{"id":7324,"date":"2011-03-14T17:42:23","date_gmt":"2011-03-14T22:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=7324"},"modified":"2011-03-14T20:39:23","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T01:39:23","slug":"7324","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2011\/03\/14\/7324\/","title":{"rendered":"hysteric capitalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Boyle, Kirk. \u201cThe Four Fundamental Concepts of Slavoj \u017di\u017eek\u2019s Psychoanalytic Marxism.\u201d\u00a0 International Journal of \u017di\u017eek Studies<\/em> Vol 2.1 (2008) 1-21.<\/p>\n

Any discussion of the homology between surplus-enjoyment<\/strong> and surplus-value<\/strong> must begin with the psychoanalytic understanding of ontological difference. Contrary to popularly held theories that disclaim any notion of human nature, psychoanalysis posits a \u201cminimal difference\u201d that enables us to recognize a specifically-human dimension.<\/p>\n

For \u017di\u017eek, the key to the zero-degree of \u201chumanization\u201d is to be found in the Freudian notion of \u201cdeath drive<\/span>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Death drive <\/span>represents:<\/p>\n

the way immortality appears within psychoanalysis, for an uncanny excess of life, for an \u201cundead\u201d urge which persists beyond the (biological) cycle of life and death, of generation and corruption. The ultimate lesson of psychoanalysis is that human life is never \u201cjust life\u201d: humans are not simply alive, they are possessed by the strange drive to enjoy life in excess, passionately attached to a surplus which sticks out and derails the ordinary run of things. (\u017di\u017eek 2006b: 62)<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u201cminimalist anthropology\u201d of death drive<\/span>\u2014the psychoanalytic conception of ontological difference\u2014allows \u017di\u017eek to develop the idea of surplus enjoyment<\/span>, Lacan\u2019s equivalent term for Marx\u2019s concept of surplus-value<\/strong>. There is a certain elegance to this homology: just as surplusvalue sets capitalist production in motion, surplus enjoyment<\/span> provides the object-cause of human desire<\/strong>, what Lacan designates objet petit a<\/span>. In Lacan\u2019s hands, surplus-value<\/strong> becomes a subsequent instantiation of surplus enjoyment<\/span>, with the implication that the latter exists as an eternal condition of human existence. (At one point in Seminar XVII, Lacan jests that Marx would have invented the concept of surplus jouissance<\/span> if he had not had to \u201cinvent\u201d capitalism.)<\/p>\n

Objet a<\/span> introduces an important distinction in the economy of enjoyment. Objet a<\/span> represents the object-cause of desire<\/strong>, not the object of desire. The object of desire is simply the material object, the body of another, etc. The object-cause of desire, on the other hand, is the je ne sais quoi of this object<\/strong>, what is in a product more than the product itself. In the latter sense, objet a<\/span> signifies the promise of enjoyment-in-the-Real<\/strong>, of an experience of full jouissance<\/span>, total fulfillment and satisfaction. The impersonal pronoun starring in the eBay ads works because it represents this object-cause of desire as opposed to the objects of desire available at the click of a mouse button. The \u201cit,\u201d the commodity form, is empty precisely because it can never deliver on its promise of jouissance<\/span>; the objet a<\/span> can never coincide with the object of desire.<\/p>\n

If eBay promises to make \u201cit\u201d accessible, this promise entails the collapse of an irreducible split between what is obtained from what was expected, what was requested from what proves to be ultimately unsatisfactory. In Lacanian terms, the commodity form obfuscates the difference between desire and demand by asserting the possibility of their equivalence. Against this marketing deception, we should assert that the demand for \u201cit\u201d is always an obfuscated desire for objet a<\/span>. Moreover, when eBay delivers on our demand\u2014when we obtain that obscure something that we have wanted since a time before we can remember\u2014we can rest assured that our desire will remain as restless as it was before the purchase. Objet a<\/span> is the name for why we respond to \u201cit\u201d with \u201cthat\u2019s not it!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

What happens when enjoyment becomes the mandate of an entire symbolic order? One result of the shift from a superego that fosters guilt to one that demands enjoyment is the emergence of new forms of subjectivity<\/strong>. As Jameson and other theorists of postmodernity have argued, the symptomatic subject of late capitalism is schizophrenic. Yet, prior to schizoid normativity, it was Lacan who postulated that the appearance of hysteria<\/span> was concomitant with the burgeoning of consumer society. Hysteria<\/span> emerges at a specific time in history when the symbolic order could no longer guarantee an answer to the subjective question, \u201cWhat does the Other [the symbolic order] want from me?\u201d The radical cutting of traditional social bonds that occurs with the rise of capitalism universalizes this adolescent question and renders it permanent. The hysteric is no longer able to rely on the symbolic order to structure his or her desire, but suffers from a so-called \u201cidentity crisis.\u201d<\/span> Capitalism exploits the hysterical response to the waning of the symbolic order\u2019s efficiency to create meaningful identifications for the subject. \u017di\u017eek writes, \u201cThe excess of doubt, of permanent questioning, can be directly integrated into social reproduction\u201d (\u017di\u017eek 2005a: 228). We can refer to the excess of doubt and permanent questioning that capitalism exploits as the \u201cinfinite metonymy of desire.\u201d<\/p>\n

Capitalism feeds off the historical opening up of this infinite metonymy of desire. \u201cLacan designated capitalism as the reign of the discourse of the hysteric,\u201d writes \u017di\u017eek. \u201cThe vicious circle of a desire whose apparent satisfaction only widens the gap of its dissatisfaction\u2026is what defines hysteria\u201d (\u017di\u017eek 1993: 209). We can now see how the surplus-enjoyment of objet a connects with the basic functioning of capitalism.<\/p>\n

The hysteric-consumer, in his or her permanent quest to fill the lack (a lack shared by hysteric and symbolic order alike), searches for the object cause of desire in the endless aisles of mega-marts, department stores, antique shops, thrift stores, etc. Through purchases the hysteric begins to construct an identity, but this identity is provisional and always open to alterations.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The seemingly infinite malleability for the hysterical subject to make and remake him- or herself through consumerism (the infamous lifestyle branding heralding a new step in this logic), mirrors capitalism\u2019s constant revolutionizing of its own conditions. \u201cThe explosion of the hysterical capitalist subjectivity<\/strong>,\u201d writes \u017di\u017eek, \u201creproduces itself through permanent self-revolutionizing, through the integration of the excess into the \u2018normal\u2019 functioning of the social link (the true \u2018permanent revolution\u2019 is already capitalism itself)\u201d (\u017di\u017eek 2005a: 228). The normalization of this excess signals a primary (if not the primary) contradiction of capitalism.<\/p>\n

What does it mean to cement the social link in surplus-enjoyment?<\/span> \u017di\u017eek acutely describes the unparalleled moment we currently live in, and I quote at length:<\/p>\n

Capitalism is not just a historical epoch among others\u2026a certain excess which was, as it were, kept under check in previous history, perceived as a local perversion, a limited deviation, is in capitalism elevated into the very principle of social life, in the speculative movement of money begetting more money, of a system which can survive only by constantly revolutionizing its own conditions\u2014that is to say, in which the thing can survive only as its own excess, constantly exceeding its own \u201cnormal\u201d constraints (\u017di\u017eek 2006b: 297).<\/p>\n

\u017di\u017eek\u2019s wager is that the \u201cmicro\u201d libidinal economy of the hysteric parallels the \u201cmacro\u201d political economy of capitalism. Both are characterized by a permanent process of self-revolutionizing through the integration of an excess,surplus enjoyment<\/span> for the hysteric and surplus-value for capitalism, and both can survive only by exceeding their own normal constraints. The hysteric paradoxically maintains his or her desire by rummaging through a constant parade of object products in desperate search of \u201cit,\u201d the object-cause of desire<\/span>. By comparison, the capitalist contradiction centers on objet a<\/span>: \u201cthis inherent obstacle\/antagonism as the \u2018condition of impossibility\u2019 of the full deployment of the productive forces [that] is simultaneously its \u2018condition of possibility\u2019\u201d (\u017di\u017eek 2005b: unpaginated).<\/p>\n

Acknowledging that these surpluses are homologous presents a great challenge for the desire called utopia. \u017di\u017eek writes:<\/p>\n

If we subtract the surplus we lose enjoyment itself, just as capitalism, which can survive only by incessantly revolutionizing its own material conditions, ceases to exist it if \u201cstays the same,\u201d if it achieves an internal balance. This, then, is the homology between surplus-value\u2014the \u201ccause\u201d which sets in motion the capitalist process of production \u2014 and surplus-enjoyment, the object-cause of desire. (\u017di\u017eek 1989: 52)<\/p>\n

To repeat Marx but not to fall into the evolutionist trap of believing that communism will spontaneously arise out of capitalism, we must envision a symbolic order that somehow eliminates surplus-value while preserving a certain degree of surplus enjoyment<\/strong>. Such is one task of utopian thought.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boyle, Kirk. \u201cThe Four Fundamental Concepts of Slavoj \u017di\u017eek\u2019s Psychoanalytic Marxism.\u201d\u00a0 International Journal of \u017di\u017eek Studies Vol 2.1 (2008) 1-21. Any discussion of the homology between surplus-enjoyment and surplus-value must begin with the psychoanalytic understanding of ontological difference. Contrary to popularly held theories that disclaim any notion of human nature, psychoanalysis posits a \u201cminimal difference\u201d … Continue reading “hysteric capitalism”<\/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":[124,125,21,24,72,123,118,41,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7324","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-discourses","category-drive","category-jouissance","category-lacan","category-objet-a","category-sinthome","category-symbolic","category-the-real","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324","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=7324"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7326,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7324\/revisions\/7326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7324"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7324"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7324"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}