{"id":6932,"date":"2009-10-27T16:51:27","date_gmt":"2009-10-27T21:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=6932"},"modified":"2011-02-18T14:47:32","modified_gmt":"2011-02-18T19:47:32","slug":"6932","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2009\/10\/27\/6932\/","title":{"rendered":"Oedipal complex reformulated using mirror stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology<\/em>. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 120.<\/p>\n

Discourses of the subject<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

How do discourses produce subjective identity? In his later work on the four discourses, Lacan suggests that symbolic identification with a master signifier<\/strong> produces the subject. As I discussed in Chapter 3, the master signifier is a symbolic element that represents the subject to itself and to other subjects. It is the \u2018unifying\u2019 trait<\/span> which constitutes the subject and which functions as the signifiant-m\u2019\u00eatre<\/em>, that signifier which masters the subject. This represents, in Lacan\u2019s account, the signifier of my \u2018being\u2019 (S17: 178).<\/p>\n

Identification with that master signifier which \u2018names\u2019 the subject produces it within discourse, and so produces its speaking position.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In this reformulation of the Oedipus complex<\/span>, the imaginary I<\/span> becomes the social I<\/span> of identity in its identificatory attachment to those master signifiers which structure the signifying chains of discourse. This account of subject formation explains how the Freudian bodily ego becomes a social identity.<\/p>\n

In Lacanian theory, a symbolic representation of the imaginary morphology of the ego of the mirror stage<\/span> produces the subject as a \u2018self\u2019. This symbolic representation is articulated through the master signifiers<\/strong> of the Symbolic order that enable the subject to experience itself as a self \u2013 as an I<\/span> of identity. Identification with the master signifiers of social fictions produces that experience of self<\/strong>. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Social fictions are both imaginary and symbolic<\/strong>. In social fictions, the Symbolic order is given content by the imaginary: \u2018at the level of the Imaginary, the subject believes in the transparency of the Symbolic; it does not recognize the lack of reality in the Symbolic . . . in effect, the Imaginary is where the subject mis-recognises (m\u00e9connait) the nature of the Symbolic\u2019 (Lechte 1994: 68\u2013 69).<\/p>\n

Social fictions reproduce the Symbolic order because the production of the subject in identification with its master signifiers gives the fictional Symbolic order \u2018flesh\u2019 and so \u2018life\u2019. The discourses of social fictions produce subjects through a process of introjection of their master signifiers<\/span>. If discourse produces the subject, it cannot be separate from the subject but must be integral to subjective formation.<\/p>\n

Through that formation, the subject comes to have imaginary relations of phantasy and identification to its symbolic master signifiers and hence to discourse.<\/strong> Psychic mechanisms operate to produce the subject in relation to discursive master signifiers and, in particular, to the social fictions of identity that they represent. Identification with the master signifiers of discourse constitutes subjects, since that is how the subject becomes a subject.<\/p>\n

While the Lacanian model addresses the sexuation<\/span> of the subject, this conception of the social fiction includes other master signifiers of identity, such as sexuality, ethnicity or class. Butler<\/span> points out that it is necessary to recognize that \u2018the order of sexual difference is not prior to that of race or class in the constitution of the subjects; indeed that the symbolic is also at and at once a racializing set of norms, and that norms of realness by which the subject is produced are racially informed conceptions of \u201csex\u201d<\/span>\u2019 (1993b: 130).<\/p>\n

Social fictions represent discourses of social identity that intersect in overdetermined master signifiers<\/strong>. The theory of social fictions<\/span> enables us to understand how discourses reproduce the racialized and sexualized subject and intersubjective relations of the Symbolic order. As a discourse, social fictions<\/span> rest on a foundational and excluded term a<\/span>. This excluded term is a discursive construct, since it is produced by the operations of social fictions. Social fictions of identity rest on the positing of difference \u2013 \u2018I am a man (because I am not a woman).\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

The assertion of difference is itself filled with imaginary content: \u2018If I am a man (because I am not a woman), then I must possess this set of associated masculine qualities.\u2019 In this way, the positing of identity in social discourses is productive because those discourses describe practices which signify how \u2018to be\u2019 a subject. At the same time, that \u2018being\u2019 rests on the production of a repudiated other<\/span> \u2013 \u2018I am not a woman\u2019 \u2013 for social fictions rest on symbolic relations of identity and non-identity<\/strong>. The repudiated other<\/span> functions as the foundational and excluded term a<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Social fictions themselves produce the repudiated term \u2013 for that repudiation founds their signifying structure. For example, the social fictions of masculinity rest on the excluded and foundational term of the feminine \u2013 a masculine subject defines itself in terms of another which is castrated. The \u2018castrated\u2019 \u2018feminine\u2019 functions as the excluded a<\/span>. We can see other examples of the operation of social fictions in Drucilla Cornell\u2019s description of the production of \u2018white\u2019 identity that is founded on its repudiated other of \u2018black\u2019 identity (1992: 67), and Butler\u2019s description of a \u2018heterosexual\u2019 identity that rests on a repudiated \u2018homosexual identification\u2019 (1993b: 111).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Campbell, Kirsten. Jacques Lacan and Feminist Epistemology. Florence, KY, USA: Routledge, 2004. p 120. Discourses of the subject How do discourses produce subjective identity? In his later work on the four discourses, Lacan suggests that symbolic identification with a master signifier produces the subject. As I discussed in Chapter 3, the master signifier is a … Continue reading “Oedipal complex reformulated using mirror stage”<\/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":[124,78,86,24,94,114,15,118,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-discourses","category-butler","category-gender","category-lacan","category-sexual-difference","category-sexuation","category-subjectivity","category-symbolic","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6932","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=6932"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6932\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6938,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6932\/revisions\/6938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}