Althusser’s model of ‘interpellation’, in which individuals are constituted or ‘hailed’ as subjects by recognizing certain signifiers and discourses as addressed to them, seems to presuppose an already constituted subject, which is able to ‘recognize’, ‘desire’, ‘know’, and so forth (cite Paul Hirst 1979) … After all, for Althusser, ‘individuals are always-already subjects’, whose ‘places’ in the existing social structures have been determined and fixed beforehand (cite Althusser 1971)<\/p>\n
By contrast, … the category of the subject … is marked by a fundamental misrecognition that can never be transcended.\u00a0 The subject is thus no more than a void in the symbolic order<\/strong><\/span> whose identity and character is determined only by its identifications and mode of enjoyment (cite Zizek 1989).<\/p>\n questions of ethics (and ideology) centre on the subject’s particular mode of enjoyment.\u00a0 They address issues that arise from the different modalities of subjectivity <\/strong>in relation to the ultimate contingency of social existence. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n How does a subject relate to the contingency of social life that is disclosed in dislocatory events?\u00a0 How does it identify anew?\u00a0 How does it translate its ‘radical investments’ into social and political practices?\u00a0 How does a subject relate to its identifications and consequently to its own contingency?<\/p>\n It is perhaps worth emphasizing here that these modes of subjectivity should not be understood in cognitivist or intellectualist terms.\u00a0 In other words, what we are trying to capture here with the categories of ideology and ethics has nothing whatsoever to do\u00a0 with the idea that someone can apprehend and even consciously affirm a particular ontological schema rooted in the racial contingency of social relations.\u00a0 This is because modes of subjectivity are also modes of enjoyment<\/span><\/em>.<\/strong> and modes of enjoyment are always embodied in material practices, and thus not completely reducible to conscious apprehension.\u00a0 It is with this in mind that one should approach the question of subjectivity and identification.\u00a0 For example, does the mode of identification privilege the moment of closure and concealment (ideological dimension)<\/strong>, or does it keep open the contingency of social relations (ethical dimension)<\/strong>?\u00a0 (119-120).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Althusser’s model of ‘interpellation’, in which individuals are constituted or ‘hailed’ as subjects by recognizing certain signifiers and discourses as addressed to them, seems to presuppose an already constituted subject, which is able to ‘recognize’, ‘desire’, ‘know’, and so forth (cite Paul Hirst 1979) … After all, for Althusser, ‘individuals are always-already subjects’, whose ‘places’ … Continue reading “Modalities of subjectivity”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,12,40,16,10,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-fantasy","category-lack","category-ontology","category-practices","category-subjectivity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674","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=674"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":688,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/674\/revisions\/688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}