{"id":10108,"date":"2012-12-11T14:33:09","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T19:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=10108"},"modified":"2012-12-11T15:02:21","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T20:02:21","slug":"death-drive-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2012\/12\/11\/death-drive-2\/","title":{"rendered":"death drive desire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Karlsen The Grace of Materialism Theology with Alain Badiou and Slavoj \u017di\u017eek. <\/em> K\u00f8benhavns Universitet 2010<\/p>\n

It is this thrust to go (on) beyond biological life (and death) that \u017di\u017eek (PV 62) identifies with human immortality: \u201cThe paradox of the Freudian “death drive”<\/span> is therefore that it is Freud\u2019s name for its very opposite, for the way immortality appears within psychoanalysis, for an uncanny excess of life, for an \u2018undead\u2019 urge which persists beyond the (biological) cycle of life and death, of generation and corruption.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Thus, in the most basic sense, what the strange assertion of immortality of man frequently advanced by \u017di\u017eek in his more recent work refers to is this unnatural urge to live life in an excessive way beyond biological self-preservation, \u2018beyond the pleasure principle\u2019, towards something which cannot be reduced to mere biological life.<\/span> 199<\/p>\n

Thus, paradoxically, in \u017di\u017eek\u2019s view the automatism of the death drive<\/span> does not designate an additional kind of natural function determining the cause of man, rather it designates a dimension of autonomy in man that since Descartes has been associated with the term \u2018subject\u2019<\/strong>. 199<\/p>\n

In his discussion in The Ticklish Subject<\/em> of the transition from nature to culture, \u017di\u017eek (TTS 37) underlines … the role of the law (culture) is, in service of the \u2018pleasure principle\u2019, to pacify, not man\u2019s natural instincts, but \u201c[\u2026] his excessive love for freedom,<\/span> his natural \u2018unruliness\u2019, which goes far beyond obeying animal instinct [\u2026]\u201d, or in short, the death drive<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The law<\/span> does this by prohibiting the object to which the drive is excessively attached<\/strong>, which forces open the closed loop of the drive<\/span>, replacing the continuous circulation around one object with a successive movement from one substitute object to another<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Another way to put it is that the law’s<\/span> prohibition of the object introduces a lack which constitutes what Lacan terms the<\/strong> metonymy of desire<\/span>; that is, the infinite sliding from one substitute object to another, driven by the loss of the original object, which is in fact nothing but is own lack.<\/p>\n

Desire<\/span>, as the endless transgressing thrust toward the ‘Thing’<\/span> (Lacan\u2019s term for the lost\/forbidden object of desire<\/span>), is therefore not prior to the law<\/strong>, but, as Paul already knew, instituted by<\/strong> the law itself<\/span> (HTRL 42; Evans 2010, 99).<\/p>\n

The law is thus not aimed at regulating man\u2019s<\/span> desire<\/span>, rather<\/strong> desire<\/span> is a product of the law\u2019s attempt to regulate the drives and thus in a certain sense part of this regulation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The metonymy of desire<\/span> is furthermore sustained by the fantasy fostered by the law<\/span> that the ‘Thing’<\/span> is not really impossible (nothing but lack), but merely forbidden, and that it therefore at some point will be possible to obtain it; or in short, the fantasy that desire<\/span> might actually be satisfied. But, as \u017di\u017eek (AF 80) underlines: \u201cdesire<\/span> is [\u2026] always and by definition unsatisfied, metonymical<\/span>, shifting from one object to another, since I do not actually desire<\/span> what I want.<\/p>\n

What I actually desire <\/span>is to sustain<\/strong> desire<\/span> itself, to postpone the dreaded moment of its satisfaction<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Karlsen The Grace of Materialism Theology with Alain Badiou and Slavoj \u017di\u017eek. K\u00f8benhavns Universitet 2010 It is this thrust to go (on) beyond biological life (and death) that \u017di\u017eek (PV 62) identifies with human immortality: \u201cThe paradox of the Freudian “death drive” is therefore that it is Freud\u2019s name for its very opposite, for … Continue reading “death drive desire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,125,142,76,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-desire","category-drive","category-nightworld","category-sub-destitute","category-subjectivity","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10108"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10110,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10108\/revisions\/10110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}