{"id":11352,"date":"2013-06-23T07:33:44","date_gmt":"2013-06-23T12:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=11352"},"modified":"2013-06-23T07:42:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-23T12:42:00","slug":"subject-as-negativity-two-intersecting-lacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2013\/06\/23\/subject-as-negativity-two-intersecting-lacks\/","title":{"rendered":"subject-as-negativity two intersecting lacks"},"content":{"rendered":"

What if the negativity of Cartesian-Kantian-Hegelian subjectivity (as the monstrous cogito, the horrible void of the Thing, and the terrifying abyss of nocturnal dismemberment) is a symptomatic ideality-as-idealization derived from and conditioned by a contingent yet a priori material foundation<\/strong> (what, in psychoanalysis, would be designated as a violent “reaction-formation”) ?<\/p>\n

Is the subject-as-negativity<\/strong> a response to its corporeal Grund<\/em> (ground), to a primordially chaotic and discordant Real<\/span> that produces its own negation immanently out of itself? Are Zizek’s otherwise inexplicably odd choices of adjectives here indicative of such a link, of a thinly concealed umbilical cord tethering the (pseudo)immateriality of the modern subject to a dark base rendered obscure through a forceful disavowal\/abjection? 22<\/p>\n

Lacan furthers this Freudian line of thought through his portrayal of the libido in the myth of the lamella<\/strong> (a myth Zizek cites repeatedly). Sexuality is depicted as a frightening monster-parasite that aggressively grafts itself onto the being of the individual and drives him or her toward death<\/strong><\/span>.<\/p>\n

In the same seminar in which the lamella<\/strong> is invoked (the eleventh seminar), Lacan also sketches a logic of two intersecting lacks, a Real lack<\/span> (introduced by the fact of sexual reproduction) and a Symbolic lack<\/span> (introduced by the subject’s alienation via its mediated status within the defiles of the signifying big Other).<\/p>\n

The Real lack<\/span> is nothing other than the individual’s “loss” of immortality due to its sexual-material nature as a living being subjected to the cycles of generation and corruption, albeit as a loss of something never possessed except in primary narcissism and\/or unconscious fantasy.<\/p>\n

Symbolic lack<\/span> serves, in away, as a defensive displacement of this more foundational lack in the Real.<\/p>\n

Not only are psychoanalytic psychopathologies painful struggles with both of these lacks, but “it is this double lack that determines the ever-insistent gap between the real and the symbolico-imaginary, and thus the constitution of the subject” (Verhaeghe Collapse of Function of Father <\/em>2000, 147).<\/p>\n

One possible manifestation of the neurotic rebellion against this fundamental feature of the corporeal condition is a strong feeling of disgust in the face of all things fleshly<\/strong>, of everything whose palpable attraction and tangible yet fleeting beauty smacks of a transience evoking the inexorable inevitability of death (an attitude that Freud comments on in his short 1916 piece “On Transience”).\u00a0 [Johnston \u017dO 23]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What if the negativity of Cartesian-Kantian-Hegelian subjectivity (as the monstrous cogito, the horrible void of the Thing, and the terrifying abyss of nocturnal dismemberment) is a symptomatic ideality-as-idealization derived from and conditioned by a contingent yet a priori material foundation (what, in psychoanalysis, would be designated as a violent “reaction-formation”) ? Is the subject-as-negativity a … Continue reading “subject-as-negativity two intersecting lacks”<\/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":[24,40,142,76,15,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lacan","category-lack","category-nightworld","category-sub-destitute","category-subjectivity","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11352","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=11352"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11355,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11352\/revisions\/11355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}