{"id":7882,"date":"2011-05-02T09:47:25","date_gmt":"2011-05-02T14:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=7882"},"modified":"2013-06-07T11:09:52","modified_gmt":"2013-06-07T16:09:52","slug":"7882","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2011\/05\/02\/7882\/","title":{"rendered":"stavrakakis 8 of 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

This is not to say that resistance is impossible. It is merely to imply that our dependence on the organized Other is not reproduced merely at the level of knowledge and conscious consent, and thus a shift in consciousness through knowledge transmission is not enough to effect change<\/span>. What is much more important is the formal (symbolic) structure of power relations that social ordering presupposes. The subject very often prefers not to realize the performative function of the symbolic command \u2014 the fact that what promises to deal with subjective lack is what reproduces this lack perpetuating the subject\u2019s desire<\/span> for subjection. Most crucially, the reproduction of this formal structure relies on a libidinal, affective support that binds subjects to the conditions of their symbolic subordination<\/span>. What makes the lack in the Other \u2018invisible\u2019 \u2014 and thus sustains the credibility of the organized Other \u2014 is a fantasmatic dialectic manipulating our relation to a lost\/impossible enjoyment. It is impossible to unblock and displace identifications and passionate attachments without paying attention to this important dimension.<\/p>\n

[A]ny analysis that purports to capture the complex relation between subject and structure cannot remain at the level of signification<\/span>, although the role of the symbolic command remains extremely important. But, then, how exactly should one theorize the \u2018material\u2019 irreducible to signification?<\/p>\n

The importance of this question appears to be elevated in a context in which passion and affect<\/span> are given increasingly prominent roles in the study of society and politics. Here, contrary to what is widely believed, Lacan does not limit his insights within the level of representation and signification.<\/p>\n

One needs to stress the productivity of the Lacanian distinction between the \u2018subject of the signifier\u2019<\/span> and the \u2018subject of enjoyment\/jouissance\u2019<\/span> in addressing this question, and to develop its implications for how we can or should consider the relation between subject and organized Other.<\/p>\n

… Lacanian theory accounts for the … lack in the Other<\/span>, the lack<\/span> that splits subjective and objective reality, as a lack of jouissance<\/span> … This lack<\/span> is always posited as something lost, as a lost fullness, the part of ourselves that is sacrificed \u2014 castrated \u2014 when we enter the symbolic system of language and social relations. As we have already seen, however, this lack of jouissance<\/span> should not be viewed as a nihilistic conclusion. It is, rather, what constitutes and sustains human desire<\/span>: the prohibition of jouissance<\/span> \u2014 the nodal point of the Oedipal drama \u2014 is exactly what permits the emergence of desire<\/span>, a desire<\/span> structured around the unending quest for the lost, impossible jouissance<\/span><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Even after symbolic castration \u2014 or, rather, because of it \u2014 jouissance<\/span> remains the catalyst of inter-subjective interaction, a potent political factor.<\/p>\n

According to this schema, it is only by sacrificing her pre-symbolic enjoyment that the social subject can develop her desire<\/span> (including the desire<\/span> to identify with particular political projects, ideologies and discourses).<\/p>\n

The fact, however, that this enjoyment is excised during the process of socialization does not mean that it stops affecting the politics of subjectivity and identification. On the contrary; first of all, it is the imaginary promise of recapturing our lost\/impossible enjoyment which provides the fantasy support for many of our political projects and social choices<\/span>. Almost all political discourse focuses on the delivery of the \u2018good life\u2019 or a \u2018just society\u2019, both fictions (imaginarizations) of a future state in which current limitations thwarting our enjoyment will be overcome.<\/strong><\/p>\n

… During this imaginary period, which we could call \u2018original state\u2019, the nation was prosperous and happy. However, this original state of innocence<\/span> was somehow destroyed and national(ist) narratives are based on the assumption that the desire of each generation is to try and heal this (metaphoric) castration<\/span> in order to give back to the nation its lost full enjoyment.<\/p>\n

But this is not the full story. Apart from the promise of fantasy, what sustains desire<\/span>, what drives our identification acts at the level of affectivity\/<\/span>jouissance<\/span>, is also our ability to go through limit-experiences<\/span> related to a jouissance<\/span> of the body. <\/span><\/p>\n

Otherwise, without any such experience,<\/span> our faith in fantasmatic political projects \u2014 projects which never manage to deliver the fullness they promise \u2014 would gradually vanish<\/strong>. A national war victory or the successes of the national football team are examples of such experiences of enjoyment at the national level. However impressive, this jouissance<\/span> remains partial:<\/p>\n

That’s not it<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/strong><\/span>\u2018\u201cThat\u2019s not it\u201d<\/span> is the very cry by which the jouissance<\/span> obtained is distinguished from the jouissance<\/span> expected\u2019 (Lacan 1998: 111); its momentary character, unable to fully satisfy desire<\/span>, fuels dissatisfaction. It reinscribes lack in the subjective economy<\/span>, the lack of another jouissance<\/span>, of the sacrificed jouissance<\/span> qua fullness, and thus reproduces the fantasmatic promise of its recapturing, the kernel of human desire<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Precisely because the partiality of this second type of enjoyment threatens to reveal the illusory character of our fantasies of fullness<\/span>, the credibility and salience of any object of identification \u2014 and of the organized Other offering it \u2014 relies on the ability of providing a convincing explanation for the lack of total enjoyment.<\/p>\n

It is here that the idea of a \u2018theft of enjoyment\u2019<\/span> is introduced (Zizek 1993). If we seem unable to access our lost\/impossible enjoyment this is not because castration<\/span> is constitutive of our symbolic reality, it is not because fullness is impossible, it is only because somebody else is obstructing our access; what we are lacking has been stolen by this satanic other<\/span>. It may be a foreign occupier, the \u2018national enemy\u2019, those who \u2018always plot to rule the world\u2019, some dark powers and their local sympathizers \u2018who want to enslave our proud nation\u2019, immigrants \u2018who steal our jobs\u2019, etc.<\/p>\n

The obstacle to full enjoyment<\/span> shifts depending on the specificity of the fantasmatic narrative at stake, but the logic operating here remains the same.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have tried in this paper to outline the ways in which Lacanian theory moves beyond subjectivism and objectivism in illuminating the dialectic between subject and organized Other. By understanding the subject as a subject of lack,<\/p>\n

Lacan\u2019s negative ontology provides a solution to the paradox of a desire for subjection. There is no desire without lack<\/span>. And the Other \u2014 embodied in the symbolic command \u2014 is both what consolidates this lack in the symbolic and what promises to \u2018manage\u2019 this lack. At the same time, by understanding the Other<\/span> as an equally lacking domain Lacan helps us to explain the failure of subjection, the possibility of escaping a full determination of the subject by the socio-symbolic structure<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Why is it then that this option only rarely enacts itself?<\/span><\/p>\n

To the extent that the lack marking both subject and Other<\/span> is always a lack of real jouissance<\/span>, forms of identification<\/span> offered by the organized Other<\/span> are obliged to operate at this level also, adding the dimension of a positive incentive to the formal force of the symbolic command. We have thus seen how Lacanian theory illuminates the dialectic between subject and organized Other<\/span> not only by focusing on the symbolic presuppositions of authority (the irresistibility of the Other’s<\/span> command), but also by exploring the fantasmatic administration of real enjoyment and its lack, which sustains the credibility<\/span> of the lacking Other<\/span> and defers resistance<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Only by taking into account both these dimensions, lack and enjoyment, symbolic command and fantasy<\/span>, can we start envisaging a comprehensive explanation of what drives identification acts sustaining structures of subjection and, simultaneously, allows a margin of freedom, which, however, can only be enacted with difficulty.<\/p>\n

And, of course, the reason for this difficulty is that the symbolic and fantasmatic force of orders of subjection is so overwhelming that resistance or non-compliance itself (when it manages to occur) is usually guided by and ends up instituting a new order of subjection<\/span> and rarely engages in attempts to encircle lack in a radically democratic ethico-political direction<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Lacan\u2019s reaction to May 1968 is absolutely relevant here (and not only because of the 40th anniversary of the May events). I will very briefly refer to it by way of concluding this essay. During the May events, Lacan observed the French teachers\u2019 strike and suspended his seminar; it seems that he even met Daniel Cohn-Bendit, one of the student leaders (Roudinesco 1997: 336). One way or the other, his name became linked to the events. However, the relation was not an easy one. In 1969, for instance, Lacan was invited to speak at Vincennes, but obviously he and the students operated at different wavelengths. The discussion ended as follows:<\/p>\n

\u2018The aspiration to revolution has but one conceivable issue, always, the discourse of the master<\/span>. That is what experience has proved. What you, as revolutionaries, aspire to is a Master<\/span>. You will have one… for you fulfil the role of helots of this regime. You don\u2019t know what that means either? This regime puts you on display; it says: \u201cWatch them fuck\u201d.\u2019 (Lacan 1990: 126)<\/p>\n

A similar experience marks his lecture at the Universit\u00e9 Catholique de Louvain on 13 October 1973, when he is interrupted and eventually attacked by a student who seizes the opportunity to transmit his (situationist) revolutionary message. The episode, which has been filmed by Fran\u00e7oise Wolff, concludes with Lacan making the following comment:<\/p>\n

\u2018As he was just saying, we should all be part of it, we should close ranks together to achieve, well, what exactly? What does organization mean if not a new order? A new order is the return of something which \u2014 if you remember the premise from which I started \u2014 it is the order of the discourse of the Master<\/span> … It\u2019s the one word which hasn\u2019t been mentioned, but it\u2019s the very term organization implies.\u2019 A grim picture, but one that has to be seriously taken into account in reflecting our current theoretico-political predicament.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stavrakakis, Yannis. Subjectivity and the Organized Other: Between Symbolic Authority and Fantasmatic Enjoyment Organization Studies 2008 29: 1037 This is not to say that resistance is impossible. It is merely to imply that our dependence on the organized Other is not reproduced merely at the level of knowledge and conscious consent, and thus a shift … Continue reading “stavrakakis 8 of 8”<\/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":[83,125,21,24,40,72,90,15,118,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-agency","category-drive","category-jouissance","category-lacan","category-lack","category-objet-a","category-resistance","category-subjectivity","category-symbolic","category-the-real"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882","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=7882"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7884,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7882\/revisions\/7884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}