{"id":9724,"date":"2012-11-09T00:07:23","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T05:07:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/?p=9724"},"modified":"2012-11-09T00:07:23","modified_gmt":"2012-11-09T05:07:23","slug":"death-drive-zs-reply-to-adrian-johnston","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/2012\/11\/09\/death-drive-zs-reply-to-adrian-johnston\/","title":{"rendered":"death drive \u017d’s reply to adrian johnston"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u017di\u017eek’s reply to Johnston et. al. from a 2010 issue of Subjectivity<\/em><\/p>\n

Something is missing here in this vision of the archaic natural substance, which is gradually, but never completely civilized or \u2018mediated\u2019 by the symbolic order. We find the first indication of this third dimension \u2013 neither nature nor culture<\/strong> \u2013 already in Kant, for whom discipline and education do not directly work on our animal nature, forging it into human individuality. As Kant points out, animals cannot be properly educated as their behavior is already predestined by their instincts.<\/strong>\u00a0 What this means is that, paradoxically, in order to be educated into freedom (qua moral autonomy and self-responsibility), I already have to be free in a much more radical \u2013 \u2018noumenal\u2019 or even monstrous \u2013 sense.\u00a0 The Freudian name for this monstrous freedom, of course, is death drive<\/span>.<\/p>\n

It is interesting to note how philosophical narratives of the \u2018birth of man\u2019 are always compelled to presuppose a moment in human (pre)history when (what will become) man, is no longer a mere animal and simultaneously not yet a \u2018being of language\u2019<\/strong> bound by symbolic Law; a moment of thoroughly \u2018perverted\u2019, \u2018denaturalized\u2019, \u2018derailed\u2019 nature, which is not yet culture.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his anthropological writings, Kant emphasized that the human animal needs disciplinary pressure in order to tame an uncanny \u2018unruliness\u2019 that seems to be inherent to human nature \u2013 a wild, unconstrained propensity to insist stubbornly on one\u2019s own will, cost what it may. It is on account of this \u2018unruliness\u2019 that the human animal needs a Master to discipline him: discipline targets this \u2018unruliness\u2019, not the animal nature in man.<\/strong> … the most cruel barbarians; part of nature and yet thoroughly denaturalized; ruthlessly manipulating nature through primitive sorcery, yet simultaneously terrified by the raging natural forces; mindlessly brave cowards.<\/p>\n

we, humans, no longer just make love for procreation<\/span>, we get involved in a complex process of seduction and marriage by means of which sexuality becomes an expression of the spiritual bond between a man and a woman and so on.\u00a0 However, what Hegel misses is how, once we are within the human condition, sexuality is not only transformed\/civilized, but, much more radically, changed in its very substance<\/span>: it is no longer the instinctual drive<\/span> to reproduce, but a drive<\/span> that gets thwarted as to its natural goal (reproduction) and thereby explodes into an infinite, properly metaphysical, passion.<\/span><\/p>\n

the excess of sexuality itself that threatens to explode the \u2018civilized\u2019 constraints, sexuality as unconditional Passion, is the result of Culture.<\/span> … In this way, the civilization\/Culture retroactively posits\/transforms<\/strong> its own natural presupposition: culture retroactively \u2018denaturalizes\u2019 nature itself<\/strong>, and this is what Freud called the Id, libido.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, back to Johnston, this retroactive excess of de-naturalized nature is missing in the image he proposes of a gradual cultural \u2018mediation\u2019 of nature.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u017di\u017eek’s reply to Johnston et. al. from a 2010 issue of Subjectivity Something is missing here in this vision of the archaic natural substance, which is gradually, but never completely civilized or \u2018mediated\u2019 by the symbolic order. We find the first indication of this third dimension \u2013 neither nature nor culture \u2013 already in Kant, … Continue reading “death drive \u017d’s reply to adrian johnston”<\/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":[125,142,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drive","category-nightworld","category-subjectivity","category-zizek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724","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=9724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9725,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724\/revisions\/9725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.terada.ca\/discourse\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}