{"id":10918,"date":"2013-04-27T14:01:37","date_gmt":"2013-04-27T19:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=10918"},"modified":"2013-04-29T09:29:19","modified_gmt":"2013-04-29T14:29:19","slug":"10918","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2013\/04\/27\/10918\/","title":{"rendered":"johnston desire ethics Kant Antigone seminar VII"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnston, Adrian. “The Vicious Circle of the Super-Ego: The Pathological Trap of Guilt and the Beginning of Ethics.” Psychoanalytic Studies.<\/em> 3.3\/4 (2001): 411-424.<\/p>\n

\ud83d\ude42 In this article Johnston takes on Lacan’s \u201cDo not give way on your desire!\u201d<\/span> What does this mean? It does not mean, \u201cdo not give way on your jouissance!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

AJ starts with Nietzsche. Why? Because Nietzsche is totally against Kant.<\/p>\n

In the standard version of the Kantian<\/span> schema, the subject\u2019s intentions are most ethical when they are least tied to the particularity of the individual (i.e., his\/her inclinations, desires, wishes, circumstances, etc.).<\/p>\n

The categorical imperative<\/span> (\u201cI am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my maxim should become a universal law\u201d<\/strong>) functions as a kind of \u2018sieve\u2019 meant to strain out, as much as possible, these pathological materials tainting the intentional purity of duty.<\/p>\n

Conversely, the injunction of the eternal return<\/span>\u2014perhaps this injunction is capable of being rendered in the imperative form as \u201cI am never to act otherwise than so that I could also will that my concrete, unique , and utterly individual act should be \u2018universalized\u2019, namely, should endlessly recur for all eternity \u201d\u2014demands exactly the opposite of the categorical imperative.<\/span><\/p>\n

In a Nietzschean \u2018system of valuation\u2019, rather than being the basest, most unworthy of intentional states , the particular, idiosyncratic desires of the individual subject are the highest standards by which to measure actions<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Only if an action expresses the strongest of subjective urges, urges so strong that the subject would will them to infinitely manifest themselves again and again in all their singular uniqueness, is it of any worth.\u00a0 412<\/p>\n

Most reading s of the Lacanian dictum \u201cDo not give way on your desire!\u201d<\/strong> understand him to be proposing something similar to Nietzsche: (pure) desire is conceived of as jouissance<\/span>, as the uncompromising , unconditional thrust of Trieb once operative outside the confining consequentialist calculus of the pleasure principle.<\/p>\n

The subjective particularity of pure desire is ethical precisely when its strength overwhelms the mitigating influence of the pleasure-oriented ego.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Various commentaries on the seventh seminar point to the tragic \u008efigure of Antigone<\/span> as proof that this is exactly what Lacan intends to convey. Antigone’s<\/span> passionate attachment to her dead brother Polyneices drives her to transgress Creon\u2019s edict forbidding the burial of the corpse. Her excessive \u2018love\u2019 is then compared with the Todestrieb<\/em><\/strong>, since Antigone<\/span> is compelled to disregard the tragic consequences that she is fully aware await her in the wake of her act.<\/p>\n

A Real passage \u00e1 l\u2019acte<\/em> <\/strong>(i.e., Antigone’s<\/span> burial of her brother as a result of her desire) transgressively disrupts the reign of a Symbolic system of Law (i.e., Creon\u2019s denial of funerary rites for Polyneices on the grounds of the interests of the polis).<\/p>\n

Is this the distilled essence of Lacan\u2019s \u2018ethics of psychoanalysis?\u2019<\/span> Is he, like Nietzsche, simply interested in turning Kant on his head, in unreservedly transforming Kant into Sade?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lacan explicitly states that desire arises from the sacrifice of jouissance<\/span>: <span style=”font-weight: bold; font-size: 11pt;”>not ceding on one\u2019s desire<\/span> would seem to entail not surrendering to the siren-song of jouissance<\/span>, not capitulating to the uncompromising demands of Trieb.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lacan describes desire as opposing jouissance<\/span>\u2014\u201cdesire is a defense, a prohibition against going beyond a certain limit in jouissance<\/span>\u201d 413<\/p>\n

Lacan means, then \u201cnot giving ground on desire\u201d is a translation of Kant\u2019s insistence on the exclusion of pathological drives from properly ethical intentionality, with the psychoanalytic quali\u008efication that the detachment from these drives is itself achieved through and sustained by a subl(im)ation of inclination, a \u2018self-subversion\u2019 of Trieb. 413<\/p>\n

Lacanian Desire<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the easiest ways to gain a preliminary understanding of Lacanian desire<\/span> is by returning to the Freudian concepts of Trieb<\/span> and sublimation<\/span>. For Freud, sublimation<\/span> is the typical means by which Trieb<\/span> adapts itself to the constraints and obstacles it comes to encounter at the level of the reality principle. Reality forbids certain drive-aims qua<\/em> the attainment of satisfaction linked to determinate drive-objects. Thus, reality is said to be responsible for what Freud designates as \u2018aim-inhibition \u2019 (a catalyst for sublimation).<\/p>\n

The aim-inhibited drive then seeks other forms of satisfaction via different objects; and, if these alternate modes of securing grati\u008ecation are not at odd s with the various prohibitions of the reality principle (usually, socio-cultural laws and norms), then the new libidinal arrangement is dubbed a successful sublimation of the drive<\/strong> .<\/p>\n

Furthermore in Civilization and Its Discontents<\/em>, he argues that \u2018instinctual renunciation\u2019 (i.e., the aim-inhibition of the drives demanded by human reality) is, despite appearances to the contrary, an unavoidable libidinal fate for all subjects.<\/p>\n

As such, the Freudian subject lives in a state of unsatisfactory compromise<\/strong>: sublimation<\/span> provides pleasurable outlets for Trieb<\/span>, but Trieb<\/span> itself is incapable of ever being fully satisfied with these compromises<\/strong>, since they are, by the very definition of the mechanism of sublimation<\/span>, deviations from the original cathetic trajectory (i.e., the \u2018earliest state of affairs\u2019 which all drives struggle in vain to recover; in the seventh seminar, Lacan designates this posited \u2018ground zero\u2019 of the libidinal economy das Ding<\/span>). The libidinal life<\/strong> of the human being is therefore marked by certain constitutive \u2018lacks\u2019 <\/span>or \u2018absences\u2019\u2014as Lacan puts it, the \u2018sovereign Good\u2019 of das Ding<\/span> is always missing from the reality of subjective \u2018ex-sistence\u2019 \u2014 and this condition of (non-)existence is precisely what Lacan intends for his notion of \u2018desire\u2019 to designate.<\/strong>\u00a0 413<\/p>\n

Desire<\/span> is the residual remainder\/by-product of the subjection of<\/strong> jouissance<\/span> (i.e., Trieb an sich<\/em><\/strong>, the unconditional attachment to<\/strong> das Ding<\/span>) to the ego-mediated negotiations between the pleasure and reality principles. 414<\/p>\n

In other words, desire<\/span> is symptomatic of the drives\u2019 dissatisfaction with the pleasure-yielding compromises of<\/strong> sublimation<\/span>. 414<\/p>\n

Lacan\u2019s seventh seminar<\/strong> contains two separate lines of argumentation:<\/p>\n

1. Lacan seeks to clarify and further develop Freud\u2019s analyses of conscience as a manifestation of a pathological \u2018moral masochism\u2019 fueled by an insatiable super-ego;<\/p>\n

2. Lacan lays down the preliminary groundwork for a psychoanalytic meta-ethical theory based on the possibility of desire<\/span> coming to function in a \u2018pure\u2019, properly ethical fashion.<\/p>\n

These two dimensions of Lacan\u2019s so-called \u2018ethics of psychoanalysis\u2019<\/span> must not be conflated, since doing so results in either muddleheaded confusion or outright error.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To be continued …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnston, Adrian. “The Vicious Circle of the Super-Ego: The Pathological Trap of Guilt and the Beginning of Ethics.” Psychoanalytic Studies. 3.3\/4 (2001): 411-424. \ud83d\ude42 In this article Johnston takes on Lacan’s \u201cDo not give way on your desire!\u201d What does this mean? It does not mean, \u201cdo not give way on your jouissance!\u201d AJ starts … Continue reading “johnston desire ethics Kant Antigone seminar VII”<\/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":[111,125,79,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-desire","category-drive","category-ethics_real","category-lacan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10918","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=10918"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10941,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10918\/revisions\/10941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}