{"id":7831,"date":"2011-04-29T11:42:03","date_gmt":"2011-04-29T16:42:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=7831"},"modified":"2013-06-07T11:09:52","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T16:09:52","slug":"stavrakakis-subjective-lack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2011\/04\/29\/stavrakakis-subjective-lack\/","title":{"rendered":"stavrakakis subjective lack 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stavrakakis, Yannis. Subjectivity and the Organized Other: Between Symbolic Authority and Fantasmatic Enjoyment<\/em> Organization Studies 2008 29: 1037<\/p>\n

Administering Subjective Lack: Symbolic Authority<\/strong><\/p>\n

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I have already pointed out that subjective lack<\/strong> is what forces the subject to enter into a dynamic dialectic with the social world and the organized Other. Now, the resources available to the lacking subject in order to constitute her identity are, broadly speaking, of two distinct types<\/strong>: imaginary<\/span> and, primarily, symbolic<\/span>. Hence the distinction Lacan draws between imaginary<\/span> and symbolic<\/span> identification: 1. The imaginary register<\/span> is first approached by Lacan in his work on the \u2018mirror stage\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

This stage refers to a particular (early) period in the infant\u2019s psychic development in which the fragmentation experienced by the infant is, for the first time, transformed into an affirmation of her bodily unity (through the assumption of her image in the mirror or through similar experiences). In that sense the mirror stage has to be understood as an identification<\/strong>: \u2018We have only to understand the mirror stage as an identification, in the full sense that analysis gives to the term: namely the transformation that takes place in the subject when he assumes an image\u2019. This assumption of a spatial imaginary<\/span> identity is, however, indicative of the ambivalence involved in ego formation. As Lacan observes, acquiring a first sense of identity is not only cause for jubilation but also of<\/strong> alienation<\/span>. At first the infant appears jubilant due to her success in integrating her fragmentation into an imaginary<\/span> totality and unity. Later on, however, jubilation is followed by alienation<\/span>: By virtue of its inability to represent and control the turbulent real<\/span> of the infant\u2019s body and of its exteriority, imaginary identification<\/span> \u2018prefigures its alienating dimension\u2019 (Lacan 1977: 2).<\/p>\n

If the imaginary<\/span> representation of ourselves, the mirror image \u2014 and imaginary relations<\/span> in general, such as the one between mother and child<\/span> \u2014 is ultimately incapable of providing us with a stable and functional identity, if it reproduces instead of resolving alienation<\/span>, the only option left for acquiring one seems to be the field of linguistic representation, the symbolic register<\/span>. After all, the symbolic<\/span> is already presupposed in the functioning of the mirror stage<\/strong> since the infant, even before her birth, is inserted into a symbolic<\/span> network constructed by her parents and family (her name is often discussed and decided in advance, inserting her into a pre-existing family mythology). In Lacan\u2019s work it is clear that the symbolic<\/span> has a far more important structuring role than the imaginary<\/span>: \u2018While the image equally plays a capital role in our domain, this role is completely taken up and caught up within, remoulded and\u00a0 reanimated by, the symbolic order<\/span>\u2019 (Lacan 1993: 9). By submitting to the laws of language the child becomes a subject in language, it inhabits and is inhabited by language, and hopes to gain an adequate representation through the world of words: \u2018the symbolic<\/span> provides a form into which the subject is inserted at the level of its being. It\u2019s on this basis that the subject recognizes himself as being this or that\u2019 (Lacan 1993: 179).<\/p>\n

This, however, should not lead to the conclusion that entering the symbolic<\/span> overcomes alienation<\/span> by producing a solid identity. On the contrary, the subject constituted on the acceptance of the laws of language, of symbolic Law<\/span> \u2014 a function embodied, within the Oedipal setting, by what Lacan calls \u2018the Name-of-the-Father<\/span>\u2019, the agent of symbolic castration \u2014 is the subject of lack par excellence.<\/span> Alienation<\/span> is not resolved but displaced into another (symbolic) level, to the register of the signifier. On the one hand, due to the \u2018universality\u2019 of language, to the linguistic constitution of human reality, the signifier offers to the subject an almost \u2018immortal\u2019, \u2018neutral\u2019 representation; only this representation is incapable of capturing and communicating the real \u2018singularity\u2019 of the subject. In that sense, it is clear that something is always missing from the symbolic,<\/span><\/span> the Other is a lacking Other.<\/span><\/p>\n

The emergence of the subject in the socio-symbolic terrain presupposes a division between reality and the real<\/span>, language and jouissance<\/span> (a pre-symbolic, real<\/span>enjoyment), a division that consolidates the alienation<\/span> of the subject in the signifier and reveals the lack in the Other<\/span>.<\/p>\n

The Other,<\/span> initially presented as a solution to subjective lack,<\/span> is now revealed as what retroactively produces\/consolidates this lack. It promises to offer the subject some symbolic consistency, but the price to be paid is the sacrifice of all access to<\/strong> pre-symbolic<\/span> real<\/span> enjoyment<\/span> \u2014 which now becomes the object of fantasy.<\/span> Fantasy, in this context, signifies a scenario promising to cover over lack or, at any rate, to domesticate its trauma.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stavrakakis, Yannis. Subjectivity and the Organized Other: Between Symbolic Authority and Fantasmatic Enjoyment Organization Studies 2008 29: 1037 Administering Subjective Lack: Symbolic Authority I have already pointed out that subjective lack is what forces the subject to enter into a dynamic dialectic with the social world and the organized Other. Now, the resources available to … Continue reading “stavrakakis subjective lack 5”<\/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":[83,111,21,24,40,90,15,118,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agency","category-desire","category-jouissance","category-lacan","category-lack","category-resistance","category-subjectivity","category-symbolic","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831","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=7831"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11210,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7831\/revisions\/11210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}