{"id":13198,"date":"2015-01-04T15:11:59","date_gmt":"2015-01-04T20:11:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=13198"},"modified":"2015-06-13T15:56:31","modified_gmt":"2015-06-13T19:56:31","slug":"johnston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2015\/01\/04\/johnston\/","title":{"rendered":"johnston vicious circle super-ego"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnston, A. (2001) The vicious Circle of the Super-Ego: The Pathological Trap of Guilt and the Beginning of Ethics.<\/em> Psychoanlytic Studes (3): 3\/4. 411-424.<\/p>\n

“desire is a defense, a prohibition against going beyond a certain limit in jouissance”<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the easiest ways to gain a preliminary understanding of Lacanian desire<\/span><\/strong> is by returning to the Freudian concepts of Trieb<\/em> and sublimation<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

For Freud, sublimation<\/span><\/strong> is the typical means by which Trieb<\/em><\/strong> adapts itself to the constraints and obstacles it comes to encounter at the level of the reality principle. Reality forbids certain drive-aims qua 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). 413<\/p>\n

The aim-inhibited drive then seeks other forms of satisfaction via different objects; and, if these alternate modes of securing grati\u008efcation are not at odds 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<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, especially in the later texts of the second topography, Freud repeatedly emphasizes that Trieb<\/strong> is \u2018fundamentally conservative\u2019, that drives unceasingly seek to recover their earliest forms of satisfaction. Furthermore, in, for example, 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: sublimation provides pleasurable outlets for Trieb<\/strong>, but Trieb<\/strong> itself is incapable of ever being fully satisfied with these compromises, since they are, by the very de\u008efinition of the mechanism of sublimation<\/strong>, 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<\/em><\/strong><\/span>).<\/p>\n

The libidinal life of the human being is therefore marked by certain constitutive \u2018lacks\u2019 or \u2018absences\u2019\u2014as Lacan puts it, the \u2018sovereign Good\u2019 of das Ding<\/em><\/span><\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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

Das Ding<\/strong>
\nBut where does this take us? Is the Law the Thing? Certainly not. Yet I can only know of the Thing<\/span> by means of the Law.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In effect, I would not have had the idea to covet it if the Law hadn\u2019t said: \u2018Thou shalt not covet it.\u2019 But the Thing finds a way by producing in me all kinds of covetousness thanks to the commandment, for without the Law the Thing is dead<\/span><\/strong>. (Lacan, Book VII, p. 83).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Johnston, A. (2001) The vicious Circle of the Super-Ego: The Pathological Trap of Guilt and the Beginning of Ethics. Psychoanlytic Studes (3): 3\/4. 411-424. “desire is a defense, a prohibition against going beyond a certain limit in jouissance” One of the easiest ways to gain a preliminary understanding of Lacanian desire is by returning to … Continue reading “johnston vicious circle super-ego”<\/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":[125,79,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drive","category-ethics_real","category-jouissance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13198","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=13198"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13249,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13198\/revisions\/13249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}