer the hysteric`s questions; “What do you want?” is explained by its alternate version as the accusation, “You are wanting!” The Big Other – the symbolic—is not a pre-existing “thing.” It is a human creation, a work in process.

The subject learns, in effect, that only the subject herself can answer the question of how to follow her own desire and how to change the Big Other better to accomplish this. In this discourse, once again, there is no direct relationship, under the bar, between the subject’s desire as the discourse’s truth and subject’s knowledge that is the discourse’s product. This is because this knowledge is precisely that the Big Other does not hold the truth of the subject’s desire. It is the hysteric’s discourse that allows this indirect relationship to come about. This ultimate knowledge the subject seeks is the answer to the question, what is the ethical law? The answer was given by Kant: every subject must self-legislate her own law. 150

The Other is not merely incomplete, but necessarily so. This knowledge can lead to two results. The first id depression and impotence. The Lacanian feminine is the sadder but wiser sex. Why should the hysteric try, when the task of completing the Other is doomed to failure? How can the hysteric face the fact that she is partially responsible for the imperfection (and resulting violence and injustice) of the social order she cannot cure?

Alternately, this knowledge gives the hysteric the courage to go on. The feminine subject is not just sadder, but wiser. Once one rejects the impossible goal of making the Other perfect, the hysteric’s profession of building the Other becomes possible. The fact that the Other is not natural means that it is a work of art – an artefact. The fact that it is not complete means that it is a work in progress. The hysteric can express her creative freedom by furthering its progress. The hysteric can harbour the hope that she can at least partially expiate her guilt for participating in the injustice of the status quo. She knows that she cannot create perfect justice but she might be able to right specific wrongs. 151

In the hysteric’s discourse, as in “real life,” unrequited desire can in a snap of the fingers change to fury. By asking “What do you want?”, “What do you desire?” the hysteric comes to realize that the Big Other wants and desires. This means it must be wanting. The Big Other (the symbolic, the law) is not complete and totalizing as it, the masculine subject and the power discourses insist. In other words, first the hysteric addresses the Other because she lacks. The feminine hysteric learns that her love, the Big Other, does not exist. And she cannot forgive his betrayal.

Consequently, the hysteric’s question “What do you want? What do I lack?” becomes the accusation “You are wanting!” “How must I change to accommodate you?” is now “You must change to accommodate me!” The hysteric’s discourse is that of the true critique. It opens up, not revolution or the impossible search for perfection, but the possibility of imperfect reform. 154

Once the hysteric realizes not only that the Big Other as it (non)exists is not inevitable and understands her role in creating and sustaining that Big Other, she is in a position of challenging and seeking to change the Big Other … she cannot, of course, destroy the Big Other without destroying herself. Her subjectivity – her very ability to speak – depends on the existence of a symbolic of language, law, and sexuality. … Accordingly, the hysteric is not seeking to do away with the law, but to be let inside.

In Bracher’s words:

It is only with the discourse of the Analyst that the subject is in a position to assume its own alienation and desire and , on the basis of that assumption, separate from the given master signifiers and produce its own, new master signifiers – identity and values less antithetical to its fundamental fantasy and the desires arising from that fantasy. [Bracher, eds. Lacanian Theory of Discourse: Subject Structure and Society 1994]

Lacan once taunted the Parisian student radicals, who were acting as hysterics, “What you aspire to as revolutionaries is a master. You will get one.” He is correct.

Although the hysteric challenges the status quo of positive law, by establishing a new rule of law, she establishes a new master’s discourse. Legal practice is always conservative by definition because it cannot be anarchic. By Lacan’s terms, to address an issue within the framework of law is to accept law to some extent. 155

If psychoanalysis hystericizes the analysand, the hysteric must be given the opportunity to speak in her own voice. Consequently, once analysis is complete, it can only be given effect through the hysteric discourse.

Lacan admits that governing, teaching, and psychoanalyzing are impossible professions. The only discourse that Lacan does not identify as impossible is the hysteric’s. Unlike the master’s discourse that seeks pure power, the university’s discourse that seeks pure knowledge, and the analyst’s discourse that seeks pure desire, the hysteric understands that purity is impossible. She claims to be precisely what she is – castrated – or to put this within a feminine metaphor, impure.

The hysteric’s discourse is the discourse of possibility because it embraces imperfection. I stated that the representation of clients speaks the hysteric’s discourse. As such, legal practice is the one possible profession. It is possible precisely because its goals are always necessarily limited, its results always necessarily imperfect compromises. Insofar as it is ever successful, it is because it accepts some degree of failure as inevitable.

The fact that justice is always a work in progress is itself the possibility of freedom. If justice were ever achieved, the world would be inscribed within a perfect legal system with all cases within Hart’s core. All subjects would be “men” perfectly circumscribed within the symbolic order – Kant’s automatons. But Hegel and Lacan take Kant to his logical extreme and insist that freedom requires a moment of pure spontaneity unrestrained by all bounds. This is the radical negativity that Hegel believed constituted the heart and soul of personality. This is the feminine.

Law and Lacan

Schroeder, Jeanne Lorraine. The Four Lacanian Discourses or Turning Law Inside-Out. New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2008.

Hegel favors the term Aufhebung because it paradoxically means both negation and preservation. Hegel is, indeed, a totalizing philosopher buthis totality is incomplete — there is a radical negativity at the heart of the totality. the whole is built around a hole.

the imaginary is an attempt to suppress the true nature of the symbolic and the real. Fantasy is defined as the imaginary proposition that the barred subject actually achieves a relationship with the object cause of her desire.

If I say that “Dick and Jane were exposed, when they were young children and in a repeated manner, to …” the listener does not know how to understand “exposed” until I finish the sentence with “harmful radiation,” “foreign languages,” or even “their uncle the exhibitionist” … The end of the sentence determines how the listener understands or “rereads” the beginning of the sentence; the end of the sentence fixes the meaning(s), putting an end to the sliding (without necessarily reducing multiple meanings to one single meaning) “At a young age, the children were exposed to …” (Bruce Fink, Reading Êcrits Closely 90, cited in Schroeder 136)